Chile Pages
BEFORE WE VANISH
From the director of Tokyo Sonata (2008) and
Creepy (2016) comes a blood-soaked science-fiction invasion thriller with a fascinating twist. The three aliens, who have arrived in advance of a colonizing race in order to prepare the way, inhabit human hosts à la Invasion of the Body Snatchers — they are also able to pluck concepts from the minds of people, putting the humans at a seeming disadvantage. With Kiyoshi Kurosawa at the helm, one can expect the moody, anxiety-ridden tension of his earlier films, some of which also dealt with mind manipulation. It’s a thought-provoking ride, one that questions the psychological constructs we take for granted and whether or not we imprison ourselves with our beliefs. Kurosawa has some fun playing with the ironic situation the aliens find themselves in as they become more heartfelt and human, while making the actual humans less so. At more than two hours, it takes its time, ultimately achieving a hopeful and oddly endearing charm, but it delivers the blood and guts, too. Not rated. 129 minutes. In Japanese with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco)
DEATH WISH
Apparently, the time is right for a remake of Death Wish, the 1974 revenge movie in which Charles Bronson becomes a vigilante after his wife is killed and his daughter sexually assaulted. This time, the plot remains more or less the same, but expect the violence to be considerably ramped up courtesy of director Eli Roth (Hostel). Bruce Willis steps into Bronson’s role, and Vincent D’Onofrio and Elisabeth Shue also star. Rated R. 107 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
DOUBLE LOVER
Not rated. 107 minutes. In French with subtitles. The Screen. See review, Page 40.
FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL
Rated R. 105 minutes. Violet Crown. See review, Page 41.
LIKE ME
For reasons that are never explained, a young woman named Kiya (Addison Timlin) puts on a mask and terrorizes a convenience-store clerk. She captures the assault on her phone and uploads it to the internet, where the number of views, reactionary videos, and angry trolls inspire her to commit more outlandish acts. She attempts a few escapades before hitting the jackpot by kidnapping a man named Marshall (Larry Fessenden), only to find herself bonding with him in odd ways. First-time writer-director Robert Mockler doesn’t have much to say with this story, but he has a plethora of cool ways to say it, implementing clever framing and editing, and saturating the movie in brightly fluorescent shades of aqua and violet. The end result is a film that is beautiful to look at but unpleasant and stressful to watch. Not rated. 80 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Ker)
NOSTALGIA
Using an ensemble cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Bruce Dern, Jon Hamm, Catherine Keener, Nick Offerman, Patton Oswalt, and Amber Tamblyn, director and co-writer Mark Pellington follows the intersecting lives of disparate characters all dealing with loss. He places a special focus on the objects people accumulate and pass on, and the meanings they can carry. Rated R. 114 minutes. Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
RED SPARROW
Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballerina who is recruited and trained as a spy. Soon after embarking on her new career, she encounters a handsome CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) and falls for him. She then considers becoming a double agent to be with him, but as these things go, it becomes unclear who is double-crossing whom. Directed by Francis Lawrence, who helmed most of the Hunger Games movies. Rated R. 139 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
SHADOWMAN
Not rated. 81 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. See review, Page 39.
THE YOUNG KARL MARX
The title suggests a Mel Brooks romp. If only. This sincere, handsome period biopic from Raoul Peck
(I Am Not Your Negro, last year’s stirring documentary on James Baldwin) follows its hero and his collaborator Friedrich Engels as they meet prickly and quickly become inseparable, much like the formula of a classic rom-com. Marx (August Diehl, Inglourious Basterds) is a feisty, combative firebrand pamphleteer, and a poverty-saddled family man (Vicky Krieps of Phantom Thread is excellent as his wife). Engels (Stefan Konarske) is a dandy, the son and heir of an exploitive factory owner, an apple fallen far from the tree. Peck, as if sheepish about the solemnity of his portrait, allows the two young men a madcap run through the streets of Paris to escape the police, but otherwise the movie hews to the party line. It culminates in the publication of the Communist Manifesto, which rolls off the presses with the thrill of the Ten Commandments being issued to Moses, and little sense of what checkered use the world was to make of it. Not rated. 118 minutes. In German, French, and English with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)