FLIX TO SEE
TOP NEW MOVIES THIS WEEK INCLUDE ‘FREAKY,’‘FATMAN’AND‘WOLFWALKERS’
With coronavirus cases surging around the country, Friday the 13th might not be the time to test your luck in theaters — though that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from serving up an unusually enticing slate of fresh releases exclusively in cinemas. From body-swap slasher movie “Freaky” to Mel Gibson’s nutzo Santa satire “Fatman,” the week’s new releases will have some weighing the risks.
‘Freaky’ In theaters now
A delightful mutant hybrid of two seemingly incongruous teen movie genres, cheeky Blumhouse satire “Freaky” might just as well have been called “Freaky Friday the 13th.” That’s essentially the pitch for a mashup that’s half slasher movie and half body-swap comedy, as a serial killer known as “the Blissfield Butcher” (Vince Vaughn) unwittingly trades places with his latest victim, dorky high school misfit Millie (Kathryn Newton). Landon, who also helmed “Happy Death Day,” excels at both the sly comedic and high-style horror halves of the movie’s personality.
‘Fatman’
In theaters now, followed by digital platforms and VOD release Nov. 24
In “Fatman,” Mel Gibson is
Chris (as in Cringle), and the joke of his performance is that with his spooky-sensitive blueeyed stare, the crinkles-within-wrinkles that now frame those eyes, a beard of the most formidable bushiness that’s white on the bottom but with a dark mustache that curls upward, and a voice that scrapes the booming canyon depths to the point that he sounds like John Wayne with elocution lessons, he could pass for a realworld Father Christmas — or a backwoods serial killer.
‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Netflix
“Hillbilly Elegy,” an adaptation of J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, is about an extended family mired in dysfunction, though the reason the book became a bestseller is that it took us into the realm of something far more exotic than mere dysfunction. The movie is one of those dramas made by Ron Howard who’s drawn, at least in theory, to edgy material. Hard-drinking, domestic violence, suicide, all-around ornery viciousness. The movie is an American Gothic redneck soap opera, built to showcase the cussed flamboyance of characters played by Glenn Close and Amy Adams.
In theaters now, on Apple TV+ starting Dec. 4
When wolves feature in fairy tales, they’re nearly always the source of wickedness and deceit. But in “Wolfwalkers,” it’s the humans who are frightening, and these special guardians — gifted with the ability to shape-shift between human and canine form — who serve as our heroes. Kids need movies like this that respect their intelligence, center strong female characters and question policies of blind obedience, while making an effort to integrate the rich cultural influences of a past that’s rapidly being bulldozed out of memory.
Netflix
After two decades of dreaming, Netflix has made David E. Talbert’s musical a reality — the latest bauble in the streamer’s ever-expanding
Christmas-movie catalog — and though the film foregrounds Black actors in nearly all its lead live-action roles, the audience needn’t be limited to one race. Talbert has crafted an upbeat eyeful, set in a Dickensian toy store where steampunk gizmos with shiny brass gears whistle and whirl and all but overwhelm the senses, to say nothing of the pinwheel pleasures of all those splendid, spinning
faux-Victorian costumes.
‘The Climb’ In theaters now
The word “bromance” was a pretty awful one to begin with, but it’s been done a disservice by years of pop-cultural ubiquity. Now tediously hauled out any time two straight men so much as pat each other on the back, it tends to denote palliness more than any particular emotional intimacy. “The Climb,” however, thoughtfully returns to the root of the term: In Michael Angelo Covino’s clever, open-souled debut feature, a long-term friendship between two average guys is given the dramatic shape and structure of a tempestuous love story, rich in conflicts, faultlines and intense feeling that fights any other relationship standing in its way.