A Killer Party
Murder mysteries are usually dinnertheater fare, said
Michael Schulman in The New Yorker.
But this new musical collaboration, featuring a dozen
Broadway regulars whose performances were taped in their separate homes, “has the dopey, DIY exuberance of theater people who are going a little nuts in quarantine.” In nine bite-size episodes, we get to know a regional troupe whose loathed impresario, played by Aladdin’s Michael James Scott, initiates the action by hosting a dinner party to discuss his new play, a convoluted whodunit. What happens after he suddenly expires during the soup course? A convoluted whodunit. The story is “not the star here,” said Jesse Green in The New York Times. Appealing performances, eccentric characters, and a “peppy” synth-filled pop score fill the gaps. For anyone who misses theater, A Killer Party should prove “cheerful and silly enough to compensate for an almost total lack of coherence.” $13, akillerpartymusical.com
cago Sun-Times. He trails Caren Pistorius’ Rachel to a gas station, steals her phone, and begins killing people she knows. “That’s admittedly creative (albeit nasty) stuff,” and director Derrick Borte also delivers solid car chases and crashes. But after pretending to have something to say about our stressful times, Unhinged reveals itself to be “about as deep as a second-tier Halloween movie.” If you try to psychoanalyze the main character, you’re wasting your time, said Guy Lodge in Variety. “The carnage is the point here, and Borte and Crowe bring it to a suitably furious head: Some movies just want to watch the world burn, preferably on a very big screen.” Rated R
Tesla
This daring new portrait of inventor Nikola Tesla “will not be for everyone,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. Filmmaker Michael Almereyda playfully mixes truth with fiction and present with past, but his deep interest in deciphering Tesla makes for a character study “charged with constantly surprising vitality.” Ethan Hawke, meanwhile, takes a recessive character and breathes “brooding magnetism” into him. Eve Hewson co-stars and Kyle MacLachlan plays Thomas Edison. ($7) PG-13
Desert One
With this in-depth account of a critical 1980 mission, “one of America’s greatest documentary filmmakers adds another exclamation
point to her resume,” said Roger Moore in RogersMovieNation.com. Barbara Kopple’s “thoroughly engrossing” film doesn’t answer every question about the failed Special Forces bid to rescue U.S. hostages held in Iran, but participants, Iranian hostage takers, and Jimmy Carter all contribute to an “unsparing” look at an event that altered history. ($10, loftcinema.org) Not rated
Represent
Three underdogs battle for more than votes in this “imperfect but insightful” political documentary, said Carla Meyer in the San Francisco Chronicle. All three should have been presented as members of a post-2016 wave of female candidates, but they are each compelling: a 22-year-old running for mayor of Detroit, an Ohioan challenging her town’s GOP establishment, and a KoreanAmerican Republican fighting gerrymandering. ($12, musicboxtheatre.com) Not rated
Sputnik
Though the premise “won’t be alien to anyone who’s seen Alien,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal, this Russian import rises above the average creature feature. When a Soviet cosmonaut returns from space harboring a parasite, a controversial doctor is assigned to treat him. Oksana Akinshina is subtly powerful as the physician, and Fedor Bondarchuk brings “a steely malevolence” to the role of her nemesis, a general who envisions a military application for the space beast. ($7) Not rated