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Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘BIRDS OF PARADISE’: Films that portray the brutality behind the beauty of ballet have become a subgenre unto their own. Yet, few female filmmakers have had their chance to put their stamp on the genre, which immediately sets apart Sarah Adina Smith’s “Birds of Paradise,” a film that references and combines elements of those previous films to make a ballet movie that is dark, wicked and, indeed, beautiful. Based on the young adult book “Bright Burning Stars” by A.K. Small, “Birds of Paradise” follows two aspiring prima ballerinas as they fight for the top prize at a Paris ballet school. Kate (Diana Silvers) and Marine (Kristine Froseth) are both Americans in Paris, but they couldn’t be more different. 1:53. 2 ½ stars. Streaming on Amazon Prime. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘BLUE BAYOU’: Filmmaker Justin Chon has built an impressive oeuvre over the past six years. An actor who broke out in the “Twilight” franchise, he has since dedicated his craft to writing and directing slice-of-life indie gems that depict the Asian American experience. His latest, “Blue Bayou,” just might be Chon’s best yet. Chon wrote, directed and stars in “Blue Bayou.” Born and raised in Southern California, he melts into the easy lilt of a Cajun accent as Antonio LeBlanc, a Louisiana man adopted from Korea by a white family as a toddler. Yet his Southern demeanor and many tattoos can’t protect him from racist microaggressions. Antonio exists in a liminal space, disconnected from his Korean heritage, estranged from his adopted parents, viewed as an outsider in the only place he has called home. 1:52.
3 stars. — Katie Walsh ‘THE CARD COUNTER’: Disappointing news first: It sometimes feels like two ideas welded, uncertainly, together. One is bluntly polemical, dealing with America’s geopolitical sins in the years following Sept. 11. The other idea is a compelling simmer of a character study. Here’s the heartening news: As the title character — a professional gambler with a lot behind him, and not much impulse to dredge it up — Oscar Isaac makes for a magnetic sphinx indeed. His is not the only good performance. But it’s the crucial one. William Tell is the name the Isaac character uses, Bill for short. In the movie’s present, Bill recently has wrapped up eight years in prison. In Iraq, assigned to the infamous Abu Ghraib detention center, he worked under the tutelage of a private contractor (Willem Dafoe) given free rein to conduct his “enhanced” interrogations. Bill was a dutiful soldier and took the fall. The brass, including Dafoe’s character, went free. After all that, a highly routinized life spent at the poker and blackjack tables in one casino after another is life enough for this man. “I stick to modest goals,” Bill tells La Linda, played by Tiffany Haddish. This equally sphinxy character wants Bill to join her stable of card players, staked by backers. There’s the promise of rich rewards — and, as Bill notes, the threat of steep debts if the cards fall the wrong way. 1:49. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘COPSHOP’: “Copshop” is an enjoyable, slow-burn action movie featuring a smart script, sharp direction, strong cast — and the emergence of a possible star. In Gun Creek, Nevada, a sketchy dude gets himself arrested for assaulting a police officer. Soon after, a drunken driver gets himself clinked into the facing cell. The sketchy dude turns out to be Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo), a shady fixer trying to save his own life by weaseling his way into unwitting police protection. However, the “drunk” turns out to be Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), an efficient contract killer closing in on Teddy. Between them — literally, for some time — is young, determined, cool-as-the-otherside-of-the-pillow rookie Officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder). As Young unravels what’s really going on with these mystery prisoners, betrayals and other killers on the bad guys’ payroll barrel toward them. 1:47. Not ranked. — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
‘CRY MACHO’: This “macho thing,” says Clint Eastwood in his latest film, is “overrated.” Same with grit, he says. What? What is this, some sort of rickety, sweet-tempered road movie about an old man, a boy and a rooster? “Cry Macho” is exactly that, in addition to be a few other things. It is Eastwood’s 39th film as credited director. If you don’t count “The Mule,” his sidewinding, highly profitable 2018 drug-runner biopic that traveled similar backroads to those found here, it’s his first Western since “Unforgiven” nearly 30 years ago. His character, Mike Milo, is a retired rodeo rider; the love interest, as Old Male Hollywood used to call it, is a Mexican cantina owner played by Natalia Traven, who is nearly 40 years younger than Eastwood. He’s 91. And making movies. “Cry Macho” may be fond and foolish in equal measure, but it has a few grace notes to remember. “Look where you’re going,” the cowboy tells the kid during a riding lesson, “and go where you’re looking.” It’s a throwaway moment. But it’s the quintessence of Clint, and I’ll remember it awhile. 1:44. 2 ½ stars. In theaters and streaming on HBO Max — Michael Phillips
‘DEAR EVAN HANSEN’: At his therapist’s urging, high school senior Evan, dealing with social anxiety disorder and a harsh self-image, writes letters of reassurance and encouragement to himself. After a tense encounter at school, one of these letters ends up in the
hands of another troubled senior, a boy Evan hardly knows even though Evan has been nursing a crush on the boy’s sister for what feels to Evan like forever. The boy, Connor, commits suicide very early in “Dear Evan Hansen.” His grieving parents assume Evan’s letter to himself, found in their late son’s possession, was written by Connor to Evan, and that the boys were supportive, understanding friends. The lie spirals. Evan doesn’t have the heart or the nerve to correct Connor’s family’s reading of the situation. Then the hash-tagged phenomenon #TheConnorProject, designed to help all sorts of kids in crisis and in need, goes viral, far beyond the intensely clique-y high school. Evan’s dodgy act of atonement builds up his own social capital. For most of the musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2016, we watch Evan as he’s singing, dodging, aching, riding for the inevitable fall. 2:17. 2 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE’: If there’s an image that can signify American tabloid culture of the 1980s, it just might be the iconic eyelashes of Tammy Faye Bakker, a groundbreaking televangelist and the wife of charismatic preacher Jim Bakker. Tammy Faye was a pioneer in the world of televangelism, known for her puppets and powerful singing, but the Bakkers suffered a scandal-plagued fall from grace, thanks to Jim’s famous infidelities and schemes to defraud his audience. Tammy took the fall for standing by her man and was the butt of many jokes for her style of self-presentation. But in the past 20 years, there’s been an attempt to publicly redeem her, most notably in Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s 2000 cult documentary, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” narrated by RuPaul. In a film based on that documentary, Jessica Chastain dons Tammy Faye’s famous falsies and finds a great deal of grace and strength in her story. 1:28. 2 ½ stars. — Katie Walsh
‘SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS’:
“Shang-Chi” follows a young Asian American man, Shaun (Simu Liu), as he learns to face his past and embrace his destiny as the superhero Shang-Chi. Shaun’s family has a long and mystical history, one he eventually has to explain to his best friend Katy (Awkwafina), on a trans-Atlantic flight to Macau, after the two fight off a machete-limbed supersoldier on a San Francisco city bus. Dropping his Americanized name, Shang-Chi tells Katy about his father, Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a centuries-old warlord and leader of the shadowy crime organization the Ten Rings. 2:12. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.