Film Reviews: Opening This Week (April 10, 2020)

The Lost Husband
Distributor: Quiver Disribution
Where to Find It: Amazon Prime | Redbox
Plop plop. Fizz fizz. Oh, what a missed opportunity it is! In the well-cast but seldom funny satire “And Now a Word From Our Sponsor,” the CEO of a major Chicago ad agency suffers a nervous breakdown that leaves him speaking exclusively in slogans, which those around him interpret as either signs of insanity or pearls of profound wisdom. If that sounds like the start of a promising social commentary, it could be, though the pic’s imagination runs out at the concept phase, giving its promo-spewing savant nowhere to go. Bruce Greenwood and Parker Posey’s involvement could attract a few in micro-release.
— Tomris Laffly
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Stray Dolls (Sonejuhi Sinha)
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime
“Stray Dolls” is a genre picture with a twist, although the immigrant experience subtext is undernourished within a plot that otherwise hews a little too closely to the conventions of the motel noir. … For their buddy-dynamic to work, the two actresses have to bring a lot more than is on the rather sparsely underwritten page. But they do a fine job of rubbing the circulation back into characters that could otherwise simply be the inert sum total of their desperations, and they infuse a lovely offbeat chemistry into the scrappy, “Thelma and Louise” arc of their relationship.
— Jessica Kiang
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We Summon the Darkness (Marc Meyers)
Distributor: Saban Films
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime
It’s not just the spot-on banter (the exact right metal bands name-checked) or how their attempts to be badass are so much more innocent than today’s. “We Summon the Darkness” is an end-of-the-’80s movie … and there are moments when it feels like it could be the first horror film directed by Richard Linklater. The director, in this case, is Marc Meyers, who made “My Friend Dahmer” (2017). … In “We Summon the Darkness,” Meyers refuses to treat the slasher movie as a cheeky debased genre. What happens going forward may be insane, but he stages it with a cunning visual-dramatic logic, allowing neither perpetrators nor victims to cut corners.
— Owen Gleiberman
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New to Netflix

LA Originals (Estevan Oriol)
Where to Find It: Netflix
Photographer Estevan Oriol assembles a monumental tribute to the downtown Los Angeles scene from which he and best friend/business associate Mister Cartoon (tattoo legend Mark Machado) emerged to become unlikely influencers. … Not necessarily household names, but well on their way, these two Chicano artists absolutely deserve to be the focus of a documentary about how such outsiders shaped the mainstream. But when said homage originates from the subject’s own hand, it comes off feeling more like self-aggrandizement — a flashy commercial for the duo’s S.A. Studios, full of testimonials from Snoop Dogg, George Lopez, the late Kobe Bryant and more.
— Peter Debruge
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Love Wedding Repeat (Dean Craig)
Where to Find It: Netflix
In the minor but captivating “Love Wedding Repeat” … [Sam Claflin] plays Jack, who spends his sister’s wedding trying to put out a dozen fires at once (and to woo the love of his life, who he may never see again). To say that the character is working overtime to hold himself together would be an understatement. He’s exquisitely flummoxed. … “Love Wedding Repeat” is a loose riff on the 2012 French movie “Plan de Table,” and it unfolds, more or less, in real time, which gives it an existential comedy-of-suspense element that trumps the usual Styrofoam rom-com plotting.
— Owen Gleiberman
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The Main Event (Jay Karas)
Where to Find It: Netflix
This kid-centric wish-fulfillment fantasy from WWE Studios centers around a bullied runt who enters a professional wrestling contest after finding a super-powered and super-stinky mask. The film represents all the tenets of the corporation’s brand and suitably cloaks them in a celebratory, family-friendly guise. Only the execution of the catchy high concept … is a mixed bag. It’s nowhere near the quality of last year’s word-of-mouth sensation from the same studio, “Fighting With My Family,” but dispenses heartening commentary to its target market about the power of dreaming big and harnessing your own authentic strengths.
— Courtney Howard
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Tigertail (Alan Yang)
Where to Find It: Netflix
Named for the Taiwanese village Yang’s father left behind when he moved to the U.S., the film endeavors to re-create the circumstances that sent him looking for opportunities abroad, the compromises he made to get there and the secrets this stoic man kept hidden from his children for decades, including a romance left unrequited an ocean away. Yang does a lovely job of capturing all that, channeling such directors as Wong Kar-wai and Edward Yang in the process, but missing from the picture — or else taken for granted — is a clear representation of the pain that such sacrifice imparts on the next generation, unless of course you’ve witnessed it for yourself.
— Peter Debruge
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Documentaries

Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind
Distributor: 1091 Media
Where to Find It: Amazon Prime | iTunes
“Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind” treats alien visitations as a given. That is, it totally takes for granted that there’s a technologically advanced, mystically benevolent world of extraterrestrial beings, light-years beyond ours in development and consciousness. Taking this as undeniable fact, “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind” is a conspiracy documentary built around the thesis that the “national security state” has concealed it from all of us. [The film] is two hours of fantasy propaganda attacking reality-based propaganda. It can make your eyes widen and your head hurt at the same time.
— Owen Gleiberman
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The Mindfulness Movement
Distributor: Abramorama
Where to Find It: Official site
[Review to come]