The latest film releases include Smile 2, Anora, Woman of the Hour, and Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party. Weighing in are Witney Seibold, contributor to SlashFilm and co-host of the podcast Critically Acclaimed, and Christy Lemire, film critic for RogerEbert.com and co-host of the YouTube channel Breakfast All Day.
Smile 2
In this sequel to the 2022 hit horror movie, Naomi Scott plays a global pop star who begins having strange and horrifying experiences.
Seibold: “I liked this movie a lot. It is really, really creepy. The demon in Smile 2 has a very strange M.O. It possesses a host, and then appears to the host as smiling versions of people the host knows. The demons appear for about a week, driving the host gradually crazy, until the demon can take possession of their body, force them to take their own lives in front of a witness, and then the witness is now the new host for this demon, and the cycle continues. We got to see that cycle in action in the first Smile.
Now the demon has passed its way into the Naomi Scott character. She's a pop star. She is stressed out about recovering from drugs, and is poised to have a big comeback … when she goes to a Vicodin dealer who passes the demon on to her. And it is then about two hours and seven minutes … of her being tormented. Naomi Scott is wonderful at giving fear face. She's afraid a lot, but because we never know what's hallucination and what's not, the plot jerks you around a little bit. Luckily, it's a really fun haunted house movie.”
Lemire: “I had fun too, because a lot of this is just not trying merely to redo Smile 1. It is much more ambitious, narratively and technically, and that's obvious from the very beginning. … You definitely need to have seen the first Smile to understand any of this.
Naomi Scott is great. … It's a really demanding role, physically and emotionally, because she has to be this believable Lady Gaga-ish pop star. So that requires a whole technical bag of tricks that she has. She's very good. But then there's a lot of close-ups on her, and she has to indicate a lot of range. She's not just scared. She's a lot of other things too. And like so many horror films, this one is rooted in trauma, and so you believe that she is on edge, that she's a nervous wreck, that she's trying to figure out how to navigate the world sober now, and that's challenging, too.”
Anora
A New York exotic dancer ties the knot with a Russian oligarch’s son, then his parents then try to annul their marriage. This won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme D’Or.
Lemire: “I love this movie so much. … A great deal of hype about it [is] coming out of Cannes and all deservedly so. And once again, [director] Sean Baker is exploring the lives of people on the fringe, people trying to make the American dream work, and rooting for them to succeed despite and throughout the disillusionment with that goal. And quite often, he'll make movies about sex workers.
And here, Mikey Madison plays Anora. She's an exotic dancer who does some sex work on the side, and there's no judgment. It's very matter-of-fact, as far as her hustle and her drive, and she's all business and she's all about making money. Until she meets Vanya, played by Mark Eidelstein, who is like a Russian Timothy Chalamet. He's lanky and wiry and boyishly charming and clearly going to be terrible for her, but he sweeps her off her feet. He is a son of, I think he's a Russian oligarch. … And they get married, and then it gets dangerous. … It's rollicking and beautifully-made and one of the year's best.”
Seibold: “It is incredibly sensitive to the lives of sex workers. One of the big dramatic cruxes of the movie is how Vanya’s Russian oligarch father is so unbearably ashamed that he would be involved with a sex worker, and how much shame is being projected onto this young woman who is actually very hopeful and full of a lot of dreams. And she's young, and makes a lot of dumb mistakes, and is very mouthy. But she's also a human being who deserves this kind of respect, and she goes through the movie demanding respect of people. And I love that about this movie.”
Woman of the Hour
In actress Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, a woman in 1978 goes on The Dating Game, and one of the three male suitors is a serial killer. It’s based on a true story.
Seibold: “Anna Kendrick … discovered the story of Rodney Alcala … the real-life serial killer who did indeed appear on The Dating Game. He had already murdered five people at that point when he appeared on camera. Kendrick was really interested in all of the perspectives of the story. She didn't want to necessarily fetishize the killer. She does show a lot of this movie from his perspective, and how he's stalking people and the weird, creepy tactics he uses to lure his victims.
But also, what was the story of Cheryl Bradshaw, the real woman who competed on The Dating Game and won a date with him? So as it turns out, she was a struggling actress, and she had been in Los Angeles for a while and hadn't landed the big part yet. She was having awkward relationships with some of her friends, and was really considering leaving LA and going back home. And when she went on The Dating Game, she was at the end of her rope, so she decided to improvise and break the formula of the show a little bit, and actually came across as this really interesting, dynamic person. What happens when somebody who is actually smart about this and really self-aware about The Dating Game chooses to date a serial killer? It's really fascinating.”
Lemire: “It is a funny movie in terms of the absurdities of being a woman in LA and trying to be an actress, and the indignities that she has to suffer. But it is so exquisitely tense as it goes along. And I love the choices that she makes with where she puts the camera, and what she chooses to show us and not show us, as far as all of these attacks. Sometimes she'll put the camera inside of a car as the attack is happening in the desert outside. It's a good supporting cast. … And just a sense of place in LA in the ‘70s, the cars, the clothes, the nondescript apartments — she really nails all of that and finds a great tone. And it just swept me away the whole way through. … More movies from Anna Kendrick, please.”
Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party
This is a re-release of a 1980s music documentary about the late Tom Petty and his band. This movie aired once on MTV in 1983, and it was the directorial debut of Cameron Crowe, who was a rock journalist before he became a filmmaker.
Lemire: “Tom Petty would have been 74 years old this weekend. And so Cameron Crowe took this movie that's never been released theatrically … and fine-tuned it and added 20 minutes of additional footage. And they're putting it in theaters for only two nights. So tonight, Thursday, October 17, and then again Sunday, October 20. You can go see this in theaters. It'll be streaming next year at some point. … But it's Cameron Crowe just going out on tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as they were just really becoming huge in the early ‘80s. If you love their music and you miss Tom Petty … you will love seeing this. It's just a cool little time capsule.”
Seibold: “There are funny moments just about the foibles of being on the road. … They're just wandering around the hallways looking for their dressing room, and getting increasingly impatient. Tom Petty, however, is also a really laid-back guy. He's just taking the tour as it comes. He was young at the time. … The Heartbreakers were putting out their fifth record. They were touring off of their fifth record. But they're already wizened and wise and concerned about their legacy. … And he's talking a little bit about where he's going to fit into the musical panoply. I think this is a good film for people who miss Cameron Crowe. I feel like he lost his rock roots, and this is a great way for him to look back and rediscover that.”