“Baby Driver”
It’s far enough away from opening (it doesn’t hit til the end of the month) that Playlist leadership doesn’t start seeing Edgar Wright’s sixth feature film until next week. But given the “Hot Fuzz” helmer’s track record, the glowing word around the movie, and Playlist correspondent Erik Childress’ big thumbs up of a review from the SXSW premiere, we feel more than confident of its place here. Stepping lightly away from the comedy genre for a car-chase-heist-movie-musical about a getaway driver with tinnitus (Ansel Elgort) who’s trying to pull one last job after falling for a diner waitress (Lily James), it sees Wright extrapolate his style – “designs, shoots and cuts his chases and gun battles to every guitar riff and drum connect” (per Erik’s review) – proving that “great action has always had more in common with dance choreography than the simple appetite for destruction.” In other words: Wright’s given us all something to talk about over our lattes. [Our review]
“Tramps”
In a world that feels increasingly charmless, it can’t be an accident that many of the movies that we’ve responded to in 2017 so far have been films that might not be terribly important, but are extremely charming. And one of the most charming is “Tramps,” Adam Leon’s utterly lovely follow-up to his excellent, but little-seen “Gimme The Loot.” It’s in a sort of “Before Sunrise”/“Medicine For Melancholy” type mold, as a pair of rising stars (Callum Turner as an aspiring chef, Grace Van Patten as a troubled young woman) are paired to deliver a briefcase for a low-level crime figure (Mike Birbiglia, cast pleasingly against type), only to mess it up and have to try to fix it. Again, this isn’t new ground, but the leads are so good and have such chemistry together, and Leon brings the vibrant, youthful energy of his previous movie (it’s one of the best New York movies in years) that it feels utterly fresh in the execution. [Our review]
“It Comes At Night”
After one of the more striking debuts of recent years with “Krisha,” Trey Edward Shults moves into quite a different, and yet oddly similar, territory, with “It Comes At Night,” yet another stellar entry in the booming American indie-horror genre. Set in a world ravaged by a mysterious disease, and following a family (headed by Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo) who take in another couple and their young son (Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough), only for paranoia and terror to take over. Will Ashton’s review for us compares the film to the similarly A24-distributed “The Witch,” and calls it a “triumph in measured suspense and chilling attention to detail… a harrowing, horrifying effort told with brute conviction, a quivering meditation on grief and alienation [that] haunts you to the brittle bone.” Immaculately crafted and brilliantly acted, it’s the nightmare that you deserve this summer. [Our review]
“The Little Hours”
Sometimes, the weirdest idea that you have is the one that connects with people. To wit: writer-director Jeff Baena, whose first two movies, zombie-com “Life After Beth” and 30-something dramedy “Joshy” are the kind of thing that are plentiful in festival line-ups, but failed to stand out much from the crowd. And yet “The Little Hours,” a ballsy, foul-mouthed comedy about medieval nuns loosely inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s “The Decameron,” looks to be the movie that puts him properly on the map. Starring a murderer’s row of comic talent including Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci, Dave Franco, John C. Reilly, Nick Offerman and Molly Shannon, it’s a film that our Park City correspondent Noel Murray called “Consistently entertaining, like a laid-back, stretched-out Monty Python sketch,” but one that also “has a quietly heartwarming quality… expressing something poignant and true about the human need to find happiness even in the worst of circumstances.” [Our review]
“The Lovers”
A24 have established a pretty strong brand in terms of the kind of movies that they’ve been releasing — hip, young-ish, outside the traditional mainstream. So it’s impressive that their first movie aimed directly at an older audience (the kind that made a movie like “Hello My Name Is Doris” or “Enough Said” surprise successes) looks to be proving just as much a win as films more within their comfort zone. “The Lovers,” written and directed by “Terri” helmer Azazel Jacobs, stars Tracy Letts and Debra Winger as a couple both deep into affairs with younger partners, and on the verge of ending their marriage, who unexpectedly reconnect with each other. It’s a low-key, low-concept picture, but one that our Kimber Myers called “remarkably funny,” with “genuinely great dialogue” with “the types of performances that should be recognized come awards season.” It’s only just warming up in theaters — seek it out for a real summer-movie antidote. [Our review]
