“Whalefall” is more of a whale fail

18 Oct

New movie is a strange tale that lacks execution and energy.

Austin Abrams as Jay Gardiner in 20th Century Studios’ “Whalefall.” Credit: Jennifer Clasen © 2026 20th Century Studios

⭐⭐Rating: 2 out of 4

A strange “Jonah and the Whale” concept that’s even stranger in execution. It’s got incredible talent too, but none of that can save this cinematic miscue from submerging in banal blubbering. It’s essentially a one trick pony — make that “a one bubble guppy”—that lacks character development or even a plot. The film’s lone benefit is that it will likely inspire a brief online biology session for viewers using their smart phones to search on “whale digestion.”

The hook to this whale’s tale is flounder flat. Family patriarch Mitt (Josh Brolin) runs a sight-seeing boat tour company near Monterey Bay, but has terminal mesothelioma. He straps on his diving weights and jumps into the cold waters sans diving tank. The death (though the body’s not been retrieved) and pending funeral proceedings beckons home Mitt’s estranged son Jay (Austin Abrams, recently on screen in the raucous “Resident Evil” reboot) from college in Iowa. Driven by a sense of guilt, Jay gets up in the early hours of the morning one day and decides to look for dear old dad’s body. Combing through a kelp garden, Jay gets caught up in a fracas between a giant squid and a sperm whale. Both he and the squid wind up in the belly of the whale, and the cuttlefish proves to be one angry co-survivor.

The rest of the film is pretty much Jay trying to reason his way out of the whale’s colon before his oxygen runs out (the air cavity inside the whale is toxic). What that amounts to is Jay mumbling to himself through his respirator about what he needs to do and why as the whale burps, belches and farts. This awkward connection seems to be a method to keep the audience clued in.

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“You Can See Everything” is worth the view

17 Oct

The documentary about Theranos’s fallen founder Elizabeth Holmes is riveting.

⭐⭐⭐1/2 Rating: 3.5 out of 4.

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary about fallen tech star Elizabeth Holmes is a riveting head trip and wild genre-bender that intoxicatingly combines classic journalism with inventive narrative departures. This eely shape-shifter burrows into you and won’t let go.

The making of the film is as much the story as its subject, who — at the time Fielder and Oppenheim catch up with her — is 34 days from beginning an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Theranos, her blood-testing start-up that promised to revolutionize health care and help detect cancer early, could only perform a small number of the 240-plus analytical tests it claimed. Holmes founded the company at 19. She and her Theranos partner and lover, Sunny Balwani, were exposed in a 2015 Wall Street Journal investigative piece and later tried on felony charges for fraud and fiscal deceit, sentenced in 2022 (Balwani got 12 years), and ordered to pay more than $450 million in restitution.

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Outrage and scandal: “The Devils” is back in theaters

16 Oct

It shocked audiences and the Vatican in 1971. Now, it’s back in a director’s cut by Ken Russell. The film may just have been 50 years ahead of its time.

A still from “The Devils.” Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros.

⭐⭐⭐1/2 Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Ken Russell’s cult-classic “The Devils,” which comes to the Somerville Theater this week for a limited re-release, remains a glorious cinematic affront: one part historical drama, one part political horror flick where the monsters wear vestments and call their cruelty salvation. Its graphic sex and scenes of torture earned it an X rating when it was released (it’s now NC-17, which didn’t exist in 1971) as well as the condemnation of the Vatican.

At the time of its initial release, critic Roger Ebert bashed the film for its graphic excess. Fellow critic Judith Crist judged it a “grand fiesta for sadists and perverts.” Through the lens of the now, I’d call it a riveting, lurid spectacle that contains hard truths. It’s a must-see for cinephiles, with its masterful cinematic composition and status as probably Russell’s magnum opus — in a career that spawned the sensual wrestling match “Women in Love” (1969), the psychedelic rock opera “Tommy” (1975) and the bodily transformations of “Altered States” (1980, shot in Beacon Hill). “The Devils” brings his gifts into their fiercest alignment: theatrical excess, sexual frankness and a deeply felt anger at the abuse of power.

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Motorist who killed cyclist sentenced to prison

16 Oct

Junming Zhu, the driver whose car left Memorial Drive before hitting John Corcoran, will serve a year in prison with another 18 months suspended.

The “ghost bike” memorial for bicyclist John Corcoran by the DeWolfe Boathouse in Cambridge.

Junming Zhu was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison as well as the loss of his driver’s license for 15 years for the death of cyclist John Corcoran Sept. 23, 2024. The decision was rendered Thursday in Cambridge District Court by Judge David E. Frank. Frank suspended the final 18 months of the sentence, meaning Zhu will serve one year and then be on probation.

The sentence was split despite pleas from Corcoran’s family to keep Zhu in prison for the full two and a half years, the maximum term permissible under the law. “After everything we’ve endured, I ask that this court please hold him fully accountable for taking my father’s life,” said Corcoran’s daughter, Christine, during her victim impact statement, calling it “the only fair sentence.”

Assistant District Attorney Caroline Evans requested that Zhu serve 18 months of the sentence, with the remaining year suspended, while Zhu’s attorney sought two years of probation without incarceration, asking for leniency because Zhu helps care for his six-year-old nephew, whose father works late hours in the food industry.

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Rachel Morrison on grief, loss and her new movie

11 Oct

The prominent cinematographer, a Cambridge native, has directed her second film, “Love of Your Life.” She talks about filming in her hometown, how Ryan Coogler feels like family, and why she didn’t go to CRLS.

Rachel Morrison, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer, will still get behind the camera now that she’s directing. Here she’s filming Margaret Qualley, the star of Morrison’s new movie “Love of Your Life.” Credit: Chiabella James / Prime

One of the most powerful women in filmmaking is Cambridge-bred Rachel Morrison, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer whose movies include “The Black Panther” and “Mudbound.” Morrison has moved to the director’s chair, making her debut in 2024 with the female boxing biopic “The Fire Inside.” Cambridge Day caught up with her as her new movie, “Love of Your Life,” opened at AMC Boston Common this week; it streams on Prime Video starting October 14.

In a universe of funky coincidence, it turns out Morrison played Cambridge youth soccer with Sian Heder, who directed the Oscar-winning, North Shore set, “CODA” (2022). Heder, whose mother Mags Harries created the “Glove Cycle” sculpture in the Porter Square MBTA station, went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin.

Morrison did not go to CRLS, which was my first question to her. She grew up on Hawthorne Street not far from the Charles Hotel, where we met, and attended Concord Academy because she wanted to play ice hockey (CRLS didn’t field a team then). Morrison was a shutterbug from a young age and at Concord Academy started to get interested in the moving picture. She studied both as an undergraduate at New York University, but in the real world knew she had to choose one over the other. “It took me a minute to realize that they’re completely different careers.” Morrison said. “You really can’t take a photo portfolio around by day and film reels around by night. There’s just so many hours in the day.”

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Affleck’s ‘Animals’ is a dog

11 Oct

Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington star in “Animals.” Credit: Warrick Page / Netflix

⭐⭐Rating: 1.5 out of 4.

Ben Affleck made it in Hollywood as an actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter, then proved to be a more-than-reliable filmmaker, with credits including “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town” and the true-story espionage thriller “Argo” (2012), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for “Animals,” the new political crime drama that Affleck directs and stars in. It’s a maddening meander of divergent screenwriting ideas that never coalesce, with dialogue in places so banal and inert it might get an F in a screenwriting 101 class. It also wastes the talents of an impressive cast that includes Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun and Gillian Anderson.

Affleck stars as Mark Kimball, who is running to unseat the mayor of Los Angeles. He’s a former Marine from a working-class family who has become a lawyer and political activist. He’s also in an interracial marriage (Washington in a thankless, screeching part). And he has secrets, like using undocumented workers, that threaten to come out when his biracial son (Christopher Woodley) is kidnapped on Halloween while trick-or-treating with the Kimball’s nanny Cecilia (Adriana Paz), her undocumented boyfriend Ramon (Luis Gerardo Méndez) and their son.

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Bourdain helped us see that food is the foundational human story

8 Oct

Reflections by a food and film critic about the evocative biopic “Tony” and how it changes the way we see the worl

“Tony,” the plucky biopic that follows a young Anthony Bourdain during the summer he fell in love with restaurant life in Provincetown in the mid-1970s, not only entertained me with its deep character dive into a mercurial soul who would become a food-culture icon but also took me back. During that same era, my family vacationed amid the dunes of Fisher Beach in nearby Truro, and I have fond memories of licking creamy soft-serve twists along Commercial Street, and perusing the endless bins of saltwater taffy from Cabot’s Candy — still there! But the best were the lobster boils my mother served on the sand-swept deck, setting out clear Pyrex bowls full of rich, drawn butter for dipping. We ate the clams and claw first and saved the tail for the savory end. 

Here at Cambridge Day I write about food and film. Seeing “Tony” made me wonder just why stories about food resonate so powerfully on the screen (and on the page) when you don’t get to taste or smell what’s being eaten? Bourdain spent most of his career answering that question without ever really asking it.

A portrait of Anthony Bourdain. Credit: Getty Images
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Crowds flock to Charlie’s Kitchen sidewalk sale

6 Oct

Memorabilia and the hope of helping its owners re-open drew extensive support for the Harvard Square institution. There may be more to sell next weekend.

Part of the crowds that gathered outside of Charlie’s Kitchen for its farewell sale Oct. 3, 2026.

Hundreds of people came by Charlie’s Kitchen to buy memorabilia and support its co-owner, David Toraji Oshima. Charlie’s, a beloved dive bar in Harvard Square, closed earlier this year due to internal flooding from a dishwasher malfunction. Oshima started the “everything must go” sale to prepare for whatever happens next, which might include relaunching the restaurant and bar.

Re-opening, perhaps at a new location, depends on how a pending insurance claim plays out, since the damage and repair is estimated at near one million dollars. Oshima and partner Derek Luangrath own the bar and restaurant business, while the property is owned by Paul Overgaag, the previous proprietor of Charlie’s and the nearby Red House.

While Oshima hopes to restart, he said the sale was also meant to help to connect with the community and to preserve memories of the place. His sale was slated to start at 3 p.m. Saturday but there were dozens lined up at 1:30PM, which both warmed Oshima and overwhelmed him. “Today was way better than I thought,” Oshima said. “I told everybody 3 to 5, but I started setting up at 1, and by about 1:30, I had hundreds of people here supporting me.”

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“Verity”

3 Oct

Lifeless on page and on screen

⭐1/2 Rating: 1.5 out of 4

The movie version of “Verity,” Colleen Hoover’s hackneyed page lift of Daphne du Maurier’s great 1938 Gothic psycho thriller “Rebecca,” has an all-star cast that may not be enough to give the romance novelist a fourth box office success. 

Some of that is due to the source material. Where du Maurier understood and gave shape to corrupt and conflicted souls, Hoover’s works play like soulless connect-the-dots exercises, and come off that way on screen. The script by Nick Antosca is unfortunately too loyal to Hoover’s novel, and director Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick” and “The Idea of You”) is merely a serviceable filmmaker with a knack for small, cloistered melodrama. (In contrast, du Maurier’s was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, and won the Oscar for Best Picture.)

The cast, though, is an impressive assemblage, led by Anne Hathaway as the titular Verity Crawford, a wildly successful author who pens dark psychological thrillers by, for and about women (art imitating life?). It’s her fifth movie this year, and this is the one she’d probably hope people forget. Josh Hartnett plays her hunky husband and Dakota Johnson, who unfortunately regresses from her breakout in “The Lost Daughter” (2021) to her cinematic roots in the kinky sex nonsense “Fifty Shades of Grey” (2015).

Johnson’s Lowen Ashleigh is, like Verity, an author, but more literary. She’s also struggling financially; we meet her at a small independent bookstore in Manhattan reading to an audience of three. Later, as she’s packing up the apartment she’s being evicted from, her agent (Ismael Cruz Cordova) tells her of a big opportunity at publisher Hachette. Lowen dresses up and heads to the meeting, only to be spattered by blood when a cyclist is struck by a streaking car just feet away. Before she can even react, a chivalrous stranger (Hartnett) swoops in to literally give her the shirt off his back so she can go to her meeting. And after Lowen signs the NDA so she can learn about the offer, in walks Hartnett’s Jeremy, to tell her his wife, the famous author Verity, just had a car accident, is paralyzed and can’t speak. So Hachette wants to pay Lowen some good buck to ghost write Verity’s series.  

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“Digger”

3 Oct

What could have been redemption remains a disappointment

⭐1/2 Rating: 1.5 out of 4

The latest from revered filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a shocking disappointment, a meandering muddle more akin to his last effort, “Bardo” (2022). than his Oscar-caliber dramas like “Birdman” (2014) or “The Revenant” (2016). For the first hour we are subjected to one of the most bombastic, self-indulgent projects by a master helmsman since Francis Ford Coppola’s urban architecture mishegas, “Megalopolis” (2024). 

The backdrop of “Digger” involves a “Cats”-like cultural phenomena called “Fossil Fools” — I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers. Tom Cruise, as the paunchy, cantankerous oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, is tight enough with the POTUS (John Goodman) that he can get the leader of the free world and his military advisors to come meet with him at his ancestral estate (badly in need of roof repairs). 

There’s a lot of white people with money in “Digger,” which hints at having something to say about inherited wealth, white power structures and Christian values (for an example of a movie that addresses these issues well, see “One Battle After Another”). Those are just mirages, an exhausting exercise for the audience, which is forced to endure all-for-naught zaniness such as a 30-year-old cat with diarrhea using Digger’s sprawling bed as a litter box. It’s like Iñárritu morphed into Wes Anderson on a bad acid-trip.

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