‘Wicker,’ ‘Wildwood’ both bring cinematic wonder

26 Oct

A man made of wicker features in one movie while the other consists of remarkable stop-motion animation.

“Wicker”

⭐⭐⭐Rating: 3 out of 4

In “Wicker” it turns out a decent man requires a little basket weaving. At least, that’s the hook in this bawdy fairy tale, adapted by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer from Ursula Wills’ acclaimed short story “The Wicker Husband,” in which a woman’s pursuit of companionship sends a dour village into a tizzy. The premise is fanciful, but the sexual double standards, marital dissatisfaction and resentment of another person’s happiness are familiar enough.

Olivia Colman (“The Favourite,” “The Lost Daughter”) plays an unnamed fisherwoman who lives on the outskirts of a seaside village and occupies a similarly marginal position in its social order. Ridiculed for her dowdy appearance and fishy smell, she commissions a local basket maker (Peter Dinklage) to fashion her a husband. What arrives is Alexander Skarsgård in woven form, somberly polite, virile and more than dutiful in attention—got a leaky roof or a squeaky bed, he’ll have it fixed in a jiffy. Just don’t ask him to do anything with fire. His existence becomes an affront to the community’s understanding of how marriage, and women, should work.

“Wicker” falls somewhere between “The Princess Bride” (1987) and “Caligula” (1979), with its mystical underpinnings — Dinklage’s conjurer feels more amiably puckish Rumpelstiltskin than maniacal Frankenstein — medieval-

adjacent setting and frothy talk of shagging and making babies. You could think of it as King Richard’s Faire dialed up to 11 on the naughty scale.

The perceived marital bliss of Colman’s fisherwoman overthrows social norms, making it the bane of those atop the social hierarchy, especially Elizabeth Debicki’s judging matron, a Karen OG constantly relegating others to places below her station.

Colman anchors the story’s emotional center with assurance, while Skarsgård’s casting supplies a layer of absurdity, putting the hulking berserker from “The Northman” inside an unfamiliar body, with Debicki (“Tenet,” “The Crown”) as the face of the village’s traditionalist status quo.

As lithe and sprite as “Wicker” is, the osiers of its are novel concept are stretched thin by as the plot gets deeper into the woods. The organic nature of a woman’s quest for companionship and respect becomes subsumed and the cheeky, burlesque-leaning humor fades. Still, its apt, able ensemble renders it a merry mug of cinematic mead.

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Somerville Theatre sold to current managers

25 Oct

News of the deal brought relief and excitement to local leaders and cinephiles. The new owners have launched a GoFundMe to help pay some of the downpayment.

The future of the Somerville Theatre came into clear focus today when it was announced that ownership of the Hobbs Building, which houses the historic theater, was transferred to CSB Theatres, Inc.

CSB is co-owned by longtime theater managers Ian Judge, Ian Brownell, Jamie Mattchen and John O’Leary. Judge’s name is listed as owner of the limited liability corporation, but he called that a formality.

Judge called the deal “equal parts excitement and nausea.” CSB has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise $90,000 to back monies used for the down payment. “It’s scary,” Judge said, “but it’s basically our only chance to make sure that the theater stays around, locally owned in its current form for as long as possible.”

Ian Judge, new co-owner of the Somerville Theatre, was in the lobby greeting patrons.
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Potent performances power the taut drama in ‘Fjord’

25 Oct
Ideological isolation in the hinterlands of Norway.

A scene from “Fjord” Credit: Elissa Federoff / NEON

⭐⭐⭐1/2 Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner is a stark contemplation on faith, family and the limits of tolerance when deeply held beliefs and social norms collide. The film focuses on a devout Romanian immigrant family living in Norway whose five children are taken by the authorities after the eldest daughter arrives at school with visible bruises. The parents, Mihai (Sebastian Stan) and Lisbet (Renate Reinsve), deny abuse and become embroiled in a long fight to regain custody that, as the case proceedings develop, increasingly becomes a clash between their conservative Christian beliefs and Norway’s secular child protection system.

Throughout the ordeal, the Gheorghius feel largely isolated, even though Lisbet is from the remote village (located at the base of a towering mountain that’s part of Norway’s remarkable fjord system). Mihai, who just lost his parents (part of the reason for the move), speaks limited Norwegian, hampering communication, though he manages somewhat better in English. As parents of two teens, two elementary schoolers and one nursing newborn, the Gheorghius are strict by most standards, denying them cellphone and internet access and insisting on weekly Bible studies and daily prayer. They are also — as depicted — loving, caring and respected by their charges, and integrate well into the township’s general population, including being members of a Pentecostal church.

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“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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