'All About Nina'

Within a few minutes of meeting Nina Geld, the main character of writer-director Eva Vives’ raw and confrontational comedy “All About Nina,” a viewer will be faced with a choice: Give up on this apparent self-destructive woman, or give her a chance to see where she might end up.

Despite the strong temptation to throw in the towel, though, the second option ultimately pays off — but not without some pain along the way.

Nina, played with ferocious spirit and self-deprecating wit by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is a New York stand-up comic who talks a lot in her act about her sex life. She’s more confident onstage than off, where she drinks often and partakes in a string of one-night stands. Her longest-lasting relationship is with Joe (Chace Crawford), a cop who shows up to slap Nina in the face and demand sex, and afterward go home to his wife and kids.

Nina decides she’s had enough of this crap, so she packs up for Los Angeles, in hopes of landing an audition with the all-powerful head (Beau Bridges) of a comedy TV channel. Nina’s agent, Carrie (Angelique Cabral), sets Nina up with living arrangements with a New Age author, Lake (Kate Del Castillo). Nina gets a dose of California crazy — like meeting Lake’s guru, Smoky (Todd Louiso) — while getting her act in shape for her audition.

One night, after a performance, Nina gets chatted up by Rafe (played by Common), who’s unlike any guy she’s ever encountered. He’s sweet, he’s charming, he’s funny, he’s honest — and he is insistent that he doesn’t want to have sex with Nina on the first date. This is new for Nina, and intriguing, and seems like the start of a promising romance. But in the back of Nina’s mind is the anxiety that she, based on past experience, will screw this up somehow.

Vives, who co-wrote the 2002 indie gem “Raising Victor Vargas” and makes her feature directing debut here, brings an intensity and unvarnished honesty many movies are afraid to touch. You know early on, when Nina bounces back from an awful encounter with Joe by practicing her stand-up routing wearing only her panties, that this is a movie that is going for the jugular. (In an interview, Winstead said she performed a joke Vives wrote about Louis C.K.’s harassment of women, long before his behavior was made public — but it was cut once C.K.’s habits made The New York Times.)

Winstead’s scenes with Common are sweet, like watching two people really discovering each other and whether they are in love. The tone in these scenes is a sharp contrast to the rest of Nina’s life, and her stand-up routines, which move from scathingly self-deprecating to nakedly confessional.

Winstead —who has been so consistently talented in such films as “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” “Smashed” and “10 Cloverfield Lane” — is scary good here. She shifts with quicksilver speed from Nina’s no-bull onstage persona to her offstage self-loathing, and exposes the unhealed wound that is at the root of Nina’s damaged psyche. Like Nina, Winstead’s performance is both honestly funny and drop-dead serious.

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‘All About Nina’

★★★

Opened September 28 in select cities; opens Friday, October 26, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for strong sexual content and language throughout, some nudity and brief drug use. Running time: 101 minutes.

'Johnny English Strikes Again'

Rowan Atkinson’s bumbling spy character Johnny English has always existed in a weird middle ground between the acerbic wit of his Edmund Blackadder and the childlike charms of his Mr. Bean — and in his third outing, “Johnny English Strikes Again,” that territory feels played out.

There are laughs to be had here and there, particularly in the opening that shows Johnny in his current surroundings: As a geography teacher in an English boarding school, giving lessons in camouflage, bear traps, martini mixing and the other skills of the spy trade from which he has retired.

Then comes word that MI7 has been the victim of a cyber attack, with its files hacked and every current undercover agent exposed. The only choice for MI7 is to bring ex-agents out of retirement, which means English is back in the game.

It’s not so easy, as English must get acclimated to a new MI7, one with fewer gadget-laden weapons and more hybrid cars. But with his trusty sidekick Bough (Ben Miller) and his reliable Aston-Martin, English is on his way to the French Riviera to follow a lead involving a yacht. That’s where English meets mysterious Ophelia (played by “Quantum of Solace” Bond girl Olga Kurylenko).

Meanwhile, the none-too-bright Prime Minister, played by Emma Thompson, is nervous that these cyber attacks will derail her upcoming G-12 summit. She’s so worried that she’s willing to strike a hasty deal with Jason Volta (Jake Lacy), a charismatic tech billionaire who’s somewhere between Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.

Director David Kerr, a TV veteran making his feature-film debut, and screenwriter William Davies set Atkinson up for some elaborate set pieces. But more often than not, even with Atkinson’s rubber-faced moves, there’s something amiss and the laughs just aren’t there.

The biggest misfire is Thompson, seemingly spoofing the real Prime Minister, Theresa May, as a dithering and slightly man-hungry leader. Thompson — who worked with Atkinson on her 1989 break-out role in “The Tall Guy” — has one good rant to deliver, and she nails it, but it falls short of salvaging the slow-moving mess.

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‘Johnny English Strikes Again’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, October 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some action violence, rude humor, language and brief nudity. Running time: 88 minutes.

'The Happy Prince'

The downbeat biographical drama “The Happy Prince” is clearly a labor of love for Rupert Everett — who directed, wrote the screenplay and portrays his hero, the writer and wit Oscar Wilde. Alas, it’s such a disjointed and depressing tale that others may not feel the love as much.

The film covers the last five years of Wilde’s life, when he had lost many things he held dear — including his wife Constance (Emily Watson), his fortune, his reputation and his home country. 

The bad times started in 1895, when he sued the Marquis of Queensbury for libel, for calling him a “sodomite.” Wilde was in a torrid romance with Queensbury’s son, Alfred Bosie Douglas (Colin Morgan), at the time. Queensbury turned the legal case around, and Wilde was convicted for gross indecency — and put in prison for two years for his homosexuality.

After his prison sentence, Wilde abandoned England for France, where he lived in exile. He also lived in poverty, having lost access to his royalties and cut off from his allowance by Constance. Wilde’s friends, notably the author Reginald Turner (Colin Firth) and his manager Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas), rally to his side. But they are mystified when Wilde invites the selfish, bratty Bosie, back into his life — a life that Bosie’s thoughtlessness has nearly ruined.

Everett, aided by a ton of prosthetic make-up, labors mightily to capture Wilde as the dissipated, absinthe-guzzling mess that he has become in his final years. He may have succeeded too well, because the performance is so flawless that he shows Wilde as profoundly sad and pathetic — and not someone a viewer would want to sit with for 104 minutes.

And while Everett’s grasp on Wilde’s emotional state is firm, he doesn’t give us much to unravel the feelings of those around him. None in his orbit — Thomas’ Robbie, Firth’s Reggie or Watson’s Constance — are allowed to be more than reflections of the great man, and when that man is revealed to be not so great, their roles are diminished that much more. “The Happy Prince” turns out to be an unhappy experience for all concerned. 

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‘The Happy Prince’

★★

Opened October 10 in select cities; opens Friday, October 26, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, language and brief drug use. Running time: 104 minutes.

'The Hate U Give'

For me to appreciate the race-relations drama “The Hate U Give” is also to acknowledge that I, a 50ish white man, am not the person for whom it was made.

This searing story of an African-American teen, caught between perceptions of her lower-income black neighborhood and her rich white private school, is a righteously angry portrayal of living and dying in the shadow of constant threats from suspicious police and intimidating criminals. It’s the sort of movie that will make some (white) viewers gasp in surprise, while people of color in the theater will see an all-too-familiar reality onscreen and in the shocked reactions.

This split will be evident in the opening scene, when Maverick Carter (Russell Hornsby), a former gang member turned straight, gives his small children “the talk.” In this community, “the talk” isn’t about the birds and the bees, but about how to behave when a police officer pulls them over. Stay calm, don’t speak confrontationally, and above all else keep hands on the dashboard where the officer can see them.

Starr Carter (played by Amandla Stenberg), the teen daughter of Mac and Lisa (Regina Hall), knows the lesson well, because she traverses between black and white daily. Starr and her family lives in a lower-income, predominantly African-American neighborhood. Starr makes a daily commute to a private high school that is mostly white, and there her clothes and personality change, to “Starr, version 2.”

The Starr she allows herself to be in school never talks in street lingo, smiles and nods when her white classmates try to talk like hip-hop stars, never giving people a chance to latch onto anything that makes her sound like she’s from the poor side of the city. She hangs out with her friend Hailey (Sabrina Carpenter) and has a white boyfriend, Chris (“Riverdale” star K.J. Apa).

One night, back in her neighborhood, she runs into an old crush, Khalil (Algee Smith), at a party. When someone get into a beef and shots are fired, everyone scrambles to get out, and Starr accepts a ride from Khalil. They talk about music, and about Khalil’s shady employment for the neighborhood’s crime lord, King (Anthony Mackie).

Then a cop pulls them over, and forces Khalil to get out of the car. In a moment of misjudgment, Khalil picks up his hairbrush. The (white) cop mistakes the brush for a gun and shoots Khalil, who bleeds to death next to the spot Starr has been forced to sit by the now-panicked policeman.

As the media firestorm over another officer-involved shooting rages in the city, Starr is faced with a dilemma. She’s under pressure to testify to a grand jury against the officer. Meanwhile, King has been not-so-subtly making it clear that he doesn’t want Starr to talk about Khalil at all.

In adapting Angie Thomas’ young-adult novel, screenwriter Audrey Wells (who died earlier this month) and director George Tillman Jr. give every side their moment. Starr hears from a crusading Black Lives Matter lawyer (Issa Rae) about the importance of speaking out against the police. From her policeman uncle Carlos (Common), Starr learns about the million things going through a cop’s mind during a traffic stop. And, at school, she sees in stark relief how racism is sometimes lurking just below a veneer of politeness.

Through it all, Stenberg’s performance as Starr holds the movie together as the factions around her threaten to splinter her world, and with it the fiction Starr has tried to maintain that she can navigate two different worlds. Stenberg (last seen in “The Darkest Minds”) shows the confusion Starr feels trying to satisfy everyone, and the courage when she realizes she must stay true to herself.

With Stenberg’s Starr defiantly at the center, “The Hate U Give” becomes not only one of the most moving stories of coming-of-age in a divided America. It also becomes one of the most necessary movies on race and respect in years, a clear-eyed and strong-voiced call to everyone — even folks outside the demographic like me — that these issues of police-instigated violence and urban unrest will only get worse until we address them.

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‘The Hate U Give’

★★★★

Opens Friday, Oct. 19, at theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, some violent content, drug material and language. Running time: 133 minutes.

'Halloween'

I’m not sure I can pinpoint the exact moment I went from liking David Gordon Green’s update on “Halloween” to loving it, but I think it was the moment it flipped from being a mere homage to John Carpenter’s slasher-movie classic to being a sturdy suspense thriller in its own right.

Certainly Green (“Stronger,” “Pineapple Express”), co-writing with his frequent collaborator Danny McBride, load up the early scenes of the movie with all the touchstones of Carpenter’s original. They include the ‘70s-era credit font, Carpenter’s eerie synthesizer theme, the mention of the late Donald Pleasance’s doom-saying Dr. Loomis, and especially the gray rubber mask that turned killer Michael Myers into an iconic horror figure. 

The mask is introduced to the permanently institutionalized Michael by Aaron (Jefferson Hall), who co-hosts a true-crime podcast with Dana (Rhian Rees), whose examination of the Michael Myers case is proverbially poking a stick into a bear cage. Aaron and Dana also try to interview Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the psychologically damaged survivor of Michael’s 1978 attack. Laurie has turned her home into a high-security fortress in case Michael ever returns.

“I’ve prayed that someday Michael would escape,” Laurie tells Sheriff’s Officer Hawkins (Will Patton), who also was in Haddonfield on that fateful Halloween in 1978. When Hawkins asks why, Laurie replies, “So I can kill him.”

Laurie’s paranoia has left its mark on her family, notably her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), who has endured lots of therapy to counteract hyper-secure upbringing. Karen and her husband Ray (Toby Huss) have a daughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), a high-school senior who’s the same age Laurie was 40 years ago.

This Halloween night, Allyson is attending a high-school dance with her boyfriend Cameron (Dylan Arnold). At the same time, the prison bus transporting Michael crashes, and Michael is on the loose — pursued by his shrink, Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer), Dr. Loomis’ protege, who has made studying Michael’s evil his life’s obsession.

It takes a little time for Green to get us where we want to be: Watching Michael murdering teen-agers and striking terror in the heart of a small town. Once he gets into that groove, though, Green stages some nail-biting moments of suspense, while also throwing out some sly nods to the franchise. (It should be noted that Green’s love for Carpenter’s original means that he doesn’t recognize as canon many of the sequels, as well as the Rob Zombie-directed reboot.)

Curtis hasn’t had a role this meaty in decades, and she makes it memorable. Her Laurie Strode is haunted by the past, but grimly determined not to let that past repeat itself. Curtis is nicely matched by Greer, who’s always nothing short of wonderful, and Matichak to form a trio of take-no-prisoners women. Their three generations of scream-queen perfection is what ultimately gives this “Halloween” a fighting spirit of its own.

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‘Halloween’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, Oct. 19, at theaters everywhere. Rated R for horror violence and bloody images, language, brief drug use and nudity. Running time: 106 minutes.

'Free Solo'

Most of us lack that psychological quirk that compels us to do crazily dangerous things just because they are there to be done — which is why documentaries like “Free Solo” are so fascinating, because they give us a glimpse of that particular form of obsession, and the amazing things those few people achieve because of it.

Married filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi captured a group of such people in their last movie, the acclaimed “Meru,” in which a team of mountain climbers (including Chin) braved one of the most dangerous ascents in the Himalayas. Chin isn’t risking his life quite so much this time, but the subject he and Vasarhelyi profile definitely is.

At 33, Alex Honnold has climbed more big walls than most people can imagine. His specialty is the free-solo ascent, going up a rock wall with no ropes or other safety equipment. He relies on his fingers, his feet, and the bag of chalk on his belt to keep his hands dry as he seeks the slightest depression that he can use as a handhold or foothold.

A decade ago, Honnold first made a name for himself by free-soloing up the Moonlight Buttress at Utah’s Zion National Park. His favorite place, though, is Yosemite National Park in California, which presents some of the most challenging rock faces, including the Half Dome and the granddaddy of them all, El Capitan.

As the movie begins, no one has free-solo climbed then nearly 3,000-foot-high granite wall of El Capitan. Honnold aims to be the first. He parks his van, which is both his training vehicle and his home, and starts examining his possible route. He climbs it with ropes, so he can study every nook and cranny, and figure out which ones he can use to climb without ropes later. He consults with other climbers, like Tommy Caldwell and Peter Croft, about the pros and cons of each step.

Over the course of nearly two years, Chin and Vasarhelyi follow the ups and downs of Honnold’s preparations. In that time, two major distractions emerge. One is the film crew itself, which raises the pressure that Honnold might push himself when he’s not ready to go. The other is his new girlfriend, Sanni McCandless, whose presence shows Honnold for the first time what he might miss if he dies while climbing.

As with “Meru,” Chin and Vasarhelyi attain astonishing footage of Honnold that illustrate the dangers and sheer size of the rock wall. What’s more, they get into the such close-up detail, particularly of the six trickiest spots along his route up El Capitan, that we understand the dangers more intimately when Honnold encounters them for real.

The result is a documentary with the pacing and stakes of a thriller, a literal cliffhanger. It’s also a fascinating look into Honnold’s mind, and the million calculations that fuel his drive to turn risk into a manageable commodity.

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‘Free Solo’

★★★1/2

Opened Sept. 28 in select cities; opens Friday, Oct. 19, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex Geneva (Lehi). Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Running time: 100 minutes.

'Tea With the Dames'

The documentary “Tea With the Dames” — in which we get to hang vicariously with four of the English theater’s greatest living actresses as they share good gossip and reflect on their lives — is pure catnip for movie lovers, drama geeks and anybody who loves a good yarn.

The four old friends are, in alphabetical order, Dame Eileen Atkins, 84; Dame Judi Dench, 83; Dame Joan Plowright, 88; and Dame Maggie Smith, 83. According to the introduction, they often get together from time to time out in the country to chat about this and that, having grown up together as young thespians and grown old together working together occasionally in plays, movies and television.

Most recently, Dench and Smith co-starred in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (2011) and its 2015 sequel, while Smith and Atkins worked together in Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” (2001), and Dench, Smith and Plowright all appeared in Franco Zeffirelli’s “Tea With Mussolini” (1999). But their paths have been crossing for decades.

When they get together, they often reminisce about their days in the National Theatre, often working with — and suffering the criticism of — Plowright’s husband, the legendary Sir Laurence Olivier. Smith tells some of the funniest and cattiest stories, like when she describes playing Desdemona opposite Olivier’s blackface Othello, and how Olivier, in character, once struck her hard across the face. “I like say that was the only time I saw stars at the National Theatre,” Smith says in a perfect deadpan.

Smith isn’t the only one who can drop a tart remark. At one point, a production assistant shows Dench and Atkins some footage of Dench’s boarding-school theatrical appearances, and Atkins takes one look at the teen-age Dench and remarks “Did you have tits even then?”

The foursome compare notes on everything from playing the lead in “Antony and Cleopatra” to balancing work with motherhood (all but Atkins have had children) to working alongside their actor husbands. (Plowright was married to Olivier; Smith to the stage actor Robert Stephens; Dench to the late Richard Williams, and they co-starred on a sitcom “A Fine Romance”; and Atkins was married briefly to “Game of Thrones” actor Julian Glover.)

Dench and Smith reflect on the oddness of appearing in major movie franchises — James Bond and Harry Potter, respectively — while Plowright tells how her American agent once told her he’d find “some cameo that Judi hasn’t gotten her hands on yet.” And on it goes like this, as the women gently poke at each other and laugh the way only true old friends can.

Director Roger Michell (“Notting Hill,” “My Cousin Rachel”) augments the conversation with a wealth of archival photos and video, which are eye-opening and sometimes downright odd. (The weirdest is seeing Dench, at 34 in 1968, as a green-skinned fairy queen Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”) The added material doesn’t detract from the lively conversations, as these four acting legends are caught in the act of just being themselves. 

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‘Tea With the Dames’

★★★1/2

Opened Sept. 21 in select cities; opens Friday, Oct. 19, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for brief strong language. Running time: 84 minutes.

'The Old Man & the Gun'

Many movie buffs would argue that Robert Redford’s best years as an actor were from 1969 to 1976, when he was at the height of his movie stardom, with a string of heavyweight films that included “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid,” “Downhill Racer,” “Jeremiah Johnson,” “The Candidate,” “The Way We Were,” “The Sting,” “Three Days of the Condor” and “All the President’s Men.”

That’s one hell of a run, but I’d argue the string he’s on now — starting with his one-man 2013 drama “All Is Lost,” and including “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “A Walk in the Woods,” “Truth,” “Pete’s Dragon,” the Netflix films “The Discovery” and “Our Souls at Night,” and his latest and possibly last one, the heist comedy “The Old Man & the Gun” — is just as good.

Read the full review at sltrib.com.