'Late Night'

If we haven’t already killed the old sexist notion that women can’t be funny, the Mindy Kaling-scripted “Late Night” should be the final nail in that coffin.

Kaling also stars in this comedy, as Molly Patel, an aspiring comedian trying to make the jump from her boring old job in a chemical plant to writing comedy for her hero, late-night talk-show host Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson). She doesn’t seem to have the qualifications the head writer, Brad (Denis O’Hare), usually is seeking — but when it’s noted that the whole writing staff is “white, male and come from elite colleges,” Molly is suddenly hired for a 13-week trial run.

Those white male writers take an immediate dislike to Molly, mocking her inexperience and her earnest attempts to call out the show’s complacency. What the writers don’t know is that Katherine has been told by the new network president, Caroline Morton (Amy Ryan), that after nearly three decades as host she is being replaced by a young, frat-boy comedian (Ike Barinholtz).

What follows is Molly’s often comic, and sometimes touching, efforts to help Katherine rediscover her funny, feminist voice, and update her approach for the internet age. At the same time, Molly also tries to soften up the writing staff, including the lecherous Charlie Fain (Hugh Dancy), jaded veteran Jack Burditt (Max Casella) and the whipsmart head monologue writer, Tom Campbell (Reid Scott), who inherited the job from his father.

Director Nisha Ganatra finds the perfect pacing for Kaling’s script. She also brings an effervescence to the New York settings, from the sleek TV production offices to the stately apartment Katherine shares with her supportive husband, Walter Lovell (John Lithgow), a retired professor in the early-to-middle stages of Parkinson’s disease.

The jokes are sharp and hilarious, and often touch on issues of Hollywood sexism. In one stand-up appearance, Katherine notes that she’s the same age as Tom Cruise, adding, “He gets to fight the mummy. I AM the mummy.” Wrapping the message in comedy, like stuffing the pill in a dog treat, makes it easier to digest.

The most admirable thing Kaling does is shift “Late Night” from being Molly’s story to Katherine’s. The second half is all Thompson’s show, as Katherine deals with network pressures, a slavering media and “hot take” instant criticism. As a result, Thompson gives the best performance she’s had in years, furthering the message that all a talented woman needs to succeed in entertainment is the room to run.

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‘Late Night’

★★★1/2

Opened June 7 in select cities; opens Friday, June 14, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language throughout and some sexual references. Running time: 102 minutes.

'Shaft'

The chaotic action movie “Shaft” isn’t a reboot, oddly enough, but a labored sequel to both the 2000 movie of the same name and the 1971 blaxploitation classic that started it all.

The prologue is set in Harlem 1989, as detective John Shaft (played by Samuel L. Jackson, as in the 2000 version) is talking to his lady, Maya (Regina Hall), just before thugs start shooting at them in Shaft’s purple Cadillac. Shaft is able to repel the attack, and learn it’s tied to the drug kingpin Gordito (Isaach de Bankolé). But for Maya, enough is enough, since their baby son John Jr. was in the back seat.

Traversing 30 years — and Shaft’s move into and out of the NYPD — via credit montage, the movie lands in the present, and introduces us to that baby, now 30-year-old J.J. (Jessie T. Usher), an MIT-graduated data analyst for the FBI’s New York office. While his bureau chief, Vietti (Titus Welliver), launches a terrorist investigation of an imam (Amato D’Apolito), J.J. has a more personal case to solve: His childhood friend Karim (Avan Jogia), a veteran who served in Afghanistan and was clean after years as an addict, suddenly ends up dead from what looks like an overdose.

J.J. tries venturing into Harlem alone, but soon realizes he needs street expertise. So he reluctantly reconnects with his father, who instantly sees a possible connection between Karim’s death and his old nemesis Gordito.

The pair-up between generations of Shaft men is a bumpy one. J.J. is appalled by his father’s rough-and-tumble tactics — “those weren’t just crimes, those were human rights violations,” J.J. says after his dad beats up a drug dealer — and his profane descriptors of all things womanly. Papa Shaft, on the other hand, belittles his son’s millennial lifestyle, such as a pad that resembles “an apartment display for Pier One Imports,” and J.J.’s dislike of firearms.

Director Tim Story and TV scribes Kenya Barris (the creator of “black-ish”) and Alex Barnow (“The Goldbergs”) deliver story that’s equal amounts shooting off at the mouth and shooting guns, and much of it nonsensical. The story winds its way past Karim’s military buddies (Matt Lauria, Aaron Dominguez, Robbie Jones) and a Latina supermarket tycoon (Luna Lauren Velez), and brings in Grandpa Shaft (played by the original, Richard Roundtree) for far less time than the ad campaign would lead audiences to believe.

It’s difficult to decide what to make of John Shaft’s retrograde, pre-woke persona. Yes, he’s unmistakably cool — being played by Jackson, he couldn’t be anything else. But there’s a heavy air of an old man hectoring those kids to pull their pants up and stop staring at screens all the time. “Shaft” never reconciles those two elements, and comes off like a cranky time capsule of a movie era that’s long gone away. 

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‘Shaft’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, June 14, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for pervasive language, violence, sexual content, some drug material and brief nudity. Running time: 111 minutes.

'The Dead Don't Die'

Considering how much the zombie horror genre — with its bursts of violence, separated by offbeat and seemingly random moments of character development — matches his own styles, it’s a wonder that the fiercely independent director Jim Jarmusch hasn’t made one before.

But made one he has in “The Dead Don’t Die,” which would have the feel of a generic horror movie if not for Jarmusch’s eerie sense of humor and the wealth of talent that gravitates to him like zombies seeking brains.

Jarmusch’s set-up is minimal. Centerville is a sleepy town with all the usual establishments: A mini-mart, a hotel, and a three-member police department consisting of Chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and officers Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) and Mindy Morrison (Chloë Sevigny). Other locals include racist farmer Frank Miller (Steve Buscemi), hardware store owner Hank Thompson (Danny Glover), mini-mart clerk Bobby Wiggins (Caleb Landry Jones) and town hermit, Bob (Tom Waits).

Yep, Centerville is all pretty normal, even if the town’s new medical examiner, Zelda Winston (Tilda Swinton), is Scottish with remarkable skills in Japanese swordplay — and the local package delivery service, Wu-PS, is inspired by the Wu-Tang Clan.

The quiet of Centerville is disrupted when two zombies — played by rocker Iggy Pop and indie filmmaker Sara Driver — attack the town diner and kill two employees. (One of them, Fern, is played by Eszter Balint, star of Jarmusch’s 1984 debut, “Stranger than Paradise.”) The police investigate, and Ronnie is the first to say what everybody else won’t: “I’m thinking zombies.”

Soon zombies have overrun Centerville, and not even college kids (including Selena Gomez) in the local motel are safe. Even the dead neighbor, Mallory (Carol Kane), waiting in the police station’s holding cell for a funeral home to pick her up, is suddenly up and about and grunting “Chardonnay.”

Appropriately for Jarmusch, these aren’t fast zombies — more like laconic zombies, moving only as fast as the humor requires. There’s plenty of space for Murray to deliver some low-key one-liners, and for Driver to steal the movie with the most meta movie moment I’ve seen in a long time.

Horror fans may not groove to Jarmusch’s rhythm, and there were moments that reminded me of the “Saturday Night Live” sketch that imagined Wes Anderson making a horror movie, “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders.” Those who know Jarmusch’s particular vibe will enjoy the comic ups and downs “The Dead Don’t Die” offers.

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‘The Dead Don’t Die’

★★★

Opens Friday, June 14, at select theaters, including the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), Megaplex at The District (South Jordan) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Rated R for R for zombie violence/gore, and for language. Running time: 105 minutes.

'American Woman'

What starts in the drama “American Woman” as a scenario for a thriller — a woman’s teen daughter goes suddenly missing — transforms into something deeper and more emotional, thanks to a stand-out performance by Sienna Miller.

Miller plays Debra Callahan, who at 32 has lived more than her share of life in her Pennsylvania town. A mother at 16, she’s now living with her 16-year-old daughter Bridget (Sky Ferreira), who has a one-year-old son of her own. They live across the street from Debra’s older sister, Katherine (Christina Hendricks), who has three kids with her working-stiff husband Terry (Will Sasso). Debra’s love life is a mess, as she’s seeing a married man, Brett (Kentucker Audley).

One night, after Bridget goes to reconcile with her son’s layabout dad, Tyler (Alex Neustaedter), Bridget never comes home. At first, Debra blames Tyler, but as days pass, and volunteers comb nearby fields for a sign of Bridget, Debra must come to grips that Bridget is never coming back, and the police may never find out what happened.

Cut forward six years, as Debra is raising her grandson, Jesse (Aidan McGraw), and moving from an abusive boyfriend, Ray (Pat Healy), to nice-guy Chris (Aaron Paul). Cut forward another six years, when Jesse is 13 (and played by Aidan Fiske), Debra has a steady job and a seemingly solid marriage to Chris. At each stop, though, Bridget’s absence leaves a hole in her soul.

Screenwriter Brad Inglesby, who has written such working-class crime dramas as “Run All Night” and “Out of the Furnace,” shifts gears well with this thoughtful look at a woman trying to rebuild a life after an unspeakable loss. Director Jake Scott (who directed the 2010 Sundance entry “Welcome to the Reillys”) leans into the more predictable soap-opera moments a bit heavily, but the feelings are authentic and the dialogue understated.

The cast, which includes Amy Madigan as Debra and Katherine’s judgmental mom, is first-rate. The breakout is Miller, who usually dives into chameleonic roles (“American Sniper,” “The Lost City of Z” and “Burnt” are recent examples) but here lets her brassiness attract the full spotlight. It’s a gutsy, commanding performance that we all knew Miller was capable of doing, and makes “American Woman” an intense and gratifying experience.

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‘American Woman’

★★★

Opening Friday, June 14, in select theaters, including Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for language, sexual content and brief drug use. Running time: 111 minutes.

'The Souvenir'

Love is a mystery, and writer-director Joanna Hogg’s unsettling and heartbreakingly beautiful drama “The Souvenir” plunges the audience and her leading character deep into that mystery.

That character is Julie, played by Honor Swinton Byrne in a radiant starring debut. Julie is a film student in London in the 1980s. She’s doing all the typical things a college student would do: Maintains an apartment with a flatmate (Jack McMullen), has parties with friends, and borrows money from time to time from her mum (played by Swinton Byrne’s real-life mother, Tilda Swinton).

Julie’s life changes when she meets Anthony (Tom Burke), who’s unlike the college boys she’s met before. He’s older, has a job in the Foreign Office, and seems to come from money. He wines and dines her in fancy restaurants, takes her to art galleries and gala functions, and shows her a world of wealth and refinement. Falling in love happens slowly, gradually, but the effect is no less powerful.

Even though Julie’s in love, some things don’t add up — like why Anthony, who’s so rich, is often borrowing money from her, then going out alone for hours on end. There is an explanation, delivered by an old friend of Anthony’s (Richard Ayoade), that changes Julie’s, and our, understanding of everything that has gone before. 

Hogg’s spare script gives Julie room to explore her feelings for Anthony, and whether she’s losing herself in her relationship with him. Hogg gives us many scenes where all the emotional impact is conveyed through Swinton Byrne’s quicksilver expressions. The 21-year-old actor has a more down-to-earth beauty than her ethereal mom, and she employs it here to give Julie both warmth and intelligence as she navigates her way through a tempestuous love affair. Meanwhile, Tilda Swinton subsumes herself in what may be her most challenging character yet: An ordinary suburban mom.

Hogg is promising a sequel to “The Souvenir,” and there is nothing more intriguing than another chapter in Julie’s life, as she blossoms into the person she will become. The first chapter shows much promise for Julie, and for the veteran Hogg’s ability to transform the familiar coming-of-age drama into something that’s quietly breathtaking.

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“The Souvenir”

★★★1/2

Opened May 17 in select cities; opens Friday, June 7, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for some sexuality, graphic nudity, drug material and language. Running time: 120 minutes.

'Fast Color'

In a movie world overrun with superheroes, director Julia Hart’s independent gem “Fast Color” delivers something even more fascinating: Characters for whom special powers are both a curse and a valuable tool.

In a near-future dystopia where water is scarce, rationed and expensive, Ruth (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is a woman on the run. She walks, or steals cars, to get from town to town, hiding out in motels. Then she starts having seizures, which somehow cause the area around her to experience tremors. 

When the seizures are over, she’s moving again, trying to stay a step ahead of the government scientists — personified by the nerdy yet menacing Bill (Christopher Denham) — who want to capture her and experiment on her.

With Bill and his goons closing in, there’s one place where Ruth can find refuge: In the house where she grew up, cared for by her mother, Bo (Lorraine Toussaint). Bo is leery of welcoming Ruth back, because of Ruth’s history of substance abuse — and because Bo is caring for Lila (Saniyya Sidney), Ruth’s 12-year-old daughter, who has not seen her mother since she was a baby.

Hart co-wrote this script with her husband, Jordan Horowitz (the producer of “La La Land,” and forever the guy who held up the card that said “Moonlight” won the Academy Award for Best Picture). They have structured a tight chase thriller, but they play it like a domestic drama in which three generations of women confront their shared legacy — which, by the way, involves superpowers (shown through special effects that are impressive on a budget).

Mbatha-Raw (“Belle,” “A Wrinkle in Time”) gets the tough lead role most women actors never get offered, and she’s a force to be reckoned with as she displays a full range of emotions from vulnerable to resilient. She’s perfectly matched on both sides, by the talented young Sidney and the fiercely maternal Toussaint. The always-great David Straithairn has some nice moments as the local sheriff, whose role in the narrative is best left for the audience to discover.

“Fast Color” is one of those small, mighty movies that can easily slip under the radar in a busy season of blockbusters. One might bump into it on Netflix, or on a plane — but why wait? Dig into this hidden treasure while it’s in theaters.

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“Fast Color”

★★★1/2

Opened April 19 in select cities; opening Friday, June 7, at the Tower Theatre (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for a scene of violence and brief strong language. Running time: 100 minutes.

'The Secret Life of Pets 2'

Let’s get my bias out of the way immediately: I am a cat person, and have been irked by animated movies that depict cats as sinister and automatically inferior to dogs. That’s not the only reason I dislike “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” though it’s a good place to start. 

There actually is a scene that shows dogs as superior to cats. It comes when the pampered Gidget (voiced by Jenny Slate) disguises herself as a cat to infiltrate an apartment filled with felines. Gidget shows herself the mistress of the cat world by conquering the cats’ obsession: The laser pointer.

That sequence, one of three plots intertwined in this labored sequel to the 2016 cartoon by the “Despicable Me” squad, could have been a nicely self-contained 11 minutes in an animated TV series — something “The Secret Life of Pets” seems destined to become. TV would be a better fit for these characters, one that doesn’t raise the high expectations of a theatrical feature.

The main plot focuses, as the first movie’s did, on Max, a neurotic Jack Russell Terrier. Where in the first movie Max (now voiced by Patton Oswalt, replacing the disgraced Louis C.K.) fretted over the arrival of a new dog, the Newfoundland Duke (voiced by Eric Stonestreet). This time, Max’s singleton owner Katie (voiced by Ellie Kemper) has found a guy, Chuck (voiced by Pete Holmes), and together they have a baby boy, Liam.

Max doesn’t object to Liam’s arrival, instead becoming fiercely protective of his new little person. So protective, in fact, that Max becomes neurotic about every perceived danger on the New York streets. Katie even takes Max to the vet, where he is fitted with a cone so he can’t scratch his face anymore.

Soon after, the whole family, along with Max and Duke, take a trip to an uncle’s farm. There, Max finds new and different things to be afraid of, including streams, cows and chickens. He also finds an old farm dog, Rooster (voiced by Harrison Ford), who imparts gruff wisdom about taking life as it happens and not to live in fear.

How Max’s hero journey connects with Gidget’s domination over cat-kind, or the psychotic rabbit Snowball (voiced by Kevin Hart) indulging his inner superhero, is one of the unsolved mysteries of Brian Lynch’s screenplay. Chris Renaud’s direction, as with the first “Secret Life,” is candy-colored and fast-moving, perfect for the series’ very young audiences. It’s chaotic and intermittently humorous, but even at 86 minutes feels padded.

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“The Secret Life of Pets 2”

★★

Opens Friday, June 7, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some action and rude humor. Running time: 86 minutes.

'All Is True'

“I never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” remarks William Shakespeare at one point in the new drama “All Is True” — which is as good a description of what director/star Kenneth Branagh and screenwriter Ben Elton have done in this Elizabethan-era soap opera as anything.

It’s 1613, after a fire has destroyed Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and prompted the playwright and impresario to retire. He returns from London to his home town of Stratford, to a family he has scarcely seen in 20 years while he’s made his fortune writing some of the greatest plays ever performed.

His wife, Anne Hathaway (Judi Dench), maintains the house and puts Will up in the guest bedroom. Will decided that, in his retirement, he’s going to plant a garden, to honor the memory of his son Hamnet, who died as a boy and is an ever-present shadow on the Shakespeare household.

This sadness is especially evident in how Will handles his relations with his two adult daughters. His older daughter, Susannah (Lydia Wilson), is married to the town doctor and leading puritan, John Hall (Hadley Fraser). Hamnet’s twin sister, Judith (Kathryn Wilder), is a spinster still living with her parents, who defiantly asks if her father wishes she had died instead of her brother.

There’s scarcely little recorded about Shakespeare’s retirement. Elton, who has experience filling in the blanks of history through working on the “Blackadder” series, turns Shakespeare’s story into a melodrama centering on marital strife, scheming over inheritance, and next-generation sex scandals. One wishes Shakespeare could have written it himself, if only to knock some sense into it.

Branagh seems to enjoy crawling into the skin of a writer whose works he has so often performed. The look is a bit off — with a prosthetic nose and pronounced beard, Branagh’s Shakespeare looks rather like Ben Kingsley playing the Bard — but the sensibility is there, as Branagh depicts the writer’s pride in his work and the many regrets borne of cannibalizing his life for his art.

“All Is True” works best in small moments, often when Branagh is parrying with great actors, like Dench as his patient wife or Ian McKellen as Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, the writer’s benefactor and most ardent fan. In those flashes of fire, “All Is True” gives us the Shakespeare Branagh aims to honor.

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“All Is True”

★★1/2

Opened May 10 in select cities; opening Friday, June 7, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), Megaplex at The District (South Jordan), Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi), and Megaplex Legacy Crossing (Centerville). Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, suggestive material and language. Running time: 101 minutes.