Review: Documentary 'My Name Is Pauli Murray' gives proper credit to an unsung hero of the civil rights movement

Unless you’re well versed in American legal theory or LGBTQ history, you may not know who Pauli Murray — a situation the thoughtful and informative documentary “My Name Is Pauli Murray” works to rectify.

Murray was an activist for civil rights and women’s rights, and an icon for LGBTQ people. At different points in her life, she was a pioneering student, a poet, a lawyer, an unsung legal scholar, an author, a professor and Episcopal minister.

Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who profiled the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in “RBG,” chronicle Murray’s birth in Baltimore and upbringing in Durham, N.C., where she felt the sting of racism firsthand. The directors often point out moments in Murray’s life where she fought battles long before others; for example, she and a friend were arrested for sitting in the whites-only section of a segregated bus, in 1940 — 15 years before Rosa Parks famously did the same. (Murray and the friend were outmaneuvered by the prosecution, who dropped the segregation charge that she wanted to fight as unconstitutional, and merely charged her with disturbing the peace.)

In law school, at Howard University in 1942, Murray wrote a paper arguing that segregation violated both the 13th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Though the paper was disputed by some of her professors, it was filed away — and became a core argument when the NAACP’s legal counsel, Thurgood Marshall, argued before the Supreme Court in the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education. But, for years, Murray was not told of her contribution for decades.

Another of Murray’s arguments, this one about discrimination by sex, was taken up by Ginsburg when she worked on the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. (Ginsburg cited Murray by name in her amicus brief in the precedent-setting 1971 case Reed v. Reed.) Cohen and West present an outtake from “RBG,” in which Ginsburg praises the strength of Murray’s legal mind, and the clip takes on the air of a holy relic.

The film also takes pains to document Murray’s sexual identity, something she had to hide from the world. Murray preferred trousers over skirts, and begged doctors to prescribe hormones because she was convinced she was a man born in a woman’s body. She also had a long, loving relationship with Irene Barlow — once an office manager at a law firm where Murray worked — that lasted nearly a quarter-century. By today’s measure, according to her biographers, Murray likely would have identified as transgender.

Cohen and West rely on a wealth of Murray’s writings, including legal briefs, poetry and personal letters that depict her struggles with depression. They also interview a wealth of scholars who detail Murray’s contributions to legal thinking, and provide the context for how those lessons apply today. Those voices turn “My Name Is Pauli Murray” into a dynamic history lesson, and an introduction to a hero for civil rights for whom recognition is long overdue.

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‘My Name Is Pauli Murray’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 17, at Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex at The District (South Jordan); also streaming on Prime video starting October 1. Rated PG-13 for disturbing/violent images and thematic elements. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'The Card Counter' is a sly and absorbing character study of a gambler on the brink.

Like the diamond-sharp movies he used to write for Martin Scorsese — a Murderer’s Row of films that includes “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ” — Paul Schrader creates in his new film, “The Card Counter,” a fascinating study of a loner whose past and present collide.

Oscar Isaac stars as the title character, who has taken the alias William Tell as he travels from casino to casino across the country. He can keep track of what kinds of cards have been played at the blackjack table, which allows him to win consistently. He usually leaves the table before he wins too much, before casino security can get wise and throw him out. Bill, as he sometimes is known, does catch the attention of La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), a pro gamer who keeps a stable of card players, finding them investors who will stake them in big tournaments.

Schrader, who wrote and directed, reveals early on that Bill learned card counting in prison. Soon, Schrader also reveals the prison was in Leavenworth, Kan., and Bill’s crime was his involvement in the torture and humiliation of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The ones in the pictures, Bill remarks in the running narration, got prison time; their superiors, and their superiors’ superiors, did not.

In the convention center of one casino, Bill walks into a law enforcement conference and sits in on a lecture by a Maj. John Gordo (Willem Dafoe). A flashback shows us that Gordo was a civilian contractor in Iraq, who ordered around Bill and other men to commit the atrocities that led to Bill’s incarceration.

Back in the present, Bill also notices a young man looking very intently at Gordo. The man introduces himself as Cirk — “‘Kirk’ with a ‘C’,” he tells Bill. Cirk explains to Bill that Gordo also commanded Cirk’s father during the Iraq War, and that Cirk blames Gordo for his dad’s PTSD and suicide. Cirk tells Bill he has a plan to kidnap, torture and kill Gordo.

Bill then does something uncharacteristic for him: He gets involved. Bill takes Cirk under his wing, bringing him along on the road, as he takes up La Linda’s offer to get into the lucrative World Series of Poker, which could end with a run in Vegas.

As he did in his last film, “First Reformed,” Schrader creates a self-contained little world in which the main character — Isaac’s guilt-stricken gambler here, Ethan Hawke’s haunted priest there — wrestles with ghosts from his past while being prodded to take action in the present. If Bill is a bit enigmatic, that’s to be expected, given the nature of card playing, and of the size of the demons he’s facing.

Isaac leads a solid ensemble cast with under-the-radar intensity, conveying through small gestures and Schrader’s economical dialogue Bill’s desire to live quietly and make small jackpots where he can — while also seeing this kid as a chance to atone for past mistakes. Isaac’s performance is one of the best you’ll see all year, one that will be admired for its honesty and quiet menace.

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‘The Card Counter’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 10, in select theaters. Rated R for some disturbing violence, graphic nudity, language and brief sexuality. Running time: 109 minutes.

Review: 'The Lost Leonardo' is a documentary with a lot to say about art, commerce, love and loss.

The engrossing documentary “The Lost Leonardo” is part art critique, part industry tell-all, with a good amount of crime caper and political intrigue thrown in for good measure.

The story starts with a painting found in New Orleans by Alexander Parish, who is what the art world calls a “sleeper hunter” — someone who finds works that may be more valuable than advertised. Parish talks to an art dealer, Robert Simon, and together they buy the work for $1,175. Simon thinks it may date back to the Renaissance, perhaps to a student of Leonardo da Vinci, or someone who tried to copy the master’s work.

The painting, called “Salvator Mundi” (“Savior of the World”), depicts Jesus, in a Renaissance-era tunic, holiding his right hand up in an apparent sign of blessing. In his left hand, he holds a crystal ball. There’s plenty of damage and past attempts at “restoration,” so they take it to Dianne Modestini, a well-known art restorer.

Modestini starts working on the painting, thinking it’s from someone trying to emulate Leonardo’s style. Then she notices two things. One is that Jesus’ thumb seems to have been painted twice, an indication the artist tried it one way and changed his mind — something someone making a copy wouldn’t do. The other is an almost imperceptible line on Jesus’ lip, a line Modestini has only seen in one other place: On the face of the “Mona Lisa.” 

Modestini is convinced this work is an original work of Leonardo da Vinci. Soon, Leonardo experts are called in, and they seem to agree — though, in interviews now, some are more sure of their opinions than others.

What follows, as Danish documentarian Andreas Koefoed reveals, is a yarn that goes from London’s National Gallery to the shadowy system of so-called “freeport” tax havens, from the world’s most prestigious auction houses to The Louvre. The cast of characters include a profiteering Swiss businessman, an angry Russian oligarch, an FBI agent, and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the value of the painting jumps into the millions, while observers and critics — the most outspoken being Jerry Saltz of New York magazine — decry the whole thing as an expensive hoax.

Koefoed and his co-writers, Andreas Dalsgaard and Christian Kirk Muff, compile a wealth of interviews with several of the principals, as well as investigative journalists across Europe. (Notably, they didn’t get any comment from the National Gallery, The Louvre, the auction houses Sotheby’s or Christie’s, or the Saudi Ministry of Culture — all key players.) They present this information with the pace of a good heist thriller, where what’s being stolen is reputation, credibility and a piece of history.

The lesson of “The Lost Leonardo” is that a painting isn’t just a painting — especially when it is reputedly created by the greatest artist to ever live, and the names and bank accounts of too many people depend on the world believing the story they’ve staked everything on is true.

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‘The Lost Leonardo’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 10, in select theaters. Rated PG-13 for nude art images. Running time: 96 minutes.

Review: Caper comedy 'Queenpins' tries to make a farce out of crime, but can't deliver the laughs

The most criminal thing about the overly manic and oddly humor-free caper comedy “Queenpins” is the way it squanders the comic talents of so many actors with so little payoff.

“inspired by true events,” as the opening title card promises, “Queenpins” starts with two neighbors in a Phoenix, Ariz., suburb. Connie Kaminski (Kristen Bell) is a retired Olympic gold-medal race-walker whose efforts to conceive a child has left her and her husband, IRS auditor Rick (Joel McHale), in debt and barely speaking to each other. JoJo Johnson (Kirby Howell-Baptiste, once Bell’s castmate on “The Good Place”) is a would-be YouTube influencer who has signed up for a multi-level marketing scheme to get over the loss to her credit caused by an identity thief.

Connie’s penchant for clipping coupons proves to be the inspiration for their plan. They figure out that major corporations print their coupons for free stuff in Mexico, just over the border. So they meet a couple who works in the Mexican coupon printing plant, and arrange to have the presses’ overage shipped to them in Phoenix — and they can sell those coupons online to bargain hunters.

A theme in the script — by the husband-and-wife team of Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, who also directed — is that Connie and JoJo don’t immediately realize how much they don’t know about pulling off a fraud scheme like this. They learn fast, thanks largely to a cyber-hacker (played by the pop singer Bebe Rexha) who shows them how to set up dummy corporations and other tricks to hide their ill-gotten cash.

Meanwhile, the excess number of coupons gets the attention of the corporations, who complain to Ken Miller (Paul Walter Hauser, from “I, Tonya” and “Cruella”), the loss prevention officer for a supermarket chain. Ken, who lives in Salt Lake City, tries to get the local FBI field office interested, but the case gets shuffled around the bureaucracy — until it lands with the U.S. Postal Service, who send a dogged postal inspector, Simon Kilmurray (Vince Vaughn), to investigate.

Overplotted and underwritten, “Queenpins” stakes most of its comic hopes on some less-than-funny scenes, like Connie and JoJo figuring out how to spend their money, or watching Ken nearly ruin Simon’s stakeout with excessive bowel movements — a gag from which even Hauser, a reliably funny actor, can’t squeeze any laughs.

The only bright spot is Vaughn, who hits comic beats no one else in the movie seems to hear. Watching Vaughn play Simon as a no-nonsense lawman with a hidden poetic streak suggests the smarter, funnier movie “Queenpins’ could have been.

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‘Queenpins’

★1/2

Opens Friday, September 10, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language throughout. Running time: 110 minutes.

Review: Documentary 'The Alpinist' is hemmed in by a subject who couldn't care less about being in a movie

It’s weird to watch a documentary whose subject so casually and obliviously undercuts the movie being made about him — which is what climber Marc-André Leclerc does throughout “The Alpinist.”

Leclerc is introduced as a free-spirited rock climber, someone who goes up the sides of seemingly unscalable rock faces for the sheer pleasure of doing it. It speaks volumes that the first voice you hear in the film is Alex Honnold — whose exploits up El Capitan were chronicled in “Free Solo” — admiringly describes Leclerc as “so crazy.”

The reason for Honnold’s admiration and astonishment is that Leclerc doesn’t just climb big rocks. He also likes to get up where it’s cold, and climb both ice formations and snowbanks. Such climbs, the experts in the film tell us, are even trickier than Honnold’s rope-free rock climbing, because rocks don’t go anywhere, and ice and snow often do.

When directors Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen (who are co-founders of the Reel Rock Film Tour, a traveling program beloved by adventure-sports fans) get Leclerc in front of a camera, it’s in Squamish, British Columbia, which has a boisterous climber community that Leclerc joined when he left high school. He’s happy to have the crew follow him as he climbs mountains he’s already climbed,  and hangs out with his girlfriend, climber Brette Harrington. But it’s clear he’s climbing for the adventure and exhilaration, not for fame or sponsorships or less-lofty reasons.

At one point, Leclerc tells the filmmakers his one rule for participating: No film crew allowed when he’s making his first attempt up a rock. He wants the experience of that solo climb to be pure and solitary, and having anybody along for the ride — whether they’re helping him or just watching — distracts from that perfect experience.

That’s great for Leclerc’s sense of adventure, but it’s a death sentence for an interesting, authentic documentary. How interested should we, the audience, be that Mortimer (who narrates the film) and Rosen are left with footage of Leclerc’s second climbs up the rocks, when he re-creates the original moment for the benefit of the cameras?

Mortimer and Rosen also take some liberties with the timeline. The most notable instance is when the filmmakers make Leclerc’s climb up Torre Egger — a spindly tower of rock and ice in Patagonia, at the southern tip of South America — the climax of the film, even though it happened before other climbs depicted earlier in the film.

Even with those faults, “The Alpinist” conveys the joy of undiluted adventure Leclerc would get from tackling an ascent for the first time, while also making quite real the dangers inherent in the sport — no matter what the GoPro-wearing thrill seekers will tell you as they make the videos they hope will go viral. Leclerc, it’s clear, never cared about that, which makes a movie about him more compelling and enigmatic.

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‘The Alpinist’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 10, in select theaters. Rated PG-13 for some strong language and brief drug content. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: New 'Cinderella,' with Camila Cabello, is a mash-up musical that has its moments and its mouse droppings

The question that writer-director Kay Cannon’s “Cinderella” asks often is “Does the world need another musical version of ‘Cinderella’?,” and the answer, far too often, is “not really, but let’s make the most of what we have.”

No, this musical adaptation of the fairy tale doesn’t have the bounce of the Rodgers and Hammerstein version or the memorable tunes of Disney’s classic. Cannon, who wrote the “Pitch Perfect” trilogy and directed the teen sex romp “Blockers,” combines the jukebox mash-up sensibilities of the first with the playful feminism of both of her previous works. Unfortunately, the parts don’t always combine into a satisfying whole.

Pop singer Camila Cabello makes her movie debut as Ella, the orphaned beauty who cooks and cleans for her imperious stepmother, Vivian (Idina Menzel), and two bratty stepsisters (Maddie Baillio and Charlotte Spencer). Ella, dubbed Cinderella because of the soot that sometimes lands on her pretty face, has a dream — and it’s not to land in the arms of Prince Charming. No, Ella is a dress designer, and wants to make and sell her creations in town.

Unfortunately, the town is in a tradition-laden kingdom, where women aren’t allowed to own businesses or do much of anything other than marry well and be silent. That’s why King Rowan (Pierce Brosnan) ignores the advice of his wife, Queen Beatrice (Minnie Driver), in his zeal to see his playboy son, Prince Robert (Nicholas Galitzine), marry — preferably a princess in a neighboring kingdom, so Rowan can acquire more land. By focusing on Robert, though, the king ignores his daughter, Princess Gwen (Tallulah Greive), who’s actually much smarter and more prepared to rule than Robert is on his best day.

So there’s the set-up, and it’s only a matter of time before Ella and Robert are dancing at the royal ball. That, however, turns out to be the least interesting part of the story — because Ella figures out that being royalty is as much of a cage, gilded though it may be, as Vivian’s basement is.

Except for two original numbers — Ella’s wish song, “Million to One,” which Cabello nails with authority; and Vivian’s sympathy-for-the-villain number “Dream Girl” — the songs are taken from well-known pop tunes. Some of the mash-ups are clever; the opener of the townsfolk performing Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” as Ella sings Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” is a good start, but the best is at the prince’s ball, when the prowling women sing Salt-n-Pepa’s “Whatta Man” and a nervous Robert counters with the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”

In the numbers that aren’t medleys, the results are erratic. Galitzine does an impressive job on Queen’s “Somebody to Love,” for example. But having Menzel’s Vivian explain the importance of marrying rich by singing Madonna’s “Material Girl” is a misfire — in large part because the song is unworthy of Menzel’s vocal brilliance. (Also, doesn’t Cannon know not to let Pierce Brosnan sing? Didn’t “Mamma Mia!” teach us anything?)

Billy Porter gives a perfectly hilarious take on the fairy godmother character — dubbed Fab G — in a too-brief performance that includes the movie’s funniest line: When Ella asks if Fab G can use magic to make the glass slippers more comfortable, Fab G replies, haughtily, “Women’s shoes are what they are. Even magic has its limits.”

On the opposite end of the humor spectrum is James Corden, dreadfully hammy in comic relief as one of the three mice who are turned into Cinderella’s footmen. The other two are played by comedians James Acaster and Romesh Anganathan, though the odds that you’ll remember them over Corden’s overwrought scenery chewing are highly unlikely.

Even with those flaws, and what seems to be a production budget taken from the change in couch cushions, there are some charms to “Cinderella.” Most of them are provided by Cabello, who has strong pipes and a bubbly personality. She makes you believe this princess has more on her mind than what time she’s going to leave the ball.

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‘Cinderella’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 3, in some theaters, and streaming on Prime video. Rated PG for suggestive material and language. Running time: 115 minutes.

Review: Horror drama 'We Need to Do Something' holds our attention before a disappointing finish

In his feature directing debut, Sean King O’Grady makes a lot out of a little in the horror thriller “We Need to Do Something” — though one wishes he and screenwriter Max Booth III would have done a little more with the ending.

The action takes place, mostly, in the large, expensively appointed bathroom in a Midwestern suburban family. Parents Diane (Vinessa Shaw) and Robert (Pat Healy) and their kids, moody pink-haired teen Melissa (Sierra McCormick) and stereotypically nerdy kid brother Bobby (John James Cronin) are holing up here because of predictions of a big storm.

Even in the first minutes, the relationship dynamics are clear. Diane has barely contained contempt for the blustering Robert, who swigs booze not-so-secretly from his Thermos. Bobby clings to his mom and is afraid of his dad. And Melissa is predictably mortified of all of them — and, besides that, too busy trying to get her Goth girlfriend, Amy (Lisette Alexis), to answer her texts.

The storm hits with tornado force, plunging a tree from the backyard into the house’s hallway, blocking the bathroom door and trapping the family inside. Tensions fray even further, as Robert runs out of booze and an errant rattlesnake enters the bathroom.

Then other noises — not thunder, or anything usually associated with weather — start happening outside, and the family starts suspecting something more sinister and otherworldly is attacking.

Melissa, for her part, is also feeling guilty, because she suspects what she and Amy were doing with ancient spells may have been responsible.

O’Grady stirs out maximum tension out of Booth’s tight script, concentrating the action (except for some flashbacks between Melissa and Amy) in that claustrophobic bathroom. At least an hour of the movie happens in that room, and O’Grady and cinematographer Jean-Philippe Bernier seem to never shoot the same angle twice.

Healy and Shaw are electrifying as the squabbling parents, with Healy particularly good as the insecure little man who shouts to make himself appear big. But the star here is McCormick, last seen in the indie gem “The Vast of Night,” again drawing the viewer in with her ability to listen intently and show both fear and resourcefulness.

It nearly all falls apart in the final 10 minutes, with a frenzied resolution to the family drama — followed by a deeply unsatisfying handling of the movie’s external mystery. Considering all the talent displayed up to that point, what was needed in “We Need to Do Something” was an attempt at a rewrite.

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‘We Need to Do Something’

★★★

Opens Friday, September 3, in select theaters. Not rated, but probably R for abundant gore, language and some sexuality. Running time: 97 minutes.

Review: The return of 'Candyman' — a sequel? a reboot? — is a brutal and brilliantly executed horror thriller with a lot on its mind

Brilliance and beauty sometimes come from the most unexpected places — and certainly a reboot of a ‘90s horror franchise, “Candyman,” is an unexpected place to find such an artful, shocking and relevant movie as what director Nia DaCosta serves.

The new film is being marketed as a “spiritual sequel” to the 1992 horror thriller, which starred Virginia Madsen as Helen Lyle, researcher delving into the poor Chicago neighborhood of Cabrini-Green to explore the urban legend of a hook-handed serial killer. The killer, played then by the iconic Tony Todd, is summoned when a character looks into a mirror and says his name five times.

The movie turns out, for reasons that should be experienced, to have a more direct lineage to its predecessor. 

After a prologue set in 1977 in the Cabrini-Green projects, which establishes one version of the Candyman legend, DaCosta (co-writing with “Get Out” auteur Jordon Peele and his producing partner, Win Rosenfeld) brings the story to the present day. Now, Cabrini-Green has been gentrified, and artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his girlfriend, Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parr’s) — who’s a curator in an art gallery — have moved into a loft there.

Fishing around for an eye-catching subject, Anthony hears about the Candyman legend, first online — learning Helen’s tragic story — and eventually into the unreconstructed parts of Cabrini-Green. 

His first creation, “Say His Name” — a title that plays on the movie’s tag line and the chant heard in Black Lives Matter protests to memorialize George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others — opens in a show at Brianna’s gallery, incorporating a mirror and grisly images. Soon, life imitates art, and Brianna’s boss (Brian King) and his girlfriend (Miriam Moss) are slashed to death after the girlfriend says the unspeakable name into the mirror.

Anthony’s exploration of the legend, listening to old cassettes of Helen’s notes (giving Madsen a vocal cameo), takes its toll on his body — a bee sting on his hand starts to fester — and his mind. It also leads Anthony to William (Colman Domingo), a laundromat owner who reveals the depth of the legend, and how it reflects (no pun intended) the long history of Black men dying because of white men’s fear. 

“Candyman is how we deal with the fact that these things happened — that they’re still happening,” William tells Anthony. “Candyman isn’t a ‘he.’ He’s the whole damn hive.”

DaCosta — who explored race and poverty in her intense small-town drama “Little Woods” — delivers stunning visual moments throughout the film. She creates a dread-filled tension with her composed images of Chicago’s skyline and the Cabrini-Green landscape, and the horror set pieces are as perfectly rendered as they are chilling. (The mirror motif gets a workout, even in the studio logos, but never feels old.) For the flashbacks, as the Candyman legend is laid out, she employs a series of shadow-puppet images (created by the Chicago-based group Manual Cinema) that are among the most harrowing and beautiful images you will see onscreen this year.

Abdul-Mateen — familiar as Bobby Seale in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” or as Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s “Watchmen” — makes Anthony’s descent into madness compelling, and he’s well paired with Parris (Monica Rambeau in “WandaVision” and future Marvel titles), whose ferocity and intelligence pays off in a gut-wrenching climax.

What’s most gripping about “Candyman” is the way DaCosta, Peele and company take the frame of Bernard Rose’s atmospheric 1992 film — remember the Philip Glass score? — and build a modern thriller that explores the horror baked into America’s cycles of racial violence, economic exploitation and burying the evidence. Whether a viewer comes away feeling righteous revenge or stomach-churning guilt depends on what they brought into the theater with them.

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‘Candyman’

★★★★

Opens Friday, August 27, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for bloody horror violence, and language including some sexual references. Running time: 91 minutes.