Review: 'Late Night With the Devil' is a '70s horror throwback that shifts from unsettling to disturbing

The horror artifact “Late Night With the Devil” shows the advantages of fully committing to one’s premise — which, in this case, is a faithful re-creation of a ‘70s late-night talk show where, literally, all hell breaks loose.

Australian writing-directing brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes start with some backstory (narrated by Michael Ironside), of how Chicago radio host Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian) was picked in 1971 to host a nationally broadcast late-night talk show meant to challenge the reign of Johnny Carson. 

Try as he might, though, Jack can’t dethrone the king. Changing from celebrity interviews to shock-jock freak show stuff doesn’t move the needle. Not even a 1977 episode featuring Jack’s cancer-stricken wife, Madeleine (Georgina Haig), just two weeks before her death, is enough to overtake Carson’s ratings.

After that prologue, we’re told that we’re going to see the only videotape of the original broadcast of the show, “Night Owls,” when Jack returned to the air shortly after Madeleine’s death. It’s Halloween night, 1977, and Jack and his sleazy producer, Leo (Josh Quong Tart), have booked a Vegas mentalist, Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), and a magician-turned-skeptic, Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), eager to prove that Christou’s a fraud. 

Carmichael is clearly modeled on James “The Amazing” Randi, the illusionist who went on Carson to debunk the claims of mentalist Uri Geller. Carmichael, like Randi, offers a six-figure check to anyone who can show the existence of anything paranormal that Carmichael’s skeptical science can’t prove to be phony. (I tell you, “The Tonight Show” back in the day had some cool guests, not just Jimmy Fallon’s party games.)

The sniping between Christou and Carmichael takes a nasty turn when the mentalist says he senses some unusual psychic energy — and then bad stuff starts happening. By then, though, Jack has moved forward with his big “get”: Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), who brings on the subject of her latest book, Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), the 13-year-old sole survivor of house fire that destroyed a devil-worshipping madman (Steve Mouzakis). 

June — whom, we quickly surmise, Jack has been dating — says she has proof that Lilly is possessed, and Jack wants to see it revealed live on his show. This being a horror movie, one can guess that things go wrong. But how wrong, and with what disturbing results, is where this inventive movie really surprises.

Long before the reveal, the Cairnes brothers show themselves to be masterful stylists. They capture the mood and production design of a ‘70s talk show, from the Naugahyde chairs to the smarmy sidekick (Rhys Auteri). Our attention becomes so fixed on those period details that we forget, momentarily, that we’re in a horror movie — until the blood starts to appear.

Anchoring “Late Night With the Devil” is Dastmalchian, a reliably unsettling supporting player (in the “Ant-Man” movies and “Dune, Part One,” among many films) who really shines in the lead role here. Dastmalchian conveys the creeping unease Jack feels as his TV career is circling the drain, which is nearly as terrifying as the horrors his show is about to unleash on America. 

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‘Late Night With the Devil’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 22, in theaters; starts streaming April 19 on Shudder. Rated R for violent content, some gore, and language including a sexual reference. Running time: 93 minutes.

Review: 'Problemista' is loaded with ideas and overstuffed with whimsy, but Tilda Swinton almost saves it

There’s a habit some first-time filmmakers fall into, particularly when they’re not so sure of their talents like director/writer/star Julio Torres is in his comedy “Problemista,” that they cram every idea they ever had into their first movie, because they’re not sure they’re going to get a second one.

Torres, a former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” plays Alejandro, who has come to New York from his home in El Salvador with a dream to make toys for Hasbro. He has a notebook full of offbeat ideas, like creating cellphones for Cabbage Patch Dolls, but can’t get the folks running Hasbro’s internship program to give him a shot. To satisfy his visa requirements, he has a job monitoring the tube holding an artist, Bobby (RZA), frozen in a cryogenic chamber.

When Alejandro innocently, and very briefly, unplugs the chamber, the cryogenic lab fires him. Now, as his immigration caseworker tells him, the clock is ticking — he has 30 days to secure a new job, and find a sponsor who will sign his paperwork, or he will be deported back to El Salvador and his toy-making dreams will end. 

After exploring several options, including the glitter-covered dumpster that is Craigslist, Alejandro comes to believe his only shot at saving his visa is working for Bobby’s wife, Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), a flighty art critic who has a plan to pay the rent on Bobby’s cryogenic chamber by mounting a gallery show of Bobby’s paintings — all beautifully rendered pictures of eggs. It doesn’t take long for Alejandro to see that Elizabeth is demanding to the point of insanity; a former assistant refers to her as the Hydra, because if you solve one of her problems, two more grow in its place.

As a writer, Torres has a dry, absurdist humor, particularly when tackling such topics as the pretensions of the art world and Elizabeth’s refusal to deal maturely with a woman (played by “Past Lives” star Greta Lee) with whom Bobby once had a dalliance. As a director, Torres suggests the whimsical imagery that Wes Anderson would make if he were a gay Salvadoran working with a budget of a buck-fifty. And as an actor, he’s one of the most annoying screen presences I’ve seen in a long time.

Swinton’s fire-and-ice performance nearly rescues the whole enterprise. In a magenta fright wig and a wardrobe that conjures an image of someone walking into a closet and coming out wearing the first six things they touched, Swinton captures Elizabeth’s erratic entitlement perfectly. Torres tries to match Swinton’s mad energy with his whimsical visuals, but he can never keep up.

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‘Problemista’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 22, in theaters. Rated R for some language and sexual content. Running time: 104 minutes.

Review: 'Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire' is all callbacks to the franchise's past glories, with little to make it memorable on its own

There are plenty of movies — “The Sixth Sense” and “The Others” come to mind — where the central figures are ghosts who don’t know that they’re dead, which makes me wonder: Can a movie franchise be like that? 

Based on the evidence of “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” the franchise started 40 years ago by writers Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman has passed over into the Great Beyond of moviedom and hasn’t figured it out yet.

This new movie picks up shortly after the events of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.” Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her kids — Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), now 18, and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), now 15 — have moved to New York and are living in the old firehouse that was the headquarters of the original Ghostbusters. They share the living quarters with Phoebe’s science teacher, Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who’s now Callie’s boyfriend and awkwardly auditioning for the role of Phoebe and Trevor’s stepdad.

Early on, we get a chase sequence that sets up the family dynamic: Gary’s driving the Ecto-1 through Manhattan streets, Callie’s navigating in the front seat, Trevor’s in back maneuvering a ghost trap on an RC car, and Phoebe’s again in the side gunner seat, shooting her proton pack at whatever phantom they’re after.

After one such chase causes some damage through the streets, our new Ghostbusters team is accosted by another familiar character: Walter Peck (William Atherton). The movie never explains how a meddling EPA inspector — the one who shut down the OG ‘busters in the first movie — managed to convince a majority of New York’s voters to elect him mayor, especially when he’s the same emasculated jerk he always was.

As a result of Peck’s lecturing — and child labor laws — Phoebe gets benched. She’s bummed about this, and finds consolation when she befriends a teen ghost, Melody (Emily Alyn Lind, from “Doctor Sleep”). Meanwhile, Callie and Gary check in with their benefactor, original Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) and his assistant, Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts), about the stability of the firehouse’s ghost containment unit, which hasn’t been upgraded since Callie’s dad, the late Egon Spengler (Ramis’ character), built it.

Meanwhile — and there’s a lot of “meanwhile” before the script (by director Gil Kenan and the last movie’s director, Jason Reitman) finally kicks into gear — Ackroyd’s Ray Stantz is making paranormal YouTube content with Phoebe’s pal from Oklahoma, Podcast (Logan Kim). Then a stranger, Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani) brings in a mysterious artifact: A brass orb with incredible spectral energy. The orb is taken to Winston’s secret lab, where Trevor’s high-school pal Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) now works.

If it seems like the synopsis above is just a recitation of names of characters from the franchise’s history, you have zeroed in on the movie’s main problem: It’s almost nothing but references. It’s an hour before one major character shows up, and nearly 90 minutes before someone (Patton Oswalt) identifies the movie’s villain.

If one were to strip away the callbacks to Slimer and the walking Statue of Liberty — everything from all the previous films except for the 2016 movie, whose lady Ghostbusters have been memory-holed to appease the “you ruined my childhood” mob — this two-hour movie probably would clock in around 20 minutes.

As happened in “Afterlife,” the most genuine moments of “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” center on Grace’s Phoebe, as she reconciles the perils of adolescence with the responsibility of being heir to her grandfather’s paranormal genius. If this franchise can come back from the dead, it will be because someone lets Phoebe strike out on her own adventures. I know some women Ghostbusters who could give her a hand.

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‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’

★1/2

Opens Friday, March 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for supernatural action/violence, language and suggestive references. Running time: 115 minutes.

Review: 'Love Lies Bleeding' is a hot-and-heavy noir thriller, with Kristen Stewart and newcomer Katy O'Brian showing steaming chemistry

“Steamy” barely begins to describe the heat on display in “Love Lies Bleeding,” a deliciously devilish slice of lesbian noir from director Rose Glass — that showcases one of our best actors, Kristen Stewart, and an appealing newcomer in Katy O’Brian.

Stewart plays Lou, who’s living her days in 1989 working at a gym in New Mexico, a lonely existence of cleaning out toilets and wiping down barbells. She would love to get out of New Mexico, away from her mobster father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), who owns the gym. But if Lou left, there would be no one to protect her older sister, Beth (Jena Malone), who’s regularly abused by her scum bucket of a husband, JJ (Dave Franco).

Something needs to happen to shake up the status quo, and that something is Jackie (played by O’Brian), who’s hitchhiking across the Southwest to get to Las Vegas — where she plans to compete in a body-building tournament. Jackie is a survivor, which is apparent when we first see her, having sex in a car with JJ, who promises to introduce her to Lou Sr.. Lou Sr. gives Jackie a job as a waitress at the gun range he owns, which injects a whole mess of Chekhov’s guns into the story.

When Jackie enters the gym, the sparks between her and Lou are abundant. Lou becomes smitten enough that she offers Jackie a place to stay and access to some steroids that were left behind by somebody at the gym. An extremely hot romance ensues, and too late Lou discovers that Jackie has a dark side — one that results in a murder that Lou is happy to help cover up, which brings more complications to the couple and to Lou Sr.’s operation.

Glass, who explored body horror and religious obsession in her 2019 debut “Saint Maud,” finds love and pumping iron to be equally powerful obsessions — and a good way to explore more horrors, particularly as Jackie has episodes that bring out the beast in her. Her eye is impeccable, and each frame burns in the retinas with passion and violent beauty.

O’Brian, who’s had recurring roles in “The Mandalorian,” is quite a discovery, capturing a tortured, gentle soul within a sleek, muscular body that could crush bones. Stewart, who seems to be capable of anything, imbues Lou with the battered heart of a woman who’s been singed by love before but is willing to jump into the flames for Jackie. Their scenes together crackle with energy, a meeting not just of bodies but of spirits. And watch for Anna Baryshnikov, who’s delightful and chilling as Daisy, Lou’s mischief-making ex.

The ending of “Love Lies Bleeding” is a strange one, as Glass and her co-writer, Weronika Tofilska, explore mythology and a little fantasy in ways that will divide audiences (as they did at Sundance this year). The ending hit me right in the sweet spot, combining gritty noir with a splash of magical realism for some emotionally raw but stylistically perfect moments. 

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‘Love Lies Bleeding’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 15, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violence and grisly images, sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use. Running time: 104 minutes.

Review: 'Arthur the King' combines Mark Wahlberg's bravado and one dynamic dog in an entertaining adventure package

“Arthur the King” is an entertaining enough adventure yarn about a shaggy, scruffy creature who barks and growls while scrapping through the jungles of the Dominican Republic.

That’s the character played by Mark Wahlberg. The movie is also about a dog.

Wahlberg plays Mikael Lindnord, an adventure racer — one of the best of a particular type of racing, in which teams of four trek through rough terrain to hit a series of checkpoints using bicycles, kayaks and foot power. When the movie introduces us to Mikael, he’s racing through Costa Rica in a 2015 race, where his stubbornness maroons the team on the first day of the five-day event. (It should be noted that, in real life, Lindnord is Swedish — and the film doesn’t even pretend that Wahlberg can play that.)

Cut to three years later, and Mikael is desperate to run the Adventure Racing World Championship one more time, to win the title that has always eluded him. He convinces his wife, Helena (Juliet Rylance), a former racer who retired to raise their daughter, and talks a sponsor into bankrolling him. Now he must assemble his team.

He first enlists his longtime navigator, Chik (Ali Suliman), who agrees even though his knee hasn’t fully healed from a career of racing. He then finds a young climber, Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel, from the “Fast & Furious” series), who is persuaded by her father (Oscar Best), a former racer. And lastly Mikael must cajole his former teammate, Leo (Simu Liu), who’s more interested in entertaining his social-media following than winning races.

While all this is happening, director Simon Cellan Jones (who directed Wahlberg’s Apple TV+ action comedy “The Family Plan”) and screenwriter Michael Brandt (creator of NBC’s “One Chicago” shows) intercut with scenes of a rather bedraggled mutt on the streets of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. How the dog’s story intersects with Mikael’s team doesn’t reveal itself for a little while, and only when the race is well underway.

Jones and Brandt get into some intense detail of how adventure racing works — like stressing how they don’t care how you get from one transition point to the next, allowing teams to find shortcuts that often intensify the race. This leads to the movie’s most spectacular sequence, in which Wahlberg and Emmanuel are shown navigating a rickety zip line while lugging their mountain bikes.

The action sequences are nicely balanced by decent interaction by the actors — particularly with Liu’s arrogant Leo learning humility from the determined dog. It’s an effective enough narrative that by the time we get to the finale, which requires Wahlberg to get emotional with the dog, a viewer may just surrender to the sentimentality. 

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‘Arthur the King’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 15, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some strong language. Running time: 105 minutes.

Review: 'Io Capitano' lets viewers see the harrowing journey of African migrants to Europe — and confronts us with their humanity

Roger Ebert’s maxim, that movies are “a machine that creates empathy,” is embodied in its truest sense in “Io Capitano,” director Matteo Garrone’s stunningly realized story of one immigrant’s harrowing journey. (It’s one of the nominees for the Academy Award in the International Film category.)

Seydou (played by newcomer Seydou Sarr) is 16, living with his mom (Khady Sy) and many sisters in Senegal. He sometimes sneaks away from the house to join his cousin, Moussa (Moustapha Fall), to work the occasional construction jobs — and then take the money earned and stash it. 

What they’ve made in six months, Moussa tells Seydou, is enough to pay for their passage from Senegal to Europe, where they believe they will find a better life.  And even though Seydou’s mother forbids Seydou from making the trip, Seydou and Moussa head out anyway, intent on crossing half of Africa to get to the Mediterranean.

The trip starts on a crowded bus, then in the back of a pickup truck bounding over hills so fast that one migrant falls off and is left behind. More are left for dead on the next leg, walking across the dunes of the Sahara. Those who make it this far then run into a new danger: Libyan gangsters holding them for ransom. And so on, to the final part of the journey — crossing the Mediterranean in a broken-down boat with an engine spewing toxic smoke.

The audience, like Seydou, has no idea what’s going to happen next during his journey. We soon feel every bit of the fear he’s feeling, as well as the humility when he meets the occasional friendly person who would rather help than exploit him. And we watch as Seydou figures out that he must grow up in a hurry, because it’s not just his life that’s on the line.

Garrone — familiar to fans of Italian film for his 2008 Mafia epic “Gomorrah” and his 2017 take on “Pinocchio” (with Roberto Benigni as Geppetto) — and his team of writers seep viewers in the tiny details of this tortuous migration (like how most Senegalese teen boys wear very worn European soccer jerseys). Garrone also mixes in moments of magical realism that show us how Seydou try to process the hell he’s enduring.

“Io Capitano” shows us the humanity of those migrants desperate enough, because of oppression or economics, to risk their lives to make such a trip. After too many seasons where the word “immigrant” is a label on undifferentiated figures in a news story or a hate-filled punchline in a political speech, Garrone’s greatest service is the bracing reminder that these are people just like us.

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‘Io Capitano’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 8, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably R for violence, language and perilous situations. Running time: 122 minutes; in Wolof and French, with subtitles. 

Review: 'Kung Fu Panda 4' brings back Jack Black for martial-arts laughs, but without the surprise and visual boldness of the first three films

It’s been 16 years since audiences first met the roly-poly Po in “Kung Fu Panda,” and eight years since we saw him last in the third installment — so it’s a mild disappointment that the latest chapter, “Kung Fu Panda 4,” isn’t all that special.

Oh, it’s fine, entertaining and energetic, and Jack Black still is giving his all in providing the friendly voice to the franchise’s unlikely hero. But the visual boldness and verbal wit of the first three installments is a bit lacking. 

Black’s Po is enjoying being the Dragon Warrior, the local hero in the Valley of Peace. Po’s mentor, the red panda Shifu (voiced by Dustin Hoffman), is none too happy that he’s using the staff of wisdom, the jade emblem handed down by Shifu’s master, Oogway, to cut the ribbon for a new restaurant being opened by Po’s adopted goose father, Mr. Ping (voiced by the apparently immortal James Hong). 

Shifu tells Po it’s time for him to choose his successor, and take his next step in his journey — to become the valley’s spiritual leader. Po is hesitant, because he’s unsure he can fulfill that destiny, and because he’s having fun kicking butt as the Dragon Warrior. 

As he’s walking through the Jade Temple, Po catches a thieving gray fox, Zhen (voiced by Awkwafina), and throws her in jail. But when Po learns that Tai Lung (voiced by Ian McShane), his nemesis from the first movie, has seemingly returned from the spirit realm. The truth, which is more threatening, is that a shape-shifting sorceress, the Chameleon (voiced by Viola Davis), is seeking to expand her empire — so Po must go face her, aided by the one creature who knows the Chameleon’s movements: Zhen. (You could have guessed, right?)

Director Mike Mitchell (“Trolls,” “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part”) and co-director Stephanie Ma Stine create some eye-grabbing martial-arts animation and squeeze plenty of laughs from the script (by Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger, who co-wrote the first one, and Darren Lemke). Some of the best gags are the throwaway bits, like the weak cheers Chameleon’s pummeled guards give when she accomplishes something. 

As the movie progresses through its emotional beats, its subplot involving the partnership between Mr. Ping and Po’s panda dad, Li (voiced by Bryan Cranston), and its menagerie of comical side characters, it’s hard to shake the feeling that we’ve been here before. 

That’s not something one usually says about a “Kung Fu Panda” movie, because the series has had a strong run of visual inventiveness and cross-cultural artistry as it melds dynamic animation to martial-arts movement. So consider “Kung Fu Panda 4” a pleasant curtain call, and a chance for the franchise to stop before it runs out of steam.

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‘Kung Fu Panda 4’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 8, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for martial arts violence, scary images and some mild rude humor. Running time: 94 minutes.

Review: 'Dune: Part Two' delivers epic scale, visual wonders, powerhouse performances — and a tantalizing hint that there's more to come

When a cynical movie fan looks at a classic epic and says “they don’t make ‘em like that any more,” one can point to “Dune: Part Two” and say that they do — by combining stunning visuals, complex characters and a story that moves with ferocious action and carries meaningful themes, all under the sure hand of director Denis Villeneuve.

A quick refresher, if you don’t have time to see Villeneuve’s first chapter of this adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction classic: In the year 10,191, two great houses — the noble Atreides and the villainous Harkonnens — maneuver for power, in the form of the hallucinogenic spice that gives navigators the ability to fold space and make interstellar travel possible. The only source of the spice is the desert planet Arrakis.

In the first part, the Atreides family takes command of the colony on Arrakis, hoping to make an alliance with the indigenous Fremen, who have adapted to the desert and to the spice. But Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) has laid a trap to destroy the Atreides army, and to kill Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac). The duke’s mistress, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), and their son, Paul (Timothée Chalamet), escape the attack and are saved by the Fremen. (Really, just go watch Part One; it’s streaming on Max.)

Part Two picks up with Jessica and young Paul quickly adapting to Fremen life — which includes listening to their tribal leader, Stilgar (Javier Bardem), tell everyone that Paul is the fulfillment of a prophecy of a messiah who will take the Fremen to paradise. Stilgar’s kinswoman, Chani (Zendaya), and many of her generation distrust the prophecy, thinking it’s a way for the great houses to continue to enslave the locals.

Chani’s not too far off. The manipulative sisters of the Bene Gesserit have been planting these prophecy stories across the galaxy — and Jessica, a member of the order, isn’t above using those stories to keep Paul and her unborn child alive. Paul is wary of such stories, because he sees himself in his nightmares,  leading armies and starting a genocidal holy war.

Meanwhile, Baron Harkonnen puts his nephew, Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista), in charge of Arrakis’ spice production — and when he can’t handle the Fremen guerrilla assaults, the Baron sends in his other nephew, the psychotic Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler). All of this is observed by the Emperor (Christopher Walken) and her daughter, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), a student of the Bene Gesserit’s Reverend Mother Mohaim (Charlotte Rampling).

That’s a lot of characters to keep track of — and I haven’t even mentioned Paul’s old combat tutor, Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), and another sister, Lady Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux). But Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts delineate the characters and their relationships with economical storytelling and fluid pacing, so it’s difficult to get overwhelmed by the plot. 

The look is sweeping, as the Fremen show their skill at riding the massive sandworms — oh, man, the worms — that populate Arrakis. As impressively eye-popping as the worms are, there’s also a jaw-dropping sequence on the Harkonnen’s monochromatic home world.

In the lead role, Chalamet grows into a full-fledged leading man. No longer the child of “Call Me By Your Name” or the man-child of “Wonka,” Chalamet deftly portrays Paul’s evolution from novice freedom fighter to shrewd leader, someone who understands the danger of his messianic persona but isn’t afraid to use it to achieve his ends.

So many of the supporting cast deserve special mention, from Bautista’s impotent raging to Bardem’s world-weary true believer and Butler’s dead-eyed portrayal of ravenous evil. (And if you thought Butler’s Elvis Presley impression was good in “Elvis,” his vocal imitation of Skarsgard here is better.)

But the biggest weight in “Dune: Part Two” is carried, powerfully and gracefully, by Zendaya, who must portray Paul’s love interest and embody the movie’s moral dilemma — between freedom and colonialism, between love and duty. 

Zendaya is also the pivot point for the movie’s ending, which ends with the idea that the story isn’t done. There is the unmistakeable feeling that Part Two is the equivalent of “The Empire Strikes Back,” the narratively denser and emotionally darker section of the trilogy. If Villeneuve makes good on his recent talk of making a third movie (based on Herbert’s sequel, “Dune Messiah”), “Dune: Part Two” is the downpayment that tells us it’s going to be spectacular.

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‘Dune: Part Two’

★★★★

Opens Friday, March 1, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material and brief strong language. Running time: 166 minutes.