‘Black Crab’
Stream it on Netflix.
For many fans, the girl with the dragon tattoo will always be Noomi Rapace. In the decade since she portrayed goth hacker Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film trilogy, Rapace has forged a thriving international career that relies heavily on thrillers and science fiction. Now, she is back in her native land with this war film, set in a dystopian future, in which the conflict in Ukraine suddenly finds a tragic contemporary resonance. Rapace’s Caroline Edh is a soldier so badass that she is asked to join a small unit tasked with ferrying supersecret, super critical canisters on ice skates. He agrees, but not because he’s a patriot: Caroline is told that in a camp on the other side of the vast frozen expanse she has her daughter, who had been kidnapped years earlier.
The plot is fairly basic, but the film benefits from two formidable assets. The first, of course, is Rapace, who like few others can suggest steely determination. The second is Adam Berg’s confident direction. All the scenery on the ice is absolutely spectacular – sometimes insanely beautiful and sometimes, well, chilling – and the sound design is so richly developed you’ll want to watch with headphones on. Let’s hope Berg and Rapace team up again.
‘American refugee’
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
This futuristic, or futuristic-ish, thriller has a pedigree singularity enough to attract attention: The film is co-produced by Blumhouse, best known for its horror fare, and directed by Ali Leroi. Who created the sitcom “Everybody Hates Chris”. Chris Rock. Maybe that’s why “American Refugee” can’t decide what story it wants to tell, or how.
But there’s a bigger reason to watch anyway, and that’s Erica Alexander.
Still most famous as the star of the 1990s series “Living Single,” Alexander is making an official appearance as Helen Taylor, an obstetrician. (Her job plays a key role in the plot.) Derek Luke’s marriage to Greg is going through a rocky patch, which is not helped by the United States crashing into catastrophic economic failure that in turn spirals civil unrest. has changed in
As the country collapses (citing the inevitable montage of alarming news reports), Taylor and her children must flee the home invaders. They find shelter on the premises of their prepper neighbor, Winter (Sam Trammell, not nearly as dangerous enough). Since then the film pretty much abandons the entire financial-apocalypse setup to focus on single-location suspense.
As an action film, “American Refugee” comes up short. Where it gets much more interesting, as a look at masculinity in times of social recession, is a pair of men doing their best to prove their worth as they feel threatened by the power and autonomy of the women in their lives. Science fiction? barely.
‘Captain Nova’
Stream it on Netflix.
With the Earth of the future a nearly uninhabited wasteland, Nova (Anick Pfeiffer) is sent back in time to stop the chain of events that is destroying the world. There’s a glitch, though: Nova turns 25 years younger after her journey, so for most of the film she’s an intense, Greta Thunberg-like 12-year-old girl (Kika van de Vijver). With the help of her new friend Nas (Marouane Meftah), Nova sets out to change the course of history. While this Dutch family film about a pint-size eco-warrior has a cute little robot, its overall approach is pretty grim; This is not “spy kids vs climate change”. (It figures that the Dutch version of the “Terminator” premise will be about an ecological apocalypse rather than a robot rebellion.) It’s nice to have a story appropriate for kids that doesn’t sugarcoat its message, though parents have to be prepared. Might need some heavy-handed conversation after watching. And that’s not a bad thing in our current circumstances.
‘The Blazing World’
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
Carlson Young’s debut feature is that rare film: the product of what feels like a personal, obsessive vision. You can see the traces of Peter Strickland (“The Duke of Burgundy”) and Dario Argento in the strange world she mixes. Young herself plays Margaret Winter, a troubled young woman who has never recovered from the death of her twin sister when they were little girls. Margaret feels like she’s nowhere to be found, at least with her feisty parents (Dermot Mulroney and Vinessa Shaw). Eventually, he finds a purpose in a series of fictional trials conducted by Lend (the singular German actor Udo Keir is doing the weirdo very well), the film’s answer to the ghost king of the “maze”.
Mixing science-fiction, horror and fantasy, the film deals with overcoming trauma and growing up. It’s a fairly familiar theme, but “The Blazing World” itself has a distinctive touch, emphasized by ambitious production design and a provocative score by Foster the People keyboardist Isom Innis.
‘Madelines’
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
Director Jason Richard Miller has a lot of fun with this low-budget, high-concept time-travel film that’s as wacky as it is. Funded by an avuncular mentor (Richard Rihley), Madeline (Bray Grant) and Owen (Parry Shane) are building a time machine in their garage. Madeline decides to test her invention personally because she does not want to sacrifice another animal after the bloody end of a test mouse. (By then the film has barely passed the 10-minute mark, as Miller has no interest in the exposition or the back story; it’s refreshing.) Madeline inadvertently creates a loop that generates dozens and dozens of versions of herself. does, one of which has materiality. Garden at the same time every day. Since two versions of a person cannot coexist, Owen, using an array of inventive tools, must slay each new Madeline as she pops up. The 1980s-style synth score announces a comic tone from the start, and much of the film’s humor is received entirely by the irreverent way in which Madeline and Owen handle their situation: time travel, of course. possible! Of course a man has to kill his wife over and over again! Of course Madeline turns deadly! Like a flamboyant lo-fi band, the film runs on a devil-may-care energy that keeps the audience from taking anything too seriously.
