A “Pray for America” sticker is on the kitchen door of Erin and Mike Young’s home in Sunbury, Ohio, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, where they live with their three adopted children, Lucas, 8, Gianna, 7, and Isaac, 5. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
But watching dozens of mobsters run like heck when police happen upon their gathering is a hoot, and it’s hard to beat the moment when two of them insist to suspicious cops: “We’re hunters!”If only such witty moments were more frequent in a two-hour movie that somehow, alas, feels much longer.
“The Alto Knights,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association “for violence and pervasive language.” Running time: 120 minutes. Two stars out of four.Surely, bringing an audience to tears with a poignant ending is something every filmmaker dreams of.And yet the moment that inspires a genuine, unambiguous tear in “Rust” is born of
“...for Halyna,” the screen reads as the film comes to a close.name also appears in Ukrainian. And we’re given a favored quote from the late cinematographer: “What can we do to make this better?”
Just as there’s no way to make this film’s offscreen history any better, there’s no way to write a normal review of a movie that is anything but.
has inevitably and inexorably become synonymous with tragedy: Hutchins’ shocking death during an on-set rehearsal, when producer-star Alec Baldwin pointed a pistol at her that somehow contained a live round. It discharged, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.But Shula, portrayed by Susan Chardy, does not behave in a way that we would expect. She doesn’t cry out in horror or appear the least bit upset or shocked by the sight. Instead, we sit there with her in silence, her in sunglasses and a silver helmeted mask adorned with sparkling rhinestones. Shula looks straight out of a music video as she stares off into the distance. This, we realize quickly, is going to be a thing. At the very least, it’s an inconvenience, ripping her out of her independent life and back into the throes of her traditional family, their patriarchal ways and all their crippling secrets.
This is the opening scene of “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,”darkly comedic, stylish and hauntingly bizarre portrait of a Zambian family funeral. It is perhaps the first great film of 2025 — though it’s technically been awaiting its moment in the United States since 2024. It premiered last year at the
and has already had a run in the U.K.to have something this great in the cinemas to shake audiences out of their end-of-the-road awards contender boredom. What better way to do it than with something so different, so vibrant and so unforgettable as “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” only the second feature from the self-taught filmmaker.