A King-sized miniseries that features a clown named Pennywise highlights our list of what to watch this week, along with Ethan Hawke’s star turn as a Broadway legend and a Kelly Reichardt art heist movie, “The Mastermind.”
Here is our roundup.
“It: Welcome to Derry”: HBO’s long-gestating prequel to “It” and “It Chapter Two,” based on Stephen King’s mammoth 1986 novel, makes for ideal Halloween viewing. The eight-part series (five episodes of which were made available for review) inflicts a serious case of the heebie-jeebies and is generally good, despite a couple of glitches, and expands upon King’s bloody commentary about the power and nature of fear and how it can cripple and manifest into something supremely evil.
Developed by “It” filmmaking alums Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs along with Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane as its co-showrunners, “Welcome to Derry” knows the King canon ever so well and that’s its greatest asset, taunting fans to on an Easter Egg-filled chase through King’s macabre imagination.
It effectively re-creates the surging hysteria playing out in the small Maine town of Derry — one of King’s favorite haunts — during the ‘60s with the omnipresent threat posed by the Cold War and the Cuban Missile crisis. Everyone is on tenterhooks and preparing for something wicked to come and it does, while blame gets placed on anyone away from the white-picket-fence crowd.
Those potent elements give “Welcome to Derry” a sharp edge while also giving us a King staple: a batch of intrepid yet vulnerable pre-teens — all clown bait for Pennywise (big teeth and all, he appears, of course) — who confront their bullies and fears and have horrific encounters of the gruesome kind.
It’s ghoulish fun to see it all play out, but “Welcome to Derry’s” ambition sometimes outstrips its execution. The special effects can look corny and the story overloads us with too many characters. But each are given King-sized personalities, such as a newbie Black family that gets constant stares from neighbors — a by-the-book airman Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo ), his activist, take-charge wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige) and their science-loving son Will (Blake Cameron James).
Not long after they move in, each realizes the town is festering with secrets pointing to a legacy of evil which rears its ugly head in so-called safe spaces — a bathtub drain, a family car, a neon-lit grocery store (the film’s best set piece) and so on.
You don’t have to be a King fan to enjoy this, but it helps. What his massive audience will appreciate is getting reacquainted with MVP memorable characters — including Bill Halloran from “The Shining” — while revisiting the Shawshank prison and the Juniper Hill Asylum again.
It is that love and respect for King’s decades-long literary contributions, along with some truly terrifying bits, that make “Derry” a special treat and an oh-so creepy addition to King’s storied career — on film and in novels. Details: 3 stars; first episode drops at 9 p.m. Oct. 26 — and it’s a doozy — with a new episode every Sunday through Dec. 14.
“Blue Moon”: Ethan Hawke transforms his tall self into talented but bitter and boozed-up Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s chamber piece, a treasure chest filled with zippy lines all delivered by a priceless cast. Make no mistake, this is Hawke’s magic hour, portraying a creative type who is often his own worst enemy. The film centers on an uneasy evening in the life of Hart, and begins with him ponying up to a popular Broadway haunt in which he’s greeted with the all too familiar face of bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale, effortlessly genuine in the part). Hart starts nursing a bunch of drinks as we learn his fragile ego is taking a big hit over the raves greeting a new musical titled “Oklahoma!,” created by his onetime partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott). There’s more than just a whiff of a desperation to Hart’s fixation on Rodgers as he snidely opines about his ex-partner’s smashing success — not to his face, of course — at a post-show party at New York restaurant/bar hotspot Sardi’s. He’s somewhat distracted when the entrancing Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley) — his friend and endless infatuation — appears. Hart, who is gay, has carried quite the torch for the unattainable Elizabeth whose eyes shine ever so brightly when she meets opportunity itself in the form of Rodgers. While “Blue Moon” will surely be most enjoyed by theater kids, both then and now, the juicy screenplay from Robert Kaplow and performances, primarily Hawke’s, give everyone something to savor and remember. Details: 3 stars; opens Oct. 24 in theaters.
“The Mastermind”: In her observant, character-driven indie films, Kelly Reichardt (“First Cow,” “Showing Up”) brings a painterly eye to fill out her canvas with rich details — the clothing, the art in the foreground and background, a sign, and so on, all of which lead to a vibrant portrait of a time, a place, a character. With “The Mastermind,” starring Josh O’Connor in another sublime performance, she manages to apply a fresh coat of paint to the art heist movie. It’s a genre that would seem to be rather one-note, but “The Mastermind” sounds many notes. With its leisurely pace — a Reichardt trademark — “Mastermind” fuses Reichardt’s passion for the art world with her love of nonconformist lead characters. It’s an incisive 1970s-set character study about rudderless Massachusetts native J.B. (O’Connor). He’s married and has two kids — but has one hell of a time figuring out what to do with his life, to the dismay of everyone, especially his dad, who’s a judge. As more people around his age take umbrage, J.B. comes up with a rebellious plan and it begins by his filching a small figurine at the Framingham Museum of Art. From there, he devises a grander plan, stealing four pieces of Arthur Dove artwork. But as with much of what J.B. aspires to do, it’s not entirely well thought-out and is far from foolproof. “The Mastermind” rejiggers how heist movies tell their story and is intent on showing the foibles of a misguided, clueless soul. Reichardt again hands a stable of great actors — Gaby Hoffmann, John Magaro, Bill Camp, Hope Davis — interesting supporting characters. But this is O’Connor’s film and he once again gives a masterful performance in a film that while not a masterpiece is a striking piece of art. Details: 3½ stars; opens Oct. 24 in theaters.
“Dream Eater”: Indie horror films shot on the cheap and relying on jittery hand-held camerawork might well be turning passe, but this Eli Roth-backed remote rental house in the snowy Minnesota woods stakes a claim that there is still life to be had in this overworked found-footage genre. In this effective, no-nonsense chiller, a couple – one with an escalating form of parasomnia (a sleep disturbance that leads to fugue-like sleep walking) – seek and don’t get some R&R together and wind up arguing more and getting more agitated as freaky things start to happen. Directed and written by Jay Drakulic (who stars as boyfriend Alex) Mallory Drumm (as girlfriend Mallory) and Alex Lee Williams, “Dream Eater” hardly rewrites the found footage book, but it does know how to tell a good and quick little campfire story that features an ominous whistle that gave me a chill or two. Details: 2½ stars; opens Oct. 24 in select theaters.
“The Monster of Florence”: One of Italy’s most notorious serial killer cases turns into a shocking, riveting four-part Netflix series that takes one unexpected development after another and shuffles more suspects than an Agatha Christie mystery. But the Grand Dame of the mystery novel wouldn’t have dreamt up such a lurid and disturbing crime. Stefano Sollima (best known for the “Suburra” film and TV series) juggles family loyalties and secrets, sexual violence, repressed sexuality, machismo and much more perhaps while exploring a killing spree that ran from 1968 to 1985. All of the eight double murders were couples having sex in vehicles. The cast is good but it’s the shock-a-minute story that makes this hard to shake off. Details: 3 stars; now available on Netflix.
“The Perfect Neighbor”: Geeta Gandbhir’s gut punch of a documentary culls police-cam footage to chronologically chart a 2022 Florida standoff between a white neighbor with deteriorating sanity and a single Black mom with children. The gun-owning Susan Lorincz isolates and relentlessly harasses and targets Ajike Owens’ family, calling police countless times about such infractions as kids playing on the lawn and them just being kids. Ganbhir’s heartbreaking film is all the more powerful for letting the footage illustrate how it snowballed into something far more. It’s a tough but important watch that sounds the alarm on a number of issues – racism, gun ownership and mental health, to name a few. Details: 3½ stars; available on Netflix)
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.