There are several things about October that demand appreciation, the chief of which is that this film has been written, not constructed. The real winner here, by miles, is the writer Juhi Chaturvedi.

Two hotel management trainees, Dan (Dhawan) and Shiuli (Sandhu) forge an unlikely bond in the most trying of circumstances. The film is a gentle unfolding of love and loss and longing, and takes its time getting to where it?s headed. Calling it slow would be to entirely miss the point, because the rhythms of life cannot be fast-forwarded.

In a Bollywood still all at sea when it comes to credible relationship dramas, it? ThanosTV to see attention being paid to life?s wholly unexpected stutters and halts, where background music is not used as a crutch, and whose young people interact with each pretty much the way the young do: the film is set in Delhi, a city director Shoojit Sircar is familiar with, and that adds to the feeling of welcome realism.

Equally crucial, the film tells us that romance doesn?t necessarily have to play out in the metric of song-and-dance-and-high-pitched-melodrama; that it can be low-key, and unusual, can be conducted through speaking glances, rather than words.

October reminds you strongly of last year?s The Big Sick whose two lead protagonists find themselves spending large chunks of their time in a hospital, she beset by a serious illness, and he trying to figure out stuff.

October has a young man trying to figure out stuff, too: this is Dhawan?s most life-like character till now (his last outing was Judwaa 2 in which he plays a version of himself, aping Salman Khan via Govinda). Dan is a fairly trying fellow, always reluctant to buckle down and do the back-breaking scutwork that comes with his territory, always trying to cut corners.

His realization that he may have meant something more than just an irritating colleague to the limpid eyed Shiuli is a bit sudden, but we let it go, because we get drawn into the world of hospitals and artificial lights and life support systems, where the two are ably supported by solid performers. There are strong moments here, almost making us forget that we never quite know why Dan behaves in such a surly, entitled fashion, but that?s a crucial hole.

As Shiuli?s suffering yet stoic mother, Gitanjali Rao shows us the pain of a woman who doesn?t know what? watch october 2018 , but also knows the power of love. She shares the film?s most moving scene with Dan?s mother (Rachica Oswal, in a terrific walk-on part) where the two women speak of children, growing up, and responsibility, and how it can mean different things to different people. There?s such a strong connection between these two women who?ve met for the first time, and may never meet again. Ironically, the thing between Dan and Shiuli, built up through the film, never has this much feeling.

Also Read | October movie release LIVE UPDATES: Review, audience reaction and more

Sandhu is lovely and tender. It is a wonderful debut. And yet, despite all these astutely done bits and bobs, October doesn?t come as together as have the two earlier ventures of Sircar and Chaturvedi, Vicky Donor and Piku. That?s squarely down to Dhawan, whose stardom is clearly a double-edged sword: it is both an advantage and a weak link. From Badlapur on, it?s clear that Dhawan wants to stretch himself and do all kinds of roles. Which is great, because films like October will go out widely because of Dhawan, but it also leads to a kind of dilution.

The premise of BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lee?s impassioned, incendiary, often brilliant new film, sounds like a joke. In 1978, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of Denzel), a black rookie detective in the Colorado Springs police department, infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan by impersonating a white racist over the phone.

Stallworth?s white partner Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) stands in for Stallworth for face-to-face meetings with the Klan. Again, this set-up seems absurdly comical, most closely resembling Dave Chappelle?s famous skit in which he portrays a blind black racist who joins the Klan. However, the film?s opening titles assure us that the events we see unfold are based on some ?fo? real, fo? real sh*t.? (The screenplay, co-written by Lee with Kevin Willmott, Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, is based on Stallworth?s own 2014 memoir.)

Spike Lee?s filmmaking career has stretched well past three decades, and while his films have encompassed many different modes and moods, he?s best known for the passionate, provocative, and artful agitprop that informed such classic works as Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, and Bamboozled. Lee has consistently created innovative, thought-provoking, and often confrontational and controversial works, but it seems that in recent years relatively few people have been paying attention.

Two of his most interesting recent works preceded BlacKkKlansman: a rare excursion into the horror genre with Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), a remake of Bill Gunn?s cult classic Ganja and Hess; and Chi-Raq (2015), his modern take on Aristophanes? Lysistrata, an impassioned anti-gun violence plea that hardly anyone went to see, even though it?s one his best films. (Presumably, more audiences tuned in to his wonderful subsequent Netflix series She?s Gotta Have It, a re-imagining of his debut feature of the same name.)

BlacKkKlansman, however, should successfully bring Spike Lee back to the place where he connects with a mass audience with work fully plugged into the current zeitgeist. And he couldn?t have picked a better subject matter with which to do so. The film? https://www.thanostv.org/movie/blackkklansman-2018 coincides with the one-year anniversary of the white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the accompanying violence which took the life of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer, the real-life footage of which forms a chilling coda to the dramatized period story. Lee throughout the film hammers home the blunt and very unsubtle point that even though he?s made a period piece, as far as the unshakable persistence of virulent white racism against people of color, that period is far from over.

In Spike Lee?s cinematic Molotov cocktail, there is little room for subtlety or nuance; in fact, he seems to argue that unsubtle times call for unsubtle art. Lee aims directly at his targets, making sure we in the audience are aware at all time who those targets are and why they deserve to be targeted. Even though his main target is the brand of white nationalism and racist sentiment and actions represented by the KKK, as well as a nation that countenances them and allows them to freely operate, Lee has a few others in his sights as well.

One of those targets is cinema itself, specifically two films in particular, blockbusters of their time, still regarded today by many as classics. The first is Gone With the Wind; BlacKkKlansman opens with the famous crane shot of wounded Civil War soldiers writhing on the battlefield with Vivien Leigh?s Scarlett O?Hara wandering amongst them, a shot which culminates with a tattered yet proudly waving Confederate flag in close-up.

This leads into a brief opening scene featuring Alec Baldwin in a cameo as an unabashed bigot spewing hatred into the camera, his face bathed in lurid colors, fulminating against the miscegenation and integration he abhors, which he believes is turning America into a ?mongrel nation.? As Lee will do frequently in the film, he exposes the ridiculousness of this racist rhetoric, in this scene by having Baldwin?s character constantly stumble over his words and interrupt his own speech to confer with an off-screen consultant. This scene confronts us with the racist ideology that later we will see KKK Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace) attempt to sugarcoat with three-piece suits (in place of hoods), a cleaned-up vocabulary, and a more palatable image.

The other piece of film criticism Lee practices within his own film is directed against D.W. Griffith?s Birth of a Nation; while its racist imagery is generally abhorred nowadays, it? http://bit.ly/2PeQaYR regarded as a formative film history text for the cinematic techniques Griffith demonstrated. (President Woodrow Wilson famously praised it as ?like writing history with lightning.?) In BlacKkKlansman, it figures in a scene where a visiting David Duke and the Colorado Springs KKK members holler at and cheer on a screening of Griffith?s film.

In Birth of a Nation, lynching and other forms of violence against black people is celebrated. Here, Lee re-contextualizes this in a powerful manner, juxtaposing this in a scene in which a civil rights activist portrayed by Harry Belafonte relates the story of the lynching of a man named Jesse Washington which occurred around the time of Birth of a Nation?s release. Belafonte?s character speaks in front of the rapt members of the Colorado Springs Black Student Union, and the story he tells is illustrated by graphic archival photos of the lynching, demonstrating the real-life horrors that Griffith?s film justifies and romanticizes.

However, BlacKkKlansman is far from a dreary, depressing lament of America?s racism. Lee cannily uses lots of comic sugar to make the medicine of his message go down. Much of this humor is at the expense of David Duke and the KKK, who are exposed as ignorant and easily fooled as they are ultimately dangerous. The KKK are easily fooled by Ron and Flip?s subterfuge, even though they sound nothing alike, and the scene in which Ron finally lets Duke know he?s been fooled by a black man, and a black police officer at that, is priceless.

Lee also beautifully counteracts the ugly white racism depicted in his film with luxuriant images of black beauty, a testament to the great work here by cinematographer Chayse Irvin, who shot these rich images on 35mm film. The scene in which this black beauty is most prominent is during a speech Kwame Ture aka Stokely Carmichael (Corey Hawkins) gives to the Black Student Union (which Stallworth monitors for subversive activity as his first assignment). As Ture speaks, the screen is filled with many close-ups of the black men and women listening in rapt attention, inspired by his words. The beauty, dignity, and grace inscribed on those faces makes for one of the film?s loveliest and most moving scenes.

As powerful and brilliant as BlacKkKlansman mostly is, it?s not without flaws. There?s not much interiority to the characters; as well acted as they are by those portraying them, these characterizations mostly play on the surface level, often as representatives of their political positions. There are certain motivational details that remain a mystery, for example why Stallworth, knowing how racist the police can be, still wants to remain a police officer.

For him to simply say, ?I?ve always wanted to be a cop,? seems insufficient here. Also, while the KKK looms as the film?s most obvious target, it mostly lets the police ? who in the film only see fit to hire one black cop in all of Colorado Springs ? off the hook, notwithstanding the words spoken in the film about cops shooting black people without justification. There?s one obviously racist cop in the film who eventually gets his comeuppance, but we don?t get much of a sense of how racism structurally works in the department.

But such flaws are ultimately minor in the grand scheme of the great work Spike Lee and his collaborators have created, and BlacKkKlansman beautifully hearkens back to his classic work, as equally committed politically as it is artistically. And the humor I spoke of earlier? Well, those final images of Charlottesville, as well as the refusal of the current occupant of the White House to unequivocally condemn this domestic terrorism, will make that laughter stick in your throat and bring a chill to your bones. Spike Lee?s fiery film is a searing demonstration of the truth of William Faulkner?s famous quote: ?The past is never dead. It?s not even past.?

Written by: Aaron Kandell, Jordan Kandell, David Branson Smith, based on a book by Susea McGearhart, Tami Oldham Ashcraft MPAA Rating: PG-13 for injury images, peril, language, brief drug use, partial nudity and thematic elements

Flipping back and forth between a drippy romance before the storm, and intense amounts of anguish and suffering after it, this based-on-a-true-story survival movie is overly reverent, and stultifying. In Adrift, Tami (Shailene Woodley) wakes up to find that the boat she's on has been hit by a storm. She spots her boyfriend, Richard (Sam Claflin) clinging to a dingy. She builds a new sail in order to reach him, and hauls him aboard. His leg and ribs are broken, so she sets about pumping the water out from below, finding food and fresh water, and navigating toward the nearest land. In flashback, Tami and Richard meet in Tahiti and are immediately drawn to each other. https://www.thanostv.org/movie/adrift-2018 are hired to bring a yacht from there back to San Diego — Tami's home — and then the storm hit. Back in the present, they manage to catch rainwater, but the food begins to run out and Tami, a vegetarian, must catch and eat fresh fish. But Tami has one more challenge to overcome. Actors love movies like Adrift because they are allowed to use their most intense, high-velocity emotional ammunition; Academy voters tend to love them too, and awards are frequently given. Woodley, who also produced, first appears lithe and muscular, and then later, wasted and gaunt; she also endured makeup to make her look sun-baked and destroyed. Her commitment is impressive, but it's too bad her co-star, Claflin, is so lackluster, and that the resulting movie is so glum and dispiriting. Director Baltasar Kormakur (101 Reykjavik, Contraband) fails to use the flashbacks or flash-forwards to find any resting ground for the story; it thrums at a constant, wearying high pitch. The music score's wailing string section doesn't help. Worse, the screenplay employs what could be easily described as a cheat, especially for a movie that wears its "true story" credentials on its sleeve (it ends with real-life footage). It feels as if it's so constrained with the effort of honoring the real people — whose actual story is indeed remarkable — that it can't do anything but recycle the genre's cliches.

After a set-up establishing that high schooler Claire (Joey King) has had a blighted life since the suicide of her mother (Elisabeth Rohm), she clutches a magic object (a nicely-designed Chinese puzzle/music box) and wishes the mean girl at school would ‘just rot’. The next day, teen princess of Instagram Darcie (Josephine Langford) wakes up with her face and toes falling off due to necrotising fasciitis. Then Claire’s beloved dog is found in the crawlspace, disembowelled and eaten by rats.

Nevertheless, it takes several more wishes – a devoted boyfriend! a mansion! popularity! – andfreak accidents involving sympathetic secondary characters and kitchen/bathroom/loft appliances before Claire works out how this particular double-edged curse works. It’s as if all those valiant souls who make non-theatrical sequels to Hellraiser, Witchboard and Wishmaster have striven in vain. Among those who have issued warnings about monkeying with monkeys’ paws or messing with multiverses is director John R. https://www.thanostv.org/movie/wish-upon-2017 , who has track records in the be-careful-what-you-wish-for and cursed-object fields, with The Butterfly Effect 2 and Conjuring spinoff Annabelle.

Scripted by Barbara Marshall – who wrote Viral and Top Dog – Wish Upon has the feel of something tooled to be a new franchise. It ties itself in knots with several backstories for its curse, as if it were the follow-up to a movie starring barely-glimpsed Jerry O’Connell and Rebecca Romijn as previous doomed owners of the wishing box, as well as the template for sequels and spin-offs of its own. Wish Upon is one among a recent wave of spooky pictures aimed at teenage girls, including Ouija, Unfriended and Friend Request. This adds a shopping montage, an idiot bloke as ogled object of desire (Mitchell Slaggert) and the high school pecking order to a mix which includes familiar, always-effective horror schtick as characters blithely wander into mortal peril. In one set-piece, Sherilyn Fenn finds as many ways of imperilling herself while cooking dinner as in any vintage safety-in-the-home educational film.

Though a jumble – the story is at once predictable and awkwardly structured – Wish Upon works fairly well, and is certainly a step up from Leonetti’s last non-sequel (the Manson murders movie Wolves at the Door). King is an engaging, credibly fallible lead and has a nice rapport with her besties (Shannon Purser from Stranger Things, Sydney Park) and the reliable Ryan Philippe does wonders with an underwritten deadbeat Dad role. Meanwhile Alice Lee is so much fun as an exposition-spouting Chinese goth chick, you hope the spinoff will be all about her.

From a school where two girls can re-enact the alleyway scene from They Live at lunchtime with no disciplinary consequences, to a little girl’s bike left to rot where she dropped it the day her Mum died, you have to be able to live with a raft of unbelievable things. And that's before getting to the intricate curse, which implies a cosmic order more to do with horror film cliché than any system of demonology you can look up on the internet. Half-smart and half-dumb, this does get by, but only thanks to daft entertainment value and some very committed performances.

A little reticent in gore gimmicks for the� Final Destination� crowd, but considered as a middle school between� Goosebumps� and Clive Barker, it’s just the haunted lottery ticket.

First of all, the number of sequels with ?Last? or ?Final? in the title that have actually turned out to be the last one is vanishingly small, so don?t take ?Insidious: The Last Key? at its word. Franchise writer Leigh Whannell has configured things to allow for infinite additional stories (audiences willing), though this barely recommended effort doesn?t offer much hope for the series? creative energy.

The fourth entry in the haunted-house franchise is another prequel, like 3 was, set after 3 but before 1 and 2, and focused on Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), the sixty-something psychic ghost-hunter who has emerged as the series? unlikely protagonist. Aided by her comic-relief technical assistants, doofuses Specs (Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), Elise is the one that the main characters in previous films have called for help with their house-demons, but now we learn Elise? watch insidious: the last key 2018 .

A prologue depicting Elise?s childhood in New Mexico shows she?s always had ?the gift? for communicating with spirits, which her mother (Tessa Ferrer) tried to foster and her prison-guard father (Josh Stewart) tried to beat out of her. In the present (well, 2010), Elise is rattled when she?s contacted by someone seeking her services who now lives in the very house she grew up in, still haunted after all these years. The current resident, Ted Garza (Kirk Acevedo), reports the standard creepy noises, weird sightings, and so forth, and Elise, still bearing the physical and emotional scars of what happened to her and her family there, determines to get to the bottom of it once and for all.

Tropes familiar to ?Insidious? fans appear again, including the mysterious coma that is actually an astral projection into a realm called the Further. This installment also has an undercurrent of feminine outrage, with women standing up to the men (living and dead) who mistreat them, though this never quite gels into a fully developed theme. The plot doesn?t have any twists that you haven?t seen elsewhere, but it?s just unpredictable enough to keep things mildly interesting, and director Adam Robitel (?The Taking of Deborah Logan?) achieves two or three good, quick scares without any cheap tricks.

You?ll notice my endorsement is not terribly enthusiastic. If one?s feelings about a movie could be chemically analyzed, mine on ?The Last Key? would come in at just a few percentage points above ?meh.? What tips the scales ever so slightly is Lin Shaye, a veteran actress with more than 125 film credits spanning 43 years finally playing the top-billed main character. And she earns it! She?s deeply committed to portraying Elise?s pain, remorse, and strength with sincerity, and her performance is more tragic heroine than B-movie scream queen. She seem to be enjoying herself, which is good, since she?ll be playing this role indefinitely.

B- (1 hr., 43 min.; PG-13, a little profanity, a little violence and scariness.)

Producer: Deepak Nayar and Philip von Alvensleben Director: Raja Gosnell Writer: Max Botkin and Marc Hyman Stars: Will Arnell, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Natasha Lyonne, Jordin Sparks, Stanley Tucci, Alan Cumming, Gabriel Iglesias, Shaquille O'Neal, Omar Chaparro, RuPaul, Oliver Tempsett and Andy Beckwith Studio: Global Road Entertainment

This talking dog movie, mostly live action but with animated elements, is a real mutt, a would-be family movie so flat-pawed that it will fail to entertain viewers at any point on the age spectrum. Unlike director Raja Gosnell?s previous effort along similar lines, ?Beverly Hills Chihuahua,? no classic but at least tolerable, ?Show Dogs? is simply a bad idea poorly executed, as awful on the canine side as ?Nine Lives? was on the feline. Our pets deserve better than this cruddy kiddie take on ?Turner & Hooch? and ?K-9.?

The premise is that dogs (and apparently some other critters, like a trio of kibitzing pigeons) can converse with each other, though humans can?t hear them. Despite that interspecies problem, dogs are employed at the NYPD, the most notable of them, a Rottweiler named Max (voiced by Chris Bridges, doing New York gruffness). When Max?s intervention upsets an FBI sting on a bunch of crooks transporting a stolen baby panda for auction, he?s partnered up with chief agent Frank (Will Arnett) to pose as entrants in a Las Vegas dog show where, it?s been discovered, the panda will be sold. Since Max is not exactly prize material, he breaks an old champion on the show circuit, French Papillon Philippe (Stanley Tucci), out of the dog pound and persuades him to offer a few pointers.

At the show, things naturally go Max?s way. He? https://www.thanostv.org/movie/show-dogs-2018 do well in the various competitive events, always by running them in unorthodox ways. He will find a romantic interest in Daisy (Jordin Sparks), who initially finds him irritating (Frank will similarly bumble into an incipient romance with dog groomer Mattie, played by Natasha Lyonne). And, of course, the partners will not only unmask the villain behind the plot to sell rare animals to the highest bidders, but prevent his escape in a big airport confrontation.

Lots of stars chip in voices for other dogs at the show?Alan Cumming as Dante, the arrogant current champ; Gabriel Iglesias as Sprinkles, a pug who?s one of Philippe?s biggest fans; Shaquille O?Neal as Karma, one easygoing Komondar; and RuPaul as Persephone, who has secrets of her own. None of them offer significant compensation for the lame dialogue, lackadaisical direction, overwrought turns by the human actors (especially Arnell) and animation of the dogs? moving mouths that?s about as impressive as what you?re likely to see every day in TV commercials. That the picture also has a chintzy look generally is simply to say that it?s no more impressive in terms of overall execution than it is in terms of its (lack of) inspiration.

The one surprise in ?Show Dogs? comes when Max tries to romance Daisy with a rooftop spaghetti dinner modeled after ?Lady and the Tramp.? That?s hardly unusual, but one of those pesky pigeons, who have flown from New York to Nevada to observe his adventures, points out that he?s cribbing the bit. What the bird doesn?t mention is that it?s taken from a far superior movie, one that the makers have not been wise to invite comparison to. These ?Dogs? deserve the old vaudeville hook.

Classical cinema makes a return to the big screen in the engrossing adventure-drama See You Up There, a period yarn based on the novel of the same name by ace mystery thriller writer Pierre Lemaitre. Combining imagination, humor and heart to intoxicating effect, director and star Albert Dupontel has crafted one of the fall festival circuit's most winning offerings.

See You Up There begins in the trenches in World War I as French soldiers hunker down a dead man's land away from their German opponents. Though the armistice is declared a bloodthirsty sergeant tricks the Germans into a final conflict anyway, sending hundreds of men to their doom. Among them are Albert Maillard, a middle-aged accountant, and Edouard P�ricourt, a young would-be painter. When the latter almost has his head blown off he begs the older man to fake his death and hide him from his domineering father.

Back in Paris, the pair begin to live together and eek out an existence which leads them down a criminal path as the young man, his face covered in increasingly elaborate masks of his own design, begins to sell fake sketches for war memorials. They enter a competition for a big memorial that will be financed by none other than the young man's father. Meanwhile, his sister has gotten married to their dastardly former sergeant.

Dupontel blends war drama, con artist thriller, comedy, romance and human drama in a film that explores issues of identity through characters that have either been forced to the sidelines (as veterans coming home to a poor job market) or chosen to abandon society as they grapple with their personal issues.

With a thrilling plot that bounces across locations, the film balances several genres through an absorbing atmosphere consisting of ravishing costumes (and masks) and stunning sets. Furthermore, the energy and technical polish of the production are undergirded by an irresistible charm and an emotional ballast owed to the film's rich characters.

Playing the frumpy but endearing hero Albert, Dupontel mines the pathos and sad sack appeal of Chaplin and other silent era comedy stars. His character dutifully looks out for his friend but is also driven by his own desire to live and eventually love.

Playing the flamboyant Edouard is Nahuel P�rez Biscayart, star of the Cannes Grand Prize winner 120 Beats per Minute. Playing a character who has lost his voice, Biscayart uses a range of vaudeville and more subtle emotive techniques to draw out the expressions of his character to delightful and at times heart-rending effect.

Devilishly charming and positively electric as the villain of the piece is Laurent Lafitte playing the war-hungry sergeant who quickly takes advantage of Paris following the end of wartime hostilities. Viewers may recognize Lafitte from Paul Verhoeven's Elle, in which he memorably played Isabelle Huppert's neighbor.

A fulfilling thanostv that expertly stages a wonderful tale, See You Up There shows us that they can still make 'em like they used to.

Much of director Jesper Ganslandt?s Beast of Burden takes place in the confines of a rickety, single-engine plane, with the pilot, Sean (Daniel Radcliffe), the only character seen on screen. The film is quite clearly inspired by Steven Knight?s Locke, not only in its use of a claustrophobic space to intensify the personal breakdown of its protagonist, but also in the way it dishes out nuggets of narrative information through an array of conversations via cellphone and radio. But Beast of Burden doesn?t stick to its guns, and perhaps as a means of standing apart from Knight?s 2013 thriller, it begins around its midway point to make room for a series of flashbacks that attempt to flesh out Sean?s emotional turmoil and past indiscretions that could just as easily have been communicated from within the plane.

As Sean flies across the Mexican border on what he deems to be his final delivery for a drug cartel, he stressfully bounces from one call to the next, forced to juggle the competing demands of a pushy D.E.A. agent, Bloom (Pablo Schreiber), two cartel contacts, Octavio (David Joseph Martinez) and Mallory (Robert Wisdom), and his wife, Jen (Grace Gummer). The growing concerns of his suspicious wife as well as his attempts to play both sides of the drug war?he?s working with the D.E.A. but is still planning to deliver the cartel?s goods for cash to pay for Jen?s escalating medical bills?should all make for compelling drama. But Beast of Burden leans far too heavily on wooden dialogue that mechanically delivers expository information about key plot points and Sean and Jen?s now-contentious relationship.

The film?s flashbacks, which are either too clipped or excessively scored, are even less organic, effectively stepping on the actors? toes. The flimsiness of Adam Hoelzel?s screenplay is only further heightened by the film?s unsightly monochromatic look, which amplifies the cheapness of the ever-present green-screen work. Where Locke was able to visualize a compelling interior world for Tom Hardy? thanostv while hinting at an emotionally rich exterior world without him ever leaving the driver?s seat, Beast of Burden fails to do so for Sean even when freeing him from the restrictive point of view of the script?s central conceit. The uninspired writing and directing leaves Radcliffe virtually on his own to breathe life and a sense of urgency into a character with less shades of complexity than his farting corpse in Swiss Army Man.

Louis C.K.'s I Love You, Daddy was already the world's most terribly timed movie. It's a would-be provocative comedy about how a man's Woody Allen?esque hero starts pursuing his 17-year-old daughter ? and was, at the time of writing, still scheduled to open right in the middle of our current maelstrom of stories about decades of Hollywood predation. In the wake of Thursday's New York Times report on C.K.'s own long-rumored sexual misconduct, in which multiple women accuse the comedian of forcing them to watch or listen to him masturbate without their consent, The Orchard announced that it was canceling the release. It's a film, however, that should never have come out at all, unless it was going to be used as a primer for how conversations about power and consent get mishandled, muddied, and ultimately used to excuse or obscure abusive behavior. In the movie, C.K. plays a successful but no-longer-on-his-game television producer named Glen Topher. John Malkovich is Leslie Goodwin, a revered 68-year-old director, unapologetic luster after teenage girls, and rumored child molester. If that doesn't make clear that he's intended to be a Woody Allen stand-in, then the reverence with which C.K.'s character treats him should. "He's a great artist! Probably the best writer-filmmaker of the last 30 years or more," he yelps when his daughter, China (Chlo� Grace Moretz), brings up Goodwin's reputed pedophilia and known track record with much younger lovers. Then he scolds her for judging someone on the basis of what she's heard rather than what she can know for sure. "His private life, that's not anybody's business," Glen says, in a variation on a familiar, nauseating rationale that people have used to defend their problematic (right up through potentially criminal) faves for time eternal. It's a rationale C.K. has employed on his own behalf, dismissing talk of his own then-only-rumored misconduct in the New York Times in September by saying, "If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real." He went on to say, "The uncomfortable truth is, you never really know. ... To me, if there was one thing this movie is about, it?s that you don?t know anybody."

Given those "rumors" about C.K. ? and the "rumors" that also swirled around Weinstein and Brett Ratner and Kevin Spacey and others before victims recently came forward to confirm allegations to the press ? the astonishing convenience of this stance is galling. (As is the way the film coyly winks at the stories about C.K. by having a character mime jerking off in a room with his coworkers.) You "never really know" only if you're willing to consign accusations of sexual misconduct to the realm of gossip and hearsay, to pretend these stories get whispered about only because no one's sure if they're true, rather than because the consequences of speaking up can be so punitive. As the post-Weinstein fallout consumes Hollywood, spreads through other industries, and provides hope that we may be headed toward actual (maybe) systemic (maybe) change, I Love You, Daddy isn't just tone-deaf. It's stunningly hubristic, pushing an argument that's been used to silence people for decades. And it unfolds entirely within what now feels like a very telling blind spot for its writer, director, and star, in which the answer to questions about consent is inevitably an alarming "it's complicated.?

I Love You, Daddy is the first movie C.K. has directed since Pootie Tang in 2001. In the years since, he's built up a career as one of the most respected stand-ups in the business; created Louie, an acclaimed, uneven FX show that helped spark a slew of other raw, form-pushing dramedies like Atlanta and Master of None; and self-funded Horace and Pete, an impossible to describe play-as-TV-drama-as-web-series that featured some genuinely great writing and acting. C.K. casts himself in the role of an industry hack in I Love You, Daddy, but as a real-life creator, he's been self-funding his projects in order to make them without outside interference. All of which makes the film more enraging and disappointing, coming after so much work that's grappled with other risky subject matter with empathy and humanity.

But he's been dicey on the topics of sexual violence and coercion before. In Season 4 of Louie, his character pushes himself on a resistant Pamela, played by longtime collaborator Pamela Adlon (who also appears in the new movie). During the ensuing struggle she snaps, "This would be rape if you weren?t so stupid!" And C.K. has talked about male violence against women in his stand-up, but when he's intentionally portrayed sexual coercion onscreen in the show, he's tended to role-reverse, allowing himself to get forced into oral sex by Melissa Leo or dressed in makeup and penetrated by Adlon. Given that he comes out of these encounters asking to see these women again, these scenes seem more intent on his character's humiliation than on showing any degree of understanding regarding consent. I Love You, Daddy doesn't just continue to muddy the waters around those issues. It is in itself an example of a powerful comedian proving himself incapable of confronting the transgressions of another man in the industry he admires. Which isn't remotely surprising ? in the Times article about C.K., estranged collaborator Tig Notaro goes on the record, but none of C.K.'s male colleagues do. Allen's a formative influence for many comedians, and he's clearly one for C.K., who's acted in one of Allen's movies and who includes multiple homages to Allen's Manhattan in I Love You, Daddy. But after raising the possibility of the sexual assault of a child, the film swerves to focus instead on the gray areas surrounding older men who try to sleep with teenage girls. It's a deflection that's crushing, not just because C.K. chooses not to confront the possible misdeeds of another powerful male comedian, but because he opts instead to pick and choose from the rumors, then argue that maybe some of these troubling choices aren't all that bad. To describe this as an unasked-for argument would be putting it lightly. Yet the film makes it nonetheless, by sidelining the rumors of Goodwin?s pedophilia (something that even the noncommittal Glen can't rationalize away) as a ?really personal story? Goodwin promises to explain over drinks. As Goodwin is shown grooming China, accompanying her as she tries on bikinis at a department store and taking her to Paris, Glen hovers indecisively, wanting to put a stop to what's happening but unwilling to put his foot down and confront either his doted-on child or the artist he so admires.

It's "As the Father of a Daughter": The Movie, but C.K. isn't interested in exploring and critiquing the mindset of men whose empathy for women seems entirely dependent on being a parent to one. In lieu of that, he makes a woman, his love interest Grace (Rose Byrne), present talking points about sexual maturity and why what he suspects is happening between Goodwin and his daughter might not be so bad. These are words C.K. clearly feels too uncomfortable having Glen speak; Grace shoulders the unmanageable burden of defending why teenagers should be able to have sex with adults while Glen halfheartedly recites reasons why it's wrong. She's positioned as the sophisticated third-wave feminist actor to his agency-denying rube, whom she scolds for describing the relationship she had as a teenager with a fiftysomething as rape. "So when a girl does feel lust and desire, then she's got to be with a fucking boy?" she snaps. It's a conversation the movie presents as reasonable, when it's actually queasy and dangerous. C.K. wants to present sex and attraction as things that are too messy for broad rules or generalizations. But it's impossible to do that if you're also going to willfully ignore or remain oblivious to the central issue ? how the massive power imbalance innate to this kind of relationship makes it ripe for abuse, the way power imbalances enabled and protected abuse in all of the stories currently spilling out of Hollywood at the moment. It's Adlon ? tasked as she so often is in C.K?s work with being the voice of reason and sanity ? who comes in as Glen's salty ex-girlfriend, socks him in the arm, and tells him he has to take action, even if it makes China hate him. In doing so, she provides C.K. with an escape hatch. He's able to turn the movie into one about his character's personal failings, rather than follow through on the incredibly troubling arguments he raises and then runs away from.

Woody Allen, like the character Leslie Goodwin, was accused but not charged of sexually abusing a child. https://www.thanostv.org/movie/i-love-you-daddy-2017 alleged victim was his then 7-year-old adopted daughter by then-partner Mia Farrow. Dylan Farrow reiterated the allegations in 2014, mincing no words in calling out those who continue to work with and support Allen, writing that "Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse." Allen has, of course, continued to work anyway, becoming an enduring symbol of Hollywood?s ability ? up to this point ? to treat sexual misconduct allegations as a mere inconvenience. He continued to work after marrying another of Mia Farrow's adopted children, a woman who is 35 years his junior, whom he met when he was dating Farrow (a relationship that caused a scandal, but wasn't illegal). The same can be said for the relationship between Allen?s 42-year-old character Isaac Davis and the 17-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) in Manhattan, traces of which ? from the New York City setting to the black-and-white cinematography down to the fact that China is the same age as Tracy ? are all over I Love You, Daddy. (Times have changed, but Allen's attempts to normalize these relationships continue with the film he just finished shooting, A Rainy Day in New York, which reportedly features a sexual relationship between characters played by Jude Law, 44, and 19-year-old Elle Fanning.)

Hemingway herself was 18 when Allen tried to whisk her off to Paris the way Goodwin (Malkovich) does with China (Moretz) in I Love You, Daddy. Unlike China, Hemingway chose not to go ? in her 2015 memoir, Hemingway described turning him down over uncertainty about the sleeping arrangement, saying, "I'm not going to get my own room, am I? I can?t go to Paris with you." Who knows if C.K. was aware of this anecdote when writing I Love You, Daddy (he declined to comment for this piece; C.K. responded to the allegations in the Times story with a written statement in which he says "These stories are true.") ? but it feels like something that could have informed his film, especially in the way Hemingway describes her parents reacting to Allen's offer. "I wanted them to put their foot down. They didn?t. They kept lightly encouraging me," she wrote. C.K.'s insistence, in his own movie, on keeping the focus on parental permissiveness rather than the predatory nature of a decades-older celebrity trying to erode a teenager's boundaries enough to fuck her, serves as its own kind of normalization. And so I Love You, Daddy ends up being a tribute to Allen in ways C.K. probably never intended. "We?re at the bleeding edge of 'That?s not OK to do now,' but those people are still around," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "That?s a very interesting line to be on." He doesn't just let Allen off the hook ? he lets himself off as well.

C.K. has described I Love You, Daddy, which he shot on the sly this summer, as a film he expected would piss some people off. But in light of C.K.'s alleged past behavior, and the fumbled apologies he reportedly made to some of his victims in the years since, the movie plays more like a stroke of self-immolation. It?s the work of a man who's been expecting consequences to come calling, and who decided to lean into the coming anger with a have-to-hear-all-sides affront that inadvertently echoes so many of the excuses and denials that men adjacent to or accused of misconduct have offered up in the past few weeks.

When Glen claims Goodwin's sex life is "not anybody's business," it mirrors what Matt Damon recently said about the allegations surrounding Harvey Weinstein to ABC News, painting him as a ?womanizer? rather than an abuser. "I wouldn?t want to be married to the guy," Damon said. "But that?s none of my business, really." And when the movie skirts over the possible assault of a child in favor of steering the conversation toward the morality of May-December relationships, it brings to mind Kevin Spacey's attempt to pivot away from Anthony Rapp's allegations of being assaulted while underage by coming out. And when Glen, at a dark moment, offers a broad repentance to all the ladies in his life, it lines up eerily with the way the tech industry's Robert Scoble denied sexual misconduct allegations made against him in October while writing, "I apologize to women in general that I could have been a better man and husband." C.K?s Glen blurts out a more impulsive "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, women. Please, on behalf of all women, please let you all know that I am very fucking sorry." It's meant to be a joke, the low point for a man who feels like he's been unable to live up to anyone's personal or professional expectations. But it ends up turning an unwillingness to take a stand on sexual misconduct as just another one of Glen's foibles. You know, no big deal, just another flaw on par with how he's no longer a good writer, or how he dumps all his work onto his long-suffering producing partner. It's narcissism in the guise of self-criticism, his character talking around these huge issues of consent and maturity and in the end only delivering a song of himself. C.K., for all his other insight, proves himself incapable of wrapping his head around the sexual and professional power dynamics that he thinks he's exploring, but that doesn't stop him from feeling comfortable commenting on them. Or from suggesting that the what-the-hell moral of the film, delivered (of course) by another teenage girl, is that "Everybody's a pervert. I'm a pervert, we're all perverts, who cares." Turns out, people are starting to care a lot. ?

It?s surprisingly easy to forget that ?BlacKkKlansman? is a Spike Lee joint. Not only does it open with an extended sequence from ?Gone with the Wind? (not a Spike Lee joint), but it also spends a good amount of time parsing the fundamental dilemma of Jewish-American identity, and takes place in the snow-white hills of Colorado Springs ? which in this country, is pretty much as far from Crooklyn as you can get.

Sure, the usual Lee flourishes pop up here and there ? from the introductory text promising this buddy-cop biopic is ?some fo? real shit,? to the gorgeous conveyor-belt shot at the climax, and the sobering mic drop of news footage that brings things to a close ? and the whole thing is kissed with his cock-eyed anger. But so much of this movie seems like it could?ve been made by anybody. It couldn?t have been ? it wouldn?t have been ? but it often seems that way. We?re talking a clean three-act structure, a couple of scenes that vaguely resemble car chases, and motherfucking Topher Grace.

The truth is, you just don?t expect that something called ?BlacKkKlansman,? an unvarnished look back at the African-American police officer who conned his way into David Duke?s inner circle, is going to be Spike Lee?s most commercial project since ?Inside Man? in 2006. Hell, this thing is so mainstream it feels like the start of a franchise. And yet, that mass appeal is a huge part of what makes this funny and righteously furious American film so powerful. Lee might paint with a broad brush, but he makes damn sure that every one of his targets is tagged with at least a little splotch of red. And he makes damn sure that every one of us can see it so clearly that it will never wash off.

?BlacKkKlansman? rewinds the clock back to the early ?70s, a time when the Vietnam War was raging, caller ID had yet to be invented, and way too many other things were the same as they are now. When Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, of the Denzel Washingtons) rolls up to the Colorado Springs Police Department, he?s the first black cop they?ve ever had on the force. And his blackness is a bit dissonant for many of his very white (and very sheltered) new co-workers. On the one hand, he?s got a big afro. On Watch BlacKkKlansman 2018 , he talks like a bible salesman.

Sick of working in the records office and eager to earn the respect of his peers, Ron volunteers for undercover work. He says he?s got a ?niche.? Lucky for him, a perfect opportunity for some light intel work falls into his lap: Kwame Ture (a commanding Corey Hawkins) is giving a speech for the black student union, and Ron is just the guy to slip in and read the room unnoticed. Not only does he get the job done, but he also gets to meet-cute with a beautiful and impassioned activist named Patrice Dumas (Spider-Man?s recent love interest, Laura Harrier).

But there are too many diehard racists on the force ? too many angry white men who like to kill black kids for sport. So Ron tries to move things along. On the spur of the moment, he opens the phone book, picks up the receiver, and dials the local chapter of the KKK. He tells them that he?s interested in becoming a member; he uses his real name (rookie mistake). The next thing Ron knows, he?s got a blind date with a real-life White Nationalist. And, um, that?s probably not going to be much of a love connection. Fortunately, our quick-thinking hero has a plan: He?s going to pull a ?Cyrando de Bergerac? and send a detective named Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to wear a wire and ?play? Ron Stallworth in person. Never mind that Flip is Jewish ? even he needs to be reminded of that. Besides, he can pass.

Just like that, they?re off to the races. Flip gets in tight with the brotherhood, while Ron listens in from a nearby car. The Colorado Springs chapter of ?The Organization? is represented by a cartoonish trio of incompetents (Ryan Eggold as the leader, Jasper P��kk�nen as the suspicious sociopath, and ?I, Tonya? breakout Paul Walter Hauser as the mouth-breathing source of extra comic relief). The film makes fun of them from its modest start to its explosive finish, and yet ? strange as it may seem ? there?s always something irreducibly terrifying about a well-armed militia that?s hellbent on ethnic cleansing.

Always something, but sometimes not enough. Lee, whose films are not exactly known for their tonal consistency, often struggles to reconcile the dark comedy of these scenes with the sheer darkness that surrounds them. At times, the absurdity of the KKK members ? and one of their wives ? is so extreme that it undercuts the urgency of the threat they pose. And that?s before Stallworth connects with the hate group?s then-leader, an eminently punchable and regrettably familiar weasel named David Duke (unfortunately for Topher Grace, the role that he was born to play).

But the mocking phone calls between Ron and the Grand Wizard aren?t only there so that we can laugh at Duke as he swears that he can tell the difference between black and white people based on the sound of their voice. They also serve a second, and more critical function, as Lee?s script ? based on Stallworth?s memoir, and co-written by three other writers ? uses their duality as a vehicle to explore the quest for pluralism at the heart of this story. Is it truly possible for a black American to be both of those things at once? Is it possible for a Jew? Wasn?t the fundamental promise of this country that we could all be together ourselves?

It?s hard to imagine a more lucid expression of that seemingly irreconcilable conflict than the sequence in which Ron ? the real Ron ? is assigned to protect Duke when he comes to town. In a film where Washington is too often stuck behind a desk, putting on his phone voice and biting his tongue, this strange encounter allows the actor to have an out-of-body experience; he?s othered and included at the same time, twisting Duke?s own ignorance against him. It?s all conveyed through the suspense of a ?70s cop thriller (and sometimes even the swagger of blaxploitation), and Washington has a blast with every moment of it.

Driver eventually does as well, though his character spends most of the movie in harm?s way. Unleashing the pent-up testosterone that percolated beneath his roles in ?Girls? and ?Star Wars,? Driver leans into every one of the self-loathing epithets that Flip uses as a disguise. He does a brilliant job of registering the toll that it takes, every anti-semitic jab pushing him closer to a real confrontation with the Jewish identity that he?s always kept like a half-forgotten secret.

It?s very unexpected (and exceedingly rare) to see a film that reckons with the dormant feelings ? the pride, shame, tradition, history, and otherness ? of being a ?passing? Jew in White America, let alone a film that clarifies that reflects the Jewish-American and African-American experiences against each other in order to clarify them both.

While ?BlacKkKlansman? only has so much time to dwell on such things as it barrels along the predictable trajectory of a superhero origin saga, each of Lee?s hyper-political asides speaks to the institutional anxieties at the heart of this story. In fact, Ron and Patrice spend most of their scenes together addressing the issue head-on: Is it possible to change the system from the inside if the people in power don?t want the system to change?

David Duke found a way to crack it, and he drops enough groan-worthy dramatic irony to make sure we recognize that (he foams at the mouth about ?America first,? and even gives a little speech about inserting a White Nationalist into the Oval Office one day). Patrice isn?t convinced that it?s a workable solution for an oppressed people, but if the Colorado Springs Police Department can turn things around on their own streets ? if Ron can somehow reconcile being a black cop, and Flip a white Jew ? then we can be the system. Quoth Hillel the Elder: ?If not now, when? If not you, who??

Far more frightening than it is funny (especially after Lee connects the dots from Colorado Springs to Charlottesville), ?BlacKkKlansman? packages such weighty and ultra-relevant subjects into the form of a wildly uneven but consistently entertaining night at the movies. It?s as broad as America is wide, but that?s as broad as it needs to be. After all, ?The Birth of a Nation? was a blockbuster. It was history written with lightning. ?BlaKkKlansman? is a deafening roll of the thunder we?ve been waiting for ever since.

?BlacKkKlansman? premiered in Competition at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. It will be released in theaters on August 10.

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It?s hard to tell if the makers of the bewilderingly awful home invasion thriller 14 Cameras? which follows cartoonishly gross Internet voyeur Gerald (Neville Archambault) as he uses nanny-cams to spy on a nuclear family at a secluded California summer house ? believe that web users are innately monstrous or if the Internet only underscores mankind?s innate cruelty.

On the one hand, disaffected teenager Molly (Brytnee Ratledge), one of Gerald?s four victims, evokes the nihilism of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and seemingly speaks for screenwriter Victor Zarcoff when she diagnoses Gerald?s monstrous behavior: ?Some guys are just fucked up.?

On the other hand, Zarcoff and neophyte co-directors Seth Fuller and Scott Hussion mystifyingly juxtapose Gerald?s skeevy real-world behavior ? he likes to sniff women?s pantiesand drink milk straight out of the carton! ? with the childish shit-posting that defines the members of his private ?dark web? watch 14 cameras 2018 . It?s especially hard to understand why one anonymous user seems to quote John Belushi?s Jake Blues when he asks Gerald to auction off his unwitting camera subjects: ?How much for the girl?!??

Unfortunately, Archambault?s churlishly over-the-top performance makes it impossible to take 14 Cameras seriously, no matter how you interpret Gerald?s actions. He breathes (heavily) through his mouth and waddles around like a cartoon yenta with his shoulders hunched, his eyes wide open and his jaw sticking out. Archambault?s perplexingly broad mannerisms suggest that the Internet, like bad horror movies, is only as bad as you make it.

14 CamerasDirected by Scott Hussion and Seth FullerGravitas VenturesOpens July 27, Cinema VillageAvailable on demand

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