New Movies to Watch This Week: Capone, The Wrong Missy, Scoob! – Variety

Its a relatively slim week in new releases, even by the standards of the ongoing coronavirus shutdown although there are a few gems to be found, if you hunt hard enough. Families have Scoob! which Warner Bros. decided to make available directly via digital, following the recent success of Trolls World Tour. And grownups can check out Tom Hardy playing the shell of a notorious gangster in Capone. Here are the weeks new releases, with excerpts from reviews and links to where you can watch them.

Scoob!Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Capone (Josh Trank)Distributor: Vertical EntertainmentWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon, iTunes and other on-demand platforms.In Capone, Tom Hardy, as the aging, broken-down, not-all-there Al Capone, acts under a corpse-gray mask of desiccated-mobster makeup. Is Capone a fascinatingly idiosyncratic twilight-of-the-mobster drama? Or is it a Saturday Night Live sketch with pretensions? It may be a bit of both. The concept feels original, even if it does suggest the last half hour of The Irishman crossed with the doddering-legend parts of Citizen Kane, all mixed in with Hardys apparent desire to play the creature in Frankenstein. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

Scoob! (Tony Cervone)Distributor: Warner Bros. PicturesWhere to Find It: Rent for $19.99 via a variety of streaming providers.Scoob! is the first salvo in a Hanna-Barbera crossover bonanza, resurrecting such dusty, disparate characters as Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Dick Dastardly (of the Wacky Races series) and Captain Caveman, alongside the Mystery Inc. team. When confined to their respective shows, these eccentric goofballs were all reasonably entertaining, and yet they dont naturally coexist in the same world, forcing the films four credited screenwriters to contort the plot like a rickety roller coaster so as to accommodate them all. Peter DebrugeRead the full review

Alice (Josephine Mackerras)Distributor: Monument ReleasingWhere to Find It: Choose a virtual cinema to support.A truly independent debut, shot in Paris outside the system (sans permits or institutional support), Alice came out of nowhere to win the top prize at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival. Such accolades aside, its less a fully realized study of a naive wifes brusque awakening than a thinly sketched tale of female empowerment, pushing an unconvincing sex-positive agenda in which prostitution is a reasonable, relatively worry-free shortcut to financial emancipation. In taking that implausible leap on her own terms, of course Alice may as well be launching a direct assault on the madonna-whore double-standard that destroyed her marriage. Peter DebrugeRead the full review

Castle in the Ground (Joey Klein)Distributor: Gravitas VenturesWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.This well-acted second feature from actor-turned-director Klein charts a grieving youths terrible choice of succor in the company of his junkie neighbor. Part gritty portrait of a mutually destructive drug-based relationship, part crime thriller, the film never quite grips enough on either plane. The result is an earnest, sometimes skillful effort that nonetheless often feels slack and underwritten, as well as ultimately less-than-rewarding. Strongly acted down the line, Castle still manages to feel too sketchy as a character drama, as well as a crime melodrama. Dennis HarveyRead the full review

Graves Without a Name (Rithy Panh)Distributor: First Run FeaturesWhere to Find It: Rent on iTunes and other on-demand platforms.A more intimate follow-up to Panhs Oscar-nominated documentary The Missing Picture, this meditative piece likewise seeks to move past devastation and into a manner of still-painful peace. Following the director himself on a study of indigenous ritual and mythos in search of his slain familys unknown resting places, the film might seem a heartfelt concluding statement on a subject that Panh has addressed in multiple projects since 1991s Cambodia: Between War and Peace though never with his lens turned so directly on himself. Guy LodgeRead the full review

The Wolf House (Cristbal Len, Joaqun Cocia)Distributor: KimStimWhere to Find It: Choose a virtual cinema to support.If an Orwellian fable were to be visualized by a surrealist in the vein of Salvador Dali, the result would look and feel something like The Wolf House, a jaw-dropping marriage of various animation techniques, chiefly stop-motion. A dystopian tale with haunting echoes of The Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood, this shape-shifting, trippy nightmare from filmmakers Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina startles and terrifies in equal measure, while putting forth an uncompromising examination of fascism in a way that only animation can do. Tomris LafflyRead the full review

Seberg (Benedict Andrews)Where to Find It: Amazon PrimeSeberg covers the years when the French-adopted American star was made a prime target of the FBIs illegal COINTELPRO project, which took invasive and threatening measures to neutralize her support for the Black Panther movement in the late 1960s. Its a hell of story, buffeting what ought to be a hell of a character study, yet a workmanlike script doesnt quite do either of these justice. Fiery political complexities of the era are ironed smooth, as are Sebergs own fractured psychological impulses, while at least half the narrative is framed through the eyes of a fictional character ( Jack OConnell) considerably less interesting than the one weve turned up to see. Guy LodgeRead the full review

The Wrong Missy (Nadia Hallgren)Where to Find It: NetflixThe Wrong Missy is a rom-com, but its really a 90s Jim Carrey movie merged with one of those slob-goes-on-a-corporate-retreat comedies that has starred everyone from Bill Murray to Adam Sandler to Will Ferrell. Heres whats new about it: The hypomanic Jim Carrey figure is a woman played by the wild-card comedian Lauren Lapkus. Lauren Lapkus may deserve her own version of The Mask, but in The Wrong Missy, she gets her own version of Thats My Boy. Which isnt a terrible thing. Watching The Wrong Missy its easy to sit back and give in to the movies it-is-what-it-is-ness. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics (Donick Cary)Where to Find It: NetflixWriter-producer Cary has spent his whole career near the top of the showbiz comedy heap. So it shouldnt surprise that his first directorial feature is less a serious dive into its chosen subject than an excuse to have a lot of familiar-face colleagues and acquaintances serve up funny anecdotes. Since those anecdotes are about hallucinogenic drug usage, this documentary can hardly help but be entertaining. But those looking for much in the way of real insight will find this amiable enterprise doesnt stray very far from a general, standard-stoner-yuks. Dennis HarveyRead the full review

Father Soldier Son (Leslye Davis, Catrin Einhorn)Where to Find It: NetflixThis longitudinal documentary commits nearly a decade to following Brian Eisch, who is wounded in Afghanistan while his family copes with life back home.

I Love You, Stupid (Te quiero, imbcil) (Laura Maa)Where to Find It: NetflixIn this romantic comedy from Spain, a hapless guy gets dumped from his girfriend and his job in the same day, only to rebound with a wild new woman.

Blood and MoneyScreen Media

Blood and Money (John Barr)Distributor: Screen MediaWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.Tom Berenger plays a hunter who stumbles upon a corpse and a bag full of cash in Maines Allagash woods.

Evil Little Things (Matt Green)Distributor: Uncorkd EntertainmentWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.Described on IMDb as one of the southeasts most active filmmakers, veteran creature effects artist Green assembles a collection of horror stories.

Finding Eden (Rodney Luis Aquino)Distributor: Freestyle Digital MediaWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.Jason Sutton plays a loner roaming the country armed only with a bow and arrow in this low-budget First Blood knockoff.

Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)Distributor: Grasshopper FilmsWhere to Find It: Choose a virtual cinema to support.Two young women see their lifelong friendship strained as one finds it increasingly difficult to cope with her mental condition in this indie drama.

A Nuns Curse (Tommy Faircloth)Distributor: Uncorkd EntertainmentWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.This direct-to-VOD horror movie takes place in an abandoned prison whose visitors discover the ghost of Sister Monday still haunts the grounds.

Proximity (Eric Demeusy)Distributor: Shout! StudiosWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.Convinced he was abducted by extraterrestrials, a NASA employee sets out to prove he isnt crazy in this straight-to-digital sci-fi thriller.

Red Rover (Shane Belcourt)Distributor: IndieCan EntertainmentWhere to Find It: Rent on Amazon and other on-demand platforms.A Canadian sci-fi movie thats less about the outer-of-this-world premise people competing for a ticket to Mars than the underlying loneliness.

Up from the Streets: New Orleans: The City of Music (Michael Murphy)Distributor: Eagle Rock EntertainmentWhere to Find It: Watch the film via a virtual festival.Hosted by jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, this documentary mixes new and archival musical performances to celebrate New Orleans influence on the scene.

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New Movies to Watch This Week: Capone, The Wrong Missy, Scoob! - Variety

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero