Review: Noomi Rapace on Netflix, a real-life Ted Lasso, and more movies to watch this weekend

Provided that there’s an precise struggle raging in Europe proper now, this may increasingly seem to be a wierd time to look at the dystopian Swedish motion image “Black Crab,” which is ready in a near-future world the place extraordinary residents have been drafted into armed battle. However maybe that’s why director Adam Berg’s punchy thriller has change into one of many most-watched films on Netflix because it debuted final week. It feels extra like an escapist fantasy than a ripped-from-the-headlines cautionary story.

Noomi Rapace stars as Caroline, who within the film’s opening scene is driving her daughter by means of a tunnel when all of a sudden pictures ring out and troopers rush in, surrounding the vehicles. The story then jumps forward to a rustic ravaged by what appears to be a protracted and un-winnable apocalyptic battle. There, Caroline will get assigned to what could possibly be a suicide mission, becoming a member of a staff of expert skaters who’ve been ordered to ship two probably war-ending packages to an iced-in archipelago — the place the heroine’s long-lost little one could also be held.

Berg makes the many of the “particular forces on skates” gimmick (tailored by Berg and screenwriter Pelle Rådström from a Jerker Virdborg novel), capturing numerous lengthy, tense sequences of Caroline and firm gliding urgently throughout an eerie frozen panorama. The film is much less profitable at making its plot really feel genuinely significant, fairly than a easy supply gadget for chases and shootouts. Nonetheless, for individuals who might use a break from actual explosions on the information, the faux ones in “Black Crab” are well-crafted, thrilling and largely innocent.

Within the gripping Irish supernatural thriller “You Are Not My Mom,” Hazel Doupe performs Char, a lonesome and regularly bullied Dublin teenager who spends a lot of her time taking care of the 2 ladies in her life: her gruff and superstitious grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie) and her depressed mom Angela (Carolyn Bracken). When Angela disappears sooner or later and returns with a wholly completely different character — alternately sweetly upbeat and alarmingly odd — Char isn’t certain what to make of Rita’s insistence that this “Angela” is definitely a changeling, and should be destroyed.

Author-director Kate Dolan — making an extremely promising characteristic filmmaking debut — units this story simply earlier than Halloween, at a time when Char’s neighbors and academics are inclined to inform tales from folklore. Like numerous the most effective current horror movies, “You Are Not My Mom” is rooted in the concept numerous our oldest scary tales are actually simply the methods our ancestors defined dire sickness, unimaginable trauma and precise evil. This directly deeply creepy and unusually shifting film is finally a couple of woman in misery, not sure of what to do when the change she’s been determined for seems to be worse than the distress she’s already discovered to deal with.

Based mostly on a novel by Michael Koryta — a best-selling creator whose books typically tread the skinny line between gritty true crime and paranormal journey — “So Chilly the River” stars Bethany Pleasure Lenz as Erica Shaw, a struggling filmmaker and journalist who takes a well-paying gig as an archivist, employed to make a film celebrating a dying plutocrat. She investigates her patron’s previous whereas staying in a cool previous resort lodge, the place she discovers some disturbing truths about her topic and begins to have unusual visions induced by the native spring water.

Author-director Paul Shoulberg successfully captures the spooky, “Shining”-like vibe of Koryta’s story; though given the wealthy supply materials, this film ought to be quite a bit grabbier than it’s. The story proceeds alongside a pretty straight path, as Erica consults with the locals and will get nearer to the center of her employers’ darkness, one gradual step at a time. Nonetheless, the movie has a hanging look, stuffed with deep shadows, shimmering mild, and flashes of coloration. “So Chilly the River” additionally captures the moral problems dealing with a reporter who begins to comprehend that the character of her task might hold her from telling the general public what they actually need to know.

German soccer coach Otto Rehhagel within the documentary “King Otto.”

(Sven Simon / Imago / MPI Media Group)

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Christopher André Marks’ entertaining sports activities documentary “King Otto” tells the story of an unlikely European soccer hero: Otto Rehhagel, a veteran German participant and supervisor who had a strong if largely undistinguished profession earlier than he signed on to teach the Greek nationwide staff, the place his defense-focused type flummoxed opponents. The squad’s legendary run by means of the 2004 European Championship cemented his repute as a strategist and a pacesetter, who was both extremely fortunate or subtly sensible. “King Otto” options numerous thrilling previous footage from the pitch, together with new interviews that dig into the methods this real-life Ted Lasso used a cultural hole to his benefit, relying on his gamers to boost their recreation at any time when they couldn’t perceive what he was saying. It’s an excellent story, crisply advised.

Additionally on VOD

“All My Associates Hate Me” is a deftly written and acted black comedy — bordering on horror — starring Tom Stourton as a person who joins his previous faculty friends for a weekend within the nation after which makes one nightmarish social blunder after one other.

Accessible now on DVD and Blu-ray

“Nightmare Alley” (Searchlight) is director Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-nominated, visually dazzling, uncompromisingly unnerving interpretation of William Lindsay Gresham’s basic “carnival noir” novel, beforehand tailored to the large display in 1947. Bradley Cooper performs an amoral drifter who learns a couple of con artist tips, turns them right into a profitable nightclub act, after which will get into hassle when he tries to cross himself off as a psychic.

“The Flight of the Phoenix” (Criterion) options one in all James Stewart’s final nice performances, enjoying a cargo airplane pilot whose crew tries to outlive within the desert — whereas constructing a functioning plane from spare components — after a crash leaves them stranded. Director Robert Aldrich’s 1965 movie is a rousing journey with an all-star solid.