New Movies to Watch This Week: Honest Thief, American Utopia and Venice Fest Winner Martin Eden – Variety

The sheer range of genres represented by this weeks new releases from Liam Neeson thriller Honest Thief to romantic weepie 2 Hearts suggests that distributors of all kinds are doing their best to give audiences the kind of selection they enjoyed before the lockdown.

Well, nearly all kinds of distributors.

The major studios are still playing it safe and holding their tentpoles for a time when they can pack the megaplexes, although Paramount has stepped in with a fun post-apocalyptic adventure, Love and Monsters, which goes straight to PVOD, and Sony picked up an unconventional neo-noir called The Kid Detective out of the Toronto Film Festival that sneaks into theaters today. Pre-Halloween horror offerings continue, asAmazon Prime releases two more titles in its Welcome to the Blumhouse series: Evil Eye and Nocturne.

Art-houses land a major title in 2019 Venice Film Festival winner Martin Eden, an Italian adaptation of the Jack London novel. Comedy fans can laugh along with Jimmy O. Yang in The Opening Act, in which the Silicon Valley star plays a standup struggling to find his feet. And Edward James Olmos makes his directorial debut an ambitious if wildly overreaching satire about oil-company malfeasance with The Devil Has a Name.

As much as some audiences miss the cinema experience, the feelings even more acute for live theater. Broadway has gone entirely dark during the shutdown, so its a special kind of thrill that this week brings filmed versions of two hit shows. Debuting on HBO Saturday night, Spike Lee directs David Byrnes American Utopia, an ebullient, immersive concert in the vein of the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense, while A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood helmer Marielle Heller brings Heidi Schrecks Tony-nominated What the Constitution Means to Me to Amazon.

The latter seems perfectly timed to the looming election, which continues to motivate various doc makers to weigh in with politically engaged offerings such as The Atlantics White Noise, which profiles three alt-right influencers, and White Riot, about Eric Claptons late-70s Rock Against Racism initiative, a music-driven response to National Front marches and anti-immigrant sentiment. Its a concert movie with conscience. Likewise, musical bio Harry Chapin: When In Doubt celebrates the late folk singers career, as well as his dedication to ending world hunger.

On the less serious musical front, Netflix offers some cotton-candy diversion in the form of K-pop doc Blackpink: Light Up the Sky, while Disney Plus delivers Clouds, an emotional tribute to the late Zach Sobiech, adapted from his moms memoir, Fly a Little Higher: How God Answered a Moms Small Prayer in a Big Way.

Heres a rundown of those films opening this week that Variety has covered, along with links to where you can watch them. Find more movies and TV shows to stream here.

The Kid DetectiveCourtesy of Stage 6 Films

2 Hearts (Lance Hool)Distributor: Freestyle ReleasingWhere to Find It: In theaters now2 Hearst is a softheaded piece of morbid romantic treacle two parallel cloying love stories for the price of one. But it all builds to them merging together, and the film tips its hand within 10 minutes that its spiritual linchpin will be a cataclysmic medical trauma. It takes no great deduction to look at these couples, put two and two together, and realize that what were watching is going to turn into a faith-based organ-transplant movie. 2 Hearts is based on a true story, but what its selling is sanctimonious charity disaster porn. The big message is: Even the most devastating trauma is all part of Gods plan. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

Honest Thief (Mark Williams)Distributor: Open RoadWhere to Find It: In theaters nowDirected by the co-creator of Ozark, this is a serviceably energized and routine action crime movie, with a few slammin fistfights and gun battles, and it proves once again that Liam Neeson is an actor who will take a paycheck gig without treating it like one. The idea of a super-criminal turning himself in is intriguing, but once the plan gets blown apart, Honest Thief becomes a glumly standard piece of B-movie Tinkertoy, with no surprises. And yet the corniest thing about it Toms drive to save his love for Annie (Kate Walsh) is also the most convincing. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

The Kid Detective (Evan Morgan)Distributor: Sony Pictures, Stage 6 FilmsWhere to Find It: In theaters nowDont be fooled by the cheery ring of the Disney-esque title The Kid Detective. Splendidly summoning film noir-esque vibes, classically ghastly bad guys and femme fatale types out of a whimsical small town full of grotesque mysteries, this bold and often surprisingly humorous film think of it as a more mainstream version of Rian Johnsons Brick grapples with themes related to murder and abuse, as well as the existential dread of its central recluse, who fell grossly short of the promising life he thought he was meant to have in his younger days. Tomris LafflyRead the full review

Martin EdenVenice Film Festival

The Devil Has a Name (Edward James Olmos)Distributor: Momentum PicturesWhere to Find It: In theaters, on demand and through digital providersRob McEveety overwrites the heck out of this dark comedy, cramming it full of fancy language and over-the-top caricatures, like Shore Oil regional director Gigi Cutler (a wicked Kate Bosworth), who saunters into a board room, slams back a few whiskey shots and explains, in a cockeyed Texas drawl, There are 53 different types of nuts in the world. He was one of them. Shes referring to Fred Stern, whose almond crop has been compromised by radioactive microparticles, but a line like that tells you weve left planet earth and are operating in the carnival-like realm of the imagination. Peter DebrugeRead the full review

Love and Monsters (Michael Matthews)Distributor: Paramount PicturesWhere to Find It: Available for $19.99 via premium video on demandIts the end of the world as Joel (Dylan OBrien) knows it and, despite living in an underground bunker for seven years to evade the gigantic mutant reptiles, insects and amphibians that now roam the earths surface, he feels surprisingly fine. Michael Matthews cheerfully PG-13 adventure comedy quickly dispenses with any notional topicality threatened by its premise, but thats all for the best. It leaves Love and Monsters free to get on with its splattery creature effects and silly but satisfying heros journey entirely unencumbered by importance. Jessica KiangRead the full review

Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)Distributor: Kino LorberWhere to Find It: In select theaters and virtual cinemasThough best known in the States for his wilderness novels, Jack Londons key novel is Martin Eden, a semi-autobiographical work tracing his background from unschooled sailor to celebrated writer, encompassing all his class anger, political musings and intense dissatisfaction with the life he created. Now Marcello (The Mouth of the Wolf) has made it the subject of his sprawling first full-fiction film, sticking close to the narrative while setting it in an undefinable 20th-century moment to make his own statements about the creative process, class hypocrisy and the disappointment of most political theories. Jay WeissbergRead the full review

The Opening Act (Steve Byrne)Distributor: RJLEWhere to Find It: In theaters, on demand and through digital providersImagine, for a moment, that a stand-up comic is just like a superhero. On stage, hes a master of the universe, armored and impervious, slinging jokes like lightning bolts. He defeats all adversaries, from hecklers to the potential indifference of the audience; laughter, of course, is his way of killing. If thats what a stand-up comic is, then The Opening Act, Steve Byrnes wryly likable shoestring indie comedy about a young man trying to make it in the world of stand-up, might be described as a stand-up-comedy origin story. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

S---house (Cooper Raiff)Distributor: IFC FilmsWhere to Find It: In select theaters and on demandRaiff plays Alex Malmquist, an college freshman whos been having trouble adjusting to the idea of being a self-sufficient 19-year-old so far away from his family back in Texas. Alex cant stand his roommate (Logan Miller), isnt serious about classes and has no idea where to find the parties or the girls, for that matter. Then he meets Maggie (Dylan Gelula), a sophomore with a much more casual idea of hooking up. Cooper brings enough honesty to this different-pages dynamic she rushes into sex, hes looking for romance that one can easily imagine him going on to write projects that connect with his generation. Peter DebrugeRead the full review

White Noise (Daniel Lombroso)Distributor: The AtlanticWhere to Find It: Available via Laemmle virtual cinemas, expanding to VOD on Oct. 23The subject of White Noise is racist white nationalism and the people in America who believe in it, but the characters at the films center arent neo-Klan knuckle-draggers from the heartland. Theyre hip, attractive, relatively young social-media-friendly self-promoters who have turned their hate into a brand. They are also, as the film reveals, deeply shallow and self-deluded hypocrites. In addition to Richard Spencer, this lively and disturbing documentary portrait also follows the activities of Lauren Southern and Mike Cernovich. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

What the Constitution Means to MeJoan Marcus

What the Constitution Means to Me (Marielle Heller)Where to Find It: Amazon PrimeIn high school, 15-year-old Heidi Schreck won enough prize money giving Constitution-themed speeches at American Legion halls to pay her way through college. A quarter-century later, Schreck spun her memories of all that youthful idealism into a hit Broadway show. No doubt, in planning to release a filmed version of her show on Oct. 16, she hoped that her words might impact the 2020 presidential election. What Schreck couldnt have imagined is that the same week the special dropped on Amazon Prime, Senate lawmakers would be posing that very question to Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Peter DebrugeRead the full review

Evil Eye (Elan Dassani, Rajeev Dassani)Where to Find It: Amazon Prime

Nocturne (Zu Quirke)Where to Find It: Amazon Prime

Clouds (Justin Baldoni)Where to Find It: Disney PlusAs likably played by actor-musician Fin Argus in his first credited feature role, Zach Sobiech is stoic but not dour, headlining this sweet, smoothed-over biopic of the teenage singer-songwriter, who died aged 18 of cancer, shortly after scoring the viral folk-pop hit that lends the film its title. Christianity is a neutral background presence in Baldonis and screenwriter Kara Holdens interpretation of the Sobiechs story. Instead, Clouds pushes a less specific, more inclusive faith in the human spirit not to achieve miracles but, in the words of its hero, to make people happy, as much as I can for as long as I can. Guy LodgeRead the full review

David Byrnes American UtopiaDavid Lee/HBO

David Byrnes American Utopia (Spike Lee) CRITICS PICKWhere to Find It: Available Oct. 17 on HBO MaxByrnes spiky and exuberant 21st-century rock-concert-on-Broadway jamboree consisted of the former Talking Head and 11 fellow musicians, all barefoot and dressed in silver-blue suits, dancing and marching and prancing and bopping around a bare stage as they performed 21 songs. Any screen version of a Broadway show will take you closer to the action than most theater seats do. But in American Utopia, Lee turns the stage into a diorama he keeps breaking apart and pushing back together. Its just us, and you, says Byrne, speaking to the audience, and the movie nudges that you into a place beyond the fourth wall. Owen GleibermanRead the full review

A Babysitters Guide to Monster HuntingCourtesy of Netflix

A Babysitters Guide to Monster Hunting(Rachel Talalay)Where to Find It: NetflixIts either an in-joke or an irony that the not-terribly-terrifying villain is named The Grand Guignol, for this perky, clean-cut kiddie-horror steers as far clear as possible of the macabre gore that moniker implies. In this tale of an underground babysitter syndicate dedicated to fighting the things that go bump in the night, even the monsters are cute. Yet cuteness supplants genuine charm in this Netflix-released adaptation of screenwriter Joe Ballarinis YA book series, which may adequately distract very young ones on a socially distanced Halloween night, but offers ample room for improvement in the franchise it seeks to start. Guy LodgeRead the full review

Blackpink: Light Up the Sky(Caroline Suh)Where to Find It: Netflix

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New Movies to Watch This Week: Honest Thief, American Utopia and Venice Fest Winner Martin Eden - Variety