Short Redhead Reel Reviews For The Week Of Aug. 19 | Free

Rating system: (4=Don't miss, 3=Good, 2=Worth a look, 1=Forget it)

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“Another Year” (PG-13) (3) [Some language.] [DVD and VOD only] — A somber, low-key, well-acted, 2010, Mike Leigh film that observes one year in the life of a British medical therapist (Ruth Sheen) and her engineering biologist husband (Jim Broadbent) who seem to offer sage counsel to her divorced, neurotic coworker (Leslie Manville) who drinks too much and wants a man to quell her loneliness, his curt brother (David Bradley) who is trying to cope with the loss of his wife, an unhappy divorced man (Peter Wight) who indulges in too much food and drink and too many cigarettes, and their lawyer son (Oliver Maltman) who begins to date an occupational therapist (Karina Fernandez).

“Bad Teacher” (R) (2.5) [Sexual content, nudity, language, and some drug use.] [DVD and VOD only] — A funny, albeit raunchy, uncomfortable, over-the-top, star-dotted (Dave Paymer and Molly Shannon), romantic comedy in which a lazy, self-centered, horrific, swearing, pot-smoking, junior high school teacher (Cameron Diaz) in Illinois, who reluctantly returns to teaching after her fed-up fiancé (Nat Faxon) dumps her, gets herself into potential hot water with the trusting principal (John Michael Higgins), a nerdy substitute teacher (Justin Timberlake), a well-respected peer (Lucy Punch), a smitten gym teacher (Jason Segel), and other faculty members (Phyllis Smith, Dave Allen, Jillian Armenante, et al.) when she becomes desperate to earn money for a breast augmentation.

“Beast” (R) (3) [Violent content, bloody images, and some language.] [Opens Aug. 19 in theaters.] — When a widowed physician (Idris Elba) brings his two teenage daughters (Lyana Halley and Leah Sava Jeffries) on a safari in a game reserve managed by a wildlife biologist and longtime family friend (Sharlto Copley) in South Africa in Baltasar Kormákur’s taut, engaging, suspenseful, tension-filled, well-paced, violent, star-dotted (Riley Keough, Melanie Jarnson, Damon Burtley, Robby MacIsaac, and Billy Gallagher), 93-minute thriller based on Jaime Primak Sullivan’s story, the foursome are stalked by a ferocious rogue lion after its pride was killed by money-greedy poachers.

“Bullet Proof” (R) (2.5) [Violence.] [Opens Aug. 19 in select theaters and available on various digital and VOD platforms.] — After a daring thief (James C. Clayton) alleviates a vicious, psychopathic, drug-dealing crime lord (Vinnie Jones) of a duffle bag full of cash and then unexpectedly discovers his pregnant wife (Lina Lecompte) in the trunk of his stolen car who is desperately trying to escape from her abusive husband in James C. Clayton’s a riveting, gritty, fast-paced, violent, predictable, 105-minute thriller, the two find themselves on the run from the husband and his henchmen (Gaston Morrison, Glenn Ennis, Shaw Maddon, Danny Mac, Michael Mitton, Cooper Bibaud, et al.), including an assassin (Janvier Katabarwa) called The Frenchman.

“Camping Trip” (NR) (2.5) [Available Aug. 16 on various digital platforms.] — Terrific cinematography highlights Demian Fuica and Leonardo Fuica’s poignant, intense, violent, unpredictable, surprising, 115-minute crime thriller in which two couples (Leonardo Fuica, Caitlin Cameron, Alex Gravenstein, and Forest Briand), who have nosy neighbors (Miguel Fuica and Irma Adriazola), go on a camping trip in the summer of 2020 after being cooped up during the COVID-19 pandemic and when a mysterious physician (Ben Pelletier) hides a bunch of cash in their tent and the best friends are confronted by two ruthless killers (Jonathan Vanderzon and Michael D'Amico) searching for the loot, tensions and violence escalate as greed and disagreements take over.

“Cha Cha Real Smooth” (R) (3.5) [Language and some sexual content.] [Available currently on Apple TV+.] — When an engaging, charming, free-spirited, 22-year-old Tulane graduate (Cooper Raiff), whose girlfriend (Amara Pedroso Saquel) moved to Barcelona on a Fulbright scholarship, living with his supportive patents (Leslie Mann and Brad Garrett) and his 12-year-old brother (Evan Assante) and working at a fast food restaurant in New Jersey, meets a depression-prone divorcee (Dakota Johnson), who is engaged to a Chicago-based lawyer (Raúl Castillo), and her autistic teenage daughter (Vanessa Burghardt) who loves potato mashers, Rubik cubes, Scrabble, and hamsters while acting as a host at a bar mitzvah party in Cooper Raiff’s captivating, award-winning, poignant, heartwarming, superbly-written, well-acted, humor-sprinkled, moving, 107-minute film, he finds himself attracted to the devoted, commitment-shy mother while babysitting her daughter as needed.

“Day Shift” (R) (2.5) [Language, strong violence, and gore.] [Netflix Only] — After a revengeful vampire real estate agent (Karla Souza) kidnaps his ex-wife (Meagan Good) and feisty, precocious, 8-year-old daughter (Zion Broadnax) in retaliation for decapitating her elderly, fanged daughter (Danielle Kennedy) in J.J. Perry’s entertaining, hilarious, action-packed, fast-paced, violent, vampire-splattered, star-dotted (Scott Adkins, Peter Stomare, Steve Howey, and Eric Lange), 113-minute horror comedy highlighted by terrific fight choreography, a financially struggling California swimming pool cleaner (Jamie Foxx), who cleans pools in the San Fernando Valley by day and hunts vampires by night, teams up with a milquetoast union clerk (Dave Franco), a legendary vampire hunter (Snoop Dogg ), and a friendly vampire (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) to find and save them.

“Inside Job” (PG-13) (4) [Some drug and sex-related material.] [DVD and VOD only] — Matt Damon narrates Oscar-winning, exhaustive, anger-inducing, educational, thought-provoking, 2010 documentary, which is divided into three segments (Part 1:How We Got There, Part 2: The Bubble, and Part 3: The Crisis), that begins by examining the financial meltdown in Iceland in 2008, which was triggered by the governmental deregulation of three banks and their subsequent collapse after borrowing $5 billion over a 5-year period and the tripling of unemployment in 6 months, and continues with dissecting the global financial crisis in 2008, which led to more than 6 billion foreclosures by 2010, countless loss of jobs, and a $20-trillion price tag, through primarily candid interviews with financial experts, including Icelandic economic professor Gylfi Zolga, writer Andri Magnason, Hedge Fund Manager Bill Ackman, former Moody’s rating Agency Managing Director Jerome Fons, former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin, MIT professor and Chief Economist Simon Johnson, bankruptcy lawyer Harvey Miller, factory worker Joanna Xu, Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, former AIG Director Martin Feldstein, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, financial editors Gillian Tett and Allan Sloane, Senior Economics Professor Nouriel Roubini, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank, former Bush administration Chief Economic Advisor Glenn Hubbard, former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus of Investment Banking Samuel Hayes, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Vocker, Center for Responsible Lending Director Eric Halperin, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Law and Finance Professor Frank Partnoy, Chief Economic Commentator Martin Wolf, Westwood Capital Managing Director Daniel Alpert, Harvard Economics Professor Kenneth Rogoff, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering Professor Andrew Lo, former IMF Chief Economist Raghuram Rajan, former Lehman Brothers Vice Chairman Jeffrey Lane, therapist Jonathan Alpert, elite prostitute Kristin Davies, authors Charles Morris who wrote “The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown” and Satyajet Das who wrote “Traders, Guns & Money,” former Treasury Secretary Donald Regan, former Greenlining Institute (a consumer advocacy group) Director Robert Gnaigda, Citigroup Chief Economist Willem Buiter, Financial Service Roundtable Chief Lobbyist Scott Talbot, and former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Deputy Director Michael Greenberger; after 2001, the financial sector was dominated by five investment banks (i.e., Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Bears Stearn), financial conglomerates Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, three security insurance companies (i.e., AIG, MBIA, Ambac), and three rating agencies (Moody’s, Fitch, and Standards and Poor’s), which ultimately linked together home buyers, lenders, investment banks, and investors.

“Kili Bi” (NR) (3) [Available Aug. 18 on Chicken Soup for the Soul on Crackle Plus on Crackle.com via various digital platforms.] — Ida Rodriguez Joglar’s inspirational, engaging, uplifting, moving, enjoyable, 89-minute, 2021 documentary highlighted by terrific cinematography and chronicles the literal and figurative journey of the eclectic, multinational group of courageous, determined plus-sized women, including Sharon ‘Shazz’ Nderitu, Celeste Mick, Eve Bogdanove, Alyson Avery, Bisa Myles, Autumn Stotlet, Bonnie Crawford, Casey Cunningham, Diandra Oliver, Andrea DiMaio, Deb Malkin, Kara Hardman, Karen Rooney, Kat Shaiman-Ward, Kathy McCready, Megan McReynolds, Molly Homchenko, and Yolanda Berry, known as the Curvy Kili Crew, founded by Christa Singleton, as they prepare and train in Portland, Ore., to make the arduous, grueling climb of 19,341-feet Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa, in March 2018 accompanied by supportive Trek2kili guides.

“Luck” (G) (3) [Available Aug. 5 on Apple TV+.] — When an unlucky, clumsy, kindhearted, 18-year-old store clerk (voiceover by Eva Noblezada) ends up finding and then quickly losing a lucky, four-clover penny that she wanted to give to her young friend (voiceover by Adelynn Spoon) at an orphanage to help her get adopted and find her forever home with new parents (voiceovers by Kari Wahlgren and Nick Thurston) in Peggy Holmes’ heartwarming, colorful, family friendly, humorous, touching, star-studded (voiceovers by Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, John Ratzenberger, Lil Rel Howery, Flula Borg, Colin O’Donoghue, and Grey Griffin), 105-minute animated film, she finds herself in the Land of Luck with a talkative black cat (voiceover by Simon Pegg) where mayhem ensues and existence of bad luck and good luck are threatened.

“Mao’s Last Dancer” (PG) (3.5) [A brief violent image, some sensuality, language, and incidental smoking.] [Partially subtitled] [DVD and VOD only] — A moving, heartwarming, heartbreaking, inspirational, factually based, 2009 film in which promising 11-year-old Chinese student Li Cunxin (Wen Bin Huang and Chengwu Guo) leaves his hardworking mother (Joan Chen) and father at home in 1971 to study dance at Madam Mao's Beijing Dance Academy in Beijing, then travels to Texas in the 1980s to train as a ballet dancer (Chi Cao) under the tutelage of Houston Ballet Company artistic director Ben Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), and later finds himself defecting to the United States with the support of a lawyer (Kyle MacLachlan) and marrying fellow dancer Elizabeth Mackey (Amanda Schull).

“Movers Ultimate” (NR) (2.5) [Available Aug. 19 on various digital platforms.] — When their boss (Steven Strafford) assigns two disgruntled best friends and professional movers (Andy J. Carlson and Shawn Knox) to a job in which they end up with a manipulative, nightmarish client (Annalese Poorman) from hell who has more possessions than expected and a feisty daughter (Sé Marie) who helps run interference in Ben Rood’s quirky, wacky, entertaining, humorous, 91-minute comedy, they must work with a newbie coworker (Grant Lewis) and two clumsy, inept movers (Grant Brooks and Jeremy Farley) if they have any chance of finishing the move on time in order to make it to their 10-year high school reunion with the intent of reconnecting with past crushes.

“The Runner” (NR) (3) [Opens Aug. 19 in theaters and available Aug. 23 on various digital and VOD platforms.] — After a spoiled, hustling, messed-up, heroin-addicted high school student (Edouard Philipponnat), who is dealing drugs to his peers (Nadji Jeter, Kerri Medders, et al.) as his life is spiraling out of control, lands in prison when his concerned mother (Elisabeth Röhm) calls the police in Michelle Danner’s gripping, gritty, award-winning, intense, dark, well-acted, 102-minute thriller, he reluctantly wears a wire and goes undercover working for a no-nonsense detective (Cameron Douglas) to take down a ruthless, menacing drug kingpin (Eric Balfour) during a dangerous sting operation monitored by the SWAT commander (Coleman McClary) and his team.

“Squeal” (NR) (3) [Subtitled] [Opens Aug. 19 in select theaters in NYC and L.A. and available on various VOD platforms.] — Uldis Verners Brūns narrates Aik Karapetian’s compelling, highly bizarre, dark, unusual, satirical, 85-minute, 2021 film in which an unlucky, disillusioned Belgian (Kevin Janssens) accidentally hits a swine with his car on the back roads in Latvia while searching for his biological father and then is unexpectedly chained up naked, is imprisoned in a pig sty by the love-struck piglet’s owner (Laura Siliņa), who lives on a farm with her father (Aigars Vilims) and a jealous and threatening handyman (Normunds Griestinš), and is forced to do manual labor, and he eventually finds his roots and happiness in an unexpected place.

“Swan Song” (R) (3) [Language.] [Available currently on Apple TV+.] — When a talented graphic design artist (Mahershala Ali) learns that he is terminally ill in a futuristic society in Benjamin Cleary’s compelling, award-winning, original, well-acted, moving, nonlinear, languid-paced, thought-provoking, star-dotted (Awkwafina, Adam Beach, and Jessica Hayles), 112-minute, 2021 sci-fi film highlighted with gorgeous scenery, he struggles with the idea of going to a doctor (Glenn Close) to have himself secretly cloned to prevent his pregnant, piano-playing, schoolteacher wife (Naomie Harris), who already lost her twin brother (Nyasha Hatendi) in a tragic accident, and young son (Dax Rey) from having to suffer, to grieve, and to live without him.

“Syndrome K” (NR) (3) [Available Aug. 16 to rent or own on U.S. digital HD internet, TVOD, and satellite platforms.] — Ray Liotta narrates Stephen Edwards’ educational, factually based, inspirational, moving, 80-minute, 2021 documentary told through reenactments and archival photographs and film footage in which three compassionate, courageous Roman Catholic doctors Adriano Ossicini, Giovanni Borromeo, and Vittorio Sacradoti working at the Vatican-affiliated Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome came up with an ingenious idea to concoct an allegedly highly contagious, highly lethal, fake disease they called Syndrome K when the Nazis occupied Italy during WWII to hide and save more than a 1,000 Roman Jews at the medical center by quarantining the supposedly very sick Jewish patients and moving them to safer locations after many Roman Jews in the Jewish Ghetto in Rome were deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and consists of interview clips with the International Academic Programs director at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Suzanne Brown-Fleming and Roman Jewish survivors, including Gabriele Sonnino, Luisa Almagià, Tullio Sonnino, Lea Dinola, and Giacomo Sonnino.

“Trollhunter” (PG-13) (3) [Some sequences of creature terror.] [Subtitled] [DVD and VOD only] — An imaginative, creative, suspenseful, entertaining, cinema-verité style, 90-minute, 2010, mockdocumentary in the vein of “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield” in which amateur college filmmakers, a director (Glenn Erland Tosterud), the cameraman (Tomas Alf Larsen), and a sound engineer (Johanna Mørck), ignore the warnings of the wildlife board representative (Hans Morten Hansen), who tells the public that animal killings are due to bear attacks, and follow a reclusive, no-nonsense Norwegian hunter (Otto Jespersen) whose government job it is to track and kill mountain and woodland trolls, which explode or turn into stone when they are exposed to ultraviolet light or sunshine.

“Why on Earth” (NR) (3.5) [Partially subtitled.] [Played Aug. 12 as part of AARP’s Movies for Grownups and available on Aug. 16 on Amazon Prime Video and various VOD platforms.]. — Striking cinematography dominates Katie Cleary’s powerful, educational, insightful, eye-opening, heartbreaking, 75-minute documentary that focuses on the plight of endangered animals, including orangutans in Sumatra, sharks and rhinos in South Africa, and lions and elephants in Kenya, due to harvesting of palm oil, deforestation, mass killing, and poaching and the efforts to stop and prevent cruelty to animals all over the world and encouraging plant-based diets and consists of commentary by director and conservationist Clint Eastwood, Orangutan Information Center founder Panut Hadisiswoyo, wildlife photographer and conservationist Paul Hilton, Peace 4 Animals & World Animal News president and founder Katie Cleary, Orangutan Information Center member Nayla Azmi, The Oranutan Project conservation director Dr. Ian Singleton, Orangutan Foundation International president Mary Galdikas and executive liaison Freddie Galdikas, filmmaker and conservationist Kristin Rizzo, underwater photographer and conservationist Shawn Heinrichs, Jim Abernathy’s Scuba Adventures owner and conservationist Jim Abernathy, Marine Dynamics founder Wilfred Chivell and senior white shark biologist Alison Tower, actors and conservationists (such as Shannon Elizabeth, Maggie Q, Kristin Bauer Van Straten, and Dan Richardson), Umani Springs Reintegration Unit head keeper Philip Okode, Sheldrick Wildlife Trust pilot Neville Sheldrick, KWS veterinarian Jeremiah Poghon, VOI Reintegration Unit head keeper Joseph Sauni, Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary founder Petronel Niewoudt, Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary Anti-Poaching Unit operators Deon Combrink and Zander Pelser, Ol Pejeta Conservancy CEO Richard Vigne and head keeper Zacharia Mutai, Social Compassion in Legislation founder Judie Mancuso and vice president Simone Reyes, senators (such as Nancy Skinner, Henry Stern, and Cathleen Galgiani), California state assembly members (such as Ash Kalra, Jesse Gabriel, Brian Maienschein, Timothy Grayson, and Marc Berman), Jane Unchained News Network founder Jane Velez-Mitchell, Social Compassion in Legislation lawyer Nicholas Sackett, International Anti-Poaching Foundation founder Damian Mander, Akashinga lead ranger Vimbai Kumire, NBA star and conservationist John Salley, Animal Recovery Mission founder Richard Cuoto and lead investigators Rodrigo Mello and Rachel Taylor, Olympic gold medalist David Verburg, and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary operators Logan and Tony Vindett, and racecar driver and conservationist Leilani Munter.

“Zero Avenue” (NR) (3) [Available currently on Apple TV+.] — After a nerdy, duplicitous, 400-year-old immortal (Braeson Herold), who is controlled by a demon (Bj Gruber) while desperately searching for his mother (McLean Peterson), hires a dominatrix (Allison Siko) on his birthday in New York City in Daniel Frei’s award-winning, eerie, original, imaginative, blood-filled, low-budget, 78-minute, 2021 horror film, the prostitute begins to experience frightening nightmares about her client’s true intentions.

Wendy Schadewald is a Burnsville resident.

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