Buzz Blog

Ghost Cat Anzu ***
The predictability of so much American feature animation certainly gets a bracing counterpoint in this anime adventure that feels both vaguely familiar and somehow also its own weird thing. Based on the manga by Takashi Imashiro, it’s the story of an adolescent girl named Karin (Noa Gotō) who’s left by her widowed, gambling-debt-ridden father Tetsuya (Munetaka Aoki) at the temple run by her grandfather. There Karin also meets Anzu (Mirai Moriyama), a giant 37-year-old talking cat who drives a moped (without a license, unfortunately) and works as a massage therapist. The supernatural elements also include various embodied spirits and a visit to the Land of the Dead for Karin to visit her mother, as the story combines bits that feel like a pinch from My Neighbor Totoro, a touch from Spirited Away, etc. But it’s also goofy entertainment on its own weird level as each new fillip emerges, and Anzu becomes a stand-in for Karin’s absentee dad—bad with money, kind of a dick at times, but also willing to stick his neck out for those he cares about. It’s perhaps a bit too weirdly episodic for the emotional components ever to full register, but the visuals and character design by directors Yôko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita are always their own satisfying thing. In an ocean of sameness, I’ll take a story with a loincloth-clad God of Poverty, and one character tormented by having his lower lip turned into a jump rope. Available Nov. 15 in theaters. (PG)

Hot Frosty **1/2
There’s an entire ecosystem of gently satisfying holiday-themed romance movies on various cable networks, I’m aware, and maybe I’d watch more of them if they provided the kind of warm fuzzies that this whimsical fantasy offers. It’s real high-concept stuff, as widowed small-town diner owner Kathy (Lacey Chabert) wraps a scarf around the neck of an ice-sculpture dude with washboard abs, and finds that he has come to life as a genial fellow named Jack (Dustin Milligan). The comedy almost always goes broad, from the mature women who go ga-ga over Jack, to the overzealous local sheriff (Craig Robinson, teamed with Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-alum Joe LoTruglio as his deputy) making life difficult for everyone, to a nudgy reference to Chabert’s presence in Mean Girls. But there’s also a genuine sweetness to the way screenwriter Russell Hainline turns the idea of a guy who might melt at any moment into a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life, and the need to carpe that diem with both chilly hands. Yeah, it’s kinda clunky when going full Pretty Woman with a wardrobe montage set to the Roy Orbison classic, and cobbles together elements from various “alien naïf among us” comedies plus a little Groundhog Day. But around this time of year, I’ll take something with its heart squarely in the right place. Available Nov. 13 via Netflix. (TV-PG)

A Real Pain ***1/2
While it’s far from the most interesting thing about the movie, the double-entendre in the title of writer/director Jesse Eisenberg’s second feature captures both the essence of a love-to-hate-him central character, and the story’s understanding that genuine hurt—whether your own, or someone else’s—can be hard to process. Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin play David and Benji Kaplan, cousins who decide to take a guided Jewish history tour of Poland, the native country of their recently-deceased, Holocaust-survivor grandmother. It’s also a coming-back-together of sorts for the once-close cousins, and a lot of the wonderful comedy in Eisenberg’s script comes from recognizing the differences in their respective personalities—David introverted and obsessive, Benji spontaneous and likely bipolar—and how those differences create tensions between them. Eisenberg is a generous enough filmmaker that he lets Culkin loose to take control of the story with an electric performance, capturing the qualities that make someone like Benji someone who (in David’s words) “lights up a room, then takes a shit all over it.” There’s material here also about people trying to process tragedy on a grand scale, and how hard it can be to recognize and address one’s own pain while recognizing that others have had it so much worse. It’s impressive that Eisenberg makes something so raucously funny and simultaneously so sweet about trying to connect with suffering across generations, across cultures, or even just across the hotel room you’re sharing. Available Nov. 15 in theaters. (R)

Red One *1/2
The term “high-concept” has been around for quite a while in describing a movie that can be sold entirely on an easily-synopsized premise; this frantic fantasy seems to earn that designation, except it’s more like several high-concepts thrown together by a kindergartner hopped up on Halloween candy. The most obvious concept is the one involving the kidnapping of Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) by a Christmas witch (Kiernan Shipka) on Dec. 23, requiring a ticking-clock rescue operation by Santa’s head of security (Dwayne Johnson) and a sleazy hacker/tracker (Chris Evans). But there’s also the part that introduces a whole universe of mythological beings overseen by a secret agency, complete with rules and treaties. And then there’s the part where it tries to explain the whole logistics of Christmas by making Santa a kind of jacked superhero with magical technology, plus the obligatory attempt at a subplot where people have to learn The True Meaning of Christmas, or the possibility of redemption, or something. The whole enterprise is a chaotic mess, only briefly coming to life when it introduces a wild party at the castle of Krampus (Kristofer Hivju), since Evans and Johnson never develop the kind of rapport needed to carry the story between CGI-filled donnybrooks. For something that purports to be about sparking the joy of one’s inner child, it really feels designed mostly to spark the joy of a studio accountant. Available Nov. 15 in theaters. (PG-13)