As you can read about here, the first installment of the Black Europe Film Festival takes over the Main this weekend. I'm also excited to finally see the well-reviewed All That We Imagine as Light, though as you can see from my new reviews below, I was disappointed by critics' faves The Room Next Door and The Seed of the Sacred Fig. But Nickel Boys is as good as you've been hearing and September 5 is better than it should be.
Special Screenings
Thursday, January 30
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Extended Edition (2003)
Alamo Drafthouse
The king is back! Everyone look busy! Also Wednesday. $13.50. 2:30 p.m. More info here.
Yi Yi (2000)
Grandview 1&2
Sorry to be old, but I wish Edward Yang’s three-hour masterpiece was screening just a little earlier. Also Sunday. $14.44. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Islands of Memory: Afro-Caribbean Short Films
Main Cinema
A unique film festival kicks off with this program. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. Free. 4:30 p.m. More info here.
Edelweiss (2023)
Main Cinema
A documentary about Black life in Austria. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. $5/$8/$10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Parkway Theater
The National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures rated it C ("condemned"). $9/$12. Trivia 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
The Land That Time Forgot (2025)
Trylon
Michael Paré vs. dinosaurs! $8. 1 p.m. More info here.
Friday, January 31
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Extended Edition (2002)
Alamo Drafthouse
The extended edition actually includes a third tower. $11.50. 2:30 p.m. Saturday 11 a.m. More info here.
Madame Hoffman (2024)
Alliance Francaise
In this documentary, a French nursing executive stops to look at her life. Free, but donation requested. 6 p.m. More info here.
Dinner in America (2020)
Emagine Willow Creek
Director Adam Rehmeier will be in attendance. $21.60. 8 p.m. More info here.
Black Diaspora in Short Form
The Main
Short films about Black life across Europe. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. Free. 2 p.m. More info here.
After the Long Rains (2023)
The Main
A girl in Kenya dreams of moving to Europe and becoming an actress. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. $5/$8/$10. 5 p.m. More info here.
The Gravity (2022)
The Main
Released from prison, a former drug dealer finds his neighborhood—and gravity itself—changed. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. $5/$8/$10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Trolls Band Together (2023)
Marcus West End Cinema
Keep the kids warm and entertained. Through Monday. 12 p.m. Price and more info here.
The Warriors (1979)
Trylon
Are you ready for some stylized gang violence? $8. Friday 7 p.m. Saturday 9 p.m. Sunday 1 & 3 p.m. More info here.
Xanadu (1980)
Trylon
Travel to a magical world beyond camp. $8. 9:30 p.m. Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 5 p.m. More info here.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Walker Art Center
Once again, Jane Schoenbrun turns a trans coming out tale into an off-kilter horror movie. Read our full review here. Free for Walker members. 6 p.m. More info here.
The Substance (2024)
Walker Art Center
Can't wait to hear what your parents think of this Oscar nominee. Free for Walker members. 8 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, February 1
Coming to America (1988)
Alamo Drafthouse
"There is a very fine line between love and nausea." $11.50. 3:45 p.m. More info here.
Live From the Met: Aida
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Opera! $28.70. Showtimes and more info here.
Girl (2023)
Capri Theater
An 11 year old learns about her mother’s past. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. $5/$8/$10. 2 p.m. More info here.
Black Youth in Motion
Capri Theater
A collection of short films. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. Free. 4:30 p.m. More info here.
The Black Sea (2024)
Capri Theater
A Black Brooklynite finds himself trapped in Bulgaria. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. Free. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Flintstones (1994)
Emagine Willow Creek
Do millennials think this is a “lost classic” too? Through Wednesday. $4.60. 11 a.m. More info here.
Global Queer Blackness
Main Cinema
A selection of short films. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. Free. 11 a.m. More info here.
The Last of the Sea Women (2024)
Main Cinema
Meet the South Korean grandmas who dive to the bottom of the ocean without oxygen. Part of The Great Northern. Sold out. 7 p.m. More info here.
Groundhog Day (1993)
Main Cinema
Margaret Qualley’s mom was an actress? Part of Midnight Mayhem. $10. 10 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, February 2
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Alamo Drafthouse
“These miserable people should give it another shot”—people who like this movie, for some reason. $11.50. 1 p.m. More info here.
Groundhog Day (1993)
Alamo Drafthouse
Ticket price includes “a feast.” $37.51. 7 p.m. More info here.
Spring (2014)
Alamo Drafthouse
A unique romantic horror movie. $11.50. 4 p.m. More info here.
Echoes From the Horn: Somali Lives in Cinema
Cedar Cultural Center
Short films about the Somali diaspora. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. $5/$8/$10. 10 a.m. More info here.
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Emagine Willow Creek
Not quite historically accurate. Also Wednesday. $12.60. 12 & 6 p.m. More info here.
Black Skin (1931)
Main CInema
A rarely seen Soviet film about a Black autoworker from the U.S. who moves to the U.S.S.R., with live musical accompaniment from Dameun Strange. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. $5/$8/$10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Art of Remembering: Black Lives in Painting
Mia
Two short films about the representation of Black lives in European art. Part of the Black Europe Film Festival. Free. 2 p.m. More info here.
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Trylon
Nooo Ray Milland don't kill Grace Kelly she's so sexy aha. $8. 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9 p.m. More info here.
Patrice: The Movie (2024)
Walker Art Center
A "documentary rom-com" about the fight for disabled marriage equality. Free for Walker members. 1 p.m. More info here.
Anora (2024)
Walker Art Center
Just see it. It's great. Free for Walker members. 3 p.m. More info here.
Monday, February 3
Candyman (1992)
Alamo Drafthouse
A man made of candy? Yum! $13.50. 7 p.m. More info here.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Emagine Willow Creek
Guillermo del Toro goes Gothic. $6. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, February 4
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
Alamo Drafthouse
Warning: This is a sing-along. $15.18. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, February 5
Se7en (1995)
Alamo Drafthouse
But I still haven’t seen 6ix! $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Hellraiser: Remastered (1987)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
A new 4K version. $13.52. 8 p.m. More info here.
Chronicle of a Disappearance (1997)
Bryant Lake Bowl
Filmmaker Elia Suleiman returns to Palestine from New York and documents the changes. Preceded by the short film Ma’loul Celebrates Its Destruction. Part of Mizna’s Insurgent Transmissions series. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
Emagine Willow Creek
The feature-length sequel to the anime series. $14.10. 6 p.m. More info here.
Tape Freaks
Trylon
Sold out again! 7 p.m. More info here.
Gaucho Gaucho (2024)
Walker Art Center
*Donald Fagen as Little Caesar voice.* Free for Walker members. 6 p.m. More info here
In the Summers (2024)
Walker Art Center
Two sisters develop a relationship with their father over four summer visits. Free for Walker members. 8 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
All We Imagine As Light
This acclaimed film follows the lives of two female roommates in Mumbai.
Deva
An Indian cop who breaks the rules but gets things done discovers corruption.
Dog Man
How did I know Pete Davidson was involved in this?
Companion
Is the sex robot a killer?
Creation Of The Gods II: Demon Force
The middle film in a Chinese epic fantasy trilogy that I gotta say I’m a little curious about.
Luther: Never Too Much
A sensitive if somewhat too straightforward doc about Luther Vandross.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
A disappointment. Shot in secret, Mohammad Rasoulof’s film wants to be both an effective thriller and a depiction of how state-generated paranoia strengthens the Iranian patriarchy, but these two elements don’t entirely mesh. Appointed to the role of investigating judge despite his bosses’ reservations about him, Iman (Missagh Zareh) learns that he’s expected to rubber stamp certain political rulings. He does so despite his qualms, and thus begins his descent from loving father and husband to tyrant of the household. Desperate to find his missing state-issued gun, fearing that he’ll be jailed for incompetence, Iman turns on his family, who belatedly fight back. At times this is almost an Iranian take on The Shining, complete with a tense chase through a disorienting setting. But... B-
September 5
If turning a horrific real-life event into a gripping thriller is a morally questionable act, how do we feel about turning the TV coverage of a horrific real-life event into a gripping thriller? That’s what director and co-writer Tim Fehlbaum does here with the abduction and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and to his credit September 5 is wholly upfront about the amorality of journalism. Both John Magaro’s control room newb Geoff Mason and Peter Sarsgaard’s quietly authoritative ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge are in this for the story, and to hold on to it they’ll fight the local police, the ABC News team, and the other networks demanding equal satellite time. It’s hard not to root for the scrappy, ingenious sports journalists improvising with the limited tech on hand as events unfold, even as we realize their tricky sensationalism is the future of TV news. (September 5 is otherwise as stripped of politics as this story can possibly be, which is probably for the best. I mean, just imagine.) For all the sharp performances—Benjamin Walker perfectly capturing Peter Jennings’s plummy cool, Leonie Benesch as a translator who becomes an essential part of the team—everyone here is upstaged by actual footage of ABC Sports’ Jim McKay, a guy visibly struggling with how to convey this horror to viewers in real time. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little skeevy after September 5. But it’d be just as false to say I wasn’t caught up in it all. Like the man said, this is tremendous content. B+
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Anora
From Kitana Kiki Rodriguez’s enraged trans sex worker in Tangerine to Simon Rex’s washed-up porn star in Red Rocket, Sean Baker knows how to let a character loose upon a movie, and Mikey Madison’s Ani may be the most fully realized of Baker’s high-powered, self-deluded survivors. A stripper and occasional escort whose charm and sheer self-determination haven’t failed her yet, she’s eking out a life in Brooklyn’s least glamorous southern reaches. (Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island are captured in all their drab, offseason outer-borough-ness.) Her life changes after a dance for a Russian oligarch’s son parlays into a paid fuck, which in turn goes so well he hires her for an extended stint. Baker captures their whirlwind spree through all forms of excess, ending with a Vegas wedding, as an audiovisual sugar rush that makes Pretty Woman’s shopping montage look like amateur hour. But when Ivan’s parents find out, they sic his handlers on him; he runs off like the spoiled little fuckboy we always knew he was and Ani is left to unleash her rage on the hired muscle as they hunt for him. Madison can be as subtle here as she was on Pamela Adlon’s Better Things and even more furious than she was in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood before Tarantino thought it’d be a hoot to immolate her with a flamethrower. This decade, we’ve seen plenty of commoners enter the worlds of the wealthy, often ending with fantasies of vengeance. Anora’s trip through the looking glass ends on a far more ambiguous note. A
Babygirl
I know many misguided youth feel deprived that Adrian Lyne’s alleged prime ended before they hit puberty, but take it from grandpa, erotic thrillers were rarely this self-assured in ye olde 20th century. Nicole Kidman is a tautly wound robotics exec who still packs her daughters’ lunches, Harris Dickinson is the intern who sniffs out the need to surrender beneath her hypercompetent sheen. And let’s not forget Antonio Banderas, who ably fills the traditional Anne Archer Hot Spouse role. What writer/director Halina Reijn gets about America’s official contemporary sexual ideology is that while no kink may be shamed—certainly not the fairly tame obedience training Kidman undergoes here—sex with an intern is a taboo we daren’t treat lightly. And what Kidman captures in her performance, especially in the petulance that precedes her submission, is that every kink feels like an unimaginable transgression to the person overcoming her shame. She’s a genuine auteur of self-degradation—truly, no one this side of Isabelle Huppert can match her freak. Yes, it’s “sometimes a bit much,” to quote the quibbles of one AP critic, which is like noting that “there are a lot of songs” in Wicked, but give in to your uncomfortable snickers, even if they emerge as full LOLs. The fun here is never knowing when to be turned on, amused, anxious, or outraged. As for Dickinson, he smolders credibly as Samuel, a kid whose instinct for dominance outpaces his competence or authority, and I promise never again to confuse him with George McKay. A
The Brutalist (read the full review here)
Brady Corbet’s aspiring epic tracks the disillusionment of a man who believed himself beyond illusion. László Tóth (Adrien Brody, once more a heroic European Jew) is a Bauhaus-tutored architect, Buchenwald survivor, and recent immigrant in Philadelphia. Into his life strides Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a Bucks County nouveaux with a pseud’s hunger for as much expert-approved culture as money can buy. He enlists his pedigreed discovery to design and construct a massive community center for the suburban backwater of Doylestown. The Brutalist is a film about grandiosity that also aspires to it. There are tremendous moments, in which far from subtle images communicate boldly what language cannot, that only a filmmaker gifted with a certain degree of self-importance can achieve. But on the back end it loses the shape of a masterpiece, and the sturdy facsimile of a greatness we'd been watching reveals itself as something lumpier and less monumental. And for a film supposedly about ideas, The Brutalist is strangely devoid of them, unless you count “rich people will fuck you over,” “Americans hate foreigners,” and “the Holocaust!” B
A Complete Unknown (read the full review here)
Timothée Chalamet’s relative success here—he gets that Bob Dylan himself has always been a guy performing as Bob Dylan—is just one reason that James Mangold’s new biopic is so relatively un-embarrassing. The source material also helps: Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric! is a thoroughly researched and reported account of Newport ’65 that’s preceded by an even-handed evaluation of what was at stake. Wald represents the ethos of the folk scene with a respect that rockist triumphalists could never see past their ingrained generational narratives to allow, and the film’s climax, Dylan’s amplified defiance of the Newport folkies, doesn’t feel as triumphant as we might expect. Dylan comes off less as a genius coming into his own than a cornered, confused guy lashing out at whoever comes closest; when his pal Bobby Neuwirth asks him point blank who he wants to be, it’s hard not hear a hollowness in the defiance of Dylan's reply: “Whoever they don’t want me to be.” When he returns to visit Woody Guthrie one last time after Newport, reflecting on what he’s done and lost, Bobby Zimmerman is now as completely Bob Dylan as Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith. How does it feel? Not great, Bob. B
Conclave
Edward Berger may think he’s cooked up something more substantial than a chewy Vatican potboiler here—a meditation on faith in the modern era, or some other middlebrow (papal) bull. Who knows and who cares? The crowd I saw it with thought Berger’s flamboyant pope opera was funny as hell (pardon the expression, Father) and they were right. Watching old guys from around the world in funny clothes politic, gossip, and backstab is just solid entertainment. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine milks everything he can from the ornate setting and bright costumery, and this cast knows how to project an ominous seriousness that’s forever camp adjacent. We’re talking Ralph Fiennes working his timeworn visage of existential indigestion, John Lithgow looking more like Donald Rumsfield than ever, Sergio Castellitto as a gregarious bear who wants to repeal Vatican II, Isabella Rossellini as a mysterious nun, and, for the ladies, a little Stanley Tucci. You’ll guess most of the twists, groan at some, and even get blindsided by a few. Still, without giving too much away, it’s hard not to notice that none of the scandals here are as horrific as those the Catholic Church has covered up in real life. B+
Dune: Part 2 (read the full review here)
The first part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation was a well-crafted slog, occasionally spectacular but often merely studently, as the director seemed intent to prove that he deserved the assignment. But with all the power players set in place, Part Two does an awful lot right. Villeneuve distills the essence of the novel’s currents of deception and misdirection into a legible screenplay while generating some truly uncanny moments. And as Paul Atreides, Timothée Chalamet shows us a man who makes a pragmatic decision to exploit the dogmatism of his followers because he believes that every other choice will cause more death and destruction, or who at least rationalizes his motives that way. With IP-recycling now the culture industry’s standard cannibalistic practice, Villeneuve, like Paul, imagines himself the good guy in this scenario, respectful of the traditions placed in his care rather than merely exploitative. But also like Paul there are forces at play beyond his control. So what happens when Villeneuve’s hero threatens to become a butcher? Stay tuned for Part 3. B+
The Last Showgirl
Gia Coppola’s determination to reward Pamela Anderson with a star turn is as phony as a rhinestone. The camera lingering on that unmade up 57-year-old face, the low-res shots of Anderson against the backdrop of the Strip set to the whooshes of ambient soundtrackcore, that persistent and deliberate deglamorization of everything the camera sees—Coppola hauls out every nu-showbiz trick there is to signify “reality” in this film about a Vegas lifer being put out to pasture. And yet, line by line, Kate Gersten’s script pops, and everyone here does it justice: Dave Bautista as the show’s vulnerably gruff producer, Jamie Lee Curtis as a weathered dancer-turned-cocktail-waitress, bitchy Brenda Song and sweet Kiernan Shipka as younger dancers, and yes, Anderson as the chirpy Shelly, struggling to reorient herself as life undermines her cherished identity as a showgirl. But oy, the plot. Of course Shelly has an estranged daughter (Billie Lourd, doing what she can). Of course Shelly’s audition for a new gig doesn’t go as planned. Of course Curtis gets a “supporting actress” moment of her own, set to a blaringly obvious song choice. If it’s endearingly gentle of The Last Showgirl to refuses to fully puncture Shelly’s illusions, its pulled punches are also unfair to her, to us, and to Anderson, who should be given a character to act, rather than a routine to perform. B
Nickel Boys
You probably know the deal: director RaMell Ross’s debut feature is shot almost entirely from the point of view of two Black teens sentenced to a brutal Florida reform school. The opening moments are so perfect and impressionistic you think, well, this could be a fine short film, but there’s no way Ross can keep that level of formal command up for over two hours. And there are occasional stumbles, but the technique is no gimmick, or maybe it’s just a gimmick that deepens the content. Being essentially trapped in a character’s body with them creates a distancing effect. We feel as alienated from the strange surroundings as the somewhat naive innocent Elwood (Ethan Herisse) does; we keep a keen eye open as the more savvy Turner (Brandon Wilson) has learned to do. Using the techniques of screen realism to tell this story is what would have felt like a gimmick—just a gimmick we’ve learned to accept as natural. A
Nosferatu
Who needs a vampire to drain the life from a town when you’ve got Robert Eggers directing? Wisborg, the German community that Count Orloc (Bill Skarsgård) will eventually infest with plague, is so gloomy at the start of Eggers's take on the Dracula story that the fiend has hardly got any work to do. And the wan woman Orloc is drawn to (Lily Rose-Depp) already endures joyless orgasmic gasps and speaks in trite Emily Dickinson first drafts. Like any well-prepared corpse, Nosferatu can be striking, even beautiful, in its airless, stylized way. For the German scenes, Eggers favors a blue filter familiar to admirers of The Piano or the first Twilight movie, and some of his fussily framed shots do rise to a Barry Lyndon quality—no mean feat. Orloc’s castle is a black-on-black-on-black realm of shadows within shadows, a daring and somewhat frustrating design for those of us who like to occasionally see what we’re looking at. Willem Dafoe’s mad, chaotic Prof. Albin Eberhart Von—ah fuck it, I’m just gonna call him Van Helsing—brings a mad touch of chaos to the proceedings, but much of Nosferatu advances with the grim inevitability of a fairy tale. Skarsgård’s Orloc, a hulking, shadowy beast with the bristly mustache of an ancient warlord and a booming, electronically modulated voice, is a beastly embodiment of menace, a dark force awakened. But without pathos or malice, he’s just acting on instinct. Turns out pure evil can be almost as boring as pure good. B-
A Real Pain
You might expect a buddy comedy about Holocaust tourism to flounder on the side of bad taste or staid reverence. So one thing I’ll say about A Real Pain, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, is that it does strike the right delicate tonal balance. As to why that balance needed to be struck, however, I’m still not entirely sure. It's the story of inseparable cousins who now rarely see each other, reunited because their beloved grandmother’s dying wish was for them to visit the home in Poland that she fled during the Holocaust. David is uptight and tetchy, Benji is mouthy and moody. In other words, David is Jesse Eisenberg and Benji is Kieran Culkin. If you were hoping for Mark Zuckerberg and Roman Roy on the Road to Lublin, you’re in luck. Do they learn a little about themselves—and each other—along the way? Oh, brother (er, cousin?), do they ever. Though Culkin and Eisenberg are an ace comic pair, yuks are not enough for A Real Pain, and it’s one of those movies where the characters’ backstories seem to be written after the fact to justify the drama. The great thing about comedy? It never requires justification. B
The Room Next Door
Turns out Almodóvar is as disorienting in English as opera or kung fu flicks—the tonal command that allows the Spanish director to extract from broad comedy and ripe melodrama is all but absent from his first feature en Inglés. The setup is simple: Tilda Swinton is a woman with terminal cancer who is ready to die and Julianne Moore is her friend, a woman who is afraid of death. Moore’s Ingrid, perpetually fussing about and obtrusively plucky, is the last person anyone would ask to accompany them to a country home where they plan to euthanize themselves, But that’s exactly what Swinton’s Martha chooses to do. (Granted, several other friends turned her down first.) We’re kept at an uncertain distance from these women: The front end is loaded with tiresome exposition and flashbacks, while the latter half insists on an intimacy between them we don’t feel. And though there's a mortified dignity to Swinton’s performance, or maybe just to her screen presence, her suffering feels existential or even spiritual rather than bodily. After the lived-in mortality of Almodóvar's Pain and Glory, The Room Next Door feels abstract and mystical, and determined to convey a moral. "There are lots of ways to live inside a tragedy," Ingrid says wisely at one point, and it’s such a resonant line that I wish the film had earned it. B-
The Substance (read the full review here)
Without our shared cultural knowledge of Demi Moore’s life and career, The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s absurdist experiment in gory meta-hagsploitation, is a fairly limp if expressively graphic satire of impossible female body standards. Moore’s presence, and her performance, give the film its moments of depth—moments Fargeat doesn’t always seem particularly interested in. Moore is an aging, discarded star who injects herself with a black-market serum that looks like radioactive pee and mitoses into the “ideal version of herself,” a perky-butted and gleam-smiled Margaret Qualley who calls herself Sue. Each woman gets to remain conscious for exactly a week apiece, spending each alternate week as a nude, comatose lump ingesting bagged nutrients. And as Elisabeth begins to sulk through her allotment of days and Sue wants more time to shine, rules are inevitably bent, with increasingly disastrous results. The subtlety-free finale, which fire-hoses blood at the patriarchy and anyone else in proximity, will either have you pumping your fist at its audacity or rolling your eyes at what a cop out it is. For better or for worse, what Fargeat is “trying to say” and her grisly overindulgence are inseparable. B-
Wicked (read the full review here)
Thinkpieces are surely in the works about how Wicked, the story of a good woman who is cast as an enemy of the people by authoritarians using fiendishly disseminated lies, is a perfect Trump era fable (just as it was a perfect Bush era fable two decades ago). But maybe the best topical lesson that Wicked offers is that villains are often more entertaining than heroes. If anything, Cynthia Erivo has too much screen presence for her already underwritten part, and her almost-adult dignity undermines her character arc. Her Elphaba (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) is no ingénue misled by foolish dreams, and seems incapable of humiliation. Meanwhile, Glinda is a dream of a role that Ariana Grande floats through with perfect timing, flaunting her shallow vanity, scene-stealing blonde hair tosses, and comically sudden upshoots into her showy soprano. And while I’ll take songwriter Stephen Schwartz’s generically inspirational pop over the wan schlock of the dreaded Pasek and Paul, I have seen better movie musicals set in Oz. B
