‘The Settlers’ Review: Chile’s Brutal Colonial History is Indicted in a Visually Ravishing but Tonally Uncertain Drama

It is probably no accident that Apple has chosen this week to launch its own legendary toy biopic, The Beanie Bubble, in the shadow of Warner Bros. about-to-be blockbuster Barbie. It can only benefit from the obvious connections and themes of female empowerment bubbling under the surface of both.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Dig deep enough through the eBay auction site, and you can still find Beanie Babies listed for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nobody’s buying them at that price, but it’s a reminder that there was a moment in the not-so-distant past when the cheaply made stuffed animals fetched outrageous sums. The phenomenon, while it lasted, was fueled largely by the illusion of scarcity, as collectors chased what they believed to be limited numbers of the highly coveted critters. Were they really so rare? “The Beanie Bubble” doesn’t have any particularly interesting insights into the craze, focusing instead on their inventor, disgraced self-made toy mogul Ty Warner, portrayed by Zach Galifianakis in one of the discomfort comedian’s most skin-crawling performances to date. Tonally, the movie walks a tricky line between easy-target satire and female-empowering corporate case study, falling into the overcrowded junk-culture nostalgia-porn category so recently represented by “Tetris,” “Air,” “BlackBerry” and “Flamin’ Hot.”

**Spoiler alert: There’s no way to really discuss this documentary without spoilers, at least for me, so be forewarned, and if you don’t want to be spoiled, please watch “The Deepest Breath” doc first.** Thanks in part to filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin— the directors behind the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo” and daring extreme adventuring and peril docs like “Meru,” “The Rescue,” “Wild Life”— plus the recent thriving docu-drama engagement boon on streaming, athletes pushing themselves to the limits and beyond have seemingly entered a new golden age.

Charity Lawson has some regrets. At the conclusion of Monday night's episode of , fans got a peek at what's to come on the rest of the season, and it's safe to say the drama's only getting started.All is well at the start of the preview, as Charity says, «This is what I've been waiting for my whole life.

Variety Staff Follow Us on Twitter If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. A book of movie reviews from an alternate dimension is set to beam down to Earth during this year’s Fantasia Festival. Filmmaker and artist Pat Tremblay is launching the new collaborative book “Terror in the Ailien Realms: Transdimensional Horror Movie Posters & Their Film Reviews” on July 28 at the Fantasia Festival. The debut event will include a live reading from some of Tremblay’s 50 collaborators. The book is now available for pre-order on his website. Tremblay explains the book’s concept in a press release announcing the project: “Drawn by the deep nostalgia of roaming video rental stores to find cool movies to watch by judging what its VHS box’s artwork would entice or beguile, filmmaker & artist Pat Tremblay has created a series of horror movie posters with the assistance of AI. He then proposed to talented individuals within the horror movie scene to write imaginary reviews for them. The result is a captivating mixture of styles, ranging from the enigmatic and alluring to the outrageously hilarious. The dimensional doors to the AIlien Realms have opened, and you can now read what horrific and crazy films this AI world has created, for better or for worse!”

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic “The Miracle Club” may not be a faith-based movie in the traditional sense (that is, a film made with an explicitly evangelical Christian agenda), but this Ireland-set art-house offering is a movie about faith all the same — specifically, about the conviction that drives four women to make the pilgrimage from Ireland all the way to Lourdes, France, where the waters are believed to have holy healing powers. If “The Miracle Club” were an overtly religious film, audiences would know from the outset what to expect from the trip (namely, a miracle), whereas director Thaddeus O’Sullivan doesn’t presume to play God, focusing more on mending the relationship between his main characters.

Anything that brings Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney together for a smart and engaging movie that will lift your spirits these days is a miracle all by itself. Indeed, The Miracle Club is a reason to celebrate this summer, if only for the chance to see a sterling and beloved cast get roles worthy of their many talents.

While ghosts by themselves are frightening, the idea that they can hurt the very people we love is several shades scarier. “The Conjuring” and “Insidious”—the two James Wan joints that have spun the two most successful and sophisticated supernatural horror franchises of the last decade—understood this timeless fear at a deep level.

Murtada Elfadl What if you managed a bank, and your fiancée’s folks turned out to be notorious bank robbers who saw their prospective son-in-law as the perfect patsy for their next hit? Not a bad setup for hijinks and hilarity. That’s what the filmmakers behind “The Out-Laws” are hoping, anyway. Produced by Adam Sandler (among others) and directed by Tyler Spindel, the not-so-original Netflix original plays like “Meet the Parents” crossed with “Fun with Dick and Jane.” Seeing as how the former inspired several sequels and the latter a remake, the situational comedy on offer is hardly fresh, though it still could (and should) have been funnier. As Owen Browning, Adam Devine takes the mantle from Sandler to play a schlubby everyman partnered with a gorgeous woman (Nina Dobrev) out of his league. Naturally, he’s kind-hearted and willing to sacrifice all for his one true love. And that’s how the audience knows he’s worthy of her. On the week of their wedding, her long-absent parents (Ellen Barkin and Pierce Brosnan) show up after many years of estrangement. It’s quickly revealed that they were in hiding from their former partner (Poorna Jagannathan), after relieving her of large sums of money. Conveniently, their future son-in-law manages a bank, and so a scheme is set in motion. This being a comedy, no one will get hurt and the sweet guy will keep his beautiful woman.

In 1979 Peter Falk and the late great Alan Arkin made the perfect odd couple in the classic action comedy, The In-Laws. It even spawned a not-bad remake with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks in 2003. The difference between those films, and a bit of an attempt to do something similar in the cleverly-titled The Out-Laws, which starts streaming on Netflix today, is that those movies were genuinely funny, particularly the Arkin-Falk teaming, but this one, also a kind of Meet The Parents on steroids, relies far too heavily on non-stop and incessant action scenes to carry us through its 95 minute running time.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Halfway through “Insidious: The Red Door,” there’s a moment that encapsulates why the movie isn’t more insidious. Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), the father from the first two “Insidious” films (this one is number five), has just dropped his son off for his freshman year at college. The son, Dalton, is once again played by Ty Simpkins, who was just a spooked kid in the earlier films; now he’s a spooked surly emo art student draped in hippie hair. Eight years ago, Dalton and his father were hypnotized so that they would lose all memory of the Further, the spirit zone Dalton got sucked into as an astral projection of himself. The hypnosis worked; they’ve forgotten the living nightmares they saw. But now the visions are coming back.

Insidious: The Red Door, the fifth installment of the Insidious franchise and helmed by actor-turned-director Patrick Wilson, promises a dive into the haunted memories of the past, but the script by Scott Teems delivers little more than a stifling yawn. Alongside Wilson, the film stars Ty Simpkins, Rose Bryne and Sinclair Daniel. 

The fifth film in the franchise and a direct sequel to 2013’s “Insidious: Chapter 2,” “Insidious: The Red Door” is a confident and satisfying addition to the series.  READ MORE: The 25 Most Anticipated Horror Films Of 2023 Picking up ten years after the events of the second film, the Lamberts are a fractured family in mourning. Patrick Wilson returns as Josh Lambert, a father struggling with the loss of his mother, Lorraine, and keen to mend the relationship with his oldest son, Dalton, again played by Ty Simpkins.

Spoiler alert: This review contains key plot points for the final episode of The Idol. When it was first announced, The Idol seemed like a natural progression for the Weeknd.

Guy Lodge Film Critic In their 2018 film “The Dead and the Others,” directors João Salaviza et Renée Nader Messora turned their lens generously to the Krahô people of northeast Brazil, documenting a longstanding way of life under threat from developers and politicians, and giving their non-professional subjects ample leeway for improvisation in presenting themselves on screen. Their ambitious, formally limber follow-up “The Buriti Flower” resumes their study of the Krahô, but with an expanded scope, as it examines ideological and generational conflict within the tribe: protectively insular tradition on one side, outward-facing activism on the other. Blending candid vérité with extravagant flourishes of fiction, the film sees its helmers sharing screenwriting duties with a trio of Krahô locals, and feels more textured for their collaboration.

The Last Match (★★★☆☆), it might not matter who wins or loses the titular duel between American champion Tim Porter (Drew Kopas) and Russian upstart Sergei Sergeyev (Ethan Miller). In Alex Levy’s cleverly staged production at 1st Stage, however, the charmingly boastful Sergei clearly emerges as the more fully realized and engaging of the characters.Brilliantly embodying the young challenger’s drive, hunger, and athleticism, Miller also adeptly delivers Sergei’s trash-talking sense of humor, as the play unwinds its tale of the foes’ hard-fought match on-court, amid side glances to pivotal moments in their off-court lives.Yet, Miller rises above the script’s tendency to lean on Sergei as comic relief, and invests the guy with personality beyond his bad-boy insults, aggressive style of play, and mane of wild curls.

RTVE, Spain’s public broadcaster, was sensed at an upbeat showcase on Wednesday.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Roughly a month before Venice Film Festival’s 2023 lineup announcement, the buzz around the competition is heating up with several star-studded films by heavyweight directors in the mix, including Pablo Larrain (“El Conde”), Michael Mann (“Ferrari“), Sofia Coppola (“Priscilla“), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”) and Michel Franco (“Memory”). These titles are believed to have been officially invited to the Lido in competition, according to inside sources. Larraín’s follow-up to “Jackie,” “El Conde” depicts dictator Augusto Pinochet as a Vampire with a cast led by Chilean star Alfredo Castro.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In recent years, as the romantic comedy has done a slow fade-out from the big screen, it often seems to have taken sex right along with it. Maybe that accounts for the extraordinary interest sparked by the trailer for — and media coverage of — “No Hard Feelings,” a sort of romantic comedy about a 32-year-old out-of-work Uber driver, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who gets involved with a gawky 19-year-old virgin geek who’s about to enter Princeton. There’s been some moralistic pearl-clutching over the trailer, though probably for the very same reason that the movie could connect: It looks a little pervy. Yet when you see “No Hard Feelings,” you realize that the film’s promise of risky business is little more than a big tease.

Lisa Kennedy Fashionista Jenna Jones (Gabrielle Union) took quite the tumble from her position in New York’s world of style. In “The Perfect Find” — Netflix’s visually vibrant, cinema-loving, if not quite perfect, rom-com — her professional and romantic plummet is documented in opening credits that cleverly use an animated collage to relate her story. So, when we meet Jenna in person ,she’s without a job, and her man (D.B. Woodside) of 10 years has moved on … or so it seems. The 40-year-old is sporting baggy sweats, and not because she’s headed to the gym. She’s been living in her parents’ home licking her wounds, for a year, when her mother calls her out on it. The scene between mother (Janet Hubert) and grown-ass daughter is amusing and promising. As are the musical and visual choices director Numa Perrier makes that evoke Old Hollywood in a film with characters decidedly not Old Hollywood.