In-Theater Releases of the Week 

In this bumpy but often stylish ride, a secret witch coven among employees at a flashy clothing store in a Dallas mall is filled with bitchy adrenaline that helps it overcome the more risible moments of ruthlessness.

 

 

Director Meredith Alloway (who also cowrote the script with Lily Houghton based on the latter’s play) has gleeful fun showing the switching allegiances among these young women, and if the showdown on the mall escalator is too excessively bloody, there’s much fun to be had in the performances by Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Chamberlain and—in the film’s standout portrayal—Lili Reinhart.

 

 

 

Kontinental ’25 

Romanian auteur Radu Jude is definitely an acquired taste: his deadpan absurdism has taken on many obvious but necessary targets from hypocrisy to consumerism to the weight of history, and his new film, which centers on Orsolya, a bailiff who’s wracked with guilt after the homeless man she evicts from an empty building in Transylvania commits suicide, continues that trend.

 

 

Jude’s dark sense of humor shines best on the insanity of modern life as his heroine (played with mordant humor by Eszter Tompa) interacts with an array of freakish but recognizable characters. 

 

 

 

Our Hero, Balthazar 

For his directorial debut, Oscar Boyson (who cowrote the script with Ricky Camilleri) has chosen a difficult if timely subject: how young people deal with a world in which school shootings are not only normal but normalized by classroom drills and social media disinformation. When Balthazar thinks an online acquaintance is planning to shoot up a school, he travels from Manhattan to Texas to confront Solomon—they become friends, against the odds, but they also discover some uneasy truths about themselves.

 

 

There are some good, perceptive moments but also a certain glibness in how Boyson treats such a serious subject. Still, the acting by Jaeden Martell as Balthazar and Asa Butterfield as Solomon helps smooths over the bumpier roads Boyson travels.

 

 

 

Streaming Release of the Week

Another movie based on a video game, this at least has a properly creepy premise: mortuary assistant Rebecca finds herself involved in a weird supernatural world that finds her navigating traumatic situations that may or may not be dreams, while her boss Raymond seems to know more about it all than he should.

 

 

Willa Holland’s committed performance as Rebecca makes the crazier aspects of Jeremiah Kipp’s film more palatable, if not more believable, while Paul Sparks has little to do as Raymond. 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

As unnecessary sequels to lumbering disaster epics go, this one fills the bill decently by not getting overly bogged down in anything more than getting the lead family—stars Gerard Butler (dad), Morena Baccarin (mom) and Roman Griffin Davis (teenage son)—to somewhere safe in a little over 90 minutes.

 

 

There are a few over-the-top set pieces, such as climbing rickety ladders over the dried-up English Channel that precipitates many deaths, but for the most part, director Ric Roman Waugh keeps his focus on the family with the result that there’s more heart here than in the previous spectacle. There’s a good Blu-ray transfer; extras include featurettes and interviews. 

 

 

New Year’s Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic 

For its annual New Year’s concert, the Vienna Philharmonic plays its usual repertoire of classical baubles, polkas and other dance pieces that gets the Vienna audience in a festive mood; led by conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the memorable performance includes a work by Black American composer Florence Price—her Rainbow Waltz—for the first time, and it fits snugly among the Strauss family standards that are the orchestra’s bread and butter.

 

 

The hi-def video and audio are first-rate; extras include complete ballets performed with two of the evening’s pieces along with an entertaining featurette that combines art and music, The Magic of Art—250 Years of the Albertina Collection.