Mystery writer Agnes Moorehead has rented a home for the summer in a town currently being menaced by a murderer known as The Bat. During the same time period, local bank president Harvey Stevens confesses to his physician Vincent Price that he has stolen over 1 million dollars from his bank. I’m not shy about my love for Vincent Price films and he’s good here, but it’s really Moorehead’s film. As The Bat terrorizes her household, she must suss out their identity and it’s easy to see her performing such acts in a serial a la Murder She Wrote.    

Unethical, but talented young lawyer Keanu Reeves is tempted by a devilish Al Pacino into joining his New York law firm. The role doesn’t play to Reeves’s best attributes; he and wife Charlize Theron have some of the silliest, most inconsistent Southern accents on film. Luckily the film doesn’t need them to do much beyond looking dumb and pretty. It is instead all in Pacino’s command and he relishes the role. The film is quite a mess, but it’s still an entertaining, Biblical-themed thriller.    

When her drummer aunt was diagnosed with terminal cancer, artist Salli Richardson-Whitfield quit her job to care for her. With her aunt passed on, Salli is spending her last day in the home they shared, dealing with a cast of revolving characters who come to the house while also working through her fresh grief. Ava DuVernay’s first full-length feature film, it’s obviously a bit low budget, but that doesn’t detract from its exploration of grief and also a celebration of the two women’s creative lives.

Disgraced ex-cop John Hawkes spends most of his days in a bottle, but finds new energy when he’s hired as a private investigator by Robert Loggia to investigate the killing of Loggia’s granddaughter. I’ve been checking out Hawkes’s work since enjoying his performance in Deadwood, but rarely do the films actually provide substance worthy of his skill. It’s a gritty crime flick that, while not overly unique in story, manages a smooth blend of comedy and drama that really showcases Hawkes’s best qualities while also not giving short shrift to supporting players, Loggia, Octavia Spencer, Anthony Anderson, and Clifton Collins, Jr.    

Overwhelmed by her husband’s long absences, Riley Keough embarks on an impromptu road trip with her young daughter and her close friend Jena Malone. Though the two women haven’t seen each other in a long time, their love for each other never strayed and they reconnect as if it hasn’t been more than a day. Everything about this film is too subtle while trying to push big messages about love for me to fully enjoy it, but the lead performances and their chemistry remains touching to witness. The second half of the story features one of my newer movie pet peeves where a life event is simultaneously treated as both a huge planned occasion and a spur of the moment winging it. Here it’s a large semi-destination wedding where somehow the wedding dress hasn’t even been chosen yet.  

When her dead husband’s life insurance check is a hundred times larger than she expected, Shirley MacLaine and her best friend Jessica Lange hightail it to the Canary Islands with insurance investigators, scam artists, and adult children all on their tail. The chemistry between MacLaine and Lange is sweet and them re-learning how to live their best lives is fun and inspirational. Unfortunately the rest of the film is too silly and drags on too long which weighs down a lot of the good feelings. It’s funny for me to see Howard Hesseman and Billy Connolly in a film together since I forever associate both of them with their teacher roles in Head of the Class.