‘The Hypnosis’ Review: An Uncomfortably Funny First-Hand Experience of Second-Hand Social Embarrassment

Guy Lodge Film Critic As a female union rep in the oppressively male-dominated French nuclear industry, Maureen Kearney — the real-life heroine of Jean-Paul Salomé’s “The Sitting Duck” — is accustomed to keeping a cool head in a crisis. That doesn’t stop her male superiors from accusing her of the opposite, with then-President Nicolas Sarkozy allegedly branding her a “hysteric in a skirt”: In this men’s club, a woman’s mere presence is deemed her weakness. Yet when Kearney is raped and mutilated by unknown assailants, seemingly as a professional warning, it’s her lack of hysteria under the circumstances that is declared suspicious by men in power. As she’s first disbelieved, then charged without outright fabrication, Salomé’s film pivots from itchy whistleblower thriller to irate courtroom drama, with institutional misogyny as its binding thread.

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.”

Greta Gerwig is opening up about her experience with Barbie and beyond.

**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.

I spent a night at a stylish hotel in Manchester city centre with affordable rooms for under £90 - and was even handed a cocktail upon arrival.

Norwegian cinema has been enjoying a moment lately, what with Joachim Trier’s crowdpleasing The Worst Person in the World pulling up to Drive My Car in the Oscar race and Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Me carving out a rep on the festival circuit. The Hypnosis, Ernst de Geer’s feature debut, sits somewhere between the two of them, fashioning a fitfully funny relationship drama that tilts at some very modern windmills (coaches, gurus, new-tech start-ups, workshops that involve blue-sky thinking) within a framework similar to Kristian Levring’s 2008 Danish drama Fear Me Not, in which a man’s personality changes after he becomes addicted to an experimental drug. The Hypnosis doesn’t quite follow that film’s melodramatic course, but there are similar thoughts raised about the human mind.

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.

A post shared by Matthew McConaughey (@officiallymcconaughey)“Good for you guys. More parents should have this rule,” one person wrote and another called them “parent goals.” A third commented, “Love this! Made me so emotional.

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.

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.

Olivia Rodrigo has “always wanted to go to prom” — but apparently not THAT bad…

There is a raw, dangerous yet distinctly unapologetic demeanor to the grainy archival footage in the documentary film The Stroll, now streaming on HBO, where transgender sex workers bravely walk the streets of New York City and solicit potential customers cruising by in their cars. Winner of the Special Jury Award – Clarity of Vision at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, The Stroll is the story of director Kristen Lovell’s experience living on the streets in the ‘90s and making money as a sex worker in the Meatpacking District of lower Manhattan. 

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.