Movies: Spider-Man, The Lost Daughter and Nightmare Alley

The Golden Globe nominations are out and though the group behind them doesn't have a lot of respect right now, or even a TV show for their awards, the choices are good. Succession led the list on the TV side and of the movies, Belfast and Power of the Dog are tops. The Lost Daughter is up for two big awards and is reviewed below, along with Nightmare Alley, which didn't get a nomination there but has gotten several elsewhere. Winners will be announced Jan. 9.

And the new ones this week start with a different type of biggie ...

Spider-Man: No Way Home: 3½ stars

The Lost Daughter: 4

Nightmare Alley: 3

France: 2½

Red Rocket: 3

The Scary of Sixty-First: 2

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME: Almost 20 years of his adventures — three trilogies, actually — get a satisfying wind-up here, but don't imagine that they'll end. There'll be more because this film is poised to be a mammoth hit; the industry is expecting it'll really kick movie-going back to life and reports are the fans are buying. They'll be amply rewarded because it plays to their loyalty. It brings back memories — and characters — from all those films (some I won't mention and spoil for you) and it does it with the now-familiar story device: the multiverse, basically parallel universes. We can revisit and reconsider much of what's been going on. The verdict I heard from one fan says it all. He declared the movie “cool.”

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is suffering blowback from the last movie when a villain outed him as Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), now an internet blowhard, rants again that he's a criminal, which makes people turn against him and MIT reject his university application. He asks Dr. Strange (the very busy Benedict Cumberbatch) to make the world forget he's Spider-Man but messes up the spell by trying to change it midway. That brings five villains he has defeated over the years (and two other characters) out of the multiverse and he has to deal with them again. Surprisingly, he doesn't just fight them. He tries to understand them — they being Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and The Lizard (Rhys Ifans). There's action and great special effects but also reflection in this one, directed by Jon Watts. Stay through the end credits for a little more. (Playing everywhere, including 5th Avenue, Dunbar, Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres.) 3½ out of 5

THE LOST DAUGHTER: Women's feelings about motherhood get a rigorous examination in this one. It's not an easy consideration. There are conflicts, self-doubts and feelings of powerlessness. Movies don't often dramatize those thoughts, but women will understand them. They're brought out brilliantly by actor-turned director Maggie Gyllenhaal and her star, Oscar and Emmy-winner Olivia Colman. It's all based on a novel by Elena Ferrante.

Colman plays a prickly academic trying to have a quiet beach vacation in Greece only to be annoyed by a noisy family that shows up and breaks the peaceful time. She's especially taken by a mother (Dakota Johnson) and her young daughter because it makes her mind drift to thoughts of her own younger years (in which she's played by Jessie Buckley). She recalls the conflicts she had and especially the sacrifices she had to make. And wonders how good a mother she was as she watches this other one trying to keep her daughter happy. And at one point, arguing loudly with her controlling husband. She gets closer than she wants to them when the daughter goes missing. She finds her and for no apparent reason, keeps her doll. The girl is disconsolate and we get yet another side of the character Colman is playing. Forget the rules; she craves freedom. It's a rich portrait and got her yet another Golden Globe nomination this week. (Vancity Theatre now, Netflix soon.) 4 out of 5

NIGHTMARE ALLEY: The 1947 film noir is remade by Guillermo del Toro and while it's more showy and star-studded, it doesn't quite match it. It's long for such a plain rise-and-fall story and drags at times. Bradley Cooper is unusually subdued. While del Toro won an Oscar for his last one, The Shape of Water, this one didn't get a Golden Globe nomination this week. The designers should be awarded something, though. Visually it's a treat.

Cooper plays a young wanderer who gets a job in a carnival (from Willem Defoe) and gets involved with several shady lives there. Rooney Mara does an act with electricity sparking around her body. Ron Perlman is her protector, Bruno. Toni Collette is a mentalist. And there's a geek, a drunk who bites heads off chickens to amuse the people. Cooper has to rise above this and with tricks learned from the mentalist he leaves, takes Mara with him and becomes a star nightclub entertainer in Buffalo, N.Y. And there's a patient of a sketchy psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who inadvertently gives him more ideas on how to advance. Duping the rich is his method and how it collapses on him and where that takes him is not unexpected. It's just a bit toothless. (Park, International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres.) 3 out of 5

FRANCE: Here's a French attack (through parody) on the news media. Though that should be interesting whenever it pops up, this one hits only very obvious targets with easy shots. It may be new to some to think of TV journalists reasking questions to get another camera angle, having Afghan freedom fighters walk towards and past the camera and repeating scenes, but it's not particularly critical. Faking a stand-up on a raft of refugees is a deception and the only major real one in this film by Bruno Dumont. He lands a few hits like it.

Léa Seydoux is France de Meurs (hence a double meaning to the title). She hosts a TV news show and also goes reporting. Through clever editing we see her ask President Macron a question and in another location, see Angela Merkel (an actor's version). She produces documentaries, is accused of “journalistic demagogy” by one guest and hears speakers extolling capitalism or charging “that nations have lost their authority for good.” On the side, this is a melodramatic personal story. After a couple of accidents — one in the studio (unrealistic), the other on the road — she quits TV and goes for rehab in Switzerland to figure out her life. There's more and the movie gets crowded with plot, though the insights that come with it are thin. (The Cinematheque.) 2½ out of 5

RED ROCKET: Here's another study by Sean Baker of people on the lower edges. He made a wonderful one four years ago called The Florida Project, which charmed us with a precocious girl named Moonie. This new one also has a central character we can't take our eyes off, but he's a guy in his forties and a voracious talker and self-promoter. He's back in a small town in Texas, having been out to Los Angeles where he spun a physical attribute into stardom in pornographic films. He'll tell you about all the awards he won and then finally admit he's washed up. That's why he's back to his ex-wife (we're still married, she corrects him) and his cranky mother-in-law. Just a day or two, he says. He'll get a job and move out. Of course, he doesn't. Nobody will hire him. He hasn't had a real job in 17 years and what he did do would be a distraction at any job site. But he talks up his worth to an old friend who drives him places — to a pot-selling matron for whom he starts dealing, though typically breaking her rules, and to a teen girl down at the doughnut shop who is nicknamed Strawberry.

His old tendencies return, sexually and professionally, with her (redheaded newcomer Suzanna Son). He imagines she'd be a sensation in the L.A. porn industry and he'd be a name again. Simon Rex does the impossible portraying him. He gets our sympathy even though we know we hate him. With oil refineries and Trump's 2016 in the background, this is a portrait of one slice of America. Hopefully, a small one. (International Village.) 3 out of 5

THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST: Good idea, not well carried out. Imagine a couple of young women delighted to find a cheap apartment to rent in New York only to have another woman come around and tell them a horrible story. The place had been owned by Jeffrey Epstein and was likely a place where he abused some of his young victims. The bearer of that news is played by Dasha Nekrasova, who also wrote and directed the film. She became obsessed with Epstein and his crimes, which she covered extensively on a podcast she hosts. More to the point, she says don't dull the vulgar elements when you tell those stories.

The film, intended to show how cases like that can affect other young women, turns into a horror movie. The roommates hear noises and feel they're being watched. One starts having nightmares, the other acts like a victim herself. She makes a creepy demand during sex with her boyfriend, and during a wild freak-out scene masturbates on the steps of a church. It becomes more and more hysterical, drawing on Italian horror movies, citing the film Eyes Wide Shut and throwing pictures of Prince Andrew about. It gets bloody, stops making sense and falters, especially in the early going, under amateurish acting and staging. But it did win “best first feature” at the Berlin International Film Festival. (Available digitally and on VOD.) 2 out of 5