It’s the weekend again, and that means Film Focus. Here’s Mike Laidman with what’s new in local theaters.


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The weather is growing darker. As the sun loses some of its lustre, the hot days melt away to cooler nights, and the days become shorter, so too do the movies change.

This week, Beguiled will charm you with its 19th-century style and warm tones, helping you move comfortably into autumn. Conversely, the remake of Stephen King’s It will drag you, kicking and screaming, into the wet and cold dark, whether you’d like it to or not.

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Mike Laidman

Welcome to another edition of Film Focus. I’m Mike Laidman.

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It (2017, Andy Muschietti)
A group of bullied kids band together to stop a monster.

I personally remember, quite vividly, actually, watching the 1990 version of It when I was in elementary school, and then subsequently being too scared to go the bathroom by myself. This 2017 update is hoping to instill the same fear in a whole new generation.

Based on the hugely popular Stephen King novel of the same name, It has been terrifying readers for decades. When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

But It isn’t just about the scares. In fact, what it does even better than scare you out of your seat is look at the relationships between the young protagonists, their parents, their bullies, and their lives. It is scary, but it’s heartbreaking, too, in a way that lingers with you after you’ve left the theatre.

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Beguiled (2017, Sofia Coppola)
A wounded Union soldier arrives at a girls' school in Virginia.

From writer/director Sofia Coppola comes a story of the American Civil War. During the Civil War, at a Southern girls' boarding school, the sheltered young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.

The actors all play their parts perfectly, working of one another’s charms, darknesses, wits, and innocences. This isn’t what you might think it would be, for The Beguiled doesn’t turn away from what we would consider taboo at a girls’ school in the 19th-century. There’s plenty of lust, blood, and betrayal on display here, and even more than a period piece, you should expect a thriller, one highlighted by strong performances and all the tension you could ever ask for.