Klown
Starring Frank Hvam, Casper Christensen, Marcuz Jess Petersen
Opens July 27

One of the biggest bellylaughs in this outrageous Danish comedy involves Frank (Hvam) showing his devotion to his girlfriend by giving her a pearl necklace—yes, that kind of pearl necklace. And yes, Klown is that kind of film, an unapologetically lewd, unbelievably crude and can’t-believe-they-went-there rude comedy. Forty-something friends Frank and Casper (Christensen) go on a ‘pussy hunt’ disguised as a canoe trip. However, Frank has kidnapped his pre-teen nephew Bo (Petersen) because he needs to prove he is “father” material. Frank’s wildly inappropriate behavior—such as pantsing young boys who tease Bo about his tiny penis, or getting stoned—is as wrongheaded as Casper’s efforts to have extramarital sex with teenage girls and kind strangers. Casper also finds himself in compromising positions with a randy male bus driver who possibly misreads Casper’s flirtations. Much of the film’s ribald humor stems from situations that look innocent—like flipping through someone’s cell phone photos—but boomerang horrendously and hilariously. Sometimes the jokes take a while to develop, but wait it out—they all have tremendous payoffs. Frank and Casper are ballsy performers, unafraid to get naked with young children or be caught with someone’s penis in their mouths. 4/5 stars —Gary M. Kramer

Killer Joe
Starring Emile Hirsch, Matthew McConaughey, Gina Gershon
Opens July 27

Like Prometheus’ Ridley Scott, William Friedkin is in his 70s and still making solid films. The director of The Boys in the Band, Cruising, The Exorcist and The French Connection again gets dark with an adaptation of Tracy Letts’ play about a bumpkin family that employs a sleazy hitman. Owing money to shady, impatient characters, 22-year-old Chris (Hirsch) hatches a plan to have his mother killed for her $50,000 life insurance policy. Enter Joe (McConaughey), a cop who sidelines as a hitman, and  who takes Chris’ strange young sister (Juno Temple) as a sexual “down payment” until the money comes through. The scheme, of course, unravels, leading to an amazing final act—and one that feels very much drawn from a play. Although Friedkin keeps perhaps a bit too much of a stagey and contained feel, the final section is intense, funny, subversive, queasy and a showcase for McConaughey at his most deliriously creepy and perverse. Thomas Haden Church adds comic relief as the idiotic clan’s dim patriarch, while Gershon shows range as his rarely fully dressed girlfriend. Despite Killer Joe’s shortcomings, if Friedkin quit now, he’d come out just ahead. Don’t go out like John Schlesinger, Billy! 3/5 stars —Lawrence Ferber

Nuit #1
Starring Catherine de Léan, Dimitri Storoge
Opens Aug. 10

The arresting and arty opening sequence of Nuit #1 features characters in a nightclub dancing up and down in slow motion as a slow song plays on the soundtrack. It is so beautiful some viewers won’t want it to end. But it does. And then the pretty Clara (de Léan) and wiry Nikolaï (Storoge) return to his place and hungrily have sex. It is a raw and erotic scene—Nikolaï even sports an impressive erection—and some viewers won’t want it to end. But it does. And then the credit Nuit #1 comes on-screen. Whereas in most romantic dramas viewers want the characters to shut up and have sex, director Anne Émond does the reverse: after the characters have sex, they won’t shut the hell up. The last 75 minutes of Nuit #1 has Nikolaï monologuing about his empty, lonely life. He talks, like an angry poet, about getting to know the smell and touch of the pretty girl who danced badly. This endless babble is followed by Clara monologuing about her empty, lonely life. She has a glimmer of real emotion, but it passes, like a kidney stone. The couple fight briefly, intensely, but mostly, the semi-naked leads bare their souls and bore viewers. Nuit #1 is a snooze. 2/5 stars —Gary M. Kramer  

Ruby Sparks
Starring Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina
Opens July 25

There’s a fine line between magical whimsy and cloying eccentricity, and it’s a line the indie rom-com Ruby Sparks crosses too often.  Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris—responsible for the very charming Little Miss Sunshine—and written by the film’s star, Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks stars Paul Dano as Calvin, a twenty-something novelist with a waning reputation, and Kazan as the title character, the protagonist of Calvin’s latest novel who manifests from the page and into his life. It’s a conceit that has received traction in other works, most successfully in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, yet it rarely takes hold in Ruby Sparks, partially because the character herself is the product of Calvin’s underdeveloped narrative imagination, and partially because Kazan, cute as a button, plays her like she’s Zooey Deschanel’s wackier sister. When Calvin realizes he can make Ruby do anything he wants—and sits at his typewriter(!) pounding out commands that she acts on immediately—the film gets at a potentially more interesting subject: the inability for men to fully engage with women on equal footing. Yet Kazan’s screenplay isn’t deep enough—it lives and dies with its conceit. Mostly, it dies. 2/5 stars —Dan Loughry