tigerfish50

The threadbare story of 'Challengers' begins with a pair of talented young tennis players winning a junior doubles tournament together. Despite their homoerotic inclinations, the pair begin jousting for the favors of a female prospect. Patrick wins the initial contest for wunderkind Tashi, but their romance soon hits the rocks and Art takes over, transforming the erstwhile racquet buddies into bitter rivals.

The screenplay never recovers from the teen melodrama dynamic of this opening act. The three characters begin and end relationships on a whim, while the tennis background and sporting action lack authenticity and intensity. Nobody other than central trio has a single line of any consequence as more than two hours are spent portraying their brittle romances, break-ups, manipulative scheming and competitive hostility.

In an attempt to rescue this trifling mess, with his characters becoming increasingly unsympathetic, director Guadagigno resorts to endless slo-mo shots of them exchanging glowering looks as they tramp towards the farcical climax of this juvenile nonsense. The film's best moment is the arrival of the end titles.

Adam and Eve are a hipster vampire couple who have been married for centuries, but are living separate lives in Detroit and Tangier. Nowadays they bribe laboratory assistants at clinics to obtain their blood supplies rather than biting the necks of humans. Between running errands for this essential grocery item, they gripe about the barbarism of mankind, whom they call zombies.

Eve decides it's time for a reunion, and soon after she arrives in Motor City, the pair receive a visit from her spoiled younger sister from LA. This sibling is a regressive delinquent vampire who upsets their languid lifestyle and starts creating problems. The film makes few demands on the actors and is short on horror, tension, thrills, laughs or action, but heavy on irony. Unfortunately it's a lot less clever than it seems to imagine itself.

A film about friendship and terminal illness should possess some depth, but Almodovar's 'The Room Next Door' treats both subjects with glossy shallowness. A former war correspondent Martha is riddled with cancer, has already acquired a suicide pill, and asks her old friend Ingrid to be her companion when she commits suicide. There are possibilities of legal consequences and Ingrid is fearful of death, but she reluctantly accepts this role.

The two women depart for a luxurious rental outside NYC and wait for Martha to choose the right moment for her demise. In death's waiting room, their conversations and flashback reminiscences lack any kind of intensity or credibility, and the conclusion is as much damp squib as the rest of the proceedings. The only positive is watching two excellent actors trying to make the most of third-rate material.