Golden State Warriors legend Stephen Curry appears in an image from the new documentary "Portrait of an Artist." (Disney Studios)
Disney Studios Golden State Warriors legend Stephen Curry appears in an image from the new documentary "Portrait of an Artist." (Disney Studios)
A new and different look at Warriors superstar Stephen Curry and the remake of a horror classic are both debuting this week and are well worth your time.
Here’s our roundup.
“Portrait of an Artist: Stephen Curry”: You might wonder what more could really be said about the Warriors basketball legend’s career and life, given that there’s so much already out there, including Oakland filmmaker Peter Nick’s terrific 2023 documentary “Stephen Curry: Underrated.” Director Gotham Chopra’s IMAX documentary, though, does something different, showing how Curry’s artistry on the court is in step with the stories and views of creative icons in music, film, fashion design and more. That approach is intriguing and enlightening, with Chopra framing it around Curry narrowing in on a staggering new record with 4,000 career three-pointers in 2025. Chopra’s smoothly edited and evocatively shot feature comes fully stocked with home video clips (the shots of a pre-adolescent Curry sinking baskets are adorable), along with concise, illuminating voice-overs and observations from Viola Davis, Jon Batiste, Warriors coach Steve Kerr and more. Chopra counts down to Curry achieving that feat in the Warriors matchup with the Sacramento Kings and intermixes voice-over narration from Curry about the reality of sustaining injuries, not allowing the fete to consume him and what it’s like to train and repeat, train and repeat while calming the baying hounds of doubt in your mind. “Portrait of an Artist: Stephen Curry” is perfect family fare since it encourages both young and old alike to put in the good and hard yet joyous work. That’s a great, welcome pep talk about leading a fulfilling life both on and off the court no matter what your age and passion happens to be. For legions of Curry fans, it also gets into the legend’s mindset and the forces that guide him. Details: 3 stars out of 4; opens Oct. 9 in IMAX theaters.
“Carrie”: Respected horrormeister Mike Flanagan outdid himself when he updated Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” for Netflix. Those ingenious retellings took literary classics (one that used all of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of terror) and cast them in an exciting and contemporary light. Now Flanagan puts his creative mitts on “Carrie,” Stephen King’s macabre, nasty telepathic prom-night catastrophe classic. This time out, the refurbishing isn’t entirely foolproof and that’s most evident in finale, which bothered me to no end.
That said, the eight-episode reboot frequently pushes King’s brutal story and its unforgettable cast of characters into challenging and different directions, opening each up for a deeper look as their backstories get filled out and updated to our times. There are a few new characters too. His “Carrie” shines, so to speak, when it turns into a critique of rampant social media use and an education system that fails to protect students and children at a time when books get banned and parents come to board meetings wielding their own self-serving agendas. Fans of King’s 1974 novel and Brian DePalma’s frightening 1976 film (Flanagan tips his hat to DePalma; pay attention to one movie marquee) likely won’t fully embrace some of Flanagan’s choices, including how the iconic shower scene plays out when Carrie (Summer H. Howell, filling some big shoes well) gets bullied and ridiculed. It’s a scene that guts you, but where DePalma made the sequence a little more dreamy and erotic, there’s none of that here. It’s an effective change.
Other choices take some getting used to, such as scaling back on the religious zealotry of Carrie’s mother Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan from “The Pitt,” taking sanctimony to an art form). Oh, momma is still out there, but now she’s found herself a bullhorn via Instagram. It’s chilling because it’s so in touch with our current reality. Other changes find Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) and rich but vacuous Carrie tormentor Chris (Alison Thornton channeling beauty and viciousness very well) undergoing personality shifts. Both are less of a caricature — Sue not so saintly and Chris, well, a rotten-to-the-core jerk due to circumstances and bad parenting. And then there’s Tommy (Joel Oulette, who will make you fall in love with him), Sue’s boyfriend, who actually cares for Carrie. Your heart goes out to him. But there are missteps too, some teacher storylines that make a point but often distract. But there is a freshness to this “Carrie” that’s hard to resist, as Flanagan brings King’s story into a chaotic world where social media takes cruelty and human behavior to new lows. Details: 3 stars; episodes drop Oct. 7 on Prime.
“Never After Dark”: A medium hired by a wealthy woman to dislodge a nasty poltergeist roosting about in an isolated former hotel doesn’t sound like much of an original premise. But in the expert hands of screenwriter/director Dave Boyle (co-creator of the Netflix series “House of Ninjas”), the shop-worn plot device produces a chilling, slow-burning supernatural thriller/horror film set in Japan. Boyle’s genre entry deliciously enshrouds itself in a seductive, ominous moodiness vividly brought to life through eerie cinematography by Patrick Ouziel. a former East Bay resident and Miramonte High School graduate. His and Boyle’s hypnotic skill at keeping things lingering in the shadows to induce shudders and later shrieks heightens this experiment in escalating terror that seamlessly unites Eastern and Western styles. But do be patient with it. Boyle keeps a sealed lid on the carnage till he flings it wide open for a gruesome, all-out satisfying 30-minute grand finale. As the assured but haunted medium with guilt issues, Moeka Hoshi from “Shōgun” gives us appropriate fire-grilled flashes that express the torment swirling inside of her Airi. Her performance adds an emotional scope to a horror film that delivers the evil goods while never forsaking its need to invest in both its characters and actors. The result is a superbly crafted freakout in the the spirit of classics such as “The Shining” and goose-pimply J-Horror films as “Ju-On: The Grudge.” Details: 3 stars; opens Oct. 9 at the Alamo Drafthouse in Mountain View and the New People Cinema in San Francisco; opening wider in the weeks to come.