New Releases for the Week of November 1, 2019

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

(Paramount) Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta, Tristán Ulloa. Directed by Tim Miller

After having prevented Judgment Day, Sarah Connor is presented with a new threat from the future and must turn to an old friend/nemesis if she is to save the human race once again.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence throughout, language and brief nudity)

Arctic Dogs

(Entertainment Studios) Starring the voices of Jeremy Renner, Heidi Klum, James Franco, Alec Baldwin. An ambitious arctic fox, dreaming of becoming the top dog – number one courier in the Arctic – stumbles upon a nefarious plot to release greenhouse gasses to further melt the icepack and establish an evil walrus as the supreme ruler of the planet.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some mild action and rude humor)

Harriet

(Focus) Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Janelle Monáe, Joe Alwyn. Harriet Tubman went from being a slave to a heroic figure who rescued thousands and who would become a symbol of African-American pride.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content throughout, violent material and language including racial epithets)

Inside Game

(iDream Machine) Scott Wolf, Eric Mabius, Will Sasso, Lindsey Morgan. A small-time con-man teams up with two childhood friends – a bookie and a referee for the NBA – to bet on games his friend is working and make millions.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs. Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: R (for language and drug use throughout, and some sexual content)

Motherless Brooklyn

(Warner Brothers) Edward Norton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bruce Willis, Bobby Cannavale. A private detective with Tourette’s Syndrome must use his obsessive mind to solve the murder of his friend and mentor.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Orlando, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: R (for language throughout including some sexual references, brief drug use, and violence)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Adopt a Highway
Badland
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
For Sama
Greener Grass
Meeku Maathrame Chepthra
Paradise Hills

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE/KEY WEST:

Jojo Rabbit
Meeku Maathrame Chepthra

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

Dark Justice
Meeku Maathrame Chepthra

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Give Me Liberty
Meeku Maathrame Chepthra

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Badland
Harriet
Jojo Rabbit
Motherless Brooklyn
Terminator: Dark Fate

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale

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The Game Changers (2018)

There is strength in numbers.

(2018) Documentary (Diamond Docs) James Wilks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrik Baboumian, Scott Jurek, Dotsie Bausch, Kendrick Farris, Nimai Delgado, Lucious Smith, Gary Wilks, Fabian Kanz, Kim Williams, Morgan Mitchell, Rip Esselstyn, Mischa Janiec, Damien Mander, Tia Blanco, Bryant Jennings, Griff Whalen, Damien Mander, Helen Moon. Directed by Louis Psihoyos

 

Eating meat has long been understood to be less healthy than eating vegetables. However, a mythology regarding the manliness of being a vegetarian has also developed; eating meat makes you stronger, more masculine, more virile. These are ideas largely pushed by purveyors of meat, including burger joints and cattle collectives.

This documentary is out to puncture those myths and perhaps make a few converts among the sports bar crowd. The message is aimed almost overwhelmingly towards men, even going so far during an extended segment to show that eating a plant-based meal before bedtime results in – ahem – improved bedroom performance that night. Gentlemen, start your erections.

There are few men as bad-ass as Wilks, a former UFC fighter and former carnivore. While rehabbing an injury, he researched methods that might get him back in the octagon sooner but came across a study that startled him; gladiators, thought to be among the manliest men ever, were largely vegetarians according to scientific analysis of their bones. The fact that these guys were among the biggest and strongest of their time gave Wilks pause.

He soon found that there were plenty of modern equivalents. Baboumian, one of the strongest men on the planet and a world record-holder for the most weight ever lifted and carried by a human, has been a vegan for ages. So too has ultimate marathoner Jurek and Olympic cycler Bausch. Former NFL player Lucious Jones who is Wilks’ trainer, also has been a vegan largely persuaded by his wife, a chef who specializes in healthy diet. His old team, the Tennessee Titans, were mired in a streak of seasons failing to qualify for the postseason but once more than a dozen members of the team began eating vegan the team made a surprise return to the playoffs. Of course, all the credit is given to the diet.

There is also a nearly endless parade of doctors proclaiming the virtues of a plant-based diet, showing the medical benefits. Quite honestly watching all of these interviews, even supplemented by nifty graphics as some of them are, I found it all beginning to sound repetitive and my interest waned. Even with testimonials coming from the Terminator himself didn’t sway me as much. Maybe I’m just mule-headed but I do love me a burger from time to time.

There’s definitely a new convert’s zeal here and Wilks makes for a solid narrator, even converting his father to the cause after the elder Wilks suffers a major heart attack. In fact, the zeal was a bit off-putting. It’s sort of like having an evangelist preach to you the benefits of Christianity albeit without the scientific backing. There may be a few converts here and there, particularly those who are convinced that their dicks will get harder if they go vegan (the way to a man’s heart is most definitely not through his stomach) but the movie never addresses the main objection most carnivores have to turning to a plant-based diet – meat tastes damn good. In any case, while they make a good scientific case if you are willing to wade through all the stats and graphs, I’m not sure that their apparent goal of converting the intractable will be met.

REASONS TO SEE: Explains the myths of vegetarianism well. Wilks makes a fine narrator.
REASONS TO AVOID: Doesn’t really make any new converts. The medical information can get bone-dry.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some occasional profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Wilks is a former MMA fighter who currently trains law enforcement and military on combat techniques.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Google Play, iTunes, Vimeo, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/2/19: Rotten Tomatoes:78% positive reviews: Metacritic: 57/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The End of Meat
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Low Tide

Wonders of the Sea

It’s a squid bonanza!

(2017) Documentary (Screen Media) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Celine Cousteau, Fabien Cousteau, Gavin McKinney, Richard Murphy, Holly Lohuis. Directed by Jean-Michel Cousteau and Jacques Mantello

 

The ocean is the mother to us all. From her depths all life rose including mankind. She absorbs more carbon than any other item on earth. She feeds us, gives us nourishing rain. Without the oceans, life on Earth would not be possible.

We have taken the oceans for granted. We dump our trash into it, leading to floating trash heaps of plastics. Through global warming, we have raised the temperature of the oceans to a degree where certain species have had to retreat further into the depths in order to survive. We have overfished, devastating the population of tuna, cod, octopuses and other sea creatures. In recent years we have begun to understand that the ocean as a resource is truly finite.

One of the earliest researchers into the ocean was the legendary French engineer and environmentalist Jacques Cousteau, who in addition to inventing scuba gear and the aqualung which allow us to explore the ocean more thoroughly, is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries inspired a generation of ichthyologists, oceanographers and conservationists.

His son Jean-Michel has carried on the Cousteau family tradition. On his ship the Pacific Monarch he has continued on the mission of exploration and education. This film is the culmination of his efforts and in many ways it is brilliant. Using cutting edge underwater camera technology, he is able to take breathtaking footage in the great depths of the ocean as well as in the shadows; many of the creatures he turns his lens on (as well as cinematographer Gavin McKinney) are tiny and rarely photographed.

And those images are amazing and breathtaking, from a night dive where bioluminescent creatures prowl the deep, to swarms of mating squid to the great biodiversity of the coral reefs, the images explode with color and wonder. In fact, they almost do their jobs too well as after awhile we begin to experience sensory overload.

If only the narration matched the images. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, not noted for his ecological leanings, does a passable job but the information he is relating is generally available in other films. The coral reef section which takes up almost half of the running time is at least comparable to what you’ll see in the Netflix doc Chasing Coral which has a similar message. There is also some banter from the Cousteau family – Jean-Michel and his two adult children, daughter Celine and son Fabien – that feels forced and a bit incongruous.

Another thing to consider is that this was filmed in and meant to be seen in 3D. I don’t have the capability to watch 3D movies at home and so it feels like I lost a good deal of the impact of the movie. Even to my not-always-discerning eye it appeared that 3D would give the viewer much more of a “you are there” experience.

Technically, this is a marvelous achievement. The images are enhanced by a beautiful score by Christophe Jacquelin. Those with kids in the family will likely enjoy the coral reef sequences, particularly if the kids are devoted to Finding Nemo as there is some really fascinating looks at clownfish.

Preserving our planet is a very important cause and one which should be stressed not only to our young people but to their parents and grandparents as well. As stewards of Earth, we are failing miserably at our jobs. At least Wonders of the Sea has the sense not to politicize the film and point fingers (although we all kind of know where blame lies) and if they get a little shrill from time to time, it’s understandable. This is very much a virtual aquarium with a window onto the deep and there certainly isn’t anything wrong with that at all. I only wish I could have seen it in 3D as it was meant to be seen.

REASONS TO SEE: The imagery is dazzling with a dizzying array of color. Cousteau lives up to his father’s legacy.
REASONS TO AVOID: After a while, it all begins to blur together.
FAMILY VALUES: This is suitable for all ages.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was filmed over a five year period.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/10/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 75% positive reviews: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Oceans
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Lavender Scare

Andre the Giant

Andre the Giant in action against Randy “Macho Man” Savage.

(2018) Documentary (HBO) Andre the Giant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Billy Crystal, Vince McMahon, Rob Reiner, Jerry Lawler, Ric Flair, Shane McMahon, Gene Okerlund, Dave Meltzer, Antoine Roussimoff, Noel Matteos, Dr. Terry Todd, Gino Brito, David Shoemaker, Dr. Harris Yett, Jackie McAuley, Hortense Roussimoff. Directed by Jason Hehir

 

In the 1980s professional wrestling took off from essentially a group of regional promotions into a massive worldwide phenomena thanks largely to the aegis of the WWE (known as the World Wrestling Federation at the time until the World Wildlife Fund objected to the use of their initials) and some of the wrestlers in it. I have to say that I was a wrestling fan back then and watched regularly Monday Night Raw and the other wrestling programs that the WWE and to a lesser extent the NWA ran to keep the ravenous fans sated.

Remembering the big stars of that era – Hulk Hogan, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, Junkyard Dog, Demolition, The Ultimate Warrior, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, Iron Sheikh, Nikolai Volkoff, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Ravishing Rick Ruud, Ric Flair, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, Sting, Arn Anderson, Ted DiBiase, Jesse Ventura – I remember them all and more.

While Hogan was the biggest superstar of his time in terms of popularity, the most unforgettable wrestler of that era had to be Andre the Giant. Born Andre René Roussimoff in the small village of Molien in France, he began experiencing unusual growth spurts due to gigantism; by the time he was 12 he was larger than most adults.

Most of our portraits of Andre as a young man come from family photos and recollections of his siblings. The family, who worked (and still work) a farm in Molien were close-knit; in one poignant moment near the end of the film his brother shows off the chair that his mother built for her growing son. It is empty now but the care that went in to making her son comfortable in a world which largely wasn’t geared towards making people of a certain size comfortable is touching.

The footage of Andre’s early career is absolutely astounding. Most of us have only seen him in the latter stages of his career when the pain from his acromegaly (which developed from his gigantism) and of course the constant toll on the body that professional wrestling takes made any sort of movement excruciatingly painful.

There is a lot of interview footage here, but as far as Andre himself is concerned it is almost all given in his in-ring persona. He was a private man outside the ring and other than one 60 Minutes interview he rarely allowed people in. A lot of insight comes from his wrestling colleagues, although much of the subject regards his extraordinary appetites for food, women and booze. Andre loved to party after a wrestling match and was known to drink as many as 106 beers in a single night; drinking a case of wine wasn’t unusual for him either.

The more poignant material talks about Andre having difficulties getting into cars, hotel beds, and planes. He was simply unable to use an airplane bathroom and considering how much flying he had to do as part of his brutal wrestling travel schedule he often ended up having to hold it, sometimes for hours. He loved the adulation of the fans but there was no escaping it – when you’re his size you can’t escape anything.

Many people know Andre from his role as Fezzig in The Princess Bride and while two of his co-stars and the director talk about his time on the show (by which time his physical deterioration was making it nearly impossible for him to do his own stunts) the beloved movie only takes up about five minutes of screen time in Andre’s story.

Andre died in a Paris Hotel room on January 27, 1993 of a heart attack brought on by his gigantism. He was just 46 years old but had made an indelible mark on the world – and not just the world of wrestling. Always a gentle giant and recalled fondly by friends and family, he was the sort to go out of his way to make his fellow wrestlers look good. His epic battle with Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania III – one of the last matches he would wrestle as it turned out – is still thought by many to be the best professional wrestling match ever.

The movie will be a godsend for pro wrestling fans but even those who aren’t particularly fond of the squared circle will find something to enjoy in this well-made documentary that looks back at the life of a gentle giant. Great footage, engaging interviews and a marvelous subject are sometimes all it takes to make a good documentary.

REASONS TO GO: Heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, the movie documents the difficulties in day-to-day living Andre had to experience. Some of the footage is phenomenal.
REASONS TO STAY: We get a lot of Andre’s on-screen persona but not a whole lot about who he was off-camera.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some sports action and violence as well as some bloody images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The original nom de wrestling for Andre Roussimoff was Jean Ferré, a kind of French Paul Bunyan which was later changed to Géant Ferré. American promoters were unwilling to market him under that name because it sounded too much like “Giant Fairy” so Andre the Giant was born.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: HBO Go
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/5/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 94% positive reviews: Metacritic: 76/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Resurrection of Jake “The Snake” Roberts
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: The Cloverfield Paradox

New Releases for the Week of October 20, 2017

GEOSTORM

(Warner Brothers) Gerard Butler, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Daniel Wu, Eugenio Derbez, Amr Waked, Andy Garcia, Ed Harris. Directed by Dean Devlin

In a future where we have the ability to control the weather, the satellites that do the controlling suddenly and inexplicably start to turn on the Earth, creating massive and deadly weather events. As the weather worsens, a massive worldwide Geostorm that could potentially wipe out all life on earth is forming and it’s a race against time to find out who is behind it and stop them before our home is turned into a lifeless wasteland.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a promo and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, DBOX, IMAX, IMAX 3D
Genre: Sci-Fi Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for destruction, action and violence)

Breathe

(Bleecker Street) Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Ed Speleers, Tom Hollander. Legendary motion capture king Andy Serkis makes his directorial debut with this inspiring true story of Robin Cavendish, a young man whose life is full of adventure, promise and love but is cruelly paralyzed by polio from the neck down, leaving a grim prognosis. Refusing to live out his days in a hospital, against all odds he returns home and slowly but surely with the help of mechanically-inclined friends he works on ways to make his life – and the lives of others in his predicament – better.

See the trailer and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Ormond Beach, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic material including some bloody medical images)

Faces, Places

(Cohen Media Group) Jean-Luc Godard, Agnés Varda, JR, Laurent Levesque. Legendary French new wave director Varda and acclaimed muralist JR strike up an unlikely friendship and decide to make a film together. Travelling France to photograph new faces, art is created in the most unlikely and occasionally delightful of places.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for brief nude images and thematic elements)

Killing Gunther

(Saban/Lionsgate) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cobie Smulders, Bobby Moynihan, Allison Tolman. Gunther is the world’s most successful assassin. So much so that the world’s other assassins are getting together and plotting to take him down. The trouble is, their plans don’t always work the way they are intended to.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: R (for violence, language and some sexual material)

Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House

(Sony Classics) Liam Neeson, Diane Lane, Marton Csokas, Tony Goldwyn. The story of Felt, who for years hid his identity as the mystery man who helped take down the Nixon White House. Felt, a respected agent in the intelligence community discovered the wrongdoings of Watergate and became the most famous whistleblower in history – known to most as Deep Throat.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, AMC Universal Cineplex, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for some language)

Only the Brave

(Columbia) Josh Brolin, Jeff Bridges, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly. This is based on the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a volunteer firefighting brigade that took a heroic stand trying to defend their town from a historic wildfire. In the context of what has been happening in California, the Pacific Northwest and Big Sky country, this movie couldn’t be any more timely.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and Premiere footage here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content, some sexual references, language and drug material)

Same Kind of Different as Me

(Paramount/Pure Flix) Renee Zellweger, Jon Voight, Djimon Hounsou, Greg Kinnear. A successful art dealer whose marriage is on the rocks befriends a dangerously volatile homeless man as a means of reconnecting with his wife. Her dreams will send the three of them on a journey none of them could have ever anticipated.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and a featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG=13 (for thematic elements including some violence and language)

The Snowman

(Universal) Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer. Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose only clue is her pink scarf wrapped around the throat of an ominous looking snowman. Hole fears that this case may be linked to some bizarre murders that took place years earlier.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for grisly images, violence, some language, sexuality and brief nudity)

Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween

(Lionsgate) Tyler Perry, Patrice Lovely, Brock O’Hurn, Lexy Panterra. America’s favorite grandmother returns as she and her family visit a haunted campground on Halloween and unwittingly unleash a wave of monsters, goblins, ghouls and boogeymen. Run for your lives, America!

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual references, drug content, language and some horror images)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Golmaal Again
Mersal
Raja the Great
Secret Superstar
Tokyo Ghoul
The Unknown Girl

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI:

4 Days in France
A Silent Voice
Golmaal Again
Inseparables
Jungle
Mersal
Raja the Great
Secret Superstar
Tokyo Ghoul
Walking Out
Where’s the Money
The Woman Who Left

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA:

Demons
Golmaal Again
Leatherface
Let Her Out
Mersal
Never Here
Raja the Great
Secret Superstar
So B. It

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE:

Golmaal Again
Mersal
Raja the Great
Secret Superstar
Tokyo Ghoul

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Breathe
Geostorm
Only the Brave
The Snowman
Walking Out

I Am Not Your Negro

James Baldwin listens intently.

(2016) Documentary (Magnolia) Samuel L. Jackson (narrator), James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Dick Cavett, Robert F. Kennedy, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Barack Obama, John Wayne, Henry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Sidney Poitier, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rodney King, Michele Obama. Directed by Raoul Peck

 

James Baldwin at one point says in this documentary “The story of America is the story of the Negro and it isn’t a pretty story.” For those who don’t know, James Baldwin was a gay African-American writer who during the Civil Rights era became a prominent and outspoken representative for civil rights. Articulate, intelligent and respected, his was a voice that was angry but one that invited dialogue. There isn’t much of that going on today.

In 1979 he author sent a letter to his literary agent Jay Acton outlining a proposal for a book project entitled Remember the House. In it he said that he wanted to examine the civil rights movement and America itself through the murders of three of his friends; Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. When Baldwin passed away in 1987 he’d completed only 30 pages of manuscript.

Documentary director Peck wondered what that book might have turned out to be. Using Baldwin’s own words from the Acton letter as well as the manuscript itself (all of which is read by Samuel L. Jackson), he uses archival footage of Baldwin doing talk shows, delivering speeches and lecturing at universities to flesh out the written words.

Peck also uses footage of modern race-related issues like the events in Ferguson, Missouri, the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of Trayvon Martin to reinforce that the more that things change, the more they stay the same. Baldwin was one of the most brilliant men of the 20^th century and he spent a significant portion of his life in self-exile in France, much like leading African-American artists did to escape American racism. That gave him a certain amount of perspective, but he also clearly loved his country and almost inevitably when he felt he needed to lend his voice to what was happening, he would return home.

His observations are eerily timeless, speaking as much to modern audiences as to those of the 50s and 60s. At times it seems he could be talking about incidents that occurred just last week. He speaks in a cultured, urbane voice – something else we’ve lost as a society – and reminds us that once upon a time we had discourse in America, not just attempts to shout each other down. One wonders what he would have thought of the current President and of how social media has changed our country and how we receive information.

This documentary brilliantly weaves the archival and modern images with Baldwin’s words, not only reminding us that he was a great man (which he was) but also that we haven’t learned very much from him. The Oscar-nominated documentary really has a single flaw but it’s kind of a big one; it tends to flog the same points over and over again, but then again perhaps we need that since as mentioned a moment ago we really haven’t learned our lesson yet. Hopefully seeing this documentary might motivate some of you to read some of his books (I know I’m going to be checking out Amazon for at least one or two) but also to remind us that while we have made some progress, we still have a hell of a long way to go.

REASONS TO GO: Powerful and depressing, the film shows us how little we’ve progressed in half a century. Some truly remarkable archival material brings the Civil Rights era to life.
REASONS TO STAY: An element of flogging the same points over and over again does occur.
FAMILY VALUES: Some of the images are violent and disturbing; there is also some profanity including racial slurs, adult themes and brief nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The word “negro” is used 78 times in the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/20/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 98% positive reviews. Metacritic: 96/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Malcolm X
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: A Dog’s Purpose

Maggie (2015)

Arnold Schwarzenegger revisits his political career.

(2015) Horror (Roadside Attractions) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson, Douglas M. Griffin, J.D. Evermore, Rachel Whitman Groves, Jodie Moore, Bryce Romero, Raeden Greer, Aiden Flowers, Carsen Flowers, Walter von Huene, Dana Gourrier, Amy Brassette, David Anthony Cole, Mattie Liptak, Liann Pattison, Maris Black, Jessy Hughes. Directed by Henry Hobson

I have not been fortunate enough to raise a daughter. There is something very special about that father-daughter bond from what I’ve seen. While there are some dads who aren’t worth a counterfeit penny, most are quite willing to lay down their lives for their little girls if need be.

Maggie Vogel (Breslin) has a dad like that – Wade (Schwarzenegger) who owns a small farm in the Midwest. Disease has broken out – a pandemic that turns those that contract it into flesh-eating cannibals. They become mindless zombies, if you will. Maggie has been bitten by a zombie and now she has the disease. There is no cure. She will slowly die over a period of several months; the end is inexorable. She’s run away from home, to find herself in a hospital. That’s where Wade finds her.

There aren’t many options and none of them are real hopeful. She can be left in the hospital where she’ll be sent to quarantine, eventually to be given a very painful death. She can go home and stay there until she turns, in which case she’ll get a very painful death. Or she can go home and her father can end her existence in a more humane way. Wade chooses the last option.

Things are breaking down back at home. Wade’s second wife Caroline (Richardson) – Maggie’s mom passed when she was a little girl – and her two kids with Wade Bobby (A. Flowers) and Molly (C. Flowers) don’t really understand what’s going on, although Bobby sort of does. Eventually Caroline packs up the kids and sends them to live with an aunt, joining them herself. While she does understand what’s going on, she doesn’t get why Wade would put their two healthy children in harm’s way for the sake of a daughter who is dying. Wade doesn’t really have an answer for her that she understands.

Maggie hooks up with an old flame back at home, Trent (Romero) who also has the disease. He doesn’t want to go to quarantine – he’s heard that the conditions there are terrifying. He locks himself in his room and only Maggie can talk him out but the local sheriff (Griffin) and his mean-hearted deputy (Evermore) drag him away to quarantine anyway. Maggie knows that she doesn’t want a similar fate for herself.

But the signs are getting more unavoidable. She finds live maggots in her arm. When she cuts open a finger, she feels no pain – and oozes viscous black liquid instead of blood. She regularly vomits up horrifying liquids. She can feel her humanity slipping away. The question is, does Ray have the strength to let go of his daughter and spare her things even worse?

=Zombies are a hot commodity in terms of film and television, with The Walking Dead being the number one show on TV as this is written. However, Maggie really isn’t about zombies; they are barely part of the landscape here. We see little violence involving zombies, although on the few occasions where there is some it is sudden and horrifying. No, Maggie is about death and dying – and given the subject, yes the tone is bleak and grim.

Schwarzenegger is of course first and foremost an action hero but the man is not far from his 70^th birthday and action roles don’t really suit him anymore. Given a chance to show his dramatic chops, Schwarzenegger actually shines and comes out with the best performance of his storied career. His Wade is gentle, honest and loyal but he is also very conflicted. He knows what’s best for his daughter, but finds it hard to even consider letting her go, even to the point of possibly letting her suffer. It makes the movie’s denouement even more poignant. I truly hope that Schwarzenegger gets more roles like this in the coming years; he can certainly handle them.

Breslin is already a known quality. She started out as a child actress and became one of the best juvenile actresses in history. As a young woman, she shows she can handle much more layered, complex roles. She has all the skills to be one of her generation’s most successful performers, with the kind of talent that wins Oscars and carries lead roles in important franchise films.

There are plenty of pastoral images that indicate a lifestyle that’s both rural and satisfying. Perhaps there are a few too many of those; at times the filmmaker seems a bit more in love with the style over the substance which is a bit of a shame because the substance here is pretty outstanding. Hobson has a background in making titles and graphic design and certainly his expertise shows here which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but hopefully for future films he’ll give a bit more emphasis to the story.

Oddly, the zombies here are some of the least effective ever seen onscreen. Even during the few attack scenes, they are never as menacing as they are in other presentations. The process of becoming a zombie is given more attention, which is proper and it IS fascinating, but we never get a sense of what the end result is. Becoming a zombie is bad here because it is in other movies for all we know. I would have preferred to see some graphic displays of why becoming a zombie is such a horrible fate. There is a whole lot of weeping over it though.

Also, for a zombie apocalypse, life is going on pretty well as it had before. We don’t get a sense of civilization breaking down whatsoever. But then again, why does it have to? An outbreak of zombie disease doesn’t have to signify an apocalypse, although the zombie inconvenience doesn’t sound nearly as interesting.

There is a lot to recommend this movie, particularly the acting (who’da thought) and the concept, but I think the movie could have been an absolute classic with surer hands at the helm. A little less rumination and a little more action would have benefitted the movie overall.

WHY RENT THIS: This is one of Schwarzenegger’s best performances of his career if not THE best and Breslin is nearly as good.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The zombies aren’t used effectively and the film gets way too schmaltzy.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of gore and some disturbing zombie-related images as well as a little bit of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Schwarzenegger, who really loved the script, did the movie without taking any sort of payment. The film crew also used the same home and surrounding property of the house in Looper.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There are some surprisingly lengthy interviews with members of the cast and crew, as well as an Ultraviolet digital copy of the film on the Blu-Ray edition.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray rental only), Amazon Prime, iTunes, Fandango Now, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1.4 million on a $4.5M production budget.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Life After Beth
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Day 3 of Six Days of Darkness!

Terminator Genisys

I just want to set the world on fire…

(2015) Science Fiction (Paramount) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Emilia Clarke, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matthew Smith, Courtney B. Vance, Byung-hun Lee, Michael Gladis, Sandrine Holt, Wayne Bastrup, Gregory Alan Williams, Otto Sanchez, Matty Ferraro, Griff Furst, Ian Etheridge, Nolan Gross, Seth Meriwether, Afemo Omilami, Teri Wyble. Directed by Alan Taylor

Some franchises seem to need little encouragement to be creative. Some tell a single story over the course of several films. Others essentially make the same movie over and over again.

The War Against the Machines is reaching it’s end; John Connor (J.Clarke) and his troops are storming an L.A. prison camp which hides Skynet’s secret weapon even as another brigade is storming the main server complex in Colorado. Complete victory is within their grasp; except that Skynet has sent a Terminator (Schwarzenegger) back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor (E. Clarke), his mother, before he can be born. John sends his right hand man, Kyle Reese (Courtney) back in time to stop the unstoppable cyborg.

Sounds familiar right? But this isn’t a reboot. When Reese gets there he discovers the Terminator has already been dispatched – by another Terminator, reprogrammed and sent back further in time to save Sarah – and now to save all of them from a liquid metal T-1000 (Lee) that is nearly impossible to destroy, but clever Sarah manages to find a way.

Now, they have a chance to stop Judgment Day itself but something is wrong with the timeline. Reese saw John getting attacked just before he was sent back in time and now Judgment Day isn’t in 1997 but in 2017. And the means that the nuclear holocaust will be achieved is through a new operating system, Genisys, that will link up everybody and everything – including the nukes. With the aging Terminator whom Sarah calls Pops – as he keeps insisting, he’s old not obsolete – the two will try to save the world from Skynet one last time but Skynet has an ace up it’s sleeve that nobody foresaw – except those who saw Paramount’s second trailer for the movie that spoils one of the biggest and unexpected twists that could have been this summer.

The Terminator franchise has seen better days. The first two films in the franchise were box office smashes and are beloved of science fiction and action film fans alike. The last two have done decent financial numbers but both critics and fans alike have excoriated both of them. Where in that demarcation does this one fall?

The latter, unfortunately. Critics have given this a spanking as you can see by the numbers below and fans have been essentially unimpressed. To be honest, I can’t say that this is one of the better movies in the series but it isn’t the worst either – Terminator Salvation gets that dubious honor – and quite frankly I think it holds up pretty well, despite the critical lambasting it has taken.

]Schwarzenegger, who essentially just made cameos during the last two films which were both filmed during his gubernatorial days but is fully back here and he steals the show. Arnold has never been the greatest of actors (though he has improved) but he’s always had a load of charisma. He manages to play the sympathetic Terminator nicely with genuinely horrifying attempts at a human smile, and a few unintentionally funny quips.

Too bad Arnold as a robot is more lifelike than the human characters. Jason Clarke has shown himself to be a capable lead actor in Life on Mars and in other films, but here he seems terribly lost. I’m not sure if he just required better direction, or any direction but I get the sense that he’s not sure how to play this messianic character and so plays him without much to recommend him by. At least he does a better job than Christian Bale did.

Courtney, who has been a villain in the Hunger Games movies does a mite better, but again seems a bit over his head. The same could be said for Emilia Clarke who has turned heads in Game of Thrones but seems strident and unlikable here instead of tough. Makes one wish her colleague in Thrones, Lena Headey, would have been the one asked to take the role here. She did a far better job in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

The action sequences are better than average and the special effects likewise. Where the movie really falls down is in the story; it’s so convoluted, with parallel timelines and all sorts of techno babble which ends up slowing the momentum of the movie down at key moments (in one incredible sequence, four different characters try explain a plot point four times to a disbelieving character which is just beyond comprehension why anyone writing a major summer movie would do that. I think they should have simplified things a little or just didn’t explain anything and let the audience just go with it. They would have been better off in the long run. However, fans of the series might be interested to know that there will be at least two more movies made; Paramount has already greenlit them because the rights to the franchise revoke back to James Cameron in 2019 so the studio intends to get as much return from their investment as possible. I hope that the audience does, too.

REASONS TO GO: Some fine summer entertainment and eye candy. Schwarzenegger is clearly having fun.
REASONS TO STAY: Convoluted plot. A little too much like previous entries in the franchise.
FAMILY VALUES: A good deal of sci-fi violence and gun fighting, some partial nudity and a few choice words here and there.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Jason Clarke is the fifth actor to play John Connor. Rusty Griswold of the Vacation series has also had five actors in the same role, the only characters known to have that many different actors playing them.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/12/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 27% positive reviews. Metacritic: 38/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: I, Robot
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Desire for Beauty

New Releases for the Week of July 3, 2015

TERMINATOR: GENISYS

(Paramount) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Emilia Clarke, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, Courtney B. Vance. Directed by Alan Taylor

We’ve seen this one before; human resistance leader John Connor discovers that Skynet has sent a terminator cyborg back in time to kill his mother. He needs someone to protect her and brave Kyle Reese volunteers. Except when he gets back in time, things are a lot different than what John Connor remembered – and Sarah Connor is a whole lot tougher than John ever knew. She has a plan to keep Judgment Day from happening, but Skynet is going all out to ensure that it does.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a promo and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website .
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D (opened Wednesday)
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and gunplay throughout, partial nudity and brief strong language)

Aloft

(Sony Classics) Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, Melanie Laurent, Oona Chaplin. A woman abandons her son; he seeks answers, cutting himself off from feeling anything in order to bear the weight of a crushing tragedy. A woman who is obsessed with curing herself leaves everything she knows behind in a desperate attempt to follow her dream. All three will meet where past and present merge in an exciting film set in the mysterious and beautiful Arctic.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some sensuality)

Faith of Our Fathers

(Goldwyn/Pure Flix) Kevin Downes, David A.R. White, Stephen Baldwin, Candace Cameron Bure. As the Vietnam War is at its height, two new fathers report for duty – one a cynic, the other devout. They send to their new sons letters hand-written from in country. Years later their sons – now grown men – make a pilgrimage to the Vietnam War monument in Washington DC. They will meet as strangers but they will share a common bond – loving fathers whose bonds cannot be shattered by the chaos of war.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Downtown Disney, AMC West Oaks, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, drug material, language and some thematic elements)

Magic Mike XXL

(Warner Brothers) Channing Tatum, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Elizabeth Banks. Three years after Magic Mike, the legendary headliner of the Kings of Tampa hung up his g-string for good, the troupe is ready to call it a day. However, they want one last blow-out at a festival in Myrtle Beach and they convince Mike to dance one last time. On a road trip with stops in Jacksonville and Savannah, the boys will learn that it takes more than moves to be legendary.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opened Wednesday)
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong sexual content, pervasive language, some nudity and drug use)

The Overnight

(The Orchard) Adam Scott, Jason Schwartzman, Taylor Schilling, Judith Godreche. Newly arrived in Los Angeles, a young couple with their young son know nobody in the trendy Silver Lake district. A chance meeting at a birthday party gets them invited to a pizza dinner with the young son who their own son has become fast friends with and his sophisticated parents. Once the kids are put to bed, things get very, very strange very, very fast. Not only has this been getting a huge buzz but this was one of the more acclaimed films at the recent Florida Film Festival and you can read my review of the movie here.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sex Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for sexuality/nudity and language)

The Expendables 3

Jason Statham and Wesley Snipes decide to settle who has the bigger blade.

(2014) Action (Lionsgate) Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, Jason Statham, Harrison Ford, Kellan Lutz, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Banderas, Dolph Lundgren, Wesley Snipes, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Ronda Rousey, Kelsey Grammer, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Robert Davi, Ivan Kostadinov, Slavi Slavov, Natalie Burn, Sarai Givaty. Directed by Patrick Hughes

Back in 2010, action fans eagerly awaited the debut of The Expendables which united action heroes from days gone by Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Lundgren, Bruce Willis and of more recent vintage Li and Statham. The novelty factor alone made the movie a big hit but a single soliloquy by Mickey Rourke made the movie more memorable than the average action film.

Then came The Expendables 2 which added Jean-Claude van Damme and Chuck Norris (as well as more recent action star Liam Hemsworth) which was still entertaining in its own way but the novelty was beginning to wear off. Would the pattern continue?

Yeah, it does. While this is the most star-studded of the series, it is also the least fulfilling. I use that term advisedly – The Expendables 3 has a massive dose of testosterone that will grow hair on the chest of a Disney princess, and is surprisingly entertaining but not necessarily in a good way. You can sit back and watch this and take it for what it is, but if what it is doesn’t thrill you so much, you’re in for a long evening.

The team – leader Barney Ross (Stallone), right hand man Lee Christmas (Statham), surly Gunnar Jensen (Lundgren), just as surly Toll Road (Couture) and abs-tastic Hale Caesar (Crews) board a prison train carrying a single prisoner – former Expendable Dr. Death (Snipes). As usual, lots of people get shot and stuff blows up but Team Ex wins out in the end.

But it turns out that the prison break was kind of a side trip on the way to something else. They’ve to head out and intercept a shipment of bombs from an arms dealer, who turns out to be Conrad Stonebanks (Gibson) who just happened to co-found the Expendables before turning rogue and going out on his own. That job turns out to be something of a cluster frump and gets one of the team shot and in critical condition. Shaken up, Barney decides to retire the team and find a new one.

He needs one because their CIA contact Drummer (Ford) wants Stonebanks picked up alive and taken to the Hague to answer for his crimes. That’s easier said than done however and while Barney’s new team – including tech wizard Thorn (Powell), chatterbox Spanish killing machine Galgo (Banderas), team muscle Mars (Ortiz), beautiful but deadly Luna (Rousey) and anti-authoritarian potential team leader Smilee (Lutz) has more of a modern edge to them, they don’t do any better than the first team and things go sideways in a hurry. It will take the old team to rescue the new team and a final mano a mano brawl between Stonebanks and Barney to settle this once and for all.

Da Queen, being a pragmatic sort (and a bit of a masochist) decided to count up the ludicrous scenes in the movie when something that simply was too much of a stretch of the imagination to ignore; the end figure was in double digits. I can take a certain suspension of disbelief; after all, I used to love those ’80s action epics as much as the next guy. However, there comes a point where you’re inner brain starts to say “come on, you can’t be serious” to your testicles (or the female approximation of same) and the action fix begins to clash with your inner need for some sort of logic. How much you like the movie will depend on how bad you need an action fix.

Stallone, clean-shaven for the first time in the trilogy, looks every bit an AARP member at this point. There are several close-ups on his trademark sneer and as his righteous anger leeks out from his upper lip and into his eyeballs, you can tell he’s going to go all Rambo on somebody’s ass. Statham, not so nearly long in the tooth, merely looks uncomfortable most of the way through – perhaps that’s because he was involved in a near-fatal truck crash when the brakes on the truck he was driving in the movie failed and he was forced to abandon truck before it crashed into the sea.

I will say that the much-maligned Gibson fares the best here, channeling his Martin Riggs from back in the day and if Riggs were a villain in the Lethal Weapon series this is how he’d have turned out. He’s actually pretty fun to watch although I imagine that those who still haven’t gotten over his anti-Semitic drunken rant to the cops will be less sanguine about his performance. Snipes, recently released from prison, reminds us why he was such a great action star in the first place. I thought at one time he had the potential to be as big as Will Smith, although a series of bad roles and poor life choices derailed that. It still might happen though – he could use his performance here as an audition tape for any action movie in the offing and get serious consideration. He also has the best line in the movie; when asked by Toll Road what he was in prison for. I won’t tell you what he responds because the surprise is half the fun.

There is some CGI here and they must have done it on somebody’s Commodore VIC-20 because it is absolutely miserable, some of the worst I’ve ever seen. For example, for the scene near the movie’s end where he is hanging from a winch cable on a helicopter as the chopper pulls away from the camera, I’d much rather have stopped the scene with him dangling underneath it asking his snarky teammates to winch him up now right at that point instead of seeing a clearly CGI silhouette of the copter with the distant semi-humanoid figure and cable being sucked into the helicopter like a strand of spaghetti. I don’t like my action reality messed with.

This is a series whose novelty has run its course and needs to survive simply on the success of its action sequences and the quirkiness of its characters. For one thing, too many characters get virtually no screen time (Li shows up near the end and gets three or four lines and no fighting sequences which is a complete waste of his talents) and while the cast members are pretty able individually, the whole isn’t equal to the sum of its parts.

REASONS TO GO: Definite testosterone overload.

REASONS TO STAY: Super predictable and super brainless. Some of the worst CGI ever. Novelty has worn off.

FAMILY VALUES:  Oh yes, all sorts of violence with guns, blades, you name it – mayhem deluxe. There’s also a fair amount of language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first Expendables film not to be rated R.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/21/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 35% positive reviews. Metacritic: 35/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Commando

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: Code Name: The Cleaner