New Releases for the Week of August 12, 2016

PETE’S DRAGON

(Disney) Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford, Oakes Fegley, Oona Laurence, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Marcus Henderson. Directed by David Lowery

Some of Disney’s films are better known than others. This 1977 film was from a period when their films weren’t as popular as they once were and, quite frankly, weren’t as good. This live action reimagining starts with the discovery of a young boy alone in a deep and dangerous forest. It turns out that the boy has been in there for years and experts are confounded as to how he possibly could have survived all alone. Then it turns out that he wasn’t all alone…

See the trailer and an interview here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Family
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for action, peril and brief language)

Anthropoid

(Bleecker Street) Jamie Dornan, Cillian Murphy, Toby Jones, Charlotte Le Bon. This is the true story of two Czech army-in-exile soldiers who are secretly parachuted into their occupied homeland near the end of World War II. Their mission: assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, one of the top officers in the SS. In a city under brutal lockdown, with limited information and a deadline approaching, the two know that if they succeed it will change the war in Europe dramatically.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Historical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for violence and disturbing images)

Blood Father

(Lionsgate) Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty, Diego Luna, William H. Macy. An ex-con trying to re-establish a connection with his daughter and to ease into the straight life is sucked back into his past when his daughter runs afoul of a drug cartel and is being hunted by them. Using his criminal skills and connections from the past, he’ll have to stay one step ahead of some of the most brutal human beings on Earth to keep his daughter safe.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for strong violence, language throughout and brief drug use)

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words

(Sony Classics) Frank Zappa, Gail Zappa, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr. One of the most influential figures in popular music of our time was taken from us far too soon. However, his 30-year career is chronicled exclusively through archival interview footage so we get to hear, in the maestro’s own words, what he did, how he felt and get a sense of his lasting contributions to music that reverberate through popular culture even today.

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

Florence Foster Jenkins

(Paramount) Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson. Some of you may have seen the French film Marguerite. You may or may not have known this, but she was based on a real person, the American heiress Florence Foster Jenkins. This is the true tail of a New York socialite who fancied herself an opera singer, but was perhaps the worst singer in history. She was apparently such a sweet soul that nobody had the heart to tell her, but when she determined to perform a concert at Carnegie Hall, it became obvious that the truth was going to come out one way or another.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for brief suggestive material)

Gleason

(Open Road/Amazon) Steve Gleason, Michel Varisco-Gleason, Drew Brees, Mike McCready. Most football fans known Gleason as the all-pro defense back for the New Orleans Saints whose block of a punt remains one of the biggest plays in franchise history, getting them into a Super Bowl. But at 34 years of age, he was diagnosed with ALS – also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – which gave him a life expectancy of only three to four years. With the same determination that made him an NFL star, he set upon living his remaining years as fully as possible and to leave a record for his newborn son that would give him the fatherly advice he wouldn’t be able to give him growing up.

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language)

Indignation

(Roadside Attractions/Summit) Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond. In 1951 a brilliant working class Jewish boy from New Jersey accepts a scholarship to a small, conservative college in Ohio, exempting him from service in the Korean War. However, he increasingly clashes with the school’s unprincipled dean and simultaneously falls for a beautiful WASP which puts his family’s plans in jeopardy. This is based on the novel by the late, great Philip Roth.

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

Mohenjo Daro

(UTV) Hrithik Roshan, Pooja Hegde, Arunoday Singh, Kabir Bedi. An adventure set during India’s Indus Valley civilization (although the graphics in the trailer place it before that era).

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

Operation Chromite

(CJ Entertainment) Liam Neeson, Jung-jae Lee, Beom-Su Lee, Dean Dawson. A squadron gets set to fight in the Battle of Inchon during the Korean War. In the meantime, General Douglas MacArthur’s strategies are being developed that will have a critical effect on those going into battle – and irrevocably alter his career.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: War
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: NR

Sausage Party

(Columbia) Starring the voices of Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek, James Franco. In the supermarket aisle, all the various foods we bring home long to be selected. What they don’t know is that selection means they are eaten…alive. One brave sausage means to escape that fate and return to the market to warn his compatriots of their doom. Yes, this is animated. Do. Not. Bring. Your. Kids!

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong crude sexual content, pervasive language and drug use)

New Releases for the Week of August 12, 2011

FINAL DESTINATION 5

(New Line) Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Arlen Escapreta, David Koechner, Tony Todd, Courtney B. Vance, P.J. Byrne, Ellen Wroe. Directed by Steven Quale

When a suspension bridge collapses, several young people are saved from certain doom by the premonition one young man has about the impending disaster. The survivors are then picked off one by one in various elaborate and gruesome ways. Note to self: this summary can be used for any Final Destination movie past present or future, substituting only the specific disasters; speedway crash, bus crash, roller coaster crash, airplane explosion. See how easy a preview summary can be?

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: R (for strong violence/gruesome accidents, and some language)

30 Minutes or Less

(Columbia) Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Michael Pena. The follow-up from the director of Zombieland concerns a couple of bumbling criminals who concoct a crazy scheme to get others to rob banks for them. They simply strap a bomb to their chest and tell them they have 30 minutes to rob a bank or they’ll get blowed up real good. They choose a hapless stoner of a pizza delivery guy as their pigeon, but things go way out of control from there.

See the trailers, interviews, clips and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Crime Comedy

Rating: R (for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, nudity and some violence)

Another Earth

(Fox Searchlight) Brit Marling, William Mapother, Jordan Baker, Robin Lord Taylor. The lives of an aspiring astrophysicist and a brilliant composer are linked by a terrible tragedy on the eve of the most amazing discovery in the history of the planet. A duplicate Earth has been discovered and the lives of these two people – and everyone else on the planet – are about to be irrevocably changed.

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing images, some sexuality, nudity and brief drug use)

Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest

(Sony Classics) Common, Ludacris, Q-Tip, Mos Def. One of the most acclaimed and influential hip hop groups ever was A Tribe Called Quest. Although their members have gone on to other careers and the group broke up far too soon in the minds of some, their music remains a testament to how innovative and cutting edge rap can be. This Michael Rappaport-directed documentary goes backstage with the band and explores the drama that surrounded them (and eventually broke them apart) as well as the creative process behind some of the greatest hip hop songs ever.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Musical Documentary

Rating: R (for language)

The Devil’s Double

(Lionsgate) Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi, Philip Quast. A simple soldier is chosen to be the body double for the notorious son of Saddam Hussein, the Black Prince Uday Hussein. Forced into this service in order to keep his family safe, the young soldier is thrust into a glamorous world of drugs, sex and brutality as he is witness to the depravity of a modern-day monster.

See the trailer, interviews and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Life Drama

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence and torture, sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and pervasive language)

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie

(20th Century Fox) Lea Michele, Corey Monteith, Kevin McHale, Amber Riley. Gleeks everywhere are getting an emotional chubby knowing that their time is finally here. The hit television show has spawned a multi-city tour which has been in turn made into a 3D concert movie. You can be there, right onstage as the kids from “Glee” belt out vapid covers of songs from the last 30 years. I’m not sure which would be worse torture, this or the Justin Bieber concert movie. It’s a toss-up.

See the trailer and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D

Genre: Musical

Rating: PG (for some rude and suggestive humor, and language)

The Help

(Disney) Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer. When a young journalist fresh out of college decides to write a feature on the lives of the household servants in Jackson, Mississippi in the mid-1960s she puts all of them at grave risk. Based on a best-selling novel, the story unfolds into an unlikely but deep abiding friendship that shows how the power of the truth can cause changes in even the most entrenched behavior (Opening Wednesday August 10).

See the trailer, clips, featurettes and interviews here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material)