New Releases for the Week of July 16, 2021

SPACE JAM 2: A NEW LEGACY

(Warner Brothers) LeBron James, Don Cheadle, Sonequa Martin-Green, Lil Rel Howley, Zendaya, Gabriel Iglesias, Jim Cummings. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee

When a rogue artificial intelligence kidnaps his son, basketball legend LeBron James enlists the help of animated legend Bugs Bunny to re-assemble the Toon team, win a basketball game and save the universe. Or at least, this corner of it.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Family
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG (for some language and some cartoon violence)

Akilla’s Escape

(Vertical) Saul Williams, Thamela Mpumlwana, Donisha Rita Claire Pendergast, Vic Mensa. A young 15-year-old Jamaican boy living in an American urban war zone must come to terms with a generational relationship with crime and violence he thought he had escaped during a single night’s armed robbery.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Enzian On-Demand
Rating: NR

Dachra

(Dekalog) Yassmine Dimassi, Hela Ayed, Aziz Jebali, Bilel Slatnia. A young journalism student and her two friends are trapped in a sinister village trying to solve a crime that occurred 25 years ago that may have involved witchcraft.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Enzian On-Demand
Rating: NR

Die in a Gunfight

(Lionsgate) Diego Boneta, Alexandra Daddario, Justin Chatwin, Billy Crudup. Two black sheep children of powerful warring families reignite a love affair that will have far-reaching consequences in the underbelly of New York.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: CMX Merritt Square
Rating: R (for drug use, violence and language)

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions

(Columbia) Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Thomas Cocquerel. Six people unwittingly find themselves back in the deadly Escape Room and must find out what their skills are so that they can work together to survive. But it turns out, they’ve all played – and beat – the game before, and this time the traps will be so much more lethal.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG-13 (for peril, terror, strong language and violence)

How to Deter a Robber

(SHOUT! Factory) Vanessa Marano, Leah Lewis, Chris Mulkey, Gabrielle Carteris. A stubborn young woman and her boyfriend, accused of a robbery she didn’t commit, looks to clear their names and come face to face with a couple of amateur thieves.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Crime Comedy
Now Playing: Studio Movie Grill Sunset Walk
Rating: NR

I Carry You with Me

(Sony Classics) Armando Espitia, Christian Vazquez, Michelle Rodriguez, Angeles Cruz. An aspiring chef is forced to leave his love and emigrate to New York, where his life changes – but his love doesn’t.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and brief nudity)

Moby Doc

(Greenwich) Moby, David Lynch, Julie Mintz, David Bowie. An unvarnished and surreal look at one of the fathers of modern electronic music and noted animal rights activist Moby.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Music Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian (Monday only)
Rating: NR

Pig

(NEON) Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Cassandra Violet, Adam Arkin. A truffle hunter, living in the woods of the Pacific Northwest by himself (and prefers it that way), is forced to come to the big city when someone steals his beloved foraging pig.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, CMX Plaza Café, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some violence)

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

(Focus) Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, Josh Homme, David Chang. The life of the late Florida Film Festival attendee is looked at from his days as an unknown line cook in New York to becoming a bestselling author and a world-travelling television host.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Avenue 16, AMC Classic New Smyrna, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Orlando, Enzian Theater, Regal Oviedo Marketplace
Rating: R (for language throughout)

Summertime

(Good Deed) Tyris Winter, Marquesha Babers, Maia Mayor, Mila Cuda. A day in the life of Los Angeles, as seen through the eyes of poets, rappers, musicians and artists from the innovative director of Blindspotting

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Musical
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language throughout and sexual references)

Sweat

(MUBI) Magdalena Kolesnik, Julian Swiezewski, Aleksandra Konieczna, Zbigniew Zamachowski. A Polish fitness instructor and internet lifestyle influencer battles loneliness, a stalker and an impending national TV interview as she tries to get through a weekend with her overbearing mother.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Cinematique Daytona
Rating: NR

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

Fire (Tuesday)
Great White
House of Quarantine (Tuesday)
How It Ends (Tuesday)
Out of Death
The Rebels of PT-218
Resurgence (Tuesday)
Room Nine (Tuesday)
Sleepless Unrest
The Witches of the Orient

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
Pig
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
Sleepless Unrest
Space Jam 2: A New Legacy
Summertime
Sweat

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New Releases for the Week of August 23, 2019

ANGEL HAS FALLEN

(Lionsgate) Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Tim Blake Nelson, Piper Perabo, Danny Huston, Nick Nolte. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

An assassination attempt on the President leaves his trusted Secret Service agent and confidante Mike Banning wrongly accused. He is forced to go on the run to clear his name, keep his family safe and root out the real threat to the country and stop it before it’s too late.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence and language throughout)

After the Wedding

(Sony Classics) Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Abby Quinn. The administrator of an orphanage in India gets an unexpected and generous donation from a mysterious benefactor in New York. She must go to the Big Apple to accept the gift in person but there is much more going on there than meets the eye.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material and some strong language)

Luce

(NEON) Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Tim Roth. Ten years after adopting their son from Eritrea, a pair of suburban white parents believe their son has a bright future ahead of him. An academic all-star, well-regarded in the community and an example for his peers, Luce turns in a term paper with a troubling point of view. His African-American teacher begins to fear the worst which puts her into direct conflict with his parents.

See the trailer, clips and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language throughout, sexual content, nudity and some drug use)

The Nightingale

(IFC) Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Baykali Ganambarr, Damon Herriman. In early 19^th century Australia during the penal colony days, a woman suffers repeated sexual assault at the hands of a British officer. When her husband intervenes, the officer murders both her husband and her infant. Destitute and bereft, she goes on a journey to exact revenge. This previously played at both the Miami Film Festival and Florida Film Festival; you can read the review by clicking on the link in the “Scheduled For Review” section below.

See the trailer, a video featurette and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Historical Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for strong violent and disturbing content including rape, language throughout and brief sexuality))

Overcomer

(Affirm) Alex Kendrick, Priscilla C. Shirer, Shari Rigby, Cameron Arnett. When a small town is devastated by a plant closing throwing thousands out of work, the local high school basketball coach wonders what sort of future he has in the town. Pressed into service to coach the girl’s cross country team, he encounters an extraordinary athlete whose faith may very well move mountains.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some thematic elements)

The Peanut Butter Falcon

(Roadside Attractions) Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, John Hawkes, Bruce Dern. A young man with Down’s Syndrome and a yen to become a professional wrestler, confined to a nursing home because the State doesn’t have an opening at a proper facility for his care, runs away to find his wrestling hero who runs a wrestling school. He falls in with an ex-con on the run from some angry fishermen as the two search for a place where they can live life on their own terms.

See the trailer, a clip and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content, language throughout, some violence and smoking)

Ready or Not

(Fox Searchlight) Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Andie MacDowell, Henry Czerny. A young woman marries into a wealthy family who have an eccentric tradition; a game must be played at midnight on the night of the wedding to welcome the new member of the family. When she selects a game of Hide and Seek, she discovers that the game is no laughing matter and she is in a fight for her very survival.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence, bloody images, language throughout, and some drug use)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Mike Wallace is Here

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

The Best Summer of My Life
Comali
Tel Aviv on Fire

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

Jacob’s Ladder (2019)
Tel Aviv on Fire
Tone Deaf

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Comali
Twice the Dream

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Angel Has Fallen
The Nightingale
The Peanut Butter Falcon
Ready or Not

New Releases for the Week of August 16, 2019

THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 2

(Columbia) Starring the voices of Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Leslie Jones, Bill Hader, Rachel Bloom, Awkwafina, Eugenio Derbez, Tiffany Haddish. Directed by Thurop von Orman and John Rice

The Angry Birds and their formal rivals, the Green Piggies, must set aside their differences and work together when a new threat imperils both of their island homes.

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

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

(Entertainment Studios) Sistine Rose Stallone, Corinne Fox, Brianne Tju, Sophie Nėlisse. A quartet of teenage girls are trapped in an underwater ruin of an ancient Mayan city. Their dwindling air supply is the least of their worries however; the city has become a hunting ground for Great White Sharks.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Adventure
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for creature-related violence and terror, some bloody images and brief rude gestures)

Blinded by the Light

(New Line) Viveik Kalra, Hayley Atwell, Rob Brydon, Nell Williams. A young immigrant to London in 1987 is torn between two worlds; the traditions and expectations of his strict Pakistani father and the exciting world of his adopted country in the midst of a music revolution. When he discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen, he finds a kindred soul who gives him hopes to find his own way through the darkness on the edge of town

See the trailer, clips and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content and language including some ethnic slurs)

David Crosby: Remember My Name

(Sony Classics) David Crosby, Cameron Crowe, Henry Diltz, Graham Nash. One of rock’s most influential voices from the Byrds to CSNY is battling age and poor health as he struggles to face the ups and downs of his past.

See the trailer and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Music Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language, drug material and brief nudity)

Good Boys

(Universal) Jacob Tremblay, Will Forte, Lil Rel Howley, Keith L. Williams. A 12-year-old is invited to his first middle school party where there is sure to be kissing. Not knowing how to properly kiss a girl, he enlists his friends and his dad’s drone – which he is forbidden to touch – to see if he can figure out the right way to kiss a girl. Things go from bad to worse from there.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong crude sexual content, drug and alcohol material, and language throughout – all involving teens)

Honeyland

(NEON) Haditze Muratova, Nazife Muratova, Hussein Sam, Ljutvie Sam. The delicate natural balance of a remote village of the last female beekeeper in Europe is threatened by the arrival of itinerant beekeepers.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR

Mission Mangal

(FIP) Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Taapsee Pannu, Sonakshi Sinha. The Indian Space Agency must overcome a spectacular history of failure and severe budgetary limitations to launch a cost-effective probe to the surface of Mars.

See the trailer and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace
Rating: NR

Where’d You Go Bernadette?

(Annapurna/MGM) Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer. A suburban supermom decides that she must reconnect with her own artistic impulses, taking her on a journey slash adventure that will jump start her life and lead her to an epic rediscovery of herself.

See the trailer, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some strong language and drug material)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Alien Invasion
Already Gone
Evaru
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church
Light of My Life
Ode to Joy
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

After the Wedding</em
Already Gone
Awake
Batla House
Evaru
Good Time
Piranhas
Ranarangam
This Changes Everything

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

Awake
Batla House
Comali
Evaru
Gwen
Mike Wallace is Here
Ranarangam
The Souvenir

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Batla House
Evaru
Ranarangam

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

47 Meters Down: Uncaged
The Angry Birds Movie 2
Blinded By the Light
David Crosby: Remember My Name
Honeyland
Ode to Joy
Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

Justice League

Could this be Ben Affleck’s last appearance as Batman?

(2017) Superhero (Warner Brothers) Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds, Amber Heard, Joe Morton, Billy Crudup, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Ingvar Sigurdsson, David Thewlis, Marc McClure, Sergi Constance, Julian Lewis Jones, Salóme Gunnarsdóttir. Directed by Zach Snyder

 

With the critical and commercial success of Wonder Woman earlier this year, expectations were high that the DC Extended Universe – the comic book publisher’s cinematic arm and their version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – was at last ready to turn around after movies that were disappointing to both fans of the comics and accountants at Warner Brothers alike. That optimism proved to be unfounded as the film, though a hit at the box office was not as successful as the studio execs hoped and after another drubbing from fans and critics alike, the DCEU would eventually undergo massive restructuring. The question is was the movie really that bad?

Well, yes and no. The plot is fairly simple – a cosmic baddy known as Steppenwolf (Hinds in full motion capture splendor) is after three McGuffins called Mother Boxes secreted in various places on Earth. Batman (Affleck), ever the vigilant detective, divines that the Earth is about to come under attack but Wonder Woman (Gadot) is aware that the attack is already under way. With Superman (Cavill) out of the picture, Batman realizes they’ll need a team of superheroes to battle the nearly omnipotent Steppenwolf. He gathers the three others he’s aware of; Aquaman (Momoa) who has dominion over the ocean and those who dwell within it, Cyborg (Fisher) who is learning to adjust to his mostly machine body, and the Flash (Miller), a teen speedster very much unlike the CW version. While the latter is eager to join, the first two are reluctant until they are convinced that they are sorely needed. Massive battle sequences full of mind-numbing CGI follow.

I have to say I found the film entertaining for the most part. Momoa and Fisher make excellent heroes and in their first appearances in anything other than a brief cameo show that they are fully capable of heading up their own films – Momoa’s Aquaman is actually next on the DCEU schedule in December. Gadot and Affleck have proven themselves to be strong screen presences and both know what to do with their material and do it well. The one exception was Miller as The Flash; Snyder and his writers inexplicably went the annoying wisecracking teen route with the character which has already been tried with Quicksilver in the X-Men movies; it worked far better there. Miller is actually a really good young actor but he was sabotaged by the character who is just a jarring note that doesn’t fit in well with the rest of the team.

Snyder has a habit of using a lot of kinetic camera movement and that’s okay but given the massive amount of CGI being used in the movie the effect becomes mind-numbing and overwhelming. It’s visual overload and not in a good way. I would have preferred a little less CGI and a lot more character development but Snyder hasn’t shown the latter to be one of his strengths in any movie that he’s undertaken to date.

For me, the biggest problem with Justice League is Steppenwolf. Not so much in Hinds’ performance capture or his voice work but simply the character as written has absolutely no personality whatsoever and he just felt like a cookie cutter villain who is all like “Oh yes, I want to destroy the world because..” *yawn*

Even with all that going against that I still think that this movie gives some hope that the DCEU can turn things around. As I said there’s been a massive shake-up at the top with a new executive overseeing the franchise – Walter Hamada from New Line who helped build The Conjuring into a multi-film universe that has been as successful in every sense of the word as the DCEU has not been. Although the jury is out on whether Affleck will remain as the Batman for any further films (smart money is that he won’t), Gadot is a proven commodity and it appears both Momoa and Fisher have the ability to take a franchise film and run with it. With the Shazam movie on the horizon as well as a sequel to Wonder Woman there is still something to look forward to in the DCEU. I’m not sure they’re ready to equal Marvel’s cinematic success but there’s no reason to assume that they can’t get there.

REASONS TO GO: The film was reasonably entertaining. Momoa and Fisher acquitted themselves well. Affleck and Gadot continue to impress in their roles. There is still hope that the DCEU can turn itself around.
REASONS TO STAY: Miller’s Flash is way too annoying. The camera is too kinetic and the screen too filled with CGI, making everything look overwhelming and busy. Steppenwolf had zero personality which is a massive problem for your lead villain.
FAMILY VALUES: The film is loaded with action and violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Snyder’s daughter passed away during shooting; at first he and his wife (a producer on the film) tried to stay on as a way to work through their grief but after two months both decided to step down to spend time with their family. Joss Whedon stepped in and completed post-production as well as overseeing some reshoots
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/19/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 40% positive reviews. Metacritic: 45/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Avengers: Age of Ultron
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Kangaroo: A Love/Hate Story

Alien: Covenant

Speaking of illegal aliens….

(2017) Sci-Fi Horror (20^th Century Fox) Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Amy Seimetz, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, Uli Latukefu, Tess Haubrich, Lorelei King (voice), Goran D. Kleut, Andrew Crawford, Javier Botet, James Franco, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace. Directed by Ridley Scott

 

Back in 1979, movie posters and trailers proclaimed that “In space no-one can hear you scream” and a classic of science fiction was born, one that changed the entire genre. Alien still reverberates as one of the most influential sci-fi movies of all time.

In this sequel to Prometheus a colony ship called the Covenant suffers a fire that sweeps through the colonist sleep chambers killing the captain (Franco). Taking over is Orem (Crudup), a religious sort who is a bit on the indecisive side. Despite the objections of the Captain’s widow and second officer Daniels (Waterston), the new captain decides to take the crippled Covenant to a planet from which a distress signal is coming – one that incongruously takes the form of John Denver’s “Country Roads.”

Orem takes a team including their android Walter (Fassbender) who is of a similar model to David from Prometheus and Tennessee (McBride), Lope (Bichir) and Karine (Ejogo). They find a beautiful paradise with a disturbing apparent lack of animal and insect life but there are strange alien spores that once they get into a human system hatch nasty little alien neomorphs – a colony of which soon makes their presence known. The neomorphs seem to be not unlike velociraptors only angrier.

Taking refuge in an abandoned city, they discover to their surprise David, the last survivor of the Prometheus incident and David has plans – plans that aren’t going to be so good for the surviving members of the reconnaissance mission.

The big knock against the movie has been that the plot is too close to the first movie but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. If you’re going to take your plot from a movie, you could do a lot worse. There are some other things that I have issues with but more on that later.

Fassbender has the dual role of the innocent Walter and the devious David and he plays both quite well. Through the magic of CGI the two Fassbenders interact and even kiss – a homoerotic moment that nobody had ever even conceived before although it may well have been simply irresistible to an actor’s ego to seduce himself.

McBride, not one of my favorite actors to date, delivers his best performance ever and shows some real screen charisma that I hadn’t seen in him before but now that I think about it, I think he always had but just hadn’t found the right cinematic vehicle for it. I hope this leads to some new sorts of roles for McBride in the near future.

Scott, now pushing 80, still can direct an action sequence like few others in cinematic history. There’s a battle between Daniels and a xenomorph on a loader ship that really ranks up there among the best in the franchise history and certainly one of the best this year. Waterston is not really known as an action actress but she definitely channels Sigourney Weaver in that sequence and others throughout the film.

Some of the CGI looked unfinished as if the effects houses ran out of time before the deadline and the producers just plugged in what they had. That was a little distressing particularly since Scott has shown comfort with CGI going back to Gladiator and used it well in Prometheus and The Martian as well.

My main issue here is the script. It’s a bit convoluted and at times long-winded. There are also way too many characters here, most of which exist to get picked off by the alien. That gives the movie a bit of a slasher mentality despite the trappings of a fairly intellectual science fiction epic. They may as well have named all of the characters save Fassbender and Waterston “Lieutenant Deadmeat” although I will say not all of them meet a grisly end at the hand of the creature.

Scott has hinted that there will be another prequel (and possibly two) that will tie directly to the first film. At one time that would be exciting news but frankly the franchise feels a little tired here. It could be that the director has wisely figured out that the xenomorph has essentially run its course (his original idea was to steer the series off in a different direction but the studio wouldn’t allow it) but it also could be that Scott needs to pass the torch to someone who could revitalize the series much like James Cameron did with Aliens. I certainly wouldn’t object.

REASONS TO GO: The loader fight sequence is spectacular and the action sequences are well-done overall. Fassbender delivers a fine dual performance and McBride is impressive.
REASONS TO STAY: The story is convoluted and overpopulated with unnecessary characters. Some of the CGI wasn’t up to the standards of the other films.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a good deal of violence and gore, profanity and some sexuality and nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first Alien film to be released after the death of H.R. Giger who designed the original alien xenomorph.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/16/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 71% positive reviews. Metacritic: 65/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Alien3
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Logan Lucky

New Releases for the Week of May 19, 2017

ALIEN COVENANT

(20^th Century Fox) Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez. Directed by Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott returns to the Alien franchise with an all-new prequel to the original. A colony ship, the Covenant, is on its way to a planet across the galaxy and thought to be paradise. However when they arrive they find the planet strangely devoid of animal life and a previously unknown spaceship crash landed on the surface. As you can imagine, it doesn’t take long for them to realize that there is a life form on the planet, something entirely malevolent and that they will be in for the fight of their lives to escape.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a promo, a prequel video and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for sci-fi violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality/nudity)

Buster’s Mal Heart

(Well Go USA) Rami Malek, DJ Qualls, Lin Shaye, Kate Lyn Shell. A troubled man hides from the authorities in summer homes to avoid the cruel winters of Montana. Estranged from his family, his encounter with a conspiracy-obsessed drifter left him in a state of paranoia, preparing for an event known only as “The Inversion.” How much of his paranoia is real and how much is a product of his imagination is anyone’s guess. This played last month’s Florida Film Festival to much acclaim.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

(20^th Century Fox) Alicia Silverstone, Tom Everett Scott, Charlie Wright, Jason Drucker. The Hefley family takes a road trip. The world is disinterested.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Family Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some rude humor)

Everything, Everything

(Warner Brothers/MGM) Amandla Stenberg, Nick Robinson, Anika Noni Rose, Ana de la Reguera. A beautiful young girl with an auto-immune disorder has spent her entire life in a hermetically sealed home. The slightest contact with the outside world could prove fatal. Dreaming of one day seeing the ocean with her own eyes, she falls in love with the new boy next door. Together, the two scheme to risk everything for that one perfect day – that could cost them both everything.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements and brief sensuality)

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent

(The Orchard) Jeremiah Tower, Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, Martha Stewart. Tower is one of the most influential chefs of his time. Bourdain, a friend and admirer of Tower, produced this documentary which not only explores the life of the chef but also of the forces that shaped his culinary journey and not only  changed his life but also the way all of us see dining in general.

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: R (for language)

New Releases for the Week of April 7, 2017

SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE

(Sony Animation) Starring the voices of Demi Lovato, Julia Roberts, Mandy Patinkin, Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer, Michelle Rodriguez, Ellie Kemper. Directed by Kelly Asbury

Has anyone ever wondered why there is only one girl Smurf? Neither have I but I’m sure someone has. Smurfette sets out with her friends through the Forbidden Forest to find a mysterious village before the evil sorcerer Gargamel does and when they do, we find out where all the girl Smurfs are. How Smurfy is that?

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes, premiere footage and B-Roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some mild action and rude humor)

1 Mile to You

(Gravitas) Melanie Lynskey, Tim Roth, Billy Crudup, Stefanie Scott. When a teenage boy’s friends die in a car accident, he is completely devastated. He takes up running to deal with the pain and also to remember his friends. His running however catches the attention of track coaches who recognize his raw potential. Can they bring him from dwelling on his past into creating a bright future?

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sports Drama
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: NR

The Case for Christ

(Pure Flix) Mike Vogel, Erika Christensen, Faye Dunaway, Robert Forster. Based on the experiences of Lee Strobel, an award-winning journalist and atheist, he sets out to disprove the existence of Christ after his wife undergoes a faith renewal. What he discovers in his investigation is not what he expected at all.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including medical descriptions of crucifixion, and incidental smoking)

Going in Style

(New Line) Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Alan Arkin, Ann-Margaret. Three retirees, lifelong friends all, are startled when their pension fund is wiped out by the greed of a bank. Desperate to make ends meet, they decide to not only solve their financial problems but exact a little justice as well when they determine to rob the very bank that stole their money. Poetic justice, yes, but much easier said than done when you consider that none of them has committed a crime in their lives.

See the trailer, a clip and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for drug content, language and some suggestive material)

Mine

(Well Go USA) Armie Hammer, Tom Cullen, Annabelle Wallis, Clint Dyer. After their assignment ends in failure, a U.S. Marine sniper and his spotter are forced to cross the desert when the helicopter assigned to evacuate them from the enemy zone is grounded due to sand storms. Nearing the village where they will be driven back to their base, the two find themselves in a field of land mines where the sniper has stepped on a mine and cannot move without setting it off. Low on food and water with no way to go even a step further, he is forced to contemplate what got him there in the first place. Look for a review of this in Cinema365 tomorrow.

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

My Life as a Zucchini

(GKIDS) Starring the voices of Will Forte, Nick Offerman, Ellen Page, Amy Sedaris. Nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar in the most recent Academy awards, this charming French stop-motion film follows an imaginative young boy who is sent to an orphanage after his mother passes away suddenly. Lonely in a sometimes hostile environment, he searches for a family to call his own while learning to trust once again. The Enzian will be presenting the film both in its original French with subtitles as well as an English language version. Be sure and check which version is playing when you head out to the theater.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements and suggestive material)

Queen of the Desert

(IFC) Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Robert Pattinson, Damian Lewis. The true story of Gertrude Bell, a English woman in the early years of the 20^th century who chafed at the role she was relegated to in Victorian England. She traveled to the Middle East and fell in love with the culture and the freedoms it afforded her. Her views on the Bedouin helped shape the course of the century and indeed the modern world itself.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: PG-13 (for brief nudity and some thematic elements)

Raw

(Focus World) Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas. A vegetarian who is following in her family’s footsteps to become a veterinarian undergoes a ritual hazing involving eating meat. This awakens a taste for flesh inside her that becomes more and more irresistible until it threatens to consume her. This French film was the talk of the most recent Cannes Film Festival.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for aberrant behavior, bloody and grisly images, strong sexuality, nudity, language and drug use/partying)

Your Name

(FUNimation) Starring the voices of Michael Sinterniklaas, Stephanie Sheh, Kyle Hebert, Cassandra Morris. This beautiful anime, the number one movie in Japan last year, concerns two young people who randomly switch bodies from time to time. They learn to communicate with each other and eventually, bond for each other. At last that realize that they need to meet face to face but making that happen proves to be a much thornier problem than either one could anticipate.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, suggestive content, brief language and smoking)

20th Century Women

Annette Bening examines Lucas Jade Zumann.

(2016) Drama (A24) Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, Lucas Jade Zumann, Alia Shawkat, Alison Elliott, Thea Gill, Vitaly A. Lebeau, Olivia Hone, Waleed Zuaiter, Curran Walters, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Nathalie Love, Cameron Protzman, Victoria Bruno, John Billingsley, Finnegan Bell, Zoe Nanos, Laura Foley, Finn Roberts, Laura Wiggins. Directed by Mike Mills

 

Sometimes we take for granted the women in our lives; our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our wives, our friends. We are shaped inexorably by them, our development as people strengthened by them, sometimes in ways we don’t even know. That’s doubly true to those of us who have had single moms.

Dorothea (Bening) is a daughter of the Depression who got a late start on motherhood; she was 40 when she had her son Jamie (Zumann). She’s 55 now, and living in Santa Barbara (and now is 1979). Jamie’s dad is out of the picture and Dorothea helps make ends meet by hosting boarders in her fixer upper of a house – William (Crudup) who is doing most of the fixer upping and Abbie (Gerwig), a Bohemian photographer with maroon hair who is recovering from cervical cancer. Into this mix add Julie (Fanning), a childhood friend of Jamie’s whose home life has become so tense that she regularly spends the night in Jamie’s bed although she refuses to allow anything sexual to happen, much to Jamie’s chagrin. In fact, Julie is fairly promiscuous and has no compunction telling Jamie about her sexual experiences which makes Jamie feel even worse.

Jamie is at an age where he is growing more distant from his mother whose every action seems to piss Jamie off (if he realized how much freedom she gave him compared to what the rest of us were getting in 1979 he might not have been quite so prickly) and he’s beginning to push back in an effort to leave the nest at least spiritually, leaving without permission to join friends at punk rock concerts in L.A. or to go skateboarding with friends.

Realizing that she’s no longer able to get through to Jamie, Dorothea enlists the help of Abbie and Julie to help instruct her son in how to be a man. Abbie engages Jamie in discussions about female orgasms and gives him hardcore feminist manifestos to read. Julie’s assistance is a little more subtle but she seems to be warming up to the idea of a more romantic stand with Jamie.

But as most things do, things fall apart as Jamie, incensed that his mother seems to be giving up on him, grows more and more irritable – getting into fights with friends and with his mom. Something’s got to give.

Director Mike Mills based Dorothea on his own mother albeit with Bening’s own stamp put on the character. Much of what transpires in the film also transpired in Mills’ own life. Dorothea is a bit eccentric to be sure but no more than most moms of the day, or any other day for that matter. Mills realizes that quirky doesn’t have to be done in the indie film sense where people do outrageous things just for the sake of being outrageous; here the quirkiness is part of their DNA, an expression of who they are and they make sense; Dorothea chain smokes and invites people she barely knows to her home for dinner. William talks about energies and karma and is a 70s hippie with a mechanical bent. Julie  reads Judy Bloom and has lots of sex and wants to keep Jamie at arms length so they can remain friends seemingly without seeing what it is doing to him. Abbie dances like a fiend to the Talking Heads, takes pictures of everything (presaging the millennial obsession with taking pictures of even the most mundane elements of their lives) and generally being the 21^st century avatar in this little family.

Jamie appears to be the most normal of the lot but ostensibly he’s the stand-in for Mills himself so it’s understandable if Mills gives Jamie a bit less of an edge, although he isn’t lacking in teen angst. Zumann actually does a pretty great job here; he’s never annoyingly precocious but seems pretty much like most teens I know – wears their hearts on their sleeves but much smarter and much worldlier than we adults tend to give them credit for. Zumann is a name to remember.

Bening delivers a performance that is strong without being flashy. Her character smokes incessantly and frets as mothers do but she’s generally calm even when there’s chaos around her. She can be a little quirky but at the core of the character are the things most of us have in common; love for our children and an overwhelming desire for them to be happy and safe. Bening portrays the character’s inherent dignity ably and allows her individuality to shine through. She missed out on a Best Actress nomination this year but she certainly was in the running for it.

This is the Southern California from the late 70s that I remember. Mills does a great job of recreating it, not just in fashion, cars and set design but in atmosphere as well. There are times when it feels like the characters are pontificating a bit much more than normal humans do, but other than that there’s not really a lot to quibble about here. It’s a good, solid slice of life movie that illustrates the difficulty of growing up into manhood and what a treacherous path it can be. It also shows that the gulf between men and women doesn’t have to be as necessarily wide as we think it is so long as we’re willing to listen to each other. It’s a lesson that was valid in 1979 and it’s a lesson that’s valid now.

REASONS TO GO: Annette Bening just kills it. The era is captured beautifully.
REASONS TO STAY: It gets a little pretentious at times.
FAMILY VALUES:  There’s quite a bit of sexual material and some nudity, a fair amount of profanity some mild violence and brief drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  Crudup and Gerwig also appeared in the film Jackie.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/25/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 89% positive reviews. Metacritic: 83/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Captain Fantastic
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House

New Releases for the Week of January 20, 2017

XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE

(Paramount) Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Donnie Yen, Toni Collette, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Ice Cube. Directed by D.J. Caruso

An elite team led by the enigmatic Xiang is pursuing a powerful weapon named Pandora’s Box. This team is so deadly as to be nearly unstoppable, prompting the government to try and persuade Xander Cage, the legendary “Triple X,” to come out of “retirement.” He assembles an elite team of his own to take on Xiang but discovers that not everything that is happening is the way it seems.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, and for sexual material and language)

20^th Century Women

(A24) Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup. As the 70s come to an end, a 50ish single mom in Santa Barbara finds raising her son a challenge and enlists the help of two younger women to help raise him to be the man she hopes he can become. Bening got a Golden Globe nomination for her performance and has a good shot to see some Oscar love as well.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Enzian Theater, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: R (for sexual material, language, nudity and some drug use)

The Founder

(Weinstein) Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini. The story of Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman who one day stopped off at a popular burger joint in San Bernardino and discovered their method of producing burgers could revolutionize the way America eats. He determined to hitch his wagon to that restaurant and in doing so made it one of the biggest businesses in history. Today there’s a McDonald’s on every corner – and you have Ray Kroc to thank for it.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language)

Paterson

(Bleecker Street/Amazon) Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Nellie, Barry Shabaka Henley. Paterson, a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey (yes, they have the same name) spends his days watching the world go by his windshield. Snippets of conversations and his own observations make it into a book of poetry he has written but allows nobody to read. He likes his life and is content to let it remain as is. His wife, an artist, however is changing as new dreams inspire new creations. They love each other very much but are they drifting apart? This is the latest from director Jim Jarmusch.

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

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone

(BH Tilt/High Top) Brett Dalton, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Shawn Michaels, D.B. Sweeney. A former child star, fallen on hard times gets arrested and sentenced to community service at a local megachurch. In order to land the role of Jesus in the annual Passion Play, he pretends to be a devout Christian. Soon enough he discovers that the role requires more than just lip service.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including a crucifixion image)

Split

(Universal/Blumhouse) James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Betty Buckley. A gifted young man with 23 distinct personalities fighting for dominance within him kidnaps three young women. His psychiatrist realizes that a 24^th is set to emerge, one that is vicious, evil and set to dominate the others. Can the three kidnap victims find a way to escape their captor before the world is introduced to The Beast? This is the newest film from M. Night Shyamalan.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing thematic content and behavior, violence and some language)

Jackie (2016)

A White House isn’t necessarily a home.

(2016) Biographical Drama (Fox Searchlight) Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, Richard E. Grant, Caspar Phillipson, Beth Grant, John Carroll Lynch, Max Casella, Sara Verhagen, Héléne Kuhn, Deborah Findlay, Corey Johnson, Aidan O’Hare, Ralph Brown, David Caves, Penny Downie, Georgie Glen, Julie Judd. Directed by Pablo Larrain

 

One of the most iconic women of the 20^th century was Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onasis. She epitomized elegance, grace, charm, culture and beauty in her era. To many, she epitomized the ideal of what a First Lady should be. Fiercely private, she rarely discussed her innermost feelings with anyone, even her most intimate confidantes. Riding in a motorcade in Dallas at her husband’s side, she would be the closest witness to one of the most singularly dramatic events of American history and yet she spoke very little about it after the fact.

This biopic mainly covers three separate events in the life of Jackie Kennedy (Portman); her 1961 televised taping of a personalized tour of the White House, for which she led an important restoration work; the assassination of her husband (Phillipson) and the events of the following week leading up to the funeral procession and an interview a week later with an unnamed journalist (Crudup) but who is mainly based on Theodore White of Life Magazine.

Portman nails her unique voice, a combination of New England patrician and breathy Marilyn Monroe sultriness. She portrays the First Lady as a woman knocked completely off-balance by the murder of her husband, and somewhat uncomfortable with the limelight. During the taping of her show, she is urged by her assistant Nancy Tuckerman (Gerwig) to smile which she does, somewhat shyly but she seems unsure of herself, as if she hasn’t quite memorized the lines she’s supposed to say. In the week following the assassination, she shows a hidden core of steel to Jack Valenti (Casella) who is LBJ’s (Lynch) chief of staff, as well as to her brother-in-law Bobby Kennedy (Sarsgaard).

She realizes her husband’s legacy will be incomplete and that if he is to have one, she will have to orchestrate it. It is she who comes up with the Camelot analogy, based on the hit musical of the time which she claimed her husband was quite fond of (and he may well have been – he never commented on it during his lifetime). While most believe that she made the reference off-handedly, the film (and writer Noel Oppenheim) suggest it was a deliberate attempt to give his presidency a mythic quality. If true, it certainly worked.

Portman is brilliant here; she is quite rightly considered the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar and a nomination is certainly a lock. She has to tackle a great number of emotions; grief, frustration, anger, fear, self-consciousness – and hold it all under that veneer of charm and civility that Jackie was known for. The First Lady we see here is vastly different than the one that history remembers. In all honesty, who’s to say this version is wrong?

Larrain gets the period right from the fashions to the attitude of the people living in it. The Presidency at the time is not something that is bartered to the highest bidder; it is a position of respect that is won by the will of the people. The Kennedy clan understood that quite well and Larrain also understands it. The Presidency was held in a higher regard back then.

We get a Jackie Kennedy here who is much more politically savvy than history gives her credit for; she knows exactly what the right thing to say is and she holds herself in a way that reflects positively on her husband more than on herself. It is forgotten now but while her husband was President Jackie was considered to be a bit of a spendthrift. Much of her standing was achieved after she was no longer First Lady, but then an assassination of one’s husband will do that.

I do have a bone to pick with the film and that is its score. While the music of Camelot is used liberally and well, the score penned by Mica Levi is often discordant and sounds like it belongs on a European suspense thriller rather than a biography of the widow of President Kennedy. When the music becomes intrusive, it takes the viewer out of the film and that’s exactly what this score does; it gets the viewer thinking about the music rather than the film as a whole. Larrain also jumps around quite a bit in the timeline, showing the movie mainly as flashbacks and flash-forwards. It isn’t confusing so much as distracting and once again, the viewer is often taken out of the movie by being made aware that they are watching a movie. Good movies immerse their viewer and make them part of the experience and at times, this movie does. Then again, at times it does the opposite.

While this is essentially a biography, it is also very much conjecture. Most movies about the Kennedy assassination see it from the eyes of the President or from the witnesses; none to my knowledge have even attempted to view it through the First Lady’s perspective. I would imagine that largely is because we don’t know what the First Lady’s perspective was; she kept that well-hidden and knowing what I know about her, that isn’t surprising. I don’t know what she would have thought about this film but I suspect she would have been appalled by the rather graphic scene of her husband’s assassination and perhaps amused by what people thought she was thinking. I don’t know that Larrain and Oppenheim got it right; I suspect they got some of it right but we’ll never know. And perhaps that’s just as well; we need our myths to be inviolate. When Jackie, portrayed as a chain smoker here, icily tells the journalist “I don’t smoke,” when he wonders aloud what the public would think of her smoking, she’s making clear that she understands the need for mythological figures to be pure and that she has accepted her role as such.

Just as Lincoln, whose name is often bandied about in the film, belongs to the ages, so does John Kennedy – and Jackie as well. This is a strong film that your enjoyment of is going to depend a great deal on your opinion of the Kennedys to begin with. Some will be irritated that her carefully manicured persona is skewered here; others will be irritated that she is given a certain amount of sympathetic portrayal. In any case, anyone who loves great performances should make sure they see Portman’s work – it is truly worth the price of admission.

REASONS TO SEE: Portman gives a tour-de-force performance that is justifiably the odds-on favorite to win the Best Actress Oscar. The era and attitudes are captured nicely.
REASONS TO MISS: The soundtrack is annoying.
FAMILY VALUES:  There is some profanity and a scene of graphic violence and gore.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  Producer Darren Aronofsky (who at one time was set to direct this with Rachel Weisz in the title role) also directed Portman to her Oscar win for Black Swan.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/28/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 81/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: 13 Days
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Manchester by the Sea