New Releases for the Week of December 27, 2019

LITTLE WOMEN

(Columbia) Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Meryl Streep. Directed by Greta Gerwig

This re-imagining of the classic Louisa May Alcott novel introduces the four March sisters as they struggle to live life independently on their own terms. This could be your Best Picture at the Oscars in a couple of months, folks.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and brief smoking)

Good Newwz

(Zee) Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh, Kiara Advani. Two couples – one a blue-collar husband and wife from Mumbai and a posh wealthy couple from Paripat, are both trying to have a child at the same time and despite their personal antipathy towards each other, find themselves tied together in their quest for a baby.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: PG-13 (for traumatic material including violent images)

Spies in Disguise

(20^th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn. A suave superspy is forced to team up with a nerdy scientist when the spy is transformed into a pigeon. With the fate of the world on the line, the two opposites must learn to work together.

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

Uncut Gems

(A24) Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Eric Bogosian, LaKeith Stanfield. A New York City jeweler with a penchant for gambling looks to make that score that gamblers only dream about, but must balance his family, his business and his adversaries who are closing in like sharks from all sides if he is to get the ultimate win.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, AMC New Smyrna, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Cobb Daytona, Cobb Plaza Cinema, Enzian Theater, Epic Clermont, Epic Mount Dora, Epic West Volusia, Regal Ormond Beach, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Satellite Ocean Walk, Studio Movie Grill Sunset Walk
Rating: R (for pervasive strong language, violence, some sexual content and brief drug use)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Driving License
The Mall, The Merrier
Synonyms

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

Ip Man 4: The Finale
The Mall, The Merrier
Midnight Family

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

The Kingmaker
Mathu Vadalara

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

A Christmas Tale

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Little Women
Midnight Family
Spies in Disguise
Synonyms
Uncut Gems

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The Incredibles 2

The Incredibles live in a bubble.

(2018) Animated Feature (Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Vowell, Huckleberry Milner, Catherine Keener, Eli Fucile, Bob Odenkirk, Michael Bird, Sophia Bush, Brad Bird, Phil LaMarr, Isabella Rossellini, Jonathan Banks, Barry Bostwick, Adam Gates, John Ratzenberger, Bill Wise, Kimberly Adair Clark. Directed by Brad Bird

 

Pixar’s 2004 animated superhero movie The Incredibles is for many fans of comic books their favorite offering from the computer animated giant. After 14 years, director Brad Bird has finally found a story to tell that he thinks is worthy of the franchise, but is it?

Well, nearly. A telecommunications mogul (Odenkirk) and his whiz-kid sister (Keener) want very much to lift the superhero ban that has hamstrung the caped heroes of old but rather than choosing Mr. Incredible (Nelson) as their poster boy, instead they select his wife Elasti-Girl (Hunter) who is far less destructive and a role model for women. With new superheroes coming out of the woodwork, Mr. Incredible becomes something of a house-husband taking care of angsty teenager Violet (Vowell), hyperactive kid Dash (Milner) and baby Jack-Jack (Fucile) who is developing some destructive powers of his own. However, there’s a villain (LaMarr) out there who is hypnotizing people through their computer/smartphone/tablet screens into acts of violence. Can Elasti-Girl stop the carnage?

Maybe it’s just the glut of superhero films talking but this feels kind of tired and old hat. The technical end is, as we’ve come to expect from Pixar, dazzling and the superhero battles (including one between Jack-Jack and a persistent raccoon) rival anything Marvel or DC have done. Hunter does a great job carrying the film largely but as with most team superhero movies, there are too many characters and that means many of them get little sunlight. Overall, the movie feels aimed more at a younger audience (despite the subtext that those devices that connect us to the Internet fail to connect us to life) but at just about two hours in running length, it seems a bit much to ask most kids to sit still for that much time.

REASONS TO SEE: The superhero battles are nicely done.
REASONS TO AVOID: Very formulaic and predictable; it feels like it was aimed at a much younger audience than the first film.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some comic book action violence and some mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Dash is shown eating Sugar Bombs, the chocolate frosted version of which is the favorite cereal of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Movies Anywhere, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/14/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 94% positive reviews: Metacritic: 80/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Fantastic Four
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Destination Dewsbury

New Releases for the Week of May 3

LONG SHOT

(Summit) Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Andy Serkis, June Diane Raphael, Bob Odenkirk, Ravi Patel, Randall Park, Alexander Skarsgård. Directed by Jonathan Levine

Flarsky is a gifted journalist but also a loose cannon. His childhood crush, Charlotte, is his polar opposite; accomplished, refined and now running for President. When they accidentally reconnect, she impulsively hires him as her speechwriter, much to the chagrin of her elite team. In the stranger things can happen department, the two develop the most unlikely of romances.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, video featurettes and B-roll footage here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong sexual content, language throughout and some drug use)

Bolden

(Abramorama) Gary Carr, Erik LaRay Harvey, Ian McShane, Michael Rooker. Buddy Bolden is one of the greatest unsung musicians of history. Credited with inventing jazz, his music was misunderstood during his lifetime and his contributions to the genre all but forgotten as time went by.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs
Rating: R (for sexual content and graphic nudity, brutal violence, language and drug use)

El Chicano

(Briarcliff) Raul Castillo, Aimee Garcia, Jose Pablo Cantillo, David Castaneda. A police detective is not convinced that his brother committed suicide. Believing that he was murdered, he goes on a crusade to discover the truth as his neighborhood is about to be caught in the crossfire of a drug cartel turf war. The detective will soon find himself up against a childhood buddy who is now a cartel leader.

See the trailer and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Crime Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout)

Hesburgh

(O’Malley/Creadon) Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Although many are unfamiliar with his name, Hesburgh was the long-time President of Notre Dame whose wisdom and political savvy led him to be an adviser for presidents, an envoy for his faith and one of the most influential Catholics of the last century.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Biographical Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall
Rating: NR

The Intruder

(Screen Gems) Michael Ealy, Meagan Good, Dennis Quaid, Joseph Sikora. A young married couple, looking to move on to the next step in their lives, find and purchase their dream house in the Napa Valley. However, when the former owner begins to insinuate himself into their lives, they begin to realize that his motivations are far more sinister than just a quick sale.

See the trailer, a clip and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for violence, terror, some sexuality, language and thematic elements)

Sunset

(Sony Classics) Juli Jakab, Vlad Ivanov, Evelin Dobos, Marcin Czarnik. In 1913 Budapest is a part of the crumbling Austria-Hungarian Empire. A young woman seeks a position as a milliner at the hat store that once belonged to her late parents but is turned away. Disappointed, she follows a mysterious man who might be the only link to her treasured past.

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

UglyDolls

(STX) Starring the voices of Emma Roberts, Kelly Clarkson, Gabriel Iglesias, Janelle Monáe. Not all dolls are created equal and those misfits who are deemed not of the norm are sent to live in Uglyville. A group of free-spirited citizens decide to find out what life is like outside of town and discover that not everyone agrees with their philosophy of life.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, video featurettes, World Premiere footage and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website  </strong
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and brief action)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Nuvvy Thopu Raa
The River and the Wall

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Ask Dr. Ruth
The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste Garcia
Knock Down the House
Red Joan

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

The Convent
I’ll Take Your Dead
Oru Yamandan Premakadha
Red Joan
Wild Nights with Emily

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Degas: Passion for Perfection
Dogman
Nuvvy Thopu Raa
Oru Yamandan Premakadha
Wild Nights with Emily
Woman at War

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Ask Dr. Ruth
Knock Down the House
Long Shot
Red Joan

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Canes Film Festival, Coral Gables FL

New Releases for the Week of June 15, 2018

THE INCREDIBLES 2

(Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson, Sophia Bush, Catherine Keener, Sarah Vowell, Bob Odenkirk, Huck Milner. Directed by Brad Bird

After having had to hide their powers for years, the world is ready for superheroes  to return. But it is Elasti-girl who will be saving the day, not her powerful husband Mr. Incredible. He’ll be home taking care of baby Jack-Jack who may turn out to be more powerful than anyone in the family. However, a new and greater threat has risen and it may take the entire family – including Jack-Jack – and the help of a few friends to save the world yet again.

See the trailer, interviews, video featurettes, a clip and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats :Standard, 3D, D-BOX, D-BOX 3D, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, RPX 3D, XD
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for action sequences and some brief mild language)

Gotti

(Vertical) John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Stacy Keach, Pruitt Taylor Vince. The story of notorious mobster “Gentleman” John Gotti, his rise to power and his fall from grace as seen through the eyes of his son. This has found a new distributor after a previous distributor dropped the film literally within weeks of its original scheduled release date.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence and pervasive language)

Race 3

(Yash Raj) Anil Kapoor, Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Bobby Deol. The third installment of the popular Indian franchise that follows a crime family whose brutality, vindictiveness and ruthlessness make them a force to be reckoned with.

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

Superfly

(Columbia) Trevor Jackson, Jason Mitchell, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jennifer Morrison. A remake of the 1973 Blaxploitation classic that follows a successful young drug dealer who wants to finish off one last deal so he can retire a wealthy man. Remakes are cool and all but no way will they be able to outdo Curtis Mayfield on the titular theme song.

See the trailer and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release (opened Wednesday)
Rating: R (for violence and language throughout, strong sexuality, nudity and drug content)

Tag

(New Line) Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Isla Fisher. A group of men who have been friends since childhood organize an annual game of tag, some of whom have to travel across the country to get there. This year they are out to get the one member of the group who has never – ever – been tagged.

See the trailer and video featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout, crude sexual content, drug use and brief nudity)

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

(Focus) Fred Rogers, Joanne Rogers, Robert F. Kennedy, Yo-Yo Ma. Generations of kids have grown up with Mister Fred Rogers, in whose neighborhood we learned to be neighbors and to love each other. While some look at his teachings to be pure schmaltz, they are lessons nonetheless we need more than ever today.

See the trailer and video featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements and language)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

A Kid Like Jake
Naa Nuvve
Sammohanam
The Year of Spectacular Men
The Yellow Birds

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

49 Pulses
The Doctor from India
The Guardians
Hearts Beat Loud
The Misandrists
Naa Nuvve
Sammohanam
Summer 1993
The Yellow Birds

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Affairs of State
Naa Nuvve
Sammohanam

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Naa Nuvve
Sammohanam

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Hearts Beat Loud
The Incredibles 2
Superfly
Tag
Would You Like to Be My Neighbor?

The Post

“Thanks for the coffee but my Oscar is still shinier than YOUR Oscar!”

(2017) True Life Drama (DreamWorks) Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Michael Stuhlbarg, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemmons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healey, John Rue, Rick Holmes, Philip Casnoff, Jessie Mueller, Stark Sands, Michael Cyril Creighton, Will Denton, Deidre Lovejoy. Directed by Steven Spielberg

 

In these troubled times, the veracity of the Free Press has been assaulted by the President. If that feels familiar to older readers, it’s because it was tried once before – by Richard Nixon. It is somewhat comforting to know it didn’t end well for him but before the Watergate scandal took him down there was the Pentagon Papers.

The Pentagon Papers were documents leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg (Rhys), a security consultant than employed by the RAND Corporation but previously an analyst for the Pentagon. At RAND he worked on the Pentagon papers, documents commissioned by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Greenwood) about the decisions made during the war. After a crisis of conscience caused him to rethink his position as a defense analyst, he chose to surreptitiously remove the thousand pages of documents a little at a time to make copies of them at the ad agency of his then-girlfriend. Eventually he got the papers into the hands of the New York Times.

When the Times published portions of the Papers it was as if a bomb went off in the American consciousness. The Papers clearly showed that the war in Vietnam was not winnable – and moreover that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson all knew it. The Papers also established that the government had been lying to the American public all that time. Although the Papers all concerned the tenures of those Presidents, the current President of the time, Nixon, was absolutely furious that the documents were leaked and the U.S. Government filed an injunction against the Times to suppress any further publication of the Papers. Nixon and his advisers felt that the Papers would erode American confidence in their own government which of course is what came to pass.

That’s where the Washington Post came in. Incensed at being scooped on the Papers, crusty editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) orders his team of reporters to see if any copies of the Papers can be found. Despite the court order banning the publication of the Papers, one of the reporters – Ben Bagdikian (Odenkirk) – got in touch with Ellsberg, leading to a quandary for Bradlee and his publisher Katherine Graham (Streep) whether or not to defy the court order or do their duty to the American people.

It was a particularly quandary in that the Post was about to go public; were there to be a government action against the newspaper and the Publisher individually the badly needed infusion of cash could dry up and the Post might actually go under.

Graham was a woman of her era; in her 50s at the time that this took place, her husband had been publisher of the paper (inheriting the title from Graham’s father) she was a woman in a man’s world. When she entered the board room of her own newspaper, she was the lone woman. She was often condescended to and she herself felt more comfortable at social gatherings hanging out with the wives than with the policy makers. She did have a close personal relationship with McNamara which was a further complication.

The Post is a celebration of the free press, make no mistake about it. It also illustrates how important that a free and objective press is to the functioning of our nation. Besides that there is also a push for feminism and how the roles of women have changed as women have become more empowered. Obviously, those issues have become extremely timely in the wake of the current administration’s attacks on the press which is roundly proclaimed “fake news” if it in any way disagrees with the world view of the President, as well as the advent of the Me Too movement.

It doesn’t hurt that the movie has three of the most important names in movies over the last three decades participating. Spielberg is considered by some to be the greatest director in the history of movies and while devotees of Hitchcock, Ford, Capra and Scorsese might give that some healthy debate, none can deny that he is one of the greatest ever. Here, he’s at his very best; not a single scene is wasted and every shot not only advances the story but captures an emotional mood. There are plenty who consider Spielberg “the great manipulator” and there is some truth to that. His longtime collaborator John Williams writes a score that might be proof of that.

Hanks is not usually a name one associates with a Bradlee-like character but he has some personal connection to the former Post editor; the two were neighbors on Long Island and knew each other socially. He captures Bradlee’s accent note-perfectly as well as his dogged determination. This doesn’t compare to Jason Robards’ Oscar-winning performance as the legendary editor in All the President’s Men but it is a terrific performance nonetheless.

Streep, however, is absolutely amazing in the movie. It has garnered her yet another Oscar nomination and while she is in no way guaranteed a win, it wouldn’t be a crime if she did. Graham was a complex person who became something of an unlikely icon for the feminist movement and perhaps reluctantly so. As time went by she would become more self-confidence and assured; the events depicted here helped with that, but she was truly a woman who reinvented herself in middle age at a time when women were largely still shackled to the kitchen.

I will admit that the Linotype machines and printing presses depicted here brought me some nostalgia; as someone who worked at the San Jose Mercury News in the 80s and 90s I was familiar with the machinery and seeing them in action here did give me the warm fuzzies. So too did seeing the press at the height of its power and significance; in the years before being purchased by corporate entities who largely stifled their search for truth in favor of a search for advertising dollars. Newspapers remain relevant today (the Post continues to do excellent reporting on the Russian voting interference scandal as well as other important news stories of our day) but they have changed quite a bit. People tend not to get their news from newspapers so much but from social media sites, a dangerous practice. It is the responsibility of the citizen to be vigilant in order to keep our own government in check. When we remain firmly ensconced in echo chambers that do little more than validate our own point of view, we lose sight of what is actually happening. That’s how democracies fail.

REASONS TO GO: This is the work of one of the best directors ever at the top of his game; there’s not a single wasted scene. Streep delivers an incredible performance. The film manages to tackle both freedom of the press and the inequality of the treatment of women. Despite being set more than 40 years ago, the events are just as timely as ever
REASONS TO STAY: Those who are blind supporters of the President will see this as a slap in the face.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity as well as a scene of war violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Stuhlbarg appears in three of the films nominated for a 2018 Best Picture Oscar (this, Call Me by Your Name and The Shape of Water) but was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor for any of them.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/20/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 83/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: All the President’s Men
FINAL RATING: 10/10
NEXT: Cassidy Red

New Releases for the Week of January 12, 2018

THE POST

(20^th Century Fox) Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Jesse Plemons, Alison Brie.  Directed by Steven Spielberg

After the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, they were in the center of a firestorm of controversy. Not to be outdone, the Washington Post also acquired some of the classified documents that detailed American acts that violated the Constitution as well as the Geneva Convention. With the Nixon Administration threatening to shut down the freedom of the press over the Papers, new Post publisher Katherine Graham – already a rarity in the newspaper business for being a woman as a publisher of a major newspaper – and her crusty editor Ben Bradlee face a decision to do what’s safe for the newspaper or what’s right for the country.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video 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 language and brief war violence)

Agnyaathavaasi

(Haarika and Hassine Creations) Pawan Kalyan, Keerthi Suresh, Anu Emmanuel, Aadhi. An exiled heir to a massive fortune in India returns home in disguise as an ordinary employee of his father’s company in order to discover the identity of his father’s murderer and to make things right with the company, only to become a target himself.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace
Rating: NR  

Call Me By Your Name

(Sony Classics) Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar.  In 1983 the son of an American researcher working in Northern Italy is enjoying a leisurely summer enjoying the cultural delights of the region. However when his father’s research assistant arrives, the teen discovers that his own emerging sexuality may be more difficult to deal with than his academic pursuits.

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

The Commuter

(Lionsgate) Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill. A businessman is taking the commuter train home from work when he is given an offer he can’t refuse; to find the person on the train who “doesn’t belong there” or else face increasingly dire consequences. However, this businessman has a particular set of skills…

See the trailer and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some intense action/violence, and language)

Condorito: The Movie

(Pantelion/Lionsgate) Starring the voices of Omar Chaparro, Jessica Cediel, Cristián de la Fuente, Jey Mammon. A soccer-playing condor (and the star of a Chilean comic strip) must save the world – and especially his family – from evil invading aliens.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website (Spanish)
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: PG (for rude and suggestive humor, and some mild action)

I, Tonya

(Neon) Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Julianne Nicholson. Figure skater Tonya Harding comes from an impoverished background which places her at a competitive disadvantage – the snooty judges of the sport count her background and trailer park look against her. Still, there’s no denying her ability as the first woman to attempt and complete a triple axel. She could be on the way to Olympic gold; but her husband and his best friend take her down the road to scandal and late night talk show jokes instead. Look for the Cinema365 review tomorrow.

See the trailer, interviews and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Barnstorm Theater, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes (expanding next week)
Rating: R (for pervasive language, violence and some sexual content/nudity)

Paddington 2

(Warner Brothers) Michael Gambon (voice), Ben Whishaw (voice), Sally Hawkins, Imelda Staunton (voice). Now comfortably ensconced with the Brown family and a beloved member of the community, Paddington is looking to buy the perfect gift for Aunt Lucy’s 100^th birthday – a pop-up book. He takes on a variety of odd jobs so that he can afford to buy the tome. However when it turns up stolen, Paddington looks to be the prime suspect. The Browns and their friends must find the real thief in order to clear the bear’s name and save Aunt Lucy’s birthday.

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

Proud Mary

(Screen Gems) Taraji P. Henson, Neal McDonough, Danny Glover, Xander Berkeley. Mary is a paid assassin for a Boston crime family. In the course of a hit, things go South and she ends up crossing paths with a young boy. That fateful meeting turns her life completely around which is a dangerous thing to have happen when you’re in her line of work.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Acts of Violence
Ang Panday
The Ballad of Lefty Brown
Jai Simha

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Acts of Violence
Dim the Fluorescents
Hostiles
Inside
Jai Simha
Sketch
Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Gang
Inside
Jai Simha
Rangula Ratnam
Sketch
Thaanaa Serndha Koottam

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Ang Panday

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Call Me By Your Name
The Commuter
Hostiles
I, Tonya
Paddington 2
The Post
Proud Mary

New Releases for the Week of October 2, 2015

THE MARTIAN

(20th Century Fox) Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peňa, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Directed by Ridley Scott

During a manned mission to Mars, a savage storm strikes the landing site and forces an early departure of the astronauts. One of them is presumed lost during the storm and the team takes off without him – except he’s not quite dead yet. Alone, abandoned on a dead planet hundreds of millions of miles from home, the stranded astronaut has to first contact NASA or his space craft and let them know he’s alive, then find a way to survive until help finally does come. Neither one is an easy task.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a promo, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D  (Opens Thursday)
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some strong language, injury images and brief nudity)

Finders Keepers

(The Orchard) Shannon Whisnant, John Wood. When Shannon Whisnant buys a smoker from a storage unit auction, he is surprised to discover an amputated human leg being stored inside it. This unleashes a bitter dispute between Whisnant, who determines to keep the leg because it is bringing him the fame he craves, and John Wood – the smoker’s previous owner – to whom the leg has a very personal connection. It could only happen in the South, folks.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language)

Hell and Back

(Freestyle) Starring the voices of Mila Kunis, TJ Miller, Susan Sarandon, Bob Odenkirk. Never underestimate the idiocy of a young white male. When a group of bros inadvertently open a gateway to Hell and one of them gets sucked down into it, his three buddies try to do the right thing and go down to the infernal regions to welcome their friend. Hell has no idea what’s about to hit them. From the same animation studio that is guilty of giving us Robot Chicken and Bo-jack Horseman.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Winter Park Village, UA Seminole Town Center
Rating: R (for pervasive strong crude and sexual content, language and some drug use)

Sicario

(Lionsgate) Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, Victor Garber. An idealistic FBI agent is brought into the war zone that is the U.S.-Mexican border to join a task force with the mission of stopping cartel violence from reaching its tentacles onto American soil. A mysterious consultant with an enigmatic past and an elite government agent whose ambitions are only matched with his amorality force the agent to question everything she believes in as she must go to extreme measures just to survive. The latest from talented director Denis Villeneuve has been receiving critical accolades wherever it has gone.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence, grisly images, and language)

The Walk

(Tri-Star) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale. Only one man has – and ever will – walked on a high wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. That man is Philippe Pettit and his real life exploits were captured on the excellent documentary Man on Wire – if you haven’t seen it yet I highly recommend it. This is a dramatization of the events that took place way back when. Director Robert Zemeckis has apparently utilized modern technology to put the audience in Philippe’s shoes, so high above the ground in New York City. This may end up being one of the few movies Da Queen and I end up seeing in IMAX 3D this year.

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, IMAX 3D (opened Wednesday)
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Large Format Screens
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including perilous situations, and for some nudity, language, brief drug references and smoking)

Nebraska

Bruce Dern tries to ignore the nagging feeling that he isn’t wearing any pants despite all evidence to the contrary.

(2013) Dramedy (Paramount Vantage) Will Forte, Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Stacey Keach, Bob Odenkirk, Mary Louise Wilson, Rance Howard, Devin Ratray, Tim Driscoll, Angela McEwan, Gelndora Stitt, Elizabeth Moore, Kevin Kunkel, Dennis McCoig, Ronald Vosta, Missy Doty, John Reynolds, Jeffrey Yosten, Neal Freudenburg, Eula Freudenburg, Melinda Simonsen. Directed by Alexander Payne

As men grow older their relationships with their fathers change. Whereas young men lean on their fathers, one day we wake up and they are leaning on us. We go from being the children to being the parents in a lot of ways. Whether or not they were fathers of the year or if their parenting was something we endured and survived, deep at the core of our beings they are always our fathers and occupy that role for good or ill.

Woody Grant (Dern) is a stubborn old man. He’s got it in his craw that he’s won a million dollars in a sweepstakes and that he has to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim it. The trouble is that he lives in Billings, Montana. One look at the letter he received tells everyone else that the whole thing is a scam but Woody refuses to listen. It just makes him want to hit the road more and if nobody will take him, he’ll walk there.

Woody wasn’t the greatest of fathers. He had a drinking problem – one that he refuses to acknowledge even to this day. Of course, if you were married to Kate (Squibb) you might do a lot of drinking too. She’s shrill, crude and blunt to the point of cruelty. She has opinions about everybody, isn’t afraid to voice them and generally those opinions aren’t too complimentary.

Kate and Woody have two sons – Ross (Odenkirk) whose TV news career is just starting to take off, and David (Forte) who sells high end stereos and speakers. David is one of those guys that life happens to rather than life actually happening. His girlfriend of four years who he has been living with is moving out because David can’t be sure that she’s the One. And with all of his dad’s antics, he finally gets fed up. If his Dad has to go to Lincoln, best to take him there so that everyone else in the family can have peace and quiet.

Of course Kate thinks it’s a stupid idea and of course she says so but David is adamant so he sets out on the road with his father. They get waylaid when Woody stumbles during a late night drunken walk and opens a gash on his forehead, necessitating that he be kept in a hospital overnight. That means they won’t be making it to Lincoln during office hours of the sweepstakes company so David decides to visit Hawthorne, Nebraska where Woody grew up and where much of his family still lives .

There Woody begins to reconnect to figures from his past, chiefly Ed Pegram (Keach) with whom he once owned an auto repair business and whose relationship has some contentious elements. Kate decides to take the bus down there and join them for what is turning out to be a bit of a family reunion and everyone there is under the impression that Woody is a millionaire, despite David’s admonition not to tell anyone. That changes the way everyone looks at him – suddenly Woody is in the limelight, and he doesn’t mind it one bit.

Still, old girlfriends, old misdeeds and old family rivalries begin to resurface and over all of it hovers the biggest question of all – is the million dollar win legitimate or not?

Payne has become a really fine director with Sideways, About Schmidt and The Descendents among others to his credit. In many ways he is the successor to the Coen Brothers; he has some similar quirks in terms of his sense of humor and a kind of Midwestern earthiness that has a lot to do with his own upbringing in Nebraska (the Coens were brought up in Minnesota). His films have a kind of prairie sensibility.

It doesn’t hurt that he has assembled a fine cast. Dern, a long-time character actor who has had flings with leading roles since the 60s delivers what may well be the finest performance of his career. Woody is a very layered character who isn’t always very nice and doesn’t always do the right thing – in fact it is a somewhat rare occurrence when he does. Still, despite the dementia, despite the drinking and despite the foolish stubbornness, he is ultimately very relatable on different levels depending on where you are in life. You can’t ask for more than that from an actor.

Squibb is also getting a good deal of Oscar buzz for her performance. It is certainly the role of a lifetime for her. Some critics have cringed at her scene in which Kate, while in a graveyard paying respects to Woody’s kin comes across the grave of an old would-be lover who never sealed the deal. With almost demonic glee she lifts up her dress to show the ghost of her paramour what he had missed. Personally I found it life-affirming and if it is a little shocking, so what? Why do seniors have to conform to a set of behavior anyway? They are quite capable of being raunchy and sexual. It’s not like they didn’t have sex when they were younger. I’m quite certain they were having plenty of it before marriage back then too.

Editorializing aside, Squibb does a marvelous job and her role is as memorable as it gets. It was extremely telling to me that in a scene late in the movie when Kate is leaving Woody’s bedside she bestows on him a surprising gentle kiss that shows that with all the caustic remarks and cruel jibes there is still deep feeling for her man. It’s one of those rare grace notes that indicate that the filmmaker gets it.

Forte has little to do besides react to his parents and their relations but he is solid here. There are plenty of supporting characters besides Keach who contribute to the occasional surreal zaniness or to the pathos of the film, like an ex-girlfriend (McEwan) of Woody’s who watches him drive by in a truck and the wistful could-have-been expression on her face is priceless.

While the movie isn’t for everyone, I think that lovers of good, independent cinema will flock to this. Payne is a legitimate talent who I think at this point has to be considered among the best filmmakers in the business. He’s a filmmaker like Scorsese, the Coen Brothers and Spielberg whose films I will go see just because of the name on the back of the directors chair.

REASONS TO GO: Dry and occasionally hysterically funny. Quirky in a good way. Amazing performances by Dern and Squibb.

REASONS TO STAY: A little too much elderly as eccentric crazies syndrome.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some foul language here and there.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the fourth film Payne has directed to be set in his home state of Nebraska; it is also the first film he’s directed for whic87+*h he didn’t also write the screenplay.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/18/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 91% positive reviews. Metacritic: 86/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

FINAL RATING: 8.5/10

NEXT: The Son of the Olive Merchant

Operation: Endgame

Zach Galifianakis supplements his income with a part-time job at Target.

(2010) Spy Comedy (Anchor Bay) Joe Anderson, Ellen Barkin, Rob Corddry, Odette Yustman, Zach Galifianakis, Jeffrey Tambor, Ving Rhames, Emilie de Ravin, Maggie Q, Brandon T. Jackson, Beth Grant, Bob Odenkirk, Michael Hitchcock. Directed by Fouad Mikati

When you are a highly-trained assassin, paranoia is part of your daily routine. Of course, if you’re locked in a bunker with a group of other highly-trained assassins all of whom seem hell-bent on killing you, that paranoia might seem downright reasonable.

It is the day of new President Obama’s inauguration. In Los Angeles, an underground bunker is the headquarters for a group called the Factory, two teams of highly skilled killers (Team Alpha and Team Omega) are welcoming a new recruit to their ranks. He is codename Fool (Anderson) and no, that’s not a knock against his intelligence; all of the operatives have codenames based on the tarot deck.

However, there is much more going on than meets the eye. There is a traitor in their ranks and when Devil (Tambor) turns up deceased, the facility is accidentally put on lockdown with 90 minutes to evacuate before going ka-boom. With the identity of Devil’s murderer in question, suspicions run rampant and it becomes crystal clear that the orders have come down from on high that the two teams have been ordered to eliminate each other. Who, if anyone, will be left standing at the end is pretty much anybody’s guess.

 The concept is pretty nifty and the cast even more so, so that should make for a terrific movie right? As we all know, that isn’t always the case. The movie is sabotaged by sub-par production values and awkward moments that bring proceedings to a screeching halt every so often, and that’s not what you want to do in a thriller, an action movie, a spy movie or a comedy, all of which this movie has elements of. Maybe that’s part of the problem – too many genres in this soup.

Anderson is a bland lead, although Yustman as the romantic interest (who has a history with Fool) is pretty solid. Galifianakis, who was on the cusp of hitting it big when this was filmed, has little more than an extended cameo as a brilliant but deranged individual haunting the corridors of the bunker. Barkin is wonderful as usual as a cruel chain-smoking bitch who heads one of the teams; I’ve always thought of her as the thinking person’s Cameron Diaz. Corddry also gets kudos for an acerbic foul-mouthed mentor for Fool.

I like that the bunker is more or less a bunch of offices, and the assassins dispatch each other with a variety of office supplies. Some of these murders are rather clever and more than a few are pretty gruesome. The somewhat banal environment accentuates the horror of the bloodshed nicely. These sequences tend to work better than most of the others in the movie. While the cast is impressive, for the most part the characters are kind of one-note and exist to have a cool Tarot-related name and eventually get bumped off.

All of this could have been forgiven if the movie had a little bit more fun in it but the fun felt forced. I would have wished for something with a little more energy; at times, it felt like a direct-to-cable release that in a lot of ways it was. Operation: Endgame got a very brief theatrical release before going to home video which is where you’re going to find it now, assuming you still want to look for it. There are some moments that are genuinely entertaining, but not enough to keep my interest throughout.

WHY RENT THIS: Fun concept and when the movie hits its high notes, it is quite entertaining.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Not enough high notes. Feels more like a made-for-cable movie.

FAMILY VALUES: The violence is pretty much off-the-chart, there are a few sexual references and a good deal of swearing permeates the soundtrack.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was originally titled “Rogue’s Gallery.”

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: Not available.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: The Change-Up

Take Me Home Tonight

Topher Grace is disconcerted that Teresa Palmer has never heard of "That 70s Show."

(2011) Comedy (Rogue) Topher Grace, Teresa Palmer, Dan Fogler, Anna Faris, Chris Pratt, Michelle Trachtenberg, Lucy Punch, Michael Ian Black, Demitri Martin, Michael Biehn, Bob Odenkirk, Angie Everhart, Jay Jablonski, Edwin Hodge. Directed by Michael Dowse 

Honesty is the best policy; it has been said time and time again but few of us really regard it as true. Most of us will lie about how successful we are, how old we are, what we did during the day – even who we are – to impress someone else. In an age where lies are commonplace and Internet identities are meaningless, we sometimes forget we used to have to tell our lies face-to-face.

In a sense, Matt Franklin has been lying to himself. He is an MIT grad who doesn’t really want to be an engineer, but kinda does. He’s not sure. He’s really not sure about anything. So he lives at home with his policeman dad (Biehn) and housewife mom and twin sister Wendy (Faris) and works at Suncoast Video (are there any of those left?) in the local Mall. Oh, did I mention its 1988?

Into his mall walks Tori Frederking (Palmer), the high school crush he never had the guts to ask out because he never had an “in” and about whom he was just coincidentally talking about with his best friend Barry Nathan (Fogler), a Mercedes salesman who’s about to get fired, although he doesn’t really know it (but he kinda does). Matt nervously strikes up a conversation with his unrequited love, trying to act nonchalant but getting flustered when she mentions her successes – graduation (with honors) from Duke, a job at a high-end investment banking firm.

That’s why Matt blurts out that he’s working at Goldman Sachs, which is a bit weird because apparently they don’t have an L.A. office (which is really weird because of course they do – even in the 80s, all of the big financial firms had L.A. offices). She asks if he’s going to a party that evening, and even though he wasn’t planning to; it’s at the home of Kyle Masterson (Pratt), the smarmy preppy boyfriend of Wendy who doesn’t even know that she applied to Cambridge (which I suppose is supposed to be Oxford but who am I kidding?) or that she would move to England if she was accepted.  The letter detailing whether she got in or not sits unopened in her purse.

So yes, this is one of those “life changing party” movies that had their genesis in the ‘80s and there are plenty of nods here to the era from a decidedly John Hughes-like tone to the big hair to the cocaine use. As someone who lived in Los Angeles in the 80s, I can tell you that they did get the mall culture right, and if the movie is a bit smug in its nod to the wealthy – both of the parties depicted here are in the homes of rich people, even if Matt and Wendy live in the burbs as the children of a cop who put most of his retirement money into Matt’s education, only to see him take a job at the mall. Money well spent, eh dad?

There are a few laughs here although not nearly as many as in the similarly-themed Hot Tub Time Machine which was a much better movie than this one. Then again it’s something of a miracle we’re seeing this movie at all; it was actually filmed four years ago, but Universal, which then owned the distribution rights through their Rogue imprint didn’t feel confident about releasing it and it sat on the shelf until the Starz-owned Overture distributors bought Rogue. Overture was in turn purchased by new distributors Relativity who then added it to the release schedule.

Grace can be truly charming (as he showed in “That 70s Show”) but he looks a bit lost here. His character is so wishy-washy that it’s difficult to get behind him fully and it gets frustrating to watch him flounder, which he does for much of the movie. Fogler, who hasn’t always been impressive in his film roles, does actually manage some of his best work here – a scene where he is lured into a threesome (of sorts) in a Beverly Hills bathroom with a Cougar who turns out to be “Law & Order” hottie Angie Everhart (shockingly unrecognizable here) is one of the movie’s highlights.

Unfortunately much of the movie relies on unfunny gags and uninspired bits. The movie relies far too much on the ‘80s gimmick and poking fun at a decade which is too much like shooting fish in a barrel. I liked the Goldman Sachs reference until I realized that it was inserted in well before the financial meltdown that Goldman Sachs had such a hand in so the reference was kind of accidental.

This is one of those movies that has enough good moments so that it’s not an utter waste of time, but is frustrating because it does waste its potential. I liked the tone of the movie; it just could have used a few more laughs to keep the pace moving along.

REASONS TO GO: There are a few funny moments, particularly between Grace and Fogler. Palmer is awfully pretty and Faris has a role that is completely out of her comfort zone but she still nails it anyway.

REASONS TO STAY: Not enough laughs to sustain the movie. There is a little bit of heart and warmth and while the film nails the “look” of the era, doesn’t really capture its essence, preferring to focus on the excesses of the time.

FAMILY VALUES: A whole lot of bad words, lots of drug use, plenty of sex and nudity but hey, it’s the 80s!

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: It took four years for the movie to see the light of day, mainly over studio reluctance to show all the drug use; during the down time the title changed from “Young Americans” to “Kids in America” to the present one, taken from an Eddie Money song that while played in the trailer never appears in the film.

HOME OR THEATER: Chances are this will be gone from theaters before you can get out to see it anyway, so I’d make this a rental.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: Looking for Eric