Wonder Park

Welcome to Jurassic – I mean, Wonder – Park.

(2019) Animated Feature (Paramount) Starring the voices of Brianna Denski, Jennifer Garner, Ken Hudson Campbell, Kenan Thompson, Mila Kunis, John Oliver, Ken Jeong, Norbert Leo Butz, Matthew Broderick, Sofia Mali, Oev Michael Urbas, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Kevin Chamberlin, Kath Soucie. Directed by Dylan Brown, Clare Kilner, Robert Iscove and David Feiss

A nice concept is torpedoed by weak execution in this troubled production that comes to us via Paramount’s subsidy Nickelodeon Films. June (Denski) is a wildly creative and smart 10-year-old who for years has along with her mother (Garner) worked on creating a fantastic theme park with improbable rides and stuffed animals come to life running the place. Then, mom gets a serious illness and has to go away for treatment, while Dad (Broderick) ships her off to math camp. Worried that her Dad won’t be able to fend for himself, June runs away from camp and finds in the surrounding woods an overgrown, derelict version of the park she and her mom created. The animals – now life-sized and able to talk – are trying to fend off a horde of zombie stuffed animal monkeys and a mysterious storm that threatens to destroy the park completely. June will need to find a way to prevent that.

The design of the park, with delightful Rube Goldberg-esque rides, is actually mesmerizing and the bright colors make for some serious eye candy. Unfortunately, the attempts to bring in serious subjects – in particular dealing with the potential loss of a parent – aren’t handled very well and end up being disconnected with the issues facing the park. Add to this one-dimensional characters who aren’t given a whole lot to do and you end up with a truly disappointing kid’s film that could have been so much more.

REASONS TO SEE: The design of the park itself is splendiferous.
REASONS TO AVOID: A cliché plot with no memorable characters to rescue it.
FAMILY VALUES There are some mild thematic elements that might be too much for the smaller set.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Brown was removed as director following accusations of sexual misconduct near the end of production. Although uncredited, Kilner, Iscove and Feiss oversaw the remainder of the production. None of the directors are given screen credit, something that the Directors Guild of America almost never allows.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, DirecTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/28/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: 34% positive reviews; Metacritic: 45/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Neverending Story
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Autumn Road

Peppermint (2018)

Mommies with guns – what fun!

(2018) Action (STX) Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz, Juan Pablo Raba, Annie Ilonzeh, Jeff Hephner, Cailey Fleming, Eddie Shin, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Tyson Ritter, Ian Casselberry, Richard Cabral, Johnny Ortiz, Michael Reventar, Kyla-Drew Simmons, Gustavo Quiroz, Pell James, John Boyd, Michael Mosley, Jeff Harlan, Chris Johnson, Samantha Edelstein. Directed by Pierre Morel

 

Jennifer Garner began her career with the excellent TV spy series Alias but has since fallen out of the action genre and into roles that are mom-centric. She plays a mom here as well, but a different kind of mom.

Riley North (Garner) doesn’t have it easy; between her take-home pay as a bank teller and her husband’s (Hephner) as a mechanic there isn’t a whole lot left over. Worse still, her hours at the bank force her to miss her daughter’s (Fleming) birthday party. So, she is guilted into going with the two of them to the local Christmas carnival, only to watch her husband and daughter brutally gunned down before her very eyes.

She is able to identify the killers but the justice system fails her in spectacular fashion. Refusing to take a pay-off, she is let down by a corrupt district attorney and a corrupt judge. Things get so bad that she is put in a mental hospital, from which she escapes…and then disappears for five years.

She puts the five years to good use, learning combat training, hand-to-hand training and essentially anything that will make killing bad guys wholesale easier. When she comes back, it is as kind of a folk hero but the corrupt city government as well as the vicious drug cartel are out to take her out for good.

This is pretty standard revenge-flick fare with not a whole lot in the originality department. As mentioned, Garner is excellent in her role, one that combines her latter career maternal roles with her early career kickass roles. The movie is unusually bloody for its type (which is saying something) and there have been some rumblings from woke film critics who notice that most of the bad guys are Hispanic. Villains who aren’t old white men are apparently no longer acceptable. I know the LAPD won’t like this film very much at all.

I’m not bothered by that any more than I would have been bothered if the villains were Russians, or Arabs, or any other nationality you can name. Somebody has to be the bad guy and there are plenty of Hispanic criminals out there, just like there are plenty of Russian ones, Arab criminals and any other nationality you can name. Still, the movie does itself a disservice by simply relying on tried and true tropes that are predictable as well as overused. The results are a lackluster movie that wastes a fine performance by Jennifer Garner.

REASONS TO SEE: Garner would make Linda Hamilton proud.
REASONS TO AVOID: Standard, unremarkable revenge action thriller.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Jennifer Garner has used the same stunt double (Shauna Duggins) for almost twenty years.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Fubo TV, Google Play, Microsoft, Redbox, Showtime, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/15/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 12% positive reviews: Metacritic: 29/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Rhythm Section
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Fahrenheit 11/9

New Releases for the Week of March 15, 2019

WONDER PARK

(Paramount) Starring the voices of Jennifer Garner, Matthew Broderick, John Oliver, Mila Kunis, Kenan Thompson, Ken Jeong, Brianna Denski. Directed by Josh Applebaum, Andrė Nemec and Robert Gordon

An imaginative young girl creates an entire theme park in her imagination. As she grows older, she puts her fantasy aside and moves on. Then one day while walking through the woods, she finds a theme park overgrown and falling apart – it’s the same one she imagined those years ago, complete with the characters she invented. Now in order to save it she’ll have to put her imagination into overdrive!

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

Birds of Passage

(The Orchard) Josė Acosta, Natalia Reyes, Carmiña Martinez, Jhon Naráez. During the rise of the Colombian cocaine cartels of the 1970s, an indigenous man gets caught up in drug trafficking despite the disapproval of the tribe matriarch. His pride and greed will plunge the tribe into a bloody war where the innocent will suffer along with the guilty.

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

Captive State

(Focus) John Goodman, Vera Farmiga, D.B. Sweeney, Ashton Sanders. Following the occupation of the Earth by an alien invasion, the lives of those on both sides of the conflict – collaborators and rebels – are examined.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sci-Fi Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for Sci-Fi violence and action, some sexual content, brief language and drug material)

Climax

(A24) Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smile. On a wintry night a troupe of dancers rehearses in an abandoned school building. Following rehearsal, they decide to party through the night only to discover to their horror that the sangria they’ve been pounding down is laced with a potent psychotropic drug. Chaos descends into madness as the troupe is overtaken by lust and violence.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for disturbing content involving a combination of drug use, violent behavior and strong sexuality, and for language and some graphic nudity)

Five Feet Apart

(CBS) Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moises Arias, Parminder Nagra. A teenage girl with cystic fibrosis falls in love with a fellow sufferer of the disease. However, the nature of their disease is that the two can’t even touch for fear of setting off potentially fatal complications. Yet another dying teen romance movie for the angst-driven.

See the trailer, clips, a promo and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, language and suggestive material)

Let’s Live (Chaal Jeevi Laiye)

(Rising Star) Siddharth Randeria, Yash Soni, Aarohi Patel, Aruna Irani. A young man puts his life on the back burner while trying to build a business until his father is diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. Wanting to fulfill one of his most precious wishes, he and his father go on a road trip where they meet a free-spirited backpacker who will ultimately bring the two men closer together.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some suggestive comments, and brief language)

No Manches Frida 2

(Pantelion) Omar Chaparro, Martha Higareda, Aarón Diaz, Itati Cantoral. The sequel to the hit comedy starts with a wedding…almost. Chaos at the beach wedding forces Lucy to call of the nuptials to Zequi. To make matters worse the school where they both work is about to close its doors and needs the winnings from a beach tournament in order to continue to exist. To make matters worse the coach of the rival team is a former grade school crush of Lucy…who has turned into a hot hunk. Zequi will need to pull out all his ingenuity to beat his rivals, keep the school from shutting down and to win Lucy back.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Epic Theaters at Lee Vista, Regal The Loop
Rating: R (for sexual content and teen drinking)

Ruben Brandt, Collector

(Sony Classics) Starring the voices of Iván Kamarás, Matt Devere, Henry Grant, Peter Linka. A famous psychotherapist is forced to steal great paintings in order to quell the nightmares in his head due to subliminal messaging he received as a child.

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

To Dust

(Good Deed) Matthew Broderick, Geza Röhrig, Sammy Voit, Sarah Jes Austell. A cantor for an upstate New York Hassidic Jewish community is grieving over the untimely death of his wife from cancer. Tormented by nightmares of his wife’s decomposing body and looking for answers as to what happens to the body after death, he seeks out a biology professor to explain the process when his religion can’t.

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

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Faith, Hope & Love
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy
Slipaway

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Bruce!!!!
Combat Obscura
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy
Yardie

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Chimera Strain
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy
Pranam Kharledu
The Wedding Guest
Woman at War

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Birds of Passage
Captive State
To Dust
Wonder Park

New Releases for the Week of September 7, 2018

THE NUN

(New Line) Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons, Ingrid Bisu, Charlotte Hope, Sandra Teles, August Maturo, Jack Falk, Lynnette Gaza. Directed by Corin Hardy

A young novitiate and a priest with a disturbing past are sent to investigate the mysterious death of a nun in a remote abbey in Romania. There they discover a malevolent force that threatens not only their lives but their souls. Realizing that there is more at stake than just themselves, they rely on their crumbling faith to do battle with the damned in this latest installment in the Conjuring series.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, DBOX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, XD
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for terror, violence and disturbing/bloody images)

God Bless the Broken Road

(Freestyle) Lindsay Pulsipher, Jordin Sparks, LaDamian Tomlinson, Robin Givens. While grieving for her husband who was lost in Afghanistan, a young mother meets a race car driver who restores both her hope and her faith. This is loosely based on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band song of the same name.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Barnstorm Theater,  Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and some combat action)

Madeline’s Madeline

(Oscilloscope) Helena Howard, Miranda July, Molly Parker, Sunita Mani. A theater director gets a whole lot more than they bargained for when the lead actress in their latest project takes her role a bit too seriously. Reality and fantasy begin to blur as a fierce tug of war takes place between the director, her young star and the actress’ mother.

See the trailer and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Mystery
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR

Peppermint

(STX) Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz, Method Man. When a woman’s family is killed by members of a drug cartel, she finds no justice in a corrupt system in which judges, cops and politicians are all bought and paid for by the cartel. Realizing that she’s a target, she goes underground for five years. When she returns she goes on a revenge spree that would make Stallone proud.

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

The Wife

(Sony Classics) Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Elizabeth McGovern. The wife of an acclaimed author accompanies him to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. There, her years of being taken for granted, her own writing skills appropriated and her life a shadow of what she imagined it to be come to the surface.

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

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Alright Now
C/O Kancharapalem
The Hows of Us
Manu
Nancy
Slipaway

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Age of Summer
C/O Kancharapalem
Destination Wedding
Get My Gun
The Hows of Us
Manu
No Date, No Signature
Silly Fellows
Support the Girls

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

The Favorite
The Hows of Us
Manu
Stilly Fellows

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

C/O Kancharapalem
The Hows of Us
Manu
Summer of ‘84

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Nun
Peppermint
Support the Girls
Summer of ‘84

New Releases for the Week of March 16, 2018

TOMB RAIDER

(MGM/Warner Brothers) Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Hannah John-Kamen. Directed by Roar Uthaug

The headstrong daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur and adventurer mourns the disappearance of her father. Honing her skills, she receives a mysterious message that brings her to the very island where her father was last seen – and smack dab into a conspiracy and mystery that may find the same fate awaiting her. This is the reboot of the popular videogame movie franchise.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, video featurettes and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, DBOX, DBOX 3D, Dolby Atmos, IMAX, IMAX 3D, RPX, RPX 3D, XD, XD-3D
Genre: Fantasy Adventure
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action, and for some language)

7 Days in Entebbe

(Focus) Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl, Eddie Marsan, Nonso Anozie. In 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists to call attention to the plight of their people. The flight was made to land in Uganda whose dictator Idi Amin used the hijacking as a means to call international attention for himself as a world leader. When things looked bleak, the Israeli army staged a daring raid that still resonates today as one of the gutsiest rescue operations in history.

See the trailer, interviews, a clip and a video featurette 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 violence, some thematic material, drug use, smoking and brief strong language)

Concert for George

(Abramorama) Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Dhani Harrison. On the first anniversary of the untimely death of George Harrison, a group of his family and close friends put on a concert in the Royal Albert Hall in London to celebrate the life and music of the ex-Beatle. Although the line-up was stellar, the concert film went directly to video and has been hard to find ever since. On the occasion commemorating what would have been Harrison’s 75^th birthday, a limited theatrical release has finally been arranged. It is playing at the Enzian as part of their Music Mondays series. You can read the Cinema365 review of the doc by clicking on the link in the Scheduled for Review section below.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Concert Film
Now Playing: Enzian Theater (Monday only)
Rating: NR

The Cured

(IFC) Ellen Page, Sam Keeley, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Stuart Graham. After a mysterious disease turns people into mindless zombies, a cure is eventually found but the world is badly shell-shocked. Those that have reverted back to humanity find themselves discriminated against by their neighbors and sometimes their own families. When the military tries to intervene, things take a turn for the worse.

See the trailer, video featurettes and an interview here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for violence, bloody images, and language)

Dear Dictator

(Cinedigm) Michael Caine, Odeya Rush, Katie Holmes, Seth Green. A teenage girl doing a school project on personal heroes chooses a British-Caribbean dictator who surprisingly begins corresponding with her. When he is overthrown by freedom fighters, he hides out at her home and gives her advice on how to handle the mean girls at her school.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: NR

I Can Only Imagine

(Roadside Attractions) J. Michael Finley, Brody Rose, Dennis Quaid, Cloris Leachman. This is the true story behind the hit MercyMe song “I Can Only Imagine” and the forgiveness and healing between an abusive father and his musician son.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Faith Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including some violence)

In the Fade

(Magnolia) Diane Kruger, Denis Moschitto, Numan Acar, Ulrich Tukur. When a wife and mother’s family is killed in a terrorist bombing, she is distressed when those who perpetrated the attack are seemingly going to get away with it. This leads her to take her own revenge which in this case she equates with justice for her loved ones.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for some disturbing images, drug use and language including sexual references)

Josie

(Screen Media) Sophie Turner, Dylan McDermott, Daeg Faerch, Lombardo Boyar. A beautiful but mysterious young woman appears in a small Texas town and strikes up romantic friendships with a punk outcast and a lonely neighbor. As the gossip grapevine goes into overdrive, soon there are signs that she may have a sinister agenda of her own once certain facts about her past come to light.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Suspense
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: NR

The Leisure Seeker

(Sony Classics) Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland, Janel Moloney, Christian McKay. An elderly couple goes on a last hurrah road trip in their faithful but falling apart RV they call the Leisure Seeker.

See the trailer and a clip 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 sexual material)

Love, Simon

(20^th Century Fox) Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, Katherine Langford. A high school boy has been hiding a secret from family and friends – he’s gay. When his secret is threatened, he must find a way to break the news to those he cares about and along the way discover who he truly is. This is the first major studio film to deal with a gay teen romance.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a video featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Teen Romance
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, sexual references, language and teen partying)

Loveless

(Sony Classics) Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvey Novikov, Marina Vasileva. A Russian couple undergoing a bitter divorce must put their differences aside when their young boy disappears. This was a finalist for the 2018 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for strong sexuality, graphic nudity, language and a brief disturbing image)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Kirrak Party
Please Stand By
Raid

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Cuba’s Forgotten Jewels: A Haven in Havana
Kirrak Party
Mind Game
Mufti
Raid

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Demon House
Raid

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

In Bed With Victoria
Kirrak Party

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

7 Days in Entebbe
Concert for George
In the Fade
The Leisure Seeker
Love, Simon
Tomb Raider

Wakefield

Bryan Cranston’s glamour shot.

(2016) Drama (IFC) Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Garner, Jason O’Mara, Beverly D’Angelo, Ian Anthony Dale, Monica Lawson, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Ellery Sprayberry, Victoria Bruno, Isaac Leyva, Fredrick Keeve, Bill Timoney, Alexander Zale, Hal Dion, Eliza Coleman, Derek Weston, Angela Taylor-Jones, Tommy Otis, Cameron Simmons, Scott St. Blaze, Carinna Rossignoli. Directed by Robin Swicord

 

Haven’t we all at one time or another wanted to be observers in our own lives, to see how those we are closest to react if we were to disappear from their lives? Frank Capra made in some ways the ultimate version of that fantasy with It’s a Wonderful Life but while the message was uplifting and positive, some suspect that the reality would be much darker.

Howard Wakefield (Cranston) is a successful New York litigator. He has a big house out in the suburbs, a beautiful wife Diane (Garner) and two great kids Emily (Bennett-Warner) and Ellen (Lawson). But that’s just the veneer. Scratch the surface a bit and you come to discover that his marriage to Diane is crumbling. They use jealousy as a means of keeping the home fires burning; she flirts with someone, they argue and then they have great sex – until the great sex part begins to stop. The kids are unenthusiastic about being around him on those few occasions when he’s actually around.

One night he returns home from his commute to find a power outage. At his front door is a raccoon sniffing around the garbage where his wife has thrown out his dinner, tired of waiting for him to come home. He chases the raccoon into the garage where it bounds up to the loft above the garage. He scares it back out again but discovers that a round window above the garage gives him a perfect view of the inside of his house. Fascinated, he plays voyeur for a bit until he falls asleep.

When he wakes up with a start, he sees his wife sending the kids off to school and then toddling off to work as if nothing happened. Incensed, he decides to play out the string a little longer. He raids the house for food and moves into the garage loft. Soon she goes from cavalier to genuinely worried. The police are called.

Weeks go by and Walter begins to experience a kind of liberating freedom. He no longer has any responsibilities, no need to conform to what’s expected of him. When a memorial service is held at the house for the missing Walter, he is bemused that one of the lawyers at his firm is trying to put the moves on Diane. He begins to reminisce about his life with her, how they met – and how he stole her away from his best friend Dirk Morrison (O’Mara) by blatantly lying. All’s fair, right?

But as weeks turn into months and the weather grows cold, he begins to experience something unexpected – loneliness. Being a voyeur has its limits and there’s no doubt that the liberation he’s experienced has lost its luster. To make matters worse, Diane has reconnected with her old flame Dirk who has taken Walter’s place at the Thanksgiving table. Walter realizes that the things he took for granted are the things that made his life worth living but is it too late for him to re-enter his life and live once again?

There is a dark almost Russian feeling to the movie that reminded me of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. There’s an almost absurd element to the drama – does anybody really think that it wouldn’t be noticed that a wild-eyed bearded man was living in the loft above their garage? – and I found that rather pleasing.

Bryan Cranston has since breaking out in Breaking Bad become one of America’s most reliable actors. Yes, he’s done a few forgettable movies but he’s generally always memorable in them (with a few exceptions). This is all him – much of the movie is Walter’s voice-over narration – and he’s in virtually every frame of the film. It’s quite a burden to shoulder but Cranston carries it like it’s a bag full of Styrofoam. He’s very likely to get nominated for an Oscar this year – probably not for this one but for the much buzzed about Last Flag Flying – and you can see why in this film why he’s a threat every year to make the Oscar shortlist.

Garner and O’Mara are mostly glimpsed from a distance. This is all Walter’s point of view so often we don’t hear what either one is saying. They largely use body language to get across what their character is feeling. I have to award kudos to Swicord for sticking to her guns and to Garner and O’Mara for going along with her plan. It couldn’t be easy for either actor to sign up for a film where they had so little dialogue but both are an integral part of the movie’s story nonetheless.

Howard isn’t a very likable character to say the least. Most of the time in his narration he is full of nasty little asides about various people in his life. Some of his zingers are dang funny but you realize that there is a kind of nastiness to him that he might just get off on demeaning others. One quickly comes to the realization that the problem in Howard’s marriage…is Howard. The man himself takes much longer to come to that conclusion than the audience does.

This is an interesting character study but the movie isn’t really an essential one. With a performance as mesmerizing as Cranston’s is here one has to recommend it on that basis alone but frankly this won’t be one of the more stellar indie films this year in terms of quality. It’s solid though and definitely worth seeing if you can manage it but if you can’t it’s not a great loss either. Still, the central theme of going out of ourselves to get to truly know ourselves is well-handled and there is quality here. Definitely keep an eye out for it and check it out if you can.

REASONS TO GO: This is Cranston’s show and he makes the most of it. There’s a Dostoyevsky-like vibe to the film. It’s an interesting character study.
REASONS TO STAY: The film is a little bit on the mean-spirited side. It’s interesting but not essential.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some sexuality as well as profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film is based on the E.L. Doctorow short story of the same name that appeared in the January 14, 2008 issue of The New Yorker which was in turn based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne story of the same name published in 1835.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/15/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 75% positive reviews. Metacritic: 62/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Ghost Dad
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Alien: Covenant

New Releases for the Week of August 5, 2016

SUICIDE SQUAD

(Warner Brothers) Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne. Directed by David Ayer

There are some jobs that a superhero just can’t do. They are far too valuable to risk. That’s when you send in the other guys, or in this case, a government-selected group of super-villains who have nothing to lose and are completely expendable. Given no option but to succeed or die, will they take on an impossible task and perhaps save the world, or bicker among themselves and go down in flames along with the rest of us?

See the trailer, a clip, a promo, a featurette and a video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language)

Bazodee

(Serafini) Staz Nair, Kabir Bedi, Natalie Perera, Valmike Rampersad. The daughter of an Indian businessman agrees to marry a wealthy man in order to get her father out of the crushing debt he’s under. However, at her engagement party she meets an intriguing reggae musician with whom she develops a complicated friendship…which leads to forbidden feelings that catch the eye of the protective brother of her fiance who sets out to ruin everything and everyone involved.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romance
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive content and brief language)

Nine Lives

(EuropaCorp/Relativity) Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, Robbie Amell, Christopher Walken. A workaholic Dad on the eve of his biggest career triumph ever is on the way home to his daughter’s 11^th birthday with the gift she’s always wanted – a cat. He hates cats, but had to scramble to find a gift and this is what he came up with. After a terrible car accident, he awakens with his consciousness inside the cat. He begins to get an entirely new outlook about his family through the eyes of the cat and begins to understand what he could potentially lose. It will take an extreme effort on his part to earn back his humanity and rejoin the family he’d taken for granted for so long.

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

Danny Collins

Pacino describes the size of his paycheck as a bemused Bening and Benoist look on.

(2014) Dramedy (Bleecker Street) Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Bobby Cannavale, Jennifer Garner, Christopher Plummer, Melissa Benoist, Josh Peck, Nick Offerman, Aarti Mann, Katarina Cas, Giselle Eisenberg, Anne McDaniels, Eric Lange, Brian Smith, Michael Patrick McGill, Cassandra Starr, Scott Lawrence, Meghan Aruffo, Eric Schneider, Linda Wang. Directed by Dan Fogelman

Fame is something we wear on our heads like a sombrero; it might appear to some to be like a halo but at the end of the day it’s just straw.

Danny Collins (Pacino) has been living with fame for most of his adult life. Once a promising folk singer, a cross between Bob Dylan and John Lennon, he has settled into a groove as a soft rock pop star, feeding off the energy of his massive hit “Hey Baby Doll” and others of that ilk, not a one of them written by Danny Collins and none of them as heartfelt or insightful as those he wrote himself in his youth. But thirty years have passed under that bridge and there’s an awful lot of water that went with it.

After another rote concert filled with screaming old ladies whose days of beauty were decades gone and who retained just enough of their bloom to be utterly ridiculous, he’s ready to give it all up. Those feelings are sealed when his best friend and manager Frank (Plummer) gives him a letter written to him by John Lennon back in his youth. You see, Danny had done an interview with a now-defunct rock magazine with a smarmy interviewer (Offerman); the interview catches the attention of none other than John Lennon who wrote him a letter care of the smarmy interviewer who promptly sold the thing. Frank had only found it a few months earlier.

For Danny, the effect is galvanizing. He tells Frank to cancel his upcoming world tour and points his private jet towards Jersey – not before breaking up with Sophie (Cas), his much younger fiance. Why Jersey? That’s because that’s where his estranged son Tom (Cannavale) lives. Tom is a working class guy, the sort that takes whatever construction job comes his way in order to feed his family; his very pregnant wife Samantha (Garner) and his severely ADHD afflicted daughter Hope (Eisenberg). Danny was pretty absent in Tom’s life and Tom didn’t take kindly to it and hasn’t really been able to get past it.

But given Danny’s sex drugs and rock and roll lifestyle, that might not have been a bad thing.  Danny has made a lot of mistakes in his life and in many ways his chickens have come home to roost. He has occupied a room in a suburban Hilton, arranged for a grand piano to be brought in and sets out to woo the attractive manager Mary (Bening) and charm his family, but both are uphill battles for a man who has become used to taking the path of least resistance.

Fogelman, who’s made a tidy career writing Disney animated films (including Cars) and unimpressive comedies (including Last Vegas) makes his directorial debut here. In all truth it’s pretty solid if unspectacular; Fogelman hits all of the right notes and while he doesn’t take a whole lot in the way of chances, he delivers a product that is more than palatable.

That’s mainly because of the presence of Pacino who delivers one of his more enjoyable performances of recent years. Danny is a charming Irish rogue at his best and while that sort of role hasn’t exactly been one Pacino has been noted for in his career, he does a great job of making Danny the kind of guy that you’d love to hang out with but that you wouldn’t want dating your sister.

He’s got a solid supporting cast behind him, with the ever-lovable Bening as the love interest, the just-as-charming Plummer as the best friend and Cannavale (more on him in a moment). Only Garner seems a bit wasted in her role as the daughter-in-law as she mostly seems confused and bewildered, although she shows a bit of backbone when Danny offers to get Hope in to a prestigious school that they could never afford to get her into on their own.

I honestly think Cannavale has it in him to be an A-list leading man. He has mostly been cast in thug roles but I don’t think they suit him very well; he seems to do better with more sympathetic parts. Here he’s gruff and a bit stubborn but at his core he’s a good-hearted man who just wants to do right by his family.

The soundtrack is definitely worthwhile with plenty of John Lennon songs, although they are used a bit of a ham-handed manner; I mean, we don’t need to hear “Working Class Hero” to know that Tom is just that or “Instant Karma” after a failed attempt at reconciliation with Tom. The Danny Collins songs – the Leonard Cohen-like one he’s writing in the hotel, and the insipid pop “Hey, Baby Doll” are less memorable.

The story is a bit rote and the plot twists are pretty old school if you ask me. Then again, this isn’t a movie about redemption; it’s about understanding who you are and growing when need be. What I like about this movie is that Danny doesn’t end up being the perfect grandfather/father and write insightful songs that re-energize his career. The changes in his life are coming piecemeal as best as he can. In that sense, Danny Collins is a real character because real people don’t make wholesale changes but gradual ones. Nothing happens overnight except maybe a Beyonce album.

REASONS TO GO: Pacino is a hoot. Cannavale continues to be a cinematic presence.
REASONS TO STAY: Doesn’t really inspire audience commitment. Predictable ending.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of foul language, some nudity and some drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was inspired by the real life story of English folk performer Steve Tilston who learned of a similar letter sent to him by John Lennon 40 years after the fact.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/24/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 78% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Somewhere
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Unfriended

New Releases for the Week of October 17, 2014

FURY

(Columbia) Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Brad William Henke, Scott Eastwood, Anamarie Marinca. Directed by David Ayer

In the waning days of World War II an American tank brigade rolls through Germany making the final push for Berlin. As the crusty sergeant who commands one Sherman tank knows, it’s one thing to fight Germans in Africa and another thing entirely to fight them in Germany. It will be a long hard slog to make it to the end of the war, and it will be longer and harder once his tank is assigned to a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. He promised his crew he’d get them home alive but some promises are just beyond keeping.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: War

Rating: R (for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout)

The Best of Me

(Relativity) Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Luke Bracey, Liana Liberato. The newest Nicholas Sparks adaptation (does the man ever stop writing?) finds a pair of high school sweethearts who have been separated by a series of tragic events reunited after 20 years. Despite all the water under that particular Carolina bridge, the sparks remain there even though they are played by completely different actors.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 (for sexuality, violence, some drug content and brief strong language)

The Book of Life

(20th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube. A young man vies for the heart of a fiery jalapeno of a woman but he has a rival in a famous matador. Unbeknownst to evil, supernatural entities have placed bets on who wins the competition but one of the entities cheats on behalf of the matador. Exiled to the Land of the Dead, the young man must traverse three wildly different worlds, face his greatest fear, return to the Land of the Living and win the heart of his love. With a unique style based on Mexican folk art, this might be the most original animated feature of the year.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for mild action, rude humor, some thematic elements and brief scary images)

Men, Women and Children

(Paramount) Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Judy Greer. A group of high school seniors and their parents find the waters of dating in the age of social networking to be increasingly infested by sharks and other dangers. As the Internet changes the way we interact and the way we develop relationships, the older generation struggles to catch up while the younger generation merely struggles to survive.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: R (for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue throughout – some involving teens, and for language)

New Releases for the Week of October 10, 2014

DRACULA UNTOLD

(Universal/Legendary) Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, Diarmaid Murtagh, Samantha Barks, Charles Dance, Noah Huntley. Directed by Gary Shore

The historical figure of Vlad Tsepes, also known as Dracula, is mixed with fantasy as his origin story is given a re-imagining. A Transylvanian warlord attempts to protect his family and his people from an Ottoman sultan who threatens them. He is willing to go to any lengths to save them, including making the ultimate sacrifice – his soul. This has been announced to be the first movie in the shared Movie Monster cinematic universe that Universal is undertaking.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, IMAX (opens Thursday)

Genre: Horror Action

Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of warfare, vampire attacks, disturbing images and some sensuality)

Addicted

(Lionsgate/CODEBLACK) Sharon Leal, Boris Kodjoe, Tyson Beckford, William Levy. Zoe seems to have the perfect life; a handsome and loving husband, great kids and a business that she has built into a big success. However, Zoe hides a dark secret – a compulsion for sex that threatens to destroy everything she’s built. Based on the novel by Zane.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for strong sexual content, nudity, language and brief drug use)

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

(Disney) Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, Dylan Minnette, Megan Mullally. 11-year-old Alexander wakes up with gum in his hair and things go downhill from there. Getting little sympathy from the rest of the family, he begins to wonder if terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things happen only to him until they begin to experience their own terrible, horrible…oh, you get the idea.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Family Comedy

Rating: PG (for rude humor including some reckless behavior and language)

The Devil’s Hand

(Roadside Attractions) Jennifer Carpenter, Rufus Sewell, Alycia Debnam Carey, Adelaide Kane. Six girls are born to six different mothers on June 6th in a small, devout Amish-like town thereby setting in motion an ancient prophecy that on their 18th birthday, one of these girls will become the Devil’s Hand. As the day approaches and the girls begin to disappear, the town lives in terror that the prophecy might just be coming true.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror

Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing and violent material, some partial nudity and thematic content)

The Guest

(Picturehouse) Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Leland Orser, Sheila Kelley. The grieving family of a soldier killed in action in Afghanistan welcome one of his friends from his unit into their home. The teenage sister of the dead soldier starts to get suspicious when people in town start turning up dead and she believes that their seemingly polite and perfect guest might be responsible.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R (for strong violence, language, some drug use and a scene of sexuality) 

The Judge

(Warner Brothers) Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Billy Bob Thornton, Vera Farmiga. Returning home for his mother’s funeral, a high-priced defense lawyer discovers his estranged father, in the early stages of dementia, has been accused of murder. He decides to represent him even though the two don’t get along at all in a last ditch effort to repair the breach that separates them both.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama (opens Thursday)

Rating: R (for language including some sexual references)

Kill the Messenger

(Focus) Jeremy Renner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia. San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb digs into a story that links the epidemic of crack cocaine, the CIA and arm sales to Contra rebels. He would ultimately win a Pulitzer Prize for the story but would also put his own reputation, his career, his family and his safety on the line to do it.

See the trailer, clips and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Life Drama

Rating: R  (for language and drug content)

The Man on Her Mind

(Paladin) Amy McAllister, Georgia Mackenzie, Shane Attwooll, Samuel James. A girl dreams about the perfect man. A boy dreams about the perfect woman. But when those dreams begin to become reality, what will it really mean for the two of them?

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: NR

Meet the Mormons

(Purdie) Jeffrey R. Holland, Gail Halvorsen, Bishnu Adhikari, David Archuleta. A look at the people and the tenets of the Mormon faith, which some believe has been given a raw deal by the mainstream media.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Documentary

Rating: PG (for some thematic elements)

Pride

(CBS) Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine. In the era of Margaret Thatcher, the National Union of Mineworkers goes on strike, prompting a showdown in the corridors of power between the working class and the upper class. In London, a group of gay and lesbian advocates, seeing the struggle of the mineworkers, decides to support the strike. At first the mineworkers don’t want their aid but eventually come to see that together they are far stronger and can accomplish far more.

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

Rating: R (for language and brief sexual content)

Tracks

(Weinstein) Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Jessica Tovey, Emma Booth. An Australian city girl decides to make a 2,000 mile trek across the Australian desert accompanied only by her dog and four somewhat unpredictable camels. Along the way she meets a National Geographic photographer who decides to document her epic journey.

See the trailer and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Life Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some partial nudity, disturbing images and brief strong language)