Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

A gathering of Spiders.

(2018) Animated Feature (Columbia) Starring the voices of Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Lily Tomlin, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Zoe Kravitz, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicolas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Chris Pine, Natalie Morales, Oscar Isaac, Jorma Taccone, Lake Bell. Directed by Bob Perischetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman

Spider-Man has been perhaps the most popular character in the history of Marvel Comics. So much so that the hero has progressed beyond Peter Parker; there are a number of iterations of the character in the comics; some serious, some not.

Miles Morales (Moore) is one of those characters. A young, African-American/Hispanic teen, he likes hanging out with his Uncle Aaron (Ali), and less so with his cop father (Henry). He’s a very smart kid, but not so interested in school and a little on the timid side. When he’s bitten by a radioactive spider, he gets the powers of Spider-Man. He relies on the comic books to kind of guide him through.

But then the Kingpin (Schreiber), a corpulent villain, opens up gateways to a multitude of parallel universes, threatening all of them. Spider-men from all around the multiverse begin to flood in, including a tired and nearly broken Peter Parker (Johnson), an iteration in which Gwen Stacy (Steinfeld) becomes Spider-Gwen, a black and white character from the 30s called Spider-Noir (Cage), a porcine cartoon pig named Spider-Ham (Mulaney) and a sprightly teen from the future named Peni Parker (Glenn). Together they will have to face down against the Kingpin and his scientific advisor Doc Octopus (Hahn) if they are to save the multi-verse.

Visually, this is a striking film that is meant to look more like a comic book than conventional animated features. It is certainly meant to appeal to Spider-Fans, with lots of little in-jokes and Easter Eggs for those who follow the character in the comics, but even for those unfamiliar with the various Spider-Man characters, there is some clever dialogue to keep the story moving, even though at just a hair under two hours long it might be too much for the attention-challenged. Still, this was the Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature at the 2019 Academy Awards and quite honestly, it deserved to be.

REASONS TO SEE: Wonderful animation. Plenty of Easter Eggs for fans. Clever dialogue.
REASONS TO AVOID: A bit too long.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some cartoon violence, mild profanity and thematic material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Both Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, the original creators of the Spider-Man comic, passed away during production of the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, FlixFling, Google Play, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/12/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 97% positive reviews, Metacritic: 87/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Incredibles
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: Hope Gap

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Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

Don’t you want to take me on a sea cruise?

(2018) Animated Feature (Columbia) Starring the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Mel Brooks, Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Gaffigan, Kathryn Hahn, Joe Jonas, Chrissy Teigen, Tara Strong, Chris Parnell, Asher Blinkoff, Genndy Tartakovsky, Aaron LaPlante, Michelle Murdocca. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky

 

The Cartoon Network has done the world a disservice. Yes, some of the things that they have put out are actually pretty good, but the majority of their output is poorly animated and dumbed down, treating kids like easily distracted morons rather than actual people. Sadly, that tendency has begun to filter into major studio animated features as well as studios are looking for franchises that they can market and merchandise out the yin-yang.

Dracula (Sandler), proprietor of the monsters’ resort Hotel Transylvania is lonely and tired. His beloved daughter Mavis (Gomez) notices and decides to book a family vacation on a monster cruise ship. There Drac finds love with Ericka (Hahn), captain of the vessel but she is hiding a secret that might just destroy Dracula once and for all. Never mind that; at least the gang is all there with him for the fun.

The animation here is much improved over the first two films in the franchise; it is certainly the best of the series so far. Sadly, the script doesn’t keep pace; it is just as predictable and lowbrow as other kid flicks that have dominated the big screen of late. The sad fact is that Pixar and Illumination have shown that animated features can appeal to both adults and kids. Most adults will probably be better off finding something else to distract them while the kids are watching this.

There is an air of finality about this one; I think that it was initially intended to be the last in the series but Sony has scheduled a fourth installment for December 2021. I hope that the animation is as good or better as this one but that they put a little more effort into writing a script that has a bit more heart and a bit less fart jokes.

REASONS TO SEE: The animation is better-than-average.
REASONS TO AVOID: Kids will love this; parents, not so much.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some fairly rude humor.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Some of the names of the ships in the Bermuda Triangle sequence are the names of ships that reportedly disappeared there in reality.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/31/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 62% positive reviews: Metacritic: 54/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Mad Monster Party
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Slender Man

New Releases for the Week of March 30, 2018

READY PLAYER ONE

(Warner Brothers) Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Ralph Ineson, Claire Higgins, Laurence Spellman, Perdita Weeks. Directed by Steven Spielberg

Based on a bestselling book by Ernest Cline, the movie shows a dreary future in which there are few jobs and little hope. When the owner of the OASIS, a virtual reality world which is also the richest corporation in the world, dies suddenly it is revealed that there is a hidden Easter Egg that will give the finder control of the corporation and a virtually unlimited fortune. A young gamer sets out to claim the ultimate prize and his knowledge of the 1980s may be his big advantage

See the trailer, interviews, video featurettes, motion posters and SXSW premiere coverage 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: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release (opens Thursday)
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, nudity and language)

Baaghi 2

(Fox Star) Disha Patani, Tiger Shroff, Randeep Hooda, Manoj Bajpayee. A detective is hired by an ex-lover to find their daughter, who has been kidnapped. Baaghi 3 has already been approved and will be filming later this year.

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

Birthmarked

(Vertical) Matthew Goode, Toni Collette, Fionnula Flanagan, Michael Smiley. Two scientists quit their jobs to take on the ultimate scientific experiment; to determine once and for all the nature vs. nurture question. To do this, they decide to raise three children contrary to their genetic predispositions. Have fun with that.

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

Finding Your Feet

(Roadside Attraction) Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, Timothy Spall, Joanna Lumley. After discovering her husband of 25 years has been cheating on her, an upper class British woman moves in with her Bohemian older sister. The two women agree on virtually nothing but when the elder sibling gets the younger involved in her dance class, there are sea changes ahead for both of them.

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, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for suggestive material, brief drug use and brief strong language)

Flower

(The Orchard) Zoey Deutch Kathryn Hahn, Adam Scott, Joey Morgan. A teenage girl who is beginning to experiment sexually forms an unlikely and unorthodox relationship with her mentally unstable step-brother.

See the trailer and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for crude sexual content and language throughout, graphic nude drawings, some drug content and a brief violent image)

Foxtrot

(Sony Classics) Lior Ashkenazy, Sarah Adler, Yonathan Shiray, Shira Haas. An Israeli family must come to terms with their own dysfunction when things go terribly wrong at their son’s isolated military outpost. This was Israel’s official submission for the 2018 Foreign Language Oscar.

See the trailer 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 content including graphic images, and brief drug use)

God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

(Pure Flix) David A.R. White, Tatum O’Neil, Ted McGinley, John Corbett. A pastor must reaffirm his faith after his church burns to the ground.

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

Goldstone

(Lightyear) Aaron Pederson, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham, David Gulpilil. A young indigenous detective arrives in an Australian frontier town on a missing persons inquiry. His investigation opens up a web of corruption and deceit that he couldn’t have expected. He must work with the local police detective if he is to solve the case – or survive it.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR  

The Last Movie Star

(A24) Burt Reynolds, Chevy Chase, Ellar Coltrane, Clark Duke. An aging movie star must reluctantly face the reality that his best years are behind him. Like all of us, he must adjust to and accept the reality of growing old. This was released initially exclusively for DirecTV subscribers and is now making a brief theatrical run as well as becoming available on VOD.

See the trailer, a clip and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for some sexuality and partial nudity)

Tyler Perry’s Acrimony

(Lionsgate) Taraji P. Henson, Lyriq Bent, Crystle Stewart, Jazmyn Simon. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. When a faithful wife discovers that her husband has been cheating on her, she reaches the boiling point and means to take revenge on his ass – by any means necessary.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong sexuality, graphic nudity, language and a brief disturbing image)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

The Cage Fighter
First Reformed
Outside In
Rangasthalam

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Journey’s End
Rangasthalam

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Caught
Rangasthalam
Status Update

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

None

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Caught
Finding Your Feet
Ready Player One

New Releases for the Week of November 3, 2017

THOR: RAGNAROK

(Disney/Marvel) Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins, Benedict Cumberbatch. Directed by Taika Waititi

The God of Thunder finds himself without his mighty hammer and imprisoned on the other side of the Universe. Forced to fight former ally Hulk, he must figure out a way to survive and return to Asgard which has been taken over by Hela, the Goddess of Death who plans to wipe out the civilization of Asgard and install a new one that is centered on death and evil.

See the trailer, interviews, featurettes and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX, IMAX 3D, DBOX, Dolby Atmos
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive material)

A Bad Mom’s Christmas

(STX) Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Christine Baranski. Ah, Christmas! Memories of beautiful decorations, amazing light displays, scrumptious feasts and of course perfectly wrapped gifts. Who makes all that happen? Why, the moms of course! But some moms are rebelling against expectations as they realize that being a supermom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. However, their plans to take things down a notch are suddenly in question when their own moms come to visit for the holidays.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for crude sexual content and language throughout, and some drug use)

LBJ

(Electric) Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bill Pullman, C. Thomas Howell. Lyndon Johnson is most remembered for being the president who succeeded JFK after he was assassinated. However, the fiery Texan had a story of his own that is as larger than life as the man himself. Harrelson stars in the title role.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Cobb Plaza Cinema Café, Epic Theaters of Claremont, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: R (for language)

Most Beautiful Island

(Goldwyn/Orion) Ana Asensio, Natasha Romanova, Nicholas Tucci, Larry Fessenden. An undocumented woman with a tortured past struggles to survive and find redemption while playing a dangerous game.

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

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
Next Nuvve

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI:

Blade of the Immortal
Fanny’s Journey
Human Flow
Jane
Wonderstruck

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA:

Angel
Human Flow
Ittefaq
Next Nuvve
PSV Garuda Vega 126.18M
Villain

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE:

BPM
PSV Garuda Vega 126.18M

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

A Bad Mom’s Christmas
Thor: Ragnarok
Wonderstruck

Bad Moms

Party girls never die; they just put on mom jeans.

(2016) Comedy (STX) Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell, Christina Applegate, Jada Pinkett Smith, Annie Mumolo, Oona Laurence, Emjay Anthony, David Walton, Clark Duke, Jay Hernandez, Wendell Pierce, Leah McKendrick, Megan Ferguson, Lyle Brocato, Wanda Sykes, Cade Cooksey, J.J. Watt, Ann Mahoney, Samantha Beaulieu, Kelly Lind. Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

 

Motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be these days. The expectations that are put on the shoulders of moms are simply unrealistic. Not only do they have to keep their kids days filled with various activities, they have to balance a career, the needs of their husband, working out, bake sales and PTA meetings with the needs of their parents and siblings as well. Something has got to give in these cases and it’s usually the women trying to be all things to all people.

Amy Mitchell (Kunis) has about reached her breaking point. First of all, she’s caught her husband Mike (Walton) having an online affair. Her marriage has essentially been an empty shell for years so he doesn’t complain too much when she kicks his ass out. Now, however, she has to go the single mom route which is no easy task for a woman who is perpetually late to everything.

Her daughter Jane (Laurence) is stressing herself out trying to make the soccer team which looks good on the transcripts when applying to the Ivy League schools Jane so desperately wants to attend. The Queen Bee of the PTA and poster child for perfect moms, Gwendolyn (Applegate) gives her askance looks, directing passive aggressive taunts her way. And she can’t get any respect at work.

So Amy has a meltdown. Right in the middle of a PTA meeting, no less. After receiving an extensive list of things not to bring to the upcoming bake sale, Amy just loses it. She is done trying to be a good mom. It’s time to be a bad mom for once. She goes to a bar and is surprised to find a couple of her fellow moms there; single mom Carla (Hahn) who seems to be potentially coming on to anything male, and breathless put-upon Kiki (Bell) who is sweet but overwhelmed with a husband who treats her like a house cleaner. The three ladies bond and begin a campaign of their own.

At first it’s all fun and games; Amy goes out and begins to have a life again. She forces her kids to make their own breakfasts and do their own homework rather than doing it for them. She goes to movies and to brunches with her friends. She starts to see a hunky widower (Hernandez) that all the women in school are lusting after. She quits her job and it isn’t long before her boss (Duke) is begging her to come back.

But Gwendolyn and her Gwendo-lettes (Smith, Mumolo) take this as an affront, a challenge to Gwendolyn’s authority and absolute rule of the PTA. Gwendolyn begins to attack and she targets Amy’s daughter, who is high strung enough as it is. Mama bears don’t take kindly to having their cubs threatened and Amy decides to take on Gwendolyn where it would hurt the most; she runs against her for the PTA presidency.

This is a raunchy comedy from the folks that brought us The Hangover and its sequels. And yes, in some ways it’s a distaff version of that series but rather than male bonding which has been done to death and even female bonding, which has also had its share of movies made about it, this one is about the expectations piled onto the modern mom and there is certainly room for a movie on that subject. I do think we pile unreasonable demands on mothers these days and while this film focuses on upper middle class helicopter moms, similar demands are made on women from less comfortable economic strata.

For this movie to work, it needs to have some chemistry between the leads and to be honest, it isn’t quite as consistent as I would have liked. Hahn is a force of nature and absolutely dominates the movie; Kunis is an excellent actress but in a lot of ways she’s overwhelmed by Hahn’s personality. Bell is almost under the radar, her character too mousy and too innocuous to really make much of an impression.

At times the movie doesn’t really seem to address real life. For example, most of the moms that are in the film are stay at home moms and that just doesn’t jive with current stats; most moms are also in the workforce. It’s freakin’ expensive to raise a family and most families can’t do that on a single salary unless that salary is six figures or more. The helicopter mom phenomenon isn’t one solely limited to the upper classes.

By the same token, I don’t think it’s of particular shock value that women can be just as dirty in their behavior as men. Women, after all, do like and crave sex as well as men. Why this should be a shocking fact in 2016 is beyond me. There are those complaining that the movie doesn’t have to be raunchy, that woman can be funny without it. This is quite true but the same goes for men as well and serves to indicate that there is a double standard on both sides of the gender equation. Men and woman can both be raunchy or not; it makes no difference what the gender is. What matters is if you find the movie funny, or not. In my case, I found it funny enough to recommend as one of the better comedies this summer which frankly isn’t saying much, but hopefully this will also spawn a franchise. Lord knows that the ladies deserve one.

REASONS TO GO: The film addresses some real issues.  It’s really funny in a lot of different ways.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie isn’t as revolutionary as the filmmakers think it is. In some ways, it’s not very realistic.
FAMILY VALUES:  There’s a whole lot of profanity and sexuality, some full frontal nudity, as well as drug and alcohol content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The closing credits feature the main actresses having conversations about motherhood with their real life moms. All of those actresses are moms themselves.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/28/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 61% positive reviews. Metacritic: 60/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Daddy Day Care
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Suicide Squad

New Releases for the Week of July 29, 2016

JASON BOURNE

(Universal) Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Julia Styles, Riz Ahmed, Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd, Bill Camp. Directed by Paul Greengrass

One of the world’s most dangerous and wanted men, Jason Bourne, had escaped into the shadows. The CIA couldn’t find him and frankly, had stopped looking. But something has drawn him back out again; he can remember his past – all of it. And now, he is searching for something that those who run the covert corners of the CIA can’t figure out, but one thing’s for certain – it will be bad news for anyone who gets in his way.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Spy Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language)

Bad Moms

(STX) Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Christina Applegate. Motherhood in the 21^st century isn’t what it used to be; women these days not only have to put the needs of their kids and their husbands first, but also have to balance a career and an ever narrowing list of restrictions that make their lives more difficult and complex. It’s quite frankly, exhausting and when one mom rebels and goes on an epic binge, she and her friends will run smack dab into the PTA Stepford Mom who rules the local brood with an iron oven mitt.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for sexual material, full frontal nudity, language throughout and drug and alcohol content)

Café Society

(Lionsgate/Amazon) Jesse Eisenberg, Steve Carell, Kristen Stewart, Parker Posey.  In the Golden Age of Hollywood, a Bronx-born kid with ambitions for a high society life goes to work for his high-powered agent Phil, which his life with his bickering dysfunctional family may or may not have prepared him for. Certainly nothing prepared him for the beautiful assistant that he’s lost his heart to but when things don’t go as planned, he returns to New York to run a nightclub for his gangster brother and settles into a new life – until the love he lost walks into his club one night.

See the trailer, clips and an interview here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for some violence, a drug reference, suggestive material and smoking)

Dishoom

(Eros International) Nargis Fakhri, Akshay Kumar, Jacqueline Fernandez, John Abraham. Two men, devoted to the same girl, are devastated when they lose her to a third man. Things go from bad to worse when they discover that her fiance is an evil man with evil plans. They determine to rescue her, even if it might mean their lives.

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

Life, Animated

(The Orchard) Owen Suskind, Ron Suskind, Gilbert Gottfried, Jonathan Freeman. A family whose young son is born with autism is heartbroken when he is unable to communicate coherently with them. However, they find a way using their son’s love for Disney animated movies to communicate, which allows him to function in a relatively normal environment. As he prepares for life on his own, the challenges that face him continue to require the love and support of those around him. Look for the review of this film later today.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, and language including a suggestive reference)

Nerve

(Lionsgate) Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Juliette Lewis, Emily Meade. A high school senior is tired of playing things safe and watching life rather than living it. She decides to take on the popular online game Nerve, a game of escalating dares. At first it seems to be good clean fun but as the dares escalate, she finds herself trapped in a game where the stakes grow higher and higher and the dares grow more and more dangerous. She will definitely never be the same – if she can somehow survive the game.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (Opened Wednesday)
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material involving dangerous and risky behavior, some sexual content, language, drug content, drinking and nudity – all involving teens)

Captain Fantastic

Viggo Mortensen points out from which direction the Orc hordes are charging.

(2016) Drama (Bleecker Street) Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin Miller, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Erin Moriarty, Missi Pyle, Gallen Osier, Rex Young, Thomas Brophy, Mike Miller, Hannah Horton. Directed by Matt Ross

 

This is not a world conducive to raising kids. We are forced to work jobs that take ever-increasing amounts of our time, forcing us to leave them at day care, in schools where getting an education is an uphill battle and with diversions and distractions guaranteed to change our kids from thoughtful, caring people into automatons parroting whatever the cool kids are saying and preferring to do things that require no thought at all.

Ben (Mortensen) has decided to chuck all of that aside. Something of a latter day hippie tilting at the same windmills of Noam Chomsky and Norman Mailer did, he has removed his family – his wife and six kids – to the woods of the Pacific Northwest. There, they live off the grid; killing and growing their own food, making whatever it is they need, selling their crafts for the little money they do require and Ben both schooling and training the kids not only how to live off the land but to defend themselves from those who would take them off of it by force.

Ben has been doing this alone since his wife Leslie (Miller) has been hospitalized but when his worst fears come to pass and she dies, the entire family is devastated. Ben, a believer in transparency (when it suits him), tells his children in the bluntest terms possible. This of course precipitates a storm of emotion.

Nothing, however, when compared to what comes out of Jack (Langella), Leslie’s bereaved father who blames Ben and his alternative lifestyle for his daughter’s demise and forbids him and his children from attending her funeral. This, of course, inspires them all to pile into the family school bus and head to the services. Along the road, they’ll visit Ben’s sister Harper (Hahn) and her husband Dave (Zahn) who are far more in the normal meter with two sons of their own and predictably, things don’t go particularly well. When the confrontation comes, it will expose some raw wounds in what appeared to be a tight-knit family and call into question Ben’s methods and dearly-held philosophies.

Much of how you’re going to take in this film is going to depend on your attitudes towards the counterculture, both then and now. Those who look at the movement and find it to be self-righteous and arrogant will see those things in Ben; others who look back at that and see commitment and courage will see that in Ben. Curiously, there’s no drug use going on here, so far as I can tell. However, those who think that white rich people are getting the short end of the stick are likely to find this movie to be somewhat offensive.

Mortensen will probably always be Aragorn in my book; since he exploded in the public perception in Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth trilogy, he has stayed away largely from mainstream movies and typical roles. In some ways, Ben is as close to Viggo as we’re ever likely to see. Mortensen is a well-known iconoclast and besides being an incredibly handsome dude, has acting chops guys as good looking as he can only dream about. He is meant to carry the movie and he does.

The kids playing his kids managed not to get on my nerves, quite a feat when you get six child actors together for any reason. Occasionally I’d see a little bit of annoying little brat going on but for the most part the kids are interesting, thoughtful and bright. Ben’s oldest Bo (MacKay) has been accepted at some of the most prestigious universities in the country which isn’t the kind of thing that impresses his father, who disdains anything that has anything to do with the establishment, including education.

The first third of the movie has some beautiful landscapes from Washington State, and the cinematography is correspondingly lush. The middle third is essentially a road movie, largely taking place in deserts and plains and is as different a road movie as you’re likely to see. We get some glimpses of hypocrisy cracking through Ben’s veneer of moral rightness, as well as some of the conflicts going on within the family. In some ways, this is the most interesting part of the picture.

The final third is basically Ben and the kids coming to terms with the fall-out of Ben’s home schooling and attitudes towards mainstream life. There should be catharsis here (and the filmmakers sorely wants there to be) but the ending is such a letdown that any kind of catharsis just gets lost in the backwash. The ending feels arbitrary and inorganic and doesn’t seem consistent with what I thought the movie was trying to get across. Now, I might have misconstrued the filmmakers’ intentions and that’s okay, but quite frankly my wife and I looked at each other after the final credits started rolling and said in almost perfect unison “Really?” You don’t want to leave a movie with that kind of feeling.

Ross is best known as an actor in HBO’s hit comedy Silicon Valley turns out to be a fairly promising director. The timing here for the comedic parts are right on and the drama parts aren’t especially overbearing. While he could have used a better ending, he certainly has plenty to build on for a future career behind the camera if that’s the path he wants to take.

Even given all that, this is still an amazing, thought-provoking movie with one of the most charismatic actors in the business at the top of his form. In a summer full of disappointing blockbusters and run-of-the-mill sequels, this is a literal breath of fresh air.

REASONS TO GO: Mortensen is a powerfully charismatic actor. The film depicts an interesting conflict between alternative ideas and mainstream reality. It’s not your ordinary road movie.
REASONS TO STAY: The ending was a bit of a letdown.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some profanity and a brief scene of graphic nudity (Viggo Mortensen fans, rejoice!).
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The group of children cast in the film came to call Mortensen “Summer Dad” throughout the shoot during the summer of 2015.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/27/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 77% positive reviews. Metacritic: 72/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Automatic Hate
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Life, Animated

New Releases for the Week of July 22, 2016

STAR TREK BEYOND

(Paramount) Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Shohreh Aghdashloo. Directed by Justin Lin

While exploring a previously uncharted section of the quadrant, the U.S.S. Enterprise meets up with a powerful foe. Stranded on a strange planet without ship or crew, Captain James T. Kirk will need to use all his wiles and bravado to rescue his crew and escape the clutches of their captor, who means to put the values of the Federation to the test.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, IMAX
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action and violence)

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

(Fox Searchlight) Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Jane Horrocks, June Whitfield. One of the more beloved British sitcoms of the 90s makes a leap to the big screen as Edina and Patsy, two ladies who love the posh life, find themselves embroiled in a scandal. Stalked by the paparazzi, they are forced to flee to the French Riviera without a sou to their name. True to their nature, they hatch a scheme that will allow their vacation to be permanent – if they can but pull it off!

See the trailer, clips, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language including sexual references, and some drug use)

Captain Fantastic

(Bleecker Street) Viggo Mortensen, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Frank Langella. A counterculture sort of fellow tries to raise his kids off the grid in the Pacific Northwest, and instill in them everything they need to become extraordinary adults. However, when tragedy strikes the family, he must bring them into the world the rest of us live in and finds that not only are they shocked by what they discover, but that everything he has taught them has been called into question.

See the trailer, clips, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language and brief graphic nudity)

Equals

(A24) Kristen Stewart, Nicholas Hoult, Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver. In the future, humanity will have, like the Vulcans of Star Trek eschewed emotion, preferring to lead logical, orderly lives devoid of conflict – and devoid of love. Two young people discover a means to bypass their conditioning and feel something, soon discovering what they are feeling is love for one another and begin a dangerous secret romance.

See the trailer, clips and view the full movie on Amazon here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content, sensuality, partial nudity and disturbing images)

Fight Valley

(Breaking Glass) Susie Celek, Miesha Tate, Erin O’Brien, Kari J. Kramer. A young woman is found dead after entering the dangerous world of underground fighting. Her sister, vowing to find her killer and bring them to justice, begins training under a respected ex-fighter so she can enter the world that led to her sister’s death.

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

Ice Age: Collision Course

(20^th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah. In his quest for the elusive acorn, Skrat accidentally sets off a chain of events that may end the ice age forever and wipe out the creatures living in it. In order to escape the coming devastation, Manny, Diego and their friends must journey to exotic new lands and hope they find safety.

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

Lights Out

(New Line) Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Billy Burke, Maria Bello. A young woman escapes the nightmares of her childhood and her fear of what lurks in the dark. When she discovers her little brother is displaying the same symptoms, she returns home to confront her mother and the mysterious entity that has made her life a living hell, except now that entity wants to end all their lives once and for all.

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

The Family Fang

A family photo of a fractured family.

(2015) Dramedy (Starz Media) Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman, Christopher Walken, Maryanne Plunkett, Kathryn Hahn, Jason Butler Harner, Josh Pais, Marin Ireland, Harris Yulin, Michael Chernus, Eugenia Kuzmina, Linda Emond, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Jaiden Kaine, Grainger Hines, Scott Shepherd, Steve Witting, Danny Burstein, Taylor Rose, Genevieve Adams. Directed by Jason Bateman

Family isn’t always the way you envision it to be. Different families have different dynamics and what works for one might not necessarily work for another. And not all families are necessarily benevolent to their children either.

Caleb Fang (Harner) is an Artist (note the capital). He believes in Art above all else. His art is subversive performance art, usually utilizing his wife (Hahn) and children, whom he refers to as A and B. He has the kids pose as bank robbers, street buskers and other bizarre things without the general public knowing what’s going on. Caleb films everything to see the reaction of passersby. In an era before YouTube, he becomes a sensation in the art world but his kids grow up hating that their childhood was essentially hijacked in the name of art.

As adults, Baxter Fang (Bateman) has become a novelist who has written one good book and then one that he characterizes as “divisive,” and in the throes currently of a ginormous writer’s block. Annie Fang (Kidman) is an actress who, like most actresses of a certain age, is getting fewer and fewer good parts. When Baxter covers a redneck sporting event (in an effort to make some cash while his muse has dried up) and sustains a freakish head injury, his parent offer to help him convalesce. Baxter, terrified of being alone with Caleb (Walken) and Camille (Plunkett), convinces his reluctant sister to come along and save him.

Of course, Caleb wants to involve his children in a new art piece but when they refuse he gets extremely angry. Annie is hoping to snag a part that would jumpstart her career again and Baxter…well he’s still recovering and still can’t write a word. However when their parents turn up missing and later their car is found with Caleb’s blood on the front seat, both of the siblings are extremely concerned. Has something awful truly happened, or could this be their greatest prank ever?

Bateman, who debuted as a director with the solid Bad Words does well with this adaptation of the bestselling novel by Kevin Wilson. This is a bit different than his previous effort as there is as much drama here as comedy. Bateman has always been a fine comic actor but shows some dramatic chops here and shows he can actually do some fine dramatic work. Considering he’s working off of Walken and Kidman, both of whom are extremely talented actors in their own right, he not only holds up with them but stands out. This is by far the most complex character he’s had to play in a movie yet.

Kidman and Walken also deliver solid performances, Walken in particular stealing the screen with his patented laser beam stare. Veteran stage actress Plunkett also kicks in with a fine screen performance. In the flashback sequences, Hahn is solid as is Harner, and Burstein and Emond also deliver noteworthy support. Bateman is clearly establishing himself as an actor’s director, and this kind of darkly comic material is right in his wheelhouse.

The only problem is that the middle third is a bit slow but it does kick it up a notch during the final third of the film. Other than that, this is a fine dark comedy with dramatic overtones that examine the dynamics of the dysfunctional family, how parents sometimes don’t do what’s best for their kids so much as what’s best for themselves and finally, the difference between art and Art and why one is superior and the other pretentious.

REASONS TO GO: Jason Bateman gives one of his best performances ever. The humor is subversive.
REASONS TO STAY: Drags a bit in the middle.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a fair amount of cussing.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Nicole Kidman’s father visited her on the upstate New York set, but that was the last time they would see each other as he passed away on September 14, 2014. The world premiere would be exactly one year to the day of his death.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/11/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 78% positive reviews. Metacritic: 67/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: I Heart Huckabees
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Louder Than Bombs

The Visit

There’s something a little bit off about Nana.

(2015) Suspense (Universal) Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deana Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Samuel Stricklen, Patch Darragh, Jorge Cordova, Steve Annan, Benjamin Kanes, Ocean James, Seamus Moroney, Brian Gildea, Richard Barlow, Dave Jia, Gabrielle Pentalow, Michelle Rose Domb, Shelby Lackman, Erica Lynne Arden. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

For any kid, a visit to the grandparents is something magical. Grandparents, after all, tend to be the ones who spoil the kids, treat them like royalty, allow them to do things their parents would never let them do (and ironically, that the grandparents never let their parents do when they were kids). What kid wouldn’t want to spend a week with their grandparents?

Becca (DeJonge) and her younger brother Tyler (Oxenbould) are about to head to rural Pennsylvania to visit their Nana (Dunagan) and Pop-Pop (McRobbie). The older couple is estranged from their mother (Hahn) who was dating someone they didn’t approve of; they had a big fight and mom did something so awful that she can’t bring herself to tell her daughter what it was. Becca hopes that she can make a documentary  (because, every kid in a horror film wants to be an auteur) about the visit so she can capture her mom’s parents forgiving their child on tape and healing the rift between them.

At first, it seems an ideal visit; it’s winter and snow covers the farm that they live on, but Nana is making all sorts of cookies and baked goods it seems hourly and Pop-Pop is full of bonhomie and charm. The kids are a little taken aback by a few rules – not to leave their room after 9:30pm or to ever go into the basement because of a mold problem but these seem harmless enough.

Then the two older people start acting…a little off. Pop-Pop seems disturbingly paranoid and Nana seems to absolutely go bonkers after dark. Becca and Tyler capture it all on tape. Mom, who has gone on a cruise with her boyfriend (Cordoba) is skeptical. It soon becomes apparent to the kids that there is something very wrong going on in Pennsylvania and that there may be no going home for them – ever.

Director M. Night Shyamalan has had a very public career, becoming a wunderkind right out of the box with a pair of really well-made movies. The next two weren’t quite as good and since then he’s been on a terrible streak of movies that are, to be generous, mediocre at best and downright awful at worst. The good news is that this is his best effort in nearly a decade. The bad news is that isn’t saying very much.

Shyamalan uses the found footage conceit which has gotten pretty old and stale at this point. To his credit, he does as good a job as anyone has lately, but he also violates a lot of the tropes of the sub-genre, adding in graphics and dissolves which kind of spoil the illusion of watching raw footage from essentially home movies. I have to say that I think it was a tactical error to do this in found footage format; the movie might have been stronger had he simply told the story using conventional means.

Shyamalan has had a history of finding talented juvenile actors and extracting terrific performances from them; DeJonge is the latest in that string. Yes, she can be too chipper and too annoying, but then again when you consider the age of her character that’s not out of step with how young teen and preteen girls behave. She’s just so, Oh my God!

Oxenbould isn’t half bad either, although his character who is gregarious, outgoing and a little bit too smug for his own good can be grating from time to time, particularly when he starts to rap. Misogyny isn’t cute even when it’s coming out of the mouth of a 12-year-old and some of the lyrics are borderline in that regard. It may be authentic, but ending each rap with a reference to a fairly unflattering portrayal of women is something I could have done without.

Tyler is something of comic relief here and he does it pretty well. I liked the business of him deciding to clean up his language by using female pop singers names in place of expletives, like shouting “Sara McLaughlin!” when he stubs a toe, or “Shakira!” instead of a word for excrement. It’s a cute idea and I have to admit I chuckled at it but again, seems to reflect a fairly low opinion of women.

Shyamalan excels at making the audience feel a little off-balance and while the twist ending here (you know there had to be one) isn’t on par with some of his others, it is at least a decent one. There are a few plot holes – early on Shyamalan makes it clear that there’s no cell phone service at the farmhouse and yet the kids are able to get on a laptop and use Skype. Where’s the Wi-Fi coming from? Perhaps the aliens from Signs are providing it.

Nonetheless, this is a pretty taut suspense movie that has elements of horror in it and makes for solid entertainment. Fans of Shyamalan will welcome this return to form while those who take great delight in trolling the man may be disappointed that he didn’t serve up another helping of turkey. Think of this as kind of a pre-Halloween thriller and don’t pay too much attention to the man behind the curtain; hopefully this will signal that Shyamalan is back on track and ready to fulfill the promise that he exhibited nearly 20 years ago.

REASONS TO GO: Decently tense.
REASONS TO STAY: Quasi-found footage getting old hat.
FAMILY VALUES: Disturbing thematic material and child peril, some nudity, plenty of violence and terror and brief foul language, not to mention gratuitous rapping.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The original title of the movie was Sundowning.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/23/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 58% positive reviews. Metacritic: 55/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: :The Demon Seed
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Mission to Lars