New Releases for the Week of October 8, 2021

NO TIME TO DIE

(MGM) Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear, Jeffrey Wright. Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

Daniel Craig takes his last lap as James Bond, as Bond is pulled out of a tranquil retirement to help an old friend on what at first seems to be a simple task. However, it turns into something far more dangerous as he comes up against a mysterious and deadly new villain armed with dangerous technology.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Spy Action
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive material)

American Insurrection

(Saban) Nadine Malouf, Nick Westrate, Brandon Perea, Sarah Wharton. In a future America (well, let’s hope not), a civilian militia has begun tracking everyone not white, straight and cisgender through a high-tech barcode system. A group of friends decide to escape the oppression and flee to Canada but that will be no easy task.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sci-Fi Action
Now Playing: Studio Movie Grille Sunset Walk
Rating: R (for some strong violence, language throughout and some sexuality)

Azor

(MUBI) Fabrizio Rongione, Elli Medeiros, Stéphanie Cléau, Alexandre Trocki. Appropriate material given the recent release of the Pandora papers, a Swiss private banker heads to Buenos Aires during the military junta of the 1970s to reassure their wealthy clients after their representative there mysteriously disappears.

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

I’m Your Man

(Bleecker Street) Maren Eggert, Dan Stevens, Sandra Hüller, Hans Löw. In order to get funding for her own research, a young scientest agrees to live with a humanoid robot tailored to be her perfect mate.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: CMX Plaza Café Orlando
Rating: R (for some sexual content and language)

Lamb

(A24) Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær, Guðnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson. The studio that brought you Midsommar brings you another international horror masterpiece as a childless couple in Iceland find something disturbing in their sheep pen. They will soon face the consequences of defying the will of nature.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Enzian, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: R (for some bloody violent images and sexuality/nudity)

Who Do You Think I Am?

(Cohen Media Group) Juliette Binoche, François Civil, Guillaume Goulx, Charles Berling. After being ghosted by her much younger lover, a middle aged single mom creates a fake online profile of a vivacious 20-something woman to snoop on her ex, but finds herself getting into an increasingly more intimate online relationship with his roommate.

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

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman
Convergence: Courage in a Crisis (Tuesday)
Fever Dream (Wednesday)
The Gig Is Up
Jacinta
Killing Eleanor (Tuesday)
Madame X
Madres
The Manor
Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle
The Secret of Sinchanee
South of Heaven
Survive the Game
Witkin and Witkin

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Azor
Fever Dream
Lamb
Madres
The Manor
No Time to Die
The Secret of Sinchanee

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Captain Marvel

Girl powerful.

(2019) Superhero (Disney) Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Clark Gregg, Rune Temte, Algenis Perez Soto, McKenna Grace, Akira Akbar, Matthew Maher, Chuku Modu, Vik Sahay, Colin Ford, Kenneth Mitchell, Stephen A. Chang, Diana Toshiko. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

 

Vers (Larson) is a warrior of the Kree, a noble race that is at war with the nefarious Skrulls, who are green-skinned pointed-eared shapeshifters. Can’t trust someone who can be anybody else, right? Vers has a problem; she’s lost most of her memories, so she doesn’t know who she is. Her commanding officer and trainer Yon-Rogg (Law) seems to spend most of his time trying to get her from using the energy bolts that she shoots from her hands, which would seem to be an advantage you’d want to develop in a warrior you were training, no?

During a skirmish with the Skrulls and their manipulative leader Talos (Mendelsohn), Vers winds up stranded on planet C-53, which we like to call Earth. And we discover that Vers is really Carol Danvers, a former Air Force test pilot who is One of Us. With her memories returning, Carol discovers that much of what she understood to be true was in fact a big lie and that there’s a monstrous secret that has been kept from her. Will these revelations break her, or mold her into the hero she was always meant to be?

Being that this is a Marvel movie, I’m sure you can guess which one it turns out to be. Sadly, this isn’t one of the better movies in the MCU library. It feels a bit flat and lifeless, even given the nifty special effects and the tireless efforts of a de-aged Jackson as a young Nick Fury (the movie takes place in the Year of Our Lord 1995) and a cantankerous cat. The plot is somewhat predictable and Larsen’s performance is a tad too laid back for my taste, but she still commands a great deal of presence and she’s utilized far better in Avengers: Endgame. It’s not a bad movie, you understand, but it doesn’t quite have the presence of the best movies in the Marvel pantheon.

REASONS TO SEE: Gets the Nineties right.
REASONS TO AVOID: Suffers by comparison to Wonder Woman.
FAMILY MATTERS: There is some mild profanity, as well as plenty of sci-fi action sequences.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Stan Lee passed away during the film’s post-production. The filmmakers and Marvel Studios elected to insert a tribute to him at the beginning of the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, DirecTV, Disney Plus, Google Play, Microsoft, Spectrum, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/5/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 79% positive review;; Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Green Lantern
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Fatherhood

Max Cloud

A Max Cloud family Christmas portrait.

(2020) Science Fiction (Well Go USA) Isabelle Allen, Scott Adkins, John Hannah, Lashana Lynch, Eliot James Langridge, Franz Drameh, Sally Collett, Jason Maza, Tommy Flanagan, Sam Hazeldine, Andi Osho, Shirin Daryale, Martyn Ford, Finley Pearson, Geraldine Sharrock, Craig Lambert, Nigel Black, Ruth Horrocks, Lois-Amber Toole.  Directed by Martin Owen

 

There is something innocent about old-time 16-bit videogames. Maybe because we were so much younger when we played them; or perhaps it was because the games themselves were simple, good versus evil types of things, uncomplicated and perfect escape from whatever was troubling us, be it school, parents, girlfriends, jobs, or lack thereof.

Sarah (Allen) is an obsessive gamer. Her favorite game du jour is The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud, featuring the titular character (Adkins), a cocky lantern-jawed space hero saving the galaxy from nefarious master criminals with his trusty sidekick Jake (Langridge), the ship’s cook. However, Sarah’s dad (Hazeldine) thinks Sarah shouldn’t be playing videogames quite so much and it is a source of conflict between them.

As Sarah plays the game, she finds a hidden character, the Space Witch (Maza) – who is more accurately a space wizard, but to each his own – who somehow zaps Sarah from the real world into the game – into the body of Jake. Sarah’s best friend Cowboy (Drameh) – who is most assuredly not a competent gamer – stumbles onto the girl-within-a-game scenario and the two of them figure that the way to get Sarah back into reality is to win the game. That’s not as easy as it sounds, since Cowboy pretty much sucks at gaming and has to take frequent pee breaks. Coming after Max and Jake/Sarah is the Revenger (Hannah), a ruthless villain trying to escape from the prison world that Max crash landed on, and his right-hand flunky Shee (Lynch) who has plans of her own. Together, the two of them could end Sarah’s game permanently if she’s not careful – and if Cowboy doesn’t come through.

\There is just enough chutzpah here to carry the movie through, for the most part. Adkins has been a talented, underrated action star for the latter half of the last decade, and he proves to have some pretty solid comedy chops. Overall, with it’s primary color palette and sly shout-outs to the games of our misspent youths (or those of our parents), the movie retains a kind of goofy charm that is truly insidious. You might find yourself liking the movie in spite of its flaws.

The production values aren’t too bad when you consider that they are deliberately going for a certain retro-videogame look. The cast is strong and I’m not just talking about Adkins; Drameh and Hannah both have solid genre pedigrees and many of the rest of the cast cut their teeth on some impressive projects. There is a good deal of scenery chewing going on here, but the situation kind of calls for it, you know?

And there are flaws galore. The movie is overburdened with subplots, and underutilizes Adkins who has a physical presence that the movie could have used. There are also a few too many cliches and the cheese factor here is off-the-scale. Still in all, the movie is mindless, harmless good fun, just like the video games of yore – you Millennial whippersnappers have no idea what you missed.

REASONS TO SEE: Possessed of its own offbeat charm.
REASONS TO AVOID: You may end up overdosing on the cheese.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Ike White’s father played keyboards for Ella Fitzgerald.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, DirecTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity and sci-fi video game violence.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/23/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 64% positive reviews, Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Girl Lost: A Hollywood Story

New Releases for the Week of March 8, 2019

CAPTAIN MARVEL

(Disney/Marvel) Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Clark Gregg, Annette Bening, Gemma Chan. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

Carol Danvers, a human woman with only snippets of memory of her Earth past, becomes the most powerful being in the Universe. She is caught in the middle of a war between two starfaring races that threatens to engulf the Earth. This, the penultimate film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is the second to be set in the past (in this case, the 1990s).

See the trailer, clips, interviews and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG=13 (for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive language)

The Kid

(Lionsgate) Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan, Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio. A young boy is forced to go on the run across the American West in a desperate attempt to save his sister from a villainous uncle. Along the way he becomes entwined in the tragic confrontation between Sheriff Pat Garrett and outlaw Billy the Kid and will use what he learns from both men to decide his course of action.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Western
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: R (for violence and language)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Badla
Yajamana

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Badla
Cats Don’t Dance
Mapplethorpe
Ruben Brandt, Collector
Yajamana

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Badla
Yajamana

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

118
In Search of Greatness
Of Gods and Men
Roma
Yajamana

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Captain Marvel
Roma

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Miami International Film Festival, Miami