New Releases for the Week of February 22, 2019

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, F. Murray Abraham, Kit Harrington, Craig Ferguson, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill. Directed by Dean DeBlois

The final entry in this trilogy has Hiccup and Astrid now leading the village which has turned into a chaotic paradise for dragons. The appearance of a female Night Fury coincides with the biggest threat the village has ever seen, forcing Hiccup and Toothless to journey to the near-mythic Hidden World, the original home of all dragons – if it exists. If it doesn’t, dragons may well disappear forever.

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

Arctic

(Bleecker Street) Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradöttir. A man stranded in the Arctic after a plane crash must make a life-or-death decision whether to stay in the relative safety of his camp and maybe never being rescued, or trekking through the harsh environment and unknown peril of the Arctic on the chance he might make it to safety.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Adventure
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for language and some bloody images)

Fighting with My Family

(MGM) Dwayne Johnson, Florence Pugh, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost. The true story of wrestling superstar Paige who along with her brother Zak get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try out for the WWE. When she is the only one selected, she leaves family and the familiar behind to enter the cutthroat world of pro wrestling alone.

See the trailer, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Biography
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and sexual material, language throughout, some violence and drug content)

Never Look Away

(Sony Classics) Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl. Loosely based on the life of Gerhard Richter, an artist survives the horrors of Nazi Germany only to find himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany. Determined to find his artistic freedom, he plans an escape that will take him to the West where he will become the vanguard of a new artistic movement.

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

Run the Race

(Roadside Attractions) Tanner Stine, Kristoffer Polaha, Mykelti Williamson, Mario van Peebles. Two orphaned brothers look to football as a way out of poverty. When one’s shot at an athletic scholarship to college is derailed by an injury, the other brother laces up the track cleats and hopes to make his brother’s dream come true anyway.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Epic Theaters at Lee Vista, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Port Orange Pavilion, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal The Loop, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG (for thematic content and some teen partying)

Total Dhamaal

(Fox STAR) Ajay Devgn, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Mishra. A small-time criminal gets his hands on a treasure but his partner double crosses him and disappears. However, the partner blabs the location of the loot to three rival gangs which gets back to his ex-partner and the race is on to get to the booty before the others do.

See the trailer, clips and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Alone/Together
Mithrai
NTR: Mahanayakudu

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Alone/Together
Kumbalangi Nights
LKG
Mithrai
NTR: Mahanayakudu
We Are the Heat

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Alone/Together
The Changeover
Extreme Job

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Alone/Together
Blue Alchemy: Stories of Indigo
NTR: Mahanayakudu

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Arctic
Fighting with My Family
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
We Are the Heat

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Redemption Road

Morgan Simpson is just realizing that Michael Clarke Duncan switched hats with him when he wasn’t looking.

(2010) Drama (Freestyle Releasing) Morgan Simpson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Luke Perry, Kiele Sanchez, Taryn Manning, Tom Skerritt, Melvin van Peebles, Linds Edwards, Catherine McGoohan, Jet Jurgensmeyer, Brooke Byam, Heather Simpson, Charlie Poe, James Cook, Lee Perkins, Wendy Keeling, Cinda McCain, Denise Johnson, Elizabeth Ayers. Directed by Mario van Peebles

 

Singing the blues has few requirements, but they are important. For one, you must have an expressive voice. It doesn’t need to be pretty, but it needs to convey pain and heartache. In fact, sometimes the roughest most un-lovely of voices are best-suited to singing the blues. Secondly, you must be authentic – true believers can spot a phony a mile off. Finally, you must have lived your blues to at least some extent.

In the case of Jefferson Bailey (Simpson) he’s lived those blues to the fullest. A blues singer with stage fright, he is a raging alcoholic deeply in debt living hand to mouth in Austin, Texas. One night a mysterious stranger named Augy (Duncan) shows up with news – his grandfather has passed away and has left him an inheritance. Rather than stick around and wait for an angry loan shark to take payment out of his hide, Jefferson elects to blow town and head to Huntsville, Alabama to collect. As it so happens Augy is headed his way.

The two form a kind of a bond on the way to Huntsville. This is no trip down the Interstate; this is a ride through the back roads of the Deep South. Once they arrive, Jefferson will discover that there is more than meets the eye to his friend Augy and that some things happen for a reason. There is also a cuckolded husband hot on his trail and even though the road to redemption stretches out before him, he must first confront his past in order to make his way down that road.

This is one of those movies that sounds a lot deeper than it actually is. Lots of the characters spend time pontificating on the nature of the blues and how it relates to life. The truth about the blues is this – nobody really knows what it is exactly but they know it when they hear it. Trying to put a handle on the blues is like trying to create an absolute definition of love – it changes from person to person.

The late Michael Clarke Duncan also co-produced this and this is one of his better performances since his Oscar-nominated turn in The Green Mile. There is an air of mystery about him but as the movie progresses we get to see a more human side of Augy. Duncan gives the character the distinct gravitas of his trademark baritone but also the humanity he brought to roles like John Coffey. Those fans of the actor who haven’t seen the film should by all means seek it out; it is a reminder of just what a tremendous actor he was and what a great loss his passing was.

On the flipside, Simpson – who co-wrote the script – seems to be a little bit out of his depth. Much of the movie hangs on his….well, redemption and we don’t get a sense of the journey the man is taking. Sure he has made some incredibly bad choices but we don’t get a sense of who Jefferson is, what prompted him to make those choices and to a great extent that cripples the movie overall.

Those who love the blues will be in for a treat as there are several noted blues artists on the soundtrack including the criminally ignored Blind Willie Dixon. One gets a sense of the roadhouses and juke joints, the summer night sweat with a cold beer and the blues being played well. There may be no more quintessentially American experience than that.

Cinematographer Matthew Irving and director Van Peebles both seem to have a deep abiding affection for the South because it is photographed so beautifully here. There are some beautiful Southern sunsets, small towns and rural fields juxtaposed with neon beer signs and a battered pick-up truck making its way up the highway.

This is a movie meant to appeal to both the heart and the mind. While it has its moments, it just doesn’t quite pull it all together as a whole. While the performances of Sanchez, Skerritt and especially Duncan merit a look, that’s about all I can recommend about it.

WHY RENT THIS: Great soundtrack and cinematography. Duncan, Sanchez and Skerritt excel.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Overly sentimental. Too many homilies. Simpson lacks the charisma for a role as central as his.

FAMILY VALUES: Definite adult themes along with some violence, some sexuality and some foul language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Made its world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in 2010.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $29,384 on a $2.3M production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Black Snake Moan

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: My Week With Marilyn

Multiple Sarcasms

 

Stockard Channing reluctantly admits how many times she laughed in the movie.

(2010) Drama (Multiple Avenue) Timothy Hutton, Dana Delaney, Mira Sorvino, Mario van Peebles, India Ennenga, Laila Robins, Stockard Channing, Nadia Dassouki, Joan Jett, Chris Sarandon, Alex Manette, Julia K. Murray, Stephen Singer, Steve Sirkis. Directed by Brooks Branch

 

Mid-life crises are nothing to sneeze at. It is a time when we feel the most self-doubt; a sinking feeling that things are as good as they’re ever going to be, that the things we haven’t yet accomplished never will be. Self-doubt becomes our friend and we often make sweeping changes as kind of a last hurrah to our youth.

Gabriel (Hutton) is a successful architect who is married to Annie (Delaney), a devoted wife and has a wonderful daughter, Elizabeth (Ennenga) who is full of joy. He lives in a beautiful home in Manhattan and has everything going for him. While it’s 1979 and the Reagan era is just about to begin, things are looking good for Gabriel.

Except he isn’t happy. While all the elements (you would think) should add up to happiness, the equation just doesn’t work. He is moping and feeling somehow unfulfilled and decides to write a play about it. He finds himself an agent (Channing) and at her urging, begins writing, using incidents from his own life and family to act out his misery.

This brings on some resentment, particularly in his patient wife who has put up with his moping for some time. Gabriel is also finding some attraction to his long-time platonic friend Cari (Sorvino) who runs a hip CBGB-esque nightclub. She feels much the same way but rejects his advances, knowing that an affair between the two of them would be bad for both of them.

As Gabriel places more and more of his attention on his project, he loses his job and his relationship with Annie crumbles. Will his mid-life crisis lead to him losing everything in his life that matters?

There is a decent movie to be had here but what we kind of end up with is a mess. While Hutton is normally a fine performer and he has a strong supporting cast behind him, he is given a role which while it harkens a bit to the films of John Cassavetes lacks the depth of character that Cassavetes was known for. Here, Gabriel’s general despondency feels more like a plot contrivance than anything genuine.

It seems reasonable to assume that Gabriel feels that he is married to the wrong woman; certainly that’s not uncommon among men of middle age. It is also true that men going through the middle age blues tend to do incredibly dumbass things. In that sense, Branch (who also co-wrote this) gets it right. What he fails to do is capitalize on it. The events aren’t organic; it’s like the writers wrote an outline of the story, decided what they wanted to do and never gave a thought as to how to get there properly.

That’s a shame because there is plenty of fertile ground to explore. Branch also lucked out in getting a lively performance from Ennenga, who might turn out to be the most memorable aspect of this film. She lights up the screen whenever she’s on. I do hope that she attracts some notice for it but in all honesty this micro-indie didn’t get much of a release and while it’s been popping up on Showtime from time to time, hasn’t been on the radar for many and for good reason. With a more polished script and a bit more insight, this could have been marvelous instead of mediocre. Maybe the next one will be a better bet.

WHY RENT THIS: Hutton is fine and Ennenga is marvelous.  

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Overbearing at times, preposterous at others. Gabriel’s mid-life crisis feels more like a plot point than a genuine issue.

FAMILY VALUES: There are plenty of sexual references as well as a bit of foul language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Joan Jett makes a cameo as a 1979-era punk singer.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $29,731 on an unreported production budget; I’m quite sure this failed to recoup its costs.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Peep World

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: The Freebie