Luca

Where’s Aquaman?

(2021) Animated Feature (Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saiverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sohn, Lorenzo Crisci, Marina Massironi, Gino La Monica, Sandy Martin, Giacomo Gianniotti, Elisa Gabrielli, Mimi Maynard, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jonathan Nichols, Francesca Fanti. Directed by Enrico Casarosa

 
Different scares us. Different makes us suspicious. Human beings don’t handle “different” very well. We never have.

They don’t get much more different than Luca (Tremblay). You see, Luca is actually a sea monster, living in the Mediterranean just off the coast of Italy. But he’s not exactly thrilled about it; he finds life under the sea repetitive and boring (I’m sure most human kids his age would snort “join the club”). He longs for a different kind of existence and when he asks where boats come from, his overprotective Mom (Rudolph) and Dad (Gaffigan) try to deflect his interest in another direction.

But like most boys, Luca has a curiosity that just won’t take no for an answer. When he meets fellow sea monster Alberto (Grazer), a much more free-spirited sort than Luca, he learns that once their kind leaves the water they magically transform into human beings. It’s only when they become wet that their true nature is revealed.

At Alberto’s urging, the two boys decide to investigate the coastal fishing village of Portorosso (Miyazaki fans will appreciate the reference) where they meet Giulia (Berman), a young girl who is also high-spirited, and dreams of winning an annual competition in which a *gasp* Vespa is the top prize, but local bully Ercole (Raimondo) who has a shiny Vespa of his own stands in her way. She dreams of winning the Vespa and the boys know that the iconic Italian scooter is their ticket to exploring this great big new world they’ve discovered. However, they have to be very careful not to reveal their secret to the townspeople who are superstitious and frightened of the “monsters” and would be very happy to put a harpoon into the both of them if they ever found out the truth.

This is another movie that was meant to be released theatrically but the privations of the pandemic exiled it to a streaming service instead, and in some ways that’s a shame because the animation here is absolutely gorgeous and would look OUTSTANDING on a big theater screen.

The problem is that the story really feels like it’s been done before – and to be honest, it has. Honestly, I could hear Ariel bursting into “Part of Their World” at various times during the movie. That’s not the only thing that brings a sense of Déjà vu though; the characters look a bit like the stop-motion characters in Aardman films (except for Massimo who’s a dead ringer for the Dad in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs), and the detailed background art? Pure Miyazaki.

I can see the anti-Italian defamation league (assuming there is one) getting hot under the collar here; almost all of the male Italian characters have some sort of bushy moustache (not unlike a cartoon pizzeria owner) including the cat Machiavelli. The villagers or Porto Rossi subsist on a diet of pasta, gelato and perhaps fish. All they were missing was a Mafia turf war.

That’s not to say there isn’t some worthwhile stuff here; the movie has a few genuine moments here and there and if the humor is a bit infantile, I get the sense the movie was also meant for a younger audience than other Pixar classics. Still in all, this was a Pixar effort that didn’t quite hit all the notes that they usually do. It’s not quite as bad as anthropomorphic automobiles, but it’s not one of their prouder moments either

REASONS TO SEE: Wonderful animation, as we have come to expect from Pixar.
REASONS TO AVOID: A pedestrian story and characters who are overly familiar.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some rude humor, mild profanity, some cartoon violence and mature themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Portorosso is based on Cinque Terre, where director Enrico Casarosa spent his summers as a boy.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Disney Plus
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/23/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 91% positive reviews; Metacritic: 71/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Little Mermaid
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Settlers

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The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Cellphone armageddon.

(2021) Animated Feature (Netflix/Columbia) Starring the voices of Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Michael Rianda, Eric André, Olivia Colman, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, Chrissy Teigan, John Legend, Charlyne Yi, Blake Griffin, Conan O’Brien, Doug the Pug, Jay Pharaoh, Melissa Sturm, Doug Nicholas, Jeff Rowe, Madeleine McGraw, Ellen Wightman, Sasheer Zarmata. Directed by Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe

 
We have let the tech genii out of the bottle, like it or not. The generations that have grown up with in the digital age are more comfortable looking at a smartphone screen than they are into the eyes of another human being. I suppose that might be perceived as a knock, but at the risk of being offensive, it’s just an expression of the way things are. Whether you think that’s a good thing, a bad thing or not a thing at all, it is the way it is.

Katie (Jacobson) is a proud online card-carrying member of the smartphone generation. An aspiring filmmaker, her joy comes from making short comedy films starring the family pug (Romé lives!) which eventually gets her accepted into the filmmaking school at CalArts (not for nothing, but that is the alma mater of many of the heavyweights in modern computer animation, as well as my own sister who is a graphic designer).

Predictably, her pragmatic father (McBride) doesn’t understand her – “You can make a living at that?” he asks incredulously when informed of his daughter’s intended major – which his wife (Rudolph) gently (or maybe not so gently) nudges him in the direction of spending time with his daughter before losing her forever. His solution is to drive his little girl to college as a family road trip, which he doesn’t realize is stressing her out because she will lose time getting oriented with her new tribe with whom she has already connected with online.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley where the chips always land where they may, PAL CEO Mark (André) is unveiling a new AI replacing the old one (Colman) who doesn’t take kindly to being cast aside. She decides to take matters into her own non-existant hands and reprograms a fleet of service robots to capture humans and imprison them in “fun pods,” conquering the Earth in the name of Big Tech. I imagine a few QAnon believers might think this could actually happen.

The family is blissfully unaware of all that is happening until they see fleets of robots kidnapping humans and realize that the apocalypse isn’t going to be brought about by zombies, but by robots. That’s right, pop culture fans – Robert Kirkman lied to you. Get over it. As it turns out that they become one of the last few families that hasn’t been captured and of course, one of mankind’s last remaining hopes when Katie figures out a kill code that could shut down the technology overthrow. But can they input it into the system in time?

It is perhaps ironic that a movie exhibiting a healthy distrust of technology is told in computer animataion on an online streaming platform. To be fair, the movie was meant to come out in theaters, but the coronavirus ad other plans. After a couple of delays and title changes, the movie was finally sold to Netflix and released online this past April (assuming you’re reading this before March 31, 2022). However, that might be fitting in that the clear target audience for the movie is the ones who feel more comfortable streaming movies at home rather than actually going to a movie theater.

The movie is full of pop culture references ranging from Furbies to Star Wars to Greta Gerwig to SNL. Although PAL is meant to be an amalgam of Apple and Amazon (a terrifying thought if ever there was one). It also has fanboy cred in that is produced by the white hot duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller who neither wrote nor directed this, although their influence on the film is as plain as the nose on my face.

The main drawback here is that other than Colman, who seems to be having the time of her life as the homicidal AI, most of the voice cast is oddly subdued and bland which considering the kind of cast they have is mystifying. There are some real laugh-out-loud funny moments but other okes may leave you flat. They are exploring a real disconnect between generations, and things that millennials and younger viewers will get may fly over the heads of older viewers and vice versa. And perhaps that is part of the movie’s overall point.

I have to admit I was left a little bit cold by all of this, although I grant you that perhaps I was not in the right space to watch this movie. It HAS been a big critical success, although the numbers released by Netflix don’t have it necessarily up there with some of the other would-be theatrical releases that were forced into streaming platforms when it became clear that it would not be getting a favorable release date anytime soon, and a movie like this has a definite shelf life – many of the references and depictions here will be archaic by the time 2022 comes along and I won’t even consider how dated it will seem in five years. But that’s just the nature of the world we live in now.

REASONS TO SEE: The animation is occasionally breathtaking.
REASONS TO AVOID: The voice cast is surprisingly lackluster.
FAMILY VALUES: There is lots of kidflick action and some mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls, was a story consultant for the film. Rowe and Rianda both directed for the series.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/1/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: 98% positive reviews; Metacritic: 80/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Goodbye Honey

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Everything is still awesome…isn’t it?

(2019) Animated Feature (Warner Brothers) Starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Maya Rudolph, Will Ferrell, Jadon Sand, Brooklynn Prince, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, Jason Momoa, Cobie Smulders, Ralph Fiennes, Bruce Willis, Gary Payton, Sheryl Swoopes. Directed by Mike Mitchell

 

The 2014 hit The Lego Movie was a breath of fresh air in the animated feature universe, chock full of pop culture references but with enough whimsy and creativity to satisfy children and adults alike. After two spinoffs hit with a bang (The Lego Batman Movie) and a thud (The Lego Ninjago Movie), will the sequel recapture the magic of the original?

Well, no. In the new film, Emmet (Pratt) is building the dream home for himself and Lucy/Wyldstyle (Banks), complete with double decker porch swing. But all is not well in Bricksburg; Finn (Sand), the little boy whose imagination powered the first movie, is forced to play with his little sister (Prince) and her Duplos with catastrophic results. The town is a barren wasteland, populated by Duplo-built monsters. Everything is decidedly not awesome.

To make matters worse, Emmet’s friends have been kidnapped by General Mayhem (Beatriz) to attend the wedding of Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Haddish) and Batman (Arnett) is busy “on a standalone adventure” so it is up to Emmet to save the day, although Emmet who still retains his optimism despite the devastation, may not be up to the task.

The pop culture references are still plentiful, the oddball humor is still there, but it all feels really stale. There’s a feeling that this is geared towards even younger kids than the first, which isn’t necessarily good news for the parents roped into watching this alongside them. While Pratt, Arnett (who arrives late in the third act) and Haddish do their level best, they can’t overcome the sense that we’ve seen this before. I really enjoyed the closing credits, though; it is not a good sign when the best thing about a movie are the credits at the very end.

REASONS TO SEE: Pratt, Haddish and Arnett get the job done.
REASONS TO AVOID: Not an improvement from the first film.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some peril and rude humor, as well as mild profanity and drug references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: After the disappointing box office results for the film, Warner Brothers let the rights lapse; future Lego movies will be coming out on Universal, who snatched them up.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, HBO Max,  Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/29/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 85% positive reviews, Metacritic: 65/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: No Small Matter

New Releases for the Week of February 8, 2019

THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART

(Warner Brothers) Starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Maya Rudolph, Will Ferrell. Directed by Mike Mitchell

The citizens of Bricksburg are once again facing a deadly threat, this time in the form of LEGO Duplo characters from outer space. Their quest will take them to strange unexplored worlds including a galaxy where everything is a musical. Batman sings?

See the trailer, video featurettes, a clip, an interview and a short film here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for mild action and rude humor)

Capernaum

(Sony Classics) Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Kawthar Al Haddad. A street kid who flees his negligent parents survives by his wits on the streets of Lebanon. When he sees justice meted out in a Lebanese court, he decides to sue his parents for the act of giving him life and then leaving him to rot. The actors are all non-professionals who are given the situations that the screenplay dictated and asked to speak and gesture as if the events were happening to them. Where things deviated from the script the director rewrote to adjust to her actors. This won the Grand Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some drug material)

Cold Pursuit

(Summit) Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum, Tom Bateman. An upstanding citizen, the snowplow driver for a small Northern town, is shattered when his son dies mysteriously. Connecting the death to a local drug lord, he goes on a quest to get justice which turns into a quest to exact vengeance as those sorts of quests often do.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence, drug material, and some language including sexual references)

Piercing

(Greenwich) Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Marin Ireland, Wendell Pierce. An upstanding husband goes on a business trip where he aims to murder an innocent. The call girl he invites to his room however has an agenda of her own.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for aberrant violent and sexual content, nudity, and language)

The Prodigy

(Orion) Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Peter Mooney, Colm Feore. A young mother discovers that her beautiful little boy has been possessed by an evil entity. She is torn between her maternal instinct to protect her son and a need to discover what is wrong with him – a journey that will blur the lines of reality.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence, disturbing and bloody images, a sexual reference and brief graphic nudity)

What Men Want

(Paramount) Taraji P. Henson, Aldis Hodge, Tracy Morgan, Richard Roundtree. A career driven sports agent has run up against the glass season at the agency where she works. When she obtains the power to hear men’s thoughts, she uses her new-found gift to help her advance her career.

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

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

The Aspern Papers
Berlin, I Love You
The Final Wish
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
Mary, Marry Me
Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year
The Second Time Around
Yatra

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Anina
Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel
Integrity
The Invisibles
Natasaarvabhowma
Pegasus
Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year
Untogether
The Wandering Earth
Yatra

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

A Violent Man
The Amityville Murders
Beneath the Leaves
Berlin, I Love You
Darkness Visible
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year
Vijay Superum Pournamiyum
Yatra

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Mary, Marry Me
Natasaarvabhowma
Yatra

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Cold Pursuit
The Final Wish
Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
What Men Want

Love, Gilda

Gilda and Gene as a couple were amazingly cute.

(2018) Documentary (Magnolia) Gilda Radner, Gene Wilder, Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lorne Michaels, Michael F. Radner, Martin Short, Maya Rudolph, Paul Shaffer, Stephen Schwartz, Alan Zweibel, Robin Zweibel, Rosie Shuster, Cecily Strong, Andrew Alexander, Janis Hirsch, Anne Beatts. Directed by Lisa DaPolito

 

It’s not taking a controversial stance by declaring that Gilda Radner was one of the greatest comedians of her era and one of the greatest ever. Although she passed away at a too-young 43 in 1989, her best work on Saturday Night Live still holds up even now, 40 years later.

It’s hard to believe but for most people under 30 she’s been gone their entire lifetime. Fortunately there’s a documentary that will not only play on the nostalgic chords of baby boomers and others who are middle aged, it may introduce her to a whole new generation that didn’t get to be captivated by her amazing smile, who didn’t get to enjoy her compelling characters or laugh at her gentle humor.

The documentary is mostly told in Radner’s own words as we hear excerpts of her audio recordings that she used while writing her autobiography It’s Always Something which would be published two weeks after her death. She was also an insatiable diarist and we get to hear some of her most intimate thoughts read by modern comedians (and SNL alumni themselves) like Bill Hader, Melissa McCarthy and Amy Poehler.

We also get to see plenty of home movies of her youth, backstage footage from her debut performance in Godspell in Toronto as well as from her one-woman Broadway show after her stint on SNL came to an end (but strangely, very little backstage or rehearsal footage from SNL itself). There are also some home movies from her brief but fulfilling marriage to Gene Wilder, some of it taken during cancer treatments during the last years of her life. Even though she remained optimistic despite the advanced stages of her ovarian cancer when it was detected, there came a point when she knew she wasn’t going to survive and she confessed as much to some of her closest friends. She faced the end with grace and humor as you might expect.

Radner was never a radical feminist but she did a lot of trailblazing for women particularly in the field of comedy which was then definitely a boys club (and is still so to a lesser but still profound effect today). Female comics revere her and rightfully so for that reason. She made inroads not by demonstrating but by doing; she wasn’t the sort to get in anyone’s face and scream. She knew there was discrimination against women but in her own non-confrontational way she fought against it. It didn’t hurt that nobody could deny she wasn’t as hysterically funny as her male counterparts, maybe more so in a lot of cases.

Given the amount of personal information and observations that the filmmakers were privy to, some aspects of her life seem to have little flesh on them when displayed here. We get that she spent most of her life looking for true love and being devastated when her latest boyfriend or husband (Wilder was her third marriage) didn’t work out. She wanted to be adored, but was intrinsically shy and preferred privacy even as she loved being in front of people, perhaps less than being with people. At least, that’s what I can glean from what is shown here; I may be way off-base. That’s the problem with documentary movies; the filmmaker has an hour and a half to dig into a life so often we are just left with the highlights and not so much with the blanks being filled in. I really wanted DaPolito to spend more time on her relationship with Wilder but we really didn’t get much more than we could glean from reading contemporary accounts in People magazine.

Radner’s fans will likely love the stroll down memory lane but be disappointed by the insight of which there could have been a lot more. I also found it surprising that the only members of the original cast to appear in the documentary were Newman and Chase; Aykroyd, Curtin and Morris are not to be seen nor is Bill Murray and his brother Brian (both of whom dated Radner at separate times back in the day) from the second season. That’s a shame to me and I don’t know why the missing members declined to appear (if indeed they did) or why DaPolito failed to ask them (if she didn’t).

Still, it is a worthy tribute to one of the most iconic performers of her era, one whose influence still resonates in the comedy business today. Even if it isn’t entirely satisfying from one hoping to gain more insight into what made her tick, I think for most people this is another – or maybe a first – opportunity to love Gilda.

REASONS TO GO: The excerpts from classic SNL sketches still hold up well. The journal entries are both poignant and illuminating.
REASONS TO STAY: The section on her relationship with Gene Wilder could have used some fleshing out.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity as well as drug references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Radner based her Emily Litella character on her nanny whom she considered her second mom.
BEYOND THE THEATERS:  Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/25/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 84% positive reviews. Metacritic: 73/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Painless

New Releases for the Week of August 24, 2018

THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS

(STX) Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale, Leslie David Baker, Cynthy Wu, Michael McDonald, Mitch Silpa. Directed by Brian Henson

As the puppet cast of an 80s children’s show begins to get bumped off one by one a disgraced L.A. police detective takes on the case. Her investigation takes her into the seamy side of puppet life. Parents, please note the rating on the movie – it is most definitely not for kids!!!

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

A.X.L.

(Global Road) Thomas Jane, Becky G, Alex Neustaedter, Ted McGinley. A robotic dog developed for military use who is relegated to a desert scrapheap after a test goes wrong is discovered by a teen boy who is a bit of an outsider himself. The robot develops a bond with the boy and will go to great lengths to protect him; the scientists who created him will go to any lengths to get the dog back.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Science Fiction/Family
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for sci-fi action/peril, suggestive material, thematic elements and some language)

Beautifully Broken

(ArtAfects) Benjamin A. Onyango, Scott William Winters, Emily Hahn, Caitlin Nicol-Thomas. Three fathers fight to save their families from widely divergent perils but their stories converge on this true story-based drama which teaches the value of forgiveness and reconciliation.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, AMC Universal Cineplex, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic content involving violence and disturbing images, and some drug material)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

(FilmRise) Chloe Grace Moretz, Jennifer Ehle, Steven Hauck, Marin Ireland. After a young girl is discovered with another girl in the backseat of a car at the 1993 high school prom, her devout guardians ship her off to gay therapy conversion camp to discipline the gay out of her. Instead, she finds a community of fellow outcasts and for the first time begins to feel like she belongs.

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

Papillon

(Bleecker Street) Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek, Tommy Flanagan, Eve Hewson. Wrongfully convicted of the murder of a pimp, a Frenchman is set to the penal colony of Devil’s Island in Guyana where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a convicted counterfeiter. The brutal and inhuman conditions lead him to make multiple escape attempts. Eventually he wrote a book about his experiences which became an acclaimed movie in 1973 starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman; since then allegations have surfaced that the book was a fabrication.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Old Mill Playhouse, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for violence including bloody images, language, nudity, and some sexual material)

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

(Greenwich) Scotty Bowers, Peter Bart, Stephen Fry, William Mann. The strange but true story of Bowers who was a handsome ex-Marine who came to Hollywood shortly after the Second World War. He became a confidante and aide-de-camp to many Hollywood stars. Eventually he began to connect those who had to hire their sexual orientation with partners that allowed them to exercise their needs. This played the Florida Film Festival this past spring.

See the trailer and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Blue Iguana
Custody
Elizabeth Harvest
Neevevaru
Parwaaz Hai Jundon
Support the Girls

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Almost 40
Arizona
The Captain
The Elephant and the Butterfly
Handia (Giant)
I Am Vengeance
Jawani Phir Nahi Ani 2
Memoirs of War
The Music Room
Neevevaru
Skate Kitchen

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Aatagalu
Arizona
Lakshim
Neevevaru

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days
McQueen
Neevevaru
Skate Kitchen
Summer 1993

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

A.X.L.
Blue Iguana
The Happytime Murders
Papillon
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

New Releases for the Week of August 11, 2017

ANNABELLE: CREATION

(New Line) Stephanie Sigman, Miranda Otto, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, Talitha Bateman, Alicia Vela-Bailey, Kerry O’Malley, Philippa Coulthard, Joseph Bishara. Directed by David F. Sandberg

The universe of The Conjuring adds some backstory as the demonic doll of the first film gets a prequel. A group of orphans moves into a large home where a dollmaker lives with his wife. The couple are still grieving their daughter who died in a tragic accident but when they are sure she wants them to make a doll for her to put her soul into. However, it’s not their beloved daughter in the doll but something far more malevolent.

See the trailer and San Diego Comic Con panel footage here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for horror violence and terror)

The Glass Castle

(Lionsgate) Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Naomi Watts, Ella Anderson. Based on the bestselling memoir of Jeanette Walls, reporter and former MSNBC gossip columnist, Jeanette grew up moving from place to place at the behest of her Bohemian father who firmly believed in living by his own set of rules. The effect that had on Jeanette and her family was both negative but also strangely positive.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon, Regal Oviedo, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic content involving family dysfunction, and for some language and smoking)

The Nut Job: Nutty by Nature

(Open Road) Starring the voices of Will Arnett, Katherine Heigl, Maya Rudolph, Jackie Chan. The nut-eating denizens of the Nut House suddenly find themselves homeless but manage to land on their feet in a wonderful park. When the mayor announces plans to erect an amusement park on the site, they must band together to save their new home.

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

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Brave New Jersey
City of Ghosts
The Lie
Mune: Guardian of the Moon
Nenu Raju Nene Mantri
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
VIP 2: Vellaiyilla Pattathari

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI:

Amnesia
Brigsby Bear
Catastrópico
Footnotes
From the Land of the Moon
Jaya Janaki Nayaka
Mune: Guardian of the Moon
Once Upon a Time 3D
Pilgrimage
Step
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
The Veil
The Women’s Balcony

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA:

Jaya Janaki Nayaka
Landline
Lie
Mune: Guardian of the Moon
Nenu Raju Nene Mantri
Pilgrimage
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
The Veil
VIP 2: Vellaiyilla Pattathari

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE:

Endless Poetry
Jaya Janaki Nayaka
Landline
Lie
The Little Hours
Maudie
Mune: Guardian of the Moon
Nenu Raju Nene Mantri
Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
VIP 2: Vellaiyilla Pattathari

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Amnesia
Annabelle: Creation
Brave New Jersey
City of Ghosts
The Glass Castle
Landline

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea

A wonderland of turgid prose.

(2016) Animated Feature (GKIDS) Starring the voices of Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, Susan Sarandon, Thomas Jay Ryan, Alex Karpovsky, Louisa Krause, John Cameron Mitchell, Matthew Maher, Emily Davis. Directed by Dash Shaw

When an animated feature starts off with a warning that the movie features stroboscopic effects that may negatively affect people with photosensitive epilepsy, one isn’t sure to take it seriously or as the movie’s first joke. Not for nothing; take it seriously.

This is one of the most imaginative and self-consciously hip animated features to come along in quite awhile. It feels like an online comic strip come to life which is no coincidence since Shaw is a noted online comic artist whose Bottomless Belly Button has won a good deal of online acclaim. The dialogue is snappy with a bored but snarky sensitivity that falls in perfectly with the millennial milieu and I would guess that most people who love online comics are going to do cartwheels when they see this. Virtual cartwheels, anyway.

The plot is basically The Poseidon Adventure on acid; two good friends, Dash (Schwartzman) and Aasif (Watts) are starting their sophomore years at Tides High. They both work for the student newspaper – well, they essentially are the student newspaper along with their editor Verti (Rudolph) whose name is an off-shoot of the Latin word for truth (see, I did learn something in high school). When she develops a crush on Aasif and hands him the plum assignment that Dash wanted, it drives a wedge between the two which is further widened by Dash’s borderline libelous newspaper column about his ex-friend.

However, all that gets swept aside when Dash discovers paperwork that indicates the school’s foundations aren’t up to code and wouldn’t stand up in a natural disaster. Dash tries to tell everyone what’s going on but Principle Grimm (Ryan) shuts him down and nobody believes Dash anyway. Of course, right about then an earthquake knocks the entire high school off the cliff it sits on and into the ocean where it promptly begins to sink.

Dash and Aasif patch things up and along with Verti and Mary (Dunham), a popular girl who turns out to have a heart underneath her shallow exterior as well as Lunch Lady Lorraine (Sarandon), a no-nonsense military sort who has maintained her military skills, are forced to make their way up through the Junior floor and then to the Senior floor before graduating to the roof if they are to survive. They will have to take on Jellyfish attacks, shark attacks, a kangaroo court of jocks, electrical wires and school bus blockages in order to get there.

Shaw uses a variety of techniques, often hand drawn, throughout the film although he generally uses the sort of heavy black markers with crayon-like colors. The movie comes off as a disaster movie produced by Adult Swim animators and written by twenty-something online writers. There’s no doubt what kind of audience this is aimed at and it’s not the underage kind; there are some pretty nasty moments in the film that parents may not want their kids to deal with quite yet.

Shaw has been friends with Schwartzman for years which helped him get the kind of talent he managed to get for the film which include a few cultural touchstones for the Millennial generation, including Dunham, Mitchell and of course Schwartzman himself. Sarandon does a gravelly voiced job as Lunch Lady Lorraine and was one of my favorite characters in the movie.Parents of angst-suffused teenage children may get a vicarious thrill of watching so many teens offed during the course of the film. I know I did.

There is a psychedelic sequence near the end of the movie which I suppose is an attempt to 2001 the hell out of the movie but it runs much too long and slows the momentum of a movie that is already short and sweet. A scant 75 minutes long, it doesn’t overstay its welcome other than the aforementioned sequence.

I get that not everybody is going to love this film; it appeals to a younger, more savvy audience that is much more aware of current pop culture. As a result, the film might end up being dated even a few years from now but there is enough humor in it that it might stand on its own two feet as a legacy. Still, this is worth seeking out particularly as I mentioned earlier if you love online comics. It might just rock your world, if that phrase isn’t out of date yet.

REASONS TO GO: There is a good deal of allegory in the film which may lead to some interesting discussions among audience members. It’s sort of a modern “Boy Who Cried Wolf.”
REASONS TO STAY: This may be a bit too surreal for some and the psychedelic sequence is way too long.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of teen peril, some drug use and a few sexual references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Shaw got his start doing online comic books and discovered he could animate the films using Photoshop and the same tools he used to create his online comics; in fact, this film was originally intended to be an online comic.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/8/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 72/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Daria
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: The Belko Experiment

The Angry Birds Movie

Flipping the bird.

(2016) Animated Feature (Columbia) Starring the voices of Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Peter Dinklage, Sean Penn, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate McKinnon, Tony Hale, Hannibal Buress, Ike Barinholtz, Tituss Burgess, Ian Hecox, Anthony Padilla, Billy Eichner, Danielle Brooks, Blake Shelton, Jillian Bell, Charli XCX. Directed by Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis

 

When does a movie become a marketing tool? In the case of The Angry Birds Movie, right now. It’s based on the stupid popular Rovio Games smartphone app Angry Birds which has spawned a crapload of sequel games, a cartoon series and enough merchandise to fill in the Grand Canyon.

Bird Island is a kind of idyllic place where hugs are for sale (but the first one is always free). The birds here all have special abilities but for Red (Sudeikis) that ability seems to be losing his temper. Orphaned before he hatched, he simply grew up with a chip on his shoulder…err, wing. Working as a clown for kid’s parties was probably the wrong career choice for him. After encountering a client who irritated him, he gets into trouble with the law.

Once he gets into court, the Judge (Key) sentences him to anger management classes. The classes are conducted by Matilda (Rudolph) who has her hands full with Red’s classmates. Chuck (Gad) is a mile-a-minute talker who is the Angry Bird counterpart to Speedy Gonzalez. He doesn’t do well with authority figures and has a bit of an attitude problem. Bomb (McBride) is a bit nicer but he has a habit of exploding (literally) whenever he gets angry. Finally there’s Terence (Penn) who’s huge and intimidating (and looks like he could be Red’s father) but only communicates in a series of grunts and snorts.

Into this idyllic paradise comes a huge ship that crashes right into Red’s house (typical). It is manned by a bunch of green pigs, led by King Leonard (Hader) who sounds like a Southern football coach but is all ham. He is bringing all sorts of entertainment and fun for the island, in return his people get to enjoy the benefits of visiting as tourists. The leadership of Bird Island is all for it but Red is much more suspicious. He can’t believe that these guys can’t be up to no good. And he’s right.

They’re after the eggs of the Birds – the unborn children. And when they take the eggs back to their own island with the intention of eating them, it means war. But who will lead the birds in their hour of need? Need you even ask?

The animation is a little more sophisticated than what you get in the game, but lovers of the game will appreciate that lots of the game play elements can be found in the movie, some of which are disguised in sneaky ways. Even casual players will get a kick out of it and I’ll admit that these little insides work well overall in the movie.

Now full disclosure – I saw this movie in France and in French and so I can’t comment on the voice performances of the American version. I can say that the movie was a lot funnier than I expected – quite frankly my expectations were pretty low, but there are some sequences that are pretty Loony Tune-ish to the max. There is no higher compliment can I think of for an animated feature than that, by the way.

On the flip side, the plot is essentially an explanation as to why the birds are so angry and quite frankly, it’s a bit weak. Parents may also want to consider that this is a movie that promotes violence as a solution which may not necessarily be a lesson they want to pass on to their kids. Then again, the old Looney Tunes did the same thing and it didn’t do my generation any harm…what, almost 15 years of unceasing war? Never mind.

REASONS TO GO: Incorporates elements of the game in clever ways. A lot funnier than I thought it was going to be.
REASONS TO STAY: Kind of a weak plot. Mean-spirited.
FAMILY VALUES: Some rude humor and a little animated action.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Terrence doesn’t say a single line of dialogue during the movie, other than an occasional grunt (voiced by Penn). However, he does sing (not Penn).
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/14/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 42% positive reviews. Metacritic: 43/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: A Bug’s Life
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Alice Through the Looking Glass

New Releases for the Week of June 10, 2016

THE CONJURING 2

(New Line) Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Madison Wolfe, Frances O’Connor, Lauren Esposito, Benjamin Haigh, Simon McBurney, Franka Potente. Directed by James Wan

The paranormal investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren continue as they visit London to look into the haunting of a house in Enfield that is terrifying a single mother and her four children. This is the sequel to the massive 2013 hit with the cast and director James Wan returning.

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

Maggie’s Plan

(Sony Classics) Greta Gerwig, Travis Fimmel, Maya Rudolph, Julianne Moore. Maggie wants to have a baby. Maggie doesn’t want to have a husband. Maggie is looking for the right sperm donor. Maggie finds a man who would be perfect, but he’s married. Maggie falls in love with the man. Bad Maggie.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some sexuality)

Now You See Me 2

(Summit) Mark Ruffalo, Daniel Radcliffe, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson. The Four Horsemen have become folk heroes after their exploits of turning magic shows into Robin Hood-esque stunts. Now, they’re being forced to help a ruthless tech CEO make a terrifying power grab. In order to get out of it and thwart their nemesis, they’ll have to pull off the most dangerous, spectacular stunt of all – if they are to find the who is really pulling the strings.

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

Warcraft

(Universal/Legendary) Travis Fimmel, Ben Foster, Ruth Negga, Dominic Cooper. The Orcs and the Humans have been enemies, perpetually at war with one another since, well, ever. But into their world comes a new evil that threatens to eliminate both species and the two must reluctantly work together in order to survive. But can they trust one another? Based on the popular Blizzard video game.

See the trailer, clips, promos, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for extended sequences of intense fantasy violence)