New Releases for the Week of November 5, 2021

ETERNALS

(Disney/Marvel) Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harrington, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry. Directed by Chloë Zhao

A group of near-immortal aliens living on Earth have taken no hand in human events, until an unexpected tragedy paves the way for their implacable enemies – the Deviants – to come to Earth, forcing them to reveal themselves and their dazzling powers. This new superhero team falls on the heels of the success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG-13 (for fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality)

Annaatthe

(Sun) Rajinkanth, Meena, Kushboo, Nayanthara. A young man’s sister marries and moves to another city. Soon, he begins to hear disturbing news about her and realizes that she’s in some kind of trouble. He refuses to sit back and do nothing, so he heads to a strange city to rescue his sister, even though he doesn’t know what from.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC Avenue Melbourne, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal, CMX Plaza Café, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: NR

Christmas vs. the Walters

(Safier) Shawnee Smith, Dean Winters, Chris Elliott, Bruce Dern. If you think the stores are already gearing up for Christmas, you should see the Hallmark Channel. Here’s a movie that would fit right in over there: an overworked and over-stressed mom tries to create the perfect Christmas while her loving but dysfunctional family begins to fall apart.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Holiday Comedy
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando
Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive material)

Ida Red

(Saban) Josh Hartnett, Melissa Leo, Frank Grillo, William Forsythe. The son of a notorious crime boss is convinced by his mother to pull off one last heist to get out of jail. However, the FBI is closing in and he will find himself faced with a choice between freedom and family.

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

Mass

(Bleecker Street) Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Ann Dowd. Two sets of parents are torn apart yet forever linked by an unspeakable tragedy. They agree to meet privately some years later in order to try and move on with their lives, but it won’t be so easy.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content and brief strong language)

Red Notice

(Netflix) Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya. An Interpol agent goes after the world’s most wanted art thief. This may be the biggest movie Netflix has produced to date.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: Cinemark Lakeland Square, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal, CMX Daytona, Premiere Fashion Square Mall, Studio Movie Grille Sunset Walk
Rating: PG-13 (for violence and action, some sexual references, and strong language)

Sooyavanshi

(Reliance) Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Ranveer Singh, Katrina Kaif. A police anti-terror squad in India gets a lot more than it bargained for.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Crime
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal, Regal Pavilion Port Orange
Rating: NR

Spencer

(Neon) Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins. A take on what might have happened during the holiday weekend when Diana, Princess of Wales, made the decision to divorce her husband Prince Charles. Early reviews have praised Stewart as a possible Oscar Best Actress contender.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Avenue Melbourne, AMC Disney Springs, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal, CMX Daytona, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some language)

Wife of a Spy

(Kino Lorber) Yû Aoi, Issei Takahashi, Masahiro Higashide, Ryôta Bandô. As Imperial Japan descends inexorably into a war footing, the wife of a progressive silk exporter begins to suspect he’s having an affair. But her boyhood friend, now the head of the military police, is sure he’s up to something far worse.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Cinematique Daytona
Rating: PG-13 (for violent material, bloody images and some language)

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

A Cop Movie
A Man Called Scott
Beta Test
Clifford the Big Red Dog (Wednesday)
Dead and Beautiful (Thursday)
The Deep House
The Drummer (Tuesday)
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Ending Disease
Finch
Her Fatal Family Secret
Highway to Heaven (Saturday)
Ida Red
Love Hard
Mark, Mary and Some Other People
Passing (Wednesday)
Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day
Violet (Tuesday)

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Eternals
Finch
Spencer
Wife of a Spy

Advertisement

Thunder Force

Some people hate dentists more than others.

(2021) Superhero Comedy (Netflix) Melissa McCarthy, Octavia Spencer, Jason Bateman, Bobby Cannavale, Pom Klementieff, Melissa Leo Taylor Mosby, Marcella Lowery, Melissa Ponzio, Ben Falcone, Nate Hitpas, Jevon White, David Storrs, Kevin Dunn, Henry Bazemore Jr., Mikia Adrielle Jeter, Steve Mallory, Bria D. Singleton, Tai Leshaun, Vivian Falcone, Mia Kaplan. Directed by Ben Falcone

 

Making a good superhero movie is hard. Making a good comedy is harder. Trying to combine the two genres and making it work – REALLY hard.

In the world of Thunder Force, the world has been bathed by cosmic rays, imbuing a certain percentage of the population with cool superpowers. Unfortunately, it is the segment of the population that is sociopaths and assholes. These superpowered sociopaths are known as “miscreants.”

Ordinary people are caught in the crossfire. Among them are the parents of Emily Stanton (Spencer), who are geneticists working on a way to give those who aren’t sociopathic superpowers. Emily vows to carry on her parents’ work. Orphaned, she was raised by her grandmother and at her new school is befriended by Lydia Berman (McCarthy) who protects her from bullies, but has a lot more of a hedonistic attitude while Emily has a singular focus. It leads to a rift between the best friends.

Now middle aged, Emily is on the cusp of making her parents’ dream a reality, while Lydia works as a forklift operator, swilling beer and eating pancakes at her favorite diner which whose owner (Dunn) ruefully admits that he doesn’t know how much longer he can remain open since people aren’t going out to eat as much since there’s a good chance that they’ll be killed by a Miscreant if they do.

However, the diner owner manages to guilt Lydia into texting Emily to invite her to the upcoming class reunion, although Emily is too busy to really commit. So Lydia heads over to the digs of her high tech headquarters, only to accidentally be injected with the super strength serum Emily had intended on taking herself. Emily is forced to have to settle for invisibility, which is perhaps a wry commentary on the state of African-American women in the year of our lord, 2021.

The two plus-sized ladies become Thunder Force and set out to rid Chicago of its Miscreant population, including mayoral candidate King (Cannavale) whose bizarre henchman, the Crab (Bateman) becomes the focus of Lydia’s erotic desires. But can the two women, so different, work out their differences and become a dynamic duo?

If you’re looking for mindless entertainment, this here is not a bad choice. Like other McCarthy films, particularly those directed by her husband Ben Falcone, there’s a certain similarity in tone, with McCarthy playing an essentially good-hearted slob who stumbles her way into a difficult situation. Whether taking on spy films or science fction, crime capers or fish out of water films, McCarthy is a brfash presence with a flair for physical comedy, although some of the more difficult physical turns are less successful these days.

Spencer is a gifted actress who always seems to elevate everything she does, and she’s been a real life friend of McCarthy for decades now. The banter between the two of them is one of the film’s main highlights; I certainly wouldn’t object to seeing the two of them again as a comic duo, although given McCarthy’s recent success in dramatic roles, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to see them in a drama either.

Falcone tends to opt for the low-brow humor here, and has an unfortunate tendency to ram punchlines into the ground with endless repetition, something he has demonstrated throughout his collaborations with his wife. There are actually some intriguing ideas here, but Falcone never really explores them; I’d love to see a movie dealing with the effects of superpowers on ordinary folk (as in absolute power corrupts absolutely) as the brilliant DC miniseries Kingdom Come did. I also give the movie kudos for allowing the sorts of superheroines that we don’t ever see – women who aren’t statuesque sorts wearing skimpy leotards.

Ultimately, this is merely ordinary, with some decent special effects but nothing that will make MCU fans chomp at the bit to see this. I can’t say that my expectations were too high for this one, given the track record, and yours shouldn’t be either, but this is decent entertainment and lord knows in a year that has given us much to stress over, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

REASONS TO SEE: Decent entertainment.
REASONS TO AVOID: Doesn’t really add anything new.
FAMILY VALUES: There is comic book violence, some profanity and some sexual innuendo.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Emily is played as a young girl by Vivian Falcone, who is Melissa McCarthy’s real-life daughter.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/10/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: 25% positive reviews; Metacritic: 34/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Spy
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Better Days

The Equalizer 2

You never know what might be peering around the corner.

(2018) Action (Columbia) Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jeffrey, Kazy Tauginas, Garrett A. Golden, Adam Karst, Alican Barias, Rhys Cote, Tamara Hickey, Ken Baltin, Colin Allen, Antoine de Lartigue, Abigail Marlowe, Jim Loutzenheiser, Rex Banning, Lance Williams, Caroline Day. Directed by Antoine Fuqua

 

Washington returns as Robert McCall, the retired CIA black ops assassin turned do-gooder in the movie franchise based on a popular 80s TV series. Here his- vengeance takes a more personal note; his former CIA handler (Leo) is brutally murdered in Brussels while investigating the deaths of informants and assets there. Naturally, Denzel doesn’t take kindly to this; she’s one of his only friends. So, it’s up to McCall to go medieval on a bunch of asses before finding the man behind it all – whose identity should surprise no-one.

Fuqua is a skilled action director and Washington one of the most charismatic actors to ever appear onscreen. Even their considerable talents though can’t quite make you forget that the script is heavy with predictable plot points and leaden dialogue. There is also a subplot involving Bean as a nonagenarian Holocaust survivor trying to reunite with his sister which while sweet adds absolutely nothing to the story; we get plenty of other instances of McCall’s charitable nature to get the point.

This isn’t a bad movie by any means but with talents like Fuqua and Washington involved it should be a better movie. Action fans will love the sequence when a knife-wielding assassin tries to take out McCall in a moving car while Denzel fans will love the fact that the Oscar-winning actor is as good as ever in the movie. I still wish that some of the writers from the old TV show might have taken a crack at the script here. With a little bit more care and imagination this could be essential viewing. As it is, it makes for a mindless way to spend a couple of hours.

REASONS TO SEE: Denzel is, as usual, a force of nature.
REASONS TO AVOID: The plot is a tad too predictable.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity, some occasional drug content and a lot of violence, some of it brutal
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This was the first sequel for both Fuqua and Denzel.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Sling TV, Starz, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/27/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 52% positive reviews: Metacritic:50/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Punisher
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Dark Matter 2019 short

New Releases for the Week of July 20, 2018

MAMMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN

(Universal) Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper, Christine Baranski, Cher, Julie Walters. Directed by Ol Parker

As darling Sophie has become pregnant, she is naturally curious about her mother’s experiences with pregnancy and motherhood. Given the magic of the Greek islands and the music of ABBA, breaking into song is inevitable, which in Pierce Brosnan’s case may well be a violation of the Geneva Convention.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a video featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, DBOX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, XD
Genre: Musical
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive material)

The Equalizer 2

(Columbia) Denzel Washington, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Pedro Pascal. Robert McCall makes a living driving a cab but it is his passion to help bring justice for those who deserve it but have been denied it. When one of his closest friends is murdered, it might be justice but there will be more than a hint of vengeance involved.

See the trailer and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, DBOX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for brutal violence throughout, language, and some drug content)

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

(Eleven Arts) Starring the voices of Manaka Iwami, Miyu Irino, Yuki Kaji, Hiroaki Hirata. An immortal girl befriends a mortal boy, a forbidden act among those who live forever. She will protect and nurture that friendship through the years and whatever the cost.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animé
Now Playing: Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR

Three Identical Strangers

(Neon) David Kellman, Robert Shafran, Eddy Galland, Ron Guttman. It started out as twins, separated at birth, reuniting. From there the story gets weirder. If you want to read the review, you can always check it out on the link below under Scheduled for Review but trust Cinema365 – the less you know going in, the more you’ll like the movie.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: PG-13 (for some mature thematic material)

Unfriended: Dark Web

(BH Tilt) Rebecca Rittenhouse, Betty Gabriel, Chelsea Alden, Andrew Lees. When a teen comes into the possession of a new laptop, he doesn’t realize that the previous owner has been watching him and will do anything to get the machine back. When the teen discovers some files that indicate that the laptop is connected to the Dark Web, he understands why.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for some disturbing violence, language and sexual references)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Broken Star
Dhadak
I Love You, Hater

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Custody
Dhadak
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Eating Animals
Lover
My Story

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Aatagadharaa Siva
Dhadak
My Story
Occupation
Vijetha

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Dhadak
I Love You, Hater
Lover
 

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot
Eating Animals
The Equalizer 2
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again
Three Identical Strangers
Unfriended: Dark Web

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Mindie Film Festival, Miami FL

New Releases for the Week of November 24, 2017

COCO

(Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Gabriel Iglesias, Edward James Olmos. Directed by Adrian Molina and Lee Unkrich

A young Mexican boy is obsessed with music but had the bad luck to be born into a family that didn’t care much for song and frivolity. A devotee of a recently deceased troubadour, he is accidentally sent to the Land of the Dead and must work out the mystery of why his family hates music so much before he can return to the Land of the Living.

See the trailer, clips and featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, 4DX
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements)

Last Flag Flying

(Amazon/Lionsgate) Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Steve Carell, J. Quinton Johnson. Three ex-Marines who served together in Vietnam come together for one last mission; to bury the son of one of them who was killed in Iraq. This is the latest from director Richard Linklater.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for strong language throughout including some sexual references)

The Man Who Invented Christmas

(Bleecker Street) Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Simon Callow. One of the great traditions of Christmas is the beloved novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. He wrote it at a time in his life where he was surrounded by tribulations but where did these ideas – a Christmas ghost story, after all – come from? Look for the review for this tomorrow.

See the trailer, a clip and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and some mild language)

Novitiate

(Sony Classics) Margaret Qualley, Melissa Leo, Julianne Nicholson, Dianna Agron. A young woman in the early 1960s gets swept up by the idea of becoming a nun and so enters a convent just at a time when sweeping changes were overtaking the Catholic Church. You can check out my review for the film here.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: R (for language, some sexuality and nudity)

Roman J. Israel, Esq.

(Columbia) Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo, Tony Plana. A former activist turned lawyer finds himself confronted with a crisis of conscience. Passed by and struggling to survive, a series of events leads him to consider extreme action.

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

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

(Fox Searchlight) Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones. When the police fail to discover the identity of the killer of a young woman, the victim’s mother frustrated by the lack of progress puts up three billboards near her home castigating the authorities for their inability to solve the crime. Her actions sharply divide the community in this latest darkly comic drama from Irish director Martin McDonagh.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and a video feature here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Barnstorm Theater, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for violence, language throughout, and some sexual references)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Balakrishnudu
Mental Madhilo

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Abracadabra
The King’s Choice
Mental Madhilo

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Mental Madhilo

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Balakrishnudu
Faces Places
Hey, Pillagada
Mental Madhilo

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Coco
The Man Who Invented Christmas
Novitiate
Roman Israel, Esq.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Novitiate

Melissa Leo looks ready to rap someone on the knuckles with a ruler.

(2017) Drama (Sony Classics) Margaret Qualley, Julianne Nicholson, Dianna Agron, Melissa Leo, Denis O’Hare, Eline Powell, Morgan Saylor, Maddie Hasson, Chris Zylka, Ashley Bell, Rebecca Dayan, Chelsea Lopez, Marco St. John, Joseph Wilson, Jordan Price, Kamryn Boyd, Lucie Carroll, Lucy Hartselle, Carlee James, Adele Marie Pomerenke, Lisa Stewart. Directed by Maggie Betts

 

“Get thee to a nunnery” doesn’t have quite the same punch it once did. These days, Catholic nuns are women who feel a calling to serve God but minus the brutal discipline and somewhat arcane rules that once governed convents around the globe. One of the turning points in this evolution was the ecumenical council known as Vatican II which in its day revolutionized the Catholic church virtually overnight. Not everyone welcomed the changes that it brought, however.

Cathleen (Qualley) is a young woman who has been raised by her mother Nora (Nicholson) after her booze addled dad (Zylka) left which, in the 1950s and early 1960s was a much more unusual situation than it is now. She is not Catholic but when free schooling at a private Catholic school is offered, Nora – who is not religious in the least – takes it, hoping that it will give Cathleen a better education.

However, Cathleen finds the Catholic religion intriguing and feels that joining the novitiate is where her future lies – to become a bride of Christ. She joins the Sisters of the Blessed Rose, the convent headed up by a conservative old school Mother Superior (Leo) who takes her vows very seriously and expects her charges to do the same. All of their devotion is to be channeled towards God and Cathleen and her fellow postulates – the first stage of becoming a nun – are only too glad to comply.

The 18 fresh-faced dewy-eyed charges who are preparing to be symbolically married to Christ are trained by the flinty Mother Superior and the softer Sister Mary Grace (Agron) to be perfect wives to their husband-to-be because Christ deserves no less than perfection. This leads to terrifying sessions where the Mother Superior gathers the novitiates – who have graduated from the postulate rank to the second stage of becoming a full-fledged Sister – in a circle and orders them to confess their flaws that keep them from being perfect, reducing most of the girls to sobbing wrecks. Mary Grace is troubled by the brutal tactics of her Mother Superior and the two clash on a regular basis.

However, despite her mother’s disapproval Cathleen is determined to be the perfect bride of Christ and while that wins her the admiration of the Mother Superior, the discipline and self-starvation that Cathleen puts herself through begins to worry her fellow novitiates as she becomes dangerously thin.

To the film’s credit, it dispenses of the usual nun stereotypes that Hollywood generally utilizes; the Sister Mary Discipline knuckle rapping (although the Mother Superior at times comes close) or the singing nuns of The Sound of Music and The Singing Nun. Betts is cognizant that these postulates (and later, novitiates) are mostly teenage girls with all that implies; the girls are emotional ranging from ecstasy (celebrating like giddy brides after the ceremony that elevates them to novitiate status) to agony (falling apart when the stern Mother Superior gets in their face about minor rule infractions). These scenes tend to be the most memorable in the movie.

Much of the praise has to go to Leo, an Oscar winner who has a good shot at another nomination here for Best Supporting Actress; certainly this is one of the finest performances in a career chock full of them. When she reads the changes affecting her order wrought by Vatican II – including one that essentially demotes nuns to the same status as regular parishioners, giving them no standing within the church which, as the film notes at the end, would lead to more than 90,000 nuns renouncing their vows. Qualley, who most will know from her HBO series The Leftovers is also very strong and shows some confident screen presence. Agron from Glee also is impressive in a smaller role, but this even though the movie is about Sister Cathleen it is very much Leo’s performance that drives it.

The movie, a scoosh over two hours long, does drag in places, particularly during the middle. There is also a scene where Cathleen, desperate for intimacy and human contact, demands comfort from a fellow novitiate which leads to what feels like a prurient and unnecessary make-out session which felt like it didn’t need to be there.

The Catholic Legion of Decency has condemned the movie and I can understand why; the Roman Catholic church is portrayed as almost cult-like in places and devout Catholics may be uneasy watching this, although it should be kept in mind that the film takes place more than 50 years ago and things were a lot different in the Church and in her convents then than they are now.

Nonetheless this is a strong feature film debut for Betts and even though there are a couple of missteps and could have benefited from a little more trimming, she shows herself to be an exciting new voice in filmmaking at a time when Hollywood can use more powerful female directors – well, it always can but now more than ever.

REASONS TO GO: There are some very strong performances here, particularly from Leo who takes it to the next level. Some of the scenes are extremely powerful. The filmmakers generally refrain from using stereotypes of nuns.
REASONS TO STAY: Some Catholics may have some issues with the film. The film runs a little bit long.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity, discussions of sexuality as well as brief nudity and sensuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie made its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/25/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 69/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Doubt
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness begins!

The Most Hated Woman in America

Madalyn Murray O’Hair does her thing.

(2017) Biographical Drama (Netflix) Melissa Leo, Josh Lucas, Juno Temple, Rory Cochrane, Adam Scott, Michael Chernus, Alex Frost, Vincent Kartheiser, Jose Zuniga, Brandon Mychal Smith, Sally Kirkland, Anna Camp, Ryan Cutrona, Andy Walken, Devin Freeman, Peter Fonda, Anthony Vitale, Ward Roberts, David Gueriera, Danya LaBelle. Directed by Tommy O’Haver

 

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a polarizing figure. Notoriously profiled by Life Magazine as the Most Hated Woman in America, her lawsuit against the Baltimore School System – which eventually made it all the way to the Supreme Court – marked essentially the end of mandatory Bible passage reading in schools after mandatory school prayer had been abolished a few years earlier. She founded American Atheists and was a gadfly arguing for complete separation of church and state.

Her disappearance from her Austin, Texas home along with her son and granddaughter in 1995 raised nary an eyebrow. She was notorious for her publicity stunts and was known to take off mysteriously for weeks at a time. However, there was something about this particular occasion that just didn’t sit right. A San Antonio reporter, enlisted by concerned friends of O’Hair, looked into the affair and eventually came up with a former employee with an axe to grind.

It’s hard to believe but there have been no cinematic biographies of the notorious O’Hair until now. Melissa Leo, one of the more versatile and underrated actresses of our generation, takes on the role and does a bang-up job of it. O’Hair was an acerbic and abrasive personality who had a tendency to alienate those around her, not the least of which was her own family – her son William, played here by Vincent Kartheiser, was completely estranged from his mother by the time of her disappearance and these days spends his time trying to undo the achievements his mother made in the name of secularism.

The movie is mostly centered on her disappearance, kidnapped by former employee David Waters (Lucas), an ex-convict who discovered that American Atheists had off-shore accounts worth millions that could make him a very nice severance package. With thug Gary Kerr (Cochrane) and his friend Danny Fry (Frost), he kidnapped O’Hair and her family and stowed them in a seedy hotel until the end.

The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks covering the highlights of O’Hair’s life and career. The story flow is often disturbed by these flashbacks; I think the filmmakers might have been better served with a more linear narrative here. There are re-creations of her frequent talk show appearances (she was a favorite of Carson and Donahue for her combative nature and acid sense of humor) as well as essentially fictional accounts of what went on during the days she was kidnapped.

There are really several stories being covered here; the life story of O’Hair, the story of her bumbling kidnappers which is handled in something of a Coen Brothers style, and the reporter’s story which is more of an All the President’s Men kind of tale. The three styles kind of jostle up against each other; any of the three would have made a fine movie but all three stories tend to elbow each other out of the way and make the movie somewhat unsatisfactory overall.

The kidnapping scenes have a certain dark humor to them that actually is quite welcome. There’s no doubt that the kidnapping was a botched affair that didn’t go anything close to how the kidnappers hoped. I also appreciated the history lesson about O’Hair’s life; in many ways today the details of what she accomplished have been essentially overshadowed by emotional reactions to her perceived anti-religious views. Most of her detractors don’t understand that O’Hair wasn’t after abolishing religion altogether; she just didn’t want it forced on her kids in school, or on herself by her government (she also led an unsuccessful charge to have the words “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance). In that sense I can understand and even appreciate her vigilance but it seems fairly certain that her personality alienated people and in many ways overshadowed her message. You do win people over more with honey than vinegar.

REASONS TO GO: Melissa Leo channels Madalyn Murray O’Hair, warts and all. An interesting mix of historical and hysterical.
REASONS TO STAY: The violence, when it comes, is shocking and tone-changing. The movie kind of jumps around all over the place.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity, some shocking violence and a scene in which rape is implied.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although the film depicts David being hired on as an office manager, in reality he was hired as a typesetter and later promoted.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/10/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 43% positive reviews. Metacritic: 41/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Bernie
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Lazar

Snowden

Edward Snowden in the military.

(2016) Biographical Drama (Open Road) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo, Shailene Woodley, Nicolas Cage, Rhys Ifans, Joely Richardson, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Olyphant, Scott Eastwood, Ben Chaplin, Lakeith Lee Stanfield, Nicholas Rowe, Bhasker Patel, Patrick Joseph Bymes, Christy Meyer, Robert Firth, Edward Snowden. Directed by Oliver Stone

 

Edward Snowden remains one of the most controversial figures of our time. There are those who label him a hero while others loathe him as a traitor. He polarizes opinion like nobody else and there are those on both sides of the political aisle that would like to see him answer for his crimes of revealing the NSA’s program of secret surveillance of the American people.

The movie has had a bit of a checkered history; it has been delayed at least twice, once to complete some of the special effects and the other to avoid competition from the major blockbusters. Once the film was released, it got almost zero support from its distributor and came and went from the theaters with little fanfare. Did it deserve that kind of fate?

Edward Snowden (Gordon-Levitt) is an idealistic young man whose ideals are somewhat conservative. He joins the military, wanting to serve his country but a badly broken leg puts an end to his military service. Instead, he’s recruited by the CIA to write code and serve his country in a different way. His mentor at the CIA, Corbin O’Brien (Ifans) takes a healthy interest in the young man’s career.

He also meets Lindsay Mills (Woodley), a free-spirited college student who supports herself through exotic dancing. The unlikely couple form a close bond and soon have a budding relationship, even though she’s as liberal as they come and he’s a staunch rock-ribbed conservative. He ends up writing programs that help root out terrorists and keep America safe.

Then, as he switches to the more lucrative consulting position at the NSA, he begins to discover some disturbing things. For example, the phone surveillance program he wrote is now targeting everybody and is gathering so much data the NSA has to build huge facilities to store it all. So despite having a beautiful home in Hawaii, a lucrative job and a bright future, he decides to blow the whistle on all this patently illegal material.

He sets up a meet with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Leo) and journalist Glenn Greenwald (Quinto) in Hong Kong. He is clearly paranoid, expecting to be grabbed by NSA agents or the local police at any moment. But once Poitras and Greenwald have a chance to examine the documents, they realize they have the story of the century on their hands. It is just a matter of convincing their editors to allow them to tell it.

How you’re going to receive this film is going to depend an awful lot on how you view Edward Snowden. If you see him as a vile traitor giving state secrets to the media, then you’ll hate this movie. If you think he’s a heroic whistleblower who tried to put the brakes on what was clearly a morally heinous policy, you’re more likely to like this movie. Know going in that Stone is clearly in the latter camp and really doesn’t offer any sort of alternative viewpoint. It seemed to me that most reviews followed the political line; conservative movie critics tended to give it lower scores, more liberal critics higher ones.

So I’m trying to be as objective as I can, but it is difficult to filter out one’s own precepts. Gordon-Levitt I think does a very credible job as Snowden, capturing the cadences of his speech nicely although in a much deeper register than the real Snowden speaks in. Snowden is in many ways not the most charismatic of men so it’s hard to fault Gordon-Levitt for being a bit dry here, but he does seem to capture Snowden’s essential personality.

The rest of the cast is pretty strong – Ifans is virtually unrecognizable – but a lot of the big names are in for what are essentially cameos. Most of the film revolves around Snowden, Lindsey and the journalists. Basically, that’s enough to keep my interest.

I can understand some questioning that the movie makes Snowden to be something of a saint. I don’t think he is and I don’t think that he himself is above questioning by the filmmaker. Poitras, whose documentary on the events here CITIZENFOUR won an Oscar, painted a much more balanced picture of Snowden and in the process, made him more relatable. The Snowden here is a little bit less so because of that and I think it does the film a disservice to go that route.

There are some pretty good moments throughout the movie – Snowden’s initial meeting with the journalists, the events of his smuggling the data out of the NSA facility (a conjectural scene since Snowden has yet to and probably never will reveal how he actually did it) and the end scene when Snowden speaks to the TED conference via satellite – and Gordon-Levitt morphs into the real Edward Snowden, who gets the last word in the film fittingly enough.

It’s a well-made film – you would imagine Stone would at least produce that – but it’s more than just that. It gives us an opportunity to reflect on the state of things, whether the price of security is too high or whether liberty trumps that price. We’ve got a lot to think about as a society, much to demand from our leaders. Snowden reminds us that sometimes, doing the right thing isn’t doing the right thing.

REASONS TO GO: Gordon-Levitt really captures the cadences of Snowden’s speech. It has the taut atmosphere of a spy thriller.
REASONS TO STAY: The film lacks any counter-argument to make it seem more fair-minded.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of foul language and some sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is Gordon-Levitt’s second straight film based on an Oscar-winning documentary; the first was The Walk which was the dramatic account of the documentary Man on Wire.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/14/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 63% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: CITIZENFOUR
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Magnificent Seven (2016)

New Releases for the Week of September 16, 2016

BLAIR WITCH

(Lionsgate) James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry. Directed by Adam Wingard

A group of college student filmmakers go into the Black Hills woods of Maryland  – and we all know that nothing good ever comes of student filmmakers going into the woods – to seek out information about the disappearance of the sister of one of their number. Accompanied by a couple of local guides, the group sets out to camp out in the forest. When night falls, however, they discover a local legend may be all too real – and that the Blair Witch may be far more powerful and evil than they could have possibly imagined.

See the trailer, 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: R (for language, terror and some disturbing images)

Bridget Jones’s Baby

(Universal) Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Jim Broadbent. The indefatigable Bridget Jones returns, a little bit older perhaps but no wiser. She has broken up with Mark Darcy and at 40-something finds herself single again. After a wild night of ex sex, she hooks up with a spirited American who may be just the tonic that she needs. However, she also finds herself pregnant and the father could be her new beau – or her ex.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language, sex references and some nudity)

The Good Neighbor

(Vertical) James Caan, Logan Miller, Keir Gilchrist, Laura Innes. In a quiet neighborhood, a couple of high school students who fancy themselves practical jokers decide to take on the curmudgeonly neighbor across the street. They rig up his house so that it appears to be haunted, install some closed circuit cameras and wait for the hilarity to ensue. Suffice to say that their neighbor doesn’t take kindly to these events and things don’t go the way the funny guys think it’s going to.

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

Mr. Church

(Cinelou) Eddie Murphy, Britt Robertson, Natascha McElhone, Xavier Samuel. A single mom battling breast cancer and her precocious daughter receive an unusual visitor – a man claiming to have been paid to be their cook for the next six months. Six months become much longer as what had been always planned to be a temporary arrangement becomes a lifelong friendship.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements)

Nick Cave: One More Time with Feeling

(Picturehouse) Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, The Bad Seeds. The creative process of one of the most acclaimed and highly regarded cult performers in rock and roll, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, comes to light as the band records their latest album – The Skeleton Tree – in the wake of an unthinkable personal tragedy for Cave.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (one showing only: Monday 9/19 at 9:30pm)
Genre: Musical Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

The People vs. Fritz Bauer

(Cohen Media Group) Burghart Klauẞner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Michael Schenk, Sebastian Blomberg.  The account of the capture and execution of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann has always been the story of the Israeli Mossad, but it came to light recently that a West German attorney general by the name of Fritz Bauer had much more to do with it than previously known. Bauer, frustrated at his government’s reluctance to pursue people like Eichmann and at the roadblocks thrown up by Nazi sympathizers in powerful government positions, eventually supplied the whereabouts of Eichmann to Mossad. The review of this film will be up shortly.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic material, some disturbing images and brief strong language)

Snowden

(Open Road) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto. Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower who brought to the attention of the world the surveillance tactics of the NSA on American citizens who were accused of no crime. There are many who think he’s a hero but just as many if not more who think he’s a traitor. Currently living in exile in Russia, Snowden’s tale is a controversial one and who better to bring it to the big screen than Oliver Stone, no stranger to controversy himself?

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language and some sexuality/nudity)

A Tale of Love and Darkness

(Focus World) Natalie Portman, Amir Tessler, Shira Haas, Makram Khoury. Israeli writer Amos Oz recalls his youth and his relationship with his mother in the early years of the state of Israel. The stories he tells become the stories he lives. Portman also directed the film.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Mall
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content and some disturbing violent images)

London Has Fallen

Gerard Butler is sick and tired of poor reviews.

(2016) Action (Gramercy) Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Colin Salmon, Alon Aboutboul, Waleed Zuaiter, Adel Bencherif, Mehdi Dehbi, Shivani Ghai, Penny Downie, Deborah Grant, Nigel Whitmey, Andrew Pleavin, Julia Montgomery Brown, Elsa Mollien. Directed by Babak Najafi

What do you do when you’ve already foiled a hostile takeover of the White House? Why, for most of us it would be resting on our laurels. For any action hero worth his salt, that’s just the beginning.

But Mike Banning (Butler) has had enough. Despite the fact that he has the world’s best tough-guy name (just say it out loud over and over again – you’ll get what I mean), his wife (Mitchell) is having a rug rat and is due any day now. He wants to settle down and be a dad and a husband. He’s even writing out his resignation letter.

But when you’re a Secret Service Agent with a Special Forces background who goes jogging with the President every morning that’s not such an easy task. When the Prime Minister of Great Britain has a fatal heart attack, the world is coming to London to attend the funeral, and President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) is not one to miss the funeral of a world leader. So with Banning’s boss (Bassett) breathing down his neck to be in charge of the President’s security while he’s in London, he can’t really say no.

It’s a good thing he decides to go because bingo bango bongo five world leaders are assassinated and the President’s chopper is shot down by terrorists. Like most terrorists, they have an axe to grind with the United States, but unlike most terrorists they seem to be well organized, infiltrating nearly every stratum of security in Britain. Getting the President to the U.S. Embassy is job number one for Banning but he’ll have to negotiate the streets of London which are now overrun with bad guys impersonating cops, soldiers and Central Casting.

While I liked the predecessor Olympus Has Fallen just fine, this is a step backward from its predecessor. The first film was a wild ride in the vein of Die Hard; this one just dies hard. The action is on the pedantic side, never a good thing. Action junkies may end up yawning which is always a bad thing – there is a definite been there-done that feel to the action. I don’t expect them to reinvent the wheel but there needs to be a lot more passion invested than apparently was put in here.

The shame is that I have always really liked Gerard Butler as an actor and you can tell he’s really doing his best with a subpar script. Butler is one of those guys that you’d probably have a great time sharing a beer with and telling tall tales to in a pub. He’s what I call a working class actor; he’s not  the sort of guy who gets offered roles that win Oscars, but he gets the job done day in and day out and in the end comes off as a likable guy, even when he’s playing a real douchebag (as in Gods of Egypt). I think he doesn’t get the respect he deserves, either from critics or casting agents but that’s just me talking.

He has a decent supporting cast, but many of them are wasted in roles that feel like they mostly ended on the cutting room floor – Leo and Forster have both got Oscar nominations on their resumes but barely get a line or two in here. Morgan Freeman, maybe one of the most respected actors of this generation, has a little bit more to do but not by much; his role is essentially display dismay, frustration and once in awhile deliver a “we’re gonna kick your ass” zinger as is necessary in most action films. Like the previous one, there is a bit of a right wing dick swing vibe here as the President gets tough on terrorism directly – with a machine gun. Go, POTUS, Go!

I get that with most action movies you really don’t want to think about the plot too closely as there are often logical holes in them but there has to be at least a LITTLE bit of logic; most people understand that the President is protected by a virtual army and when he goes to a foreign country, he is literally surrounded at all times by Secret Service agents and if his helicopter was shot down in a friendly country like England, there would be a rescue operation already in place and scrambled even before the chopper hit the ground.

Still, even as mindless entertainment goes, there is a bit too much disbelief to suspend here. I’m one of those people who thinks that there is something noble about creating a vehicle for people to forget about their troubles for a couple of hours but this movie could have used a serious rewrite (and it got several, judging from the number of screenwriters credited) or more likely scrapping the project altogether. While I wouldn’t mind seeing the character Mike Banning again, I would rather see him in a much better movie than this. Check it out if mediocrity is your thing, but don’t make too much of an effort to do so.

REASONS TO GO: Some nifty action sequences. Butler is excessively likable.
REASONS TO STAY: Really hokey script. Lacks any sort of credibility and any sort of logic.
FAMILY VALUES: A ton of action, mayhem and violence and a smattering of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Fredrick Bond was set to direct but dropped out due to creative differences.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/25/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 24% positive reviews. Metacritic: 28/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: White House Down
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: TBA