New Releases for the Week of January 14, 2022

SCREAM

(Paramount) Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Kyle Gallner, Dylan Minnette, Jack Quaid, Marley Shelton. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

It has been 25 years since the Ghostface murders rocked Woodsboro, and the town has finally started to put the killings behind them, but now a new murderer has donned the mask and is targeting a group of teenagers, who must unearth the secrets of the town’s past if they are to survive.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror Comedy
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, language throughout, and some sexual references)

A Hero

(Amazon) Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy, Sarina Farhadi. An Iranian man is sentenced to prison for un unpaid debt. While on a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw the charges in exchange for partial payment, but things don’t go as planned.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Amstar Lake Mary
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements and language)

Bangarraju

(Zee) Nagarjuna Akkineni, Naga Chaitanya Akkineni, Ramya Krishnan, Krithy Shetti. A couple return to their home village to help their grandson, who is having issues, and to also protect the temple’s hidden treasure.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Cinemark Lakeland Square, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR

Belle

(GKIDS) Starring the voices of Kylie McNeill, Manny Jacinto, Chace Crawford, Hunter Schafer. A shy girl in a rural Japanese high school escapes her life in a virtual world where she is a beloved international pop star. But when her concert is interrupted by a raging beast chased by a group of vigilantes, she resolves to find out who the beast is and to discover who she truly is – in a world where you can be anyone.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Animé
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG (for thematic content, violence, language and brief suggestive material)

Borrego

(Saban) Lucy Hale, Jorge A. Jimenez, Leynar Gomez, Nicholas Gonzalez. A young botanist studying plant life in a remote desert town witnesses a plane crash. The pilot turns out to be a drug mule who kidnaps her and forces her on a perilous journey to the drop-off point.

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 brief sexual content/full nudity)

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

Brazen (Thursday)
The Curse of La Patasola
Diego, The Last Goodbye (Thursday)
Fishing For Love (Sunday)
The Free Fall
Hotel Transylvania: Transformia
Italian Studies
The Perfect Pairing (Saturday)
Ray Donovan: The Movie
Road to Perth (Tuesday)
The Runner (Sunday)
Safe Room (Saturday)
Sex Appeal
Shattered

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

A Hero
Brazen
Hotel Transylvania: Transformia
Scream

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Skyscraper (2018)

A big star like the Rock has a long way to fall.

(2018) Action (Universal) Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Noah Taylor, Roland Møller, Byron Mann, Pablo Schreiber, McKenna Roberts, Noah Cottrell, Hannah Quinlivan, Adrian Holmes, Elfina Luk, Kevin Rankin, Gretal Montgomery, Jeff Klyne, Kayden Magnuson, Byron Lawson, Jason William Day, Ryan Handley, Sean Kohnke, Shawn Stewart, Venus Terzo. Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

 

Paint-by-numbers summer action blockbuster fare that is both satisfying and not. Johnson plays a security consultant who had a leg blown off during his time as a federal agent who has in the intervening years acquired the job as security chief at the world’s tallest building, the Pearl in Hong Kong (a fictional beating created with impressive CGI).

The billionaire (Han) behind the tower is hiding a McGuffin – doesn’t really matter what it is – in his penthouse apartment. Therefore, just before the building is about to open, a group of baddies led by a nasty Afrikaner (Taylor) break into the tower and set the building on fire in order to cover their tracks and convince the billionaire that they mean business. Their mistake is that The Rock’s family is still in the building. Oh, you definitely don’t want to mess with the Rock’s family.

Actually, his wife Kate (Campbell) – an ex-Navy surgeon – who proves to be more formidable. Johnson, who has done a few too many generic action thrillers of late, looks like he’s not having much fun and in fact is beginning to show signs of aging – he was 45 when he filmed this. While the stunts and CGI are pretty spectacular as well as the building’s tech features, this feels a bit like we’ve seen it all before. And we have, in Die Hard and The Towering Inferno of which this is a cinematic love child. This really isn’t all that bad – it is pretty mindless and for the most part, fun – but it could have used a little more Neve and a little less Dwayne.

REASONS TO SEE: The tech is pretty cool. Keeps your interest at a reasonable level.
REASONS TO AVOID: Johnson beginning to show his age. The villains are way too easy to spot.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of action and violence as well as some brief profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Adrian Smith, the lead architect on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia – both at one time the tallest buildings in the world – consulted on the script.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Fios, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/13/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 47% positive reviews: Metacritic: 51/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Towering Inferno
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Papi Chulo

New Releases for the Week of July 13, 2018

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: SUMMER VACATION

(Columbia) Starring the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Mel Brooks, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky

After centuries of providing the perfect vacation for the monster community, Dracula is in need of one himself so he packs up his family and heads out on a cruise. As happens on cruises, he finds a romantic connection but as happens to Dracula this is not a connection that may necessarily be what it seems.

See the trailer and video featurettes here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D
Genre:  Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some action and rude humor)

Leave No Trace

(Bleecker Street) Thomasin McKenzie, Ben Foster, Jeff Rifflard, Michael Draper. A father and his daughter live off the grid in an urban park in Portland but after they are discovered and brought into a more traditional existence, the dad is anxious to return to his previous way of life. The trouble is, his daughter may no longer be quite as willing to come with him.

See the trailer, clips, an interview and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Town Square
Rating: PG (for thematic material throughout)

Skyscraper

(Universal) Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Pablo Schreiber, Noah Taylor. A wounded veteran, who lost a leg in combat duty and now works as a security specialist, is hired to oversee security at a new technologically advanced skyscraper in Hong Kong. He moves his family to the swanky apartments, but when terrorists set fire to the building, he will have to push himself beyond his limits to save them.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, DBOX, DBOX 3D, Dolby
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of gun violence and action, and for brief strong language)

Soorma

(Sony International) Diljit Dosangh, Tapsee Pannu, Angad Bedi, Danish Husain. This is the incredible but true story of Indian field hockey superstar Sandeep Singh who is paralyzed in a freak accident while traveling to the World Cup for the sport. Determined to not only walk again but play competitive field hockey and be a difference maker, all of which his doctors think is impossible.

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

Sorry to Bother You

(Annapurna) Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Omari Hardwick, Terry Crews. In the Oakland of an alternate reality, a young telemarketer discovers a magical key to career success which ends up propelling him into a macabre universe he could not have imagined. This Boots Riley-directed fantasy has been getting a strong word of mouth.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for pervasive language, some strong sexual content, graphic nudity, and drug use)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Damsel
RX 100
Shock and Awe
Thamizh Padam 2

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

The Cakemaker
Chinna Babu
Kadaikutty Singam
On the Seventh Day
RX 100
Siberia
Thamizh Padam 2
Three Identical Strangers
Vijetha

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

RX 100
Thamizh Padam 2
Vijetha

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Chinna Babu
Kadaikutty Singam
The Young Girls of Rochefort

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Cakemaker
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
Skyscraper
Sorry to Bother You
Three Identical Strangers

Scream 4

Sometimes, a rave in a barn can be a Scream.

(2011) Horror Comedy (Dimension) Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Marielle Jaffe, Rory Culkin, Nico Tortorella, Eric Knudson, Marley Shelton, Anthony Anderson, Adam Brody, Alison Brie, Mary McConnell, Anna Paquin, Kristen Bell. Directed by Wes Craven

 

New generation, new rules. The Scream franchise made its reputation for slyly skewering the conventions of horror movies (as well as any number of good-looking 20-somethings playing teens) while retaining a certain amount of hip cachet.

But that was back in the ’90s. Depending on who you talk to, Scream set off a whole new generation of innovative new horror films or were the final hurrah of a golden age of horror films (the 70s and 80s). Since then, horror films particularly in Hollywood have degenerated into mostly remakes of standards or soap operas about vampires (although there is a very strong underground horror movement in which exciting and innovative films continue to be made, some here in the United States but also in Europe and Asia). So, is it a ripe time for writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven to bring the Ghostface out of mothballs and turn their poisoned pens on a moribund industry again?

Woodsboro, the bucolic small town of the first Scream trilogy, has been immortalized and yet traumatized by the murders there 15 years earlier. The survivor of the murders, Sidney Franklin (Campbell) is returning after a ten year absence to promote her book. Gale Weathers-Riley (Cox) has settled down and married Dewey Riley (Arquette) who is now the sheriff. Gale, whose books became the lucrative basis of the Stab motion picture series, is suffering from writers block and might be just a hair jealous of Sidney’s success.

A pair of comely high school girls are murdered by Ghostface and evidence planted in Sidney’s car, leading her to be forced to stay in Woodsboro much to the chagrin of her agent Rebecca Walters (Brie). Sidney is staying with her aunt Kate Roberts (McDonnell) and her cousin Jill (Roberts) who is dealing with break-up issues with her boyfriend Trevor Sheldon (Tortorella). Jill and her friends Kirby (Panettiere) and Olivia (Jaffe) have received threatening Ghostface phone calls. They enlist the local movie club president Charlie Walker (Culkin) and Dewey’s Keystone Kops (or in this case, Demented Deputies) Hicks (Shelton), Hoss (Brody) and Perkins (Anderson) to keep Sidney alive and catch the killer. However, this is a reboot and the rules, if any, are far more different.

There are those who complained that the originally trilogy of Scream films overstayed their welcome and I have to admit that there’s a point there. The first movie was massive fun, marvelously self-aware and yet managed to have its cake and eat it too in that it made fun of all of the clichés of horror and yet it used them too when it suited the movie.

There is an attractive cast here but the movie is dually focused on Sidney’s gang (Campbell, Cox and Arquette) as well as Jill’s group (Roberts, Panettiere and Culkin). That might sound like Craven’s trying to pass the torch to a new generation but that really isn’t the case. At the end of the day, this is Sidney’s story to tell and Neve Campbell for better or for worse is Sidney. I’ve never found the character of Sidney to be anything more than the generic plucky horror heroine and to be honest I’ve never really thought Campbell has imbued the character with much of a personality, which to be fair has always kind of been the point – most of the quips and snappy dialogue have really gone to other characters in the series.

Arquette, always the comic foil of the series, still plays Dewey like a kind of stoned Barney Fife. It can be endearing in places, and annoying in others. Still, I think Dewey has kind of matured in a way the other characters here haven’t which is a bit of a plus.

The main question is whether the traditional teen audience for horror films will get behind a movie that features lead characters that are essentially in their 30s and even (gasp) 40s and I don’t think they really embraced the franchise the way the previous generation did. The reveal of the true identity of Ghostface, supposed to be a shocker, didn’t really deliver the punch the first movie’s reveal did and by the time the movie ended I was actually kind of bored.

The movie captures enough of the essence of the first film that I can give it a recommendation with some caveats in that the original still delivers the goods, even if the audience for it has moved on. Revisiting Woodsboro isn’t a bad thing in and of itself however, and if a Scream 5 is ever made I’ll probably see it (although Da Queen won’t). Not a glowing testimonial I know, but it’s all that I got.

WHY RENT THIS: Actors settle into their roles nicely. Great seeing Campbell-Arquette-Cox combo again.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Didn’t really capture my imagination. Seems a bit “more of the same.”

FAMILY VALUES:  There is plenty of blood, gore and violence (as you would predict from a Wes Craven horror film), a bit of bad language and some teen drinking.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The third consecutive movie in which Rory Culkin has been in a movie that Emma Roberts was in (the others being Lymelife and Twelve. 

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There’s a gag reel and a promo for the Scream 4 video game.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $97.1M on a $40M production budget; the movie made a bit of a profit at the box office.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Scary Movie

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: The Tillman Story

New Releases for the Week of April 15, 2011

 

 

These blue macaws discover that toucan play at this game!

RIO

(20^th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jermaine Clement, Leslie Mann, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Rodrigo Santoro, and Sergio Mendes. Directed by Carlos Saldanha 

A pampered blue macaw living in Minnesota goes through life believing he is the very last of his kind. When another is discovered living in Rio de Janeiro, he and his owner are shipped down to Brazil to hopefully mate the two and keep the species going, at least temporarily. However, the two don’t hit it off at all in the least but when a kidnap attempt accidentally releases the two birds into the wild, they must learn to work together to…wait a minute, isn’t that what every animated feature is about these days?

See the trailer, interviews, featurettes, promos and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard. 3D

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: G

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 

(Rocky Mountain) Taylor Schilling, Grant Bowler, Matthew Marsden, Graham Beckel. Two industrialists with integrity and idealism combine forces to establish a new American Renaissance in an atmosphere in which the best and brightest men are disappearing and a sinister conspiracy to prevent innovation in the marketplace may be in place. Based on the Ayn Rand novel, this might be the official movie of the Tea Party.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for some sexuality)

 

The Conspirator 

(Roadside Attractions) James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Tom Wilkinson, Kevin Kline. Following the assassination of President Lincoln, an investigation into assassin John Wilkes Booth yields a group of co-conspirators who helped plan and execute the crime. Among those being accused is boarding house owner Mary Surratt, whose son was Booth’s right hand man and who alone of the conspirators remains at large. A young civil war hero is assigned to defend her in the military tribunal, reluctantly at first but comes to the gradual realization that she may well be innocent.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Historical Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for some violent content)

 

Scream 4

(Dimension) Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Emma Roberts. When Sidney Prescott returns to her home town to promote her self-help book and reconnect with old friends, it also brings the Ghostface killer back to terrorize the town. This time, however, all the rules have changed.

See the trailer, interviews, clips and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror

Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, language and some teen drinking)

Thank You

(UTV) Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Irrfan Khan. Three business partners and best friends are all happily married and all cheating on their wives every chance they can get. One wife, suspecting the worst, hires a suave private detective to confirm her suspicions but when he finds himself attracted to her, his agenda changes.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for a momentary scene of startling wartime violence, some disturbing images and brief language)