New Releases for the Week of January 21, 2022

REDEEMING LOVE

(Universal) Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Logan Marshall-Green, Famke Janssen, Nina Dobrev, Eric Dane, Ke-Xi Wu, Brandon Auret. Directed by D.J. Caruso

A bitter young girl, sold into prostitution as a child, finds love in an unlikely source in this story set during the California Gold Rush. The movie is based on a novel by Francine Rivers which is in turn inspired by the Old Testament story of the prophet Hosea and his wife Gomer.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Romance
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic content, sexual content, partial nudity, and strong violent content)

The King’s Daughter

(Gravitas) Kaya Scodelario, Pierce Brosnan, Fan Bingbing, William Hurt. The aging Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, is desperate to find the secret to immortality and believes at last that he has found it – through the possession of a mermaid. He commissions a young sea captain to find him one, a move complicated when the king’s daughter stows away on board.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG (for some violence, suggestive material and thematic elements)

Parallel Mothers

(Sony Classics) Penelope Cruz, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde. Two single women meet in a Spanish maternity ward as they await to give birth; one, middle-aged and eagerly anticipating motherhood, the other young, frightened and apprehensive in this new film from the legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Enzian
Rating: R (for some sexuality)

The Souvenir – Part II

(A24) Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Swinton, Richard Ayoade, Ariane Labed. A graduate film student who recently extricated herself from a toxic romance with a manipulative older man, attempts to reorder her life, separate fact from elaborately woven fiction and complete her graduate studies and film project.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: R (for some strong sexuality and language)

The Tiger Rising

(The Avenue) Queen Latifah, Dennis Quaid, Christian Convery, Katherine McPhee. A young 12-year-old boy discovers a caged tiger in the woods near town, setting off a journey that will enlighten him and send him on a road to adventure.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Family
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Lakeland Square, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Fashion Square Premiere
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, language and brief violence)

Unsilenced

(Zhen) Sam Trammell, Ting Wu, Anastasia Lin, Tzu-Chiang Wang. A cynical American reporter, having lost faith in his profession and in his nation, covers events in China in 1999 when the Chinese government in a move of unbridled repression, banned the practice of Falun Gong in that country. Based on true events.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Cinemark Orlando
Rating: R (for some violence)

WarHunt

(Saban) Mickey Rourke, Robert Knepper, Jackson Rathbone, Josh Burdett. After an Allied plane crashes in the Black Forest in the waning days of World War II, a squad of elite soldiers is sent to retrieve sensitive material the plane was carrying, but the soldiers find themselves in a battle for their lives when supernatural forces beyod their understanding come into play.

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

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

A Shot Through the Wall (Friday)
Butlers in Love (Saturday)v
Confession (Tuesday)
Deadly House Call (Sunday)
Hollywood Fringe (Tuesday)
Love on the Road (Sunday)
MICerz (Tuesday)
Munich: The Edge of War (Friday)
My Father’s Violin (Friday)
Picabo (Friday)
The Royal Treatment (Thursday)

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Munich: The Edge of War
Parallel Mothers

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Fin

Which is the predator and which is the prey?

(2021) Nature Documentary (Discovery Plus) Eli Roth, Boris Worm, Regina Domingo, Neil Hammerschlag, Gary Stokes, Alison Kock, Chue Lam, Ocean Ramsey, Peter Hammerstadt, Guy Medan, Lashanti Jupp, Michael Muller, Alex Hofford. Directed by Eli Roth

Like millions of others, Eli Roth saw Jaws in his formative years and was scared spitless. He developed a pathological fear of sharks that haunted him whenever he went to the beach. His fears would go on to lead him to become a director of horror films that include Hostel and The Green Inferno.

But he never got over his fear of sharks – that is, until he began to realize that far from the killing machines they were portrayed as in the movies, sharks actually attack humans extremely rarely and generally when they do, they break off the attack immediately when they realize that the human isn’t food. In fact, humans are far more dangerous to sharks than vice versa, to the tune of nearly a billion sharks estimated to have been illegally fished in the last decade alone.

It is one of the largest massacres of a single species in history. There are several reasons for it. Sharks often get caught in gill nets that are meant for other species of fish (they are illegal in most countries); shark liver oil is also used extensively in skin care products, including lotions, sunscreen, lip balm, lip gloss and lipstick – despite the availability of plant-based alternatives. However, one of the largest reasons is the popularity of shark fin soup, a delicacy in parts of Asia. Sharks are often butchered just for their fins, which command a high price. Hong Kong, by itself, processes 17,000 tons of shark fins every year. Often the fins are left to dry on street curbs, sitting in discarded cigarette butts, dog poop and swarms of flies. It’s enough to put you off eating for a week.

You would think that removing sharks from the ecological equation would be a boon for the food chain (or those below sharks anyway) but it is actually not. Areas in which sharks have been all but eradicated shortly become barren of all life. That’s because sharks help maintain ecological balance, acting as marine cops – keeping certain species away from where they don’t belong.

Roth, channeling his newfound respect – and even love – for sharks, decided to make a documentary and with the aid of actor/activists Leonardo di Caprio and Nina Dobrev (acting as executive producers), he traveled the world to see the slaughter in action, partnering with organizations like OceansAsia and Sea Shepherd to find solutions for the problem. He boards a notorious illegal fishing vessel with Sea Shepherd, showing without flinching the horrifying reality of the shark slaughter. The images are pretty graphic and should be viewed with discretion.

Roth has the passion of the convert, and that enthusiasm comes through in every word he utters. At times, the director who has portrayed scenes of people being disemboweled and eaten alive exclaims “That is the worst thing I’ve ever seen” when a shark is clubbed to death in front of him. But already his film is paying dividends; one of the largest shark fishing competitions in the United States was canceled this year, likely due to pressure put on from the film, and Congress is considering legislation that would make the sale of shark fins illegal in the United States.

There are woke reviewers who are criticizing the messenger and throwing out the message because of Roth’s history as a horror director. One sniffed, “He widely condemns women who wear cosmetics which can be made with shark liver oil. These words – coming from a director who helped coin “torture porn” and whose fiction work consistently and degradingly compares makeup-caked bombshells to animals – feel disingenuous at best.” For the record, Roth condemns makeup manufacturers, not the women who wear their products. He urges them to buy shark-free products. And incidentally, his movies tend to be just as degrading to men as well.

If there are some actual knocks for the film it could be that much of the information shared here can be seen in other documentaries, notably the two Sharkwater docs from the late conservationist Rob Stewart, but the footage of the industrial fishing vessels is unforgettable, and Roth’s earnest passion make this a worthy successor to Blackfish.

REASONS TO SEE: Roth is an engaging host. Sobering and sad.
REASONS TO AVOID: May be troubling for the sensitive.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity as well as disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Over 100 million sharks are killed in the wild every year (estimated).
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Discovery Plus
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/21/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 89% positive reviews; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Sharkwater Extinction
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Luca

Then Came You

Caught in the web of their own making – and a callous fate.

(2018) Dramedy (Shout! Factory) Asa Butterfield, Maisie Williams, Nina Dobrev, Ken Jeong, David Koechner, Tyler Hoechlin, Peyton List, Tituss Burgess, Sonya Walger, Margot Bingham, Colin Moss, Briana Venskus, Ron Simons, Angel Valle Jr., L. Steven Taylor, Francesca Noel, Ann Osmond, Ken Tsukada, Crystal Tweed, Terri Gittens, Ashlyn Alessi. Directed by Peter Hutchings

 

All good things must come to an end, including (and especially) life itself. However, knowing that you’re dying doesn’t mean that you have to stop living.

Calvin (Butterfield) is a college drop-out who is working as a baggage handler at a regional airport along with his Dad (Koechner) and big brother Frank (Hoechlin) whose wife (Walger) is about to have a baby. Although he vehemently denies it, Calvin is a bit of a hypochondriac, taking his own vitals hourly (his watch alarm reminding him to do so) and obsessively writing down his symptoms in a journal. Most of those by the way are pretty much in between his ears.

His frustrated doctor, wanting this healthy young man to get some perspective, sends him to a cancer support group where he meets Skye (Williams), a manic pixie dream girl from a long line of them, who reacts to being told her tumor is not responding to treatment by shrugging at her shattered parents “You win some, you lose some.” She’s the kind of girl who gives a goldfish as a gift to a friend, swimming happily in an IV bag.

She recognizes the depressed and introverted Calvin as a project she can take on and manages to convince him (overwhelming what few defenses he has) to help her achieve all the entries on her “To Die List,” which is essentially a bucket list with a cooler name. In doing so, she begins to coax Calvin out of his thick shell as he begins to learn how to really live, something he gave up on years earlier after a tragedy left his family shattered and his mom essentially catatonic. He even manages to work up the courage to ask out the girl he’s been crushing hard on, a lonely stewardess named Izzy (Dobrev) who, as Skye helpfully points out, is way out of his league. So is Skye for that matter but don’t tell her I told you that.

Izzy gets the mistaken impression that Calvin is the one with terminal cancer and neither Skye nor Calvin are disposed to setting her straight which from the moment she confides to Calvin that she broke up with her last boyfriend because he was untruthful to her tells you all you need to know about where this relationship is going. As for Skye, she’s going somewhere herself but will she able to get all the things on her list done before she sets sail for the shores of the undiscovered country?

Dying teens have been a staple of music and movies since people figured out that teens could die and it was a tragic thing when they did. There have been plenty of dying teen movies – Me and Earl and the Dying Girl for example – and while they usually don’t make for extraordinary box office, they are generally inexpensive to make and can pull a tidy profit when done right. They almost have to since they are not generally fodder for sequels if you catch my drift.

Butterfield is a handsome devil with big soulful eyes in a puppy dog sense. He has been around the block a few times but has never really demonstrated the screen presence to be a big star. Still, his performance here feels a bit more authentic than that of Williams, the Game of Thrones star whose bonhomie seems a bit forced in places. Still, she manages to be more unforgettable than her bland co-star and ends up carrying the movie for the most part even though this is ostensibly Calvin’s story.

Dobrev who has done the manic pixie dream girl role herself a time or two is the most authentic of the three leads even though she isn’t given a ton to work with. It’s hard to figure out what she sees in Calvin other than sympathy for his mistakenly perceived plight although by the movie’s end we see that there might be more to it than meets the eye initially. Koechner and Jeong, two comedy pros, have some surprising moments of pathos during the course of the film and show off their versatility in doing so.

The soundtrack is decent enough and the filmmakers show off their taste in music during several montages which are almost de rigueur for a film like this. The issue is the filmmakers are almost trying too hard to set the mood both light and dark and resort to familiar clichés in order to get their points across. This is going to seem depressingly familiar to those who have seen a few of these kinds of movies up to now.

Still, their heart is in the right place and to the credit of the filmmakers the movie gets better as it goes along. In the first twenty minutes, I was thoroughly prepared to despise this movie but it is rescued particularly in the last third by strong performances by Dobrev, Koechner and Jeong (and to a lesser degree, Butterfield) and a memorable take on things by Williams whose Skye may be an amalgam of other MPDGs but Williams has the presence to pull it off pretty well. This isn’t going to replace your favorite tearjerker but it does make a decent substitute to listening to a Morrissey record or whatever angst-ridden pop star has the attention of young people this week.

REASONS TO GO: The quality picks up towards the end.
REASONS TO STAY: The filmmakers try a bit too hard.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, some sexual content and plenty of adult thematic content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Much of the movie was filmed in upstate New York in the Capital District; the airport scenes were mainly filmed at Albany International Airport.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/4/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 55% positive reviews. Metacritic: 43/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Fault in Our Stars
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Cold War

New Releases for the Week of August 10, 2018

THE MEG

(Warner Brothers) Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Olafur Darri Olafsson. Directed by Jon Turteltaub

An oceanographer is terrorized by what he claims is a 70-foot shark. Ridiculed and disbelieved, when it turns out that the creature indeed exists and is a prehistoric Megalodon that has somehow survived in the depths of the ocean, he must put aside his fears in order to rescue a trapped submarine.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, D-BOX, D-BOX 3D, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, RPX 3D, XD, XD 3D
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG -13(for action/peril, bloody images and some language)

A Prayer Before Dawn

(A24) Joe Cole, Pornchanok Mabklang, Panya Yimmumphai, Vithaya Pansringarm. A young British boxer is incarcerated in two of Thailand’s most brutal prisons. He is allowed to enter a Muay Thai tournament to fight for his freedom, but every fight could be his last  as no holds whatsoever are barred. Based on a true story, the film has been available for DirecTV subscribers for about a month now and is just now seeing a limited theatrical release.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for strong violence including a brutal rape sequence, drug use and language throughout, some sexual content and nudity)

American Animals

(The Orchard) Evan Peters, Ann Dowd, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner. A group of young men plan an audacious heist to steal priceless books from a University library. No less audacious is the way director Bart Layton tells the story with the actual participants offering peanut gallery comments. This was the opening night film at this year’s Florida Film Festival.

See the trailer, interviews and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Crime
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language throughout, some drug use and brief crude/sexual material)

BlacKKKlansman

(Focus) John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Alec Baldwin. Spike Lee’s latest is based on the true story of an African-American cop who manages to get an in with the KKK over the phone. He is forced to recruit a white cop to play him for face-to-face meetings.

See the trailer, interviews and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, Dolby
Genre: True Crime
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout, including racial epithets, and for disturbing/violent material and some sexual references)

Dog Days

(LD Entertainment) Nina Dobrev, Vanessa Hudgens, Finn Wolfhard, Eva Longoria. The lives of several L.A. dog owners (and would-be dog owners) intersect through the efforts of their dogs in this ensemble piece that looks  at how our four legged best friends enhance our lives.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for rude and suggestive content, and for language)

Slender Man

(Screen Gems) Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Javier Botet. A group of friends in a small town in Massachusetts discover the Internet creepypasta figure the Slender Man and set out to disprove his existence. When one of them mysteriously disappears however, their own skepticism begins to crumble.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website</a>
Release Formats: Standard, D-BOX
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing images, sequences of terror, thematic elements and language including crude sexual references)

Vishwaroopam 2

(Reliance) Kamal Haasan, Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur, Pooja Kumar. After foiling an Al Qaeda plot in New York in the first movie, anti-terrorism expert Wisam chases his quarry as they plan an even more infernal plot to undermine the world’s most stable democracies – including India.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Cinemark Artegon Marketplace
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Along Came the Devil
Hope Springs Eternal
On Chesil Beach
Our House
Srinivasa Kalyanam

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Ashke
Cuban Food Stories
Goodachari
McQueen
Puzzle
Satan’s Slaves
Sergio and Sergei
Srinivasa Kalyanam
Summer of ‘84
What Keeps You Alive

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Far From the Tree
Srinivasa Kalyanam

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Bag of Marbles
Eating Animals
Srinivasa Kalyanam

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

American Animals
Blackkklansman
Eating Animals
Far From the Tree
The Meg
Our House
Slenderman
Summer of ‘84

New Releases for the Week of October 27, 2017

JIGSAW

(Lionsgate) Matt Passmore, Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Hannah Emily Anderson, Clé Bennett, Laura Vandervoort, Paul Braunstein, Josiah Black. Directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig

The police are baffled when a series of murders have all the earmarks of the Jigsaw Killer, who has been dead for almost a decade. As the cops chase a dead man, the corpses begin to pile up. Is this a copycat killer hell bent on continuing the mission of John Kramer, or does he have some darker agenda in mind?

See the trailer, interviews, a clip and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, IMAX, DBOX
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture, and for language)

A Silent Voice

(Eleven Arts) Starring the voices of Michael Sinterniklaas, Melissa Hope, Kira Buckland, Amber Lee Connors. After bullying a deaf girl so badly that she moves away, a young boy ends up being ostracized by his schoolmates. Years later, bothered by his own behavior and wanting to make amends, he sets out to find the girl hopefully to find a way to redeem himself for his cruel actions as a boy.

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

All I See is You

(Open Road) Blake Lively, Jason Clarke, Ahna O’Reilly, Yvonne Strahovski. A woman blinded since childhood after a horrific car crash relies on her husband to help her “see” the world through his descriptions. When a new type of surgery restores her sight, she finds that the world isn’t as she imagined it was – and neither was her husband.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pointe Orlando
Rating: R (for strong sexual content/nudity, and language)

Crash Pad

(Vertical) Nina Dobrev, Domhnall Gleeson, Christina Applegate, Thomas Haden Church. A young man whose hopeless romanticism has stopped previous relationships dead in their tracks thinks he’s finally found The One; a beautiful older woman. However, he learns that she’s married and is using their affair as a means of getting back at her neglectful husband.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for strong crude sexual content, language. some nudity, drug use and alcohol abuse)

Goodbye Christopher Robin

(Fox Searchlight) Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Will Tilston, Alex Lawther. Alan, a British author, learns to appreciate the imagination of his son Christopher and is inspired to write stories about his son and his beloved stuffed bear Pooh. This is the story of A.A. Milne and how he came to invent the 100 Acre Wood and Winnie the Pooh.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, AMC Universal Cineplex, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, some bullying, war images and brief language)

Suburbicon

(Paramount) Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Jack Conley. A quiet suburb in the 1950s is shaken when a home is invaded and a housewife murdered. Shocking as that was, the more details about the crime that come out, the more twisted it becomes. From the warped minds of the Coen Brothers and director George Clooney comes this much-anticipated gem.

See the trailer and interviews here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Black Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence, language and some sexuality)

Thank You for Your Service

(New Line) Miles Teller, Haley Bennett, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Kate Lyn Shell. Back from a tour in Iraq, a group of soldiers try to reintegrate themselves back into civilian life. For one heroic soldier, that task is much more difficult than going to war was.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: War Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violent content, language throughout, some sexuality, drug material and brief nudity)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Let There Be Light
Lucky
Seven Sundays
Vunnadi Okate Zindaagi

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI:

Aida’s Secrets
California Typewriter
Calle 54
Chavela
El Amparo
Let There Be Light
The Queen of Spain
Ramaleela
Seven Sundays
Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
Vunnadi Okate Zindaagi

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA:

The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards
Let There Be Light
Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela
Ramaleela
Vunnadi Okate Zindaagi

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE:

Let There Be Light
Seven Sundays
Vunnadi Okate Zindaagi

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Goodbye Christopher Robin
Jigsaw
Lucky
Suburbicon
Thank You For Your Service

New Releases for the Week of January 20, 2017

XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE

(Paramount) Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Donnie Yen, Toni Collette, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Ice Cube. Directed by D.J. Caruso

An elite team led by the enigmatic Xiang is pursuing a powerful weapon named Pandora’s Box. This team is so deadly as to be nearly unstoppable, prompting the government to try and persuade Xander Cage, the legendary “Triple X,” to come out of “retirement.” He assembles an elite team of his own to take on Xiang but discovers that not everything that is happening is the way it seems.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, and for sexual material and language)

20^th Century Women

(A24) Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup. As the 70s come to an end, a 50ish single mom in Santa Barbara finds raising her son a challenge and enlists the help of two younger women to help raise him to be the man she hopes he can become. Bening got a Golden Globe nomination for her performance and has a good shot to see some Oscar love as well.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Enzian Theater, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: R (for sexual material, language, nudity and some drug use)

The Founder

(Weinstein) Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini. The story of Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman who one day stopped off at a popular burger joint in San Bernardino and discovered their method of producing burgers could revolutionize the way America eats. He determined to hitch his wagon to that restaurant and in doing so made it one of the biggest businesses in history. Today there’s a McDonald’s on every corner – and you have Ray Kroc to thank for it.

See the trailer, clips 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-13 (for brief strong language)

Paterson

(Bleecker Street/Amazon) Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Nellie, Barry Shabaka Henley. Paterson, a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey (yes, they have the same name) spends his days watching the world go by his windshield. Snippets of conversations and his own observations make it into a book of poetry he has written but allows nobody to read. He likes his life and is content to let it remain as is. His wife, an artist, however is changing as new dreams inspire new creations. They love each other very much but are they drifting apart? This is the latest from director Jim Jarmusch.

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

The Resurrection of Gavin Stone

(BH Tilt/High Top) Brett Dalton, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Shawn Michaels, D.B. Sweeney. A former child star, fallen on hard times gets arrested and sentenced to community service at a local megachurch. In order to land the role of Jesus in the annual Passion Play, he pretends to be a devout Christian. Soon enough he discovers that the role requires more than just lip service.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including a crucifixion image)

Split

(Universal/Blumhouse) James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Betty Buckley. A gifted young man with 23 distinct personalities fighting for dominance within him kidnaps three young women. His psychiatrist realizes that a 24^th is set to emerge, one that is vicious, evil and set to dominate the others. Can the three kidnap victims find a way to escape their captor before the world is introduced to The Beast? This is the newest film from M. Night Shyamalan.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing thematic content and behavior, violence and some language)

New Releases for the Week of August 15, 2014

THE EXPENDABLES 3

(Lionsgate) Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas. Directed by Patrick Hughes

The Expendables are back in action and this time they’re up against a foe who knows them better than anyone – Conrad Stonebanks, a ruthless arms dealer who once upon a time co-founded the Expendables along with Barney. This is a shock to Barney who thought Conrad was dead but since it was Barney that tried to kill him, Stonebanks has an awful mad-on about the Expendables and is out to put them all down once and for all. Barney’s going to need a little help against the well-financed and merciless teams of mercenaries that Stonebanks has sent against them – and welcome to a group of new Expendables, more tech savvy, younger and faster than the classic team. Old School, meet New School.

See the trailer, interviews, a featurette, a clip and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Action

Rating: PG-13 (for violence including sustained gun battles and fight scenes, and for language)

The Giver

(Weinstein) Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgard. In the future, mankind lives in a Utopian community where hunger and poverty have been eradicated and while colorless conformity is the rule, contentment is the reward. However, a young man discovers that the community has a dark and secret past and that only one man – the Giver – has custodianship of those memories and he intends to hand them off to the young man. That makes him dangerous to the elders of the community who will stop at nothing to take him out. He’ll have to escape the community – something that’s never been done before – in order to save it.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (for a mature thematic image and some sci-fi action/violence)

Let’s Be Cops

(20th Century Fox) Damon Wayans Jr., Jake Johnson, Rob Riggle, Nina Dobrev. A pair of bros have been invited to a costume party and decide to go as cops. Mistaken for the real thing, they decide they like the way the rest of the world treats them as cops and so they’ll keep on going as long and as far as they can take it. Of course, the real cops don’t take kindly to this and they wind up with a heaping helping of T-R-O-U-B-L-E with a capital T.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opened Wednesday)

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for language including sexual references, some graphic nudity, violence and drug use)

Singham Returns

(Reliance) Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Anupam Kher, Amole Gupte. A police officer with a reputation for honesty but also for being ferocious with wrongdoers is promoted to Deputy Chief of Police. Dead set on wiping out injustice in his town, he comes up smack dab against not only wealthy criminals but corruption in his own department.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Action

Rating: NR

What If

(CBS) Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Rafe Spall. After a series of failed relationships, a young medical school drop-out still trying to find out who he is decides to put his love life on hold. Of course, most of his friends then seem to find the perfect partner for themselves which makes him feel miserable and alone, but then he meets this great girl whom he connects with immediately. The trouble is that she lives with her boyfriend. Still, the two become best friends but maybe that’s not enough.

See the trailer, interviews, clips, a featurette and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content including references throughout, partial nudity and language)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

We can be heroes.

(2012) Drama (Summit) Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Paul Rudd, Dylan McDermott, Kate Walsh, Jonny Simmons, Nina Dobrev, Nicholas Braun, Julia Garner, Tom Savini, Melanie Lynskey, Mae Whitman, Adam Hagenbuch, Erin Wilhelmi, Reece Thompson, Zane Holtz, Joan Cusack, Landon Pigg, Emily Callaway, Jennifer Enskat. Directed by Stephen Chbosky

It is somewhat ironic that while as we grow older we look back upon our high school years with more affection than any other era of our lives, while we are living those years they are often the most painful of our lives as well. We are so desperate to fit in, our self-confidence so low that we doubt even the most basic facts about ourselves. We often wonder if we are good enough and throughout our high school years we’re pretty much sure that we are not.

Charlie Kelmeckis (Lerman) is a freshman in high school. His older brother Chris (Holtz) has just graduated from the same school, a football scholarship to Penn State under his belt. His older sister Candace (Dobrev) is a senior who is dating Ponytail Derek (Braun), so named for his hippie-like appearance. Charlie discovers that Derek has been physically abusive with Candace but she tells him that it was a one-time occurrence and swears him to secrecy. His parents (McDermott, Walsh) are fairly clueless to what’s going on with him.

Charlie has a lot of problems. His best friend committed suicide the year before and he still has flashbacks to the death of his Aunt Helen (Lynskey) who died in a car accident on his seventh birthday. He finds himself unable to make friends, although he manages to make a friend of Mr. Anderson (Rudd), a sympathetic English teacher.

Two misfit seniors, Patrick (Miller) and his stepsister Sam (Watson) take him under their wings after a football game and the three become fast friends. Charlie is admitted into their inner circle, attending screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local theater in Pittsburgh in which Sam gets up on stage and dances provocatively. Charlie also discovers that Patrick is gay and having a relationship with a football hero (Simmons) but keeps that to himself as well.

Things are going well for Charlie overall. While he carries a torch for Sam, she has a boyfriend in college. Still, she gives him a Christmas present of a vintage typewriter, recognizing his skills as a writer and bestows upon him his first kiss – because she wants his first kiss to be from someone who loves him unlike her own.

Charlie gets asked out to the Sadie Hawkins dance by Mary Elizabeth (Whitman) who takes him to her home and kisses him, declaring him to be her boyfriend. The relationship continues, dominated by the strong-willed Mary Elizabeth in which Charlie gets more and more uncomfortable although they have been having sex which he doesn’t mind at all.

However, in a thoughtless moment during a game of Truth or Dare, he is dared to kiss the most beautiful girl in the room and plants one on Sam instead of Mary Elizabeth. That puts him on the outs with his friends and creates a rift with the people he cares about most. Charlie’s past is beginning to catch up with him as his memories begin to resurface and old feelings begin to drag him down like an anchor into the depths. Charlie needs his friends more than ever but without a support system around him, will he be able to make it through to his sophomore year?

This is based on a book Chbosky himself wrote and adapted for the screen, becoming the rare occasion when  an author not only adapts his own work for the screen but directs it as well. The source material has been praised for its accurate portrayal of teenagers and while it is set in the early 1990s, it nonetheless resonates timelessly.

Part of the success of the adaptation comes from an amazing cast. Watson, best known as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films is simply fantastic. Sam is a very vulnerable character who is nonetheless loyal to those she loves. Watson shows that vulnerability without making it Sam’s defining characteristic.  Miller also is wonderful as Patrick. Catty and arch without becoming a gay stereotype, Miller turns Patrick into just a regular kid who happens to be gay. In doing so he does a lot for breaking those stereotypes.

Lerman is the center of the film and he does a terrific job here. While he has had his share of less than stellar performances, here he shows that he can and should be a major star. Charlie is one of the most complex characters that you’ll see in films, and Lerman imbues Charlie with all of that complexity – his angst, his self-doubt, his kindness, his neediness, his pride, his love, his cruelty – Charlie is far from perfect and while he may have more issues than most teenage kids, he certainly can’t be called unusual.

Chbosky wisely shot the film in Pittsburgh where he grew up and as the movie is said to be fairly autobiographical using familiar territory to set his film in works marvelously. Although I’m 30 plus years removed from my high school days, I felt immediate kinship with Charlie and his friends and the film resonated deeply with me, a feat indeed for a film that is clearly meant for younger viewers.

The movie has gotten its share of (deserved) praise and is one of those movies which may not necessarily be one that appeals to older audiences at first glance but the emotions and the feelings here are universal; younger audiences will relate completely to the movie and older audiences will find it resonant as well. It doesn’t hurt that it has an awesome soundtrack – any movie that contains the Smiths’ “Asleep” and David Bowie’s “Heroes” as major thematic songs is bound to be a good one.

WHY RENT THIS: Resonates with older and younger audiences alike. Amazing performances by the young cast.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Occasionally overdoses with angst.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some fairly mature thematic elements, depictions of teen drug and alcohol use, teen sexuality and some brief violence.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The theater in which the movie filmed the Rocky Horror sequences was the same theater in Pittsburgh that Chbosky used to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show when he was a teen.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: $33.4M on a $13M production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Breakfast Club

FINAL RATING: 8/10

NEXT: Day 3 of Our Film Library!

Chloe

The garden isn't the only thing that's growing in this greenhouse.

(2009) Thriller (Sony Classics) Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Max Theriot, R.H. Thomson, Nina Dobrev, Mishu Vellani, Julie Khaner, Laura de Carteret, Natalie Lisinska, Tiffany Knight, Meghan Heffern, Tamsen McDonough, Kathryn Kriitmaa. Directed by Atom Egoyan

 

Sexuality is one of mankind’s preoccupations, and it occupies a good deal of our time and energy. We ascribe to it wonders and magic, but in truth it is just a physiological function. For a physiological function we sure give it a whole lot of our thought.

Catherine Stewart (Moore) is a gynecologist who knows more about the physical aspects of sex than most. She knows about it more professionally than personally however; her marriage to academic David Stewart (Neeson) has become more platonic over time. She chalks it up to familiarity and age, but there are signs that her good husband may be cheating on her.

Being a smart, capable professional lady rather than confront her husband or hire a detective, she hires Chloe (Seyfried), a prostitute she meets to attempt to seduce her husband and then report back to Catherine as to whether he takes the bait.

Soon, we discover that Chloe may have an agenda of her own and that Catherine is having a crisis of sexuality of her own. When Chloe takes Catherine and David’s son Michael (Theriot) under her wing, that agenda may be turning sinister.

Canadian director Egoyan is one of those cinematic soldiers who is better known to art-house lurkers and professional critics than the general public.  He is a talent who looks at sex in a more straight-forward way than his neighbors to the south tend to; he neither romanticizes it nor demonizes it, simply recognizes that it is a part of life.

Here there is a certain kinky side to things and Egoyan doesn’t shy away from that either. I’m not necessarily talking about fetishes so much as exploring darker aspects of our sexuality, and using sex to get what we want. Chloe is not above such things.

Although Neeson is the marquee name, Moore is the star of this show. Her Catherine is a complex, multi-layered creature who doesn’t always act the way you’d expect her to. I get that they’re trying to show her insecurities just beneath her professional demeanor, but c’mon, for someone as smart and accomplished as she is she sure does some dumb things (as mentioned above).

Seyfried, the sweet waif from Mamma Mia has become one of the more reliable young actresses out there. Here, she does the femme fatale for the first time that I’m aware of and she pulls it off very nicely. Her Chloe is obviously disturbed and has some pretty sick issues, but you still wind up feeling a little sorry for her, even after…well, let’s not get into that. Don’t want to spoil things for you.

Egoyan and writer Erin Cressida Wilson are not entirely to blame for this; Chloe is based on a French film by Anne Fontaine called Nathalie which I have not seen but I am assured by SF Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle is a pretentions and overbearing load of twaddle. I found that a bit surprising since Fontaine is normally a very good writer and director.

Still, everyone makes a misstep once in awhile. The premise is a bit ponderous, I grant you that. I mean, why would any woman in her right mind ask someone she doesn’t know to seduce her husband to prove that he’s faithful? Sounds a lot like entrapment to me. And just because you have a beautiful, sexy young woman throw herself at a middle-aged married man doesn’t mean he’s cheating. It just means he can be tempted – who’s to know that he would have ever strayed if not for the machinations of his wife.

Chloe is an Atom Egoyan film, so that means it won’t be completely without any merit whatsoever. There are certainly elements that are recommendation-worthy. However the cohesive whole doesn’t quite make the cut for me.

WHY RENT THIS: Good work by Moore and Seyfried, with Neeson in more of a supporting part. Extremely sexual which immediately casts it as non-American in origin.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The erotica is kind of Skinemax-worthy. Catherine doesn’t always act according to character.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a good deal of sexual dialogue in the movie, some nudity and other foul language., not to mention a bit of violence.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While filming this movie, Liam Neeson’s wife Natascha Richardson passed away as a result of injuries sustained in a skiing accident. The schedule was rearranged so that Neeson only needed a further days of shooting after returning to the set.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $11.7M on a $14M production budget; the movie was not profitable at the box office.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: The Woman in Black