New Releases for the Week of August 24, 2018

THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS

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

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

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

A.X.L.

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

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

Beautifully Broken

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

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

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

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

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

Papillon

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

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

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood

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

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

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

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

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

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

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Aatagalu
Arizona
Lakshim
Neevevaru

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

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

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

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

Road to Nowhere

A noir setup.

(2010) Thriller (Monterey Media) Tygh Runyan, Shannyn Sossamon, Dominique Swain, John Diehl, Cliff De Young, Waylon Payne, Robert Kolar, Nic Paul, Fabio Testi, Fabio Tricamo, Moxie, Peter Bart, Pete Manos, Mallory Culbert, Beck Latimore, Thomas Nelson, Bonnie Pointer, Jim Galan, Jim Rowell, Gregory Rentis, Larry Lerner, Lathan McKay, Michael Bigham, Araceli Lemos, Sarah Dorsey. Directed by Monte Hellman

I have heard it said that movies are a reflection of real life, and as time has gone by, real life has become a reflection of the movies. There is an awful lot of truth in that, sometimes more than we know.

Mitchell Haven (Runyan) is a moviemaker working on a film in North Carolina about a crime scandal. He has hired virtual unknown actress Lauren Graham (Sossamon) to play the role of Velma Duran (Sossamon), daughter of a Cuban national involved in an embezzling scheme with politician Rafe Taschen, played by actor Cary Stewart (De Young).

But art may well be imitating art as the director begins to fall for his leading lady, who may know more about the original crime than she lets on. And as flashbacks of the original crime tell us, the lines between movie and life are starting to blur significantly.

There is a definite noir feel here almost to the point of parody. Hellman is well-known for more anti-establishment sorts of films that tend to break rules and take chances. This is as mainstream a film as he’s directed (at least that I’ve seen), Silent Night Deadly Night 3 notwithstanding – it was subversive for its time as I recall (I haven’t seen it in almost 20 years).

I have to admit that most of my impression of Sossamon has been fairly rote, but she really shines here and proves that she is well-suited to a mysterious femme fatale role. She tends to get more sexpot roles and while she does well with those, the added air of mystery and potential mayhem really suits her. Not that Shannyn Sossamon is planning to murder anyone, mind you. She just plays someone like that on TV….or, in this movie.

One of the big problems here is that Hellman jumps back and forth from the movie to the crime (using the same actors playing the actors who committed the crime) and very often you are confused as to what you are watching which I suspect is deliberate on Hellman’s part. Fiction and reality collide and merge until it is impossible to tell which is which and perhaps that’s the whole point. It didn’t work for me however, possibly because I was being overly analytical about it. Sometimes it’s best just to let things kind of happen and allow them to wash over you without overthinking them.

This is a bit intellectual as noir films go, and a bit noir as intellectual films go. It’s really neither six of one nor half a dozen of the other and curiously unsatisfying when all is said and done. This isn’t the movie I would have expected Hellman to mount a comeback on. Not that I want to see him rehash his old style but I would have hoped for something a little less pedantic than this.

WHY RENT THIS: Sossamon is at her very best.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Often confusing, particularly as to timeline.
FAMILY VALUES: Foul language (though not a ton) and a brief scene of violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This was Hellman’s first feature film in 21 years.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: A Q&A from the Nashville Film Festival and on the Blu-Ray edition, an interview with Sossamon.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $161,619 on a $5M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD Rental only), Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, M-Go
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Shameless
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Bank Job