New Releases for the Week of October 18, 2019

ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP

(Columbia) Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, Rosario Dawson, Zoey Deutch, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Luke Wilson . Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Tallahassee, Columbus, Little Rock and Wichita return ten years after the hit movie, reuniting with the original writers and director. In the time that has passed, the zombies have begun to evolve, leading to a whole new set of rules. Meanwhile the snarky family bicker with one another as they travel from the American heartland to the White House, meeting up with human survivors and celebrity zombies along the way.

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Genre: Horror Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for bloody violence, language throughout, some drug and sexual content)

Dolemite Is My Name

(Netflix) Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps. Rudy Ray Moore made a reputation in the 70s as an African-American comic who was always willing to push the boundaries. His alter ego, Dolemite, was a rapping pimp Kung Fu master, and the character – considered too risky for any major studio – would become a defining figure of the Blaxploitation era

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Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for some sexuality, full nudity and brief language)

First Love

(Well Go USA) Masataka Kubota, Nao Omori, Shota Sometani, Becky. The latest in the oeuvre of anarchic and prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike is this wild tale of a boxer and a call girl who fall madly in love but are caught in the crossfire of a Yakuza drug smuggling scheme over the course of one night on the mean streets of Tokyo.

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Genre: Gangster
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR
 

Lucy in the Sky

(Fox Searchlight) Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Dan Stevens, Zazie Beetz. An astronaut returns home following a transcendent experience in space but soon begins to feel that her life is meant to be lived up there. As the yearning grows stronger, her connection with reality begins to disintegrate.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall
Rating: R (for language and some sexual content)

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

(Disney) Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sam Riley. The Princess Aurora’s impending wedding to Prince Phillip causes strife between her and her godmother Maleficent. A great war is looming between humans and fairies and the two women may find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict if they aren’t careful.

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For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for intense sequences of fantasy action/violence and brief scary images)

Mountaintop

(Abramorama) Neil Young. Young and his legendary back-up band Crazy Horse make their first album in seven years. Their journey through personal pain, age and stubborn refusal to compromise shows at their core an undying passion for the music that binds them together.

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Genre: Music Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater (Wednesday Only)
Rating: NR

Western Stars

(Warner Brothers) Bruce Springsteen, Patty Scialfa. Springsteen, who co-directed this film, performs songs from his latest album live.

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For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Documentary/Concert Film
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Old Mill Playhouse, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal Waterford Lakes (Saturday Only)
Rating: PG (for some thematic elements, alcohol and smoking images, and brief language)

Where’s My Roy Cohn?

(Sony Classics) Roy M. Cohn, Joseph McCarthy, Barbara Walters, Donald J. Trump.  One of the most notorious lawyers who helped shape the House of Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, worked for the Nixon White House and helped get Donald Trump elected.

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For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content, some sexual material and violent images)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Along Came the Devil 2
An Ideal Husband</em
Cotton Club Encore
Loro
Mary

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE/KEY WEST:

Pain and Glory
Wallflower

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

None

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

My People, My Country

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Lucy in the Sky
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Mountaintop
Wallflower
Zombieland: Double Tap

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Free Trip to Egypt

One great stone face and another.

(2019) Documentary (Kindness) Tarek Mounib, Brian Kopilec, Ellen Decker, Adam Saleh, Terry Decker, Katie Appledorn, Jenna Day, Jason Reynolds, Marc Spalding, Amr Madkor, Ahmed Hassan, Salma Salem, Mohammed Ragab, Asmaa Gamal, Tom Appeldorn, Mark Decker, Nevine Madkor. Directed by Ingrid Serban

 

We live in a deeply divided country that has in many ways become hard right and hard left. There is a segment of our society which was deeply affected by 9/11 and continues to bear the scars of that terrible day even now. Their belief about Muslims, spurred by right-leaning news sources, is that most of the Muslim population of the rest of the world are largely terrorists and those who aren’t are terrorist sympathizers. They believe in President Trump’s agenda of excluding immigration from Muslim countries and maybe, to a certain extent, of deporting Muslims living here back to the Middle East.

Tarek Mounib, a Canadian entrepreneur of Egyptian descent, found himself very disturbed by this attitude. While working in Switzerland, he had an epiphany; why not take some Americans who have this mindset to Egypt, have them hang out with real Egyptians and see if it changes their world view. He thought if he paid for all expenses for such a trip, that he could maybe get a few people to go.

At first, he went directly to what he thought would be the motherlode; a Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky. There he met Brian, an ex-Marine with a yen for travel who agreed to go for the experience. Two of his friends, Jason and Jenna, both evangelical Christians, also agreed to go – in Jason’s case, hoping he could use the opportunity to make a few Egyptians see the light. Mounib also got Mark, an African-American police officer working at the rally to agree to go although of all those who ended up taking the trip he seemed to be the least prejudiced of them all.

Other means of recruiting others didn’t work so well. It wasn’t until Mounib appeared on a nationally syndicated radio talk show that he finalized his line-up; single mom Katie who had deep-seeded issues with the way women are treated in the Islamic faith, and elderly couple Eileen and Terry, both of whom had become xenophobic after 9/11. Eileen, who confessed she had marched in the Sixties for racial equality, had realized that she was a racist and hated herself for it but couldn’t find a way out of the vicious circle, especially when their only son Mark took a job in Saudi Arabia.

Mounib paired the travelers with Egyptians who would spend the day with him and in addition to taking them to the usual tourist sights like the Cairo Museum and the Pyramids, also had meals with them and introduced them to friends and family. Most of them are well-paired; for example, Jenna and Jason are paired with a large Egyptian family; Mark with a jovial overweight Egyptian who is more pro-Trump than most of the Americans; Eileen and Terry are paired with a cinematographer and Kate with a female activist. Sadly, we don’t get to know the Egyptians nearly as well as the Americans. I think that might have helped the movie make its point more powerfully.

There are some awkward moments; the group including their Egyptian hosts are taken to a Zar healing ritual, both the evangelicals and their host family are greatly disturbed at what they see on the Muslim side as a perversion of Islam and on the Evangelical side as paganism. An odd place to find common ground, but these are odd times.

This is the kind of movie that we all need to see but especially those who feel, as many of the travelers initially do, that the world is an us versus them type of place and that there is an unconquerable divide between the Muslim world and ours. Not everyone is transformed by this experience who goes – Jason ends up trying to convert Mounib which I found a bit amusing – but there are at least some interesting discussions. Jenna ends up admitting that if heaven turned out to be a place without Christ, she would rather go to Hell. That’s pretty powerful when you think about the ramifications of it.

There is a coda as the filmmakers follow some of the participants well after the trip is over. Two of the participants were truly transformed by their experience (and you can probably guess who just by reading this review) and when a momentous event occurs, we truly see how completely that person had changed. It’s the kind of tug on the heartstrings moment that will leave even the most jaded moviegoer a bit misty-eyed.

Too often we emphasize the differences between cultures while ignoring the similarities. At the end of the day we are all just people, making the best of things in a world that is impossibly hard to navigate at times. We are all just fellow travelers on the same road and maybe when we boil it down that way, then little details like how we worship God or where we live or what we eat or the color of our skin ceases to matter much. The quickest way to heaven’s gates is through an open heart.

REASONS TO SEE: A strong and vital project with some truly powerful moments. There’s an unexpected coda. Transformative in many ways. Love that it emphasizes the similarities of cultures rather than the differences.
REASONS TO AVOID: Doesn’t spend enough time letting us get to know the Egyptians.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a bit of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was timed to coincide with Cunningham’s centennial.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/26/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: American History X
FINAL RATING: 9/10
NEXT: For the Birds