New Releases for the Week of June 4, 2021

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

(New Line) Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugene Bondurant. Directed by Michael Chaves

Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren take on one of their most difficult and wrenching cases yet; the possession of a young boy, leading to a historic case in which a suspect in a murder used demonic possession as a defense.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: R (for terror, disturbing images and violence)

American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally

(Vertical) Al Pacino, Meadow Williams, Carsten Norgaard, Marcus Rafinski. The story of Millard Gillars, an American woman in Germany who became infamous as Axis Sally, part of the propaganda arm of the Nazi war machine, and her subsequent trial for treason after the war.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Enzian On-Demand
Rating: R (for a sexual assault)

The Dry

(IFC) Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly, Keir O’Donnell, John Polson. A federal agent investigates a decades-old cold case involving the death of a teenage girl in his drought-stricken hometown which may have a connection to his own family.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Cinematique Daytona
Rating: R (for language throughout and violence)

Gully

(Vertical) Amber Heard, Charlie Plummer, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Robin Givens. Three friends from a rough L.A. neighborhood go out on an all-night partying binge, but when their rampage ends, retribution begins.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Crime
Now Playing: Studio Movie Grill Sunset Walk, Universal Cinemark at CityWalk
Rating: R (for sexual content, a sexual assault, pervasive language, drug use and strong violence)

The Killing of Two Lovers

(NEON) Chris Coy, Clayne Crawford, Arri Graham, Bruce Graham. A man who struggles to keep his family together while he is separated from his wife. Though they have agreed to see other people during their separation, he struggles to come to terms with her new relationship.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Cinematique Daytona
Rating: NR

Punk the Capital: Building a Sound Movement

(PTC International) Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, H.R., Howard Wuelfing. A documentary about the punk scene in Washington DC in the 80s and 90s which spawned some of the most influential music of its era.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Music Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian On-Demand
Rating: NR

Spirit Untamed

(DreamWorks Animation) Starring the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal, McKenna Grace, Julianne Moore, Andre Braugher. A young girl’s life is changed forever when her family moves from the city to a frontier town, and she befriends a wild mustang she names Spirit.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some adventure action)

Super Frenchie

(Greenwich) Matthias Girard, Julien Carr, Todd Davis, Eric Roner. Coming from humble beginnings, Matthias Girard weighs his status as one of the premiere BASE jumpers and skiers in the world with the needs of raising his young family.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian
<Rating: NR

Undine

(IFC) Paula Beer, Franz Rogowski, Maryam Zaree, Jacob Matschenz. A young historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development is dumped by her boyfriend, Undine is cursed to kill the man who betrayed her or return to the water from which she came.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Fantasy
Now Playing: Enzian
Rating: NR

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

The Carnivores
City of Ali
Death in Texas
Edge of the World
Flashback
Good Funk (Tuesday)
Grace and Grit
Monuments
My Tender Matador
The Real Thing
Under the Stadium Lights
The Unhealer (Tuesday)

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

City of Ali
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Super Frenchie

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New Releases for the Week of September 7, 2018

THE NUN

(New Line) Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons, Ingrid Bisu, Charlotte Hope, Sandra Teles, August Maturo, Jack Falk, Lynnette Gaza. Directed by Corin Hardy

A young novitiate and a priest with a disturbing past are sent to investigate the mysterious death of a nun in a remote abbey in Romania. There they discover a malevolent force that threatens not only their lives but their souls. Realizing that there is more at stake than just themselves, they rely on their crumbling faith to do battle with the damned in this latest installment in the Conjuring series.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, DBOX, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, XD
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for terror, violence and disturbing/bloody images)

God Bless the Broken Road

(Freestyle) Lindsay Pulsipher, Jordin Sparks, LaDamian Tomlinson, Robin Givens. While grieving for her husband who was lost in Afghanistan, a young mother meets a race car driver who restores both her hope and her faith. This is loosely based on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band song of the same name.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Barnstorm Theater,  Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pavilion Port Orange, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for thematic elements and some combat action)

Madeline’s Madeline

(Oscilloscope) Helena Howard, Miranda July, Molly Parker, Sunita Mani. A theater director gets a whole lot more than they bargained for when the lead actress in their latest project takes her role a bit too seriously. Reality and fantasy begin to blur as a fierce tug of war takes place between the director, her young star and the actress’ mother.

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

Peppermint

(STX) Jennifer Garner, John Gallagher Jr., John Ortiz, Method Man. When a woman’s family is killed by members of a drug cartel, she finds no justice in a corrupt system in which judges, cops and politicians are all bought and paid for by the cartel. Realizing that she’s a target, she goes underground for five years. When she returns she goes on a revenge spree that would make Stallone proud.

See the trailer, interviews, clips and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout)

The Wife

(Sony Classics) Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Elizabeth McGovern. The wife of an acclaimed author accompanies him to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. There, her years of being taken for granted, her own writing skills appropriated and her life a shadow of what she imagined it to be come to the surface.

See the trailer, clips and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: R (for language and some sexual content)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Alright Now
C/O Kancharapalem
The Hows of Us
Manu
Nancy
Slipaway

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Age of Summer
C/O Kancharapalem
Destination Wedding
Get My Gun
The Hows of Us
Manu
No Date, No Signature
Silly Fellows
Support the Girls

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

The Favorite
The Hows of Us
Manu
Stilly Fellows

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

C/O Kancharapalem
The Hows of Us
Manu
Summer of ‘84

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Nun
Peppermint
Support the Girls
Summer of ‘84

The Front Man

Why, yes, we’re in a band.

(2014) Documentary (DevlinPix) Jim Wood, Christie Wood, Dan Snyder, John Kayne, Glen Burtnik, Graham Maby, Howard Stern, Beetlejuice, Robin Givens. Directed by Paul Devlin

We are all the stars of our own documentary feature. Our lives are, to us, as important and meaningful as any we see on the screen or read about in the newspapers and history books. The one thing we all have in common is that our lives are ours to live.

Jim Wood is one of those guys who not only gets to have his own documentary feature, other people are going to get to see it as well. In all honesty he’s a pretty ordinary guy in a lot of respects – he’d probably be the first to say he’s just a guy from Jersey – but he has hopes of being a rock star. Or at least, he did.

He did something about it too. He has a band – the Loaded Poets – that have been playing in Jersey bars and recording tracks for about 27 years now, dating back to when they were in high school. He and his band mates – Dan Snyder and John Kayne – have been plugging away for nearly all that time. They have no illusions that they’re going to hit it big. That’s just about impossible to do even if you’re young and attractive and while these guys aren’t necessarily bad looking, they’re well past the young portion of the equation. In other words, you won’t be seeing them on American Idol ever and also as unlikely on such shows as America’s Got Talent or The Voice.

Which is likely all right by them. They want success on their own terms which means the songs come first, and in all honesty they aren’t half bad. However, Jim has joined his bandmates in wedded bliss – and Jim’s got a gorgeous wife in Christie. She’s very supportive of his music – going so far as to make out with Beetlejuice on the Howard Stern show just to get her husband’s webpage advertised on his show – but she realizes neither one of them are getting any younger and the window for having a family is beginning to swing shut with an ominous creak.

Jim is a wacky kind of guy who sometimes looks at least on-camera like he doesn’t take much seriously but that would be doing him a disservice. While I have no doubt that he’s a kid at heart, one gets the feeling that when he needs to be he’s smart and mature. The decision to have the kid alters his life as he trades one dream for another – although he continues to make music on his own terms.

While fame eludes him, he talks to a couple of local boys who grabbed a fair slice of fame of their own – Glen Burtnik who had a minor hit in the ’80s and was a member of Styx for several years, and Graham Maby, best known as the bass player for the Joe Jackson band. Both offer insights into fame, rock and roll and how to integrate it into a good life.

This is like watching a documentary about your buddy down the block. Devlin, who has known Jim since kindergarten, uses home movies and years of footage that he has taken to compile a look at an ordinary guy living an extraordinary life. A huge fan of the Z-Movie Alien Factor, he seeks out its director Don Dohler and after impressing the affable director by quoting dialogue, casts both Jim and Christie in one of his last films (he passed away in 2006) as victims of vampires.

While the movie violates one of the prime commandments of home movies – your child is always far cuter to you than it is to everyone else – to be fair that’s a violation that occurs in a number of documentaries. Otherwise, Jim, Christie and their coterie are people you wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with at a barbecue down the street. This isn’t the most important documentary you’ll ever see but I could have spent more time with the people onscreen and at the end of the day that’s about the highest compliment you can pay to any kind of movie.

REASONS TO GO: Very human. Likable subjects.

REASONS TO STAY: Not really vital.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some sexuality and a few instances of foul language here and there.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Devlin’s local TV pilot Slammin’  which presented the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe semi-final poetry slam as a sporting event, was nominated for two local Emmys.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/10/14: Rotten Tomatoes: no score yet. Metacritic: no score yet.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Anvil: The Story of Anvil

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Slingshot