New Releases for the Week of August 7, 2015

FANTASTIC FOUR

(20th Century Fox) Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey, Tim Blake Nelson, Dan Castallaneta. Directed by Josh Trank

Four young researchers who are experimenting with a transporter device end up in an alternate dimension where things go very badly for them. They do return home, but they’ve been  changed fundamentally – all four of them have amazing powers. While sinister government forces plot to use these youngsters for their own ends, the fantastic four intend to use their powers their own way and on their own terms – to fight a super-powered villain more powerful than they are individually but only together will they beat Dr. Doom. This more serious-minded reboot by the director of Chronicle has gotten really horrible early reviews, although it should be said that most reviewers are less than enthusiastic about the superhero genre in general.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and a promo here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sci-fi action violence and language)

Bangistan

(A A Films) Jacqueline Fernandez, Rajesh Sharma, Ritesh Deshmukh, Pulkit Samrat. The fictional country of Bangistan is a nation divided; the Muslims on one side, the Hindus on the other but there is hope; a Karma conference which is being attended by the spiritual leaders of both sides may bring the nation together but there are those who would rather see it torn apart. Each side, unbeknownst to the other, sends a human bomber to put an end to peace. Fortunately, each of the bombers is a complete nincompoop and neither is too anxious at the prospect of blowing themselves up in the name of ideology.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: NR

Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection “F”

(FUNimation) Kyle Hebert, Chris Ayres, Sean Schemmel, Monica Rial. The 20th feature film in the Japanese anime franchise brings back one of the most notorious villains in the franchise. After being resurrected following his death, Frieza plots his revenge against the Z Fighters with the eventual plan to take over the planet, but Goku, Vegeta and the rest of the Fighters aren’t about to go down without a fight.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (special engagement; opened on Tuesday)
Genre: Anime
Now Playing: AMC Downtown Disney, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Cobb Plaza Cinema Cafe, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR

The Gift

(STX Entertainment) Jason Bateman, Joel Edgerton, Rebecca Hall, Busy Phillipps. The lives of a married couple are thrown into turmoil when a chance encounter with an acquaintance from the husband’s high school days turns into something more terrifying. The husband, you see, is harboring a horrifying secret and the acquaintance, through a serious of mysterious gifts, is going to make sure that secret comes back to haunt him. This is not only Edgerton’s directorial debut but also the first release from new mid-size distributor STX.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language)

Irrational Man

(Sony Classics) Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Jamie Blackley, Parker Posey. The latest film from Woody Allen is about a distraught philosophy professor who falls for two very different women. Feeling that nothing he has accomplished in his life has made a difference, he takes no joy out of life but when he overhears a stranger’s conversation, it leads him to make a momentous choice that will affect all three of them profoundly.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC Downtown Disney, Amstar Lake Mary, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Epic Theaters of Clermont, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some language and sexual content)

Ricki and the Flash

(TriStar) Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Rick Springfield. Ricki had a husband and children but she also had a dream of rock and roll stardom. She has chased it all her life and it has cost her everything and like most rock and roll dreams, has not returned the stardom she envisioned. Making a living as the guitarist and singer for a bar band, Ricki returns home when she finds out her daughter is undergoing a crisis. Determined to be the mom she never was, she attempts to build bridges with all of her children but that’s far easier said than done. The latest from director Jonathan Demme was written by Diablo Cody and features Streep’s real-life daughter as her onscreen daughter.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material, brief drug content, sexuality and language)

Shaun the Sheep Movie

(Lionsgate/Aardman) Starring the noises of Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Richard Webber. The newest feature from Britain’s stop-motion experts Aardman Studios features their beloved character Shaun the Sheep, who lives in the English countryside with the Farmer. The Farmer is all about getting the work done; Shaun wants nothing more than a day off. When his plot to put the Farmer to sleep goes awry, the Farmer ends up in the big city without any memory. It will be up to Shaun, his flock and the ever-vigilant dog Bitzer. Cinema365 was treated to an advance screening and you can read my review here.

See the trailer, a clip and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opened Wednesday)
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for rude humor)

Srimanthudu

(Eros International) Mahesh Babu, Shruti Haasan, Rajendra Prasad, Jagapati Babu. A wealthy man has everything – but his soul feels empty. When he comes upon a small village by chance, he realizes that he can affect profound change on the lives of the villagers. However, there are those who would not see him spend his millions in that way.

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

The Wolfpack

(Magnolia) Bhagavan Angulo, Govinda Angulo, Narayana Angulo, Mukunda Angulo. Seven brothers are confined to their Lower East Side Manhattan apartment, home schooled and having rare contact with the world outside the walls of their apartment. Their isolation and loneliness is eased by elaborate re-enactments of their favorite movies using props from around the house. When one of the brothers manages to escape this existence, the dynamics in the household are changed.

See the trailer and stream the full movie from Amazon here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language)

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Shaun the Sheep Movie

Shaun the Sheep reads the early reviews.

(2015) Animated Feature (Lionsgate) Starring the voices of Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes,  Omid Djalili, Richard Webber, Kate Harbour, Tim Hands, Andy Nyman, Simon Greenall, Emma Tate, Jack Paulson, Sean Connolly, Henry Burton, Dhimant Vyas, Sophie Laughton, Nia Medi James, Stanley Unwin, Nick Park. Directed by Mark Burton and Richard Starzak

Variety asserts that Shaun the Sheep is comparable to the legendary French comedian Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot and while that is a bit of a stretch, I can at least see where the reviewer is coming from. Certainly Shaun is about as loquacious as the French comedian.

Shaun the Sheep (Fletcher) made his first appearance in a Wallace and Gromit short before getting a series of 7-minute shorts of his own, more than a hundred of them most of which have been broadcast on TV. This is the first full-length feature and it follows the storyline of most of the shorts, to wit Shaun and his fellow sheep try to get out of doing any farm work, having to outwit the dog Bitzer (Sparkes) and the unnamed balding Farmer (Sparkes). The shorts are clever and cute.

This time, however, things get a little out of hand when after lulling the Farmer to sleep by jumping over a fence until he nods off, they store him in what the Brits call a caravan and we call a trailer. When Bitzer gets wind of the deception, he goes to wake up his master, only to send the Caravan on a beeline for the city – London although not specifically named. Upon arrival the farmer is bonked on the head and loses all his memories. Having no ID on him, he wanders the streets, trying to find some sort of clue as to who he is and what he does for a living. He ends up mistakenly figuring out that he’s a hairdresser and uses the clippers to sheer the heads of his celebrity clients, recreating the same sorts of styles he used to give his sheep.

Shaun knows he needs to go retrieve the Farmer so he heads out to the City, only to be followed by the rest of the flock and Bitzer. A super-zealous animal control catcher named Trumper (Djalili) is on the prowl for Shaun and his friends and eventually captures Shaun and Bitzer, imprisoning them in a dog shelter which looks much more like death row. There they meet the world’s ugliest dog who has no hope of being adopted. Their new friend helps them escape and eventually hide out, where Shaun comes up with a last-ditch plan to get their Farmer back home to the farm – and put everything to right.

I have to admit that my hopes weren’t high for this, as it is the first Aardman animation feature in awhile to arrive with little or no fanfare and quite frankly, it may very well be one of the best things the studio has ever done. One thing I’d worried about is that there is absolutely no dialogue – the animals communicate with gesture, look and an occasional bleat or woof. Humans speak in an unintelligible gibberish that puts the “WAH WAH WAH” spoken by the adults in the Peanuts cartoons to shame.

There is obviously a great deal of affection for the rustic way of life; the farmhouse is one of those beautiful old stone farmhouses that dot the English countryside, the meadow is beautiful and even the “work” that is done doesn’t seem all that taxing. The bucolic setting and the obvious affection the sheep feel for the farmer and vice versa is kind of moving. You would think that a farmer who has grown to middle age without a human partner might get unutterably lonely but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Like most of Aardman’s animations, this is clever as all get out. It certainly seems to be aimed at a very young audience, certainly toddlers on up but unlike a lot of American entertainment aimed at the very young, this is just as easily digested by adult viewers. It’s very short as you might expect (barely over an hour) and not for a moment did I ever feel bored or talked down to. The opening sequence, done as a Super 8 film of the Farmer as a young man with Shaun as a baby and Bitzer as a puppy establishes the mood; it’s a rather sweet sequence and while critics have praised it, some might find it too treacly. Those who don’t like cute movies for kids would be well-advised to move on.

The charm here is undeniable and quite frankly although it doesn’t have the lofty aspirations of Inside Out or the epic setting of Minions this certainly belongs with those two films as the very best family films of the summer. Some families might be unaware of the character or the movie, but this is one I’d highly recommend for an afternoon out at the movies with the kids.

REASONS TO GO: Super charming. Clever like all Aardman films. Good for adults and kids alike.
REASONS TO STAY: Might be a little over-sentimental in places. Those who don’t like kid movies that are cute will not like this.
FAMILY VALUES: Some rude humor.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Twenty animators worked on the film, each producing about two seconds of footage per day.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/27/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews. Metacritic: 78/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Mr. Holmes