New Releases for the Week of June 7, 2019

DARK PHOENIX

(20^th Century Fox/Marvel) James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee. Directed by Simon Kinberg

During a rescue mission to space, Jean Grey of the X-Men is hit by an unknown cosmic force which causes her powers to grow out of control and her personality to become unstable. The X-Men are forced to defend themselves against their friend and as an alien race seeks to weaponize her powers, the prospect that they might have to kill one of their own.

See the trailer, video featurettes, clips and interviews here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for intense scenes of sci-fi violence and action including some gunplay, disturbing images and brief strong language)

All is True

(Sony Classics) Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Kathryn Wilder. After playing this year’s Florida Film Festival, this British production is making its theatrical run. William Shakespeare has retired and seeks to make peace with his inner demons while reconnecting with a family that may be beyond reconciling with.

See the trailer, clips and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Marketplace
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, suggestive material and language)

Bharat

(Viva) Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Tabu, Disha Patani. As the day of India’s independence dawns, a man makes a promise to his father that he will keep his family together no matter what. Over the next 60 years, he keeps that promise despite the challenges thrown at him by each passing decade.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

Loopers: The Caddie’s Long Walk

(Gravitas) Bill Murray, Lee Trevino, Nick Faldo, Ben Crenshaw. While golf was invented in Scotland in the 15^th century, it has only really boomed in popularity over the last century or so with golfers becoming huge celebrities. However, who gives a thought to the men who carry the clubs of those superstars? This is their story.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Old Mill Playhouse, Regal Pointe Orlando
Rating: PG (for some suggestive/rude humor, mild thematic elements, and smoking images)

The Secret Life of Pets 2

(Universal/Illumination) Starring the voices of Patton Oswalt, Kevin Hart, Harrison Ford, Tiffany Haddish. Max and his friends in his apartment building continue their adventures from the first film as they head back out to explore the big city.

See the trailer, video featurettes and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some action and rude humor)

The Tomorrow Man

(Bleecker Street) John Lithgow, Blythe Danner, Derek Cecil, Katie Aselton. A grumpy old man prepares for a disaster that may never happen. He meets a woman who can’t let go of the things she has. Together they fall in love but can they figure out a way not to get lost in each other’s stuff? This was another film that played this year’s Florida Film Festival.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language and some suggestive material)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Changeland
Mouthpiece
Virus

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

All About My Mother
Meeting Gorbachev
My Best Summer
The Silence of Others
The Souvenir
Wrong No. 2

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Abduction
The Brink
The Souvenir

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

None

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

All is True
Dark Phoenix
The Secret Life of Pets 2
The Tomorrow Man

New Releases for the Week of February 12, 2016

DEADPOOL

(20^th Century Fox) Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Ed Skrein, Lesley Uggams, Greg LaSalle, Taylor Hickson. Directed by Tim Miller

This is not your daddy’s superhero movie – although it might just end up being your daddy. Wade Wilson is a mercenary with a particular set of skills…oh, not that tired old movie again. But Wade has a big problem – it’s cancer and it’s everywhere in his body. Things don’t look good for our good ol’ buddy Wade – until a mysterious man recruiting for a mysterious agency makes a proposal that Wade might not be able to turn down. One of the hotly anticipated movies of the year.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and promos here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (3D, IMAX 3D)
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity)

Fitoor

(UTV) Katrina Kaif, Tabu, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Aditi Rao Hydari. A Bollywood take on the Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations. A young street boy in Kashmir falls in love with an upper class girl but the girl’s mother conspires to keep the young lovebirds apart.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romance
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content and some thematic issues)

How to Be Single

(New Line/MGM) Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Damon Wayans Jr., Leslie Mann. A group of young unmarrieds in the Big Apple cope with the vagaries of the dating scene in a digital world as well as the sometimes confusing rules of behavior between the sexes.

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

The Lady in the Van

(TriStar) Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Roger Allam. Playwright and television presenter Alan Bennett is annoyed to discover an elderly woman living in her van in his driveway. Grudgingly, he allows her to stay, a decision that will change both their lives.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for a brief unsettling image)

Tumbledown

(Starz Digital Media) Jason Sudeikis, Rebecca Hall, Dianna Agron, Blythe Danner. The widow of an iconic folksinger finds it hard to move on and retreats to the woods of Maine. When a brash New York writer approaches her with the proposal of writing his biography, she is at first cool to the idea but the more she allows him to write his story, the more she heals.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for a sex scene)

Where to Invade Next

(Drafthouse) Michael Moore, Tim Walker, Kirsta Kiuru. Professional gadfly and documentarian Moore turns his eye to the American dream and how it seems to be alive and well – and living in other places around the globe. He comes up with ways that dream is being pursued, and how the ideas that other countries have used can work here.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language, some violent images, drug use and brief graphic nudity)

Zoolander 2

(Paramount) Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Penelope Cruz, Will Ferrell. Down on his heels and irrelevant, supermodel Derek Zoolander gets back in the game in more way than one when a mysterious Interpol agent discloses that the world’s most beautiful celebrities are turning up dead – with Zoolander’s famous “blue steel” look on their faces. Lucky bastards

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and sexual content, a scene of exaggerated violence, and brief strong language)

New Releases for the Week of October 3, 2014

GONE GIRL

(20th Century Fox) Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Missi Pyle, Sela Ward, Boyd Holbrook. Directed by David Fincher

Nick and Amy have the perfect marriage. They love each other madly, support each other completely and are in the initial stages of building a long and fruitful life together. Or so it seems. On the evening of their fifth wedding anniversary Amy turns up missing. As the facade of the perfect marriage begins to crumble, the spotlight turns on Nick who it seems is far from the perfect husband. Did Nick murder his wife? Or is something far more different going on?

See the trailer, clips and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R (for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language)

Annabelle

(New Line) Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola. From last year’s hit The Conjuring comes this spin-off, set before the events of that film. Here we find out how the doll Annabelle became so deadly as a cult of vicious Satanists who attack a pregnant wife and her husband. Although they manage to survive the tack, the cultists do not but their blood and horrible memories are not all they leave behind; they had conjured up a demonic entity that has attached itself to the doll, a gift from the husband to his wife. That gift is going to be the kind that keeps on giving, you can be sure of that!

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: R (for intense sequences of disturbing violence and terror)

Bang Bang

(Fox Star) Katrina Kaif, Hrithik Roshan, Jimmy Shergill, Preity Uupala. A mousy bank employee falls into international intrigue when a mysterious stranger comes into his life, claiming to be a spy on a secret mission to save the world. Can she trust the word of this charming stranger? Is he what he says he is? Or is he delusional and leading her into the kind of trouble that she can’t dig her way out of? A remake of the recent Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz vehicle Knight and Day.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Bollywood Action

Rating: NR

The Good Lie

(Warner Brothers) Reese Witherspoon, Corey Stoll, Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany. Sudanese refugees travel 1500 miles on foot to reach a refugee camp where they have a shot at getting the golden ticket to America where they can star their lives over in freedom. Four young brothers have been through incredible trauma making it to America but their sister is left behind for a later flight. However when 9-11 halts refugee activity, a social worker is moved to help these boys reunite their family even though the odds are stacked against them.

See the trailer and premiere footage here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Life Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some violence, brief strong language and drug use)

Govindudu Andarivadele

(Parameswara Arts) Ram Charan, Srikanth, Kajal Aggarwal, Kamalinee Mukherjee. A young agriculture student visits his grandfather’s house in an effort to reconcile the old man with his father. As he does so he discovers the story behind their estrangement and his grandfather learns why the student has come to mend fences at that specific time.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Family

Rating: NR

Haider

(UTV) Shahid Kapoor, Tabu, Narendra Jha, Irrfan Khan. A modern version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet set in India, this is the third in a Shakespearean trilogy by director Vishal Bhardwaj.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Drama

Rating: NR

Hector and the Search for Happiness

(Relativity) Simon Pegg, Christopher Plummer, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgard. A psychiatrist who has fallen into a rut, decides he is no longer qualified to advise his patients on how to have a better, more fulfilling life if he hasn’t lived one himself yet. He goes out therefore on an adventure throughout the world trying to find what happiness is.

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

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Dramedy

Rating: R  (for language and some brief nudity)

Left Behind

(Stoney Lake) Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Lea Thompson, Cassi Thomson. When the Rapture takes place and the righteous ascend to heaven, those that remain on Earth discover that there’s a reason why going to heaven was a much better idea.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Faith-Based Adventure

Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements, violence/peril and brief drug content)

The Liberator

(Cohen Media Group) Edgar Ramirez, Danny Huston, Maria Valverde, Gary Lewis. The story of Simon Bolivar, who led a revolt of the South American indigenous peoples against the colonial might of the Spanish and Portuguese empires. He was instrumental in freeing millions of people to self-govern and is regarded as one of the most beloved heroes in the region.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Biographical Drama

Rating: NR

New Releases for the Week of January 24, 2014

I, FRANKENSTEIN

(Lionsgate) Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovsky, Miranda Otto, Jai Courtney, Socratis Otto, Kevin Grevioux, Bruce Spence, Caitlin Stasey. Directed by Stuart Beattie

Caught in a war between Heaven and Hell with all of humanity hanging in the balance, the creation of Victor Frankenstein is sought to choose sides. With the secrets that brought him life re-discovered and an army of creatures like him set to tip the balance, the Creature’s assistance could be the difference between survival for the human race and utter annihilation but on which side will he fight – assuming he fights at all?

See the trailer and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX (opens Thursday)

Genre: Horror Action

Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense fantasy action and violence throughout)

Gimme Shelter

(Roadside Attractions) Vanessa Hudgens, Rosario Dawson, Brendan Fraser, James Earl Jones. A pregnant teenager, trying to navigate her life on the harsh streets, is taken in by a shelter after being rejected by her father and escaping from her drug-abusing mother. There she finds sisterhood, empowerment and support the likes of which she’s never known. Based on a true story.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic material involving mistreatment, some drug content, language and violence – all concerning teens)

The Invisible Woman

(Sony Classics) Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Hollander. Acclaimed author Charles Dickens was beloved by all of England, penning such all-time classic works as Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. However behind his public facade he was carrying on an affair for 13 years up to the time of his death with a younger woman who would chafe under the great man’s shadow.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Biographical Drama

Rating: R (for some sexual content)

Jai Ho

(Eros International) Salman Khan, Tabu, Sana Khan, Daisy Shah. A former army officer decides to use his skills to help the people of India and take on those who would oppress them. A remake of the Telugu film Stalin.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood

Rating: NR

Life of Pi

Some days you feel like you can grab a tiger by the tail; other days not so much.

(2012) Drama (20th Century Fox) Suraj Sharma, Irffan Khan, Gerard Depardieu, Rafe Spall, Adil Hussein, Ayush Tandon, Gautam Belur, Tabu, Ayan Khan, Mohd Abbas Khaleeli, Vibish Shivakumar, James Saito, Jun Naito, Andrea Di Stefano, Elie Alouf, Shravanthi Sainath. Directed by Ang Lee

 

Things happen. Whether it is for a reason or if they just happen has been a question that we have been trying to figure out since we could put a coherent thought together. In many ways, this is what is driving our entire faith versus reason argument that we seem to be engaged in as a culture.

Piscine Molitor Patel (Sharma) was born in Pondicherry, India, where the French once held sway. He was named for a swimming pool in France where the waters were remarkably clear and his swim-crazy uncle (with a body that can only be described as cartoonish) was remarkably fond of. Unfortunately, his school mates pronounce his first name as something that young boys are prone to doing in swimming pools (think about it) and he decides to shorten it to “Pi” and paves the way for it by memorizing the numerals of Pi to many, many decimals in turn impressing both students and teachers in his school.

Nothing about Pi’s life is ordinary. His father (Hussein) owns a zoo although he really know nothing about animals. It is up to Pi’s mother (Tabu), his brother Ravi (Shivakumar) and himself to tend the animals. Even so, Pi finds time to fall in love with Anandi (Sainath), which looks like it could be going somewhere.

Unfortunately, fate has a curveball in store for Pi. The zoo is failing and his father has decided to move the whole family (including the animals) to Canada to start a new life. Pi is devastated. He has no desire to leave but this is not anything within his control. After a tearful goodbye to Anandi (which he doesn’t remember, only spending that last day with her) he and his family board a Japanese cargo ship bound for Canada.

Once again, fate steps in with another game-changer. In the middle of a terrible storm, the ship sinks and everyone aboard drowns. Everyone, that is, except for Pi, an orangutan, a zebra and a hyena. Oh, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker who find themselves marooned in a lifeboat. The law of the jungle prevails and the tiger kills and eats everything except for Pi who takes refuge on a makeshift raft made up of oars and life jackets. Richard Parker guards his territory well and as the boat and raft floats aimlessly in the Pacific, the odds that Pi and Parker will survive dwindle.

This is all told through a framing mechanism in which the adult Pi (Khan) relates the story to a writer (Spall) who was urged to hear the story from Pi’s uncle who remained in India. Pi is still affected by the emotions of his ordeal (breaking into tears at one point) but is remarkably sanguine about the whole ordeal which his uncle told the writer would make him believe in God. However, let’s just say that Pi may not be the most trustworthy narrator you can find.

This is as visually inventive and breathtaking a movie as you will see this year. Everything about it rings true but there is also a kind of fairy tale-like flavor to the story and even to the visuals, turning Pondicherry into an idyllic place, and a sea into a multiple personality disorder entity, alternately calm as glass with a cloud-streaked sky reflecting in it, to full of luminous green plankton and raging with storms. The water is a metaphor for life, changing when we least expect it and never into anything convenient.

The movie is based on a book that was widely considered unfilmable and it is to Lee’s credit that he found a way to make it work. However do keep in mind that the bulk of the action takes place on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with one human and one tiger. While it never gets boring, it can get slow.

Much about the film is fanciful and towards the end of the movie you are given a choice to make which essentially gives you the option of faith or reason. The movie heavily skews its own leanings towards one side and that might be offensive towards those who lean in the other direction. And while it is professed that Pi’s story will make you believe in God, quite frankly I don’t see it converting any atheists.

Still, it does lead you to ask some pretty deep questions as to the truth behind faith and reason. What is reality, after all, but our perception of it and what we perceive as fact and what we perceive as beyond our understanding can be tricky. The will to survive can’t be quantified or measured but it is undeniably there – yet a Bengal tiger that looks for all the world like a living, breathing animal can be completely computer generated. Is he any less real for that however? This is the kind of thing that used to give Aristotle headaches.

The good thing however is that you can give these thoughts whatever attention you believe they deserve or what you’re willing to give them. You can sit back and relax and take in the breathtaking images and let not a single stray thought invade your skull if so you choose. It’s all up to you. Now, there are those who won’t even consider seeing this without a single solitary star in the cast (Gerard Depardieu appears briefly as a ill-tempered ship’s cook but many Americans wouldn’t even consider the French Colossus in the same firmament of a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt), although several of the actors including Irffan Khan and Tabu are big stars in India. Still, that hasn’t been enough to really propel the film into stratospheric box office numbers which does give rise to the theory that Americans really don’t like movies that make them think. Ah well. Perhaps Lee should have figured out how to put a car chase in this one, or had the tiger fight the shark with machine guns and rocket launchers. And you wonder why our test scores suck.

REASONS TO GO: Beautifully shot. Deeper and more thought-provoking than the average Hollywood film.

REASONS TO STAY: Loses momentum at times.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some of the emotions depicted here are pretty rough. There are also some action sequences that are pretty scary.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although Khan doesn’t appear in any scenes with the tiger, this is the second movie in 2012 he has appeared in with a character named Richard Parker, the first being The Amazing Spider-Man.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/11/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews. Metacritic: 78/100. The critics definitely love this one..

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Where the Wild Things Are

BENGAL TIGER LOVERS: Richard Parker, the tiger in the movie is mostly CGI – every scene in which he appears with Pi is CGI. However, real tigers were used in certain scenes early on in the film, as when the tiger was swimming for example.

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

NEXT: Killing Them Softly