To the '90s and Beyond! Film Podcast: Recent Episodes
Vince Leo
“To the 90’s and Beyond” offers concise deep-dives into the origin, making, production, and legacy for movies of the 1990s, as well as looks at newer films that were influenced by the films that came out in the 1980s/1990s. It also serves as a companion podcast to “Around the World in 80s Movies”.
Vince takes a detour from the MATRIX films to go into a deep dive into JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH (2025) — exploring the film’s core ideas, how it was made and released, and offering a frank review packed with trivia and production anecdotes.
Plot synopsis: Set five years after Jurassic World: Dominion, Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) follows a specialist team hired by a pharmaceutical company to travel to the remote, mutation-altered Île Saint-Hubert to harvest genetic samples from its most enormous dinosaurs for a promising heart-disease treatment; the expedition soon devolves into a desperate fight for survival when they must join forces with a shipwrecked civilian family and, together, uncover a sinister secret tied to the island and InGen’s past experiments that forces harrowing choices about truth, profit, and the fate of the revived creatures.
Tl;dr: Vince started a funk-based internet radio station called Funk the Planet. Check it out at https://funkthepla.net
Film writer Vince Leo explores the nine-episode animated short film anthology, The Animatrix, released in 2003. Each short expands the lore of The Matrix universe. Produced by the Wachowskis, the creators of The Matrix trilogy, the anthology features contributions from various anime directors. The Animatrix offers a unique perspective on the Matrix world, delving deeper into its themes and characters than the original films.
It’s several months after the events of the first film, and the last remaining human city, the underground bunker called Zion, is building its forces to take back the planet from the artificial intelligence that now dominates it. This same artificial intelligence has begun to dig to destroy Zion, and the resistance seems overwhelmed by the potential onslaught. The plan is now hatched to send agents Neo (Keanu Reeves), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne)back into the Matrix so that they may destroy the mainframe that controls it, but it’s not going to be easy, with the usual agents, a couple of ghosts, and hundreds of Agent Smiths (Hugo Weaving), who now seems to have the ability to replicate himself, on their tails.
Keanu Reeves stars as Thomas Anderson, aka Neo. Neo works for a large software company, but is a computer hacker on the side, and quite a good one at that, selling off information for a price to anyone who might want it. That is until one day his world is rocked when he is shown that the world of 1999 isn’t reality, but actually a computer simulation designed to lull humans into a feeling of complacency while their actual bodies are being harvested and used as batteries for the artificial intelligence they helped create. A mysterious man named Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne)believes Neo is “The One” who will save all humanity, as foretold to him by The Oracle, so he shows Neo the truth about his surroundings and trains him in the ways of The Matrix in the hope that humanity can prevail against the machines.
Rufus Sewell stars as John Murdoch, who wakes up one day with amnesia in an non-descript hotel room with a butchered woman, immediately having to go on the run as the prime suspect in a series of murders of prostitutes around the city — but he can’t remember if he did it. In addition to the police force, Murdoch is also hotly pursued by a shifty psychologist named Dr. Shreber (Kiefer Sutherland), a tenacious detective, Frank Bumstead (WIlliam Hurt), a woman claiming to be his philandering wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), and a spate of pale and creepy-looking, trenchcoated Nosferatus (or so they appear), who are looking for Murdoch because he seems to possess abilities above and beyond what normal men have, which makes him a danger to them. As Murdoch seeks to get to the bottom of who he is and what’s going on, he discovers that there’s an even bigger mystery, which is who everyone else is, what kind of city they all reside in, why is it being controlled by these shady creatures who seem otherworldly, and just why does it always seem to be nighttime?
This Japanese remake of the 1997 Canadian thriller depicts several strangers awakening in a prison of cubic cells, some of them booby-trapped, not knowing how they got there or why. The prisoners must use their combined skills if they are to escape alive.
A group of strangers awakens with very little memory of who they are and finds that they have been involuntarily placed in a maze containing deadly traps. Meanwhile, a young technician watching over the Cube grows appalled at what he sees and endeavors to rescue a woman he finds a connection to who is trapped within.
In this follow-up to the 1997 futuristic cult thriller, Cube, another group of strangers find themselves transported into a maze of cube rooms for unknown reasons as they try to make their escape.
Without knowing how they got there or why they were there, several strangers awaken in a maze of cube-like rooms, some of them containing deadly booby traps. There’s tough cop Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint), doctor Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), young math whiz Leaven (Nicole de Boer), escape artist Rennes (Wayne Robson), autistic savant Kazan (Andrew Miller) and architect Worth (David Hewlett). The cube inhabitants must rely on each other’s strengths if they are to have any chance to escape.
The remains of a crashed spaceship, over three centuries old, is found on the ocean floor somewhere in the South Pacific, and a psychologist and his crew of scientists are selected to investigate. On board the ship, they encounter a strange spherical object, and after one of them enters the sphere, strange and not-too-pleasant things begin happening to them.
In the year 2047, a crew of American astronauts is sent to Neptune to try to save the crew and ship called the Event Horizon, which had mysteriously disappeared several years before. They find the Event Horizon but what they find inside is something more than they expected. Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill star in this Paul W.S. Anderson sci-fi/horror mesh.
Jodie Foster stars as scientist Ellie Arroway, who has dedicated her life to searching for possible intelligent lifeforms outside of Earth and our solar system. An orphan from an early age, her faith in God has wavered since the days of trying to futilely contact her mother in heaven through the radio, replaced by a firm belief in science and facts as the pinnacle of what’s true and right. While her faith that we are not alone in the universe is unwavering, as a scientist, she won’t rest until she has absolute proof. Scanning the skies for radio waves of intelligent extraterrestrial origin, she and her team at SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) wait diligently for a message. That day finally arrives when they pick up a repeating signal emanating from Vega, a star system 26 light-years away. As the scientists work diligently to try to decode the message, the Earth erupts in a series of science vs. religion debates on what this all means, and who should be the one who represents our interests should we come face to face with the originator of the message.
During a burial dig early in the 20th century, a stargate is found but the technology didn’t exist to understand the complicated mechanism. Fast forward to the 1990s, and experiments have begun again, this time enlisting the services of Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader), a professor of Ancient Egypt who believes that man could not possibly have been responsible for the civilization which existed over 5000 years ago. The stargate is operated which is a gateway to another world on the other end of the galaxy. Jackson and a troop of soldiers are sent there to investigate and find a civilization similar to that found in Ancient Egypt. Kurt Russell, Jaye Davidson, and Mili Avital co-star in this Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin film.
A series of nuclear explosions in the South Pacific creates a titanic lizard monster that’s born pregnant and destroys Manhattan. With over 200 eggs laid, the human race faces extinction if a biologist (Matthew Broderick), a couple of reporters, the French CIA, and the military can’t kill them all before they all lay eggs of their own.
Activist Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard_ is still leading the Dinosaur Protection Group to break up illegal breeding operations. Claire’s partner, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), captures and relocates stray dinos before they’re slaughtered by poachers. They live in a cabin in the Sierra Nevadas with 14-year-old experimental human clone Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), raised as their surrogate daughter in secret to protect her from exploitation. The velociraptor raised by Owen, Blue, lives in the nearby woods with her asexually created younger hatchling, dubbed Beta by Maisie. Maisie is unhappy in isolation and occasionally strays beyond her parents’ border, ultimately getting captured by mercenaries, who also kidnap Beta.
Meanwhile, genetically modified locusts begin consuming and destroying farm crops in America’s heartland and will soon be a global threat. Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) discovers that crops from Biosyn seeds remain unaffected, suspecting foul play to monopolize the world’s food market. She consults former paleontologist colleague and romantic partner Alan Grant (Sam Neill) for help. They discover that the locusts have been genetically modified using Cretaceous period DNA. Their detective work finds them joining forces with Claire and Owen to infiltrate Biosyn, where Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is currently employed, to expose the greedy corporation’s plans to the world.
This 5th entry in the Jurassic franchise sets the story following the closure of Jurassic World, where its dormant volcano, Mt. Sibo, has become active, threatening all life on Isla Nublar. Humankind debates whether the clone dinosaurs should be saved or return to extinction. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) has become a conservationist advocate for the Dinosaur Protection Group, feeling an overwhelming responsibility to save the dinos she once considered merely a commodity. After John Hammond's billionaire associate Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) is on his deathbed, his assistant, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), pitches a plan to Claire to fund the relocation of the dinosaurs from Isla Nublar to a sanctuary island. Claire gathers a team including velociraptor whisperer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), super-hacker Franklin Webb (Justice Smith), and paleo-veterinarian Zia Rodriguez (Daniela Pineda). The team is stunned to discover find mercenaries on the island gathering dinosaurs to bring to the mainland for greedy, nefarious purposes.
Siblings Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) are sent on vacation to visit their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is the manager of operations at the Costa Rica island resort known as Jurassic World, a tourist attraction funded by mega-billionaire named Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) that takes its basic idea from the original Jurassic Park but seeks to do the formula right (i.e., more profitably). In addition to the assortment of dinosaurs, the corporation is looking into creating their own hybrid dinos through experiments in genetic engineering that are sure to draw in even more interested visitors year after year. Their biggest creation is the Indominus Rex, a creation that splices the T. Rex DNA with a hodge-podge of other predators of various strengths, that just might be the most deadly creature that has ever roamed the Earth. (I suppose it's not a good sign that 'indominus' is Latin for 'untamable'.) Navy vet Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) is a behavioral research consultant and talent trainer at the facility, looking into the ability of these dinosaurs to learn from human instruction, and he's especially made progress at whispering to velociraptors, which may prove to be a much-needed thing now that Indominus Rex has gotten out of its cage and is prepared to hunt and kill whatever it can on the island, which ultimately could mean the slaughter of 20,000 visitors trapped in the theme park. Colin Trevorrow directs.
Jurassic Park III starts off with a man and a young boy that go paragliding only to have a forced crash landing on the island of Isla Sorna, the infamous second Jurassic Park island. The boy's parents, played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni, travel to the island in hopes of rescuing their son, dragging along Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill, from the first film), who is none too happy about being thrown among the ruthless predators again. Golly gee, you don't think their plane might crash causing them to have to deal with dino-angst for 90 minutes, do you? Joe Johnston directs.
It's four years later, and the chief creator of Jurassic Park sends an expedition of four people to check on "Site B", a secret place where the dinosaurs were developed and which now sports dinosaurs roaming free. The quartet is supposed to document the goings-on, but soon discover they will not be alone on the island, as the creator's nephew envisions Jurassic Parks across America and wants to capture some dinos to exploit for profit. Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, and Vince Vaughn star. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Vince goes in-depth on all of the history, trivia, and behind-the-scenes action of 1993's JURASSIC PARK, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the best-selling book by Michael Crichton. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough star in this thrilling adventure of an eccentric billionaire who builds a theme park attraction full of cloned dinosaurs that doesn't go according to plan.
Super Mario Bros. features the emergence of an alternate dimension caused by (what is now known as) Brooklyn being struck by a meteorite millions of years ago. In this alternate dimension, humans evolved from lizards, rather than monkeys, as believed in our own realm. There is also only one city, Dinohattan, surrounded by endless desert, and currently presided over by the evil Koopa (Hopper, Red Rock West). President Koopa (Dennis Hopper) is out to get a powerful rock crystal, a fragment of the original meteorite, that he needs to merge the two dimensions, giving him more realms to conquer. Here is where we meet our heroes, a couple of plumbers named Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo), who, in pursuit of a kidnapped new friend in a paleontology student named Daisy (Samantha Mathis), who happens to have the rock in the form of a necklace, find a portal into the Dinohattan dimension. Dangers lurk all around, as the brave brothers must battle the mighty Koopa and his lizard horde to rescue Daisy and thwart Koopa's evil plans to destroy their world.
Set in the futuristic year of 2007, in a city dubbed New Angeles, after having been reconstructed after a giant earthquake that happened a decade before in Southern California, where gangs and criminals mostly have their run of the city streets at night. Outside of the ineffective New Angeles Police Department, a vigilante group called the Power Corps, with direction from a teenage girl named Marian (Alyssa Milano), is the only organized force willing to take on the evil forces around the town. She knows talent when she sees it, so when she stumbles across a couple of martial-artist orphaned brothers named Jimmy (Mark Dacascos) and Billy (Scott Wolf) Lee, she recruits them for the cause of good. Their top adversary is a megalomaniac tycoon named Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick), aka 'The Shadow Master', who has become quite powerful in all but taking completely over the streets, utilizing his ability to change into shadow form and take over the bodies of others. The Lee brothers and their guardian Satori (Julia Nickson) have half of a powerful, mystical ancient Chinese medallion, while Koga has the other, and he'll do whatever it takes to get his avaricious hands on it.
In this animated adventure expanded from the video game, M. Bison is a megalomaniacal warlord from Thailand with dreams of world domination. Bison runs a super-secret organization of drug smugglers, weapons runners, and an international terror and crime syndicate called "Shadowlaw". Fueling Shadowlaw is a massive drug-running operation and a diabolical plan to become the most military force in the world through the use of ultra-powerful street fighters. Bison has his tech team devise a squad of cyborgs to do reconnaissance to find the best fighters in the world to recruit into his organization as part of a super army better than any individual nation's.
Because the Japanese Shotokan karate master named Ryu has bested Sagat in the Street Fighter Tournament, it marks him as perhaps the world's best, and someone from which Bison can build an army of super-street fighters. Ryu's best friend from San Francisco, Ken Masters, another street fighter who studied the same master (making him the closest fighter to being Ryu's equal) is kidnapped by Bison for brainwashing experiments to convert street fighters to his political assassins, starting with his effort to try to take down the world-wandering Ryu. Vengeful Chun Li and her colleagues at Interpol are trying to take down the operation, as does US Air Force Captain Guile, who is out to take down Bison for killing a friend.
In the Southeast Asian country of Shadaloo, where General M. Bison (Raul Julia) has been waging a war with the A.N. (the Allied Nations -- a U.N.-like military force) after he has taken several dozen A.N. hostages, putting them up for a ransom of $20 billion dollars. Leading the A.N. counterattack is United States Colonel William F. Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a headstrong and gifted fighter that Bison can't wait to challenge in hand-to-hand combat. Many others would converge at Bison's stronghold, including television reporter Chun-Li Zang (Ming-Na), arms dealer Victor Sagat (Wes Studi), and a couple of roguish martial artists named Ken (Damian Chapa) and Ryu (Byron Mann).
MMA cage fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) is someone who usually takes a dive for money in the arena. Young doesn't know his heritage is tied to the ancient ninja Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada) and that his dragon-shaped birthmark means he is chosen to compete in the Mortal Kombat tournament for the fate of Earthrealm. Outworld sorcerer emperor Shang Tsung (Chin Han) is out to get Young, sending his best warrior, Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), to snuff him out. Young finds out more about why when meets Jax, a major in the U.S. Special Forces with the same special dragon symbol. Jax directs Cole to seek out fellow special-ops soldier Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee).
They soon find themselves in the temple of Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), an Elder God who is the protector of Earthrealm. Raiden provides sanctuary for all from Earthrealm who bear the sacred mark, including the fire-ball flinging Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), the metal-helmeted Kung Lao (Max Huang), and nasty-dispositioned crime boss Kano (Josh Lawson). Their mission is to prepare themselves through martial arts training to take on the evil warriors of Outworld, which is set to take over Earthrealm if they win one more interdimensional Mortal Kombat tournament. The training has the capability of unleashing each warrior's arcana, or special power that emanates from their souls. Cole must not only save his family from harm, but also everyone on Earth.
In this episode, Vince looks at the ill-fated attempts to release the third film in the original Mortal Kombat film franchise from the 1990s, followed by an in-depth look at the 2020 animated feature, Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge, an ultraviolent origin story to one of the game's most popular characters. This one features a man named Hanzo Hasashi, a ninja of a sort who vows revenge as an undead warrior on Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei, who wiped out Hanzo's people, the Shirai Ryu, including his young son. Hanzo rises from the eternally torturous underworld known as NetherRealm as Scorpion, resurrected with wraith-like demonic powers bestowed by the dark sorcerer Quan-Chi, in exchange for his loyalty, the theft of a mystical key that will free the Elder God known as Shinnok, and representation in the once-in-a-generation tournament run by the evil Shang Tsung.
In this sequel to 1995's Mortal Kombat, portals between Outworld and Earth are illegally opened by Outworld’s emperor Shao Kahn, who has decided the rules of “Mortal Kombat” need not apply to him. This leaves the world’s mightiest fighters only six days to vanquish this new threat and close the portals or lose Earthrealm to the powers of evil. They return to Outworld to fight for humanity’s fate.
Mortal Kombat: The Journey begins was a direct-to-video animated video released in conjunction with the release of Mortal Kombat in theaters in 1995. It purports to be a sequel to the live-action film. For the story, producer Larry Kasanoff employed the services of his screenwriter for the live-action film, Kevin Droney. In Droney's script, we learn that "Mortal Kombat" is a tournament where warriors from Earth and warriors from the alternate dimension of Outworld compete for domination. Three warriors from Earth are chosen by Raiden, the God of Thunder: Liu Kang, a monk who hails from the Order of Light Temple, Lieutenant Sonya Blade, a United States Special Forces officer, and Johnny Cage, a major Hollywood action star with actual martial arts skill. Their mission is to travel by boat to a mysterious island to fight the reigning champion of the "Mortal Kombat" tournament for five centuries, a half-humanoid/half-dragon named Goro. However, to get there, they must first get through evil sorcerer Shang Tsung's minions, SubZero and Scorpio, as well as a horde of Nomads (aka Tarkatan warriors) protecting Goro. Along the way, Raiden describes the scenario and the backgrounds of the foes they are about to face for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the game.
The debut episode of "To the 90s and Beyond" podcast!
In the film, there is a gathering of Earth's top fighters every generation to compete for the fate of the planet to keep the evil forces from Outworld from gaining dominion. It seems that if Outworld's fighters defeat Earth in one more tournament, Earth will be theirs. The current generation's elite are rounded up, including monk fighter Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Hollywood action hero Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), and military operative Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson), to join forces with Earth's defending thunder god Rayden (Christopher Lambert) in fighting to the death against the outlandish, deadly creatures from the planet of darkness, headed by the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Paul W.S. Anderson directs.
Vince thanks listeners for their feedback regarding the future of the show and briefly lays out the format change going from henceforth, including what the new title will be.
This is not a review, but a request for feedback from Vince on the future format of the show due to the lack of availability of new movies. Please write to Vince @ qwipster@gmail.com and let him know if you'd like the show to remain as it is, or if you'd like to hear something different that covers a particular genre or era of films of the past.
The much-demanded and long-awaited release of Zack Snyder's vision for what was meant to be his 2017 film Justice League. As with the 2017 version, the story follows the events of Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Superman is dead, leaving a vacuum as Earth’s protector. A hulking alien from the planet Apokolips named Steppenwolf comes to Earth to retrieve the three hidden Motherboxes, cubelike artifacts with mysterious, powerful energy, enough to destroy planets when combined. Batman can’t take on such a force alone, rounding up a team of superpowered beings from Earth to stop impending doom -the goddess-like Amazon Wonder Woman, the god-like Atlantean king Aquaman, the turbo-speed demon Flash, and the cybernetic wizard Cyborg. And yet, they will still need the power of Superman somehow.
Coming 2 America is the much-belated sequel to one of Eddie Murphy's most popular of starring vehicles, 1988's Coming to America. Murphy returns to his role as Akeem Joffer, an obscenely wealthy prince of the fictional African kingdom of Zamunda, living in bliss with his wife, Lisa (Shari Headley), and their three daughters. With his father ailing (James Earl Jones), Akeem is set to become the king, but this will leave Zamunda, which has only been ruled by men, with no male heir. General Izzi (Wesley Snipes), the warmongering leader of the neighboring country, Nexdoria, has come around to intimidate his way into a marriage between his son and Akeem''s eldest daughter, Meeka (KiKi Layne). However, Akeem is soon informed that he may have had an illegitimate son when he was sowing his wild oats in America thirty years prior. Akeem and his right-hand man Semmi (Arsenio Hall) return to Queens, New York to find the 31-year-old son and heir he didn't know he had, the street-wise ticket scalper Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler). Akeem flies out Lavelle and his mother Mary (Leslie Jones) to Zamunda to receive his training and perform tests of courage before he can be the prince.
Set in New York City, Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Kayla, a street-wise con artist who steals the resume of a highly qualified applicant and lands a temp position with the upscale Royal Gate Hotel. Through a series of mishaps, Jerry the mouse ends up taking unofficial residence in the five-star establishment while Kayla hires Tom the cat to be the exterminator that will preserve the immaculate reputation of the hotel, especially as they are set to host the “Wedding of the Century” between a couple of social media celebrities. Meanwhile, Kayla’s rival within the hotel, Terrance (Michael Pena), is out to make sure she fails before she gets the advancement he’s been sucking up for years to attain. Unfortunately, with a mouse, a couple of cats, a bulldog, and some elephants roaming around, trying to keep calamity from ensuing is going to be a near-impossible task for all of them.
Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) lives with her parents in Ohio while working in a dead-end job at thirty years old, a barista in a small coffee shop. Her parents have been encouraging her to get on with her life in ways that aren't even subtle. Their latest birthday gift: a suitcase.
Cassie spends her evenings at the local watering holes to the point where she's in an obvious stupor. Inevitably, someone will offer to do the right thing and give her a ride home. However, temptation gets the better of them and they'll tell the cab driver to take her to their home instead. There, they reveal themselves as not so good and she'll reveal herself to be not so drunk, shaming them for essentially trying to rape a woman who is too intoxicated to truly give consent.
At work, Cassie has a run-in with Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a former colleague from medical school now working as a pediatrician. Here we pick up clues learning about how she was once on a fast-track to becoming a doctor, but she dropped out for mysterious reasons involving her best friend Nina Fisher, the victim of a sexual assault that never got justice - until Cassie made it her mission to stop predators in their tracks. Ryan seems different, cracking through Cassie's tough exterior, offering a bright future. However, when she learns that the person most responsible for Nina's rape is nearby and about to get married, she has to decide which path she should go down, the path of promise or the path of vengeance on everyone who done them wrong, including the seemingly indifferent school educators and lawyers who downplayed the allegations.
Emerald Fennell writes and directs.
Set in 1990, Joe 'Deke' Deacon (Denzel Washington) is a burnt-out deputy from Kern County, CA, who left working the spotlight of high-profile cases five years ago for quieter pastures, sacrificing the spotlight and his family in the process. Rami Malek is Jim Baxter, a hotshot homicide detective for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on top of the case to catch a serial killer brutally slaughtering young women. Deke has a knack for visualizing crime scenes and cracking cases by observing 'the little things' - the seemingly unimportant clues that lead a serial killer to be caught. However, his reputation of following his own guidelines rather than the law has earned him a reputation, especially as events of his past have haunted him to ruin.
Deke travels to LA to deliver evidence for a case from Bakersfield but finds himself drawn into doing additional legwork off the clock because of the similarities between the current murders and one he had been working on back when he was last in Los Angeles that precipitated his exile. The arrogant Baxter initially dismisses Deacon as a loose cannon distraction, but eventually finds there's a method to his madness that could be an asset to cracking the case. Their clues eventually lead to appliance deliverer Albert Sparma (Jared Leto), though they aren't quite sure if he did the deeds or if he's merely drawn close to the case because he is a fanatic for serial-killer crimes and intrigued at being thought of as a suspect. However, the demons that plague Deke seem to be infecting Baxter as he too begins to obsess about the case. John Lee Hancock writes and directs.
The Hunt is a violent satire in which liberals kidnap and hunt down "deplorables", aka Trump supporters. These deplorables wake up in an undisclosed rural area gagged online bloggers and internet trolls claimed to expose online as "Manorgate," but are left with keys, tools, and weapons to potentially defend themselves and get free. The private jet-flying, caviar-consuming liberal elites hunting them down like giving them a sporting chance, though the odds are heavily stacked against them. However, one of the captives is able to give the hunters a run for their money. Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Wayne Duvall, Ike Barinholtz, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee appear in this film written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof, directed by Craig Zobel.
Jamie Foxx voices Joe Gardner, a middle-aged music teacher at a New York public middle school, frustrated by his lack of success toward becoming a professional jazz club musician. He's offered full-time status with the school when another door of opportunity opens. A former student mentions that a legendary jazz saxophonist named Dorothea Williams is auditioning for a new pianist in her jazz ensemble. Nailing the audition, Joe is exuberant, failing to notice an open manhole before falling into it. He next finds himself disassociated with his body in an afterlife existence, a soul waiting for its final destination (dubbed "The Great Beyond").
With dreams unfulfilled, Joe desperately wants his life back, escaping his fate by posing as a mentor for new souls in a pre-life training area called "The Great Before." Joe's assignment is to direct a soul called 22 to find her spark that will keep her happy and productive before assuming her role in the living world. However, 22 is a special case, spending eons avoiding the process under other mentors (even Mother Teresa lost her cool with her). When Terry, the accountant for souls, notices one is missing, she pursues Joe after he escapes back to Earth to regain his life.
The prolonged armed raid of the shopping mal reveals a jewelry store used as a front to fence valuable but stolen ancient artifacts brought to the Smithsonian for Diana (Gal Gadot) and her team to identify. That's where we meet the newly hired Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a mousy gem specialist with self-esteem issues, particularly around the self-confident and beautiful Diana Prince. In particular, one stands out, a phallic piece identified as the Dreamstone, a crystal of myth once believed throughout ancient history to grant wishes. Cavalierly, Barbara makes her wish to be like Diana, though not knowing that also means like Wonder Woman as a by-product. Diana makes her wish for Steve Trevor to be back in her life to continue the life they never got to spend together.
Overnight, Barbara's confidence begins to grow, and the men take note of her beauty while she begins to grow in strength and agility. At the same time, Diana is approached by a mysterious strange claiming to be Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). He doesn't look like him, but after a few words that only Steve might know, she sees the character with Chris Pine's face and voice henceforth. (This aspect will require audiences not to think too hard about an innocent man whose body will be used nonconsensually indefinitely for Diana to romance, while also having no family or friends in his life to notice he's completely changed).
Villainy soon enters the scene when Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), a TV infomercial conman who has headed the financially failing oil company called Black Gold Cooperative, enters the scene. Lord discovers they have the Dreamstone, and he's desperate enough to give it a try, using his charm on Barbara to get his hands on the piece and make his wish - which is to have the stone's powers. The physical stone disintegrates, and now Max has the power to grant anyone a wish - a power he uses in exchanges for the wealth, power, and fame of others who deal with him directly.
However, what the wish makers don't know is that there is a catch. Gaining the thing they desire most means losing the thing of most value they already possess. In Barbara's case, it is her kindness. In Max's case, it is a good father. And in Diana's case, it is the superpowers she needs to save the world.
Patty Jenkins directs.
The story involves the Bill (Alex Winter) & Ted (Keanu Reeves), now married with one child each, suffering a mid-life crisis, realizing that they never united humankind through their music as foretold. In fact, contrary to the end montage of Bogus Journey depicting their success, Face the Music shows the duo jaded after a career where they are more laughing-stock than the most popular band on Earth. The pressure to fulfill their destiny finds their marriage on the rocks, seeking couples therapy, but one where both couples are involved simultaneously; the duo's inability to separate their codependency is one of the issues. Someone from the future tells them they need to write the song within the next 77 minutes to achieve global peace and harmony, or the universe will come apart in a cataclysmic event called the Unraveling. Their plan: use the phone booth time machine to travel forward in time to steal the song from their future selves. Dean Parisot directs this third entry in the Bill & Ted series.
The story centers around Ivan, a silverback gorilla who lives in a cage as the star of a struggling animal show at a suburban shopping center called the Big Top Mall & Video Arcade at Exit 8. Ivan’s main schtick is to roar and look intimidating, but behind the scenes, he is a thoughtful and sensitive soul. Other talented animals under the care of beleaguered ringleader Mack include a baseball-playing chicken, a sassy poodle, a bunny, a seal, a parrot, and an elderly elephant named Stella, plus a stray mutt called Bob.
Ivan befriends the young daughter of the mall cleaner who hands him supplies to draw, and it becomes something he takes an interest in doing, which has Mack seeing dollar signs to save his floundering circus attraction. An adorable baby elephant named Ruby arrives to become the latest attraction, under the tutelage and loving guidance of Stella. The drawing and painting, plus Ruby’s arrival, trigger Ivan’s memories of his childhood of freedom in the wild with his family, and Stella doesn’t want Ruby to live a sheltered life as she has had. Ivan plans to break free and deliver Ruby to a life of freedom.
Featuring Bryan Cranston, Ariana Greenblatt, Ramon Rodriguez, Owain Arthur as live actors. Voice work by Sam Rockwell, Danny DeVito, Brooklynn Prince, Angelina Jolie, Chaka Khan, Ron Funches, Helen Mirren.
In this potent and socially relevant dramatic thriller, Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) is a jaded criminal defense attorney and Slim a devoutly Christian retail clerk Slim (Daniel Kaluuya). They're on a Tinder date in a Cleveland diner. On the way to drop off Queen, Slim gets pulled over by a pushy cop (Sturgill Simpson), then things escalate into an intense altercation that results in Slim killing the cop in self-defense. From then on, the two become fugitives, relying on whatever help they can on the down-low to avoid being caught and find their way to Cuba. Lena Waithe scripts from an idea by James Frey. Melina Matsoukas directs.
In this third entry in the long-gestating franchise, Mike Lowery (Will Smith) gets gunned down by up-and-coming Miami crime kingpin Armando Armas (Jacob Scipio) who pops a few rounds into the cop at the direction of his ruthless mother Isabel (Kate del Castillo), getting revenge on all of those cops and lawyers who took down her drug-lord husband years before. Due to Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) making a pact with God to hang up the "bad boys" life if Mike pulls through, he refuses to join forces with his longtime partner on exacting revenge on Armando. To help supplement the cover, loose-cannon Mike teams up with the by-the-book 'AMMO' division of the force, a group of young guns with high-tech weapons. Of course, when tragedy strikes once again, Marcus gets off of his recliner for one more chance at the guts and glory of the "bad boys."
In this Pixar film, two teenage elf brothers in a town called New Mushroomton go on a quest that requires them to tap into the long-forgotten magic in the world to have one more day with the father who passed away before his youngest was born. The father left behind a gift for them to have when they both reached the age of sixteen, a wizard's staff and an ultra-rare Phoenix Gem they can use to bring him back to life, but only for one day. The spell is cast, but the process gets interrupted halfway, leaving only dad's animated legs to get to know. If they want to talk to him or give him so much as a hug, they'll have to find another Phoenix Gem before the spell runs out. Voice work by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt. Directed by Dan Scanlon.
Song Kang-ho plays Kim Ki-taek, the father in the poor family that has no breadwinners due to the lack of good-paying jobs (the latest gig finds them folding pizza boxes). Poverty has become so pervasive that the family works overtime to find ways to not spend money, hijacking wifi from neighbors and resorting to forgery to gain credentials from schools they couldn't even dream to be able to afford. They even leave the window open as the bug exterminator draws near to get "free fumigation", inundating their basement apartment (and boxes meant to carry pizzas) with unhealthy chemicals. Things take a turn for the better when Ki-taek's son, Ki-woo, gets a temporary job replacing a good friend as the tutor for Da-hye, a teenage daughter of a well-to-do family. In their palatial home, Ki-woo woos the young woman who develops a crush on him, just like she did the prior tutor, and convinces the naive mother that he has the skills necessary for the job. When Ki-woo learns that the young son in the rich family, Da-song, needs an art tutor, he brings in his sister for the job, pretending to be Ki-woo's old college friend, then his dad, then his mother. But their taste of the high life makes it a place they want to stay for good.
Sonic the Hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz) flees homeworld due to possessing powers that make him a fugitive carrying a bad full of rings that are portals to new dimensions, is typical road-movie adventure comedy we've seen many times in a variety of forms. Sonic ends up teleporting to Earth, specifically the flyspeck town of Green Hills, Montana, where he encounters a sheriff so bored with the town's lack of crims that he's taken to having conversations with his donuts, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), who is hoping to not make another day a waste by waiting patiently to nail someone speeding. He gets it in Sonic, who clocks in at a speed that makes Tom question his radar gun. Tom dreams of doing some real crime-fighting, with a goal to move him and Maddie (Tika Sumpter), his ever-supportive veterinarian wife, to San Francisco to join their more active police department. It turns out when Sonic loses all of his other rings through an open portal atop the city's Transamerica Pyramid, he'll have to tag along as well.
However, when Sonic's energy burst ends up causing a massive power outage to the entire Pacific Northwest region of the United States, the government sends in a secret weapon, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), a mad, megalomaniacal genius with an army of sophisticated flying drones who tenaciously will find a way to exterminate the blue alien thing once and for all. Robotnik chases Tom and his new companion Sonic as they make their way to California.
The storyline picks up with Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) just following her dastardly dreamboat, The Joker, breaking up with her, with the spinout of their toxic relationship leaving her in shambles. An oft-unhinged club owner named Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), whose alter ego is another powerful villain in Gotham City known as Black Mask has secured a rare diamond worth so much that he could afford to up his protection racket operation to become the biggest crime kingpin in Gotham City. That diamond is stumbled onto and taken by a pickpocket extraordinaire named Cassandra Cain, who ends up swallowing it to avoid having to give it up when frisked by police, making her the most sought after person in the city, especially after Roman places a half-million-dollar bounty on her.
All of this leads to Harley forming a ramshackle team of women with grievances with Black Mask to finally put an end to his murderous ways. That team includes Huntress, aka Helena Bertinelli (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a Punisher-type mafia princess-turned-vigilante who rides a motorcycle and shoots a crossbow - Black Canary, aka Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell). Leading the case for the Gotham City Police Department is Renee Montoya, played by Rosie Perez, and newcomer Ella Jay Basco portrays Cassandra Cain. Cathy Yan directs.
As a novel, "Little Women" had been published in two volumes, one in 1868 and the other in 1869, but the volumes are combined in the film, interwoven together in a rearranged timeline that jumps back and forth, spotlighting their hopes and dreams as teenagers, then tempering those ambitions with the grimmer realities of the real world in their adulthood. It spins the yarn of four young sisters with artistic and romantic ambitions - Jo, Amy, Meg, and Beth - living with their mother Marmee while their father is off fighting in the Civil War. Much of this film adaptation by writer-director Greta Gerwig concentrates on Jo's story regarding her ambition and struggle to become a published writer. Throughout the course of the film, we see her maturation by finding her voice, both as a woman and as a writer. Featuring Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalomet, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep.
Set in 2012, Uncut Gems is a part crime drama and part character study, following the dealings of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a New York jewelry merchant doing business by appointment in his highly secure private showroom. Not all is peachy-keen in Howard's life, as his marriage is on the rocks, his mistress has begun to make him feel insecure, his lack of work ethic beginning to sour customers, he just might have colon cancer, and his gambling addiction has gotten him into a lot of debt that he can't pay back easily. He's a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes to keep him out of trouble; his latest involved the procuring of a large uncut Ethiopian black opal that may be worth up to a million dollars.
Enter Boston Celtics star, Kevin Garnett, who takes an immediate interest in purchasing the rare jewel upon seeing it, but is denied a sale because Howard already has it set up to auction within a few days. Garnett ends up borrowing the opal in exchange for one of his championship rings and has one of the best games of his career on the basketball court, making it the good-luck charm he has to have at the tail-end of his career. In the meantime, Howard has ended up pawning off Garnett's ring and used the money to bet big on Garnett's performance.
Directed by Benny and Joshua Safdie.
1917 takes place in Northern France amid the Great War. Lance Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) are two British soldiers commanded to carry orders from their General (Colin Firth) across No Man’s Land then behind German-occupied enemy lines. The mission-critical orders are for a battalion of 1600 British soldiers, including Blake’s brother, to stand down from their planned raid the next morning against the Germans who are setting them up for a massive ambush. Through trenches, decimated towns, and bombed-out structures, the duo traverses, cautiously but expeditiously, to save the lives of their fellow soldiers. Sam Mendes directs.
Most of the film surrounds the events leading up to France's illustrious 24 Hours of Le Mans auto racing event, mostly glossing over Ford losses in 1964 and 1965 as roads poorly chosen. We start with Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a former elite racecar driver, the first American driver to win at Le Mans, who retires into designing racecars and coaching the next generation of elite racers after finding out he has heart disease. Considered a maverick by his contemporaries, his services are sought when the Ford Motor Company, who are attempting to brand their vehicles to younger people who want style and sex appeal in the cars they buy, planned to acquire the financially struggling Ferrari in 1963. Those plans fall through spectacularly, leaving both sides feeling insulted. Ford wants to show Ferrari, and the world, that they are more than just a company that can mass produce family vehicles. Shelby sets about building what would come to be known as the Ford GT40 model, trying to maximize power and minimize weight and drag to be the fastest racer on Earth.
Christian Bale plays British racecar driver Ken Miles, sought by Shelby to help his test out his designs to give them a chance to come out on top in the grudge match between Ford and Ferrari. He's skilled at what he does, but Henry Ford II wants him replaced by someone less of a loose cannon and willing to tow the Ford line to the media. Ken's wife, Mollie (Caitriona Balfe), and his son, Peter (Noah Jupe), feel ambivalence about his quest to be the best. They want him to bring home the bacon, but they're also afraid that he'll be another casualty in the car racing arena who doesn't get out of his car in time. Shelby must weigh his friendship and knowledge that Miles is the best shot to win with the needs of his funders, who are only in it to promote their brand. James Mangold directs.
The Rise of Skywalker takes place sometime after the events of The Last Jedi. Rey (Daisy Ridley) has been in training with General Leia (Carrie Fisher) on how to be an elite Jedi. She ends up abruptly leaving so that she and her merry gang of Resistance fighters can hop around the galaxy. They’re looking for a Wayfinder crystal that is the key to finding the planet called Exogol, where the Siths reside, led by the return of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), who is somehow still alive. Obstacles abound, including First Order leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Ren is ostensibly seeking to help Palpatine return to power, trying to get his hands on the Wayfinder for himself, possibly to join forces with Palpatine to enact the Final Order to bring the galaxy to its knees. J.J. Abrams directs. John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Joonas Suotamo, Billy Dee Williams, Naomi Ackie, Keri Russell, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong’o, Kelly Marie Tran also appear
The Irishman is a tale spun from the vantage point of an older man in a nursing home and displayed through a series of extended confessional flashbacks. Robert De Niro takes the lead role of World War II veteran meat-delivery driver Frank Sheeran, who, beginning in the 1950s, gets involved as a hitman for the mob after meeting and providing his services to well-known crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). During his time working with Russell, Frank ends up meeting and becoming a close confidant of the nation's most influential union boss, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), known for using strongarm tactics to bring the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union to power. Organized crime had a significant influence in this era, on the unions, in business, and up to the highest levels of government, and Frank finds himself on the rise playing bodyguard and man of trust to Hoffa in his attempts to keep control of the most powerful union in the country. Martin Scorsese directs.
Bombshell is a somewhat loose recounting of the toxic, cultish, and highly sexist atmosphere that permeated Fox News under the tenure of their CEO, Roger Ailes (John Lithgow). Most of the events that take place in the film occur in 2016, during the middle of the presidential race that would culminate in Donald Trump’s election. It’s in this period that fading Fox star Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) would find herself on the outs. She would file an explosive sexual harassment charge against Ailes, who was considered the most influential man in news, a moniker that only fed into his narcissistic notions of being special and above standard rules. Fox News gave many women breaks, but many of them were objectified, wanting them to show off a certain sex appeal to deliver the news to their viewers. Margot Robbie co-stars as a composite character based on several of Ailes’ two dozen other accusers, Kayla, who is young, ambitious, Christian, and a firm believer in the Fox News mission. Also, she is beautiful enough to catch Ailes’ eye, offering her a fast-pass to success if he can get something from the relationship in return in terms of sex, power exchange, the gratification of his ego, and unquestioning loyalty. Charlize Theron Plays Megyn Kelly, who has a checkered history with Ailes that she has kept secret in exchange for her career, but now she must come to grips with whether to come out with her story or risk finding herself on the outs in the news business. Jay Roach directs.
Dark Waters is a film based on the true story of a corporate lawyer who ends up taking on DuPont Chemical. The origin of the screenplay originated from a Nathaniel Rich expose on attorney Rob Billott in The New York Times Magazine published in January of 2016 entitled, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare." The story detailed a crusading corporate attorney who went back to his hometown to take on the polluters who were destroying it. Actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo read the article and thought it would make for a compelling movie, optioning the rights and serving as a producer for the project.
Ruffalo gives a deliberately dry and restrained performance as Rob Bilott, an attorney working for a successful and conservative-minded Cincinnati-based firm of corporate lawyers. Every step of the way smacks of reluctance that holds him back, but a stronger conscience that drives him forward. His skills for protecting corporations are put to the test after a cattle farmer from his small home town in West Virginia approaches him, imploring him to look into why his livestock is diseased and their offspring born with severe congenital disabilities. He and his family might be getting cancer due to their exposure as well.
Anne Hathaway and Tim Robbins co-star. Todd Haynes directs.
Set somewhere in New England, the plot of this murder mystery involves the death of the patriarch of the Thrombey family, Harlan (Christopher Plummer). Harlan is a wildly successful mystery novelist who has amassed a small fortune running a publishing company for his and other books. While initially thought to be suicide, several guests at Harlan's 85th birthday acted quite suspiciously before his death that leaves open the possibility of foul play. Along with the police, an unknown person hires a famous detective named Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to check into the matter beyond the standard police questioning. Our main conduit into the story, however, is Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan's nurse that has a strange affliction where she will toss her cookies whenever she lies, making her an instant way to vet the truth, provided that she knows it. With Marta by his side, Blanc finds there may be more to the suicide than he initially thought, though the hows and whys remain elusive. Rian Johnson writes and directs. Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, and LaKeith Stanfield also appear.
Executive produced by Ben Wheatley, In Fabric is a comedic horror film from Peter Strickland, who made critical splashes with prior small-scale efforts like the crafty, Giallo-homage of Berberian Sound Studio and the fetishistic tale found in The Duke of Burgundy. Strickland's penchant for exploring unique scenarios continues with this more expansive story about a sexy "artery red" dress bought by Sheila, a lonely, recently divorced middle-aged London bank clerk, at Dentley & Soper, a bizarre department store that may be selling haunted wares during the rush of its January sales. What Sheila doesn't know is that the cost of the dress is more than just the money she paid for it. Peter Strickland writes and directs this eerie dark comedy that explores the nature of the power of fashion.
There's something to Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) that's been deeply troubling him - an incident in the past that haunts him that his continued existence on the island serves as a persistent reminder. Their shift on the island in the middle of the sea was originally to be four weeks in duration. Due to a leg injury, the boss, Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe), requires Ephraim to do nearly all of the physical labor on his behalf, which the younger man comes to deeply resent, feeling like a slave during the day and treated no better than an animal at night. On his end, Thomas feels like Ephraim doesn't respect his authority, and his cooking skills, and he's going to break the lad to fear him if he won't at least show him the respect of his position., The wall between them is so prevalent, despite being in close proximity to one another, they don't even learn each other's names until well into their scheduled stay. From there, things get occasionally better, but often far worse, as Ephraim's fear, guilt, and paranoia begin to get the better of him, combined with the toxicity of heavy drinking and feelings of overwhelming isolation. Visions come into his head of lusty mermaids, mocking seagulls, and a dead body he seems to know more about than he cares to remember. Robert Eggers directs and co-writes this unique psychological folk tale of a sort.
As with the other Terminator films, a protagonist and antagonist are sent back to the modern-day from a dark future using a time-travel device. The protagonist (Mackenzie Davis) is a technologically augmented human super-soldier named Grace, who lands in Mexico City in order to try to act as a savior for humanity in the future (Natalia Reyes). The antagonist (Gabriel Luna) is an ultra-powerful Terminator model called a Rev-9, whose mission it is to terminate a young female autoworker living in Mexico named Dani Ramos. Lending assistance to the resistance is the return of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who sees kinship in Dani because she has been thrust into the same position as key to humans surviving the A.I. onslaught of the future. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an appearance in the second half of the film as a T-800 model Terminator named "Carl" who has assimilated into human society after completing his mission of taking out John Connor. Tim Miller directs.
Will Smith stars as Henry Brogan, a top-notch sniper and skilled combat fighter working for a black ops government agency named Gemini, performing one last kill before retiring from the assassin business at the ripe age of 50. He's the best at what he does but hates the man he's become, unable to even look at himself in the mirror without observing disappointment and pain. But just when he thinks he's pulling out, they pull him back in, discovering that he's been misled by his superior at Gemini, Clay (Clive Owen), in the nature of his latest assassination, making him feel betrayed. Along with fellow agent and his new ally, Danny (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and his trusty pal Baron (Benedict Wong), Henry soon discovers they are trying to take him out as well, but with a younger, more agile, less angsty version of himself named Junior. Ang Lee directs this futuristic action-thriller.
Set in a crime-ridden Gotham City sometime in the early 1980s, Joaquin Phoenix stars as Arthur Fleck, a man who has been dealing with mental challenges his entire life, with little to show for all of his efforts to keep on the sane path. One of his afflictions is his uncontrollable laughter when faced with things that make him anxious, which often gets him into further trouble on its own. He’s living in a Gotham City apartment with his ailing mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), trying to make it on his own either as a clown or as a stand-up comedian, on the hope of getting on the number-one late-night talk show starring Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). Even with the several medications that he is on, his afflictions often get the better of him, but now he’s lost his job, his therapist, his meds, and his sanity, but finds there may be a new path to an audience when he gains notoriety as a Bernard Goetz-style subway shooter. Directed and co-written by Todd Phillips.
Starting off in 2007, Constance Wu stars as Destiny, a newbie stripper trying to make it in the clubs of New York's competitive environment in order to earn enough money to support her and her ailing grandmother. Backstage she meets and ends up being mentored by a legendary veteran stripper named Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), who completely cleans up in terms of money whenever she appears on the stage or off. However, the great recession of 2008 soon hits, with opportunities completely drying up to earn cash in the strip clubs, with both ladies struggling to make ends meet. That is until Ramona decides to put her skills at working the crowds of men to the test, gathering up Destiny and several other stripper friends to lure in the Wall Street types with corporate accounts to swindle them out of thousands of dollars at a time.
Jillian Bell stars as Brittany Forgler, a broke and down-on-her-luck woman in her late 20s who moved from Philadelphia to New York to pursue a career that didn't quite pan out. Her quest for success doesn't motivate her so much as dropping out for fear of failure. She has a job she is ill-suited for and is overweight, spending much of her time living in the shadow of her perky and pretty roommate Gretchen, going to clubs where she buries her feelings into a toxic combination of drinking, drugs, casual sex, and less-than-healthy food. A doctor's visit to try to score some Adderall leads her to discover that her weight has gotten quite far away from her, to the point where it is affecting her health, both physically and mentally. She needs to lose about 50 lbs. to get to avoid further health issues of a BMI in the obese range. Due to the high cost of joining a gym without much income, Brittany begins jogging for exercise, starting with a trip around the block, but discipline is a challenge, as is putting herself out there for the world to see. She soon joins a club for runners in the city along with her soon-to-be-divorced neighbor Catherine (Michaela Watkins) and her newfound and newfound running friend, Seth (Micah Stock). She even gets a new job dog-sitting for some well-to-do types who are away for long periods, where she meets the ultimate slacker co-worker in Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who convinces her to squat in their employers' abode. To keep her motivated, she and her friends set out to compete in the next New York City Marathon, but to do that requires the kind of discipline she's never known up to that point in her life. Paul Downs Colaizzo writes and directs this comedy-drama.
Zack Gottsagen is a young man with Down syndrome who is persistently trying to escape from his care facility in order to go meet his idol, a professional wrestler named the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Curch), who runs a wrestling school in Florida, hoping to fulfill his dream of becoming a pro wrestler himself. Along the way from the shores of North Carolina, he meets a wayward neer-do-well named Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), who is on the run after practically destroying the business of a local crab fisherman. Meanwhile, a woman who works at the care facility named Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) is tasked with tracking down Zak before he gets himself into further trouble, leading to a conflict between Zak's quest to meet his idol, Tyler's desire to help him while avoiding his comeuppance, and Eleanor's quest to do what her employers ask without making things worse for the resident she cares for.
The raunchy story surrounds three 12-year-old boys, best friends since kindergarten, dubbing themselves the Bean Bag Boys because -- well, they all had beanbags. Now they're in middle school and finding it hard to cope with the pressure of their peers to be considered cool among them. Max (Jacob Tremblay) has a crush and might be able to finally make a connection with the object of his desires once he gets invited to a 'kissing party' where the popular kids are all going. Trouble is, he doesn't know how to kiss (or, apparently, how to figure out where to find out). Thor (Brady Noon) is the gifted singer who gives up on it because he doesn't want to be teased, especially as he already is getting the nickname of "Sippy Cup" because he refuses to drink from a bottle of beer with the other boys. Lucas's (Keith L. Williams) parents are getting divorced, leaving him feeling out of sorts, and his sense of right and wrong tend to make him unable to understand why his friends are so willing to bend the rules to score points with other kids that don't seem to care about their well-being at all.
Hattie (played by Vanessa Kirby) is an MI6 agent on a mission to keep a deadly virus named Snowflake, which can liquefy the internal organs of humans who contract it, from getting into the hands of a faction of mercenaries under the employ of an evil tech-based organization called Eteon, led by Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a hi-tech assassin with technology-augmented senses that make him a swiss-army knife of deadly skills, something seen by the company as the future of a humanity soon to die off. In a desperation move, Hattie injects the virus into her own body, giving her only 3 days to get it back out before it actually does what it's supposed to do, and instantly making her the most sought-after fugitive in the world by bad guys and good guys alike. Hired to find Hattie before Lore finds her first is the titular bickering team of Los Angeles-based single father and retired DSS agent Luke Hobbs and ex-special ops mercenary Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the latter of whom is soon revealed to be the estranged older sibling of Hattie. But to save Hattie, they also need to secure the services of a genius scientist, who is perhaps the only one with the technology necessary to extract the virus back out of Hattie, making him a target of Eteon's forces as well. David Leitch directs this comic spin-off from the Fast & Furious franchise.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Rick Dalton, a Hollywood star who is seeing his brightness fade in the ever-changing and fickle industry. Brad Pitt stars as Cliff Booth, his dedicated stuntman, chauffeur, and overall sidekick in life. The outlook looks bleaker each time out for both of them, as Dalton goes from leading-man roles in films to heavies on TV shows, mulling over advice to continue his career starring in Italian films rather than take a back seat in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Cliff ends up getting into his own kerfuffles on the side, including a spat with none other than Bruce Lee, a young hippie that he flirts with while out driving around the streets of Los Angeles, and dealing with a past that includes questions on whether he might have murdered his own wife and gotten away with it. Quentin Tarantino writes and directs this pop-culture pastiche love letter to Hollywood at the end to the 1960s.
Set sometime in a future in which natural resources like water have become scarce. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Ruth, a recovering drug addict on the run due to the fact that she just might be someone who possesses some sort of seizure that reveals an earth-shattering (literally) superpower that causes a shift in tectonic plates that never move, making her the target for experimentation from government scientists. Broke and desperate, she ends up returning to the rural home he ran away from when she was much younger, where her mother Bo and mostly estranged daughter Lila reside, who also have their own form of powers. Julia Hart directs this superhero tale of a different sort.
Thirty years ago, J.J. (Jessie T. Usher) was fathered by Samuel L. Jackson's Shaft, who was immediately estranged from his kid by the mother, Maya, who wants to keep her child's life from the daily danger that Shaft is surrounded by. Shaft keeps his toe in the water with J.J. by sending presents on birthdays and holidays that often show how out of touch he is, not only in what's going on in J.J.'s life but also in what is acceptable by standards of our less politically incorrect world. J.J. Shaft works primarily as a desk jockey in the FBI. J.J. learns that his old friend Karim and sometimes protector died from an overdose in Harlem. Knowing that his friend had turned his life around, J.J. thinks the death smells funny and decides to investigate the cause, leading him to ask questions in a drug dealer's lair that gets him nearly killed. Desperate to move on with his investigation, J.J. reaches out to the father he never knew, currently working as a hardboiled private investigator in town, who readily accepts his role as his son's new protector and mentor of all things "manly". They soon discover there is, of course, far more involved in Karim's death than what the official report says, and soon the men find themselves in the middle of a murder case. Tim Story directs this semi-spoof of its own franchise. Richard Roundtree takes a small role as the original John Shaft.
Jake Gyllenhaal gets to don the "fishbowl" as Quentin Beck, the interdimensional savior of Venice when a giant water monster surfaces to try to destroy the city. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) happens to be there at the time, as he has traveled to Europe for a week-long class trip. Peter, of course, is gifted with superhero powers, but doesn't have the "great responsibility of other incarnations of the character, and would rather just be a teenager and do teenage things, like trying to find a way to express his feelings to his major crush, MJ (Zendaya), doing it atop the Eiffel Tower.. With the Avengers in a sort of disarray, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) assembles Beck, dubbed in the press as Mysterio, with Spider-Man who sees the new hero as a surrogate mentor to live up to in the wake of Tony Stark's demise, in order to stop future scary elementals from coming out of the woodworks again to destroy a major city. Jon Watts directs this MCU release.
After the Earth’s rotation is disturbed due to environmental fallout resulting from “polar fracking”, strange natural phenomena begin occurring all over the globe, including, in one area at least, the dead coming back to life to feast on the living. Bill Murray stars in his second zombie comedy as Cliff Robertson, the chief of police for the small, Mayberry-esque town of Centerville. He, along with his partner in fighting very little crime, officer Ronnie Peterson (Adam Driver) find themselves having to deal with the gruesome deaths they uncover, coming to the realization that things may not end well for themselves or their community if they don’t take decisive action. Jim Jarmusch writes and directs. Tilda Swinton, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Iggy Pop, Selena Gomez, and RZA also appear in this zombie comedy.
n this thoughtful sci-fi film, Clara Rugaard plays a young teenager we only hear referred to as 'daughter' by 'mother', who is has an android body with a soothing woman's voice (Mother's finished voice-over acting provided by Rose Byrne). We soon come to find that Mother is an artificial intelligence robot that works within a facility that is raising children in order to learn how to properly nurture them to adulthood, for the purpose of one day repopulating the contaminated Earth that lies outside of their safe enclosure in this post-apocalyptic tale. Daughter is the only living human in the facility, though Mother says that her family, which is a collection of human embryos currently being kept on tap, can be born and raised using a quick-gestation technology that we see Daughter produced from when the time comes. Hilary Swank also appears in a supporting role in this film directed by Grant Sputore.
For this fourth entry in the series, out are Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Instead, we get two new characters to follow working for the super-secret government organization to protect Earth from interdimensional threats and to keep knowledge of alien lifeforms away from human knowledge. The two are Tessa Thompson’s newly on-board Agent M and Chris Hemsworth’s roguish veteran named Agent H. The two “Men in Black” get their assignment from their boss, High T (Liam Neeson), to look after an alien of some renown and influence that is sought after by sinister forces for reasons come to learn more about through the course of the film. In the ensuing attempt at assassination, M is given a mysterious crystal object, one she knows must be important enough to make her a target, but something that serves no use to her until she can unlock its secret purpose. F. Gary Gray takes over the series from Barry Sonnefeld.
The plot, initially set in 1992 after a prologue with a tragic event in Jean Grey's childhood back in 1975, continues with the First Class set of mutants and involves a presidentially sanctioned trip into space in order to rescue a space shuttle. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) commits an act of heroism in trying to keep the space shuttle together as the crew is rounded up to safety, absorbing a massive wave of energy that should have easily taken her life. She ends up surviving the ordeal, much to everyone's relief. But something is a bit off with Jean, finding herself with enhanced senses, and growing even more powerful than she had ever been before. Exhilarating at first, but now she's becoming increasingly unstable, scared she's beginning to lose control to her new nature, with an internal fight going on that is an even bigger match than the external one that involves her in a battle with fellow mutants who are trying to contain what is rapidly becoming the most powerful, perhaps even unstoppable, mutant of all. Simon Kinberg writes and directs.
Eco-terrorist Alan Jonah (Charles Dance), who has taken as hostage a paleobiologist under the employ of the Titan-research group known as Monarch, Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), along with her teenage daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), to utilize Orca, an experimental mind-control technology she created to try to control the Titans, the giant monsters of the Earth that he sees as protecting the planet from humanity's continued exploitation and destruction, effectively by destroying most of human civilization as we know it. Emma's estranged husband Mark, who is trying to get his life back together after losing his son in the wake of Godzilla's 2014 rampage, is out to find them and save them from further efforts to destroy the world, or themselves. Mark soon hooks up with Emma's team of scientists at Monarch, as well as members of the military, to try to find a way to thwart Jonah's plans and to keep the escalating numbers of monsters, led by the invasive three-headed alpha Titan named King Ghidorah, from destroying everything we hold dear. Godzilla may be their last line of defense, but where is he?
The main premise is that two childhood friends, Sasha Tran (Ali Wong) and Marcus Kim (Randall Park), end up consummating their time growing up together as Asian-American teens in San Francisco with their first sexual experience, only to find their friendship has become awkward after going beyond the friend zone. These besties soon drift apart and lose connection as they progress into adulthood, with Sasha hitting the big time by becoming one of the most successful celebrity chefs in Los Angeles, while Marcus works by day in his father's small-scale HVAC company while performing at the same dive bar frequently with the hip-hop group he's been in since he was a teenager. When Sasha going to the opening of one of her posh restaurants in San Francisco, she ends up getting reacquainted with her old friend Marcus and finds him exactly in the same place, driving the same car, doing the same things all these years, while she's become a jet-setting millionaire. Neither can stand each other's lives, but they seem to enjoy each other's company for the time being, and with both stuck in relationships that may not lead anywhere, there's a "maybe" that develops, even though it seems their different lifestyles can never coexist without someone giving in. Nahnatchka Khan directs this romantic comedy in the vein of "When Harry Met Sally". Keanu Reeves gets an inspired bit part.
BFFs Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) have busted their tails off academically all through high school to set themselves up for post-graduation excellence, with Molly accepted to Yale and Amy going on a mission to help the poor in Africa. Their world gets rocked when they realize that the kids around them that looked like they just lived for partying are also going to similarly great colleges, or have lucrative careers waiting for them. Upset that they sacrificed all their fun for the same rewards, Molly and Amy decide to go out and have a blast and finally “break some rules” at the biggest house party in town for their last night before graduation. However, they soon learn a few things about life, themselves, and one another, especially in how things don’t always go according to plan. Olivia Wilde directs this teen comedy.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum spins off its plot from something that happens in the second chapter, namely that John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is now "excommunicado" by the High Table that controls the world's leading organization of assassins for killing someone inside the assassin's "sacred ground" of the Continental Hotel in New York - a big no-no. that sees a huge bounty put on his head. John has very few places he can run, and he'll eventually run out of safe havens, but he means to keep himself alive long enough to be able to get himself back into the High Table's good graces somehow. Nevertheless, the assassins after him are skilled and ruthless, especially the calculating woman known as The Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), who is busy dishing out nasty revenge on anyone caught helping out their buddy in defiance of the orders.
Johnny Depp stars as an English professor for a prestigious New England college named Richard Brown who learns he has late-stage lung cancer and probably only six months to live without treatment, which he doesn't plan on seeking. On top of this, Richard is also a terminally bored, self-absorbed jerk whose own life has been falling apart long before this diagnosis. His wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) is cheating on him, with the chancellor at his school (Ron Livingston), no less. Now he can say whatever he feels like, knowing he's on his way out, and what he has to say is not always kind. With perhaps only months left, he decides to continue to teach his literature class, hoping to impart some actual value to his current crop of students before he succumbs to the disease. He's also going to try to experience life without worrying about the consequences - a life he comes to realize he should have been trying to live all along.
Amy Poehler directs her first feature film with Netflix's WINE COUNTRY, about six women who question their friendships and futures when they take a girls' trip to Napa Valley, California, to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of them. Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, Tina Fey, Jason Schwartzman star for fans of old "Saturday Night Live".
In this raunchy romantic comedy, schlubby Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen), an established left-wing journalist whose uncompromisingly progressive Brooklyn-based online news site has found itself taken over by a right-wing corporatist that he refuses to kowtow to. Due to his deep-seated principles, Fred quits immediately, but he's bummed out at having to start over again. His best friend, Lance (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) takes him out to blow off some steam and forget hir troubles for a while with a performance from Boyz II Men at a swank charity fund-raising party, and while there, Flarsky ends up running into the Secretary of State of the United States, Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), who he just so happens to have once known, as the older girl next door who used to babysit him, and with whom he has had a crush ever since. The two end up catching up, and it just so happens that she's looking for a writer to punch up her speeches with wit and humor, and with him needing a job, it's impossible to say no. He's a refreshing change of pace to Field, who hasn't been able to enjoy herself for a very long time, but with presidential aspirations on her horizon, the gossipy public isn't likely going to accept such a mismatch should she pursue Flarsky romantically.
This biopic on Ted Bundy covers mostly the ten years between 1969 and 1979, where we find the seemingly sweet courtship of single mom Liz Kendall (Lily Collins) on the part of Ted Bundy (Zac Efron), who seems like an ideal dream man when they meet and seems to be a loving and nurturing father figure to her young daughter over the years. Things take a turn when Bundy leaves their home in Seattle to attend law school in Utah, especially when he gets tagged as a suspect in a kidnapping and murder case that he fits the description of, though the facts don't quite align enough for him to be the definitive culprit. Elizabeth stays by his side, but Bundy continues to do things that seem to further sink him into legal troubles, making her wonder if he is the serial killer in disguise, or if all of it is the elaborate frame job by overzealous law enforcement seeking to put him away without incontrovertible evidence to nail him for good. Bundy soon becomes a bit of a media darling, with groupies across the country falling under his dreamy spell, including Carole Ann Boone (Kaya Scodelario), who becomes Bundy's lover and source of strength at a time when Liz has decided to keep her distance.
Endgame starts in a world following "the snap" delivered by Thanos that extinguished half of all life within the galaxy in an instant, without a trace, in his effort to bring what he feels is a much-needed balance and tranquility caused by overcrowding interests. After a brief intro, we fast forward five years to find a world that has had trouble moving on from the loss of their many loved ones, especially the surviving Avengers (conveniently, all the characters that comprised of the first core team are among them), who feel a particular sense of guilt for not being able to save the billions they were sworn to protect. However, a new idea develops to find a way to reverse the situation through a risky and highly improbable gambit in which they must try to traverse time and space to re-connect all of the Infinity Stones and bring back all of those who vanished without losing the good things that have happened since that fateful day. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner, and many, many, many, MANY more appear in this massive crossover event.
In this Neil Marshall reboot, we already have an established the scarlet-bodied Hellboy (David Harbour) as part of the B.P.R.D. (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense), working for his adoptive father, Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm (Ian McShane), in corraling and eradicating malevolent supernatural menaces wherever they may arise around the world. Hellboy reunites with Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane), a powerful medium, and a cat-beast man named Major Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim), in order to prevent the Blood Queen from Arthurian times named Nimue (Milla Jovovich) from taking a mate and growing powerful enough to finally take over the world and eliminate the human presence upon it once and for all.
Film-maker Terry Gilliam has finally made it to the finish line with his seemingly quixotic quest to make a film version of Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote", decades in the making. Adam Driver is the main star, playing a hot-shot hothead director named Toby, who is attempting to shoot a commercial in Los Sueños (aka, “The Dreams”), Spain with elements of Miguel de Cervantes’ epic, “Don Quixote”. He’s been down this road before, a decade prior, shooting it as a low-budget student film when he was humble and first getting his taste of the movie-making business. He had the perfect Don Quixote for his film, a show repairman named Javier (Jonathan Pryce) that he discovered and had to mold into some sort of actor. Now, many years later, Toby sees the aftermath of what he left behind in the small village he once shot in, finding Javier now actually thinking he is the true Don Quixote. What’s worse, he believes (and truly insists) that Toby is his squire, Sancho Panza. From there, fiction becomes fact, as Toby finds himself on a wild ride in trying to corral Don Quixote to sanity, all the while he himself begins to question his own grasp on reality with a series of adventures that may or may not be a fantasy of his own.
Pet Sematary is the second film adaptation of the Stephen King novel first published in 1983. The premise involves a family of four who relocate from the hustle and bustle of Boston to a small town in Maine called Ludlow on a wide parcel of land that includes many acres of wooded forest. It’s in that forest that their daughter Ellie (Jete Laurence) discovers a cemetery for beloved pets of people in the surrounding area, going back decades, including one belonging to their elderly neighbor Jud (John Lithgow). Turns out they may need the use of the cemetery, as their kind kitty named Church gets run over, causing the father, Louis (Jason Clarke), to have to bury the cat, though he can’t quite bring himself to tell Ellie and break her heart. Jud doesn’t want to see that happen and suggests burying Church in a special place far deeper into the woods. Lo and behold, Church is back with the family the next day, but it’s clear he’s not quite himself anymore.
In this lighthearted DCEU entry, Billy Batson is a trouble-making fourteen-year-old living in a foster home in Philadelphia, having been abandoned by a young mother he's been searching for since she left him at a crowded carnival many years prior. One day, the sleuthing prankster gets transported after an act of bravery to another realms to meet a powerful and reclusive wizard, who has been on a long-term search for someone pure of heart to pass on his magical powers to. The wizard bestows upon Billy the power to turn into an muscle-bound, adult-bodied, costumed superhero by using his name of "Shazam!" Along with his superhero-loving best friend in the foster home, Freddy, the still adolescent-minded Billy has plenty of fun in discovering his new powers and all of the things he can do with them, from buying beer to giving the school bullies some comeuppance. However, things get serious with the emergence of Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, once past over as unworthy by the wizard and seeking to usurp them from Billy, along with the cabal of demon-like possessors within him, representing the Seven Deadly Sins who plan to come to power with Sivana as their vessel to the outside world.
The Dirt is a Netflix biopic featuring re-enactments of some of the wild, raunchy and tragic stories as told by the members of popular 80's/90's metal band Motley Crue in their autobiographical book of the same name. Starring Douglas Booth, Machine Gun Kelly, Daniel Webber, and Iwan Rheon. Directed by Jeff Tremaine.
Dragged Across Concrete is writer-director S. Craig Zahler’s further exploration of the seamy underbelly of American society, particularly through the prism of how that experience causes ripple effects that throw even innocent people into the wake of the criminals. Most of the action follows the exploits of two cops in the fictional city of Bulwark, the older burnout Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and his younger partner Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn), who get suspended from the force after they are caught on camera going a little too far in roughing up a suspect in the current environment that frowns on the perception of racial profiling. The other major story arc in the film involves Henry Johns, just released from prison, going back to a life of crime in order to provide for his mother (a drug user who has been prostituting herself for needed cash) and disabled younger brother, who has aspirations of becoming a video game developer. The two stories converge when the cops decide they’re going to snatch money from a secretive drug dealer named Vogelmann, while Henry, working for that guy, becomes the wheel-man in a bank heist.
As a young girl living in the coastal California town of Santa Cruz in 1986, Adelaide walked away from her parents while at the beach boardwalk amusement park, into a seemingly empty fun house, and saw something that would negatively affect her the rest of her life. Flash forward to today, and Adelaide is now married with two kids, and her husband, Gabe Wilson, has a yen to visit Santa Cruz for a family vacation, not knowing about her deep-seated fear of her experience there. Despite her qualms, she consents to go, and while things appear harmless, she has a bad feeling about it. Her feeling would turn out to have merit, as they are soon visited in their rental by another family of four that looks just like them, except they mostly can't speak well, and they're dressed all in red. The house soon becomes under siege by the doppelgangers, resulting in a battle for survival - a battle for continued existence, really - between the Wilsons and the Others. Stars Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke. Written and directed by Jordan Peele.
After a nearly five-year hiatus from writing and directing films, J.C. Chandor re-emerges with Triple Frontier (for Netflix), in which five ex-military special ops soldiers reunite in order to stage a heist of a murderous major South American drug lord. Oscar Isaac is the de facto leader of the quintet, playing Santiago, who decides to "get the band back together" for one last mission for reconnaissance for the government to take down the elusive drug lord he's spent years trying to take down, Lorea, but changes the mission once he discovers that they could do the bust themselves, take out the human vermin the world is better off without, and score the millions of dollars in cash within his jungle-hidden, well-guarded mansion. Each of the men find that their service for the country hasn't exactly resulted in the country taking care of them financially, so they figure they should get what's fair for their years of sacrifice, making it worth their salt to commit to. Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund and Pedro Pascal co-star in this action/adventure/thriller.
Although the film is called Greta, Chloe Grace Moretz’s character, a young waitress named Frances McCullen, is the one we follow most, newly relocated to New York City from Boston after losing her beloved mother. Frances is perhaps a little too nice and accommodating for her roommate Erica’s (Maika Monroe) tastes to not get taken advantage of by the worst the Big Apple has to offer. That niceness comes into play when Frances finds a lost purse sitting on a seat in her subway car, prompting her to return it its rightful owner, a mature Parisian widow living in Brooklyn named Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert). The two become friends, filling a niche in each other’s lives, with Frances finding a surrogate for her mother in her time of grief, and Greta a surrogate daughter for the one that is no longer in her vicinity. Frances says she’s like chewing gum – she tends to stick around – which is music to Greta’s ears. However, something feels amiss in the relationship that causes Frances to try to end it, and the less-than-stable Greta doesn’t seem to be taking the separation well. Neil Jordan directs this off-kilter thriller.
Brie Larson stars as Carol Danvers, aka Vers, aka Captain Marvel, an ultra-powerful warrior for an alien race called the Kree, from the capital planet Hala, part of an elite group of warriors called Starforce, who are doing battle with the fearsome, shape-shifting Skrulls, who have the power to impersonate other living beings, with a notable limitation in memories. She is haunted by her own memories of a strange time and place, when she was a pilot in the United States Air Force, which she ends up learning more about when she ends up jettisoned on Earth in 1995. After an explosive skirmish and her high-powered suit catches the interest of the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., she meets the initially skeptical Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and begins her search for the light-speed engine, another object in Vers’s memories, that both civilizations want to get their hands on first. It is on Earth that she begins to put the pieces of her memory and former life there back together, reuniting with old friends in her old stomping grounds. She also begins to discover more about her mission, what is being fought for, and the nature of the vicious Kree-Skrull war that she never knew about. Unfortunately, the Skrulls, led by Talos, are in hot pursuit on a planet completely unaware and unprepared for the arrival of such high-powered beings.
The origin of Alita: Battle Angel starts with Yukito Kishiro’s intricately plotted 1990 manga, something this adaptation has to simplify in order to make it palatable for wide-release audiences. The setting is an Earth five centuries from now, a mostly tumultuous and vice-filled world that suffers even more by comparison to the life of luxury from the beaming city utopia called Zalem that floats above their heads. Christoph Waltz plays Dr. Ido, a brilliant scientist who has been through he trash-heaps of history to find something of value and meaning. Ido soon discovers the remnants of a robotic entity, taking it back to his lab for rehabilitation, resulting in a cyborg creation he has dubbed “Alita” (which was also the name of the daughter he lost in a tragedy), who has the mind of a teenage girl and hard-shell body to match. She walks, talks and understands, but one thing she can’t readily do is remember who she is or why she exists. Ido provides fatherly guidance, but Alita is drawn to battle and action by her nature, stoked further by an interest in the local boy named Hugo, who sees more potential in Alita’s abilities that could make her formidable in a world that values such adept skills in the arena of conflict.
Rebel Wilson plays Natalie, working as an architect in New York City, though often marginalized by her peers at her firm as one of the administrative assistants who make copies and fetch coffee for the others a the board meetings. To make matters worse, she ends up getting mugged and assaulted in the subway, resulting in a loss of consciousness that finds her waking up in a too-nice hospital being catered to, and flirted with, by the handsome doctor there. Her apartment is now three times the size and meticulously furnished, her neighbor now flamboyantly gay, and the hunky, wealthy client they've recently taken on at the firm (Liam Hemsworth) now only has eyes for her. In short, she's the star of her own romantic comedy, and the only person she can confide in that knowledge is her best friend at work, Josh (Adam Devine), who holds a secret crush for Natalie that she's been too stuck in her low self esteem to see.
Hiccup is now into adulthood, young but now the leader among the Dragon-rescuing Vikings of their island fortress village of Berk. Though the Vikings have lived in Berk for generations, Hiccup soon sees that they’ve outgrown their small island, especially with the overcrowding of the Dragons there as they rescue more of them, eyeing the mythical sanctuary on the edge of the world to guide these magical beasts. Meanwhile, love may be in the air, with Hiccup perhaps on the verge of marriage with Astrid, though she seems reticent, and Toothless perhaps finding a mate with a female Dragon very much like him, dubbed a “Light Fury” due to its alabaster color, in contrast to Toothless’ obsidian appearance. Unfortunately, it's all a trap set by Grimmel, the notorious hunter of Night Fury dragons, who aims to snuff them all out at any cost.
THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING involves a young boy in London named Alex, who spends his days bullied at school, primarily because he sticks up to those bullies - Lance and Kaye - to protect his bullied friend Bedders. In the heat of one of those skirmishes, Alex stumbles upon a 'sword in the stone' like the one in his book on King Arthur left to him by his absent father, and he manages to pull it out from the concrete block that had been its home. Knighting Bedders with it, the boys are soon visited by a teenage representation of Merlin (he claims to age backwards), who is lost in time and newly in disguise as one of their schoolmates. Merlin gets Alex up to speed about his quest to save humanity from enslavement from the coming of the dormant but powerful witch Morgana within four days (when a solar eclipse will happen), and that he'll need to raise an army of his friends, and enemies, to become the king of legend. Joe Cornish writes and directs. Features Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Angus Imrie, Rebecca Ferguson, and Patrick Stewart.
Written and directed by Adam McKay, who impressed in his last effort from 2015, The Big Short, Vice is specifically a biopic of sorts about former Vice President of the United States under George W. Bush, Dick Cheney — both of whom were seen as responsible for the policies that brought about the stock market crash covered so well in McKay’s prior film. McKay covers Cheney’s rise from drunken slob, to shaping up by entering Wyoming business and politics, to becoming a power player in the Republican party in Washington (Chief of Staff under President Ford), to his failed ambition to become president, to becoming the CEO of Halliburton. However, some would say that, after a successful bed on the bottom of the ticket for the 2000 and 2004 elections, he found a way, dubbed the Unitary Executive Theory, to become the most powerful nation in the world from the number-two position despite it being seen as a do-nothing office.
Glass serves as a sequel to two films from M. Night Shyamalan, 2000’s Unbreakable and 2018’s Split, the latter of which tied itself to the former with the post-end title stinger. Bruce Willis makes his return as the ‘unbreakable’ security company owner David Dunn, who, along with his adult son (and sole employee) Joseph, is trying to track down a crazy roaming the streets of Philadelphia who is abducting teenage girls. James McAvoy continues his portrayal of Kevin Wendell Crumb, aka The Horde, a conglomerations of split personalities that take over Kevin’s body at various points, including the homicidal brute known as The Beast, who is the one feeding on those girls David is looking for . Samuel L. Jackson also returns from Unbreakable as the titular character, the brittle mastermind self-named Mr. Glass, aka Elijah Price, who has apparently been laying low for some time under heavy sedation. The three end up rounded up and subsequently kept separate chambers within a high-security psychiatric facility led by Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Ellie Staple, whose specialty is in rehabilitating persons who believe they are superheroes. From Split, Anya Taylor-Joy returns as Casey Cooke, who survived her terror-filled first meeting with The Horde while in its persona as The Beast, but who finds herself drawn to help him escape his inner demons.
Ben Foster’s war vet Will, widower father to the young teenage girl with the boy’s name of Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), is suffering from some sort of Post Traumatic Stress from his time in the service, living out in the woods, completely off the grid, roughing it in that public park in Oregon. Director Debra Granik combined these elements with the story of a man who raised his daughter off the grid in their own cabin in Oregon, wanting her to learn from nature and books rather than live her whole life in a world of conformity, though she did have exposure to those elements in her time of custody with her mother, as well as in her teen years, when she went to a high school and became more interested in conforming to society.
This time out, the character of Bumblebee ends up going back to his original look from the toy line and cartoon series of a Volkswagen Beetle, when he arrives on Earth back in 1987 as part of a last-minute escape plan for the Autobots on Cybertron to find an inhabitable planet as theirs is about to be destroyed in an all-out civil war with the Decepticons. Bumblebee ends up emerging in California, where his dormant state of the Beetle laying in rust in a junkyard, in hiding after being hunted by Sector Seven (the government agency who first discovers him), draws the eye of a troubled teenage girl named Charlie Watson, who views the car as freedom and an opportunity to follow in her recently deceased father’s footsteps by repairing two damaged precious things – the car, and herself.
In this Spike Lee joint, we go back to the 1970s, where we find Ron Stallworth, the first black police detective working for the Colorado Springs Police Department. In one of his first assignments after laboring behind the scenes to test the waters as a file clerk, Ron is hired to go undercover to record a speech being given locally by black activist Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, at a nearby college, in which the subject is black empowerment, racist law enforcement, and preparation for the race war they feel will be inevitable. The police thought the speech would incite violence, but Ron saw the speech as just talk in that regard, and inspiring otherwise.
The setting starts sometime in the 1980s, where we find Atlantean queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) coming up to the surface in the state of Maine to get away from an arranged marriage, seeking a bit of sanctuary and time to heal in a lighthouse run by a human named Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison). The two unlikely partners fall in love, eventually leading to a son, Arthur Curry. The kingdom of Atlantis is not pleased with Atlanna's apparent defection to the land, sending out their soldiers to claim her back, culminating in Tom being left alone to raise the boy himself as a human, except one with the powers of Atlanteans in his DNA, including an ability to talk to and command all forms of marine life.
We fast forward to Arthur's adulthood, known to the land-dwellers as "The Aquaman" after a series of public acts of heroism, one including taking down pirates that includes future nemesis Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mareen II). However, Arthur has to become a savior to his adopted people when the current rule of Atlantis, Arthur's half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), is looking to mount a war with the land walkers who continue to pollute the oceans, seeking the assistance of King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), one of the leaders of the 'seven seas' needed to approve. Nereus's daughter Mera looks to recruit Arthur's assistance in staving off the uprising from his brother's charge. Arthur must go undersea to make his presence felt, but the opposite of a fish out of water in his new environs in the Atlantean realm, especially when the situation boils down to a mano-a-mano battle between Arthur and Orm on his home turf (or non-turf, as it happens to be).
Bryan Singer directs this tribute biopic on Freddie Mercury and his stint with one of the most influential rock groups from the 1970s and 1980s, Queen. Electrifying performances, lavish stage costumes, and a peek into Freddie's confusion and acceptance of his sexuality are in the mix of this loose-hanging look at one of the greatest rock-and-roll frontmen.
Illumination Entertainment brings Dr. Seuss' beloved story to the modern age with 3D animation and the vocal talent of Benedict Cumberbatch. The Grinch hates Christmas and plans to thwart the festivities of the Christmas-loving denizens of nearby Whoville, but after donning the Santa Claus outfit to steal their presents away, has to confront the wishes of a young girl who needs Santa's help.
Mackenzie Foy stars as Clara, suffering through grief with her father and two siblings during their first holiday without her recently deceased mother, Marie. Clara receives an enigmatic and ornate Christmas gift, the last from her mother, a metallic contraption shaped like an egg with an elaborate keyhole that came with no key that might fit accompanying it. She is despondent that she cannot open it without ruining it, and it causes her to be depressed during the big holiday gala put on by her godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman). who, it turns out, had created the egg for her mother. During the events of the evening at Drosselmeyer's mansion, she follows a string that will lead to Drosselmeyer's own gift to her, way out from the party and into another dimension, to a mystical and magic-fueled world called the Four Realms.
BULLITT COUNTY is a small-scale dramatic thriller set in the late 1970s, where a bachelor party trip to Kentucky Bourbon country could prove lucrative when the quatrtet of friends decide to head off the beaten path to search for a cache of buried treasure on Bullitt family private property. Written, directed and co-starring David McCracken, the film echoes bits and pieces of '70s character-driven thrillers mixed with more modern film-making takes from the likes of Tarantino and the Coen Brothers.
Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode in this sequel that ignores all others in the franchise after John Carpenter's 1978 original HALLOWEEN. Michael Myers breaks from his prison existence to return to where it all started, in Haddonfield, IL, during Halloween. Esteemed filmmaker David Gordon Green directs and co-scripts this intriguing return to look at trauma-survivor Strode and the inevitability that predator and prey will once again battle it out for survival, even forty years later.
Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder star as bickering travelers who just so happen to be going to the same destination: a wedding of her ex, and his half-brother, who neither of them particularly hopes is happy. Two unhappy people surrounded by mirth leads to a toxic concoction of feelings, but the two unlucky lovers find a bond in their despair that may be just as strong as that of initial attraction. "Mad About You" producer Victor Levin directs this anti-romantic comedy.
The Marvel Comics villain gets the antihero treatment in this Spiderman-less origin story filled with grotesque body horror and lots of crazy CGI-infused action. Tom Hardy stars as reporter Eddie Brock, who finds himself the host of an alien symbiote he discovers within a hi-tech laboratory he's investigating. That alien needs live organs to feast upon, which means Eddie's if he can't find other things for "Venom", which is what the symbiote calls himself, to ravenously consume. Michelle Williams stars as Brock's ex-fiance, and Riz Ahmed is the head of the corporate lab out to experiment on the living in order for humans to try to survive on other planets when this one is no longer, inevitably, inhabitable. Zombieland's Ruben Fleischer directs.
Set in a small town called New Zebedee, in Michigan during the mid 1950s, we follow the adventures of a ten-year-old orphan named Lewis Barnavelt, mourning the recent loss of his parents to a fatal car accident, staying in the rickety and seemingly haunted Victorian mansion of his uncle, Jonathan. Jonathan is an eccentric warlock often visited by his neighbor, a witch named Mrs. Zimmerman, and the mansion he resides in is anything but mundane. A new home also means a new school for Lewis, who is immediately labeled as a square by his peers and subsequently picked on as he tries in vain to make a friend. School isn't the only place of learning for the boy, as Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmerman begin to teach him the ways of the warlocks, whose acts are spurred on by visions of his dead mother, while they mysteriously spend their time looking for a fabled clock hidden within the walls of the mansion. Jack Black and Cate Blanchett co-star in this PG-rated film by Eli Roth.
Shane Black tries to do what no one has done thus far, and that's to make a good follow-up to John McTiernan's 1997 action classic, PREDATOR. Here, the Predators are back searching for their old technology, and possibly taking over the Earth, having to confront a rag-tag group of disgrace military vets in their way. Boyd Holdbrook, Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Keegan-Michael Key, Trevante Rhodes and Jacob Tremblay also appear.
John Cho stars as a widower father whose life gets turned upside down when his teenage daughter goes missing. As he goes online to search for clues to her whereabouts, he discovers that the close relationship he thought he had with her may not have been as tight-knit as he was led to believe. Debra Messing co-stars as the missing-persons detective on the beat in this nifty thriller that sets all of its actions on the screens of a variety of computer devices.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? examines the life and work of Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers, who was the creator and star of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on public television (PBS) from the years 1968 to 2001. He invited children to come into his home, sing them a song, make them feel safe as he imparted life lessons, then whisked them off to the Land of Make-Believe to further explore metaphors of understanding before he saw them off to the rest of their day. Rogers followed the career path to television as an alternative to pursing his Presbyterian ministry, primarily because he perceived that the level of silly and, to some degree, harmful entertainment that feeds the minds of youth on television was contributing to a culture of uncaring and self-centered youth who were seen as only vessels to toward whom to sell consumer products. Rogers felt that television could also be used as a medium in which he could do the most good if he were to use it as an educational and inspirational tool, especially in entertainment that he felt would best shape the minds of future generations to come.
In this puppet/human effort directed by Brian Henson, son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, Bill Barretta voices the top puppet character known as disgraced burnout Los Angeles-based private investigator Phil Phillips, who has to get to the bottom of a series of murders among the stars of a decades-old television show with a puppet cast of actors called, “The Happytime Gang”. Melissa McCarthy gets the top human role, playing police detective Connie Edwards, Phil’s former, now estranged, partner in crime-fighting from his days on the force, who joins in to reluctantly assist. Even if the characters look like Muppets, it's a very raunchy, ultra-violent effort not meant for children.
RKSS return after their Turbo Kid to deliver yet another throwback to the 1980s in the mystery-suspense-horror flick, SUMMER OF 84. A quartet of boys go out in search of a serial killer of teenage boys (just like them) that they feel could be the cop that lives in their very own neighborhood, and seek to find the evidence needed to bring him to justice. The further they go out, however, the more exposed they are to becoming the next victim in their manhunt.
Constance Wu stars as Rachel Chu, who essentially serves as our best surrogate for the story, the daughter of a single Chinese immigrant mother, who rose above her station to become a professor of Economics at NYU. Her current boyfriend is a man names Nick Young (played by Henry Golding), who, for over a year since they’ve been dating, has never divulged to her that his family back home in Singapore is insanely wealthy. The cat has to be let out of the bag, however, when Nick asks Rachel to attend the wedding of his best friend in Singapore, where he also plans to pop a question of his own after she meets the family. However, Nick’s stern mother, Eleanor, disapproves of trying to pursue what one wants in life independent of the family wishes, so Rachel’s pursuit of her own career, and Nick pursuit of love beyond his class, ruffles more than a few feathers among his family, friends, and the rest of the rich and famous they socialize among. John M. Chu directs, with supporting roles for Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina, and Ken Jeong
Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon star in this buddy comedy about two best friends who end up embroiled in a spy assassin plot when some terrorists come looking for them for information that Kunis' most recent boyfriend, who she didn't know was a secret agent, may have in his possessions. Laughs, thrills, and action are promised, but does it deliver?
A big shark and Jason Statham are the big draws to THE MEG, in which a rescue team of humans must try to survive, and eventually take on, a prehistoric shark of gargantuan proportions that threatens everyone off of the coast of China. Jon Turteltaub directs this PG-13 action-horror hybrid that some compare to the JAWS and JURASSIC PARK series, or, at least, its low-aiming sequels.
Denzel Washington returns to exact some brutal vigilante justice on the predators of the world in this follow-up to the 2014 hit, the first sequel in the veteran actor's long and varied career. In this one, he seeks to avenge the murder of one of his old friends from his black ops days, only to find that he has to battle with forces that may outgun him at every turn. Melissa Leo co-stars in Antoine Fuqua's intense actioner.
The sixth film in the franchise sees Ethan Hunt trying to recover some plutonium before it gets employed by a ruthless anarchist terrorist group out to shake up the world order through detonating these bombs in the the world's most revered religious meccas. Tom Cruise gives hit his all, amid a fine supporting cast and some of the best technical crew in the business. ROGUE NATION's Christopher McQuarrie returns to deliver one of the most satisfying entries in the series and one of the best action films of the year.
The fourth film in the Purge series is a prequel to the other three, as The First Purge shifts directors to Gerard McMurray, though retaining James DeMonaco's services as screenwriter. This one showcases the trial run' experiment that led to the Purge, as the alt-right government seeks to cure societal ills by finding a way to eradicate crime throughout most of the year, mostly by sweeping house and trying to get rid of the nation's poor. Social commentary abounds in this franchise that is sometimes marketed, and perhaps mis-marketed, as a horror series.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars in this high-rise thriller, playing a security consultant for the Pearl, the world's largest building in Hong Kong, set to open to the public soon. While in the mostly empty building, it gets taken over by terrorist out to steal money from its billionaire owner, and to pin the blame on Johnson, who is staying there with his family. Now he has to clear his name, rescue his family, and save a building from being destroyed, all single-handedly. Neve Campbell co-stars in this film written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber.
Ant-Man's second foray in his own Marvel Cinematic Universe film isn't quite a solo adventure, as now he has a partner in Hope, who dons a high-powered suit as The Wasp. They're out to save her mother from the Quantum Realm, where she's been presumed missing for the last thirty years. Unfortunately, Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is under house arrest and not quite able to get out and join in on the quest easily. Meanwhile, a bevy of parties are out to steal the hi-tech suits before they can come into play. Peyton Reed returns to direct Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas, along with newcomers in Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Acclaimed director J.A. Bayona takes over the reins of this lucrative franchise with JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM, the follow-up to 2015's biggest box-office smash. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles, this time having to figure out if the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar should be saved, or if the active volcano that's in full flow should course correct their existence back to extinction. A wealthy benefactor wants to put them into sanctuary, but someone in his organization sees a bigger opportunity to keep these dinos alive by selling them to the highest bidders around the world.
First-time feature film director Ari Aster makes a splash in this thoughtful and well-acted blend of family melodrama and supernatural horror. Toni Collette's performance anchors this tale of a mother trying to cope with the loss of her own manipulative mother, and a couple of teenage kids who seem to be losing their way in the death's wake.
11 years after we last saw the Ocean's gang pull down a big heist, we have Danny Ocean's sister, Debbie (Sandra Bullock), freshly out of prison and ready to hatch a new plan to get herself and her fellow female partners in crime millions by lifting a one-of-a-kind diamond necklace worth over $150 million. Steven Soderbergh steps into the producer chair in this Gary Ross-helmed attempt to recapture the magic of the prior trilogy.
Ron Howard directs this spin-off prequel, showing us how the iconic reluctant hero Han Solo went from his lowly existence on the planet Corellia to becoming one of the best smugglers int he galaxy. Alden Ehrenreich, Amelia Clark, Donald Glover and Woody Harrelson star in this big budget space adventure.
Ryan Reynolds returns as the mer with a mouth, this time trying to mature into potential fatherhod, with DEADPOOL 2, the follow-up to 2016's surprise smash hit. This one introduces Josh Brolin as Cable and the pulling together of their mutant super-team, X-Force, as Wade Wilson seeks to stop the wrath of a vengeful, troubled teen about to go on a killing spree.
Steven Spielberg adapts Ernest Cline's best-selling novel about a future in which many, if not most, of the world escape into a massive multiplayer online game known as the OASIS. The creator of the OASIS has passed away, but as a final act, promises to bestow upon the first finder of three hidden keys the actual "keys to the kingdom" with full ownership of the wildly popular virtual realm.
Alicia VIkander takes the starring role in this reboot of a film series that once famously starred Angelina Jolie, TOMB RAIDER, based on the wildly popular video game. Unlike most other films based on games, this one tries for a more traditional approach to its storyline, and with a cast that includes a couple of Oscar-winning actresses, does it break the game-to-film curse?
This follow-up to the off-the-wall Gullermo del Toro kaiju flick sees more emphasis on action and effects with less overhead. Kaiju are gone but something is causing the new drone Jaegers to go amiss.
Does new director Steven DeKnight do justice to the original?
Ava DuVernay gets her first crack at a big-budget adventure, and the results have been wildly mixed among critics and fans alike. Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling and Chris Pine star in this extravagant romp through space and time for one tween in search of her long-lost father.
Duncan Jones tries to course correct after the disappointing WARCRAFT with the passion project he has been wanting to make since before his smash debut feature, MOON. MUTE is a futuristic noir starring Alexander Skarsgard, a mute nartender searching for his missing girlfriend amid the seedy underbelly of Berlin in 2052. Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux play the wisecracking baddies that just might have the answers he is seeking, if he can survive long enough to crack the mystery.
Alex Garland follows up EX MACHINA with another heady science fiction exploration of the human condition, this time showing us how we either must fight or adapt to change, and how adverse conditions may result in us destroying ourselves in the process of that fight. Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac star.
From the pages of Marvel Comics comes Black Panther, directed by the very skilled Ryan Coogler, starring Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa. The MCU continues its roll in delivering a quality entertainment, this time with more to think about beyond the run time than usual blockbuster fare.
The third and final film in the FIFTY SHADES trilogy sees the much anticipated marriage of Anastasia Steele to mega-billionaire Christian Grey, while they overcome trust issues, the question of children, and a psycho maniac hell-bent on revenge.
At last, the Justice league puts together Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash (and Cyborg) into one film. Is it worth all the hype?
Frances McDormand shines in this potent dark comedy from Martin McDonagh, playing a grieving mother who goads the local police force to action when they haven't found any leads to her daughter's grisly death. Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell support.
Saoirse Ronan stars in Greta Gerwig's splash solo directorial effort that takes from her own life as a teen in Sacramento, in LADY BIRD, one of the best teen comedies to come out in many years. Laurie Metcalf is fantastic as the mother who has trouble letting her 'lady bird' fly from the nest.
Taika Waititi takes over the reins of the Thor segment of the MCU and employs lots of his trademark humor, resulting in perhaps the funniest of the Marvel films to date. Thor, Hulk, and lots of surprises add up to a wild and funny ride.
John Cena voices the titular bull who would rather sniff flowers than fight against matadors. Blue Sky Studios offers another colorful animated adventure for younger viewers. Based on the children's book by Munro Leaf.
Rian Johnson takes over the reins of the venerable franchise. Does he hit a new height, or is this progressing the wrong direction? Fans are debating, and I offer my take here.
Guillermo del Toro returns to the dark fairy tale genre in this story about an unlikely relationship that develops between a mute janitor and a strange creature that is part man and part fish.
Taking a look at Pixar's latest big film, Coco, which incorporates the Dia de los Muertos tradition into yet another heartwarming family tale.
This true story begins at the onset of World War II when, within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill has to face one of his most critical of trials: contemplating a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the principles, independence, and free will of a nation. As the seemingly insurmountable Nazi forces trample through Western Europe and invasion appears imminent, and with a nervous public, a wavering King, and his own party conspiring against him, Winston Churchill must find the self-resolve to inspire a nation, and to attempt to alter the course of world events.
A podcast review of Denis Villenueve's continuation of Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction masterpiece.
The riots and looting in Detroit, 1967, were sparked by the mostly white police force coming into a predominantly black neighborhood in order to infiltrate a nightclub operating without a license, which ended up with yet another incident of police aggression and harassment in the area that has seemingly gone on unchecked. Specifically, the film concentrates on the Algiers Motel incident, which which a group of black men, and two white women, end up having a terrifying night while being interrogated by several white police officers and members of the military. The methods of interrogation includes beatings, and the horrifying deaths of those who refused to comply to the request of the authorities to produce a gun that they believed had been used to shoot at them.
The action in It takes place in the fictional small town of Derry, Maine, where we mostly follow a group of about seven adolescents on their break during the summer. The de-facto leader of the group, Bill Denbrough, has recently been plagued by thoughts of his younger brother Georgie's disappearance, though we in the audience know that the tyke is but the latest victim of a sewer-dwelling, fear-feeding demon who mostly presents himself in the form of a clown named Pennywise. Georgie's not the only child to go missing of late, and the group soon learns that Derry has a special history for children who disappear without a trace about once every generation, causing them to have to confront their innermost nightmarish fears, lest they become the latest victim of the sinister Pennywise.
Set in Berlin in 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, we find an MI6 agent named Lorraine Broughton on a mission to try to get a much sought after highly classified list of spies working for Western agencies around the world, kept hidden within the case of a luxury watch, in order to prevent it from going to the KGB. Operating in flashbacks as the bruised and fatigued agent divulges the details of her botched mission to her immediate superior, as well as to a bigwig in the CIA, we learn of her covert mission to acquire the list, initially assigned to work with the chief operator in Berlin, David Percival. In the meantime, they must contend with dangerous Soviet operatives, the East German military, Stasi officers, and an unknown double agent working both sides of the Wall.
Kumail Nanjiani stars and co-scripts this romantic comedy about himself (more or less), a Pakistani immigrant to America turned stand-up comedian living in Chicago who ends up going out and then falling into a romantic relationship with a white, non-Muslim psychology graduate student named Emily. Contrary to both of their desires to stay unattached, things are going remarkably well, though that is also part of the problem, as his very strict and traditional Pakistani family expect - no, require - Kumail to find a Pakistani woman to court and marry, which they are busy trying (and failing) to arrange, so he keeps his relationship with Emily on the sly.
Meanwhile, the young comedian must keep his head in the game to try to secure a spot in an important comedy festival that may kick-start his career in show business beyond local gigs. Life gets even more complicated when it is discovered that Emily is suffering from an illness that has the doctors baffled, leaving Kumail and Emily's parents flying in from North Carolina to bond during the hospital visits, while also knowing that Kumail and Emily may not end up together, if, and when, the medical ordeal is over.
In this outing, we find Peter Parker as an awkward teenager, who has a crush on schoolmate Liz, while also brushing up on his knowledge on a school team vying for a national academic competition. He also happens to have an internship with part-time father figure Tony Stark, who is using the opportunity to mentor the lad on the ways to use his technologically advanced costume that's enhanced like a magic Swiss-army knife by an AI control device Peter dubs 'Karen' (all tech courtesy of Stark Industries) to thwart criminals around the city. He gets more than his match when the Vulture, a spurned blue-collar Joe turned hi-tech criminal named Adrian Toomes, comes on the scene, having confiscated alien technology (from the Chitauri, as a seen in Marvel's The Avengers) in order to manufacture and sell ultra-powerful weapons on the black market.
Set in Atlanta, Ansel Elgort plays Baby, a baby-faced (naturally) but extremely talented driver who constantly plays music on several of his old iPods while he works to overcome his persistent tinnitus, the result of a childhood car accident that left him an orphan. The trouble is that Baby hates what he does and wants out as soon as his debt is paid off, which he does, only to find Doc knows he's the best driver in the business and won't let his golden goose go.
Brain Candy deals with a drug company, Roritor Pharmaceuticals, that is in need of a hit wonder drug, launching a new and mostly untested antidepressant they call Gleemonex, which promises to locks its patient into the sensation of reliving their happiest memory. The new drug quickly becomes the number one on the market (even more popular than penicillin), as we follow several people who use the product, as well as the drug's inventor, and the CEO and board members of Roritor as they deal with the overnight success of their product.
Tom Cruise plays a roguish armed forces associate who doubling as a tomb-raiding antiquities procurer, Nick Morton, who, along with smart-alecky partner-in-crypts, Chris Vail, earns his living digging up ancient artifacts, then selling for the highest price he can get on the black market. Soon the men join forces with noted Egypt expert and archaeologist (and Morton's chance to hook up) Jenny Halsey while in Iraq, where a mammoth underground burial site lies under the sand, housing a mysterious sarcophagus containing the dormant body of Ahmanet, an Ancient Egyptian princess cursed to evil after an attempt to murder her family and usurp the throne to become pharaoh. Now revived from her tomb, Ahmanet decides that Nick will be the new conduit to bring evil to Earth as the host for the god of death, Set.
Wonder Woman starts with her origin on the shrouded and magically hidden island-paradise of Themyscira, where the Greek gods are real, and Diana is born and raised into the ways of the Amazons, who teach her honor and how to battle. All of their training is put to use when an American pilot and spy named Steve Trevor crashes in his plane off of the island's coast, with a boat of well-armed German soldiers following suit, who battle with the Amazons to tragic results. Sickened by the violent ways of men, Diana is compelled to travel back to Europe in the throes of the Great War -- complete with trademark magic lasso of truth, indestructible bracelets, and god-killer sword -- hoping she can locate the God of War, Ares, and kill him to put an end to all war as we know it.
Frantz is set in Quedlinburg, Germany, in 1919, just after the Great War (World War I) has concluded, though the aftermath is still quite fresh in the hearts and minds of the people. A local woman named Anna is but one of many who are mourning for the loss of young men in the war, grieving her beloved Frantz, killed in battle before he would return and marry her as planned. Living under the roof of Frantz's parents, Dr. Hans Hoffmeister and his wife Magda, Anna regularly places flowers on Frantz's vacant grave-site, only to discover a mystery man has already come to do the same.
Set in 1940, around the time of the London Blitz during World War II, Their Finest stars Gemma Arterton as Catrin Cole, a fledgling screenwriter from Wales who has been hired on by the British Ministry of Information, Film Division, looking to women to fill in jobs for some of the men lost to fight the war, to work in London on inspirational films geared toward women. Later, she is hired on to help with a full-length feature, meant to shore up the viewing public, particularly the female viewers, to the cause, as well as to keep morale up in a bleak time for the country.
Amy Schumer stars as Emily Middleton, who cajoles her divorced doting mother Linda to accompany her on a non-refundable vacation to a posh resort in Ecuador she booked back when she had a job and a significant other to come with her. It's fun for the ladies at first, with Emily meeting hunky suitor James and Linda enjoying the poolside with a good book. Sure enough, as warned not long after arrival, the two tourists end up getting "snatched" -- kidnapped -- and put up for ransom by a fierce Colombian drug lord. Now it's up to the helpless mother and daughter to try to figure out a means of escape.
Batman & Bill is a Hulu-original documentary that asserts that, contrary to popular belief, that Bob Kane was not only not the sole creator of the DC Comics' superhero, The Batman, but wasn't really the main ideas guy behind his most iconic aspects. As you could guess from the film's title, there is another person, a reclusive but creative man named Bill Finger, who molded Batman from the get-go to how we experience him today, from the trademark cape-and-cowl look of Bruce Wayne's costume, to his tragic backstory, to giving a name and atmosphere to Gotham City, to the Bat Cave, to Robin, to many of the rogues gallery of villains, like The Joker, The Penguin, and Catwoman.
This second volume finds Peter Quill and the gang getting their bacons saved by someone who is more than a man, named Ego, who claims to be Peter's father. Despite skepticism due to Ego's seeming abandonment, Peter is invited to join Ego on the latter's own Eden-like planet, called, of course, Ego's Planet, where he must periodically return to in order to keep it alive, residing there with only his assistant, an empath named Mantis. Meanwhile, there's an powerful golden-skinned race called The Sovereign out to retrieve some stolen and highly valuable batteries from Rocket Raccoon, a fleet of Ravagers is on the hunt, and signals the comeback of Yondu.
Kristen Stewart plays Maureen Cartwright, an American artist working in Paris as a personal shopper for an internationally famous model and celebrity named Kyra, who wants her to purchase the latest in designer clothes and jewelry before they are worn by anyone else. Maureen is unhappy in both her career and location, tempted somewhat by her long-distance boyfriend, who is currently living in the sultanate of Oman. What she's lingering for is some sign from her recently deceased twin brother, who died of a congenital heart condition that she may also fall susceptible to, utilizing their shared gifts as spiritual mediums to make final contact, as they had made a promise to do to prove their belief in life after death, and begin the process of moving on with her life.
In this entry, we open with Dominic Toretto on honeymoon with his beloved Letty in Havana, Cuba, where, of course, he gets into a bit of racing for pink slips on the never-too-crowded city streets. Dom finds his stay not entirely blissful when he is confronted and blackmailed by a strange woman called Cipher, who reveals herself to have something on him so powerful that would make him turn away from all he holds dear -- his newfangled family of car jocks -- in order to go rogue and perform a top secret mission for the cyber-terrorism organization she heads. Now it's up to the rest of Dom's crew to figure out what's making their buddy turn bad guy, joining forces with government goon Mr. Nobody and his by-the-book assistant to throw a wrench in Cipher's plans to upend the world order she's threatening thanks to Dominic's success at the nefarious missions she gives him.
Scarlett Johansson stars as Major, a law-enforcement agent whose human brain, after a terrible accident that nearly killed her, has been put into a body that's entirely synthetic -- she's essentially a robot with a human mind, and the first of her kind. She works for Section 9, a task force currently trying to take down a powerful hacker named Kuze (Pitt, Criminal) who has been using the technology that most humans have been modifying their own bodies and minds with, and controlling them to do his terrorist bidding. As Major gets closer to identifying the hacker, the more she learns of his targets of assassination, which happens to be Hanka Robotics, the very corporation that made her 'shell', or her artificial body.
This one puts the action on the International Space Station, whose six-person crew have just discovered a single-cell organism, the very first evidence of life outside of Earth, within one of the soil samples they've taken from Mars.
Powers that be at home want them to do some testing on Calvin, as they've dubbed it, before giving the "all clear' to bring down to a terrestrial lab. Study they do, as Calvin begins to flourish in his new environment, grown far beyond its single-cell existence. However, like the humans on board, it needs oxygen and food to survive, and to eliminate all potential threats, which means that Calvin takes a feed-and-fight approach to any other creatures that might encroach on its new home on board the space station. Meanwhile, the astronauts and scientists do everything in their power to quarantine Calvin, especially in making sure that the deadly entity does not have a chance to reach Earth.
The story involves a lovely and fiercely independent girl named Belle, who lives with her widower inventor father in a small provincial French village. She'd rather pursue her own path, which brings consternation to the local narcissistic he-man, Gaston, who intends to marry Belle because she's the prettiest girl in town. After Maurice gets lost in the thick and ominous woods, Belle goes out to find him, discovering his whereabouts in a secluded castle run by The Beast, who has her father imprisoned for petty theft, and with whom Belle swaps places in captivity. The castle is enchanted, as evidenced by the fact that most household objects speak and talk, the victims of a curse brought upon the beast when in original human form by a sorceress who found him most unkind. Beast and company may return to their former selves, but only if he finds a love that loves him in return, and Belle may be the last option left before the curse becomes permanent.
After his grandmother passes away, late-30s New York financier Peter reluctantly returns to his home town in Warwick, Rhode Island, for the first time in about two decades, to tidy up her estate. Unfortunately, he inadvertently loses his wallet en route, causing him to seek out his old high school friend Donald for a few bucks, though he hasn't been in contact in about as long as he bailed on his past. While Peter has matured to the point where he virtually disowns the metal-head delinquent he once was, Donald has yet to move on, perpetually stuck reliving the only time in his life when he felt genuinely happy, or so he imagines. While Peter just wants to get out of town as soon as possible, getting money out of Donald proves a challenge, partially because Donald is also broke, and partially because Donald, desperately trying to connect with his old friend since they parted, wants to keep hanging out and relive glory days with the last true friend he had.
After an introductory sequence set during World War II to introduce the massive ape, Kong, and the island he resides on, we spring ahead to 1973, where we find the United States' government, in the waning days of their involvement in Vietnam, planning an exploration of the previously uncharted island in the South Pacific perpetually under storm clouds, hoping to lay claim there before the Russians get there first. Kong is there and greets the military choppers in the manner you'd expect, i.e. he destroys them outright. Those that survive the onslaught find that the island is full of other creatures even more menacing than Kong, especially the "skullcrawlers" (as long-surviving WWII pilot Hank Marlow calls them), who lurk like carnivorous, two-legged dinosaurs around the island consuming every creature in sight.
Raoul Peck's Academy Award-nominated documentary on famed author James Baldwin, whose unfinished manuscript for a proposed memoir on the deaths of several Civil Rights giants, tentatively entitled, "Remember This House", provides the basis for the commentary about his experiences as an African-American in a country that continuously seems to not deal with its overbearing racism head on.
Set in the year 2029, we find a world where there are no newly born mutants, and the ones that did exist have been all but completely wiped out. Spirit broken, body beaten and losing its ability to quickly heal, and with a sense of self-loathing to the point where suicide seems an increasingly attractive option, Logan finds himself working as a limousine driver, trying to scrape together enough funds to help nonagenarian Professor Charles Xavier, who he has stashed in an isolated facility in Mexico, away from the general population due the the fact that Professor X, without his meds to corral his psychic abilities, loses control of his mutant powers and lashes out in seismic burst from his seizures. During this time, Logan is introduced to a young girl named Laura, an escapee from a mutant-manufacturing lab who, astonishingly, seems to have identical powers to the Wolverine. Hitting the road, the trip seek to escape those who are out to take them down, while also looking for a mythical mutant sanctuary called 'Eden'.
Daniel Kaluuya stars as photographer Chris Washington, a young African-American involved in a close relationship with the white Rose Armitage, so close that it's time for Chris to meet Rose's parents. Chris is nervous about their weekend retreat to Rose's family lake house because Rose hasn't told them that he's black because it doesn't matter to her, and her liberal parents should be all for it, she gathers. While seemingly fine, Chris undergoes a share of microagressions, assumptions, and patronizations because he is a black man, and things only get worse when he's involuntarily hypnotized by Rose's mother, Missy, a hypnotherapist out to cure him of his smoking habit. From there, more of Rose's family gathers for an annual party at the estate, further compounding his issues in being slighted due to his race, while the black hired help around the house seem to adopt an aggressive stance toward him and his relationship with Rose.
Isabelle Huppert stars as Michele Leblanc, the manager of a video-game company. Michelle is raped by a masked man in her own home. Because of her checkered past, she decides to not report it to the police, and is reticent to tell friends right away. The perpetrator continues to stalk Michele, causing her to seek measures to protect herself, yet she is also conflicted by her fantasies, both terrifying and exhilarating, of what might happen should she be found in that position again.
In this follow-up to the wildly popular kinky romance drama Fifty Shades of Grey, we find perpetually blushing publishing-house editorial assistant Anastasia Steele making it through life without the help or attention of controlling Seattle-based mega-billionaire Christian Grey, mostly due to the fact that he couldn't open himself up to her much beyond his taste for sado-masochistic sexual acts. While Grey tries to move on, he can't 'quit' Ana, forging is way back into her life romantically (on condition that their relationship stay 'vanilla'), as well as in an attempt to take over ownership of the company that employs her.
The Joker here is a bit more of a softie -- still a madman, but one that knows the bond of hatred between himself and the Batman needs to be reciprocal so that he can be the yin to his yang. To cement himself as #1 on Batman's hate list, Joker and a host of other baddies of assorted popularity are out to destroy Gotham City. Batman catches Joker in the act, but still sees him as just another perp to thwart, hatching bigger and bolder ideas to come from the clown madman in trying to assure arch-nemesis status, starting with springing the worst of them from the dreaded Phantom Zone.
John Wick tries to go back into retirement after getting his revenge from those who've done him wrong. It would work, except that one particular party, an Italian crime boss named Santino D'Antonio, means to cash in on a marker, a favor he did for Wick some time back, that must be repaid, pulling him in to do another job in the form of an assassination of his sister so that he can take her place in the super-secret organization. Alas, the further Wick gets in, the more enemies out to snuff him out, to the point where they are like the proverbial hydra, sprouting two new enemies for every one he takes down.
Adam Driver stars as Paterson, who coincidentally shares the same name as his town in New Jersey. We follow Paterson over the course of a week in his life, his routines, his conversations with his aspiring baker/singer girlfriend Laura, the conversations he eavesdrops on with the passengers in the city bus he drives, and his interactions with the inhabitants of the local bar he goes to when he takes his English Bulldog Marvin for a walk at night. We also get to follow along as he writes poems every day in his writing notebook, inspired by the writings of famed Paterson poet William Carlos Williams.
The story is set in England at an unspecified time in the future, where we find that Earth may have all but been completely dominated by some sort of invasive fungus that can latch itself and grow inside humans within seconds, turning them into Hungries, aka zombies who seek out non-infected humans and other forms of life in order to sate their thirst for flesh and blood. Within a heavily guarded military base, Earth uninfected soldiers, scientists and civilians are working diligently on finding a way to cure the virus, experimenting primarily on a group of young boys and girls born infected but have capacity learning. i.e. they are cannibals, but far from mindless.
Set primarily in the 1950s, we find Ray Kroc is a struggling traveling salesman trying to peddle an electric milkshake mixer that promises to spark sales by increasing the supply by shortening the wait time involved with having to churn out one milkshake at a time. Sales are not going well, until he receives one big order from someone he hasn't spoken to directly.
Sensing an opportunity for more business with this mysterious buyer, Kroc travels out to the source of the order in San Bernardino, California, where he meets Dick and Mac McDonald, the owners of a bustling burger joint called McDonald's, which prides itself on offering a great product at a low price served hot and fast in an assembly-line process that recalls the innovation of Henry Ford. When Kroc sees the setup, he can't help but think they couldn't make money hand over fist by franchising restaurants just like it from coast to coast.
Hidden Figures seeks to showcase the little-known story of three adept African-American women, all computers who worked for NASA's space program in the 1960s. In an age before computers did all of the calculations, these women were part of a team responsible for double checking the figures put out by engineers working at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. During this period, the gals helped with work to speed up the role of the United States in the Space Race, working on the Mercury program, and other notable ventures.
Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel provides the basis for Martin Scorsese's adaptation set in the 17th Century, regarding a couple of Portuguese missionaries, Father Sebastian Rodrigues and Father Francisco Garupe, who travel to Japan to find their long-lost mentor, Father Ferreira, after discovering a letter written by him a few years back detailing the suffering of the those wishing to spread Christianity there. Ferreira is believed to still be alive in the island country, though there is a question on what circumstances he is currently living under, and whether his faith has been abandoned in favor of living a life as a Japanese noble. The Jesuits find themselves within a hostile environment toward those of Christian beliefs, having to hide out after being helped by the inhabitants of a village who are ravenous for Christian faith. The native villagers exuberantly offer to help the padres and their mission, knowing that it could mean certain torture and death should their activities be discovered, unless they make a public denouncing of their faith.
Jackie is a speculative historical drama that seeks to give us a peek into the hypothetical goings on of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in the week following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The First Lady has taken up temporary residence at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, MA, where she is visited and interviewed by a journalist working for Life Magazine for an exclusive expose. Keenly aware of how perception dictates reality, Jackie consents for the interview on the hope that her words will assist the nation in the healing process, but still talks only on condition that she has final say on what gets published and what he must leave out of the article.
Aisholpan is a thirteen-year-old nomadic Kazakh girl living in proximity to the snowy and treacherous Altai Mountains region of western Mongolia, who ends up being shown the ropes of becoming an 'eagle hunter' by her father, whose family has practiced the art for many generations, after the two end up capturing a female eaglet for her to train in the time-honored traditions of her forbears. Why this matters as a film is that it is extremely rare for a girl to be an eagle hunter, and further upending the patriarchal system of things, Aisholpan decides to enter an annual eagle hunting contest after training her eaglet in the ways of the millennia-old tradition.
Felicity Jones stars as Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen Erso, a scientist-turned-farmer who once reluctantly helped design the Death Star for the Empire. Jyn had run away from harm when her father had been captured, under the iron hand of the director of the massive weapon project, Orson Krennic, who expects Galen to finish what he started. We catch up with her later, as an adult, having been traiend by Saw Gerrera on the ways of the solider, then imprisoned, but Cassian Andor, an espionage agent working for the the Rebel Alliance, sees her potentially helping their side to find the scientist, assembling a rag-tag team of fighters to go on a mission to snatch the blueprints, including one that exploits an Achilles Heel, from the Death Star before it wreaks havoc on a terrified Rebel Alliance.
Emma Stone stars as a struggling actress named Mia, who works as a barista in a coffee shop on the Warner Bros. lot, in between auditions that only serve to make her feel frazzled by the experience. Ryan Gosling is an ambitious jazz pianist, Sebastian, whose love of more traditional jazz sounds puts him at odds with those who wish to hire him, either for playing Holiday ditties as background music, or in modern jazz fusion bands who seem to cater to new crowds who don't particularly care about serious jazz as he sees it. The pair soon meet and begin a romance, all the while trying to make it in Tinseltown.
Manchester by the Sea is a drama concerning a contentious Boston 'burb janitor named Lee Chandler, working with little joy for a meager wage and a basic one-room abode. It turns out that there is a reason for him being anguished at this stage in his life, which is something we come to know more about as the film plays out. He's prone to getting into fights, he's resistant to making emotional connections, and, in general, he's a person too wrapped up in trying to suppress his own thoughts and feelings all of his waking hours that he has little energy to expend in trying to deal with the needs of those around him. In short, he's a man in grief but hasn't yet dealt with it head on, and actively avoids anything that might push his mind toward any notions he's just not ready, willing or able to.
Naomi Watts stars as child psychologist Mary Portman, living with her eighteen-year-old paralyzed stepson, Stephen, the victim of a car accident that saw Mary's husband perish. Stephen has always been a problem child, something that Mary feels guilty about not being able to solve before choosing to send him away, and now feels even more guilty that she has made a decision to send him away again so that he can get better care and so that she can move on with her life. A cold front brings in a major snowstorm to their town in Maine that has both of them trapped in their home, as Mary begins to have visions of a boy she thinks may be the ghost of a patient of hers who went missing, a troubled foster child Tom. She's not sure if her visions are real or imagined, causing her to doubt herself as things within the home begin to seem increasingly more dangerous.
Warren Beatty's film involves a real-life figure in billionaire Howard Hughes, though most of the action involves two young associates of Hughes. Set mostly in the late 1950s, we follow the attempts by a young, virginal, devout Baptist pageant winner named Marla Mabrey, who travels with her mother to Los Angeles in order to become an actress for aviation mogul Howard Hughes, who owns a movie studio and regularly grooms young women like her to become stars in his employ.
Marla gets on the payroll and is soon driven around by a new chauffeur in Hughes' fleet, Frank Forbes, a young man studying economics who wants to also climb the ranks by making a good impression with the reclusive Hughes, who he sees as a sort of mentor on how to be successful in business and real estate. Things get complicated when the already engaged Frank begins to develop feelings for Marla, something also not allowed by Hughes' employees to do. Coupled with Hughes' declining mental stability, all parties find themselves in unenviable positions if they wish to proceed to success in life, career, and love.
Gleason is a documentary film around the trials and tribulations of Steve Gleason, a former NFL player who retired from the game in 2008, then was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2011, concurrent to learning of the pregnancy of his wife Michel with their first child. It's a disease that has no cure, and those who are afflicted by it usually die within 2-5 years after diagnosis. The sufferer's motor skills begin to erode, eventually losing them altogether, including the ability to speak without technological assistance.
Knowing that the odds for survival were bleak, and recovery completely unheard of, Gleason sets about recording his life with the assistance of a couple of associates, and begins to make video logs, while he still has a voice, imparting his philosophies on life, love, and fatherhood for his young son to watch at a day when he can understand, appreciate and take them to heart most. It's something he didn't receive as much as he would like from his own father, who worried about himself much more and expected his sons to think and act just like him, and Steve both wants (and, to some extent, internally fears) that his son will have his own mind about things.
Eddie Redmayne stars as klutzy magizoologist Newt Scamander, the author of the future guide of magical creatures that exist in this world and, of course, where they may be found. Set mostly in New York City in 1926, we find those who can work magic living in a world where the No-Majs, aka, those who have no powers to speak of, are kept in the dark to all of the fantastic things going on around them due to spells of 'obliviation', which erases their memories of them.
Scamander arrives in New York with a magical suitcase chock full of his magical creatures, highly illegal to possess in these parts, with the intention of releasing one of the most magnificent among them, a Thunderbird, in the wilds of Arizona. However, in a mishap, that suitcase is swapped with one belonging to a struggling No-Maj factory worker and baker named Jacob Kowalski, who ignorantly ends up releasing a bunch of the forbidden creatures out into the public. In this environment, the wizards have their own factions and the No-Majs have an upstart group known of more zealous elements bent on weeding them out, though there is a struggle for power even within those ranks with people forging forward with their own agendas for wanting to expose the secret society of magic existing within the city.
Moana is the chief's daughter within her tribe on the New Zealand island of Motunui. Unlike most girls in her Maori village, she is destined to be the chief of her tribe herself one day, pushing them to further greatness in that insular community. Traveling beyond their surrounding reef is forbidden, but a lack of fish and disease in the plant life caused by a curse has Moana exercising her leadership skills by beyond the horizon to find enough food for all of them. In order to reverse the curse, her grand ocean quest is to find the source of their woes by enlisting the services of a Maui , a shape-shifter demigod who must return a long-lost magical emerald stone he once stole that changed the world for the worse.
After twelve alien spacecraft have descended to various spots across Earth, American Amy Adams stars as Dr. Louise Banks, a linguistics professor who is visited by representatives from the U.S. Army to try to decipher the alien language heard on a recording of their "voices". Unable to process the language without being there in person, she is soon part of a team of scientists who enter one of the spacecraft above Montana in order to speak to the Heptapods (as the squid-like aliens come to be known due to their seven perceptible limbs) directly, on the hope that she can glean enough from their conversation of ink-symbols to figure out just why they've come to our planet before the military in other countries the aliens have descended upon get jittery and determine the best course of action is to obliterate them before they do it to us.
Benedict Cumberbatch stars as New York-based neurosurgeon, Dr. Stephen Strange, a big shot at his profession with as big an ego to flaunt, a level of cocky, self-satisfied smarm not too dissimilar to Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Iron Man films. His job is, literally, in his hands, until a car accident occurs that leaves him without much use of them for surgery purposes, causing him to go into an emotional and psychological tailspin if he cannot figure out a solution. Western medicine has no answers, so he seeks alternate ways, and that leads toward a rumored miracle breakthrough that takes him to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he connects with a monastic order of master magicians led by the powerful mystic, the Ancient One (Swinton), who proceeds to open Strange's mind to powers within him that are far greater than the mere physical. However, a wayward former student of the Ancient One has gone against their teachings and has removed pages from one of the most sacred of the magical library's many tomes, one that taps into the Dark Dimension that may bring to Earth dangerous forces that even the most powerful sorcerers on the planet can't thwart.
Mel Gibson's film loosely showcases the true story of small-town Virginia resident Desmond Doss and his heroic actions as an American soldier fighting in the Pacific against the Japanese forces during the waning days of World War II. Doss, a devout Seventh Day Adventist and believer in pacifism, enlisted into the Armed Forces because he believed in the fight, even though he wished to help out without the need for killing the enemy on the other side, trying to go through basic training retaining his unwavering beliefs to help his fellow man and his country by becoming an unarmed medic.
Set in Los Angeles in the year 1967, we find a widowed scam artist named Alice, who is working from home as a spiritual medium to make ends meet for herself and her two misfit daughters, fifteen-year-old Lina and nine-year-old Doris. Inspired by a new 'board game' of sorts that has spooked Lina and her friends, Alice decides to incorporate a Ouija board into her flashy seance showcase, but things take a weird turn when it ends up that the device seems to actually be a portal into the spiritual world, one that might put the family in contact with their deceased father/husband. Alas, what they find on the other side is increasingly unnerving, and now young Doris is showing signs of becoming a conduit for malevolent forces to make the leap to the earthly realm.
The plot involves the Dynamic Duo trying to take down their main four nemeses -- Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman -- who've joined forces to capture a Replicator Ray. which is a laser-gun of sorts that can make an exact replica of anything it targets. Despite falling into the right hands, those with wrong hands still manage to manipulate matters to their benefit, resulting in a major upheaval in the city of Gotham that could have long-ranging consequences if the good guys can't figure out how to reverse the Ray's duplicative properties.
The third film in the Dan Brown adaptation series that already includes The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons sees Tom Hanks return to play main Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who we find at the beginning of the story waking up with a head injury in a hospital in Florence, Italy. Langdon can't remember how he got there, or much of anything else in recent memory, but someone apparently wants him dead, causing a hasty escape, with his British doctor, Sienna Brooks, who just so happens to be an avid fan of his scholarly books on secret codes, in tow. Soon enough, both of their skills at finding connections through great works of art and European history are put to use, from analysis of Boticelli paintings to new interpretations of Dante's "Divine Comedy" (the first part of which the film derives its title), leading them on a race against time across the Mediterranean to thwart a secret society's plan to launch a plague that will wipe out half of the Earth's human population, ostensibly to prevent complete extinction.
Tom Cruise returns as Reacher, who travels to Washington DC to meet up with the attractive Military Police officer Major Susan Turner, only to find that she has been discharged from duties and has been arrested for espionage in connection with the killing of two American soldiers in Afghanistan. What's worse, Reacher also becomes a suspect linked to the murder of Turner's defense lawyer and gets apprehended. Sensing a frame job from within the military itself, Reacher and Turner have little choice but to go on the run in New Orleans and clear their own names by rooting out the source of the conspiracy involving a suspicious arms-dealing corporation before they, or the runaway teenager named Samantha, who could be Reacher's daughter, end up becoming the next victims.
Ben Affleck stars as the titular accountant, a highly functional autistic savant and skilled fighter/gunman named Christopher Wolff, who currently has an office at a strip mall that fronts for his real business, and a lucrative one at that, as the under-the-radar forensic accounting wunderkind who helps save major businesses, governments, and underworld figures willing to pay an exorbitant price. His latest client is a famed roboticist named Lamar Black, who wants the accounting dynamo to go through his books to find out why his own accountant, Dana Cummings, is having trouble with some of the numbers that aren't adding up, potentially resulting in a major financial leak in profits. When his work is cut short, Wolff can't bear to stop without achieving completion, though the Treasury agents on his tail threatens to undo everything he's built up before that can happen.
Emily Blunt stars as lonely, alcoholic divorcee Rachel Watson, who spends a part of every day commuting on a train, looking at the goings-on in a couple of homes that happen to be along the suburban New York route. One of those homes happens to be her former residence, where her ex-husband Tom, who Rachel has yet to get over as evidenced by her persistent drunk dialing and texting to him, is inhabiting with his new wife Anna, and their newborn child. Another home, just a couple of houses down, has another happy couple, Scott and Megan Hipwell, which makes consummate train-wreck (no pun intended) Rachel so envious, she drowns her jealousy toward those living the perfect Stepford-esque life the once had with more bottles of vodka, causing paranoia, blackouts and otherwise erratic behavior. When Rachel spies Megan with another man, then goes missing, she thinks she may have a clue to what may have happened to her, getting involved in ways that make her a potential suspect -- or a potential target. If only she could remember all of the details through her drunken blackouts.
Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation is based on real-life events that occurred in Virginia in 1831, where a slave named Nat Turner would lead a revolt against the white slave-owners. The film showcases how Nat went from Africa as a child to the cotton plantation of the Turner family, growing up picking in the fields, but very unique among the slaves there because he could read. His chosen book was The Bible, eventually learning to preach with the guidance of a relatively generous mistress of the house, Elizabeth. Later in his life, his slave master, the hard-drinking but comparatively compassionate Samuel, would shop him out to other locations to keep other slaves compliant through carefully chosen scriptures within. However, what he witnesses in terms of gross violence, rape and torture against the slave population soon compels him to take a stand against the oppression inflicted on people of African descent in the American South, calling on his metaphorical brothers and sisters to cast their chains away and rise up in a violent confrontation to fight for their freedom.
Filmmaker and documentarian Werner Herzog continues his fascination with the current state of the planet Earth and its inhabitants with Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, which seeks to show how the internet has changed the way human beings live and perceive one another, with advancements in technology that has been of great benefit to us all, while at the same time been a source of pain and angst for many others. Directing and narrating the piece, Herzog offers these reveries, these "daydreams and musings", in bite-sized vignettes, starting with the origin of the internet in a small laboratory on the UCLA campus in 1969 (the first transmission, meant to transmit the word "L-O-G" to another computer at Stanford University but crashed after the first two letters, forms the inspiration of the film's title), all the way to the possible future in potential settlements in space beyond Earth.
Deepwater Horizon depicts the events leading up to and during what would eventually become the worst oil spill in the history of the United States, where the titular drilling rig, the largest in the world at the time, would explode under massive amounts of pressure in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven of the 126 people on board, just 52 miles off of the coast of Venice, Louisiana, on April 20, 2010. A burst of methane gas trapped over three miles below the ocean surface blast up the well, eventually blowing out on the rig, where oil would continue to rush into the Gulf for nearly three months straight.
Phiona Mutesi, who we see growing up in Katwe, in the crime-ridden slums of Kampala, capital of Uganda, with a future ahead of her that seems to offer more of the same for her and her family. David Oyelowo co-stars as Christian missionary and youth outreach coordinator Robert Katende, who discovers a hidden prodigy in Phiona when he gathers some of the local children together to teach them the game of chess. Phiona gets very good, very quickly, soon enough besting all of the kids in Katwe, leading Robert to seek greener pastures by trying to have her compete in competitions sponsored by schools for the more formally educated. However, opportunities are scarce for someone of her situation (not only prejudice against people of the slums, but you also need money to enter some of the competitions), and Phiona's widowed mother Harriet grows increasingly concerned that the path Robert has her on will lead to a diminishing of her home life and earning money to help feed her and the family by selling maize (corn) at the local market.
Asa Butterfield stars as Jacob, an American teenager close to his grandfather, Abe, who would frequently impart his fanciful stories of his own youth spent at the peculiar home of the story's title. The home is run by Miss Peregrine, who caters to orphan children who possess strange and magical traits (one has bees living within him, another with a mouth on the back of her neck, another with the strength of ten men, etc.). When his grandfather passes, Jacob determines to find if Abe's stories about the magical home off the coast of Wales is real, but he discovers the place in rubble, bombed out by Nazis during World War II. However, Jacob soon discovers that a 'time loop' in which the orphanage continues to exist on the fateful day of the bombing in 1943, thanks to Miss Peregrine's ability to reverse time one day, every day. However, even the time loop may not be enough to save them, as the viciously evil Barron and his grotesque Hollowgast friends are out to snuff 'peculiars' out.
Michael Shannon plays Tom, celebrating his birthday at a critical time in his life, wondering what to do when his Persian wife is on the verge of moving from their home in New York to California to continue her education and help in her passion to make jewelry as a career. At the party, Tom's workmate Clyde brings over a guest, Alice, a new acquaintance he hopes will eventually be more. We know what the guests of Tom's party does not, thanks to an opening montage: this stranger has had many identities over the years, and Alice is just her latest. When she reveals her past at the party, it becomes all the buzz, and as Tom gets to talking to her more, we soon find out that they are both hiding secrets - the woman who must move on whenever she becomes trapped in a life and the man so set in his ways, he has a hard time leaving even when there's not much to stay for.
A man's mother whas been discovered to have an advanced-stage brain tumor that needs immediate removal, with John Krasinski playing the role of bored office worker and would-be graphic novel author John Hollar, who moved to New York and is currently awaiting the birth of a baby with his well-to-do girlfriend, Becca. He receives a call to return to his Midwest home to be there for his mother Sally's risky but crucial brain surgery, where he is greeted by his financially struggling plumber father, Don, and his recently laid-off brother Ron, who hasn't yet been able to move on from his divorce.
Set in the year 1879, this new version moves the action from feudal Japan and Mexico to a struggling new town called Rose Creek, who are being bled dry and forced to leave or die from a ruthless and iron-fisted land baron named Bartholomew Bogue, who is looking to continue amassing riches by getting rid of themeek residents of the town to further set up his gold-mining operation. When Bogue's attempts to terrorize the people of Rose Creek into leaving turn deadly, recently widowed Emma Cullen seeks righteousness and revenge by enlisting the services of fearless duly-appointed warrant officer Sam Chisolm to help protect the town and put an end to Bogue's murderous ways. With the local sheriff and deputies on his payroll, and an army of desperadoes to protect Bogue, Chisolm knows he's going to need a formidable team on his side as well, soon enlisting the services of a ragtag group of skilled gunfighters, as well as to train the town of mostly pacifists on how to fight for the town that's rightfully theirs.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Edward Snowden (doing a reasonable interpretation of his voice and demeanor), a neoconservative wanting to serve his country but whose military career is cut short due to frequent injuries, turning his sights to working to help is country in another capacity though a career in government intelligence. He proves to be more than adept at this job, which allows him to climb the ranks to higher and higher levels of security clearance within the CIA. However, the closer he looks at their programming, the more disturbed he is to find just how intrusive many of the surveillance software and techniques are under both the Bush and Obama administrations, leading him to have a crisis of conscience on whether the American public has a right to know about how their privacy has eroded in the computer, smart phone, internet and social media age.
As with the first film, we're greeted with a title blurb informing us that what we're about to watch is footage found in the woods of Burkittsville, MD -- aka, the Black Hills Forest. We see the beginnings of the footage at the home of a 20-ish aged man named James, who has seen a YouTube video that gives him a clue that his sister Heather, who has been missing since trying to document the origins of the Blair Witch, may be still alive in those woods. Embarking on this quest, James seeks the assistance of his filmmaker friend Lisa to record their travels and make it into a documentary, traveling to the area to meet with the YouTuber who shot the footage, bringing along friends Peter and Ashley in tow. They get plenty of their questions answered in due course, though not exactly the way they wanted.
Bridget is now 43 years old, alone and still living in the same flat in London -- no husband and no children -- working as a producer for a London televisions news program. On the urging of a friend and colleague, Bridget is cajoled into attending an outdoor music festival where people can expect to get laid, and often, where she soon meets a charismatic and good-looking American dating-site wunderkind named Jack Quant, with whom she decides to "have relations." About a week later, she runs into her reserved and refined old flame Mark Darcy, who says he's going through a divorce but still has feelings for her, and they also, "have relations." when Bridget ends up pregnant, it becomes an awkward situation, as she doesn't know which of the two appealing men will be the father, and if so, if they will accept the situation of responsibility.
Jake is an artistically gifted but introverted 13-year-old kid whose therapist mother Kathy and actor father Brian relocate from Manhattan to Brooklyn when they take over the abode of the recently deceased father Brian barely spoke to anymore. The properties inhereted also contain a modest dress shop run by a middle-aged Chilean immigrant named Leonor, who also has a son, Tony, around the same age as Jake. Tony quickly befriends actor-in-training Jake, but difficulties arise between the two families when the lease on the shop is found to not exist, and a major readjustment to the very low rent she had been paying to the grandfather is proposed to keep up with the skyrocketing property prices in the radically changing Brooklyn neighborhood they reside in.
The film takes place over the course of a year, with the primary focus being on a struggling comedy writer and improv comedian named David (Plemmons), returning to his hometown of Sacramento from New York to look after the needs of his terminally ill mother, Joanne (Shannon), uncomfortably reuniting with his mostly estranged father, Norman (Whitford), who has yet to fully accept him since coming out, and two mostly annoying younger sisters. The family is preparing for the inevitable life after Joanne, as she has decided to forego additional grueling chemo treatments and accept her fate with the cancer that is overtaking her. While there, David also begins to find some healing time with dormant familial relationships and a bit of perspective on the other trials and tribulations in his personal, professional and romantic life.
Sully is a docudrama that tells the story of the events surrounding the water landing in the New York's Hudson River for a commercial jet en route to Charlotte piloted by veteran Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger on January 15, 2009. The Airbus A320 lost both engines after flying into a large flock of Canada geese turing takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, causing Sully and co-pilot Jeff Skiles to have to make the quick decision on whether they could make it back to LaGuardia or a nearby airstrip, or if they must take the risky chance of downing the plane in the icy river. The well-publicized end result on that fateful morning was that Sully, all of the crew, and all 150 passengers survived that day, dubbed the "Miracle on the Hudson", making the pilot an overnight celebrity and hero in the eyes of millions.
Naomi Bishop, a self-made, shrewd and successful investment banker who has made great gains in launching highly successful IPOs, though her most recent less-than-stellar effort, in which she was pulled from representing just before launch, had been seen in the media as a black mark on her career. Her latest client is a potential billion-dollar social-media business named Cachet that prides itself on hiring skillful hackers whose know-how have made its CEO confident that all of its clients data is safe and secure from any and all attacks. The film also spotlights two other women related to the event, Erin, Naomi's protégé in the firm who has been anxiously awaiting seeing more money and opportunities come her way, especially now that she has a baby on the way, and Naomi's friend from way back, Samantha, a federal prosecutor for the Justice Department who has reemerged in her life in her investigation of alleged securities fraud.
Blood Father casts a weathered Mel Gibson as a former alcoholic tattoo artist ex-con divorcee named John Link, who's spent the last few years mostly off the grid in a trailer park in California's Coachella Valley (shot in New Mexico). He has been anxiously searching for his 17-year-old daughter, Lydia, who ran away at 14. She re-enters his life soon enough, desperately looking for money to make her getaway when she ends up shooting her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Jonah, during an armed heist, causing others in his criminal organization tied to the drug cartels from Mexico to come after her. Fatherly instincts, and a resurgence of dormant survival skills picked up from his days as a not-so-nice-guy, kick in when the bad guys come around.
Most of the action takes place, as with Ex Machina, at a large house in a scenic remote location that doubles as an experimental laboratory where scientists are observing the maturation of a synthetic young woman named Morgan, who is five years old in actuality but with the accelerated aging that gives her the appearance of a young woman. The staff there all have fond feelings for Morgan, though that trust is shattered one day when Morgan appears to lash out violently unexpectedly, resulting in severe injuries to one of their own. The corporation behind the experiment sends a risk-management agent to assess the risks of continuing, Lee Weathers, who finds that, despite their fear of a repeat occurrence that has Morgan more or less imprisoned, they rationalize that this outburst is an anomaly, and part of the acceptable risk for the project.
Toni is a tough but socially disconnected eleven-year-old girl from the projects in Cincinnati, who is a regular participant and a helpful assistant in the nearby community center, where her older brother, Jermaine, a boxer, also trains. Toni tries out to be a member of the Lionesses, the highly successful all-girl competitive dance-battle squad. The girls all regularly work out their highly complicated dance routines, but one of the girls falls during the routine in what appears to be an epileptic fit (hence the title). Some time later, another, then another. Are they overworked? Is it there a problem with water contamination at the community center? Is it something worse?
Chris Pine and Ben Foster play brothers Toby and Tanner Howard, who we find at the beginning of the film on a bank-robbing spree in West Texas. Toby's the smart one who has generally been above the fray, but he's now going in headfirst into a life of crime with his ne'er-do-well Tanner to secure the funs necessary to keep the banks from seizing the property willed to debt-plagued Toby, whose mother's property was mortgaged to pay for her medical care, which he aims to give to his two mostly estranged boys. With the Feds not interested in chasing down criminals who aren't stealing much more than a few thousand here and there, a soon-to-retire Texas Ranger named Marcus Hamilton assumes the case, along with his deputy Alberto, to catch these guys before they strike again.
The story, inspired by anecdotes chronicled in the memoirs of their actual first date, begins in August, 1989, in the South Side of Chicago, on a day in which a young, smart and career-minded corporate lawyer, Michelle Robinson, accepts spending the day with a Harvard-bound summer office mate, Barack Obama, on the pretense that they attend a housing project community meeting as colleagues, making whatever else they do socially that he has planned definitely not a date. Obama, driving his rusted-out car to greet her, feels differently, and makes it his task to convince her otherwise before the day is through.
War Dogs follows two lifelong friends, struggling massage therapist and bedsheet salesman David Packouz and two-bit wheeler and dealer Efraim Diveroli, two down-and-out Miami stoners who are looking to find a way to make ends meet in a variety of schemes they hope will give them a leg up. They end up finding a bit of success as small-time dealers of armor, weapons and ammo for bid on a government-run auction site, where they make a nice sum of cash flying under the radar with contracts too small for the big dogs to care about. They build up a nice mini-business as AEY, and their success eventually leads to bigger and better chances at contracts, ultimately leading to a sizable one in the form of a contract to supply AK ammo to the Afghan army to the tune of $300 million. After connecting with a shifty big-time weapons dealer named Henry Girard, they find that the bigger the contract, the more dangerous the game, especially when dealing with black-market suppliers in unstable countries.
Set in Detroit, a trio of young poverty-stricken friends make ends meet by robbing the houses in more affluent areas around the city, though fencing the hot merchandise doesn't always make the risk worth their while. These petty thieves want to get out of their bleak, dysfunctional home lives, hoping they can find greener pastures in California, but to do that, they have to find a place to rob that has enough real cash on hand to allow them to make the leap. After doing the research, they spot their next target in, surprisingly, one of the worst neighborhoods in the area -- an isolated place as most of the neighbors nearby have left, and the owner of the house is an older recluse who came into a load of cash following a settlement when his daughter was tragically killed in a car accident. Unfortunately, what they don't take into account is that the man is a war vet with a "particular set of skills" that makes him a dangerous presence, even without the benefit of his sight, and that he's made his home into a place that's about as difficult to get out of as it is to get into.
Set in 1951, Logan Lerman plays Marcus Messner, an incoming Jewish college transfer at Ohio's small but prestigious Winesberg College during a time when many of his friends are fighting in the Korean War. He must overcome the influence of his overprotective parents from his home town of Newark, New Jersey, and the powers that be at the school in order to try to be his own person, with his own beliefs, and sense of autonomy he's never been given before. The sheltered lad ends up dating a non-conformist classmate named Olivia Hutton, whose struggles with her own sanity has been a challenge, but to whom he can't help but be drawn to. It soon becomes a trying time for Marcus at his new school, with sexual confusion, loud and intrusive roommates, controlling parents, and Dean Hawes Caudwell, the school administrator who doesn't take kindly to Marcus's inability to assimilate properly to the environment of the conservative school. Indignation ensues.
Arthur Bishop is) retired from the contract killing profession, but gets pulled back in again by one of his old enemies, an international arms dealer named Riah Crain, looking to root him out for another contract that Bishop initially rebuffs. While on the resort beaches of Thailand, Bishop ends up saving an abused damsel named Gina and soon enters into a romance with her. When the big-bad ends up kidnapping Bishop's new lover, he reluctantly consents to perform three near-impossible assassinations of extremely well-guarded targets within a day and a half, and has to make them all look like they were fluke accidents. Failure means the end of Gina, and probably Bishop too, if Crain manages to find him again.
Morris from America is a coming-of-age story about a pudgy, thirteen-year-old African-American kid named named Morris Gentry, who lives with his widower soccer-coach father Curtis in a place where there are few who look like them, Heidelberg, Germany. Under a suggestion by his German instructor, Inka, Morris makes some attempt to make friends while in his new environment, meeting an impulsive fifteen-year-old local named Katrin, with whom he's instantly attracted, but he's not quite sure if she feels the same way. The mischievously flirty Katrin tries to get him out of his shell by unplugging the headphones he perpetually wears as he walks though life and going to various parties with the local kids around his age, much to his father's chagrin, where Morris has to contend with the fish-out-of-water experience first-hand by striving to break out of his comfort zone. Perhaps only the crush on Katrin is able to compel him to try, though following the heart can also lead to heartache in this tender time of confusion for many young teens.
the story of Judah Ben-Hur, a wealthy Jewish prince living in Rome-occupied Jerusalem, as well as his strong competitive bond with his adopted Roman brother, Messala Severus, who will come to be his main adversary in that climactic race. However, that bond is put to the test when Messala becomes a centurion in the Roman military, eventually returning to Jerusalem as a captain entrusted to command the troops as Roman prefect to Judaea, Pontius Pilate, enters the city, which has been a trouble spot for Rome due to a faction of murderous zealots. When Judah refuses to name names to Messala prior to another eruption in Pilate's presence, he's convicted of sedition for the incident, effectively beginning his enslavement in the galley of a Roman warship, where he will presumably be shackled until he expires. The rest of the film concerns how Judah goes from that predicament to ultimately compete against his brother for guts and glory in the chariot race. Oh, and Jesus is in there somewhere too.
Kubo is set in a fantasy/folk version of medieval Japan, where we find young Kubo spending his days using his elaborate magical origami constructions to spin beautiful stories of the heroism of his legendary father, the samurai Hanzo, to the people of his village, brought to life from the magic of his shamisen, a three-stringed Japanese lute. His evenings are spent with his melancholy mother hiding in seclusion in a cliff-side cave, who informs him of his own troubled youth after having to escape his murderous grandfather, The Moon King, who took his left eye and wants his other, with help from his supernatural minion daughters, Kubo's Noh-masked witchy aunts. Eventually, their past comes home to find them, causing Kubo to go on a harrowing but heroic adventure, along with his protectors, the motherly mentor, Monkey, and an insectoid amnesiac fighter named Beetle, to fulfill his quest of finding three samurai items imbued by magical properties -- an unbreakable sword, an impenetrable suit of armor, and an invulnerable helmet -- that belonged to his long-lost father.
The gentle, dreamlike film starts with some of the heavier material when we find the titular Pete as a very young boy left orphaned after a car crash, leaving him alone in the dense woods of the Pacific Northwest with seemingly no one to protect him -- that is until a kind-hearted giant green dragon, also gone astray from his own family, comes along to take the child under his wing, almost literally, and raise him for the next six years in seclusion. That's when Pete, now ten years old, is discovered by a friendly forest ranger named Grace, who takes the lad home with her daughter Natalie and fiancée Jack until they can find out where Pete's home actually is. However, complications arise then Jack's brother, Gavin, run into Elliot, which is what Pete has called the dragon, while they're out in the woods working for their logging company, seeing a means to become wealthy if they can capture the magical creature for all the world to see.
Weiner is a behind-the-scenes documentary covering the publicly disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner and his bid for mayor of New York City in 2013. Carrying a great deal of baggage going in, Weiner manages to gain some traction by claiming that his indiscretions, which had to do with multiple instances of sexting, exchange of nude photographs, and phone sex with several women admirers he had been in contact with but reportedly had never met, were a thing of the past. As he becomes the frontrunner in the race, new information regarding the allegations arise, resulting in additional scandal and subsequent damage control on the part of the campaign to address the salacious details, as well as the trust issues that emerge due to Weiner's inability to handle the deluge of personal questions that he hopes will blow over, but only causes the campaign to control the damage only causes his bid to spin even further put of control.
Set in New York during the mid 1940s, Stephen Frears' film about a real-life, upper-class heiress with a zest for music and charitable works gives Meryl Streep another juicy role that taps into even more of her seemingly boundless talent as an actress, and as a singer (many of her more recent roles have utilized her vocal talent), even as a very good singer who has to sing quite badly. A former child prodigy at the piano who can no longer play due to an injured hand, Foster finds a way to keep herself in the limelight when she becomes a singer of opera, which she has done for friends or in small venues, while her doting husband-at-heart, St. Clair Bayfield, massages the crowd to her favor, whether through sympathy for their social enablers, to whom Florence Foster Jenkins has been a great benefactor of their art, or with a bit of bribery for members of the press, who go on to give warm reviews to her performances.
The food items at the supermarket named Shopwell's are excited about the prospects of the annual '4th of July' sale, where many of them get chosen by the 'gods' to go to the promised land of the "Great Beyond." The most excited are the members of a package of ten phallic sausages, especially Frank, who becomes enamored of what he hopes will be his future companion, Brenda, who is one of a collection of eight vulvic hot dog buns. As luck would have it, the god selects both of their respective packages, but a returned jar of honey mustard warns them of the horrors that await them all once they leave the store (i.e., getting sliced, diced, cooked and consumed), leading to a series of events that has Frank, Brenda, and company out of the packages and on to a crazy odyssey as they mill about within the store.
Birbiglia plays Miles, the eldest member of the Commune at 36, who teaches improv to younger up-and-comers in his spare time. He feed the hopes and dreams they all have, though all the while, he has grown more cynical and bitter with each passing year of finding himself exactly in the same place as he was the year before, while many of those who've learned from him are doing what he can only dream to do. Even though it seems a longshot at this point in his career, he sees little hope but to press on, even if the Brooklyn theater that hosts their shows is on the verge of closing down, and effectively putting the Commune on hiatus. However, another member of the tight-knit troupe, Jack, has a career trajectory that looks like it has more promise, even landing an audition with "Weekend Live" that could mean a regular gig, and perhaps parlay this into a long-running career in comedy on TV and in films, if chosen. His girlfriend Samantha, who is also in the Commune and who also lands an audition, but feels less certain she can make that next step in her profession, finding it a scary proposition to effectively end her dreams by actually achieving them -- that it is always beyond her reach is what keeps her running after them.
The Dirty Dozen-inspired plotline involves black ops ringleader, federal agent Amanda Waller, bringing together Task Force X, a group of strangers, all violently criminal super-powered sociopaths locked away in elaborately imagined high-security prisons, forced to do the government's dirty work to stave off the threat of other meta-humans that, in the wake of the death of Earth's savior, Superman, can't be stopped by conventional forces. To keep these fiercely independent baddies under control, these criminals are injected with micro-explosives (a la Escape from New York) through which Waller can detonate them with the touch of a phone app, and to sweeten the deal, promises of reduced sentences. Their first big mission ends up being taking down the evil, ancient entity known as Enchantress, who has usurped, for spells, the body of a scientist named Dr. June Moone -- an entity once controlled by Waller but she managed to finally break free from the curse that bound her.
Viggo Mortensen stars as Ben Cash, a father of six (ages range from six to eighteen), living "off the grid" in the remote dense wilderness of the Pacific Northwest as part of some sort of self-imposed counterculture exile, where they live off mostly of what's out in nature in a ritualistic fashion -- hunting, farming, rock climbing, survivalist training, and keeping physically fit, as well as mentally agile, learning from some of the great thinkers and philosophers, some quite revolutionary and controversial, the world has ever known. They're all anxiously awaiting his bipolar wife Leslie to be cured of a disease during her hospital stay back in her home town in New Mexico when word comes that she has taken her own life. Though father-in-law Jack, who blames Ben for poisoning his daughter and grandchildren with his cultish hippie beliefs, explicitly tells him to stay away or get arrested, he packs the family bus and the septet vacate their bohemian digs and are off on the long road trip to crash the funeral. The kids, who've spent their entire lives away from any form of other civilization not found in their novels and textbooks, find so-called civilized society to be a crazier place than they've ever imagined.
This chapter in the saga finds Jason Bourne giving up the spy game and living completely off the grid, earning his keep as a bruising slugger in the Eastern European underground fighting circuit. That's until he's pulled out by his old crony in the CIA, Nicky Parsons, who has gone rogue to deliver intel to Jason that she's hacked regarding the identity and mysterious death of his father, as well as his key involvement in a top-secret government operation. Tenacious CIA director Robert Dewey is hot on their trail, but he doesn't so much want Bourne to come in out of the cold so much as think he is better off dead for being unobtainable and knowing far too much, which might jeopardize their current plot to utilize a monumentally popular social-media platform dubbed "Deep Dream" to spy on the majority of the world's population. Dewey's underling, Heather Lee, meanwhile, searches for a way to get Bourne on board without taking him out.
Set in the 1930s, Jesse Eisenberg stars as Bobby Dorfman, a young Bronxite and aspiring writer who calls on his distant uncle Phil to hook him up with a job in his top-flight talent agency in Hollywood. Shortly after relocating, Phil sends hisassistant, the decidedly glamour-averse Vonnie, to show his young nephew around the town, and the two soon hit it off as friends. However, friendship turns to feelings for Bobby, but she says she's seeing someone else, though Bobby doesn't know that her beau is, in fact, married uncle Phil. However, when Phil looks like he can't quite pull the trigger and leave his wife for Vonnie once and for all, Bobby gets his chance at burgeoning love, though things get far more complicated when all of the players begin putting the pieces of the love triangle's thorny entanglements together.
Mila Kunis plays 32-year old wife and mother of two, Amy, whose already stale marriage in the Chicago suburbs (filmed in New Orleans) hits an impasse when she catches her hubby having an online affair. Her best friends, spitfire sexpot single-mom Carla and mousy housewife Kiki, form a pact to be "bad moms" as a means of rebellion against having to put up with bratty, unappreciative kids and husbands that take them for granted for the last several years. However, when the far-too-influential busybody PTA president, Gwendolyn, begins to make life difficult for them and their middle-school aged kids, Amy decides to run against her for control of the organization on a platform of empowering mothers to do not have to always have to be so perfect.
Emma Roberts plays venus 'Vee' Delmonico, an introverted, straight-as-an-arrow senior in a Staten Island high school. Vee is cajoled by her more outgoing and bold friend Sydney to install a popular underground ("dark web") smartphone and desktop app called 'Nerve' in which one can choose to be a Player, who participates in a customized series of 'dares' for cash deposits and follower base, or Watcher, who, for a fee, contribute to the game system by making dare suggestions, monitoring and submitting approval (a la Periscope) when they're completed by the Players. Pegged as an instant watcher, Vee decides to be a bit more daring and see what life is like on the Player side. Her first dare is to kiss a complete stranger in a diner for five seconds, which introduces her to Dave Franco's Ian, who turns out to also be a Player himself. The game continues to pair up the two based on algorithms generated through the harvesting of their online personas through all manner of social media and private accounts, leading them to continue their misadventures-on-demand through the department stores and bustling streets of Manhattan. The problem is that the further you're into it, the harder it is to quit, whether you want to or not.
In this film, the antics of Scrat the squirrel flying a UFO in outer space, chasing the elusive acorn, ends up inadvertently causing a massive meteor shower to hit Earth. Manny the woly mammoth and his wife Ellie forget, for a moment, their fears that their daughter Peaches will end up leaving them once she gets married to the silly-natured but loveable Julian. They see the fiery rocks hurtling in their vicinity and immediately run for cover, along with their gang of friends (aka The Herd) of many species, eventually running into the spirited and highly intelligent one-eyed weasel named Buck (returning from the third film, Dawn of the Dinosaurs), who concocts a plan to keep the most massive of asteroids from hitting Earth yet again and wiping them all out. Teamwork is employed, but they're going to have to stay a step ahead of a trio of ill-mannered Dino-Birds who want all of these other pesky critters like the dino-egg saving Buck out of the way so they can rule the roost as the most powerful creatures on the newly destroyed planet.
Batman, after some introductory scenes in which he battles some bad guys with the help of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, goes to confront The Joker at Arkham Asylum, only to discover he has made his escape and is out and about causing havoc. The Joker, out to prove that anyone can go as mad as he has given the right (or wrong) circumstances ("All it takes is one bad day", so he says), sets about committing some truly heinous acts toward some of the people who are fighting on the side of good. In between the contemporary story scenes, we get flashbacks to Joker's past as a failing comedian who ended up turning to a life of crime in order to support his wife and unborn child, resulting in tragedy that cracks his psyche, and physically transforms his appearance to look as maniacal on the outside as he feels on the inside.
The main story involves a dysfunctional family, who are particularly in dire trouble now that the depressed mother, Sophie, has begun to exhibit signs of mental illness that she thought her medications had all but completely eradicated. Sophie's first husband has gone missing under mysterious circumstances, though we get to see that hubby number two is actually brutally murdered by a supernatural force while in his workplace there's barely a mention of this event among the family afterward, curiously). Sophie's daughter, the long-suffering Rebecca, no longer chooses to visit her now that she has taken a turn for the worse, leaving Sophie's young son, Martin, in a very vulnerable spot, all alone with a sick mother and an entity that she is always talking to in the shadows. As Martin reaches out for help, half-sister Rebecca gets thrust back into the family issues that have haunted her over the years, having to get to the bottom of the jealous evil presence in the house that her mother has called "Diana", who lives and kills in the dark recesses of the house.
This one showcases the third year of their five-year mission, with Captain James T. Kirk pondering a career move for the better, thanks to the heroic deeds chronicled in previous entries. Decisions can wait, when they end up picking up an escape-pod survivor, leading the Enterprise to a strange part of the galaxy on a mission to rescue the rest of her ship's crew in uncharted territory. However, they've shuttled right into a trap, masterminded by a fierce adversary named Krall, who is hell-bent on obtaining an artifact on board the Enterprise. Krall sets about all but completely destroying the Kirk and company using a swarming fleet of insect-oid ships, severely damaging the Enterprise, and leaving the crew members to shuttle to the nearby planet.
Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney continues his roll of crafting some of the most intriguing and topical films in recent years with Zero Days, this time taking a look at a new and different kind of international warfare. It's not one fought with bullets or bombs, but with computer scripts, some so potent that they can infect a device, stop production in a factory, and perhaps, if one were powerful enough, take down a massive power grid that could end up costing billions of dollars to the country it is inflicted upon.
Julian Dennison plays Ricky Baker, a rebellious, chubby, twelve-year-old foster thug-life wanna-be who ends up dumped by an exasperated social worker to a childless couple, kind-hearted Bella and her cynical husband Hec, a last-chance effort from the foster placement, out on a remote farm in rural New Zealand. "Bad Egg" Ricky hates his new environment about as much as he's hated everyplace else he's been, choosing to run away at his first opportunity, only to find that he hasn't a clue where he can go or how to survive out in the wilderness that surrounds the farm. However, circumstances result in injured Hec and Ricky, who is adamant about never returning to foster child services, stuck out in that wilderness, becoming misunderstood fugitives caught up in a high-publicity manhunt (hence the title), and Ricky's going to have to learn "the knack" of survival out in "the Bush" of New Zealand.
Kristen Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, an ambitious associate professor seeking tenure at New York's prestigious Columbia University who ends up losing that when a book she published years ago on ghosts surfaces, putting the credibility of the institution in question should she remain in the faculty. Turns out that her writing partner, Abby Yates, republished the book that had previously been out of print, and ends up cajoling Erin to just come help her and her current research partner, the kooky gearhead engineer Jillian Holtzmann, in her studies in investigating paranormal activity further, . They initially find success in trapping ghosts with Jillian's devices and their continued pursuit leads them to start a business and take on a fourth team member in Patty Tolan, a street-wise MTA subway employee who has seen a particularly nasty apparition in the subways of New York, and whose knowledge of the city will be of particular help, plus an daft-but-hunky administrative assistant in Kevin. But the ghostly activity seems to be on the rise, with signs pointing toward an oddball loner janitor named Rowan, who seems to be Hell-bent on bringing the generally unseen demons and ghouls to the Earthly plane that hasn't been so kind to regarding his genius.
Bryan Cranston decides to go on the other side of the drug laws from his stint on the seminal "Breaking Bad" with The Infiltrator, playing a true-life U.S. Customs agent named Robert Mazur, who, in the 1980s, would go undercover as a money launderer to bust some of the country's most wanted traffickers at the height of the Reagan-era, "War on Drugs". Set in 1986, the highly effective operative, Mazur, is set for retirement when he decides to do one more case in "Operation C-Chase" to take down the drug men, only this time, he decides that the only way to actually stop the influx of product is to follow the money instead of the drugs, and take down the biggest fish in the game as he climbs up the proverbial food chain. Under his new identity of Bob Musella, Mazur plays a high roller with mafia ties who gains the trust of some men within a powerful and deadly Colombian drug cartel channeling through Miami, headed by the notorious Pablo Escobar, to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into his sham company operating as a legit business so that it won't draw suspicion.
Max is dog living a life of relative bliss in a New York City apartment who gets all of the love and attention he needs when his owner Katie's home, but now finds himself having to compete when bleeding-heart Katie brings home a shelter pooch in the form of the big, dopey, shaggy-haired Duke, who steals that attention, as well as a good deal of the food and pet bed. Squabbles result on who is going to be 'alpha dog' before both find themselves having to ally when they end up out in the streets of the city without an easy means of returning home in one piece. Out to the rescue are a few of their pet animal friends, who've made it their mission to bring Max back, and they have to do it fast, as the mutts have made enemies with a psychopathic bunny rabbit named Snowball, the gang leader of a rag-tag group of vicious street rejects who hate pampered, domesticated pets and their human owners.
The "Purge" of the title, for those who are still unaware, is an annual "celebration" in which, for a twelve-hour period, any crime you can think of is declared legal, as the police, fire fighters, and medical services take a break and let the U.S. citizens run amok without fear of prosecution for any misdeeds committed. The "patriotic" day now faces the biggest challenge since its inception, as independent senator Charlene 'Charlie' Roan, whose family was killed in front of her eyes on Purge Night eighteen years prior, is running in a hotly contested battle for the presidency with a platform on abolishing the practice because it is being used by the wealthy elite in business and government as a means to eradicate the poor and sick because they feel they are an economic burden on the rest of society. Her opposition for the seat is a representative of the status quo that has the backing of the NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America), which is a group of those mega-Christian right-wing elites (all older, white and rich), who desperately need to thwart the senator's momentum before they lose their stranglehold on the direction of American society to their favor. They market a "fair & balanced" change in the Purge Night law that protected government officials from harm during Purge Night as making things right to the downtrodden, because now no one is safe. However, it is all a ruse to get Senator Roan, who has decided she must hide in her home like everyone else so that it doesn't look like she's privileged, out of the way during the Purge. With big guns out to get her, it's up to chief security agent Barnes, as well as a kind and resourceful store owner named Joe and his cohorts, who all believe in the senator and what she stands for, to protect the vulnerable senator from being killed along with the plight of the nation's victimized poor through the acts of the Purge. Unfortunately, there's nowhere to hide when just about everyone out in the Washington DC streets is out to bask in the blood of the weak.
Eat That Question offers plenty of archival footage of various interview sessions Frank Zappa did for television, combining this with clips from some of his own personal movies, as well as a number of his stage performances in front of crowds both welcoming and skeptical. Some of the delights include a clean-cut younger Frank Zappa improvising music to an audience who clearly don't get it on "The Steve Allen Show" in 1963, where the witty host praised Zappa for his far-sighted courage to push the boundaries of his artistic expression, while also quipping to not ever perform that music around him again. We also get some insightful footage of Zappa's testimony to congress in the 1980s, taking on Tipper Gore's proposal to put warning labels on music of objectionable content to protect younger ears, while he fought back on trying to clamp down on artistic freedoms, feeling that there is no such thing as a bad word.
Based on characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alexander Skarsgard stars as John Clayton III of Greystoke Manor, an earl living comfortably in London during the Victorian Era, whose past has made him something of a legend, where he was orphaned and raised by apes until adulthood. Margot Robbie plays his wife Jane, who was once saved by Tarzan while she was exploring the jungles of the Congo, soon entering into a steamy relationship with the feral man who would soon come to learn the customs and laguage of a proper Engish gentleman, abandoning his former life. Christoph Waltz emerges as the main nemesis, playing Captain Leon Rom, an emissary from the floundering Belgian regime who has been sent to the Congo in the late 19th Century in order to propogate, by any means necessary, the extraction of valuable diamonds from the mostly tribal lands, which they've also sought to colonize for further exploitation. Chief Mbonga, one of the powerful heads of those tribes, agrees to give Rom the riches he's seeking if the Belgian is able to secure Tarzan to him. To fulfill his part of the bargain, Rom entices Clayton to return to his former stomping grounds, ostensibly for humanitarian purposes. In tow are Jane and a U.S. envoy to the region named George Washington Williams out to thwart what he feels is the continued enslavement of Africans of the region. When Rom kidnaps Jane in order to bring Clayton out to the open, the latter finds himself having to use his old skills of the jungle to bring down powerful forces seeking to upend all that he has come to hold dear in this world.
Set in London, a clever but unhappy,insomnia-afflicted orphan named Sophie wakes up in the middle of the evening and sees something outside the orphanage window. Investigating, she discovers a giant man skulking around in the neighborhood outside, causing her to go into a panic. He grabs her and steals her away to protect his further discovery from others, taking the girl to his home in a nearby realm, Giant Country, an uncharted land mostly undiscovered by humans. Soon Sophie discovers the giant to be a much more gentle being than his size and demeanor would initially lend you to believe, especially compared to the nine much larger, bullying brutes that also inhabit the lands, who live to feast on "beans" (human beings), unlike her vegetarian protector. She dubs him, "BFG" ("Big Friendly Giant"), learning all about this curious realm and his eccentric ways, which includes his amazing ability to capture and control dreams, which he uses to try to bring joy to the children of the human town Sophie hails from.
Adam Devine and Zac Efron play the Mike and Dave of the film's title, respectively, two irresponsibly party animals who've merely used all their family get-togethers as excuses to get drunk, chase skirts, and invariably embarrass their kin through shenanigans that cause more mayhem than mirth (the Wedding Crashers comparisons are so obvious they're practically obvious to reference it during the movie). As such, when it comes time for their sister Jeanie's wedding in Hawaii, the family makes it an absolute requirement for them to bring dates along to, hopefully, keep their ids in check. They can't just bring any dates though, they must be "nice girls" that meet the approval of their sister and parents. Not really knowing any nice girls personally, Mike and Dave take to the internet to advertise an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii for women who would fit the criteria of not only being respectable enough for the family to give their blessing to, but also attractive enough for the young men to get it in the sack before the excursion is complete. After an extensive round of preliminary dates (the ad, understandably, goes viral), the boys settle on Tatiana and Alice, who pretend to be good girls in order to score the vacation, but secretly are even more irresponsible hedonists than Mike and Dave.
Blake Lively stars as Nancy, former medical school student from Galveston, TX, who travels to her recently deceased mother's favorite secret surfing spot in a lush spot on the Mexican coast to feel a connection with her as part of the grieving and healing process. When her friend bails on her at the last minute, she decides to go it alone, catching some hellacious waves and enjoying the brisk sunny air. However, she isn't really ever alone, as she soon encounters a massive great white shark when she inadvertently enters his feeding zone in shallow waters off the coast, and Nancy is the intended next course on its menu. With no easy way back to shore, it's a cat-and-mouse game of survival between woman and shark to see which one will ultimately prevail.
Elle Fanning stars as Jesse, an awkward and innocent 16-year-old who arrives from out of state and takes up residence at a fleabag motel in Pasadena, hoping to kick start a career as a model within a decadent version of Los Angeles as her beauty is the only marketable asset she has. During a promo shoot, she becomes friends with a make-up artist named Ruby, who introduces her to other models in the industry, though on the down side, where their age begins to show, and plastic surgery is employed to squeeze a few more years out before they're no longer wanted in front of the camera. Not much of a worry for Jesse, who is such a natural beauty and has a certain "thing" that those looking for models instantly see. As Jesse's star is on the rise, she becomes aware of the qualities she possesses in her beauty. Others see it too, especially her rivals, which brings forth a certain power to her position, as well as a certain danger.
Twenty years after the first war for Earth between humans and their would-be alien exterminators, Earth has made light years of advancements in adopting things they've learned from the remnant alien technology, which they've not only used to rebuild their destroyed cities, but also to jump far ahead in terms of air and space travel, including to the moon. Those who helped save the planet have become heroes and celebrities, all of them had an aching feeling that they haven't seen the last of their newfound enemies in the universe, and with the long-dormant alien specimens and tech they've gathered since the battle seemingly coming to life in would appear that another battle must be imminent. Turns out they are right. A rag-tag crew of returning heroes and their offspring are not leading the charge to defend the Earth yet again against an ultra-powerful alien force unlike anything they've ever seen before (well, they have a bigger ship this time, and a bigger boss alien), who, according to this movie, want us out of the way so they can get to Earth's creamy magma center.
The storyline starts in 1996. A young, CG-enhanced version of Dwayne Johnson plays overweight and geeky misfit Robbie Weirdicht, the frequent target of ridicule by the bullies in his high school. By contrast, the most popular kid in school, Calvin Joyner, is the kind of most-likely-to-succeed guy who excels in school in all the ways Robbie does not, but bestows an act of kindness on the pudgy kid during a particularly humiliating prank that exposes him, clothesless, in front of his entire student class at an assembly. Fast-forward to today, approaching the day of their 20th high school reunion, and mid-level accountant Calvin, who feels he peaked in his teenage years, is adamant that he will not go, protesting to his wife, his high school sweetheart, that he can't face up to feeling like a disappointment. She suggests a marriage counselor to work all this out.
That's when Calvin gets a Facebook friend request from out of the blue by someone he thinks is a stranger named Bob, but ends up being Robbie, now a hunk, rippling with muscles, even though he seems the same goofy kid inside, and who has spent two decades idolizing the closest thing he ever felt to having a friend due to one small, selfless act (the movie hints at but stops just short of replicating The D-Train in this regard). The two catch up on old times, but Calvin is soon confused with being Bob's friend by CIA agents looking to arrest him, accusing him going rogue from their agency and in secretly being the notorious international criminal known as the Black Badger, looking to sell top-secret information regarding U.S. government satellites to bad guys.
De Palma is strictly a documentary about Brian De Palma, in his own words. No other people are interviewed, and the interviewers voices are not heard. All you see is Brian De Palma on the screen, either front and center, or while clips of each movie play out under them, or while photographs and newspaper articles give us a glimpse into the public and private life he experienced at the time.
The story revolves around two people, Will Traynor, a rich-but-dejected London man who is living a life of pain and solitude as a quadriplegic, and Louisa, aka "Lou", a chatty and free-spirited woman hired take care of Will's basic needs as well as to lift her spirits with her effervescent company. The problem is that the pain Will is in is not just physical; he misses his old life as an athletic, globe-hopping man of adventure, only to lose it all when being struck by a speeding motorcycle, so being stuck in a chair as an observer to life is particularly torturous. In short, Will wants to die, and Louisa soon realizes that her employment rests on changing his mind. However, to do that, she will first have to melt that thick, icy exterior of his, which proves nearly impossible given his distraught mind-state.
Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) directs and co-scripts this insightful drama with mild thriller elements about three unrelated refugees from the war-torn island nation of Sri Lanka who find it hard to assimilate to life in the rough-and-tumble public housing projects of Paris. Dheepan is the name of a dead man that the older man of the trio assumes the identity of in order to escape from his life as a rebel fighter on the losing side, hoping to make a better life in France after the loss of his family. Along for the ride is a woman and an unrelated nine-year-old orphan, who assume the roles of Dheepan's wife and child. While living in a run-down housing project in Paris, Dheepan takes a job as a building caretaker, which is a difficult enough occupation without having to worry about the dangerous thugs who inhabit the neighborhood at seemingly all hours.
Ellen Degeneres voices the short-term memory-addled Dory as an adult blue tang, continuing her friendship with clownfishes Marlin and his son Nemo in the reefs near Australia. Dory is struggling to remember her parents that she was separated from at an early age, though she sometimes remembers fragments of those early days, with enough clues to set out on her own to try to find them in, "the jewel of Morro Bay, California." With worrywart Marlin and excitable Nemo in tow, Dory sets off on her quest for a (hopefully) happy reunion across the Pacific, where a marine-life rehabilitation facility may hold the key to the mystery of the parental whereabouts, if only the new creatures she meets can help her remember the clues along the way.
Lindon plays Thierry, who we find at the beginning of the film unemployed for a year and a half since being laid off from his job as a factory worker, desperate for any form of work in order to make ends meet, with a wife and special-needs child to take care of, and an apartment that he's just a few years from paying off. He's trying as best as he can to get back on his feet, but he feels less than himself without a job, such that he's willing to suffer as many indignities as required from a host of potential employers and job center employees who either treat him with apathy, if not belittle him with acute condescension.
Much like in Homer's "The Iliad", the storyline told from both parties involved in the war, we're introduced into this fantasy universe through the Orcs first, a warlike race of strong brutes who livelihoods are on the verge of extinction, forcing them to find a new home with the magical invention of a portal, crafted by the Orc-mage Gul'dan, to connect them to the realm of Azeroth, there the Humans live in a time of relative peace and prosperity. In order to have the magical energy necessary to bring all of the Orcs through the temporary gateway, Gul'dan is using Fel, which is a type of magic that extinguishes the life from those around him to fuel the wielder, while also furthering him on the path toward evil and madness as he grows more powerful. This means the Humans are going to be exterminated so that the Orcs can survive. However, some of the Orcs recognize that following a mad and power-hungry leader also means going against their core beliefs as a race, so a faction of the Orcs, under the leadership of the noble soldier Durotan, begin to ally with the Humans to put plans in place to stop Gul'dan from more acts of destruction. Meanwhile, the Guardian of the Humans, a mighty wizard named Medivh, is also utilizing the power of Fel in order to help protect the kingdom, though that also means that he too will be seduced into darkness that will put the lives of everyone, not just Orcs, in mortal jeopardy.
The wildly popular troupe of master illusionists known as the Four Horsemen do mostly for self in this outing, no longer the Robin Hoods of the glitzy stage one year removed from prior events. This one's more personal, putting a backstory to the behind-the-scenes ringleader of the Horsemen, FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes, tying in the mystery of his magician father's death with a connection to the magic debunking man from the first film, Thaddeus Bradley, who was the television reporter covering the fateful event back in 1984. In the present day, the quartet replace Henley Reeves character with a newcomer Rhodes has discovered from the 'underground circuit', magician Lula May, played by Lizzy Caplan, who manages to fit right in. Circumstances lead them to being coerced by a powerful tech billionaire pulling plenty of strings in the year since faking his death and living in Macau, Walter Mabry, who wants them to con their way into a high-tech security facility to steal a very valuable computer chip. Also out to trip up the Horsemen is Merritt McKinney's estranged twin brother, and the return of nemesis Arthur Tressler, the wily tycoon who hasn't taken kindly to losing millions to them during the events of the first film.
The story starts in 1976, with an introductory nod to the case that made the Warrens most famous, in Amityville, the source of a best-selling book and a whole slew of horror movies. allegedly based on true stories. Their reputation spreads to other parts of the world, as the church sends the Warrens to Enfield , a borough of north London, where they set about investigating the home of Peggy Hodgson, a poor single mother, and her four children, whose youngest girl, Janet, is frequently being harassed by what she considers to be malevolent spirit in the form of Bill Wilkins, an old man who died in the home and who forcefully declares his current ownership from beyond the grave. Loud noises, moving furniture, eerie voices, and ugly apparitions increasingly disturb the family until they're at wit's end. Meanwhile, the Warrens are plagued by the vision of a hideous demon in the visage of a scary Catholic nun that is haunting their dreams, while Lorraine contemplates a respite from their demon-busing activities after she sees the grisly death of her husband, Ed, in one of these visions.
Taran Killam stars as Justin, who we meet at the beginning of the film waking up to hear his girlfriend of five years' voice on a popular national shock-jock radio show breaking up with him after revealing she had a threesome to get back at him for forgetting their anniversary. It seems everyone he knows has heard it, and rib him mercilessly before they encourage him to get back out there and forget her by diving headfirst into casual sex. With the help of his horn-dog telecom company office friends Sammy and Louis, Justin signs up for a one-night-stand site called "Casual Encounters". However, Justin is unprepared for the kinds of women out there looking for a quick hook-up, from those who grossly lie about their appearance, to those with devious, even dangerous, sexual appetites. Meanwhile, off-site, he becomes closer friends with his attractive co-worker Laura, though his run-ins with the women with whom he's had casual encounters may come back to haunt him.
In this entry, the dreaded nemesis of humanity, Shedder (Tee) is broken out of prison by kooky-but-brilliant scientist Baxter Stockman (Perry), who has been entrusted to invent an ultra-powerful transporter device that will allow for travel between dimensions. Also on board is the maniacal alien Krang, who is part giant robot, part evil living brain, who sets about getting Shredder to use some strange, mutating ooze to make an army of super soldiers out of the Foot Clan, starting with the dimwitted but burly thugs Bebop (Williams) and Rock Steady (WWE's Sheamus), who immediately turn into a Rhino-man and Warthog-man, respectively. Krang's wild scheme involves gaining the otherworldly pieces together to form a gargantuan spaceship, the Technodrome, which is so powerful that he can usurp the entire planet of Earth with it once assembled. Leading the resistance yet again are the titular quartet of Turtles, along with ally news reporter April O'Neil (Fox), spirited hockey-loving cop Casey Jones ("Arrow" star Amell), and Vern Fenwick (Arnett), the smarmy cameraman who got credit for saving New York from Shredder and gang the last time around because the Turtles weren't 'ready for the world'. Meanwhile, the Turtlesare conflicted about what to do about the mysterious ooze, as it not only has the power to turn humans into creatures, but also to turn the Turtles into humans, which could mean an end to them feeling like pariahs in a world where they're seen as monsters, despite their determination to be New York City's protectors.
Greta Gerwig plays liberal arts college advisor Maggie Hardin, 30-something in age, neurotic in stage, feeling her biological clock is ticking in thunderous tones, thinking it best to go the route of artificial insemination, given her history with men seems to be little more than a bunch of relationships that fail before the six-month period. Through a clerical mishap at the school she works in, she's introduced to adjunct ficto-critical anthropology professor John Harding, who immediately becomes colleagues and even fast friends with her, then more. Trouble is, he's married with two kids. Flash forward about three years and Maggie has the child she's dreamed of having in daughter Lily, and a husband in John, who left his more successful anthropology professor wife Georgette and two kids to pursue a life with Maggie, she's no longer sure she wants to be with. Unable to leave things in an untidy state by just walking away from the marriage, Maggie's titular plan is to try to manipulate the romantic reunion of John with Georgette so that they can all come away with how things should have been.v
Andy Samberg stars as Conner, the most popular member of a Beastie Boys-esque hit rap trio known as the Style Boyz, know known under his stage name, Conner4Real. He retained the services of the other Style Boyz member, Owen, who produced the music, as his current DJ (just for show -- he plays the music set from his old iPod), even though it's pretty much all for show these days, as ultra-narcissistic Conner has chosen to go with a whole slate of popular producers (over a 100!) for his sophomore solo album, "ConnQuest", which ends up being a critical disaster. This puts a damper on his upcoming world tour, which relies on Conner bringing in an up-and-comer for an opening act to help fill out half-empty arenas, the wildly erratic Hunter the Hungry, who ends up stealing the show most of the time. Meanwhile, the Style Boy, Lawrence, that wrote most of their lyrics without much credit and has bitterly chosen to leave the game altogether, chooses farm life in rural Colorado and avoiding the spotlight, unlike Conner, doesn't want to do anything unless it is watched by his millions of followers in social media.
Widowed Marnie Minervini lives in the Los Angeles area, a New Jersey transplant, to be near her daughter Lori, who has moved there to pursue her career as a screenwriter. That's much to Lori's chagrin, as Marnie, without her husband or any friends in the area, is lonely and doting, calling and texting her daughter constantly, to the point where most of her attempts have started to go ignored, resulting in lengthy voicemail messages about nothing much in particular. As a result, Marnie has gone to other means to try to find someone to talk to, perhaps even to supplant her grief, babysitting for her daughter's friends (even doing wedding planning, using the sizable amount of cash left by her husband's life insurance), the Apple genius who helps her with her phone questions, a mute and bed-ridden elderly woman she runs into in the hospital, and Zipper, a retired local cop who raises chickens up in Topanga that could be a love interest, if Marnie could ever convince herself that her late husband could ever be replaced in her heart.
Set in late 18th Century England, Kate Beckinsale plays recently widowed and unquestionably un-wealthy Lady Susan Vernon, visiting (or, more accurately, mooching off of) her brother-in-law Charles and his wife Catherine with eyes use her prodigious skill in flirtation on Catherine's handsome younger brother Reginald, who is a man of some means. Lady Susan also aims to get her teenage daughter Frederica hitched as well, setting her sights on Sir James Martin, a man who is also of great wealth, albeit without a lick of intelligence, but he does take a liking to the girl enough to continue to pursue her despite her reticence at his "silliness." Difficulties abound, as Lady Susan has a few entanglements of her own in the form of Lord Manwaring, who is married to another woman, and a few others near the situation have their suspicions that Susan's intentions are less than honorable all around, even though her crafty and manipulative ways keep her from being pinned down for sure.
The film starts off at a 25th high-school reunion where Charlie meets up with an old friend named Max, who seems to have far exceeded his initially dismal expectations in life in almost every respect by being the kind of "Action Jackson" globe-hopping alpha male every boy dreams of becoming. Max sees Charlie is in a loveless marriage to his philandering high-school crush, raising two kids that humiliate him at every turn, is employed at a dead-end job managing an in-supermarket bank outlet, and lives a life that is in a perpetual state of stagnation -- he even drives the same car he's had since high school, and it was a lemon even then. After convincing Charlie to some out to his yacht for a weekend of fun and sun while his wife's away, Max ends up hatching a plan to fake their deaths and assume stolen new identities with some big shots who were living the high life in Puerto Rico before their untimely demise. However, with the new identities comes had guys out to get the men they're assuming to be, leading Max and Charlie to fight for their second lives.
Tilda Swinton stars as Marianne Lane, a Bowie-esque,world renown rock star who is on vacation with Paul, her documentarian boyfriend of six years, on Pantelleria, a small, secluded Mediterranean island off between the coasts of Sicily and Tunisia. Marianne is there for some R&R from her most recent tour, in recovery from surgery on her throat that she is hoping will be successful so that she can resume her singing career. Their "alone time" is soon ended by the arrival of her rambunctious previous lover and legendary music producer Harry Hawkes, along with the grown daughter Harry has only recently discovered, Penelope, ostensibly as a friendly visit, but it soon becomes apparent that they're seeking to cause division in the relationship for their own ends.
The story picks up as Alice has come home to London for a spell after traveling the world as the captain of her own ship. However, she comes to find that her ex, Hamish, is using financial leverage that pressures her to stop adventuring by handing over the ship and taking up a job as a clerk at his shipping company in order to pay for the family home that Alice's mother had signed over to him. Unable to deal with the stress at hand, Alice finds a portal in the large mirror above her fireplace which returns her to Underland, where she's immediately greeted by her fantasy friends. It's not all a happy reunion, as she soon discovers that the Mad Hatter has taken ill, learning that his thought-deceased family may still be alive, but he's unable to locate them. To save her friend, Alice visits the realm where Time, in human form (played by Sacha Baron Cohen in a German accent that channels Werner Herzog if he were trying to do an impression of Christoph Waltz), has a free-floating vehicle called the Chronosphere, which will allow Alice to go back in time to make things right for Hatter and his kin. Along the way, she also discovers more information about the dreaded Red Queen's early years, who, once again, stands in the way of Alice's success.
Jason Sudeikis voices Red, aka "eyebrows", a hot-headed cardinal (one presumes) who frequently doesn't quite see eye to eye with his feathered flock around him on the island they all reside in, Bird Island. These non-flying birds think they are all there is in this world until the day that a ship drops anchor on Red's home, destroying it, making him an enemy but the other birds seem more friendly toward their new porcine visitors, not knowing that the fun and friendship they're ostensibly bringing is merely a ruse to get closer to grabbing their precious and delicious eggs from right under their beaks. Now it's up to Red to try to figure out how to save the eggs by getting his bird brethren to mount an attack on the porker stronghold before the swine have had their dinner.
This entry in the retro X-Men series finds the mutants in the series-alternate universe year of 1983, ten years after the events of Days of Future Past, where the cold war is rampant between the United States and the Soviet Union, with most people already worried about being on the brink of annihilation of life on Earth within just a few hours if nuclear war should ever break out. Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, is living as a closeted mutant to keep his family safe, working as a metal worker in Poland with a loving wife and daughter. Professor Charles Xavier is at the mansion that serves as the School for Gifted Youngsters (aka, mutants confronting who they are and learning to control their powers). Both have their home worlds rocked in tragedy. And Mystique spends her time traveling to the four corners of the Earth in order to liberate mutants wherever she can, such as the German teleporter, Nightcrawler. The mutants begin to fight amongst each other yet again when the world's first mutant, the powers-absorbing En Sabah Nur, aka Apocalypse, is resurrected from his dormant state since 3600 B.C., wastes no time in hatching a plan to lay conquest to the entire planet. He sets about pulling together powerful mutant accomplices, dubbed his Four Horsemen, in an effort to bring humanity under their rule, after threatening them with nuclear annihilation. Now it's up to Xavier, Mystique, Beast, and a band of untested gifted students to fight for the right of people who want their kind destroyed from being crushed under the rule of these mad mutants.
Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne return as married couple Mac and Kelly Radner, set to find a bigger home in a nicer neighborhood to live in after Kelly finds that she has another baby on the way. After putting down for their new abode, they find a buyer for their current one, but it's still in escrow, which, overly simplified for the purpose of this film, means that the buyer can swing by anytime within thirty days to inspect the house and can back out of the deal if things aren't up to snuff. The problem: a new, unaffiliated sorority, Kappa Nu, has moved in to take over the empty home previously used by the fraternity next door, built mostly on the notion that, unlike other sororities that aren't allowed to throw parties where they serve alcohol, they will do all of the drinking, raving and weed smoking they want, just like their male counterparts in fraternities do, without the overhead of being treated like "hos" by so-called rape-y frat boys.
Set in 1977, we watch an opening sequence in which a hot young porn star named Misty Mountains ends up killed. Ryan Gosling plays widower private dick Holland March, whose been recently hired to find Amelia, a young woman who many think is dead, despite a few claiming to have recently seen her. Holland soon has a run-in with a tough-as-nails thug-for-hire named Jackson Healy, who happens to be protecting then also looking for Amelia, at first punishing then ending up needing him and hiring the detective himself. It's a shaky pairing, but together they follow clues and thump on potential witnesses, not always successfully, as they peek into the seamy underbelly of Los Angeles, with Holland's precocious thirteen-year-old daughter Holly finding herself in the middle of the action more often than not. The further they dig, the more they stir up trouble for themselves, putting themselves in the path of a deadly bad guys and in the choke-hold of local politics.
The film covers about eight years of the life of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé (a name borne from a youthful insult he would later embrace), from his young childhood as a nine-year-old boy from an poor family in 1950, through his debut on the biggest stage of all for fans of soccer (aka, football to most of the world outside of the United States), in the 1958 World Cup where he would be instrumental in helping Brazil win the championship.
The Man Who Knew Infinity looks at the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a mathematician from India who would become famous in the math world for his prodigious work in the early part of the 20th Century. Ramanujan had a gift for mathematics that was seemingly ahead of what anyone else had been dealing with at the time, claiming that the numbers and formulas just come to him out of divine origin. His work would soon draw interest in England, causing Ramanujan to leave his wife Janaki and mother behind to pursue his calling among the top minds in the field at the time, hoping to realize his dream of getting his mathematical journals published.
As adults, siblings Annie and Baxter Fang are played by Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman, respectively. Annie is a famous actress who has recently become a tabloid sensation after going topless in her latest film role, while Baxter is a struggling writer and journalist who still hasn't found great success. Their parents, Caleb and Camille Fang, played in their older form by Christopher Walken and Maryann Plunkett, are famous for being public performance artists who once used Annie and Baxter (whom they refer to as Child 'A' and Child 'B') to do pranks out in public in order to elicit a reaction from the crowds around that would be filmed with a camera as part of their art to show a certain truth about humanity by provoking it through the falsehood of their performance. As they grow older, the Fang children pull away from their exploitative parents, while also continuing to be influenced by their philosophies on life and art, though they continue to be challenged trying to fit in with so-called 'normal' society, unable to form permanent relationships and resorting to a bit of self-medication to ease their persistent anxiety. The family reunites after Baxter is hospitalized during a journalistic piece he is writing that has him talking to men who enjoy shooting off spud guns (guess who gets shot with one?), though the relationships are now strained and most are generally unhappy with their current situations in life. Annie and Baxter additionally connect later after they receive notice that their parents may be the latest victims in a string of killings while on the road in North Carolina, with blood found in their abandoned vehicle, but no bodies in sight. But are they truly dead, or is this yet another one of the infamous Fang family pranks meant to unite the once close family into another series of adventures?
George Clooney stars as Lee Gates, a flashy Jim Kramer-ish cable television network host of a financial advice program called "Money Monster", happy to dole out stock advice in a snarky, cocky manner, drawing more out of entertainment and spectacle than in how it might affect those on the other side should any of his "rock-solid" tips prove wrong. Someone it has affected finally forces him to learn first-hand when a distraught young man named Kyle Budwell storms onto the set during the live feed of the show, forcing Lee at gunpoint to put on a vest full of explosives, wanting some answers, as well as some contrition, after losing his life savings on supposedly sure-fire advice in putting one's money in Ibis Clear Capital, a company the host persistently extoled the virtues of that suffered a major setback to the tune of $800 million in losses practically overnight, claiming a software glitch to its complicated corporate algorithm as responsible for things going haywire. Now Lee's going to have to put his life on the line to get Kyle the answers he's seeking from the show's slated guest, Walt Camby, the jet-setting CEO of Ibis, on just how such an unlikely event could occur that would cost investors to potentially lose their livelihoods on a freak error. Julia Roberts plays "Money Monster" producer Patty Fenn, who is set to leave to greener pastures to work for another network. Patty is the voice in Lee's earpiece who tries to keep him on point, and in this case, to try to keep him alive, feeding him advice on what to do or say to his violent unexpected guest, while also making the decision to keep directing the show, coercing the host to do his job and get Kyle the answers he's after by asking tough questions to IBIS chief communications officer, Diane Lester, in lieu of actually getting to the absent Camby for information. Those questions make Lester, who was hired to just deliver PR talking points (and to entertain Camby on the side), take a more aggressive stance, digging for some real answers that now even she's curious about.
Gabriel Byrne stars as Gene, a widower high school teacher trying to establish a firm connection again with his two sons, Conrad and Jonah, over two years after the death of his award-winning war photojournalist wife's death in a fatal car accident. A museum gallery wants to show some of her previously unpublished work she may have left behind, and her former colleague Richard at the New York Times would like to run a piece about the exhibit, as well as about her life, including the tidbit that the accident may have actually been a suicide. Gene knows he must tell his younger son, the troubled and mostly withdrawn teen Conrad, before it becomes public knowledge, while eldest Jonah,, who ends up visiting following the birth of his own son to sift through the photographs to hand over to the museum, thinks his dad should stop them from mentioning that part of the story altogether, which he denies the validity of.
Jonathan Pryce stars as elderly widower Nat, the current owner of the family's century-old Jewish bakery that's just barely been scraping by of late, mostly because his predominantly Jewish clientele are moving away from the East End London neighborhood (filmed mostly in Budapest) or dying off. When Nat's only assistant leaves for a better paying job, he's stuck having to do it all himself, unsuccessfully, as he advertises for a new apprentice, but the prospects are dismal. It's bad enough that Nat, who moves slower and is woefully out of practice, isn't going to be able to deliver the quality and quantity the shop needs to stay afloat; he really feels the squeeze when a greedy developer (who, we learn, also stole away his baker) buys the building and wants to push Nat out before the five years remaining on his lease. Nat reluctantly accepts the services of his Muslim African refugee shop cleaner's son, Ayyash, who needs a cover job in order to start to peddle drugs and make much needed money for his family to get out of the dilapidated slum in which they currently reside. Ayyash doesn't have time for both his full-time job and his drug dealing, so he decides to do both at once while at the bakery, unbeknownst to Nat. When Ayyash rashly hides a stash of weed inside a mixing machine, causing the latest batch of kosher baked goods to give their customers a lift, repeat business begins to pick up for the first time in many years. Seeing this opportunity to both help himself and his kindly boss who will certainly lose his livelihood, he decides he can kill two birds with one stone by selling his weed through by keeping the customers as baked as the items they purchase.
Loosely taking off from an idea borne of the giant crossover storyline mostly under the direction of comics writer Mark Millar, Civil War is a movie that addresses something that is not often remarked upon in superhero stories, and that is the cost of the collateral damage, especially in human lives, when super-powered humans battle one another over an urban landscape. The beginning of the film shows us firsthand the cost of trying to save people, as the Avengers' mission against villain Crossbones in a battle at the heart of Lagos, Nigeria, sees the deaths of many innocent bystanders, including many from the (fictional) country of Wakanda. Enter Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross, who pushes forward the Sokovia Accords, a law that requires United Nations approval and oversight when engaging in future world-saving battles that might jeopardize the lives of helpless people. Tony Stark, haunted by guilt of a young and promising teen's death resulting from his own perceived recklessness, signs on, thinking that this law will not only be inevitable, but that agreeing with it now saves them from a more severe implementation down the road. Steve Rogers, once used as a government propaganda tool for things he didn't always believe in, think it's a bad idea, not only opening up the superheroes to be used as a tool for a bunch of selfish bureaucrats, but also because the absence of quick and decisive action, or even inaction in some cases, may cost countless more lives down the road. After a terrorist explosion ends up killing the Wakandan leader, his son, prince T'Challa, who is also a super-powered human clad in a pliable form of vibranium (the same nearly indestructible substance from which Cap's shield is composed) known as the Black Panther, vows revenge on the responsible party, with signs pointing toward Bucky Barnes, once the Soviet-brainwashed assassin called the Winter Soldier, as the main culprit. Barnes disavows any knowledge, Captain America, who sees the good in him when he's not triggered into malice, protects his old friend, and together they vow to unearth the real mastermind behind the tragedy. However, they can't get far, as acting on their own brands them as criminals, which means the Avengers who've signed the new law, led by Iron Man, must keep the peace so that costumed vigilantes aren't acting of their own accord, possibly causing more distrust from the public and governments they've sworn to protect.
Set in 1975, Tom Hiddleston stars as successful physiologist, Dr. Robert Laing, who has recently moved in to the 25th floor of one of several new high-rise buildings in a not-quite-finished avant-garde apartment complex in London. The architect of the complex, an eccentric architect on the uppermost floor named Anthony Royal, has designed the buildings to never need to be part of the ground-level activity surrounding the buildings, as each one offers its own means of taking care of one's daily needs, from groceries, to schooling, to entertainment, to a host of other amenities. Although everyone pays the same rent money, the building also seems to have its own class system in terms of who lives on what floor, as the elites live in higher floors than those below. One of those below is Richard Wilder, a documentarian who begins to suspect that there are great inequities in the way the building is structured, threatening to expose it for what it is to the public at large. As the new building begins to show signs of faulty facilities in disrepair, anarchy begins to take hold The resultant chaos erupts into a battle between the haves and have-nots for whatever resources are left to be had within the walls of the structure.
Set mainly during the course of about a day in the musician's life in New York's Upper West Side (Cincinnati substitutes) in the 1979, when creatively burnt-out Miles had taken a self-imposed five-years-and-counting break from releasing new music. Columbia Records had grown increasingly challenged in their relationship with their most eccentric and erratic recording artist, who claims he would give them something new if they paid him the $20,000 they owe him, with both parties knowing they could all make so much more if he were to hand over the studio recording reel that he'd been working on in the interim. Enter a man claiming to be a highly ambitious Rolling Stone reporter Dave Brill (a fictional character, reportedly scripted in to bring on a white lead actor like McGregor, to help get funding), who wants to not only help his publication sell papers by getting the reclusive Miles Davis to record an increasingly rare in-depth interview with him, but to also facilitate seeing Miles hand over that unpublished recording that is sure to make music history. When the master tape ends up missing, the volatile Miles takes matters into his own hands, resulting in a life-or-death struggle to wrest ownership back where he feels it belongs, at least until he deems it worthy.
Touring the Pacific Northwest, the D.C.-based punk quartet known as the Ain't Rights haven't quite taken this part of the country by storm, ending up taking a bit of a detour from their tour to secure some much-needed gas money for the cross-country trip home by playing in a backwoods Oregon roadhouse for skinhead neo-Nazis. After the gig, they stumble into a room backstage and discover a young woman murdered on the floor, and the skinheads culpable aren't going to just let them walk out after they've alerted the police. As Darcy the dive club's owner, wants to keep all traces of their activities, illicit and otherwise, from being discovered by the cops, they stage a cover-up story while the Ain't Rights are locked tight in the room. Knowing that things aren't going to end well for them, it's up to the band to try to figure out a way out of the situation before they end up the next victims.
Key stars as Clarence, a straight-laced suburbanite who is lured by his recently broken-up slacker cousin Rell, played by Peele, to finally cut loose with his wife away for the weekend. Little do they know that this 'cutting a little loose' might involve strippers, drugs and murder, as Rell's adorable kitty, which has given him his long-lost mojo back, has been taken in a mistaken-identity burglary by Cheddar, the leader of the gang called the Blips (those who left the Bloods or Crips), who will only give Keanu back if the men, who are posing Tectonic and Shark Tank, out-of-towner hitmen called the Allentown gang (mute, trench-coated thugs also played by Key and Peele), who are also on the lookout for the lovable kitten that got away from them during a gunfight at the film's intro.
In this semi-fictional yarn, the impetus for Elvis wanting to meet with either J. Edgar Hoover or Nixon is born from his growing discontent at seeing where America has been headed, particularly in the growing cultural unrest among its people, from the hippie movement, to the pot smokers, to the war protestors, to the Black Panthers. The King decides that he can actually help the country if he can be made a Federal Agent. Joined by his "Memphis Mafia" friends Jerry Schilling from Hollywood and bodyguard Sonny West, Elvis travels to the White House in order to have an impromptu meeting with the President, hoping to convince him to get the badge he will need to carry out his "agent at large" duties. The road seems at an impasse, but Nixon's aides, sensing that a photograph of the two together could endear him come re-election time to large swaths of Elvis fans, particularly in the South, try to make it happen, despite Nixon's initial protests.
Neel Sethi stars as young Mowgli, raised in the jungles of (presumably) India by a pack of wolves after his father is slain by the power-hungry tiger Shere Khan, who does not like humans one bit, fearing that the older Mowgli gets, the more he will threaten their way of life. Sensing the danger from the lurking tiger, Mowgli's savior and mentor, a panther named Bagheera, decides that the young "man-cub" is in mortal danger, striving to escort the tyke to the place where he'll be most protected: a village of human beings in relatively close vicinity. However, the road to civilization proves to be just as treacherous, especially when Bagheera loses track of the man-cub's whereabouts, leaving him susceptible to giant bears, hypnotizing pythons, stinging bees, and disturbingly ambitious apes.
On the prequel front, we find that the wicked Queen Ravenna (Theron) has a sister named Freya (Blunt), a more benevolent (at least at first) younger sibling who is seemingly always in the eldest's shadow. Freya ends up in an affair with a handsome duke and soon has his child, but instead of starting a new life with her, the duke destroys their future by killing the baby. The resultant grief Freya fees at the deplorable act brings out latent superpowers within her to control the powers of cold and ice, which she not only uses to get revenge, but, once leaving to form her own kingdom up north, she also aims to make use of in order to raise and train many of the children of the land to not only fight for her as "Huntsmen" (who don't hunt?), but to also forbid them dreaded thing she was denied in life through the cowardly actions of her ex: love.
Two of the children in her Huntsman training regime are Eric and Sara, not only her best warriors, but also secretly in love with ach other. Knowing they can never openly live a life together as lovers, Eric and Sara, now grown, vow to leave their responsibilities and start a life together on their own, but Freya catches wind and forces a wedge, quite literally, between the would-be couple. From there, we presume, comes the events of Snow White and her battle with Ravenna, who ends up mortally defeated, and the rest of the film continues Eric's story as he goes on the quest to find the magical mirror, which leads him to also discover that many things he believed to be true were merely deceptions.
Tom Hanks plays Alan Clay, a recently divorced IT salesman, down on his luck in both his personal and professional life, called out on a rare assignment to Saudi Arabia in order to try to peddle his company's pricey holographic technology to the king for use in their rich country. Many missteps occur as Alan is never quite able to get his bearings there either, persistently having to call for a ride with a local cab driver named Yousef to get him to the site in a tardy fashion, often giving the American fish-out-of-water a crash course on local customs, while he has to return day after day to try to get help for his IT team to be able to set up optimal conditions for the presentation to the king who is told will be coming soon but never does. Meanwhile, Alan is lured to the possibility of something more around the corner, spending some choice time with a lusty Danish executuve named Hanne, and some flirtatious encounters with Dr. Zahra Hakem, who is treating him for a growing cyst on his back, a symbol of the woes he carries around that continue to fester, further increasing his escalating anxiety.
Comic book legend Jacques Tardi's graphic novel provides the inspiration for this loose big screen adaptation from France, from screenwriters Franck Ekinci (who-codirects with Christian Desmares) and Benjamin Legrand, with graphic design work on the film by Tardi himself. It's a steampunk alternate world where Earth's has progressed little scientifically since the Industrial Revolution, primarily because scientists have been outlawed, and they've begun disappearing en masse.
Most of the film is set in that alternate Paris in 1941, under the rule of Napoleon V, where much of the power supplied to the world comes from pre-fossil fuels like coal, charcoal and wood from the rapidly dwindling forests of the world. April is an inventive orphaned woman with a smart-alecky talking cat named Darwin. She lost her scientist parents at a young age when it was discovered that they had possibly invented something called the Ultimate Serum, a chemical cocktail that makes its imbiber rejuvenated, cured of disease, and virtually immortal -- something that could tip the global war for resources in France's favor should they be able to create their own invincible super-soldiers. April is being closely monitored from several interested parties in case she happens to stumble on the potent concoction, or invent it on her own, with the tenacious French policeman, Gaspard Pizoni, on orders to observe her every move. April makes that discovery, but finds an even larger one emerges that threatens to shift the balance of world power in an entirely unexpected direction.
Criminal starts with Ryan Reynolds as a CIA superspy named Bill Pope, on assignment in London, soon finding himself surrounded by murderous assassins working for an international super-terrorist from Spain named Xavier "The Anarchist" Heimbahl. Heimbahl is looking for a man named, Jan "The Dutchman" Stroop, who is a genius hacker who has managed to infiltrate American defense systems that control the launch and destination of nuclear missiles, hoping to rid the world of the governmental/corporate choke-hold that he thinks is responsible for all of the world's ills. Pope is tortured for info, then offed, but Pope's boss in the CIA, Quaker Wells, knows that nearly every life on Earth may hang in the balance of getting information Pope had, deciding to throw a 'hail mary' by bringing in a scientist named Dr. Franks to perform the first human memory transplant from one human to another.
The film starts with Baker playing himself in a film that was planned, but never actually made, about his own life. Born to be Blue utilizes this film-in-a-film approach to draw out the glamorized, black-and-white version of Chet Baker with the so-called reality of the situation, even with the very unsavory issue of his womanizing and his own addiction to heroin. Also included is the love affair he would have with a struggling but ambitious actress named Jane, who is a composite fictional character, played by Carmen Ejogo, who also plays Baker's wife in the fictional film. He's out of prison, but still under the close supervision of his probation officer, who wants him to get a clean and steady job and get out of the lifestyle that has too many temptations for him at the ready, knowing that the methadone he is prescribed to kick the habit will only get him so far.
Set in Dublin in 1985, teenage dreamer Conor is a new student in a Christian Brothers school that writer-director John Carney also attended during the same year, Synge Street, whose hard-knocks with bullies and over-petulant Catholic headmasters equally as turbulent as his home life with his parents who are struggling with a lack of finances and a drift apart in their relationship. Conor soon meets slightly older local beauty Raphina, who wants to pursue a modeling career in London, and he asks her if she'd like to be in his band's music video. The problem? There is no band. In order to win Raphina, he's going to have to put the music where his mouth is and put one together, so he puts the word out, gets a group (a la New Romantic and synthpop bands like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Spandau Ballet) in to make the music based on his lyrics (using Raphina as his muse) and with him as the front-man, and soon, Sing Street is born.
A much-belated comedy sequel, coming about twelve years after the previous Barbershop entry (not counting the female-centric spin-off, Beauty Shop), Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Barbershop: The Next Cut picks up mostly where we left off, even if it's a decade later, with a barbershop/salon run by Calvin Palmer Jr. in Chicago's South Side, serving the community with the best in style and the choicest of conversation about a variety of topics, both political and banal. No longer worried about the gentrification occurring in the prior chapter, the folks at the now-unisex shop still have major issues in Chicago to contend with, most notably in the escalating gun and gang violence running rampant in their neighborhood that has given the city the unenviable nickname of "Chi-Raq".
At the beginning of the film, we find the Henry of the title having been all but entirely killed from a brutal attack that sees his eyes, one of his arms, and one of his legs replaced by powerful robotic counterparts from a scientist who tells Henry, who is suffering from severe memory loss, that she is Estelle, his wife. After undergoing the rehabilitative operation, Henry and Estelle find themselves on the run in Moscow from a bunch of Russian gangsters, led by Akan, a madman with astonishing telekinetic powers that are never explained or even commented upon, who is out to create his own team of cyborgs resembling Henry. Estelle ends up getting kidnapped, Henry finds himself under constant assault by a never-ending array of baddies, and the only person who seems to be on his side is a mysterious man who calls himself Jimmy, who seems to have the uncanny ability to regenerate into a new variation of himself whenever he gets killed (Sharlto Copley, in his never-ending quest to see how many dialects he can annoy us hammily performing).
Midnight Special is an intriguing straight-faced science fiction-thriller which immediately shows us two armed and anxious men who've seemingly abducted an eight-year-old boy for reasons that are increasingly made clear as we course through the story. One of the men is Roy Tomlin (Shannon), who has a stronger bond to the odd duck of a boy, Alton Meyer, and the other is seemingly more along for the ride, Roy's friend Lucas. The men have taken Alton from the compound of an isolationist religious cult in the West Texas run by Calvin Meyer (Shepard), who are actively seeking the return of this boy who is seen within the cult as a messianic prophet whose seemingly random utterances have formed the basis of their beliefs, including the specific time and place in which something major is about to occur that will affect them all. Also hot on the trail of the men are members of law enforcement, including a brilliant analyst working for the NSA, Paul Sevier, who is desperately seeking knowledge on how and why the young boy has been spouting top-secret information that no one outside of their organization should possibly know, becoming a risk to national security if left unchecked.
Melissa McCarthy plays Michelle Darnell, an unwanted orphan who channels her despondent feelings into making something of her self as an adult, eventually emerging as a wildly successful financial tycoon (the 47th wealthiest woman in the country, according to her), a go-to guru spreading her secret-to-success in the form of arena-filling seminars with the sparkling spectacle of a metal concert. After she's imprisoned for a few months due to insider trading, thanks to a tip from her unscrupulous rival (and former lover) Renault (aka Ronald), Darnell finds herself back outside penniless and without many allies, relying on her former assistant, Claire, to help her get back on her feet. Soon enough, Darnell goes back to her cut-throat entrepreneurial ways when she makes a connection between Claire's yummy homemade brownies and Claire's daughter Rachel's box of cookies for a Girl Scout-like nonprofit organization, the Dandelions, which reap millions of dollars in sales. Starting her own for-profit troop known as Darnell's Darlings, her next business venture is now set, although the tactics to be top dog may not sit well with the kind-hearted people around her whose feelings she repeatedly tramples on without remorse.
Christopher Plummer stars as Zev Guttman, a 90-year-old recent widower of German origin who embarks on a road trip to try to find and kill the culprit for many deaths in Auschwitz during World War II. Guttman, whose severe dementia erases every short-term memory by the time he wakes up from sleeping, has escaped from his assisted care facility in New York with some cash and a detailed letter from a fellow survivor in the facility, Max Rosenbaum, telling Zev who he is and patient, memory-refreshing instructions on how to find the man who killed their families. With a tip that this Nazi Block Commander had escaped somewhere in North America under the assumed name of Rudy Kurlander, Zev sets about going to each of the four men who fit the description until he finds the right one, and then he's going to end his life with a bullet from his store-bought Glock.
Marguerite is a seriocomic look at an absurd set of circumstances, loosely inspired by the true story of American singer Florence Foster Jenkins (Jenkins is set to get her own film in 2016, played by Meryl Streep). Set in France around 1920, Catherine Frot plays Marguerite Dumont (her name and occupation, a Marx Brothers nod), a wealthy, aristocratic socialite who has a deep-rooted passion to be an opera singer, despite not having any talent to do so. Due to her wealth status, and many enablers, including long-suffering (but neglectful) husband Georges and their protective butler Madelbos, who haven't the heart to tell Marguerite that she's not exactly easy on the ears, she dives in headfirst at a career in the vocal arts. Now that she's taking just singing among friends and peers in private ceremonies to the public arena, those around her are at a loss as to what to do in order to minimize the damage inflicted on Marguerite's fragile ego once the general public has paid to hear her embarrassingly caterwaul on a theater stage.
Tom Hiddleston stars as country music legend Hiram King "Hank" Williams in this biopic on his short life, several loves, and his influential career, crafting such classics as "Hey Good Lookin'", "Move It On Over", and the posthumously released gem, "Your Cheatin' Heart". Starting with quickie marriage to first wife Audrey Mae Sheppard at the age of 21, Williams and his band would start their career off playing for local radio, where he ended up not lasting long due to butting heads with the staff, leading him to take his show on the road. He eventually lands a recording contract, where he would become a national sensation, making him in high demand as he would dour throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s. But with success comes a dark side, fueled by alcoholism, womanizing, chronic spina bifida and a failing marriage.
The black-and-white film, sumptuously captured by cinematographer David Gallego, bounces back and forth between two different time periods about 30 years apart, with an older and younger version of the main character, a shaman named Karamakate, to unite them. Part of this is in 1909, where we find German scientist Theodor, along with his native guide Manduca, encountering the young Karamakate. Theo is ailing and needs help finding a possible cure, but Karamakate is reluctant to trust this white man, as the Europeans have come in and virtually erased his tribe, the Cohiuano, away in their exploits to extract rubber from the sap of their trees. He ends up assisting Theo when the visitor reveals that some of his people still exist and that he knows where they are. Decades later we're introduced to Evan, a biologist from America, who has read Theo's diary and has sought out an aging and somewhat forlonr Karamakate in order to help him find an ultra-rare and sacred plant called yakruna, long rumored to have great power to heal.
Sally Field plays the titular role of sixty-something-year-old Staten Island shut-in Doris, an aging holdover in her Manhattan-based company who ends up developing a crush on a friendly, hunky, and much younger new employee named John Fremont. Most of her interactions with John are in her own mind, but after she ends up partaking in a course with a motivational speaker, she decides to turn what she thinks is 'impossible' into "I'm possible!" and begins to try to make things happen by putting herself in the same social circles as John and his hipster friends. John takes a liking to Doris, but is he just being friendly, or is he signaling that there could be something more between them?
Bouncing the action around between Air Force operations based in the United States, war rooms in England, and a small village in Kenya, the storyline involves one such potential strike of a house in Kenya in which there is a meeting among several higher-ups in the terrorist organization known as al-Shabbab.
The difficulty in taking these terrorists out comes from the collateral damage that will occur in their particular location, especially when the potential collateral damage assessment has a public face in the form of a young Kenyan girl who has set up shop just outside of the perimeter of their headquarters, where they are planning to strap on a vest of explosives to be used in an imminent a suicide bombing. Can they intentionally kill the girl to potentially save the lives of dozens of others, by averting the suicide bombing about to happen? What will the political fallout be for all involved, and is it worth the risk of action, or inaction?
Now happily married (though the romantic spark has largely gone), Toula and Ian have a 17-year-old daughter, Paris, who is already getting pressure from Toula's father, Gus, to find a boyfriend, get married and start having Greek babies. Toula is more concerned with a different life milestone for Paris, college, and the family desperately hopes that the young woman will choose to stay near family in Chicago by attending Northwestern University. As the family generally gives hugs until suffocating, Paris has begun mulling over being as far away as possible from the most overbearing family one could never hope for. Meanwhile, in an ironic twist of fate, Gus gets pressure from his family to marry when it is discovered that he and his wife of fifty years, Maria, were never officially wed due to the marriage certificate remaining unsigned by the priest. Gus thinks its just a formality that can be settled with a quick jaunt to city hall, but Maria, thinking he didn't do it right the first time around, wants him to earn the privilege of being her husband yet again with a real marriage proposal and proper formal wedding.
DC decides to expand its cinematic universe to catch up with the Marvel films with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Batman feels Supes is a danger to humanity, and Superman view Batman as a threat. Taking advantage of the separation comes Lex Luthor, who pits them together in an effort to rid the world of those who could stop his quest for domination.
We mostly follow the film from the perspective of mild-mannered Gummi (Sigurjonsson), who beams with pride on his stock of sheep, entering his ram into a local competition for the best example of good breeding. We see him narrowly losing the latest competition to his neighbor and estranged alcoholic and temperamental brother Kiddi, which leaves a bitter taste in Gummi's mouth not only for the loss, but it's a loss to the man he most detests in this world.
During the aftermath, Gummi decides to inspect Kiddi's winning ram and is disturbed to find it appears to be a little ill, perhaps showing signs of the dreaded scrapie, a contagious degenerative illness in sheep that affects their brains and spinal cords. He reports the incident to the local veterinary council, who immediately inspect the ram in question, raising the dander of Kiddi for the imposition, with the results leading to the slaughter of all of the sheep in the valley if true, with no possibility of new sheep farming for at least two years -- something that the prideful Kiddi will likely not take kindly too, especially as it is viewed as an act of jealousy and spite from his scornful brother.
Pee-wee Herman has never left his hometown of Fairville to see anything beyond its city limits, save for a harrowing botched attempt to go to Salt Lake City that nipped his wanderlust in the bud. While at work as a cook in a local diner, Pee-wee meets and hits it off with Joe Manganiello, playing a comic version of himself, who encourages the perpetual man-child to get out and see what's out there by inviting him to attend his swanky birthday party in a few days in New York City.
The futuristic film opens with Naomi Watts' character, Evelyn, now in charge of walled-in Chicago after the demise of Jeanine, and she's trying to provide 'justice' for past sins against the members of Erudite by conducting public trials in which they're put to death at the whim of angry mobs. Those who think that Evelyn is merely a replacement for Jeanine in Machiavellian tactics splinter off into their own group, the Allegiant, led by Johanna (Spencer), and civil war is about to break out for control of the city. Meanwhile, Tris and her cohort of rebellious heroes manage to scale the walls of the city to try to find something or someone that will remedy the situation on the outside, eventually leading to an encounter with the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, led by David (Daniels), who instructs Tris that their entire existence has served as an experiment for the last 200 years in trying to purify the damaged genetics of humanity, and that Tris' purity as a Divergent means that the experiment is a success. However, with Tris' home and nearly everyone she cares about about to kill each other, and an organization that's supposed to be looking out for their well-being showing that they might not be the benevolent rescuers she is hoping for, she's going to have to take matters into her own hands if she wants to fulfill that role of savior of humanity she's been destined to be since birth.
The film starts with young Jesus with his family, having fled to Egypt due to a decree by Herod the Great to find the child that had managed to escape slaughter as a babe seven years back. At this point in his life, Jesus isn't yet aware of his divine identity, having recently been able to resurrect a dead bird. While there, Jesus has his first run-in with a crafty Demon who is trying to alter events against the young Son of God, resulting in circumstances that cause Jesus to employ his ability to raise the dead yet again. Meanwhile, as Herod's reported death clears the coast for the family for the long road back to their home in Nazareth, Roman Centurion named Severus is tasked by Herod's new reigning son, also called Herod, with investigating the whereabouts of the boy, and, if found, putting an end to his life. Along the way, Jesus finally confronts the hows and whys of what makes him different than other little boys his age.
Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Norman 'Nobby' Butcher, a who lives in Grimsby with his lusty wife Dawn (Wilson) and eleven hooligan children (two who are his grandchildren) in the working-class town of the film's title. Despite the large family, deadbeat welfare-scammer Nobby still yearns for one more person in his life, his younger brother Sebastian, who he was separated from as a young boy when they were left as orphans and adopted into different circumstances. After learning of the whereabouts of Sebastian, who is now a slick and debonair secret agent working for MI6, Nobby meets and tries to reassert long-dormant bonds, but Sebastian wants none of it at this point in his life, having felt abandoned way back when. During a particularly tense moment at a public function that draws out Sebastian into full super-spy mode to avert an assassination, Nobby ends up bungling the heroics and makes Sebastian look like the culprit, causing the latter to have to hide out from his own spy organization. Sebastian tries to regain separation, but Nobby is all he has in this world to help him, especially as he learns of nefarious plans being hatched from an international terrorist organization that could put the world in mortal peril.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as Michelle, who is leaving her fiancé, Ben voiced by Bradley Cooper), after an apparent deal-breaking disagreement that he must feel sorry for, given that he is persistently calling as she's on the rural Louisiana road heading out of town. That's the last thing she remembers, as Michelle end up in a car accident that sees her roll off the road and take a nasty tumble. When Michelle awakens, she finds herself in a strange bed with an IV in her, chained to the wall and enclosed in a nearly empty room with a dense-looking metal door that's locked tight. She's soon visited by an armed man named Howard who claims to have saved her life, claiming that they're the only ones left alive in their fallout shelter, and that everyone outside is likely dead or dying due to an apocalyptic event that has poisoned the air. There's enough in the mini-bunker to keep them fed and secure for years, but is Howard, an avowed conspiracy nut, a benign Samaritan, or is he her captor, trying to keep her from escaping his lair for reasons too horrific to contemplate?
Set in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Songs My Brothers Taught Me primarily revolves around seventeen-year-old brother Johnny Winters and his eleven-year-old sister Jashaun, living with their alcoholic single mother Lisa below the poverty line. With local jobs in very short supply, John makes a few bucks here and there delivering bootleg alcohol and weed to his Oglala Lakota brethren in a place plagued by alcoholism and a lack of easy roads in life. Meanwhile, their biological father, a rodeo performer who sired over two dozen half-brothers and sisters in his lifetime around the reservation with many different women, has died in a fire. The community gets together in their mourning, but the wounds run deep, leaving an anguished Jashaun wanting the closeness of her brother who is already making plans to leave her behind to move thousand of miles away with his girlfriend Aurelia, who is on the verge of leaving to go to college in Los Angeles.
The story involves a nine-year-old boy named Ren, who, after the untimely death of his mother after a bitter divorce, ends up filled with despair and rage, roaming the streets of Tokyo rather than live with his distant relatives. That's when Ren is spotted by a Kumatetsu, a hot-tempered ursine beast from another dimension where animal-men rule supreme, Jutengai. Ren ends up following Kumatetsu into an alley that serves as a portal back to the a supernatural place where shape-shifting humanoid animals with otherworldly powers, and where humans are not allowed because of their dark predilection for death and destruction. An exception is made for Ren, redubbed as Kyuta (for his age, "nine") who has been taken in, rather reluctantly, as the Kumatetsu's apprentice, and given the undisciplined beast-man is one of two possible successors that will ascend to the rule of the fantastical domain, he has some leeway in this regard. Both are ill-equipped to handle their newfound roles as mentor and apprentice, especially as they butt heads constantly, but they soon learn to make it work to their benefit and actually do some learning and growing from one another.
Five orphaned, loving, and seemingly carefree sisters living in a very conservative town in Turkey are growing up fast -- so fast that when they're spotted engaging in a bit of innocent horseplay with some local boys, they're immediately disciplined, and the home in which they reside takes to locking down the girls, placing a virtual 'chastity belt' around the home of bars and high walls, before they go out and bring shame to the family and village they're in. Their day-to-day existence also changes, whereby their guardians and other local ladies put them through a "wife factory", showing them how to dress, cook, sew, and other things they should know in order to fetch the first available man through the process of arranged marriage.
The story begins in Pakistan, with an American drone strike on the abode of terrorist-supplying arms dealer Aamir Barkawi, where a wedding appears to be taking place. Two years later, the unfortunate death of the British prime minister has many world leaders converging on London to attend his funeral. That's when the enemies of the Western world, led by Barkawi (who somehow managed not to die in the drone strike), decide to strike back, with an elaborate plot to assassinate all of the heads of state and to blow up all of London's most prominent landmarks, with many of the terrorists out and about in the guise of the local police and palace guards, making it difficult for the military to separate friend from foe. However, President of the United States Benjamin Asher is still alive, thanks to the continues heroic efforts of his Secret Service super-agent, Mike Banning, who must work twice as hard as ever before to make sure the terrorists don't succeed in their plan on kidnapping Asher and executing him live on world television.
A group of five ex-special ops guys now working in Atlanta as criminals, but most novel about the situation is that some of them are also cops. The film opens with the group perpetrating an elaborate bank heist in order to get the contents of a specific safety deposit box for a powerful Russian/Israeli mafia. The men are told that this is the last operation they're indebted to do, but its apparently not enough for what that mafia needs, and they coerce the men to put their lives on the line one more time to extract some data from highly guarded government building that will be a magnet for all police in the area to respond to once they get a call. The men know it's far from a typical smash and grab, so they decide that what they need to do is buy some time to keep the cops at bay, and the surest way to do that is to stage a "triple 9" (officer down), which will shake up the hornets nest of police while they go in and do the heist with some leeway.
Judy Hopps is a bunny rabbit from farm country who always wanted to be a police officer in the big mammal-filled metropolis of Zootopia, where all of the animals have given up their predator/prey ways in order to live in harmony and can be what they really dram to be in life -- at least, that's the ideal they strive to achieve. She ends up getting her wish when she's hired as the first rabbit in the new-look ZPD (Zootropia Police Department). Not being a large or sturdy mammal, she isn't taken seriously, relegated to the somewhat thankless token role as meter maid.
Nick Wilde is a sly fox in town who spends all his days working on big cons, including fleecing bleeding-heart Judy from a bit of money he parlays into much more. Eventually, Judy leans on the highly connected Nick in order to provide information on an actual criminal case she stumbles into, and after a run-in with her tough-as-nails boss, she ends up having to solve within 48 hours, involving a missing otter. The investigation leads to uncovering a much bigger story involving predators going back to their old ways and causing a state of fear once again among the overwhelming majority populace of prey that leads to an increasing level of mistrust toward whole groups of animals who've done nothing wrong.
Jesse Owens, son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, became a track star at his alma mater of Ohio State University, where Larry Snyder, a former promising track star himself, is head coach of the track team. Coach Snyder sees raw talent in the young man, and knowing that the 1936 Olympics isn't too far in the distance, he thinks that Owens is just the diamond in the rough the country needs to win Olympic Gold, showing him how to work on a proper start to the race, and adding the long jump to his repertoire. However, the Olympics is to be held in the lions' den of racial intolerance, Berlin under Hitler's regime, and the intent of the games under the leadership of Joseph Goebbels is to show that the Aryan race is the supreme race in the world. With the International Olympic Committee conflicted about whether to boycott the games, and the NAACP requesting Owens also sit it out in protest, it's looking bleak for what might be the fastest runner in the world to find his claim to fame.
The film showcases a special type of prisoner in the death camps known as the 'sonderkommandos', who would, under penalty of death, assist with the rounding up of other prisoners to put into the gas chambers, sift through their clothing for valuables, and also dispose of their bodies, which are subsequently burned into ashes. We follow one sondercommando called Saul, a Hungarian of Jewish descent, who is tasked with the nightmarish responsibility that will likely only grant him a few extra months of life, as they learned too many secrets to keep alive for long. During one of the gas chamber sessions, he discovers a young boy who manages to survive the extermination, only to have the Germans make sure it isn't for long. The Germans want to study the body further, but Saul decides he won't let this happen, eventually coming to the determination that the child should have a proper burial with a Rabbi to deliver some final words. Saul risks his life, as well as of many others, to try to find such a man in the midst of all of the chaos, eventually getting caught up in a potential uprising that might mean an end to the nightmare for many in the camp.
Set in New England in the early 1630s, six decades before the infamous Salem Witch trials, we find a family of devout Puritans vacating the tight-knit community they could not see eye to eye with, relocating to a small farm on the border of the untamed woods. Ralph Ineson plays the patriarch, William, who finds it a struggle to raise crops in the area, forcing him to go out into the woods to hunt with son Caleb for sustenance until they can grow enough to feed themselves, and sell the rest. However, things begin to become ominous when eldest daughter Thomasin loses sight of their youngest, the newborn Samuel, and that's just the start of many bizarre signs to come.
The basic premise involves Michael Moore "invading" other countries, not for oil or to prop up our own dictators, but to steal away ideas that he feels would actually benefit his native United States to be the kind of society that could only exist in his most idealistic of dreams, were we to implement them. From Italy to Iceland to Tunisia, Moore looks at such things as the educational system, government structure, fight for gender equality, the prison systems, and the treatment of the workers, and suggests that many of the ills of our own country could benefit from the examples set by others, who seemingly do the opposite of how we do things in the U.S. and achieve much better results.
Dakota Johnson gets the lead role as Alice, who decides that she and her long-term college boyfriend Josh should break up for a while in order to experience what being single is actually like before they proceed through the rest of their lives together. She takes up a job as a paralegal in a law firm, where she meets the boisterous Robin, who shows her the ropes of the life of a single girl in New York City -- important things like never paying for drinks and not using an Emoji before returning a text (after waiting a day to even do it). Meanwhile, Alice's sister Meg, a workaholic in the medical industry with no time for a relationship or starting a family, decides that, perhaps, it's time to rethink those notions. Unlike Meg, Lucy is on a gaggle of dating sites trying to find the man with whom she'll marry and start a family with through a series of algorithms she's sure will be the path to success.
Derek Zoolander is back, the eternally daft and narcissistic male supermodel, now retired and reclusive, who has been persuaded by a 'fashion police' agent working for Interpol, Valentina Valencia, to help find the killers of a growing list of celebrities who've struck what appears to be Zoolander's signature "Blue Steel" pose for an Instagram selfie done right before their moment of death. His wife deceased and his child taken away by protective services, Derek has a chance of getting Derek Jr. back by coming out of exile in the mountainous wilderness of northern New Jersey (one of the film's feeble jokes) and assisting with the investigation in Rome, with former rival-turned-friend Hansel in tow. The clues lead them back to Zoolander's incarcerated megalomaniacal nemesis Mugatu in a plot involving the search for the Fountain of Youth.
The origin of Deadpool is told in an extended flashback sequence in the middle of the film, pushing forward a relatively improbable story of a rebellious ex-special ops, mercenary type named Wade Wilson who meets his "soulmate" in the equally deviant spitfire named Vanessa. Just as strongly as their bond of love begins to take hold, it's all about to come to an end, when Wilson is diagnosed with late-stage cancer. With seemingly no real cure in sight, Wilson reluctantly agrees to be a guinea pig for a shadowy underground company that promises a cure for his condition, though he quickly realizes after it's too late that their operation isn't quite on the up and up. Alas, Wilson, known for having almost no filter on voicing his thoughts in the most insulting of ways, antagonizes the company's mad doctor, Ajax, into paying special attention to him in a series of sadistic experiments that triggers his mutant superpowers of regeneration, but also leaves him horribly disfigured. The rest of the movie deals with the escaped Wilson, now operating as a costumed merc named Deadpool, trying to get his hands on the powerful Ajax to restore his looks back to normal on the hope that his beloved Vanessa can look upon his grotesque appearance with all of the attraction he yearns for.
Lily James plays Elizabeth Bennet, the second-oldest sister hoping to find a proper wealthy husband in an isolated version of London that is completely surrounded by zombie masses hoping to feast on the brains of the living within its walls. In order to combat the undead, many of the families have taken to sending their children to Asia to learn martial arts from the masters in either Japan or China. Even with extinction a very real possibility, the Bennets still hope their daughters marry well, and while the more fetching eldest sister Jane is catching the eye of most potential suitors, a mixture of emotions begin to swell between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, an emotionally aloof zombie hunter of good breeding. Despite Darcy's ill manners at times, the potential for more is still there between them, if they can survive long enough to make it all happen.
Set in Hollywood of the 1950s, Josh Brolin plays Eddie Mannix, an executive of the fictional Capitol Pictures film studio who is tasked with 'fixing' a host of extracurricular scandals that their contracted star performers are engaged in before the tabloids get a hold of the stories and ruin their big-budget prestige pictures they're set to appear in. One such problem involves their most bankable box office draw, Baird Whitlock, who goes missing from the set of his sprawling biblical epic of a Quo Vadis or Ben Hur type, kidnapped (kinda?) by a group of Communists in the industry to impart their philosophies in private meetings, requiring much of Mannix's attention to keep anyone from knowing about until he figures out what's going on.
Set primarily in the New Mexico Territory of 1871, the titular Jane is shocked to find her husband, Bill Hammond, riding home after a long time away with bullets in his back. A deadly gang of former outlaw fur traders called "the Bishop Boys", run by the vicious John Bishop have been after them for some time for past betrayals, and Bill informs Jane to get prepared, and perhaps get moving. After dropping off their young daughter with a friend, Jane tries to enlist the services of a former lover named Dan Frost for protection, but they've been separated and estranged since the Civil War drove Jane to have to fend for herself, not knowing if Dan ever made it back from the conflict alive. However, Dan has his own reasons to distrust Jane, and to want Bill out of the picture, causing a tension in loyalties when Dan accepts for a fee, but only because he's trying to get his beloved Jane back.
Po's master, Shifu, decides to retire his teachings and promote his Dragon Warrior to become the teacher of the rest of the Furious Five in the ways of kung fu. His new and somewhat reluctant status as a martial arts master is soon after put to the test when a spirit warrior named Kai thrusts himself into the mortal plane after gathering all of the chi, the Chinese term for the mystical energy that flows within us, he can get from those who have learned to harness it best: the kung fu masters. Meanwhile, Po is visited by another panda named Li who reveals himself to be his long-lost father, who takes him to a hidden valley where the rest of his panda brethren have been living in relative harmony. With Po the only entity that can stop Kai's path to total domination, the happy village, and perhaps all of China, rests in the paws of the kung-fu panda.
Based on a true story, The Finest Hours is set mostly in winter of 1952, where, off of the snowy coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, an oil tanker called the SS Pendleton would be split in half due to a vicious nor-easter and massive 60-foot swells, with one half sinking immediately to the bottom of the ocean, while the other half sinking much more slowly, with the thirty-three men on board desperate to try to figure out a way to stay alive in the freezing, turbulent chaos, hoping to figure out a way to run the half-ship aground until they can be rescued. Chris Pine stars as Bernie Webber, the meek Coast Guard recruit assigned to try to mount a four-man rescue mission in a small 36-foot craft through the heart of the storm and whatever men he can find back to shore.
Michael Fassbender stars as Macbeth, who is foretold by three sisters of mystical powers that he will one day be the king in Scotland. Lady Macbeth, a firm believer in the prophecy, convinces her husband, who is a heartbeat away from ascending to the throne, to murder Scottish King Duncan and become the leader of the land. However, once that threshold to murder has been breached, it becomes a toxic force in the lives of the new king and queen, as Macbeth finds himself all-too-willing to snuff out more, trying to find a sense of peace and tranquility that continues to elude him with each life extinguished.
Lauren Cohan stars as Greta, an American woman who takes a job as a nanny in England in order to get away from a dangerously abusive and obsessed ex. It's a large and isolated country mansion owned by an older couple called the Heelshires, who expect Greta to cater to the every needs of their eight-year-old boy, Brahms, as they go away on holiday. Greta finds out the reason why they've had difficulty keeping prior nannies on hire once she meets Brahms, as he turns out to be a doll, literally, life-sized, and made mostly of porcelain. The Heelshires maintain that their boy, who died in a house fire two decades prior, is very much alive in this doll, and he has particular needs that Greta must fulfill to keep him happy, one of them being that the only person other then the Heelshires allowed to come over is the delivery man, Malcolm. Greta initially think the notion is absurd, but a job's a job, but soon discovers there may be some truth in the assertion that Brahms is very much alive, and isn't going to take kindly to her not following his rules, or attempting to leave him there alone.
Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Ohioan teenager Cassie Sullivan, whom we first meet in a post-apocalyptic world fighting for her survival. We flash back to how this world came to be, starting with the appearance of a massive alien spaceship in the sky. After four waves of cataclysmic "plagues" that include such things as tsunamis and a deadly virus, human beings begin to suspect that "the Others" are trying to take the planet and don't want humans on it when they do. Dealing with the separation from her family through a variety of mishaps, Cassie finds herself caught in the middle of a fight between the Others, who've been able to take over human bodies, and the last survivors of Earth, in a world where it's unclear who to trust.
De Niro plays Dick Kelly, a very recent widower who is being driven by his uptight corporate lawyer grandson Jason from the former's home in Georgia to his Boca vacation home, and the latter's marriage celebration and ceremony in Florida. After 40 years of having only sex with one woman, grandpa Dick is ready to get his perv on by sowing his wild oats with college girls in Daytona Beach partying for spring break, and persistently cajoles Jason to try to remove the stick from his bum and party along with him, even if it comes at the potential cost of his impending marriage.
13 Hours takes place during a volatile time in Libya, shortly after the overthrow and murder of their dictator, Muammar Guadaffi in 2011. Various factions began their scramble for power, starting with raiding the government arsenals for high-powered weaponry, as other countries, sensing the instability that could lead to atrocities, pulled out of their embassies in the area. The U.S. did keep a small outpost of diplomats in the city of Benghazi, as well as a hidden CIA annex not far away that was under the protection of a small band of armed ex-Special Forces contractors working for a CIA-funded organization called Global Response Staff. Former Navy SEAL Jack Silva is the new guy in the group of six beefy, bearded men, led by Tyrone 'Rone' Woods, and this time out proves to be the most dangerous contract work for everyone involved.
On September 11, 2012, the eleventh anniversary of the '9/11' attacks, a group of local radicals lay siege on a building housing the United States Ambassador, Chris Stevens, while the security company is ordered to stand down by their boss there. Eventually, they can't stand idle anymore and decide to 'go rogue' to help their fellow Americans in need, but too late to stave off the major damage that is done. The fatigued men end up having to scramble back to the hidden CIA base when the armed militias are determined to attack there as well, but they're grossly outnumbered. The men do the best they can against overwhelming odds to minimize casualties during the prolonged firefight while waiting for outside help that seems slow to arrive.
We pick up not long after the first entry with Hart's character, Ben Barber, now a probationary officer for the Atlanta Police Department. He's just a little over a week away from marrying his beloved fiancée Angela, sister of his former reluctant partner-in-crime-fighting James Payton. Once again, James finds himself in a situation in which he decides to take Ben as a partner in order to embarrass him by showing just how over his head he will be in dealing with real dangerous criminals, as the two head out to Miami for a 'milk run' to gain information that will lead to taking down Antonio Pope, an influential businessman who is also murderous big-time drug kingpin who is controlling the flow of narcotics between the two cities. Teaming up with a bravado Miami detective named Maya, as well as A.J., Pope's computer hacker-turned-informant, it's up to James to get his man and keep his future brother-in-law alive long enough to see his wedding day.
Hitchcock/Truffaut is a documentary on Alfred Hitchcock, his influence on other filmmakers in history, including Francois Truffaut, who wrote a definitive book on the man through a series of interviews over the course of one week in 1962.
On the verge of celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary, wife Kate is putting together all of the necessities for their big party at an esteemed hall in the English countryside, while husband Geoff seems to be preoccupied. What's been on his mind has stemmed from a letter he's received that the body of the woman he was involved with before he met Kate, a woman named Katya, has been found frozen in a glacier in Switzerland, preserved nearly as it had been since she fell into a fissure as they were exploring through the area in 1962. As they had told people there they were married in order to keep their rooming arrangements from being questioned, Geoff has been considered the next of kin, and has therefore been the one notified. This is all news to Kate, who is curious not only as to why, after spending most of her life with someone, he never shared this with her, but also as to why the news of her found body is causing Geoff to exhibit new behavior, taking up smoking again, spending time in the attic looking at old items, reading books he's had since before she's met him, and listening to music he hasn't listened to since he was young. After forty-five years of marriage, Kate wonders is she has been number two in Geoff's heart all of those years.
The end-of-they-year podcast. Vince Leo runs down his favorite films of the year 2015, as well as some honorable mentions. Happy New Year everyone!
The main character is unhappily married, middle-aged self-help author and occupational speaker Michael Stone, who has traveled for a one-day stay in Cincinnati in order to deliver a lecture at a convention for those in the customer service industry. Michael is bored, lonely, and sad; he isn't someone who particularly likes being around other people, and yet he also can't seem to tolerate having to be left alone with his own thoughts. Ironic that he has become an expert in giving good customer service when those who follow what he preaches get on his every nerve, but he hates himself even more, and yet he can't escape those feelings. During his stay at an upscale hotel, he tries to get reacquainted with an ex-lover with whom he spurned severely, and proceeds to make matters worse in his attempts to make them better. Then he meets a couple of women who are there to see his speech, including Lisa, a lonely younger woman who seems different than just about anyone else Michael has met.
Set in Chicago's South Side, there are two warring gangs who've been committing violent crimes against each other for years, the purple-clad Spartans and the Trojans, dressed in orange. Chi-Raq, aka Demetrius Dupree, is the head of the Spartans, and he's down the eyepatch-sporting Trojan Cyclops and all of his men before his own get taken down. However, in the gunfire between the two men, an eleven-year old girl is killed by one of their strays, and no one is brave enough to snitch against the person who did it. Fed up by the cycle of violence that leaves them all as potential victims, the women of the community, led by Chi-Raq's girlfriend Lysistrata, determine that they're going to go on a sex strike -- 'no peace, no piece' -- until the men put down their weapons and work toward peace between them. News spreads like wildfire, making the so-called 'blue-balls movement' it a worldwide event, as even women in the sex industry and gay men are refusing to put out until a peace treaty is struck.
Set just before Christmas in the early 1950s, Rooney Mara co-stars as Therese Belivet, a young and shy Manhattan shopgirl who ends up waiting on a sophisticated socialite named Carol Aird, who is looking for the right present to get for her young daughter, Lindy. Carol means to make a separation from her husband Harge and wants to make the present something special to ease the transition for the young girl, especially as her parents will likely be tied up in a battle for custody for the foreseeable future. Therese kindly helps her pick out the right gift to ship to her address, but in the exchange, Carol has left her gloves behind on the counter. Therese returns the gloves, Carol is grateful enough to take her new friend out to lunch, and the two begin to find themselves drawing closer to one another in a manner they haven't been able to with anyone else.
Set in a wintry Wyoming in the late 19th Century, we start the film off with ex-Union soldier turned bounty hunter named Major Marquis Warren, who stops a stagecoach in the middle of travel through a desolate mountain pass just ahead of a major snowstorm. On board the stagecoach is a fellow bounty hunter, John 'The Hangman' Ruth, who, unlike Marquis, takes his dead-or-alive bounties in while they're still breathing so they will be hanged at the public square. The other passenger is one of those bounties Ruth is taking in to Red Rock, a racist spitfire named Daisy Domergue. A little further, they reluctantly pick up another passenger, Chris Mannix, who claims that he's set to become the new sheriff of Red Rock upon arrival, and to whom they would collect their rewards.
The quartet, along with stagecoach driver O.B., are forced to shelter from the blizzard at a secluded tavern called Minnie's Haberdashery, where they meet a new collection of interesting people, including a Mexican, Bob, who is tending the needs of the place while Minnie is away, a former Confederate general named Sandy Smithers, a drifter named Joe Gage, who says he's there to visit his mother for the holidays, and Oswaldo Mobray, and a man claiming to be the hangman who is traveling to Red Rock to put a noose on Daisy Domergue. Ruth begins to become convinced that one (or perhaps more) of the men in the group is actually there to help Daisy escape, which, if true, means there's going to be a violent confrontation about to go down at the Haberdashery if he's not rooted out before the plan is hatched.
Bolstered by a dynamite cast, The Big Short has several converging story threads, beginning with a socially awkward hedge-fund manager named Dr. Michael Burry, who determines that the subprime mortgage industry is a bubble built on a slew of misguided practices that's inevitably going to burst, so he invests his company's available assets, totaling 1.3 billion dollars, to bet against them. Douchebag banker Jared Vennett, who also serves as the film's narrator, catches wind of Burry's activities and looks into it himself, and soon he also becomes convinced that CDO's (collateralized debt obligations), a hodge-podge of mostly junk bonded loans, will result in the market eventually failing.
The only one who will partner with Vennett is a smaller hedge fund headed by Mark Baum, who, despite being initially skeptical, sees the iceberg headed toward the Titanic and is willing to make a major play, though his conscience is persistently troubling him. Meanwhile, a couple of small-time investors secure the expertise of a former financial strategist, Ben Wickert, to help them play with the big boys, hoping they'll make a fortune. As the mortgage industry is considered the bedrock of the investment market, banks are all too happy to let these "suckers" bet against its success.
Jennifer Lawrence stars as the titular Joy, whom we meet as a young girl with a head full of interesting ideas on how to make life great. Real life seemed to squash those early dreams, opting not to go to college despite being the valedictorian of her high school, and then entering in through a short-lived marriage and raising two kids mostly on her own. Her home life in Long Island is like a kooky sitcom, with a shut-in mother hooked on soaps in one bedroom, a Venezuelan lounge singer ex-husband in her basement, a father who comes to her for a place to stay while his own relationship issues get sorted out, a half-sister who despises everything Joy's about, and a beloved grandmother (the film's narrator) who still believes in her dreams to be better than all of this.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Hugh Glass, who is mauled by a mama grizzly bear while out with a hunting party of fur trappers, leaving him barely clinging to life with severe trauma and a plethora of injuries. Glass's teenage son Hawk (a fictional character added for dramatic effect), who was the son of a murdered Pawnee lover, won't leave his side, though that also leaves him largely unprotected among a group of men with their own prejudices, and their own reasons to hate the natives of the area, especially John Fitzgerald, who thinks Glass is a lost cause that's just dead weight on getting back to civilization that should be put out of his misery. The misery for Glass doesn't end there, as he's eventually left for dead (hence the title), committed to dragging himself out of his shallow grave, crawling high and low, through rocks, rivers and snow, in order to try to right the wrongs that have been perpetrated against him.
An orb-like droid named BB-8 has some technology placed within him that contains a map showing the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker, and there are several interested parties, some benevolent and some evil, that desperately want to get a hold of this for their own purposes. In protection of the droid are a scavenger from the desert planet of Jakku named Rey, a failed stormtrooper turned hero nicknamed Finn, intergalactic smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca, and, to a lesser extent, a resistance pilot named Poe Dameron, who have come to reclaim their beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon. Out to wrest the information from them is a powerful faction known as the First Order, Dark-siders who've vowed to restore the galaxy back to the former glory of the Empire (complete with stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and a secret weapon of mass destruction), out to crush the upstart alliance known as the Resistance.
Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos directs this strange alternate universe, near-future setting, which feels cold, oppressive, and bizarre. It's his first English-language feature-length effort, with a little French thrown in, still quite astute, even if it's not his mother tongue thanks to the uniqueness of the story and a very solid cast, most of whom are in complete deadpan mode. Many of the characters have been stripped away from their emotions, as if there is little joy to be found in their continued existence, as the hotel beats it into their minds that it is much more advantageous and safe to be in a relationship with someone than it is to be alone; and if you cant find a mate, you don't even deserve to be human.
The main story is framed by fictional scenes of Herman Melville visiting the Nantucket home of Tom Nickerson, the last living survivor of the voyage of the "Essex". Nickerson is beyond reluctant to recount what happened, clearly still traumatized by an experience he deems to be unspeakable, but Melville's persistence, the insistence of Nickerson's wife, a tidy sum of money, and enough liquor to help him get through it, are enough to ultimately get him to open up and tell his story for the first time to anyone.
Nickerson, played as a young cabin boy by Tom Holland (60-year-old Brendan Gleeson isn't remotely passable as a man in his early forties), relates of the story of "Essex" First Mate Owen Chase, a seasoned seaman worthy of being captain who had to settle for being second in command for one more adventure due to being "of low birth" as the son of a farmer as compared to the relatively less experienced captain of the ship, George Pollard, who comes from a privileged family of naval adventurers. (How Nickerson knows of all of the events that led up to his actual participation when he never wanted to relive or discuss them with anyone is one of the problems with the needless narrative framing device). Their mission is to venture out and bring back 2000 barrels of whale oil, but Holland is clearly over his head in command, and gets little help from Chase after chiding him for his social status persistently. Calamities abound, but they stubbornly refuse to come back without their full shipment of oil, which sends them off to the whale-rich waters of the southern Pacific Ocean, where they encounter the rumored 100-foot whale thought too massive for any whaling vessel to take down.
It's Christmas time for one particular family, which means yet another gathering at the home of workaholic Tom and OCD Sarah, and the rest of the dysfunctional unit for three claustrophobic days that mostly involve snippy complaining and petty squabbling. Tom and Sarah's young son Max, at perhaps the last age when Santa Claus might still be seemingly real idea, writes a letter to the mythical North Pole resident that relates his wish of Christmas with his family being "like it used to be." However, when his letter is found by his bratty cousins and openly mocked, Max tears up his letter, and abandons his wishful beliefs, which inadvertently causes a chain of horrific events when Krampus, the evil shadow of Saint Nicholas who terrorizes the naughty children, arrives in the wake of a massive blizzard to put an end to the family bickering for good.
Michael B. Jordan stars as Adonis Johnson, the illegitimate son of former world heavyweight champion boxer Apollo Creed, who died in the ring before he was born, and a woman Creed had an affair with who died while Adonis was a young boy. Apollo's widow Mary Anne pulls Adonis out of his hard-knock life foster care and juvenile hall to adopt him as her own son, raising Adonis to be a fine young man with a bright future in business. However, it seems Adonis is his father's son after all, opting to drop out of white-collar life for a chance to prove himself in the ring as a self-taught, up-and-coming pugilist, undefeated as an amateur boxer in Mexico before deciding to head out to Philadelphia to seek out the training of Rocky Balboa, current South Philly restaurateur who was once the boxer who ended Apollo's reign in the ring before they became good friends later in life.
Rocky's initially reluctant, but soon capitulates to the earnest young man's demands. Despite wanting to make it on his own terms as Adonis Johnson (his mother's maiden name), soon word gets out that he's Apollo Creed's son, which opens a huge door of opportunity when the reigning light heavyweight champion from England, "Pretty" Ricky Conlan, wants one big marquee match-up to give him enough money to survive before he goes off to prison. Long-shot odds for Apollo ratchet up to next to impossible when Rocky is diagnosed with a serious illness that threatens to take the former champ down for the count for good.
Offering up a sort of alternate prehistory on what might have happened bad the theoretical asteroid that hit Earth 65 million years ago that wiped out all of the dinosaurs not occurred, dinosaurs are the ones that have advanced to learn how to speak and perform agriculture. We spy Poppa and Momma awaiting the hatching of three of their eggs, springing forth unruly Buck, enthusiastic Libby, and overly jumpy runt Arlo. Buck and Libby take readily to their parents instructions, but Arlo is always lagging behind in his rites of passage, primarily out of his innate sense of fear, causing Poppa to have to take a more aggressive stance with the tyke to get him where he should be in life. When their silo of corn is constantly being raided by an unknown critter, Arlo is tasked with putting an end to it. After setting his trap and going in for the kill, Arlo discovers a feral Neanderthal boy with dog-like tendencies, and finds he can't bring himself to do it. Mishaps arise that see Arlo and Spot (as Arlo has dubbed him) washed away in a river and subsequently quite far from home, forcing them to make the long, perilous journey back through strange lands full of stranger creatures.
Set in the early 1950s, Saoirse Ronan stars as Eilis Lacey, whom we find at the beginning of the film as a young woman who has grown to not have much of a life worth bragging about in her quaint small town in Enniscorthy, Ireland, where she lives with her lonely widowed mother, Mary, and her kindly older sister, Rose. Eilis finds the town a bit stifling for her, especially working short hours for a bitter spinster who demeans her. She's been anxious for more, so when a kindly Irish priest living in New York offers her the opportunity to come to America to work in a department store in Brooklyn and a chance to build another life for herself, she's excited for the chance, even though she dreads leaving her family and home behind. A major bout of homesickness threatens to cut her new life abroad short, at least until she is wooed and courted by a local Italian-American plumber named Tony, whose sweetness and gentlemanly demeanor opens her up to a world of new possibilities of love and a potential future. However, Ireland eventually comes a-knocking when bad news crosses shores, which requires a brief visit where she can see all of the wonderful things she was missing, causing her to go from a young woman with seemingly no future to a more mature one who has to choose between two possible bright ones.
In 2001, the Boston Globe's new editor-in-chief is Marty Baron, a Jewish media exec coming in from Miami to take over the reins of a paper that has always catered to a predominantly Catholic community and readership, but one on the cusp of primarily getting their news through their AOL connection and the World Wide Web. Baron's first order of business is in getting to the guts of what the paper does and try to make it relevant to the readers they serve, and, in a conversation with Walter "Robby" Robinson, who leads a four-person investigative squad known as "Spotlight", he persuades them to put their current story on hold and dive headfirst into getting to the root of a story about a priest who has been accused of several instances of molestation in the Boston community he serves, as it seems he has had a pattern of doing this wherever the Catholic Church has placed him, only for the story to be mostly buried and see him re-emerge in another community some time later. With the Church having such strong influence in the town, Robinson knows they're going to face strong opposition wherever they dig, but the more resistance they get, the more they become convinced that the problem isn't just one priest, or several -- it's an entire system within the Church that systematically keeps the stories under wraps for fear of shining a light on the many disturbing criminal acts within from individual serial perpetrators, as well as the environment of cover-ups that allows them to operate, seemingly without impunity.
Isaac, Ethan, and Chris are friends since childhood who've made it a point, after Ethan's parents are killed by a drunk driver, to get together on every Christmas Eve in order to party like there's no tomorrow. (Yes, they're going to commemorate someone else's drunken revelry that led to a tragedy that left one of them becoming an orphan by engaging in it themselves.) Now into their thirties and ready to get serious about family and career, they've decided that this year's night of debauchery will be their last. Knowing they should go out with a bang, Ethan manages to steal tickets to the biggest and most exclusive party in New York City. However, there are several factors that threaten to make the night not last, including Ethan's inability to get over his ex, dad-to-be Isaac's over-consumption of the box of various drugs his nine-months-pregnant wife has given him, and burgeoning football star Chris wanting to desperately to score point with the captains on his team that he means to secure a stash of weed they've asked him to bring to the bash.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is the fourth and final film based on the Suzanne Collins trilogy of young adult novels, and the story, as it reaches its big climax, shifts more into a war flick and less a sci-fi based satire, as it becomes a game of survival to see if Katniss can stay alive long enough to capture and kill the villainous President Coriolanus Snow. It's a decidedly darker film, not only in themes, but also in delivery, as the high-gloss shine of the aristocracy becomes dismantled by revolution, and what's left of the Capitol is a mostly empty wasteland of deadly booby-traps set up by the craft game-makers (they've dubbed this the 'unofficial 76th Hunger Games'), forcing the small band to evade explosive landmines, powerful gun turrets, floods of hot oil, murderous humanoid mutants (called Mutts), and other nastier concoctions to achieve their ultimate mission. To complete her task, Katniss defies the explicit instructions given to her from leader of the rebellion, President Alma Coin, to remain a tool for propaganda by actually taking a small faction of mainly prior Hunger Games survivors out to the battlefield to infiltrate the Capitol and put an end to the tyrannical reign of Snow over the 13 districts of Panem.
Though the movie weaves many side stories in and out of it, the through-line of The Peanuts Movie is in whether or not Charlie Brown will strike up enough nerve to talk and get to know the new girl in the school he develops an instant crush on (he's dubbed her the Little Red-Headed Girl -- she's traditionally never actually seen in prior works, but we finally get a glimpse of her here). Taking place over the course of a school year, Charlie Brown seizes upon several opportunities to put himself on her radar (a dance competition, a talent show, acing a test, and a book report on "War and Peace"), hoping that being seen as a 'winner' will give him the leverage necessary to overcome the instances when he feels like a loser with a perpetual streak of bad luck. In between this are several interludes, many showcasing some Snoopy solo daydream adventures where he "dogfights" the dreaded Red Baron to fight for the love of a French poodle named Fifi, high in the clouds, which is where the film's choice to render 3D animation is put to good use, even if repeated visits are a bit of overkill.
Emma Donoghue beautifully adapts her best-selling 2010 novel of the same name, about young woman named Joy Newsome (Brie Larson), who has been kidnapped and held as a captive for repeated sexual abuse in the soundproofed and electronically secured shed in the backyard of a deranged sexual predator for over seven years. In the shed with her is her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), who was born and raised in captivity in that tiny environment that they simply call "Room", and whose understanding of the world comes only through his mother's carefully shielded words, a television set that he's been led to believe shows pure fantasy, and a small skylight. For five years, she's been able to shield Jack from her captor's advances, but the constant fear and her inability to keep the inquisitive young boy hidden has her think it's imperative that she find a way for him to escape, and, hopefully for him to be able to tell someone who can help that she's still alive and hopeful of being found. However, Jack is the only positive thing she has in this world, and it's hard to let him go, especially when he doesn't know anything about what's beyond Room's walls, or of other people, which makes his chance of survival in doubt.
M is none too thrilled with the events of Bond's Mexican excursion, especially as it makes the proposed merger between MI5 and the more top-secret MI6 a reality, which will threaten to take out the 00 series of spies in favor of using hi-tech surveillance equipment like satellites and drones. This ends up resulting in a grounded 007 getting injected with a substance that allows his whereabouts to be tracked at all times so he doesn't go rogue again, which, of course, he's going to disregard. However, Bond is on a mission, along with Dr. Madeleine Swann, the daughter of a Bond villain who allies with him, seeking revenge for her father's death, leading him to have to infiltrate a massively powerful underground crime organization known as SPECTRE, run by the umbral Austrian criminal terrorist, Franz Oberhauser, who may have had a hand in all of the super-spy's most recent foibles.
Steve Jobs is written by highly acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who scored big with another tech industry biography with 2008's The Social Network. Although Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography on Jobs published in 2011 provides many of the facts used in the film, Sorkin takes all of those facts and conversations and eaves them into its own fictional circumstances, setting all of the backstage drama in the ramp-up to three key product launches in the career of Jobs, 1984's Apple Macintosh, 1988's NeXT "Cube", and 1998's iMac. Handlers, work associates near and not-so-dear, skeptical tech journalists, demanding ex-girlfriend named Chrisann Brennan, and even Lisa, an estranged daughter Jobs denies is even his, come in and out of the story as he preps for going out on stage and trying to wow the crowd in his hype for another one of his uniquely designed consumer products.
Starting off in Buffalo, NY, at the turn of the 20th century, Mia Wasikowska stars as an aspiring writer named Edith Cushing (nod to Hammer Horror thespian Peter Cushing , no doubt) is struggling to get publishers to accept her ghost story novel in an era in which female authors are relegated to the romance genre. Thought to be on a clear trajectory to become a spinster due to her independent spirit, Edith is soon courted by a well-to-do British man named Thomas Sharpe. The two eventually marry, and Edith uproots to Thomas's massive but rundown mansion in England that has been built upon a mountain made out of red clay, which has caused the bottom floors to seep eerie blood-like ooze. Also living there is Thomas's enigmatic sister Lady Lucille, who seems to have tendrils in every corner, including in her brother's mind and heart. Proverbial skeletons fill the closet, but actual ghosts too, as the promising beginning of a new life may also come to a quick end for Edith, if she doesn't keep her wits about her.
Set starting in 1957, in the midst of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Tom Hanks stars as New York-based insurance lawyer James B. Donovan, a by-the-book guy. Donovan is called upon by United States representatives to provide the legally defense for Rudolf Abel, a longtime Brooklyn resident who has been accused of espionage for the Soviet Union for many years. The United States feel it's an open-and-shut case, but Donovan still takes his role very seriously, unwilling to play patriot by undermining his client to provide information to the CIA, and the public at large begins to despise him for trying to defend a man for supplying information to a country that is threatening the U.S. with nuclear annihilation.
Knowing that his client could get the death penalty for his alleged crimes should he be convicted, Donovan beseeches the already biased judge for leniency, citing that Abel would be good to have alive and incarcerated in case one of our spies ends up getting caught in a Communist country. Donovan's insight bears fruit when a U-2 pilot named Powers is shot down flying a recon mission in Russian airspace, and the U.S. wants him back before the Soviets manage to extract sensitive intel from him while he's in their custody. Now's the time to play their trump card of Abel for Powers, and there's only one master negotiator they've come to trust to get the job done who wouldn't have information to give of his own: James Donovan. However, Donovan threatens to muck up the works when he tries to get two political prisoners for one, requesting the release of an American student named Pryor, who was captured behind the Berlin Wall.
Starting out in London around 1930 we find a young and anguished mother leaving her newborn baby on the doorstep of an orphanage. During the bomb-ravaged times of World War II, years later, the baby grows into a spirited young lad, Peter, who quickly makes friends with the fellow boys in the orphanage, but even faster enemies with the badgering nuns that run the facility. Things get complicated when Peter learns that other boys have gone mysteriously missing in the night, and he wants to get to the bottom of things before he ends up the same. Peter finds out firsthand soon enough when pirates from the sky descend upon the building and steal him and all the other lads away to their flying pirate ship, run by the ruthless Blackbeard, who uses them for cheap labor in mining fairy dust from a land he's dubbed Neverland.
However, when a cruel punishment reveals Peter's ability to fly (something the boy didn't even know he had in him), Blackbeard recalls a chosen-one prophecy of a rebellion led by a boy, born from the union of a fairy prince father and human mother, who could fly and makes him very wary of Peter. The boy's put into pirate jail, where he soon befriends and American(?) adventurer named James Hook, who springs them out and takes them to the land of fairies transplanted when the pirates took over Neverland, where the scrappy mystic Tiger Lily leads. Peter thinks that Neverland has the key to being reunited with his mother again, and together with the newfound rebels, the prophecy Blackbeard fears takes root.
Emily Blunt stars as FBI agent and SWAT team member Kate Macer, whose services are enlisted in voluntarily helping out a mysterious group of black ops law-enforcement agents headed by drug war advisor Matt Graver (Brolin) and partner in crime-fighting in former Colombian prosecutor Alejandro (Del Toro), who are operating under the usual radar in their effort to deal with the extremely dangerous Mexican drug cartels that have begun to take firm root on the U.S./Mexican border, and have even spilled over activities into the Southwestern U.S. She's in way over her head in the tasks at hand as she travels to the 'lion's den' of Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, where the drug cartels have complete dominion. Macer, a firm believe in the law and her duty to uphold it, sees her new partners tactics as not only illegal, but potentially immoral, but her desire to see justice done after a calamitous mishap that saw several of her fellow agents killed in a suburban Arizona house raid gives her the resolve necessary to see the people responsible go down, specifically cartel kingpin Fausto Alarcon.
A NASA mission finds a group of scientists and astronauts on the surface of Mars collecting info and samples of the native soil. Their mission ends prematurely when a major dust storm flings rocks and other debris around, causing the crew to head toward their spacecraft to leave the area, leaving behind a fallen team member, Mark Watney, who has been presumed to have died during the storm. Only Watney doesn't die, though he is quite injured, but manages to make it back to the Mars station for a bit of healing and contemplation on the fact that he is now stranded with no means of communication, and likely to die when one of his many precious resources (food, water, air) runs out. About four years out from the next expected mission to Mars, Watney decides he's going to use his training in botany and engineering to try to not only figure out a way to extend his chances of survival as long as he can, but he's also going to have to find a way to let those on Earth know he's still alive on the hopes they'll come back before it's too late for him.
The Scorch Trials is the follow-up to the modest 2014 hit, The Maze Runner, based on the 2010 YA novel by James Dashner. We continue to follow Thomas and his fellow Gladers, now out of the original maze, taken to a research facility where they meet the main administrator, Janson, who tells them that they will be taken to a place where they will no longer be in danger, once they pass a series of tests. Thomas soon discovers that not everything is what it appears to be, and comes to the conclusion that their lives will be in danger if they remain there. They take their chances surviving out on the Scorch, the desert-like surrounding area where a deadly Flare virus has run rampant and has turned much of the infected into miserable and deadly zombies, dubbed Cranks here. Hoping just to survive, the crew soon discovers that there are other humans left out there, who may be instrumental in fighting back against WCKD (WICKED), the original organization that enslaved them in order to harvest a vaccine to combat the Flare virus.
Based on the infamous true story from the late 1970s to early 1980s, Johnny Depp stars as James "Whitey" Bulger, a ruthless Irish-American crime boss who climbed the ladder to the top in south Boston as the leader of the Winter Hill Gang. In some part, it helps that his brother Billy is a highly influential politician in the area, but his biggest breakthrough on the fast-track to success comes when a childhood friend named John Connolly happens to be an FBI Agent assigned to take down crime bosses in Boston, and uses Bulger as an informant to take down what was then bigger fish in the city. Bulger is no rat, so he says, but if there's a way to take down his competition while also affording his own activities some protection, he's also no fool either. He takes the offer to exchange information for the authorities looking the other way, and soon both Bulger and Connolly gain instant success and influence in their respective positions, though things get more complicated when the murderous, drug-selling, arms-dealing, extorting, racketeering Bulger's protection allows him to become the biggest fish in the pond.
Fifteen-year-old Becca and her slightly younger brother Tyler are sent for a week-long stay in rural Pennsylvania to stay at the home of the grandparents they've never met while their single mother decides to treat herself to a romantic cruise with her new beau. Their first time staying with the elderly for an extended period, the kids are disturbed by the behavior of their Nana and Pop Pop, including Nana's cavorting around the house nude in a manic state, or Pop Pop's tantrums and mysterious trips to he secluded shed outside.
Sacred Himalayan peak Meru Peak in northern India, at nearly 22,000 feet, may not be the tallest mountain in the world, but it is one of the most difficult to climb. It's so difficult that, at least prior to this documentary's footage, it had never been scaled successfully, even by several of the world's best mountain climbers who've tried repeatedly, ultimately failing once they get to the precipitous "Shark's Fin" of the mountain's central of three peaks, where climbing is slow, the harsh climate is freezing, and the places to rest nearly nonexistent.
Meru documents both a 2008 and a 2011 attempt by Jimmy Chin, who put much of this film together, along with his longtime climbing partner Conrad Anker and ultra-athletic free-climber Renan Ozturk, to scale the complicated peak before the hundreds of pound of food and other necessary supplies runs out that would make success an impossibility.
Straight Outta Compton gives us the basic origins of the group N.W.A.'s three most well-known members, Dre, Cube, and Eazy-E, the latter of whom would turn some of the money he accrued while drug-dealing into launching his own record label, Ruthless Records, and made it a local success. Their radio buzz puts them on the radar of music talent manager Jerry Heller, who impresses on them that he has the chops in the business to take them to the next level of success, securing a record deal to give them national distribution, but also perhaps led to their eventual break-up, as contracts are signed but money never seems to flow in ways that smack of fairness. From there, the biopic deals with the group's controversy, particularly in their impassioned call to rise up against police brutality in "F--- Tha Police", as well as their lyrics that are called out for glamorizing the gangster lifestyle to their predominantly young listeners. Other threads include Cube's leaving the group to go solo, Dre eventually doing the same after one more album (from the frying pan to the fire of Los Angeles thug mogul Suge Knight), and Eazy-E's contraction of AIDS, which would take his life before a proposed reunion of the group, this time on their own terms, could take place.
After a prologue featuring David Lipsky hearing the news of David Foster Wallace's suicide in 2008, we flash back to 1996 for most of the duration, as the journalist travels to Wallace's home on the outskirts of Bloomington, Illinois for a few days before they head out to the final stop in Minneapolis, trying to pick his brain without being too pushy. The reserved author is very tight-lipped about things that are too personal in nature, which leads to a good deal of testiness on Wallace's part. Voids exist, as Lipsky begins to think that perhaps Wallace is trying to shape his image for the purpose of the interview and not be forthcoming about who he really is and what he believes, leading to some push back, and forcing the reporter to put together some insights based on the items Wallace keeps around his house.
Jason Bateman stars as Simon, who has just moved to hometown Los Angeles from Chicago with his wife Robyn and St. Bernard, Mr. Bojangles. Robyn has decided to stay at home to work while Simon heads off to corporate-land due to some unstable moments of paranoia and fear in her past, including the trauma of losing an unborn child before it came to term. While purchasing some items for their new home, Simon is approached by a man he once went to high school with, Gordon, and, out of politeness, 'Gordo', as he was once nicknamed in school, is invited over for dinner and to catch up with old times. Gordo tries to make peace, offering up such gifts as bottles fo wine, and new koi for their pond. Robyn finds him to be nice, if socially awkward, but something about Gordo begins to rub Simon the wrong way, which causes a bit of tension among the three, as well as some unsavory events of the past resurfacing that Robyn senses but can't put her finger on.
Miles Teller plays Reed Richards in his older form, who has invented, with assistance from his best and only friend Ben Grimm, a contraption that apparently allows it to teleport an object somewhere else and have it return back to the invention. Reed initially thinks that place it goes is on Earth, but he's later informed that he has created an inter-dimensional transporter that is connected to another planet full of all kinds of crazy energy that gets him linked up with Dr. Franklin Storm, the head of a government-sponsored science-based think tank for young prodigies called the Baxter Institute, along with his thrill-seeking son Johnny, his adopted genius of a daughter, Sue, and an older prodigy named Victor Von Doom, who has already been working on a project of similar direction.
After building a bigger version of the device that can transport much larger objects, the government rep on the case wants their men to take over the project once they see it has been successful, leaving the scientists who spent their lives forging the way little choice but to sneak into the facility and operate the high-tech machine themselves to be the first humans ever to travel to this new, undiscovered planet. After drunk-dialing Ben to join them on the fun, they do just that, and while there, things go awry when they discover the place is rife with an unknown and seemingly unstable energy source that consumes them, as Victor is lost, while the rest of the crew get back, barely, with their lives, forever changed by the experience, not only emotionally, but physically as well. Reed becomes a man of rubber-like abilities, Ben a goliath of stone, Johnny a man of flames and flight, and Sue a woman of invisibility and forcefields.
Ethan Hunt has to go it on his own as the IMF (Impossible Mission Force), for all intents and purposes, is shut down by the CIA head Alan Hunley for a lack of results on their latest mission, plus mishaps such as the Kremlin getting destroyed from their previous mission (as chronicled in the fourth M:I flick, Ghost Protocol). Hunt really wants to take down shadowy international terrorism syndicate leader Solomon Lane, who has been orchestrating a series of seemingly unrelated catastrophes for a higher purposes we don't come to fully find out until later in the plot. For reasons he can't make out, Lane has an operative in his employ, Ilsa Faust, who is as deadly as she is alluring, and she is helping Ethan Hunt while also committing some heinous acts -- a potential double agent in their midst.
Econo Airline pilot Rusty eavesdrops on a conversation in which his wife Debbie discusses how bored she's become of the routine in their marriage, exemplified by the usual Sheboygan cabin they rent every year around Memorial Day, Rusty decides to surprise her and their sons with something new -- a cross-country road trip from Chicago to So-Cal's Walley World, just like he had when he was a lad. Renting a similar family wagon in the Tartan Prancer, which contains features seemingly just to have them, the family of four set off for a whole series of misadventures, including road rage incidents, attempts at public sex, and a treacherous white-water rapids excursion with a suicidal rafting instructor at the nadir of his depressive state.
In 1982, Sam Brenner was one of the best video gamers around his local arcade. But not THE best, as he would eventually lose in a Worldwide Video Arcade Championship competition to the cocky, pimp-voiced, and mulleted Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant, who bests him at the wildly popular "Donkey Kong" to steal the victory. NASA had sponsored the event, and used the footage from the competition to send up to space, where it would eventually be found by aliens who take what they find as a declaration of war, and who come to Earth, 'Space Invaders'-style, to take over things using representations found from the video games they viewed from the original video.
Flash forward to today, and Will is now the President of the United States. Along with conspiracy theorist whack-job Ludlow Lamonsoff and fresh-from-prison former-nemesis Eddie Plant, Brenner, who now works as a low-level home electronics install guy, has to go to wherever the action is in order to apply his video game skills to thwart the advancing aliens in their various glowing cube forms, and in the process, save the Earth from destruction. He also finds that one of his customers, the hot single mom Violet Van Patten, is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that is heading the front against the invasion, though they have to rely in the gamers because the military lacks the kind of hand-eye coordination necessary to best these games. What a chance for a geek to impress the hot babes by saving the world!
Comedian Amy Schumer gets her chance to shine on the big screen with Trainwreck, playing, appropriately, Amy, working by day as a journalist at a men's lifestyle and celebrity gossip publication, but who drinks hard, gets high, and carouses with the opposite sex even harder when not on the clock. Life's in a predictable pattern of not getting too committed to things until she is assigned a piece on a famous sports doctor named Aaron. Meanwhile, Amy has even more on her plate when her philandering, hard-drinking father, Gordon, is hospitalized and put into assisted living, while Kim, Amy's pragmatic married sister, is constantly trying to get her to give up her hedonistic ways. It culminates in Amy coming to rely on the rock-solid support of Aaron, while all the while fighting off getting in too deep due to her own feelings on the kind of life that she should be leading.
There's actually more than one Ant-Man in the film, as we start with the original, Dr. Hank Pym, a leading scientist, and inventor of the "Pym Particle", which allows things, including people, to shrink own to ant-size, or more, but with enhanced strength. Through a series of ingenious plays, Pym manages to get his Ant Suit into the hands of resourceful (but jobless) cat burglar Scott Lang, recently released from prison for theft on a corporate scale, though he did it to return money the company reportedly bilked form its customers. The reason for the ruse: Pym wants Lang to thwart the plans of his power-hungry former protégé Darren Cross in using his designs to create his own method shrink people down to miniature size in the form of the flying, weaponized Yellowjacket suits, which he aims to do for nefarious purposes. Pym's shrewd and scrappy daughter Hope still works in the company under Cross, which gives them the inside knowledge they need for Lang to breach Cross's tight security and stop the Yellowjacket project before it disrupts global warfare as we know it.
Terminator Genisys starts in 2029, with the end of the rebellion against Skynet HQ, which makes it, essentially, both a prequel and a sequel to The Terminator, as we see the T-800 played by Schwarzenegger go back to 1984 and try to assassinate Sarah Connor, to make sure her son, John, will never be born, and therefore, not be able to lead humanity to victory against the machines. Following not long behind to keep this from happening is Kyle Reese, who soon discovers that he and the the killer cyborg aren't the first ones to travel to the past in this timeline, as he is soon met by an older form of a T-800 that was sent even further into the past to serve as Sarah's protector (earning him the nickname, "Pops"), as well as an even more dangerous T-1000 out to take them all down. Sarah, who is fully aware from an early age on what to expect will happen in the year 1984, barely needs protecting, and might only be interested in keeping Reese around because he is also needed to create John in the future. Together, they seek to keep the Terminators from killing the seed of Resistance in Earth's future, while the humans seek to stop the creation of Genisys, the seed of what will eventually become Skynet -- it's a race against time through time.
Shameik Moore stars as Malcolm, a geeky high school senior with Harvard aspirations living in "The Bottoms", one of the toughest neighborhoods in Inglewood, California. When he's not trying to avoid crossing the paths of troublemakers, he's spending time with his best friends Diggy and Jib playing in their pop-punk band, or diving head first into 1990s hip-hop, including sporting the high-top fade hair style and colorful fashion of the "Yo! MTV Raps" era.
One day, Malcolm runs into one of those troublemakers he typically avoids, a drug dealer named Dom, and ends up trying to play matchmaker between him and a local beauty that Malcolm himself has a thing for, Nakia. Nakia's one condition for seeing Dom results in Malcolm and friends being invited to Dom's birthday bash at a local club. A botched drug deal leads Dom to stash his supply of MDMA (aka, molly, aka, ecstasy) in Malcolm's backpack, which some murderous gangsters want back. Malcolm is told by an incarcerated Dom that he can, under no circumstances, give it to them, leaving his life in jeopardy until he can find a safe way to appease all of the interested parties involved.
The basic premise of this film is that we're given the emotional inner workings of a young girl in Minnesota named Riley (Dias, The Shifting), through the personification of her feelings -- Joy (Poehler, They Came Together), Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger -- and how they try to coordinate to navigate her way through life in as safe and secure a way possible, looking out as if from the control tower of her mind's eye, through the many stages in life. Now eleven years old, this is a particularly tricky stage in her development, just on the cusp of maturing into a teenager, when the simplicity and imagination of her young childhood no longer interest her, and she begins to deal with new emotions, hopes, fears, and struggles with identity. The confusion is further exacerbated by career opportunity for her father that results in the family uprooting from the only place Riley has ever known, and moving to San Francisco, where she has no friends, no creature comforts, none of her favorite activities, and especially no ice hockey.
As much as Joy tries to keep Riley content, her disappointing new home, the awkwardness of being a stranger in school, and the unfamiliar city around her leads the maturing girl to feel very out of sorts emotionally, giving way to many of her cherished memories turning from ones of happiness into ones of a cherished life sorely missed, as that part of her childhood seems to have been left behind forever. Those feelings cause Sadness to begin to take control of the machine that controls Riley and her orb-like embodiment of memories, which leads Joy to try to take drastic action to curb the tendency of Sadness to affect the balance of things. However, in her desperation, both Joy and Sadness get inadvertently ousted from the command center into the crazy and mysterious nether regions of Riley's mind. They encounter a series of obstacles in their long and arduous trek back, leaving Fear, Disgust, and Anger are the only emotions Riley can feel in this very delicate and confusing time in her life, while the happy memories of her youth begin to fade into oblivion.
Siblings Gray and Zach are sent on vacation to visit their Aunt Claire, who is the manager of operations at the Costa Rica island resort known as Jurassic World, a tourist attraction funded by mega-billionaire named Simon Masrani that takes its basic idea from the original Jurassic Park but seeks to do the formula right (i.e., more profitably). In addition to the assortment of dinosaurs, the corporation is looking into creating their own hybrid dinos through experiments in genetic engineering that are sure to draw in even more interested visitors year after year. Their biggest creation is the Indominus Rex, a creation that splices the T. Rex DNA with a hodge-podge of other predators of various strengths, that just might be the most deadly creature that has ever roamed the Earth. Navy vet Owen Grady is a behavioral research consultant and talent trainer at the facility, looking into the ability for these dinosaurs to learn from human instruction, and he's especially made progress at whispering to velociraptors, which may prove to be a much needed thing now that Indominus Rex has gotten out of its cage and is prepared to hunt and kill whatever it can on the island, which ultimately could mean the slaughter of 20,000 visitors trapped in the theme park.
Love and Mercy, which takes its name from the first track on Brian Wilson's first solo album in 1988, is a biopic on Brian Wilson, the musical genius behind many of the Beach Boys greatest and most critically acclaimed hits. It's a tale told in two parts, one being the days of the late 1960s in which Wilson, here played by Paul Dano, would quite live touring to spend his days in the studio to make the ambitious albums Pet Sounds and the defunct Smile almost single-handedly, and the other taking place in the 1980s, when Wilson, played in these scenes by John Cusack, would be kept under the tight scrutiny of Dr. Eugene Landy, who had been treating the reclusive and troubled artist for paranoid schizophrenia. Wilson's most creative period was also his most troubled, as his mental illness allowed him to draw out styles and sounds unheard of in any recording to date, but also affected his personal life to the point of disaster. His later years were characterized by his subservience to his doctor, who controlled every aspect of his life, and Wilson's budding romance with a Los Angeles car salesperson named Melinda Ledbetter, who thinks he is being manipulated and overmedicated.
McCarthy plays a CIA computer specialist names Susan Cooper, whose job it is to monitor a dreamboat of a field agent named Bradley Fine and try to give him suggestions (via an earpiece) to keep him safe, based on what she sees and hears from the hidden surveillance equipment he carries within a contact lens. That comes to an end when Fine is taken down by a Bulgarian arms dealer named Rayna Boyanov, who lets it be known that she knows who all of their top spooks are and to stay away, lest they befall the same fate. With a deal about to go down involving a stolen nuke between Rayna and an Italian terrorist, time is of the essence, so Susan volunteers to fly to Paris surveil the situation as an operative herself in order to get the intel needed before bringing in the big guns. However, her gung-ho attitude, along with a buttinski disgruntled rogue agent named Rick Ford, makes her ability to stay inconspicuous quite the chore.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson plays Los Angeles Fire Department fireman and helicopter rescue pilot Ray Gaines, who ends up commandeering an LAFD chopper in order to try to rescue his soon-to-be ex-wife and daughter before they're crushed in the rubble following a series of mammoth earthquakes the likes of which California has never seen before.
Thomas Mann stars as Pittsburgh-raised twelfth-grader Greg, who spends most of his days trying to fly under the radar among his peers at school, not trying to fit in so much as to not stand out. He's longtime friends (or co-workers, he states due to his desire not to commit to anything definitive) with Earl. Together, they spend a good deal of their spare time not only watching classic films, but making their own silly spoof home movies based upon them (echoes of Be Kind Rewind abound). His mother thinks it's important for him to make a connection, and cajoles him into visiting Rachel, a fellow classmate he barely knows who has recently been diagnosed with stage four leukemia. They begrudgingly spend time together, but soon form a unique friendship. The young men decide to make a film just for Rachel, hoping it will give her the strength she needs for the long and arduous battle ahead.
his time out, Max Rockatansky is played by Tom Hardy, an established actor known for playing many complex, troubled antiheroes, so a natural fit for the part. He's an ex-cop in post-apocalyptic Australia. His travels eventually lead him to abetting the fierce and heroic Imperator Furiosa, who is on a cross-country journey in a mega-tanker through desolate wasteland to transport five pregnant women used by a vicious, slaving despot named Immortan Joe for breeding purposes to a legendary oasis of her youth ("the place where it's green"). As one of his children is ready to pop, Joe is going to get that child at any cost, so the deadly chase is afoot, with Furiosa and Max greatly outnumbered against the horde of sadistic "war boys" in Joe's command, willing to do whatever it takes to stop the exodus from succeeding.
Juliette Binoche stars as internationally famous actress Maria Enders, whom we meet on a trip to Zurich, Switzerland with handy and very trustworthy personal assistant and confidante, Valentine, in tow, asked to accept a major career tribute, on behalf of Wilhelm Melchior, the playwright and screenwriter who gave her a big break early on (and perhaps a bit of romance). En route, she receives word that he has died, which derails the spirit of the speech she has been preparing. Meanwhile, Maria is approached by a respected young director looking to cast her in a juicy role in the very play that brought her fame, "Maloja Snake", except this time, she's slated to play the older romantic counterpart to the young seductress she had played in the original production.
Loki's scepter, remnant from the first crossover film, which had been used for its power to draw forth two more beings of inordinate ability and skill in twin brother and sister Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, a speedster and telekinetic mind-warper, respectively. After the battle, the Avengers end up with the scepter's possession, which Tony Stark uses to try to create an army of artificial-intelligence entities that will work to shield Earth from possible alien threats in the future. However, the first AI creation emerges, and its belief is that to protect Earth from harm (as Tony puts it, achieving "peace in our time"), that means eradicating the ones most responsible for its perilous situation -- humans. It's now up to the Avengers to keep this new entity, dubbed "Ultron", from succeeding in its mission of protection
The entirety of the film is the view from the laptop screen of teenager Blaire Lily,whose very private Skype conversation with boyfriend Mitch is rudely interrupted by a trio of friends looking to chat up the clique. It's the first anniversary of the suicide of their classmate, Laura, who offed herself after being cyberbullied following the posting of a dreadfully embarrassing video of her on YouTube. When a sixth participant in the group chat appears, and Blaire begins to get private messages on Facebook from Laura's dormant account, she immediately suspects one of them is playing some sort of very sick joke. Or, perhaps it is a malicious hacker. Or, perhaps worst of all, could it truly be Laura contacting them from beyond? If so, they're all in trouble, as they're told they will die if they leave the chat, and "Laura" has a lot of information to expose about them all they wouldn't want anyone to know, especially within that very clique of friends.