[7] Two high school relay racers (Gijs Blom and Ko Zandvliet) develop a same-sex attraction, but one of the boys is afraid to make their relationship public. This Dutch drama/romance features a likable, competent cast and is shot in several beautiful locations around the Netherlands. As a ‘coming out’ story, it doesn’t break the mold in the slightest, but director Mischa Kamp does a fine …
[8] Joaquin Phoenix stars in writer/director Spike Jonze’s sci-fi romance about a divorced man who falls in love with a computer operating system. Her takes place in a not-so-distant future in which society has become increasingly reliant on technology to fulfill our emotional needs. Phoenix’s operating system, named Samantha and voiced by Scarlett Johansson, is constantly evolving. Like a human being, she learns from trial …
[8] A six-year-old girl lives on a small island called “The Bathtub” in Louisiana, where she lives in squalor with her dying, tough-love father until flooding drives them into their makeshift boat to find food and stable shelter. They band together with other survivors and try to avoid government agencies who want them to vacate “The Bathtub” and submit to medical treatment at shelters on …
[7] Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire) directs this family drama/comedy about a widower, played by Matt Damon, who buys a rural home that comes with a rundown zoo. Damon and his two young children help the ragtag team of zoo keepers, led by Scarlett Johansson, to bring the zoo up to code so that it can re-open to the public — and along the …
[7] Visionary director Julie Taymor (Titus, Across the Universe) brings Shakespeare’s The Tempest to the big screen, with the lead role of Prospero played not by a man, as per tradition, but by Helen Mirren. Mirren’s Prospera is raising her daughter (Felicity Jones) on a barren, mystical island where she can practice the magic that got her banished from society. The film opens with Prospera …
[8] Cult director Richard Stanley (Hardware) delivers a dread-inducing adaptation H.P. Lovecraft’s Color Out of Space. Nicolas Cage and Joely Richardson play a couple who have moved their teenage children (Madeleine Arthur and Brendan Meyer) out of the big city and into the New England boonies to slow down the pace of life. But when a meteorite crashes in their front yard and begins affecting …
[6] There’s a certain kind of movie that is really hard to review. This is one of those movies. It’s a studio movie, formulaic in structure and unremarkable in substance, but entertaining in laughs and thrills and a great vehicle for a charismatic cast. Marvel has hooked onto this. I think Sony/Columbia has as well with their new rebooted Jumanji franchise. So there’s a video …
[7] Two teenaged boys, friends since early childhood, experience a rift after a night of drunken sexual experimentation. One boy questions his sexuality while the other leans into homophobic name-calling and behavior to distance himself from his former friend. Meeting the dilemma honestly helps one boy to move forward, while fear holds the other one back. Giant Little Ones features some incredible performances from young …
[6] A big-budget studio action-comedy is one of the least likely candidates to catch my attention these days, but a few people insisted Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a cut above the rest. And while the bar is low, they were right. The movie centers around four teenagers sentenced to clean out a school basement during detention. While there, they find a video game …
[6] Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds are among the scientists on the International Space Station who discover a tiny, peculiar life form in a piece of debris from Mars. When the life form cripples a colleague and starts to grow, the station’s crew begins to worry. Then the body count begins. Life is another in a long line of ‘Ten Little Indian’ creature …
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