Movies

FROZEN 2 has a high bar to get over, what with the first film having produced a main theme that won an Oscar, a Grammy, and a Critics Choice award. But this film is all about taking leaps, as the characters go through their own transformations in this richly layered tale that is more stage musical than its predecessor.

It's autumn in Arendelle, the season that reminds us that life changes. And where the scenery does this with subtlety, Olaf the Snowman (JOSH GAD) does it with overtness. He's rather old for a snowman now, and with age comes a certain wisdom. Anna (KRISTEN BELL) assures him there are some things that will remain constant. Remember them, there will be tragic callbacks later to them in the movie. While Anna comforts Olaf that things will go on changeless, Kristoff (JONATHAN GROFF) is preparing to introduce a big change in his and Anna's life by proposing -- if he could ever get the words out without Anna finding a self-conscious way to twist all his words.

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT is a coming of age tale set in a small town in Britain. Javed (VIVEIK KAIRA) is a British young man of Pakistani descent. His father and mother (KUVLINDER GHIR, MEERA GANATRA) both emigrated from Pakistan for a better life. But this is the UK of the 1980s, and teens walk the streets wearing swastikas. Pakistani homes are assaulted with grafitti, and Pakistani men are attacked on the street.

Javed is uncertain what path his life will take, but he knows he doesn't want it to be the path his father puts him on. He writes lyrics for his best friend, Matt (DEAN-CHARLES CHAPMAN), who fronts for a rock band, and he dreams of going to London to make it on his own there.

The first thing you'll need to know about Tom Hanks' latest film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, opening everywhere November 22, 2019, is that it's not a biography of Fred Rogers, the widely beloved star of the long-running children's television program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. That was covered perfectly by last year's Academy Award nominee Won't You Be My Neighbor. This film features Hanks as Rogers, but the story is not about the man. The story is about impact Mr. Rogers had on the people who were fortunate enough to meet him.

The world is all divided into three parts. On the first, there is the island of the flightless birds, who get around in the air through the use of giant slingshots. On the other island live the green pigs, with whom the birds are at constant prank war. Chief among the warrior birds is Red (JASON SUDEIKIS), who is revered because he protected the island from the pigs and their leader, Leonard (BILL HADER) with the help of his friends Chuck (JOSH GAD) and Bomb (DANNY McBRIDE).

But there is a third island, an island of ice, newly discovered and declaring war upon the lands of both pig and bird, launching giant iceballs through the air and reigning down not pranks but destruction. Having a common enemy, birds and pigs forge a truce to work together and stop the mad plans of Zeta (LESLIE JONES) who seeks revenge against the one who jilted her years ago -- Mighty Eagle (PETER DINKLAGE).

The idea of adapting the Nickelodeon pre-school cartoon series, DORA THE EXPLORER, into a matured teenaged jungle expert is, quite frankly, an idea that should have been money in the bank. From the trailers, we see all the classic DORA touchpoints that seem deservedly odd in a live-action film, such as young Dora breaking the fourth wall and asking the audience if they can say a word. That's a cute throwback to the cartoon series. 

When we first meet Dora, she's six years old, and living in the jungle with her parents, Elena (EVA LONGORIA) and Cole (MICHAEL PEÑA), and her cousin Diego. When Diego has to go back home to the city (Go, Diego! Go!), Dora is left with no one her own age with whom to relate.

Kate (EMILIA CLARKE) is a professional elf in the employ of Santa. No, she's not at the North Pole; Santa is her grouchy Asian boss, played by MICHELLE YEOH. Kate's a bit of a cock-up, going from flat to flat, wherever she can find a friend who will let her flop for the night. Her parents live in town, but she can't stand being around her overprotective mother. Kate's attitude also carries over into her job, which she treats with apathy and carelessness, being more focused on getting the big audition that will launch her music career.

When she encounters Tom (HENRY GOLDING), her life begins to slowly change. She finds him weird at first, and she continues dating other people (if we define dating as "sleeping around"). But the more she bumps into him, the more she is drawn to this blissfully zen-like man, who is always "looking up" and finding new things to appreciate.

PLAYING WITH FIRE is the kind of family comedy we've seen before: kids vs. adults, with the kids safely maneuvering around dangerous situations, while formerly unflappable adults are suddenly incapable of handling themselves because they are new to dealing with children.

That's the setup for when a crew of smokejumpers go to a cabin fire, where they find three kids -- Brynn (DEADPOOL's BRIANNA HILDEBRAND), Will (CHRISTIAN CONVERY, DESCENDENTS 3), and Zoey (FINLEY ROSE SLATER in her acting debut) -- huddled under a piece of debris. Superintendent "Supe" Jake Carson (JOHN CENA, BUMBLEBEE) pulls them out of harm's way, and almost immediately comic incompetence ensues.

Over the past several years, the broadcast bands get more and more flooded with sentimental holiday romance films. From Hallmark to Lifetime, from the occasional theatrical release to the annually repeated standards, the plethora of yuletide romance flicks are thick enough to drown in your own pile of tissues. They blend into each other, become predictable. Often you can recognize the plot from another movie and see they've merely changed the names, or the career, or made the single mom with a too-cute son a single dad with a precocious daughter. So it takes a lot for a new Christmas feature to stand out from the pack.

CHRISTMAS JARS, from Director Jonathan Wright, does more than stand out -- it stands apart, wasting no time at all in grabbing the viewer by the heart and squeezing.

Disney is on a roll when it comes to producing "live action" versions of their animated classics, and their release of THE LION KING is no exception. Now, with Christmas on a collision course with all of us, the House of Mouse has released this CGI masterpiece to the home video market, including Blu-ray and Digital.

Has it really been twenty years since TIM ALLEN, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, ALAN RICKMAN, TONY SHALHOUB, SAM ROCKWELL and DARYL MITCHELL took off aboard the NSEA Protector to explore the farthest corners of the galaxy -- only to have their voyage cancelled on a cliffhanger? See, GALAXY QUEST was just a television show, a science fiction classic beloved by fans and made into the centerpiece of conventions, much to the chagrin of the actors of the series -- Jason Nesmith, Gwen DeMarco, Alexander Dane, Fred Kwan, Guy Fleegman, and Tommy Webber -- who found themselves typecast into their roles and condemned to make a living through special appearances and autographing photos. The only one really into it is Nesmith (ALLEN), but when he overhears two teens talking about how pathetic his life must be, it shakes his confidence.

In 1998, director Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) unleashed a chilling tale of technological terror on unsuspecting audiences, which redefined the horror genre, launched the J-horror boom in the West and introduced a generation of moviegoers to a creepy, dark-haired girl called Sadako. The film s success spawned a slew of remakes, reimaginations and imitators, but none could quite boast the power of Nakata s original masterpiece, which melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of technology.

I've been at this gig of reviewing movies for a while now; enough to call it a career. And it's always good when something pops up to remind you that this industry has been going on a lot longer than your little blip on the radar, and produced things of a caliber that 3D CGI multip-part franchise stunt casting will never attain.

Case in point: MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES. This two-hour biopic presents the life of Lon Chaney, an icon of the industry known for his commitment to parts, but moreso for his ability to portray any role, no matter how foreign or grotesque.

With CHARLIE'S ANGELS preparing for yet another attempt at theatrical acclaim, it seems almost counter-productive to release CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE on Blu-ray to remind viewers of just how well things went in the past for this franchise's attempts to make it on the big screen.

Let's face it. FULL THROTTLE was purely for self-referential nostalgia, in-jokes, and gratuitous giggle-and-jiggle. The plot was thinner than Twiggy, with the Angels having to track down two metal rings that, together, decrypted into the full list of Federal Witness Protection participants. The full list. Think about that. Yes, it could fit on two rings easily enough with micro engraving and compression coding. But... every time someone new has to enter the program, you have to have both rings brought in and re-engraved. Seems to be a rather clunky way to handle security, unless you need a Macguffin to drive a plot.

HENRY CAVILL (MAN OF STEEL) is Marshall, a law officer gone terminally cynical from the job, which makes relating with his daughter particularly difficult. Concerned about protecting his daughter from anything and anyone, he finds himself suddenly embroiled in a case of a serial killer who preys on young girls. He catches a break on the case when a former judge turned vigilante, Cooper (BEN KINGSLEY) loses his literal jailbait partner, Lara (ELIANA JONES), to the killer, thinking him merely another predator for them to take off the board. Fortunately for Lara, she wears a tracking device, leading both Cooper and Marshall to her and Simon (BRENDAN FLETCHER), a mentally handicapped man holding Lara and several other girls hostage and putting them through torture.

But while Simon is in custody and being profiled, his captors are targeted for murder and extorted into effecting his escape. Begging the question: Do they have the right man, or does he have an accomplice.

A CINDERELLA STORY has blossomed into a successful storytelling franchise, with so sign of the stroke of midnight anywhere in sight. A CINDERELLA STORY: CHRISTMAS WISH continues the streak, setting the familiar Cinderella trope against a holiday backdrop.

The Current War is a film with an interesting subject, great visuals and fine cinematography, and a star-packed cast. Unfortunately it doesn’t provide anything close to an electrifying movie experience. It’s a shame, too, because a more through character study of Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Nikolai Tesla and Samuel Insull should be a fascinating look at a Mount Rushmore of minds that helped shape the next century-plus of American history. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon manages only to craft a superficial and seemingly sanitized examination of the battle for America’s fledgling electrical grid during the Industrial Revolution from Michael Mitnick’s screenplay.

WONDER WOMAN: BLOODLINES is a callback to the DC Universe crossover event of several years back. It has nothing to do with that event however, so don't get excited if you were a fan. Rather, this new release from the DCAU represents the origin of Wonder Woman (ROSARIO DAWSON), with Steve Trevor (JEFFREY DONOVAN) crashing near Themyscira after attempting to shoot down an incursion of Apokoliptian parademons. This serves to tie the story in better to JUSTICE LEAGUE: WAR, to cement Diana into the mythos.

Diana sacrifices her life on Themyscira, defying her mother, Hippolyta (CREE SUMMER), and losing her life on Themyscira for good in choosing to help Trevor and defend Man's World.

During a devastating hurricane, a young woman finds herself trapped in the crawlspace of a house with two enormous alligators. Cue the terror.

Haley (MAZE RUNNER's KAYA SCODELARIO) is a professional swimmer who gets a call to check on her estranged father as a hurricane barrels down on the state. Defying evacuation orders, she drives through a roadblock to ensure her father (BARRY PEPPER) is safe.

He's not.

While making a repair in the crawlspace of the family home, he got mauled by an enormous alligator. Fearing him dead, Haley barely escapes the maw of one alligator, but her luck runs slimmer the longer she's forced to find a way out of the crawlspace as the floodwaters rise, threatening to drown them both.

Previously released in two parts, THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN and REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN have now been edited together into a seamless, single movie experience.

Superman (JERRY O'CONNELL) is struggling. As Clark Kent, his relationship with Lois Lane (REBECCA ROMIJN) is difficult to commit to as he has been keeping a huge secret from her. He becomes particularly nervous about this when his parents come to town and meet Lois for the first time. The advice of his fellow Justice League members is that he should open up to her if he wants her to be a larger part of his life.

It's the movie "they" didn't want you to see -- the film that glorified killing to such an extent, it was expected the easily influenced would take it as a training manual and copy the techniques to commit mass acts of violence.

But, thus far, the only reported incident requiring police intervention involved two men arrested for smoking during the film. (No word if the film was at midnight, or if the two smokers watching JOKER were using marijuana. Thank the Steve Miller Band for my going the long way around for that pun.)

So was all the media hysteria for nothing, or was there a predictable risk that JOKER could set in motion a wave of violence among those already suffering mental illness?