Wow, there's a lot
this weekend. There is counter-programming for counter-programming
among the six new releases you'll be able to catch. You get animated
family “fun,” a movie about cannibals, a lighthearted feel-good
comedy about the silly mistakes old people make, a couple awards
contenders, and a foreign horror flick that has been wowing people
left and right. Let's see the buffet of possible excellence.
Hotel Transylvania 2
Director: Genndy
Tartakovsky
Writers: Adam
Sandler, Robert Smigel
Starring: Adam
Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg
The first Hotel
Transylvania was a big hit for the whole family. So it's back.
There's a monster baby who might become a vampire like grandpa Adam
Sandler, or maybe he won't and Sandler's Dracula will learn to accept
the child as he is, flawed and human.
Sandler's regular
friends (hangers on?) all return in animated form, but with the
co-writer being Robert Smigel (the guy behind Saturday Night
Live's TV Funhouse and the voice/puppeteer of Triumph the
Insult Comic Dog), there's a chance for something special on the
edges of this comedic animated sequel.
The Green Inferno
Director: Eli Roth
Writers: Eli Roth,
Guillermo Amoedo, Nicolás López
Starring: Lorenza
Izzo, Ariel Levy, Aaron Burns, Kirby Bliss Blanton
The point of this
movie is that bad things happen to “idiots” who want to help the
world. Or something like that. It's apparently filled with extreme
violence directed at people who are trying to save the rainforest. It
comes from Eli Roth, whose work I only know by reputation outside of
his appearance as an actor in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious
Basterds. From what my gore hound friends tell me, the guy knows
his way around tension and shocking violence. I'll take them at their
word for that and get to this one in time, but I'd be lying if I said
it was the first thing on my list.
The Intern
Director: Nancy
Meyers
Writer: Nancy
Meyers
Starring: Robert De
Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo
Robert De Niro
plays a retiree who doesn't know what to do with himself anymore, so
he takes an internship at a startup that does something that looks
startup-y. Anne Hathaway is the overwhelmed CEO of the company who
hires De Niro as her assistant. Generational divides are conquered
and feelings are felt. Writer-director Nancy Meyers has made this
kind of middlebrow dramedy for a while, sometimes to great effect –
The Holiday is evidence to the contrary to anyone who says
modern romantic comedies are uniformly terrible. But it's still
modern De Niro, who hasn't exactly been giving it his all in the last
15 years or so. It's a wishy washy proposition that could be a nice
choice or make you roll your eyes until they fall out.
Everest
Director: Baltasar
Kormákur
Writers: William
Nicholson, Simon Beaufoy
Starring: Jason
Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin
A group of burly
men attempt to take on nature and things don't go so well for them.
This story about scaling Mount Everest has the high stakes, acting
talent, and visual spectacle that could make for a serious Oscar
contender. A sign of its promise is the fact that the trailer – and
theoretically, the film as a whole – makes no bones about the
success of reaching Everest's top. It's the way down that provides
the biggest, deadliest challenges, as a storm overtakes the climbers.
Sicario
Director: Denis
Villeneuve
Writer: Taylor
Sheridan
Starring: Emily
Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro
This is one of my
most anticipated movies of the year. Director Denis Villeneuve did
last year's Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal in dual roles in a
yellow-drenched Twilight Zone intellectual thriller. It was
one of the best movies of 2014, and now Villeneuve has returned to do
a crime drama about the drug trade, starring one of the top actresses
working today, plus the always bizarre and enjoyable Benicio Del
Toro. From all accounts, it is about the messy gray areas of morality
involved in drug law enforcement, plus a healthy smattering of
masterfully crafted action. Sign me up.
Goodnight Mommy
Directors: Severin
Fiala, Veronika Franz
Writers: Veronika
Franz, Severin Fiala
Starring: Susanne
Wuest, Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz
Two twin brothers
notice something is off about their mom when she returns home from
some sort of operation on her face. She wears bandages and acts “so
different.” And then she eats a giant cockroach. This one looks
like it goes to some thoroughly unnerving places and seemingly
everyone is flipping for it. Is she really different? Is there
something supernatural happening? Does it matter? The filmmaking on
display in the trailer alone looks superb, subjective, and altogether
freaky.
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