by
Julien Faddoul
Toy Story 4 **
When a new toy called "Forky" joins Woody and the gang, a road trip alongside old and new friends reveals how big the world can be for a toy.
More of an epilogue than a final chapter for one of cinema’s incomparable series of films, acutely calling into question various epistemological understandings of a happy life, including applicable loyalty, childless marriages and the meaning behind sentience itself. But there are two major problems here: 1) Pixar – who at their best, insist on and sustain unusually high standards of sequence-by-sequence dramatic storytelling, and at their worst are dispiritedly defensive and/or misleading about said standards – have by this point covered so much ground concerning the existential perplexities of aging, mortality and being a parent/child that the cliché now writes itself. The emotional beats, right up to and including the expected bittersweet revelation, have now become calculable. And 2) None of this introspection harmonizes very well with the plot. There are essentially three stories here, strung together by a (typical) rescue-mission scenario that is far too slight to muster the angst that was clearly intended. Ergo, when the conclusion arrives, what should be displays of sentiment become displays of sentimentality. It’s all perfectly lovely but in an age when sequelitis is kicking the life out of the artform, this one never manages to lose the air of cumbrous inconsequentiality.
d – Josh Cooley
w – John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Josh Cooley, Valerie LaPointe, Stephany Folsom, Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, Martin Hynes
ph – Patrick Lin, Jean-Claude Kalache
pd – Bob Pauley
m – Randy Newman
ed – Axel Geddes
p – Mark Nielson, Jonas Rivera
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Madeleine McGraw, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves, Ally Maki, Jay Hernandez, Lori Alan, Joan Cusack, Bonnie Hunt, Kristen Schaal, Emily Davis, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Blake Clark, June Squibb, Carl Weathers, Lila Sage Bromley, Don Rickles, Jeff Garlin, Estelle Harris, Laurie Metcalf, Mel Brooks, Alan Oppenheimer, Carol Burnett, Betty White, Carl Reiner, Bill Hader, Patricia Arquette, Timothy Dalton
Late Night *
A late-night talk-show host suspects that she may soon lose her long-running show.
An interesting idea for a commentary on the world of comedic late-night television, but the world it actually depicts is not an authentic one. It is impossible to believe much of the characters’ actions or intentions as they have been assembled, despite Thompson’s winning persona.
d – Nisha Ganatra
w – Mindy Kaling
ph – Matthew Clark
pd – Elizabeth J. Jones
m – Lesley Barber
ed – Eleanor Infante, David Rogers
cos – Mitchell Travers
p – Mindy Kaling, Howard Klein
Cast: Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, John Lithgow, Reid Scott, Amy Ryan, Denis O'Hare, Hugh Dancy, Max Casella, Paul Walter Hauser, John Early, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Faith Logan, Ike Barinholtz
Men in Black: International
The MIB tackle their biggest threat to date: a mole in the Men in Black organization.
A plodding installment in a franchise nobody cares about that is totally devoid of fun or invention.
d – F. Gary Gray
w – Matt Holloway, Art Marcum (Based on the Characters by Lowell Cunningham)
ph – Stuart Dryburgh
pd – Charles Wood
m – Chris Bacon, Danny Elfman
ed – Zene Baker, Christian Wagner, Matt Willard
cos – Penny Rose
p – Laurie MacDonald, Walter F. Parkes
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rebecca Ferguson, Emma Thompson, Rafe Spall, Kumail Nanjiani, Jess Radomska, Viktorija Faith, Ania Sowinski, Andy Beckwith, Stephen Wight
Dark Phoenix
Another X-Men movie...
Dull and, at times, fairly embarrassing piece of comic book absurdity that relies so heavily on the presumption that the world worships this universe of characters to the point of utter vacuum.
wd – Simon Kinberg (Based on the Comic Book by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby)
ph – Mauro Fiore
pd – Claude Paré
m – Hans Zimmer
ed – Lee Smith
cos – Daniel Orlandi
p – Todd Hallowell, Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker, Lauren Shuler Donner
Cast: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp, Lamar Johnson, Kota Eberhardt
Shaft
John Shaft Jr, a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, enlists his family's help to uncover the truth behind his best friend's untimely death.
Gross and confused, turning a seminal character of blaxploitation cinema into an intolerant sitcom puppet. Why?
d – Tim Story
w – Kenya Barris, Alex Barnow (Based on the Novel by Ernest Tidyman)
ph – Larry Blanford
ad – Jeremy Woolsey
m – Christopher Lennertz
ed – Peter S. Elliot
cos – Olivia Miles
p – John Davis
Cast: Jessie Usher, Samuel L. Jackson, Richard Roundtree, Alexandra Shipp, Regina Hall, Matt Lauria, Avan Jogia, Lauren Vélez, Method Man, Tashiana Washington
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