by
Julien Faddoul
Us *
A family's serenity turns to chaos when a group of doppelgängers begin to terrorize them.
As someone who felt that Peele’s previous, widely overvalued debut film was a tremendously clever allegory and not much else, the declarative obviousness and clumsily scattered nature of his sophomore effort comes as less of a curiosity to me as it will to others. Like before, some thematic ideas are amusing and the cast is supreme (particularly Nyong'o and Moss) but there’s little here – in both staging and writing – that distinguishes his films from all the other awkwardly overt modern-day scarefests.
wd – Jordan Peele
ph – Mike Gioulakis
pd – Ruth De Jong
m – Michal Abels
ed – Nicholas Monsour
cos – Kym Barrett
p – Jason Blum, Ian Cooper, Sean McKittrick, Jordan Peele
Cast: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Madison Curry, Anna Diop, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
Captain Marvel
Carol Danvers becomes one of the universe's most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races.
Typical Marvel movie glibness that gains nothing from centering the material on a female, nor from its use of de-aging CGI. The storytelling is infantile, the action is bland and the dialogue is risible.
d – Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
w – Nicole Perlman, Meg LeFauve, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, Geneva Robertson-Dworet
ph – Ben Davis
pd – Andy Nicholson
m – Pinar Toprak
ed – Debbie Berman, Elliot Graham
cos – Sanja Milkovic Hays
p – Kevin Feige
Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Annette Bening, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Clark Gregg, Lee Pace, Djimon Hounsou, Algenis Perez Soto, Rune Temte, Chuku Modu, Matthew Maher, Akira Akbar, Kenneth Mitchell, Mckenna Grace, London Fuller, Colin Ford, Pete Ploszek, Mark Daugherty, Vik Sahay
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World **
When Hiccup discovers Toothless isn't the only Night Fury, he must seek "The Hidden World", a secret Dragon Utopia.
A striking and gorgeous conclusion to one of the 21st century’s greatest cinematic triptychs, narrowing the series’ soulfulness onto the two main characters and their love for one another, while still concentrating on quiet moments of mortal emotion and behaviour that are atypical to big-budget animation of this kind. DeBlois’ control slackens a bit this time, with too much stilted comedy and not enough characterization, but united together the series certainly ranks as DreamWorks’ finest achievement.
wd – Dean DeBlois
pd – Pierre Olivier-Vincent
m – John Powell
ed – John K. Carr
p – Bonnie Arnold, Brad Lewis
Cast: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, F. Murray Abraham, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, Kit Harington, Justin Rupple
Fighting with My Family
A former wrestler and his family make a living performing at small venues around the country while his kids dream of joining the WWE.
Unfunny sports comedy that works as nothing more than a feature-length advertisement for World Wrestling Entertainment, including several cameos from its biggest commodities. Obviously, devotees to the entertainment conglomerate – and those who find British working-class families automatically hilarious – will enjoy themselves.
wd – Stephen Merchant
ph – Remi Adefarasin
pd – Nick Palmer
m – Vik Sharma
ed – Nancy Richardson
cos – Matthew Price
p – Michael J. Luisi, Kevin Misher
Cast: Florence Pugh, Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn, Thea Megan Trinidad, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Wight, Stephen Merchant, Aqueela Zoll
High Flying Bird ***
During an NBA lockout, a sports agent presents his rookie client with an intriguing and controversial business opportunity.
Exceptional, well-acted, highly intelligent rapid-fire dramedy on the politics – both racial and systemic – of the basketball world, presented in the cryptic, heist-like style typical of the director and filmed with an iPhone 8 with an anamorphic lens attached. The circumstances involved speak directly to that of the filmmaker himself, who for the last 20 years has excavated every discernible avenue of working around the studio system for the purposes of amalgamating as much accessible control for the artist as possible. The final few minutes of the film, which adjusts the audience's perception of what has gone before, is some of the most affecting work of Soderbergh’s career.
d – Steven Soderbergh
w – Tarell Alvin McCraney
ph – Peter Andrews
pd – Andy Eklund
m – David Wilder Savage
ed – Mary Ann Bernard
cos – Marci Rodgers
p – Joseph Malloch
Cast: André Holland, Zazie Beetz, Sonja Sohn, Melvin Gregg, Jeryl Prescott, Kyle MacLachlan, Zachary Quinto, Bill Duke
Alita: Battle Angel
A deactivated female cyborg is revived, but cannot remember anything of her past life and goes on a quest to find out who she is.
Peculiar, CGI-dependent piece of cyberpunk action based on a 1990’s nine-volume manga. The world created is never completely uninteresting, but the oatmeal plot and cliched characters prevent the film from distinguishing itself from the hundreds of other films just like it.
d – Robert Rodriguez
w – James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis (Based on the Graphic Novel by Yukito Kishiro)
ph – Bill Pope
pd – Caylah Eddleblute, Steve Joyner
m – Junkie XL
ed – Stephen E. Rivkin, Ian Silverstein
cos – Nina Proctor
p – James Cameron, Jon Landau
Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Mahershala Ali, Keean Johnson, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Jorge Lendeborg Jr, Lana Condor, Eiza González, Idara Victor, Jeff Fahey, Derek Mears
Isn’t it Romantic
A young woman disenchanted with love mysteriously finds herself trapped inside a romantic comedy.
Strictly for those who find nostalgia-tinged jokes to be comforting and/or uproarious (a group that I’ve never belonged to.) At least it’s under 90 minutes.
d – Todd Strauss-Schulson
w – Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, Katie Silberman
ph – Simon Duggan
pd – Sharon Seymour
m – John Debney
ed – Andrew Marcus
cos – Leah Katznelson
p – Todd Garner, Gina Matthews, Grant Scharbo, Rebel Wilson
Cast: Rebel Wilson, Adam Devine, Liam Hemsworth, Priyanka Chopra, Betty Gilpin, Brandon Scott Jones, Jennifer Saunders, Alex Kis
Triple Frontier
Struggling to make ends meet, former special ops soldiers reunite for a high-stakes heist: stealing $75 million from a South American drug lord.
Limp, almost embarrassing in its pathetic simplicity that begs its audience to care for a group of smug, uninteresting gentlemen. A surprising loser from both Chandor and Boal.
d – JC Chandor
w – Mark Boal, JC Chandor
ph – Roman Vasyanov
pd – Greg Berry
m – Disaterpeace
ed – Ron Patane
cos – Marlene Stewart
p – Alex Gartner, Charles Roven, Andy Horwitz, Neal Dodson
Cast: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal, Adria Arjona, Louis Jeovanny, Juan Camilo Castillo, Reynaldo Gallegos, Maddy Wary, Amber Stone, Hilliard Joshua Meeks
Five Feet Apart
A pair of teenagers with life-threatening illnesses meet in a hospital and fall in love.
Your standard tear-jerking romantic teen drama, seen through rose-coloured filters.
d – Justin Baldoni
w – Mikki Daughtry, Tobias Iaconis
ph – Frank G. DeMarco
pd – Tony Fanning
m – Brian Tyler, Breton Vivian
ed – Angela M. Catanzaro
cos – Rachel Sage Kunin
p – Justin Baldoni, Cathy Schulman
Cast: Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moisés Arias, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Parminder Nagra, Emily Baldoni
Captive State
Nearly a decade after occupation by an extraterrestrial force, the lives of a Chicago neighborhood on both sides of the conflict are explored.
A nifty premise for a dystopian thriller is completely squandered on an incomprehensible set of circumstances and characters. Ineptly lit, staged and written.
d – Rupert Wyatt
w – Erica Beeney, Rupert Wyatt
ph – Alex Disenhof
pd – Keith P. Cunningham
m – Rob Simonsen
ed – Andrew Groves
cos – Abby O’Sullivan
p – David Crockett, Rupert Wyatt
Cast: John Goodman, Vera Farmiga, Ashton Sanders, Machine Gun Kelly, Madeline Brewer, Alan Ruck, James Ransone, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ben Daniels
The Aftermath
Post WWII, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German who previously owned the house.
Dumb, mawkish melodrama (despite being based on semi-true events) in which spontaneous kisses are followed by slaps to the face, resulting in disrobing.
d – James Kent
w – Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse, Rhidian Brook (Based on the Novel by Rhidian Brook)
ph – Franz Lustig
pd – Sonja Klaus
m – Martin Phipps
ed – Beverley Mills
cos – Bojana Nikitovic
p – Jack Arbuthnott, Malte Grunert, Ridley Scott
Cast: Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgård, Jason Clarke, Alexander Scheer, Fionn O'Shea, Frederick Preston
Wonder Park
A girl whose mother is sick dreams up an amusement park that magically comes to life.
Abysmal animated feature (the second effort from Paramount Animation) that leans on every annoying banality in the children’s film book, clearly designed with the sole objective of branding through merchandise and spin-offs. It is only notable for being an incredibly rare example of containing no Director credit, due to Brown being terminated for multiple accusations of sexual misconduct over a year before the film’s release. The irony of such a corporate piece of entertainment having no credited artistic leader is certainly apt.
d – N/A [Dylan Brown]
w – Robert Gordon, Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec
ph – Juan García González
pd – Fred Warter
m – Steven Price
ed – Edie Ichioka
p – Kendra Haaland, Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec
Cast: Brianna Denski, Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Garner, Sofia Mali, Kenan Thompson, Ken Jeong, Mila Kunis, John Oliver, Norbert Leo Butz, Kath Soucie
Apollo 11 **
A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilots Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins.
Essentially a brilliant feat of film editing: It consists solely of archival footage, including 65mm film that NASA previously kept unreleased to the public, and is devoid of narration or interviews, but rather has been synced together with likewise unmarked audio files, of which 11,000 hours had to be sorted through. The footage in the first half – consisting of ethnographic-like footage of the crews at both the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and Mission Control Centre in Houston TX, the launch site itself and the spectators who were present – is jaw-droppingly vivid; it’s so pristine and flawlessly digitized it’s as if it were shot yesterday. The footage in the second half – consisting mostly of the three crew members realising their mission – is less enticing, only because much of it has been more (for the most part) regularly available. But as a cinematic experiment, the whole is a breathtaking experience.
d/ed – Todd Douglas Miller
ph – Adam Holender
m – Matt Morton
p – Todd Douglas Miller, Thomas Petersen, Evan Krauss
Cast: N/A
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