Press Play rightfully roots for our approachable lovers. She’s not a superficial stunner, he’s not an empty stud, and both actors are believably playing their ages, breaking a trend for the usual “summer of young love” subgenre. Clara Rugaard plays this woman, challenged by emotional loss, with a mature strength beyond what is too often the default setting of weepy helplessness. Not to be outmatched, Lewis Pullman balances her with an understated, yet effectual charisma.
Read MoreThere is a tremendous dichotomy of thought and talk amid Pixar’s Lightyear. Within the movie, we are granted a dramatic hero truer than the memorable action figure caricature we have come to cherish playing alongside other toys. This beefier Buzz Lightyear may still be narrating to himself, but his talk expresses strong emotions and virtuous desires more than push-button quips. He is his own man, not a packaged program of settings and market research.
Read MoreAmongst the Ashes is unshy to place this candid-yet-meaningful conversation in a location many will find morbid and backs the walk-and-talk with a serene electronic score from Murmur Studio. In doing so, writer and director Matthew Weinstein challenges the audience to find their heart-to-heart mojo from a darker place, no matter the lush sunshine and exquisite wide shot selections captured on camera by director of photography Austin Vinas. Thanks to patient reveals of mindsets among the two actors and the shared time to see their interplay bond further, the finished short film succeeds in dramatic pull.
Read MoreInjecting science fiction into a story can be a bit of a magic wand. Slick futuristic plot devices can make a few “what if” and “would-coulda-shoulda” dreams come true with a figurative wave of a hand or taps on a screenwriter’s keyboard. Nevertheless, that kind of intellectual escapism in movies will always tantalize. Embracing a quaint romance with heady consequences, The Time Capsule flicks its wrist for a little magic without sacrificing the seriousness of its premise’s implications.
Read MoreThis gravity of consequence, importance, muscle, and heritage permeates every airspace of Top Gun: Maverick. Updated for a contemporary environment, the raw machismo is remodeled to match the progressive excellence and fortitude demanded of pilots today. The days of Marlboro Man-level cowboy pilots are virtually over– all save one: Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by, as many are calling “the last real movie star,” Tom Cruise.
Read MoreBy observantly depicting three wars from three different centuries using the same troupe of actors, Foxhole filmmaker Jack Fessenden holds a multi-faceted mirror up to the humanity and mortality of war. His sophomore feature film questions if the causes have or have not changed when it comes to those two pillars. The way he measures that is within the soldiers themselves when placed in their most confined circumstances.
Read MoreSerendipitously so, the opposite becomes the case. That line, among many others that follow, could sneakily summarize the FilmRise Sundance darling Marvelous and the Black Hole. Little wonders and big feelings percolate, intersect, smear, and overwhelm a collection of very unique yet relatable people in this film, and the effects could not be more touching and soul-stirring. For folks willing to seek it out in limited theaters, a rewarding hidden gem awaits you.
Read MoreWritten and directed with a galaxy’s worth of love by Richard Linklater, Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood may be one of the most rich and endearing “back in my day” yarns you will ever find. The proud Texas filmmaker has long embraced time capsule motifs and his suburban upbringing throughout his career. Bringing back his layover rotoscope animation style, Linklaker presents the point of view of a pre-teen daydreamer during 1969, one of the most influential years in American history.
Read MoreIn other movies of this type, the whizzy sci-fi often becomes the place where all money, effort, and speed was spent, shortchanging any balance of patience to highlight characters or create tangible emotions. Going back to the likes of Real Steel, Date Night, the Night at the Museum series, and Free Guy on his resume, Shawn Levy has established a proven forte at producing shining and human sources of wonder next to the dashing delights. He’s made another crowd-pleasing and heart-filling winner here with The Adam Project.
Read MoreThe good storytellers at Pixar take all the possible cringeworthy “red” jokes and mask them through creatively conceived metaphors that soften the obligatory embarrassment with heart, humor, and courage. After all, to the Chinese culture on display in Turning Red, the potentially frightening shade of crimson counts as a lucky color of vitality, success, and happiness. Leave it to the ever-reliable Pixar to swim freely within that intrinsic good fortune as they so often do.
Read MoreNot to sound like a barista at a coffee shop, but we’ve reached a point after 83 years of character history across innumerable pages and screens that one has to ask, “How do you take your Batman?” Do you need emblematic cream, sugar, ice, extra caffeine, froth, or some similar fancy twist? If you take it black, filmmaker Matt Reeves has a trenta special called The Batman with your name on it.
Read MoreIn his second screen appearance as the famed private investigator Hercule Poirot, both the camera and our eyes are magnetized to Kenneth Branagh. There are drop dead gorgeous and expressive characters gallivanting all around, and we can’t pull away from the diminutive observer with that prominent mustache and those impeccable suits. Watch him in character.
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