Yeah, there are far too many movies opening this month. This week is busy, but next week is nuts — trust me, you’ll see. For now, though, let’s just deal with what’s in front of our faces.
The Best of Me: I am contractually exempt from seeing movies where Nicholas Sparks appears in the credit block, so we sent Rad to this latest timeless weeper. He was very brave.
The Book of Life: You know, you hear “Guillermo del Toro’s Day of the Dead movie” and you imagine something else. Instead, it’s an elaborate CG family movie which Rad calls “a magnificent mess”. I’m intrigued — though I’d really like to see the three-hour version.
Felony: The last time I saw Joel Edgerton, he was about to start work on this Australian cop thriller. He also said he was hoping to change the title to something ridiculously evocative, like A Tear on My Pillow. Looks like that didn’t take.
Fury: David Ayer — writer of Training Day, director of Harsh Times, End of Watch and Sabotage — switches from the policier to the WWII tank picture, and still manages to tell the exact same story he always does. That’s some kind of accomplishment.
The Green Prince: Nadav Schirman’s documentary tells the story of Mosab Hassan Yousef, recruited by the Mossad to spy on his Hamas leader father for Israel. Susan has some issues with Schirman’s choices, but gives the film a pass.
The Guest: Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett follow You’re Next with another playful genre exercise, this one built around two terrific performances from Dan Stevens and Maika Monroe. And the release-date shuffle means it’s opening just in time for Halloween, where it belongs.
Rudderless: UPDATE! I completely forgot that William H. Macy’s modest drama was opening today, and that I reviewed it, which seems awfully insulting. But it’s that kind of picture — a small project that radiates decency and compassion without ever really registering harder. It’ll play well on VOD.
St. Vincent: I’m not nearly as high on Theodore Melfi’s dramedy as some, but I will say this: If Bill Murray doesn’t get an Oscar out of it, Harvey Weinstein needs to take a long, hard look at his life choices.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya: Isao Takahata’s animated adaptation of a Japanese folk tale plays like a delicate epic, if you can imagine such a thing. And it was a pleasure to see the man who made Grave of the Fireflies deliver something that didn’t leave me in pieces afterward.
These Final Hours: A young man and a much younger girl forge an unlikely friendship in the last day of human existence in the Australian answer to Last Night and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
Tu Dors Nicole: I’ve never been the biggest fan of Stephane Lafleur’s films, but Rad is dazzled by his latest, which follows two young women through a lazy Quebec summer.
Watchers of the Sky: Edet Belzberg’s documentary examines the attempts to understand genocide as a war crime over the past century; Andy feels it stands with The Act of Killing as both a documentary and a catalyst for social change.
Until next week …