19 Movies for the Rest of 2016

There's plenty more movies than this on their way this year, but these 19 are the ones I have my eye on for the time being. 

September 2
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS  (DRAMA/ROMANCE) 
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz, Florence Clery, Jack Thompson, Thomas Unger, Jane Menelaus, Gary Macdonald, Anthony Hayes, Benedict Hardie
Rated PG-13 for thematic material and some sexual content.
What's It About?: A lighthouse keeper (Michael Fassbender) and his wife (Alicia Vikander), yearning for a child in their isolated home off the Western Australia coast, post-World War I, when they rescue a baby girl found adrift in a rowboat.  They raise and love the child as their own, but a few years later when they return to civilization, they encounter the woman (Rachel Weisz) who may be the child's biological mother, threatening to tear their family apart.  Based on a novel by M.L. Stedman. 
Why It Might Be Awesome: It's the latest film from writer-director Derek Cianfrance,the man behind BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, and it's three leads are all solid, proven talents.  It's also produced by Harry Potter series producer David Heyman, who has a pretty good track record.  In any case, it looks interesting.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: BLUE VALENTINE and THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES were both good and the latter was particularly intriguing, but I'm still waiting for Cianfrance to really break out with something great, plus those last two movie were real downers.  Plus, the movie's distributor, Disney, is marketing it as a very romantic movie, which I'd be all in favor of but doesn't seem to mesh with the story as it's been pitched.

                                                                                                                           Disney

September 16
BLAIR WITCH  (HORROR/THRILLER) 
Directed by Adam Wingard
Starring: Corbin Reid, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry, James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott
Rated R for language, terror and some disturbing images.
What's It About?: A young man and his friends venture into Maryland's Black Hills Forest in search of answers to the mysterious disappearance of his sister 20 years ago, when she went investigating local legends of the "Blair Witch," and in the process discover there's more truth and terror to the legend than they believed.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Director Adam Winguard and screenwriter Simon Barrett have made some very interesting and fresh original horror-thrillers recently which have been embraced by critics and horror fans alike, such as YOU'RE NEXT and THE GUEST, and the trailers we've seen are certainly effective.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: Personally, I liked YOU'RE NEXT and THE GUEST, but I didn't love either of them, and it's unclear why Winguard and Barrett are doing something as "conventional" as a "found-footage" film, and a belated sequel, or "legasequel," at that.

                                                                                                                 Lionsgate

September 23
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN  (WESTERN/ACTION) 
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, Luke Grimes, Matt Bomer
Rated PG-13 for extended and intense sequences of Western violence, and for historical smoking, some language and suggestive material.
What's It About?: A small town in the 19th-century American West recruits the help of seven gunfighters, led by the bounty hunter man-in-black Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), to help fight back against a corrupt industrialist (Peter Sarsgaard) and his vicious bandits who have oppressed the townsfolk.  Among the gunfighters are gambler and explosives specialist Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooting Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), a tracker by the name of Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), assassin Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and Comanche loner Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier).  A remake of the classic 1960 John Sturges western, itself an Americanized western take on Akira Kurosawa's action classic, SEVEN SAMURAI.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Westerns don't come along often enough, and this also appears to be the rare attempt to make a "fun" action-packed western as opposed to a serious one.  It's got a pretty good ensemble cast lead by Denzel Washington with Chris Pratt, one of the most popular actors today and the man who was likely no small part of JURASSIC WORLD's gargantuan success last year.
Why It Might No Be Awesome: It's directed by Antoine Fuqua, a not-great director who's been coasting on the success of TRAINING DAY, a good-but-not-great movie carried by its star, which he directed 15 years ago.  Since then, he's mostly been making overly gritty and cliched action-thrillers that are ho-hum at best.  It also feels like they're trying to be a little too "hip" for this kind of movie.

                                                                                                            Sony/Columbia

September 30
MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN  (FANTASY/ACTION-ADVENTURE) 
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Ella Purnell, Chris O'Dowd, Terence Stamp, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Judi Dench, Lauren McCrostie, Cameron King, Pixie Davies, Georgia Pemberton, Finlay MacMillan, Milo Parker
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of fantasy action/violence and peril.
What's It About?: A teenage boy (Asa Butterfield) unravels clues to a mystery that lead him to "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," a school full of youth with supernatural abilities and bizarre quirks, like a girl who floats like a helium balloon, an invisible boy, and a little girl with superhuman strength, among other peculiarities.  The school is run by Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), who entrusts the newcomer with the task of nothing less than protecting the school's wards when they're hunted by villainous "Wights" and "Hollowgasts," led by the sinster Mr. Barron (Samuel L. Jackson).  Based on a book by Ransom Riggs.
Why It Might Be Awesome: It looks basically like Tim Burton's X-Men, and the script is from the writer of THE WOMAN IN BLACK and co-writer of STARDUST, KICK-ASS and KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, which is encouraging for a Burton comeback.  Once again, Burton has a solid cast of names and his visuals look up to snuff.  In any case, while his last couple films haven't exactly been his best, Burton hasn't made an outright bad movie since DARK SHADOWS and the previews for this look fun.  I'm really hoping he finds his way back.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: Burton has been flailing in visually-driven fantasies with hollow characters and formulaic stories lately, and even his attempt to get back in touch with character in BIG EYES was somewhat middling.  Plus, story-wise and with a Samuel L. Jackson special person-hunting villain sporting white hair, I'm getting a bit of a Doug Liman's JUMPER vibe, which isn't great.

                                                                                                          20th Century Fox

October 7
THE BIRTH OF A NATION  (DRAMA) 
Directed by Nate Parker
Starring: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Mark Boone Junior, Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, Dwight Henry, Aja Naomi King, Esther Scott, Roger Guenveur Smith, Gabrielle Union, Penelope Ann Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, Tony Espinosa
Rated R for disturbing violent content, and some brief nudity.
What's It About?: The toast of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Nate Parker (from BEYOND THE LIGHTS, THE GREAT DEBATERS) wrote, directed and stars as Nat Turner, a black slave in the antebellum South whose owner (Armie Hammer) tours him across the country preaching the Bible to subdue unruly slaves, but as Nat witnesses and is subjected to the atrocities of slavery that encompass the nation, he is prompted to lead an ill-fated slave uprising.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Fox must have seen potential in this independently-produced Nate Parker passion project, having paid an unprecedented $17.5 million to acquire it at the Sundance Film Festival.  Response by festival-goers was generally positive, winning the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic category, and rumor has it that this movie will spark quite the public conversation dealing with themes of America's ugly racial history, including the part of religion and the use of retaliatory violence.  It's also expected to be a player in the coming awards season, coming the year after #OscarsSoWhite.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: While the festival response was generally positive, there were vocal detractors and a number of qualified positive responses, i.e. "good, not great," with suggestions that it's overly broad or melodramatic.  It's also likely that it'll be pretty heavy or disturbing for mainstream audiences, though that doesn't mean they shouldn't watch it.

                                                                                                                   20th Century Fox

October 21
JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK  (ACTION-THRILLER)
Directed by Edward Zwick
Starring: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Aldis Hodge, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany, Austin Herbert, Robert Catrini, Robert Knepper, Billy Slaughter
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: Four years after the events of the 2012 action-thriller JACK REACHER, the eponymous former U.S. Army Military Police Corps officer (Tom Cruise) returns to the headquarters of his old military unit and is accused of a murder from 16 years ago, and unravels a deeper conspiracy tied to the case.
Why It Might Be Awesome: The first JACK REACHER was a surprisingly good, red-blooded action-thriller, and Tom Cruise is one of the great movie stars and wields tremendous influence over his productions, which have been consistently good as of late.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: The first movie's writer-director, Christopher McQuarrie is only credited as a producer this time around, while Cruise's director from THE LAST SAMURAI, Edward Zwick has come on board.  Zwick is ambitious, usually peddling in photogenic historical epics, but they're usually pretty bland and generic.  The question is what his creative balance with Cruise is on this movie and whether he's taking an actual stake in it, or if he's mostly the steady hand.

                                                                                                            Paramount

November 4
DOCTOR STRANGE  (ACTION-ADVENTURE/SCI-FI) 
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Bendict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen, Tilda Swinton, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe introduces the character of Stephen Strange, a brilliant neurosurgeon who goes on a journey of self-discovery after a car accident changes his life, and is exposed to the mystic arts, training under the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) to manipulate spells and dimensions, which he uses to defend the world against evil.Why It Might Be Awesome: Marvel Studios has a pretty solid track record so far with only a few misfires, and although I'm not wild about Benedict Cumberbatch as a leading man, he's not bad, and he's certainly a fanboy favorite.  The supporting cast though, including the likes of Mads Mikkelsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rachel McAdams is pretty great, and for those complaining that Marvel movies have become monotonous, this is a new branch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe delving into more metaphysical themes.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: Scott Derrickson is one of the weaker filmmakers that Marvel has brought on board so far, being best known for horror films, the best of which is SINISTER, and even that's not that great.  His one previous sci-fi movie was the dull 2008 remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.  To be fair though, Marvel usually has kept their directors on a pretty short leash, for better or worse.  Tilda Swinton has been cast as the Ancient One (an already problematic Tibetan mystic stereotype in the source material) which is a really iffy choice, and while the studio has defended the choice by saying the character in the movie isn't really Asian, there's still a lot of Asian mysticism tropes going on here and the revisions they're making aren't necessarily good ones so far as I can tell.

                                                                                                                          Marvel

November 4
HACKSAW RIDGE  (WAR/DRAMA) 
Directed by Mel Gibson
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Hugo Weaving, Ryan Corr, Teresa Palmer, Rachel Griffiths, Richard Roxburgh, Luke Pegler, Richard Pyros, Ben Mingay, Firass Dirani
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: Based on a true story, Andrew Garfield stars as Desmond T. Doss, a conscientious objector in WWII due to his beliefs as a Seventh-Day Adventist, who joined the US Army as a medic but refused to kill or even carry a weapon into combat situations, eventually going on to single-handedly rescue over 75 of his fellow soldiers under enemy fire during the Battle of Okinawa.
Why It Might Be Awesome: I'm really excited about this movie.  I'm not crazy about BRAVEHEART, while THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST was an interesting misfire, but the last movie Mel Gibson directed before his off-screen antics effectively stalled his career was APOCALYPTO, and that movie was a knockout.  Plus, I can't tell you how sickened I was by AMERICAN SNIPER, a movie that could have been great but was shoddily made, and worse, morally bankrupt in an incredibly self-righteous way.  I'm sick of adulatory stories about soldiers where heroism comes from towing the line and killing the "enemy."  Sure, maybe they killed in order to save others, but I love the idea of this military hero who simply saved live, without even so much as a thought to killing in self-defense.  Personally, I think it's an incredible story, and Andrew Garfield is a great actor.  I really hope this story gets its due.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: APOCALYPTO is the only great movie that Gibson's directed, and one of the three writing credits belongs to Randall Wallace, writer of BRAVEHEART and a notorious cornball.

                                                                                                                   Summit

November 11
BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK  (DRAMA/WAR) 
Directed by Ang Lee
Starring: Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin, Arturo Castro, Ben Platt, Deirdre Lovejoy, Time Blake Nelson, Makenzie Leigh, Beau Knapp
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn, making his debut) is a 19-year-old Army private returning forever changed by a tour of duty in the Iraq War for a victory tour with his squad in the U.S., including a spectacular halftime show at a Thanksgiving Day football game, where he begins to experience flashbacks to his experiences in war, which contrast with the heroic perceptions of Americans at home, while a return to active duty looms.  Based on the novel by Ben Fountain.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Ang Lee has made a few great movies, most recently one of my favorites, LIFE OF PI, plus, I'm hoping for more retaliations against the dreadful AMERICAN SNIPER.  Lee has a delicately subtle but intense sense of humanity in his filmmaking and a great visual panache, which promises to be in full swing in his interpretation of a uniquely structured story about the nature of heroism and war while also playing with beautiful experimental filmmaking technology.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: He has a weird cast.  Joe Alwyn, being a newcomer, is an unknown entity and that worked just great in LIFE OF PI with Suraj Sharma, so Lee can pick them out, but while she has her defenders, I'm real iffy on Kristen Stewart.  Garrett Hedlund is fine, but Chris Tucker, Vin Diesel and Steve Martin all seem a bit odd for this kind of dramatic feature.

                                                                                                          Sony/Tristar

November 11
ARRIVAL  (SCI-FI/DRAMA) 
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma, Mark O'Brien
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: When a number of unexplained spacecraft appear mysteriously all over the globe, a team is assembled to figure out answers, including a linguist (Amy Adams), a mathematician (Jeremy Renner) and a US Army colonel (Forest Whitaker), while worldwide panic turns to international tensions that threaten to boil over.  Based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang.
Why It Might Be Awesome: I loved Denis Villeneuve's last film, SICARIO, and Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg are all great actors.  It aims to be a thinking man's science fiction, following the trend of similarly themed Oscar-contending fall releases from the past few years including THE MARTIAN, INTERSTELLAR and GRAVITY, and some of the visuals in the trailer are impressive.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: Honestly, I'm not sure from what I have to go on.  It's written by Eric Heisserer, whose resume is made up mostly of sub-par horror remakes and sequels like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THE THING (2011) and FINAL DESTINATION 5, so that's not great.

                                                                                                            Paramount

November 18
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE) 
Directed by David Yates
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller, Carmen Ejogo, Faith Wood-Blagrove, Jon Voight, Ron Perlman, Jenn Murray
Rated PG-13 for some fantasy action violence.
What's It About?: From J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World of Harry Potter, this all-new original story goes back years earlier to the United States in 1926 as young and eccentric British Ministry of Magic official and magical creatures specialist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) at the Magical Congress of the United States for an important meeting, but when he loses a number of dangerous beasts housed in a magical briefcase, tensions between the magical world and the radical anti-magic New Salem Philanthropic Society threaten to explode.  Inspired by the book of the same name by J.K. Rowling.
Why It Might Be Awesome: For one thing, the screenplay is written by Ms. Rowling herself and is injecting an interesting socio-political aspect to the fantasy adventure story, and David Yates, director of the last four in the Harry Potter movie series, is returning.  There's no constraints of following the plot of a book this time around, with the potential to break open the Wizarding World in a big way, and if they have to continue the franchise, this kind of spinoff is probably the best way to go.  In the lead is Eddie Redmayne, an Academy Award-winner and a great young actor.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: As the recent debut of the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has shown, sometimes these expansions of established and beloved fictional universes deviate a little too far from expectations, but if they don't deviate far enough, that isn't good either.  There's also a question of how these new characters stand up to the great leading trio of the original series.

                                                                                                           Warner Brothers

November 23
ALLIED  (ROMANCE/THRILLER) 
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Lizzy Caplan, Matthew Goode, Jared Harris, Camille Cottin
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: In Casablanca 1942, in the heat of World War II, an intelligence officer (Brad Pitt) for the Allies falls in love with an agent (Marion Cotillard) of the French Resistance during a high stakes mission to assassinate a German official, but when they reunite in London, the pressures of war threaten to pull them apart.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Regardless of how they were overall, Robert Zemeckis' last few films have at least been worth watching to some degree and he's a great talent at the visuals and basic storytelling, plus Brad Pitt is back to killin' Nazis in an old-fashioned WWII romantic-thriller setup.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: It's probably fair to say that Zemeckis isn't master filmmaker who he once was, and the CASABLANCA-esque setup of this movie opens it to unfavorable comparisons.

                                                                                                                                                                                    Paramount

November 23
MOANA  (FAMILY/ANIMATED) 
Directed by Ron Clements & John Musker
Featuring the Voices of: Auli'i Cravahlo, Dwayne Johnson, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, Rachel House, Jemaine Clement, Alan Tudyk, Phillipa Soo
Rated PG for peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements.
What's It About?: Walt Disney Animation's 56th feature film is an original fairy tale set in a fantastical ancient South Pacific culture where Moana (voiced by newcomer Auli'i Cravahlo), the daughter of a chief and a born navigator, teams up with the legendary demi-god Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) to find a fabled island to help her family.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Walt Disney Animation has been on a winning streak lately, some might even argue that they're in a second renaissance, and the directing team of Ron Clements and John Musker can be thanked for top shelf masterpieces like THE LITTLE MERMAID and ALADDIN.  In the wake of Hamilton's phenomenal popularity, the Mouse House has swept up Lin-Manuel Miranda to contribute on the musical soundtrack, along with Opetaia Foa'i of the South Pacific fusion group Te Vaka and Disney's TARZAN composer Mark Mancina, and it's the first Disney Princess movie since FROZEN became a cultural mainstay.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: Clements and Musker have made a couple of masterpieces, but it's been awhile.  Their underrated TREASURE PLANET was such a big flop that Disney temporarily shut down all hand-drawn animation productions, and their most recent movie, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG was good enough but their weakest movie to date.  I'm not sure what to make of the trailers so far.  They're a little bit of a mixed bag.

                                                                                                                          Disney

November 23
RULES DON'T APPLY  (COMEDY-DRAMA/ROMANCE) 
Directed by Warren Beatty
Starring: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Haley Bennett, Candice Bergen, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan, Ed Harris, Megan Hilty, Oliver Platt, Martin Sheen, Paul Sorvino
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: In 1958 California, a devoutly Baptist beauty queen (Lily Collins) from Virginia, aspiring to become an actress, and the Methodist young man who becomes her professional driver (Alden Ehrenreich) fall in love and get employment in the enterprises of famed billionaire aviator, filmmaker and entrepenuer Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty), but as they find their personal values challenged by their new environment, their relationship is forbidden by Hughes' number one rule; that no employee have any romantic or sexual entanglements with a contracted actress.
Why It Might Be Awesome: I don't actually know all that much to expect from this movie, but I'm intrigued to see the long-planned Howard Hughes film from Warren Beatty, who hasn't directed a film since BULWORTH in 1998, nor even been in one for the past 15 years.  Plus, I love the old Hollywood setting, and it's a hell of a cast.

                                                                                                         20th Century Fox

December 2 (Limited Release)
LA LA LAND  (MUSICAL/ROMANTIC-COMEDY-DRAMA) 
Directed by Damien Chazelle
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, J.K. Simmons, Finn Wittrock, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, Meagan Fay, Jason Fuchs, Jessica Rothenberg, Sonoya Mizuno, Callie Hernandez
Rated PG-13 for some language.
What's It About?: An all-new original musical set in Los Angeles stars Emma Stone as Mia, an aspiring actress stuck working as a coffee girl, and Ryan Gosling as Sebastian, a jazz pianist who gets by on jobs playing in seedy bars, who meet one another and fall in love, but as each find the success that they helped each other to achieve, their choices threaten to separate them.
Why It Might Be Awesome: It's Damien Chazelle's follow-up to the excellent WHIPLASH, and it's an incredibly rare attempt at an original movie musical.  Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have proven chemistry, having worked together on CRAZY STUPID LOVE, plus J.K. Simmons is working with Chazelle again, and singer John Legend as a role as well.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: An original musical, while an exciting prospect, is a gamble, and WHIPLASH was an acerbic, hard-edged dram with a lot of bit, so the question remains as to whether Chazelle can do as well with a more romantic story.

                                                                                                 Summit Entertainment

December 16
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY  (ACTION-ADVENTURE/FANTASY) 
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmen, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Jonathan Aris, Genevieve O'Reilly, Jimmy Smits
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: Set shortly before the events of the original STAR WARS, following the formation of the tyrannical Galactic Empire and the subsequent formation of the Rebel Alliance against the Empire, a defiant young woman (Felicity Jones) with a checkered past is recruited by the Rebels to take part in a high-stakes mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's formidable new space station with weaponry capable of destroying an entire planet.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Before EPISODE VIII continues the events of THE FORCE AWAKENS in December 2017, this is the first "anthology" film of the franchise, one not tied directly to the Skywalker/Jedi saga of the main series.  It's pitched as a "boots on the ground" war movie in the Star Wars universe, an incredibly exciting new direction, and they have a rock-solid cast, with an interesting choice of director in Gareth Edwards (director of MONSTERS and the 2014 reboot GODZILLA).
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: There have been rumors of production troubles including extensive re-shoots, which are probably unwarranted, but if true, would likely be a bad sign.  I wasn't crazy about Edwards' take on GODZILLA either, and the script is co-written by Chris Weitz, who wrote and directed the lackluster THE GOLDEN COMPASS and directed THE TWILIGHT SAGE: NEW MOON, the worst of a very bad series.

                                                                                                                      Lucasfilm

December 21
ASSASSIN'S CREED  (ACTION-ADVENTURE/FANTASY) 
Directed by Justin Kurzel
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Michael K. Williams
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: A career criminal (Michael Fassbender) is recruited by the modern day Templars to have his consciousness projected back in time into his medieval ancestor, a member of an order of Assassins in the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Michael Fassbender is a great actor and has an apparently added investment as he helped developed it and is also producing.  Director Justin Kurzel is pretty new on the scene but established himself as a strong artistic voice with last year's MACBETH, and the concept brings with it the opportunity for some unique and diverse action.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: The screenplay is credited to Bill Collage and Adam Cooper, the writers of turds like EXODUS: GODS & KINGS and THE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT, plus, it's yet another adaptation of a video game series, which brings a pre-packaged reputation.  I'm waiting to see if Fox sticks with their Christmas release date though, given that it's only a week after ROGUE ONE opens and will still have the crucial fanboy audience cornered for at least a few more weeks.  There's still time that Fox might announce a change of release date into early 2017, but if they hold, it isn't likely to have much of a chance at the box office.

                                                                                                          20th Century Fox

December 23
A MONSTER CALLS  (FANTASY/DRAMA)
Directed by J.A. Bayona
Starring: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Liam Neeson, James Melville, Lily-Rose Aslandogdu, Geraldine Chaplin
Rated PG-13 for thematic content and some scary images.
What's It About?: A young boy dealing with his mother's (Felicity Jones) terminal cancer, a strict grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) and bullying at school meets a giant tree-like monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) who he shares his problems with and begins to cope.  Based on the novel by Patrick Ness, who also wrote the screenplay.
Why It Might Be Awesome: Despite the slightly problematic material, J.A. Bayona made a surprisingly sensitive and affecting film out of THE IMPOSSIBLE and is a protege of the great monster-meister Guillermo del Toro, who produced his 2007 debut horror film THE ORPHANAGE (I haven't seen it, but it's on my list), and what we've seen of the film has a very interesting look.  Liam Neeson, with his sensitive but strong, gruff vocals, seems perfectly cast as the eponymous monster, not to mention, in a recent development, the release was changed from an October release to late December, suggesting the distributor believes it has awards potential.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: It's pretty heavy material for whats ostensibly a family film, and the preview makes it look potentially overwrought and smacks a little of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (an ambitious and admirable but not altogether successful movie).

                                                                                            Universal/Focus Features

TBA 2016
SILENCE  (DRAMA) 
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Ciaran Hinds, Shinya Tsukamoto, Yosuke Kubozuka, Issey Ogata, Diego Calderon
Not Yet Rated
What's It About?: A longtime passion project of director Martin Scorsese's, two Jesuit priests from Portugal (played by Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) travel to Japan in 1639 to investigate reports that their fellow priest and mentor (Liam Neeson) has committed apostasy and discover Christians subjected to violent persecutions, where the nobility of martyrdom for Christ loses its luster.  Adapted from the novel "Silence" by Shusaku Endo.
Why It Might Be Awesome: It's directed by Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest living directors, following up a late-career masterpiece (THE WOLF OF WALL STREET) with a highly personal historical epic musing on the topic of faith and an incredibly thought-provoking story.  This is one of my most anticipated movies of the year.
Why It Might Not Be Awesome: It's been a long-planned passion project for Scorsese, and passion projects have a tendency to become overcooked.  It doesn't have a set release date yet, holding off to make sure the movie is finished first after delays on THE WOLF OF WALL STREET resulted in a late shuffling of dates, and currently the reported running time was at a highly questionable 195 minutes (the film is still in the editing phase and the length is likely to be cut down, but Scorsese's last film was three hours long).

                                                                                                                                                                                   Paramount

Review: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS  (ANIMATION/FANTASY-ADVENTURE)
3.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Travis Knight
Featuring the Voices of: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro
Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, action and peril.
101 minutes
Verdict: Gorgeous, empathetic and exciting, full of engaging characters and awe-inspiring hand-crafted environments, KUBO finds Laika Entertainment back in peak form.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS IF YOU LIKED:
PARANORMAN  (2012)
THE BOXTROLLS  (2014)
CORALINE  (2009)
CORPSE BRIDE  (2005)
THE WIZARD OF OZ  (1939)
If nothing else, KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is an extravagantly gorgeous feast for the eyes, but better than that, it is many somethings else.  The latest from the Portland-based stop-motion animation studio Laika Entertainment is their most ambitious, a fantasy action-adventure quest story in a fashion similar to THE WIZARD OF OZ, gorgeously hand-crafted and stylistically, atmospherically bold.  Like the best of Laika's films so far, it isn't perfect (most movies aren't, but I think you know what I mean), in this case subject to a rushed ending, but when it works, it's simply marvelous and more than makes up for it at its highs and is a truly unique product, continuing to prove Laika one of the best animation houses in the business.
Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) is a storyteller in a mystical Ancient Japan, playing a magical shamisen, a three-stringed musical instrument, to make paper figures dance, playing out his stories for coins in the village to support his mother, also gifted in magic, but who wavers in and out of lucidity.  Kubo wears an eye patch, the result of his grandfather the Moon King stealing his eye as an infant, according to the story his mother tells, and her frightening Sisters (voiced by Rooney Mara), fellow daughters of the Moon King, killed Kubo's father and now search for Kubo in order to take his remaining eye.  One night, Kubo makes the mistake of staying out past dark and the Sisters find him, but his mother stalls them long enough for him to make his escape and brings his wooden Monkey charm to life (voiced by Charlize Theron) to guide him on a quest to claim the three scattered pieces of his father's armor.  Along the way, they encounter a comical but heroic samurai warrior, cursed into the form of a beetle and without his memories, who helps them on their quest that brings them into contact with towering skeletons and glaring underwater eyeballs.

Every frame of it is animated by hand with beautiful armature puppets on incredibly detailed, huge environments (one of the larger motorized props is shown being set up in time-lapse footage behind the ending credits), and every frame of it is sumptuous if not breathtaking.  There seems to be something about the unusually painstaking, labor of love that is stop-motion animation that cultivates a uniquely audacious creativity that doesn't come as consistently with computer-animation.  KUBO is darker than the average family film, but maybe on par with SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS or others among Disney's earlier fairy tales, and trusts its audience far more than other animation houses today are usually inclined to.  It's very strange, and well aware and proud of that, but in a way that draws you in if you'll let it.  There's a lot of action with a surprising ferocity and thrills without becoming excessive, and it isn't action for action's sake; rather, it enriches the fantastical world.  Beetle is a little goofy but funny, and Charlize Theron is perfectly cast as Monkey for similar traits that made her such a knockout as Furiosa in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, her hard edge, complimented by a maternal and subtly fragile undercurrent. 

Just a week after SAUSAGE PARTY, curiously, KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS is also a surprisingly humanist animated story, albeit one with more grace and, well, humanity.  Kubo's strength is the strength his mother gives him, to empathize and feel for the humans in the world around him, which is why he's a storyteller.  In contrast, the Moon King (voiced by Ralph Fiennes) and his other daughter, Kubo's mother's Sisters, eerie, witch-like beings, don't want to destroy him; they want to destroy his humanity, so together, they can be a "perfect", inhuman family in the heavens without pain or suffering, for themselves or for others.  It refutes a notion of the cold, clinical "ideal" family espoused by certain "family values" factions, because without love or empathy, then what's the point?  It's a very pro-family film.  Most of it is a real blast, but toward the movie's climactic sequence, the narrative stumble a bit, going to some interesting places, but ones that don't quite feel as fleshed out as they should be. 
When it all works, it's crazy entertaining, and incredibly fresh after a summer of fairly monotonous animated comedies.  The characters are splendid, animated with astonishingly nuanced performances (I particularly like Monkey), and the engaging magical world is full of thrills and laughs, making for one of the best movies of the season.

                                                                                                                                                 Images via Focus Features/Laika

Review: SAUSAGE PARTY

SAUSAGE PARTY  
(COMEDY/ANIMATION)
3 out of 4 stars
Directed by Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon
Featuring the Voices of: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek, Lauren Miller, Anders Holm, Scott Underwood
Rated R for strong crude sexual content, pervasive language, and drug use.
88 minutes
Verdict: Quite literally shameless, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen's latest collaboration overcomes the limitations of low-budget animation for a funny, filthy and somewhat thoughtful assault on everything your mothers taught you.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN SAUSAGE PARTY IF YOU LIKED:
THIS IS THE END  (2013)
THE NIGHT BEFORE  (2015)
SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT  (1999)
TED  (2012)
THE INTERVIEW  (2014)

The writing, producing and occasionally directing creative team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have made at least a couple of the greatest comedies in the last decade as far as I'm concerned.  They wrote SUPERBAD, a wild, woolly and surprisingly heartfelt coming-of-age story, and wrote, directed and produced THIS IS THE END, a painfully hilarious religious apocalypse-themed farce.  They're weird and twisted and high-concept, and there was that one time that one of their movies literally almost started World War III.  Their latest film is advertised as the "first R-rated computer-animated movie," and has been riding an enthusiastic critical wave ever since an unfinished version premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in March.  It's pretty good, but it may have been a little over-hyped.  Then again, its primary promise is to show cartoon characters saying and doing shockingly R-rated things, which it delivers on handsomely, while being unexpectedly thoughtful in its philosophies besides.

The story primarily takes place within the Shopwell grocery store, just your average little grocery where all the food begins each day singing "The Great Beyond" (an all-new original tune from one of Disney Animation's most prolific composers, Alan Menken, who also co-wrote the orchestral score) in worship to the "gods" (human shoppers) who will take them to the "Great Beyond" outside the store, a paradise where they all get to go as reward for following all the rules, so long as they don't get cast into the abyss (garbage) by the Dark Lord (the Shopwell manager, v. Paul Rudd) before they get the chance.  Frank (v. Seth Rogen) is a sausage in a package he shares with several others like the slightly misshapen Barry (v. Michael Cera), and Carl (v. Jonah Hill), shelved next to the hot dog buns, among which is Frank's great love, Brenda (v. Kristen Wiig).  When they finally are chosen for a customer's cart, a returned jar of Honey Mustard (v. Danny McBride) tries warn everyone of the true terrors that await beyond the Shopwell doors before committing suicide in an incident that leaves Frank and Brenda loose and without their packages, in addition to a number of other products including a stereotypically Muslim fundamentalist lavash called Vash (v. David Krumholtz) and a Woody Allen-esque bagel called Sammy (v. Edward Norton).  While Barry and Carl continue to the Great Beyond, a now-stranded Frank is compelled to investigate Honey Mustard's claims, leading him to the council of the wise non-perishables, the hard-partying liquor aisle and the far away freezer aisle on a quest to understand his purpose while straining his relationship to Brenda.  Meanwhile, another victim of the Honey Mustard spill, a now-damaged Douche (v. Nick Kroll), pursues Frank and Brenda with vengeance on his mind, blaming them for interfering with his purpose.
Budgeted at a safe $19 million (a small enough sum to allow Rogen and Goldberg's team to realize their collective vision with minimal studio interference), it's fair to say that the animation is serviceable at best (ironically, it's miles ahead of fellow computer-animated grocery store adventure FOODFIGHT!, a so-bad-it's-hilarious 2012 release budgeted at $45 million), and frequently, the exaggerated cartoon characters are grotesque.  Then again, so is much of what they're doing onscreen.  Rogen/Goldberg films have a way of taking a disgusting joke so far that it just becomes disgusting, but then bringing back around again to being even funnier once you come to terms with just how disgusting it is, a practice they employ again and again in SAUSAGE PARTY, a movie that, perhaps inadvertently, makes you wonder about the purposes of the R rating and how, in comparison, the makers of SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT famously tangled difficultly with the MPAA ratings board over avoiding an NC-17 rating (much has been made of the 8-minute orgy sequence involving various foods which is, well, hoo-boy...).  So the animation, while not exactly pretty, is at least ugly in exchange for creative freedom, as opposed to the cynical economical approach of a studio like Illumination Entertainment, and even if it's ugly, it looks a lot better than you'd expect at $19 million.

It's a fable on the side of atheism (with a healthy dose of pro-hedonism), which I personally am not crazy about, but its approach surprisingly smart and admirably ambitious despite being wrapped up neatly in proud stupidity, getting maximum mileage out of its anthropomorphic food conceit and concluding with a progression that makes me hope for an even better sequel.  One of the strongest running gags relates to the Israel-Palestine conflict in the form of Sammy and Vash's rivalry, whose respective kinds hate one another over the issue of shared shelf space, but if that's not your thing, there are also an abundance of food puns, most of which are groan-worthy, but some are pretty solid.  Where I think Rogen and Goldberg really thrive though is in comedy involving violence, whether it be the Zac Efron vs. Seth Rogen fight in NEIGHBORS or the gory horrors of THIS IS THE END, and those moments in SAUSAGE PARTY probably yielded my biggest laughs.
Animated with happy little sausages sporting thin black arms and white gloves, curvaceous hot dog buns with more than the hint of a butt crack, and an impressive array of racial caricatures represented in grocery products, it's an incredibly filthy assault on decency, one that's pretty funny, but maybe a bit over-hyped.

Images via Sony Pictures

Review: SUICIDE SQUAD

SUICIDE SQUAD   
(ACTION/FANTASY)
1.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by David Ayer
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language.
123 minutes
Verdict: With poorly directed action, a conflicted tone and a flat-out bad script that leaves its colorful cast out to dry, SUICIDE SQUAD is an incredibly frustrating disappointment that squanders its potential with reckless abandon.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN SUICIDE SQUAD IF YOU LIKED:
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE  (2016)
DEADPOOL  (2016)
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY  (2014)
SABOTAGE  (2014)
FOCUS  (2015)

Aw, man.  After the angsty, self-serious misfire of MAN OF STEEL and the even worse bloatation of BATMAN V SUPERMAN, SUICIDE SQUAD looked like a good opportunity for the "DC Extended Universe" (DCEU; Warner Brothers' and DC Comics' answer to Marvel Studios' "Marvel Cinematic Universe") to readjust its bearings.  It had a killer cast, an interesting director and a promising premise, and then the candy-colored, anarchic trailers accompanied by "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Ballroom Blitz" came out, and the messy, brightly schemed posters came out, and I was genuinely excited.  So it gives me no pleasure to say they've shat the bed again.
The concept is basically THE DIRTY DOZEN done with DC's bad guys, but the movie is striving in vain for something along the lines of last February's superhero smash-hit, DEADPOOL, but within the confines of a PG-13 rating (seriously, what would DEADPOOL have been with a PG-13 rating?), and Marvel's off-kilter team movie, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, but with none of the confidence or joy.  In the end, it all runs into a slog of weirdly generic CGI blockbuster battles, a ridiculous and dull main threat, and a whole bunch of half-baked ideas carried by a devoted cast left out to dry.
Each of the characters in the ensemble is introduced individually with backstories that range from thin to pointlessly basic, making it unclear as to why they don't just introduce them when the team comes together or just jump right in from the start.  There's Floyd Lawton, better known as Deadshot (Will Smith), an expert marksman and assassin who Batman put in the joint for murdering witnesses against the mob, but who also loves his daughter.  There's Dr. Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a former psychiatrist who fell madly in love with Gotham City's top crime boss, the Joker (Jared Leto), and became a match for his psychotic criminality.  Slightly lower on the bill are skeazy burglar Digger Harkness, aka Boomerang (Jai Courtney), the hideously deformed Waylon Jones, aka Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and the repentant flame-wielder Chato Santana, aka El Diablo (Jay Hernandez).  The team is assembled under the instruction of shadowy government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to be led in the field by no-nonsense black ops soldier Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and with explosives planted in their necks should they try any funny business, the rogues are offered reduction of their sentences in exchange for taking part in high-stakes missions with low survival rates, not that they have any choice in the matter.  Such a mission comes up when Flag's girlfriend, archeologist June Moone (Cara Delevingne), becomes possessed by an ancient and powerful entity called Enchantress, a force that Waller tried to control but went rogue and is now laying siege to Midway City.

By now, the buzz around this movie is clearly negative and was when I saw it, but at least at first, it didn't seem that bad.  It didn't seem that good either, but it gets a lot worse as it goes on.  Thankfully, it's half an hour shorter than BATMAN V SUPERMAN, but the script isn't a lot better.  Ayer, who's previously directed FURY, SABOTAGE and END OF WATCH, among others, also wrote the script, which feels rushed, hurried and does no favors to the best of its cast.  Smith's Deadshot is the closest thing to a focal point for the ensemble, and it's his first time trying to do something fun in a while, but any effort at motivation, backstory or sympathy is laid on a thin and hackneyed relationship with his daughter, while he has no apparent qualms about laying someone out for money.  More disappointing is the treatment of Harley Quinn, a fan favorite character played by the talented and painfully attractive Robbie, slumming it in a pair of barely-there booty shorts.  She has a lot of fun with the indulgent craziness, biting her lips with a wide-eyed blend of excitement and curiosity, but she's shortchanged in midst of so many characters, and then there's her relationship with the Joker, which, while clearly unhealthy, doesn't make a lick of sense.  Throughout the movie, "Mr. J" is making attempts to free her, and we get occasional scenes of their burgeoning relationship from before, something that Ayer appears to be invested in without ever bothering to let the viewer in on why these characters are invested in each other.  Leto's Joker, despite being somewhat over-designed, is a perfectly decent interpretation of the character, but this is the wrong story for him.  He doesn't seem capable of anything as human as devotion or sex, and Leto's strongly homoerotic twist on the character suggests that if even he had any interest in a sexual partner, it wouldn't be with a woman.
The characters have little to offer, but the plot has even less.  A large portion of the early half of the film is devoted to fairly straightforward exposition, and when Enchantress' takeover of Midway starts, Ayer obscures that plot development in service of a pointless reveal to come later, so it isn't even clear until later that this mission is supposed to be the main story.  When it does become clear that this is the main story, it's really disappointing.  The action is generic at best, pitting the squad, dubbed "Task Force X," against a series of literally faceless drones created by Enchantress that can survive a shot to the head, but just what it is that finally kills them is unclear.  That's nothing compared to the climactic action, which is so awkwardly staged with confusing geography and curiously stylish lighting, while the characters spout wildly unearned platitudes declaring their team a "family," in a ridiculous and overwrought drama.

In the aftermath of the negative critical and fan response to BATMAN V SUPERMAN, which focused heavily on that movie's dour tone (hardly the root of that movie's many problems, but it certainly didn't help any), SUICIDE SQUAD attempts to lighten the mood through a lot of post-production choices and eye-rolling one-liners (one suspects some of these were added in re-shoots), with a soundtrack overstuffed with rock songs, some original and some classics, included one or two previously used by GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, drawing unflattering comparisons.  Much of it seems to be aiming for a dark and dirty tone, one at odds with these supposed tonal fixes, while neither tone stands a chance against the pitfalls of this script.
It sucks, because a lot of people put a lot time and effort into this movie, as is the case with a lot of bad movies, but it's not like anyone sets out to make a bad movie (the Syfy channel and The Asylum excepted, of course).  And yet, the cast and the filmmakers can repeat that they "made it for the fans" until they're blue in the face, and it's just a bad movie that they made for the fans.  This was a movie that could have been really good, and it looked like it might be really good, but for some people who simply wanted to see a movie featuring these characters, that part never mattered much.  We all deserve better, though.