Alpha – Trailer

Mankind meets man’s best friend.

An epic adventure set in the last Ice Age, ALPHA tells a fascinating, visually stunning story that shines a light on the origins of man’s best friend. While on his first hunt with his tribe’s most elite group, a young man is injured and must learn to survive alone in the wilderness. Reluctantly taming a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies, enduring countless dangers and overwhelming odds in order to find their way home before winter arrives.

Directed By: Albert Hughes Starring: Natassia Malthe, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Leonor Varela


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In Theaters August 17th

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Sicario: Day of the Soldado Movie Review

The definition of the word Sicario is a hired gunman or assassin, esp. in Latin America. The film ‘Sicario,’ starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro was an incredibly powerful and violent film that took audiences by surprise. Director Denis Villeneuve, who went on to direct ‘Arrival’ and ‘Blade Runner: 2049’ didn’t direct ‘Sicario: Day of the Solado,’ which may be surprising to learn when you consider the fact that it was nominated for three Oscars. That said, it was instead directed by Stefano Sollima, who very much did carry on the dark brutality that both stories, written by Taylor Sheridan, who wrote ‘Wind River’ and ‘Hell or High Water,’ required. Not pulling punches, Sollima moves the second tale of the franchise, not quite a sequel but more of an offshoot, at an electric pace.

The film starts by showing a group of individuals being smuggled over the U.S. border from Mexico. This has turned into a substantial for-profit business for the Mexican Cartel as many of them are terrorists willing to pay big dollars. Rather than be caught, these men are prepared to and do blow themselves up if cornered. Pivotal to what’s going on in American politics today, several do the deed in a store. The last one alive is about to take his life for the cause and consequently end the lives of everyone around him, is confronted by a white woman as she begs for him to spare her and her child… thus the theme of the narrative materializes. The comparisons to today can’t be ignored.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense (Modine) hires government agent Matt Graver (Brolin) to help them seal Mexico off and make it appear as necessary to do so as possible. They want to stop the Mexican cartels once and for all. As unscrupulous and underhanded as he is, he suggests getting dirty and to make it appear as if one of the other cartels initiates the fight by attacking the other. He tells them they’re going to have to ‘kidnap a prince’ and explains that the king will start the war for you. He hires the unforgiving Alejandro (Del Toro) to help him kidnap rich, spoiled Isabela Reyes (Moner) the teenage daughter of the notorious cartel leader, Carlos Reyes. They stage everything to look like a rival gang of her fathers has her by allowing her to see pertinent information so she can relay it all back to her father. After, they set in motion a rescue. However, nothing ever goes as planned.
Day of the Solado, a word that means soldier, explores what it means to be a soldier, which is an enforcer of the rules he’s lead by, and what it means to be a man with a conscience. When Alejandro finds himself having to choose between the two, a second story emerges and helps rounds out the reasons for shootouts and the action and criminal element of the film and the more political motivation of the script.

Isabela Reyes is a character you’ll grow to abhor less as the movie winds down. Isabela Moner is an actress you’ll grow to adore as she does a fantastic job giving you what her director asks of her, but the script could have been a little more pointed as to what is expected from its audience. In fact, all the characters were hard for you to read, except for one and that’s Cynthia Foards. Played by Catherine Keener, Foards is a badass who isn’t in touch with her feelings and doesn’t care about yours, especially when it comes time to order a scene to be cleaned.

Even though it’s nothing like ‘Sicario,’ the acting in ‘Sicario: Day of the Solado’ is reason enough to see the second chapter. Oddly, it doesn’t necessarily matter which order you see them in but if you’re a fan of the genre, see them both. Also, you might be happy to learn there is a plan for number three. How it’s presented in the film will definitely leave you scratching your head… but in a good way, I promise.

Leave No Trace – Movie Review

‘Leave No Trace,’ a film based on the novel ‘My Abandonment’ by Peter Rock, which was written from a 2004 article in ‘The Oregonian’ about a girl discovered to be living in Forest Park with her father, is about a troubled veteran living illegally on public land in Portland, Oregon with his young daughter. As members of the human race, we must vow to protect this world. A member of the Armed Forces takes the ‘Oath of Enlistment,’ which states they will, Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
However, and unfortunately, what they’ve been finding when they get out of the service are promises made to them, broken without shame. Chief among those promises include that they are taken care of. Our service members are committing suicide at a rate of twenty-two per day. When they come back to their families, they’re not the same people they were when they were last home and with a VA and health care system unable to properly understand their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD, they often feel alone, shattered, powerless and scared.

In ‘Leave No Trace,’ a drama filled with analogies and parallels for what the human race can do to help one another and save itself, we find that we’d get a lot of assistance from nature, as well, if we’d only be willing to let it. Director Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) shows us many examples of this ideology being embraced by her main character, Will (Foster). Will and his daughter Tom (McKenzie) are living off the grid, on their own and surviving just fine without societies rules being imposed on them. Granik’s methodology is to start her story by taking us through their daily chores of collecting water, eggs, and mushrooms and Will teaching Tom to cover her tracks and other techniques he learned in the military.
He’s aware she can’t miss out on a proper education and teaches her everything he learned in school but living off the land is giving her a scholarship we’d all be lucky to receive. She’s being trained how to respect, properly use, appreciate and give back to the earth. Currently, they’re living in a massive park but due to a mistake made by Tom, they’re spotted.
They’re removed right away and once tested, it’s deemed Will is well enough to give his daughter a proper home. He must also put her into school to be suitably socialized. The state helps him and sets them up with a small home working on a Christmas Tree farm where he is to work to pay for rent. Immediately, he feels like a bear trapped in a cage and grows restless.

At this stage in the narrative, we’re already wondering how they’ve reached this point in their lives, especially when Tom meets a youngster her age and makes what might be her first friend. She seems so delighted and you instinctively feel happy for her, yet at the same time are heartbroken for Will. The balancing act going on at in the story keeps you highly absorbed and perplexed at the same time. You rightly empathize with their situation but Granik purposefully shoots the chopping down of beautiful budding trees and your state of mind can’t help but be manipulated by the display. This is not the schooling Will wants for Tom and not how he’s capable of living so he wakes her in the middle of the night and they’re off. She wanted to stay but as before, he can’t live under ‘their’ rules. They head north and into a situation neither are prepared for.

What comes next in their journey is uncommon, moving and impactful. Granik is spectacular at giving us the opportunity to get to know these characters and explore their world while at the same time subliminally slipping in the significance, or perhaps forewarning, that it’s our world, too.

I highly recommend this for a theatre watch as does Rotten Tomatoes, who has it ‘Certified Fresh’ with a rating of 100%.

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Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town Movie Review

Izzy, a very brash young woman, wakes up hung over and dizzy in Santa Monica. She’s in the apartment of someone she doesn’t know and who she doesn’t remember meeting. Right at this very moment, and you get the feeling there are many, she knows she must get her life together but continually makes excuses as to why nothing is her fault. Wearing her crumpled catering uniform from the night before, she leaves and finds out that her ex-boyfriend Roger (Russell) is marrying her former best friend. Knowing they were together was bad enough but she can’t stand the idea of forever if she isn’t the person he’s marrying. The rest of the film is about what she does to get to the engagement party and break them up.

Izzy calls in as many chits as she can but has burned every bridge she could possibly to use, finding her journey quite difficult. She tries desperately to get people to understand that this time is different, that she has changed, but that’s what she always says. She’s even, at that moment, getting kicked out of the home she’s been staying in because her friends are done enabling her, something she desperately needs someone to do if she’s ever to get better. Izzy has a strong belief and faith in signs from the universe and attempts to use this faith, and the explanation of destiny, on her friends to get them to help her on her journey, but they’ve had enough. During the rest of the film, we meet people who have tried to help her in the past and who she has regularly not appreciate, disappointed and pushed away, including family.

On her own, she gets creative with her methods of transportation. With the use of a bike, a scooter, a stranger, and theft she manages to make her way to her sister Virginia’s (Coon) house. The defining moment of the film is when the two siblings, once singers in a local band, perform a duet. Davis and Coon sound great together, and the time with her sister, while being used to get what she wants, brings Izzy to realize what she has been missing out on. You’d think by now she would have learned something about herself but even at her sister’s house, something happens that tells you she hasn’t changed, she’s only masking who she truly is.

The trip we take with Izzy is rabid and chaotic and once she reaches her destination, director Christian Papierniak uses color as a way to calm things down a bit, introducing us to the reason for all this pandemonium, Roger. The message of the movie is that Alcoholics don’t need the thing they want, only want what they think they need. It goes for people, too. Does Izzy’s heart remain shattered forever? Does she learn from previous mistakes? Will she get the boy in the end? The ending is what I enjoyed most about, ‘Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town’ and I think you will too so I’m not about to answer any of those questions… you’ll have to go and see it for yourself.

The Misandrists Movie Review

The story tries to sell itself as feminist but to me, a woman watching, it was anything but. The synopsis is, ‘When an injured male leftist on the run discovers the remote stronghold of the Female Liberation Army, a radical feminist terrorist group whose mission is to usher in a female world order, one of the members takes pity on him and hides him in the basement. However, the man in the basement is just one of many secrets threatening to disrupt the FLA’s mission from within. Balancing sharp social commentary and salacious popcorn entertainment, iconic filmmaker Bruce LaBruce has created an experience that’s a blast to watch and just as much fun to dissect afterward.’ Sounds great. But when you ‘dissect’ each part of what you watched, you walk away with something completely different. I can sum it up simply by saying it was made as an excuse to be sexual and extreme.

I was surprised to read that Indiewire proclaimed this as one of the fifteen greatest lesbian films of all time because if that’s the case, lesbians have a very low bar unless bad sex scenes are the most important factor in their rating system. There are a few reasons I say that. One is because the acting wasn’t a crucial element of the actor’s abilities to writer/director Bruce LaBruce. While watching a feature film, an audience member would like the actors to be able to pull off a line. Sex scenes are littered throughout for they must be more essential they be there rather than be good to the creator of the film. The first sex scene, outside of the very X-Rated gay porn (being watched by two female leads and framed nicely for us to watch, too), isn’t good either. It appears as though the actors aren’t comfortable with one another and the song that was chosen to play during their lovemaking, which literally screams, ‘Down with the Patriarchy,’ is so bad it makes the ears of anyone within auditory range of the tune hurt slightly.

There is some clever cinematography that suggests LaBruce does have a gift for how to bring a story together, such as when the women in the film turn their male leftist stowaway into a female by showing us what I assume were real shots of the procedure in different stages, but other sloppy editing decisions makes the rest of the work hard to forgive.

Also, having these characters attempt to make a statement about the objectifying of women by men and a patriarchal society is totally missed. As a woman, I found it to be the opposite of what the premise alleges. The Female Separatists want to be heard, accounted for and treated as equals and then to take over. Classes on ‘HERstory’ are taught to bored young women who want only to get back to the bedroom and have pillow fights, complete with feathers, of course, and outside of repeating some philosophical quotes, it doesn’t seem anything they’re learning is really sinking in. But why would it? After all, Big Mother (Susanne Sachße as Susanne Sachsse) gives them no reason to want to stay. She’s every bit the tyrant that she claims all men to be, ordering the girls, forbidding them and even cruelly punishing them. Women are more nurturing by nature so the idea that such a sadistically hate-filled charter would exist seems ludicrous. Surely fantasy could explain the purpose of the film but not a good one. However, there is also learning what Parthenogenesis means. We are told that Parthenogenesis is a type of sexual reproduction where the egg develops an embryotic form without male penetration. This has yet to be found in mammals. Will one or more of the mistresses in the film be the first to carry this to term? If you can stay with this intensely misguided film long enough, it does appear this is the big question LaBruce was leading us to. Men are pigs and women are creation. If he had wanted to be taken more seriously, I believe LaBruce would have been, but he needed to stick one message. Even then it was mired in a hodgepodge of events that made the narrative anything but engaging. I don’t know, maybe this can catch some future cult following but I would be surprised if it did.

Opening in Phoenix Exclusively at Harkins Valley Art

THE LITTLE STRANGER Starring: Domhnall Gleeson and Charlotte Rampling- Trailer

Story: THE LITTLE STRANGER tells the story of Dr. Faraday, the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long hot summer of 1948, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked.  The Hall has been home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries.  But it is now in decline and its inhabitants – mother, son and daughter – are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life.  When he takes on his new patient, Faraday has no idea how closely, and how disturbingly, the family’s story is about to become entwined with his own.


Director: 
Lenny Abrahamson (“Room”) 

Writer: Lucinda Coxon (“The Danish Girl”), based on the novel by Sarah Waters 

Producers: Gail Egan, Ed Guiney, Andrea Calderwood 

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter, and Charlotte Rampling 

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In Theaters August 31

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First Man Trailer – From Academy Award-winning director Damien Chazelle

On the heels of their six-time Academy Award®-winning smash, La La Land, Oscar®-winning director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man, the riveting story of NASA’s mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the years 1961-1969.  A visceral, first-person account, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the movie will explore the sacrifices and the cost—on Armstrong and on the nation—of one of the most dangerous missions in history.

Written by Academy AwardŽ winner Josh Singer (Spotlight), the drama is produced by Wyck Godfrey & Marty Bowen (The Twilight Saga, The Fault in Our Stars) through their Temple Hill Entertainment banner, alongside Chazelle and Gosling.  Isaac Klausner (The Fault in Our Stars) executive produces.  DreamWorks Pictures co-finances the film. 

Starring:  Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Patrick Fugit, Ciaran Hinds, Ethan Embry, Shea Whigham, Corey Stoll, Pablo Schreiber

Director: Damien Chazelle

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 is coming soon to theaters and IMAX.

In Theaters October 12

http://www.fandango.com

Bernard and Huey Movie Review

‘Bernard and Huey’ was a favorite at the Phoenix Film Festival this year. The originality or the story, characters and the acting were refreshing, and it became even more so when the director, Dan Mirvish, stood before us and gave us a little history of how the film came to be. ‘Bernard and Huey’ is based on a cartoon strip of these two men that were in Playboy magazine in the 1950’s. The characters were created by Jules Feiffer who later wrote a script about the two pals who reunite many years after college to find they’re nothing like they once were. Learning the history of the story made the film much more fascinating but the writing had already won me over. The fact that Jim Rash and David Koechner are Bernard and Huey leads one to ask, what could go wrong? Why ask this? Based on characters they’ve played before I knew the characters would be colorful, to say the least. So, the answer to the question is nothing. Nothing goes wrong. Not for the film, that is.

When they were young, Bernard (Rash) was a shy kid who couldn’t speak to girls and Huey (Koechner) was a jerk who took advantage of them whenever and wherever he could; he couldn’t care less who he tortured along the way. Huey enjoyed telling him tales of how he treated lovers and Bernard would learn but was shocked and disgusted as he listened. He tried to be a good influence but nothing doing… Huey and his lack of maturity wouldn’t budge.
When we meet the men, Bernard is rather successful and Huey, having just lost his wife and child due to being a chump, needs a place to crash.

Though he’s no longer a pushover, he’s still kind-hearted and Bernard gives him a place to stay. He’s also loving seeing his hero dethroned. However, letting him back into his life, he recalls all the reasons why they didn’t remain friends. A very ‘Odd Couple’ feeling begins to emerge, and these reasons come rushing back to him when Huey starts taking advantage of him. Bernard has done well but who he once was comes flooding back and he begins to lose faith in himself, especially when it comes to women who he was doing very well with until Huey came back into his life.

Flashbacks are revealing and help you see that Bernard is reverting to his old self because he’s now attempting to one-up Huey and goes too far. Zelda is that too far. Keep in mind, Bernard sees himself as better, more advanced mentally, than Huey but really, they are one and the same and that’s what Bernard has tried so desperately not to reveal to anyone. He hates that Huey’s arrogant, nasty attitude has taken him to have to dive into his own hubris because he has gone to such great lengths to appear above the norm.

Why you’ll love this film so much is the dialogue. It seems perfectly written for Jim Rash to deliver and when he goes head to head with his attempt at getting back at Huey, it works even better. Zelda is that ‘too far’ he’s willing to travel. Bernard starts seeing Zelda, (Whitman) a twenty-something aspiring graphic novelist who is also… Huey’s daughter. Bernard tries to but cannot resist her charms. She likes being with him but is looking for help to get published. Bernard doesn’t want Huey finding out about them, but Huey does find out and doesn’t have the reaction to the news one might think he’d have. Knowing that his child is an extension of himself, Huey knows Zelda is only going to devour him. Bernard isn’t prepared for her but at the same time maybe needs her before he can ever fully grow up.
I’ve spoken of how wonderful Whitman and Rash are but can’t leave out Koechner’s brilliance as a modern-day Neanderthal. His bold hilarity as he works impeccably opposite Rash to bring to life a script based on a comic strip is frustratingly precise. Mirvish couldn’t have cast this film better.

Hereditary Movie Review

A24’s done it again and with Toni Collette starring in their latest film, ‘Hereditary,’ they’ve created a must-see horror film; one that will be remembered for a long time to come. She’s one of the most underrated actors working today so I’m glad to see her get this role. Forgive that the film is a bit slow because Collette is outstanding as Annie a, fundamentally, cursed soul. This script allowed Collette a great deal of room to play more than one entity and gave her character above average depth. Horror films usually give female characters one dimension, but Collette’s Annie is to frighten you and throw you off course and she does so with ease.

Annie is writer/director Ari Aster’s female lead, a mother who is fighting many demons in the present as well as evil in her bloodline she was previously unaware of. When her mother passes away, grief-stricken, Annie inherits complications she doesn’t understand but must now deal with, ready or not… like it or not. Though she tries to avoid the truth about her ancestry, several horribly events push her to acknowledge who she is. She says things she never knew she felt, experiences the mythical and sees what she once thought unreal. The complexity of the death of her daughter moves her in a direction the filmmakers made sure the audience would never see coming. This is well hidden in trailers because they lead you to believe her daughter, Charlie (Shapiro), is a problem child to be feared when it turns out that it’s Annie we all need to be concerned with. After all, she is next in line. How this unravels is just a slice of what makes the film such a delightful fright. True or not, making your audience imagine that Annie is the protagonist before they even sit to watch the story unfold is a brilliant move. Centered around her behavior for how she loses her child, the suspense builds in a most unusual fashion, taking this mother down a most unexpected path. The shock and terror come from who you envision she’ll be and you never expect who she ultimately becomes.

In his feature debut, Aster manages to surprise horror fans by giving them a feeling of isolation with the story and making it almost impossible to grasp onto a lifeline that could pull them to safety… because there isn’t one in or around them to find. Annie is unredeemable. As she becomes more desperate, Aster uses fewer clichés and relies a limited amount on what makes a traditional horror film grim and ghastly which will endear you to his style and drive you wild with anticipation for the next nightmare he’ll drag you through.

I did have one issue but didn’t want to give anything away by revealing too much. However, I feel compelled to mention what I thought was a tragic error so I will. The storyline Annie’s son, Peter (Wolff), is involved in won’t be divulged because it’s very jarring, but I must mention that the actor chosen was not a good fit for the part. This felt so wrong that it pulls you out of the story at times. The creepy level is high and the tension you’ll feel will startle and impress. Horror doesn’t work when it’s predictable. ‘Hereditary’ is anything but that.

Hotel-Artemis-movie-screening

Hotel Artemis Advance Movie Screening

Movie Screening Summary

Set in riot-torn, near-future Los Angeles, HOTEL ARTEMIS is an original, high-octane action-thriller starring Jodie Foster as The Nurse, who runs a secret, members-only hospital for criminals. Jodie Foster is joined by an all-star cast that includes Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Bryan Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Day, and Dave Bautista.

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HOTEL ARTEMIS
Release: June 8, 2018
Studio: Global Road Entertainment
Genre: Thriller
Director: Drew Pearce
Writer: Drew Pearce
Cast: Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Day, Dave Bautista
Rating: R
Runtime: 93 min

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Advance Movie Screening For HOTEL ARTEMIS

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Phoenix, Arizona

Advance Movie Screening Details

Movie Screening Date: Wednesday, June 6
Location: AMC Desert Ridge
Movie Screening Time: 7:00pm
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Las Vegas, Nevada

Advance Movie Screening Details

Movie Screening Date:Wednesday, June 6
Location: Regal Red Rock
Movie Screening Time: 7:00pm
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To redeem a pass, simply click the Get Passes button. You will taken to our movie screening partner site (where you can sign up for a free account). Once you’ve done so, you’ll be able to print out your pass and bring it with you to your screening or event.

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