7 films to see on the week of September 24-October 1, 2016
Storks
AN ANIMATED feature about how storks have moved on from delivering babies to packages. But when an order for a baby appears, the best delivery stork must scramble to fix the error by delivering the baby. Directed by Doug Sweetland and Nicholas Stoller (who also wrote the story), it features the voices of Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, and Kelsey Grammer. “The film’s lesson about finding your family never comes off as saccharine, and although there’s nothing particularly innovative about its message, Storks is a little bundle of joy,” writes Devan Coggan of Entertainment Weekly.
MTRCB Rating: G
Daughter of God (aka Exposed)
A POLICE detective (played by Keanu Reeves) investigates the truth behind his partner’s death, unearthing police corruption and a dangerous secret involving an unlikely young woman. Written and directed by Gee Malik Linton, it also stars Ana de Armas and Christopher McDonald. “[The film] has a grimy, off-kilter charm not seen since the heyday of ’70s exploitation,” writes Tom Huddleston of Time Out. Much less positive is the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Rechtshaffen who calls the film “Awfully silly — and just plain awful…”
MTRCB Rating: R-13
The Beatles: Eight Days
a Week — The Touring Years
A DOCUMENTARY following the legendary band The Beatles during their years touring the world at the height of Beatlemania, which is very popular with the reviewers on the RottenTomatoes aggregate site which gave the film an excellent score of 97%. As Peter Travers of the Rolling Stone writes: “Ron Howard’s documentary rightly keeps coming back to the music and the band’s delight in making it. Good move. It truly is a joy forever.”
MTRCB Rating: PG
I America
WRITEN AND directed by Ivan Andrew Payawal, I America follows a half-American woman from Olongapo (played by Bela Padilla) who, set to reunite with her American father, learns that he might not be her father after all.
MTRCB Rating: R-16
Tuos
A YOUNG WOMAN in a remote mountain village defies her fate and breaks her villages’ covenant with the spirits that surround them. This Cinemalaya film starring Nora Aunor, is directed by Roderick dela Cruz Cabrido. “Tuos is a pretty smart film that just doesn’t quite land correctly. There are many beautiful elements to it, but it really struggles to make its plot work out. It is ultimately much more interesting as a depiction of a culture than it is as a story,” writes ClickTheCity’s Philbert Ortiz Dy.
MTRCB Rating: R-13
The Infiltrator
BASED on a true story, a US Customs agent goes deep undercover as a corrupt businessman in order to take down one of the world’s most notorious drug lords, Pablo Escobar. Directed by Brad Furman, the film stars Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, and John Leguizamo. Brad Wheeler of The Globe and Mail writes: “The best thing you can say about The Infiltrator is that Cranston and company are entirely persuasive in a film that doesn’t make the best use of their stellar efforts.”
MTRCB Rating: R-13
The Magnificent Seven
A REMAKE of John Sturges 1960 classic (which was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1956 film Seven Samurai) about seven men hired to defend the desperate residents of a frontier town from an evil businessman with an army at his disposal. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, it stars Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Lee Byung-hun. “A fun and surprisingly fresh Western that takes aim at Donald Trump’s America,” writes indieWIRE’s David Ehrlich. “There’s certainly enough verve, and love for the genre, to help one get past its trouble spots, but you can’t help feeling the mercenary thinking behind rehashing this mercenary yarn,” is the take of TheWrap’s Robert Abele.
MTRCB Rating: R-13
