Girls Trip,
directed by Malcolm D. Lee
(R, 2 hours, 2 minutes)
Rowdy, spirited, sexy and smart, this is a dramatic comedy about four onetime college roommates (Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Haddish) who gather for a journey to New Orleans' annual Essence Music Festival, where the good times roll.
The chemistry among these charismatic performers keeps the story bubbling along through predictable plot points of bad behavior, shared memories, fancy dancing, exchanging inappropriate stories and advice, troublemaking, and recalling all the reasons their characters are still together after many years. And why the French Quarter is exactly the right place for them to be at this point in their lives.
The Midwife (not rated, 1 hour, 57 minutes) Smart, imaginative, entertaining and well performed, this film uses a light touch to tell the serious story of strong-willed maternity hospital midwife Claire (Catherine Frot) and Beatrice (Catherine Deneuve), Claire's late father's free-spirited mistress from decades ago, who re-enters Claire's life to announce that she has brain cancer. Though polar opposites, the two women search for a way to develop a relationship and rely on each other. In French with subtitles. The DVD includes a press conference with Deneuve and Frot from the Berlinale Film Festival and an interview with director Martin Provost.
A Very Sordid Wedding (not rated, 1 hour, 49 minutes) Almost cartoonish in its silly and enthusiastic playfulness, this gay-theme comedy makes fun of all sorts of situations (as did its 2000 forerunner Sordid Lives), especially taking on the social customs of the South. With Dale Dickey, Bonnie Bedelia, Katherine Bailess, Leslie Jordan, Carole Cook, Michael MacRae, Kirk Geiger, Whoopi Goldberg; directed by Del Shores.
Barry Lyndon (PG, 3 hours, 4 minutes) Now on Blu-ray and over three hours long, with gorgeous candle-lit cinematography that resembles period paintings and a plot that's alternately fascinating and dry to the point of dullness, this distinctive 18th-century satire by Stanley Kubrick, released in 1975, bore little resemblance to his ultra-violent dystopian drama A Clockwork Orange (1971), and was nowhere near as popular. Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, it concerns a troublemaking Irishman (Ryan O'Neal) who kills a British soldier in a duel over a woman, then joins the British army and departs for Prussia to fight in the Seven Years' War. Through a series of changing circumstances, he eventually marries a wealthy widow and transforms himself into a completely different man, with troubles to match. With Marisa Berenson, Steven Berkoff.
Shot Caller (R, 2 hours, 1 minute) A surprisingly adept character study (with worthy performances) concerns an extended stay in prison brought about by a DUI conviction that transforms a successful and smart business man (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) into a ruthless, violent gangster. Upon his release, there is, as you might expect, one last crime to be committed. With Omari Hardwick, Lake Bell, Jon Bernthal, Benjamin Bratt, Jeffrey Donovan; directed by Ric Roman Waugh.
Spirited Away (PG, 2 hours, 5 minutes) Now available on Blu-ray, this 2001 surreal, enchanting fantasy by Hayao Miyazaki is filled with haunting imagery, subtly rendered characters and an emotional core that's not to be found in most anime. It follows 10-year-old Chihiro, who loses track of her parents on a family outing and finds herself at a holiday resort for the supernatural where the rules of life are very different from those she's known. With voices of Suzanne Pleshette, Daveigh Chase, David Ogden Stiers, Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis, John Ratzenberger.
MovieStyle on 10/20/2017