233 Movies Like Joker (2019) On Itunes Canada (Page 15)

Miranda’s Victim often feels like two different movies smushed into one. On the one hand, it tells the story of how Trish finds the courage to speak up against her abuser, who happens to be a person of color. On the other hand, it shows us the legal intricacies that led to the founding of what we now know as Miranda Rights. In better hands, these two stories (one emotional and one technical) could’ve worked well together, and they would’ve spoken to the intersectionality at the heart of this complicated case. But instead of going for nuance, instead of exploring the complex racial and gender politics that inform this case, Director Michelle Danner goes in all sorts of odd directions as if herself confused about what the focus should be. 

Breslin is heartbreaking and powerful as Trish, but she’s only given so much to act with. Despite being based on a real person, her character is reduced to trauma and tears—a caricature of abuse—and nothing more. The movie is at its strongest when it converts into pure courtroom drama by the third act. Suddenly, it’s brisk and intelligent, bolstered by the compelling one-two punches of the judge (a commanding Donald Sutherland) and the two lawyers (Ryan Philippe, a revelation, and Luke Wilson, only slightly better here than in his earlier turn in Legally Blonde). As a story about violation and abuse, there’s surprisingly little compassion to be found, despite the title. But as a legal drama, it’s as informative as it can be. 

Genre: Drama, History

Actor: Abigail Breslin, Andy Garcia, Brent Sexton, Brian Colin Foley, Dan Lauria, Donald Sutherland, Emily VanCamp, Enrique Murciano, James Healy Jr., Jann Ellis, Josephine Hies, Joshua Bowman, Kyle MacLachlan, Luke Wilson, Michael Mulheren, Mireille Enos, Najah Bradley, Nolan Gould, Ryan Phillippe, Sheilagh Weymouth, Taryn Manning

Director: Michelle Danner

Last Days in Vietnam is a documentary that recounts the final weeks of the conflict in 1975, as North Vietnamese forces surged toward Saigon and U.S personnel anxiously awaited word of an evacuation plan. At the time, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin was reluctant to accept defeat, and delayed a U.S. withdrawal in his (rapidly diminishing) hopes that a solution could be reached. Once the fall of Saigon became imminent, U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence personnel were left piecing together a bare bones plan to escape via military helicopter support. The moral dilemma they soon faced was the harsh reality of leaving behind so many South Vietnamese citizens who had supported the American effort—many of whom faced likely imprisonment and/or death. Featuring remarkable footage and first-hand accounts from many involved, the film recounts those final days of chaos and confusion in stunningly dramatic fashion. Director Rory Kennedy has put together a gripping and emotionally compelling film that balances broad historical exposition with concise detail related to the evacuation complexities—all of it punctuated by remarkable examples of bravery and heroism.

Genre: Documentary, War

Actor: Henry Kissinger, Juan Valdez, Richard Nixon, Stuart Herrington

Director: Rory Kennedy

Rating: Not Rated

Hotel Salvation is a touching movie about a father asking his son for a last wish : let him die in the Holy city of Varanasi. This Indian drama will let you discover a modern Hindu philosophy, the power of the scenic Varanasi and the bonds of family. It faces the question of death in the light, gentle and humorous way that perfectly illustrates the contradiction in question: celebrating life while surrounded by death.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adil Hussain, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Lalit Behl, Navnindra Behl, Palomi Ghosh

Director: Shubhashish Bhutiani

Rating: Not Rated

Producer/Director Beth Kargman has put together a wonderful documentary that follows six young ballet dancers to the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the most important of all ballet competitions worldwide. The prizes at the competition include awards of recognition, scholarships, and work with major dance companies. The dancers are in several age ranges and ethnicities. Michaela and her sister were adopted from Sierra Leone, where there was nothing but death and poverty waiting for them. Michaela has been told that blacks make unsuitable ballet dancers -- bad feet, too muscular, wrong build, etc. Zamora lives in New York, far away from his family, but his father tells him there is nothing for him in Colombia and he has to go after his dream. Rebecca is a cheerleader and a 'normal' kid whose passion is dance, and Aaron doesn't tell other kids he's a dancer. All of them have great talents, obvious from their dance routines at the Grand Prix. First Position is a very inspiring documentary about youngsters from different backgrounds and social status with the dream of dancing professionally, and the sacrifices they have made to achieve their goal. The dancing is heavenly; I only wish there had been more of it.

Genre: Comedy, Documentary, Drama

Actor: Aran Bell, Gaya Bommer Yemini, Joan Sebastian Zamora, Jules Jarvis Fogarty, Michaela Deprince, Miko Fogarty, Rebecca Houseknecht

Director: Bess Kargman

Rating: Not Rated

Incredible footage combined with a great soundtrack will keep you frozen in your seat until global warming melts you off (so to speak). Chasing Ice is about a National Geographic photographer who tries to capture a complete overview of what climate change is doing to our planet. Consequently this movie took years to make and countless technical issues had to be dealt with in order to record the time-lapse videos. The result is mesmerizing, and captures something that has never been caught on camera before. This movie is evidence of what our planet is going through that everyone can relate to. Be prepared to be charmed and saddened at the same time.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Adam LeWinter, Dennis Dimick, James Balog, Jeff Orlowski, Kitty Boone, Louie Psihoyos, Svavar Jónatansson, Sylvia Earle, Tad Pfeffer

Director: Jeff Orlowski

Rating: PG-13

The main subject that Hold Your Fire promises to be about—negotiation tactics first used in resolving a New York City standoff at a sporting goods store—is ultimately its most least interesting aspect. These supposed tactics aren't too well, and they end up putting a damper on all the human drama that comes before it, which proves strikingly three-dimensional. As the film revisits the details of the hostage situation from the perspective of those who were actually there, it also complicates the situation by compelling us to think of it in a dense, sociopolitical sense rather than a reductive lens of crime and punishment. It's this build-up to the actual negotiation that may actually hold more insight into these kinds of crises.

Genre: Documentary

Director: Stefan Forbes

Yu Katayama lives in a remote village with a garbage disposal business that's slowly turning into a landfill. When his childhood friend Misaki Nakai returns to the village, she encourages Yu to make a better life for himself despite his mother's gambling and the village ostracizing him. The Village is a slow-burning film interested in Yu's struggles as an outcast and in discussing the takeover of small villages for capitalistic industrial motives. The film is shot beautifully with dark, brooding visuals and lingering shots of Yu's quiet intensity throughout the film. Unfortunately, secondary characters are not fully developed outside of their interactions with Yu, causing the film to feel flat outside of pivotal moments. An evocative idea with parts more memorable than the whole.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Arata Furuta, Daiken Okudaira, Hana Kino, Haru Kuroki, Naomi Nishida, Ryusei Yokohama, Sakuma Ryuto, Shidô Nakamura, Tetta Sugimoto, Wataru Ichinose

Director: Michihito Fujii

Rating: R, TV-MA

Better than any movie starring a talking CGI gorilla has any right to be, The One and Only Ivan isn't so much a family adventure so much as it's a light character study that younger viewers should also enjoy. The film still runs into a number of the same problems you might expect—haphazard plotting, celebrity voice acting that adds nothing to the characters—but it's still remarkably thoughtful and has the maturity to explore much sadder territory. As much as movies originally released on Disney+ can at times feel like products churned out from an assembly line, this one feels far more sincere, with a real message behind it.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family

Actor: Angelina Jolie, Ariana Greenblatt, Betsy Graver, Brooklynn Prince, Bryan Cranston, Chaka Khan, Danny DeVito, Davina Sitaram, Dean Phillippi Sr., Eleanor Matsuura, Hannah Bourne, Helen Mirren, Indira Varma, Jacqueline Ramnarine, Jeremy Oliver, Kevin Mathurin, Kriss Dillon, Max Dowler, Mike White, Owain Arthur, Phillipa Soo, Ramón Rodríguez, Roberto Vivancos, Ron Funches, Sam Rockwell

Director: Thea Sharrock

Rating: PG

A deadpan anthology of three interconnected stories set in a run-down hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. The film's deliberate pacing, minimalist approach, and observational style are present throughout, capturing the essence of each character and their encounters with the city. 

Director Jim Jarmusch's indie film displays its characters' quirks and desires, all underlined with a love letter to Elvis Presley. Each unique segment has some charm, humor, and soundtrack that creates a palpable sense of time and place even if the sum displaces the overall narrative.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Calvin Brown, Cinqué Lee, Elizabeth Bracco, Jim Stark, Jodie Markell, Joe Strummer, Masatoshi Nagase, Nicoletta Braschi, Richard Boes, Rick Aviles, Rockets Redglare, Rufus Thomas, Sara Driver, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Steve Buscemi, Sy Richardson, Tom Noonan, Tom Waits, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Youki Kudoh

Director: Jim Jarmusch

The level of access that A Thousand Cuts gets to both the side of the press and of the administration is ultimately what makes it valuable. By being on the ground with journalists doing honest-to-goodness hard work, the film reframes Duterte's war on drugs (really a campaign to terrorize the poor into submission) as an information war between news outlets and government propaganda. Unfortunately, in the process, the film also winds up excluding the voices of working class people and how they both engage and are engaged by all this information. There should be a way to honor the work of these journalists without accidentally positioning them above the public they serve.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Amal Clooney, George Clooney, Leni Robredo, Maria Ressa, Patricia Evangalista, Pia Ranada

Director: Ramona S. Diaz

The broad, symbolic strokes of The Killing of Two Lovers—how its story is set up and the general atmosphere it evokes—are stunning to behold. It's a naturalistic story whose ordinary moments feel like they're being told at the end of the world, given how deliberately chilling Robert Machoian's direction is. Unfortunately, once you start getting into the details of the plot and its characters, their actions and decisions don't lead to particularly interesting insights about the separation and the couple's relationship to each other or their children. The end result is something that's clearly driven by a compelling mood more than anything, but whose resolution still feels anticlimactic.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: Arri Graham, Avery Pizzuto, Barbara Whinnery, Chris Coy, Clayne Crawford, Sepideh Moafi

Director: Robert Machoian

Rating: R

Hipgnosis’s body of work is so rich, brilliant, and recognizable, that it’s hard not to at least sit in awe as they flash by you in this documentary. The accompanying stories behind their creation, sometimes told by Thorgerson and Powell, other times by their musician clients like Jimmy Page and Paul McCartney, are also pleasant and informative enough to paint, in whole, an interesting picture. But apart from the covers themselves, Squaring the Circle doesn’t have much else going for it. The co-founders’ history is too brief and plain to render drama, and their upbringing too upper-class and male to be relatable. A more broad, ambitious goal would’ve been to parallel the history of these artworks with the history of rock music itself, but this niche documentary seems uninterested in explaining itself to outsiders and newcomers. That said, it still serves as a precious account for those familiar with Hipgnosis’ pieces. 

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: David Gilmour, Glen Matlock, Graham Gouldman, Jimmy Page, Nick Mason, Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Peter Saville, Robert Plant, Roger Waters

Director: Anton Corbijn