Tag: Australia-disneyplus (Page 9)

At an older age, love can feel like it’s overrated, but watching Little Manhattan easily makes you remember the way love felt growing up, starting to explore all the feelings one had of the opposite gender, with childhood imagination and freedom from responsibilities making it seem so much more wonderful than it is now. Admittedly, it does suffer from a bit of the 2000s stereotypes and gender essentialism that stupid kids spouted, but as long as you remember the film comes from the perspective of a well-meaning, if a bit immature, 10-year-old boy, Little Manhattan feels like a charming recollection of how first love felt.

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Actor: Aaron Grady Shaw, Alex Trebek, Austin Majors, Bradley Whitford, Charlie Ray, Connor Hutcherson, Cynthia Nixon, J. Kyle Manzay, Jess Weixler, John Dossett, Jonah Meyerson, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Pais, Mike Chaturantabut, Talia Balsam, Timothy Adams, Tonye Patano, Willie Garson

Director: Mark Levin

Rating: PG

Kenneth Branagh’s third Hercule Poirot movie does everything it can to divorce itself from the quaintness of a typical Agatha Christie adaptation. Loosely based on the novel Hallowe’en Party, this outing swaps exotic locales for the claustrophobic confines of a gothic Venetian palazzo and flirts outright with horror. The film, shot through more Dutch angles than an Amsterdam maths class has ever seen, uses the genre's visual language to credibly suggest that this mystery might actually have paranormal undertones. Forcing Poirot to reconsider his die-hard loyalty to rational explanations is an interesting twist — it punctures the idea of him as a mystery-solving god and gives the film bigger questions to chew on than whodunnit.

What that does, however, is sap the satisfaction of watching him expertly crack the puzzle, because the movie spends so much time centering Poirot’s crisis of confidence. A Haunting in Venice’s tone switch to serious horror is also at odds with the campily bad accents and mostly overwrought acting from the (much less starry than usual) cast. It’s not the same kind of reliable guilty pleasure we expect these vehicles to be, then, but this outing of Branagh’s Poirot is at least an interesting experiment in expanding these stories' usual limits.

Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Ali Khan, Amir El-Masry, Camille Cottin, David Menkin, Emma Laird, Jamie Dornan, Jude Hill, Kelly Reilly, Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Lorenzo Acquaviva, Michelle Yeoh, Riccardo Scamarcio, Rowan Robinson, Tina Fey, Vanessa Ifediora

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Rating: PG-13

Contrary to the headline displayed on this film’s poster, Disney’s The Beach Boys isn’t a definitive guide to the band. Instead, it plays like a “greatest hits” album that goes through their famous ups and downs. Their steady rise among American teens and leader Brian Wilson’s pop music innovations are covered, as are the more dour moments of their career, like the relentless abuse they got from their manager (the Wilsons’ father Murry) and the disagreements between Brian and his cousin and co-writer Mike Love. But for better or worse, the documentary doesn’t go into too much detail about these high-profile feuds, focusing instead on the joy and brilliance of their era-defining music, which tends to get buried beneath all the drama anyway. Because of this sunny approach, the film sometimes fails to match the band’s complexity. But there’s no denying that it's just as enjoyable to watch as it is to listen to The Beach Boys' music.

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, Brian Wilson, Bruce Johnston, Carl Wilson, Charles Manson, Chuck Berry, David Marks, Dennis Wilson, Don Was, George Harrison, Glen Campbell, Janelle Monáe, John Lennon, Lindsey Buckingham, Mike Love, Paul McCartney, Ricky Fataar, Ringo Starr, Ryan Tedder

Director: Frank Marshall, Thom Zimny

Rating: PG-13

Kinds of Kindness is three different short films stacked into one. They don’t share a lot of similarities, except that their characters are played by the same actors, all of whom excellently display varying degrees of isolation and desperation. None of these people are likable—in fact, they’re despicable—but damn if they don’t make you stop and think about what you’re watching. There’s a hitman who struggles with his guilty conscience, a plane crash survivor who may or may not have infectious cannibalism, and a cult member obsessed with cementing her status in the group. You’ll need about a day to process this deeply disturbing movie, but you won’t for a second doubt seeing it in all its glorious weirdness.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Emma Stone, Hong Chau, Hunter Schafer, Ja'Quan Monroe-Henderson, Jesse Plemons, Joe Alwyn, Julianne Binard, Kien Spiller, Krystal Alayne Chambers, Lindsey G. Smith, Mamoudou Athie, Margaret Qualley, Merah Benoit, Nikki Chamberlin, Susan Elle, Willem Dafoe, Yorgos Stefanakos

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Rating: R

While most media outlets would rather talk about Taylor Swift’s love life and never-ending feuds, the fact remains that Swift is a dedicated artist. She’s a prolific songstress and an astute writer, and regardless of what you think of her, it’s always a treat to see someone with that much passion and talent delve deep into their craft. 

This is precisely what she does in Folklore. Between cozy conversations with co-producers and rustic live sessions, Swift lets her guard down to reveal how she works on each song, from the backstory to the melody. The result is a mesmerizing documentary about how Swift spent the secluded year of 2020 working on a record that would go on to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. 

Genre: Documentary, Drama, Music

Actor: Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, Justin Vernon, Taylor Swift

Director: Taylor Swift

Rating: TV-14

Much sweeter and much more bittersweet than one might expect, World's Best does some deceptively clever things with its major themes of math and rap. Somehow, this pre-teen coming-of-age story finds a way to play with preconceived notions of equations always resulting in certain answers, and of modern hip hop being all about swagger and status. Unsurprisingly (or maybe disappointingly for some), the film ultimately touches on grief and loss, which an increasing number of Disney films have been doing as of late. But World's Best keeps itself fresh through its sincere, energetic tone, colorful production design, and spirited performances by Utkarsh Ambudkar and the young Manny Magnus. So even when the rapping gets corny (which it does more often than it should), the spirit behind it is so endearing that it's hard to be mad.

Genre: Comedy, Family, Music

Actor: Chris River, Christopher Jackson, Dorian Giordano, Doug E. Fresh, Jake Choi, Jordan Heron, Jorja Rae Inksetter Lardy, Karan Soni, Kathryn Greenwood, Kayla Njeri, Manny Magnus, Max Malas, Maya McNair, Neil Crone, Noah Lamanna, Piper Wallace, Punam Patel, Robyn Matuto, Sathya Sridharan, Tricia Black, Utkarsh Ambudkar

Director: Roshan Sethi

Rating: PG

Based on the rumors, When Frank Met Carlitos is a fun reimagination of how the meeting between Carlos Gardel and Frank Sinatra went. While the meeting is entirely fictional, it’s an interesting what-if scenario, as the real-life Sinatra went into music because of American singer Bing Crosby, who in turn, was notably inspired by Gardel, the Il Muto. Split between their languages, Gardel and Sinatra still have a shared understanding, piecing together each other’s thoughts through shared loan words, and imparting knowledge through dramatic song. As the fictionalized versions of the best singers from the American continent interact, the TV special seems like a send-off from a wiser generation to their younger counterparts.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music

Actor: Antonella Misenti, Oscar Lajad, Pablo Turturiello

Director: Natalia del Castillo

Admittedly, being released in theaters a month after Immaculate, The First Omen can almost be accused of being derivative, with similar protagonists, plots, and themes. However, unlike Immaculate, this film captures a bit of the 1970s horror style that was best seen in the original 1976 Omen film, with the paranoia, the investigations, the Eastman Kodak-inspired color grading, and the number of the devil now depicted in striking modern images and clearer digital definition. And, considering that the Roe decision was overturned two years ago, the idea of a forced virgin conception is a great way to reintroduce Gen Z to the horror franchise, as the prequel, and today’s women, now have to deal with religion and authority reducing women only into vessels. The First Omen is a timely adaptation that takes familiar horror tropes and executes them well.

Genre: Horror

Actor: Alessandra Fallucchi, Andrea Arcangeli, Anton Alexander, Bill Nighy, Charles Dance, Dobrila Stojnic, Dora Romano, Eva Ras, Ishtar Currie Wilson, James Swanton, María Caballero, Mario Opinato, Mia McGovern Zaini, Michelangelo Dalisi, Milena Božić, Miodrag Rakočević, Nell Tiger Free, Nicole Sorace, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Ralph Ineson, Sônia Braga, Sylvia Panacione, Tawfeek Barhom

Director: Arkasha Stevenson

Rating: R