DVDS OUT T0DAY
FILMS
“Doctor Strange”
“Allied”
“Moonlight”
“Shut In”
“Rules Don’t Apply”
“Chronic”
“Officer Downe”
“All We Had”
“Contract To Kill”
“Wheeler”
TELEVISION
“Fuller House: The Complete First Season”
FILMS
“Doctor Strange”
“Allied”
“Moonlight”
“Shut In”
“Rules Don’t Apply”
“Chronic”
“Officer Downe”
“All We Had”
“Contract To Kill”
“Wheeler”
TELEVISION
“Fuller House: The Complete First Season”
While I wasn’t as rapturous about the Oscar winner “Moonlight,” Barry Jenkins’s second feature, as others, it was still one of the best films of 2016. I think Jenkins turned a small personal film into what feels like a much larger vision.
It essentially tells the story of a gay black man in three stages of his life — as a boy recognizing that he is different than the others; as a teen coming to a point where he forced into a situation that changes his future; and finally as an adult, hardened but conflicted about his identity.
As a boy Chiron (Alex Hibbard) lives with his mother Paula (Naomie Harris), who is struggling to make ends meet and is resentful of her son. Mahershala Ali plays Juan, a good-hearted drug dealer, who is sympathetic to what the boy is going through.
He and his girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe), offer Chiron an oasis from his troubles at home and in school. In a lovely moment Juan even teaches the boy how to swim, but Chiron also understands that his guardian also supplies his mother with drugs.
The beach and the sea and the moonlight evoke a world where Chiron can escape from the pressures of society and stereotypes that define his life, where he can hide and be himself. Jenkins’ film is a small lyrical poem, and it’s easy to imply more. But what it does beautifully is open your heart to Chiron, which is enough.
‘Doctor Strange’
If you’ve seen Benedict Cumberbatch in “Sherlock,” then you know he’s perfect as a super-surgeon turned superhero who gains power after a magical mystery tour to the Far East. So let’s just dispense with the plot then. Cumberbatch is fun to watch, because, like Sherlock, Strange is arrogant but prone to trip up in slightly comic ways. “Doctor Strange,” thankfully, takes itself a bit less seriously than most Marvel projects and mostly avoids those deadly special-effects overloads. It’s also has a good cast surrounding Cumberbatch, including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong and Mads Mikkelsen.
‘Allied’
There are two words that might make you want to see “Allied”: Marion Cotillard. The Oscar winner plays a spy in Robert Zemeckis’s entertaining World War II romantic thriller.
Cotillard’s Marianne, a French resistance fighter, has been paired with Brad Pitt’s Max Vatan, a Canadian agent. The two have been tasked to assassinate a German officer in, of all places, Casablanca. Like Rick and Ilsa they fall in love as war is in the air and once they survive their mission decide to marry. The problem is after a few years and with the world still hanging in the balance some evidence arises that one of them may be a double agent. Who? Well, that’s the fun of the movie, but along the way Cotillard gives a really interesting performance as a spy who knows how to perform.
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