This Weeks New Releases For Home Viewing: Including Sicario

There are five new releases to note this week!!

Lets start with one I covered yesterday!!\\

SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE
Directed by Leslyle Headland
Screenplay by Leslyle Headland
Starring Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie



A good-natured womanizer (Sudeikis) and a serial cheater (Brie) form a platonic relationship that helps reform them in ways, while a mutual attraction sets in.

You know where this is going in the first 5 minutes. That is okay. I can be a sucker for a charming love story. The problem here is the getting there part. Sudeikis is annoying as hell. He is much too old to play this part, or to be behaving like this. He is 40!!!!! Brie, I did not watch Community, this is the first time I have seen her and she comes across as cute. Lainey is a school teacher and seems to like children...but beyond that she is just has no personality or no likable traits. So there, as a viewer you are left with, two unlikable people talking about sex, and that is suppose to be funny, but it almost seems odd and creepy.
Well it had the ending that I thought the film would be heading to, but that is not enough. 1 1/2 stars out of 5 for Sleeping With Other People. Ugh I just spent two days on this awful story.


THE WALK
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay by Robert Zemeckis and Christopher Browne
Based on the book by Philippe Petit
Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Charlotte Le bon



Twelve people have walked on the moon, but only one man - Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) - has ever, or will ever, walk in the immense void between the World Trade Center towers. Guided by his real-life mentor, Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), and aided by an unlikely band of international recruits, Petit and his gang overcome long odds, betrayals, dissension and countless close calls to conceive and execute their mad plan.

I really loved the documentary Man On A Wire. I just thought because of that, this film was unnecessary. Boy was I wrong!!!!
Loved it!! Petit, played wonderfully with pure body language by Levitt (not as much dialect), is a character meant for the movies. He is big. His personality is big. His dreams are big. He is wacky, I mean you have to be wacky to pull off this stunt.
A wonderful performance by Le Bon as Annie, who I have not seen before, but she is adorable and never questions his sanity. She is his perfect mate and incredibly you believe her.
Zemeckis makes this a fun watch. It is almost like a heist film that ends with a maestro on a wire conducting a one man orchestra, that being Petit. Also in the bigger picture it is the love and the beauty of the towers and the sadness that they are gone.
Faults...two big ones I think. I think Levitt is very good but why not a French actor?! Levitt's broken French is slightly distracting. Yes I know it is suppose to be broken English but it feels off. Also, we spent 2 hours with these characters why not finish with an updates on them,,,where are they now?
4 1/2 out of 5 for The Walk. I was sad that this film did not do well on the big screen, trust me worth a look at home


SICARIO
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Screenplay by Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Emily Blunt; Josh Brolin; Benicio Del Toro



This is a very hard film to review. I always say...no spoilers here...so I will give it my best shot.
The "War" on drugs. We hear it on TV all the time. This film shows us that...it is a freaking war on drugs. Yes this is a thriller and a little bit of a mystery, but all in all it is a war movie, or maybe an old style western. It asks the question how far do you go to get the bad people?! Do you break laws? What bad guys do you have to get into bed with to get even the worst of the worst guys? It is also political, yes okay some people want open borders. Okay....but what about the drugs that are being run into the US? What to do? This film show us the difficulty of such a "war on drugs".
The screenplay by Sheridan is wonderful with a slow build. The direction by Villeneuve is very close to perfect with lighting and pace and grit...you, as a viewer, almost feel the heat and dirt coming off the screen.
Emily Blunt is getting a lot of props for this role. She is good here, but it seems she often does not have a lot to do except watch and question until the climatic ending. I think Brolin is fantastic!! Del Toro as Alejandro is amazing. You are constantly questioning WTH is he here for??!! He is quiet and always watching, speaking real quiet. Supporting Actor Nomination candidate I hope.
4 1/2 stars out of 5 for this slow building, maybe upsetting story, of how far do we go to get the head of the snake.

THE VISIT
Directed by M Night Shyamalan
Screenplay by M Night Shyamalan
Starring: Kathryn Hahn; Olivia Dejonge, Ed Oxenbold; Deanna Dunagun, and Peter McRobbie



A single mother sends her children to Pennsylvania to visit their grandparents. Then things go ....strange.

This film does not work without fantastic performances:

Dunagun and McRobbie as the confused and odd grandparents. Fantastically strange.
Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbold as the brother and sister who come for their first visit to meet their grandparents. They are a brother and sister who get along real well, which is rare in cinema, directors and screenwriters always seem to want brothers and sisters to clash. This was refreshing. In fact the film is seen through DeJonge's camera lens. She sees herself as a future director. She uses this visit to record and narrate and do interviews trying to find out more about her family history (of course families always have secrets). I found this reason to always be filming to be believable. Also, they are good kids, even though their grandparents are acting real odd, they still show respect to them and try to be patient.
M.Night's best picture in years!! The trailer is deceiving. The trailer comes across as a horror film, it is more of a mystery suspense film (I fear people will think it is a horror film and feel they have seen this before and not go). What works here, as noted before, the acting, and the slow build of suspense in this isolated house. This film is also layered with a lot of humor which has not been seen in many of his past films (He lightened up a bit), highlighted by Oxenbold's character, he is hilarious.
Here comes the caps...YES AS ALWAYS IN HIS FILMS THERE IS A TWIST!!!!! AND IN THIS ONE....IT IS HUUUUUUUUUUGE!!! IT COMES ABOUT AN HOUR IN...AND I WAS IN THE THEATRE AND MY HANDS WENT IN THE AIR AND COVERED MY MOUTH AND SAID OH CRAP OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! IT MADE THE WHOLE THEATER GO NUTS!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!!
Now the film rolls along nicely until that twist. Then these kids start doing stupid things that drive you nuts. Like even doing nothing. At that point the film dropped a couple notches.

4 out of 5 stars for this fun...odd film. Yes there are some holes in the plot but you can see past them. DO NOT READ OTHER REVIEWS BECAUSE THEY MAY HAVE SPOILERS!! Plus, like I always say..critics are sheep and beating up M Night is a common thing to do. Do not read those critics...this film is scary fun At 93 minutes it is a nice surprise and does not overstay it's welcome. It is interesting that M.Night used his own money to produce this and took 2 weeks to edit the film by himself. He was not going to let anybody else get their hands on it.

THE PERFECT GUY
Directed by David Rosenthal
Screenplay by Tyger Williams
Starring Sanaa Lathan; Michael Ealy; Morris Chestnut



After breaking up with her boyfriend (Chestnut), a professional woman (Lathan) gets involved with a man (Ealy) who seems almost too good to be true.

Okay he is too good to be true , you can see that from the trailer.
Let me got the positive out of the way: I felt all the characters never acted like idiots, which you get often in these types of films. You end up hollering at the screen when the woman decides to take psycho boyfriend back. Here Lathan's character, Leah, shuts the door when Ealy's character, Carter, shows violence. I like that during the movie Lathan mostly does everything smart.
However there are many a problem with this film:
Ealy. I thought it was interesting that they cast him in this role. He is known throughout Hollywood as one of the nicest guys, so the casting of him against type makes it believable that she would get sucked into his charm. However, when Carter, Ealy's character, becomes stalkerish, and puts on a menacing face, it looked like he was trying too hard. I laughed often at this weird menacing look with his head down and his eyes looking up. At one point the Inspector Renkin (played wonderfully by John Getz) said that Carter is just like a robot. I wanted to stand up and say: "Yes he played one in the TV show Almost Human and he was great"! Ealy was just miscast here. That is not saying he is a bad actor in fact I think he is a really good actor, I mean Streep was miscast this summer in Riki And The Flash. It happens.
So okay what we are left with?  After that fight scene, which we see in the trailer, we get...Ealy watching...Lathan going through her day to day life while looking scared. Ealy watching...Lathan living her life. Then there is that big finale we know was coming, but it feels like it has been done before. All this just makes it an okay movie.
A couple last notes: Morris Chestnut is on the poster but is barely in the film which is wrong. Plus the biggest sin is you have one of the greatest actors of all time in Charles S Dutton in this movie and only use him for 5 minutes!!!! You have Charles S Dutton!!! You do some rewrites to get him in the movie more!!!
2 1/2 stars out of 5. Right down the middle. I think it would be a fun film to watch when it is available for home viewing but on the big screen...you have seen this film before.

From the shadows as always thanks for your