Hollywood

Good or bad, the recent Hollywood movies and larger indies with a traditional theatrical release followed by a DVD and Blu-Ray release.

In Theatres
New to Rent/Own


In Theatres:

The Post: Movie Review


   


Enthralling timeliness about the fight for the freedom of press.
The timeliness of The Post, set in 1971, is distressing and eye-opening to say the least. The President (Nixon, but not a visible character in the movie) is throwing the 1st Amendment out the window as he’s trying to stop newspapers from publishing the Pentagon papers and banning reporters from covering his daughter’s wedding. Meanwhile the female president of The Washington Post was facing significant gender discrimination where none of the (all male) board members thought she was capable of leading the paper and would say so to her face. 2017

Directed by: Steven Speilberg

Screenplay by: Liz Hannah, Josh Singer

Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts and Bradley Whitford
See full review of The Post


Molly's Game: Movie Review


   


Fast-talking, smart story of one accomplished woman.
Molly Bloom was a world-class skier, an academic over-achiever, a woman who built a legal multi-million-dollar poker business on her own wits and intelligence, and now she’s a felon. Molly’s Game is her story - all of her story, or at least the prescient moments from her first 36 years. It’s the highs and the lows and most importantly, how she got there. 2017

Directed by: Aaron Sorkin

Screenplay by: Aaron Sorkin
Based on the book by Molly Bloom

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba
See full review of Molly's Game


Pitch Perfect 3: Movie Review


   


Ludicrous plot doesn’t fit the Pitch Perfect tone.
Given the poor reception that Pitch Perfect 3 has received, it would be tempting to say the series has gone out with a whimper instead of a bang, but no, the movie literally goes out with a bang. The Bellas are performing on a yacht, Fat Amy comes crashing through a glass ceiling, blows up the boat, and Amy and Beca jump into the water together. How do we get there? Well Fat Amy becomes a fighting ninja, the Bellas get kidnapped by an international assassin, while they’re touring with the USO in Europe. 2017

Directed by: Trish Sie

Screenplay by: Kay Cannon and Mike White

Starring: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp
See full review of Pitch Perfect 3


Darkest Hour: Movie Review


   


A mini-roller coaster of boorish, comic and political statesman.
As Joe Wright has done in all of his previous films, particularly the period pieces such as Anna Karenina and Atonement, he perfectly captures the style for the setting. In Darkest Hour, it’s a sepia-toned British Parliament, with a hundred men all wearing black suits shouting about their ineptitude to stop the German advances of World War II. It’s May 1940, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is about to resign and Britain, and the world, need a new leader to help them defeat Hitler. 2017

Directed by: Joe Wright

Screenplay by: Anthony McCarten

Starring: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas
See full review of Darkest Hour


Lady Bird: Movie Review



Heartfelt, honest and funny.
Lady Bird is about a lot of smaller ideas, all of which might seem uninteresting to the average viewer, but it so perfectly captures the awkwardness of a teenager coming of age and trying to survive her last year of high school, that there’s a relatable humour and warmth that will echo throughout the generations. Writer and director Greta Gerwig has referred to it as a love letter to her hometown of Sacramento, California, and it’s also about navigating the slightly different social structure of an all-girls catholic school, which Gerwig herself attended. 2017

Directed by: Greta Gerwig

Screenplay by: Greta Gerwig

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges
See full review of Lady Bird


I, Tonya: Movie Review


   


Uproariously entertaining with astute insight into Tonya Harding.
Craig Gillespie, director of I, Tonya, opts for a comedic breaking-the-fourth-wall type biopic where characters in mid-action will either deny or confirm what they’re currently doing. When Tonya has a rifle aimed at ex-husband Jeff’s head, she says she didn’t do it. When Jeff slams Tonya’s fingers in the car door, he says he didn’t do it. But you know they did do most of it. The style works for a too-crazy-to-be-true true story. 2017

Directed by: Craig Gillespie

Screenplay by: Steven Rogers

Starring: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Paul Walter Hauser
See full review of I, Tonya



New to Rent/Own: