Pete's Dragon (2016)

Director: David Lowery. Cast: Oakes Fegley, Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban. 103 min. Rated PG. Fantasy/Adventure.

As much as Pixar animators are pushing into adult territory, Disney is going back to what they reveled at in the old days: movies solely made for kids. But while there was nothing wrong with The Jungle Book remake and The BFG being entirely child-oriented, I was (unfortunately) feeling bored at times watching this remake, waiting through long conversations discussing whether there really was a dragon out there. And the movie's second half follows E.T.'s footsteps, point by point, including camera angles of people saying goodbye. Similar to how they treated Star Wars, Disney isn't adding much to the genre.

Mo says:

Weiner (2016)

Director(s): Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg. 96 min. Rated R. Documentary.

Seligman: No matter how much I try, I can't find anything laudable in pedophilia.

Joe: That's because you think about the, perhaps 5%, who actually hurt children. The remaining 95% never live out their fantasies. Think about their suffering. Sexuality is the strongest force in human beings. To be born with a forbidden sexuality must be agonizing. The pedophile who manages to get through life with the shame of his desire, while never acting on it, deserves a bloody medal.

                                                                   - Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

I've occasionally thought about that quote from von Trier's bizarre movie; most so when watching this documentary about disgraced NY Congressman, Anthony Weiner (of all possible names), a "sexting" addict who continued his act even after resigning from Congress, decimating his own later run for NYC Mayor. The problem with the likes of him and Bill Clinton, is that they're also politicians, with personal lives open to scrutiny. Based on the above quote, Weiner may deserve a medal for his perseverance, but considering how these people take down their faithful partners (Huma and Hillary), they've probably chosen the wrong career.

Mo says:

Money Monster (2016)

Director: Jodie Foster. Cast: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito. 98 min. Rated R. Crime/Thriller.

Jim Cramer-type TV show host, who handles people's financial lives as entertainment, is threatened by suicidal loser that he'll blow up the studio on live TV. In a story-line very similar to The Negotiator (hostage gradually realizes hostage-taker was wronged in the first place), Jodie Foster is onto something here, making the George Clooney TV host a disgusting but later admirable character, ready to bring Wall Street down, to expose ... a fake miner strike in South Africa? That is not the problem with Wall Street. Wish Foster had questioned the entire system, the way Spike Lee did in Inside Man.

Mo says:

Our Little Sister (Umimachi Diary) (2015)

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda. Cast: Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose. 128 min. Rated PG. Japan. Drama/Comedy.

Three sisters attend the funeral of a father who left them for another woman, and invite their step-sister to live with them. Calling this a slow melodrama by the award-winning director of long slow-paced movies, is the understatement of the year. But there's a silver lining: watching the movie, you not only experience the regular ups and downs any teenage or twenty-something girl goes through, but also get to know how it sounds and feels to live in rural modern-day Japan for two hours. That's quite a feat, happening from the comfort of a movie theater, or living room.

Mo says:

Rams (Hrútar) (2015)

Director: Grímur Hákonarson. Cast: Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, Charlotte Bøving. 93 min. Rated R. Iceland/Denmark/Norway/Poland. Drama/Comedy.

In a small far-off Iceland village, an old man, estranged from his brother for four decades, starts a dumb rumor about his brother's sheep ... which mushrooms into disaster for the entire village. As the description shows, the movie and its story are fittingly simple, because you don't need a complex scenario to bring down a society. Contemporary real-life examples show how seemingly simple but baseless comments ("The election is rigged!") can spell doom for an entire generation. While slightly overplayed, this movie works splendidly at displaying that concept.

Mo says:

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (2015)

Director(s): Gabriel Clarke, John McKenna. 102 min. USA/UK. Documentary.

In 1970, Steve McQueen, "The King of Cool", embarked on producing a movie titled Le Mans, to offer viewers first-hand experience of car racing. The problem was, there was no script, and no story. But McQueen was so obsessed with the project, he started anyway, put his own and other people's lives at risk, and destroyed careers along the way. This reminded me of another documentary on a different subject, on how individuals with insatiable egos would rather have people die to achieve their grandiose dreams. Apparently, Steve McQueen was a man unable to differentiate his on-screen persona from reality.

Mo says:

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Director: David Yates. Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Djimon Hounsou, Jim Broadbent. 110 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Adventure.

Wise decision not to make another origin story. They find Tarzan in England, happily married to Jane, and invite him to Congo to do some more Tarzan stuff; making this a sequel. While the action sequences (including swinging from a single vine over a mile onto a speeding train) reach Transformers level insanity, Alexander Skarsgård's sudden anger spells show he hasn't shaken off his "True Blood" Eric the Vampire persona yet, and the vagueness of the story logic makes you wonder why the movie was made in the first place, compared to this year's other summer pics, I was entertained.

Mo says:

Lights Out (2016)

Director: David F. Sandberg. Cast: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello, Alexander DiPersia. 81 min. Rated PG-13. Horror.

I'm neither giving this a NoMo because almost the entire story is ruined in the trailer, nor because it copies winning script elements from the 2002 horror, The Ring (young heroine, younger boy, evil female entity from psychiatric ward, victimized innocent boyfriend, ...). It fails, because the viewer is dragged to an ending (unspoiled by the trailer!) that makes no narrative sense, not even within its fantasy/horror logic. An entity can either materially/spiritually exist in the outside world and terrorize characters, or be an abstraction of one character's mind and torture that one person. You can't have both.

PS: Batman v Superman, The Conjuring 2, X-Men: Apocalypse, Independence Day: Resurgence, Cell, Ghostbusters, The Purge 3, Star Trek Beyond. I don't remember ever branding so many summer movies with back-to-back NoMos and SoSos. And now Lights Out earns 77% on the Tomatometer! It's a bad sign when The Shallows is your summer's most entertaining movie.

Mo says:

Into the Forest (2015)

Director: Patricia Rozema. Cast: Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood, Max Minghella. 101 min. Rated R. Canada. Drama/Sci-fi.

For uncertain reasons (but through a scenario made completely believable by Zero Days), the country loses power indefinitely, and access to gasoline, food, supplies, and the internet all go out the window. A father and his two daughters hone their survival skills in their woodland home, and the sister-sister interaction becomes the core of the drama. The characters' decisions may seem strange, but similar to Melancholia, end-of-days stories benefit from mapping out uncharted territory, subjecting us solely to the writers' imagination. Here, I found their narrative compelling, and the Page-Wood chemistry is perfect, even though they don't look like sisters.

Mo says:

Café Society (2016)

Director: Woody Allen. Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, Blake Lively, Anna Camp, Sheryl Lee, Tony Sirico, Woody Allen (voice). 96 min. Rated PG-13. Comedy/Romance.

There are old directors out there that make you wish you'd have such acumen (of any kind) when you grow to the same age. One of them is Woody Allen. There's no doubt that Vittorio Storaro's enchanting cinematography (with his 1930's orange and yellow hues) is the ringleader here. There's no doubt that both Eisenberg and Stewart portray exactly how it feels to be in the relationship shown in this story. But I'm baffled at how good Allen is at playing this out, and how he hasn't lost his magic touch after making more than 50 movies.

Mo says:

April and the Extraordinary World (Avril et le monde truqué) (2015)

Director(s): Christian Desmares, Franck Ekinci. 105 min. Rated PG. France/Belgium/Canada. Animation.

This wonderful animation from France will remind you of numerous other films. The animated old/futuristic mechanical elements reminds of The Iron Giant and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the "normally-talking" animals are straight out of a Miyazaki feature, and of course, the old-fashioned adventurism is from none other than Herge's "Tintin". But then again, the film preserves of a certain unique authenticity, making you paradoxically feel the entire landscape is original. A rare animation that needs to be enjoyed on a wide screen. Betting on an Oscar nomination next year.

PS: You rock, Ali S.!

Mo says:

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Director: Justin Lin. Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin,  Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Shohreh Aghdashloo. 120 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Sci-fi.

Maybe because I knew J.J. Abrams didn't direct it. Maybe because I knew the Fast & Furious director (who inserted, yes, a motorcycle chase) directed it. Or maybe because the past two Star Trek films had significantly better direction. But the scrambled script, juggling numerous characters and merely providing the means for the next fast-edited, eye-squinting action sequence in close-up, made me feel lost. While a last-minute attempt to bring the franchise back to its sci-fi roots was admirable, till the very end, I never understood why the villain, an unrecognizable Idris Elba under layers of make-up, was so pissed.

Mo says: