A father and his thirteen year-old daughter are living an ideal existence in a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon, when a small mistake derails their lives forever.
Director:
Debra Granik
Stars:
Thomasin McKenzie,
Ben Foster,
Jeffery Rifflard
Circa 1969, several strangers, most with a secret to bury, meet by chance at Lake Tahoe's El Royale, a rundown hotel with a dark past. Over the course of one night, everyone will show their true colors - before everything goes to hell.
Director:
Drew Goddard
Stars:
Jeff Bridges,
Cynthia Erivo,
Dakota Johnson
Set in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of turmoil, four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands' criminal activities, take fate into their own hands, and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.
Director:
Steve McQueen
Stars:
Viola Davis,
Michelle Rodriguez,
Elizabeth Debicki
Based on the true story of Forrest Tucker and his audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public.
Director:
David Lowery
Stars:
Robert Redford,
Casey Affleck,
Sissy Spacek
Set in the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. But when Grey, a self-identified technophobe, has his world turned upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant called Stem.
Director:
Leigh Whannell
Stars:
Logan Marshall-Green,
Melanie Vallejo,
Steve Danielsen
In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success, propelling him into a universe of greed.
Two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems-no matter what the cost.
Director:
Cory Finley
Stars:
Olivia Cooke,
Anya Taylor-Joy,
Anton Yelchin
Follows Stevie, a thirteen-year-old in 1990s-era Los Angeles who spends his summer navigating between his troubled home life and a group of new friends that he meets at a Motor Avenue skate shop.
Director:
Jonah Hill
Stars:
Sunny Suljic,
Katherine Waterston,
Lucas Hedges
In this crime drama, four bright and well-off college students in Kentucky plot to steal some rare books from their university's Special Collections Library in a misguided quest for personal glory. Based on the story, the film includes interviews with the foursome who attempted the bizarre heist. Starring Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson and Ann Dowd.
Darren Keith revealed Warren asked him for help with the heist as well but he denied the offer in hopes of pursuing his acting career. See more »
Goofs
At the end of the movie, when it is explaining what each character is up to now, the text says that Charles Allen II is "writing a book on prison workout regimes." It should be "regimens". A "regime" refers to governments or periods of rule, whereas a "regimen" refers to exercise or any other scheduled activity. See more »
Quotes
The Real Spencer Reinhard:
Van Gogh ended up killing himself. Monet went blind. I felt like they understood something more about life that I wasn't getting to experience. Art has to be about more than just, "My life is great and I'm really good at drawing."
See more »
Blinded by Fear
Written by Anders Björler (as Bjorler)/Jonas Björler (as Bjorler)/Tomas Lindberg (as Lindberg)
Performed by At the Gates
Published by Earache Songs
Used courtesy of Earache Records
Licensed courtesy of Warner Music UK Ltd. See more »
Aside from the committed, and decent performances from the entire cast, most notably from Evan Peters who proves that he's one of the most talented young actors around, it's the movie's third act that made me barely like American Animals. The last act has some of the best hold-your-breath scenes I've seen this year. Case in point, the entire robbery sequence that really got on my nerves. Due to the impeccable editing, especially the sound editing in the mentioned scene, the movie left me mostly satisfied despite all its flaws, or maybe it's only one grave flaw that causes the others.
Fine acting, superb editing, perfect use of the soundtrack, and good cinematography. That's all the good this movie has throughout its entire runtime. So let's talk about the issues I've with American Animals. For starters, using the documentary style, and showing different opinions is a risky decision that if it was used wrong would be nothing but a cheap gimmick to get the attention. I, Tonya used a similar technique last year and it was good for the most part, I actually thought it would have been better if it made much use of it, but here it wasn't just useless, and didn't add to the characters, or serve the plot, but it also was very distracting and off-putting.
The second issue is that the movie never settles on one way to tell its story. It starts using this documentary style, which I thought it was interesting and promising at first, then the movie almost neglected this style or rather the most interesting part of it which is the different point of views, and what we got were some interrupting scenes of the real four young men explaining and justifying what they were feeling at these particular moments, and why they were doing so. I mean really! Is that how to tell a story, and develop the characters?!
The planning for the heist, and collecting the gang were kinda interesting. But after that, the movie chose a formulaic way to keep going; such as, the let-downs, and the regrets. And while these phase showed glimpses of adding real depth to the characters, a thing that was almost made me ignore the clichés, almost every dramatic moments felt forced, and the movie just didn't give enough time or prepared for these potentially affective scenes. Let alone the interrupting documentary that did nothing but preventing me from being invested even for a moment.
Comparing what I've praised to what I've criticized, I usually would a movie like this 3 stars, 6 to 6.5 out of 10, but this above-mentioned robbery scene blew me away. It has Fincher's rebelliousness, and Aronofsky's uneasiness mixed together but without being offensive. With that said, I can't give American Animals less than....
(7/10)
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Aside from the committed, and decent performances from the entire cast, most notably from Evan Peters who proves that he's one of the most talented young actors around, it's the movie's third act that made me barely like American Animals. The last act has some of the best hold-your-breath scenes I've seen this year. Case in point, the entire robbery sequence that really got on my nerves. Due to the impeccable editing, especially the sound editing in the mentioned scene, the movie left me mostly satisfied despite all its flaws, or maybe it's only one grave flaw that causes the others.
Fine acting, superb editing, perfect use of the soundtrack, and good cinematography. That's all the good this movie has throughout its entire runtime. So let's talk about the issues I've with American Animals. For starters, using the documentary style, and showing different opinions is a risky decision that if it was used wrong would be nothing but a cheap gimmick to get the attention. I, Tonya used a similar technique last year and it was good for the most part, I actually thought it would have been better if it made much use of it, but here it wasn't just useless, and didn't add to the characters, or serve the plot, but it also was very distracting and off-putting.
The second issue is that the movie never settles on one way to tell its story. It starts using this documentary style, which I thought it was interesting and promising at first, then the movie almost neglected this style or rather the most interesting part of it which is the different point of views, and what we got were some interrupting scenes of the real four young men explaining and justifying what they were feeling at these particular moments, and why they were doing so. I mean really! Is that how to tell a story, and develop the characters?!
The planning for the heist, and collecting the gang were kinda interesting. But after that, the movie chose a formulaic way to keep going; such as, the let-downs, and the regrets. And while these phase showed glimpses of adding real depth to the characters, a thing that was almost made me ignore the clichés, almost every dramatic moments felt forced, and the movie just didn't give enough time or prepared for these potentially affective scenes. Let alone the interrupting documentary that did nothing but preventing me from being invested even for a moment.
Comparing what I've praised to what I've criticized, I usually would a movie like this 3 stars, 6 to 6.5 out of 10, but this above-mentioned robbery scene blew me away. It has Fincher's rebelliousness, and Aronofsky's uneasiness mixed together but without being offensive. With that said, I can't give American Animals less than....
(7/10)