TITLE: X-Men: Apocalypse
GENRE: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
TEMPO PREDICTION: 4.5 stars
With the emergence of the world’s first mutant, Apocalypse, the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.
GOSSIP: Bryan Singer has confirmed the film will take place in 1983 and will feature other familiar characters in their youth.
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn
TITLE: Captain America 3: Civil War
GENRE: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
TEMPO PREDICTION: 4 stars
Political interference in the Avengers’ activities causes a rift between former allies Captain America and Iron Man.
GOSSIP: Chris Evans has stated that this film will set up Avengers: Infinity War – Part I (2018) and Avengers: Infinity War – Part II (2019).
Directed by: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson
TITLE: Neighbors 2
GENRE: Comedy
TEMPO PREDICTION: 3.5 stars
After a sorority moves in next door, which is even more debaucherous than the fraternity before it, Mac and Kelly have to ask for help from their former enemy, Teddy.
GOSSIP: Third film Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen have been in together. First being ‘Neighbors’ then ‘The Something’ and now ‘Neighbors 2’
Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne
TITLE: Angry Birds
GENRE: Animation, Action, Comedy
TEMPO PREDICTION: 3 stars
Find out why the birds are so angry. When an island populated by happy, flightless birds is visited by mysterious green piggies, it’s up to three unlikely outcasts – Red, Chuck and Bomb – to figure out what the pigs are up to.
GOSSIP: Since it was released in 2009, the Angry Birds game has been downloaded more than one billion times across all versions and platforms of mobile devices.
Directed by: Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly
Cast: Peter Dinklage, Kate McKinnon, Jason Sudeikis
Tempo Reviews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo-BXKSaFuM
The Shamer’s Daughter
This Danish release takes you to the fairy-tale world of Dunark where princes, dragons, alchemists, supernatural powers and evil, ambitious almost-royals carry the narrative. In Dunark live Shamers who have the ability to see into other people’s memories. Shamers are generally ostracized for this sight, but do get called into action when a suspect refuses to confess to an otherwise witnessless crime. Such is the case with Dina (the titular Shamer’s daughter) and her mother. However, things go awry when the duo see memories that run counter to the usurper Drakan’s plans.
Watching The Shamer’s Daughter is an experience similar to how the eponymous young adult novel might have read: a considerable amount of story devoted to adventure in the form of narrow escapes, friendship building and general heroics, not so much for fully developed motivations or character growth. But it’s easy to forget that you can’t please all the people all the time. Perhaps it’s okay that this is a children’s movie whose sole target audience is children. With that in mind, this movie is probably appealing to the tween crowd, so if you have one of those in your household, she might appreciate this movie very much.
Catch it on Blu-ray: A Perfect Day
As the title might suggest, this movie gives you 24-hours in the life of a band of five aid workers: a couple of old hands (Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins), an interpreter (Fedja Stukan), an idealistic new hire (Mélanie Thierry), and an out-of-touch administrator (Olga Kurylenko). Through their experiences, we are taken on a tour of the inconveniences, absurdities and atrocities of the Balkans war in the mid-1990s.
A Perfect Day is suspenseful without the dramatic music. It’s difficult to tell whether that is a result of the film’s direction or of movies set in war zones training us to be on edge. Whatever the case, it’s refreshing that director Fernando León de Aranoa decided to ease off that particular device. After all that suspense, however, there are no cats in the cupboard, just the heart-breaking hardship of war.
Although this movie suffers the same problem that all slice-of-life stories have (lack of a satisfying resolution to an indistinct conflict), keep this movie on hand to show to friends needing a reminder of the humanitarian crises that are a close companion to armed conflict, whether gang-related, multinational or anything in between.
