It’s easy to overlook counting our blessings, and the new movie “Brad’s Status” tries to provide a thoughtful and occasionally funny reminder of that unfortunate fact. It stars Ben Stiller as Brad, a 47-year-old husband and father who is wallowing in a mid-life crisis while taking his teenage son on a weekend college scouting trip that includes his own alma mater, Tufts University.
These are brutal times for movie lovers, with no new major releases coming until Sept. 8, when the long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s “It” finally reaches the big screen. Strangely, the last two major movies of summer could have played in theaters decades ago.
For the past four seasons of “Saturday Night Live,” cast member Kyle Mooney has created a series of unique video shorts that have thrown comic curveballs at viewers with a decidedly twisted point of view. In his new film “Brigsby Bear,” Mooney takes on fanboy obsession with pop culture, creating a very odd and surprisingly touching look at a guy who is so hooked on a TV show that it becomes the center of his existence – only to learn that he is the only person who has ever seen it.
After decades of spy movies dominated by men, the emergence of a woman able to hold her own as a virtual Jane Bond might seem long overdue. In the new movie “Atomic Blonde,” Charlize Theron dives deeply into the genre with an action-packed role that pits her as a British superspy who will stop at nothing to retrieve a list of British intelligence assets stolen by Communist agents in East Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Battle of Dunkirk was one of the most devastating moments for Allied forces in World War II, resulting in nearly 400,000 British, French and Dutch troops being trapped on a beach outside the French seaport town. With the treacherous waters of the English Channel before them and fears of overwhelming German forces coming to wipe them out by land, they needed to be evacuated.
The idea of mankind being trapped in a world where apes have managed to evolve and turn the tables by dominating humans has proven fascinating ever since Charlton Heston made the first “Planet of the Apes” movie nearly 50 years ago. The new “War for the Planet of the Apes” caps a prequel trilogy that shows how the ape-driven society fell into place, but while it’s undeniably well-made, its political and religious allegories are rather heavy-handed.
Recently reviewed by Catholic News Service
Recently reviewed by Catholic News Service