Steve Stebbing

In an attempt to bring you the best of what’s out there I give you my “High Spots” of the week, three noteworthy things you need to check out:

1. Isle Of Dogs – Wes Anderson makes a triumphant return to stop animation, following up what I think the crowning achievement of his career was, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dogs is a gorgeously crafted story about an island of exiled dogs living off of the coast of Japan and has a brilliant voice cast including Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton and, of course, Bill Murray. The films momentum may have been deterred a bit by some insane cultural appropriation claims but, simply put, this is my favorite film so far this year.

2. Ready Player One – Nostalgia and break neck action sequences, this is what Steven Spielberg’s driving force in his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s best-selling book. Depicting a world more than twenty-five years into the future where everyone immerses themselves in a virtual reality world, there is a progressive message of disconnection from the real world that is rampant in this film before it becomes a bit lost in the immense shuffle of gorgeous imagery. Ready Player One may not be anywhere close to perfect but it is a damn fun ride.

3. The China Hustle and Shut Up And Say Something – Usually I would just reserve this spot for one film but we have two really stellar docs that opened this past weekend. The China Hustle is a financial horror story about the buying and selling of Chinese businesses from afar, a barrage of information sure to make your blood boil. Shut Up And Say Something on the other hand is an inspirational and emotional journey in the life of Canadian spoken word beat poet Shane Koyczan.

In an attempt to bring you the best of what’s out there I give you my “High Spots” of the week, three noteworthy things you need to check out:

Unsane – Steven Soderbergh is really bad at this whole retirement thing. Returning last year with his “Ocean’s 7/11” style film Logan Lucky, he is back again just six to eight months later with this psychological thriller starring The Crown’s Claire Foy as a woman who gets checked into a mental hospital against her will after she looks for help for some PTSD she has from being stalked years earlier. The great selling point on this is that Soderbergh went low-pro and filmed this on a iPhone, exactly like The Florida Project director Sean Baker did in his debut, Tangerine. What we get is a master filmmaker making a big film that feels so very real and so very close to the action.

Pacific Rim: Uprising – I know. Everyone is writing me off right now for giving some praise to a film that currently rates at 45% on Rotten Tomatoes but hear me out. Did you like the first movie? Do you like giant robots? Giant monsters? Do you want to see them fight? If you gave a hesitant  yes to any of those questions, then Uprising has what you crave, minus the style and heart that Guillermo Del Toro  gave the original film. I also play the game that Charlie Day is his same character from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, just changing his name to Dr. Newt Geizler. If you think about it, you wouldn’t put this past Charlie Kelly one bit.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle – After the massive haul this reboot/sequel took in at the box office, I doubt there is anyone who hasn’t seen this new vehicle for The Rock and Kevin Hart and I call it that because you know we will see a follow-up and a franchise birthed out of this earner of almost a billion dollars. I feel that maybe in my initial review I was a little harsh on the movie, calling it a bit disposable and forgettable, because the audience definitely proved me wrong. Now the movie is on demand and on Blu-ray so we can all go back and give it a watch. I unabashedly love The Rock so it’s an easy sell for me.