“Allied”
Synopsis: In 1942, an intelligence officer in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.
What You Need To Know: While “Flight,” his first live-action film after over a decade of playing with creepy-looking performance capture animation, proved to be a box office hit and picked up a couple of Oscar nominations, Robert Zemeckis’ follow-up “The Walk” was a letdown, tanking disastrously at the U.S. box office and failing to make any kind of awards splash (even if 3D was used very well and the final set piece was spectacular). But Zemeckis should be on safer territory here, with a WWII spy romance penned by Steven Knight (“Locke,” “Peaky Blinders”), led by a couple of A-list stars. It’s said to be a throwback to films like “Casablanca,” but with a spy vs. spy / “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” vibe on top of that. So long as this is more watchable than the last A-list period romance that Brad Pitt starred in last year, “By The Sea,” this could be one of the big crossover hits for grown ups of the season.
Release Date: November 23rd
“Evolution” [**Film Of The Month**]
Synopsis: In a hospital on an island populated solely by women and boys, Nicholas is subjected to a medical procedure. He senses everyone is lying to him, and with help from a young nurse, he learns the secret of what the women do on the beach at night.
What You Need To Know: There’s plenty of reasons to pick this as the must see film of the month on this column, but saying too much also gives away the heady pleasures of being totally immersed in the world of the film. So please, trust me when I say that it’s a total out of left field gem that won’t get the audience it deserves, but you should seek it out if possible at a theater. It’s simply a wonderful arthouse genre piece that’s anything but generic. Lucile Hadzihalilovic and her crew focus on specific details; the images, sounds and overall atmosphere is dreamy and ethereal. Until it becomes quietly nightmarish in the final half. Even the tonal transition is subtly done to perfection, resulting in a film that carries several moods at once, but never feels random or inconsistent. You’re in the hands of a gifted visual storyteller here, which helps with the slow drip narrative. Our review seemingly long ago from TIFF 2015 was also high on it: “For those who have seen Hadzihalilovic’s similarly mystifying ‘Innocence‘, expectations were set for the unexpected, but ‘Evolution’ still manages to defy them… By bridging an innocent theme like childhood with a presence full of disturbing connotations, [the director] attains a remarkably enchanting balance with cinema’s tools. One that can never be seen, but only experienced in the purest sense of the word.”
Release Date: November 25th (Limited)
“Lion”
Synopsis: The true story of Saroo Brierley, who was separated from his family at age 5, only to find them again in his 20s with the help of Google Earth.
What You Need To Know: With The Weinstein Company seemingly having a difficult time of it of late — with the expensive “The Hateful Eight” underperforming, and multiple movies delayed or dumped — a lot is riding on “Lion,” which is Harvey’s big awards hope this year. Based on a remarkable true story, hailing from the producers of “The King’s Speech,” and marking the feature debut of Australian director Garth Davis, who did a superb job alongside Jane Campion on “Top Of The Lake,” we’ve heard some good buzz on this for a while now. And though its world premiere at TIFF was met with a more mixed take from our critic (“[while] ‘Lion’ isn’t the kind of drama that demands risky storytelling, it is one that has within it a whole world of emotional topography that is disappointingly scrolled over instead of mapped out”), our awards blogger has higher hopes for it. After a disappointing couple of years Oscar-wise, Harvey needs a win, and this film might well be the one to give him one.
Release Date: November 25th (Limited)
Honorable Mentions:
There’s a lot of great documentaries to keep on your radar: “Seasons” is a glorious hybrid of beautiful nature doc, meditative weed flick, and cautionary global warming tale, while “The Eagle Huntress” is an awards hopeful, telling the story of a 13-year-old Kazakh girl who dreams of being the first female in twelve generations of her family to become an eagle hunter.
“Mifune: The Last Samurai” gives insight into the career of one of Japan’s great leading men, who starred in a ton of Akira Kurosawa films and more, while “Peter and the Farm” is a compelling character sketch about an independent farmer who once dreamed of making art in his off-time.
Warren Beatty has come out of retirement to direct and star in his long-in-the-works “Rules Don’t Apply,” a fictionalized account of Howard Hughes that focuses more on two young characters who work for the reclusive billionaire and fall for each other. “Bleed For This” is another awards hopeful and boxing true story starring Miles Teller.
“Moana” comes from Disney and is their latest animated offering, essentially doing for water and the Pacific what “Frozen” did for snow and Norway, with a welcome burst of diversity and The Rock finally getting to play himself — i.e. a Samoan demigod. This already looks charming, and that’s before you get to the directors, who are the Disney legends also behind “The Little Mermaid” and “Hercules,” and the music, a collaboration between Mark Mancina, South Pacific band Te Vaka’s Opetaia Foa’i, and man of the moment, “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
On the genre front, there’s director Bryan Bertino‘s return to the horror genre with “The Monster,” which tells the seemingly simple story of a mother and daughter on a road trip when there car crashes and they run into… something scary and (dare I say) monstrous. “The Love Witch” which we declared a technicolor wonder that should become a new cult classic. “Dog Eat Dog” is the latest from Paul Schrader and stars Willem Dafoe and Nicolas Cage, which is both a little goofy and hyper violent. “Bad Santa 2” is a sequel to the first Billy Bob Thornton dark comedy, and probably a little too late for people to care. Lastly, “Daughters of the Dust” has been restored and is hitting the arthouse.
