Please enable javascript to view this site.

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

This Week In Movies… ‘Riddick,’ ‘Salinger,’ ‘Mission Park’

09.3.2013 | By |

Sixteen movie releases. This is one of the rare weeks where half of the new Hollywood releases are documentaries and my most anticipated viewing is a documentary as well – Salinger. What is it? Perhaps it’s the Labor Day dates that aren’t too kind to studio pockets, perhaps it’s the public demand for more informative films and less escapism. “Why read a book when you can watch the documentary?” Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Whatever the principal reason is, blockbuster films are about to become persona non-grata in the next few months when Oscar season rears its head for the Fall. An interesting note is that after the success of the Latino movie “Instructions Not Included,” Hollywood will have their eyes wide open for Tio Papi and Mission Park‘s results.

Below is the list of all the movies coming out this weekend and I rank them in descending order of my interests.

[youtube id=”VefNqiXQSuk”]

16. Tio Papi (PG)
Director: Fro Rojas
Cast: Joey Dedio, Kelly McGillis, Frankie Faison
Synopsis: Wild bachelor Ray Ray Dominguez dreams of nothing more than a carefree life of indulgence in Miami, but his plans are abruptly changed when he becomes the legal guardian of his sister’s six children.

[youtube id=”HqNhuoguiFE”]

15. Winnie Mandela (R)
Director: Darrell Roodt
Cast: Terrence Howard, Elias Koteas, Jennifer Hudson
Synopsis: A drama that chronicles the life of Winnie Mandela from her childhood through her marriage and her husband’s incarceration.

[youtube id=”7C_ghciPnco”]

14. The Ultimate Life (PG)
Director: Michael Landon Jr.
Cast: Logan Bartholomew, Peter Fonda, Ali Hillis, Bill Cobbs
Synopsis: A billionaire with questionable priorities re-examines his life after discovering his grandfather’s journal.

[youtube id=”cA2a-ehNZ60″]

13. Best Kept Secret (Documentary)
Director: Samantha Buck
Synopsis: JFK High School, located in the midst of a run-down area in Newark, New Jersey, is a public school for all types of students with special education needs, ranging from those on the autism spectrum to those with multiple disabilities. Janet Mino has taught her class of young men with autism for four years. When they all graduate in the spring of 2012, they will leave the security of the public school system forever. Best Kept Secret follows Ms. Mino and her students over the year and a half before graduation. The clock is ticking to find them a place in the adult world – a job or rare placement in a recreational center – so they do not end up where their predecessors have, sitting at home, institutionalized, or on the streets.

[youtube id=”eVf2UUu_w4o”]

12. Fire In The Blood (Documentary)
Director: Dylan Mohan Gray
Synopsis: An intricate tale of “medicine, monopoly and malice”, FIRE IN THE BLOOD tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of the global south in the years after 1996 – causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths – and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back. Shot on four continents and including contributions from global figures such as Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu, and Joseph Stiglitz, FIRE IN THE BLOOD is the never-before-told true story of the remarkable coalition which came together to stop ‘the crime of the century’ and save millions of lives in the process.

[youtube id=”Y3DdeWjj6wU”]

11. Futuro (NR)
Director: Alicia Scherson
Cast: Luigi Ciardo, Manuela Martelli, Rutger Hauer
Synopsis: When their parents die, Bianca starts to smoke and Tomas is still a virgin. The orphans explore the dangerous streets of adulthood until Bianca finds Maciste, a retired Mr. Universe, and enters his dark mansion in search of a future.

[youtube id=”odUHtBIoabc”]

10. Money For Nothing: Inside The Federal Reserve (Documentary)
Director: Jim Bruce
Cast: Liev Schreiber, Peter Atwater, Alan Blinder
Synopsis: Nearly 100 years after its creation, the power of the U.S. Federal Reserve has never been greater. Markets and governments around the world hold their breath in anticipation of the Fed Chairman’s every word. Yet the average person knows very little about the most powerful – and least understood – financial institution on earth. Narrated by Liev Schreiber, Money For Nothing is the first film to take viewers inside the Fed and reveal the impact of Fed policies – past, present, and future – on our lives. Join current and former Fed officials as they debate the critics, and each other, about the decisions that helped lead the global financial system to the brink of collapse in 2008. And why we might be headed there again.

9. Out Of The Clear Blue Sky (Documentary)
Director: Danielle Gardner
Cast: Michael Santosusso, Sandra Palmeri
Synopsis: A documentary that explores the effects of 9/11 on the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices on the top five floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center were destroyed in the attacks, killing 658 out of their 960 employees.

[youtube id=”9EKRgCjXVkM”]

8. Touchy Feely (R) 
Director: Lynn Shelton
Cast: Rosemarie DeWitt, Ellen Page, Josh Pais, Scoot McNairy
Synopsis: A massage therapist is unable to do her job when stricken with a mysterious and sudden aversion to bodily contact. Meanwhile, her uptight brother’s floundering dental practice receives new life when clients seek out his healing touch.

[youtube id=”jtovAxxPo2Q”]

7. My Father And The Man In Black (Documentary)
Director: Jonathan Holiff
Cast: Johnny Cash, Saul Holiff, June Carter Cash
Synopsis: The untold story of ‘bad-boy’ Johnny Cash, his talented but troubled manager, Saul Holiff, and a son searching for his father in the shadow of a legend.

[youtube id=”2pU-kBhbs1s”]

6. La Maison De La Radio (Documentary)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Cast: Jean-Francois Achilli, Evelyne Adam, Jean-Claude Ameisen
Synopsis: Twenty-four hours in the life of Radio France, from one dawn to another. Along its corridors, inside its recording studios, with its producers, presenters, journalists, and various guests. And outside on a motorbike in the wake of the Tour de France or in the company of a thunderstorm photographer.

[youtube id=”au2xw42-8IA”]

5. Riddick (R)
Director: David Twohy
Cast: Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Katee Sackhoff, Jordi Mollá
Synopsis: Left for dead on a sun-scorched planet, Riddick finds himself up against an alien race of predators. Activating an emergency beacon alerts two ships: one carrying a new breed of mercenary, the other captained by a man from Riddick’s past.

[youtube id=”6svJoIDw57E”]

4. Populaire (R)
Director: Regis Roinsard
Cast: Romain Duris, Berenice Bejo
Synopsis: 1958. Rose is a terrible secretary but a demon typist. Her handsome boss resolves to turn her into the fastest girl in the world.

[youtube id=”LqO3DIaKTXM”]

3. Good Ol’ Freda (Documentary)
Director: Ryan White
Cast: Freda Kelly, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison
Synopsis: This a documentary in which Freda Kelly looks back at her career as a lifelong secretary for The Beatles.

[youtube id=”R7PrkBPAyWM”]

2. Mission Park (R)
Director: Bryan Ramirez
Cast: Jeremy Ray Valdez, Walter Perez, Fernanda Romero
Synopsis: Four friends from the rough side of town grow apart when two are consumed by a life of crime, and the other two become FBI agents sent deep undercover – to bring down those childhood friends.

[youtube id=”9_zcPBcXeo4″]

1. Salinger (Documentary)
Director: Shane Salerno
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, Judd Apatow, John Cusack
Synopsis: An unprecedented look inside the private world of J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye.

Other Movie News

Select a Page