BEST BETS
Crazy Rich Asians
The buzz has been building for Jon M. Chu’s lavish adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s fish-out-of-water romance for months, and now it’s finally in theatres. Was it worth the wait? Read Michelle Da Silva and Glenn Sumi’s conversation about it here.
Skate Kitchen
Krystal Moselle, the documentarian who made The Wolfpack, sculpted her first fictional feature around a skate crew of young women (and Jaden Smith) in New York’s Lower East Side. Read Norm Wilner’s review.
STREAMING
Disenchantment
Nearly two full decades after launching Futurama, Matt Groening delivers a new animated comedy starring the voices of Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson, Oscar-winner Nat Faxon and polymath entertainer Eric Andre. And it’s basically Futurama. Read Norm Wilner’s review. (First season of 10 episodes streaming on Netflix starting August 17.)
Farm Crime
This new CBC Digital series from Brand Canada producers Christina Carvalho and Geoff Morrison is dedicated to “unconventional offences in the world of farming and agriculture” … like blueberry heists, pigeon pinching and cattle rustling. Think of it like a podcast, but with pictures. All episodes streaming on CBC Watch starting August 17.
THEATRICAL
Alpha
The Road’s Kodi Smit-McPhee stars in Albert Hughes’s speculative look at early man’s domestication of the dog. Which is an interesting choice for the guy best known for co-directing Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, From Hell and The Book Of Eli with his brother Allen.
Ballet Now
Documentarian Steven Cantor follows New York prima ballerina Tiler Peck as she curates the Los Angeles Music Center’s prestigious three-day BalletNOW program.
Maison Du Bonheur
Toronto filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz spends a month in Paris with retired astrologer Juliane Lumbroso-Sellam for her first feature-length documentary. Read Norm Wilner’s review.
Mile 22
Mark Wahlberg fourth feature with director Peter Berg reaches back to their first collaboration, Lone Survivor, in that it is really just about Mark Wahlberg shooting people in the face for America. Read Norm Wilner’s review.
Never Saw It Coming
Emily Hampshire, Eric Roberts, Tamara Podemski and Katie Boland are among the folks having a really bad day in the wake of a woman’s disappearance in this adaptation of Linwood Barclay’s novel, from director Gail Harvey. Read Norm Wilner’s review.
Nico 1988
Susanna Nicchiarelli’s biopic casts Trine Dyrholm as the German rocker in the last two years of her life – decades after her collaboration with The Velvet Underground, and still trying to shake it off. Read Rad Simonpillai’s review.
movies@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto
