THE NICE GUYS stars Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as a pair of low-level Los Angeles investigators who find themselves snarled up in a simple missing-person case that unpacks into a massive and deadly conspiracy. Crowe plays Jackson Healy, a burly thug-for-hire who specializes in punching perverts and carries himself with the weary nobility of a warrior fallen on hard times. Gosling is Holland March, a licensed P.I. with the standard world-weary backstory and a 13-year-old daughter (Angourie Rice) who keeps him somewhat on keel. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes, Amazon Video
MR. RIGHT is the best date movie ever. Anna Kendrick is Martha, a freshly dumped New Orleans paleontologist who falls for Sam Rockwell’s Francis – a loose, charming, perfectly wonderful fellow who’s secretly a former top-tier assassin with a price on his head. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes
LOVE & FRIENDSHIP is based on Jane Austen’s early novel Lady Susan. Kate Beckinsale, who starred in Stillman’s The Last Days Of Disco, is Susan, a widow determined to find a wealthy husband for her daughter (Morfydd Clark) in 1790s England. But Susan’s reputation precedes her, complicating both her efforts and the lives of everyone she approaches. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes, Amazon Video
POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is the former Untitled Lonely Island Feature, and if you’re familiar with Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg’s enthusiastic swagger from their albums or their breakout Saturday Night Live digital shorts… well, Popstar amplifies that to a gargantuan scale. It’s the entirely clichéd behind-the-music story of Conner4Real (Samberg). Once a member of the Style Boyz, Conner let the group fall apart as he embraced solo success – keeping producer/DJ Owen (Taccone) while songwriter Lawrence (Schaffer) left to become a farmer. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes, Amazon Video
EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! picks up where Boyhood left off, at least emotionally, writer/director Richard Linklater returns to the hangout vibe of Dazed And Confused with this shaggy comedy about college kids in Austin, set over the weekend before the start of classes in September 1980. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes, Amazon Video
THE LOBSTER takes place in a near-future world where unpartnered people are given 45 days to find a mate – or they’re turned into the animal of their choice. As time runs out, singles subtly, then not so subtly compete for partners, their survival instincts kicking in. Meanwhile, a band of rebels headed by the coolly observant Léa Seydoux offers an alternative that’s just as repressive. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes, Amazon Video
HAIL, CAESAR! spends precisely 28 hours in the company of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), the no-nonsense president of production at Capitol Pictures, an MGM-like studio in 1951 Hollywood. Over the course of these 28 hours, Mannix will have much to contend with – a fussy director (Ralph Fiennes), a miscast cowboy actor (Alden Ehrenreich), a pregnant swimming sensation (Scarlett Johansson) and the kidnapping of Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), the star of Capitol’s gargantuan Biblical epic Hail, Caesar! A Tale Of The Christ, by a shady group that calls itself The Future – all while keeping a pair of rival gossip columnists (Tilda Swinton playing sisters, because why not?) in the dark. (See full review).
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Available: iTunes, Amazon Video
Anomalisa delivers lots of stop-motion surprises.
ANOMALISA, a stop-motion picture co-directed by award-winning writer and director Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, is a masterpiece, but the less you know about it the better. I don’t want to give away anything that will spoil your sense of discovery. Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) is a successful middle-aged author and motivational speaker who flies to Cincinnati to deliver a talk about customer service. He’s unhappily married, and once at his hotel he looks up an old flame, but the reunion doesn’t go well. Then he meets Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and they fall for each other. (See full review).
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Available: Netflix
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