>>> 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. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNNN
>>> Into the Forest is the story of sisters Nell and Eva (Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood), who try to survive at their home in a remote forest after a vaguely defined eco-disaster. This is not a futuristic sci-fi flick. Rozema’s screenplay, adapted from Jean Hegland’s novel, is compelling precisely because it’s very much set in the present. Wood and Page are excellent as the siblings with personality differences – dancer Eva is the creative type, Nell has a much more practical streak. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNNN
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows brings the heroes back, this time to save the city. Out of the Shadows, the sequel to 2014’s big-screen reboot, makes half-witted attempts to slap some soul into the overgrown CGI turtles, but for the most part they are merely cogs in the Michael Bay machine. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: N
>>> The Wailing is a supernatural thrill about rampant evil that caused a storm at Cannes this year. A fusion of police procedurals and social drama with an undertow of bone-deep horror, it’s the kind of cinematic experience that drapes itself over you while you watch –you can feel its weight on you the next day. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNNNN
Tale Of Tales stars Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and Toby Jones in a triptych of stories by the poet Giambattista Basile. The screenplay is adapted from the works of Giambattista Basile, a 17th century author credited with early versions of the stories of Rapunzel and Cinderella. Those characters do not appear here instead, Garrone weaves together a handful of lesser known stories set in a fantastical land of impossible kingdoms. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NN
Me Before You isn’t a remarkable film, but it does capture what made Jojo Moyes’s bestselling romance novel so affecting. Underachieving 20-something Lou (Emilia Clarke) lands a position as a caregiver to Will (Sam Claflin), a quadriplegic man, and the experience changes both of their lives forever. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNN
The Waiting Room reunites the writer/director of Krivina with star Jasmin Geljo. Jasmin, a fictional actor, wants to recapture his sense of purpose by restarting the career that faltered when he left Sarajevo for Toronto two decades earlier. He’s disconnected from his career and family and haunted by a past he’s unwilling to confront. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNN
The Steps is an awful, awful comedy about a blended family who meet – and squabble – on a snowy weekend at a Parry Sound lake house. A talented cast (including Jason Ritter, James Brolin, Christine Lahti, Kate Corbett, Vinay Virmani and Naomi Snieckus) struggles to breathe life into stock characters and generic conflicts. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: N
>>> I Am The Blues isn’t flashy or sexy – it just wades in and gets the job done. Director Cross brings his camera to the places where old bluesmen and blueswomen already are – bars, juke joints, seniors’ centres, their apartments – and records them sitting and talking. At one point we find ourselves in a living room with Bobby Rush, Henry Gray, Carol Fran and Lazy Lester, and of course they jam and it’s fantastic. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNNN
>>> Chevalier is a comedy of sorts, with six older Greek men on a yacht who occupy themselves with ridiculous contests designed to determine which of them is “the best” at a given challenge. Who these men are and why they’re alone together are left unexplained, which is the smartest thing director Tsangari and co-writer Efthymis Filippou could have done all we know is that they’re pretty wealthy, and possibly obscenely so. (See full review).
Opens June 3. See listing.
Rating: NNNN
Available now on Netflix
>>> Clouds of Sils Maria stars Kristen Stewart playing a frumpy and loyal personal assistant to a veteran actor frightened by the prospect of aging, Kristen Stewart holds her own opposite the exquisite Juliette Binoche. As their characters debate art, gossip, career choices and Google, Stewart and Binoche’s palpable intimacy is intensified by how much the dialogue reflects their own work.
Rating: NNNN
Available to watch here.
