Oct 8 - 14th Downloads
& DVDs
 

  • Toy Story 4 (2019):

    It is 24 years since the original Toy Story was released, and nine years since the last film in the series, Toy Story 3.  This time, it's a whole different caper, with big changes afoot in the world of the toys who live normal lives when their humans aren't looking, and just love to be played with when their kids are around.  At the end of the last movie, Andy, who owned most of the toys that we came to know so well, especially Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (voice of Tim Allan), went off to college, and many of the toys found their way to a Daycare, and then to Bonnie, a little girl in that facility who inherited many of the toys.  As this movie opens, Bonnie is being prepped by her parents to go off to kindergarten for her first day.  She picks up Woody, and prepares to leave the house.  "Toys don't go to school," says Dad, as he takes Woody, and leaves him in her room.  Bonnie is heartbroken, and as soon as the toys are alone, so is Woody ... it's his job to look after Bonnie ... as well as the other toys, and now he feels worthless. Bonnie, sad and alone at kindergarten, makes her own toy out of a plastic spork ... using mismatched eyes, a Plasticine mouth, and pipe cleaner arms, she calls him Forky, and he's her new friend. Soon all the toys are on a complicated road trip as Bonnie's parents take an RV vacation, and it's here that Woody thinks he may have seen the missing Bo Peep in an antique shop.  There are some frightening moments, especially during Woody's search of the shop. Added to the cast is an Evel Knievel-style motorcycle jumper called Duke Caboom (voice of Keanu Reeves).  He is Canadian, sports a Maple Leaf flag, and helps liberate the toys from the antique shop.  It all ends well, of course, and I can assure you that adults will get every bit as much, maybe more, as the kids will get ... excellent movie, but sad in places.  Rated PG. 

     

  • Annabelle Comes Home (2019):

    Real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) believe they are doing the right thing by placing the possessed and evil china rag doll, Annabelle, in a place where it can do no harm.  The doll was installed in the Warren's home, behind sacred glass that has been blessed by a priest.  What they weren't counting on was the activity of a girlfriend of their babysitter, who came over to the house while the Warrens were away overnight.  10 year-old Judy, Ed and Lorraine's daughter, who clearly has inherited some of her mother's sensitivity to the spirit world, became a target when the teenage friend, Danielle, literally broke into the secure room in which Annabelle, as well as hundreds of other demonic artifacts were kept, looking for some closure after the death of her father.  The film is not a slasher-horror film by any stretch - it's a very good, traditional old-fashioned spooker, set in the 1970s, based on what are said to be actual events, and building scene by scene as the malevolent spirits, led by the demon-possessed doll, create a holy terror for the three girls.  Is it factual?  Well, Annabelle exists, the Warrens were famous as paranormal investigators (Ed died at the age of 79 in 2006, Lorraine passed away last April at the age of 92), and Judy, to this day, along with her police officer husband, oversees the relics and objects that bring so much fear to this movie.  If you like a good horror movie where the mood builds a piece at a time, and where everything seems like it COULD happen ... this one will work for you.  Rated 14A.

  • Midsommar:

    This horror movie is not for most people ... and guess what - I am a fan of the genre, but it wasn't for me either.  It's a very odd kind of freak show from Ari Aster, the writer and director of last year's extremely disturbing horror-fest "Hereditary."  Christian and Dani (Jack Reynor and Florence Pugh) are a couple that have been struggling with their relationship, Christian knows it's over, but he hasn't officially told her yet.  When Dani suffers a tragic family loss, Christian decides the time is not quite right to break the news, and they decide to get a change of scene and head for Sweden at the insistence of three of Christian's guy friends, to attend a festival that is held once every 90 years.  In these far northern climes in summer, the sun doesn't really set, and it's daylight all the time, which, surprisingly, adds to the unease and the sense of terror that builds as the five partake in what at first seems to be just an odd festival.  Soon, the food, the drink, and something else - maybe drugs in both, begin to change their perspective.  By now they know something is very wrong, but they are too far into it to back away.  The hallucinogens they have ingested create an other-worldly sense of reality, but soon it's clear that, lurking beneath the surface of this bright, fun place, there is something insidious and evil that will change everything.  That's where the problems began for me - explicit violence, nudity, and sexual situations engulf the friends in something that has no real outcome in any kind of positive sense.  Rated 18A.

  • El Camino:  A Breaking Bad Movie (2019):

    When the events that closed out the exceptional TV series “Breaking Bad,” culminated in the end of many of the show’s regular characters six years ago, we saw Jessie Pinkman (Aaron Paul) roaring away in his 1978 Chevrolet El Camino, on the lam from the drug gangs and the police who are all giving chase.  Several characters from the original series will appear, although such favourites as Mr. White (Bryan Cranston) and Mike Erhmantraut (Jonathan Banks) were killed off during various events. This Netflix original is also being released on a limited basis to theatres. Rated 18A.

     

    Fractured (2019):

    This Netflix original releases stars Sam Worthington as a husband and father named Ray who is driving cross-country with his wife and daughter.  At a rest stop, his daughter falls and breaks her wrist, causing the family to take her to the ER of a small hospital. While waiting for his daughter’s treatment to be completed, Ray falls asleep in the waiting room.  When he awakens, there is no sign of his family, and no one knows anything about them ever having been there. Rated 14A.

Green Book (2018):

Last year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, this exceptional story of real-life musician Dr. Donald Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his Italian-American driver Tony Lip (Viggo Mortenson) takes us into the American South of the 1960s, where Dr. Shirley has a series of concert dates.  The Colour lines are still firmly drawn and he cannot stay in the same hotels as his white driver, nor can he eat at the same restaurants. An outstanding film with a great message. Rated 14A.

 

New on AMAZON PRIME

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018):

Based on actual events, Joaquin Phoenix stars as John Callahan, a young man severely injured in a car accident in which he was the impaired driver.  His alcoholism led him to that place, where he emerged a quadriplegic, and it appeared that his life was pretty much over.  While in rehab, he found that he had an ability to draw editorial cartoons, and with the help of his girlfriend (Rooney Mara) and his sponsor (Jonah Hill), he learns that perhaps there is a life worth living after all.  Set and shot in Portland, OR, home of the real-life John Callahan.  Rated 14A.