Paradise City (2022):

This is a terrible movie with some laughable dialogue that is not meant to be funny, but it’s worth watching for its landmark issues. It stars Bruce Willis and John Travolta, working together for the first time since “Pulp Fiction.” What we see on the screen makes it clear that both actors have surpassed their best-before dates. In fact, this is the last movie for Willis who has retired from acting because of his aphasia which makes it impossible for him to remember his lines or to speak properly. His career over the past four years, has consisted of these direct-to-video, low-budget projects and for him, that is all she wrote after this one. The story is about a young man, Ryan Swan (Blake Jenner), who has to work his way through the complicated fabric of the crime world in Hawaii, seeking revenge on the criminals who murdered his father. The best part of the film is that, like the TV series “Hawaii Five-O” is that it makes maximum use of the Island environment literally having Hawaii as an additional character in the film. The plot is predictable with a couple of chase scenes that are well executed, but the major reason for watching this will be to see Willis at the end of his acting career, and to see Travolta chewing up the scenery. Rated 14A.

The Loneliest Boy in the World (2022):

This is a modern fairy-tale of sorts, in which a boy who has lived an extremely sheltered life, with his mother smothering him, controlling him, and making certain that he wants for nothing, finds himself alone when she dies in an horrific and tragic way. The story moves from fairy-tale to horror-thriller when Oliver (Max Harwood of “Everybody’s Talking About Jaimie”) is forced to dig up his own friends and to make his own way. Turns out the friends he is digging up are being reanimated into zombies, and now he has two problems – no friends, and creatures who just want to put the bite on him. It is here that the format swerves again, and moves from horror to comedy and to a sitcom-like world where family values are being skewed and the nuclear family might be a more likely event, as long as it’s okay that some of them are dead. It’s not for everyone, but it has its funnier moments, it has enough gore to make its teenage audience say, “ohh … gross!) and its performances are just fine and include a nice turn by Hero Fiennes Tiffin (“The Woman King”).

Lifemark (2022):

This faith-based film from the Kendrick Brothers who have made many similarly-themed movies is the story of 18-year-old Dave, a young man whose life is really just beginning, but is turned upside down when he is contacted by his birth mother. Kirk Cameron both stars and helped produce the story that unravels as we learn about Dave's mother's decision to have an abortion, and then had a change of mind. Now, with the son at an age where he can make decisions for himself, she reaches out to him on social media and wants to meet him. Dave has been living with his adoptive parents since he was just two weeks old, and their issues as well as his heighten the drama in this based-on-actual events story. The movie was in theatres for one week only ... in the States it was been barred from some areas because it dealt with the subject of abortion, but it also deals with the realities and the joys of adoption, which seemed to get lost in the controversy. Rated 14A.

The Swimmers (2022):

Yusra and Sara Mardini are a pair of Syrian sisters who, in 2015, fled the civil war in their home country to find themselves on a rubber raft in the middle of the Aegean Sea with a number of other refugees who had fled to Lebanon, then to Turkey, and ultimately to Greece when the overloaded raft ran into trouble. The two sisters, along with another two people who could swim, were responsible for saving the lives of all on board. One year later, Yusra was competing in the Olympics in Rio as part of the 2016 Refugee team. This dramatic biography was shot on location in all the places that the girls had fled, hidden in, and looked for salvation in before becoming heroes. Rated 14A.

Slumberland (2022):

A good cast shows up for this adventure story that will appeal to children 8 or 10 and up. Based on the comic book series "Little Nemo in Slumberland '' by Winston McClay, we follow the adventures of a tweenage girl named Nemo and her eccentric companion Flip (Jason Mamoa) who come together after Nemo's father Peter (Kyle Chandler goes missing at sea. Set in the Pacific Northwest, but shot in Toronto, we follow Nemo as she is sent to live with relatives in the big city, a place foreign to her after the coastline life she had been living. While struggling in a new school with new people all around her, Nemo finds a secret map which hooks her up with Flip, and begins a challenging journey through lands of dreams and nightmares that she believes will help reunite her with her lost father. Rated PG.