July 2016 - Film
Welcome All!
In terms of new films this month, here are two recommendations that you may find entertaining in the cinema this month.
Films in July:
The Shallows is exactly what it promises, and I mean that as a compliment. It is a lean, mean, occasionally brutal survivalist thriller pitting an experienced surfer (Blake Lively) against a man-eating shark. While it has moments of horror and plenty of bruised-forearm suspense, it is more of a survivalist drama, as one isolated person must overcome impossible odds just to live to see another day. It is less something like Deep Blue Sea or Orphan and closer to the likes of Gravity, All is Lost, or 127 Hours. What it somewhat lacks in sensationalistic horror tropes it makes up for in gritty quasi-realism that becomes surprisingly moving.
The Shallows is a test of endurance and tenacity, with a little luck thrown in for good measure. Nancy’s med school training is put to good use, including in one gruesome sequence that had most of the theatre hiding their eyes in empathy. Some of the beats will be familiar to those who have seen the likes of Gravity or even Cast Away (there is a proverbial “Wilson” character in the form of a wounded bird), and Blake Lively gives a pretty terrific performance that commands the screen and earns our attention even when she’s the only thing of note on the screen. My rating 9/10.
One year after outwitting the FBI and winning the public's adulation with their magic spectacles, the remaining members of the Four Horsemen – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – are in hiding, awaiting further instructions from the Eye, the secret society of magicians they've been recruited into. Atlas, having grown tired of waiting for Rhodes to give them a mission, seeks out The Eye himself. His search leads him to an underground tunnel in which he hears a voice that tells him that his wait may be coming to an end. As he goes back to his apartment, he finds a woman in his apartment. Escaping his attempts to bind her, she escapes. Atlas then goes to meet the rest of the team at which time their handler, FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) ultimately assigns them a new mission, exposing corrupt businessman Owen Case (Ben Lamb), whose new software secretly steals data on its users for Case's benefit. Illusionist Lula May (Lizzy Caplan), the woman who was in Atlas's apartment earlier, is added to the team to replace former member Henley Reeves. My rating 8/10.
In terms of new films this month, here are two recommendations that you may find entertaining in the cinema this month.
Films in July:
The Shallows is exactly what it promises, and I mean that as a compliment. It is a lean, mean, occasionally brutal survivalist thriller pitting an experienced surfer (Blake Lively) against a man-eating shark. While it has moments of horror and plenty of bruised-forearm suspense, it is more of a survivalist drama, as one isolated person must overcome impossible odds just to live to see another day. It is less something like Deep Blue Sea or Orphan and closer to the likes of Gravity, All is Lost, or 127 Hours. What it somewhat lacks in sensationalistic horror tropes it makes up for in gritty quasi-realism that becomes surprisingly moving.
The Shallows is a test of endurance and tenacity, with a little luck thrown in for good measure. Nancy’s med school training is put to good use, including in one gruesome sequence that had most of the theatre hiding their eyes in empathy. Some of the beats will be familiar to those who have seen the likes of Gravity or even Cast Away (there is a proverbial “Wilson” character in the form of a wounded bird), and Blake Lively gives a pretty terrific performance that commands the screen and earns our attention even when she’s the only thing of note on the screen. My rating 9/10.
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