“Homer, that’s your solution to everything!”

Kinda feels like the world is spinning down to nothing, doesn’t it? Fortunately, one of the year’s best movies is opening this week … along with one of the worst, just so we can better appreciate the high.

Central Intelligence: The life of a mopey forensic accountant (Kevin Hart) is up-ended when he’s contacted by an old classmate (Dwayne Johnson) who says he’s a CIA agent out to save the free world. Rawson Marshall Thurber’s latest is The In-Laws reconfigured around a high-school reunion instead of a wedding … and it’s kind of charming.

De Palma: Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s loving docu-interview plays like a perfect supplemental feature for TIFF’s new retrospective, though be warned: It’s got major spoilers for just about every movie it mentions.

Finding Dory: If you absolutely must make a sequel to a beloved stand-alone Pixar property, this is the way to do it — by reassembling the original team and digging deeper into the themes and characters. I’m genuinely in awe of what Andrew Stanton has accomplished here.

Genius: Susan is profoundly disappointed in Michael Grandage’s prestige drama about the working relationship between Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) and his editor, Max Perkins (Colin Firth) — and especially with Law’s over-the-top performance.

No Stranger Than Love: Nick Wernham’s misbegotten rom-com — in which Alison Brie sees Colin Hanks swallowed by a mysterious hole in her living-room floor — is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years. Like, you feel bad for the crew that had to show up for work every day because they must have known.

Raiders!: I was not as high on Tim Skousen and Jeremy Coon’s termite-art doc about kids mounting a shot-for-shot remake of Lucas and Spielberg’s classic as Glenn. But don’t let that stop you.

Tempest Storm: Nimisha Mukerji’s latest doc examines the life of an unlikely feminist icon, and is very good at what it does. If you missed it at Hot Docs, definitely check it out at the Bloor this weekend.

The Witness: The coverage of Kitty Genovese’s 1964 murder rocked New York and launched a thousand think-pieces. Fifty years later, her brother Bill digs into what really happened.

And there you have it. Back to packing.

Leave a Reply