#Middlebury
“Sorry to Bother You” (R) – This fresh and inventive comedy-fantasy stars LaKeith Stanfield as Cassius “Cash” Green, a struggling young black man who goes to work in telemarketing. After he gets a hot tip (if you want to get anywhere in telesales, you need to use your “white” voice), he is catapulted to the position of “power caller,” hawking an illustrious and dubious product in return for a filthy amount of compensation. And then things get crazy. The film marries subversively thought-provoking issues with bellyaching absurdity, and it does so seamlessly. Tessa Thompson plays Cash’s revolutionary girlfriend Detroit, and there are choice roles for Armie Hammer, Danny Glover, Terry Crews and more.
Lily James in “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (Universal Pictures photo)
“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (PG-13) – It’s another go-round of the super-cute jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!” featuring the songs of Swedish supergroup ABBA. As Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) prepares to reopen her mother Donna’s (Meryl Streep) renovated boutique hotel, we time-travel back to 1979, when Donna (played in flashback by Lily James) graduated Oxford and swags through Europe, romancing three lovely suitors along the way – one of whom is Sophie’s dad. If you were charmed by the original, you’ll love this follow-up, which includes all of the original cast plus young versions, too. And, in the piece de resistance, Cher makes an appearance as Sophie’s grandmamma – singing “Fernando” no less!
“I Am Vengeance” (R) – Stu Bennett, perhaps better known as the WWE’s Wade Barrett, headlines this muddled British military mystery/action flick as John Gold. After learning that his best friend and his family were murdered, Gold heads on down to his home town of Devotion to unmask the perpetrator. It’s like the director took a deck of cards, each card labeled with a genre trope – Special Forces hero, bad guy in a well-defended compound, war profiteers who get their comeuppance – and drew as many cards as he needed to complete this movie. It rings so many bells that you can’t enjoy it for all the noise. Despite that, “Vengeance 2” is filming as we speak.
“Patient Zero” (R) – It’s the zombie apocalypse you’ve been warned about: a supervirus that changes poor, tragic humans into aggressive, highly intelligent, voracious killers. A group of untainted people live underground in a nuclear silo, their scientists searching for patient zero, whom they need in order to reverse-engineer a cure that will make the world safe again. The searchers are headed up by Dr. Rose (Natalie Dormer) and Morgan (Matt Smith), who was bitten but not zombiefied – so, he can communicate with the infectious ragers. When an infected professor (Stanley Tucci) is brought in for interrogation, he posits the theory that this is cleansing evolution, not regression.
New TV Releases
“The Americans” Season 6
“Once Upon a Holiday”
“Christmas Connection”
“Alice” The Complete 8th Season
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