Welcome to Annotate This, where we gather reviews, trailers, and annotate the posters for movies heading to your local cineplex or art house theater this week. Click on the image above to add your comments to the mix. Enjoy the Summer of Sequels starting with:
The Hangover Part III
The outlandish adventures of three men who can't stop talking how much fun they once had continues. As you know, they're capturing new zoo animals, interacting with Mike Tyson, and ravaging cities of excess. Though this is the third installment, it manages to keep its original "sense of creative dehydration." Read Rich Juzwiak's review here
Before Midnight (Limited)
While Before Midnight is also a tertiary installment, this film ages and matures in ways that justify a follow-up to the two previous films. Actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as well as director Richard Linklater wrote the script together—thus giving the movie a feeling that it is a "distillation of three lives' worth of real-world meltdowns." Mostly, the film involves them fighting intimately, paradoxically, painfully, cathartically, and impeccably.
Epic
This animated riff on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids has an astounding voice cast, including Beyoncé Knowles as Queen of an visually exquisite and enchanted land, as well as Christoph Waltz playing someone evil named Mandrake. Aziz Ansari and Chris O’Dowd play best friends called snug and snail.
Fast & Furious 6
While the driving force of Fast & Furious 6 is the goal of saving the world from a dirty bomb, the more likely culprit is the profits from Fast & Furious 5. But don't worry—even if there's no emotion, you can read these drag races as literature: "Here at last is the Proustian car chase, the gearbox the talismanic madeleine, the racers in search of lost time"
Fill the Void (Limited)
Centering on questions of honor and duty surrounding a wedding in a Orthodox Hassidic family, this movie is Jane Austen by way of Tel Aviv.
We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (Limited)
Alex Gibney, the documentary filmmaker with a "gift for un-mashing political hot potatoes," has taken on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in his latest documentary. Through good old-fashioned research, Gibney captures a fascinating "Icarus-like plunge."
Behind the Candelabra (Premieres May 26 on HBO, in Theaters in Europe)
For Steven Soderbergh's last film (for the meantime), he depicts Liberace and his longtime lover Scott Thorson, in what one critic calls a "gay Pygmalion myth." Reviewers say it is glamorous, garish, great, as well fabulous, empathetic in addition to being lavish and eye-popping.
Penguins 3D
This is a story about the penguin who would be king, falling in love, showing seals who's boss, and protecting his tribe. David Attenborough will tell you all about it.
Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself (Limited)
George Plimpton is a dude who did it all—he was a writer, editor, boxer, baseball player, aviator, friend to Presidents, party-thrower, photographer of Playboy models, and New York philharmonic triangle player. Though the story writes itself, the documentary pays excellent tribute to the modern Renaissance/Everyman.
A Green Story (Limited)
This is a highly-produced, feature-length promotional video for ECOS laundry detergent. It's also a drama about the apparently vicious world of laundry detergent competition and fighting large corporations to live the American dream.
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