Welcome back, geeks!  Let’s get into it! As always, if you want to hear all four of us talk about everything – check out our podcast.

Wide Release

US

Written and directed by Jordan Peele, Starring Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss; R; 1hour 56 minutes.

Jordan Peele’s follow up to the Oscar-winning Get Out (my review) is one of my most anticipated movies of the year. The basic idea has a family on vacation when messed-up dopplegangers of themselves show up where they are staying and cause chaos. The family is African-American, and while this was an important detail for Get Out; I don’t know if this matters for Us. I don’t know anything that isn’t in the first trailer. And I have until 7pm Thursday to keep it that way. Honestly, Us is looks terrifying and intense. After Get Out, I trust Peele to skillfully take me where he’s taking us. (Can’t wait to watch his Twilight Zone when it’s not on CBS on Demand and the upcoming Lovecraft Country adaptation on HBO. BTW, go read that book).

Our Stephen King We All Watch Down Here contributor Amie Simon of ILoveSplatter.com saw it Tuesday and she loved it. Outside of her, Metacritic is at 78, placing at 13th best of the year so far; RottenTomatoes at 97%. I’m not even going to read the blurbs to find out why it is so well rated.

Limited Release

Hotel Mumbai

True Story/Thriller; Written by John Collee and Anthony Maras; Directed by Anthony Maras; Starring Dev Patel, Armie Hammer; R; 2h3m.

Based on a true story, it looks like a tense story of hotel workers keeping their guests safe during a terrorist attack. Dev Patel nearly always gives a solid performance – let’s not mention Last Airbender. I don’t like the yellowish filter, but the feel of the trailer is strong. I did turn off the trailer after a while as it looked like we getting third act stuff and it’s a three minute trailer.

Reviews are a positive 65, saying it’s an effective thriller though some say it’s myopic and a few mention falling into the standards of real-life catastrophy films.

Ramen Shop

Drama; Directed by Eric Khoo; Starring Mark Lee, Tsuyoshi Ihara; Unrated; 1h29.

Per IMDB: A young man looking into his parent’s past visits Singapore and discovers them and his extended family through the delicious food (as seen in Crazy Rich Asians). The trailer does nothing for me except want to eat. Standard family drama stuff.

Reviews, three averaging at 54, seem to about the same. They focus on the fantastic food and state the characters and drama are underdone.

Sunset

Drama; Written and directed by Laszlo Nemes; Starring Susanne West, Julie Jakab; R, 2h22m.

Another foreign film about a newly orphaned young person looking for their family’s legacy. In this, an intense looking woman travels to Budapest just before the Great War to search for a possible brother. Nemes made the fantastic Holocaust drama Son of Saul, and it’s enough to get me to see this. I love the look of the film; those flames in the dark! I’m in.

Reviews are a solid 76. They say it’s gripping but unfocused.

 

That’s it for this week! After last week’s zillion releases, glad to have only 4. US is going to steal it away.