Image © Disney Entertainment
Elemental
Ember & Wade played by Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie in Disney/Pixar's 'Elemental'
The Blackening
(In Theaters June 16)
This horror satire takes its cues from Saw, then gives the premise a black twist. When a group of African American college pals reunite at a remote cabin for Juneteenth, they find themselves trapped in a deadly game calling itself “The Blackening.” These nine friends are forced to answer obscure Black trivia and history questions correctly, lest they be killed. Each player represents a stereotype (the activist, the gangsta, the gay guy, etc ...), their antagonist issuing orders over a boxy, black and white TV, hidden by a face and head-covering black leather mask. Played by Antoinette Robinson, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Sinqua Walls, Jermaine Fowler, Grace Beyers, Yvonne Orji, Jay Pharoah and Dewayne Perkins (who co-wrote the script with Tracy Oliver), character interactions are sometimes funny and often, painful to witness. Tim Story directs this R-rated horror that hurls a bucketful of racial insults meant to illuminate the film’s socially relevant comedy. (Lisa Miller)
Elemental
(In Theaters June 16)
Pixar explores the circumstances and psychology that trap the downtrodden. Directed by Peter Sohn, himself the child of Korean immigrants, this animated story occurs in the metropolis of Elemental. The high-rise dense city houses the four elements, inhabitants that live together, but separately. Water is the elite class, Air and Earth are in the middle, and Fire is confined to a fiery ghetto. Fireland immigrants Ernie and Cinder (voices of Ronnie Del Carmen and Shila Ommi) own a neighborhood grocery that they expect their daughter Ember (voice of Leah Lewis) to take over one day.
Now in her early 20s, Ember finds that prospect, and her work-a-day life, dull. Then she meets Wade (Mamoudou Athie), a watery blob who arrives via the store’s malfunctioning plumbing. Smitten with Ember, Wade persuades her to leave the ghetto and go out on the town with him. Romantic feelings develop, but the unlikely match is frowned upon by Ember’s family. Clocking in at an hour-and-40-minutes, the story predictably hits each of its PG-Rated marks, bolstered by awe-inspiring computer animation. To achieve the film’s highly detailed characters and panoramas the installation of 150,000 computer cores. NASA better look out. (Lisa Miller)
The Flash
(In Theaters June 16)
When Barry/The Flash (Ezra Miller) discovers his ability to travel through time, he defies Batman’s (Ben Affleck) admonishment not to change the past. In short order, a twenty-something Barry confronts his 18-year-old self on the day the younger Barry has the accident conferring his superpowers. With younger Barry empowered, older Barry is de-powered. To make matters worse, evil General Zod (Michael Shannon) returns, threatening total annihilation.
Stuck in a continuum seemingly devoid of other superheroes, older Barry teams up with younger Barry in an attempt to rectify the timeline. Eventually, the pair are helped by Supergirl (Sasha Calle), and an older Batman played by Michael Keaton. Ron Livingston appears as Barry’s dad Henry, wrongly convicted of murdering Barry’s mom. Andy Muschietti directs the two-and-a-half-hour film, utilizing cutting-edge special effects, and giving Miller room to deliver a quirky, interesting performance. (Lisa Miller)
“Samurai Wolf 1 & 2”
(Film Movement Blu-ray)
Samurai Wolf (1966) and Samurai Wolf 2 (1967) brought the Kabuki-based tradition of samurai movies into a new and more dynamic age. Filmed in dusty black and white, Samurai Wolf introduced a young, unemployed warrior, Kibi (“The Furious Wolf”), who volunteers to protect a village against the machinations of corrupt officials and their outlaw henchmen.
Although the essay in the booklet accompanying the new Blu-ray release doesn’t mention Sergio Leone, comparisons to ‘60s spaghetti westerns are inevitable. Kibi is more affable than Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name,” but as fast with a sword as Clint was with a six-gun. The imaginative score could have been written by Ennio Morricone but was composed by Toshiaki Tshushima near the beginning of a long career in Japanese films and television. Samurai’s director Hideo Gosha brought the violent ballet of samurai fighting to a high level of cinema, employing slo-mo and dead silence along with odd angles suggesting the influence of German Expressionism—Caligari in medieval Japan. (David Luhrssen)
