Streaming and VOD (digital rental) previews include award-winning films, Academy Award nominees and blockbusters. The main highlight is director Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” (“The Shape of Water”), a favorite to emerge at the Oscar for best animation 2023. But there are productions for all tastes, from superheroes and comedy Brazilian to movies. European art. Check out 10 new options to look at at home this weekend below.
🇧🇷 PINOCHIO BY GUILLERMO DEL TORO | NETFLIX
Over a decade in development, the stop-motion animation by director Guillermo del Toro (Oscar winner for “The Shape of Water”) tells a highly stylized version of the fable by Carlo Collodi (1826-1890), which embraces the darker side of the classic storyline, focusing on building the puppet/child’s self-esteem.
Conceived with a macabre imagination, the film surprises by presenting a well-known story in an innovative way – and which in the same year received a new and tedious version by Disney. In collaboration with Mark Gustafson, animator of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009), del Toro manages to move and inspire like the best fairy tale lessons. And he does it with impressive puppets, created by the production company Mackinnon and Saunders (“Corpse Bride”).
The English-dubbed version features newcomer Gregory Mann as the voice of Pinocchio, Ewan McGregor (“Birds of Prey”) as Jiminy Cricket and David Bradley (“Game of Thrones”) as Geppetto, as well as Cate Blanchett (“Carol”) , Tilda Swinton (“Suspiria”), Tim Blake Nelson (“Watchmen”), Finn Wolfhard (“Stranger Things”), Ron Perlman (“Hellboy”), Christoph Waltz (“Spectre”), John Turturro (“Transformers”) and Burn Gorman (“The Expanse”) in its fantastic cast.
🇧🇷 EMANCIPATION | APPLETV+
The Will Smith-starring slavery movie works like a high-octane action thriller, but it’s based on a true story that another crew would make into a good drama. The production is a biopic about slave Peter, who rose to fame in the 19th century after he escaped his “master” and torturer, fought in the Civil War alongside the Yankees and posed for a photo displaying the scars of cruelty on his back – signs of a whip that almost killed him.
The photo became known as the “Scourged Back” and “went viral” after it was published in numerous news outlets in 1863, creating an impact similar to that of the murder of George Floyd at the time. Scholars point to the photo as one of the influences on the growth of the abolitionist movement, which led to the end of slavery in the United States.
Part of the production is the scene of the reconstitution of the photo, which highlights a frenetic performance by Smith and a beautiful photography with colors so washed out that it seems black and white, as well as many scenes of persecution, war and even a fight against a crocodile . Directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”, “The Protector”).
The production found itself in limbo following the controversy over Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock during this year’s Oscars. While many of the actor’s projects have been canceled or postponed, ‘Emacipation’ was already fully filmed when the public relations disaster struck. The decision to launch later this year was made after a private screening for a group of influencers in the US had a strong positive impact on social media. However, the film’s release itself did not reflect this mood, dividing critics.
🇧🇷 BLACK ADAM | HBO Max and VOD*
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (“Jumanji: The Next Level”) lives the titular antihero, whose duality has already been explored extensively in the comics. A classic Shazam villain (since Captain Marvel), he has only recently been recognized as a “good guy”. And this dilemma is explored during his confrontation with the heroes of the storyline, the Justice Society of America – debuting in a feature film formed by Hawkman (Aldis Hodge, from “The Invisible Man”), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell, from “Robbers” ), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo, from “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) and Mr. Destiny (Pierce Brosnan, from “007 Die Another Day”).
This is also the problem with the film. The Rock is the production’s high point, but his confrontation with other heroes – half of whom are as dark as they are expressionless – follows the pattern of several such titles, including “Batman v. Superman”. And when the dust settles and everyone becomes friends (spoiler?), the lack of a prominent villain only underlines that Warner learned nothing after making the same mistake in “Justice League” and “Suicide Squad.”
For all that, “Black Adam” is a fan movie by Zack Snyder, the director who established the dark tone and generic CG villains in the DC Comics adaptations. Behind the camera, Jaume Collet-Serra (“No Scales”) acts almost like a clone of the director of “Justice League”, delivering a long first act of a story that should only be good in the next film – if the scene next – the credits are really an indication of the development of the plot.
🇧🇷 THE HOLE IN THE FENCE | MUBI
With a cinematography awarded at the Venice Film Festival, Mexican director JoaquÃn del Paso’s film (“Maquinaria Panamericana”) is a disconcerting portrait of private educational institutions. The plot follows a group of elite students in a religious summer camp, separated from the neighboring town inhabited by poor workers by a fence erected to signal that they should not mix.
Despite the religious tone of the place, the teachers do not hide the goal of instilling in the children the importance of the class system and the natural sense of superiority, as well as fueling in them the fear of the “other” and the hatred of the ” different”. This results in bullying of a scholarship student and various sadistic power plays, which encourage violence and expose the poisonous education of the privileged.
🇧🇷 GOD’S TORTURED LINES | NETFLIX
The adaptation of the classic thriller of the writer Torcuato Luca de Tena (1923-1999) arrives on the screens through the lens of the Spanish Oriol Paulo (“O Corpo”, “Durante a Tormenta”), a specialist in the genre, who materializes the period plot highly stylized. The story revolves around a woman who falsifies her psychiatric record to be admitted to a mental asylum, with the aim of investigating a crime, but following her clues she ends up being treated like a real lunatic. The lead role is played by Barbara Lennie (“The Fire Girl”).
🇧🇷 BURNING PATIENCE | NETFLIX
The new film of Antonio Skármeta’s romantic book, already brought to the screen in the award-winning “The Postman and the Poet” (1994), features Andrew Bargsted (“Family Secrets”) as the passionate postman who tries to seduce his beloved with poetry, but makes the mistake of plagiarizing Pablo Neruda, the girl’s favorite poet. Disappointed to discover the farce, she ends the procession. Until, one day, his job as a postman leads him to meet Neruda himself, whom he tries to convince to teach him how to be a true poet in order to win back his inspiring muse. Directed by the Chilean Rodrigo Sepúlveda (“Aurora”).
🇧🇷 PARADISE – A NEW LIFE | VOD*
The Italian comedy explores the paranoia of a young man (Vincenzo Nemolato, from “Martin Eden”) sent to an isolated village in the Swiss Alps by the witness protection service. When he arrives, he runs into the mafia killer that he reported and who also made a deal and was relocated by the police. Fearing for his life, the protagonist tries to disguise himself and learn ways to kill the assassin before he is killed. He’s just completely inept. And all that remains is to face the mistrust and see if loneliness and nostalgia for Sicily bring them closer.
What he doesn’t expect is that the two develop an unexpected friendship, which produces funny scenes in the film, even as the sense of a potential threat keeps creeping in, in the form of suspicious tourists. Directed by Davide Del Degan, it won the Italian Golden Globe in the Best First Film category.
🇧🇷 ANOTHER WORLD | MUBI
Stéphane Brizé’s new film follows an executive, his wife and son at a time when career choices are about to change their lives. The French drama reflects on how the pressures of work can implode families and what really matters in life. The main roles are played by Vincent Lindon, Brizé’s favorite actor, and Sandrine Kiberlain. The two had already starred in another film by the director, the award-winning “Mademoiselle Chambon” (2009).
🇧🇷 WELCOME TO QUIXERAMOBIM | VOD*
The new comedy from Ceará by Halder Gomes and his accomplice Edmilson Filho (both of “Cine Holliúdy”) stars Monique Alfradique as a wealthy influencer who loses everything when her millionaire father gets involved in a corruption scheme. Suddenly she is homeless and needs to take refuge in the last available family property: a ruined farm in Quixeramobim, in the hinterland of Ceará. But when she arrives, she finds Edmilson Filho installed and claiming to own the place.
The premise sounds like a rom-com, and it is, incorporated into an entertaining afternoon session, which also features Falcão, youtuber Max Petterson and Minas Gerais’ Chandelly Braz in his first film, after many soap operas.
🇧🇷 AMSTERDAM | STAR+
David O. Russell’s Oscar-nominated films ‘The Wrestler’ (2010), ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (2012) and ‘American Hustle’ (2013) often feature great actors. This past production in the 1930s is no different.
Christian Bale (“Thor: The Passion”), John David Washington (“Tenet”) and Margot Robbie (“The Suicide Squad”) star in the film as two soldiers and a nurse, who bond during World War I and are framed for murder. And to prove their innocence, they end up getting involved with a variety of characters, all played by famous people – like Anya Taylor-Joy (“The Queen’s Gambit”), Zoe Saldana (“Avengers: Endgame”), Rami Malek (” 007 – No time to die”), Chris Rock (“Saw Legacy”), Alessandro Nivola (“The Many Saints of Newark”), Andrea Riseborough (“Oblivion”), Matthias Schoenaerts (“The Old Guard”) , Michael Shannon (“The Shape of Water”), Mike Myers (“Bohemian Rhapsody”), Timothy Olyphant (“Justified”) and even singer Taylor Swift (“Cats”).
But don’t have high expectations. Despite the comedic tone of the production, the script leads the protagonists into a historical conspiracy mystery that makes little sense. It is in fact one of the worst films of the careers of all involved, to the point of embittering only 31% approval on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Source: Terra
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
