Atlantic Ave Magazine October 2016 Issue

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entertainment ║ gotta see
By skip sheffield
Gotta See
Isla Fisher
“Keeping Up
With the Joneses”
October 7
“The Girl on the Train” has generated
a lot of advance buzz. Emily Blunt plays
an alcoholic woman who imagines an
ideal, idyllic life of her new neighbors
Hayley and Scott Hipwell (Hayley Bennett
and Luke Evens). Ah, but all is not
as it seems in this script adapted from
the novel by Paula Hawkins. Tate Taylor
(“The Help”) directs.
Aren’t you glad you survived middle
school? In case you’ve forgotten there is
“Middle School: The Worst Years of My
Life.” Rafe Khatchadorian (Griffin Gluck) is
a bright boy transferred to a middle school
rife with bullies and ruled by a tyrannical
principal. Steve Carr (“Paul Blart: Mall
Cop”) directs and the cast includes Lauren
Graham, Adam Pally, Efren Ramirez. Isabella
Moner and Rob Riggle as Bear, who
may become Rafe’s stepfather.
The remake of “The Birth of a Nation”
has already sparked controversy far in
advance of its release. Writer-director
Nate Parker plays literate slave and
preacher Nat Turner. Turner is allowed
by his owner (Armie Hammer) to try and
calm the waters in the antebellum South.
Instead he ends up leading a revolution.
Others in the cast are Gabrielle Union,
Aunjanae Ellis, Aja Naomi King and Penelope
Ann Miller. The 1915 original glorified
the rise of the racist Ku Klux Klan.
October 14
“The Accountant” is not a very exciting
title, but when the accountant is
played by Ben Affleck, you can bet there
will be some action. Affleck is Christian
Wolff, mild-mannered small-town CPA
who secretly works for some of the most
dangerous crime organizations in the
world. With Ray King (J.K. Simmons) of
the US Treasury Department closing in,
Wolff takes a legitimate job helping out
an accounting clerk (Anna Kendrick)
who has discovered a discrepancy involving
millions of dollars at her company.
Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”) directs.
“Desierto” means Desert in Spanish.
This movie by Jonas Cuaron (“Gravity”)
is a sympathetic look at a group of
men and women attempting to enter
the USA via the treacherous, unforgiving
desert while being pursued by
a deranged vigilante. Gael Garcia
Bernal (who also produced) stars
with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and
Alondra Hidalgo.
October 21
“Jack Reacher: Never Go
Back” is the rather contradictory
title to a sequel to the 2012
movie starring Tom Cruise as
the title character. Jack returns
to a military base in Virginia to
take his commanding officer to
dinner only to discover she has
been arrested and he has been
accused of beating another man
and fathering a child with another
woman. Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh,
Cobie Smulders and Patrick
Heusinger co-star under the
direction of Edward Zwick
(“Defiance”).
“31” is also known as
Rob Zombie’s 31, as it is pretty much his
show, which he wrote and directed. Five
carnival workers, “carnies” we like to call
them, are kidnapped and held in a compound
where they are forced to play a
life and death game. Malcolm McDowell,
Sheri Moon Zombie, Meg Foster, Elizabeth
Daly and Sandra Rosko co-star.
“Keeping Up With the Joneses” can
get dangerous. Zach Galifiankis and Isla
Fisher star as a suburban couple who
are in awe of their seemingly perfect
neighbors, the Joneses (Jon Hamm and
Gal Gadat). The thing is, they are really
covert operatives. Everything else
is a ruse. Greg Mottala (“Adventureland,”
“Superbad”) directs.
So who believes in the special powers
of the Ouija board? Evidently quite a lot,
because “Ouija: Origin of Evil” is a sequel
to the 2014 sleeper hit. It stars a bunch of
young people you probably don’t know.
The writer and director is Mike Flanagan,
who brought us “Oculus.”
Tyler Perry just keeps churning them
out. “Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween”
is his latest. As long as people
keep paying money to see Perry dressed
up and padded out as a middle-aged
woman, the actor-director-writer-producer
will keep making his comedies.
October 28
At least the settings will be lovely.
“Inferno” once again stars Tom Hanks
as intrepid Harvard symbologist Robert
Langdon and is once again directed by
Ron Howard, who guided the two previous
installments based on Dan Brown’s
novels. This time Langdon is in Florence
and Venice, Italy trying to follow clues in
Dante Alighiris’ “Divine Comedy” to prevent
a global genocide. The cast includes
Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Ben Foster and
Irfam Khan.
“American Pastoral” is not as serene
as its title would indicate. Ewan Mc-
Gregor makes his directorial debut and
stars as Seymour “Swede” Levov, a once
legendary high school athlete who married
Dawn (Jennifer Connelly), a former
beauty queen. Swede’s charmed life goes
off the rails when his teenage daughter
Merry (Dakota Fanning) goes missing
after being accused of a violent act. The
script is based on the Philip Roth novel.