Apple isn’t just a phone or music seller. And they’re also don’t just make Ted Lasso episodes. They have enough quality movie content out there that deserves your attention as well! So in between Lasso’s give these films a whirl!
Sometimes you just want Tom Hanks to tell you what’s going on. Hanks and youngster Helena Zengel go on a road trip across the American West, delivering news from newspapers Hanks buys from various dealers. The movie doubly plays as a classic Western and an allegory of our times, and how disinformation can spread.
The culmination of a great life. This documentary digs deep into the man everyone basically knows from one of the great sci-fi movies ever made. But he’s overcome so much since then, giving us the truly incredible physical and emotional endurance Michael J. Fox has been fortifying himself with since his Parkinson’s diagnosis has bit by bit been consuming his body, with a wry smile and a joke along the way.
Cooper Raiff’s anticipated follow up. The 24ish now college grad is meta working through what post college life is supposed to be like in this movie. The movie walks a very tricky narrative tightrope and almost falls a few times, but Raiff always rights the ship and often finds emotional insight and brilliance, especially because he cast Dakota Johnson, giving one of her best performances.
J Law went back to basics for this one. Jennifer Lawrence plays a broken Marine, both physically and mentally. Returning from combat to New Orleans, she attempts to get back on her feet. Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry are incredible in this small but powerful little drama about learning how to mend what is broken and continually move forward, including learning to open your heart again.
For a man with 2 Oscars, its surprising it took so long for Mahershala Ali to get a leading role in a movie. This Sci-Fi tale goes down paths you’ve seen before, but they’re potent enough because of Ali, who crafts two similar but independent characters in this sci-fi tale about saying goodbye, moving on, and sacrifice.
It’s fun when you see something different out of an animated movie. Inspired by Celtic storytelling, this animated movie is a breath of fresh, Irish air, telling a tale about parents and children, nature vs man, shapeshifting, and standing up for what you believe in. The movie feels like it leapt off of some old scrolls right onto your TV, moving and shifting alongside its characters in beautiful harmony.
High school English students will be watching this movie for years. A faithful adaptation of one of Shakepeare’s greatest plays, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand old English their way through one of the great stories about ambition, power, fate, and a little dark magic. Joel Coen’s direction makes the movie a creepy joy to look at as well. Don’t look too close though, or you’ll be double double, toil in trouble!
Child of Deaf Adults. That’s what this CODA is about; the lone girl who can hear in her family of 4. She finds an outlet through singing, where she can fully express her feelings and be her true self. The movie is a heartwarming tale about the power of family; this deaf family refreshingly loves each other, and spends most of the movie picking each other up instead of wallowing in despair as Hollywood has made the deaf community look for years. If you need your spirits lifted, this movie will sing you into the clouds.
Maybe a better title is An American Tragedy. Martin Scorcese chooses to adapt the mystery novel into a dark exploration of cruelly forgotten American History, with the incredible Lily Gladstone portraying an Osage matriarch besieged by racism and violence on all sides, including a chillingly scary Robert De Niro personifying raw evil.
A microcosm of the political process in the United States, as told through a bunch of boys building a mock government in Texas. The movie is a mesmerizing look at how difficult it is to run for office and believe in something, without getting drowned out by the noise and other political attacks/machinations. It’s complicated, insightful, inspiring, cruel, calculating. Like, you know, politics.
