YOUR GUIDE TO THIS WEEK'S NEW CINEMA RELEASES

Something for everyone at the movies this week!

TOP PICK

Top of the list is EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!, a comedy in which a group of college baseball players navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood. It’s from writer/director, Richard Linklater, who brought us the fascinating Boyhood. The Playlist’s Charlie Schmidlin reminds us that, ‘The strength of Linklater's films have always been their ability to capture the textures of lived experience, and Everyone Wants Some!! is no different in that regard: it is a confident, hugely enjoyable return to a universe that treats the connection to “Dazed and Confused” not as an obligation or cash grab, but as inspiration to match that film's level of energy and cast chemistry.’ People ***1/2 ◉ Critics ****

OTHERS TO SEE

In the Turkish movie, MUSTANG, five orphan girls are seen innocently playing with boys on a beach. Their scandalised conservative guardians confine them while forced marriages are arranged. This looks like it will be a deep, emotional story. The A.V. Club’s Mike D'Angelo compares sees resonances between Jeffrey Eugenides book, The Virgin Suicides and Sofia Coppola’s movie of the book. D’Angelo goes on to say that, ‘The result, while less poetic and artful than Eugenides' book or Coppola's film, is much more emotionally direct, and pulls off a very tricky balancing act between bemoaning its characters' fate and celebrating their resilience.’ It looks very good. People ***1/2 ◉ Critics ****

MAYBE/MAYBE NOT

Scrap is still chasing his acorn in ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE. In this episode, Scrat is catapulted outside of Earth, where he accidentally sets off a series of cosmic events that transform and threaten the planet. To save themselves from peril, Manny, Sid, Diego, and the rest of the herd leave their home and embark on a quest full of thrills and spills, highs and lows, laughter and adventure while traveling to exotic new lands and encountering a host of colourful new characters. This one is getting mixed reviews from the critics. For The Hollywood Reporter’s Michael Rechtshaffen, ‘It's as if co-directors Michael Thurmeier and Galen Tan Chu, both veterans of the Ice Age franchise, sensed that there was essentially nowhere left to go with the concept and opted to instead overstuff the production with too many characters breathlessly doing tired, pop culture-heavy “bits” like it was open mic night at the Paleolithic Punch Line.’ The general viewer are a bit more forgiving. People **** ◉ Critics **

Last up is INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE. It’s been twenty years since the first invasion and now Earth is faced with a new extra-Solar threat. But will mankind's new space defences be enough? Mixed reviews from critics on this one, too. The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin says, ‘This isn't just lazy, it's borderline nonsensical. Resurgence inflates the scale of the alien threat to such a preposterous degree - the mothership takes up roughly an eighth of the Earth's total surface - that the queues of honking traffic and rooftop helicopter rescues we're supposed to invest in can't help but feel like microscopic trifles.’ Looks like this one is for those who want nothing but special effects action. People *** ◉ Critics **

That's it for this week. See you at the movies!

<NOTE> Movie summaries are adaptations of movie summary on IMDB. Opinions are mine unless credited. People and critics scores are a rough idea of how movies are currently being rated on the “average”. These updates are written from an Australian perspective so openings of the movies in cinemas may vary in other parts of the world.