ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIE REVIEWS – ADELANTE RECOMMENDS

By: Al Ballesteros

THE JACK IN THE BOX: AWAKENING
Shinehouse Group
Available on VOD, Digital HD & DVD now
Terminally ill heiress Olga Marsdale acquires a mysterious gothic box containing a captured demon – Jack. The powerful entity within makes a deadly deal with Olga and her devoted son Edgar – deliver six victims to Jack and Olga will live. They trap several unsuspecting victims for him within the vast crumbling mansion – but can they deliver all six before it’s too late? Or will Amy, the young and innocent woman recently hired to look after the estate turn out to be more than a match for both the family and the Jack?

WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY
Film Movement
Available on Blu-ray/DVD/Digital now
An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction, and a chance encounter with the past…. Propelled by coincidence and imagination, and guided by love’s gentle current, acclaimed director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Happy Hour, Asako I & II) — also director of Drive My Car, Japan’s Oscar entry for Best International Film at this year’s Academy Awards® — returns with an enchanting triptych that spins mundane encounters into a world of infinite possibilities. Playfully inspired by life’s tiny miracles, and bound together by memory, regret, deception and fate, Hamaguchi leaves no stone unturned in his quest to chart the ever-deepening mysteries of the all-too-human heart.

JOY WOMACK: THE WHITE SWAN
Film Movement
Available on DVD/Digital now
As the first American to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy’s prestigious main training program, and the first American woman to sign a contract with the Bolshoi Ballet, Joy Womack made history. And though she’s only 27, her remarkable rise to an international stardom has been chronicled in JOY WOMACK: THE WHITE SWAN, a feature-length documentary from filmmakers Dina Burlis and Sergey Gavrilov.

THEY SAY NOTHING STAYS THE SAME
Film Movement
Available on DVD/Digital February 15
Featuring an array of cameos from Japan’s top stars, THEY SAY NOTHING STAYS THE SAME, the debut directorial feature by actor Joe Odagiri, follows Toichi (Akira Emoto), an aging ferryman in a remote Meiji-era community. His peaceful, cyclical existence is given meaning by the essential role he plays in transporting people, livestock and goods across the water. When news arrives that a bridge is being built upstream, it’s clear that his services will no longer be needed. Meanwhile, his life will be equally transformed by the appearance of a mysterious young woman whom he saves from drowning. Shot by star cinematographer Christopher Doyle, THEY SAY NOTHING STAYS THE SAME is a refreshingly old-fashioned work of classical cinema, its formal qualities mirroring its thematic concern with those fondly-remembered traditions sacrificed in the name of progress.

A WALK IN HER SHOES
IndiePix Films
Available on DVD/Digital now
The film documents the 695 mile route that Tubman took in the 1880s, as the filmmakers traverse their own emotional journeys and Metra covers 245 miles of on foot, as Tubman did numerous times, freeing herself and countless others from enslavement. Along the way, the filmmakers interview Underground Railroad historians, social workers, and community leaders, bringing the scope of Harriet Tubman’s epic journeys into a poignant and unprecedented present-day context.

SOUMAYA
IndiePix Films
Available on DVD/Digital
For fourteen years, Soumaya, a practicing Muslim and the mother of a young girl, had worked as a manager at a company in charge of security at Charles de Gaulle Airport. But, following the deadly, coordinated terrorist attacks that took place in Paris on the evening of November 13, 2015 — killing at least 130 and injuring more than 350 — life changed in an instant for her, as well as for tens of thousands of citizens and immigrants whose lives and beliefs were in the crosshairs following the attacks.

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Available on 4K, Blu-ray & DVD March 8
In “The Matrix Resurrections,” return to a world of two realities: one, everyday life; the other, what lies behind it. To find out if his reality is a physical or mental construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. And if Thomas…Neo…has learned anything, it’s that choice, while an illusion, is still the only way out of—or into—the Matrix. Of course, Neo already knows what he has to do. But what he doesn’t yet know is the Matrix is stronger, more secure and more dangerous than ever before. Déjà vu.

THE WOLF AND THE LION
Blue Fox Entertainment
In theaters February 4
After her grandfather’s death, 20-year-old Alma decides to go back to her childhood home – a little island in the heart of the majestic forest. While there, she rescues two helpless cubs: a wolf and a lion. They forge an inseparable bond, but their world soon collapses as the forest ranger discovers the animals and takes them away. The two cub brothers must now embark on a treacherous journey across the wilderness to be reunited with one another and Alma once more.