Director M. Night Shyamalan has partnered with Jason Blum of Bloomhouse Productions in order to produce a self-financed, low budget project he had been keeping under wraps. The film, called The Visit, is intended as a return to his earlier work and to productions outside the ‘traditional’ studio system.

The Visit concerns a brother and sister visiting their grandparents’ isolated Pennsylvania farm. Eventually, the youngsters discover the seniors are keeping a dark secret and it quickly becomes apparent to the children they may not be going home.

The Visit was written, directed and self financed by Shyamalan and shot near the director’s Pennsylvania home. The partnership with Blumhouse Productions allowed for a first-look arrangement with Universal and the company specialized in low budget genre pictures. Blumhouse’s most recent successful production was Ouija.

M. Night Shyamalan produced the film with Blum and Marc Bienstock, with Steven Schneider and Ashwin Rajan executive producing.

Universal Pictures has set September 11, 2015 as the release date.

Get On Up does two things magnificently well, and they’re related: It conveys the batshit craziness of both James Brown and Little Richard, which is quite a feat and aided in no small part from Chadwick Boseman as Brown and Brandon Mychal Smith as Richard. The two give performances so captivating that it’s worth seeing the film simply to indulge in their fascinating performances.

That Get On Up would be well acted is probably no surprise, but it is a surprise that they can almost carry the entire 138-minute film. Almost. And that the music is phenomenal shouldn’t be a surprise either. I’m not sure if Boseman performed all the songs, but I’m fairly certain he did his own dancing, and both are wisely indulgent, wisely for this film, which at least does know how to put on a show.

Director Tate Taylor (The Help) and writers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth nail many of the character moments, but never quite get around to understanding their subject. The first thirty minutes or so jumps back and forth through so many different periods that if there’s a linear story buried in there, I missed it. Even more, if there’s something that “made” Brown the man he became, the film doesn’t seem very interested in it, which would be fine, but it does need some kind of connecting thread to tie the movie together.

Liam Neeson is Bill Marks, a U.S. Federal air marshal with the obligatory checkered past and a delightful host of vices. Midway through a trans-Atlantic flight he receives a text message from an untraceable number that claims in 20 minutes someone on the plane will die…unless a $150 million is deposited into a special account. And Bill, with the help of stewardess Nancy (Michelle Dockery) and plucky passenger Jen (Julianne Moore) must uncover the identity of the potential killer/hijacker.

That’s all you need; if you want to know how the rest of the movie plays out, just imagine everything you can do with that premise, as the passengers gradually become more and more aware of the situation and Marks’s control gradually diminishes – or, better yet, see the film.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, Unknown) maintains a consistent feel of paranoia by keeping his camera close and confined to the actors’ faces, barely giving the audience a chance to breathe and, early on, lingering on a handful of passengers to playfully suggest that any one or two or all of them could be the culprit. Even before the mystery begins you’re already suspicious, and while I was hoping for the villain to be revealed as the little girl’s teddy bear (Spoiler: It’s not), it wasn’t too much of stretch, given Collet-Serra’s insinuation that everyone on this damn plane must be hiding something.

Lone Survivor is a movie that does itself a few large disservices: Its title reveals too much; its trailer is much too long and plays like quick spot on an On Demand showcase; and it tugs and shoves and pulls in so many directions, that it ends up seeming unsure of both its strengths and its point.

There’s a decent and well-crafted movie in there, but the marketing, and a good deal of the film itself, tend to be dissuasive.

Survivor, if you haven’t seen the trailer, chronicles the story of SEAL Team 10’s somewhat disastrous Operation Red Wings, a 2005 mission with the objective of assassinating Taliban leader Ahmad Shah during the Afghanistan war.

Mark Wahlberg plays SO1 Marcus Luttrell, the titular Lone Survivor and author of the book on which the film is based, and his story is indeed an interesting, even uplifting one, and director Peter Berg shoots it with an apparent grittiness and shakiness that you would expect. Wahlberg plays haggard and weary well. Impassioned well. Sorrowful well.

Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, and Eric Bana, as his team, convey the sense of golden brotherhood that makes films like these sustainable. The story, while short, is compelling, and the second act of Wahlberg’s survival is an interesting twist. It’s a decent film, and if you’re in the mood for a good war drama, this is safe bet.

But…

What’s the point? This doesn’t need to be a political film; it doesn’t need to justify its war or its mission or, on the opposite end, attack it. And it doesn’t. Nor does it need to go far beyond what it does well, which is action. It’s not spectacular or very original, it even seems too polished in its sterile dirt. However, the biggest flaw, which nearly becomes an insult, at least to me, is what I want to describe as the film’s lack of faith in itself, but which I should really, if I’m being honest, is its pandering.

That’s right. The franchise that just keeps coming back whether it is through sequels or 3D rereleases, Jurassic Park has been something we haven’t been able to get away from since we saw Martin Ferrero get eaten off of a toilet by a TRex. Twenty two years following the release of the original film (and a full quarter century since the original novel’s release), Jurassic Park will be coming back, this time as Jurassic World.

On June 12th, 2015, Jurassic World will kick off the summer blockbusters that follow the release of The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Formerly known only as Jurassic Park IV, Jurassic World’s script is being penned by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver who wrote 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes while it is directed by Colin Trevorrow who directed Safety Not Guaranteed. Though the writing of the team seems to support what Jurassic World is looking for, Trevorrow has some lofty shoes to fill from Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park even though the two sequels fell on less favorable reviews and adoration.

Animated sequels in recent history are hardly a slam dunk at the box office, for every Toy Story 3 there are three Happy Feet 2. Thankfully for all of the principles involved, Despicable Me 2 was every bit the hit the former was.

The popularity of the Minions can not be denied as Despicable Me 2 brought it more money than any animated film has ever earned over a five-day span. Granted the Fourth coming on a Thursday is a near perfect storm for a major release, but the final tally of over $142 Million speaks for itself. Even when you shave the first two days off the tally, the traditional three-day weekend was right in line with the monster $80+ million Monsters University brought in a few weeks ago.

Coming up in second place for the holiday stretch was the sputtering Lone Ranger. It seems like high-profile bombs have become commonplace, and everything about the action western screamed this would be another one. Guess what? It was! Coming in at just over $29 million for the three-day, and just under $49 since Wednesday, the film was not the same abject failure John Carter was, but it is far from the performance one expects from the same crew that gave us the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

So Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew are back. Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and his crew are back. And some new faces, Hobbs’ partner Riley (Gina Carano) and villain Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) dd to the franchise’s ever-growing roster.

I thought the vast number of characters would be too much of a distraction in the last installment, and, to an extent, it was. But I liked Fast 5, and I’m happy to say that 6 is even better.

The premise is all but unnecessary. Hobbs recruits Toretto to take down Shaw, a gangster/terrorist/arms dealer whose goal is not particularly clear, but then it doesn’t need to be, does it? Shaw’s latest plan is to steal a military whatsit that can cause blackouts, and his gang of thugs, the minute you meet them, seem like the evil twins of Toretto’s — and it’s a credit to the movie’s cleverness that they actually address the parallels and get some great character beats in from Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris Parker), two fellows whose roles in the previous films were to stand around and wait for something to do.

It’s Jurassic Park.

I still have my toy T-Rex from 1993 — and it still roars! I know pretty much all of Jeff Goldblum’s lines by heart and am working my way through memorizing Wayne Knight’s. I, like many others, am still pissed that Muldoon gets treated the way he does.

Jurassic Park was the first “big” movie (well, outside of Tim Burton’s Batman) that I saw in theaters. I was too young for Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones, and I remember being at summer camp, talking to my parents on the one phone in the whole place, outside the administration center, hearing my mom and dad describe how amazing it was. Those damn three weeks couldn’t be over soon enough for me to get to the theater.

So it’s a personal, nostalgic favorite.

Unless you’ve been living in a bathtub eating spaghetti for the last 20 years, you already know the plot: eccentric billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has discovered a way to clone dinosaurs. There’s an accident, and his investors are concerned about the safety of the park, so Hammond invites paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Satler (Laura Dern), as well as even-more eccentric chaotician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) for a weekend stay. They discuss the philosophy of creating such a place, some kids show up, the dinos get loose and so does all hell.

Now it’s been converted to 3D, and pretty damn well.

Yes, I am a grown man. An overgrown man at that. But I haven’t been as excited about an animated movie sequel since Toy Story 2, which came out when I was still a child and it was okay for me to be excited for animated sequels. But yesterday, Universal Pictures released their third, and first full trailer for Despicable Me 2 (the first being a teaser released over a year ago, featuring the Minions doing a fantastic rendition of the Beach Boy’s Barbara Ann.

The second also centered on the Minions partaking in all sorts of zaniness, from spoofing Halloween to one in a maid’s outfit shaking it’s posterior).

It’s a sort of sequel to 2007’s Knocked Up in the sense that it focuses on the supporting characters Debbie (director Judd Apatow’s real-life wife Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd), both turning 40 the same week and juggling a handful of personal and financial problems.

Paul manages a near-bankrupt record label, signing such current acts as Graham Parker, while Debbie runs her own clothing store and tries to discover which of her employees — Jodi (Charlyne Yi) or Desi (Megan Fox) — has stolen $12,000. Added to that are squabbles with the kids Sadie and Charlotte (Maude and Iris Apatow) and Debbie’s absent and Pete’s beggarly fathers (John Lithgow and Albert Brooks).

There isn’t a conventional plot as much as an exploration of these two people, how they deal with things, how they show their love and appreciation for each other. Rudd and Mann have a great rapport, which I can’t do justice to by simply saying that they really feel like they’ve been married and are 40.

I’ve read a lot of novels, and I’ve heard that Les Misérables is the best. I hadn’t read it, and I didn’t believe it. After seeing Les Misérables, I’m starting to.

The film is based on the musical, but its chief accomplishment is adapting the depth and breadth of an immense work. Like the best of Dickens’, Tolstoy’s, and Dostoevsky’s plots, Victor Hugo’s were thought experiments, taking an archaic or cancerous institution and following it through to the logical and often tragic conclusion. Jean Valean steals a loaf of bread and is imprisoned for 19 years.

Upon release, he must carry the past with him in his release papers, so that no man will give him work. Destitute, his last resort is to rob a church of its silver, and only through the uncommon kindness of its priest is he granted a new life. But it is threatened. Valjean has torn up his papers and in doing so risks life imprisonment — a man’s life extinguished for a mere legal technicality. Years later he becomes a successful businessman, where the unfortunate Fantine is employed, but by chance he is reintroduced to Inspector Javert, the man who oversaw his imprisonment and now dedicates his life to hunting Valjean.

The fundamental problem with Hyde Park on Hudson is that it promises so many interesting characters and so many spirited performances, and then focuses its attention on the dullest one.

That’s not a reflection on Laura Linney’s performance as Margaret Suckley either; rather she has nothing to work with. When, early in the film, she’s summoned to Franklin Roosevelt (Bill Murray)’s New York retreat, the two embark on countless drives through the country. Are they happy? Content? Angry?

There’s image after image of them driving, accompanied by Linney’s tiresome jabbering narration, and then the tone takes a surreal detour when Frankie pulls over and wordlessly asks for some full service. Any other woman would rightly get the hell out of town, but as the meandering voiceover informs us, it draws the them closer. O-kay.