“My Life As A Zucchini”
Synopsis: Orphans in a children’s home bond and learn how to fall in love.
What You Need To Know: Last year was a strong year for animated films. So much so, that even Pixar couldn’t muscle its way into the final five Oscar nominees for Best Animated Film, losing out to tough competition from “Zootopia,” “Kubo and the Two Strings,” “Moana” and “The Red Turtle.” The latter title is probably the closest cousin to the adorably titled ‘Zucchini’, in that they both represent something outside of the American studio system, which typically dominates the category. While it may be an outlier, the nomination is a huge boost to a small movie like this, and should help it find some kind of audience. We called it a “keeper” after discovering it at Cannes last year, and that what “one takes away might be a casually simple and forward affair, but a deeper, more considered look at Claude Barras’ moving tale reveals an emotional resonance and non-saccharine uplift that is mostly rare in today’s animation world. Consider it a diamond in the rough.”
Release Date: February 24th
“Get Out”
Synopsis: A young African-American man visits his Caucasian girlfriend’s mysterious family estate.
What You Need To Know: If this directorial debut from Jordan Peele is not on your radar yet then that needs to change quick. We’d already declared it our most anticipated horror movie for this year, but then our critic at Sundance shouted it out big time as one of his festival highlights, so we need to see this like yesterday: “Of course, it helped that the movie was good, but it provided a boatload of rave reviews for Universal marketing to work with and a ton of social media chatter… ‘Get Out’ proved that even during a busy 10 days Hollywood can get something valuable out of Park City and Sundance can get another great movie in return.” Starring “Sicario“ star Daniel Kaluuya and “Girls” alum Alison Williams, and apparently featuring standout turns from the ever-outstanding Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford, the story follows a young couple — he’s black and she’s white — who go to visit her parents in their house in the country, where they discover that a lot of previous visitors have gone missing, all of them black. Comedy and horror are closely related genres, both rely on surprise and an element of psychology, and Peele’s bona fides in terms of racially alert comedy were proven on the much missed “Key and Peele.” The consensus is that he’s brought both the scares and the smarts to his directorial debut, which might just be the most politically provocative horror of the year.
Release Date: February 24th
Honorable Mention:
“War On Everyone” probably could’ve made the final list, even if our review was slightly mixed to positive when we saw the film a year ago at Berlin. It should be a good dose of anti-awards bait, by the sounds of it. “Calvary” and “The Guard” director John Michael McDonagh rounds up Alexander Skarsgård,Michael Peña, Theo James, Tessa Thompson, Malcolm Barrett, Caleb Landry Jones, Paul Reiser,Stephanie Sigman, and David Wilmot for this tale of two rogue cops who break every law they can and wind up getting in way too deep against a formidable foe.
“XX” and “Rings” are the other potentially worthwhile horror efforts making it out this month. The former is an omnibus movie, with each short film helmed by a woman (including Karyn Kusama, hot off her small but effective cult thriller “The Invitation” from last year). The latter is a long after the fact second sequel to the American remake of “The Ring,” which will try to breathe new life into the series that died quickly (but not forever!) after a weak second movie.
Hey look! They finally made a documentary with cats as the lead characters. A million cat videos on the internet will hopefully not be able to keep “Kedi,” from Oscilloscope, down. There’s enough love for cats around these parts (though this writer is allergic) to fill up a small cinema for this one. Directed by Ceyda Torun, the documentary “Kedi” takes viewers to Istanbul, and follows seven of the thousands of cats that famously roam the streets, with each possessing their own unique personalities. “Kedi” opens on February 10th in New York at the Metrograph and Lincoln Plaza Cinema and in Los Angeles at the Royal, before expanding nationwide over the following weeks.
Things drop off pretty quickly from there, but you may also want to look into “The Space Between Us.” And you surely know already if you’re seeing “Fifty Shades Darker,” but there’s your reminder in case you forgot. “Pelle The Conquerer” also gets a restoration re-release.