Do you want more Marvel, a twisty con man tale, or a story of a drugged out animal rampaging in the woods? Hollywood's got it all.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: What do you want me to tell you? It's another Marvel movie, it's the third in the Ant-Man series (which is astonishing as I barely recollect watching the previous two Ant-Men), and it continues the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. These are popcorn movies that I find thoroughly entertaining, and with Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly at the helm as Scott and Hope, aka Ant-Man and the Wasp, I can't complain. They are charming, the stunt choreography is insane, the visuals are great, and the dialogue has the right amount of witty banter to make you chuckle.
There are jim-jams galore that I won't get into, but essentially the plot is that Scott, his daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Hope, and her parents, Hank and Janet (the excellent duo of Michael Douglas and preternaturally gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer), accidentally fall into the Quantum Realm. The Realm is being ruled over by a man named Kang (Jonathan Majors, star of everything these days), who is all set to be the MCU's new big supervillain. OVer the course of the two hours, you will be treated to some gorgeous visuals and truly weird creatures that inhabit this Realm. It's all a bit bizarre but beautiful, and it sets us up for the next slate of films. If you're exhausted by Marvel, this is emphatically not a movie for you, but if you're all in for some light entertainment with great special effects, then step right up and indulge.
Sharper: This is a proper twisty thrill of a movie about...well, I almost don't want to tell you what it's about because that would ruin all the many surprises that are in store for you. Directed by Benjamin Caron and elegantly scripted by Alessandro Tanaka and Brian Gatewood, this movie starts out as a love story that quickly turns into the story of con artists, and we then get multiple nested stories that flash backwards and forwards in time. After a while, you'll maybe predict some twists, but oh boy you'll definitely never see every single thing coming. This is a movie that delights in constantly pulling the rug out from under you, but it never does so in a condescending way - it's always done with this fabulous cinematic flourish that makes you want to gasp and laugh and wonder what on earth will happen next.
Starring Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, and John Lithgow, this cast is a tour de force and they all do absolutely wonderful work to capture the complexities of these characters who all have a little bit to love and little bit to hate about them. There are no abject heroes and villains until you get to the very end and then you're in for a rather satisfying conclusion with a neat little bow that ties everything up. Never fear, you won't be left with some ambiguous conclusion. But you might find yourself wishing you had more movies to watch just like this one.
Cocaine Bear: I mean, the title kinda says it all, right? Based on a real incident in 1985 when a smuggler dumped a bunch of cocaine in Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia, this is the story of a bear who found all that cocaine and then went on a rampage. Let me clarify right away that the "based on a true story" part of this movie is just that a dead bear was found who had consumed a bunch of cocaine. It is not known to have killed anyone during that time and we have no idea what happened between it eating all that cocaine and subsequently dying. But this movie takes that premise and decides to run with a narrative about what would have happened if that bear had encountered a bunch of humans. Which means that the audience is in for a deliriously high body count.
If you are squeamish, you'll need to sit this one out, because this is a viscerally gory movie (I mean that literally - the bear will be eating some human viscera at one point). But if you need a laugh-out-loud horror comedy to while away the winter blues, this is absolutely the movie you've been seeking. Directed by Elizabeth Banks and written by Jimmy Warden, this movie is a supremely silly 90-minute extravaganza that knows it has one great premise and will not overstay its welcome. Trust me, you'll have a beary good time.
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