“Sausage Party”
Synopsis: An animated movie about one sausage’s quest to discover the truth about his existence.
What You Need To Know: “Sausage Party” stands a pretty good chance of being the first R-rated animated hit since “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” Penned and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, backed by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna, and co-directed by ex-Dreamworks guy Conrad Vernon, it looks like a big studio animated production but with all the raunchy filth of a post-Apatow comedy. And it has all the cast members you might expect, including James Franco, Michael Cera, Danny McBride, Paul Rudd and Bill Hader, plus a few surprises. A work-in-progress version bowed at SXSW and didn’t impress our Charlie Schmidlin, who called it a “brisk disappointment,” but others were wowed and I’m sure it’ll be a big talking point if only for its already-legendary closing orgy sequence.
Release Date: August 12th
“Hell Or High Water”
Synopsis: A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family’s farm in West Texas.
What You Need To Know: A lot of Playlisters loved director David Mackenzie‘s previous film “Starred Up,” a brutal prison narrative that finds enough new angles in familiar territory and features Jack O’Connell and Ben Mendelsohn‘s towering performances. This latest film sees the Brit helmer tackling a “No Country For Old Men“-esque doomed Texas crime aesthetic. The script comes from “Sicario” writer Taylor Sheridan, and should be well-received by fans of both those films, even if it can’t quite live up to their quality. Our own Nikola Grozdonavic saw the premiere at Cannes and had good things to say: “If you feel like you’ve heard it all before, the film nonetheless provides more than its share of entertainment to make it a surefooted and perfectly enjoyable ride.”
Release Date: August 12th (Limited)
“Disorder”
Synopsis: An ex-soldier with PTSD is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he’s out of town. Despite the apparent tranquility, he perceives an external threat.
What You Need To Know: Sometimes a great cast is all you need, and a tiny movie like “Disorder,” directed by Alice Wincouor (a co-writer on last year’s Oscar-nominated “Mustang“) and starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Diane Kruger, needs all the help it can get. When our own Jessica Kiang saw it Cannes last year, she broke it down as such: “part home-invasion film, part bodyguard romance and part PTSD drama that delivers solidly on the first two fronts and and partially on the third, and continues uninterrupted Schoenaerts’ recent impressive run of hunky but haunted performances… It perhaps is the stronger film in those latter home-invasion sections, where Winocour shows a very sure, swift hand for rhythm and tension building that would, in a just world, have Hollywood calling.”
Release Date: August 12th (Limited)
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
Synopsis: A young boy named Kubo must locate a magical suit of armor worn by his late father in order to defeat a vengeful spirit from the past.
What You Need To Know: As I stated in the opening to this month’s column, I’m greatly anticipating this latest from Laika, which is helped in no small part by all the great footage released so far and the company’s strong, if not lengthy, track record. In less than a decade, the Portland-based animation house has come from nowhere to become a major player in the feature animation world, with all three of their films to date, “Coraline,” “ParaNorman” and “The Boxtrolls” winning strong reviews and Oscar nominations. None have been Pixar-level hits, but the company seems to be quite happy occupying a cool niche, and that looks to continue with Kubo. Seemingly more action-adventure leaning than those previous pics and with a Japanese feel reminiscent of a stop-motion Miyazaki, this directorial debut of the company’s founder Travis Knight looks to be Laika’s most beautiful film yet, and probably has the starriest cast, including Rooney Mara, Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes and George Takei. A late summer date makes it unlikely that it’ll cross over to “Zootopia” or “Finding Dory“-style numbers, but this could well still be the studio’s biggest hit to date.
Release Date: August 19th