Opening this week:
Arctic Dogs Here's one Tucker Carlson is going to have some thoughts about: an animated kids' flick about intrepid animals who have to save the Arctic from an evil walrus who's intent on melting the whole thing down. And one of the voices is supplied by Alec Baldwin, no less! But relax, Tucker, because far-left activism is actually not the primary theme here. The presence of Jeremy Renner and James Franco as Baldwin's co-stars equals "attempted redemption tour for misogynist abusers who are a danger to their loved ones and strangers alike." Bring the kids! (PG)
Harriet To me, Kasi Lemmons will always be the interviewer from Fear of a Black Hat, but I can't deny the success she's found as a director in the ensuing 26 years. (Damn, it's been more than a quarter-century since N.W.H. advised us "Don't Fire Until You See the Whites"? That's crazy, son!) Anyway, Lemmons' latest is a biopic of Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist icon who ran the Underground Railroad. Or, as Matt Gaetz would have called it, "a far-left game of identity politics that's meant to circumvent due process." (PG-13)
Inside Game Scott Wolf plays Tim Donaghy, the NBA ref who went to jail for betting on games. Donaghy said he had been forced to do it by mobsters, but it turned out they weren't actually full-fledged gangsters. They were just United States Representatives from the Florida Panhandle. (R; opens Friday at Regal Waterford Lakes and IMAX and AMC Dine-In Disney Springs 24)
Motherless Brooklyn This adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel concerns a 1950s detective afflicted with Tourette's. Really, how much would it have sucked to have Tourette's in the 1950s? Just walking around all the time, never knowing when you're going to blurt out a stray "Gee willikers!" Edward Norton not only stars in the thing, but directed and wrote it as well. If his past history is any indication, he also rewrote it. Over his own objections. (R)
Terminator: Dark Fate James Cameron and Linda Hamilton's return to the Terminator franchise is being billed as a direct sequel to the first two films that elbows all the intervening ones out of canon. Hey, just like Superman Returns, right? Sorry, you're not supposed to say that around studio executives without giving them a trigger warning first. (R)
Also playing:
Jesus Is King Experience the oddball wonders of Kanye West's recent concert in Arizona's Painted Desert. Sad spoiler for folks who love a happy ending: They let him come back. (NR; playing at Regal Waterford Lakes & IMAX, AMC Altamonte Mall 18 and Regal Pointe Orlando 4DX & IMAX)Pain and Glory Antonio Banderas won the Best Actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for the work he did as a has-been movie director in Pedro Almodóvar's most recent project. Perennial leading lady Penelope Cruz didn't walk away with anything, but she flicked her hair back and forth a few times, and all was again right with the world. (R; playing at Regal Winter Park Village & RPX)
– This story appeared in the Oct. 30, 2019, print issue of Orlando Weekly. Stay on top of Central Florida news and views with our weekly Headlines newsletter.