Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of August 26th – Return to the ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’

Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we return to the Planet of the Apes! Yes, hitting shelves today is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. There’s also two separate Albert Brooks films joining the Criterion Collection. What other movies are being released or re-released? Read on to find out…

Joey’s Top Pick

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

This franchise has never blown me away, but it’s hard to argue that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t have the series in a strong new place. If it’s the start of a new trilogy, or whatever they wind up doing, I’m more than happy to give it a real chance. My review here on the site began like so:

Here’s the thing. I appreciate what all of the modern installments of the Planet of the Apes franchise has been doing. I think this reboot series, consisting previously of the trilogy that is Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes is rock solid. At the same time, I’ve never loved the films like everyone else seems to. There’s just some kind of disconnect when it comes to this series. So, when I say that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is pretty good and I largely enjoyed it, you can take that as a run of the mill recommendation, or a sign that the property might be growing on me. The choice is yours.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes runs about thirty minutes too long, but has an impressively consistent tone, full of intensity and strong visuals. Whether you look at it as the fourth film in this timeline, the first of a new one, or whatever the case, it does manage to largely satisfy. The technology on display continues to evolve, and with it, the storytelling capabilities contained within.

Also Available This Week

Beetlejuice (4K)

Drive (4K)

The Garfield Movie

Mammals (TV)

Resident Alien: Season Three (TV)

Ride

Star Trek: Discovery – The Final Season (TV)

Succession: The Complete Series (TV)

Sudden Death (4K)

Watchmen: Chapter 1

The Watchers

What You Wish For

Criterion Corner

Mother

From The Criterion Collection: “Reeling after his second divorce and struggling with writer’s block, sci-fi novelist John Henderson (Albert Brooks) resolves to figure out where his life went wrong, and hits on an unorthodox solution: moving back in with his relentlessly disapproving, cheerfully passive-aggressive mother (Debbie Reynolds), whose favorite son has always been John’s younger brother, Jeff (Rob Morrow). It’s an experiment that, however harebrained, delivers surprising results. Brooks’s film perfectly blends the writer-director-star’s biting wit with insight and inviting warmth, while giving him a formidable foil in the delightful Reynolds, triumphant in a comeback role that’s equal parts caustic and charming.”

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Real Life

From The Criterion Collection: “Decades before reality television reigned supreme, there was Albert Brooks’s debut feature, Real Life, a brilliantly deadpan, stylistically innovative satire about the perils and pitfalls of trying to capture the truth on film. The writer-director plays “Albert Brooks,” a narcissistic Hollywood filmmaker who plans to spend the year in Phoenix embedded with Warren and Jeanette Yeager (Charles Grodin and Frances Lee McCain) and their two children, deploying an arsenal of cutting-edge equipment (including the over-the-head Ettinauer 226XL camera) to capture an American family’s ordinary day-to-day. Chronicling the project’s disastrous fallout, as the meddlesome Albert can’t help getting too close to his subjects, this pioneering mockumentary is more relevant than ever amid today’s media landscape.”

Stay tuned for more next week…