The CineFiles – Ep. 14

Dear readers,

On the latest episode of The CineFiles, reporter Chris Hrapsky, critic Jamie Rogers, and I review four anticipated awards-season titles and revisit a cornerstone of the French New Wave.

We start out with Disney’s Zootopia 2, which returns after the 2016 original with another conspiracy lurking in the bustling mammal metropolis. The three of us have an impassioned debate Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, a portrait of the loss and inspiration behind Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Both films are now playing in theaters.

From there, we turn to two major Netflix releases arriving in December. Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly stars George Clooney as an aging movie star adrift in an existential crisis, supported onscreen by Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, and Billy Crudup. We also weigh in on Rian Johnson’s newest Benoit Blanc mystery, Wake Up Dead Man, featuring one of the year’s most impressive ensembles, including Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, and Cailee Spaeny.

For this week’s CineGift, I recommend François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), an essential coming-of-age film and a defining work of the French New Wave. Watch until the end to see what Jamie chooses for the next CineGift.

Follow the show by subscribing to the KARE 11+ app (available on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, etc.) or watch on YouTube. 

Happy viewing!

Brian Eggert
Critic, Essayist, Founder
Deep Focus Review