This summer was pretty great for movies, wasn’t it? Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was the best Marvel movie in years, and the latest installments of Mission: Impossible and Insidious proved to be the best yet. And of course, there was the social phenomenon known as Barbenheimer, which still has its grip on the world.
September is just around the corner, and while there are fewer must-see movies on the horizon (is anyone excited about watching The Nun 2 or The Expendables 4?), there are a few films that are worth your time and money. Here are the three best movies you should check out in September.
King on Screen (September 8)
Carrie. Christine. Cujo. The Green Mile. The Shawshank Redemption. It. Chances are, you’ve seen a Stephen King movie. One of the most prolific writers of the late 20th century has seen many of his works adapted for the big screen, and this documentary looks at the volume of work written by King and turned into films by such famous directors as Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, George Romero, and John Carpenter. King himself even directed an adaptation of one of his stories, the sentient-machines-run-amok cult classic Maximum Overdrive.
Featuring interviews with King collaborators Mike Flanagan, Frank Darabont, Taylor Hackford, Mick Garris, and the late James Caan, King on Screen shows just how some of the most famous movies of the last 50 years were made, and what impact they had on the greater culture. It also shines a light on just why King is so effective as a storyteller both on the page and on the silver screen.
A Haunting In Venice (September 15)
Despite being dead for decades, Agatha Christie remains one of the hottest writers in Hollywood. Her mystery stories have been adapted time and again, with the most recent ones, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, having been helmed by Academy Award winner Kenneth Branagh. Branagh is back, both as director and star, with another adaptation, A Haunting in Venice, which is based on the relatively obscure Christie novel Hallowe’en Party.
The movie assembles an all-star cast — including recent Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, Heart of Stone hunk Jamie Dornan, and Tina Fey of all people — in mid-century Venice to look equal parts menacing (to be credible as a suspect) and innocent (to be sympathetic as a potential victim).
In the film, a grieving mother holds a séance for her missing child, but of course, something goes wrong, a murder occurs, and Branagh’s master detective Hercule Poirot is on the case. While Death on the Nile was a bust (too much CG plus Gal Gadot’s awful acting equaled an abysmal picture), A Haunting in Venice looks intriguing enough to give hope that Branagh has made a mystery movie that’s both fun and clever.
The Creator (September 29)
AI is all the rage these days. From publishing to technology to the courts, the concept of AI as a sentient tool used for various purposes has consumed the imagination of the public. Cinema is not immune to this phenomenon, and there’s already a visually dazzling sci-fi epic about AI headed to the multiplexes.
In the future-set sci-fi movie The Creator, John David Washington (Amsterdam) plays Joshua, a widowed ex-special forces agent who is recruited to hunt the Creator, an elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end humanity as we know it. Complications ensue when Joshua discovers the AI is housed in the artificial body of an innocent-looking young child.
The director, Gareth Edwards, is known for being a skilled sci-fi craftsman, having helmed the underrated Monsters and the Godzilla movies from a decade ago, as well as a small movie called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The Creator looks to be an interesting marriage of a classic sci-fi story asking fundamental existential questions (what is humanity? is technology inherently evil?) and big-budget action flick (dig those explosions) that could make it a breakout hit.
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