Friday Releases: Monkey Man & The First Omen

April 5, 2024

Monkey Man

Directed By: Dev Patel
Studio: Universal Pictures

Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Dev Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Sobhita Dhulipala, Sikandar Kher, Vipin Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar, Adithi Kalkunte, and Makarand Deshpande
Genre: Action | Thriller
Rating: R (for strong bloody violence throughout, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use)
Country: USA | Canada | Singapore | India (English)
Runtime: 121 minutes

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The First Omen

Directed By: Arkasha Stevenson
Studio: 20th Century Studios

When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.

Starring: Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom, Sônia Braga, Ralph Ineson, and Bill Nighy
Genre: Horror
Rating: R (for violent content, grisly/disturbing images, and brief graphic nudity)
Country: USA | Italy | UK | Canada | Serbia (English)
Runtime: 120 minutes

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The Beast

Directed By: Bertrand Bonello
Studio: Sideshow + Janus Films

The year is 2044: artificial intelligence controls all facets of a stoic society as humans routinely “erase” their feelings. Hoping to eliminate pain caused by their past-life romances, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) continually falls in love with different incarnations of Louis (George MacKay). Set first in Belle Époque-era Paris, Louis is a British man who woos her away from a cold husband, then in early 21st Century Los Angeles, he is a disturbed American bent on delivering violent “retribution.” Will the process allow Gabrielle to fully connect with Louis in the present, or are the two doomed to repeat their previous fates? Visually audacious director Bertrand Bonello (Saint Laurent, Nocturama) fashions his most accomplished film to date: a sci-fi epic, inspired by Henry James’ turn-of-the-century novella, suffused with mounting dread and a haunting sense of mystery. Punctuated by a career-defining, three-role performance by Seydoux, The Beast poignantly conveys humanity’s struggle against dissociative identity and emotionless existence.

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The Greatest Hits

Directed By: Ned Benson
Studio: Searchlight Pictures + Hulu

Harriet (Lucy Boynton) finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time — literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend (David Corenswet), her time traveling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present (Justin H. Min). As she takes her journey through the hypnotic connection between music and memory, she wonders — even if she could change the past, should she?

Starring: Lucy Boynton, Justin H. Min, David Corenswet, and Austin Crute
Genre: Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Musical | Romance
Rating: PG-13 (for drug use, strong language and suggestive material)
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 94 minutes

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Strictly Confidential

Directed By: Damian Hurley
Studio: Lionsgate

Elizabeth Hurley and Georgia Lock star in a sensual thriller with a devilish twist. On the anniversary of Rebecca’s (Lauren McQueen) death, Mia (Lock) returns to the Caribbean paradise where she and her best friend shared her final days. As Mia and sets out to unravel the mysterious events of her passing, old passions rise, new secrets are uncovered and Mia is pulled into a seductive world of sex, betrayal and murder.

Starring: Elizabeth Hurley, Georgia Lock, Lauren McQueen, Freddie Thorp, Genevieve Gaunt, Pear Chiravara, Llyrio Boateng, and Max Parker
Genre: Crime | Drama | International | Mystery | Thriller
Rating: R (for some sexual content, language and bloody images)
Country: Saint Kitts and Nevis (English)
Runtime: 89 minutes

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Scoop

Directed By: Philip Martin
Studio: Netflix

Inspired by real events, SCOOP is the inside account of the tenacious journalism that landed an earthshattering interview — Prince Andrew’s infamous BBC Newsnight appearance. From the tension of producer Sam McAlister’s high stakes negotiations with Buckingham Palace, all the way to Emily Maitlis’ jaw-dropping, forensic showdown with the Prince, SCOOP takes us inside the story, with the women who would stop at nothing to get it. To get an interview this big, you have to be bold.

Starring: Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper, Rufus Sewell, Keeley Hawes, Romola Garai, and Richard Goulding
Genre: Biography | Drama
Rating: Not Rated
Country: TV-14
Runtime: 102 minutes

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Girls State

Directed By: Amanda McBaine & Jesse Moss
Studio: Apple Original Films

A look at what American democracy would look like in the hands of teenage girls. Young female leaders from wildly different backgrounds navigate an immersive experiment to build a government from the ground up.

Starring: Faith Glasgow, Cecilia Bartin, Nisha Murali, Brooke Taylor, Emily Worthmore, Maddie Rowan, and Tochi Ihekona
Genre: Documentary
Rating: TV-14
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 95 minutes

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A Bit Of Light

Directed By: Stephen Moyer
Studio: Amor Media + Quiver Distribution

A Bit of Light unfolds as an intimate story about a recovering alcoholic named Ella (Anna Paquin). A series of tough breaks forces Ella to move back in with her father Alan (Ray Winstone), while her daughters are under the care of her ex-husband Joseph (Youssef Kerkour) and his new partner Bethan (Pippa Bennett-Warner). Mired in guilt, the protagonist finds herself in fights with Joseph and Bethan about the kids and Alan over AA meetings. However, an unlikely friendship with Neil (Luca Hogan) opens her eyes to taking responsibility and making the changes she needs to make.

Starring: Anna Paquin, Ray Winstone, Pippa Bennett-Warner, and Youssef Kerkour
Genre: Drama | International
Rating: Not Rated
Country: UK (English)
Runtime: 98 minutes

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Parachute

Directed By: Brittany Snow
Studio: Vertical

Follows Riley, who has recently been released from rehab after struggling with her addictions to food and body image. She will meet Ethan and finds herself navigating the line between love and a new addiction.

Starring: Courtney Eaton, Thomas Mann, Francesca Reale, Gina Rodriguez, Joel McHale, Dave Bautista, and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi
Genre: Drama | Romance
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 97 minutes

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Música

Directed By: Rudy Mancuso
Studio: Amazon Studios

Based on writer, director and star Rudy Mancuso, Música is a coming-of-age love story that follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia, who must come to terms with an uncertain future, while navigating the pressures of love, family and his Brazilian culture in Newark, New Jersey.

Starring: Rudy Mancuso, Camila Mendes, J.B. Smoove, Francesca Reale, and Maria Mancuso
Genre: Comedy | Romance
Rating: PG-13 (for some strong language, suggestive references and brief violence)
Country: USA (English & Portuguese)
Runtime: 91 minutes

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Housekeeping for Beginners

Directed By: Goran Stolevski
Studio: Focus Features

From acclaimed filmmaker Goran Stolevski comes a story exploring the universal truths of family, both the ones we’re born into and the ones we find for ourselves. Dita never wanted to be a mother, but circumstances force her to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters, tiny troublemaker Mia and rebellious teen Vanesa. A battle of wills ensues as the three continue to butt heads and become an unlikely family that must fight to stay together.

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Chicken For Linda!

Directed By: Chiara Malta & Sébastien Laudenbach
Studio: GKIDS

Paulette feels guilty after unjustly punishing her daughter Linda and would do anything to make it up to her. Linda immediately asks for a meal of chicken with peppers, which reminds her of the dish her father used to make. But with a general strike closing stores all across town and pushing people into the streets, this innocent request quickly leads to an outrageous series of events that spirals out of control, as Paulette does everything she can to keep her promise and find a chicken for Linda.

Starring: Mélinée Leclerc, Clotilde Hesme, Laetitia Dosch, Esteban, and Patrick Pineau
Genre: Animation | Comedy | International | Musical
Rating: Not Rated
Country: France | Italy (French & Italian)
Runtime: 73 minutes

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Baghead

Directed By: Alberto Corredor
Studio: Shudder

A young woman inherits a run-down pub and discovers a dark secret within its basement – Baghead – a shape-shifting creature that will let you speak to lost loved ones, but not without consequence.

Starring: Freya Allan, Jeremy Irvine, Ruby Barker, Peter Mullan, and Anne Müller
Genre: Horror | International
Rating: Not Rated
Country: Germany | UK (English)
Runtime: 94 minutes

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The Old Oak

Directed By: Ken Loach
Studio: Zeitgeist Films

The Old Oak is the last pub standing in a once thriving mining village in northern England, a gathering space for a community that has fallen on hard times. There is growing anger, resentment, and a lack of hope among the residents, but the pub and its proprietor TJ are a fond presence to their customers. When a group of Syrian refugees move into the floundering village, a decisive rift fueled by prejudices develops between the community and its newest inhabitants. The formation of an unexpected friendship between TJ and a young Syrian woman named Yara opens up new possibilities for the divided village in this deeply moving drama about loss, fear, and the difficulty of finding hope. The release of The Old Oak reunites legendary British director Ken Loach with Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber following our 2020 release of his film Sorry We Missed You. Loach, who is 87 years old, has announced that The Old Oak will be his final film.

Starring: Dave Turner, Debbie Honeywood, Reuben Bainbridge, Rob Kirtley, Andy Dawson, and Joe Armstrong
Genre: Drama | International
Rating: Not Rated
Country: UK | France | Belgium (English & Arabic)
Runtime: 113 minutes

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Model House

Directed By: Derek Pike
Studio: SHOUT! STUDIOS

Models staying in a secluded house for the night after a photoshoot are held hostage by intruders. The girls must fight for their lives in order to make it out alive and uncover the sinister intentions.

Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Ryan Merriman, Kyra Santoro, Chris Zylka, Randy Wayne, and Lexi Atkins
Genre: Thriller
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 85 minutes

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How to Date Billy Walsh

Directed By: Alex Pillai
Studio: Amazon Studios

Teenagers Amelia and Archie have been best friends since childhood. Archie has always been there to fight Amelia’s battles and laugh at her jokes all whilst keeping his lifelong love for her a secret. Just when he builds up the courage to declare his feelings, Amelia falls head over heels for Billy Walsh, the new American transfer student. Heartbroken Archie goes to great lengths to try and keep Amelia and Billy away from each other but ends up pushing them closer together and risks losing his best friend in the process.

Starring: Sebastian Croft, Charithra Chandran, Tanner Buchanan, Daisy Jelley, Nick Frost, Kunal Nayyar, and Lucy Punch
Genre: Comedy | International | Romance
Rating: Not Rated
Country: UK (English)
Runtime: 98 minutes

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Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande

Directed By: Tim Mackenzie-Smith
Studio: Abramorama

Cymande, a group of Black British musicians who all came to the U.K. from the Caribbean as children, released three brilliant albums in quick succession in the early 1970s and were embraced in the USA. But in the U.K., they faced a music business beset by prejudice against homegrown Black talent and were largely ignored. They originally split in 1975, but their music lived on, as successive generations of artists and fans found and embraced their songs. Hip Hop, House, Drum and Bass, R&B, Rare Groove, and crate-digging communities all saw something in the songs of Cymande that inspired them.

Starring: Cymande, Jim James, Mark Ronson, DJ Maseo, Khruangbin, and Cut Chemist
Genre: Documentary | Biography | International | Musical
Rating: Not Rated
Country: UK (English)
Runtime: 89 minutes

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Coup de Chance

Directed By: Woody Allen
Studio: MPI International

COUP DE CHANCE is about the important role chance and luck play in our lives. Fanny (Lou de Laâge) and Jean (Melvil Poupaud) look like the ideal married couple — they’re both professionally accomplished, they live in a gorgeous apartment in an exclusive neighborhood of Paris, and they seem to be in love just as much as they were when they first met. But when Fanny accidentally bumps into Alain (Niels Schneider), a former high school classmate, she’s swept off her feet. They soon see each other again and get closer and closer….

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Kim’s Video

Directed By: David Redmon & Ashley Sabin
Studio: Drafthouse Films

Physical media reigns supreme in KIM’S VIDEO, an elegiac tribute to the iconic video store in New York City that inspired a generation of cinephiles before it mysteriously closed its doors and sent its legendary film archive to a small and slightly dubious Sicilian village for “safekeeping.” But what starts as an homage to cinema quickly becomes a rescue mission to ensure the eternal preservation of the beloved video collection.

Starring: Isabel Gillies, Robert Greene, Clayton Patterson, Alex Ross Perry, and Sean Price Williams
Genre: Documentary
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA | Italy (English, Italian, & Korean)
Runtime: 85 minutes

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Ape X Mecha Ape: New World Order

Directed By: Marc Gottlieb
Studio: The Asylum

A global cabal of world leaders awakens an ancient creature beneath the ocean floor. Now mankind’s only hope rests on an uneasy alliance between the giant ape and his mechanical arch-nemesis, Mecha Ape MkII, to save the Earth.

Starring: Ashley Ahlquist, Sean Young, Jared Rivet, Eric Rolland, Ashley Dakin, and Jessica DeBonville
Genre: Action
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 90 minutes

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Epic Tails

Directed By: David Alaux, Eric Tosti, & Jean-François Tosti
Studio: Viva Pictures

Pattie, an ambitious and daring mouse has big dreams to be an adventurer and a hero. When her homeland in Ancient Greece is threatened by Poseidon himself, Pattie is determined to save her city! Defying the odds, the gods, and the wishes of her feline father figure Sam, she embarks on an epic sea-quest to save her city.

Starring: Kaycie Chase, Christophe Lemoine, Emmanuel Curtil, Michel Tureau, and Frantz Confiac
Genre: Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Fantasy | International
Rating: PG (for action and some rude humor)
Country: France (French, Spanish, & Italian)
Runtime: 95 minutes

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Someone Like You

Directed By: Tyler Russell
Studio: Fathom Events

Based on the popular novel by #1 NY Times Bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, Someone Like You is an achingly beautiful redemptive love story. Shocking news hits after young architect Dawson Gage loses his best friend, London Quinn. Now in his heartbreak, Dawson is compelled to launch an impossible search for London’s secret twin sister, twins separated as embryos. But along the way, Dawson never planned to fall in love.

Starring: Sarah Fisher, Jake Allyn, Lynn Collins, Robyn Lively, Bart Johnson, and Scott Reeves
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG (for thematic material)
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 118 minutes

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The People’s Joker

Directed By: Vera Drew
Studio: Altered Innocence

In the absurdist autobiographically-inspired dark comedy, a painfully unfunny aspiring clown (Vera Drew as Joker the Harlequin) grapples with her gender identity while unsuccessfully attempting to join the ranks of Gotham City’s sole comedy program in a world where comedy has been outlawed. Uniting with a ragtag team of rejects and misfits, Joker the Harlequin forms an illegal anti-comedy troupe that puts her on a collision course with the devious caped crusader controlling the city.

Starring: Scott Aukerman, Tim Heidecker, Maria Bamford, David Liebe Hart, Robert Wuhl, and Bob Odenkirk
Genre: Comedy
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 92 minutes

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10 Lives

Directed By: Christopher Jenkins
Studio: M2 Pictures

Beckett is a pampered and selfish cat who totally takes for granted the lucky hand he has been dealt. All that is about to change, however, when he carelessly loses his ninth life. With no lives left and faced with the inevitable, Beckett pleads for things to be back to how they were. At first his request is refused but in a moment of exceptional empathy, the ‘Gatekeeper’ has a change of heart and allows him to return to earth with a whole new set of lives. What he doesn’t realize immediately however is that each of these new lives will see him return in a variety of different forms… each one teaching him a valuable & timely lesson. It is a journey that sees Beckett turn from gloriously self-absorbed pet to a self-sacrificing hero; because sometimes you must travel many different roads to find the very best version of yourself.

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The Actor

Directed By: Richard Blake
Studio: Atlas Distribution

An actor battling his own moral standards witnesses a neighbor’s murder and stumbles upon a load of cash the victim was hiding. He keeps the money, and in doing so, begins the performance of a lifetime to hide who he really is.

Starring: Donny Boaz, Melissa Archer, Sheila Houlahan, Richard Blake, and Skeeta Jenkins
Genre: Action | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Thriller
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 128 minutes

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The Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2

Directed By: Seth Breedlove
Studio: Ad Astra Distribution

Across the four corners of the American Southwest, there is said to exist an ancient, supernatural evil. An evil that preys on the fear of its victims to gain a greater power. Now, witnesses lift the veil on the most terrifying encounters with modern-day werewolves ever heard. Witness stories that seem to tie legends of upright canids with those of hellhounds, poltergeists and even the mythical Skinwalker. True terror awaits!

Starring: —
Genre: Documentary | Horror
Rating: Not Rated
Country: USA (English)
Runtime: 80 minutes

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