Friday Releases: Bad Boys: Ride Or Die & The Watchers

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die

Directed by: Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah
Studio: Columbia Pictures

This Summer, the world’s favorite Bad Boys are back with their iconic mix of edge-of-your seat action and outrageous comedy but this time with a twist: Miami’s finest are now on the run.

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Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Jacob Scipio, DJ Khaled, Tasha Smith, Rhea Seehorn, Melanie Liburd, and Tiffany Haddish
Action | Adventure | Comedy | Crime | Thriller
R (for strong violence, language throughout and some sexual references)
USA (English)
115 minutes

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The Watchers

Directed by: Ishana Shyamalan
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

The Watchers follows Mina, a 28-year old artist who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers that are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.

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Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, and Oliver Finnegan
Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Thriller
PG-13 (for violence, terror and some thematic elements)
USA (English)
102 minutes

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Tuesday

Directed by: Daina Oniunas-Pusic
Studio: A24

A mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, in a profoundly moving performance) and her teenage daughter (Lola Petticrew) must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird. From debut filmmaker Daina O. Pusić, Tuesday is a heart-rending fairy tale about the echoes of loss and finding resilience in the unexpected.

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lola Petticrew, Leah Harvey, and Arinzé Kene
Fantasy
R (for language)
USA | UK (English)
111 minutes

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Am I OK?

Directed by: Stephanie Allynne & Tig Notaro
Studio: HBO Max

Lucy and Jane have been best friends for most of their lives and think they know everything there is to know about each other. But when Jane announces that she’s moving from LA to London for a job, Lucy reveals a deeply buried, long-held secret. As Jane tries to help Lucy sort through old patterns and new feelings, their lifelong friendship is thrown into chaos.

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Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno, Jermaine Fowler, Kiersey Clemons, Molly Gordon, Tig Notaro, and Sean Hayes
Comedy | Drama | Romance
R (for language, sexual references and some drug use)
USA (English)
86 minutes

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I Used To Be Funny

Directed by: Ally Pankiw
Studio: Utopia

I Used To Be Funny is a dark dramedy that follows Sam Cowell (Rachel Sennott), an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, as she decides whether or not to join the search for Brooke (Olga Petsa), a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. The story exists between the present, where Sam tries to recover from her trauma and get back on stage, and the past, where memories of Brooke make it harder and harder to ignore the petulant teen’s sudden disappearance.

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Rachel Sennott, Olga Petsa, Sabrina Jalees, Caleb Hearon, Jason Jones, Dani Kind, Ennis Esmer, Dan Beirne, Stephen Alexander, Hoodo Hersi and Miguel Rivas
Comedy | Drama | International
Not Rated
Canada (English)
105 minutes

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Late Bloomers

Directed by: Lisa Steen
Studio: Vertical

Louise (Karen Gillan), a 28-year-old Brooklynite adrift in life, finds herself suddenly single and grappling with her identity as a musician. While she struggles with her underlying depression, a reckless drunken stumble lands her with a broken hip, and leads to a stint in a physical therapy ward with patients twice her age. Here, she crosses paths with Antonina (Margaret Sophie Stein), a cantankerous elderly Polish woman who speaks no English. Reluctantly, Louise takes on the role of Antonina’s caregiver, a situation neither of them welcomes. As they navigate their begrudging relationship, they confront the realities of aging, forcing Louise to consider her own journey into adulthood.

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Karen Gillan, Margaret Sophie Stein, Jermaine Fowler, Talia Balsam and Kevin Nealon
Comedy
Not Rated
USA (English)
89 minutes

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Longing

Directed by: Savi Gabizon
Studio: Lionsgate

Golden Globe Award-winning actor Richard Gere and Diane Kruger star in this captivating English-remake of the celebrated film by the original Director. Daniel Bloch (Gere) is shocked to discover a startling secret from his past and is immediately consumed by the extraordinary twists of a new life he never could have imagined. With each new encounter, Daniel uncovers a deeper layer of this fascinating mystery until he arrives at a crossroad in his own life.

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Diane Kruger, Richard Gere, Jessica Clement, Marnie McPhail, Tomaso Sanelli, and Suzanne Clément
Comedy | Drama | International
R (for some sexual content, partial nudity and language)
Canada (English)
111 minutes

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Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything

Directed by: Emily Atef
Studio: Strand Releasing

The summer of 1990 is hot in the countryside of Thuringia, in former East Germany. Maria is about to turn 19, lives with her boyfriend, Johannes, on his parents’ farm, and would rather lose herself in books than focus on graduating. With German reunification, there is a sense of a new era dawning as Maria bumps into Henner, the farmer next door. One touch is all it takes to ignite an all-consuming passion between Maria and the headstrong, charismatic man twice her age. In an atmosphere buzzing with possibilities, love is born: a secret passion full of longing and desire that devours everything in its path.

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Marlene Burow, Felix Kramer, Cedric Eich, Silke Bodenbender, Florian Panzner, and Jördis Triebel
Drama | History | International | Romance
Not Rated
Germany (German)
129 minutes

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Animalia

Directed by: Sofia Alaoui
Studio: Dark Star Pictures

Itto, a young woman from a modest rural background, is slowly adapting to the Moroccan privileged codes of her husband’s family. But when supernatural events put the country in a state of emergency, Itto finds herself separated from her husband and new family. Alone, pregnant and looking for her way back, she finds emancipation.

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Kill Your Lover

Directed by: Alix Austin & Keir Siewert
Studio: Dark Sky Films

When Dakota tries to break off her toxic relationship with Axel, it starts transforming him into a monstrous creature with increased aggression, a touch that melts skin and worst of all, he’s contagious. As the toxicity fully takes hold, Dakota becomes equally infected, as the pair grapple with the remains of their relationship, which threatens to come to a bloody end….

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Paige Gilmour, Shane Quigley-Murphy, May Kelly, Joshua Whincup, and Chloe Wigmore
Horror | International
Not Rated
UK (English)
77 minutes

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Trim Season

Directed by: Ariel Vida
Studio: Blue Harbor Entertainment

Jobless and searching for purpose, Emma and a group of young people from Los Angeles drive up the coast to make quick cash trimming marijuana on a secluded farm in Northern California. Cut off from the rest of the world, they soon realize that Mona — the seemingly amiable owner of the estate — is harboring secrets darker than any of them could imagine. It becomes a race against time for Emma and her friends to escape the dense woods with their lives.

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Bethlehem Million, Alexandra Essoe, Ally Ioannides, Bex Taylor-Klaus, and Jane Badler
Horror | Thriller
Not Rated
USA (English)
100 minutes

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Under Paris

Directed by: Xavier Gens
Studio: Netflix

To save Paris from a bloodbath, a grieving scientist is forced to face her tragic past when a giant shark appears in the Seine.

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Cottontail

Directed by: Patrick Dickinson
Studio: Level 33 Entertainment

After the death of his wife, Kenzaburo (60s) and his son Toshi (30s) receive an unexpected letter from beyond the grave. Akiko, their wife and mother, asks them to scatter her ashes at the place she loved most as a child — Lake Windermere in England. Surprised by this unexpected request, father and son are initially at loggerheads over their next steps. The two men, along with Toshi’s wife Satsuki and young daughter Emi, eventually travel together to England from Tokyo to fulfil Akiko’s final wish. But Kenzaburo keeps losing himself in memories of Akiko as his relationship with Toshi becomes increasingly fraught. With little knowledge of where he is going and barely any English, Kenzaburo abandons his family in London and heads to the Lake District on his own with Akiko’s ashes. As he embarks on his quest, his memories of Akiko grow more painful. A lost and weary Kenzaburo stumbles onto the doorstep of a farmer, John, and his daughter Mary. With their help, Kenzaburo is finally able to set course once again toward Lake Windemere. But his true journey toward forgiveness and reconciliation will prove the hardest of all.

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Ciarán Hinds, Thomas Coombes, Aoife Hinds, Isy Suttie, and Miki Maya
Drama | International
Not Rated
UK | Japan (English & Japanese)
94 minutes

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Banel & Adama

Directed by: Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Studio: Kino Lorber

Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. The young couple lives in a remote village in northern Senegal. For them, nothing else exists except each other. But for the rest of their tight-knit village, duty dictates that Adama soon accept the role of chief. The two lovers have other plans… until something in the air changes. The rains do not come; the cattle begin to die; the men leave. A rare debut feature that premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and Senegal’s official submission to the Academy Awards®, Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Banel & Adama is a lush and lyrical fable that soars to the heights of longing and descends deep into the realm of myth, sending its protagonists’ idyllic love on a collision course with their community’s customs. Because in this world, there is no room for passion, let alone chaos.

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Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy, Moussa Sow, and Ndiabel Diallo
Drama | International
Not Rated
France | Senegal | Mali | Qatar (Pular & Peul)
87 minutes

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Life After Fighting

Directed by: Bren Foster
Studio: Vertical

A martial arts instructor is confronted with the disappearance of two of his students, leading him into a direct confrontation with a group of international child traffickers.

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Bren Foster, Cassie Howarth, Luke Ford, Annabelle Stephenson, and Arielle Jean Foster
Action | Drama | International | Thriller
Not Rated
Australia (English)
120 minutes

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School Of Magical Animals 2

Directed by: Sven Unterwaldt
Studio: Blue Fox Entertainment

The students of the school of magical animals want to perform a musical for the school’s anniversary. Will the rehearsals end in chaos or will the class pull together? And what’s up with the strange holes on the school grounds? With the help of their magical animals, the children learn what really matters: teamwork. THE SCHOOL OF MAGICAL ANIMALS 2 is a warm-hearted adventure with CGI-animated animals, set in an unusual school where the children receive a magical animal as a companion.

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Nadja Uhl, Justus von Dohnányi, Heiko Pinkowski, Milan Peschel, Rick Kavanian, Axel Stein, Max von der Groeben, Katharina Thalbach, and Sophie Rois
Adventure | Comedy | Family | International | Romance
PG (for some rude material and language)
Germany (German)
103 minutes

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Frank Miller: American Genius

Directed by: Silenn Thomas
Studio: Picturehouse

FRANK MILLER: AMERICAN GENIUS documents the unique journey of an unparalleled American artist. The film explores the near half-century career of the legendary comic book artist and writer. Made for his fans following a near death experience, the documentary delves into Miller’s radical and defining influence on art, storytelling and culture. Following his small town beginnings in Vermont, to New York City, Hollywood, and beyond; this intimate documentary delves into his failures, successes, self-destruction and re-discovery.

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Frank Miller
Documentary | Biography
Not Rated
USA (English)
109 minutes

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This Closeness

Directed by: Kit Zauhar
Studio: Factory 25

Tensions rise when a couple stays at the home of a reclusive host, with the three entering an intimate battle to gain and regain territory.

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Zane Pais, Jessie Pinnick, Kit Zauhar, and Ian Edlund
Drama
Not Rated
USA (English)
88 minutes

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Queen Tut

Directed by: Reem Morsi
Studio: Cinephobia Releasing

Following the loss of their closest loved ones, a newly-arrived Egyptian immigrant, Nabil (Ryan Ali), and a trans drag mother, Malibu (Alexandra Billings), find solace in the blossoming friendship they discover with each other.

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Alexandra Billings, Thom Allison, Ryan Ali, Kiriana Stanton, Dani Jazzar, and Mostafa Shaker
Drama | International
Not Rated
Canada (English & Arabic)
91 minutes

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