What to Watch This Weekend: May 1, 2020

Redbox: Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog is an entertaining re-imagining of the classic video game.  It's wonderful performances, great special effects, and abundance of humor and callbacks to the game will quickly entertain you!  For more information, check out our review!

Redbox: Like a Boss
Like a Boss has charismatic leading ladies, who form a strong foundation for both the funny and dramatic parts of this makeup friendship comedy.  For more information, check out our review!

Digital: The Incoherents
The Incoherents will get you to follow your dreams with its strong cast, fantastic music, and plenty of heart.  For more information, check out our review!

Digital: Dennis and Lois
Dennis and Lois highlights two mainstays of the rock scene doing what they love.  It has fantastic clips from a variety of bands, interesting stories from the legendary pair, and a wonderful soundtrack.  For more information, check out our review!

Digital: James Vs. His Future Self

James Vs. His Future Self has a wonderful conflict between future and present James, with plenty of funny and introspective moments in this timely, time-obsessed comedy.  For more information, check out our review!

Streaming (Netflix): All Day and a Night

All Day and a Night uses its emotional characters, story, and authentic setting to deliver a powerful film with important underlying messages of self discovery and empathy.  For more information, check out our review!

Streaming (Hulu, Amazon): Creed II

The follow-up to the surprisingly good Creed, this movie manages to make the tried-and-true Rocky formula feel fresh thanks to some fantastic performances and the introduction of characters from Rocky's past.

Streaming (Showtime): Hustlers

Hustlers provides an unreal story about some slick leading ladies.  It is a female wolf of wall street, with a decent amount of craziness, high risk scams, and strong personalities.  For more information, check out our review!

Streaming (Netflix): The Foreigner

The Foreigner adheres strictly to the action thriller formula, but benefits from strong performances by veteran stars Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan.  The film has plenty of twists and turns while allowing Chan to showcase his dramatic chops and Brosnan to flex his bad guy persona.

Streaming (Amazon): A Simple Favor

Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick make quite the pair in this mystery thriller with plot layered on plot.  Although there is a weird twist that just doesn't seem to add much to the film, the story will keep you guessing right up until the end.

Review: James Vs. His Future Self

Release date: May 1, 2020
Running time: 94 minutes
Starring: Jonas Chernick, Daniel Stern, Cleopatra Coleman

James vs. His Future Self is a sci-fi comedy where time-obsessed scientist James (Chernick) is visited by himself (Stern) from the future.  Future James is trying to convince present James to stop his time travel research because of where it leads their life.  However, Future James has a tough road ahead because present James is driven by his own ego and has yet to make the mistakes that drive him to travel back in time.  Future James is also concerned with convincing present James to pursue a relationship with their best friend, Courtney (Coleman), who they have both been in love with for longer than they care to admit.

Jonas Chernick is great as present James.  His performance highlights the right amount of hopelessness, ego, and obsession with his scientific experiments.  But he also does a good job of making James a likable character, despite all of his flaws.  Stern is likewise great as future James.  The two look enough alike to not make you question that they are versions of each other, and any inconsistencies in their appearance have a clever explanation.  Stern puts on an energetic performance as future James, and the interactions between these two are fun to watch.  The movie has a lot of little touches to remind you that they are each other; similar expressions and mannerisms help to communicate that they are versions of each other without resorting to uncanny valley aging or de-aging.  The rest of the cast help to fill out the world with quirky characters that contribute to the overall story of James vs. His Future Self.  Special note to Coleman, who does a great job as James's friend, love interest, and intellectual equal!

James Vs. His Future Self has a silly concept but executes it well.  It doesn't try to go too far into time travel science, it uses the science to create a story with interesting characters.  I really liked how the movie didn't try to go overboard with special effects; the time travel aspects were all communicated through the character's interactions.  There isn't a ton of music, but it is used to good effect, helping to amplify the dramatic or touching moments equally.  And most importantly, these interactions are well written, with plenty of funny and clever dialog to keep the story going.  The movie is a hilarious film with plenty of introspective, feel good moments.  And it also has some good messages for those of us who are time-obsessed in our own ways and don't appreciate the present for what it is.  

James Vs. His Future Self has a wonderful conflict between future and present James, with plenty of funny and introspective moments in this timely, time-obsessed comedy.

Watch it.