Sausage Party,
directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan
(R, 83 minutes)
A decidedly adult cartoon as interpreted by writers (including Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg) blessed with the cheerful vulgarity of a highly verbal 12-year-old boy, Sausage Party indulges its audience with zany songs, goofy dances, same-sex copulation, rapid-fire comedy and astoundingly original bad behavior that some will find offensive.
This animated adventure tells the story of Frank the Hot Dog (voice of Rogen) and Brenda the Bun (voice of Kristen Wiig), wannabe lovers stacked on the shelves of a trendy grocery store who yearn to be bought and set free from their packaging prisons. But they don't know that when they are, they'll be consumed by the voracious humans who shop there.
A suggestion of the truth is finally revealed by a maniacally distressed container of honey mustard (voice of Danny McBride), which leads Frank, Brenda and a bunch of other foodstuffs (modeled on ethnic stereotypes) on a pre-Fourth of July race to find out the truth -- in which the humans do not emerge as heroes.
Don't expect jaw-dropping animation. It's all about the story and the dialogue. With an all-star vocal cast including Jonah Hill, Salma Hayek, James Franco, Edward Norton, Michael Cera and Paul Rudd.
Bonus materials include an alternate ending, a gag reel, improv outtakes, several behind-the-scenes featurettes and a segment that explains how Rogen and his team convinced a studio to make a definitely R-rated animated film.
Indignation (R, 110 minutes) An accurate period drama about the maturation of an intelligent, curious and ambitious son of a kosher butcher who leaves his home in Newark, N.J., in 1951 to acquire an education via scholarship at a stuffily conservative university in Ohio (which keeps him from being drafted during the Korean War). Based on Philip Roth's 2008 novel. With Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts; directed by James Schamus.
Morris From America (R, 89 minutes) A charming, musically intriguing story of culture clash, coming of age, and discovering the oddities of the opposite sex, this film is built on the dreams of becoming a rapper that fade for 13-year-old Morris Gentry (Markees Christmas) when his mother dies and his dad decides to take a soccer-coaching job that causes them to move from the Bronx to Heidelberg, Germany -- a foreign land for the awkward teenager in more ways than one. With Craig Robinson, Lina Keller; directed by Chad Hartigan.
Phantom Boy (PG, 84 minutes) An appealing hand-drawn animated action adventure for kids that concerns how a sickly 11-year-old boy uses his unique gift of astral projection to help an injured cop battle mobsters who are plotting to use an internet virus to shut down the grid that operates New York. Animated with the voices of Audrey Tautou, Fred Armisen, Vincent D'Onofrio, Edouard Baer; directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. In French with subtitles.
Kickboxer: Vengeance (not rated, 90 minutes) Jean-Claude Van Damme, now 55, whose onscreen charm and seemingly inexhaustible athleticism never let him down, stars in this serviceable actioner as a master kickboxer who teaches a fighter named Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) how it's done in Sloane's quest to travel to Thailand to avenge the kickboxing death of his brother by hotshot Tong Po (David Bautista). It's pretty much a remake of 1989's Kickboxer in which Van Damme played the Kurt Sloane role.
MovieStyle on 11/11/2016