Film News South Africa

What to expect in June at the box office

New film releases on the Big Screen in June offers dazzling animation, supernatural thrills, comedy, zany sci-fi, jukebox musical and live opera from the Met.
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A terrifying entity preys on the suffering of two little sisters who are still reeling from the recent death of their mother in The Boogeyman. This chilling supernatural horror is based on the 1973 short story of the same name by Stephen King and directed by Scott Beck, starring Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair and David Dastmalchian.

The computer-animated superhero adventure Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and is set in a shared multiverse of alternate universes called the "Spider-Verse". Miles Morales is unexpectedly approached by his love interest Gwen Stacy to complete a mission to save every universe of Spider-People from the Spot, who could cause a catastrophic disaster.

9 June

In Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, an ex-military electronics expert and an artifact researcher, are swept up in a three-way conflict between the Maximals, Predacons and Terrorcons as they aid Optimus Prime and the Autobots in a war to protect Earth from Unicron's arrival. It’s the is the seventh instalment in the Transformers film series. Serving as both a standalone sequel to Bumblebee (2018) and prequel to the 2007 film, it stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback.

16 June

The computer-animated romantic comedy-drama Elemental is set in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic elements of nature, the story follows fire element Ember Lumen and water element Wade Ripple who meet and fall in love. In a city where fire, water, earth, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and her go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common.

Greatest Days follows the story of five best friends who have the night of their lives at a concert from their favourite boy band Take That. Some 25 years later their lives have changed in a myriad of ways as they reunite to reminisce about their past and discover their future. Featuring Take That songs and stars Aisling Bea, Alice Lowe, Amaka Okafor, and Jayde Adams.

With sci-fi romantic comedy-drama Asteroid City writer-director Wes Anderson indulges in his most complicated construction yet: We’re meant to be watching a TV broadcast (hosted by Bryan Cranston) that dramatises the story of a playwright (Edward Norton) who wrote an unproduced stage production called Asteroid City. Those framing segments are shot in black and white. It’s only when we leap into the idea of his play that Anderson transports us to the gorgeous teals and burnt oranges of the desert, where most of this story within a story (within a story!) unfolds. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright and Tilda Swinton.

Worlds collide in the superhero adventure The Flash when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past. But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no super heroes to turn to. Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry's only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe? Directed by Andy Muschietti it stars Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, and Michael Keaton.

Adipurush is an Indian epic mythological film based on the Hindu epic Ramayana that depicts the triumph of good over evil. Written and directed byt Om Raut it stars Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Saif Ali Khan, Sunny Singh and Devdatta Nage.

Champion is six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard’s operatic retelling of the dramatic story of boxer Emile Griffith arrives in New York. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green stars as the closeted young hatmaker-turned-prizefighter, who rises from obscurity to become world champion and, in one of the great tragedies in sports history, kills his homophobic archrival in the ring.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a stellar cast that also features bass-baritone Eric Owens as Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, alongside mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as bar owner Kathy Hagen. Director James Robinson—whose productions of Fire and Porgy and Bess brought down the house— oversees the staging, and Camille A. Brown, whose choreography electrified audiences in Fire and Porgy, also returns.

There are only 4 screenings on 16, 17, 18, 20 June at select Ster-Kinekor and Cinema Nouveau cinemas.
Read more about The Met Opera Season.

23 June

Jennifer Lawrence produces and stars in No Hard Feelings, a laugh-out-loud, R-rated comedy from director Gene Stupnitsky (Good Boys) and the co-writer of Bad Teacher. Maddie (Lawrence) thinks she’s found the answer to her financial troubles when she discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to "date" their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, and bring him out of his shell before he leaves for college. But awkward Percy proves to be more of a challenge than she expected, and time is running out. She has one summer to make him a man or lose it all.

In the animated adventure Rally Road Racers Zhi, a rookie race car driver, gets the opportunity to compete against the reigning champion of the rally car circuit. With help from a former driver-turned-mechanic, Zhi must overcome treacherous terrain, rival racers, and unexpected obstacles to prove he has what it takes to be the next great racer.

30 June

In the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny daredevil archaeologist Indiana Jones races against time to retrieve a legendary dial that can change the course of history. Accompanied by his goddaughter, he soon finds himself squaring off against Jürgen Voller, a former Nazi who works for NASA.

It is a sequel to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and serves as the fifth and final instalment in the Indiana Jones film series. The film stars Harrison Ford in his final portrayal of archaeologist Indiana Jones, with Antonio Banderas, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, and Mads Mikkelsen.

In the animated coming-of-age fantasy Ruby Gillm, Teenage Kraken,16-year-old Ruby Gillman is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but when she breaks her mother's rule about going on the beach with any would-be friends, Ruby discovers that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas.

Tony Award–winning director of Broadway’s A View from the Bridge and West Side Story, Ivo van Hove makes a major Met debut with a new take on Mozart’s tragicomedy, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the dark corners of the story and its characters.

Maestro Nathalie Stutzmann makes her Met debut conducting a star-studded cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as a magnetic Don Giovanni, alongside the Leporello of bass-baritone Adam Plachetka. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez, and Ying Fang make a superlative trio as Giovanni’s conquests—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina - and tenor Ben Bliss is Don Ottavio. There are only four screenings on 30 June, 1, 2, 4 July at select Ster-Kinekor and Cinema Nouveau cinemas.

Read more about The Met Opera Season.

Read more about the latest and upcoming films.

About Daniel Dercksen

Daniel Dercksen has been a contributor for Lifestyle since 2012. As the driving force behind the successful independent training initiative The Writing Studio and a published film and theatre journalist of 40 years, teaching workshops in creative writing, playwriting and screenwriting throughout South Africa and internationally the past 22 years. Visit www.writingstudio.co.za
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