August Film Preview: Board the Bullet Train, celebrate Easter Sunday, and more must-see movies

Theaters everywhere August 12Big, 13 Going on 30, and Freaky Friday vibes radiate from Mack & Rita. During a bachelorette trip for a friend, 30-year-old struggling writer Mack (Elizabeth Lail) steps into a wonky tanning bed and emerges as a 70-year-old version of herself who goes by Rita (Diane Keaton). The question appears to be, will Rita make a love connection with Mack’s charming dog-sitter Jack (Dustin Milligan) before Mack can? The cast is aces, from the effervescent and ageless Keaton to You breakout Lail, as well as seasoned veterans Loretta Devine, Wendie Malick, Lois Smith, and Amy Hill, plus talented rising star Taylour Paige (Hit the Floor, Zola).Directing Mack & Rita is Katie Aselton, best known as an actress whose credits include The League, Legion, and The Morning Show, on which she co-stars with her real-life husband, actor-filmmaker Mark Duplass. She previously helmed (and starred in) The Freebie and Black Rock. There’s nothing wrong with a light romantic comedy, especially in this current environment. And we’re thrilled to see one getting a theatrical release. Here’s hoping that Aselton can pull off the elusive perfect souffle. And she’s got Keaton in her corner not just as leading lady, but as a producer. [Ian Spelling]

Theaters everywhere August 19The cineplex is overdue for a quality man vs. nature movie, and it looks like Beast could be just the thing we’ve been waiting for. Judging by its trailer, it’s in the same vein as Alexandre Aja’s 2019 summer creature feature Crawl, about a woman facing off against a massive alligator in a hurricane-stricken Florida town, or 2016’s The Shallows, featuring Blake Lively going head-to-head with a great white shark. When done well, these pictures demand to be seen on the biggest screen possible, on opening night, with a rowdy audience ready to have fun.The twist of Beast is that it takes a usually water-locked genre and replaces it with the vast expanse of the arid Savanna. Starring Idris Elba as a father on vacation with his two daughters, looking to reconnect with them after the loss of their mother, the movie is set up to be a story about a man who will protect his family against all odds. While out on a safari, of course, things go wrong, and they are hunted by an aggressive, oversized lion. Said trailer (luckily) hasn’t given away too much—just enough to hint that this lion might not be the only threat facing the family. One thing it does show, however, is Elba punching a lion in the face, and that’s enough for this writer to go see Beast immediately. [Brandon Kirby]

Select theaters August 26There are plenty of reasons to catch Breaking in theaters, with its tense recreation of a real-life 2017 standoff at a Wells Fargo bank, but the best one is that this marks the final screen performance of the late, great Michael K. Williams. He plays chief hostage negotiator Eli Bernard opposite John Boyega’s Brian Brown-Easley, a downtrodden Marine veteran who was owed na $892 disability check and resorted to the most drastic of measures to call attention to the injustice. Abi Damaris Corbin’s film (formerly titled 892 at its ) does a brilliant job of illustrating, in flashbacks, the many ways Brown-Easley butted up against a system seemingly designed to deny veterans compensation for their service—all as the police and media presence outside the bank grows and the two tellers inside (played by Nicole Beharie and Selenis Levya) attempt to reason with a man at the end of his rope. Breaking is a story designed to invite empathy, so it was a smart choice to cast actors, like Boyega and Williams, who can seemingly do so effortlessly. [Jack Smart]

Theaters everywhere August 26Relative loner Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) drops a DNA test in the mail, hoping that somewhere out there she may find a family tree. Surprisingly, she uncovers an entire aristocratic clan from England, who promptly invite her to the U.K. for a big family wedding. Presumably expecting something out of Downton Abbey, she accepts. The problem is they failed to tell her two crucial bits of information. One: they’re a family of vampires. And two: she is to be the bride.On the other hand, they’ve probably made a big mistake messing with a toughened veteran of the Game Of Thrones and Fast And Furious franchise player. Give her a stake or two, and things are gonna get Downton Stabby. Sean Pertwee appears to be playing the vampire patriarch, though, and he has a pretty formidable resume as well, having played Alfred on Gotham and fought werewolves in Dog Soldiers. It’s all a pretty drastic change up for director and co-writer Jessica M. Thompson, whose SXSW award-winning The Light Of The Moon dealt with repressed trauma stemming from assault. Here, the trauma and assault all looks to be very much out in the open. And those bloodsuckers won’t live to regret it or repress it. [Luke Y. Thompson]

Theaters everywhere August 31Before he returns to the blazing hot action of Mad Max with its prequel Furiosa (currently in production), writer-director George Miller dips into the fantastical with Three Thousand Years Of Longing. Based on the short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by Booker prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, the film centers around an encounter in Istanbul between an academic (Tilda Swinton) and a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. What follows is a battle of wills between a knowledgeable skeptic and a resourceful creature who loves to tell a tall tale. Steeped in Arabian mythology and the One Thousand And One Nights tales, Miller and his co-writer Augusta Gore take an unexpected leap into earnest storytelling. Aided by the palpable chemistry between Swinton and Elba, they spin a fantastical yarn about love, desire, and the need to connect across time and culture. The critical response at Cannes, where the film premiered in May, was surprisingly cool considering the talents behind and in front of the camera. Perhaps audiences will be kinder to this change of pace from the master filmmaker. [Murtada Elfadl]

Also for your consideration at the multiplex: Patton Oswalt and James Morosini bring a wild-but-true catfishing story to the screen in I Love My Dad (theaters everywhere August 5); Owen Wilson and Sylvester Stallone give us refreshingly original superheroes in Secret Headquarters (Paramount+ August 12) and Samaritan (Amazon Prime Video August 26), respectively; Aubrey Plaza stars in both the morally complicated Emily The Criminal and Alison Brie’s thematically complicated Spin Me Round (select theaters August 19); and Kevin Hart, Regina Hall, and Mark Wahlberg look for some Me Time (Netflix August 26). [Jack Smart]