LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — If you're planning on staying home this weekend, how about a movie night?
Film critic Josh Bell breaks down two movies: one to enjoy with your kids and another one for a mature audience in this week's Bell Breakdown.
My top pick this week is "The Mitchells vs. the Machines," now streaming on Netflix. This inventive animated movie makes the robot apocalypse seem like a fun family adventure. On a road trip to take sullen teenage daughter Katie to college, the Mitchell family is caught in the middle of a machine uprising. Their ingenuity, determination and family dysfunction enable the Mitchells to save the day, while repairing their fractured family bond. It's a wholesome but off-kilter comedy, with vibrant, creative animation and an appealingly odd sense of humor, courtesy of writer-director Michael Rianda and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, whose credits include The "Lego Movie" and "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." That's "The Mitchells vs. the Machines," now on Netflix.
More for a grown-up audience is "The Outside Story," now available for video on demand rental. There's a lot of charm in this simple, low-key story about a guy who locks himself out of his apartment. It's also a bit nostalgic to watch a movie that celebrates spontaneous neighborhood gathering, although it was shot before the pandemic, of course. Brian Tyree Henry continues his ascent to movie stardom as video editor Charles, who's dealing with a break-up and a work deadline and is stuck waiting outside his Brooklyn apartment for someone to let him in. He opens up emotionally while getting to know his neighbors, embracing the community he'd previously closed himself off from. That's "The Outside Story," now on VOD.
