If parties and picnics and festivals for Fourth of July aren’t your thing, there are plenty of alternate locations to explore from the comfort of a movie theater this weekend, from Giant Country in The BFG to the isolated island that serves as the setting for Swiss Army Man. (Pretending you’re not in the U! S! A! for a few hours can be oddly relieving, if a little creepy.) You can find even more choices via our complete movie times listings, including the generally boring Legend of Tarzan, the disconnected yet beautiful Neon Demon, and Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey as an unrelenting and annoying “badass white savior.”
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NEW RELEASES
1. The BFG
The BFG is an oddly paced but eventually rewarding film, with one or two flat-out magnificent stretches. You probably remember Dahl’s book as being bubbly and bright, but the English author’s humor and fluidity with language disguised a dark tale of Dickensian sorrow and Greek-god violence. Sophie is an orphan, a completely isolated (and tiny) figure in a decidedly inhospitable world. When she, in the dead of night, spies the 24-foot-tall BFG—which stands for Big Friendly Giant, although she doesn’t know about the “Friendly” part just yet—outside her orphanage window, he abducts her and squirrels her away in his secret cave in Giant Country. NED LANNAMANN
Wide Release
