Summer movies are finally starting to heat up this week with the much-anticipated debut of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” The sweaty, vibrant musical about a close-knit Washington Heights neighborhood during a citywide black out is undoubtedly meant for the big screen — director Jon M. Chu (the man behind “Crazy Rich Asians” and various “Step Up” films) made sure of it — but if you can’t make it to a theater, it’ll be free on HBO Max starting Thursday for 31 days. And at home, you can rewind and sing along to toe-tappers like “96,000” and no strangers will look at you weirdly.
Paramount+ is also making a big splash, offering up the new Mark Wahlberg-led and Antoine Fuqua-directed action pic “Infinite” free for subscribers on Friday. Based on the book “The Reincarnationist Papers,” Wahlberg plays a man who doesn’t know he’s an eternal but is starting to suspect that maybe his schizophrenia diagnosis might not fully explain his visions and skills. And from the trailers, it looks like the action set pieces are trying to give both “Mission: Impossible” and the “Fast & Furious” movies a run for their money. Chiwetel Ejiofor co-stars.
On Amazon Prime Video, you can catch Italian director Matteo Garrone’s gothic spin on Pinocchio starting Friday, which came and went in late December without enough fanfare. Based on Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel “The Adventures of Pinocchio,” this is a much darker affair than the song-filled animated version. While the result may not be suitable for all children, any fan of Guillermo del Toro’s films or Wolfgang Petersen’s “The NeverEnding Story” should give it a chance.
(Via AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr)
