‘Pick of the Litter’ follows five puppies in guide dog training On Netflix
Which of these would entice you to the movies this weekend?
A. Cute puppies romping and learning.
B. A scary nun freaking the holy water out of everyone.
C. A mad-as-hell Jennifer Garner meting out her own brand of justice.
Rather kick it on the couch? Two Netflix originals are worth your time.
Here’s your weekly rundown.
If you love adorable dogs, you won’t want to miss “Pick of the Litter,” a delightful heartwarmer (and tearjerker) documenting the odyssey of five wannabe guide dogs as each undergoes rigorous training and testing for possible use by San Rafael’s Guide Dogs for the Blind. Los Altos’ Dana Nachman and Alameda’s Don Hardy — who scored a beloved hit with the documentary “Batkid Begins” — take the ideal approach for this family-friendly find, a crowd-pleaser that’ll elicit plentiful aahs, sniffles and smiles, sometimes at the same time. It’s playing this weekend at Embarcadero Cinemas and Opera Plaza in San Francisco, Berkeley’s Shattuck Cinemas and San Rafael’s Smith Rafael Film Center.
If you’ve made it a horror habit to see all those “Conjuring” movies/spinoffs, cloister yourself away in theaters for “The Nun.” The setting is an altogether creepy Romanian abbey where a priest and a novitiate scrounge about for clues in the suicide of a nun. The jump-scare trailer received the old heave-ho because it was too dang disturbing.
Here’s hoping the film lives up to the hype.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Garner leaps back into the action game, playing a forceto-be-reckoned-with survivor of an attack that left her child and husband dead. In the R-rated “Peppermint,” she gets all “Punisher” on perpetrators.
Indie offerings
“The Apparition” takes a more intellectual, less horrific look into a religious setting than “The Nun” as a journalist investigates claims that a novitiate has seen a vision of the Virgin Mary.
“A Whale of a Tale” springboards off the Oscarwinning — and soul-scarring — “The Cove.” It revisits the same Japanese fishing town featured in “The Cove,” in the wake of outrage that that documentary generated.
The visually mesmerizing, highly stylized French crime thriller “Let the Corpses Tan” centers on a gone-sour heist and splashes blood all over the
gorgeous Mediterranean coastline as crooks and cops clash. Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet pump up the artsy shots, sometimes at the expense of the verbal.
Shannon Purser (Barb, the “Stranger Things” scene stealer) shines brightly in one of Netflix’s best romcoms to date, “Sierra Burgess Is a Loser,” a contemporary high school take on the “Cyrano de Bergerac” tale.
In the inspiring “City of Joy,” playwright Eve Ensler teams up with the fearless organizers in the Congo of a center for women who’ve been raped or experienced other trauma. The goal is to help these brave women gain confidence and skills to become leaders in the community. It’s a tough watch, but one that champions hope and resiliency.