It’s the weekend again, and that means Film Focus. Here’s Mike Laidman with what’s new in local theaters.
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Welcome, everyone, to 2017. What amazing movies, what fantastic experiences await us all this year? Well, looking ahead at the big releases we can only speculate. So many movies that are anticipated fall flat, and often those smaller films than initially fly under the radar make big splashes, surprising everyone.

There is no crystal ball to say what will be worth watching. All we can do is continue this journey together, one week, one movie at a time.

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Mike Laidman

Welcome to another edition of Film Focus. I’m Mike Laidman.

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Passengers (2016, Morten Tyldum)
A spacecraft has a malfunction in its sleep chambers.

Starting off the new year is Passengers, a sci-fi adventure about two people who are on a 120-year journey to another planet aboard the starship Avalon. But panic arises when their hibernation pods wake them 90 years too early. Jim and Aurora are forced to unravel the mystery behind the malfunction as the ship teeters on the brink of collapse, with the lives of thousands of passengers in jeopardy.

With an intriguing story, tremendous star power with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence in the lead roles, and great visuals, Passengers looked like a solid bet to end the year. But despite great-looking trailers, its story failed to spark the same kind of interest, and viewers were left with a great-looking movie with proper chemistry between the leads, but a fundamentally flawed story that didn’t deliver on expectations.

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A Street Cat Named Bob (2016, Roger Spottiswoode)
A recovering drug addict has his life transformed by a cat.

Also opening this week is A Street Cat named Bob, a biographical drama based on an internationally-best-selling book. If Passengers was the big-budget movie that had everything going for it and fell short of the mark, then Bob is the lower-budget alternative that surprises with its feel-good story and life-affirming message.

The film tells the moving and life-affirming true story of the unlikely friendship between a young homeless busker, James Bowen, and the stray ginger cat named Bob who changed his life.

It offers a moderately gritty depiction of Britain’s homeless and drug scene, although these heavier scenes are lightened by Bob the cat’s cute antics. By basing the movie on such a inspirational true story, audiences are left with a tough and tender, although also unassuming, portrait of a London busker and addict whose life takes a surprising turn after the ginger tabby Bob shows up in his life.