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One of our two featured releases for this week is Hope Springs. After 30 years of marriage, Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) and Kay (Meryl Streep), a middle-aged husband and wife, have settled into a comfortable routine. Their kids are grown up and have moved out. Conversation is rare, and sex is nonexistent. Determined to break out of their rut, Kay manages to persuade Arnold to join her on a weeklong counseling session to work on their relationship with renowned author and therapist Dr. Feld (Steve Carell).

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly write, “Spectacularly well matched and attuned to each other, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones offer two of the finest performances of the year.”

Justin Chang of Variety writes, “Hope Springs is an altogether pleasant surprise: a mainstream dramedy that frankly and intelligently addresses the challenges facing a couple after 31 years of marriage. At once entirely accessible and quietly radical in its intimacy and directness, helmer David Frankel’s latest picture to weigh the comforts and dissatisfactions of domestic life wisely lets Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones carry a simple but deeply felt story like the pros they are.”

Hope Springs is being released today, August 8th, and HSX estimates that it will open at about $16M through this weekend.

Rating: PG-13 //
Genre: Comedy, Drama //
Runtime: 1 hr. 40 min. //
Starring: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell //
Directed by: David Frankel //
Written by: Vanessa Taylor//
Produced by: Management 360, Escape Artists and Mandate Pictures//
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

I normally do more extensive write ups for Bravo Design, Inc.’s featured film of the week, but I can’t this time. Up until this point, I’ve avoided trailers, reviews and any potential spoiler alerts for The Dark Knight Rises like landmines. I don’t want to know. But if you absolutely need the rundown, here’s what I do know.

Set eight years after The Dark Knight, when Batman (Christian Bale) went into exile assuming the blame for the death of Harvey Dent, things are better in Gotham. Crime is down, and the city is prosperous. That probably lasts until about six seconds past when Bane’s (Tom Hardy) plane lands, and he delivers his reckoning on the city’s inhabitants. Why? No clue. In the superhero universe, nothing good ever lasts. The underlying irony is that Batman will have to protect the very people that branded him the enemy. Someone [the Joker] predicted this would happen.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times writes, “A disturbing experience we live through as much as a film we watch, this dazzling conclusion to director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard.”

TDKR has its sights on topping The Avengers’ $209M domestic opening but is expected to open somewhere between $190M and $200M. TDKR is only showing in 2D format, so we’re all curious to see if that’ll have affect the final numbers by several million dollars.

Rating: PG-13 // Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime // Runtime: 2 hr. 44 min. // Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine // Directed by: Christopher Nolan // Written by: Jonathan Nolan, David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan // Produced by: Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, DC Entertainment and Syncopy // Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures