From A Wrinkle in Time to Isle of Dogs, 5 movies you should see in March

Every month, we round up the best in arts and entertainment. From sci-fi to spy thrillers, here are five of the most talked-about movies coming out in March.

Red Sparrow (March 2)

As far as timely movies go, Red Sparrow is coming out just when interest in American-Russian espionage has reached a fever pitch. Red Sparrow tells the story of a Bolshoi ballerina, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who is forced to become a lethal Russian intelligence officer. She's tasked with recruiting a CIA operative, played by Joel Edgerton. Not unlike 1990's La Femme Nikita, she's trained in the art of killing and seduction in order to get the job done. "You sent me to whore school," her character says at one point, an all too on-the-nose line that indicates the movie knows the genre territory it's in. That said, "it's not an erotic thriller," according to the director, Francis Lawrence, who directed three of the four Hunger Games films. Lawrence has also gone on record to speak about how the sex and nudity in the film has helped her reclaim her empowerment after a 2014 phone hack leaked nude photos of her online. "I feel like something that was taken from me, I got back. It's my body, it's my art, and it's my choice," she told 60 Minutes. While the film itself has been criticized for its style over substance, as well as its two-plus-hour runtime, Lawrence is receiving praise for her portrayal of the femme fatale. At the very least, it will be an entertaining spy thriller in the R-rated vein of Atomic Blonde or John Wick.  

A Wrinkle in Time (March 9)

If the hype surrounding Black Panther is any indication (and just to be clear, it is), audiences are hungry for blockbuster movies that feature a diverse cast of players, both in front of and behind the camera. A Wrinkle in Time, the highly-anticipated adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's canonical kids' sci-fi book, will be the first massive studio tentpole production directed by a women of colour, with the Oscar-nominated Ava DuVernay (13th, Selma) at the helm. For the few of us who didn't read it in school, A Wrinkle in Time tells the story of teenager Meg Murry (played by newcomer Storm Reid) who embarks on a time-travelling adventure with her younger brother in order to rescue her father (Chris Pine). She is assisted by three celestial beings, which in this case are played by Mindy Kaling, Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey, who doesn't descend to Earth for just any old role. And much like Black Panther, there are already social media movements supporting the film, not to mention fundraisers so that underprivileged kids can see it for free. Expectations are huge for this adaptation, which comes 54 years after the book was first published. If it does anything less than change Hollywood, it won't be enough.

Isle of Dogs (March 23)

If anyone can make anthropomorphized stop-motion animated animals sympathetic characters, it's Wes Anderson. He did as much with Fantastic Mr. Fox, managing to make audiences feel real feelings for hipster cloth creatures. However, Fox, which was nominated for an Oscar, was based on a children's novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, making it Anderson's only film to be adapted completely from someone else's work. Isle of Dogs sees Anderson taking another crack at the tedious art of stop-motion, but this time with a story written with regular collaborators Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman. "We started with the dogs," Anderson told indiewire of the story that, on its surface, is about dogs stuck on a garbage island — but then, in the most Wes Anderson of ways, it becomes a dystopian piece of speculative fiction that combines a rescue story with an allegory about life itself, complete with an homage to the films of Akira Kurosawa (naturally). Isle of Dogs also recently took home the Silver Bear prize at the Berlinale film festival for best director.

Roxanne Roxanne (March 23)

In 1984, a 14-year-old girl from Queens, New York named Lolita Shanté Gooden lit the rap world on fire with an almost five-minute freestyle that became one of the most talked about songs of its day. But first, some back story. That same year, the Brooklyn hip-hop trio UTFO failed to appear at a radio promotional show in Queens that was being organized by DJs Mr. Magic and Marley Marl. UTFO had a hit song at the time, "Roxanne Roxanne," about a women who refused their advances. Seeing an opportunity, Gooden told Mr. Magic and Marley Marl she could do an "answer" record from the point of view of Roxanne, using the name Roxanne Shanté. Not only did it get back at UTFO with barbed attacks on each of the members — "His name is Kangol, and that is cute / He ain't got money, and he ain't got the loot" — but "Roxanne's Revenge" became an instant hit, selling over 250,000 copies, dominating airwaves and sparking the "Roxanne Wars." Over the next year, anywhere up to 100 answer records were released attacking Roxanne, songs written from the point of view of Roxanne's parents, her older brother, even her doctor. UTFO's label even released a record by an artist named the Real Roxanne. To this day, the Roxanne Wars are considered to have produced the most answer records in history, a pivotal moment in the birth of the diss record, which is still a key part of rap music today. Netflix's new film, Roxanne Roxanne, tells the very complicated story of Roxanne Shanté, played by actress Chanté Adams in a role that many are calling a breakout for the young actress. The film also stars Mahershala Ali, who won an Oscar for his role in Moonlight, and comes from the producers of Dope and Fruitvale Station.

Ready Player One (March 29)

With '80s nostalgia at an all-time high (thank you Stranger Things), the timing could not be better for the adaptation of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. It's easily the most hyped movie adaptation of a book about a video game based on '80s pop culture ever. Cline set the action in a dystopian 2044, where the only escape for residents is to immerse themselves in a VR game, OASIS, that has taken over for real life. Its creator has died and revealed that he's hidden one Easter egg within the game, and whoever finds it takes over his billion-dollar empire — Willy Wonka's golden ticket for the internet age. To top it off, the creator of OASIS, much like Cline, is obsessed with '80s culture, so the New York Times bestseller is chocked full of meta '80s references, including video games, movies and TV. It's a sub-Reddit come to life. So who better to direct the film adaptation, which is sure to be a trilogy, than Steven Spielberg, the ultimate focal point for '80s nostalgia? Time to break out your Vuarnet t-shirt and Zubaz pants, load the family into the DeLorean and immerse yourself in a world where people are still playing Joust (one of the countless references you will see in the trailer if you're watching closely).