Now Showing
Some reviews originate at newspapers that do not award star ratings; some movies are not screened in advance for critics. Ratings range from zero to four stars.
OPENING THIS WEEK
“Flight” *
*
*
½
Reviewed on page 1C
“Smashed” * * *
Reviewed on page 11C
“The War of the Buttons”
Reviewed online at
“Brooklyn Castle”
Reviewed online at
“The Man with the Iron Fists”
Not reviewed
“Hating Breitbart”
Not reviewed
“The Details”
Reviewed online at
continuing
Selected mini-reviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically:
“Alex Cross” Crime drama. * ½ PG-13. Mini-mogul and actor Tyler Perry foregoes cross-dressing in hopes of crossing over with this rebooted franchise, based on novelist James Patterson’s titular FBI agent-psychologist first introduced to moviegoers by Morgan Freeman.
(Kennedy) 102 minutes
“Argo” Thriller. * * * * R. You can opt for the ersatz heroism of “Taken 2” or you can dig into the more authentically rousing, whip-smart, tartly funny tale of the CIA operation — abetted by Hollywood — to extract six foreign service workers who escaped the U.S. embassy compound when it was taken on Nov. 4, 1979 only to be stuck in the Canadian ambassador’s home. (Kennedy) 120 minutes
“Cloud Atlas”
Reincarnation epic. * * * ½ R. Five centuries. Six datelines and just as many storylines. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, and Jim Sturgess appear repeatedly as different characters and themes of liberation and enslavement, cruelty and compassion, connection and reconnection are reprised again and again. Embrace being lost. (Kennedy) 164 minutes
“Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel” Fashion documentary. * * * PG-13. You don’t have to be a fashionista to appreciate the creativity and originality of Vreeland, whose life is chronicled in interviews with designers, co-workers, models, photographers and celebrities. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Vreeland was fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar (1936-62), editor-in-chief of Vogue (1962-71) and then special consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art until her death in 1989. She discovered Twiggy and Lauren Bacall, gave advice to Jackie Kennedy and encouraged the careers of such designers as Oscar de la Renta and Diane von Furstenberg. Produced and directed by Vreeland’s granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the doc conveys the late fashion editor’s enthusiasm and eccentricities. At the Mayan.
(Suzanne Brown) 87 minutes
“Frankenweenie” Sweetly weird animation. * * * PG. What a pleasure to see that the Tim Burton we know and love is back with this latest endeavor. Using imaginative and impressive puppets to bring characters to life, Burton crams the new stop-motion animated film with his favorite themes — the pain of ostracization, a celebration of differences and a love for old movies — then weaves those elements into the framework of James Whale’s “Frankenstein” film from 1931.
(Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News) 87 minutes
“Fun Size”
Teen romantic comedy. * *
PG-13. Victoria Justice jumps from Nickelodeon to the big screen with a PG-13 romp that only rarely romps, a movie that surrounds the lovely 19-year-old with funny people and struggles to find them laughs. Justice (TV’s “Victorious”) plays Wren, a Cleveland high school senior dreaming of the day she can slip off to New York and college, which is where her late father taught her that “you find out who really are.” First, she’s got to talk mom (Chelsea Handler) into letting her apply to NYU. Mom’s a bit distracted. Her grieving for her late husband has taken the form of dating a much younger, goofier, oddly named Keevin (Josh Pence). And Mom is determined to hang out with Keevin’s loser friends on Halloween, which ruins Wren’s plans to hit the hot high school party that night with her pal April (Jane Levy). Wren has to babysit her silent-but-deadly 8-year-old brother, Albert (Jackson Nicoll). (Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service) 90 minutes
“The House I Live In”
Documentary.
Not rated.
A cogent look at America’s failed war on drug. It’s a film as profoundly sad as it is enraging a, and it’s one of the most important pieces of nonfiction to hit the screen in years. (Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times) 108 minutes
“Liberal Arts”
Romantic dramedy. * * * ½ Not rated. If you’re prone to pining after your bright college years, “Liberal Arts” is for you. On the other hand, if you’re one of those people who can see right through your own nostalgia, then, well, writer-director Josh Radnor’s lovely dramedy may be for you too.
(Kennedy) 137 minutes
“The Master”
American epic. * * * ½ R. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has created a majestic work that is nearly as chilly as it is rich with indelible images and towering performances by its male leads.
(Kennedy) 137 minutes
“The Other Dream Team”
Sports documentary.
Not rated. A stranger-than-fiction look at how sports and politics have intersected to highly dramatic effect in the history of modern Lithuania
(Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times) 88 minutes
“The Paperboy”
Neo-Southern noir. * * ½ R.
Iconoclast Lee Daniels (“Precious”) brings his obsessions — race, sexuality and outsider status — to this neo Southern Gothic crime drama based on the novel by Pete Dexter set in the late 1960s. At the Mayan. (Kennedy) 106 minutes
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” Coming-of-age drama. * * * PG-13. Football games and awkward dances, late-night gabfests and tentative first kisses — they’re all there over the course of a school year in this coming-of-age drama, based on the best-selling young adult novel of the same name. (Christy Lemire, The Associated Press) 103 minutes
“Seven Psychopaths”
Dark comedy. * * * ½ R. Consider Colin Farrell is a writer stuck on the screenplay of the title. Best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) wants to help with the research and in a way, he does. Billy and Hans (a tenderly weird Christopher Walken) kidnap dogs. When they boost a Shih Tzu named Bonny, mob boss Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson) comes after them.
(Kennedy) 109 minutes
“Taken 2” Thriller. * * PG-13.
As good as Liam Neeson was in “Taken,” as good as he often is in “Taken 2,” the sequel — about the family of all those Albanians he killed in “Taken” taking their revenge — is an often silly movie.
(Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service) 90 minutes
