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 WEEKEND
“20,000 Days on Earth” Not rated. Not reviewed.
“Annabelle” R. Not reviewed.
“Drive Hard”Not rated. Not reviewed.
“Frontera”PG-13. Not reviewed.
“Gone Girl” * * ½ R. Reviewed on 1c.
“Kelly and Cal” Not rated. Reviewed on 5c.
“Last Days in Vietnam” * * * * Not rated. Reviewed on 5c.
“Left Behind” PG-13. Reviewed on 5c.
continuing
Selected mini-reviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically:
“The Boxtrolls” Animation. * * * ½ PG. There are many more delighted “Ewwws” than too-easy “Awws” in this charming, if a tad cynical, feature from the creators of “Coraline” and “ParaNorman.” A gem of stop-motion animation, “Boxtrolls” begins with the disappearance of an infant. The Trubshaw Baby kidnapping becomes legend. It’s a dark yarn one particular Cheese-bridge resident is all too happy to exploit. Boxtroll exterminator Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Ben Kingsley) has hopes of moving up in society and trading in his red hat for the “white hat” of the muckety-mucks. Of course the creatures of the title are nothing like the villains of Snatcher’s fear-mongering. Indeed there are the nurturers of a baby who grows into the movie’s hero Eggs (voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright).”The Boxtrolls” handles themes of nature-versus-nurture and who is responsible for who you become — or rather how you act in the world — with philosophical aplomb. Elle Fanning lends her voice to Eggs’ petulant ally Winnie. At area theaters in 2-D and 3-D.
(Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post) 97 minutes
“Boyhood” Drama. * * * * R. We watch as a kid grows up from a boy into a nearly grown young man, living with his mom and sister in a series of Texas towns, solidifying his relationship with an unsteady father, struggling through schools and stepparents and girlfriends and himself until, he starts college. Filmed for a few days every year over 12 years, “Boyhood” breaks open a brand new genre. At the Mayan. (Ann Hornaday
, The Washington Post) 166 minutes
“Dolphin Tale 2” Drama. PG. Blissfully swimming against the hyperactive kids’ movie tide, “Dolphin Tale 2” gently peddles inspirational life lessons. Arriving three years after its surprise hit predecessor, all the key “Dolphin Tale” players return here, beginning with plucky protagonist Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble) and his marine mammal pal, Winter (playing herself with occasional assists from animatronics and visual effects). .
(Geoff Berk, Variety) 107 minutes
“The Drop” Crime drama. * * * R.
Based on a Dennis Lehane story and adapted by the crime drama ace himself, “The Drop” is a foreboding, atmospheric affair that starts the idea that mobsters have and ever-changing “drop” bar where they stash each day’s lucrative earnings. It keeps the police guessing. And no one would be fool enough to rob a drop, right? Directed by Michaël R. Roskam, the film has slow-building traction and three terrifically controlled performances from James Gandolfini as the one time owner of Cousin Marv’s Bar; Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts as the menacing ex of a woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace); and most commandingly, Tom Hardy as Marv’s lonesome cousin and bartender. Hardy’s turn as Bob Saginowki is quietly insistent. Watch. watch, watch, it demands. And we do with uneasy hope and fascination. At the Mayan.
(Kennedy) 107 minutes
“The Equalizer” Action. R. Denzel Washington balances the scales of justice — and challenges Liam Neeson for a slice of the middle-aged action-hero pie — in this ultraviolent update of the 1985-89 CBS drama series that featured Edward Woodward as a former government agent turned pro-bono avenging angel. But in making the leap from small screen to large, and from pre-Giuliani New York to post-recession Boston, director Antoine Fuqua and writer Richard Wenk (“16 Blocks”) have also traded the series’ elemental underdog appeal for a “Taken”-style bloodbath that pits Washington against a surfeit of central-casting Russian gangsters and corrupt Beantown cops.
(Scott Foundas, Variety) 131 minutes
“Hector and the Search for Happiness” Dramedy. R. Happiness means steering clear of this supremely irritating marriage of picture-postcard exoticism and motivational uplift, this misguided comedy-drama tells the story of a British therapist who upends his comfortable lifestyle and travels the world looking for the secret to inner joy — like an “Eat Pray Love” remake for men with too much time, money and existential ennui on their hands. Trite, flat-footed, culturally insensitive, and sagging under the weight of more than 25 credited producers, Peter Chelsom’s film will need every ounce of charm and cachet it can wring from star Simon Pegg to achieve box-office traction. At the Chez.
(Justin Chang, Variety) 118 minutes
“Jimi: All is By My Side” Biopic. R. The first thing to know about John Ridley’s “Jimi: All Is By My Side” is that the writer-director was unable to secure rights to any of Jimi Hendrix’s original songs or recordings: This turns out to provide both the film’s biggest strengths and biggest shortcomings. Less a traditional biopic than a strategically limited portrait of a particular time, place and person, the film effectively brings pre-stardom Hendrix to life without ever tapping into the source of what made him such a magnetic performer, or elucidating just what drove him to create a lifetime’s worth of music in the span of four years. Unsatisfying on a musical level, it’s nonetheless a well-acted, sporadically impressive piece of filmmaking from the “12 Years a Slave” writer. At the Mayan.
(Andrew Barker, Variety) 116 minutes
“Love is Strange” Drama. R. Truth springs from the title and trickles down into every pore of “Love Is Strange,” an uncompromising yet accessible slice-of-life expression from Ira Sachs, one of the most perceptive and personal directors working in American cinema. Here, he branches out beyond his own lived experience to imagine a same-sex relationship 39 years strong as it is tested immediately following the couple’s long-overdue marriage. This ensembler shines on the strength of its two leads, John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, who conjure four decades together as they enter the “for better, for worse” phase of their union. At the Chez.
(Peter Debruge, Variety) 94 minutes
“The Maze Runner” Fantasy action. PG-13. As world-creating young-adult pictures go, “The Maze Runner” feels refreshingly low-tech and properly story-driven, based on James Dashner’s popular 2009 fantasy novel. Much of the action unfolds in a large field, and the spidery things that crawl out of the woodwork to afflict a band of boys trying to escape a mysterious confinement have an old-fashioned, bio-mechanical charm. The film plunges in with room-shattering noises as a buff young fellow (Dylan O’Brien) is transported in a cage, he knows not where or why or by whom, to a landscape that, closely resembles an Outward Bound campsite. Egged on by the regulation bully (Will Poulter), most of Thomas’ fellow Gladers come on like obedient frat boys, crossed with “Lord of the Flies” castaways trying to improvise social order in the absence of adult authority. The great Patricia Clarkson bows in all too briefly to upend the team’s sense of their past and their future. (Alissa Simon, Variety) 122 minutes
“My Old Lady” Drama. * * PG-13.
Israel Horovitz proves it’s never too late to learn a new skill. At 75, the prolific playwright has directed his first feature film, an adaptation of his play “My Old Lady.” It’s a problematic play that’s just as flawed on screen, although some excellent performances from Kevin Kline and Maggie Smith help make up for the script’s shortcomings. Kline plays Mathias Gold, an aging alcoholic who uses the last of his meager savings to book a plane ticket to Paris to see the apartment his late father bequeathed to him. Mathias is already imagining life as a millionaire when his dream is cut short by the reality of the little old lady (Smith) living in the place. At the Mayan.
(Stephanie Merry, The Washington Post) 104 minutes
“The Skeleton Twins” Drama. * * * ½ R. Saturday Night Live” alums Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are wonderfully believable as twins Milo and Maggie in this bittersweet, touchingly authentic tale of sibling reconciliation and reckoning. An unexpected call brings Maggie to the bedside of brother Milo at a hospital in Los Angeles. The pair haven’t spoken in a decade. Yet Maggie invites her brother to recuperate back in the New York hometown. Directed by Craig Johnson and cowritten by Mark Heyman, “The Skeleton Twins” takes smartly paced care in showing how differently damaged each has been by their shared past. Ty Burrell brings a repressed quiet to Rich, Milo’s former high school English teacher. Luke Wilson is in rare, but not unfamiliar, form as Maggie’s husband, Lance, a kind, upbeat pup of a man. (Kennedy, The Denver Post) 92 minutes
“This is Where I Leave You” Dramedy. R.Sitting shiva makes the heart grow fonder in this sprawling ensemble dramedy that starts out like a full-tilt sitcom and gradually migrates to a place of genuine feeling. This alternately manic and mawkish adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s 2009 novel aims for “Kramer Vs. Kramer” and “Terms of Endearment” territory and ends up somewhere closer to a Semitic “Home For the Holidays” or “August: Osage County.” Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Tina Fey and Abigail Spencer are among the A-list actors in the cast. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 103 minutes
“A Walk Among the Tombstones” Action thriller. R. Scott Frank’s detective thriller is an adaptation of Lawrence Block’s novel. Starting with a 1991 prologue, we’re introduced to detective Matt Scudder (Liam Neeson), a racial-epithet-spewing drunken cop. Scudder is in a tavern when armed assailants burst in and shoots the barkeep. Scudder takes out all three, later realizing a girl was killed in the crossfire. Come 1999, Scudder has retired and given up the drink, working as an unlicensed P.I.. Through a fellow addict, he’s introduced to Brooklyn drug trafficker Kenny Kristo (Dan Stevens), who hires him to locate the two men who abducted his wife. (Andrew Barker, Variety) 113 minutes
“The Zero Theorem” Sci-fi. R. Scripted by creative-writing professor Pat Rushin, this film is supposedly set in the not-so-distant future and posits a not-hard-to-extrapolate-from-current-conditions world of clutter and noise, where advertising signage can identify exactly who is walking down the street and there’s a church dedicated to Batman the Redeemer. Neurotic scientist Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), a recluse who lives in a ramshackle, decommissioned chapel, works for the Mancom Corp., a sprawling tech bureaucracy that requires employees to work in office cubicles that somewhat resemble old-school arcade-style video-game consoles, but where, in a Steampunk twist, software is transmitted in vials of liquid. Matt Damon and Tilda Swinton also star. At the Sie FilmCenter.
