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 TODAY
“A Most Violent Year”R. Reviewed on 6C.
“Black or White” *** PG-13. Reviewed on 5C.
“Black Sea”R. Reviewed on 6C.
“Match”R. Reviewed on 6C.
“Oscar Shorts” Not rated. Not reviewed.
“Project Almanac”*PG-13. Reviewed on 6C.
“Son of a Gun”R. Reviewed on 6C.
“The Loft”R. Not reviewed.
continuing
Selected mini-reviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically:
“American Sniper” War memoir. * * *
R.
American Sniper” is not director Clint Eastwood’s best film — not by a long shot. But this adaptation of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s 2012 best-selling autobiography is arguably his most significant. Over the weekend, the Oscar contender made history at the box office, suggesting that the nation is hungering to engage the invisible wounds of U.S. combat soldiers — even one’s as clear-eyed as Kyle was about duty — as they return home. A beefed-up Bradley Cooper brings psychological heft and laser focus to his portrayal of Kyle who did four tours in Iraq and is credited with 160 confirmed kills. “American Sniper” is not about war so much as it is about a warrior as he tries to make peace with the persistent tug of war and the often muted call of home.
(Kennedy) 132 minutes
“The Babadook” Horror. Not rated. “The Babadook” offers a wonderfully hand-crafted spin on a tale oft told, of parent and child in an old house where things go bump in the night. It manages to deliver real, seat-grabbing jolts. At the Sie FilmCenter. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 93 minutes
“Birdman” Dark comedy. * * * *
R. In this dark, soaring, fantastical comedy, director Alejandro G. Iñárrituhe finds no shortage of the damaged. Michael Keaton nakedly embodies Riggan Thomson, a former superhero franchise star angling for an artistic triumph on Broadway. Thomson tries to mount, direct and star in an adaptation — his own! — of a Raymond Carver short story. Edward Norton plays Mike Shiner, the brilliant thespian Thomson hires, who becomes in many ways a necessary arch-enemy. At the Esquire. (Kennedy) 119 minutes
“Blackhat” Drama. R. In classic Westerns, the heroes wore white hats, while the villains wore black, making it easy to tell them apart. The world’s gone blurry in Michael Mann’s “Blackhat,” a surprisingly inelegant yet breathlessly up-to-the-minute thriller in which the FBI recruits an incarcerated hacker (Chris Hemsworth) to help thwart an international cyber-terrorist. (Peter Debruge, Variety) 134 minutes
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” Action-fantasy. * * ½ PG-13. The final installment of “Hobbit” movies opens with a tense, spectacular battle against fearsome dragon Smaug. Unfortunately, after our heroes fell the beast, the film loses its steely focus. (John Wenzel, The Denver Post) 144 minutes
“The Imitation Game” Drama. * * * ½ PG-13. Benedict Cumberbatch brings intelligence and anguish to this story about Alan Turing and his war-altering work to crack Germany’s Enigma code. Directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Graham Moore, “Imitation” is loosely based on Andrew Hodges’ 1983 tome, “Alan Turing: The Enigma.” There are flashbacks to Turing’s boyhood and leaps forward that tease out the mathematician’s biography. “The Imitation Game” captures a lesser-known chapter in WWII even as it engages, through a more contemporary lens, issues of discrimination. Turing was gay at a time when that was a legal offense. At the Mayan. (Kennedy) 114 minutes
“Inherent Vice” Stoner romp. R. Freely but faithfully adapted by Paul Thomas Anderson from Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 detective novel — the first of the legendary author’s works to reach the screen — Anderson’s seventh feature film is a groovy, richly funny stoner romp. The year is 1970 and the place Gordita Beach. Among the locals is Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), who runs his private-eye business out of a medical office and seems to spend more time scoring grass than solving cases. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 148 minutes
“Into the Woods” Musical. * * * ½ PG. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s 1987’s Broadway musical assembled a of fairy-tale all-stars: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, the Baker and his Wife, Rapunzel, and Jack of bean stalk fame.
(Kennedy) 126 minutes
“Mortdecai” Comedy. * ½ R. Do you want the good news first, or the bad? Let’s go with the good: “Mortdecai,” the farce about a chichi and shady art dealer who helps the British government track down a stolen Goya, isn’t as bad as it looks. The bad news is that “Mortdecai” is a half-baked heist movie with a protagonist who is only barely tolerable. Johnny Depp, man of many accents, plays the lead. Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor also star. (Stephanie Merry, The Washington Post) 107 minutes
“Mr. Turner” Biopic. R. English painting’s renowned master of light, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), gets a suitably illuminating screen biography.
At the Chez. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 149 minutes
“Paddington” Family romp. G.
The Peruvian furball is brought to high-tech but thoroughly endearing life in this bright, breezy and oh-so-British family romp.
(Guy Lodge, Variety) 95 minutes
“Selma” Civil rights drama. * * * *
PG-13.
The latter has come under fire for its portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s relationship. Some of the criticism is earned. Too much of it threatens to shift the focus away from a vital, stirring and significant movie about King and other civil rights leaders, as well as LBJ’s efforts to enfrachise black voters in Selma, Alabama. One of the many fine achievements of “Selma” is the way director Ava DuVernay makes a subtle but persistent point that a number of players lead the way forward.
(Kennedy) 125 minutes
“Still Alice” Drama. * * * ½ PG-13. At the end of the month, Julianne Moore is likely to get an Oscar for her portrayal of Alice Howland, a Columbia University linguistics professor who at 50 is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The award part of that is hardly news. The Alzheimer’s mention is hardly spoiler. Fearing from the get-go the devastation Alice and her family face in “Still Alice” adds to directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s affecting dram, based on the novel by Lisa Genova, a neurologist. Alec Baldwin plays steadfast husband John. Kate Bosworth, Kristen Stewart and Hunter Parrish portray their very different but present children. Directed with delicate appreciation for the more quotidian rhythms of life by indie stalwarts Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, “Still Alice” also teases horror flick gestures. As if to ask — rightly — what could be scarier than the aggressive erosion of the identity each of us builds with our memories?
At the Chez. (Kennedy) 99 minutes
“Taken 3” Action. PG-13. Running out of kidnapped relatives for Liam Neeson’s ex-CIA killing machine to rescue, screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen turn him into a fugitive framed for murder. (Maggie Lee, Variety) 118 minutes
“The Theory of Everything” Romantic biopic. * * * *
PG-13.
Oscar-winner James Marsh’s drama about theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and mate Jane Hawking, née Wilde, tussles with quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity. But its intellectual-emotional force also comes from being simultaneously being a stirring romance.
(Kennedy) 123 minutes
“Unbroken” Biographical drama. * * ½ PG-13. While admirable, director Angelia Jolie’s sophomore feature about the remarkable life of Louis “Louie” Zamperini, does not come close to the humane epiphanies of its source: Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 best-seller.
(Kennedy) 137 minutes
“Whiplash” Drama. * * *
½ R. Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s harrowing and elegant tale of an ambitious young jazz drummer and his bullying teacher is not a terrific jazz music film, yet, the film is one of the year’s best. At the Mayan. (Kennedy) 106 minutes
“Wild” Drama. * * *
½ R. No doubt, there are hikers who have taken on the challenges and wonders of the Pacific Crest Trail better prepared than Cheryl Strayed was for her 1,100-mile trek from the Mojave Desert to Washington state. Yet it was this grieving young woman who penned one of the finest books about loss and recovery. At the Mayan. (Kennedy) 106 minutes
