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
“Jupiter Ascending”
* ½ R. Reviewed on 2C.
“The Seventh Son” PG-13. Reviewed on 5C.
“Son of a Gun”R. Reviewed at .
“The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water”PG. Reviewed on 5C.
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
“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
“Black or White” Drama. * * * PG-13. Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer butt heads as grandparents of a biracial wonder named Eloise in writer-director Mike Binder’s L.A.-set drama. When Elliott’s wife dies unexpectedly, he’s left as sole guardian of his seven-year-old granddaughter. As loving as he is, he’s not entirely prepared for the responsibility. When he rebuffs Rowena’s suggestion of shared custody, things turn increasingly hostile. Anthony Mackie portrays Rowena’s brother and ace attorney who takes on his sister’s cause as a test case on race and culture. “Black or White” is more nimble about affairs of the heart and cultural conflicts than that set-up or the movie’s title suggest. Star-driven, mildly melodramatic, optimistic — there’s much here that’s old-fashioned and just as much achingly contemporary. And Jillian Estel’s charming turn as Eloise has audiences fighting for what’s best for her, too. (Kennedy) 122 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
“A Most Violent Year” Thriller. R. When “New York, New York” lyricist Fred Ebb wrote that immortal line, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” it’s doubtful he imagined the life-or-death stakes such sentiments take on in “A Most Violent Year,” an ’80s-era NYC crime drama in which just making it from one day to the next seems like a major accomplishment. In his third turn behind the camera, writer-director J.C. Chandor has delivered a tough, gritty, richly atmospheric thriller that builds a similar tale of ambition, free enterprise and moral compromise around an essential Big Apple industry: heating oil. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain star. (Scott Foundas, Variety) 124 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
“Project Almanac” Thriller. * PG-13. This film follows a group of high school misfits who invent a time-travel apparatus. David (Jonny Weston), a social outcast and brilliant science mind, finds out that he’s been accepted into MIT but with a scholarship that just isn’t enough. While digging around in old projects done by his late father to try to find anything of value, he and his little sister stumble across an old video recorder of David’s seventh birthday party, where they notice a shadowy figure in the mirror in one of the shots: a 17-year-old David. (Guy D’Aelma The Associated Press) 106 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
“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
“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
