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Ash Is Purest White, written and directed by Zhangke Jia
(not rated, 2 hours, 16 minutes) This visually arresting and masterfully paced gangster melodrama is structured in three parts to tell the story of violent love between a cleverly scheming heroine and her powerful mobster boyfriend.
Good and evil, gain and loss, twitchy pop music, and a clear, unsentimental take on modern China are persistent themes as Zhao Qiao (Tao Zhao, the director’s wife) and her lover Guo Bin (Fan Liao) take on the criminal competitors thriving around them in 2001 post-industrial Datong in ever-evolving China’s Shanxi Province.
Fans of the unexpected will find much to like here. With Zheng Xu, Yi’nan Diao. Subtitled.
Shazam! (PG-13, 2 hours, 12 minutes) Brightly focused on fulfillment, this sweet, smarter-thanm0st fantasy adventure — remarkably devoid of the genre’s cynicism — presents audiences with a 14-year-old kid in foster care who discovers that he can transform himself into an adult super-hero by uttering a single magic word. With Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel; directed by David F. Sandberg.
Teen Spirit (PG-13, 1 hour, 33 minutes) The story is nothing new — it’s a contemporary interpretation of Cinderella — yet director Max Minghella (son of Anthony Minghella) brings a fresh sense of musical and visual style to the proceedings. The story concerns teenage Violet (Elle Fanning), who overcomes her inherent shyness with the goal of finding a new life outside of her dreary small town by entering a local singing competition. With Agnieszka Grochowska, Ziatko Buric, Millie Brady.
Breakthrough (PG, 1 hour, 56 minutes) Yet another mediocre faith-based movie, elevated by a finely calibrated cast, follows true believer Joyce Smith (Chrissy Metz) as she prays for her 14-year-old adopted son to recover after he falls into an icy Missouri lake. Despite the unlikelihood of such an outcome, others join her in pleading for a miracle. Based on a true story. With Josh Lucas, Topher Grace, Marcel Ruiz, Sam Trammell, Dennis Haysbert; directed by Roxann Dawson.
Mountain Rest (not rated, 1 hour, 32 minutes) An eccentric past-her-prime actress (Frances Conroy, whose Golden Globe-winning performance had much to do with the power of HBO series Six Feet Under), taking refuge in a tiny mountain town, invites her estranged daughter and 16-yearold granddaughter to a celebra
and reconciliation. Yet there’s a much more interesting hidden motive at play. With Natalia Dyer, Kate Lyn Shell, Shawn Hatosy; written and directed by Alex O Eaton.
Wildland (aka Young Men and Fire) (not rated, 1 hour, 17 minutes) As the frequency and intensity of wildfires increases in the American West, small crews of fanatically focused firefighters battle to contain the blazes with methods that haven’t changes in 60 years. This mostly verite documentary by Alex Jablonski (a certified wildland firefighter as well) and Kahlil Hudson, shooting for two years, follows a battalion of those courageous and highly motivated risk-takers, both on the job and off.