‘The Circle,’ ‘Sleight.’
‘The Circle’
Mae (Emma Watson) has just landed a job with her dream company, an expansive social media/tech company with an even more expansive social agenda.
Even as she’s nurtured by the company’s visionary CEO, played by Tom Hanks, she starts seeing dangers in the company’s efforts to co-opt, well, everything.
“The Circle,” adapted by Dave Eggers from his novel of the same name, also stars John Boyega as a conscience-stricken programmer, and Patton Oswalt as one of the tech company’s founders. It’s Hanks’ second Eggers-based movie in two years; last year, he was terrific in “A Hologram for the King.”
“The Circle” is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements including drug use and a sexual situation, and for brief language. It runs for 110 minutes.
‘Sleight’
Milwaukee singer-turned-actor Jacob Latimore plays a street magician with more than tricks up his sleeve in “Sleight.”
Because his mother died recently, he’s raising his younger sister on his own. However, since street tricks (some more subterfuge than magic) aren’t enough to pay the bills, he takes a gig selling “party” drugs to frat guys on behalf of a ruthless father-figure of a drug dealer played by Dulé Hill.
But when he falls for a girl (Seychelle Gabriel), Latimore realizes he’s got to get out of his old life for his sake, and his sister’s.
Directed and co-written by video director JD Dillard, “Sleight” is getting some decent reviews. Hollywood Reporter critic Justin Lowe liked it well enough, for Dillard’s stylish risk-taking and Latimore’s “invested performance.”
“Sleight” is rated R for pervasive language, drug content and some violence. It runs for 90 minutes.
‘How to Be a Latin Lover’
When he loses his rich, much older meal ticket, what’s a middle-age gigolo to do?
In the case of Eugenio Derbez in the comedy “How to Be
a Latin Lover,” go back to your roots — or more precisely, move in with your sister and her young son and complicate their lives.
The latest crossborder comedy crossover, “Latin Lover” has a wideranging cast, including Salma Hayek, Raquel Welch, Rob Lowe, Kristen Bell, Michael Cera and Raphael Alejandro. But it’s chiefly a vehicle for Derbez, who also starred in 2011’s “Instructions Not Included,” the biggest hit of the made-inMexico import comedies to hit U.S. theaters in recent years.
The movie is also one of the attractions for Marcus Theatres’ first CineLatino Milwaukee Film Festival, showing through Sunday at the Marcus South Shore Cinema, 7261 S. 13th St., Oak Creek. For details, tickets and a complete schedule for the 12-movie festival, go to marcustheatres.com/cinelatino.
“How to Be a Latin Lover” is rated PG-13 for crude humor, sexual references and gestures, and brief nudity. It runs for 115 minutes.
‘Their Finest’
In 1940 London, the British propaganda machine gears up to get everyone on the home front to keep calm and carry on. Just one problem: The guys making the movies to win the war are all guys and their messages are falling flat with women.
So the ministry hires a woman writer and puts her in charge of providing the “woman’s touch.” Soon, however, she wants to do more, and her colleagues start to realize she can.
Starring Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin and Bill Nighy,
“Their Finest,” directed by Lone Scherfig, is the first of a slew of movies coming out of Britain this year that focus on the early years of World War II; the drama of Dunkirk, the focus of Christopher Nolan’s war drama hitting theaters July 21, is a central narrative in this movie, too. It’s getting pretty good reviews so far: Seattle Times critic Moira Macdonald gave “Their Finest” 31⁄2 stars, calling it “utterly charming.”
“Their Finest” is rated R for some language and brief sexuality. It runs for 117 minutes.