NOW IN THEATERS
ALOFT
Jennifer Connelly plays a single mother with two sons. After one of them dies, she and her other son (played as an adult by Cillian Murphy) struggle for their entire lives to get over the incident. This tale of tragedy is told with more than a touch of woo-woo along with scenes of training hawks. Rated R. 112 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Not reviewed)
AMY
Amy Winehouse was a talent too big for her small body, a body she was hellbent on destroying with drugs and booze. Using interviews, home movies, and news footage, director Asif Kapadia has documented the rise, fall, and early exit (at twenty-seven) of this tragic diva, a North London Jewish girl with a big voice and tiny self-esteem. Even if you weren’t a fan, you’ll be impressed by her talent, though her intensely personal numbers sound less like songs than sung journal entries. As this fresh, appealing girl gets sucked into the terrifying maelstrom of fame and paparazzi, surrounded by parasites that include her father and her husband, you watch in fascinated horror. It’s an agonizingly slow trainwreck, a good half hour too long, but still unsettling and memorable.
Not rated. 128 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Jonathan Richards)
ANT-MAN
Marvel Entertainment offers a palate-cleanser after the overstuffed Avengers: Age of Ultron with this relatively small heist picture about Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a thief who finds a suit that allows him to shrink himself and communicate with ants. The shrinking effects are indeed outstanding and the use of scale is occasionally inventive. Unfortunately, it takes a full 90 minutes to really get to that. In the meantime, you’re treated to flat jokes, a daddy-issues plot, and a tedious parade of all the clichés of superhero-origin movies. Michael Douglas co-stars as the retired Ant-Man of yesteryear. Rated PG-13. 117 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Robert Ker)
BLESS ME, ULTIMA
In lesser hands, the film adaptation of Rudolfo Anaya’s classic novel could have been cloyingly precious magical realism. But 2013’s Bless Me, Ultima, directed by Carl Franklin, was shot in and around Santa Fe, which imbues the story of murder and witches in World War II-era Northern New Mexico with authenticity. Antonio (Luke Ganalon) is six years old when his grandmother Ultima (Miriam Colon), a curandera, comes to stay with his family. Performances are mostly strong, and the dialogue moves quickly, as does the action. Rated PG-13. 105 minutes. In English and Spanish without subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Jennifer Levin)
CARTEL LAND
Filmmaker Matthew Heineman embeds himself in the incredibly dangerous world of Mexico’s drug cartel wars to give viewers a gripping inside look. His documentary, executive produced by Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, mainly shows us this fight between cartels and citizens through the eyes of people on the frontlines — particularly the citizen militias on both sides of the border, who have taken matters into their own hands in the face of government indifference. The Mexican side, where the charismatic Dr. Mireles leads the AutoDefensas group, is more engaging, and Heineman wisely spends more time there. The results are powerful, immediate, and important but be warned: Some images
and stories are harrowing. Rated R. 98 minutes. In English and Spanish with subtitles. Regal DeVargas. (Robert Ker)
THE GALLOWS
This year’s horror counterprogramming to the July parade of blockbusters comes in the form of a story about a high school play that is derailed when tragedy strikes. Rated R. 81 minutes.
Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
GEMMA BOVERY
To reinterpret Tolstoy: Happy housewives may each be happy in their own way, but bored housewives, it seems, are all like Madame Bovary. Especially if they share (almost) a name with Flaubert’s famous adulteress. This soft, pleasing updating of the literary classic brings a beautiful young English matron, Gemma Bovery (Gemma Arterton) and her husband Charles (Jason Flemyng) to rural Normandy. Gemma
Bovery’s story, mostly in French sprinkled with some English, is revealed from the sad-eyed perspective of Martin Joubert (Fabrice Luchini), her nosy neighbor across the way. Joubert is the local baker, in semi-retirement from his life as a Parisian book editor, and with his literary leanings, he sees and projects the Flaubert story onto her. Gemma doesn’t quite suffer the passionate discontent of Flaubert’s heroine, but she still manages to find her way into an affair that easily echoes the book’s romance. But Fontaine has a lot more fun with it than Flaubert did. Rated R. 99 minutes. In French and English with subtitles. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards)
INSIDE OUT
In the latest animated picture by Pixar, the interior of the human mind is portrayed as a control room operated by various emotions. When a girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) moves to a new city and both Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) go missing from the control room, it sets off an adventure through the mental landscape that is full of imagination and ingenuity. The movie aims to jerk tears — sometimes getting too goopy in pursuit of this goal — but it’s a thoughtful, original film that all ages will enjoy. Rated PG. 94 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Robert Ker)
IRIS
Less is definitely not more if you’re Iris Apfel — the focus of this slight, mostly lighthearted documentary from one of the masters of the genre, Albert Maysles. Apfel is a self-described “geriatric starlet” (she’s ninetythree) and a champion of wildly colorful outfits and oversized accessories. After a highly successful career in interior design, she has settled into a new role as a fashion icon and designer’s muse. It’s a pleasure to spend 80-something minutes listening to her thoughts on everything from personal style to aging, and while she doesn’t dispense financial advice, when Iris Apfel talks, people should listen. Rated PG-13. 83 minutes. The Screen.
(Laurel Gladden)
JURASSIC WORLD
The theme park from the first Jurassic Park film is up and running. To maintain revenue, its creators must constantly genetically engineer bigger, deadlier dinosaurs. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard play characters who must try to survive mankind’s latest attempt to play God. There are just enough Spielbergisms in this film, from the perfectly cast kids to the sense of wonder and dread in the first hour, to offer some solid entertainment. Unfortunately, the movie is stretched too thin between plots that it isn’t even clear who the main character is. If you’re there to watch roaring and chomping, however, you’ll get that and then some. Rated PG-13. 124 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Robert Ker)
LA SAPIENZA
Director Eugène Green, an expatriate American living in France, takes us on a gorgeous tour of the work of the 17th-century Italian Baroque architect Francesco Borromini. The principals are Alexandre Schmidt (Fabrizio Rongione), a successful Swiss architect, and his wife, Aliénor (Christelle Prot Landman), a psychologist and social scientist. During a crisis in his career and life, they go to Italy. There they meet Goffredo (Ludovico Succio), a young architecture student, and his sister Lavinia (Arianna Nastro) and learn some important life lessons from them. The movie is styled with rigid formalism, but it works by drawing us into the emotional lives of the characters. Not rated. 101 minutes. In French and Italian with subtitles. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards)
MAGIC MIKE XXL
Director Steven Soderbergh’s 2012 Magic Mike was a left-field hit that delighted viewers of both genders and helped revitalize Matthew McConaughey’s career. Neither Soderbergh nor McConaughey return for the sequel, but star Channing Tatum is, and there should be enough beefcake and humor to enjoy an encore. Rated R. 115 minutes. DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL
In this somewhat quirky teenage drama, Thomas Mann plays Greg, a self-absorbed boy who is made to hang out with Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a girl with leukemia. As time passes, they become friends, and he begins to truly care for her. Rated PG-13.
105 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Not reviewed)
MINIONS
The jibberish-spouting pill-shaped yellow thingies from the Despicable Me movies get their own spinoff, and if you’re wondering if the characters are interesting enough to warrant their own movie, the answer is no. The setting is the 1960s, and the Minions, trying to find their way in the world, join up with Scarlet Overkill (voiced by Sandra Bullock) to help her conquer England. The animation is nice but the movie never survives the fact that its protagonists don’t actually talk. Without the benefit of language, the filmmakers rely on tepid visual humor and tired comic beats. The Minions are never as cute as the film’s massive marketing campaign insists they are, and by the time we hit the third-rate action of the climax, they’ve really overstayed their welcome. Rated PG. 91 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. Screens in 2-D only at DreamCatcher. (Robert Ker)
MR. HOLMES
It is 1947. Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) is ninety, long retired, living in seclusion in Sussex, and keeping bees. He is cared for by his widowed housekeeper, Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney), and her precocious young son Roger (Milo Parker). Holmes is engaged in writing his own recollections of his final case, one that still troubles him, the case that led him to give up detecting. Watson’s account of the affair tricked it out with success, but Holmes remembers it differently — to the extent that he can remember it at all. That great mind is beginning to slip its moorings. There are three story strands covering different periods and places,
and director Bill Condon, adapting Mitch Cullin’s 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, weaves them together with unhurried skill, abetted by the great McKellen. Rated PG. 103 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Jonathan Richards)
THE NEW RIJKSMUSEUM
Oeke Hoogendijk’s two-part documentary completes a trifecta that began with Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery and continued with Johannes Holzhausen’s The Great Museum. Hoogendijk’s feature is the most accessible and deals with the restoration of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, a building that houses masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other Dutch Masters. Its narrative structure follows the political and financial pitfalls that plagued the project and staff, including inflating costs and a change of leadership. It’s a dramatic telling that entertains and inspires. Not rated. 110 minutes. In Dutch, French, and English with subtitles, Center for Contemporary Arts. (Michael Abatemarco)
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
This odd collection of 39 vignettes functions something like a long, multipart poem that is very conscious of its status as poetry, as an art film, and as a send-up of art films. The humor of tedium and the specter of death combine in wry interactions linked by a pair of sad-sack salesmen hawking novelty items — as well as a mysterious war and a little bit of time travel. If Steven Soderbergh and Terry Gilliam made a film together while they were both depressed, it might turn out something like this. Rated PG-13. 101 minutes. In Swedish with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jennifer Levin)
SPY
The indomitable Melissa McCarthy launches a franchise with this fast-paced, hilarious send-up of the Bond template. She plays Susan Cooper, a CIA desk jockey working the computers at Langley and piping instructions into the ear of dashing agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law). When things go awry, Susan is sent into the field to prevent a nuclear device from falling into the hands of terrorists. Writer-director Paul Feig keeps things lively and hits the feminist and overweight notes with wit and compassion. The acting is crisp, the action is explosive, and the dialogue is funny, though it undercuts itself by leaning harder on the scatological than necessary. Rated R. 120 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
TERMINATOR GENISYS
The year is 2029 and John Connor (Jason Clarke) is fighting a losing war against the robots. Connor sends a lieutenant named Kyle (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to prevent the robots from stopping the human resistance before it begins. Alas, the 1984 Kyle returns to is not the one we know but some kind of alternate reality. But who cares? Old man Schwarzenegger faces off against a CGI-rendered young Schwarzenegger, and that’s all that matters. Rated PG-13. 125 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
TESTAMENT OF YOUTH
Vera Brittain’s World War I memoir, published 15 years after the end of the conflict, became a classic of anti-war literature. Director James Kent handles the familiar material with sensitivity and emotional power. There’s very little that is groundbreaking here but much that is heartbreaking. You will be reminded of other war movies, like Gone With the Wind, with eager young men rushing off to war with stars in their eyes and returning with bullets in their chests, leaving arms and legs and illusions behind on the battlefield, if they return at all. Alicia Vikander, a new star who is suddenly everywhere, dominates the movie, and with her Audrey Hepburn-like beauty, she makes us feel every moment of the deepening horrors of war. Rated PG-13. 129 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Jonathan Richards)
TRAINWRECK
Director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) returns with another comedy about people who have a hard time growing up. Here, instead of focusing on an overgrown man-child, he looks at an overgrown woman-child, played by Amy Schumer (who also wrote the script). Her character can’t get her act together — until, perhaps, she meets the right guy (Bill Hader). Rated R. 125 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)