NOW IN THEATERS
BAD MOMS
Parenting can be an emotional trial, between the endless logistics, the constant expectations of perfection, and the damning judgment of mom-and-pop peers. This comedy by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (writers of The Hangover) sticks a pin in the cult of parenting, casting Mila Kunis as Amy, a mother who is stretched so thin that she finally snaps. Along with two friends (Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Bell), she takes a walk on the wild side of motherhood, complete with recklessness and excessive drinking. This dismissive behavior eventually puts her at odds with an uptight PTA president (the always-great Christina Applegate). The movie’s antics can get obnoxious here and there (Hahn’s character, a promiscuous single mom, lays it on thick in particular), but it’s still a kick to watch an R-rated movie about figuring out how to be the best mother you can be. Kunis is terrific — she and the screenplay ground all of the naughty behavior with a surprisingly strong emotional core, which makes the whole movie work. Rated R. 101 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; Dream Catcher. (Robert Ker)
CAFÉ SOCIETY
Woody Allen’s latest teems with themes, plots, and subplots dear to his philosophy and sometimes close to his life — and does so with the kind of easygoing storytelling rhythms and deft wisecracks that have become a trademark of his style at its best. Here we have a crazy, funny concoction of interrelated stories built around Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg), a Brooklyn kid who tries his luck in the dream factory of Hollywood in the ‘30s and then returns to the real enchanted city of New York. He falls in love with a pretty secretary, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) and gets shown the Hollywood ropes by his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a namedropping super-agent. Back in the Big Apple, he goes into the nightclub business with his hoodlum brother Ben (Corey Stoll). There’s romance, betrayal, family, religion, murder, and fabulous music, and it’s all seen through the peerless lens of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Rated PG-13. 96 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
Originality of premise can only do so much for writerdirector Matt Ross’ strained hymn to natural living. Viggo Mortensen is Ben, a bearded patriarch who has taken his family off the grid and deep into the woods, where they kill deer with hunting knives and eat the bloody, still-warm liver
as a rite of passage. Mom is absent, and we learn early on that she has just committed suicide. Her father (Frank Langella, not quite as villainous as we first suspect) forbids his son-in-law to attend the funeral, which only eggs him on, so the tribe (six kids, home-schooled and brilliant) piles into the family bus and heads for Dad’s Palm Springs-ish estate (somewhere in New Mexico). It’s épater la bourgeoisie all the way, but none of it rings true. And ultimately, it turns out good old civilization isn’t the worst thing after all. Rated R. 118 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
EAT THAT QUESTION: FRANK ZAPPA IN HIS OWN WORDS
Frank Zappa, irreverent musician and bandleader, didn’t shy away from the television cameras and used the medium to dispel notions of him as a dirty hippie, denying that he did LSD and claiming to be an ideological conservative rather than anarchist. What the controversial composer wanted to be known for was the work that reflected his broad tastes and early interest in 20th-century composition. Thanks to Thorsten Schütte’s smart film, even the most devoted fans of Zappa will learn something new about the very serious man who gave us the novelty hit “Valley Girl.” Rated R. 93 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Bill Kohlhaase)
GHOSTBUSTERS
Those who agonized that this summer’s all-female Ghostbusters reboot would bring shame upon the franchise can rest easy — or they can stay home and miss out on all the fun. Helmed by director Paul Feig, the film stars Abby (Melissa McCarthy) and Erin (Kristen Wiig) as feuding scientists who are eventually united by their mutual love for ghost hunting. They’re joined by a couple of relative newcomers: the madcap Kate McKinnon as weirdo engineer Dr. Jillian Holtzmann and Leslie Jones as Patty, a brassy MTA worker with an encyclopedic knowledge of New York history. Chris Hemsworth amusingly fills in as the team’s brawny but dumb blond secretary, who is shamelessly objectified by the entire squad. The first half crackles with the cast’s electricity, but too much CGI and multilayered action elements weigh down the finale. The jokes (often seemingly at the expense of the movie’s sexist detractors) are fast and furious, many of the scares are genuinely eerie, and it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the mindless adventure in time-honored summer-movie fashion. Rated PG-13. 116 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14. (Molly Boyle)
HUNT FOR THE WILDER PEOPLE
Ricky Baker (newcomer Julian Dennison) is a very bad egg. We have this on the authority of his child welfare officer, Paula Hall (Rachel House). The movie opens with Paula delivering the pudgy, sullen thirteen-year-old into the hands of his last-chance foster family, the remote bush dwelling farm couple Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her husband, the grumpy old Hec (Sam Neill). Circumstances result in Ricky running away. He gets hopelessly lost and is found by savvy woodsman Hec. But Hec is injured, and the two have to hole up in the woods while he heals. The authorities assume kidnapping and worse, and a massive manhunt ensues for Hec and Ricky. The bulk of the movie follows as the two traverse the New Zealand bush. All this is in the inventive hands of Kiwi writerdirector Taika Waititi. It’s the well-worn story of the gradual, grudging bonding of a curmudgeon and a kid, but told with a deep reservoir of charm and surprise. Rated PG-13. 101 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE
It’s now been 12 years since the original Ice Age film and four since Ice Age: Continental Drift, and the series is still going strong despite the fact that Americans are no longer terribly passionate about it (the last one did so-so stateside). The rest of the world, however, made the last film a smash and still loves that animated mammoth (Ray Romano), sabertoothed tiger (Denis Leary), and sloth (John Leguizamo), so the franchise keeps marching on. This time, their adventures find them up against a meteor on a crash course with the planet. Rated PG. 94 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Dream Catcher. (Not reviewed)
THE INNOCENTS
In this tense and troubling drama, French director Anne Fontaine revisits a documented horror from the immediate aftermath of World War II, when a remote Polish convent was invaded by occupying Soviet troops who repeatedly raped the nuns, leaving many of them pregnant. Mathilde (Lou de Laâge), a young French Red Cross doctor, is summoned to the convent to deliver a baby. Mathilde must sneak away from her duties at the Red Cross, and the Mother Abbess (Agata Kulesza) resists outside interference in these convent matters. Exposure of their situation could result in disgrace and a closing of the place. This is a story of choices and the absence of choice, of nightmarish fundamentalist conviction, superstition, and the horror of physical abuse. Only at the end does the film make a choice of its own that steers it into the shallows of screenplay contrivance. The performances and the direction are powerful, and Caroline Champetier’s cinematography, which paints the convent in chilly blues and locates it in a baffling maze of forest, is stunning. Rated PG-13. 115 minutes. In Polish, Russian, and French with subtitles. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards)
JASON BOURNE
In 2012’s The Bourne Legacy, the studio heads behind the Bourne franchise attempted to transition it from Matt Damon (as Jason Bourne) and director Paul Greengrass to Jeremy Renner (as Aaron Cross) and director Tony Gilroy. Alas, the effort met with a tepid response, and so Damon is Bourne again, once more with Greengrass in tow. This time, Bourne has most of his memory intact, and he attempts to learn more about his past while being pursued by a shadow organization called Ironhand. Rated PG-13. 123 minutes. Regal DeVargas; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; Dream Catcher. (Not reviewed)
LIGHTS OUT
This horror film appeals very literally to people’s fear of the dark, centering on a spirit who only appears when you turn out the lights and who gets closer and closer every time you flick that switch. Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) discovers that her little brother (Gabriel Bateman) is being haunted by this creature, which also stalked her at a young age. She uncovers a dark chapter in her mother’s past — and part of it might not be done with the family. Rated PG-13. 81 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Dream Catcher. (Not reviewed)
THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS: YOYO MA AND THE SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, charismatic and introspective in this documentary, unites musicians from all over the world (with a particular emphasis on the Middle East and Asia) as the Silk Road Ensemble. This engrossing film highlights Ma along with other musicians, including Chinese pipa player Wu Man and Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor — and ties it together with outstanding photography, crisp editing, and predictably wonderful music. Rated PG-13. 96 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Robert Ker)
NERVE
This movie imagines a sprawling virtual reality game that people play on their phones, in which “watchers” force “players” to perform a series of dares. A young woman named Venus (Emma Roberts) finds herself compelled to pair up with a stranger named Ian (Dave Franco) in an increasingly dangerous mission where their final goal might be their very survival. Rated PG-13. 96 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Dream Catcher. (Not reviewed)
NINE LIVES
The body-switching movie, in which a character exchanges bodies with another human or an animal, learning life lessons in the process, used to be a lot more popular. This comedy by director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) is a throwback to those days. It stars Kevin Spacey as Tom Brand, a billionaire who has neglected his family while tending to his business empire. Enter a mystical pet-store owner (Christopher Walken), who transforms Tom into a house cat so that he can use the experience to grow closer to his family. Jennifer Garner also stars. Rated PG. 87 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Dream Catcher. (Not reviewed)
THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS
In structure, the latest entry in the summer animation sweepstakes is Toy Story adapted to domestic animals. What mischief goes on when the humans aren’t around? What adventures do these lovable critters get up to? But Pets never rises to the Toy Story level of imagination. The first part of the movie is content to imagine the shenanigans your four-legged pals might actually be involved in when you close that door. But there are 90 minutes to fill, and before long, we’re off to car chases, physical mayhem, and all sorts of reptiles and birds of prey, led by a rogue bunny who has it in for humankind. There are some undeniably funny moments
but also long stretches where you can check your watch or make mental grocery lists. The movie is voiced by an all-star cast led by Louis C.K. and Kevin Hart. Rated PG. 90 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Regal DeVargas; Dream Catcher. (Jonathan Richards)
STAR TREK BEYOND
So far, 2009’s Star Trek (the first in the current franchise) and now Star Trek Beyond (number three) disprove the “rule” that even-numbered Star Trek films are better than the odd-numbered ones. The crew of the USS Enterprise launch a rescue mission to the planet Altamid, only to find themselves caught in an ambush. When alien tough guy Krall (Idris Elba) ransacks the Enterprise searching for a component of an ancient bioweapon he plans to use against the Starbase Yorktown, the crew abandons ship and they find themselves trapped on Altamid. Chris Pine (Captain James T. Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock), Karl Urban (Doctor “Bones” McCoy), Zoe Saldana (Lieutenant Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scotty), and the late Anton Yelchin (Chekov) all reprise their roles. Star Trek Beyond balances the action with more character development, intrigue, and internal conflict than the previous films. Fans new and old should appreciate this episodic entry for its focus on beloved characters and a more original plot than the previous film, 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness. Rated PG-13. 122 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Regal DeVargas; Violet Crown. (Michael Abatemarco)
SUICIDE SQUAD
After the divisive, disappointing Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, the masterminds of the DC comics’ cinematic universe attempt to win fans back with this trashy (in a mostly good way) story of a bunch of dangerous criminals who are forced by the government to fight superpowered villains. The movie nails its casting with a diverse array of actors, especially Will Smith (as the sharpshooting Deadshot), Margot Robbie (as the Joker’s nihilistic girlfriend, Harley Quinn), and Viola Davis (as the no-nonsense bureaucrat Amanda Waller), all of whom are excellent. However, director David Ayer (Training Day) sends them on a mission that isn’t exciting and is rendered in a murky visual palette, leading up to a forgettable climax. Jared Leto’s blinged-out Joker is an acquired taste, and yes, Batman (Ben Affleck, uncredited) also makes an appearance. Ayer tries to usher the plot and too many character introductions along by using dozens of popular rock and rap songs, but the result is a mess. Still, there are healthy seeds planted for a superior sequel, and the box office numbers suggest that we’ll get one. Rated PG-13. 130 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; Dream Catcher. Screens in 2-D only at Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Ker)