NOW IN THEATERS
ALIEN: COVENANT
With the 2012 film Prometheus and now this follow-up, it feels like director Ridley Scott — officially an octogenarian later this year — is attempting to release his grand treatise on life. These sci-fi films, which center on humans who seek out their maker and man-made androids with their own sets of daddy issues, meditate on who we are, where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and what it means to be human and to create. If Scott must attach these themes to the Alien franchise to get them made, then the Lovecraftian terror of the unknown only adds a cherry to the thematic sundae. In this film, a colonization mission comes into the ruined ship from Prometheus, where they encounter the aliens that doomed that mission. The usual game of hunter and hunted ensues, but the good stuff lies in the relationship between the ship’s robot, Walter (Michael Fassbender) and the android from the first film, an earlier model named David (also Fassbender, a wonder in both roles). With lush, detailed sets and awe-inspiring effects and cinematography, the film recalls everything from silent horror movies to The Bride of Frankenstein to Scott’s own Blade Runner, and is so strong that you don’t mind if the movie’s secondary characters are undeveloped and the horror elements fall back on cliché. Katherine Waterston and Danny McBride fit the bill perfectly as the primary human heroes. Rated R. 122 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Robert Ker)
BAYWATCH
The action-packed, lifeguard-themed TV show Baywatch achieved tremendous success throughout the world in the 1990s. Millions tuned in to watch hunks and babes, led by David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson, running in the sand, and most viewers knew the show would not be winning any awards. This film adaptation winks back at the audience with knowing jokes, relayed by stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron — two beefy actors who are known to use their hard bodies for humor. Priyanka Chopra and Alexandra Daddario are among the actresses wearing the red swimsuits, and longtime fans will be relieved to know that Hasselhoff and Anderson also appear. Rated R. 116 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
THE COLORADO
This 2016 documentary about the Colorado River boasts a score of stunning vocal music with cinematography that is alternately awe-inspiring (the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Grand Canyon) and depressing (the dams, the Salton Sea, and the dried-up delta in Mexico). Mark Rylance narrates text written by Santa Fe author William deBuys and director Murat Eyuboglu. The film’s multidimensional portrait of the river includes spotlights on a 17th-century Jesuit mapmaker, a 19th-century explorer, and a 20th-century farmworker. The documentary offers an educational immersion in ecology and regional history, and it’s just a joy of an experience. Not rated. 91 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Paul Weideman)
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LONG HAUL
The Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise centers on a twelveyear-old boy who navigates a series of embarrassing events in middle school, and how much you’ll enjoy the books and films depends on how close you are to the age and gender of their protagonist. The fourth film stars Jason Drucker as the wimpy kid, here on a road trip with his family. It aspires to be a film like National Lampoon’s Vacation, but more resembles something you’d see on Nickelodeon, complete with zany music, scatological jokes, and the visual feel of a sitcom. There are funny bits (including, inexplicably, a shot-for-shot spoof of the Psycho shower scene), but the movie suffers from pulling the series away from the schoolyards and locker-filled hallways of its roots. Alicia Silverstone, once a teenage icon in Clueless, now plays the lame mom who asks her family not to check their phones on the road trip. Parents bringing their kids to this movie will have a hard time resisting that temptation as well. Rated PG. 90 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Robert Ker)
THE COMMUNE
Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg tells this story of a 1970s commune in Denmark. The group of people get together with the best of intentions, wide-eyed with naiveté and optimism, but soon the personality clashes and individual motives make the dream sour. Not rated. 111 minutes. In Danish with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Not reviewed)
EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING
After the blockbuster success of 2014’s The Fault in Our Stars, stories involving seriously ill teenage girls who find dashing boys who bring them joy and love has become a genre unto itself. This latest take, based on the 2015 young-adult novel, involves a teenager (Amandla Stenberg) who is forced to stay inside her house because of an autoimmune disease. When the boy across the street (Nick Robinson) communicates with her through their windows, a romance blossoms. Rated PG-13. 96 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS
In the crew of his starship Enterprise, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry sought to represent the varied peoples of planet Earth, along with a few other life forms. A new microcosm of human diversity showed up in 2001 with The Fast
and the Furious, about a multi-cultural band of brothers and sisters united by their singular inability to drive fifty-five. The
Fast series’ casting department struck gold, particularly with the easy rapport between leads Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez, but the films’ scope has expanded to such an extent that the last few entries minimize street racing in favor of cockamamie claptrap about international terrorists and saving the world. The trend is particularly galling in this movie, which opens with an enjoyable romp in Cuba’s classic-car scene and then swerves with zero explanation into a national-security-related heist in Berlin. Did the projectionist skip a reel? By the time we’ve reached the finale, involving vehicular combat between cars and a submarine, it’s clear that the franchise has relegated its likable characters to the back seat. What matters isn’t what’s under the hood, it’s who’s behind the wheel, or so goes the wisdom of Dominic Toretto (Diesel). The Fast movies should take that sentiment to heart and focus more on people and less on things that go boom. Rated PG-13. 136 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Jeff Acker)
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2
The gang from the 2014 space opera returns: Chris Pratt as Star Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, and Dave Bautista as Drax, with Vin Diesel voicing the treelike Groot (in adorably miniaturized form this time around) and Bradley Cooper voicing the snarky raccoon Rocket. The plot is thoroughly uninvolving, but you won’t notice amid all the intergalactic fireworks and dazzling action sequences choreographed to the sounds of Fleetwood Mac, ELO, and Cheap Trick. The highlight is the rapid-fire zinger-laden dialogue, especially as delivered by Bautista, whose comic timing is impeccable. All the explosions get tiresome and the violence can be troubling, but at moments the movie plays like Seinfeld in space. Rated PG-13. 136 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Jeff Acker)
HOW TO BE A LATIN LOVER
Mexican comedy star Eugenio Derbez gets his biggest shot to cross over into the United States yet. He plays Máximo, a man who has created a pampered life for himself by seducing wealthy older women. When he is humbled and must move in with his sister (Salma Hayek), he learns lessons about what is really important in life. Rob Lowe also stars. Rated PG-13. 115 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
KEDI
Director Ceyda Torun grew up surrounded by the street cats of Istanbul. “They were my friends and confidants,“she wrote, “and I missed their presence in all the other cities I ever lived in.” This warmhearted film, shot partly from human perspective and partly from cat height, is a love letter to the felines and the people who share her native city. “People who don’t love animals can’t love people either — I know that much,” observes one matter-of-fact fishmonger. Yet the film is not sappy, just generous and wise. By the end, you’ll feel as if a cat has been purring on your lap for 80 minutes. Not rated. 80 minutes. In Turkish with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (James Keller)
KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
In 2009, director Guy Ritchie reimagined the Sherlock Holmes stories as a kinetic action flick. Now, he attempts to give another British myth a similar transformation by applying his visual style to King Arthur. This story focuses on the years surrounding Arthur’s (Charlie Hunnam) pulling the sword from the stone and becoming a somewhat reluctant king. Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, and Eric Bana also star. Rated PG-13. 126 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
THE LOVERS
Michael (Tracy Letts) and Mary (Debra Winger) are unhappily married. They maintain the facade of matrimony, sleeping in the same bed while surreptitiously texting their secret partners (played by Melora Walters and Aidan Gillen) — who have been promised legitimacy and acknowledgement — the word “soon.” And then one day, Michael and Mary start cheating anew — on their lovers, with each other. This focused, tonally neutral film from writerdirector Azazel Jacobs takes its time, telegraphing little as the narrative unfolds. Though it’s set in Southern California, it seems more like a European production than an American one — refreshingly directed at adults, with long, illuminating takes of the actors’ faces and sparse, freighted dialogue. There is humor here, but it’s tempered by currents of suffering that run beneath the surface. Letts and Winger are superb, deftly inhabiting characters who are swept along by their instincts, however indecipherable those may be. Rated R. 94 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jeff Acker)
LOWRIDERS
Set in East LA, this drama focuses on Danny (Gabriel Chavarria), a teenage graffiti artist who is encouraged by his father (Demián Bichir) to become a mechanic and join the family business. When his no-good brother (Theo Rossi) returns from prison and seeks to compete with their father at a lowrider competition, Danny must choose his allegiances. Rated PG-13. 99 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
MANIFESTO
German visual artist Julian Rosefeldt’s film is the conversion of his 2015 art installation that assembled a dozen video screens, each presenting simultaneously a 10-minute video of the Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett as a different character, spouting the declarations of various thinkers on art. Blanchett plays a homeless man, a mourner, a religious housewife, a CEO, a choreographer, a punk rocker, and more, and it is her chameleonic virtuoso turn in these gender-hopping roles that creates the glue that binds it all together. There’s an in-your-face arrogance to Rosefeldt’s fugue of manifestos. “Get it or not,” he seems to be saying, “I don’t care.” Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing will depend on your perspective. If you are intrigued enough by the concept and the subject matter to go see this film, you’re probably halfway to embracing it. Not rated. 95 minutes. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards)
NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER
Richard Gere plays Norman, the eponymous hero of this character study of a flimflam man who suddenly finds himself operating at an unaccustomed altitude and gasping for breath. Gere is garnering fine reviews, and one’s tolerance for the actor’s idiosyncrasies will provide a pretty accurate gauge of one’s reaction to this quirky New York tale. In the movie’s key setup, Norman insinuates himself into the company of a midlevel Israeli politician named Micha Eshel (a superb Lior Ashkenazi) by buying him a pair of shoes. It’s an investment that pays off three years later, when Eshel returns to New York as his country’s prime minister. The political intricacies of this story, by the Israeli-American writer-director Joseph Cedar, keep things interesting, and a solid supporting cast helps us to overlook some of the story’s weak points. Eventually, as the threads tangle around Norman and threaten to bring him and his precarious house of cards to grief, there is only one avenue that leads to redemption. Rated R. 118 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
Johnny Depp applies Jack Sparrow’s eyeliner for one more turn at the helm of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, this time as he seeks out the trident of Poseidon. Unfortunately for Sparrow, an old enemy (Javier Bardem) has escaped from the Devil’s Triangle and is hot in pursuit with revenge in mind. Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley also return. Keith Richards once played Sparrow’s father; in this film, Paul McCartney plays his uncle. Rated PG-13. 129 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2-D only at Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
SNATCHED
In the latest Amy Schumer comedy, she plays Emily, a woman who is dumped by her boyfriend just before they are scheduled to embark on a trip to South America. Instead she coaxes her homebody mother (Goldie Hawn, in her first film role since 2002) to join her for a little bonding in paradise. Their adventure goes awry when they are kidnapped and must work together to get away from their captors. Rated R. 91 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
THEIR FINEST
By turns funny, romantic, moving, and harrowing, this movie about movies, war, and female empowerment hits every note with the exquisite ping of a fork struck to fine crystal. Gemma Arterton is Catrin Cole, a young woman who in blitz-ravaged London unexpectedly finds herself hired by the British Ministry of Information’s film division as a screenwriter to handle the “slop” (women’s dialogue) for propaganda movies. The assignment is to find real wartime human interest stories and turn them into morale-raising potboilers. The perfect casting includes Sam Claflin as her writing partner and perhaps more, Bill Nighy as an aging star, Eddie Marsden as his agent, plus Helen McCrory, Richard E. Grant, Jeremy Irons, and many more. To see Nighy raise an eyebrow, or sing an Irish air in a pub, is pure cinema magic. Impeccably directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Sherfig and adapted by Gaby Chiappe from Lissa Evans’ 2009 novel Their Finest Hour
and a Half (a title they should have kept), this is certainly one of the year’s finest to date. Rated R. 117 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)