NOW IN THEATERS

A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS The 2016 comedy Bad Moms featured a group of mothers who decide to stop striving for the parental perfection that society demands and embrace all the swearing, sexual pursuits, and substance abuse that they crave. The film struck a chord and offered some laughs, becoming a big enough hit that we have a sequel roughly 16 months later. Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn return as bad moms who rebel against the pressures of the holiday season. Rated R. 104 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) COCO Pixar Animation heads south of the border to tell a story about a boy in rural Mexico named Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez) who dreams of becoming a famous musician like his hero, the deceased Ernesto de la Cruz. Miguel’s family forbids any member from pursuing a career in music, however, because of an ancestor who left the clan for those very reasons. During a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration, Miguel crosses over to the Land of the Dead to seek out de la Cruz and reverse this rule. Pixar populates this afterlife with a faithful imagining of Mexican folk art that includes bright colors, lively skeletons, and spirit animals that seem to glow. As with Pixar’s best work, it’s the script that shines brightest — and this airtight example includes a number of satisfying plot twists and a heavy helping of heart. Some screenings at Regal Stadium 14 are dubbed in Spanish; check the theatre for details.

Rated R. 109 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2-D only at Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) DADDY’S HOME 2 At the end of the first Daddy’s Home film, the milquetoast stepdad Brad (Will Ferrell) and the rough-and-tumble biological father Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) became friends for the sake of the children that they have in common (through Linda Cardellini’s Sara). In this sequel, the two men must join together against a new challenge: their fathers. When Dusty’s dad (Mel Gibson) and Brad’s pop (John Lithgow) butt into their lives for the holidays, personality clashes abound. Rated PG-13. 100 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) FACES PLACES French New Wave legend Agnès Varda teams up with the charismatic young French photographer JR to visit a series of out-of-the-way places in the French countryside, taking pictures of the locals, printing them out in mural proportions, and pasting them on the side of barns, houses, and anything else that comes to hand. Some of the mural images they create smack of social commentary, while others simply celebrate the lives of real people who otherwise would sink into oblivion. The humanity and the joy of this movie make it impossible to watch without a smile on your face. There are moments of vulnerability and pathos as well. As a coda to Varda’s life in film, or as the last movie before her next one, this is a gem. Rated PG. 89 minutes. In French with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards) 500 YEARS In this concluding entry in Pamela Yates’ trilogy of documentaries on genocide and political upheaval in Guatemala she brings together evidence of the repression and slaughter that country’s ruling elite has visited on its indigenous Maya population, the rise of a popular, cross-cultural resistance, and the trials and overthrow of the country’s brutal dictators. Scenes of demonstrations can be repetitious and wear out their welcome on film, but they give us a window into massive injustice, along with the changing fortunes of a corner of the world in our own backyard, of which most of us knew very little. Not rated. 109 minutes. In Spanish with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Jonathan Richards) JUSTICE LEAGUE There are few more divisive figures in the geek community than Zack Snyder, who made the maligned Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and now looks to tie a bow on the trilogy by uniting Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Batman

(Ben Affleck), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Sadly, Snyder exited the film in postproduction due to a family tragedy, leaving Joss Whedon

(The Avengers) to finish up. The result is a predictable tonal mishmash of clenched-teeth seriousness and smirking quips, which somehow mostly works. The threat is the otherworldly Steppenwolf, who is set up nicely in some scenes reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings films but proven to be a generic baddie who is stopped by the standard scheme. What lifts the movie is its surprising charm — particularly from Gadot, Momoa, and Cavill — and Snyder’s strong eye for larger-than-life visuals. Rated PG-13. 121 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2-D only at Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) LADY BIRD Greta Gerwig’s extraordinary coming-ofage solo directorial debut feels intimately autobiographical. Not so, says Gerwig. Like her title character (Saoirse Ronan), she grew up in Sacramento and went to a Catholic school, but she was not the slacker rebel with dyed hair and an invented name she has created for Ronan to play. The film takes Lady Bird through the tribulations of senior year and partying and friendship and first love and the dream of heading East to college (“I want to go where culture is — New York, or at least Connecticut or Vermont”) despite grades that make her college counselor burst out laughing. The heart of the movie is Lady Bird’s contentious relationship with her mother, played to intense, loving, passive-aggressive perfection by the great Laurie Metcalf. Gerwig, an actress known for movies like 20th

Century Women, has enlisted superb actors from theater backgrounds, including actor/playwright Tracy Letts as the dad, and the wonderful Lois Smith as an understanding nun. If Lady Bird isn’t liberally represented across a wide swath of Oscar nominations this winter, call Robert Mueller. Rated R. 93 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) LAST FLAG FLYING

Last Flag Flying is the unofficial sequel to the 1973 Jack Nicholson movie The Last Detail — both films are based on novels by Darryl Ponicsan about the same characters, set 30 or so years apart. But that’s the least interesting thing about this nuanced Richard Linklater-directed drama centering on the enduring bonds between veterans and the hypocrisy of the U.S. military. In a 2003 setting, Bryan Cranston portrays the brash, hard-drinking Sal Nealon, while Laurence Fishburne plays Sal’s fellow Vietnam vet Richard Mueller, who has since cleaned up his act and become a devout pastor after experiencing the horrors of war. The two are brought together by fellow vet Larry “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carell), who gathers his unit mates to travel with him to Arlington Cemetery to bury his son, who has just been killed in action in Iraq. Along the way, the men contend with the ghosts of their shared past, along with the failure of the Marine Corps — and American society — to understand the traumas inflicted upon them by their service. It’s a heartrending, fascinating look at the little-seen, warts-andall emotions of military servicemen, directed and acted with a witty and tender, though never maudlin, sensibility. Rated R. 125 minutes. Violet Crown. (Molly Boyle) LOVING VINCENT Vincent van Gogh was a brilliant artist who was also a bit mad. That might apply as well to Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, the creators of Loving Vincent ,a movie that is being billed as the world’s first fully hand-painted feature. Seven years in the making! 125 artists! 62,450 paintings! The story follows a vaguely Citizen Kane template, with a dead letter serving as this film’s Rosebud. The letter, from Vincent (Robert Gulaczyk) to his brother Theo (Cezary Łukaszewicz), is discovered by Joseph Roulin (Chris O’Dowd), the postmaster at Arles, two years after the painter’s death. Roulin dispatches his son Armand (Douglas Booth) to deliver it. The story, which raises questions about Vincent’s suicide, is serviceable, but the real appeal of Loving Vincent is in its extravagant visuals of van Gogh paintings brought to animated life and used as armatures for movie scenes. It’s astonishingly clever and beautifully executed; it has also sparked a controversy over whether it succeeds on its own terms, or whether it trivializes the genius of the original canvases. Rated PG-13. 94 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards) MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS Yes, it’s a formula, as tried and true as a soufflé recipe, but like that culinary delight, in the right hands it’s delicious. Director Kenneth Branagh has assembled and folded in the ingredients with a chef’s touch, installing himself at the center as the great detective Hercule Poirot. The adaptation by Michael Greene of this sturdy Agatha Christie classic begins with a flourish at Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall in 1934 as Poirot wraps up a case. It moves on to a colorful Istanbul for the embarkation of a galaxy of characters (Judi Dench! Johnny Depp! Michelle Pfeiffer! Derek Jacobi!) upon the fabled luxury train, the setting of a murder of which any of the surviving passengers could be guilty. Branagh relieves the train’s claustrophobia with sumptuous swooping exterior shots, and once you get past the amusing spectacle of Poirot’s scene-stealing mustache, the movie is a comforting pleasure, perhaps no richer but certainly no poorer than it should be. Rated PG-13. 114 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) MY FRIEND DAHMER The current pop-culture appetite for true crime is feverish, borne out by the success of Netflix’s

Making a Murderer and HBO’s The Jinx. But My Friend Dahmer, about the young life of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer — who murdered 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991 — is anything but exploitative of that interest. Director Marc Meyers directs this adaptation of Dahmer’s high-school classmate Derf Backderf’s autobiographical graphic novel about the murderer’s senior year, in which the closeted homosexual Dahmer, a social outsider, struggled with nascent alcoholism, a manic mother (Anne Heche), and a remote father (Dallas Roberts). The tale is thoughtfully chronicled, paying close attention to the details of late-‘70s adolescent Americana, as Backderf (Alex Wolff) and his band of misfits make friendly overtures toward Dahmer (a chilling Ross Lynch) — even as they mock him and exploit his eccentricities. The film is a fascinating study in how to make a murderer, as his classmates and teachers ignore Dahmer’s chronic drunkenness, torture of animals, and bizarre outbursts — until it’s too late. Two weeks after graduation, Dahmer killed for the first time. 9 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, only. Rated R. 107 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Molly Boyle) ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. Writer and director Dan Gilroy, who brought us 2014’s

Nightcrawler, returns with a story of a lawyer facing a moral crisis. Denzel Washington plays the title character, an autistic defense attorney who is the hidden genius behind the success of his partner, a beloved civil rights lawyer named William Henry Jackson. After William suffers a stroke, George (Colin Farrell) recruits Roman to work for him. It soon becomes clear that George and his firm are not on the level. Rated PG-13. 129 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) THE STAR It’s hard to find new ways to tell the Nativity story in 2017, but this animated comedy is attempting to do just that by conveying the events through the eyes of the animals. A donkey named Bo (Steven Yeun) leaves his domestic life and sets off in search in adventure. He ends up playing a role in the birth of Christ. The all-star supporting voice cast includes Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Kristin Chenoweth, Mariah Carey, Kris Kristofferson, and others. Rated PG. 86 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) THELMA This movie opens with an ominous winter scene, and while it would not be fair to say the movie never lets up, it certainly never ventures far from the chilling mood set by that opening. Something unspeakable almost happens. And eventually the story reveals to us what that was all about. When the movie gets going in earnest, Thelma (Eili Harboe), the film’s protagonist, is on her way to college in Oslo. Away from her deeply religious parents, she begins making friends with the sort of carefree college kids who drink and smoke and don’t believe in God. And she forms a friendship with the lissome Anja (Kaya Wilkins), that deepens into sexual passion. But she suffers seizures, and eventually we discover that there is something even more powerful afoot, something to do with a supernatural power of her mind. Writer and director Joachim Trier maintains a grip on our nerves as he builds this psychological horror-fantasy around the sweet, troubled Thelma, played by Harboe with a shy vulnerability, and something much darker deep inside. Not rated. 116 minutes. In Norwegian with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards) THOR: RAGNAROK With the third Thor film, Marvel changes its studio formula by embracing full-on comedy, adding a sparkling synth score, and giving women besides Scarlett Johansson something to do (Cate Blanchett’s dastardly Hela and Tessa Thompson’s roguish Valkyrie are both delightful). Here, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), with help from the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), must prevent the destruction of Asgard. The adventure takes them far and wide, with a long stop on a planet devoted to gladiatorial combat overseen by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, who steals the whole movie). The action is breezily forgettable and the effects are colorful in that garishly plastic kind of way, but director Taika Waititi and the charismatic cast deliver the laughs. With more than a dozen Marvel movies behind us and an infinite number ahead, the reasons to care about the stakes diminish with each film. Maybe that’s by design; this movie is engineered to be a crowd-pleaser and nothing more — and crowds will be pleased. Rated PG-13. 130 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Filmmaker Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) is like a mad chemist, throwing together elements that have no business being in the same pot except to fizz and explode. In this tale of revenge, violence and humor rub shoulders with

tragedy and pathos like angry commuters at rush hour, knit together with the rawest of language and a script that scatters loose ends like birdseed. But it’s a tour de force, riveting from start to finish. Frances McDormand is extraordinary as the embittered Mildred, who hires three derelict billboards along a lonely road in a Burma-Shave-like sequence to protest police inability to solve her daughter’s rape and murder. Woody Harrelson brings a gentle nobility to Chief Willoughby, and Sam Rockwell is a racist deputy with the subtlety and intellect of a blunt instrument. Like Tarantino at his best, McDonagh creates movie scenes that land with the force of a wild cinematic haymaker. Rated R. 115 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)

WONDER

This adaptation of the bestselling children’s novel tells the story of August Pullman (Jacob Tremblay), a young boy with Treacher Collins syndrome — a genetic disorder that causes facial deformities — who attempts to overcome his uncommon appearance and fit in at his new school. The resulting film is a predictable, if touching, fable about the importance of inner beauty, but there are other messages at play as well. As the perspective shifts to August’s sister (Izabela Vidovic) and August’s peer group, we slowly learn that no matter how people appear on the outside, everyone’s got their own problems — so why not treat one another with kindness and empathy? This message feels necessary in an age of division and resentment, and audiences have made the movie a surprise hit. Another reason for its success is the star power and masterful acting of Julia Roberts who, as August’s mom, can break your heart or lift your spirits with subtle gestures and facial expressions. Rated PG. 113 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)