OPENING THIS WEEK
BEUYS
Not rated. 107 minutes. In German and English with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. See review, Page 33.
BLACK PANTHER There have been several movies featuring African American superheroes, but none have been made with the kind of budget and scale as this solo debut for Marvel’s T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), aka Black Panther. The movie takes us to Wakanda, a fictional, futuristic African country that has been untouched by colonialism. T’Challa returns after his father’s death (in Captain
America: Civil War) to rule as king, but finds a black-ops soldier named Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) ready to challenge him for the throne. Andy Serkis and Michael B. Jordan play his enemies while Lupita Nyong’o is a former lover and a member of Wakanda all-women special forces unit, who also serve as the king’s bodyguards. Martin Freeman, Angela Bassett, and Forest Whitaker help fill out the cast, and Ryan Coogler (Creed) directs. Rated PG-13. 134 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
CLUELESS
In Amy Heckerling’s 1995 cinematic retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a shallow, privileged teenager, befriends Tai (the late Brittany Murphy), an unsophisticated new girl in school, and slowly learns to be less selfish and materialistic in her worldview. This tightly crafted time-capsule of the Grunge Era by way of Los Angeles is beloved for its genuine sweetness, the somehownot-icky love story between Cher and her stepbrother, Josh (Paul Rudd), and the roster of quirky character actors filling the supporting roles, including Wallace Shawn as a coffee-swilling, lovestruck high-school teacher and Jeremy Sisto as the hunky cad Elton. Cher’s path to altruism is studded with personalgrowth moments and some memorable lines, including the hilariously hurtful exchange in which Tai, with a makeoverfueled exploding ego, asks Cher why she should listen to her romantic advice when she’s nothing but “a virgin who can’t drive.” Screens as part of the “Girls Night Out” film series. 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17, only. Rated PG-13. 97 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Jennifer Levin)
EARLY MAN The latest feature by Aardman Animation and Nick Park (creator of Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep), takes us all the way back to the waning days of the Stone Age, where Chief Bobnar (voiced by Timothy Spall) leads a tribe of rabbit hunters. When the arrival of a Roman-like army led by Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) kicks the tribe out of their land, it’s up to a young caveman named Dug (Eddie Redmayne) to save the day via soccer matches. Rated PG. 89 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
8½
In Federico Fellini’s surreal 1963 comedy drama, Italian filmmaker Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) retreats into memory and fantasy while struggling with “director’s block” on the set of his new big budget movie. Anselmi is haunted by visions of past and present lovers and his new film becomes increasingly personal in nature. His anxiety on the set troubles cast and crew and his producer threatens to pull the plug. Fellini’s semi-autobiographical feature won the Oscar for best foreign-language film at the 1964 Academy Awards, and he was nominated for best director. It screens as part of the eight-week “Mediterranean Cruise” film series. 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18, only. Not rated. 138 minutes. In Italian, English, German, and French with subtitles. Violet Crown. (Michael Abatemarco)
HAVE A NICE DAY
If you look closely at many noir capers, you’ll find a bag of money at the center, and this one is no different. Xiao Zhang (Changlong Zhu) is a driver who steals the loot from the boss of a criminal gang — and promptly loses it. As the gang tries to get their leader’s money back and a disparate array of random people come into the cash and try to weasel it away for themselves, the characters criss-cross in a chaotic jumble of intersecting plots and dark comedy. This cinematic format is familiar to fans of Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Brothers — but what sets Have a Nice Day apart is the utterly unique animation courtesy of writer and director Jian Liu, who blends Eastern and Western styles with evocative linework, and frames his action through an offbeat perspective. As if the look of the movie wasn’t already cool enough, music by the Shanghai Restoration Project enhances the vibe with a savvy blend of Chinese instrumentation and hip-hop beats. Not rated. 77 minutes. In Chinese with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Ker)
SAMSON
The biblical epic makes a return with this telling of the story of Samson (Taylor James), the superhero of 1170 B.C. Israel. After a doomed romance with Delilah (Caitlin Leahy) causes him to lose his strength, he gets right with God and then gets powered up and ticked off. The poor Philistines won’t even know what will hit them. Billy Zane and Rutger Hauer also star. Rated PG-13. 109 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
2018 OSCARNOMINATED DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILMS
The Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Short are long enough that they need to be split into separate programs for their annual screening. Program A includes Traffic Stop, about an African American woman’s attempts to recover from a traumatic incident of police violence against her; Heaven Is a
Traffic Jam on the 405 freeway, about a woman struggling from mental illness; and Edith + Eddie, which shows viewers America’s oldest interracial couple (at ages ninety-five and ninety-six). Program B includes Heroin(e), which looks at the opioid crisis in Huntington, West Virginia, and those trying to rescue the community; and Knife Skills, about a restaurateur’s attempts to create America’s top classic French restaurant using only people who were recently released from prison. Not rated. Program A: 102 minutes. Program B: 82 minutes. The Screen. (Not reviewed)
VAZANTE Not rated. 116 minutes. In Portuguese with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. See review, Page 31.
NOW IN THEATERS BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY
The “bombshell” in this documentary’s title is twofold. One is Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-born screen siren. The other is Hedy Kiesler Markey, the married name Lamarr used on the 1942 patent for her frequencyhopping technology, which was designed to keep Allied
torpedoes on course in World War II and later led to the development of Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi. Writer-director Alexandra Dean’s aim is to reconcile the two Hedys, telling the significant story of Lamarr’s greatest invention as well as the actress’s multiple personae. Through interviews with subjects like author Richard Rhodes and directors Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks, the documentary casts Lamarr as a prodigy whose innovation changed the course of technology over the 20th century and beyond. If the film’s pace seems too frenetic at times — hopping as it does from the actress’s movies to inventions to husbands (Lamarr had six), with perhaps too little time in between for reflection — we might bear in mind the unrelenting drive of the wonder woman herself. Not rated. 90 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Molly Boyle)
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Nothing happens very fast in this sun-drenched, languorous love story adapted by director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter James Ivory from André Aciman’s much-acclaimed novel of sexual awakening. Seventeen-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) whiles away his summers in the early 1980s at his parents’ vacation villa in northern Italy. He reads voraciously, plays piano, swims, dallies with girls, and waits for something important to happen in his life. Then Oliver (Armie Hammer) — a tall, blond Adonis of an American graduate student — arrives to fill a summer internship with Elio’s father, an American classics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg). The young men circle each other warily. When they finally come together, it is the teenager who makes the decisive move. The filming is discreet, but the combustion is intense. And there is a scene with a peach that may change forever the way you look at that fruit. Call Me By Your Name has garnered three Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Chalamet), and Best Adapted Screenplay. Rated R. 130 minutes. In English, French, and Italian with subtitles. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
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 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 helping of heart. The film is Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Feature. Rated R. 109 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14. (Robert Ker)
DARKEST HOUR Gary Oldman, up for an Academy Award for this role, is extraordinary as Winston Churchill. Wreathed in fat, lumbering through the halls of Parliament or the rooms of his private residence with a cigar lodged firmly in his mouth, the actor disappears, and the legendary British wartime prime minister is all there is to see. Director Joe Wright gives us Britain at her darkest hour, with Adolf Hitler running roughshod over Europe and poised to cross the channel. King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn), with considerable reluctance, invites Churchill to form a cabinet. The movie shows us a man isolated and with the burden of his country’s survival squarely on his shoulders. But despite the stakes, Darkest Hour struggles to get us involved. At the end of it all, despite Oldman’s bravura performance, we are not as enlightened as we would like to be about the many contradictions of the man whose bulldog determination saved Britain. The movie is also nominated this year for Best Picture. Rated PG-13. 125 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
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)
THE 15:17 TO PARIS With American Sniper and Sully, director Clint Eastwood has spent much of his eighties telling stories about real-life Americans who emerge triumphant from difficult situations. He continues that streak with this take on the Aug. 21, 2015, terrorist attack on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, which was thwarted by several civilians, including three off-duty American servicemen. The soldiers — Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos — all play themselves in this movie version of the event. Rated PG-13. 94 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
FIFTY SHADES FREED In this third movie in the Fifty Shades of Grey saga, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) exchange whips and handcuffs for balls and chains, getting married and embarking on a new life together. However, they still have some of their old life to shed, as Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), Christian’s half-brother and Anastasia’s former boss and harasser, is still around. Rated R. 105 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
HOSTILES Writer and director Scott Cooper’s Western plays fast and loose with the facts, but its three protagonists are vibrantly brought to life in a story of hope, redemption, and survival. Christian Bale is terrific as a soon-to-retire Army officer given the job of escorting a dying Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi, also giving a powerful turn) from New Mexico to Wyoming. Also on this journey is a widow (the excellent Rosamund Pike) who witnessed the massacre of her husband and children. The film paints the West as it once was: wild, uncompromising, beautiful, yet forgiving — just like we all want to be, maybe. Rated R. 133 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Nott)
THE INSULT It all starts with an insult. Tony Hanna (Adel Karam) owns a garage, and is an enthusiastic supporter of Lebanon’s anti-Palestinian Christian Party. He and his pregnant wife live in a nice Beirut apartment with a terrace, and one day the runoff from his watering his plants splashes down through an illegal drainpipe onto Yasser Salameh (Kamel El Basha), the Palestinian illegal-immigrant foreman of a construction crew working in the neighborhood. Things escalate, intemperate words are uttered. Things turn violent. There are unintended consequences. The matter winds up in court. It grows, dominating the TV news, stirring up factions, whipping up frenzied passions in the streets. Old national wounds are torn open. It’s Lebanese filmmaker Ziad Doueiri’s blueprint for how small things get out of hand and become factional, national, and global hostilities. It’s made the Oscar shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film. Rated R. 112 minutes. In Arabic with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE This sequel to the 1995 Robin Williams-led adventure film Jumanji finds the board game of the original transformed into a video game for modern audiences. Four teenagers stumble upon the game while serving detention, and when they press “start,” they’re sucked into its world. Now finding themselves embodied by the avatars they selected (played by Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan), they must find a way to survive the dangers of the jungle and return to their normal lives. Whereas the 1995 film stacked disparate perils and goofy jokes atop each other to whip up a frenzy of cartoonish chaos, this update escorts viewers from one action sequence to the next at a sluggish pace, stopping for character development when the heroes aren’t running from rhinos or staring down snakes. The cast is lively, charismatic, and ideal for the scenes of bonding and blossoming romances, but these moments are not staged with enough zip to keep up with the actors’ wit. Rated PG-13. 119 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)
LA BODA DE VALENTINA This romantic comedy by Marco Polo Constandse stars Marimar Vega as Valentina, a Mexican woman enjoying her new life in New York City. Her old life clashes with her current one when she brings her fiancé, Jason (Ryan Carnes), home to meet her family — a political dynasty rife with scandal — and her old flame (Omar Chaparro) tries to win her back. Rated R. 99 minutes. In English and Spanish with subtitles. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
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. The story follows a vaguely Citizen Kane-like 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. Nominated for Best Animated Feature Oscar. Rated PG-13. 94 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE The third and final film in the Maze Runner saga finds Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) having to solve the most difficult labyrinth yet in order to break into the fabled Last City. If he and his friends can get to the city, they’ll find the headquarters to the evil