Chile Pages,
exposition, Clouzot and his cinematographer Claude Renoir took an uncomplicated approach, filming Picasso, who was in his seventies at the time, at work as he painted one composition after another without commentary or explanation. Renoir shot the back of each canvas as the works developed, and they seem to paint themselves, starting as linear drawings and evolving into full-fledged artistic visions. Affirming, mesmerizing, and aided by George Auric’s musical score, The Mystery
of Picasso is free from pretension. Clouzot allowed his subject to simply be himself, fully engaged in his passion. Rated PG. 75 minutes. In French with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Michael Abatemarco) THE NUN The popular Conjuring franchise hasn’t produced a classic horror film, but several of its entries have offered some reliable scares and solid filmmaking. The Nun, a prequel based around the creepy nun who has periodically appeared in other installments, is not one of those films. It takes us back to a convent in 1950s Romania, where Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga, sister of series star Vera Farmiga) travel to investigate the apparent suicide of a young nun. They don’t find many people there, but soon discover that something evil is afoot and the demon Valak is responsible. Director Corin Hardy tries to pack the movie with scares for the full running time, whereas most good horror movies let viewers spend much of the time in the normal world while slowly introducing the awful into the everyday. A whole film of two people wandering a dark, empty monastery with a jump scare thrown in every couple of minutes gets boring very quickly. Rated R. 96 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) OPERATION FINALE One of the monsters of history, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi “Architect of the Final Solution,” was captured in Argentina in 1960 by an Israeli Mossad initially reluctant to pursue the case, and brought to Israel to stand trial. Director Chris Weitz tells the harrowing tale with a cast of fine actors, led by Ben Kingsley as Eichmann and Oscar Isaac as Mossad agent Peter Malkin. The film gets flabby in places, but the two leads play out a riveting pas de deux psychodrama as Malkin works to get Eichmann to sign the paper necessary to get him on the plane. There are some strings left dangling, and the movie doesn’t quite know when or how to end, but the drama itself is powerful, the personalities are complex, and the story still packs a punch to the gut. Rated PG-13. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) PEPPERMINT In 2008, Taken reinvigorated the action genre by applying a well-known, middle-aged actor (Liam Neeson) to a hardcore action movie. This formula has since been replicated many times, but rarely by the Taken director, Pierre Morel, himself. Here, Morel tells a revenge story about a woman (Jennifer Garner) whose family is murdered by gang members. When a corrupt legal system refuses to give her justice, she takes it into her own hands, disappearing for years and re-emerging as a highly trained killing force. Rated R. 102 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) SEARCHING When teenage Margot Kim (Michelle La) disappears, her father (John Cho) enlists the help of a detective (Debra Messing) and goes through Margot’s laptop to figure out what happened to her. As he slowly contacts everyone in her social media contact lists, he discovers that his daughter is not who he thought she was. Co-writer and director Aneesh Chaganty shot the film entirely from the perspective of computer, tablet, and smartphone screens. Rated PG-13. 102 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) WE THE ANIMALS Childhood is rarely depicted onscreen with the nuance of this feature-length debut by Jeremiah Zagar, which joins such films as Moonlight, Ratcatcher, and The Tree of Life in its portrayal of three young boys living in meager circumstances in upstate New York. We see events primarily through the eyes of the youngest boy, Jonah (Evan Rosado), as he tries to puzzle out the adult world as well as come to terms with his homosexuality. Zagar uses a pastoral vision, a poet’s eye, and a strong sense of detail to show the effects of poverty on mental health, as the two parents abuse each other and engage in inexplicable behavior such as staying in bed for weeks or digging random trenches in the yard. From Jonah’s perspective, this behavior is perplexing yet normal, and his moments of joy shine through as vibrantly as his pain. At one moment, his father (a stellar Raúl Castillo), frustrated by the cycle of generational poverty, screams, “We’re never going to escape this!” He may be right, but with Jonah, a soulful boy who is attentive to the emotional needs of his mother (Sheila Vand) and holds a secret inner world full of wonder, we suspect he will someday be able to. Rated R. 94 minutes. Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) YA VEREMOS This comedy stars Santi (Emiliano Aramayo) as a young boy whose parents (Mauricio Ochmann and Fernanda Castillo) have split. When he is diagnosed with an illness that threatens to take his eyesight, he wishes for his parents to get back together. Despite their distaste for one another, his parents do their best to oblige him. This movie enjoyed the second-biggest opening of all time for a Mexican film when it debuted in Mexico earlier this year. Rated PG-13. 85 minutes. In Spanish with subtitles. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)