OPENING THIS WEEK
BORDER Rated R. 110 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. See review, Page 38. BOY ERASED Rated R. 114 minutes. Violet Crown. See review, Page 40.
CHILDREN OF THE SUN This documentary examines the communal life of the kibbutzim settlements in Israel. The movement was founded by parents who opted out of raising their children in traditional homes, eschewing the complications of life in traditional communities. The transition was difficult for some. Director Ran Tal, who was himself born into a kibbutz commune, takes an intimate look at the first generation of kibbutz children, combining archival footage from amateur videos shot between 1930 and 1970. At the center of the documentary are interviews with over a dozen people who describe what the physical separation was like: For some it was a blessing, and for others it was a curse. The documentary won the award for Best Documentary and Best Editing at the 2007 Jerusalem Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Ophir Awards in 2008. The Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival presents Children of the Sun at 11 a.m Sunday, Nov. 18. Brandeis sociology professor Dr. Shula Reinharz gives a post-film discussion. Not rated. 70 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Not reviewed) CREED II Following the success of 2015’s Creed, Michael B. Jordan is back as Adonis Johnson, the boxing son of Apollo Creed of the Rocky franchise. This time, he’s out to avenge his father, who died at the hands of Soviet fighter Ivan Drago back in 1985’s Rocky IV, by challenging Ivan’s son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) in the ring. Sylvester Stallone returns as Rocky, and Dolph Lundgren is back as Ivan, Rocky’s former foe. Tessa Thompson (as Adonis’ girlfriend) and Phylicia Rashad (as his mom) are also back. Opens Wednesday, Nov. 21. Rated PG-13. 117 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD Return to the wizarding world of author J.K. Rowling and the continuing adventures of her magical zoologist hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) with this sequel to 2016’s
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This is the first film in the franchise to provide a long glimpse of a young Albus Dumbledore, played here by Jude Law. He tasks Newt with stopping Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) from his nefarious plot to have wizards take over the world. Longtime Harry Potter franchise director David Yates gets behind the camera once more, and actors Katherine Waterston and Dan Fogler return as Newt’s partners. Rated PG-13. 134 minutes. Screens in 2D and 3D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) GREEN BOOK Based roughly on a true story, this movie centers on the relationship between the sophisticated Jamaican-American classical pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), the coarse Italian-American bouncer who became his driver and personal security guard. As they tour the Deep South in the 1960s, the two men become unlikely friends. The film’s title refers to The Negro Motorist Green Book ,a book for African-American travelers that signaled where they’d be safe in the Jim Crow era, which guides them on their trip. Peter Farrelly, best known for helming raunchy comedies such as There’s Something About Mary, directs. Opens Wednesday, Nov. 21. Rated PG-13. 130 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) INSTANT FAMILY Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play a couple who decide to adopt a child. While at the adoption center, they become enamored with a spunky teenager (Isabela Moner), who happens to be the oldest of three kids. They decide to adopt her and her two siblings at once, and soon find themselves transitioning awkwardly from being a childless couple to heading a large family. Director and co-writer Sean Anders (Daddy’s Home) based this dramedy loosely on his own personal experiences. Rated PG-13. 119 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) ON HER SHOULDERS Nadia Murad escaped three months of captivity and sexual slavery after the Islamic State invaded her Iraqi village in 2014. Now twenty-five years old, Murad is the first United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking and in 2018 was named a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. On Her Shoulders, directed by Santa Fe resident Alexandria Bombach, is more than a legal advocacy documentary and more than a portrait of a survivor of unimaginable brutality who has thrived against the odds to be a leader for her people. Bombach offers an artfully understated depiction of the myriad faces of trauma in a single human being. Director and Santa Fe resident Alexandria Bombach appears at the 4 p.m. screenings on Saturday, Nov. 17, and Sunday, Nov. 18. Not rated. 95 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jennifer Levin) RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET In 2012, the animated comedy Wreck-It Ralph generated laughs at the expense of the video games industry and myriad characters across its games. This sequel finds him taking on the entire internet. Voiced once more by John C. Reilly, the video-game hero Ralph finds a wi-fi router in the arcade he shares with his buddy Vanellope (Sarah Silverman), and the two of them head off to surf the web in search of a replacement steering wheel for their Sugar Rush game. They meet a host of characters from other Disney franchises and come into an online game called
Slaughter Race, where Ralph soon worries that Vanellope will leave his side to hang with Shank (Gal Gadot), one of the game’s drivers. Opens Tuesday, Nov. 20. Rated PG. 112 minutes. Screens in 3D and 2D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) STUDIO 54 For a documentary about one of most hedonistic nightclubs in American history, Matt Tyrnauer’s Studio 54 is rather sedate. This might have to do with its focus on Ian Schrager, the quieter and more introverted co-owner, whereas
many of the stories that still get told about the 1970s discotheque known for sexy celebrity swinging and the open use of of party drugs tend to focus on the more gregarious Steve Rubell. But if you’ve read a few articles about the place, seen the feature film 54 (1998), or watched even one nostalgic history special on the club, you’ve already covered the topic as effectively as this movie does. There’s nothing new to see here other than many old regulars who still consider Studio 54 to be the best time of their lives. Not rated. 98 minutes. The Screen. (Jennifer Levin) THE TALL T Based on Elmore Leonard’s short story “The Captives,” Budd Boetticher’s 1957 Western features Randolph Scott as a taciturn rancher inadvertently caught up in a scheme to take a mining heiress (Maureen O’Sullivan) hostage. New Mexican reporter Robert Nott introduces the movie, which is shown in conjunction with the signing of Nott’s new book, The Films of
Budd Boetticher. 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 19; admission is free with purchase of signed book. Not rated. 78 minutes. Violet Crown. See story, Page 32. WIDOWS Rated R. 129 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. See review, Page 36. NOW IN THEATERS BEAUTIFUL BOY In the last decade, David and Nic Sheff (a father and son, respectively) each published memoirs detailing Nic’s addiction to methamphetamines and the difficulties that the family encountered in helping him through the recovery process. Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet play father and son, respectively, in this adaptation of both books. The film explores their relationship at various points in their lives. Amy Ryan plays Vicki, the mother in the family. Rated R. 120 minutes. Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY In 1991, Queen singer Freddie Mercury died from AIDS-related complications. With this biopic, the band’s surviving members attempt to do right by his legacy while also watering it down, settling petty scores with former management, and reminding the public that they were there and contributed a great deal, too — as when guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) informs nobody in particular that he wrote the solo in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The results are grandiose, goofy, and largely entertaining. While a bit more energy would have gone a long way, the film dutifully hits the benchmarks of the band’s rise to fame dutifully, without fussing too much over details, and Rami Malek embodies the larger-than-life lead singer Mercury with particular relish. Concerns from the gay community about the surface-level treatment devoted to Mercury’s sexuality are well noted, but for what the film is — a frivolous, nearly family-friendly overview of Queen’s career — it delivers crowd-pleasing results. More importantly, the filmmakers also know when to foreground Queen’s eternally vibrant music and just get out of the way. Rated PG-13. 134 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? Director Marielle Heller builds this true story of forger Lee Israel around a revelatory performance from Melissa McCarthy, who strips away any shred of comedic glamor to get inside the antisocial, acerbic writer who parlayed a talent for literary mimicry into a whimsical career faking signed celebrity letters that enjoyed a successful, if increasingly stressful, run at the end of the past millennium. You can’t quite like Lee, but McCarthy makes her achingly human and touchingly real. Richard E. Grant provides the perfect counterfoil as her gay sidekick Jack Hock, a flamboyant extrovert who matches her drink for drink and note for note. The fascination of Can You Ever Forgive Me? (the title is from a forged Dorothy Parker letter) is the sense of impending dread it weaves upon the basic human fear of being found out. If it occasionally meanders toward the borders of sentimentality, McCarthy’s uncompromising crustiness keeps this criminal enterprise honest. Rated R. 105 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) FREE SOLO Few people would ever think of climbing steep rock faces without a rope, supports, a helmet, or anchors — “free soloing,” as the practice is known. And yet that’s what thirty-three-year-old Alex Honnold has done in more than 1,000 solo climbs around the world. “I feel like anyone could conceivably die on any given day,” Honnold says, which could explain the risks he takes. According to this documentary, fewer than 1 percent of climbers attempt these feats. Produced by National Geographic Documentary Films and directed by E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the film chronicles Honnold’s 2017 ascent of mighty El Capitan at Yosemite National Park. With all the peaks in the film itself — watching Honnold’s dexterity, the sheer artistry of his free-solo climb, and the vertigo-inducing images of the thousand-plus-foot drops — most viewers of Free
Solo will experience fear in a way that Honnold appears not to. The final 20 minutes will leave you speechless. It’s wonderful to see how far one man has gone to live on the edge, where one false move could mean game over. He never bats an eyelash. Not rated. 100 minutes. Violet Crown. (Thomas M. Hill) THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB The popular Swedish computer hacker Lisbeth Salander comes to life once more in this thriller, which is at once a sequel to director David Fincher’s 2011 adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and a soft reboot of the whole film franchise. In it, Lisbeth (now played by Claire Foy) is tasked with retrieving a laptop with access to the world’s nuclear codes, which is promptly stolen from her. As she attempts to get it back, she pulls at the threads of a global criminal organization known as the “Spider Society” and uncovers dark secrets about her family’s past. The ingredients for a successful reboot are there: Foy sheds her regal demeanor as Queen Elizabeth II on
The Crown and embodies Salander with an ice-cool attitude that masks a bubbling rage underneath. Director Fede Alvarez makes use of the tricks he developed on well-crafted horror films such as Light’s Out to build suspense and coat the film with a slick, stylish veneer. They’re let down by a hamfisted story, cooked up from the first book not written by series creator Stieg Larsson. Despite strong setpieces, the plot stumbles its way through clichéd twists of espionage films with clumsiness that borders on being unintentionally funny, which is exasperated by an overly melodramatic score by Roque Baños. As the “woman who hurts men who hurt women,” Lisbeth is a character tailor-made for the #MeToo era; tasking her to save the world from nuclear destruction raises the stakes far beyond what the character requires. Rated R. 117 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN In the second movie based on the young-adult horror novels of R.L. Stine, two boys (Jeremy Ray Taylor and Caleel Harris) sneak into Stine’s former house on Halloween, where they find a creepy ventriloquist dummy named Slappy (voiced by Jack Black, who also plays Stine in both films). When the boys bring Slappy to life, the doll summons monsters to wreak havoc on the neighborhood. The movie takes a long time getting to that point, however, and when it does it’s not nearly as fun as it could have been; one delightful sequence, in which the boys face off against an army of Gummi Bears brought to life, is the exception that proves the rule. When Black finally appears to steal the show with a glorified cameo, it only proves how desperate the film is for anyone with a spark of charisma, energy, or ideas. Rated PG. 90 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Robert Ker) THE GRINCH When directors Chuck Jones and Ben Washam adapted Dr. Seuss’ book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! into a 1966 television special, they had to add songs and other goofiness to pad the book’s length to a TV-friendly 26 minutes. To expand the story to feature-film length, you need a great deal of imagination and innovation. It’s a pity, then, that it was given over to the animation studio most famous for the mediocre Despicable Me series, and which performed a botch job on Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax back in 2012. Pharrell Williams narrates the classic tale, and Benedict Cumberbatch voices the Grinch in a nasally, American-sounding accent (which lends the question: why hire him if you don’t want him to use his real voice?). The results are pointless, yet harmless; the running time is brisk, and younger kids should like it. To pad the story out, the filmmakers introduce a subplot about the attempts by Cindy Lou Who (Cameron Seely) to thank Santa for being so good to her single mother (Rashida Jones). In a worse move, however, they also provide the Grinch’s childhood backstory to impart how he got so grouchy. Can’t the Grinch just be the Grinch? Rated PG. 90 minutes. Screens in 3D and 2D at Regal Stadium 14; 2D only at Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) HALLOWEEN This isn’t the first time the Halloween franchise has taken up the probable PTSD of grown-up babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has fought off countless murder attempts by masked psychopath Michael Myers since John Carpenter’s first Halloween in 1978 (he’s an executive producer this time around). But given the #MeToo moment, this one’s got zeitgeisty momentum behind it — and it’s pretty good, too. David Gordon Green teams with Danny McBride and others on a script that focuses on how Laurie, now grey-blond and grim-faced, lives an agoraphobic life as a self-described “basket case” who compulsively fantasizes about getting her revenge on Myers (James Jude Courtney). When an opportune bus accident occurs during the prisoner’s transfer, she seizes her chance — and must rope in her reluctant daughter (Judy Greer) and wide-eyed granddaughter (Andi Matichak) to attain the requisite multigenerational girl power necessary to stop Myers’ killing sprees for good. The fight scenes are clever and heart-pounding, the teen-drama subplot is mildly absorbing, and most crucially, Curtis is compellingly relentless. Rated R. 106 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Molly Boyle) THE HAPPY PRINCE Written and directed by Rupert Everett, The Happy
Prince is dense with atmosphere, and it’s a little dizzy when it comes to continuity. It scatters flashbacks along the road to ruin trod by the great writer Oscar Wilde after his release from prison for “gross indecency” (homosexuality). The story picks up Wilde at his lowest, and final, ebb. But it’s
Chile Pages, continued from Page 43 as an actor that Everett truly dazzles. We discover the hulking, shambling figure of the great writer stumbling through the streets of Paris, deep into the gathering pestilence of poverty and disease, the heaviness of body and spirit, that shaped Wilde (here with the help of some expert prosthetic makeup) as he lumbered toward death. Through it all, his indomitable wit and sardonic brilliance pierce the fog. The movie is a worthy tribute to one of the greats of English literature and a timely, cautionary reminder of the devastating effects of bigotry on an individual and a culture. Rated R. 105 minutes. English and some French with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards) NOBODY’S FOOL Everything seems to be going well for Danica (Tika Sumpter), who is falling in love with a man she met on the internet and is about to be the first African-American woman to be named vice president at the company she works for. All of this changes when her coarse, brash sister Tanya (Tiffany Haddish) gets out of jail and upturns her life. At first, this reunion is annoying. When they find out that Danica’s potential beau is catfishing her, Tanya becomes an asset. Tyler Perry wrote and directs, and Whoopi Goldberg plays the sisters’ mom. Rated R. 110 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS The Nutcracker fable, best known from Tchaikovsky’s ballet (based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella) gets the Disney treatment with this film by directors Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston. Less of an adaptation than a new story set in the same world, it centers on a girl named Clara (Mackenzie Foy), who enters the fantasy world of rats and fairies in search of a key, meets a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), and must fight the sinister Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) to save what’s known as the Fourth Realm. Keira Knightley co-stars as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Rated PG. 99 minutes. Screens in 2D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN Robert Redford plays Forrest Tucker, a man who has devoted his life to the art of robbing banks. His story is mostly true (adapted by writer-director David Lowery from a New Yorker article). Redford shares the screen with Sissy Spacek, and they have a chemistry that could light the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. She plays Jewel, a widowed rancher, and when these two sit and banter in a coffee shop booth, you could watch and listen to them all day. But you can’t, because there are banks to rob. Forrest sometimes works with a couple of geriatric buddies, played by Danny Glover and Tom Waits, and the trio becomes known as the Over-the-Hill Gang. In dogged pursuit is an affable cop (Casey Affleck), who comes to admire the man he’s tracking. If this in fact proves to be Robert Redford’s farewell to movies, as he has indicated, it’s a lovely way to go. But the door is always open, Bob, and we’ll leave a light on in the window. Rated PG-13. 93 minutes. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards) OPUNTIA Director David Fenster’s experimental documentary is a thought-provoking, ultimately moving depiction of the director’s own spiritual odyssey. Ostensibly about the 16th-century Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Fenster’s film follows the route the conquistador took through the Americas, drawing stark parallels and contrasts between the places he visited, as described in historic writings, and those places as they exist today. Fenster locates the spirit of de Vaca in the opuntia, a prickly pear cactus plant, a strange turn of events the filmmaker treats with tacit acceptance and wonder. De Vaca (voiced by David Verdaguer) became renowned for his gifts as a healer, and narrates the story as the opuntia, whose recurring image throughout the film becomes a metaphor for symbiosis and survival. Divided into two parts, “The Land of the Living” and “The Land of the Dead,” Opuntia is an honest and affecting inquiry into the ephemerality of life. Not rated. 60 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco) OVERLORD In the middle of World War II, a group of American paratroopers (headed by soldiers played by Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell) find themselves behind enemy lines. They find a castle where the Nazis have been performing nefarious experiments, and as they dig deeper into the mystery, they soon find themselves fighting for survival against a supernatural evil. J.J. Abrams produced this wartime horror film for his Bad Robot Productions. Julius Avery directs. Rated R. 109 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) A STAR IS BORN Big, gorgeous, and packed with terrific music and charismatic star power, this fourth edition of one of Hollywood’s most enduring origin stories starts off so well that its momentum almost carries it through a somewhat more labored finish. Lady Gaga rediscovers her inner Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta in creating the title character, Ally, a bighearted aspiring singer who captures the heart of Jackson Maine, a country-rock superstar played soulfully by Bradley Cooper (who also co-wrote and directed). The tale, best remembered in the classic 1950 Judy Garland version, is familiar, tracking the opposite trajectories of the two stars — one blazing upward, one blazing out. Cooper’s pacing gets a little choppy, as if he’s afraid of being caught in a linear narrative, but for the most part the film is assured and effective. The supporting cast is stocked with sometimes-surprising choices, like Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s dad and Dave Chappelle as Jackson’s friend. Sam Elliott is reliably gravelly as Jackson’s much older brother. But the revelation is Lady Gaga, who nails the wide-eyed kid drawn into the world of superstardom, finding love and tragedy along the way. Rated PG. 96 minutes. Screens in 2D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) VENOM Spider-Man’s nemesis Venom is a bulletproof version of Spidey with a long tongue and an appetite for live flesh. But director Ruben Fleischer offers a surprisingly well-crafted B-movie, and actors Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams class the joint up. Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a journalist who investigates the research going on at the Life Foundation. When the company’s founder (Riz Ahmed) strikes back, Brock loses his job and girlfriend (Williams). He learns that the foundation is experimenting on an alien, which grafts itself to his body, granting him superpowers and a nasty disposition. From there, he must satiate the alien’s appetite, get revenge, and somehow also save the world. The action and effects are well done, but the movie works best when it leans into absurdist humor reminiscent of the 1980s work of John Carpenter and Sam Raimi. Rated PG-13. 112 minutes. Screens in 2D at Regal Stadium 14. (Robert Ker) WILDLIFE This finely directed debut feature film by writer and director Paul Dano is a period piece set in 1960s Montana about fourteen-year-old Joe (Ed Oxenbould), who spends the fall watching his parents’ marriage disintegrate. Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) stops caring about conversational boundaries with her son after Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses another gig as a golf pro and leaves the family to fight a wildfire. All of the performances are excellent, as is the cinematography by Diego Garcia. Rated PG-13. 104 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts; Violet Crown. (Jennifer Levin)