NOW IN THEATERS
AMAZING GRACE
In 1972, Aretha Franklin had a string of 11 straight number-one pop and R&B singles, a slew of Grammys, and more than 20 albums under her belt. This film documents the twenty-nine-year-old’s return to her gospel roots in live concerts over two nights. The result is platinum history, Amazing Grace, the biggest-selling gospel record of all time. But the accompanying documentary, directed by Sydney Pollack, was never released due to “technical problems.” With modern technology, the sound and picture issues have been overcome. There are no great revelations about the singer: It’s just Aretha, with gospel legend the Rev. James Cleveland presiding; a brief address by Aretha’s father, the Rev. James Franklin (who tenderly mops the sweat from his daughter’s face); a congregation of mostly young, hip black worshippers
sporting early ’70s fashions and towering Afros; the choir singing and testifying; and people dancing in the aisles and sometimes getting literally carried away. It’s the Queen of Soul, singing her soul out with amazing grace and unearthly talent. That’s enough. Not rated. 87 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
ASK DR. RUTH
Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a bundle of irrepressible joy and positivity wrapped around a core of impenetrable sadness. She began life in 1928 as a Jewish girl in Hitler’s Germany. Her parents sent her off to safety in an orphanage in Switzerland, and she never saw them again. Dr. Ruth is the diminutive German-accented therapist who rose to fame in the 1980s by breaking down taboos about sex. She began on New York radio and then branched out into television shows, guest appearances, books, and even a board game on her way to becoming a household name. It’s infectious to listen to this legend from the front lines of the sexual revolution as she cackles and twinkles and dispenses no-nonsense advice. Many people emerging from the darkness of sexual repression and gay shaming credit her for literally saving their lives. Director Ryan White follows his subject around in the weeks leading up to her 90th birthday, as she bustles out from her Washington Heights apartment and heads to public and private engagements. The movie runs a little long, and has some unfortunate animation sequences, but it’s a rewarding visit with a true original. Not rated. 100 minutes. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards)
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
Less a movie and more of a victory lap combined with a curtain call, this epic adventure serves as a sequel to 2018’s superior Avengers: Infinity War and a capper to more than 10 years of Marvel movies. In this climactic installment, an array of superheroes — but primarily Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) — square off against the villain Thanos (Josh Brolin), who had wiped out half of all living creatures in the universe in
Infinity War. The final hour delivers all that fans could ask, but any non-fans remaining in the universe are better off watching literally anything else. Unfortunately, the film’s first hour is rather dreary and meanders for too long, and the middle third is weighed down by a time-travel subplot — never a good sign — that only works in fits and starts. The plot is a whole bunch of nonsense, but that’s beside the point. Laughs will be shared, tears will be shed, and box office records will be broken. Your favorite characters will get a moment or two in the spotlight, and you’ll feel satisfied, if perhaps a bit befuddled and overwhelmed. Rated PG-13. 181 minutes. Screens in 3D and 2D at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. Screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6. (Robert Ker)
BREAKTHROUGH
Of the many ways for a child to almost die, being submerged in frigid water is one of the more survivable. No one mentions this in Breakthrough, a movie meant for viewers with a hankering for miracles. Based on an actual incident in 2015, this Christian drama presents divine intervention and a mother’s love as what saved the life of a boy who accidentally breaks thin ice and spends 15 minutes underwater. The kid is John (Marcel Ruiz), a normal fourteen-year-old in suburban Missouri. When he’s rushed to the hospital without a pulse, only Mom (Chrissy Metz) possesses the indomitable belief to pray him back to life. The result won’t sway nonbelievers, but is mostly watchable and occasionally even moving. Director Roxann Dawson makes the dramatic scenes plausible and not overly didactic. But she and screenwriter Grant Nieporte allow themselves some scenes that might work better in a high school musical. Rated PG. 116 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Mark Jenkins/The Washington Post)
THE CHAPERONE
Boasting the creator (Julian Fellowes), a director (Michael Engler), and a prominent actress (Elizabeth McGovern) from the BBC’s Downton Abbey, this film centers on a young dancer (Haley Lu Richardson) in the 1920s who travels from Kansas to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming famous. She is only allowed to do so if accompanied by a chaperone (McGovern). Far from their conservative home in America’s heartland, the two women experience separate journeys of self-discovery. Miranda Otto and Blythe Danner also star. Not rated. 103 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Not reviewed)
THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA
In Mexican and borderland folklore, La Llorona is the ghost of a woman who once drowned her children. She haunts everyone she encounters, wailing for her lost babies as she searches for them. That myth is very loosely adapted for this film, which is tenuously connected to The
Conjuring franchise — a cameo by series regular Father Perez (Tony Amendola) and a two-second shot of the haunted doll Annabelle about covers it. In this installment, a social worker named Anna (Linda Cardellini) realizes that La Llorona has attached itself to her in an attempt to get to her children. She turns to a disgruntled priest (Raymond Cruz) to help get rid of the ghost. The scene-setting is well done, but the film is over-reliant on jump scares, which become predictable once you have a feel for their beats. The 1970s domestic setting and fine acting by the charming Cardellini gives it a warmth that last year’s dismal The Nun lacked. A little more meat on its bones would have elevated it beyond a mere vehicle for incessant date-night frights and into the upper tier of Conjuring films. Rated R. 93 minutes. Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)
THE HUSTLE
This loose remake of the 1988 comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels flips the gender of the two leads, casting Rebel Wilson as Lonnie, a small-time grifter who meets Josephine (Anne Hathaway), a high-class con artist. Josephine takes the uncouth Lonnie under her wing and attempts to refine her tastes and teach her skills. As Lonnie grows more savvy, if not more suave, the two form a partnership to take down the men who did them wrong. Rated PG-13. 94 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
THE INTRUDER
When newlyweds Annie and Scott Russell (Meagan Good and Michael Ealy) buy a house, they encounter one problem they weren’t expecting: the man they bought it from, Charlie (Dennis Quaid), isn’t quite ready to give it up. He appears in their lives in ways that at first appear innocuous and then seem dangerous, and before they know it he’s an intruder in a house he knows better than they do. Rated PG-13. 102 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
LONG SHOT
In this smart romantic comedy, foxy overachiever Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) used to babysit for nerdy weirdo Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen), who clearly had a big crush on her back in the day. The two reconnect as adults when Charlotte, now the U.S. secretary of state, hires Fred, now an unemployed journalist, to personalize her speeches while she mounts a run for the presidency. The unlikely pair fly all over the globe while he crafts a new, relatable image for her. He humanizes her ice-queen persona, and she finds him to be cuddly, insightful, and loyal. But the optics of their budding love are all wrong, and the public seems to want her to consummate a flirtation with the prime minister of Canada (Alexander Skarsgård ). Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) directs a savvy script by Liz Hannah (The Post) and Dan Sterling (Girls), shaping Long Shot into a spirited, absorbing farce that’s full of
heart — and subversive, hilarious jokes about feminism, racial inequality, and politics. The strange chemistry between Rogen and Theron actually works, and despite a few crude trappings, an irresistible sweetness pervades. The rom-com is not dead; long live the rom-com. Rated R. 125 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Molly Boyle)
THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE
Director Terry Gilliam has been trying to make this movie about Don Quixote since 1989 — such a long time that jokes about Gilliam tilting at windmills have become commonplace. Finally, perhaps improbably, the movie is here. Adam Driver plays Toby, a cynical advertising director tasked with making a commercial featuring an Italian shoemaker named Javier (Jonathan Pryce) as Don Quixote. As the shoot progresses, so does Javier’s madness. Believing himself to actually be Don Quixote, he takes Toby to be his sidekick, Sancho Panza. Together, they go on adventures. Not rated. 132 minutes. The Screen. (Not reviewed)
POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU
A video game is what Detective Pikachu, directed by Rob Letterman, is based on, but its sense of cinematic history extends at least to 1988 and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, to which it owes a debt. Tim (Justice Smith) has a deep-seated dislike for Pokémon creatures, just as Bob Hoskins’ private eye did for ‘toons in Roger Rabbit. That aversion is tested when he teams up with Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), his father’s detecting partner, after the father appears to have been killed in an accident. The narrative seems designed to be followed by even those with the shortest attention spans; plot points get repeated in case you’ve decided to look down to send a text message; and the imagery lacks weight and texture. This is 1 hour and 44 minutes of Pikachu short-circuiting your brain. Rated PG. 104 minutes. Screens in 3D and 2D at Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6 and Violet Crown. (Ben Kenigsberg/The New York Times)
POMS
Diane Keaton heads a cast of comedians — including Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, Rhea Perlman, and Celia Weston — in this movie about never giving up on your dreams. She plays Martha, a woman who checks into a retirement community without much time left to live. She and the other women decide to form a cheerleading squad, and as they bond and improve, they decide to enter a competition against much younger women. Rated PG-13. 91 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
SHADOW
Yimou Zhang, director of Hero (2002) and House
of Flying Daggers (2004), marks his return to the wuxia martial arts genre with a riveting, visually stunning war epic set in China’s Three Kingdoms period (220-280 CE). The story of a wounded military commander and his “shadow,” a lookalike trained in secret (Chao Deng in a dual role), is an enthralling experience inspired by the concept of yin and yang, which holds that all things exist as inseparable opposites. When an uneasy alliance between two of the three kingdoms is fractured, the commander, Jing Zhou, sends his double in his place to fight in the ensuing war, which he hopes to win. Byzantine court intrigue, betrayals, rousing rain-drenched battle sequences, jaw-dropping stunt work, and dance-like fight choreography are gorgeously rendered in the nearmonochromatic tonal range of a Chinese ink-brush painting by cinematographer Xiaoding Zhao. Amid all the spectacle, Zhang finds time to tell a very human story about a world ruled by men, where women have no voice and a humble soldier struggles to assert his own identity while he’s expected to play the role of another. Not rated. 116 minutes. Center for ▼ Contemporary Arts. (Michael Abatemarco) ▼
TOLKIEN
The J.R.R. Tolkien you get here is not the musty old Oxford don and revered author of The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings. Director Dome Karukoski shows us his formative years, at school, at war, and in love. Nicholas Hoult is Tolkien (Harry Bilby as a boy) and Lily Collins is Edith, the love of his life. Most of Tolkien’s story is told in flashback, as he runs feverishly or sprawls half dead on the battlefields during World War I. His school days feature a tight group of pals who inspire the fellowship in the trilogy. We see glimpses of phantasmagoria, but the movie draws back from fully committing to Tolkien’s Middle Earth vision. Derek Jacobi brings a welcome presence as his philology professor at Oxford, lighting a fire under the young man’s love of obscure and invented languages. Hoult and Collins are appealing, and Karukoski delivers a handsome origin story, but the movie never quite manages to illuminate the fertile mind that would create the most beloved fantasy world in our literature. Rated PG-13. 112 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
UGLYDOLLS
We’ve recently had animated movies based on Troll dolls, LEGO figures, and emojis, and now here comes an animated musical featuring UglyDolls, the colorful plush toys with misshapen monster-like features. This film takes place in Uglyville, where abnormalities are celebrated. The UglyDoll Moxy (voiced by Kelly Clarkson) and her friends travel to the town of Perfection, a place where everyone is — you guessed it — perfect, and where they meet Lou (Nick Jonas), a perfection trainer, and Mandy (Janelle Monáe), a perfect doll who is sad, despite her perfection. Together, they learn that it’s what’s inside that counts. Rated PG. 87 minutes. Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY
Emily Dickinson: Was she a reclusive spinster or madcap passionate lover? Was she publication-shy, publication-deprived, or rebuffed by patronizing male chauvinist editors? In Madeleine Olnek’s playful revisionist look at Dickinson, the chips are all in on the latter options. The teenage Emily (Diana Melanie) falls in love with her best friend Susan Gilbert (Sasha Frolova). Susan marries Emily’s brother Austin (Kevin Seal) so she can live next door and carry on their affair. The cast shifts at the time of the wedding: Susan (now played by Susan Ziegler) and Emily (Molly Shannon) appear to have aged a good 30 years. It’s a low-budget production, and the period costumes feel more like attic dress-up than a credible dip into the 19th century. The mood careens from slapstick to serious, with pratfalls followed by poetry. The nights aren’t terribly wild, but the cast has a good time with this take on the Belle of Amherst as LGBTQ icon. The movie has some genuinely funny moments, but a lot of stylistic uncertainty as well. If it feels a bit like a community college production at times, it will still strike a chord with sympathetic audiences more than willing to overlook its rough edges. Rated PG-13. 84 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)