Chile Pages
BOMBSHELL
In this dramatization of real-life #MeToo events, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie play three women at FOX News who take on network head Roger Ailes (John Lithgow). Despite the fact that the three women are of different ages and don’t interact very often, they all experience sexual harassment and humiliation in the workplace and seek to bring the toxic work environment to light.
Drama, rated R, 108 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
CATS
One of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time gets a film adaptation courtesy of director Tom Hooper, who did the same for Les Misérables in 2012. Judy Dench, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, and Taylor Swift are among the actors and singers who are partially transformed through CGI into felines. The music is composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. A tribe of cats called the Jellicles must decide annually which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and become resurrected. Musical, rated PG, 102 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6 and Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
LITTLE WOMEN
Opens Wednesday, Dec. 25. Drama, rated PG, 134 minutes, Regal Stadium 14, The Screen, and Violet Crown. See review, Page 28.
SPIES IN DISGUISE
Opens Wednesday, Dec. 25. Animated family film, rated PG, 101 minutes, screens in 3D and 2D Regal Stadium 14. See review, Page 30.
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
The latest trilogy of Star Wars movies comes to a conclusion with this film, which aims to answer many of the fanbase’s questions, including the question of who the “Skywalker” is in the title? Is it Rey (Daisy Ridley), finally discovering that her lineage involves the first family of the sci-fi saga? Is it Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), coming to the good side of the Force after all? Is it Luke (Mark Hamill), coming back after his apparent death in the last film? Whatever is revealed, Poe (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), Chewbacca, and the droid BB-8 will have plenty to do, and Billy Dee Williams returns as Lando Calrissian. Science-fiction adventure, rated PG-13, 141 minutes. Screens in 3D and 2D at Regal Stadium 14, screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6. (Not reviewed)
UNCUT GEMS
Every so often, comedian Adam Sandler expands his acting portfolio by taking on a dramatic role. In this instance, he gets in front of the camera of the Safdie brothers, who most recently made waves with 2017’s Good Time. Sandler plays Howard, a jeweler who makes a series of high-stakes bets with the hopes of landing a big score. This gamble soon finds him in a world of stress, balancing business and family while evading a host of adversaries. Several celebrities, including former NBA star Kevin Garnett and singer the Weeknd, co-star as themselves. Opens Tuesday, Dec. 24. Drama, rated R, 135 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
NOW IN THEATERS A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
This movie is about how a man who devoted his life to being kind helps a man with a professional investment in skepticism to become a little nicer. It could easily have turned into something preachy, sentimental, and overstated. Fred Rogers was none of those things. His decency presented itself with a serene consistency that could be a little unnerving. That’s how Rogers sometimes struck Tom Junod in the Esquire profile that inspired Marielle Heller’s film. And that’s how the movie’s Mister Rogers, played by Tom Hanks, often strikes Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a fictional character who, like Junod, writes for Esquire. This movie is not primarily about Rogers’ work in children’s television. It’s about how his friendship helps Lloyd become a more forgiving son, a more responsive husband, and a more involved father. Hanks performs this with faultless technique, but you never lose sight of the performance. Rogers demurs when Lloyd describes him as a “celebrity,” but this film, in spite of its skill and sincerity, can’t find anything else for him to be. Biopic, rated PG, 108 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (A.O. Scott/The New York Times)
BLACK CHRISTMAS
The 1974 film Black Christmas is considered one of the first slasher films ever made. This remake by co-writer and director Sophia Takal takes the premise to modern times. It still centers on a group of female students who are stalked by a killer over Christmastime. This time, however, the young women discover the stranger is part of a conspiracy and attempt to turn the tables on him. Horror, rated PG-13, 92 minutes, Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
FANTASTIC FUNGI
Brie Larson narrates this documentary that shows us the inside world of mushrooms, molds, and other fungi. Director Louie Schwartzberg takes viewers on a time-lapse journey that describes the ancient history of these organisms and their power in the present to heal and to sustain life. Some of the most-renowned mycologists in the world also offer their thoughts on the potential of fungi to help humans across a wide variety of uses. Documentary, not rated, 81 minutes, Center for Contemporary Arts. (Not reviewed)
FORD V FERRARI
At France’s 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1966, a team of American engineers led by designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) are dispatched by Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to do the impossible: design and assemble a Ford capable of beating the dominant Ferrari racing team. Shelby enlists British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), and the slightly eccentric, highly competitive men try to make it work. Director James Mangold captured this dramatization of the resulting preparation and race. Drama, rated PG-13, 152 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
FROZEN II
It’s been a few years since Elsa (voice of Idina Menzel) learned to embrace her icy powers and settled on her throne. Little sister Anna (Kristen Bell) is still with hunky lunk Kristoff (Jonathan Groff). Living snowman Olaf (Josh Gad) continues to hang around. Otherwise, things are going well in the charmingly Nordic kingdom, right up until Elsa begins hearing a lone voice singing from afar. Not long after the song begins — although only Elsa can hear it — the
people of Arendelle experience some oddities, culminating in an earthquake that sends the entire population heading for the hills. Frozen II starts off on shaky ground, largely because it backtracks on much of the character development Anna and Elsa went though in the first movie. The biggest disappointment? The music. There isn’t really a standout song in the bunch. Yes, it is a letdown when compared with the original. But it’s also a lackluster disappointment on its own — a pale shadow of what it could have been. Animated adventure, rated PG, 103 minutes, screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (Kristen Page-Kirby/The Washington Post)
JOJO RABBIT
Writer and director Taika Waititi presents a twee version of World War II-era Berlin in Jojo Rabbit that is seen through the eyes of a child. Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is an only child whose father, he thinks, is off fighting the war for Germany. He lives with his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), in a middle-class section of Berlin. His only real friend is imaginary: a fatherly Adolf Hitler with a tendency to fly off the handle whenever Jews are mentioned. Tenyear-old Jojo is one of the Hitlerjugend, or Hitler Youth, and decorates his room with swastikas and posters of the Führer. The comedy is fast-paced, at times approaching slapstick. It takes its time to find its emotional core and, as it does, the humor settles down and the drama mostly takes over, edging, at times, into rank sentimentalism. Jojo Rabbit may strain your credulity, but never at the expense of its young protagonists, who shine throughout. Comedy, rated PG-13, 108 minutes, Violet Crown. (Michael Abatemarco)
JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL
This sequel brings together the same director, writers, and actors who made the 2017 Jumanji reboot so fun and then layers in more stars — Danny Glover, Danny DeVito, and Awkwafina — plus more locations and special effects. The result is a largely successful, if more unbalanced ride. It starts off like the first, with four mismatched young people getting sucked into a video game. There, they transform into avatars played by Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan. Glover and DeVito, playing two estranged friends, also get pulled into the game, and everyone has a new avatar. Now The Rock employs both a honking “Noo Yawk” accent and an elderly man’s befuddlement at what’s happening since he’s controlled by DeVito. Meanwhile, Glover gets handed Hart. The plot is insane, as you might expect from an adventure video game quest, and takes our ragtag group from arid deserts to snowy mountains in search of a jewel that will restore the natural order. Like all sequels, the second suffers from not having the delicious surprise of the first. It’s not broke, so don’t fix it. Family adventure, rated PG-13, 123 minutes, screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (Mark Kennedy/The Washington Post)
KNIVES OUT
Writer and director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) takes a break from galactic adventures to dial the stakes down into a simple whodunit. Daniel Craig plays Detective Benoit Blanc, a private eye who is called upon to investigate the murder of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). The suspects? His family members, who are played by Toni Colette, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford, Michael Shannon, and others. Mystery, rated PG-13, 130 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
THE LIGHTHOUSE
A horror movie about inner and outer darkness, this film begins with two lighthouse workers, Wake (Willem Dafoe) and Winslow (Robert Pattinson), arriving on a small, desolate island. Over many solitary days and nights, they work, eat, drink, and dig at each other, establishing a bristling antagonism. In time, their minds and tongues are loosened by alcohol and perhaps a simple human need for companionship. The wind howls, the camera prowls, the sea roars, and director Robert Eggers flexes his estimable filmmaking technique as an air of mystery rapidly thickens. With control and precision, expressionist lighting and an old-fashioned square film frame that adds to the claustrophobia, Eggers seamlessly blurs the lines between physical space and head space. Horror, rated R, 109 minutes, Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Manohla Dargis/The New York Times)
MARRIAGE STORY
This drama begins on a sweet note, as Charlie (Adam Driver) and his wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) take turns enumerating the other’s most special qualities. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, it is nothing new within the cinematic canon of breakup movies. Charlie and Nicole are a New York couple, the center of an artsy constellation that revolves around his theater troupe, in which she has been the longtime leading lady. On the surface, they have it made. But Nicole misses Los Angeles, where she grew up, and she resents having subsumed her own creative life to parenthood and Charlie’s artistic ego. This isn’t the chronicle of a disintegrating relationship as much as one evolving under severe duress, as Charlie and Nicole renegotiate the terms of their engagement, custody of their son, and — perhaps most brutally — the narrative of their life together. Drama, rated R, 136 minutes, The Screen. (Ann Hornaday/The Washington Post)
PARASITE
Director Bong Joon Ho creates specific spaces and faces that are in service to universal ideas about human dignity, class, and life itself. That’s a good way of telegraphing the larger catastrophe represented by the cramped, gloomy, and altogether disordered basement apartment where Kim Ki-taek (the great Song Kang Ho) benignly reigns. A sedentary lump, Ki-taek doesn’t have a lot obviously going for him. Fortunes change after the son, Ki-woo (Choi Woo Shik), lands a lucrative job as an English-language tutor for the teenage daughter, Da-hye (Jung Ziso), of the wealthy Park family. The other Kims soon secure their positions as art tutor, housekeeper, and chauffeur. In outsourcing their lives, all the cooking and cleaning and caring for their children, the Parks are as parasitical as their humorously opportunistic interlopers. Drama, rated R, 132 minutes, in Korean with subtitles, Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Manohla Dargis/ The New York Times)
QUEEN & SLIM
This debut feature by music-video and television virtuoso Melina Matsoukas (written by Lena Waithe), starts out as a restrained comedy of romantic disappointment. The title pair — played by Jodie TurnerSmith and Daniel Kaluuya — are in a diner after connecting on a dating app, and the lack of chemistry is palpable. It’s a cold night in Cleveland, and a second date is unlikely. A lethal encounter with an aggressive white police officer (country singer Sturgill Simpson) changes everything. The non-couple turn into fugitives, and Queen & Slim becomes an outlaw romance. In the course of their flight they become folk heroes. They also fall in love. The film is full of violence and danger, but it isn’t a hectic, plot-driven caper. Its mood is dreamy, sometimes almost languorous, at least as invested in the aesthetics of life on the run as it is in the politics of black lives. Drama, rated R, 132 minutes, Jean Cocteau Cinema. (A.O. Scott/The New York Times)
RICHARD JEWELL
In this movie about the security guard who found what’s known as the Centennial Park bomb during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was falsely implicated in
planting it, the villains are more starkly delineated than the heroes. The bad guys are the government, represented by an unscrupulous FBI agent (Jon Hamm), and the media, represented by a sleazy reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Olivia Wilde), who wrote a story identifying Jewell as the subject of the investigation. The title character is a nerdy, overweight rent-a-cop who, as the film opens, is about to get fired from his college campus security job for his overly aggressive harassment of pot-smoking undergrads. Played by Paul Walter Hauser with a nuance and commitment that makes it seem like he was born for the part, Richard is mocked for his girth, for his large collection of guns, and for his inability to tamp down his uncool enthusiasm for “law enforcement.” Richard Jewell is a handsome film about the frightening possibility of false accusation. But coming as it does in 2019, its vilification of reporters and the feds is even scarier. Drama, rated R, 129 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Michael O’Sullivan/The Washington Post)
THE TWO POPES
This is really three movies: a behind-the-scenes tale of Vatican politics, a mini-biopic about the current pontiff, and a two-man study of friendship, rivalry, and major British acting. The first, though intriguing, is more puzzling than illuminating. The second feels a bit like a Wikipedia page, albeit one with first-rate cinematography. The third is absolutely riveting, a subtle and engaging double portrait that touches on complicated matters of faith, ambition, and moral responsibility. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God), the film begins in 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II. The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gather at St. Peter’s to elect a successor, settling on Joseph Ratzinger (Anthony Hopkins), who becomes Pope Benedict XVI. The runner-up is Jorge Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), an Argentine priest who will replace Benedict eight years later, becoming Pope Francis in a highly unusual transfer of ecclesiastical authority. Biopic, rated PG-13, 125 minutes, Center for Contemporary Arts. (A.O. Scott/The New York Times)