Chile Pages
OPENING THIS WEEK 2020 OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT FILMS: ANIMATION
Three of this year’s slate of Oscar-nominated short animated films were directed by women: Pixar’s Kitbull, about a cat and dog forced to collaborate to survive; Sister, about China’s “one child” policy; and Daughter, a stop-motion work on loss and remembrance by Moscow-born filmmaker Daria Kashcheeva. Rounding out the slate is Mémorable, about a painter stricken with Alzheimer’s, and Hair Love, about an African American father who attempts to help his daughter with her hair. Not rated, approximately 80 minutes, in English and other language with subtitles, Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
2020 OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT FILMS: DOCUMENTARY
Once more, the documentary shorts category of the Academy Awards is full of important issues and feel-good stories from around the world. Life Overtakes Me looks at children facing deportation who retreat into “resignation syndrome,” falling into a coma-like sleep. Walk Run Cha-Cha centers on a couple of dancers decades after they emigrated to the United States.
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) tells the story of young girls learning to read, write, and skateboard in Kabul. In the Absence explores what happened during the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster in South Korea, where hundreds of people (mostly schoolchildren) died when a ferry sunk. St. Louis Superman introduces viewers to activist Bruce Franks, who ran for office after being inspired by the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Not rated, approximately 158 minutes, in English and other languages with subtitles, Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
2020 OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT FILMS: LIVE ACTION
The live-action category of Oscar shorts boasts a variety of tones and deals with various contemporary issues. In
The Neighbors’ Window, a woman disgruntled with her life finds comfort watching the couple across the street. In the Belgian thriller A Sister, an emergency call-center operator tries to help a woman who appears to be in danger in the backseat of a frantic car ride. A Tunisian man returns home to Canada after battling ISIS only to fight with his father in
Brotherhood. Saria follows two sisters who attempt to escape to the United States from an orphanage in Guatemala. On the lighter side, the French comedy Nefta Football Club centers on two boys who intrude on a big score when they stumble on a drug donkey in the middle of the desert between Tunisia and Algeria. Not rated, approximately 105 minutes, in English and other languages with subtitles, Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
CITIZEN K
Documentary, not rated, 126 minutes, in Russian and English with subtitles, Center for Contemporary Arts. See review, Page 30.
GRETEL & HANSEL
This take on the “Hansel and Gretel” fairy tale focuses on the sister (if you couldn’t tell from the title) and the witchcraft angle, and also plays up the horror element. Sophia Lillis plays Gretel, a young woman who brings her kid brother Hansel (Samuel Leakey) into the forest to forage for food, when they come into a strange house that smells of treats. They’re invited in by the house’s owner (Alice Krige), who turns out to be a witch, and soon enough, one of them will end up in an oven. Fantasy horror, rated PG-13, 87 minutes, Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
THE RHYTHM SECTION
In this action movie, Blake Lively stars as Stephanie Patrick, a happy mother and wife who is supposed to be on a flight with her family but can’t make it at the last minute. The plane crashes, and she later discovers that it wasn’t an accident. She then devotes her life to becoming an assassin and taking out the people responsible for the crash. Jude Law
and Sterling K. Brown also star. Action, rated R, 109 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
NOW IN THEATERS 63 UP
This project began in 1964 as a television study about the hopes, dreams, and daily lives of 14 British schoolchildren — all aged 7 — from different schools and walks of life and layers of the class system. Now the moppets of Michael Apted’s extraordinary documentary series are 63, thinking about retirement, doting on grandchildren, closer to the exit than to the entrance. This ninth iteration of the series catches up with 11 of the original 14 subjects: One dropped out after 21 Up, another passed on this film after having participated in the others, and a third recently died after an accident. Apted mixes in clips from all the past episodes, and takes stock of how and where his subjects are today. There’s an easy, familial comfort between Apted and the group. They tease him, they find fault with him, they open up to him, and they reflect on their lives and what this series has meant to them. Documentary, not rated, 139 minutes, Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards)
1917
British director Sam Mendes’ slice of life and death in The Great War is based on war tales told to Mendes by his grandfather, a World War II vet. The story is an odyssey, one that sends two young lance corporals on a probable suicide mission to carry an urgent dispatch to a company preparing to launch a disastrous attack. Mendes’ characters go through scenes that carry the unmistakable whiff of screenwriting. But what is truly magnificent about this movie is Roger Deakins’ cinematography, which reaches its peak in a scene amidst the smoldering ruins of a blasted French town at night, with flares and bombs bursting in air to create a fabulous nightmare-scape of jagged walls and terrifying shadows. The two corporals are Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay). The screen is mostly theirs alone, though the cast is filled out with a few name actors like Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch, who probably log five minutes between them and, as good as they are, distract with their star power. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. Military drama, rated R, 119 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
BAD BOYS FOR LIFE
Seventeen years after Bad Boys II, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as Michael Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, respectively — two maverick police officers. The game has changed, however, and they’re unable to relate to the younger cops. On the verge of retirement, they’re pulled back into action to take down a vengeful mob boss (Jacob Scipio). Action-comedy, rated R, 123 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
COLOR OUT OF SPACE
Director Richard Stanley’s return to narrative filmmaking (after the debacle that was 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau) is a welcome tale of enigmatic horror, a treat for the senses, and a top-notch homage to the vision of author H. P. Lovecraft. When a meteor strikes the rural property of the Gardner family, inexplicable events follow, and grow ever more terrifying as the film hurtles to its slambang finale. As Nathan Gardner, Nick Cage camps it up (not unexpectedly), and his denial that anything’s wrong reaches epic heights of madness. Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), the Gardner’s teenage daughter, assuredly carries Stanley’s multihued foray into full-fledged body horror and unspeakable alien threats. It’s a fun, scary thrill ride that leaves you wanting more — and the best sci-fi horror film in years. Horror/science fiction, rated R, 111 minutes, Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco)
CUNNINGHAM
In a new documentary about Merce Cunningham, filmmaker Alla Kovgan attempts a delicate dance. On the one hand, Cunningham stages many of the pioneering choreographer’s abstract works superbly, capturing the vision of an idiosyncratic artist. On the other hand, when it comes to exploring the man behind the art, the film’s execution feels out of step with its ambition. Cunningham blended the footwork of classical ballet with less traditional movements of the torso to craft a style often labeled as avant-garde, though he shied away from the label. Cunningham launched his career in the late 1930s and was active until his death, at 90, in 2009. The documentary tracks the rise of Cunningham’s New Yorkbased dance company, focusing on dance pieces he created between 1942 and 1972. Cunningham may have been too enigmatic to probe with complexity. He had a reputation for being cold and distant, as the movie notes, and his reluctance to explain his art is well documented. “I don’t describe it,” he says at one point, “I do it.” Like the man himself, Cunningham takes that mantra to heart — for better and for worse. Dance documentary, rated PG, 93 minutes, Center for Contemporary Arts. (Thomas Floyd/The Washington Post)
DOLITTLE
With Iron Man behind him, Robert Downey Jr. occupies his time by playing Hugh Lofting’s literary doctor with the ability to speak with animals. In this telling, Dolittle is a hermit who, when Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley) takes ill, is forced to embark on an epic adventure to find the cure. Antonio Banderas and Michael Shannon also star, while Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, Rami Malek, Octavia Spencer, and Emma Thompson voice animals in Dolittle’s menagerie. Family comedy-adventure, rated PG, 106 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6, Regal Stadium 14, and Violet Crown. (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)
THE GENTLEMEN
There isn’t much that’s especially gentle about The Gentlemen, the new Guy Ritchie movie that the filmmaker’s fans will be glad to hear is a return to what he does best: a funny, violent, rambunctious shaggy-dog story of a crime caper featuring an ensemble cast studded with colorful characters. It centers on Michael “Mickey” Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), a brash entrepreneur from the American South who has lived in England since coming to Oxford as a young man. Mickey is now the kingpin of a marijuana empire, but he wants to get out of the business and join polite society. The story mainly concerns the efforts of various parties to either purchase or steal Mickey’s business. These include a group of Chinese underworld figures (represented by Henry Golding); a martial arts club of rapper/robbers referred to as the “toddlers” by their coach (Colin Farrell); and another American businessman (Jeremy Strong). Early on, there is a shooting, but who has been shot only gets revealed over the course of the film’s digressions. It’s a surprise, but the twist isn’t really the point, or even the chief pleasure, of the film. That is to say The Gentlemen is more about form than function. Crime drama, rated R, 113 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Michael O’Sullivan/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, Oscar nominated), in a middle-class section of Berlin. His only friend is imaginary: a fatherly Adolf Hitler with a tendency to fly off the handle whenever Jews are mentioned. Ten-year-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. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Comedy, rated PG-13, 108 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and 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 successful, if unbalanced ride. It starts 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. The Rock employs 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 a video-game quest, and takes the ragtag group from deserts to snowy mountains in search of a jewel. Like all sequels, the second suffers from not having the delicious surprise of the first. Family adventure, rated PG-13, 123 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6 and Regal Stadium 14. (Mark Kennedy/The Washington Post)
JUST MERCY
Based on factual events, Just Mercy is the story of Walter McMillian, who in 1987 was arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, but who was railroaded by a racist and incompetent legal system in Alabama. McMillian’s case became famous by way of the memoir of Bryan Stevenson, a brilliant attorney who came to his defense and has gone on to become a leader in criminal justice reform. Just Mercy might feel like something we’ve seen before. But in the judicious hands of director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton, it feels fresh and urgent and more timely than ever. It begins when McMillian — played in an astonishing comeback performance by Jamie Foxx — is arrested. He insists he couldn’t have committed the crime. Still, he winds up on death row. Stevenson is the main protagonist, played by Michael B. Jordan with his usual combination of composure and submerged fire. There are moments when the film threatens to become as meandering as McMillian’s case itself, but Cretton keeps the narrative on course, leading the audience through the stakes and specifics of Stevenson’s quest with welcome clarity. Drama, rated PG-13, 136 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Ann Hornaday/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, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. 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 Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
THE LAST FULL MEASURE
William H. Pitsenbarger was a Vietnam War hero. In 1966, the Air Force pararescue jumper descended from a helicopter into the thick of a ground battle, saving the lives of several men. For his bravery and self-sacrifice, he was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross, which, some 30 years later, was upgraded to a Medal of Honor. Those are the facts that inspired this film, which stars Jeremy Irvine as “Pits,” who we see in flashbacks. The rest of the movie, opening in 1999, is told from the perspective of a fictional Defense Department lawyer (Sebastian Stan), who takes up the case of Pits’ medal upgrade, a narrative that centers on the attorney’s interviews with the aging survivors of Operation Abilene. The cast — featuring William Hurt, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda, Ed Harris and John Savage — helps boost a tale that sounds moving and inspirational. In the movie, however, a high-level military conspiracy is uncovered. You won’t find any published reports of such a conspiracy, which, along with Stan’s character, was apparently invented by filmmaker Todd Robinson. The writer-director takes Pits’ entirely true story and turns it into a somewhat conventional Hollywood thriller. As such, it is at once a weak and a heavy-handed one. War drama, rated R, 110 minutes, Regal Stadium 14. (Michael O’Sullivan/The Washington Post)
LITTLE WOMEN
There is a wild urgency to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women that hardly seems possible for a film based on a 150-year-old book. Gerwig flips Alcott’s narrative to allow her characters to be women first, instead of children. Jo (Saoirse Ronan, nominated for an Academy Award) is introduced when she is already on her own trying to be a writer and making compromises all over the place. Meg (Emma Watson) is living her life with two kids, a husband, and a yearning for finer things. Beth (Eliza Scanlen) is still at home. And Amy (Florence Pugh, also nominated) is in Paris with Aunt March (Meryl Streep), studying to paint and strategically plotting out a future that involves a wealthy husband. In their adult present, Gerwig finds thematically similar chapters in their past to flash back to. These are always in warmer tones, while the present has a bluish starkness. This structure is a bold choice, but using the past to reveal and illuminate things about the present makes for a richer experience overall. Nominated for six Oscars in total, including Best Picture. Drama, rated PG, 134 minutes, Regal Stadium 14 and Violet Crown. (Lindsey Bahr/The Associated Press)
PAIN AND GLORY
As he grows older, Pedro Almodovar grows more reflective. Pain and Glory is not strictly autobiographical, but it is strewn with deeply personal breadcrumbs to lead us through passages of the great director’s life. The central character is Salvador Mallo, a famous Spanish filmmaker played by Antonio Banderas, nominated for an Academy Award. The time frame shifts between memories of his character’s childhood, where his mother is portrayed by Penelope Cruz, and the present, when Julieta Serrano takes over the role. If the mood is more somber than in earlier Almodovar classics, the color scheme is as riotously rich as ever. As he casts an eye back over his life, the septuagenarian director may have lost some of his youthful exuberance, but he hasn’t lost his touch. Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Drama, rated R, 113 minutes, in Spanish with subtitles, The Screen. (Jonathan Richards)
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 Englishlanguage 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. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Drama, rated R, 132 minutes, in Korean with subtitles, Jean Cocteau Cinema and Violet Crown. (Manohla Dargis/The New York Times)
SPIES IN DISGUISE
To all appearances, this animated comedy is just another rollicking send up of super spy thrillers. Walter (voiced by Tom Holland) is a neurotic gadgets expert tasked with outfitting Lance Sterling (Will Smith), the star operative for a U.S. government spy organization known as the Agency. When Killian (Ben Mendelsohn), a villain with a robotic arm and a grudge, frames Lance for treason, the Agency puts a no-nonsense internal affairs agent (Rashida Jones) on the spy’s trail. Walter has an insane solution: a serum that transforms our hero into a pigeon. It then turns into a buddy movie as Walter and his now-feathered friend elude capture and thwart Killian’s evil plan. The humor includes enough slapstick and gross-out gags to keep the kids entertained, but there are clever callbacks and meta-jokes for older audiences to chuckle at as well. It’s also kind of weird, and that’s why it works. Animated family film, rated PG, 101 minutes, Regal Santa Fe 6. (Thomas Floyd/The Washington Post)
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
Rey, Finn, and Poe are back, played with conviction by Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac. Also back is everyone’s favorite bad boyfriend, Kylo Ren, formerly known as Ben Solo and embodied by Adam Driver.
The Rise of Skywalker has at least five hours worth of plot. Suffice it to say that various items need to be collected from planets with exotic names, and that bad guys cackle and rant on the bridges of massive spaceships while good guys zip around doing the work of resistance. The director is J.J. Abrams, who has shepherded George Lucas’ creations in the Disney era. He is too slick and shallow a filmmaker to endow the dramas of repression and insurgency, of family fate and individual destiny, of solidarity and the will to power, with their full moral and metaphysical weight. The struggle of good against evil feels less like a cosmic battle than a longstanding sports rivalry between teams whose glory days are receding. Nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Original Music Score. Science-fiction adventure, rated PG-13, 141 minutes. Screens in 2D only at Regal Stadium 14, Violet Crown. (A.O. Scott/The New York Times)
THE TURNING
This modern adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw stars Mackenzie Davis as a governess hired to watch over two children (Finn Wolfhard and Brooklynn Prince) after their parents pass away under mysterious circumstances. Once she settles into their massive estate, she discovers that not all is what it seems, both with the kids and with the house. Horror, rated PG-13. 94 minutes, Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
UNCUT GEMS
By now, it’s obvious that Adam Sandler, the actor, is capable of extraordinary range — of films painfully bad and incredibly good again, as in Uncut
Gems, a compulsively watchable, exhausting, and exhilarating collaboration with Josh and Benny Safdie. The year is 2012. Kevin Garnett is still playing for the Boston Celtics. One day, Garnett pays a visit to the shop of jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner (Sandler). Howard’s beloved black opal has arrived by mail from Ethiopia, and he can’t resist showing it off to Garnett. The Celtics star decides he needs the gem for luck in his playoff game that night. He asks Howard to lend it to him, leaving his NBA ring as collateral. Howard says yes, then pawns the ring. A frantic chase ensues to recover the gem. Meanwhile, nasty loan collectors are chasing Howard down. His personal life is no less precarious; he’s trying to hold onto the last vestiges of his failing marriage. Sandler again proves that with the right material, he has an uncanny ability to reach deep within us. Drama, rated R, 135 minutes, Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Jocelyn Noveck/The Associated Press)
VARDA BY AGNÈS
Admirers of Agnès Varda, who died in March at 90, may be looking for a fitting remembrance. She was an unusually and deeply companionable filmmaker, especially in the last decades of her long career. Her death feels like the loss of a friend, even to people who never met her. But those who are unfamiliar with Varda’s work may be wondering where to begin. With characteristic generosity, her final film, Varda by Agnès, answers that question. It’s a perfect introduction and a lovely valediction. Documentary, not rated, 115 minutes, in English and French with subtitles, The Screen. (A.O. Scott/The New York Times)