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mento. This is a warm, goodhearted, intuitive movie that could be the start of an exceptional filmmaking career. Rated R. 94 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
Molly’s Game Jessica Chastain is superb in this fact-based account of a young woman who becomes rich by hosting high-stakes poker games. But at well over two hours,inutes, the unimportance of the story, the essential emptiness of the central character and writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s attempt to steamroll over plot problems with dialogue make this a break-even proposition at best. Rated R. 141 minutes. — M. LaSalle
Pitch Perfect 3 The second sequel to the a cappella choir comedy feels less like a movie than a bunch of deleted scenes strung together in the guise of a plot. Anna Kendrick leads a cast that is still committed and some of the performances (”Let Me Ride,” “Freedom!”) still soar. But the script is rushed and lazy, and the singing often feels like an afterthought. — P. Hartlaub Rated PG-13. 94 minutes. — P. Hartlaub
The Post This story of the Washington Post’s risky decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971 sags in places, but is lifted by the performances of Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks (as Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, respectively) and by director Steven Spielberg’s clear intention to relate the attempted suppression of journalism in the 1970s to similar efforts being made today. Rated PG-13. 115 minutes. — M. LaSalle
Quest Jonathan Olshefskiâ’s moving, quite amazing documentary filmed over an eight-year period focuses on the Rainey family, an African American couple and their children as they negotiate years of hardship and hope as the Barack Obama era segues into the Donald Trump era. “Quest” has a spirit of peaceful resilience, and the result is a beautiful, quietly observant film of family love and strength. Not rated. 105 minutes.
— G. Allen Johnson
The Shape of
Water Visually brilliant and psychologically strange, this Guillermo del Toro film, starring Sally Hawkins, is essentially about the power of love, but it functions as another of its director’s indulgences in cruelty, with Michael Shannon as a sadistic government agent. Still, the set design and cinematographer make this film impossible to dismiss. Rated R. 123 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
Star Wars: The
Last Jedi Mark Hamill takes the all-time “Star Wars” acting prize, as a jaded man confronting a life of failure, in this latest installment, in which Luke Skywalker (Hamill) is asked by the new guard to lead the Resistance. At a certain point some battle fatigue settles in, but this is an appealing entry in the series. Rated PG-13. 152 minutes.
— M. LaSalle Thor: Ragnarok The best of the “Thor” movies, this returns to the light, fun spirit of the original, while bringing on the blockbuster action sequences. The movie is funny, with strong turns from Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Anthony Hopkins as the King, and especially Cate Blanchett, who eats up the scenery as the Goddess of Death. Rated PG-13. 130 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,
Missouri Frances McDormand has one of her career-best showcases as a woman, mourning the murder of her daughter, who tries to prod the local police by renting three billboards criticizing them for their slow investigation. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, the movie is both funny and sad, with brilliant performances by McDormand and by Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson as local policemen. Rated R. 115 minutes. — M. LaSalle