NOW PLAYING
Releasing (and helped save the Roxie Theater in S.F.), the two reunite for an update. The new film is an excellent companion piece, and includes scenes shot in the Presidio. Rated PG. 97 minutes. — G. Allen Johnson Love, Simon Nick Robinson stars as a highschool kid wrestling with coming out. Simon lives in a bubble of suburban perfection, which keeps the film from being as effective as director Greg Berlanti intends. Robinson saves the day, and the film. Teenagers will find the message especially effective. Rated PG-13. 110 minutes.
— D. Wiegand Midnight Sun A teenager suffers from a condition that prohibits her from being exposed to sunlight. The flawed narrative goes from frustrating to infuriating to so contrived that there’s nothing left but to stifle the screams you’d like to direct to the big screen. Rated PG-13. 91 minutes. — M. LaSalle The Miracle Season This film about a championship girls’ volleyball team beset by tragedy, based on a true story, lacks momentum as a sports film but holds emotional power as a drama. Erin Moriarty, William Hurt and Helen Hunt give heart-rending performances. Rated PG. 99 minutes.
— C. Meyer New Chefs on the Block Documentary about the struggles of two Washington, D.C., chefs to open and operate new restaurants. Not reviewed. Not rated. 96 minutes.
Nostalgia Director Mark Pellington tries to create a sense of loss and mystery, with this rambling story of various people suffering from grief or catastrophe, but while the attempt is occasionally effective, the story becomes grim and lugubrious. Starring Jon Hamm, Ellen Burstyn and Catherine Keener. Rated R. 114 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
Oh Lucy! An unhappy, middle-aged Tokyo woman (Shinobu Terajima) winds up pursuing her English teacher (Josh Hartnett) to Southern California, in this culture-clash comedy-drama from Atsuko Hirayanagi. The film, which mixes both broad and absurdist humor with melancholy and even depressing themes, has some issues, but in the end it’s an iconoclastic piece and a worthwhile character study. Not rated. 95 minutes. In English and Japanese with English subtitles. — W. Addiego
The Party Writerdirector Sally Potter creates a seriocomic pressure cooker, using her story — about a party celebrating the promotion of a woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) to Shadow Minister of Health — as a gauge for pressures outside the compressed setting. It’s a movie about the collapse of idealism and the dawn of uncertain, brutal age. Rated R. 71 minutes. — M. LaSalle
The Peacemaker Fascinating profile of Padraig O’Malley, a Harvard professor and Boston pub owner who has taken it upon himself for the past 40 years to help solve the world’s problems, even as he can’t seem to solve his own. A diplomat who represents no country, he has helped solve conflicts in Northern Ireland and South Africa and is turning his attention to Iraq. Not rated. 90 minutes. — G. Allen Johnson Phantom Thread Daniel Day-Lewis stars as a dress designer in 1950s London, whose obsessive work habits distort every relationship. This film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, traces the trajectory of one such relationship — with a waitress (Vicky Krieps), who comes into his life wanting something more. One of Paul Thomas Anderson’s best films, his first success in a while. Rated R. 130 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
A Quiet Place This is a new spin on sci-fi horror. Emily Blunt and John Krasinski are parents trying to protect themselves and their children from alien invaders that hunt by sound. So they have to remain very, very quiet at all times. Genuinely scary and original. Directed by Krasinski. Rated PG-13. 90 minutes. — M. LaSalle
Ramen Heads This entertaining Japanese documentary focuses on the cult of ramen in Japan and its most heralded practitioner, Osamu Tomita, who runs a 10-seat restaurant an hour out of Tokyo. Customers line up hours before the shop opens and slurp their noodles and broth in silent ecstasy. Not rated. 93 minutes. In Japanese with English subtitles.
— W. Addiego Ready Player One Steven Spielberg’s latest is a warning from the future, in which people, living in a dystopian 2045, are distracted from their misery by a virtual world. The film has some longueurs, but it’s an imaginative effort that responds to current anxieties. Rated PG-13. 142 minutes.
— M. LaSalle
Red Sparrow A thoroughly entertaining action film, this gets an extra boost by being a perfect showcase for Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a Russian ballerina turned reluctant spy — forced into it by her government. It’s long but fun from beginning to end. Rated R. 139 minutes. — M. LaSalle 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
Tehran Taboo This handsomely animated film, much of it set in the libertine underworld of Tehran, makes an unassailable point about the hardships of life in today’s Iran, mostly involving sexual morality and the status of women. But it belabors its points and is so heavily loaded with grievances that it begins to feel one-dimensional. The director, Ali Soozandeh, was born in Iran and and now lives and works in Germany. Not rated. 96 minutes. In Persian with English subtitles.
— W. Addiego
Thoroughbreds Filmmaker Cory Finley freshens the trope of toxic teenage female friendships just enough to be distinctive, with help from actresses (Anya Taylor-Joy, Olivia Cooke) who exhibit intelligence and curiosity while their characters compare busted moral compasses. The story grows thin after a murder plot is hatched, but at least these girls never compete for a boy or have a pillow fight. Rated R. 90 minutes. — C. Meyer
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. Rated R. 115 minutes. — M. LaSalle