FRIEND REQUEST
Sloan (Ben Stiller), the middle-aged family man in White’s wonderful new comedy, “Brad’s Status,” is neither a weirdo nor a loser by any stretch of the imagination. He runs a small nonprofit based in Sacramento and enjoys a pleasant middle-class existence with his loving wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), and their smart, college-bound son, Troy (Austin Abrams). But Brad also worries intently about money and the future, and deep down he is troubled by what he suspects is his own mediocrity. He is reminded of this whenever he hears news of his four closest college buddies, who have all gone on to far greater material success than he has. His old pal Billy (Jemaine Clement) is now a tech titan enjoying an early retirement on a Maui beach, while Craig (Michael Sheen, deliciously smug) has become an in-demand political pundit and best-selling author. Jason (Luke Wilson) is a major Wall Street player with his own private jet. And White himself pops up briefly, and with tongue firmly in cheek, as Nick, an in-demand Hollywood director with a beach house that was recently featured in the pages of Architectural Digest. The slender story is set in motion when Brad and Troy head to Boston on a college-scouting trip, with both Harvard and Tufts on the agenda. — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
THE DARK TOWER
PG-13, 95 minutes. Lisbon. Stephen King spent more than three decades writing his self-declared magnum opus, “The Dark Tower” series, which comprises over four thousand pages. It’s taken a decade of development for the project to make its way to movie screens. The film’s epic source material and extended origin story were always going to cast a long shadow over the final product, but the film should stand on its own merit, or lack thereof. After much anticipation, “The Dark Tower” that arrives on screens this weekend is inconsistent, incoherent and often cheesy. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
1/2 R, 92 minutes. Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. The Facebook-themed horror movie “Friend Request” spooks its way into theaters this weekend, hoping to turn up audiences who are ready for autumn temperatures, Halloween and things that go bump in the night. Shockingly, “Friend Request” delivers. This scare-fest is so gloriously dumb that it is surprisingly a whole lot of fun. This German/South African co-production, directed and co-written by Simon Verhoeven, takes the social networking site and mashes it up with message-board phenomenon Creepypasta to craft a horror flick that’s based in technology but rooted in a far more ancient evil. Australian actress Alycia Debnam-Carey stars as popular college student Laura, beautiful, beloved, and surrounded by friends and admirers at her picturesque seaside university. When she takes a misfit from psych class, Marina (Liesl Ahlers), under her wing, her life starts to go completely haywire, especially when her new friend’s obsessive attention turns dark and needy. Soon Laura’s besties are dropping like flies as they GILES KEYTE/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
are beset with terrifying hallucinations from the illustrations and animations that pepper Marina’s Facebook page. To make matters worse, Laura loses control of her own profile, which starts posting harrowing video of the campus deaths, and Laura’s friend count plummets. And to think it all started with a simple friend request. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
HOME AGAIN
PG-13, 97 minutes. Through tonight only at Niantic. Still playing at Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. The name “Meyers” has come to signify a very specific type of film in Hollywood — the shiny, gentle, comforting and aspirational romantic family comedies that writer/director Nancy Meyers has perfected (“Something’s Gotta Give,” “The Holiday,” “It’s Complicated”). Her daughter, Hallie Meyers-Shyer, keeps that legacy alive with her directorial debut, “Home Again.” Call it nepotism, call it a legacy, or simply call it the family business, which always inspires a sense of trustworthiness, quality and consistency. The Meyers aesthetic is strong in this film, with Nancy serving as a producer on this mother-daughter co-production of a very specific cinematic product. Featuring beloved actresses on the other side of 40 enshrined in sun-dappled kitchens as they fret over romantic foibles, a Meyers movie is the kind of domestic escapism that feels like being wrapped in a warm hug. And though “Home Again” clearly shares DNA with her mother’s work, the sharp screenplay, written by Meyers-Shyer, is modern and sly, universally relatable and poignant at times too. Reese Witherspoon stars as Alice, the daughter of the late John Kinney, a revered (fictional) 1970s film director and his actress wife Lillian (Candice Bergen, who gets some of the best lines in the film). She’s recently separated from her husband Austin (Michael Sheen) and returned home to her dad’s palatial pad in LA with her two daughters, trying to get steady on her feet. Before she knows it, her world is rocked again with the arrival of three 20-something men, newly arrived dreamers looking to make it big in Hollywood. Thanks to the meddling of her mom, she decides to let them stay awhile. Unexpectedly, the presence of Harry (Pico Alexander), Teddy (Nat Wolff) and George (Jon Rudnitsky) is just what Alice needs to get her groove back. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
IT
R, 135 minutes. Niantic, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Here’s the good news: Pennywise is as creepy as ever in the new “It.” Thanks to a bigger budget and some improved special effects some 27 years later he really gets the chance to spook the kids of Derry, Maine. Bill Skarsgard (son of Stellan, brother of Alexander) has infused Stephen King’s killer clown with a pathological menace that’s more reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s Joker than Tim