Current attractions
“99 Homes”: This mortgage crisis thriller starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon and Laura Dern is rich territory mined for high human drama. It pits the concepts of home and hearth against the cutthroat world of banks and foreclosure specialists and may very well be the scariest movie you’ll see this year. ½ (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) R, 1:42
“Ant-Man”: Paul Rudd is perfect as Scott Lang, an ex-con selected to save the world by Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), who recruits Lang to become the shrinking Ant-Man and take on a mad genius. (Tony Hicks, Staff) PG-13, 1:55
“Black Mass”: Johnny Depp reminds the world he’s still one of its best actors in the role of Whitey Bulger, the Irish gangster who made a twisted deal with the FBI in the ’70s that allowed him to take over the Boston underworld. Tony Hicks, Staff) R, 2:02
“The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution”: The legacy of the Black Panthers roars back to life in Stanley Nelson’s pulse-pounding new documentary. The potent film, which fuses candid interviews with
rare archival footage and a propulsive soundtrack, is compelling enough to convince even those unfamiliar with civil rights history that the lessons of the Panthers sadly remain as relevant as ever. (Karen D’Souza, Staff) Not rated, 1:56
“East Side Sushi”: This charmer from Oaklandborn filmmaker Anthony Lucero finds a hardworking single Latina mom (Diana Elizabeth Torres) tapping into her inner Iron Chef at a sushi restaurant in Oakland. It’s a feel-good treat that makes salient points about gender, class and culture.
Randy Myers, Correspondent) NR (but family friendly), 1:47
“Everest”: Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Keira Knightley, Jason Clarke and John Hawkes star in the true story of a number of expeditions up Mount Everest in 1996. (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) PG-13, 2
“Goodnight Mommy”: Mommy returns home from the hospital with her head swathed in bandages and acting threatening, and her twin boys wonder if she is another person in this Australian thriller. ½ (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune) R, 1:40
“Grandma”: Lily Tomlin in the title role gives this brisk, moving, bittersweet film about a grandmother and her desperate, pregnant granddaughter all the gusto it needs. Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press) R, 1:19
“Hotel Transylvania 2”: This sequel is cute and diverting enough — the monsters who come to the hotel get seduced by its creature comforts — but it won’t be joining the pantheon of animated classics. Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) PG, 1:29
“Inside Out”: Pixar’s latest film focuses on what’s going on inside the brain of 11-year-old Riley, who is out of sorts after her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. Tony Hicks, Staff) PG, 1:34
“The Intern”: There’s really not too much at stake in this occasionally frothy rom-com starring Robert De Niro as a widowed retiree who is hired as a senior intern to hard-driving startup exec Anne Hathaway. ½ (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune) PG-13, 1:59
“Learning to Drive”: Patricia Clarkson is a book critic bouncing back from a breakup by taking driving lessons from Ben Kingsley, a fastidious Sikh instructor.
½ (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune) R, 1:30
“The Martian”: Marooned on Mars when his fellow space explorers left him behind for dead after a fierce storm, Matt Damon as indefatigable astronaut Mark Watney manages to survive and save himself — practically all by himself. Jessica Chastain and Jeff Daniels also star in Ridley Scott’s visually arresting film with the somewhat ridiculous conclusion.
(Tony Hicks, Staff) PG-13, 2:14
“Maze Runner: The
Scorch Trial”: Now free of the maze, but launched into a wasteland called The Scorch, Thomas and his teenage friends are on the run again, trying to save themselves from the evil older generation seeking the blood that makes them immune from a killer virus.
½ (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) PG-13, 2:11
“Meet the Patels”: This often uproariously funny and ultimately poignant documentary traces an Indian-American comic actor’s efforts to meet and marry a soul mate, aided by his intrusive, but ultimately lovable traditional parents.
Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) PG, 1:38
“Pawn Sacrifice”: Tobey Maguire is at times almost too unhinged as the stranger-than-fiction chess champ Bobby Fischer, here squaring off with Liev Schreiber as his Russian nemesis Boris Spassky in this straightforward account of the 1972 world match.
Kenneth Turan, L. A. Times) PG-13, 1:56
Emily Blunt plays an FBI agent who joins a government task force targeting a Mexican drug kingpin operating along the border. She gets a brutal wake-up call in realizing her actual role and the motives and methods of her fellow operatives. Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro also star.
½ (Tony Hicks, Staff)
R, 2:01
Sleeping with Other People”: Alison Brie as Lainey and Jason Sudeikis as Jake are totally unaware they are the perfect couple, as they reconnect 12 years after a brief college tryst in this film, which is romantic,
moving and laugh-out-loud funny from start to finish.
½ (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) R, 1:35
“Straight Outta
Compton”: O’Shea Jackson Jr. plays his real-life dad, Ice Cube, in this powerful look at the rise of legendary rap group N.W.A. and how it affected the relationship between young AfricanAmerican men and law enforcement. ½ (Tony Hicks, Staff) R, 2:27
“The Visit”: M. Night Shyamalan somewhat redeems himself with this funny/scary confection that suffers from him overextending himself again with a hammered-in message. Two teens visit their grandparents while mom is on a cruise and get more than they bargained for. ½ (Randy Myers, Correspondent) PG-13, 1:34
“The Walk”: Robert Zemeckis dramatizes French aerialist Philippe Petit’s unauthorized 1974 wire walk of the twin towers between the World Trade Center using scary 3D and visually momentous filmmaking. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ben Kingsley star. ½ (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune) PG, 2:03