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
“He Named Me Malala”: The film based on the memoir of the heroic Pakistani girl who survived a gunshot to the head and went on to step up her advocacy tells her story as well as that of her family and the father who helped shape her worldview. Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) PG-13, 1:27
“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-yearold 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
“Labyrinth of Lies”: The harrowing truth starts to emerge as a young German prosecutor in the early ’60s uncovers piece by piece the damning evidence of the horrors wrought by the Nazis a generation earlier. (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) R, 2:04
“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
“Pan”: Here we have a noisy, disconnected prequel to the original beloved story, with young Pan being kidnapped by Blackbeard the pirate. He befriends another of Blackbeard’s captives — one James Hook — and the two pair with Tiger Lily to help the exiled fairies take on Blackbeard. Except for young Levi Miller in the title role and Hugh Jackman’s over-the-top Blackbeard, the casting was suspect, and much of the story felt rushed and inexplicable. (Tony Hicks, Staff) PG, 1:51
“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
“Sicario”: 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
“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 African-American men and law enforcement. ½ (Tony Hicks, Staff) R, 2:27
“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