MOVIE CLOSE - UPS
OPENING THIS WEEK
20 FEET FROM STARDOM
Morgan Neville directs this Sundance-lauded documentary about background singers from the glory days. From Merry Clayton’s haunting vocals on Gimme Shelter to Doreen Love’s largely invisible solo career, Neville interviews the men and women who stood a stone’s throw from the spotlight but created the mood and feel of the soundtrack of a generation. (Katherine Monk)
ALOFT
The English-language debut of Peru’s Claudia Llosa features a promising cast — Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, Melanie Laurent and real falcons! — but feels like a novel with pages missing. Connelly’s a woman who may have healing powers, and Murphy plays her guilty, angry falconer son. Cold as a Manitoba winter. (Chris Knight)
INSURGENT
The Divergent Series: Insurgent, the middle chapter in the story of young rebel Tris Prior, desperately wants to be taken seriously. That may by why it feels the need to open with a bang and close with another, with a whole lot of lesser bangs in between. (Chris Knight)
JURASSIC WORLD
Twenty-two years after the original Jurassic Park, this summer popcorn movie features one-note acting from Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard; the apatosaurus delivers a nice deathbed scene though. But go for effects and dino-on-dino fighting action and you won’t be disappointed. (Chris Knight)
THE LONGEST RIDE
Yet another in what’s become an annual event of Nicholas Sparks adaptations, this one features an art major (Britt Robertson) who falls for a bull rider (Scott Eastwood, son of Clint). They meet an old man (Alan Alda) and learn wisdom from his own love story. (Chris Knight)
THE WATER DIVINER
A film that knows how important it is, and takes pains to remind you about how solemn all these events are: Even Russell Crowe’s fleeting moments of levity are delivered with all the zip of a painting of Jesus ministering to lepers. It’s so concerned with making a solemn statement about the horrors of war, and showing off Crowe’s sensitive face, it never bothers to liven things up with actual touches of humanity. (David Berry)
WOMAN IN GOLD
Based on a true story, the film’s trite characterizations and lazy oversimplifications ignore the complexities of a tale that, in this cinematic telling, feels resoundingly false, despite the decent rapport between stars Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds. (Adam Nayman)
RECENT RELEASES
ALOHA
Cameron Crowe’s latest feels like a connect-the-dots done with invisible ink; there are scattered shoals of lucidity, but for the rest of the film you’re left floundering. Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone star in a story about launching a new satellite from Hawaii. Or something. (Chris Knight)
ENTOURAGE
The movie version of the TV show Entourage does not stoop below its pedigree. A toothless Hollywood satire, it’s always just been about a jumped-up gaggle of bros thoroughly in awe of their awesomeness dealing with problems most of its audience would set their one-bedroom condos on fire to have. The overarching mood is self-congratulation, which no doubt helps the sugary medicine of lifestyle fantasy go down. (David Berry)
EX MACHINA
Writer-director Alex Garland has created what may be the best android anecdote since Blade Runner. A computer programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) must decide whether a newly created robot (Alicia Vikander) is self-aware. Feelings get in the way, but whose feelings are they? (Chris Knight)
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
Film adaptations have a way of flattening the subtleties of character in Victorian and Edwardian novels. And this version of Thomas Hardy’s story of a woman considering three suitors is no exception. The acting is solid but unremarkable and the scenery is lovingly lingered over. (David Berry)
I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS
Blythe Danner’s remarkably nuanced performance alone is worth the price of admission to this quirky and egocentric but endearing film that resists the lure of contemporary pop platitudes. Living in the moment has its pluses, but there are gentler, more loving ways to measure the course of our lives and this film makes affecting note of some of them. (Julia Cooper)
INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3
This one should really be called Insidious: Prologue, as it’s set a few years before the first two chapters. It’s your standard girl-in-peril movie, as teenager Quinn (Stefanie Scott) tries to contact her dead mom and ends up stalked by a ghost. Writerdirector Leigh Whannell pops up as one half of a comic ghostbusting duo. Wish he’d arrived sooner! (Chris Knight)
IRIS
The penultimate film of the late, great documentarian Albert Maysles focuses on Iris Apfel, a 93-year-old New Yorker and style maven, and Carl, her husband of almost 70 years. They’re not Maysles’s most famous subjects, but it’s a fitting almost-finale, looking at a life lived to the fullest and still going strong. (Chris Knight)
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
Director George Miller’s fourth go at a Mad Max movie feels like an Iron Maiden album cover come to life. But it’s not nearly as quiet. Imagine two Norwegian Death Metal bands putting on an amateur production of West Side Story in a kettle drum warehouse during a hailstorm. Fury Road is a two-hour car chase, but strapped to the hood (much like Max himself in the early scenes) is a simple, satisfying story about humanity and redemption. (Chris Knight)
PITCH PERFECT 2
Directed by Elizabeth Banks, this is one of those wholly unnecessary but worthy sequels that quickly proves to be a fans-only romp. But the film about collegiate a cappella groups plays to its cast’s comedic chops and is earnest in ensuring everyone has fun. Starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. (Manori Ravindran)
POLTERGEIST
In a refreshing and unusual turn of events, this sequel to the original Poltergeist may actually exceed its memorable antecedent. Steven Spielberg’s screen story achieves a satisfying continuity in the hands of scriptwriter David Lindsay-Abaire, who contributes contemporary flair to a familiar template, while ratcheting up the pacing. The concluding sequence is especially thrilling. (Justin Lowe)
SAN ANDREAS
It ticks off all the disaster-movie boxes. Dwayne Johnson is the hero, a helicopter rescue pilot. Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario are his estranged family, who need saving. Gugino’s new boyfriend is a cad who deserves what he gets. And Paul Giamatti is the scientist who explains it all. A solid disaster-movie-genre outing. (Chris Knight)
SPY
Proving you can make a movie with a Bond girl but no Bond, writer-director Paul Feig lets Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne and Miranda Hart do the heavy lifting in a comedy about a deskbound CIA agent who volunteers to go into the field. Jason Statham provides the entire complement of testosterone, and hilariously so. (Chris Knight)
TOMORROWLAND
In the future of Tomorrowland, the world is in a sorry state: forests are scorched, cities are drowning, civilizations lay in ruin. All we need to avert global catastrophe, Tomorrowland cheerfully and naively explains, is a can-do attitude and a bit of imagination. It also takes an awfully long time for the story proper to get underway. Starring George Clooney, Hugh Laurie and Britt Robertson. (Calum Marsh)
WILD TALES
Argentine writer-director Damian Szifron presents six tales of modern problems and vengeance, including an escalating game of road rage, a bride who discovers premarital infidelity and implodes, and a demolitions expert who strikes back against municipal towing laws. A Palme d’Or contender and foreignlanguage Oscar nominee, this is what high art looks like when it’s funny. (Chris Knight)