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Brigsby Bear, directed by Dave McCary ( PG- 13, 1 hour, 37 minutes) Odd and wonderful, Brigsby Bear is a sweet film about how a cloistered young man, raised in a cultural vacuum, comes to find his way in the wider world through the application of imagination, curiosity and creativity.
James ( Saturday Night Live’s Kyle Mooney) is a 25- year- old who lives underground with his parents at a compound in the desert. He is mainly confined to the house, although he occasionally dons a gas mask — to protect himself from what his caretakers have told him is a poisonous atmosphere — and sneaks out through the air lock in the middle of the night. The only media he consumes are VHS cassettes of a long- running educational children’s show, Brigsby Bear Adventures, and the only interactions he has with people other than his mom April ( Jane Adams) and dad Ted ( Mark Hamill) is via an internet chat room he accesses with an ’ 80s- vintage computer. There he discusses the show with Brigsbyboy1, Brigsbyboy2, Brigsbyboy3 and BrigsbyGirl1.
But one night while gazing across the desert, he sees police vehicles converging on his compound. FBI agents burst in, arresting the people James believes are his parents. It turns out the newborn James was stolen from the hospital, and a kind- hearted detective ( Greg Kinnear) has been working with his real parents ( Veep’s Matt Walsh and SNL veteran Michaela Watkins) to find him and bring him to a world with breathable air, lots of people, a sister ( Ryan Simpkins) and other movies and shows. But he can’t shake his love of Brigsby Bear Adventures, and is determined to
finish the series’ story.
It’s a gentle homage to 1980s culture as well as a fairy tale about a boy who never grew up; easy to watch, easy to love.
Atomic Blonde ( R, 1 hour, 55 minutes) Director David Leitch, a former stuntman, knows hot to stage action. In Atomic Blonde, he finds in 1989 Berlin a suitable environment for photogenic bloodshed. The wall that split the city for nearly three decades is about to come down. Just about every intelligence agency in the world is trying to get a list of double agents obtained by a shadowy figure known as Spyglass ( Eddie Marsan). So Britain’s MI6 sends Lorraine Broughton ( Charlize Theron) to find out how her fellow operative died, what Spyglass knows and determine the identity of a mysterious double agent. It’s complicated, violent, and totally dependent on the coolly brutal charm of super- sultry Theron to bring it all together. With John Goodman, Sofia Boutella.
Wind River ( R, 1 hour, 47 minutes) This powerful and politically relevant crime thriller, told with authority, concerns a newly minted FBI agent ( Elizabeth Olsen) who, with the help of a U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent
with a long list of problems of his own ( Jeremy Renner), is investigating the death of a young woman on a remote Native American reservation in Wyoming. With Jon Bernthal, Julia Jones; directed by Taylor Sheridan ( who wrote Sicario and Hell or High Water).
Aquarius ( not rated, 2 hours, 26 minutes) Unhurried and elegant, with great attention to character and detail, this is the absorbing story of retired music critic Clara ( played with quiet power by Sonia Braga) is the last remaining resident of the Aquarius, a majestic historical structure in the historic seaside city of Recife in Brazil. Redevelopment is all around, but she defiantly refuses to leave, and becomes a challenge to developers, who find no reason to let her stubbornness slow their progress. With Barbara Colen, Julia Bernat, Humberto Carrao; directed by Kleber Mendoca Filho.