NOW IN THEATERS
BAJIRAO MASTANI
Bollywood comes to Santa Fe with this romantic fable of an 18th- century general (Ranveer Singh) who falls in love with a Muslim woman (Deepika Padukone) during one of his con-
quests and must balance this affair with his relationship to his Hindu wife (Priyanka Chopra). With writing, direction, and musical composition by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Bajirao Mastani has become a global smash. Not rated. 158 minutes. In Hindi with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Not reviewed)
THE BIG SHORT
Adam McKay’s Oscar-nominated movie (in the Best Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor categories) is by turns funny, frightening, suspenseful, informative, and tragic. It examines the 2008 near- collapse of the world financial system from the perspectives of four analysts, or teams, who had the vision to recognize what nobody else saw coming: the rottenness of the system, the worthlessness of the packaged mortgages on which the economy was gliding, and the inevitable devastating crash when the bubble burst. They bet against the economy. They bet big. And they won. That McKay is able to explain the financial collapse that cost so many people their homes and savings — and make it entertaining — is a remarkable achievement. Terrific performances come from a cast that includes Academy Award-nominee Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell. Rated R. 130 minutes.
Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
THE BOY
An American nanny (Lauren Cohan) is hired for a job in a remote English village and finds that her charge is actually a life-size doll. At first, this seems like an easy, if extremely weird, assignment. It becomes more challenging when she suspects that the boy is alive — and evil. Rated PG-13. 98 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
BROOKLYN
In 1950s Ireland, the forward- thinking Rose (Fiona Glascott) has arranged for her younger sister Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) to go to Brooklyn out of necessity — Eilis can’t find a decent job, and there are few other prospects for her in Ireland. In New York, Eilis settles into a new life, living in a boardinghouse teeming with other, brasher young Irish women. She’s introverted and homesick, weeping over her sister’s letters — until she meets Tony (an adorable Emory Cohen), an Italian-American plumber who’s sweet on Irish girls and loves the Brooklyn Dodgers. Such a conventional plot would be slight in other hands, and though Nick Hornby’s screenplay is more sentimental than the Colm Tóibín novel it’s based on, the film — in the running for the Academy Award for Best Picture — never dips into treacly territory. The reason for that is Best Actress Oscar-nominee Ronan, whose steely performance capably anchors the story. Rated PG-13. 111 minutes. Violet
Crown. (Molly Boyle)
CAROL
This is director Todd Haynes’ second 1950s- era melodrama, after the Douglas Sirk-influenced
Far From Heaven, in which Julianne Moore plays a suburban housewife with a closeted gay husband. This time — in a story adapted from a 1952 novel by Patricia Highsmith, which she published under a pseudonym due to its lesbian plotline — it’s glamorous New Jersey housewife Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) who’s gay and nudging the closet door open. She’s going through a difficult separation and divorce from her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), during the holiday season when she meets Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), and ingénue working the counter at a New York City department store. The alchemy between Therese and Carol is instant, and glorious to behold, as the film centers on the remarkable performances of these two actresses, both nominated for Academy Awards. Every disparate element of the film adds to its virtuosity, from the period designs to the score. Rated R. 118 minutes. Violet Crown.
(Molly Boyle)
THE CHOICE
The latest Nicholas Sparks novel to hit the big screen stars Teresa Palmer as a young woman who moves in next door to a hunky guy (Benjamin Walker). It’s love at first sight, but the movie is nearly two hours long, so she resists his advances for a while. After they finally get together, she is in a major car accident, but she just might pull through — with the help of true love. Rated PG-13. 111 minutes. Regal DeVargas; Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
THE DANISH GIRL
Eddie Redmayne, winner of last year’s best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking, tosses his hat in the ring again with another Oscar-nominated performance as Lili Elbe, née Einar Wegener, a Danish painter who in the early 1930s became a transgender pioneer. Perhaps even better is Alicia Vikander, who brings enormous sympathy to the role of Einar’s artist wife, Gerda, without the benefit of torment or confusion on which to hang her character. Director Tom Hooper has crafted a beautiful picture. But there’s a sense of emotional distance that the movie never quite manages to shake. Maybe it’s too tasteful, too careful. What Lili Elbe did was terrifyingly bold. The movie is elegant and safe. Rated R. 120 minutes. In French, German, and English with subtitles. Regal DeVargas. (Jonathan Richards)
DIRTY GRANDPA
Robert De Niro plays Dick Kelly, a smirking old- timer who makes inappropriate comments to women who are a fraction of his age. After his wife passes away, Dick tricks his grandson (Zac Efron) into taking him to Florida for spring break. Rated R.
102 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
THE 5TH WAVE
In this film adaptation of the young-adult novel of the same title, Earth has been hit by four waves of alien attacks, which have left the planet nearly entirely destroyed. With the fifth wave looming, young Cassie (Chloë Grace Moretz) — one of the few remaining survivors — attempts to rescue her fiveyear- old brother Sam (Zackary Arthur) from an alien camp. She meets a boy her age (Alex Roe), and together they set out to save Sam — and perhaps the world. Rated PG-13. 112 minutes.
Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
THE FINEST HOURS
In 1952, two oil tankers were capsized by a terrible storm off the coast of Cape Cod. Four Coast Guardsmen were sent to rescue the crews. This film, based on the 2009 book of the same name, tells this true story with disaster-movie effects and what promises to be an inspirational finale. Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, and Ben Foster star. Rated PG-13. 117 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal DeVargas; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
45 YEARS
Geoff ( Tom Courtenay) opens a letter to learn that the body of a former girlfriend, Katya, has been found in the Swiss glacier where she fell to her death a halfcentury before. The news rocks him and his wife, Kate (Charlotte Rampling). Director Andrew Haigh uses this story and the considerable talents of his veteran stars to explore the way lives can turn on a moment. Katya’s life turned and ended on the slip of a foot. Geoff and Kate’s life together — spanning a comfortable 45 years that they’re about to celebrate — turns on the opening of that letter. Geoff is beginning the slow, painful process of losing his ability to remember, and here comes Katya, a distant but vivid memory, preserved in ice, her body as fresh as it was on that fateful day. Courtenay and Rampling deliver on their lifetime of experience, giving us touching, hauntingly nuanced performances that reflect not only the characters they are playing here, but their own youthful selves as well. Rated R. 95 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Jonathan Richards)
HAIL, CAESAR!
It’s a major Hollywood studio lot in the early 1950s, and on every corner they’re shooting classic genre pictures — a mermaid extravaganza (Scarlett Johansson), a singing Western (Alden Ehrenreich), a Gene Kelly- esque sailor’s musical (Channing Tatum), a Manhattan penthouse drama (Ralph Fiennes), and a biblical epic: Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the
Christ (George Clooney). The missing genre is a film noir, but that’s in the movie that surrounds all this, the Coen Brothers’ slyly affectionate, winning satire of the dream factories that turned out the movies of their childhood. Granite-faced Josh Brolin is the studio fixer who deals with problems on all of the sets, including the kidnapping of a major star (in Roman costume) by a dastardly cell of Commie screenwriters. There are a few seams and soft spots, but overall it’s glorious fun. Rated PG-13. 106 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards)
KUNG FU PANDA 3
The third film in the animated Kung Fu Panda saga finds the Furious Five under attack by a supernatural villain named Kai (J. K. Simmons) and Po the panda (voiced by Jack Black once more) reunited with his estranged father (Bryan Cranston). Po and his pop travel to their secret panda community, but when Kai finds the village, Po must train a whole fighting force of kung-fu pandas. The animation and action is up to the series’ typically beautiful, colorful highs, and the jokes land like karate chops, but the first film in the series is still the most novel and affecting. Rated PG. 95 minutes. Screens in 3-Dand 2-Dat Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2-Donly at Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Robert Ker)
OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS
Watching the Oscar- nominated shorts is a speedy tour of international storytelling. In the live-action category, Ave Maria, a family of Israeli settlers crashes their car on the grounds of a convent in the West Bank. In the nuanced live-action drama,
Day One, an Afghan-American woman begins work as an interpreter for the U. S. forces in war torn Afghanistan. In Everything
Will Be Okay, another live-action drama, a divorced father takes his eight-year- old daughter out for a surreal weekend. Among the animation nominees is Bear Street, in which a solitary bear peddles his mechanical diorama. Cloning will play a significant part in the future, especially for those who are well off and hope to live forever; World of Tomorrow, an animated drama, explores this premise. Last Day of Freedom is a gem of a documentary in which an African-American man decides to turn in his brother, a Vietnam vet who has committed a crime. Not rated. Various running times. The Screen. (Priyanka Kumar)
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie movie must be cheap exploitative trash. Not here. Writer- director Burr Steers’ adaptation of the Jane Austen classic (via the reworking by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) is smart, funny, sexy, and undead. Lily James ( Downton Abbey) is a sword-wielding Elizabeth Bennet, and Sam Riley, in a Beatles haircut, makes the most satisfying Mr. Darcy since Colin Firth. The visuals, both scenic and blood- drenched, are spectacular. The cast is uniformly fine, the writing is clever, and the tone avoids condescension and pandering. The zombies will break your heart, or eat it. Rated PG-13. 104 minutes. Regal DeVargas, Regal Stadium 14, DreamCatcher. (Jonathan Richards)
THE REVENANT
The adventures of Hugh Glass, one of the legendary mountain men of the American frontier, make for spellbinding storytelling. Whether they make a spellbinding movie is most likely in the eye of the beholder. The facts of this tale are grisly, and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (last year’s Oscar- winner with Birdman) hews closely to them. Mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions, Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) incredibly survived, made it back over hundreds of miles of wilderness to civilization, and sought revenge on the men who had abandoned him. A man being attacked by a bear is riveting cinema; a man dragging himself over hundreds of miles of frozen landscape is not. The true story of Hugh Glass is a testament to man’s capacity for endurance. For better or for worse, so is the movie, which has nonetheless drawn 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Supporting Actor. Rated R. 158 minutes. In English, French, Pawnee, and Arikara with some subtitles. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Jonathan Richards)
RIDE ALONG 2
The pairing of Ice Cube’s bad cop with Kevin Hart as the belligerent, often-annoying brother-in-law was such a hit that the duo is getting back into the squad car for a sequel. This time, the setting shifts to Miami, but the premise remains the same: There’s a bad guy to fight, a few action sequences, and
lots of odd- couple comedy. Rated PG-13. 101 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
ROOM
This adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel (with a screenplay by the author) from director Lenny Abrahamson is both suspenseful and deeply moving, — and in the running for several Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, and Actress. It’s the harrowing tale of a young woman (Brie Larson) and her son (Jacob Tremblay) who are being held captive in a grungy 11-by-11-foot garden shed. It’s no one’s idea of a feel- good story, and in less capable hands, it could easily have been dark, melodramatic, or sensationalist. Instead, Abrahamson has created a gripping tale of survival and a tender depiction of a mother and son who save each other. Rated R. 118 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Laurel Gladden)
SEMBÈNE!
The Center for Contemporary Arts’ Jason Silverman co- directs, along with Samba Gadjigo, this moving, authoritative documentary on Senegalese novelist and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007). Known as the “father of African cinema,” Sembène made films that challenged the lingering effects of colonialism in the wake of Senegal’s independence from France in 1960. He was the first black African to make a sub-Saharan film on the continent that featured African subjects, languages, and actors. The film is told largely from the perspective of Gadjigo, who is committed to preserving the filmmaker’s legacy. It’s a labor of love made for anyone who cares about the state of filmmaking, not only in Africa, but in developing nations around the world as well. As much as it’s about Sembène, it’s also about the life- changing power of cinema. Not rated. 86 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Michael Abatemarco)
SPOTLIGHT
It’s not a religion that comes under the glare of Spotlight, but an institution. In Tom McCarthy’s splendid, crackling ode to journalism, the “Spotlight” investigative team at The Boston Globe tackles pedophilia and its coverup within the Catholic Church. McCarthy is careful not to glamorize his reporters. They’re played as hard-working stiffs by a superb cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, and Liev Schreiber. McCarthy keeps nibbling at the question of how this story could have remained buried for so long. Part of it has to do with the power of the church and the shame of the victims. And some of it has to do with the cozy relationships among the city’s power institutions. At the end of the film, the truly staggering extent and reach of this scandal is revealed. The film is up for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor and Actress. Rated R. 128 minutes. Regal DeVargas. (Jonathan Richards)
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
It has been more than 30 years since Return of the Jedi (1983), but now the First Order has arisen from the Empire’s ashes, wanting control of the galaxy. With the help of Finn (John Boyega), a reformed Stormtrooper, the Resistance seeks the assistance of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who some believe is only a legend. Finn joins Resistance fighter Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), the scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Chewbacca while pursued by the First Order’s Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who’s bent on lighting up the cosmos with a Death Star-like weapon. Helmed by J. J. Abrams, this spirited seventh chapter in the saga is the Star Wars movie you’ve been waiting for — and nominated for several Oscars, including Best Visual Effects and Score. Applaud you will. Rated PG-13. 135 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Michael Abatemarco)
THEEB
Theeb (Jacir Eid Al-Howeitat) lives with his Bedouin tribe in the wilds of the Ottoman Empire in 1916. His father has died, so Theeb is learning life skills — how to shoot a gun, how to water the camels — from his older brother Hussein (Hussein Salameh Al-Saliheen). When Hussein is sent to guide a British officer to a secret location, Theeb follows them. This gorgeous film, nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is told entirely from Theeb’s point of view and is at heart a little boy’s adventure tale — but this story is tied to how progress has changed the countryside and the livelihoods of the tribes that inhabit it. Plot and character details are finely wrought, with Al- Howeitat turning in a subtle, entrancing performance in which he conveys intimate comfort with heat and sand, the visceral relief of slaked thirst, and a fierce determination not to allow a mysterious stranger to further betray him. Not rated. 100 minutes. In Arabic with subtitles. The Screen. (Jennifer Levin)
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