Chile Pages
AMAZING GRACE
Not rated. 87 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts; Violet Crown. See review, Page 32.
BREAKTHROUGH
Of the many ways for a child to almost die, being submerged in frigid water is one of the more survivable. No one mentions this in Breakthrough, a movie meant for viewers with a hankering for miracles. Based on an actual incident in 2015, the Christian drama presents divine intervention and a mother’s love as what saved the life of a boy who accidentally breaks thin ice and spends 15 minutes underwater. The kid is John (Marcel Ruiz), a normal fourteen-year-old in suburban Missouri. When he’s rushed to the hospital without a pulse, only Mom (Chrissy Metz of This
Is Us) possesses the indomitable belief to pray him back to life. The result won’t sway nonbelievers, but is mostly watchable and occasionally even moving. Director Roxann Dawson makes the dramatic scenes plausible and not overly didactic. But she and screenwriter Grant Nieporte allow themselves some scenes that might work better in a high school musical. Rated PG. 116 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Mark Jenkins/ The Washington Post)
THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA
In Mexican and borderland folklore, La Llorona is the ghost of a woman who once drowned her children. She haunts everyone she encounters, wailing for her lost babies as she searches for them. In this film, which is tenuously connected to The
Conjuring film franchise, a social worker named Anna (Linda Cardellini) realizes that La Llorona has attached itself to her in an attempt to get to her children. She turns to a disgruntled priest (Tony Amendola) to help get rid of the ghost. Rated R. 93 minutes. Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
DIANE
Not rated. 95 minutes. The Screen. See review, Page 30.
HIGH LIFE
French filmmaker Claire Denis turns to English language and science fiction for this story about a group of criminals (headed by a prisoner named Monte, played by Robert Pattinson) serving death sentences. They agree to embark on a mysterious mission to seek out an alternative energy source in a black hole and participate in sexual reproduction experiments headed by Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche). The secrets of the mission unfold across a fragmented narrative that revolves around Monte and a young girl named Willow (Scarlett Lindsey as a baby, Jessie Ross as a teen). Rated R. 110 minutes. Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
LITTLE WOODS
Tessa Thompson stars as Ollie, a young woman in Little Woods, North Dakota, who is serving out probation for smuggling prescription pills across the Canadian border. When her mother passes away, she and her estranged sister (Lily James) have one week to settle the mortgage on their mom’s house. The only way they can generate this money is through illegal means, forcing Ollie to decide whether to return to that life, or move on. Rated R. 105 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Not reviewed)
PENGUINS
The latest entry in the Disneynature documentary series looks at that favorite subject of nature docs: penguins. As is the case with the Disneynature approach, the filmmakers tell a narrative story about animals in the wild, naming one penguin Steve and following him as he makes friends and attempts to find a mate. Life is unforgiving in the Antarctic, however, and Steve faces plenty of adversity on his long march. Ed Helms narrates. Rated G. 86 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
THREE FACES
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi (Taxi Tehran) has found a number of creative ways to approach his craft since being banned from making movies in his home country in 2010. This time, he uses that inventiveness to play a fictionalized version of himself. In Three Faces, Panahi and a famous actress (Behnaz Jafari, as
herself) take a road trip to Iran’s rural northwest region to help an aspiring young actress. As they embark on this adventure, they meet a variety of local citizens who provide comic encounters. Not rated. 100 minutes. In Persian, Azerbaijani, and Turkish with subtitles. The Screen. (Not reviewed)
NOW IN THEATERS CAPTAIN MARVEL
The long wait for a Marvel movie with a female lead is over, and the result is this superhero origin story about a cosmic warrior named Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), a member of a Kree fighting unit called Starforce in an intergalactic war between the Kree and the shape-shifting Skrulls. When she is captured by the Skrulls and an interrogation unlocks repressed memories, it sets her on a journey to discover her past. She arrives on Earth in 1995, meets a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and learns about her former life as an Air Force pilot named Carol Danvers. When the Skrulls and Kree follow her to Earth, she becomes the independent heroine that she was destined to be. This is a lot of information to cram into one movie, and the film’s first half struggles with excessive exposition, choppy editing, and uneven special effects. Once the plot settles into a more relaxed pace, however, the chemistry between Larson and Jackson shines through, a few plot twists liven things up, and the results are agreeably winsome in the Marvel manner — if not as strong as their top-shelf material. Rated PG-13. 124 minutes. Screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)
DUMBO
Disney continues to churn out live-action remakes of its animated library, but this take on the 1941 cartoon classic
Dumbo arrives devoid of any life. The story about a misfit in a Depression-era circus seems right in director Tim Burton’s wheelhouse, but in stretching the original’s 64 minutes to 112 minutes, the bloat causes the film to sink. The fable still centers on a young circus elephant with enormous ears who loses his mother and becomes a star when he learns to fly — but this update also stars Michael Keaton as a Walt Disney-like figure who wants Dumbo for a central attraction at his amusement park, to the chagrin of Dumbo’s trainer (Colin Farrell) and the small-time ringleader (Danny DeVito) who looked after him. As always, Burton does a stellar job with casting; Eva Green charms as a trapeze artist, and it’s a delight to watch DeVito, Keaton, and Alan Arkin commiserate. Their CGI co-star presents more problems; the attempt at realistically rendering a bigeared, baby elephant makes it look more like a ghastly creature that should be living in a pit in a Star Wars movie. Rated PG. 112 minutes. Screens in 2D at Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)
EXHIBITION ON SCREEN: REMBRANDT
In 2014, London’s National Gallery and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam embarked on a remarkable collaboration: two shows celebrating the late works of Amsterdam’s most influential artist, Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn. In his signature style of offering filmgoers a chance to visit major exhibitions without leaving the comfort of the movie theater, director Phil Grabsky takes viewers on an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of these two formidable institutions. Using late masterworks by the great artist as his prompts, Grabsky recounts the trials of Rembrandt’s final years. He weaves historical accounts into the present as the two museums prepare their respective shows. We watch conservators, art historians, and curators discover for themselves how personal tragedy spurred Rembrandt to greatness as a passionate, self-reflective, and tireless innovator. Not rated. 91 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Michael Abatemarco)
HELLBOY
Mike Mignola’s comic-book creation Hellboy was made into a pair of well-liked films by Oscarwinning director Guillermo del Toro in 2004 and 2008. In this soft reboot of the franchise, horror director Neil Marshall (The
Descent) takes it from del Toro’s arthouse to the drive-in, for a B-movie full of violence, gore, and profanity. David Harbour dons Hellboy’s sawed-off horns and giant stone hand in this take, which covers his origin story once more: A demon child is found and adopted by Trevor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane), head of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, who trains him to be a living weapon. Is Hellboy good or evil? Trevor banks on the former, while the villainous Nimue the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) hopes for the latter — and with his assistance, she hopes to conquer Earth. Bits of mythology from around the world are tossed in this irreverent blender, and all their entrails and guts come flying out. For better or worse, this is a big-budget version of an early Sam Raimi horror movie, and it is sure to appeal to those who would find that descriptor a compliment. Rated R. 120 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD
More bittersweet and less triumphal than its two predecessors, How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World concerns the exigencies that the dragon rider Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) faces as a leader, both politically and personally. Hiccup’s dragon Toothless, thought to be the last of his breed, meets a female counterpart and is quickly smitten. But is she on the level, or is the dragon hunter Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham, chewing on the cartoon scenery), who has Toothless in his sights, using her as bait? If you’ve spent any time with these characters, it’s hard not to get swept up in the saga, and it’s easy to be moved by the bond between Hiccup and Toothless, who is, in effect, a very loyal dog who can fly and harness the power of lightning bolts. The skill and detail with which the dragons have been rendered has only improved over the three films, but the movie mostly aspires to be goofy fun. And unusually for a sequel, this installment has the courage to feel conclusive. Rated PG. 104 minutes. Screens in 2D only at Regal Stadium 14. (Ben Kenigsberg/The New York Times)
LITTLE
Regina Hall plays Jordan Sanders, a successful businesswoman who treats her assistant, April (Issa Rae), terribly. When some body-changing magic is cast on her to bring her back down to size — in a very literal sense — she wakes up as a teenager (played by Marsai Martin). Now April takes charge of the company, and comic situations abound. Rated PG-13. 109 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
MISSING LINK
Stop-motion animation studio Laika presents a fable about a droll scientist named Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman) who discovers a Bigfoot-like creature (Zach Galifianakis) that he deems the evolutionary missing link and names Mr. Link. When Mr. Link learns that there could be more creatures like him out there, the two of them, along with Frost’s associate Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), embark on a globe-trotting adventure to find them. Emma Thompson, Timothy Olyphant, and Stephen Fry also lend their voices. Rated PG. 95 minutes. Screens in 2D at Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
THE MUSTANG
There are two furious beasts in The Mustang ,onea hulking man in a jumpsuit stamped with the letters DOC, and the other the wild horse of the title. The man is an inmate in a Nevada prison set against desert and mountains, but he hasn’t been able to enjoy the scenery lately, having been condemned to an isolation that is at once literal and figurative. The mustang is part of a feral herd that’s been captured for a rehabilitation program meant to keep the animal population humanely in check while helping prisoners like Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts) reintegrate into society. The men gentle the horses, and they, in turn, gentle the men. That’s the optimistic idea, at any rate, as well as the bold, obvious metaphor that shapes this seemingly impossible, seductively heartfelt male melodrama. The Mustang is direct and almost perilously familiar
— it draws from both Westerns and prison movies — yet it is also attractively filigreed with surprising faces, unusual genre notes and luminous, evanescent beauty. It shouldn’t work — none of it — not the metaphor, not the wild horse, not what it all means for the wild man at the center. It does. That’s partly because redemption stories exert their own magnetic pull but also because French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre goes all in, embracing simplicity and sincerity without hesitation or selfconsciousness. Rated R. 96 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Manohla Dargis/The New York Times)
NO MANCHES FRIDA 2
In the 2016 Mexican comedy No Manches Frida, an ex-con named Zequi (Omar Chaparro) posed as a substitute teacher to get to some stolen money that he stashed under a school, but he fell in love with Lucy (Martha Higareda), another teacher. In this sequel, Zequi and Lucy are about to get married when Lucy abruptly calls the wedding off. Now Zequi must win Lucy back while also saving the school from closure. Rated R. 102 minutes. In Spanish with subtitles. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
PENGUIN HIGHWAY
Mystery and magical realism abound in this coming-of-age anime by first-time feature-length director Hiroyasu Ishida. When penguins appear in Aoyamakun’s (voiced by Kana Kita) small Japanese village, the precocious and studious boy sets out to discover where they came from. He attempts a problem-solving tug at the threads of a vast tapestry of increasingly bizarre revelations, which leads him to partner with peers, bullies, and adults to reverse the strange happenings of his town. This journey coincides with his budding hormones, as he fixates on a local dental assistant (voiced by Yû Aoi) who may be central to the mystery. Penguin Highway may have low-key stakes, but the animation is brightly hued and lovely, lifted by surreal imagery that transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary. Not rated. 118 minutes. Screens both dubbed in English and in Japanese with subtitles; check theater for showtimes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Ker)
PET SEMATARY
Stephen King’s 1983 horror novel, which was made into a 1989 film, returns for another adaptation on the heels of 2017’s box-office hit It. In this telling, which makes significant twists on the source material, Jason Clarke plays Louis, a man who moves his wife (Amy Seimetz) and kids to rural Maine. After the family cat dies, he learns of a mysterious burial ground in the woods that brings pets back to life — only with something a little off about them. When Louis’ girl Ellie (Jeté Laurence) also dies, he buries her in the graveyard, only to see her come back in spooky fashion. John Lithgow also stars. Rated R. 101 minutes. Regal Santa Fe 6; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
SHAZAM!
Warner Brothers attempts to refurbish its DC superhero brand by going back to one of the first such characters invented: the boy named Billy Batson (played here by Asher Angel) who transforms into the caped hero Shazam (Zachary Levi). Director David F. Sandberg treats the transformation like the 1988 Tom Hanks comedy Big, using the gifted Levi as a goofy hero. When we meet the orphan Batson, he’s settled in with a family full of foster kids, where he befriends a boy named Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer). After he’s whisked to a strange realm where a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) grants him the power to transform to Shazam, he returns to Freddy as a muscle-bound man. Soon, a villain named Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) begins pursuing Shazam with hopes of adding Shazam’s power to his own. Those parts can be scary for the younger set, but the film’s charms aren’t found in that battle — they’re in the scenes that showcase lower stakes. It’s refreshing to watch a cape movie in which a big moment might revolve around rescuing teens from falling off of a Ferris wheel, and smaller scale and a child’s perspective allows for a sense of wonder to seep in. Rated PG-13. 132 minutes. Screens in 2D only at Regal Santa Fe 6; Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker)
TO DUST
After the death of his wife, Shmuel (Géza Röhrig), a devout Hasidic Jew, is plagued by horrible nightmares about her rotting corpse. His religion decrees that the soul remains in the body until it’s turned to dust. Driven by grief and a desire to understand his wife’s postmortem torment, he turns away from his own faith and seeks the counsel of a burned-out college biology professor named Albert (Matthew Broderick), who gives Shmuel a crash course in bodily decay. It’s the beginning of an unlikely friendship in director Shawn Snyder’s genre-defying movie. Broderick brings the deadpan humor, and Röhrig is the solemn straight man in this morbidly fascinating and wryly observed first feature by the director. In a series of misadventures, the pair engage in a cross-country odyssey on their quest to pierce the mysteries of life and death.
To Dust explores the shortcomings of science and religion when it comes to adequately explaining the ultimate meaning of existence. This is a dark comedy with something to say. 2:40 p.m. Sunday, April 21, only. Rated R. 105 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco)
US
With Us, writer-director Jordan Peele — who won a best original screenplay Oscar for the satirical horror film Get Out (2017) — ventures deeper into terrifying territory. As with Get Out, he piles on plenty of social commentary in the process. After Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), Gabe (Winston Duke), and their children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) get settled into their beach house for the night, the power goes out. Suddenly, a shadowy family appears in their darkened driveway, silently holding hands. They break into the house, revealing themselves to be murderous doppelgangers of each family member. Mom, dad, brother, and sister all fight for their lives, but Adelaide in particular fights back extra-viciously. She has a secret: Something that happened to her as a child may hold the key to all the mayhem. Peele’s script is both more creative and derivative than his first film. The chase scenes are truly heart-stopping, and both the child and adult actors are equally impressive in their dual roles. But the final revelations are bogged down by a backstory that’s less deep satire than it is semi-incomprehensible schlock. When a film is this unnerving at its core, we tend not to care too much about the reasons why. Tim Heidecker and Elisabeth Moss also star. Rated R. 116 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Molly Boyle)