‘MIDNIGHT SPECIAL’ PG-13 1:51

‘THE BOSS’

R 1:39

Melissa McCarthy is a two-man woman when it comes to her career. With writer/ director Paul Feig, she’s found some of her greatest success, from her breakout in “Bridesmaids,” to the runaway hit of “The Heat,” to last year’s surprise, “Spy.” Then there’s her husband, Ben Falcone, a fellow alum of the Groundlings Comedy theater, with whom she co-wrote, and he directed “Tammy” and now “The Boss.”

While the Feig films are more tightly and traditionally structured, with a high joke density, the Falcone films have proven to be loose and profoundly weird, with room to indulge in strange bits and riffs. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re in the tank for McCarthy’s specific brand of character-driven physical humor. In both “Tammy” and “The Boss,” McCarthy and Falcone take high-concept characters of McCarthy’s — both rambunctious women-children who enjoy rap music and flouting the law — and set them free in a lightly sketched out cinematic world.

In “The Boss,” McCarthy plays Michelle Darnelle, a cold-blooded, no-holds-barred wheeler and dealer and the “47th wealthiest woman in America.” Michelle has a penchant for high turtlenecks, flowing tunics and dirty-mouthed smack talk honed in the halls of Wall Street.

As a film, “The Boss” isn’t so boss. The writing doesn’t stand up to McCarthy’s talents, and the humor relies more on her delivery and physical commitment than on actual written jokes. But it’s an opportunity to watch a comedic performer at the top of her game revel boldly in her own confident weirdness. That’s not something you often get to see on the big screen.

Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Kathy Bates, Tyler Labine and Peter Dinklage. (Sexual content, language and brief drug use)

With “Demolition,” French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee establishes himself as an auteur. Having directed “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Wild,” themes and patterns start to emerge. All three films deal with the paper-thin line between life and death; how death informs life, inspiring people to live harder, live sweeter, to the extreme. In these films, death is something that makes the living push the boundaries of life as far and as hard as they can.

Vallee has a talent for wordy, writerly scripts, and “Demolition” is no exception. Written by Bryan Sipe, the screenplay uses an epistolary device to let us in on our protagonist’s inner life. The leading man is Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal), who begins to write letters to the customer service department of a vending machine company in the immediate aftermath of his wife Julia’s (Heather Lind) death in a car accident.

It’s a strange coping mechanism, to be sure. But it’s clear that it’s much easier to write a letter to a vending machine company because he was jilted out of $1.25 and a bag of peanut M&Ms, than to the driver of the car that slammed into his, or to the doctors who could not save her. The customer service department is his only outlet, an anonymous source to whom he can confess his thoughts about his marriage (just OK), his job (investment banking), his demanding father-in-law (his boss, played by Chris Cooper).

But the customer service department is a person, Karen (Naomi Watts), and she reaches out, tentatively, proffering a nugget of compassion, an escape from his perfectly regimented and designed life. Her friendship, perhaps a catalyst, coincides with Davis’ breakdown. That word is quite literal in this case, at least in the environmental sense.

Numb inside, Davis starts to break down everything he can — taking apart computers, bathroom doors, appliances, just to see how they work. He pays a construction boss to let him ferociously tear down dry wall with a sledgehammer; in so doing, he steps on a nail and howls in joy, thrilled with the feeling of pain. He sheds social expectations and norms, his career and family cast aside as collateral damage as he breaks down to get himself back together.

There’s an emotional honesty in the treatment of his grief. Just because it’s different doesn’t make it any less valid, and “Demolition” treats it as such. There’s a beauty in the breakdown, and it’s amongst the rubble that Davis finds himself living, rather than enduring, his life.

Vallee and cinematographer Yves Belanger bring their naturalistic but rigorous approach to the film, at once stylish but not overly obtrusive. The filmmaking allows for the writing and the performances to shine. Gyllenhaal brings a sense of wide-eyed sweet boyishness to the deadpan Davis, who could have been a jerk in another performer’s hands. But the true find is newcomer Judah Lewis as Chris, Karen’s young gay son. He’s bold, androgynous, naively confident, startlingly delicate. The two are oddball outsiders who just get each other, a connection that’s all anyone can hope for in this life.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Heather Lind and Chris Cooper. (Language, some sexual references, drug use and disturbing behavior) theater. However, no matter where you sit or how you see it, you will still be Henry, or at least under the illusion that you’re him.

“Hardcore Henry” is the first of its kind: a film completely shot with a Go-Pro — dozens of the cameras, actually — making it filmed 100 percent from the protagonist’s point of view. So, if you would like to be dropped from a freeway overpass, want to know what it feels like to shoot at someone from the back of an incredibly fast-moving motorcycle or fall from a helicopter all while eating popcorn and sipping a beer, this is the film for you.

First-time, full-length feature director/ writer Ilya Naishuller makes the man-child id of senseless violence a pseudoreality, a kind of first-person, gaming-esque hyperviolent fantasy. But never fear, the film is not all smash-’em-up testosterone, adrenaline and bloodshed. Its viscera is comic-like camp.

Naishuller has a sense of humor through the fisticuffs and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Henry is a superhero whose voice activation has yet to be turned on. We become superheroes for around 90 minutes — and that is appealing.

Henry was once a man, who is now a souped-up hyper-athletic killing machine who can execute the most dexterous of Parkour moves and kick everyone’s butt creatively. You, or Henry, awaken, with absolutely no authentic memory, to your wife screwing your robotic leg back on in some type of laboratory when security is breached and the evil radioactive villain with gravitational radiation powers, Akan, comes to capture you and your wife.

The chase is on, and it truly does not stop until the credits roll. Good luck.

Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky, Haley Bennett, Andrey Dementyev and Dasha Charusha. (Nonstop bloody brutal violence and mayhem, language throughout, sexual content/nudity and drug use)

Ruby Adams is a dancer from the Midwest on scholarship, living her first day in New York City. Johnny Blackwell is a British musician, playing for money in the subway tunnels. Ruby’s world is classical and disciplined; Johnnie’s is improvisational and street smart. When a hip-hop battle gone wrong throws these two artists together, they immediately clash but can’t deny it when sparks begin to fly. Their lives quickly get entangled in the pitfalls that come with competing in New York City. With the help of a dynamic dance crew called The SwitchSteps, Ruby and Johnnie must find a way to save Ruby’s scholarship and keep Johnnie from being deported.

Jane Seymour, Sonoya Mizuno, Paul Freeman, David Lipper and Maia Morgenstern. (Some thematic elements and mild language)

They ride by night on back roads through the South in “Midnight Special,” two grim-faced men in the front seat of a battered old car. Men with guns, watching warily. In the backseat is a strange, quiet boy of 8, wearing goggles.

How strange becomes apparent eventually. The goggles are a clue. When they’re removed, weirdness happens. Unearthly weirdness.

The weirdness is the reason these three are on the run, through the night, pursued by formidable forces.

What is going on here? Who are these people? Who’s pursuing them, and why?

The three in the car are in a hurry, but writer-director Jeff Nichols (“Mud”) sets a deliberate pace. Keeping his narrative cards close to the vest, he carefully conjures up a mood of paranoia, of a world where events are closing in and paths of escape are being closed off.

The picture is a long tease, artfully constructed. Mood is all-important, and it’s a mood designed to keep the audience off balance and on edge until the end.

The acting is first-rate, with Michael Shannon giving a standout performance as the haunted, protective and much-mystified dad, Roy. The mysterious abilities of his son baffle him, but his determination to shield young Alton from harm is fierce.

Joel Edgerton plays the other man in the car, the father’s longtime best friend who is good with a gun. He’s worried Roy’s single-minded dedication to his son’s safety may actually be causing the boy harm. The longer they’re on the run, the sicker Alton becomes.

In the role of the kid, Jaeden Lieberher again displays the poise and sense of preternatural calm and intelligence that made him so compellingly watchable in 2014’s “St. Vincent” and the recently released “The Confirmation.”

Fine work also is done by Kirsten Dunst as Alton’s anxious mother, Adam Driver as a government agent intrigued by the boy’s abilities and Sam Shepard as the leader of a fundamentalist cult from whom Roy and Alton have escaped.

The picture is reminiscent of “The X-Files” in its heyday. Although there’s no overt connection between that sci-fi series and this movie, they’re spiritual soul mates. The truth, gradually revealed, is out there. Way out there.

Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton and Paul Sparks. (Some violence and action)

If you’ve visited downtown Oklahoma City recently, then you’ve unknowingly been near the biggest horror movie set in the state.

Nestled near a gas station and a Jaguar dealership, the Oklahoma Flower Market building’s interior has been secretly transformed into a movie playhouse and makeshift soundstage. I visited the former market and spent a couple of hours on the set of “Runaway,” a “Children of the Corn” sequel shot throughout the state.

Los Angeles-based producer Mike Leahy sat next to a blood-splattered set piece and discussed his role in bringing the two modern horror franchises, “Hellraiser” and “Children of the Corn,” to Oklahoma.

“These two horror films were more stage-centric,” Leahy said. “So, I needed a place to build sets . ... The bowels of this building were a gutted, old and creepy place that gave me a bunch of ‘looks.’ ”

A “look” is a scene’s setting, and having a variety of looks is important to a production. Throughout Hollywood and more savvy production hubs, soundstages are more popular and a necessity for shoots. They allow filmmakers to control the sound, lighting and feel of scene in a building filled with several other sets, sometimes just a few feet away from one other. It’s a lot easier to shoot using a soundstage than it is to haul large, expensive production gear across the state.

When Leahy first visited the market building, he was blown away by its size and how easily he could transform the top floor into a police station. I also noticed a bedroom set and a kitchen set in the building.

“We talked to the owner and said, ‘Don’t change this,’ ” Leahy said. “We’ve put these sets in here now. Keep this as a viable place for outside and local producers to come in and shoot.”

‘Plain’ scary

Leahy fell in love with Oklahoma’s production community while shoot- ing “Great Plains” in 2015. He also cited the beautiful, accessible locations throughout the state and Oklahoma’s film enhancement rebate program. The state provides rebates to filmmakers amounting to $1 for every $3 they spend on movie productions in Oklahoma, up to a total of $5 million.

“That made Oklahoma an easy sell to the investors,” Leahy said.

The Oklahoma-centric story of “Great Plains” required the film to be shot here. The film rebate was like a cherry on top, which allowed for a bigger crew and more shoot days. For the two recent horror films, the rebate was a necessity. Leahy could’ve shot anywhere, but he chose to return to Oklahoma.

“We’ve had a lot of fun,” Leahy said. “Blood has been flowing here in Oklahoma City. Everyone has been very open, too. The crew has been really jazzed to do something outside of an indie drama. These are two horror films that are going to be seen by a core audience.”