February 18, 2016
Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases: nytimes.com/movies[1].
'Anomalisa' (R, 1:30) Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, this sad, stirringly painful stop-motion puppet whatsit centers on a floundering soul (voiced by David Thewlis) who, while on a business trip, has an affair with a stranger (Jennifer Jason Leigh). An invaluable Tom Noonan voices everyone else. (Manohla Dargis)
★ 'The Big Short' (R, 2:10) Adam McKay's adaptation of the Michael Lewis best seller is a wildly entertaining movie that leaves you nauseated and shaking with rage. That's as it should be, since Mr. McKay and his energetic cast (including Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling) set out to capture both the giddy thrills of the economic bubble of the mid-2000s and the moral corruption that fueled it. Rooting for the film's designated good guys means rooting for economic collapse, and you feel the awfulness of this contradiction. (A. O. Scott)
'The Boy' (PG-13, 1:38) Lauren Cohan, of "The Walking Dead," plays Greta, an American nanny hired by a couple in a creepy British mansion to watch their son, who turns out to be a porcelain doll. For most of the way it's a psychological thriller, Greta wondering about her sanity as she begins to think the doll may indeed be alive. But a twist ending brings a sharp turn in tone. "The Boy" is still a reasonably engaging horror movie, but you may wonder what it might have been like had it stayed on course till the end. (Neil Genzlinger)
★ 'Brooklyn' (PG-13, 1:51) Saoirse Ronan gives a remarkably lively and subtle performance as Eilis Lacey, a young woman who emigrates from Ireland to New York in the early 1950s, in John Crowley's lovely adaptation of the novel by Colm Toibin. (Scott)
★ 'Carol' (R, 1:58) Todd Haynes's gorgeous adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel stars Rooney Mara as Therese Belivet, a young woman in early-1950s New York who falls for an older suburban housewife played by Cate Blanchett. The blossoming of their love affair is related in subdued colors and whispered words, and it lingers in the air like an old song. (Scott)
'Hail, Caesar!' (PG-13, 1:46) Joel and Ethan Coen lay siege to old Hollywood in this sly, off-center comedy set against the 1950s motion-picture business. One of those diversions that they turn out in between masterworks and duds, it features some wrangling over God, art and politics and a stable of frisky stars, including Josh Brolin, George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson. (Dargis)
★ 'Creed' (PG-13, 2:13) The "Rocky" saga, revised and reborn, with the Italian Stallion in the role of the grizzled trainer, helping a young contender prepare for his shot at the title. The contender is Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the love child of Apollo Creed, Rocky's erstwhile nemesis and eventual best friend. The director is Ryan Coogler ("Fruitvale Station"), at 29 a rising champion in his own right. (Scott)
'Daddy's Home' (PG-13, 1:36) An ugly psychological cockfight posing as a family friendly comedy, the father-stepfather competition pits a meek Will Ferrell against a feral Mark Wahlberg. It is best avoided unless a movie that has the attitude of a schoolyard bully happens to be your thing. (Stephen Holden)
'The Danish Girl' (R, 2:00) The story of a transgender pioneer, Lili Elbe, becomes a tasteful, sensitive and somewhat inert costume drama in the hands of Tom Hooper ("The King's Speech"). Eddie Redmayne plays Lili, whom we first encounter as Einar Wegener, a Danish landscape painter. His wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander), also an artist, is the emotional center of the film, in part because Mr. Redmayne's performance, while technically flawless, keeps the audience at a distance from Lili's experience. (Scott)
'Deadpool' (R, 1:48) Jokes and bullets are tossed like confetti in "Deadpool," a feverishly eager-to-please comic-book movie about a supervillain (Ryan Reynolds) who suits up like a superhero. Bang, boom, splatter. (Dargis)
'Dirty Grandpa' (R, 1:42) Dan Mazer's mindlessly crude, puerile comedy stars Robert De Niro as a horny, foul-mouthed senior dragging his uptight grandson on a spring-break-style trip. That's probably all you need to know in order to laugh — or cry — and most of the comedy is on the level of phallic graffiti on a subway poster. (Nicolas Rapold)
'Fifty Shades of Black' (R, 1:32) "Fifty shades of terrible!" says Christian Black (Marlon Wayans) as he reads E.L. James's erotic best seller "Fifty Shades of Grey" in Mr. Wayans's latest movie-satire vehicle. There are other trenchant observations in this flimsy, hastily assembled comedy, but an awful lot of wading is required to find them. (Andy Webster)
★ '45 Years' (R, 1:35) Andrew Haigh's new film is a loving, devastating portrait of a long, happy marriage that encounters an unusual crisis. Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play Kate and Geoff Mercer, whose plans for an anniversary party are disrupted by news about an old, long-dead girlfriend of Geoff's. (Scott)
'The Hateful Eight' (R, 2:48) More talking and killing from Quentin Tarantino, this time in a frontier outpost after the Civil War. Some interesting ideas about the racial politics of the Western genre peek out amid the verbiage and the violence, but Mr. Tarantino's grandstanding gets in the way. With Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Samuel L. Jackson, whose performance as a former Union officer almost lifts the film out of its self-conscious rut. (Scott)
'How to Be Single' (R, 1:50) In this film adaptation of Liz Tuccillo's book, an innocent post-collegiate newcomer to New York named Alice (Dakota Johnson) disappears down a rabbit hole of deadening life lessons and half-baked screenwriting. The reheated "Sex and the City[2]" adventure flops, even with Leslie Mann and Rebel Wilson hard at work being funny. (Rapold)
'Joy' (PG-13, 2:04) Jennifer Lawrence, at her tough, radiant best, plays Joy Mangano, an entrepreneur stymied by her family in David O. Russell's rousing and chaotic fable of bootstrap capitalism. (Scott)
'Kung Fu Panda 3' (PG, 1:35) Jack Black again voices Po, the panda who saves China, in this beautifully animated addition to the franchise. Po is reunited with the father (Bryan Cranston) he thought was long dead and has to rediscover his panda roots to stop a soul-stealing monster. Young viewers might find the themes a bit more disturbing than in the previous two installments, but of course they'll know who's going to triumph in the end. (Genzlinger)
★ 'Mountains May Depart' (No rating, 2:11, in Cantonese, Mandarin and English) The latest from the transformative Chinese director Jia Zhangke follows three ordinary people across (and beyond) a rapidly, dizzyingly changing China. Few filmmakers working today look as deeply at the changing world as he does, or make the human stakes as vivid. (Dargis)
★ 'Mustang' (PG-13, 1:37, in Turkish) Full of life, "Mustang" is a stunning debut feature by Deniz Gamze Ergüven about five sisters in rural Turkey. Confined to their grandmother's house, the girls bridle against losing their freedoms in a story grounded in both laughter and tears, and in the resilient strength of these girls against soul-deadening strictures. (Rapold)
★ 'Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict' (No rating, 1:37) Lisa Immordino Vreeland's sleek, entertaining portrait of the collector who assembled one of the great troves of modern art is well organized, with hundreds of beautiful images spanning decades of artists Guggenheim knew, galleries she ran, parties she hosted. Using tapes of interviews before she died in 1979, the documentary is imbued with Guggenheim's presence, even as art-world denizens dish on her foibles and vanities. (Daniel M. Gold)
'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' (PG-13, 1:48) "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, from matrimony to zombie killing, in a moment." (Dargis)
'The Revenant' (R, 2:36) By turns soaring and overblown, this American foundation story from the director Alejandro G. Iñárritu ("Birdman") features a battalion of very fine, hardworking actors. None are more diligently committed than Leonardo DiCaprio, as a 1823 mountain man who endures a crucible of suffering. (Dargis)
'Ride Along 2' (PG-13, 1:42) A lot like the first "Ride Along," only less so. Ice Cube and Kevin Hart reprise their oil-and-water buddy-cop routine. Nothing new to see, but not too painful either. (Scott)
'Room' (R, 1:58) Brie Larson and an exceptional child actor, Jacob Tremblay, play mother and son in the adaptation of Emma Donoghue's novel. Written by Ms. Donoghue and directed by Lenny Abrahamson, the movie flickers with grace and imagination during its initial half but devolves into a dreary, platitudinous therapy movie in its second. (Dargis)
'Son of Saul' (R, 1:47, in Hungarian, German, Yiddish and Polish) This debut feature from the 38-year-old Hungarian filmmaker Laszlo Nemes is a powerful but ungainly blend of allegory and thriller set in a Nazi death camp. Saul (Geza Rohrig) is a member of the Sonderkommando, Jewish inmates assigned to assist in the murder of their fellow prisoners in exchange for meager privileges. In his company, the viewer is given a tour of horror that is unnerving both for its harshness and for the sense of slick, self-congratulatory artifice that lurks around the edges of the frame. (Scott)
'Spectre' (PG-13, 2:28) Bond, James Bond, etc. (Dargis)
★ 'Spotlight' (R, 2:07) A team of Boston Globe investigative reporters — played by Michael Keaton, Brian d'Arcy James, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo — takes on the local archdiocese in this powerful fact-based newspaper procedural, directed by Tom McCarthy. The movie, with a superb cast and a tightly constructed script, is an unflinching investigation of systemic moral rot and a rousing defense of the values of professional journalism. (Scott)
'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (PG-13, 2:15) It's good! (Dargis)
'The Club' (No rating, 1:37, in Spanish) Directed by Pablo Larraín ("Tony Manero," "No"), this grim drama examines the lives of a group of disgraced priests — guilty of sexual abuse and other crimes — who share a house in a quiet town on the Chilean coast. An effective, if unpleasant, psychological inquiry, the film loses its way when it tries to become a parable of penitence and grace. (Scott)
'The Finest Hours' (PG-13, 1:57) The waterlogged disaster movie is a moderately gripping whoosh of nostalgia that shamelessly recycles a '50's cliché of the squeaky-clean all-American hero. In this Disney movie, adapted from a book by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman and based on real events in February 1952, Chris Pine plays a Coast Guard sailor based in Chatham, Mass., who leads a next-to-impossible rescue mission during the most fearsome nor'easter this side of "The Perfect Storm." (Holden)
'13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' (R, 2:24) A pummeling slog, Michael Bay's latest revisits the 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Libya that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Mr. Bay again proves that coherency (visual, etc.) isn't a prerequisite for his style of blunt-force cinema. (Dargis)
★ 'Touched With Fire' (R, 1:44) Is there anything wrong with being a euphoric visionary artist? That question cuts to the essence of "Touched With Fire," Paul Dalio's extraordinarily sensitive, non-judgmental exploration of bipolar disorder and creativity focused on two poets whose shared mania fuels their journey into madness. (Holden)
'Trumbo' (R, 2:04) This clunker about the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) tells a great-man story with a patchwork of fact and fiction, mixing in the odd bit of newsreel with a great many dull, visually flat and poorly lighted dramatic scenes. Jay Roach directed. (Dargis)
'A War' (No rating, 1:55; in Danish) The motion-picture battle cries of heroism and machismo don't ring out in Tobias Lindholm's 21st-century variation on the conflict film. Nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign language film, this methodical movie about a morally conflicted Danish commander pivots from the backwaters of Afghanistan to a courtroom in Denmark before ending with a quiet finish. (Rapold)
'Zoolander 2' (PG-13, 1:42) The extravagantly overproduced, chaotic, not very funny comic circus that is the tepid sequel to the 2001 hit has enough plot for several movies. They are so sketchy and jammed together that they more or less cancel each other out. (Holden)
Film Series
American International Pictures, Part 3 (through March 21) Concluding a series that began last summer, Anthology Film Archives continues its retrospective on American International Pictures, a B movie studio known both for the speed and stinginess of its productions from the 1950s through the 1970s, as well as for nurturing then-rising talent like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. This installment of the program spans the company's transition from horror pictures, like "Scream and Scream Again" and the racy "The Vampire Lovers," to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, including "Blacula" and "Foxy Brown." 32 Second Avenue, at Second Street, East Village, 212-505-5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org [3]. (Ben Kenigsberg)
'City of Women' (Friday through Thursday) By 1981, even Federico Fellini's most ardent fans had begun to regard the Italian director in a way that echoed the obnoxious movie theater patron in "Annie Hall" ("He's one of the most indulgent filmmakers. He really is.") This "8 ½"-like phantasmagoria, in which the auteur's surrogate (Marcello Mastroianni) wanders into a women's liberation convention, is often regarded as Fellini's attempt to settle a score with Second Wave feminism. The critic Vincent Canby disagreed, writing in The New York Times that the movie is "witty and phenomenal" and adding that "to interpret 'City of Women' as antifeminist would be, I think, to underrate the complexity of the man whose vision this is." At 1:10, 3:50 and 7:40 p.m., Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village, 212-727-8110, filmforum.org[4]. (Kenigsberg)
Doc Fortnight (Friday through Feb. 29) The Museum of Modern Art's annual nonfiction survey always has an international flavor. This year's selections include "La France Est Notre Patrie (France Is Our Mother Country)," a look at French colonialism in Cambodia that the director, Rithy Panh ("The Missing Picture," "S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine"), has styled as a silent film, and "Sobytie (The Event)," in which Sergei Loznitsa (who documented the 2013 and 2014 protests in Ukraine in "Maidan") sifts through archival footage of rallies supporting Boris Yeltsin in 1991. At various times; a full schedule is at moma.org/calendar/film[5]. Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, 11 West 53 rd Street, 212-708-9400. (Kenigsberg)
Lhomme Behind the Camera (Tuesday) This series on the cinematographer Pierre Lhomme, who worked with such essential filmmakers as Chris Marker and Robert Bresson, concludes this week with Jean-Paul Rappeneau's period piece "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990), starring Gérard Depardieu. At 4 and 7:30 p.m., Florence Gould Hall, French Institute Alliance Française, 55 East 59th Street, Manhattan, 800-982-2787, fiaf.org[6]. (Kenigsberg)
'Limelight' (Friday) In a barely veiled and celebratory self-portrait, released in 1952, Charlie Chaplin directs himself in the role of Calvero, an alcoholic "tramp comedian" in the decline of his career who is restored through a bond with a much younger performer. Claire Bloom plays the ballerina he rescues from a suicide attempt, and Buster Keaton appears toward the end; it's the only film in which the two silent clowns share the screen. At 9:30 p.m., Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea, 212-620-5000, rubinmuseum.org[7]. (Kenigsberg)
Modern Matinees: A Pioneer Cowboy (through next Friday) Even in the 1910s, when stage-trained actors with unconventional looks could mosey their way onto the big screen more easily, William S. Hart and his melancholy woodcarving of a face cut a jarring figure. An acquaintance of Wyatt Earp and an accomplished Shakespearean actor on Broadway, Hart didn't arrive in Hollywood until he was 49. He made up for lost time, appearing in more than 60 films in just over a decade. This Museum of Modern Art retrospective includes the boisterous 1916 Western "Hell's Hinges," in which Hart's gunman sees the light when a preacher and his sister arrive in the titular territory, described in the film's intertitles as "a gun-fighting, man-killing, devil's den of iniquity that scorched even the sun-parched soil on which it stood." On various days, a detailed schedule is at moma.org[8]. (Eric Grode)
See It Big! Documentary (through Sunday) Whatever your experience with documentaries may be, this all-nonfiction edition of the Museum of the Moving Image's recurring "See It Big!" series means to broaden your horizons. The selections are, without a doubt, designed for the immersion of a theater. They include Errol Morris's "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," a four-strand character study whose subjects, among others, are a robot designer and a topiary gardener; "Lessons of Darkness," Werner Herzog's survey of burning Kuwaiti oil fields; and "Leviathan," Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel's abstract portrait of life on a fishing vessel. 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us[9]. (Kenigsberg)
Manoel de Oliveira's Tetralogy of Frustrated Love (Thursday through Feb. 28) The Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira's reputation for longevity — he died last year at 106 — was matched only by his renown for autumnal productivity: More than a dozen of his features had their premieres after he turned 90. Yet it's difficult to get a hold of the earlier movies that shaped him, including the four rarely screened adaptations in this series. Especially notable are "Francisca" (1981, showing on Thursday and Feb. 28), a story of 19th-century romantic treachery that achieves a fascinating tension in the contrast between Mr. Oliveira's burnished imagery and his actors' flat, declamatory style, and "Doomed Love" (1979, Feb. 26 and 27), a tale of star-crossed lovers that flaunts its stagelike backdrops, chiaroscuro compositions and unconventional shooting and editing rhythms. In both movies, the modernist director pioneers a form of f ilmmaking that expresses a constant debt to prose, painting and theater. Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, 165 West 65th Street, 212-875-5601, filmlinc.com[10]. (Kenigsberg)
Witches' Brew (through Feb. 29) A ready-made Halloween event that has somehow turned up in February, this witch-themed retrospective from the Brooklyn Academy of Music invites viewers to pick their poison: The program puts stylish Italian horror ("Suspiria," showing on Saturday) alongside a Roald Dahl adaptation ("The Witches," on Friday) and the more spiritual, introspective work of Carl Theodor Dreyer ("Day of Wrath," Feb. 29). At various times, a full schedule is at bam.org[11]. BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100. (Kenigsberg)
References
- ^ nytimes.com/movies (nytimes.com)
- ^ More articles about Sex and the City. (topics.nytimes.com)
- ^ anthologyfilmarchives.org (anthologyfilmarchives.org)
- ^ filmforum.org (filmforum.org)
- ^ moma.org/calendar/film (moma.org)
- ^ fiaf.org (fiaf.org)
- ^ rubinmuseum.org (rubinmuseum.org)
- ^ moma.org (moma.org)
- ^ movingimage.us (movingimage.us)
- ^ filmlinc.com (filmlinc.com)
- ^ bam.org (bam.org)