Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With: Reviews,
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New This Week
AWAKE: THE LIFE OF YOGANANDA This biographical documentary from filmmakers Paola Di Florio and Lisa Leeman delves into the life and times of the Hindu Swami whose book, The Autobiography of a Yogi, introduced yoga and meditation to Western culture in the 1920s. (Not rated) 87 minutes. Starts Friday.
THE BEST OF ME James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan star as former high school sweethearts who meet again years later while both are visiting their small hometown in a modern romance that can only have dripped from the pen of Nicholas Sparks. Michael Hoffman directs. (PG-13) 118 minutes. Starts Friday.
BIRD PEOPLE A Silicon Valley engineer, who decides to chuck it all and hole up in an airport hotel outside of Paris, and a young French maid have an unexpected date with destiny in this romantic drama-fantasy from French filmmaker Pascale Ferran. Josh Charles and Anais Demoustier star. (Not rated) 128 minutes. Starts Friday.
THE BOOK OF LIFE Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, and Diego Luna provide voices for this animated family adventure that combines a fantasy quest plot with the vibrant colors and exuberant style of Mexican folk art. Jorge R. Gutierrez directs for co-producer Guillermo del Toro. (PG) 95 minutes. Starts Friday.
FURY Brad Pitt stars as a Sherman tank commander leading his five-man crew on an impossible mission behind enemy lines as the Allies press forward into Nazi Germany in 1945. Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal co-star for director David Ayer (End of Watch).(R) 133 minutes. Starts Friday.
MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN The Internets did it in this ensemble drama about the intrusion of cyber technology, social media and other kinds of faux connections into every aspect of our daily lives. Kaitlyn Dever, Ansel Elgort, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jennifer Garner, and Adam Sandler star. Jason Reitman (Juno; Up In the Air) directs. (R) 119 minutes. Starts Friday.
SUNDANCE SHORTS 2014 Eight live-action short films from the 2014 edition of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival are packaged together for this traveling road show. (Not rated) 94 minutes. Starts Friday (Oct 17), one week only, at the Nick.
Film Events
SPECIAL EVENT THIS WEEK: NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE It’s a new season for Britain’s acclaimed National Theatre of London, broadcasting highlights from its 2014 Season digitally, in HD, to movie theaters worldwide. Live performances will be broadcast one Thursday evening a month, in the Grand Auditorium of the Del Mar, with encore performances the following Sunday morning. This week: FRANKENSTEIN Playwright Nick Dear goes back to the source—Mary Shelley’s philosophical novel of science, hubris, revenge, good and evil—for this searing drama about a wayward Creator and his innocent, yet reviled Creature. Danny Boyle directs. In a nifty twist, stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternate in the lead roles. (Not rated) 120 minutes. At the Del Mar, Thursday only (Oct. 16), 7:30 p.m. (Miller as the Creature.) Encore performance Sunday only (Oct. 19), 11 a.m. (Cumberbatch as the Creature.) Admission: $15. Seniors, students, and Santa Cruz Shakespeare subscribers: $13.
CONTINUING SERIES: MIDNIGHTS @ THE DEL MAR Eclectic movies for wild and crazy tastes plus great prizes and buckets of fun for only $6.50. This week: THE PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE Brian DePalma blends horror, fantasy, black comedy, and rock ‘n’ roll in this 1974 retelling of both Faust and Phantom of the Opera within a ’70s rock milieu. Paul Williams, William Finley, and Jessica Harper star in this ambitious and eerily endearing, if uneven, cult fave. (PG) 92 minutes. Fri-Sat midnight only. At the Del Mar.
CONTINUING EVENT: LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MOVIES This informal movie discussion group meets at the Del Mar mezzanine in downtown Santa Cruz. Movie junkies are invited to join in on Wednesday nights to pursue the elusive and ineffable meanings of cinema. This week (Oct 15): KILL THE MESSENGER. Discussion begins at 7 p.m. and admission is free. For more information visit groups.google.com/group/LTATM.
Movie Times click here.
Now Playing
ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY An 11-year-old boy (Ed Oxenbould), experiencing the worst day of his life, discovers bad luck may be contagious in this Disney comedy based on the Judith Viorst kids’ novel. Jennifer Garner, Steve Carell, and Megan Mullally co-star for director Miguel Arteta. (PG) 81 minutes.
ANNABELLE Move over, Chucky. The creepiest onscreen doll since Talky Tina lurks at the center of this horror shock-fest. The trouble begins when a young husband buys an unfortunate gift for his pregnant wife. Ward Horton, Annabelle Wallis, and Alfre Woodard star. John R. Leonetti (The Conjuring) directs. (R) 99 minutes.
THE BOXTROLLS Alan Snow’s children’s book, Here Be Monsters, is the basis for this animated family film about quirky creatures who live beneath the streets of a quaint English town, and the human boy they’ve raised as their own (voice of Isaac Hempstead Wright, better known as Bran Stark on Game of Thrones), who comes to their aid when the town villain threatens their community. Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Tracy Morgan and Simon Pegg contribute additional voices. Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable direct. (PG) 96 minutes.
DRACULA UNTOLD Luke Evans stars as the medieval lord who sacrifices everything to protect his people in this origin story of the infamous vampire. Sarah Gadon and Dominic Cooper co-star. Gary Shore directs. (PG-13) 92 minutes.
THE EQUALIZER Denzel Washington stars as a mysterious vigilante for justice, and Chloe Grace Moretz is the oppressed young woman who needs his help in this action thriller from director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day). (R) 128 minutes.
GONE GIRL Gillian Flynn’s hot, hot, hot bestselling thriller comes to the screen with Ben Affleck as the suddenly abandoned spouse of a wife (Rosamund Pike) whose disappearance starts to provoke plenty of media speculation. Flynn adapts her own book for director David Fincher (Fight Club; The Social Network). Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry co-star. (R) 145 minutes.
HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS Simon Pegg stars as a caring but ineffectual psychiatrist whose patients aren’t getting any less miserable who decides to go on a global search for the key to true happiness. Toni Collette, Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgard, Jean Reno, and Christopher Plummer co-star for director Peter Chelsom. (R) 114 minutes.
JIMI: ALL IS BY MY SIDE Andre Benjamin (of OutKast) stars as Jimi Hendrix in this dramatized portrait of two eventful years in his life (1966-67), from back-up guitarist at New York City’s Cheetah Club to his success in London, and explosive appearance at the Monterey Pop festival. Imogen Poots and Hayley Atwell co-star. Written and directed by John Ridley (who also wrote 12 Years A Slave). (R) 116 minutes.
THE JUDGE Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall have ample opportunity to chew up the scenery and each other in this courtroom drama about a big city lawyer who returns to the family home to defend his father, the town judge, from a charge of murder. Vera Farmiga and Billy Bob Thornton co-star for director David Dobkin. (R) 141 minutes.
KILL THE MESSENGER Jeremy Renner stars in this fact-based drama about reporter Gary Webb, whose career, family, and life are threatened when he uncovers a story about the CIA’s covert role in smuggling arms to Contra rebels in Nicaragua, and importing crack cocaine into California. Rosemarie DeWitt, Ray Liotta, and Michael Sheen co-star. Michael Cuesta (Homeland) directs. (R) 112 minutes.
LEFT BEHIND Nicolas Cage stars in this modern Apocalypse tale about chaos on Earth after the Rapture, based on the insanely popular Christian book series. Lea Thompson, Cassi Thomson, and Chad Michael Murray co-star for director Vic Armstrong. (PG-13) 110 minutes.
THE MAZE RUNNER The dystopian-future YA novel by James Dashner comes to the screen with Dylan O’Brien as a youth who finds himself one of 60 teenage boys imprisoned behind a gigantic maze. But their situation alters when a mysterious girl lands in their midst. Kaya Scodelario, Will Poulter, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster co-star for director Wes Ball. (PG-13) 113 minutes.
PRIDE Reviewed this issue. (R) 120 minutes. (***1/2)—Lisa Jensen.
THE SKELETON TWINS Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play estranged twins who are forced to reunite due to unusual circumstances and grudgingly begin to take stock of their failed lives and broken relationship. Luke Wilson and Ty Burrell co-star for director Craig Johnson. (R) 93 minutes.
TRACKS Mia Wasikowska stars in this fact-based story of a lone woman who decides to trek across 2,000 miles of desert in the Australian outback with only her dog and four camels for company. Adam Driver co-stars as the National Geographic photographer who decides to document her journey. John Curran (The Painted Veil) directs. (PG-13) 120 minutes.
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU A typically dysfunctional family of grown siblings, spouses and in-laws gather for an uneasy shiva after the family patriarch passes on in this star-studded “dramadey” directed by Shawn Levy. Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, and Rose Byrne star. (R) 103 minutes.
