Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With: Reviews,
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New This Week
BIG HERO 6 The folks at Disney adapt the Marvel comic book series into an animated family adventure about a child prodigy, his giant, inflatable robot pal, and the eccentric friends he transforms into a band of high-tech superheroes to save their city. Scott Adsit and Ryan Potter head the voice cast, with guest voices provided by Damon Wayans Jr., Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, and Maya Rudolph. Don Hall and Chris Williams co-direct. (PG) 108 minutes. Starts Friday.
CITIZENFOUR While researching a project about government surveillance in the post-9/11 world, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras began receiving encrypted emails from “citizen four” about skullduggery in the NSA. Her informant was Edward Snowden, and this real-life thriller of a doc is built around Poitras’ interviews with Snowden in Hong Kong as the NSA scandal broke. (R) 114 minutes. Starts Friday.
FORCE MAJEURE Reviewed in this issue. (R) 120 minutes. (***)—Lisa Jensen. Starts Friday.
INTERSTELLAR Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway suit up as space explorers on a voyage of discovery through a newly discovered wormhole in this hush-hush space epic from Christopher Nolan. Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn and Michael Caine co-star. (R) 106 minutes. Starts Friday.
LAGGIES Keira Knightley stars as a case of arrested development, a woman approaching 30 uncertain of how to jump-start her life, who spends a week hanging out with her new teenage girlfriend (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her single dad (Sam Rockwell), in this offbeat romantic comedy from filmmaker Lynn Shelton (Humpday; Your Sister’s Sister). (R) 100 minutes. Starts Friday.
LISTEN UP PHILIP Jason Schwartzman stars in this literary satire as a narcissistic author awaiting the publication of his second novel who flees the city and all its complications for a summer retreat at the country home of his literary idol (Jonathan Pryce). Elisabeth Moss and Krysten Ritter co-star for director Alex Ross Perry. (Not rated) 109 minutes. Starts Friday.
PELICAN DREAMS Filmmaker Judy Irving, who made the irresistible doc, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, returns to the subject of urban bird life with this new doc about the nesting habits, culture, and Pacific coast migrations of wild pelicans. Not rated. 80 minutes. Starts Friday.
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:
OF MICE AND MEN James Franco plays dreamer/guardian George, and Chris O’Dowd is child-minded Lennie in this Broadway revival of John Steinbeck’s Depression-era drama. (Filmed in front of a live audience by National Theatre Live.) Anna D. Shapiro directs. (Not rated) 160 minutes. At the Del Mar, Thursday only (Nov. 6), 7:30 p.m. Encore performance Sunday only (Nov. 9), 11 a.m. Admission: $15. Seniors, students, and Santa Cruz Shakespeare subscribers: $13
CONTINUING SERIES: MIDNIGHTS @ THE DEL MAR Eclectic movies for wild & crazy tastes plus great prizes and buckets of fun for only $6.50. This week: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Stanley Kubrick’s cold, slick style drains the life out of Anthony Burgess’ dark novel of ideas; all that’s left is the ultra-violence, vividly portrayed, and Malcolm McDowell’s subversive charisma as a bowler-hatted, false eyelash-batting, sadistic young thug in a futuristic society, who’s forced to undergo extreme behavior modification. This is what passed for an X-rated film in 1971, since downgraded to an R. 137 minutes. (**1/2)—Lisa Jensen. 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 (Nov. 5): BIRDMAN 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
BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP Short-term memory loss was played as romantic comedy in 50 First Dates. Now it’s the basis of this thriller about a woman (Nicole Kidman) who faces each new day with no memory trying to figure out if her doctor (Mark Strong) and her husband (Colin Firth) are who they say they are. Adapted from the S.J. Watson bestseller and directed by Rowan Joffe. (R) 92 minutes.
BIRDMAN or THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE Michael Keaton is inspired casting for this black comedy about a movie actor once famed for playing an onscreen superhero trying to reinvent his career and himself by mounting a Broadway play. Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts co-star for director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Babel; Biutiful). (R) 119 minutes.
HORNS It’s always fun to watch Daniel Radcliffe shed his Harry Potter persona, and I bought into the first third or so of this horror thriller. Radcliffe offers up some intense, sardonic moments as the misfit protagonist, suspected of the brutal murder of his girlfriend, who wakes one day with ram’s horns sprouting from his head, and the gift of eliciting the truth (however tawdry), which sets him on a hunt for the real killer. There’s a subversive, black-comedy kick to the way he starts giving people permission to act on their favorite deadly sins. But Alexandre Aja’s film soon crosses the fine line between devilish social satire and ham-fisted, cheesy excess, and it finally crumbles under its own heavy-handed good/evil symbolism and overall nastiness. (R) 120 minutes. (**)—Lisa Jensen.
NIGHTCRAWLER Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this thriller as a guy trying to survive in Los Angeles who gets sucked into the underworld of freelance crime journalism, chasing stories of car wrecks, fires, murder and mayhem while the city sleeps. Rene Russo, Bill; Paxton, and Riz Ahmed co-star for director Dan Gilroy. (R) 117 minutes.
ST. VINCENT Writer-director Theodore Melfi is counting on Bill Murray’s aging hipster persona to do most of the heavy lifting in this heartstring-tugging comedy about a young boy who adopts the misanthropic old geezer next door as his mentor and life coach. Murray does an admirable job in the role, but Melfi’s material doesn’t offer enough support. The comedy isn’t always funny enough to sustain our interest, and without the balance of strong humor, the anarchic fizz of Murray’s appeal curdles into mean-spirited surliness. Sentimental elements tend to be canned and predictable in a film that never quite hits its marks, despite a few genuinely funny and affecting moments from Murray and co-stars Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd. (PG-13) 102 minutes. (**1/2)—Lisa Jensen.
