Movies: New and Noteworthy

COMING THIS WEEK

By Steven Rea

Don't Think Twice. Mike Birbiglia directs himself - and castmates Chris Gethard, Gillian Jacobs, and Keegan- Michael Key - in an in-the-trenches dramedy about a struggling improv group, the magical process of creating live comedy from scratch, and the professional jealousies and personal entanglements that can get in the way. R

Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You. Documentary portrait of the sprightly nonagenarian and creative force behind some of TV's most culturally significant, indelible hit sitcoms, All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, and One Day at a Time among 'em. No MPAA rating

Suicide Squad. A band of supervillains, "some of the most dangerous people on the planet," are recruited by a secret government agency to save the world, or something like that. Will Smith is marksman mercenary Deadshot; Margot Robbie is baseball-bat-wielding, high-heeled crazy Harley Quinn; Jared Leto is the Joker; and more. The darkside of the DC Comics' universe. David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury) directs. PG-13

Five Nights in Maine

A widower (David Oyelowo) travels to rural Maine in search of answers from his estranged mother-in-law (Dianne Wiest).

Gleason A hit at Sundance, this documentary began as a video journal for Steve Gleason, a former NFL player who, at age 34, was diagnosed with ALS and given a life expectancy of two to five years. Weeks later, Gleason found out that his wife was expecting their first child.

The Land Four Cleveland teens pursue their dream of becoming professional skateboarders.

Nine Lives A wealthy businessman (Kevin Spacey) finds himself trapped inside the body of a cat after an accident. Jennifer Garners and Christopher Walken also star.

Reviewed by staff critics Steven Rea (S.R.), Tirdad Derakhshani (T.D.), David Patrick Stearns (D.P.S.), and Molly Eichel (M.E.). W.S. denotes a wire-service review.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople As near perfect a film as I've ever seen, this lushly photographed kiwi comedy from Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) features a star turn by teen actor Julian Dennison as a maladjusted orphan who bonds with a gruff widower (Sam Neill) during a monthslong trek through the bush. 1 hr. 41 PG-13 (thematic elements, including violent content, and some profanity) - T.D.

The Lobster Oscar-nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos' English-language debut stars Colin Farrell as a mild-mannered widower sent to a hotel where he is encouraged - nay, required - to find a new partner. A surreal, comic, sad, strange, beautiful fable, set in a disquietingly serene not-far- from-now. Imagine Wes Anderson doing Franz Kafka, with George Orwell thrown into the mix. Sublime. 1 hr. 58 R (violence, sex, nudity, adult themes) - S.R.

Our Little Sister After the death of their father, three adult sisters invite the 14-year-old half-sister they've never known to live with them. Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda's latest is a lovely, gentle family portrait. Succumb to its slow rhythms. This is the kind of movie that will leave you feeling restored, maybe a little misty-eyed, too. 2 hrs. 06 PG (adult themes) - S.R.

Captain Fantastic

Viggo Mortensen stars, with an amazing group of young actors, as a radical hippie dad who has raised his kids way off the grid, way outside the norms of "the real world." When events force them to leave their rustic retreat and deal with modern-day America, the experience is jolting - and funny, moving, meaningful. 1 hr. 58

R

(profanity, nudity, adult themes) -

S.R.

Dheepan Jacques Audiard's 2015 Cannes Film Festival winner follows a pretend family - a man, woman, and child, refugees of the Sri Lankan civil war - as they try to make a new life in a grim, graffitied housing complex on the outskirts of Paris. It's tough, sobering stuff, with a heartbreaking performance by Antonythasan Jesuthasan, himself a veteran of the Sri Lankan conflict. 1 hr. 50 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Maggie's Plan Rebecca Miller's smart, shambling screwball romance about a single woman (Greta Gerwig) who falls into an affair with a self-absorbed writer and anthropologist (Ethan Hawke) who happens to be married (with kids) to a frosty Danish scholar (Julianne Moore). Complications, and conspiracy, ensue. 1 hr. 38 R (profanity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Sunset Song Set in rural Scotland in the years leading up to WWI, Terence Davies' adaptation of the beloved Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel is a lyrical masterwork about the tug-of-war between modernity and tradition as it manifests in a budding intellectual still enmeshed in the farmland where she was born. 2 hrs. 15 R (sexuality, nudity violence, profanity) - T.D.

Bad Moms **1/2

Mila Kunis stars as a stressed-out working mother who teams with two similarly overtaxed women (Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn), rebelling against a hissy PTA prez (Christina Applegate) in a mildly amusing, moderately raunchy, mostly schematic comedy from the writers of

The Hangover

franchise. 1 hr. 41

R

(profanity, sex, nudity, adult themes) -

S.R.

The BFG *** Steven Spielberg's supersize dream of a movie, adapted from the Roald Dahl children's book about a little orphan girl and the Big Friendly Giant who takes her away. Newcomer Ruby Barnhill and Oscar-winner Mark Rylance star, and even if the story takes some silly turns, there is magic here - on a very large scale. PG (scary images) - S.R.

Breaking a Monster *** Documentarian Luke Meyer (Darkon) exposes the music industry as a soul-less machine in this observational documentary that follows about a year in the life of Unlocking the Truth, a heavy metal band formed by three African American middle schoolers from Flatbush, N.Y. When the band wins a big Sony record contract, they enter a strange world peopled with corporate flunkies charged with turning people into products. 1 hr. 32 No MPAA rating (adult themes, some profanity) - T.D.

Café Society ** Woody Allen's 47th (!) feature is a burnished '30s period piece, shot by the master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, but shot through with lazy one-liners and characters of only surface interest. Jesse Eisenberg stars as a kid from the Bronx who makes his way west, to work for his big-deal Hollywood agent uncle (Steve Carell). Kristen Stewart is the agent's assistant. Familiar Allen themes - infatuation, infidelity, fate, morality, mortality - superficially ensue. 1 hr. 36 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Central Intelligence **1/2 Kevin Hart follows up the dreadful Ride Along 2 with yet another buddy-action comedy about a mismatched duo who vanquish evildoers. But this one is actually funny. Hart plays an accountant recruited by a rogue CIA officer. Played brilliantly by Dwyane Johnson, the spy was once an obese, geeky, lonely boy victimized by bullies. 1 hr. 54 PG-13 (crude and suggestive humor, some nudity, action violence and some profanity) - T.D.

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words *** In this documentary that has three of his four kids' blessing (Dweezil is not on board) Frank Zappa talks and talks some more - to talk show hosts, a game-show audience, even a Pennsylvania state trooper. German director Thorsten Schutte uses the musician's own words to build a picture of the man, minus the usual behind-the-music memes. 1 hr. 33 R (language, some sexual references, brief nudity) - D.D.

Finding Dory *** The cheery, royal-blue, yellow-finned sidekick of 2003's Pixar smash Finding Nemo gets a movie of her own, in which Dory - who suffers from short-term memory loss - finds herself separated from her family, trying desperately to remember where they might be. Aquatic adventures ensue, along with life lessons and swell moral messages, but there's a slightly disturbing, dreamlike thread running through the computer- animated feature, too. 1 hr. 37 PG (adult themes) - S.R.

Free State of Jones **1/2 Matthew McConaughey plays little-known Southern abolitionist Newton Knight in Oscar- nominated Seabiscuit writer-director Gary Ross' exhausting, overlong biopic about a Confederate Army deserter who forms an army of his own to fight injustice in Mississippi during the Civil War. 2 hrs. 19 R (brutal battle scenes and disturbing graphic images) - T.D.

Ghostbusters *** Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones star in the distaff reboot/remake of the 1984 paranormal smash comedy about a squad of proton-packed spectral exterminators. Under the leadership of director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy), the gender-flipped cast proves more than a gimmick. Girl power and ghoul power - it's a winning combination. PG-13 (scares, supernatural violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Ice Age: Collision *1/2 A glorified Saturday morning cartoon, the fifth entry in the animated 3D family adventure reunites its well-known stars, including Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Lopez for a flat, tired story line that has our early mammalian heroes try to avert asteroids from destroying the earth. Rated PG (mild rude humor and some action/peril) - T.D.

The Innocents *** A young Red Cross doctor in post WWII Warsaw provides care for a Benedictine nun after a sexual assault and finds several of the nuns in the convent are pregnant. The powerful drama, based on the experience of Dr. Madeleine Pauliac, shows women of faith working side by side with nonbelievers to bring light to a dark, horrifying world. 1 hr. 55 PG-13 (sexual assault, graphic depiction of surgery, brief suggestive material) - W.S.

Jason Bourne **1/2 "I remember everything," says the formerly amnesiac spy guy played by Matt Damon in his return - along with director Paul Greengrass - to the Bourne series. His CIA cohort Julia Stiles is back, too. Alicia Vikander signs on to show off her tradecraft, too. The movie spans the globe and has the great action scenes you'd expect, but now that Bourne knows who he is, the existential underpinnings of the great franchise concept are MIA. 2 hrs. 03 PG-13 (violence, action, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Legend of Tarzan ** After spending time in London, Tarzan returns to the jungle. Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie star. 1 hr. 49 PG-13 (violence, sexual situations, profanity) - M.E.

Lights Out *** Teresa Palmer and Maria Bello face our most elemental fear, darkness, in this effective, scary, gore-free creepfest from Swedish-born director David Sandberg. Bello plays an unbalanced mother of two who neglects her kids to pursue an obsessive friendship with an imaginary creature who has wild hair and claws. Then one day, the friend becomes real and people start dying. 1 hr. 21 PG-13 (terror throughout, violence including disturbing images, some thematic material and brief drug content) - T.D.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates **1/2 Zac Efron and Adam DeVine play brothers in search of women to take to their sister's wedding so they won't ruin yet another family affair. Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick play two debaucherous ladies who mostly see a free vacation. It feels like a series of loosely linked scenes instead of a full-fledged movie; it's not nearly as memorable, smart, or sweet as Wedding Crashers. 1 hr. 38 R (crude sexual content, language, drug use, some graphic nudity) - M.E.

Nerve **1/2 Emma Roberts and Dave Franco have great chemistry in a romantic thriller about a game hosted on social media that dares teens to complete dangerous stunts around New York City. 1 hr. 36 PG-13 (dangerous and risky behavior, sexual content, profanity, drugs, drinking and nudity - all involving teens) - T.D.

Our Kind of Traitor **1/2 Ewan McGregor is likable as a Hitchcockian Everyman in this adaptation of the man who is sucked into a dangerous spy game when a Russian mobster (a hulking, over-the-top Stellan Skarsgård) hands him evidence against his bosses to pass on to British intelligence, while Damian Lewis strains credulity as their case officer. One of the very few John le Carré adaptations that doesn't quite hold together. 1 hr. 47 R (violence, profanity throughout, some sexuality, nudity, brief drug use) - T.D.

Phantom Boy *** Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol follow up their Oscar-nominated animated masterpiece A Cat in Paris with a less successful crime adventure for the family about a hospitalized 11-year-old boy with magical abilities who helps foil a New York gangster take over the city. The low-tech, hand-drawn 2D animation makes for a welcome relief from the slick, 3d CGI fare at the multiplex. 1 hr. 24 PG (thematic elements, violence and a suggestive situation) - T.D.

The Purge: Election Year ** There aren't any big surprises in the third entry in the popular, ultraviolent franchise about the near future, where once a year, for 12 hours, Americans are allowed to commit murder. Frank Grillo returns as a former cop who saves people on Purge night. This time around, he has been hired to protect a presidential candidate (Elizabeth Mitchell) who wants to repeal the Purge. 1 hr. 45 R (disturbing bloody violence profanity) - T.D.

The Secret Life of Pets *** Directed by the Despicable Me franchise's Chris Renaud, a pet lovers' loving salute to the domesticated animals we rely on to bring us comfort, companionship, and triple-digit veterinary bills. Louis C.K. gives voice to a needy Jack Russell, and Kevin Hart is a white bunny named Snowball (talk about color-blind casting!). An extremely animated animated romp. 1 hr. 30 PG (some scares for little kids) - S.R.

The Shallows **1/2 It's girl vs. shark - and not just any girl, but a highly resourceful, bikini-clad girl - in this campy summer delight, wherein Blake Lively goes mano a fin-o with a great white. Just silly enough to be the perfect summer refresher. 1 hr. 27 PG-13 (for bloody images, intense sequences of peril, brief strong language) - W.S.

Star Trek Beyond ** 1/2 Fast & Furious director Justin Lin takes over from rebooter J.J. Abrams, but while the action is turbocharged, the story line - Enterprise crew stranded on hostile planet ruled by reptilian warlord (Idris Elba) - feels less epic than episodic. With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, and company. 2 hrs. PG-13 (intense sci-fi action, violence, adult themes) - S.R.