Movies: What’s playing this weekend

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This article was published 20/10/2016 (3327 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OUR LITTLE SISTER

Cinematheque. G. 128 minutes.

In this film by Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, three sisters attend the funeral of their distant father and discover they have a teenage half-sister. In movie terms, nothing much happens in this quiet, contemplative, carefully crafted domestic drama. But in terms of real life, Kore-eda covers most of the important stuff — love, loss, family, forgiveness and the passage of time — in this lovely, generous and gentle film. ★★★★ (Reviewed by Alison Gillmor)

 

STARTING FRIDAY, OCT. 21

AMERICAN HONEY

wfpyoutube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1SpWZm1PLc:wfpyoutube

Grant Park. 14A. 163 minutes.

Star (Sasha Lane) is a teenage girl on the loose, joining a travelling misfit magazine-sales crew in a whirlwind of love, partying and armed robbery across the Midwest.

CALL OF THE FOREST: THE FORGOTTEN WISDOM OF TREES

Cinematheque. G. 90 minutes.

Winnipeg director Jeff McKay accompanies scientist Diana Beresford-Kroeger on a tour of some of the world’s great, vanishing forests.

DENIAL

youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH7ktvUWaYo:wfpyoutube

Grant Park, McGillvray. PG. 110 minutes.

When American historian Deborah Lipstadt was sued for libel in 1996 by English Holocaust denier and professional provocateur David Irving, she ended up being dragged into a long, expensive and emotionally draining ordeal that effectively put history on trial. Director Mick Jackson (Temple Grandin) and scripter David Hare, the British playwright and screenwriter, turn these events into a sometimes intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying fact-based drama. Denial benefits from its urgent and important subject matter and strong performances (including Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt and Timothy Spall as Irving), but this crisp, cool and rather distant legal procedural struggles to connect its potent parts into a compelling whole. ★★★ (Reviewed by Alison Gillmor)

JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. PG. 118 minutes.

L’il Tom Cruise returns to the big shoes of author Lee Child’s itinerant two-fisted ex-military cop in this action film, which puts Reacher on the case of an officer (Cobie Smulders) framed for a military crime. Directed by Edward Zwick.

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. PG. 101 minutes.

Zach Galiniakis and Isla Fisher are a regular suburban couple dragged into an international espionage plot when they discover that their new neighbors (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot) are secret agents.

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. PG. 99 minutes.

This prequel to the 2014 hit is set in 1967 Los Angeles where a widowed mother and her two daughters, who get by on a seance grift, unwittingly invite authentic evil into their home via the titular game. 

NOW PLAYING

THE ACCOUNTANT

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A. 128 minutes.

Ben Affleck demonstrates why it’s never a good idea to underestimate the person who does your books in the role of a murderous math savant who happens to work for a network of criminal organizations. This thriller is both patently ridiculous and a total mess, but it’s also weirdly entertaining, if you can buy the idea of Affleck as a number-cruncher on the autism spectrum who moonlights with crime cartels to check their dirty books. Oh, and he’s as deadly with his fists as he is with a calculator. It doesn’t quite add up, but Affleck’s portrayal is nicely sensitive and both the math and the action are fun. ★★★1/2 (Reviewed by Jill Wilson)

BLAIR WITCH

Polo Park. 14A. 89 minutes.

This years-later sequel to The Blair Witch Project (1999) from director Adam Wingard focuses on James (James Allen McCune), the younger brother of the original documentarian-in-distress Heather, taking a fresh new film crew to the mysterious woods of Burkittsville, Md., when James discovers what may be a clue regarding his sister’s fate. Despite Wingard’s talent for the genre, the only improvement this makes to the groundbreaking original is the video technology is better. The sequel still qualifies as a weak echo of the first. ★1/2 (Reviewed by Randall King)

DEEPWATER HORIZON

McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A. 108 minutes.

The floating oil rig is equated with one of the worst ecological disasters of our time, but director Peter Berg reframes the story of the vessel as a disaster movie, a contemporary Towering Inferno that eschews movie-star glamour in favour of blue-collar heroism pitted against callous corporate money-grubbing, with Mark Wahlberg sturdy as resourceful engineer Mike Williams. ★★★1/2 (Reviewed by Randall King)

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A. 112 minutes.

This thriller from director Tate Taylor focuses on Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt), a troubled alcoholic who fantasizes about the relationship of her married neighbours during her commute, until she witnesses something from the train window and learns the wife has been declared missing and presumed dead. As a study of grief and addiction, modern isolation and female silence, this cinematic version of Paula Hawkins’ 2015 psychological suspense novel, anchored by the never less than interesting Blunt (Sicario), has some affecting moments. Unfortunately, it simply doesn’t work as a thriller. ★★1/2 (Reviewed by Alison Gillmor)

KEVIN HART: WHAT NOW?

Polo Park, St. Vital. 14A. 97 minutes.

This comedy concert film stars comedian Kevin Hart entertaining a huge sold-out venue in his hometown — 50,000 people at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. Despite his diminutive stature, he commands this huge venue with his manic energy and Gatling-gun delivery. Hart has matured, and it shows in the delivery. ★★★ (Reviewed by Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service)

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A. 133 minutes.

Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt head up a cast of would-be rescuers who take on the murderous minions of a sickly capitalist thug (Peter Sarsgaard) intent on taking over a mining town by brute force. Washington is winningly stoic and Pratt brings some goofball charm, but the ensemble never matches the prickly rapport of the original film’s cast — nor, for that matter, The Seven Samurai, the Akira Kurosawa film that inspired it. ★★1/2 (Reviewed by Randall King)

MASTERMINDS

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. PG. 93 minutes.

An armoured-truck driver (Zach Galifianakis) is seduced by a fellow employee (Kristen Wiig) into being the inside man in a $17-million heist, only to find himself double-crossed by the gang. Director Jared Hess’s approach is to give his comedic performers the time, space and permission to push the boundaries of their own bizarre tendencies. He creates spaces for comic weirdness to percolate and it’s the perfect showcase for a comedian such as Galifianakis, who can elicit belly laughs from a well-deployed glance or intonation from one of his specifically rendered characters. ★★★ (Reviewed by Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service)

MIDDLE SCHOOL: THE WORST YEARS OF MY LIFE

Polo Park, St. Vital. G. 92 minutes.

In this kid-targeted comedy, a student named Rafe Khatchadorian (Griffin Gluck) has his educational enthusiasm dampened his first day at Hills Village Middle School when he learns Principal Dwight (Andy Daly) and his crew of teachers are worse than the school bullies, sparking a creative insurrection. Middle School imagines a world where institutions are evil, principals are tyrannical and all-out insurrection is the answer. It’s a fun, rebellious romp that celebrates creativity and outside-the-box thinking, even though parents might hope their children won’t be too inspired to copy the elaborate pranks the characters pull off. ★★★ (Reviewed by Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service)

MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital. PG. 127 minutes.

Director Tim Burton’s film, described as equal parts Harry Potter and X-Men, follows a young man (Asa Butterfield) who stumbles on the titular abode of Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), a woman who offers shelter to children possessed of strange and varied powers. There’s no denying the aptness of Burton as an interpreter of Ransom Riggs’ original novel, intelligently adapted for the screen by writer Jane Goldman. The relatable theme of the magical misfit may not be entirely original. But as brought to life by Burton, Riggs’ fictional vision of a world in which the nonconformist can flourish serves as both a self-portrait of the auteur and a Wonderland-like looking glass in which many in the audience will no doubt see a reflection of themselves. ★★★1/2 (Reviewed by Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post)

QUEEN OF KATWE

Grant Park. G. 124 minutes.

Mira Nair, a filmmaker known for tackling tricky political topics, gives the feel-good Disney sports movie a boost in this family-friendly, true-life tale of a young chess prodigy from a Ugandan shantytown. While hitting the standard beats of the inspirational underdog tale, this crowd-pleaser is bolstered by intelligent scripting, crafted direction and strong performances from David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong’o and newcomer Madina Nalwanga, making the uplift feel earned. ★★★★ (Reviewed by Alison Gillmor)

STORKS

Kildonan Place, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. G. 92 minutes.

In this animated feature, the job of baby-making, once the responsibility of delivery storks, has been relinquished, since storks now work for an Internet retail giant, until one hapless stork (voiced by Andy Samberg) accidentally starts up the baby-making machine and is forced into action when it produces an unauthorized baby girl. Frantic but funny, this cartoon adventure for kids answers the question of where do babies come from, while showcasing some lively character animation and a winning vocal performance from Samberg. ★★★ (Reviewed by Alison Gillmor)

SUICIDE SQUAD

Polo Park. PG. 123 minutes.

In a comic-book-style take on The Dirty Dozen, this David Ayer movie sees a gaggle of reprobates from the DC universe — including Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Deadshot (Will Smith) and Slipknot (Adam Beach) — do the bidding of a ruthless government agent (Viola Davis) and fight a supernatural menace. Ayer (End of Watch) wasn’t a bad choice to de-bombast the DC comic universe in the wake of Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but he is still weighed down by the job of juggling too many characters through too much plot. Another problem: Jared Leto’s much-hyped performance as the Joker is a major letdown. Required by Quinn’s presence to imbue the character with a sexual dimension to his unhinged menace, Leto acts more like a tweaking drag queen. ★★1/2 (Reviewed by Randall King)

SULLY

McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital. PG. 96 minutes.

Director Clint Eastwood tells the story of pilot Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger (Tom Hanks), including the aftermath of the near-catastrophe that saw Sullenberger skilfully ditch a disabled plane in the Hudson River, saving 155 passengers and crew. The Sully role seems made for the 60-year-old Hanks, his unstudied Everyman appeal fitting nicely with this reticent guy who has been thrust into the media glare. Like the pilots did on that day, this movie is a modest, moving and unshowy ode to professionalism. ★★★1/2 (Reviewed by Alison Gillmor)