Movies: New and Noteworthy

COMING THIS WEEK

By Steven Rea

Carol Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara star in a love story set in 1950s New York, adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt. Todd Haynes directs. Mara won Best Actress at Cannes. R

The Hateful Eight Quentin Tarantino's post-Civil War western is epic, or so QT would have us believe: 70mm, a new score from maestro Ennio Morricone, and an intermission to break up the 3-hour 27-minute run. Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, and Bruce Dern star. R

Joy Jennifer Lawrence has the title role - Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop - in David O. Russell's salute to strong-minded, self-reliant women overcoming the obstacles in their path. With Russell troupers Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. PG-13

The Big Short

Opens Wednesday

Four outsiders take on the financial crisis over the practices that led to the housing and credit bubble of the mid 2000s. Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling star.

Concussion Will Smith stars as Dr. Bennet Omalu, who discovered the extent of brain injuries to football players and overcame the NFL's efforts to deny the problem.

Daddy's Home A mild-mannered executive (Will Ferrell) battles for his step-children's affection against their freewheeling father (Mark Wahlberg).

Point Break An FBI agent infiltrates a group of extreme athletes suspected of pulling a series of corporate heists.

The Revenant Leonardo DiCaprio stars as an 1820s frontiersman who struggles for survival and vengeance against the members of his hunting party who left him for dead after a bear attack.

Reviewed by critics Steven Rea (S.R.), Tirdad Derakhshani (T.D.), Molly Eichel (M.E.), and Gary Thompson (G.T.). W.S. denotes a wire-service review.

Brooklyn Saoirse Ronan is an Irish country girl who travels to New York in search of a new life. It's the early 1950s, and she is full of courage, dread, and loneliness. One of the most memorable characters of recent film, born from Colm Tóibín's 2009 novel and brought to exquisite life via a screenplay by Nick Hornby and the smart, steady direction of John Crowley. Moving and magnificent. 1 hr. 53 PG-13 (profanity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Creed From Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler, in collaboration with screenwriter Aaron Covington and with the generous, genuinely inspiring participation of Sylvester Stallone. The Rocky mantle gets handed off to a new underdog determined to box his way to glory. It's Adonis Creed, son of Rocky's rival-turned-pal Apollo Creed - and Michael B. Jordan takes the title role, body and soul. 2 hrs. 13 PG-13 (profanity, violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Hitchcock/Truffaut Essential viewing for anyone who cares deeply about movies and the artists who make them. Using the audio recordings of a weeklong interview session between the young, upstart French new wave director and the then 63-year-old Master of Suspense, documentarian Kent Jones brings Hitchcock's genius - and perversions, and dark psychological underpinnings - to life. Commentary from directors (Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Martin Scorsese and more) show how innovative Hitchcock was, how influential his work still is. 1 hr. 20 PG-13 (adult themes) - S.R.

Spotlight Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and Liev Schrieber lead an ace ensemble cast in this compelling account of the Boston Globe's 2002 investigative series on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. A complex procedural drama told with clarity and accumulating suspense. One of the great movies about journalism, and one of the great movies of our time, period. 2 hrs. 08 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Youth Two old friends, played by Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, ponder life, love and loss while they wander around a luxurious Swiss Alps spa. Paolo Sorrentino's follow-up to his Oscar-winning The Great Beauty is symphonic and cinematic, full of melancholy and hushed magic. With Rachel Weisz, Jane Fonda and Paul Dano. R (profanity, nudity, adult themes) - S.R.

Bridge of Spies

Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance star in Steven Spielberg's taut Cold War thriller, a based-on-true-events spy-swap yarn set in New York and East Berlin, steeped in paranoia and period detail. 2 hrs. 22

PG-13

(violence, profanity, adult themes) -

S.R.

Censored Voices Israeli director Mor Loushy's documentary about the 1967 Six-Day War reconstructs an ambitious journalistic project undertaken only days after the war to ask returning Israeli soldiers to recount their experiences. Loushy films the participants - interviewers and subjects alike - as they listen to themselves talk about the war. 1 hr. 24 No MPAA rating (scenes of war, adult topics, some profanity). - T.D.

The Martian Matt Damon gives a commanding, oftentimes darkly comic performance as an astronaut left for dead by his NASA crewmates when they beat a hasty retreat from Mars. With a limited supply of food and water and no means of communication, he has to figure out how to survive and how to contact Mission Control, hoping they can bring him home. Stirring, suspenseful, science-rooted stuff from director Ridley Scott; with Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, and Michael Peña. 2 hrs. 21 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict A richly informative, illuminating documentary about the art patron, collector and gallerist Guggenheim, one of the great champions of both the Dadaists and Surrealists of Europe in the 1920s and '30s, and of the Abstract Expressionists who came out of New York after World War II. Guggenheim's life was "all about art and love." 1 hr. 37 No MPAA rating (adult themes) - S.R.

All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records

(Not previewed)

Colin Hanks makes his feature-length directorial debut with this ode to the great chain record store Tower Records. Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell, and Chuck D. all appear in Hanks' documentary that examines the legacy of the store and its founder, Russ Solomon. 1 hr. 34

No MPAA rating

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip ** Alvin, Theodore, and Simon are afraid that Dave will embark on a new adventure without them in favor of girlfriend Samantha. Misadventures ensue as the chipmunks set off on a trip to Miami. 1 hr. 30 PG (mild scatological humor, some rude language) - W.S.

The Danish Girl * * * Eddie Redmayne stars in Tom Hooper's true-life, transgender romantic tragedy, about a painter in 1920s Copenhagen who becomes a woman, with the encouragement of his wife (an exceptional Alicia Vikander). It's an increasingly complicated relationship, in a film that is visually splendid but a little empty at its core. Redmayne has the physicality just right, and the costumes are lovely, but it's a technical performance, not one summoned from the soul. 2 hrs. R (nudity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Extraction (Not previewed) Bruce Willis plays a former CIA operative who is kidnapped by a shady group looking to put a terrorist plot into action. When it turns out the CIA isn't particularly interested in saving its former agent, his son mounts an unsanctioned rescue mission. 1 hr. 23 R (violence, language, brief sexual content/nudity).

Goosebumps *** R.L. Stine's horror-for-kids books get a meta adaptation. Stine (played by Jack Black in full camp mode) is a character; the monsters he's created have leapt off the page and into real life, and it's up to him, his daughter, Hannah (Odeya Rush), neighbor Zach (Dylan Minnette), and Zach's bestie, Champ (a great Ryan Lee), to recapture them. 1 hr. 43 PG (scary situations, rude humor) - M.E.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 **1/2 If Mockingjay - Part 1 was walkier and talkier than its forerunners, Part 2 is pretty much all action - and lesser for it. Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen and a "propo" squad work their way through the battle-scarred Capitol, as the final installment in the adventures of a valiant teen and her battle against decadent authority figures and cynical puppetmasters comes to a crashing end. 2 hrs. 17 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

In the Heart of the Sea * * * The real-life Moby-Dick, directed by Ron Howard and adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick's book of the same name about the sinking of an American whaling ship, the Essex, in 1820. Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw are some of the hands on deck. 2 hrs. PG-13 (brief violence) - G.T.

Legend **1/2 Biopic on Reggie and Ronnie Kray, identical twins who were two of London's most powerful organized-crime figures during the 1960s. 2 hrs. 11 R (strong violence, language, some sexual and drug material) - W.S.

Love the Coopers ** Four generations of the same family break through the unhappiness of the holidays to discover joy is right in front of them. But this Diane Keaton vehicle is a little too messy for its own good. 1 hr. 46 PG-13 (thematic elements, language, and some sexuality) - M.E.

Macbeth *** A lean, mean take on the Shakespeare tragedy, with some of the signature verse cut away, and with Michael Fassbender in the title role as the murderous Thane, his eyes - and his wife's, Lady Macbeth's - on the throne. The French actress Marion Cotillard plays the latter, haunted and hauntingly. A restlessly cinematic adaptation, from Australian director Justin Kurzel, set on the misty moors of Dark Ages Scotland. 1 hr. 53 R (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

The Night Before ** Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie, and Seth Rogen are three childhood friends, now all grown up - sort of - and celebrating the holidays in this Yuletide comedy from 50/50 and The Wackness director Jonathan Levine. 1 hr. 41 R (profanity) - G.T.

The Peanuts Movie *** Computer-animated adaptation of Charles Schulz's iconic comic strip, featuring that nervous, self-doubting Everyboy, Charlie Brown, his faithful pooch, Snoopy, and the rest of the gang, including Linus, Lucy, and Schroeder. The late Schulz's son and grandson hatched the plot; the family-centric feature commemorates Peanuts' 65th anniversary. 1 hr. 22 G - G.T.

Sisters *** Amy Poehler and Tina Fey reteam to play the titular sibs who throw an epic rager when their parents decide to sell their childhood home. Written by Saturday Night Live vet writer Paula Pell, Sisters deals with what it's like to lose the last tangible piece of your childhood - the home you grew up in. Poehler, Fey and SNL cast members of past and present (not to mention a fabulous John Cena), are a delight. 1 hr. 58 R (language, drug use) - M.E.

Spectre *** The fourth Bond film with Daniel Craig is, says the actor, his last, and all sorts of things get tied up neatly - including Léa Seydoux, the heroine of the tale. Christoph Waltz is the supervillain, one with a long history in the Bond canon. It's business as usual, but business that's pulled off with brilliant precision, deftly choreographed action, and an itinerary boasting some of the most photogenic spots on Earth. 2 hrs. 28 PG-13 (violence, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens * * * J.J. Abrams jump-starts the mythic in-a-galaxy-far-far-away franchise, bringing Old Timers Han Solo, Leia and Chewbacca back and introducing a new generation of rebel fighters (played by the plucky Daisy Ridley, the sturdy John Boyega). Half reboot, half remake, all fun. PG-13 (intergalactic violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Trumbo *** Bryan Cranston is the G-force at the heart of this oddly jolly cautionary tale based on the true-life political and professional ostracism of one of Hollywood's most talented scribes, Dalton Trumbo, a victim of blacklisting in the "Red Menace" days of the late 1940s and '50s. Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, John Goodman, head a large cast, bringing Tinseltown's glammy bygone days to picturesque life. 2 hrs. 04 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Victor Frankenstein **1/2 Equal parts the steampunk of Sherlock Holmes (intentional) and the spoofy camp of Young Frankenstein (probably not intentional), this new iteration of the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley tale is set in 1860s London and stars James McAvoy in the title role, with Daniel Radcliffe as Igor, his hunchbacked aide de camp. But it's not a real hump, and the giant creature made of rotting flesh isn't scary, either. 1 hr. 49 PG-13 (violence, rotting flesh, adult themes) - S.R.