Movies: New and Noteworthy

COMING THIS WEEK

By Steven Rea

Collateral Beauty "What if love, death, and time are trying to help you?" Edward Norton asks of a tragedy-struck Will Smith in the trailer for David Frankel's Capraesque parable about an ad exec who retreats from life after something terrible happens, and then runs into a bevy of English actresses (Winslet! Knightley! Mirren!) who try to help him. PG-13

La La Land Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a struggling jazz pianist and a struggling actress in modern-day Los Angeles - a modern-day Los Angeles where people break into song-and-dance numbers, just like Fred and Ginger used to do. An all-in movie musical from Whiplash auteur Damien Chazelle. PG-13

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story The first in a planned anthology of stand-alone Star Wars adventures, with Felicity Jones as a Rebel Alliance rabble-rouser and a bunch of other thespians (Diego Luna, Ben Mendolsohn, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed, Mads Mikkelsen) as a bunch of other characters, good and bad. Trust the Force. PG-13

Beyond the Gates

Estranged brothers enter a dark world when they reunite at their missing father's video store.

The Brand New Testament God lives in Brussels and spends his time inventing new laws to frustrate mankind. His son, JC, went and got himself killed. But daughter Ea hacks into dad's computer and leaks to the world via text message everyone's inevitable date of death, creating pandemonium.

Jackie Natalie Portman stars in this biopic that looks at former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the days and weeks after the assassination of JFK.

Daughters of the Dust

Family difficulties are set amid the backdrop of changing culture in an early 20th-century Gullah community of former West African slaves in coastal South Carolina. 1 hr. 52

PG

-

W.S.

Moonlight A true American masterpiece, the sophomore feature from Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy) is a heady mix of brutal social realism and poetry as it tells the coming-of-age story of a young black gay man from a Miami ghetto. Divided into three parts, it tells the story of Chiron as a 10-year-old, a high school student, and a 20-something professional as he wrestles with external forces he can't control, including poverty and drug crime and internal desires he cannot ignore. Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes give memorable performances as Chiron. 1 hr. 50 R (some sexuality, drug use, brief violence, and profanity throughout) - T.D.

Doctor Strange

Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) acquits himself most awesomely in the 14th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a visually sumptuous, trippy origin story about an arrogant surgeon who loses his career but regains his soul - and the ability to cast wicked spells, do wicked kung fu, and look wicked cool in a majestic bloodred cape. The plot? Hmm, well evil threatens to swallow all of reality and the good guys try to stop it. 1 hr. 55

PG-13

(sci-fi violence and action throughout, and an intense crash sequence) -

T.D.

The Eagle Huntress Remarkable documentary follows wildly charismatic 13-year-old girl from nomadic family in Mongolia as she captures and trains an eagle. The story is mythic, the scenery jaw-dropping, the tone often surprisingly fun. And young Aisholpan Nurgaiv is a born star. 1 hr. 27 G (contains nothing objectionable) - W.S.

Elle Paul Verhoeven's most daring exploration of sexual politics features a stunning performance by Isabelle Huppert as a successful business executive and single mother who is violently raped by a masked assailant. Refusing to become a victim or to seek revenge, she tries to understand the dynamics of rape, going as far as to befriend and seduce her attacker. 2 hrs. 10 R (violence involving sexual assault, disturbing sexual content, some grisly images, brief graphic nudity, and profanity) - T.D.

Hacksaw Ridge One of Mel Gibson's greatest achievements as director, this incredibly violent, gory WWII epic tells the true story of U.S. Army medic Desmond Doss (a remarkable Andrew Garfield), who became one of the most decorated soldiers of the Pacific Theater without firing a single shot. A conscientious objector, he single-handedly saved more than 75 wounded men during the Battle of Okinawa. 2 hrs. 11 R (intense prolonged graphic sequences of war violence, including grisly bloody images) - T.D.

The Handmaiden Based on Sarah Water's novel The Fingersmith, this breathtaking, clever, funny, sexy - and sexually graphic - romantic thriller from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook is about a lesbian romance that develops between an impoverished confidence trickster and an isolated, naïve heiress. 2 hrs. 24 No MPAA rating (nudity and graphic sexual situations throughout, profanity, smoking, violence) - T.D.

Manchester by the Sea Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me, Margaret) proves once again he's one of America's finest dramatists with this working-class drama about loss, grief, and family obligations. Casey Affleck is sensational in an Oscar-worthy performance as a self-hating melancholic who has lived a miserable life as a janitor since he lost both his children in an accident. When his older brother (Kyle Chandler) dies, he must return to his tiny hometown and assume responsibility for his teenage nephew (Lucas Hedges). 2 hrs. 17 R (profanity throughout and some sexual content) - T.D.

Moana This delightful, lyrical, and deeply moving 3D computer-animated family picture is a semicomic adventure story featuring the first truly feminist heroine to grace Walt Disney's animated features. Based in part on Polynesian myths, it's about a teenage princess (15-year-old Hawaii-born singer Auli'i Cravalho) who goes on an arduous journey to restore the creative powers of the fecund earth mother who created the world. Co-starring Dwayne Johnson as a macho demigod, the film is fueled by a wondrous ecofeminist point of view. 1 hr. 53 PG (peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements) - T.D.

The Accountant ***

Crime thriller specialist Gavin O'Connor (

Hope and Glory

) delivers a slick, well-paced actioner based on the most ludicrous premise. Ben Affleck stars as an autistic accountant who also happens to be an expert sniper and martial arts master who is targeted by assassins after he finds financial irregularities at a powerful tech firm. Anna Kendrick is terrific as a geeky junior accountant who falls for the heroic CPA. With John Lithgow, J.K. Simmons, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson. 2 hr. 8

R

(strong violence and profanity throughout)

- T.D.

Allied ** Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) pays tribute to classic Hollywood films with this subpar romantic WWII spy yarn starring Brad Pitt as a commando who parachutes into Casablanca to help an agent from the French Resistance (Marion Cotillard). The derivative story is so far-fetched and the romance so tepid the film lacks any real vitality. 2 hrs. 04 R (violence, some sexuality/nudity, profanity, and brief drug use) - T.D.

Almost Christmas **1/2 Finally, a decent role for Mo'Nique after her Oscar for 2009's Precious. Writer/director David E. Talbert turns the cameras on and lets her do her thing as the eccentric, motormouth Aunt May of the Meyers clan as the family works through all the familiar tropes of the holiday movie genre. 1 hr. 52 PG-13 (suggestive material, drug content, and language) - W.S.

Bad Santa 2 **1/2 In long-in-coming sequel to 2003 hit, safecracking Santa Billy Bob Thornton and elfin sidekick Tony Cox try to knock over a Chicago charity. Kathy Bates is here, too, and the cast is in fine form – but the rehashed jokes feel way past their prime. 1 hr. 32 R (crude sexual content and language throughout, some graphic nudity) - W.S.

Bleed for This **1/2 By-the-numbers boxing biopic tells the story of world champion boxer Vinny "the Pazmanian Devil" Paz as he attempts to recover from a head-on car wreck and fight again. If you've seen The Fighter, you've kind of seen this, too. Miles Teller plays the Rhode Island boxer. 1 hr. 56 R (language, sexuality/nudity, some accident images) - W.S.

The Edge of Seventeen *** A teen's (Hailee Steinfeld) life takes a turn for the worse when her best friend begins dating her brother. It works because it's not a candy-coated version of teenagedom. 1 hr. 30 R (for sexual content, language, and some drinking) - M.E.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them *** Harry Potter spin-off scripted by J.K. Rowling brings the wizarding world across the pond to our side. Set in 1920s Manhattan, with Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell. 2 hrs. 13 PG-13 (for some fantasy-action violence) - T.D.

Miss Sloane ** Disappointing political thriller features Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, The Martian) in a powerhouse performance as an amoral conservative Washington lobbyist who comes under attack from the gun lobby when she switches sides to help a gun control bill pass a Senate vote. John Madden, who directed Chastain's 2010 breakout film, The Debt, delivers a serviceable thriller that feels far more like a heist film about a con artist than a satire about the corrupting influence of money in politics. Mark Strong, Allison Pill, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw costar. 2 hrs. 12 R (profanity and some sexuality) - T.D.

Nocturnal Animals *** In intense, haunting, convoluted movie – and movie-within-a-movie – Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal star as a divorced couple whose relationship takes a dark turn after he writes a novel. 1 hr. 56 R (violence, obscenity, and graphic nudity) - W.S.

Office Christmas Party **1/2 Coworkers have one last hope of hanging on to their jobs: Throw a wild Yuletide bash that will win over a potential client. Jennifer Aniston is the cutthroat corporate boss looking to slash the payroll. Jason Bateman, Kate McKinnon, and T.J. Miller are the office goofballs. Courtney Vance is the target of their party-hearty tomfoolery. 1 hr. 45 R (crude sexual content, language, drug use, graphic nudity) - W.S.

Old Stone *** Chinese Canadian writer-director Johnny Ma makes his feature debut with a lean, mean, and utterly compelling 80-minute thriller about the Kafkaesque world a taxi driver named Lao Shi (Chen Gang) enters when he tries to help a traffic accident victim by ignoring procedure and taking him to the hospital in his own car. A Good Samaritan who also volunteers to pay for the victim's hospital bills, Shi is crushed by a merciless bureaucratic system that faults him for not following correct procedure. In Mandarin with English subtitles. 1 hr. 20 No MPAA rating (profanity, some violence, smoking) - T.D.

Rules Don't Apply * Warren Beatty stars as famously reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in what is essentially a love story between a starry-eyed ingenue (Lily Collins) signed to Hughes' stable of aspiring actresses and a young, ambitious Hughes employee (Alden Ehrenreich). 2 hr. 6 PG-13 (sexual material including brief strong language, thematic elements, drug references) - W.S.

Trolls ** DreamWorks Animation's mediocre animated 3D musical family adventure is the first big-screen story spun from the Good Luck Troll line of toys introduced in 1959. Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick voice the two leads and sing a couple of nice duets. Timberlake, who produced the music, does a great job, but the film has no magic, no real luster. 1 hr. 32 PG (some mild rude humor) - T.D.