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AT DAILYPUBLIC.COM: The Heroic Hired Guns of Benghazi: In his new movie, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi, Michael Bay eschews his usual bombast. It isn’t likely to be a breakout commercial success, says reviewer George Sax, but it is likely to become a useful tool in advancing a political agenda. Read Sax’s review at dailypublic.com.
AMHERST THEATRE (DIPSON) 3500 Main St., Buffalo / 834-7655 amherst.dipsontheatres.com AURORA THEATRE 673 Main St., East Aurora / 652-1660 theauroratheatre.com EASTERN HILLS CINEMA (DIPSON) 4545 Transit Rd., / Eastern Hills Mall Williamsville / 632-1080 easternhills.dipsontheatres.com FLIX STADIUM 10 (DIPSON) 4901 Transit Rd., Lancaster / 668-FLIX flix10.dipsontheatres.com FOUR SEASONS CINEMA 6 2429 Military Rd. (behind Big Lots), Niagara Falls / 297-1951 fourseasonscinema.com
Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Rebut writer-director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Stagal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria tion) convinced him to let him use the character in a spin-off film focusing on the illegitimate HALLWALLS THE BIG SHORT—If you want to learn about the son (Michael B. Jordan) of Apollo Creed. Dedeep and complex causes of the 2008 bank341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo / 854-1694 termined to follow in his father’s footsteps, her ing crisis that nearly brought down the Amerhallwalls.org persuades the retired Rocky (Stallone moving ican economy, you’d be better off watching a into the Burgess Meredith part) to coach him. documentary on the subject (especially Charles The result is a crowd-pleaser that pays affecHAMBURG PALACE Ferguson’s Oscar-winning Inside Job). On the tionate tribute to memorable locations and 31 Buffalo St., Hamburg / 649-2295 other hand, you can’t argue that a fictionalized characters from the Rocky films while following movie starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad hamburgpalace.com a different structure. Coogler also retains StalPitt, and Ryan Gosling, directed and co-written lone’s sentimentality, and the notes struck by by Will Ferrell partner Adam McKay, is likely to LOCKPORT PALACE the cast here are honest, even if the challenge reach a lot more people. Working from the book faced by his hero feels contrived. With Tessa 2 East Ave., Lockport / 438-1130 by former Wall Street insider Michael Lewis, the Thompson and Phylicia Rashad. –Greg Lamberlockportpalacetheatre.org film whirls around several unconnected characson Four Seasons, Regal Transit ters who all came to the conclusion that money DADDY’S HOME—Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg could be made by using the market to bet on MAPLE RIDGE 8 (AMC) as the past and current husbands of the same it’s own inevitable failure. Its explanations can 4276 Maple Rd., Amherst / 833-9545 woman (Linda Cardellini) battling for the affecbe confusing, though McKay makes that part of amctheatres.com tion of her kids. Directed by Sean Anders (Sex the story—the narration notes that the financial Drive). Aurora, Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, world is designed to make outsiders feel stupid. MCKINLEY 6 THEATRES (DIPSON) Regal Walden Galleria, Flix (Dipson), Regal NiCo-starring Marisa Tomei, Rafe Spall, and Melisagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit sa Leo. –MF Amherst (Dipson), Aurora 3701 McKinley Pkwy. / McKinley Mall Hamburg / 824-3479 BROOKLYN—Saoirse Ronan stars as an Irish girl THE DANISH GIRL—Loosely based on the life of who emigrates to the United States in 1951, Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), the Danish mckinley.dipsontheatres.com when the economy of her home country was landscape artist of the 1920s whose posthuin shambles. Adapted from Colm Tóibín’s 2009 mously published diaries (under the name Lili NORTH PARK THEATRE novel by Nick Hornby, Brooklyn is not only an Elbe) have been inspirational to the transgen1428 Hertel Ave., Buffalo / 836-7411 extraordinarily good film; it’s also an important der community. It’s a handsome production dinorthparktheatre.org one, arriving as it does at a time when so many rected by Tom Hooper with similar period detail people are being forced to leave the lands of as his Oscar-winning The King’s Speech. But it walks an uncertain line between transvestitism their birth and so many normally decent peoREGAL ELMWOOD CENTER 16 and transgender, often seeming to imply that ple want to turn them away. Emotionally ren2001 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo / 871–0722 the two exist on a continuum. Fine performancdered by an attractive cast and crafted in the regmovies.com es by Redmayne and Alicia Vikander notwithbest traditions of mainstream filmmaking—it standing, its appeal may be limited to those wouldn’t look out of place if you were to see it who have read Lili’s diaries, though those are some evening on Turner Classic Movies—BrookREGAL NIAGARA FALLS STADIUM 12 lyn is a captivating and rewarding moviegoing also the viewers most likely to care about the 720 Builders Way, Niagara Falls liberties that have been taken with them. With experience, the kind that at best comes along 236–0146 once or twice a year. Co-starring Emory Cohen, Matthias Schoenaerts, Sebastian Koch, Ben regmovies.com Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, and Julie Whishaw, and Amber Heard. –MF Eastern Hills (Dipson), North Park Walters. Directed by John Crowley (Closed Circuit). –MF Amherst, Eastern Hills (Dipson) REGAL QUAKER CROSSING 18 THE FOREST—Horror movie starring Natalie Dor3450 Amelia Dr., Orchard Park / 827–1109 CAROL—Based on the novel The Price of Salt, mer as a woman searching for her missing twin written by Patricia Highsmith from an experiin a haunted forest in Japan. With Eoin Macken regmovies.com ence in her own life and published under the and Stephanie Vogt. Directed by Jason Zada. Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal pseudonym “Claire Morgan” in 1952, Carol reREGAL TRANSIT CENTER 18 Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria counts a romance between an aspiring young Transit and Wehrle, Lancaster / 633–0859 writer and a married suburban woman she met THE HATEFUL EIGHT—At two hours and 45 minregmovies.com while working as a department store clerk. For utes, Quentin Tarantino’s latest burns slowly, director Todd Haynes, this provides another but despite a lot of promising sparks fizzles out chance to explore repressed gay love in the REGAL WALDEN GALLERIA STADIUM 16 by the time it gets to its gore-soaked finale. Set Far From Heaven . But staid 1950s, as he did in One Walden Galleria Dr., Cheektowaga sometime in the years just after the Civil War, while he recreates the era to visual success, he’s with many of that conflict’s passions still fresh, 681-9414 / regmovies.com not as concerned with imitating a Douglas Sirk it contrives to place a bunch of characters in a melodrama this time around. (You may or may remote Wyoming way station during a blizzard RIVIERA THEATRE not consider that a plus.) Languid and seducthat makes travel impossible. The dialogue tive, it’s a slow burner with Rooney Mara and 67 Webster St., North Tonawanda lacks the florid orotundity that is Tarantino’s Cate Blanchett as an exquisitely matched pair. 692-2413 / rivieratheatre.org stock-in-trade—you can see why he didn’t cast With Kyle Chandler and Sarah Paulson. –MF AmChristoph Waltz—which leads you to think that herst (Dipson), Eastern Hills (Dipson) he may be after more serious concerns than THE SCREENING ROOM CONCUSSION—Far be it from me to complain too in previous films. But everything that appears 3131 Sheridan Dr., Amherst / 837-0376 much about a movie with lines like “God did not to be dissecting the American character turns screeningroom.net intend for us to play football.” But Concussion is out to be merely a diversion from a spaghetanother example of a movie that tries to make a ti Western story that could—and should—have Hollywood hit out of material that would better been told in a trimmer film. Excellent Ennio SQUEAKY WHEEL be served in a documentary. Will Smith stars as Morricone score. Starring, in alphabetical or712 Main St., / 884-7172 Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Pittsburgh pathologist der, Demian Bichir, Bruce Dern, Walton GogVISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> squeaky.org who while investigating the apparent mental gins, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, decline and suicide of a retired Steelers player Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, and SUNSET DRIVE-IN Channing Tatum. –MF Maple Ridge, Regal Nidiscovered a condition, chronic traumatic en9950 Telegraph Rd., Middleport 735agara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal cephalopathy, brought on by excessive blows to 7372 / sunset-drivein.com the head—a sine qua non of football. Writer-diWalden Galleria rector Peter Landesman (adapting a GQ article JOY features a terrific performance by Jennifer by Jeanne Marie Laskas) struggles to make TJ’S THEATRE Lawrence as a real-life heroine Preston Sturges this part of a conventional dramatic narrative, would have loved, the Long Island woman who 72 North Main St., Angola / 549-4866 in which Omalu’s undeniably interesting perinvented the Miracle Mop and became rich sellnewangolatheater.com VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM MORE FILM REVIEWS sonal historyFOR inevitably distracts from LISTINGS the cening& it on the then-new>>able channel QVC. Like tral story. Co-starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Sturges, writer-director David O. Russell packs Baldwin, Albert Brooks, David Morse, and Luke TRANSIT DRIVE-IN his movies with characters who all think they’re Wilson. –MF Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal 6655 South Transit Rd., Lockport the star of the story (and, in a different handling, Walden Galleria could be). But while he has all the right ingredi625-8535 / transitdrivein.com CREED—Sylvester Stallone finished his long-runents, Russell isn’t much of a cook. He stirs and ning Rocky series with Rocky Balboa in 2006, stirs to haphazard results. The first half of the
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film, charting our heroine’s domestic problems, are mostly just depressing, And the film’s third act seems to have been stuck on just to give the story a dramatic conclusion. With Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Édgar Ramírez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, and Isabella Rossellini. –MF Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria THE MARTIAN—It makes sense to update science fiction variants on the Robinson Crusoe story every so often to take advantage of both new technology and new knowledge. And the armchair survivalist will be engrossed by at least the first half of this adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel starring Matt Damon as a can-do science guy stuck on Mars. But scripter Drew Goddard, who has given us such logically wobbly films as The Cabin in the Woods and World War Z, is less interested in illustrating Weir’s problem-solving than the more familiar stuff about NASA mounting a rescue operation. The overall result would be more enjoyable on a popcorn level if the first half hadn’t put you in a logical mode P that the second half abandons. (The disco music is particularly idiotic—as if a mission to Mars in even the near future couldn’t come equipped with at least as much music as you could fit on a thumb drive right now.) With Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Pena, and Sean Bean. Directed by Ridley Scott (Prometheus). -MF Four Seasons, McKinley (Dipson) NORM OF THE NORTH—Animated movie about a polar bear and his lemming friends who are displaced from the Canadian north to Manhattan. Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria THE REVENANT—It’s never a good sign when a nearly three hour movie starts with the words “I know you want this to be over,” and the new film from Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) is something to be endured more than enjoyed. Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly went through no end of physical discomfort filming his scenes as an 1820s frontiersman struggling to survive after being mauled by a bear in the forest and abandoned as dead by his colleagues, but there’s a limit to how much pain you can watch before you either stop watching or simply stop caring. It doesn’t help that the various other stories interwoven with Leo’s are poorly fleshed out, or that co-star Tom Hardy’s dialogue is largely incomprehensible. Like Birdman, it’s an impressive technical accomplishment, if that’s all you want from a movie. With Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, and Forrest Goodluck.-MF Flix (Dipson), Hamburg Palace, Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria RIDE ALONG 2—Sequel. Starring Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Ken Jeong, Olivia Munn, and Benjamin Bratt. Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria SISTERS—Not a remake of the 1973 Brian De Palma movie, unfortunately. Starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz, John Leguizamo, and Dianne Wiest. Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS—Sequel. Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria 13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI—Reviewed on dailypublic.com. Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria P
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VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> DAILYPUBLIC.COM / JANUARY 20 - 26, 2016 / THE PUBLIC 21