AT THE MOVIES FILM
LOCAL THEATERS 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
REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM
FOUR SEASONS CINEMA 6 2429 Military Rd. (behind Big Lots), Niagara Falls / 297-1951 fourseasonscinema.com
THURSDAY MAR 24 - MAR 29
HALLWALLS 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo / 854-1694 hallwalls.org
VARIOUS TIMES / THE SCREENING ROOM, 3131 SHERIDAN DR, AMHERST / SCREENINGROOM.NET “All for ourselves, and none for other people” is what Adam Smith called the “vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” In this 2015 documentary directed by Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott, the erudite and unflappable Noam Chomsky delivers what amounts to an hour-plus lecture on income inequality, the attendant diminishment of democracy, and the corrosive effects of both on our society. It’s showing this Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, March 24-29, at the Screening Room. Read more at dailypublic.com. -THE PUBLIC STAFF
HAMBURG PALACE 31 Buffalo St., Hamburg / 649-2295 hamburgpalace.com LOCKPORT PALACE 2 East Ave., Lockport / 438-1130 lockportpalacetheatre.org
Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott. Reviewed at dailypublic. com. Thu-Fri 5:30pm, Tue 7:30pm. Screening Room THE SECRET GARDEN (1993)—Adaptation of the classic book by Frances Hodgson Burnett about an English orphan who finds a hidden world when she is sent to live at her uncle’s secluded country estate. Starring Kate Maberly and Maggie Smith; directed by Agnieszka Holland. Sat 10 am. Eastern Hills (Dipson) THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA— Documentary about the cultural significance of the Slavic fairy tale as it has played out in Eastern European history of the last century. Filmmaker Jessica Oreck will be present for the screening. Fri 7pm. Squeaky Wheel
penetrations, and celebrities getting AIDS. Even if that appeals to you, be prepared for a lot of British jokes that will go over most American heads. Directed not by Cohen’s usual collaborator Larry Charles but by Euro action specialist Louis Leterrier (The Transporter). – MF. Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge (AMC), Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal MCKINLEY 6 THEATRES (DIPSON) Walden Galleria 3701 McKinley Pkwy. / McKinley Mall EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT—In this Oscar nominee from Colombia for Best Foreign Language Film filmed enHamburg / 824-3479 tirely in the Amazon rainforest, a shaman who is the mckinley.dipsontheatres.com last survivor of his tribe serves as a guide to different white visitors, in 1909 and 1940. Starring Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar, and Brionne Davis. DirectNORTH PARK THEATRE ed by Ciro Guerra. Eastern Hills (Dipson) ENDS THURS1428 Hertel Ave., Buffalo / 836-7411 DAY CONTINUING northparktheatre.org HAIL, CAESAR!—The Coen Brothers’ first film since Inside ANOMALISA—Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed (with Llewyn Davis is this all-star comedy based on the life animator Duke Johnson) this puppet animation film of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), the real-life “fixer” who REGAL ELMWOOD CENTER 16 with David Thewlis as the voice of a depressed motikept the indiscretions of the stars out of the tabloids in vational speaker. It has been wildly popular with crit2001 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo / 871–0722 the 1940s and 1950s. With Scarlett Johansson, Chanics, so I wouldn’t want to talk you out of seeing it if ning Tatum, Ralph Fiennes, George Clooney, Tilda Swinregmovies.com you have an interest, but to me it was 90 minutes of ton, Jonah Hill, Alison Pill. Frances McDormand, Emily Kaufman whining about mostly trivial subjects, rubBeecham, and Alden Ehrenreich. McKinley (Dipson) bing your nose in what he considers the impossible REGAL NIAGARA FALLS STADIUM 12 THE HATEFUL EIGHT—At two hours and 45 minutes, unpleasantries of modern life. (And I saw it twice just 720 Builders Way, Niagara Falls Quentin Tarantino’s latest burns slowly, but despite a to give it a second chance.) With the voices of Jennifer lot of promising sparks fizzles out before it gets to its Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan. -MF Regal Elmwood, Re236–0146 gore-soaked finale. Set sometime in the years just afgal Quaker, Regal Transit regmovies.com ter the Civil War, with many of that conflict’s passions THE BIG SHORT—If you want to learn about the deep and still fresh, it contrives to place a bunch of characters in complex causes of the 2008 banking crisis that nearly a remote Wyoming way station during a blizzard that REGAL QUAKER CROSSING 18 brought down the American economy, you’d be better makes travel impossible. The dialogue lacks the florid off watching a documentary on the subject (especially 3450 Amelia Dr., Orchard Park / 827–1109 orotundity that is Tarantino’s stock-in-trade—you can Charles Ferguson’s Oscar-winning Inside Job). On the regmovies.com see why he didn’t cast Christoph Waltz—which leads other hand, you can’t argue that a fictionalized movyou to think that he may be after more serious conie starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, and cerns than in previous films. But everything that apRyan Gosling, directed and co-written by Will Ferrell REGAL TRANSIT CENTER 18 pears to be dissecting the American character turns partner Adam McKay, is likely to reach a lot more peoout to be merely a diversion from a spaghetti Western Transit and Wehrle, Lancaster / 633–0859 ple. Working from the book by former Wall Street insidstory that could—and should—have been told in a trimregmovies.com er Michael Lewis, the film whirls around several unconmer film. Excellent Ennio Morricone score. Starring, in nected characters who all came to the conclusion that alphabetical order, Demian Bichir, Bruce Dern, Walton money could be made by using the market to bet on Goggins, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, REGAL WALDEN GALLERIA STADIUM 16 it’s own inevitable failure. It’s explanations can be conMichael Madsen, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, and Channing One Walden Galleria Dr., Cheektowaga fusing, though McKay makes that part of the story—the Tatum. –MF McKinley (Dipson) OPENS FRIDAY narration notes that the financial world is designed to 681-9414 / regmovies.com THE LADY IN THE VAN—Maggie Smith fans beginning make outsiders feel stupid. Co-starring Marisa Tomei, to suffer Dowager withdrawal in anticipation of the Rafe Spall, and Melissa Leo. –MF McKinley (Dipson) Downton Abbey finale will flock to this, in which Dame RIVIERA THEATRE BROOKLYN—Saoirse Ronan stars as an Irish girl who emMaggie gives essentially the same effortlessly arch and 67 Webster St., North Tonawanda igrates to the United States in 1951, when the economy eccentric performance as a character who couldn’t be of her home country was in shambles. Adapted from 692-2413 / rivieratheatre.org any different. It’s a “mostly true story” about a homeColm Tóibín’s 2009 novel by Nick Hornby, Brooklyn is less woman who spent most of the 1970s and 1980s not only an extraordinarily good film; it’s also an imliving in a ramshackle van parked on the street in the THE SCREENING ROOM portant one, arriving as it does at a time when so many London neighborhood of Camden, winding up in the people are being forced to leave the lands of their 3131 Sheridan Dr., Amherst / 837-0376 driveway of playwright Alan Bennett. As played by Alex birth and so many normally decent people want to turn Jennings, Bennett indulges in some hand-wringing on screeningroom.net them away. Emotionally rendered by an attractive cast the topic of neighborly duties, but it’s Dame Maggie’s and crafted in the best traditions of mainstream filmshow all the way, and she throws herself into it with the making—it wouldn’t look out of place if you were to see kind of gusto the British use to freshen up a character SQUEAKY WHEEL it some evening on Turner Classic Movies—Brooklyn is you’ve seen them do a million times before. Directed 712 Main St., / 884-7172 a captivating and rewarding moviegoing experience, by Nicolas Hytner, who previously filmed Bennett’s The VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> squeaky.org the kind that at best comes along once or twice a year. History Boys and The Madness of King George. -MF Co-starring Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Eastern Hills (Dipson) Broadbent, and Julie Walters. Directed by John CrowLONDON HAS FALLEN—Did the world need a sequel to the SUNSET DRIVE-IN ley (Closed Circuit). -MF Eastern Hills (Dipson) grimly violent Olympus Has Fallen, in which Secret Ser9950 Telegraph Rd., Middleport 735THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY—Sacha Baron Cohen made his vice agent Gerard Butler saves the president (Aaron 7372 / sunset-drivein.com name, first on British TV and later in films, by combinEckhart) from an attack on the White House? Well, here ing bad taste humor with interviews posed by his weird it is. The first half resembles a Roland Emmerich disascharacters (Borat, Bruno, Ali G.) that got people to let ter movie as terrorists demolish half of London along TJ’S THEATRE down their guards and say outrageous things. Having with most of Europe’s leaders as they attend a funeral 72 North Main St., Angola / 549-4866 become too famous for that, he has dropped the refor the prime minister. (I admit to having a 10-yearality aspect of his schtick, which means he’s had to newangolatheater.com old’s&pleasure in that kind VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS REVIEWS >>of thing.) But as our hero amp up the gross-out jokes. The highlight of this one, and his charge take to the streets to escape terrorists if you like that kind of thing, involves elephant sex and who want to execute the president live on the internet, TRANSIT DRIVE-IN cannot possibly described: it’s up to you whether you the budget evaporates and you’re left with nothing to consider that a recommendation. (Mike Meyers fans distract you from the ugliness of a movie that wants to 6655 South Transit Rd., Lockport will love it.) The plot, which casts him as a soccer hooindulge viewer’s fantasies of wiping out Muslims while 625-8535 / transitdrivein.com ligan reunited with the brother he hasn’t seen in 28 tenderfooting around giving the bad guys any religious years, now a superspy (Mark Strong), is a thin excuse identification. Aside from Morgan Freeman, most of for jokes that feature shirtless fat people running, anal the returning cast—Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Robert
MAPLE RIDGE 8 (AMC) 4276 Maple Rd., Amherst / 833-9545 amctheatres.com
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Forster, Jackie Earle Haley—have little to do but stand around the War Room looking shocked. Directed by Babak Najafi. –MF Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge (AMC), 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 look at 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 require from a movie. With Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, and Forrest Goodluck. -MF Four Seasons, Maple Ridge (AMC), Regal Quaker, Regal Transit ROOM—Brie Larson won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role here as a mother raising a seven-year-old son in the same small room where he was born, while trying to keep him unaware of the dark nature of their existence. Adapted by Irish writer Emma Donoghue from her own novel, it’s the kind of story that is easier to pull off in literature than with the objectifying glare of movies, but director Lenny Abrahamson somewhat improbably succeeds in conveying the receptive suggestibility of a small child and his construction of a little world. If the film’s second half lacks the dramatic urgency of the first, it never really loses its focus on the boy’s odyssey from one world to another. This would not have been possible without the acutely sensitive and sometimes riveting performances of Larson and young Jacob Tremblay, who is utterly convincing and uncannily fascinating. –GS Amherst (Dipson) ENDS THURSDAY SON OF SAUL—Recent years have brought so many international films about Nazi atrocities that I couldn’t blame anyone for saying, “Enough.” Still, Laszlo Nemes’s Oscar winning debut (Best Foreign Language Film) presents two days inside Auschwitz-Birkenau in a way that comes as close as you could ever bear to experience what it might have been like. The focus is on Saul (Géza Röhrig), a Sonderkommando—a prisoner who helps deal with executions and the subsequent clean-up in exchange for slightly better living conditions, as he tries to arrange a proper Jewish burial for the corpse of his son. This and a plot about an escape attempt mostly serve as a way to give us a human connection in a horrifying situation of barely controlled chaos. Uncomfortable and unforgettable. –MF Amherst (Dipson) ENDS THURSDAY SPOTLIGHT—One of the very best movies ever made about the working press, a group that can certainly use a little support in the fact of the preening entertainment personalities, opinion pushers and bombastic bloggers who have given modern journalism a bad name. Recounting the efforts of an investigative unit at the Boston Globe to uncover decades of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests and the diocese’s cover-up, the film isn’t overburdened by seriousness. Focusing on the team that worked the story, this is a film about people; with an ensemble of performances that work individually and together. It keeps a humane focus even as it generates drama. Starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, and Stanley Tucci. Directed by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent). –GS Amherst (Dipson), Eastern Hills (Dipson) ENDS THURSDAY, Four Seasons 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE is not a sequel to Cloverfield, and producer J. J. Abrams calling it a “spiritual successor” seems like an unnecessary attempt to trick horror fans into the theaters. That said, much of director Dan Trachtenberg’s debut feature is tense and involving. Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as a woman who wakes up after a car accident in a bunker built and tended by John Goodman, a survivalist who tells her that the US has been attacked by an unknown force that has rendered the air poisonous. Is he telling the truth, or does he have ulterior plans for her? While the film initially seems rather overwrought, with an insistent score that makes you feel like you’re in the climax of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, it succeeds in keeping you guessing. The final half hour, though strong in its own way, is like an entirely different film. With John Gallagher Jr. and a voice-only appearance by Bradley Cooper. -MF Flix (Dipson), Maple Ridge (AMC), Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria TRIPLE 9—If I watched it two or three more times, I’d probably piece together everything that happens in this crime drama about some cops who are forced to commit a pair of robberies by a Russian mobster. But I can’t imagine that it would be worth it. Australian director John Hillcoat is best known for his collaborations with Nick Cave (The Road, Lawless, The Proposition), but while this script (by Matt Cook) shares Cave’s moral ambiguity, it tilts heavily toward sheer nihilism. And Hillcoat is too uninterested in details (don’t ask me what city this is set in) to navigate such murky turf. Starring Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson, and an unrecognizable Kate Winslet. -MF Regal Elmwood THE WAVE—From Norway, a disaster film in which a geologist learns that his area is about to be hit by a violent tsunami of over 80 meters. Starring Kristoffer Joner, Thomas Bo Larsen and Ane Dahl Torp. Directed by Roar Uthaug. Eastern Hills (Dipson) ENDS THURSDAY THE WITCH—Positioned to be this year’s indie horror movie to cross over to the mainstream (a la last year’s It Follows), the debut of writer-director Robert Eggers is loaded with atmosphere but is eventually too ambiguous for Cineplex audiences. In 1630, a family cast out of a Pilgrim settlement struggles to survive on their own on a farm on the edge of a bleak forest. Facing a harsh winter, they begin to fear that black magic has invaded them. Eggers gets excellent performances from his small cast, especially young actors Anya Taylor-Joy and Harvey Scrimshaw. But he wants to support too many possible interpretations of his “New England folk story”: Parable of religious hysteria? Fable of feminist emancipation? Dream of madness? Take your pick. With Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie. -MF Regal Walden Galleria P
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