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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
WIM WENDERS: PORTRAITS ALONG THE ROAD THURSDAY NIGHTS IN APRIL
FOUR SEASONS CINEMA 6 2429 Military Rd. (behind Big Lots), Niagara Falls / 297-1951 fourseasonscinema.com
7PM / DIPSON AMHERST THEATER, 3500 MAIN ST, BUFFALO / AMHERST.DIPSONTHEATRES.COM If you’re of less than a certain age and a devotee of foreign language films, there’s a good chance that you owe that to Wim Wenders, whose 1987 Wings of Desire entranced a whole new generation of moviegoers to expand their expectations of cinema. This dreamlike story of restless angels monitoring the preoccupations of random humans has become a part of the collective imagination even for people who have never seen the film. That is was Wender’s biggest international hit is ironic given that he made the film to embrace his home country of Germany after failing to make an impact in Hollywood. Wenders was born in 1945 in an area of Germany under Western occupation, and in his nearly 50 years as a filmmaker his work is marked by a common fascination with rootless, displaced souls. Jake Mikler of Little Red Booking has assembled a month-long series of Wenders’s key films, some of which have been very difficult to see in the United States. Running on Thursday nights at the Amherst Theatre, the series opens this week with Kings of the Road (1976), the culmination of his early career and the third in what has come to be known as Wenders’ “Road” trilogy. Mikler will introduce the film, which follows two men who travel around Germany in the van from which one runs a film projector repair service. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1984 (a wonderful year for movies), Paris, Texas (April 14) stars Harry Dean Stanton as a man trying to rebuild his life after four years spent wandering the desert. Much of the early part of the film has no dialogue, carried entirely by Stanton’s famously weather-worn face, Robby Mueller’s gorgeous cinematography, and the American score by Ry Cooder (who was instrumental in the production of Wenders’ documentary Buena Vista Social Club). It will be introduced by local film scholar Girish Shambu. Wings of Desire, presented by Jordan Smith of Cultivate Cinema Circle, will be screened on April 21. The series concludes with a Sunday afternoon screening on May 1 on the film that was both Wenders’ biggest production and yet the hardest one find, Until the End of The World, which I will have the honor of introducing (being one of the few locals who has actually seen it). An epic story filmed around the world set in the then-future of 1999, it ran more than five hours before it was cut by the US distributor to half that time; not surprisingly, it flopped. Although the film is still unavailable in the US (and most of the rest of the world) on DVD, the screening will feature a restored director’s cut running 280 minutes. —M. FAUST
HALLWALLS 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo / 854-1694 hallwalls.org HAMBURG PALACE 31 Buffalo St., Hamburg / 649-2295 hamburgpalace.com LOCKPORT PALACE 2 East Ave., Lockport / 438-1130 lockportpalacetheatre.org MAPLE RIDGE 8 (AMC) 4276 Maple Rd., Amherst / 833-9545 amctheatres.com MCKINLEY 6 THEATRES (DIPSON) 3701 McKinley Pkwy. / McKinley Mall Hamburg / 824-3479 mckinley.dipsontheatres.com NORTH PARK THEATRE 1428 Hertel Ave., Buffalo / 836-7411 northparktheatre.org
THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY—Sacha Baron Cohen made his those things. British actor Tom Hiddleston inhabits the role surprisingly well, as does Elizabeth Olsen as Wilname, first on British TV and later in films, by combinliams’ wife. But in more than two hours of screen time, ing bad taste humor with interviews posed by his weird writer-director Marc Abraham too often resorts to characters (Borat, Bruno, Ali G.) that got people to let having characters tell us about events that he should down their guards and say outrageous things. Having REGAL ELMWOOD CENTER 16 be showing us. The pace is leaden, and the story sends become too famous for that, he has dropped the reyou out feeling as if you know little more about Wilality aspect of his schtick, which means he’s had to 2001 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo / 871–0722 liams than you did when you entered. With Bradley amp up the gross-out jokes. The highlight of this one, regmovies.com Whitford and Cherry Jones. Directed by Marc Abraham if you like that kind of thing, involves elephant sex and (Flash of Genius). -MF Eastern Hills (Dipson) cannot possibly described: it’s up to you whether you REGAL NIAGARA FALLS STADIUM 12 consider that a recommendation. (Mike Meyers fans KNIGHT OF CUPS—Viewers who read Tarot cards or will love it.) The plot, which casts him as a soccer hoo720 Builders Way, Niagara Falls studied the medieval religious text The Pilgrim’s Progligan reunited with the brother he hasn’t seen in 28 ress may be better equipped than most to derive any 236–0146 years, now a superspy (Mark Strong), is a thin excuse meaning from Terrence Malick’s new film. Christian regmovies.com for jokes that feature shirtless fat people running, anal Bale stars as a Los Angeles screenwriter looking for penetrations, and celebrities getting AIDS. Even if that meaning in his life, past, present and future. It’s filled appeals to you, be prepared for a lot of British jokes REGAL QUAKER CROSSING 18 with images of great beauty, possibility as a commenthat will go over most American heads. Directed not by tary on the shallowness of physical appearance. But 3450 Amelia Dr., Orchard Park / 827–1109 Cohen’s usual collaborator Larry Charles but by Euro the whispered snippets of dialogue, the incessant regmovies.com action specialist Louis Leterrier (The Transporter). – jump cuts, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki MF Regal Transit fondness for distorted lenses and skewed perspectives make it all awfully hard to focus on. With Cate BlanchREGAL TRANSIT CENTER 18 EYE IN THE SKY—Modern communications technology ett, Natalie Portman and Brian Dennehy. -MF Amherst bring military and government leaders into the deTransit and Wehrle, Lancaster / 633–0859 (Dipson) ENDS THURSDAY APRIL 7 cision process of a proposed drone strike against a regmovies.com terrorist leader. In what feels like real time, we watch LONDON HAS FALLEN—Did the world need a sequel to the operation from the perspectives of its various the grimly violent Olympus Has Fallen, in which Separticipants, mostly British and American, linked from REGAL WALDEN GALLERIA STADIUM 16 cret Service agent Gerard Butler saves the president around the world. It comes down to a single chilling One Walden Galleria Dr., Cheektowaga (Aaron Eckhart) from an attack on the White House? question: is the life of a single innocent young girl a Well, here it is. The first half resembles a Roland Em681-9414 / regmovies.com price worth paying to prevent an attack likely to kill merich disaster movie as terrorists demolish half of scores of other equally innocent people? Different London along with most of Europe’s leaders as they viewers may react differently to what they see here. RIVIERA THEATRE attend a funeral for the prime minister. (I admit to But the script by Guy Hibbert gives you all sides of the having a 10-year-old’s pleasure in that kind of thing.) 67 Webster St., North Tonawanda argument, clearly, compellingly, and without prejudice. But as our hero and his charge take to the streets to 692-2413 / rivieratheatre.org If you don’t like to have your opinions challenged and escape terrorists who want to execute the president tested, this is not the movie for you. With universally live on the internet, the budget evaporates and you’re strong performances (including Alan Rickman in his THE SCREENING ROOM left with nothing to distract you from the ugliness of Tsotsi ). last film) and tense direction from Gavin Hood ( a movie that wants to indulge viewer’s fantasies of 3131 Sheridan Dr., Amherst / 837-0376 With Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, and Jeremy Northam. wiping out Muslims while tenderfooting around giving screeningroom.net –MF Amherst (Dipson), Flix (Dipson) the bad guys any religious identification. Aside from Morgan Freeman, most of the returning cast—AngeHELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS— It’s been a long time since SQUEAKY WHEEL la Bassett, Melissa Leo, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Sally Field has had any kind of a leading role, much Haley—have little to but stand around the War Room less one that used her particular comic skills. She 712 Main St., / 884-7172 looking shocked. Directed by Babak Najafi. –MF Regal does panicked befuddlement better than most any acVISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> squeaky.org Elmwood, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden tress since the screwball era. So it’s a delight to see Galleria, Transit Drive-In her back in this offbeat comedy as a Manhattan office SUNSET DRIVE-IN drone emerging from the Staten Island house where MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2—Long in coming sequel. she spent her life caring for her now-deceased moth9950 Telegraph Rd., Middleport 735Starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constaner into a seemingly impossible crush on a young new tine, Lainie Kazan, and Andrea Martin. Directed by 7372 / sunset-drivein.com co-worker. Directed by Michael Showalter, members of Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee). Amherst (Dipson), Flix whose college troupe The State have produced some (Dipson), Maple Ridge, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara TJ’S THEATRE of the most distinctive indie comedies of the last few Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galledecades, Hello, My Name Is Doris isn’t a standard feel72 North Main St., Angola / 549-4866 ria, Transit Drive-In good movie; it’s off-base enoughFILM that you’ve never newangolatheater.com VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE LISTINGS & REVIEWS >>best film in years stars REMEMBER—Atom Egoyan’s sure just where it’s going, though it never strays too Christopher Plummer as Zev, a man in the early stages far down any of its potentially painful tangents. With of dementia who is given a mission by a friend (MarTRANSIT DRIVE-IN Max Greenfield, Beth Behrs, Stephen Root, and Tyne tin Landau) at his retirement home: find and execute Daly. -MF Eastern Hills (Dipson), North Park 6655 South Transit Rd., Lockport the Auschwitz prison guard who escaped punishment 625-8535 / transitdrivein.com I SAW THE LIGHT— Classic country music at its best is and is now living in the US. With touches of Memensimple, clear, direct. This turgid a biography of the to—Zev’s memory is fragile enough that he has to great performer and writer Hank Williams is none of rely on written instructions and phone calls from his
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wheelchair-bound friend—Remember initially seems to be a simple revenge potboiler that you keep watching because Plummer is the kind of actor who commands your attention. But some things that seem to be poor scripting turn out to be points in the full story that eventually develops. By the time it gets where it’s going, we’re left with a film of surprising power. With Dean Norris, Martin Landau, Jürgen Prochnow, and Bruno Ganz. –MF Eastern Hills (Dipson) 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 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 prening 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 McKinley (Dipson) 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, Regal Elmwood, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria P
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VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS & REVIEWS >> DAILYPUBLIC.COM / APRIL 6 - 12, 2016 / THE PUBLIC 21