FILM NEW THIS WEEK
FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 6, 2018 | GOODTIMES.SC | SANTACRUZ.COM
DEATH WISH Once upon a time, director Eli Roth made an interesting and fairly subversive horror film called Hostel. But a lot of people—most of whom never even saw it—wrongly wrote it off as “torture porn.” Roth seems to have never gotten over it, as he hasn’t made anything approaching a good movie since. Even worse, he increasingly whines about “social justice warriors” attacking his films, suggesting he’s taking that hard Michael Crichton/ Frank Miller/David Mamet fall into nonsensical right-wing paranoia. Gee, wonder if that has anything to do with why he’s remaking 1974’s nonsensical right-wing paranoia film Death Wish. Bruce Willis on a vigilante shooting spree? Sending a message that murder is the only way to deal with criminals, at a time when crime is at historic lows, and gun mass-murder is at an alltime high? Can anyone say “worst idea ever?” Co-starring Elisabeth Shue, Dean Norris and Vincent D’Onofrio. (R) 107 minutes. (SP)
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A FANTASTIC WOMAN Daniela Vega stars as a transsexual nightclub singer whose much older boyfriend suddenly dies—just as he’s left his family for her—throwing her plans for the future into chaos. Especially after she becomes a suspect in his death. Written and directed by Sebasatian Lelio. Costarring Francisco Reyes and Luis Gnecco. (R) 104 minutes. (SP) NOSTALGIA An all-star cast supports a mosaic of linked stories exploring love and loss and our relationship to the things that make our memories. Starring Jon Hamm, Ellen Burstyn, Catherine Keener, Bruce Dern, John Ortiz, Nick Offerman and Patton Oswalt. Directed by Mark Pellington. (R) 114 minutes. (SP) RED SPARROW Jennifer Lawrence is a one-woman killing force! I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s definitely the plot of this spy movie. Raised by Russians to stick it to the Capitalist Running Dogs, she meets CIA agent Joel Edgerton and starts re-thinking her values. Joel
Edgerton, really, comrade? Did you not see The Gift? That guy is totally creepy! (R) 139 minutes. (SP) CONTINUING EVENT: LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MOVIES Film buffs are invited Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. to downtown Santa Cruz, where each week the group discusses a different current release. For location and discussion topic, go to https:// groups.google.com/group/LTATM.
NOW PLAYING ANNIHILATION Director Alex Garland of Ex Machina fame has been up front about the fact that his new film about an expedition to a dangerous place where the laws of nature have been altered isn’t for everyone. Studio execs agreed, calling it too complicated and intellectual, and in a panic signed most of the international rights away to Netflix. That’s too bad for Garland, but it does suggest that science fiction fans in this country can for once look forward to an adaptation that’s as smart and original as the book it’s based on. The funny part is that the trailer makes it look like a fairly typical, bland sci-fi/action flick. I bet the studio execs loved it. Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Oscar Isaac. (R) (SP) BLACK PANTHER After months of jaw-droppingly cool trailers and ever-more revealing clips, anticipation for this latest Marvel comic adaptation is at a fever pitch. The character at the center of this story, T’Challa (played here by Chadwick Boseman), goes all the way back to 1966, and was the first character of African descent in a major American comic. Incredibly, it took more than 25 years of development hell for this adaptation to finally reach the big screen—but it’s finally here, primed to be one of the biggest movies of the year. Directed by Ryan Coogler. Co-starring Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, and Angela Bassett. (PG-13) 134 minutes. (SP) CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Scripted by the great James
Ivory (veteran director of classics like A Room With a View and Howard’s End), from a 2007 novel by Italian-American writer André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name follows the relationship between the 17-year-old son of a globe-trotting academic, and the 24-year-old American grad student hired as his father’s research assistant. Evolving over six weeks of a hot, lazy, Italian summer in 1983, the story explores physical attraction, yearning, and romantic attachment in ways viewers of all sexual orientations can understand. Directed by Luca Guadagnino. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, and Michael Stuhlbarg. (R) 132 minutes. (LJ) DARKEST HOUR Just a few years ago, Hollywood trade mags were asking “What’s wrong with Gary Oldman?” after he gave a rambling, profanity-laced interview to Playboy magazine in which he defended Mel Gibson’s anti-semitism and whined about Obama’s supposedly terrible presidency. He then went on the expected apology tour, and here he is playing Winston Churchill in an Oscar-bit World War II movie. Take note, crazy-saying Matt Damon! Luckily, perhaps, avowed libertarian Oldman is unrecognizable in makeup as celebrated reformist Churchill, as director Joe Wright traces the critical decisions Churchill made immediately upon becoming prime minister, ending Britain’s strategy of Nazi appeasement and taking a stand against Hitler. Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn and Lily James co-star. (PG-13) 127 minutes. FIFTY SHADES FREED And now, the long-awaited third and final chapter of the Fifty Shades trilogy. So many questions to be answered like: Do these two supposedly kinky people actually know any position other than missionary? Does Christian’s much-ballyhooed taste for “punishment” extend beyond giving Anastasia six whole spanks? Find out in this film! Maybe! Directed by James Foley. Starring
Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. (R) 105 minutes. EARLY MAN Move over, Captain Caveman! Aardman Animations, the people who brought you Wallace and Gromit, are back with the story of a caveman who has to help his tribe win a soccer game—or lose their village to some Bronze Age bullies. Directed by Nick Park. With the voices of Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston and Maisie Williams. (PG) 89 minutes. GAME NIGHT From the comedy geniuses who brought you Horrible Bosses comes a slightly less half-assed concept film about dumb people getting into a dumb situation. This time it’s a bunch of friends doing a murder-mystery night who don’t realize actual crimes are being committed in front of them. Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Starring Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, Jesse Plemons and Michael C. Hall. (R) 100 minutes. (SP) I, TONYA Craig Gillespie directs this often raucously entertaining fact-based fiction film that purports to be a documentary detailing the tragi-comic incidents ofTonya Harding's early life and public career. The story is told from a variety of perspectives as the plucky competitor who was the first American woman ever to stick a triple axel in competition evolves into the most reviled woman in the world. Along the way, they generate a surprising amount of sympathy for the human being at the center of all that notoriety. Starring Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, and Caitlin Carver. (R) 119 minutes. (LJ) THE SHAPE OF WATER You could call it Beauty and the Beast meets The Creature From the Black Lagoon, but that doesn't suggest the profound emotional pull and dramatic resonance of this bewitching new movie from Guillermo del Toro. Sally Hawkins is marvelous as a mute, spinsterish woman mopping floors at a secret, Cold War-era government research facility, who bonds
with a captive amphibious man (soulful Doug Jones) — a sentient being capable of intelligence and compassion. In small deft strokes, theirs becomes one of the most compelling, fanciful, and satisfying love stories of the year — in the name of diversity, tolerance, and the right to fall in love with whoever you choose. Del Toro's sheer joy of filmmaking is contagious in this evocative modern fairy-tale. Michael Shannon and Richard Jenkins co-star. (R) 123 minutes. (LJ) THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Frances McDormand is superb as a middleaged mother with a spectacularly vulgar mouth, a fearless takeno-prisoners attitude, and a relentless drive to see justice done after the unsolved murder of her teenage daughter. Another actress might chomp on the scenery with extra relish and hot sauce, but McDormand plays her small and close, with her volatility —and vulnerability—boiling at the surface. Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell are also great in this layered and complex morality play from playwright-filmmaker Martin McDonagh. Directed by McDonagh. Co-starring Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish and Peter Dinklage. (R) 115 minutes. (LJ) WINCHESTER I certainly didn’t think it was possible to make the Winchester Mystery House boring, but this movie manages it. The incredible story of Sarah Winchester and how she built her house to confuse the ghosts of those killed by her family’s guns gets muddled beyond recognition, and even Helen Mirren as the grand dame of weird architecture can’t save it. She and Jason Clarke (as a doctor tasked with determining her mental state) hold the ridiculousness together for most of the first half, but writer-directors the Spierig brothers simply didn’t have a clue what to do with this. What a waste. Written and directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig. Co-starring Jason Clarke and Sarah Snook. (PG-13) 99 minutes. (SP)