RULES DON’T APPLY
PASSENGERS DECEMBER 21
NOVEMBER 23
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM NOVEMBER 18 The film opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl) has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he must deal with a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of his fantastic beasts, which could spell trouble for both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds. Marking the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling, the movie’s script was inspired by Rowling’s character Newt Scamander, who was expelled from Hogwarts but eventually wrote one of the school’s most important textbooks, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” Scamander is described as a “magiczoologist,” which in the world of Harry Potter is a person who studies magical creatures. Spun off from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the film is the first installment of a planned trilogy. The cast includes Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell, Zoe Kravitz, Ron Perlman, Jon Voight, Samantha Morton and Dan Fogler. David Yates directs.
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The setting is Hollywood. The time: 1958. Aspiring young actress Maria Mabrey (Lily Collins) and her ambitious young driver, Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), struggle with the often-absurd eccentricities of their employer, the wildly unpredictable billionaire Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty). When small-town beauty queen and devout Baptist Maria arrives at the Los Angeles airport, she meets her driver, Frank. Frank is engaged to his 7th-grade sweetheart and is a deeply religious Methodist. Their instant attraction not only puts their religious convictions to the test, but also defies Hughes’ Number 1 rule: no employee is allowed to have any relationship whatsoever with a contract actress. Hughes’ behavior interferes with Maria and Frank in separate and unexpected ways, and as they are drawn deeper into his bizarre world, their values are seriously challenged and their lives changed. Beatty has been absent from the big screen for 15 years, during which time he wrote the screenplay for this film. Hughes was originally a larger role, but as Beatty wrote, he changed the focus from the eccentric billionaire to the young couple as they balance their long-held convictions with temptations that appear almost normal in the atypical world of Hollywood.
NOTABLE MENTIONS
On a luxury interstellar spaceship bound for a colony 120 years away, two passengers sleeping in
THE FOUNDER DECEMBER 16 Michael Keaton stars as Illinois milkshake machine salesman Ray Kroc, who turned McDonald’s drive-through business into a national franchise. The film portrays the first meeting between
suspended animation are awakened 90 years too early when the ship malfunctions. As Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) face living the rest of their lives on board, with every luxury they could ever ask for, they begin to fall for each other, unable to deny their intense
Kroc and the McDonald brothers—Mac
attraction… until they discover the
and Dick—who were running a burger
ship is in grave danger. With the
operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc, then 52, was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He
lives of 5,000 sleeping passengers at stake, only Jim and Aurora can save them all.
offered his services to the McDonalds,
Although the film has the
who were looking for a new franchising
pedigree of a big-budget sci-fi
agent, and Kroc eventually maneuvered
spectacle, it is also an intimate look
himself into a position to take over the company and turn it into a billion-dollar empire. Kroc has been credited with making a number of innovative changes
at two individuals thrust into the position of responsibility, not only for their own lives, but also for the
in the food-service franchise model,
thousands on board. Lawrence and
specifically selling single-store franchises
Pratt bring considerable star power
rather than the territorial franchises common at the time, and maintaining uniformity in service and quality among all McDonald’s locations. Director John Lee Hancock and
and charisma to their roles. Morten Tyldum directs.
Other November releases include Loving, about a Virginia couple (Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga) who violated a Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage and took their case to the Supreme Court; the Brad Pitt-Marion Cotillard romantic DECEMBER 25 spy drama Allied; and Bleed For This, about a boxer (Miles Teller) Matthew McConaughey stars as who is left with a broken neck Kenny Wells in this film based on the after a near-fatal car accident and struggles back to the ring against true story of the 1993 Bre-X Mineral overwhelming physical odds. Corporation scandal. Wells operates December brings Miss Sloane, a failing prospecting business out of a starring Jessica Chastain as a bar in Reno while his loyal girlfriend, powerful lobbyist who sacrifices her career to push through an Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard), works amendment enforcing stricter several jobs to keep them afloat. federal laws regulating guns; Desperate for a lucky break, he teams Rogue One: A Star Wars Story up with an equally luckless geologist highlights a key event in the Star Wars timeline, in which a group of (Edgar Ramirez) to execute an ordinary people band together to elaborate plan: find gold deep in the steal the plans to the Death Star, uncharted jungle of Indonesia. the Empire’s ultimate weapon; Fences, starring and directed by The film is reminiscent of Denzel Washington, about a former Humphrey Bogart’s Treasure of professional baseball player who the Sierra Madre, which tells how denies his teenage son’s dreams of gold leads to greed, danger and playing college football; and Why Him?, about an overprotective even death. In Gold, Wells enjoys father (Bryan Cranston) who panics the fruits of his discovery until when he learns that his daughter’s others attempt to wrest control of socially awkward boyfriend (James it, resorting to extreme measures to Franco) plans to propose.
GOLD
Keaton portray Kroc as a shrewd, cold
lay claim to the multi-million-dollar
businessman but also emphasize his work
treasure. For the role, McConaughey
ethic. Laura Dern, Linda Cardellini, Patrick Wilson, Nick Offerman and B.J. Novak co-star.
gained 40 pounds and shaved back his hair to appear older.
Dennis Seuling is a resident of Maywood. Holiday 2016
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