New and Noteworthy: Movies

The Theory of Everything James Marsh's biopic about British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is a story less of science than of love. In the early 1960s, a grad student at Cambridge, Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne) learns he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease. It doesn't deter fellow grad student Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). Given two years to live, he finishes his doctorate and weds Wilde, on whose memoir the film is based. PG-13

Dumb and Dumber To Yes, it's been 20 years since knuckleheads Lloyd and Harry cavorted at the bottom of the IQ scale. Now they're back. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprise their roles in this Farrelly Brothers sequel, setting out on a road trip to find the child Harry never knew he had, nor should have had. PG-13

Low Down Pianist Joe Albany (John Hawkes) was part of the jazz firmament in the 1960s and '70s. He also was a heroin addict. His teenage daughter, Amy (Elle Fanning), provides the perspective for this film about his struggle to raise her, and her struggle to rescue him. R

Blackbird A young man struggles with his sexuality in a small Southern town.

Keep on Keepin' On This documentary examines jazz legend Clark Terry and his mentorship of blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin.

Rosewater "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart directed the story of a journalist detained in Iran for more than 100 days and brutally interrogated in prison.

Reviewed by critics Steven Rea (S.R.), Tirdad Derakhshani (T.D.), Dan DeLuca, and David Hiltbrand (D.H.). W.S. denotes a wire-service review.

Read complete reviews at www.inquirer.com/movies.

Birdman Michael Keaton is a faded Hollywood star trying to reclaim his career by mounting a Broadway drama in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's fierce, funny, breathless dive into the head of a man in deep trouble. An exhilarating, out-of-the-blue masterwork that ranks as not just one of the best films of the year, but of the decade, the century. With Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts. 1 hr. 59 R (profanity, violence, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Art and Craft The world's most successful art forger is the focus of this thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating documentary. 1 hr. 29 No MPAA rating (adult themes) - T.D.

The Blue Room An affair leads to unexpected tragedy in actor-director Mathieu Amalric's startling, challenging, and spectacular postmodern murder mystery. 1 hr. 16 R (graphic nudity and sex) - T.D.

The Book of Life This animated adventure about a young man's journey is set against the colorful backdrop of the Mexican Day of the Dead. Guillermo del Toro is one of the toon's producers. 1 hr. 35 PG (mild action, rude humor, brief scary images) - W.S.

Force Majeure Sweden's official entry in the foreign-language Oscar race finds a family vacationing in the French Alps, where husband and wife are put to the test following a jarring event. Cannes-winning filmmaker Ruben Östlund shows us that sometimes there is an unbridgeable gap between image and reality. 1 hr. 58R (profanity, brief nudity) - T.D.

Gone Girl Filmmaker David Fincher pulls off a cannily crafted adaptation of Gillian Flynn's best seller, a whodunit and a who-are-you-gonna-believe mystery about the disappearance of a wife (Rosamund Pike) and the husband (Ben Affleck) who becomes the prime suspect. With Tyler Perry, Kim Dickens, Neil Patrick Harris. 2 hrs. 29 R (violence, sex, nudity, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Whiplash Miles Teller (the student) and J.K. Simmons (the teacher) star in Damien Chazelle's propulsive drama about an aspiring jazz musician's torturous mentorship at a prestigious New York conservatory. It's a hyperventilated nightmare about artistic struggle and ambition - as much a horror movie as a keenly realized indie about jazz, about art, about what it takes to claim greatness. 1 hr. 46 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Big Hero 6 **1/2 Set in a wonderfully realized near-future San Francisco, this animated feature follows an adolescent robotics inventor and his puffy, inflatable companion. Disconcertingly violent and mature for a Disney kids' film. 1 hr. 48 PG (violence) - D.H.

Camp X-Ray **1/2 Kristen Stewart stars as an Army guard at Guantanamo Bay who lets one of the detainees - there for eight years, still professing his innocence - get inside her head. Peyman Moaadi is the soft-spoken, bearded prisoner in Peter Sattler's drama. 1 hr. 57 R (profanity, implied violence, brief nudity) - T.D.

Fury *** Brad Pitt leads a Sherman tank crew through battle-scarred Germany in the waning months of World War II in David Ayer's visceral, violent combat film. 2 hrs. 15 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Interstellar *** Matthew McConnaughey leads an intergalactic expedition, searching for a new home for humankind, which has turned our planet into a Dust Bowl of doom. Anne Hathaway is along for the ride, and Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, and Casey Affleck figure into the equation back on Earth. A cinematic experience to be sure, but lofty queries about quantum physics and the human spirit are weighed down in sci-fi cliches, in default-mode dialogue and characters rendered in two dimensions, never mind the fourth and fifth dimensions everyone is talking about. 2 hrs. 49 PG-13 (violence, intense space travel sequences, adult themes) - S.R.

John Wick **1/2 Keanu Reeves plays a legendary hit man who takes on the Russian mob in New York, guns ablazin'! A slick if often preposterous action film with more shooting than a Civil War reenactment. 1 hr. 41 R (intense violence, language, drug use) - D.H.

Laggies **1/2 Keira Knightley goes on the run - from responsibilities, from a marriage proposal - hiding out with a teenager (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her single dad (Sam Rockwell) in Lynn Shelton's cross-generational, quarter-life identity-crisis comedy. 1 hr. 39 R (profanity, some sexual material and teen partying) - W.S.

Nightcrawler *** Creepy satire about a young Los Angeles man (Jake Gyllenhaal) who finds his way into the seedy world of freelance crime journalism. 1 hr. 57 R (graphic violent images, profanity) - T.D.

Ouija * A group of friends unleash dark forces when they play with a Ouija board. It's a duller-than-dull 89 minutes you'll never get back. 1 hr. 29 PG-13 (violent content, frightening horror images) - W.S.

St. Vincent *** Bill Murray owns the title role, as a crusty curmudgeon whose world is upended when a single mom (Melissa McCarthy) and her 12-year-old (a terrific Jaeden Lieberher) move in next door. The kid needs a caretaker, and Vincent needs cash. Life lessons, and inappropriate behavior, ensue. A charming comedy, and Murray keeps pulling it back from the cornball abyss. 1 hr. 43 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.