New Releases

Reviews

Ratings:

**** Excellent

*** Good

** Fair

* Poor

Reviewers: S.R., Steven Rea; D.D., Dan DeLuca; T.D., Tirdad Derakhshani; M.E., Molly Eichel; G.T., Gary Thompson; W.S., Inquirer wire services.

Anesthesia See Molly Eichel's review on Page 5.

The Finest Hours See review on Page 5.

King Fu Panda 3 See Tirdad Derakhshani's review on Page 4.

The Lady In the Van See Steven Rea's review on Page 4.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip ** Alvin, Theodore, and Simon are afraid that Dave will embark on a new adventure without them in favor of girlfriend Samantha. Misadventures ensue. 1 hr. 30 PG (mild scatological humor, some rude language) - W.S.

Anomalisa **** From the brain of Charlie Kaufman, co-directing with animator Duke Johnson, a stop-motion animation tale of a sad, unsatisfied man who meets a woman on a business trip, takes her to his hotel room, and, well, yes, there is puppet sex. A portrait of midlife morass, regret, and mundanity, cut with comic and surreal moments. With the voices of David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan. 1 hr. 30 R (profanity, sex, nudity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Big Short ***1/2 A handful of outsiders takes on the financial crisis over the practices that led to the housing and credit bubble of the mid-2000s. Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling star. 2 hrs. 10 R (profanity) - G.T.

Brooklyn **** Saoirse Ronan is an Irish country girl who travels to New York in search of a new life. It's the early 1950s, and she is full of courage, dread, and loneliness. One of the most memorable characters of recent film, born from Colm Tóibín's 2009 novel, and brought to exquisite life via a screenplay by Nick Hornby and the smart, steady direction of John Crowley. Moving and magnificent. 1 hr. 53 PG-13 (profanity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

Carol **** An achingly beautiful love story, adapted from an early Patricia Highsmith novel, about a New York City shopgirl (Rooney Mara) and a well-to-do married woman (Cate Blanchett) who fall into an affair. Todd Haynes directs the 1950s period piece, full of obsession and yearning and smoky, jazzy song. 1 hr. 58 R (sex, nudity, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Danish Girl *** Eddie Redmayne stars in Tom Hooper's true-life, transgender romantic tragedy, about a painter in 1920s Copenhagen who becomes a woman, with the encouragement of his wife (an exceptional Alicia Vikander). It's an increasingly complicated relationship, in a film that is visually splendid but a little empty at its core. 2 hrs. R (nudity, sex, adult themes) - S.R.

45 Years Charlotte Rampling, Oscar-nominated for her performance, and Tom Courtenay, pretty darn brilliant himself, star as a long-married couple whose comfortable, seemingly close relationship is challenged when news arrives from afar - and from far off in the past. A study in economy, in the beautiful symmetry of word and image and music, and a study of a marriage shaken to its core. 1 hr. 35 R (adult themes) - S.R.

The Hateful Eight ** An epic work of self-indulgence and smug riffing, stringing together tropes from TV and movie westerns and closed-room whodunits, Quentin Tarantino's long-winded western stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurt Russell, and Tim Roth. Although it was shot in expansive 70mm, most of the jawing and chawing take place inside a stagecoach way station, where bad dudes, bounty hunters, and one foul-mouthed lady outlaw are waiting out a blizzard. Gunfire and verbiage ensue. 3 hrs. 07 R (violence, profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 **1/2 If Mockingjay - Part 1 was walkier and talkier than its forerunners, Part 2 is pretty much all action - and the lesser for it. Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen and a "propo" squad work their way through the battle-scarred Capitol, as the final installment in the adventures of a valiant teen and her battle against decadent authority figures and cynical puppetmasters comes to a crashing end. 2 hrs. 17 PG-13 (violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Joy *** Jennifer Lawrence stars as the real-life Joy Mangano, a Long Island girl from a dizzyingly dysfunctional family, who crossed all sorts of hurdles on her way to huge success as a home-shopping entrepreneur. 2 hrs. 04 PG-13 (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Lamb Russ Partridge directs and stars in this striking, deeply disturbing indie drama as a 46-year-old man whose world has spun out of control. Oona Laurence is terrific as the 11-year-old girl whose freindship he thinks can save him. 1 hr. 36 No MPAA rating (adult themes, profanity, smoking) - T.D.

Mustang 1/2 Deniz Gamze Ergüven's debut feature follows five sisters in northern Turkey whose innocent games at the end of a school year scandalize a community, forcing them to be virtual prisoners in their home. Beautifully shot and beautifully performed, there is nothing beautiful in the depiction of a culture where women are at once oppressed and sexualized, where strict religious tenets and an entrenched patriarchy combine to keep women in subservient roles. 1 hr. 37 PG-13 (adult themes) - S.R.

Norm of the North A polar bear and his lemming friends are displaced from their arctic home and wind up in New York City in this animated family feature. 1 hr. 26 PG (mild rude homor and action) - W.S.

The Revenant ***1/2 A wild, woolly, transcendentally cinematic wilderness-survival thriller, with a bearded, bloodied Leonardo DiCaprio as a trapper left for dead in the snowbound 1820s outback, and Tom Hardy as a fellow trapper, a coldblooded, ornery nemesis. Revenge is the motor that runs this machine - a stunning big-screen saga from Birdman director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. 2 hrs. 36 R (profanity, graphic violence, adult themes) - S.R.

Ride Along 2 The first of at least 39 Kevin Hart movies on the 2016 schedule is a sequel to the laugh-riot cop comedy in which the Philadelphia-reared comedian was a high school security guard aspiring to join the Atlanta Police Department. In the sequel, he has gotten his badge and his gun - and somehow gets involved in the pursuit of a Miami drug king. Ice Cube is back, too. 1 hr. 41 PG-13 (violence, sexual content, profanity, drugs) - T.D.

Sisters *** Amy Poehler and Tina Fey reteam to play the titular sibs who throw an epic rager when their parents decide to sell their childhood home. Written by Saturday Night Live vet writer Paula Pell, Sisters deals with what it's like to lose the last tangible piece of your childhood - the home you grew up in. Poehler, Fey, and SNL cast members of past and present (not to mention a fabulous John Cena) are a delight. 1 hr. 58 R (language, drug use) - M.E.

Son of Saul 1/2 A Holocaust film like no other, about a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi death camp whose job it is to usher fellow Jews into the crematoriums, and then to clear the corpses for the next wave. When he discovers a dead boy who he believes to be his son, Saul (Géza Röhrig) goes on a mission to find a rabbi and arrange for a proper burial. The power of László Nemes' film cannot be denied. 1 hr. 47 R (violence, Holocaust images, adfult theme) - S.R.

Spotlight **** Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and Liev Schrieber lead an ace ensemble cast in this compelling account of the Boston Globe's 2002 investigative series on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. A complex procedural drama, told with clarity and accumulating suspense. 2 hrs. 08 R (profanity, adult themes) - S.R.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens *** J.J. Abrams jump-starts the mythic in-a-galaxy-far- far-away franchise, bringing old- timers Han Solo, Leia, and Chewbacca back and introducing a new generation of rebel fighters (played by the plucky Daisy Ridley and the sturdy John Boyega). Half reboot, half remake, all fun. PG-13 (intergalactic violence, adult themes) - S.R.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi 1/2 Michael Bay's gung-ho reenactment of the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya, with John Krasinski leading a team of actors playing the real ex-special forces security contractors who did their best to fight off the swarm of enemy combatants. The Transformers director is striving for more realism than his usual testosterone-pumped fare and, to some extent, pulls it off. But it still feels like a Michael Bay action pic, just minus the star wattage, and flickering with a somber, sobering real-life afterglow. 2 hrs. 26 R (violence, adult themes) - S.R.