Artsies:
Miss Hokusai (PG-13) 93 Minutes – 3 Stars
As all of Edo flocks to see the work of the revered painter Hokusai, his daughter O-Ei toils diligently inside his studio. Her masterful portraits, dragons and erotic sketches- sold under the name of her father- are coveted by upper crust Lords and journeyman print makers alike. Shy and reserved in public, in the studio O-Ei is as brash and uninhibited as her father, smoking a pipe while sketching drawings that would make contemporary Japanese ladies blush. But despite this fiercely independent spirit, O-Ei struggles under the domineering influence of her father and is ridiculed for lacking the life experience that she is attempting to portray in her art. Miss Hokusai’s bustling Edo (present day Tokyo) is filled with yokai spirits, dragons, and conniving tradesmen, while O-Ei’s relationships with her demanding father and blind younger sister provide a powerful emotional underpinning to this sumptuously-animated coming-of-age tale.
Director: Keiichi Hara
Starring: Anne Watanabe
Train to Busan (NR) 118 Minutes – 3 1/2 Stars
TRAIN TO BUSAN is a harrowing zombie horror-thriller that follows a group of terrified passengers fighting their way through a countrywide viral outbreak while trapped on a suspicion-filled, blood-drenched bullet train ride to Busan, a southern resort city that has managed to hold off the zombie hordes… or so everyone hopes.
Director: Sang-Ho Yeon
Starring: Gong Yoo
Certain Women (R) 107 Minutes – 3 1/2 Stars
The lives of three woman intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail. Based on stories by Maile Meloy.
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, Laura Dern
Fartsies:
Inferno (PG-13) 121 Minutes – 2 Stars
Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon in director Ron Howard and screenwriter David Koepp’s adaptation of author Dan Brown’s bestselling novel Inferno, which finds Langdon using Dante’s The Divine Comedy as a tool in the race to prevent a devastating global pandemic.
Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Irrfan Khan
