Artsies:
– Listen to Me Marlon (Unrated) 102 Min. – 2.5 stars
Unbeknownst to the public, Marlon Brando – a great star who remained deliberately mysterious to the press and the world at large for his entire professional life – created a vast archive of personal audio and visual materials over the course of his lifetime, often deeply confessional and completely without vanity or evasion. Now – for the first time ever – those recordings come to life in Riley’s film. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen, the film reveals the complexities and contradictions that were Marlon Brando by telling the story in his own words – and only his own words, revealing a man more humane and compelling than anyone ever could have imagined.
Director: Stevan Riley
Starring: Marlon Brando
– Ten Thousand Saints (R) 113 Min. – 3 stars
Jude (Asa Butterfield) is a teenage boy who is trying to reconnect with his father Les (Ethan Hawke) in 1987 Manhattan. When Jude’s friend, Teddy (Avan Jogia), dies of a drug overdose, Jude finds himself befriending a group of friends who are against drugs, alcohol, profanity and sex and live for punk-style rock music. When he meets Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld), who is sixteen years old and is pregnant with Teddy’s child, he and Les are forced to be her rock as she struggles through her pregnancy and early motherhood while Jude struggles with his feelings for her and his relationship with his father.
Director: Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Asa Butterfield, Emile Hirsch
– Point B (Unrated) – 3 stars
Four graduate students in the physics department discover that their clean energy reactor is actually a crude teleportation device.
Director: Conor Long
Starring: David Fetzer, Jared Shipley, Joshua Mclerran and Eric Fisher
– Cop Car (R) 86 Min. – 3.5 stars
Kevin Bacon (The Following, HBO’s Taking Chance, Mystic River) stars in director Jon Watts’ delightful throwback thriller Cop Car. When two good-natured but rebellious young boys (James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford) stumble across an abandoned cop car hidden in a secluded glade they decide to take it for a quick joyride. Their bad decision unleashes the ire of the county sheriff (Kevin Bacon) and leads to brutal consequences.
Director: Jon Watts
Starring: Kevin Bacon, Shea Whigham, Camryn Manheim
Fartsies:
– The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (PG-13) 116 Min. – 3 stars
Henry Cavill (“Man of Steel”) stars as Napoleon Solo opposite Armie Hammer (“The Social Network”) as Illya Kuryakin in director Guy Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a fresh take on the hugely popular 1960s television series. Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin. Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe. “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” also stars Alicia Vikander (“Anna Karenina”), Elizabeth Debicki (“The Great Gatsby”), with Jared Harris (“Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows”), and Hugh Grant as Waverly. The screenplay was written by Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram, who previously collaborated on re-imagining the classic detective Sherlock Holmes in two hit films. The story is by Jeff Kleeman & David Campbell Wilson and Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram, based on the television series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” John Davis (“Chronicle”), Steve Clark-Hall (“RocknRolla,” the “Sherlock Holmes” films), Wigram and Ritchie produced the film, with David Dobkin serving as executive producer. Ritchie’s behind-the-scenes creative team included two-time Oscar (R)-nominated director of photography John Mathieson (“The Phantom of the Opera,” “Gladiator”), production designer Oliver Scholl (“Jumper,” “Edge of Tomorrow”), editor James Herbert (the “Sherlock Holmes” films, “Edge of Tomorrow”), and Oscar (R)-nominated costume designer Joanna Johnston (“Lincoln”).
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant
– Once I Was a Beehive (PG) 119 Min. – 3.5 stars
In ONCE I WAS A BEEHIVE, Lane Speer is a 16 year old girl who spends her family vacations camping in the mountains. She takes the memories for granted until she loses her father to an unexpected bout with cancer. Only a year later, as Lane is still reeling from her father’s death, her mother remarries a guy that Lane hardly knows. Worst of all, he is a Mormon. To top it off, while they are on their honeymoon, they arrange to have her stay with her Mormon step-aunt who takes her away to a bible-themed girls camp with a bunch of young Mormon girls. Confronted with memories of camping with her family, she tries to find peace with her new surroundings and deal with the death of her father.
Director: Maclain Nelson
Starring: Mila Smith, Adam Johnson, Paris Warner
– Straight Outta Compton (R) 147 Min. – 3.5 stars
In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation. Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war.
Director: F. Gary Gray
Starring: O’shea Jackson, Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Aldis Hodge, Neil Brown Jr., Paul Giamatti
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Next week:
– American Ultra
– Best of Enemies
– The End of the Tour
– Hitman: Agent 47
– Sinister 2
– Sundance shorts
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Pick of the week:
– Friday night at 7, at the Tower, the cast and crew of “Point B” will be in attendance after the screening.
