OPENING
Angel Baby (NR) Isabel Cueva stars in this horror film as a bereaved mother who’s plagued by evil spirits during a wilderness getaway. Also with Rebecca De Mornay, Chris Browning, Daniel Roebuck, Dan Thiel, and Douglas Tait. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Dimag Kharab (NR) This Nepalese comedy is about a young man (Arpan Thapa) whose attempts to work overseas wreak havoc on his family. Also with Swastima Khadka, Khagendra Lamichhane, Dayahang Rai, and Bijay Baral. (Opens Friday at Cinépolis Euless)
Endless Journey (NR) Zhang Yi stars in this Chinese thriller as an ex-convict and ex-cop who acts as a vigilante to bring down criminals. Also with Vision Wei, Li Chen, Cao Bingkun, Wang Xiao, Yang Xinming, and Huang Lu. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Fight Club (NR) This Indian remake of David Fincher’s 1999 film stars Vijay Kumar as an angry young man who gets out his aggression. Also with Avinash Raghudevan, Monisha Mohan Menon, Saravana Vel, Shankar Thas, and Kaarthekeyan Santhanam. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Invisible Guest (NR) This Chinese thriller stars Janine Chun-Ning Chang as a woman who becomes the prime suspect in her boyfriend’s death. Also with Greg Han Hsu, Yin Zheng, and Kara Wau. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Monster (PG-13) It’s like Rashomon, but in a 5th-grade classroom. Soya Kurokawa plays an 11-year-old boy who starts acting out violently, and while his teacher (Eita Nagayama) declares he’s a school bully, the boy’s mother (Sakura Ando) starts to think that the teacher is the one who’s abusing him. The truth turns out to be more complicated than either of the adults knows, and one of the world’s great directors in Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) keeps you guessing as to what it might be. As often with Kore-eda, the movie comes out with some great, hushed moments of beauty as the boy tries to carve out a place for himself in a Japan that tries to press him into a masculine mold. The film contains the last completed score by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, and it’s a beautiful valedictory. Also with Hinata Hiiragi, Mitsuki Takahata, Akihiro Kakuta, Shido Nakamura, and Yuko Tanaka. (Opens Friday)
Pindam (NR) This Indian horror film is about an evil spirit plaguing a family with a hearing-impaired child. Starring Sriram, Kushi, Easwari Rao, and Srinivas Avasarala. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Pororo the Movie: Popstar Adventure (G) The Korean anime series moves to the big screen with this film about our main characters taking part in a singing contest. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine MIlls)
NOW PLAYING
Animal (NR) Ranbir Kapoor stars in this Indian action thriller as a rebellious son who vows violent revenge after his corporate mogul father (Anil Kapoor) is murdered. Also with Bobby Deol, Rashmika Mandanna, Tripti Dimri, Babloo Prithiveeraj, Shakti Kapoor, Maganthi Srinath, Indira Krishnan, and Mathew Varghese.
The Boy and the Heron (PG-13) If this is the last anime film by Hayao Miyazaki, the master’s hallucinatory powers are undiminished. Set during World War II, the story is about a boy (voiced by Soma Santoki in the Japanese-language version and Luca Padovan in the English-dubbed one) who wants to reunite with his dead mother and instead discovers a fantastical world through a talking gray heron (voiced by Masaki Suda and Robert Pattinson). Miyazaki gives us villainous clans of pelicans and parakeets for the boy hero to negotiate, and the voice cast for the English dub might just be the starriest that any Miyazaki film has received on our shores. The story does resolve itself rather too quickly, but the psychedelic visuals and world-building of Miyazaki is always glorious on the big screen. Additional voices by Aimyon, Karen Fukuhara, Yoshino Kimura, Gemma Chan, Shōhei Hino, Mark Hamill, Ko Shibasaki, Florence Pugh, Kaoru Kobayashi, Willem Dafoe, Jun Kunimura, Dave Bautista, Takuya Kimura, and Christian Bale.
The Cello (R) Samer Ismail stars in this horror film as a classical cellist who discovers a curse attached to his new instrument. Also with Tobin Bell, Elham Ali, Suad Abdullah, Mila al-Zahrani, Pavel Gajdos, Chloé Henry and Jeremy Irons.
Dream Scenario (R) Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli establishes himself as a new comic voice in this meditation on cancel culture. Nicolas Cage portrays an unremarkable biology professor who unaccountably starts turning up in the dreams of millions of people. The dream sequences are the highlight of this comedy, as our man nonchalantly walks by while dreamers have crazy experiences. The conceptual problem crops up when the hero goes from celebrity to pariah, and the flaws in the movie’s metaphor about being canceled show themselves. Still, Cage is funny as a man who’s trying too hard to seem cool, and the guy behind the camera has undeniable talent. If he works out his ideas more thoroughly, he’ll make better stuff. Also with Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Kate Berlant, Dylan Baker, Lily Bird, Jessica Clement, Paula Boudreau, Dylan Gelula, Noah Centineo, Amber Midthunder, Tim Meadows, and Nicholas Braun.
Eileen (R) The acting and direction elevate this potboiler based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel. Thomasin McKenzie stars as a 24-year-old clerical worker at a prison who hates everyone until she falls in love with the newly arrived prison psychologist (Anne Hathaway) in the early 1960s. William Oldroyd (who previously directed Lady Macbeth) revels in the dinginess of the small Massachusetts town where this takes place and keeps the film at a lean 98 minutes without unduly hurrying through it. The plot twist taken from the book is killer, too. A bleached-blonde Hathaway is at her most seductive here, and she’s set off by McKenzie as a mousy type who thinks more clearly and acts more ruthlessly in a sticky situation. Her liberation is as disturbing as it should be. Also with Shea Whigham, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Owen Teague, Sam Nivola, and an uncredited Marin Ireland.
Five Nights at Freddy’s (PG-13) The animatronic robot monsters are perfectly pitched between cute and creepy in this horror film. Everything else is crap, though. In this adaptation of the video game series, Josh Hutcherson portrays a financially desperate man who takes a job as a security guard at an abandoned pizza place and arcade to avoid losing custody of his 11-year-old sister (Piper Rubio). The film is neither funny enough to work as a comedy nor scary enough to work as a horror film, and director Emma Tammi doesn’t have the instincts to balance the two elements. The acting isn’t up to par, either. Also with Elizabeth Lail, Christian Stokes, David Lind, Kat Conner Sterling, Matthew Lillard, and Mary Stuart Masterson.
Godzilla Minus One (PG-13) The latest film reboots the series from its origins, as the giant lizard appears off the coast of Japan a couple of years after World War II ends. A failed kamikaze pilot (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has to spearhead the fight to save Tokyo. Anime director Takashi Yamazaki makes a worthy live-action debut here, even if some of the emotional beats droop when Godzilla isn’t on the screen. It’s all worth seeing for the scenes of Godzilla on the rampage, and it’s done without the bombast of the Hollywood versions of this story. Also with Minami Hamabe, Sakura Ando, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, and Michael Arias.
Hi Nanna (NR) This Indian romance stars Nani, Mrunal Thakur, Jayaram, Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Angad Bedi, and Shruti Haasan.
The Holdovers (R) Paul Giamatti seems to do his best acting for Alexander Payne, and this may be the performance of his career. He portrays a schoolteacher in 1970 who’s stuck babysitting the handful of students at his ritzy all-male New England prep school who have nowhere to go over Christmas break. Screenwriter David Hemingson does an excellent job of capturing the protagonist’s erudite voice as he insults his students’ intelligence and can’t get through a conversation without referencing the Peloponnesian War. When only one student (Dominic Sessa) is left on campus, the movie becomes a piercing but also quite funny portrait of the loneliness of the teacher, the student, and the cafeteria worker (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who has lost her son in Vietnam. Randolph and the newcomer Sessa are both excellent, but Giamatti is fantastic as the man learning to appreciate things beyond the job he hates but has clung to tenaciously. Also with Carrie Preston, Brady Heppner, Ian Dolley, Michael Provost, Naheem Garcia, Gillian Vigman, Stephen Thorne, Andrew Garman, and Tate Donovan.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (PG-13) In some ways better than the original set of films, this prequel stars Rachel Zegler as the heroine from District 12 and Tom Blyth as the future dictator of Panem who’s randomly assigned to mentor her. The film looks better than its predecessors, as holdover director Francis Lawrence seems more comfortable with the 1930s fascist-style decor. Amid a distinguished cast, Zegler proves worthy of her star turn, playing to the cameras, cracking jokes, evading attempts on her life, and singing bluegrass. The thing is lacking on the conceptual end, the conclusion is too drawn out, and the material with the ethically compromised hero’s family doesn’t amount to much more than an Easter egg. It’s still the most sustained piece of filmmaking in the series. Also with Viola Davis, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Fionnula Flanagan, Josh Andrés Rivera, Athena Strates, Ashley Liao, Mackenzie Lansing, Nick Benson, Isobel Jesper Jones, Dakota Shapiro, George Somner, Burn Gorman, and Peter Dinklage.
Journey to Bethlehem (PG) The fractured fairy-tales approach to the Bible is refreshing from this Christian musical. Funny comic material would have been better. Fiona Palomo and Milo Manheim are both about as exciting as overcooked pasta portraying Mary and Joseph, as they flee Judaea to have their baby. The songs (by Peer Astrom, Nikki Anders, and director/co-writer Adam Anders) are not only bad but also overproduced, and even Antonio Banderas can’t inject life as King Herod, though it is amusing that his armor breastplate is painted to make it look like he has washboard abs. Also with Geno Segers, Omid Djalili, Rizwan Manji, Moriah, Stephanie Gil, Alicia Borrachero, Antonio Gil, Joel Smallbone, and Lecrae.
Killers of the Flower Moon (R) Martin Scorsese treats the Osage murders of the 1920s like one of his gangster films, and this might be better than Goodfellas or The Irishman. Based on David Grann’s history, this film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a World War I serviceman who returns home to Oklahoma and marries a full-blooded Osage (Lily Gladstone) to gain the money that comes with the rights to the oil on her land. Soon the Osage start dying under mysterious circumstances. Scorsese is canny enough to draw the parallels between the murders and the Tulsa race massacre from the same time, and he presents us with Okie cowboys acting like Mafia hoods to get away with their crimes. DiCaprio is great as a bad man whose accretion of bad deeds finally breaks him, and Gladstone is magnetic as the woman who barely survives when her tribespeople don’t. The film’s 206 minutes fly by and contain more than enough material for a second viewing. Also with Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jason Isbell, Pete Yorn, Scott Shepherd, William Belleau, Yancey Red Corn, Gary Basaraba, Sturgill Simpson, Tommy Schultz, Tatanka Means, Barry Corbin, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser.
The Marvels (PG-13) The shortest of the Marvel films, which is mostly a good thing. A cosmic event causes Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan (Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani) to switch places whenever they use their superpowers, just in time for a Kree supervillain (Zawe Ashton) to come after Carol with a personal grudge. Director/co-writer Nia DaCosta (the Candyman sequel) exhibits her sense of visual precision without losing a sense of fun, as in a dance number on a planet where Carol is a princess. The most enjoyable thing is the sheer delight that the three lead actresses take in one another’s company, with Vellani raising great laughs as a fangirl working with her heroes and Parris showing an unsuspected comic touch. I’m all for a Marvel movie that gets off the screen before wearing out its welcome. Also with Samuel L. Jackson, Park Seo-joon, Gary Lewis, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Tessa Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Hailee Steinfeld, and Kelsey Grammer.
Napoleon (R) Big, loud, dull, and mostly empty. Ridley Scott’s historical epic stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French gunnery sergeant who winds up conquering most of Europe in the early 1800s. The movie speeds through the highlights of his military career without bothering to take much deeper lessons from either the individual episodes of the larger arc of his life. Scott manages two good combat sequences during the battles of Toulon and Austerlitz, and Rupert Everett is cast well against type as the Duke of Wellington. Yet one of the key figures of 19th century history emerges as a charmless lump. The story’s emotional weight is supposed to rest on his romance with Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby), and the relationship is as passionless as the sex they have attempting to produce an heir. The story of an outsider who brought Europe’s monarchies to their knees has something to tell us, but this movie doesn’t find it. Also with Tahar Rahim, Paul Rhys, Mark Bonnar, Ben Miles, Riana Duce, Edouard Philipponat, Miles Jupp, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Ludivine Sagnier, and Catherine Walker.
The Oath (PG-13) Darin Scott directs and stars in this Biblical thriller as a 5th-century warrior who rescues Bathsheba (Nora Dale) from a tyrant. Also with Billy Zane, Eugene Brave Rock, Wase Chief, and Karina Lombard.
Priscilla (R) As a companion piece to Elvis, this biography is unsatisfying in a whole other way. Cailee Spaeny portrays Priscilla Beaulieu Presley from age 14 into her 30s as she meets Elvis (Jacob Elordi) and sticks with him through his abuse, infidelity, and relentless focus on his career. The lead actress’ youthful looks bring home the queasiness of Elvis’ dating of a preteen girl who’s 10 years younger than himself, and her alertness keeps the movie from becoming a stuffy historical pageant. Sofia Coppola gets her point across about the emptiness of a woman’s life when everyone regards her as an attachment to her husband, but the movie could have made the same point over a much shorter length. The ideas are here, but better dramatic shape would have given them more power. Also with Ari Cohen, Dagmara Domińczyk, Tim Post, Lynne Griffin, Dan Beirne, Dan Abramovici, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, and Matthew Shaw.
Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé (NR) The pop music star directs this film of her own concert tour from this past summer. The performances are cut together, so sometimes the dancers wear different outfits while performing the same number. The film doesn’t have a thunderbolt that reveals what Beyoncé’s music is all about, and the star’s thoughts about balancing career and motherhood are nothing that you haven’t heard before. The movie’s main value lies in capturing the pop star in glorious voice (whether making beautiful sounds in “Flaws and All” or powering her way through “Drunk in Love”) and dancing imperiously despite her recent knee surgery. It’s all proof that your friends who saw the show and came back raving about it were not overselling it. Among the guest performances, 11-year-old Blue Ivy Carter steals the show, doing the dance moves with something of her mother’s stage presence. Also with Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Saltburn (R) Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her Promising Young Woman is somehow even meaner. Barry Keoghan plays an impoverished Oxford student in the mid-2000s who’s invited to spend summer vacation at the estate of a rich classmate (Jacob Elordi). Fennell’s depiction of the rich dude’s family has an Evelyn Waugh-like curdled elegance, and our creepy, sexually fluid protagonist lurks memorably in the background, carrying himself like an incel even though he has almost all of the sex in the movie. This would be more interesting if it hinted that the antihero’s devious quest actually cost him something, but Fennell remains an uncompromising and skilled hand behind the camera. If The Talented Mr. Ripley and Parasite had a baby and Brideshead Revisited and Call Me by Your Name had a baby, and then those babies had a baby, it would be this film. Also with Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Richie Cotterell, Paul Rhys, Reece Shearsmith, and Carey Mulligan.
Sam Bahadur (NR) Vicky Kaushal stars in this biography of India’s first field marshal, Sam Manekshaw. Also with Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Neeraj Kabi, Edward Sonnenblick, Govind Namdev, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Naiyo Ishida, Bobby Arora, Paul O’Neill, Ravi Sharma, Rohan Varma, and Prajesh Kashyap.
The Shift (PG-13) What starts out as an intriguing Christian science-fiction film turns into yet another lugubrious post-apocalyptic film. Kristoffer Polaha stars as a man who’s shifted into a parallel universe by a guy calling himself The Benefactor (Neal McDonough) and has to find a way to get back to the universe where his wife is (Elizabeth Tabish). The special effects look cool and work to make this look different from other Christian films, but the movie sinks amid its evangelical paranoia and some rank overacting by the main principals. Also with Emily Rose, Jason Marsden, Rose Reid, Jordan Alexandra, and Sean Astin.
Silent Night (R) John Woo’s latest action thriller is nearly dialogue-free, which isn’t enough of a gimmick to make this worth seeing. Joel Kinnaman plays a man whose young son is caught in the crossfire during a gang shootout, and when he tries to avenge the boy, the gang leader shoots him in the throat and robs him of the power of speech. Some of the action sequences have that old Woo flair like the car chase at the beginning, but the movie degenerates into weepy melodrama only made slightly less tolerable by the lack of dialogue. Also with Catalina Sandino Moreno, Harold Torres, Yoko Hamamura, Vinny O’Brien, and Kid Cudi.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (PG-13) You’ll likely be watching this in a packed theater with little girls running around and singing along with Taylor, but this movie is strong enough to hold up even if you see it on your smartphone by yourself six months from now. Sam Wrench’s concert documentary takes in Swift’s last performance from the first leg of her current concert tour, where she plays selections from all her previous albums. If you didn’t have the coin to pay your way in to her stadium show, this film showcases her deep understanding of stagecraft, her indefatigable energy, and her unforced chemistry with her fans. Maybe the moss-covered piano she plays on “Champagne Problems” is a bit much, but the show is full of wow moments like the mystical backdrop for “Willow” and the giant snake coiling around the stage to introduce the Reputation part of the program. Swift’s sturdy sense of songcraft underscores all of this. What more could you wish from a concert movie?
Thanksgiving (R) Eli Roth initially made a fake trailer for this holiday-themed slasher flick as a joke in the Grindhouse double feature. Now he’s made the film for real, and while the joke doesn’t have enough to sustain an entire movie, it is good for a few laughs. A year after a Black Friday riot results in several deaths at a big-box retailer in Plymouth, Mass., a masked killer dressed as a Pilgrim starts killing the people they deem responsible. Both the sheriff (Patrick Dempsey) and the store owner’s teenage daughter (Nell Verlaque) try to crack the case. The Masshole energy is strong here, as the victims are all horrible New Englanders with thick accents. Roth’s wit shines through on occasion, and this does fill the empty void of Thanksgiving-related horror films. Also with Rick Hoffman, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Karen Cliche, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, Tim Dillon, Amanda Barker, Joe Delfin, and Gina Gershon.
Trolls Band Together (PG) At this point, reuniting with *NSYNC is the best career move possible for Justin Timberlake. In this most watchable of the Trolls movies, his Branch is discovered to have four long-lost brothers (voiced by Eric André, Troye Sivan, Daveed Diggs, and Kid Cudi) with whom he used to be in a boy band. His attempt to save one of them leads Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) to discover her own separated-at-birth sister (voiced by Camila Cabello), and Tiny Diamond (voiced by Kenan Thompson) asks, “Am I the only one without a long-lost sibling?” The movie doesn’t belabor any of its points too heavily and gives us an enjoyable batch of cover songs plus the first original *NSYNC song (“Better Place”) in more than 20 years. Nostalgia has given us worse than this. Additional voices by Amy Schumer, Andrew Rannells, Zooey Deschanel, Patti Harrison, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kunal Nayyar, Zosia Mamet, RuPaul, Ron Funches, Jungkook, Anderson .Paak, Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, and Chris Kirkpatrick.
12:12: The Day (NR) This South Korean thriller is a fictionalized account of the chaos that enveloped the country after the 1979 assassination of President Park Chung-hee. Starring Hwang Jung-min, Jung Woo-sung, Park Hae-joon, Kim Sung-kyun, Kim Eui-sung, Jung Dong-hwan, Jung Man-sik, Jung Hae-in, and Lee Joon-hyuk.
Wish (PG) Disney marks its centennial with this oh-so-forgettable animated musical about a girl (voiced by Ariana DeBose) in an enchanted kingdom who discovers that the benevolent king (voiced by Chris Pine) is convincing the citizens to give up their dearest wishes in exchange for the kingdom’s continued security and prosperity. The script lacks any wit or creative story developments, the songs by Benjamin Rice and Julia Michaels are too plain by half, and even the voice cast seems to be phoning it in. The montage of great characters from Disney’s past only serves to make this movie look worse. Additional voices by Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Ramy Youssef, Niko Vargas, Evan Peters, Harvey Guillén, and Victor Garber.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
A Creature Was Stirring (R) This Christmas horror film stars Chrissy Metz as a nurse whose care of her bedridden patient is interrupted by uninvited guests during a blizzard. Also with Annalise Basso, Scout Taylor-Compton, Connor Paolo, and George Schichtle.
Fast Charlie (NR) Pierce Brosnan stars in this thriller as a hit man who needs his latest victim’s ex-wife (Morena Baccaron) to help identify the dead man. Also with Gbenga Akinnagbe, Christopher Matthew Cook, David Chattam, Toby Huss, Sharon Gless, and the late James Caan.
Maestro (R) Bradley Cooper directs, co-writes, and stars in this biography of composer, conductor, pianist, and educator Leonard Bernstein. Also with Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Vincenzo Amato, Michael Urie, Greg Hildreth, Brian Klugman, Mallory Portnoy, Nick Blaemire, and Sarah Silverman.
Our Son (R) This drama stars Luke Evans and Billy Porter as a gay couple fighting over custody of their 8-year-old son. Also with Andrew Rannells, Robin Weigert, Kate Burton, Isaac Powell, Cassandra Freeman, and Phylicia Rashad.
The Perfect Christmas (NR) Anthony Hackett writes, directs, and co-stars in this holiday film about a family whose Christmas Day hijinks jeopardize their holiday. Also with Cameron Arnett, Gigi Orsillo, Stephanie Parker, Robert Amaya, Jayden T. Kelson, Beverly Holloway, and MerryRose Howley.
Raging Grace (NR) This drama stars Jaeden Paige Boadilla as a Filipina caretaker who discovers an unsavory secret about her patient. Also with Max Eigenmann, Leanne Best, David Hayman, and Caleb Johnston-Miller.
Simon (NR) Christian McGaffney stars in this drama as a Venezuelan refugee who must decide whether to stay in America or return to his homeland to fight the dictatorship. Also with Jana Nawartschi, Luis Silva, Roberto Jaramillo, Prakriti Maduro, Franklin Vírgüez, and Sallie Glaner.
