OPENING
Baltimore (NR) Also entitled Rose’s War, this biographical drama stars Imogen Poots as a wealthy 20th-century American socialite who rejects her upbringing and joins the fight for Irish independence. Also with Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Lewis Brophy, Jack Meade, Patrick Martins, John Kavanagh, Andrea Irvine, and Dermot Crowley. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Bhoothaddam Bhaskar Narayana (NR) This Telugu-language thriller is about a village detective (Shiva Kandukuri) tackling a series of murder cases stretching back a generation. Also with Rashi Singh, Kalpalatha, Shafi, Surabhi Santhosh, and Venkatesh Kakumanu. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Chaari 111 (NR) Vennela Kishore stars in this Indian action-comedy. Also with Murali Sharma, Samyuktha Viswanathan, Rahul Ravindran, and Subalekha Sudhakar. (Opens Friday)
Guadalupe: Mother of Humanity (NR) Andrés Garrigó and Pablo Moreno’s documentary depicts the 16th-century apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. (Opens Friday)
Io Capitano (NR) Nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature, Matteo Garrone’s drama is about two Senegalese boys (Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall) who undergo great trials and tribulations to migrate to Italy. Also with Issaka Sawadogo, Hichem Yacoubi, Khady Sy, Doodou Sagna, Oumar Diaw, and Bamar Kané. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Joshua: Imai Pol Kaakha (NR) Varun stars in this Indian thriller as a high-level bodyguard assigned to protect a high-value target (Raahei). Also with Krishna, Yogi Babu, Vichithra, and Mansoor Ali Khan. (Opens Friday at Cinemark Tinseltown Grapevine)
Laapataa Ladies (NR) Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta star in this Indian comedy as two brides who get on the wrong train while going to their wedding. Also with Sparsh Shrivastava, Bhaskar Jha, Savita Malviya, Govind Lovaniya, and Daood Hussain. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Operation Valentine (NR) This Indian thriller is based on the real-life retaliatory strikes for the Pulwama terrorist attack. Starring Varun Tej, Manushi Chhillar, Navdeep, and Ruhani Sharma. (Opens Friday)
Outlaw Posse (R) Mario Van Peebles stars in his own Western as an outlaw who returns from hiding in Mexico to claim his buried treasure. Also with Whoopi Goldberg, Neal McDonough, Cam Gigandet, John Carroll Lynch, Edward James Olmos, Cedric the Entertainer, Sean Bridgers, Allen Payne, and M. Emmet Walsh. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Who Can See Forever (NR) Josh Sliffe’s documentary profiles Sam Beam, the musician behind Iron & Wine. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
NOW PLAYING
American Fiction (R) One of the year’s funniest comedies is this delectable bit of Black literary satire based on Percival Everett’s Erasure. Jeffrey Wright plays a struggling novelist who adopts a pseudonym and writes a novel filled with the most insulting stereotypes of Black people he can think of, then is chagrined to see it become a huge hit among white readers. First-time filmmaker Cord Jefferson composes scads of smart, snappy dialogue about Black artists trying to reach white audiences and our antihero impersonating some uneducated street thug. Jefferson does write himself into a corner — the movie seems to leave no room for Black creators to be successful without selling out — but he gets career performances out of Wright and Sterling K. Brown as a gay brother, and his movie raises enough laughs to make us yearn for Jefferson’s next piece of fiction. Also with Erika Alexander, Tracee Ellis Ross, Adam Brody, John Ortiz, Keith David, Miriam Shor, Michael Cyril Creighton, Patrick Fischler, Issa Rae, and Leslie Uggams.
Anatomy of a Fall (R) If you see this Best Picture nominee from France with a companion, the two of you will have some hot topics of discussion coming out of it. Sandra Hüller portrays a famous German writer in France who’s arrested and indicted for the death of her French husband (Samuel Theis) in a fall at their chalet in the Alps. Much like Anatomy of a Murder, this is a film where a homicide trial exposes only ambiguities instead of hard facts. Much like Decision to Leave, the search for truth is complicated by slippery language, as the protagonist is more comfortable in English than in French, so much of the movie is in our language. Director/co-writer Justine Triet does superbly to take in the noise surrounding the trial and lay bombshell revelations left and right until we don’t know where to turn. It’s a vivid portrait of an unhappy marriage and the wreckage it leaves behind. Also with Milo Machado Graner, Swann Artaud, Antoine Reinartz, Jehnny Beth, Anne Rotger, Saadia Bentaieb, and Sophie Fillières.
Anyone But You (R) Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney are nimble comic actors in this romantic comedy that doesn’t merit their performances. They portray a couple who have a short-lived, acrimonious relationship in Boston, so when they reunite for a wedding in Australia, their friends try to get them together just so their bickering won’t ruin the ceremony. Eventually our main characters decide to feign a relationship, because this is a weak re-telling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Some of the set pieces do work, like when the guy strips naked after finding a giant spider in his pants, but even scenes like that and the appeal of the leads can’t make this into anything but a formulaic and overly glossy exercise. Also with Alexandra Shipp, Hadley Robinson, GaTa, Charlee Fraser, Joe Davidson, Bryan Brown, Michelle Hurd, Darren Barnett, Rachel Griffiths, and Dermot Mulroney.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (PG-13) The sequel tries to work in comedy interludes to take advantage of Jason Momoa’s ability to be funny, and these sometimes work, but director James Wan has never been one to integrate laughs into what he’s doing. Aquaman takes over double duties as king of the undersea realm and father to a baby and feels like he’s failing at both. When Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) discovers a lost undersea kingdom that can give him power to destroy the world, Aquaman has to break his brother (Patrick Wilson) out of prison to fight him. Wan retains his skill with action, and the climactic fight is quite well done, but the movie still feels like parts of two different movies stitched awkwardly together. Also with Amber Heard, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Martin Short, Indya Moore, Pilou Asbæk, Vincent Regan, Jani Zhao, Dolph Lundgren, and Nicole Kidman.
Argylle (PG-13) I really hope Taylor Swift didn’t write this action-comedy that’s overlong and not as clever as it thinks it is. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as a famous spy novelist whose quiet life in Colorado is upended when the plot of one her novels comes true in real life, and a bumbling agent (Sam Rockwell) has to prevent her from being assassinated. A couple of the plot developments in the middle of the piece are truly ingenious, but the action sequences are goofy where they were funny in previous films by director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, the Kingsmen films). The cheesy scenes from the novels aren’t handled any differently from the scenes with the terrified writer running for her life, the stacked supporting cast isn’t given enough to do, and even Rockwell seems off his best. The central conceit with the novelist being trapped in one of her own plots should have generated more laughs than it does. Also with Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Henry Cavill, Ariana DeBose, Jing Lusi, Stanley Morgan, Tomás Paredes, Sofia Boutella, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Richard E. Grant, and Dua Lipa.
Article 370 (NR) Mariyam Nafees stars in this Indian thriller as a pregnant woman trying to survive in the war-torn Kashmir region. Also with Ghazala Kaifee and Abdul Muqeet.
Barbie (PG-13) This philosophical statement about being a woman in present-day society is likely the strangest Hollywood blockbuster you’ll see all year, and much more than the crass corporate product it could have been. A perfectly pitched Margot Robbie plays a Barbie doll who has to travel from Barbie Land to our reality to discover why she’s having random thoughts about death. When Ken (Ryan Gosling) follows her into our reality, he likes the sight of men running everything and tries to turn Barbie Land into another patriarchy. All this takes place against a backdrop that’s wholly committed to Barbie-ness, with streets lined with life-size Barbie Dream Houses and more pink than you’ve ever seen in your life. If the storytelling loses a bit in its last third, the loose ends fit a story about the messiness of being a woman (or a man). This girly film is also thoughtful, complex, and funny, and will ensure that you never look at a Barbie doll the same way again. Also with America Ferrera, Arianna Greenblatt, Emma Mackey, Issa Rae, Beanie Feldstein, Simu Liu, Michael Cera, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef, Sharon Rooney, Ritu Arya, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Emerald Fennell, Scott Evans, Sharon Rooney, Ana Cruz Kayne, Rhea Perlman, and John Cena. Narrated by Helen Mirren.
The Beekeeper (R) As Jason Statham-shooting-people movies go, this one’s considerably less fun than some of the others. He plays a retired U.S. government hit man-turned-beekeeper who comes out of retirement after his employer (Phylicia Rashad) is scammed out of her life savings and kills herself. The best Statham is the one who’s allowed to flash his sense of humor, and director David Ayer (Suicide Squad) is entirely the wrong filmmaker to bring that out. Our hero kills a ton of bystanders without a thought for the collateral damage, and the film doesn’t have the wit to consider what that means. Weirdly, the only energy comes from Josh Hutcherson as the bratty tech CEO behind it all who radiates scorn for all the tougher and more powerful people around him. Also with Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bobby Naderi, David Witts, Taylor James, Don Gilet, Enzo Cilenti, Jemma Redgrave, Minnie Driver, and Jeremy Irons.
Crakk (NR) This Indian thriller stars Vidyut Jammwal as a Mumbai slum dweller who enters the world of underground fighting to find his lost brother. Also with Nora Fatehi, Arjun Rampal, Amy Jackson, Pooja Sawant, and Rukmini Maitra.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — To the Hashira Training (R) The ratio of flashback to new story is rather too high for me. It’s probably too high for you unless you’re already a fan of this anime series. Following the events of Swordsmith Village and Mugen Train, this latest chapter finds its hero (voiced by Natsuki Hanae and Zach Aguilar) trying to turn his demon sister (voiced by Akari Kitō and Abby Trott) back into a human. More than an hour of this 104-minute film retraces the events of previous installments of the saga. What is new here is worth taking in, especially for fans of the series. Everybody else might want to find a different starting place to get into this series. Additional voices by Kengo Kawanishi, Griffin Burns, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Zeno Robinson, Kana Hanazawa, Kira Buckland, Toshio Furukawa, Koichi Yamadera, and Christopher Corey Smith.
Drive-Away Dolls (R) This uneven lesbian caper film just barely gets by on its charm. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan play friends in 1999 who rent the wrong car for their road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee and find themselves being chased by hit men who want to recover what’s hidden in the automobile. For a movie that only runs 82 minutes, the film has a lot of padding, with acid-trip visuals and a flimsy plot that connects to a right-wing Christian U.S. Senator (Matt Damon). Most of the starry supporting cast ends up wasted, with the notable exception of Beanie Feldstein as a badass Philly cop. Good thing the two lead actresses have enough chemistry that it makes sense when the heroines’ platonic friendship turns not-so-platonic. If this movie is just a vibe, it’s not an unpleasant one. Also with Colman Domingo, Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson, Bill Camp, Pedro Pascal, and an uncredited Miley Cyrus.
Fighter (NR) This Indian version of Top Gun makes the 1983 Hollywood film look like a marvel of subtlety. Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone play air force pilots who help form a new elite unit to take down Pakistani terrorists. At the very least director/co-writer Siddharth Anand could give us some cool-looking scenes of aerial combat, but no such luck. The story beats are things you’ve seen from a thousand better Western movies, and the movie is so jingoistic that it literally waves the Indian flag in our faces. Surely we could find an Indian war film that doesn’t hammer us with patriotism. Also with Anil Kapoor, Rishabh Sawhney, Karan Singh Grover, Akshay Oberoi, Akarsh Alagh, Vinay Varma, Sanjeev Jaiswal, and Birol Tarkan Yildiz.
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.
Kiss the Future (NR) Nenad Cicin-Sain’s documentary unearths some interesting tidbits but is generally too glossy and sanctifying for its own good. The film chronicles the underground punk-rock scene of Sarajevo during the Balkan War of the 1990s and the way its musicians and fans risked their lives to hear music with the city being bombarded. Where the film gets into trouble is when it interviews the members of U2. To be sure, the Irish rock band had a definite impact on Bosnia-Herzegovina’s rock scene, and it was good of them to keep their promise and play Sarajevo as soon as the hostilities ceased, but the film turns into a promotional video. A film with less access might have done justice to this remarkable story. Still, it’s a timely reminder of what America can do when it intervenes in international human-rights violations. Also with Bill Carter, Gino Jevdjević, Vesna Andree Zaimović, Boris Siber, Senad Zaimović, Enes Zlatar, Alma Catal, and Bill Clinton.
Land of Bad (R) This war film stars Russell Crowe as a drone pilot who has to rescue a team of Delta Force soldiers stranded behind enemy lines. Also with Liam Hemsworth, Milo Ventimiglia, Ricky Whittle, Gunner Wright, Lincoln Lewis, and Luke Hemsworth.
Lisa Frankenstein (PG-13) Kathryn Newton is revelatory in this horror-comedy as the latest in Diablo Cody’s gallery of smart, well-read, odd, moody, glowering teenage heroines. Her character is a girl in 1989 with a horrible life whose one source of solace is a decomposing corpse (Cole Sprouse) who wanders into her house. First-time feature filmmaker Zelda Williams (the daughter of the late Robin Williams) shows quite a lot of talent behind the camera, generating a John Waters-meets-Tim Burton look for the film and never striking the wrong tone with Cody’s script. Newton is funny and grotesque like you wouldn’t expect from her previous performances, and Cody seems to be at her most enjoyable with these teen horror films that let her be twisted. This shares a world with her cult classic Jennifer’s Body, and it fully merits the comparison. Also with Carla Gugino, LIza Soberano, Joe Chrest, Henry Eikenberry, Bryce Romero, and Jenna Davis.
Madame Web (PG-13) Frustrating, because you can so easily see the better movie that this could have been. Dakota Johnson stars in this superhero movie as an EMT who acquires the ability to foretell danger and has to save three teenage girls (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) from a supervillain (Tahar Rahim) who’s trying to kill them. There’s some decent chemistry among the three girls who are slated to become superheroes themselves, but Johnson is hopeless whenever she’s trying to be funny about her predicament, and the movie’s hundreds of plot holes make it feel like something carelessly tossed together. This blockbuster is weird, but not quite weird enough to be interesting. Also with Mike Epps, Zosia Mamet, José María Yazpik, Kerry Bishé, Adam Scott, and Emma Roberts.
Mean Girls (PG-13) Based on the Broadway musical which in turn was based on the 2004 teen comedy, this musical rides the strength of its star power. Angourie Rice plays Cady Heron, the home-schooled student who gets culture shock in an American high school, and Reneé Rapp plays the school’s queen bee whom Cady decides to take down. Rice’s singing voice is rather forgettable, but Rapp (one of several cast members from the Broadway show) finds a slinky, sultry take on Regina George, and Auli’i Cravalho comes close to stealing the movie as a lesbian and fabulous Janis. First-time directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. also find some creative ways to stage the numbers. Tina Fey reprises her roles as Mrs. Norbury and the screenwriter, and if she can’t find new angles from the fact that these characters are now using social media, she soft-pedals the original’s insistence that adults had all the answers. Also with Bebe Wood, Avantika, Jaquel Spivey, Christopher Briney, Mahi Alam, Jenna Fischer, Jon Hamm, Ashley Park, Busy Philipps, Tim Meadows, Megan Thee Stallion, and Lindsay Lohan.
Migration (PG) This rather perfunctory animated film is about a family of mallards that migrate south to Jamaica after the overprotective father (voiced by Kumail Nanjiani) has prevented his ducklings from leaving the pond. Truly nothing works here, not the scenes where the ducks finally take flight, not the detour when they hit a big city, and not the run-in with an evil chef who wants to serve them up with orange sauce. The amount of voice talent in the cast makes this disappointment all the sharper. The film is from Illumination Entertainment, and this film is even less memorable than some of the Despicable Me sequels. The feature comes packaged with a short film that spins off from Despicable Me, which only reminds us that the studio is capable of better. Additional voices by Elizabeth Banks, Tresi Gazal, Caspar Jennings, Awkwafina, Keegan-Michael Key, Carol Kane, Isabela Merced, and Danny DeVito.
Night Swim (PG-13) This horror film has the germ of an interesting idea but falls apart long before the end. A family moves into a suburban house that has a swimming pool that kills people. The interesting part is that the father (Wyatt Russell) is a baseball star who’s been struck down by multiple sclerosis, and he doesn’t want to leave because the water in the pool miraculously heals him. Bryce McGuire adapts this from his own short film, and though the aforementioned subplot is a nice stroke, the film isn’t near well-thought-out enough to transcend its clunky gimmick. Also with Amélie Hoeferle, Gavin Warren, Nancy Lenehan, Ben Sinclair, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez, and Kerry Condon.
Oppenheimer (R) This three-hour biographical epic aims to evoke a single mood of guilt-wracked despair, and darned if Christopher Nolan doesn’t almost pull it off. Around the story of how J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) takes charge of the Manhattan project and builds the atomic bomb that ends the war, there are two interlocking framing stories about him trying to renew his security clearance while his former boss Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) tries to be confirmed as the U.S. Commerce Secretary. Nolan gives us precious little time to catch our breath from the start as he toggles between timelines while the supporting characters around Oppenheimer largely get lost. Still, the framing stories snap together in a marvelous way, and the successful atomic bomb test is a splendid set piece. Inside this movie is a better, smaller film that’s trying to get out. Also with Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Alden Ehrenreich, Josh Hartnett, Jason Clarke, Tony Goldwyn, Benny Safdie, James D’Arcy, Harry Groener, Tom Conti, David Krumholtz, Matthias Schweighöfer, Alex Wolff, Michael Angarano, David Dastmalchian, Dane DeHaan, Josh Peck, Jack Quaid, Gustaf Skarsgård, James Remar, Olivia Thirlby, Matthew Modine, Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck, and Gary Oldman.
Ordinary Angels (PG) Ordinary movie. Hilary Swank stars as Sharon Stevens, the real-life alcoholic hairdresser from Kentucky who gained the strength to pull out of her addiction by helping a widowed father (Alan Ritchson) whose 5-year-old daughter (Emily Mitchell) direly needed a life-saving liver transplant. The script is by Oscar-nominated actress Meg Tilly and much-feted director Kelly Fremon Craig (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret), but they can’t break out of the template of inspirational dramas. Considering the wealth of talent that went into this Christian film, you’d expect better than this. Also with Amy Acker, Tamala Jones, Drew Powell, Skywalker Hughes, Nancy Sorel, and Nancy Travis.
Poor Things (R) This zany feminist take on the Frankenstein story has Emma Stone delivering the line, “I will keep my new life and my lovely old clitoris, thank you.” She plays a Victorian Englishwoman who is brought back to life after committing suicide, with her unborn baby’s brain transplanted into her body. Stone reunites with The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos, and this has the weirdness of some of his earlier Greek films. Stone gives her strangest and possibly greatest performance here, initially walking without control of her limbs and then doing a bizarre dance number in a Lisbon nightclub, and her performance makes this sex-positive story of a woman who fucks her way to wisdom and enlightenment into something credible. This lurid fantasia of sexual liberation packs some high comedy. Also with Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Yousseff, Jerrod Carmichael, Suzy Bemba, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, Hanna Schygulla, Christopher Abbott, and Margaret Qualley.
Stopmotion (R) This horror movie cannily harnesses the obsessiveness of filmmakers to its own ends. Aisling Franciosi plays an English stop-motion animator who spirals into madness as she embarks on her own horror film project, with a story by a little girl (Caoilinn Springall) who may or may not be a figment of her own imagination. The way her film bleeds into her reality offers shades of Repulsion, Black Swan, and The Blair Witch Project. First-time feature director Robert Morgan has an extensive background in animation and makes the film within the film an unnerving piece, especially with its wax heroine’s face frozen into a rictus of fear. Yet the live-action parts of the movie are no less harrowing thanks to the performance of Franciosi, especially during an unforgettable scene when she mutilates her leg because she’s convinced a foreign object is in there. The convulsive visuals make for a horror movie of rare power. Also with Stella Gonet, Tom York, Therica Wilson-Read, and James Swanton.
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (NR) Shahid Kapoor stars in this romantic comedy as a man who falls in love with a woman (Kriti Sanon) who turns out to be a robot. Also with Dharmendra, Rakesh Bedi, Rajesh Kumar, Anubha Fatehpuria, and Dimple Kapadia.
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.
Wonka (PG) Timothée Chalamet’s performance as a younger version of Roald Dahl’s candymaker is more than good enough to carry this prequel through its wobblier patches. He arrives in the big city ready to make chocolate but instead is turned into an indentured servant by a shady landlady (Olivia Colman) and kept out of business by a cartel of evil chocolatiers (Paterson Joseph, Mathew Baynton, and Matt Lucas). Director/co-writer Paul King (from the Paddington movies) brings a much-welcomed light touch to the material, and the Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant) is handled about as dexterously as modern audiences could hope for. When Willy Wonka finally opens his chocolate shop and welcomes in his customers by singing “A World of Your Own,” that’s when the film truly takes on a magical quality. Also with Calah Lane, Tom Davis, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar, Freya Parker, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Simon Farnaby, Rowan Atkinson, and Sally Hawkins.
DALLAS EXCLUSIVES
Bleeding Love (NR) Real-life father and daughter Ewan and Clara McGregor portray an estranged father and daughter forced to take a road trip together. Also with Jake Weary, Vera Bulder, Travis Hammer, Jacob Brown, and Kim Zimmer.
Bring Him to Me (R) Luke Sparke’s thriller stars Barry Pepper as a driver who’s ordered to drive an unsuspecting passenger (Jaime Costa) to his execution. Also with Rachel Griffiths, Liam McIntyre, Zac Garred, Harley Bronwyn, and Sam Neill.
Firecracker (NR) Andrew Lee Potts directs, co-writes, and stars in this thriller as a criminal whose planned heist goes wrong and leaves his life in danger. Also with Jason Flemyng, Alexander Vlahos, Nick Moran, Katie Sheridan, Eloise Lovell Anderson, Max Wrottesley, Steven Blades, and Augusta Woods.
A Hip Hop Story (NR) Affion Crockett writes and stars in this comedy as a rap pioneer who perceives hip-hop culture in need of saving. Also with Lil Rel Howery, Wayne Brady, Damaine Radcliff, Jevin Smith, John O. Nelson, Damien Dante Wayans, Lil Mama, Craig Wayans, and Cedric the Entertainer.
Parallel (NR) Danielle Deadwyler (Till) stars in this science-fiction film as a bereaved woman who suddenly finds a portal between parallel universes. Also with Aldis Hodge and Edwin Hodge.
The Peasants (R) This Polish animated film by DK and Hugh Welchman (Loving Vincent) stars Kamila Urzedowska as a young woman in a 19th-century village whose love life runs afoul of her local gossips. Also with Robert Gulaczyk, Miroslaw Baka, Sonia Mietielica, Ewa Kasprzyk, Cyprian Grabowski, and Mateusz Rusin.
Perfect Days (PG) Nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature, Wim Wenders’ Japanese film stars Kōji Yakusho (Shall We Dance?) as a Tokyo man who finds spiritual meaning in cleaning the city’s public toilets. Also with Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, and Min Tanaka.
Seagrass (NR) This Canadian drama stars Ally Maki as a grieving woman who uncovers family secrets on a spiritual retreat. Also with Luke Roberts, Nyha Huang Breitkreuz, Remy Marthaller, Gabriel Carter, and Chris Pang.
The Stolen Valley (PG-13) Jesse Edwards’ Western is about a Mexican-Navajo woman (Briza Covarrubias) who teams up with a criminal (Allee Sutton Hethcoat) to make enough money to save her mother’s life. Also with Micah Fitzgerald, Paula Miranda, Paulette Lamori, Ricardo Herranz, Danny Arroyo, and Oscar Balderrama.
Tótem (NR) The latest film by Lila Avilés (The Chambermaid) is about a Mexican girl (Naíma Sentíes) who slowly learns the truth about her family during her 7th birthday party. Also with Montserrat Marañon, Marisol Gasé, Saori Gurza, Mateo García, Teresa Sánchez, Iazua Larios, Alberto Amador, and Juan Francisco Maldonado.
