Excessive force

Get on Up

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Not a perfect film--too soapy at times, and stinting in its treatment of its subject's drug problems, but nonetheless one of the best biopics I've ever seen, and probably the one for which the actor most eerily channeled the subject. Chadwick Boseman impressed us last year with his take on Jackie Robinson in 42, but as much as I love baseball,  I'd never suggest that the physical demands of portraying even one of the most physical ballplayers ever is remotely comparable to the demands of convincing us that you're the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. If there's a downside to the film, it's the death of the illusion that James Brown was the only mortal who could ever do that shit; now we know there's at least one other. 

By the way, if you don't believe--or even if you do believe--that Brown really could have outshone the Stones so completely at the T.A.M.I. Show, I commend to your attention the filmic record of that television landmark. 

Guardians of the Galaxy (Imax 3D)

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Delightfully goofy, perhaps in no respect more than in the soundtrack of good-bad '70s hits (there's a ultrathin but sufficient plot explanation for it), from 10cc's "I'm Not in Love" to the Five Stairsteps' "O-O-H, Child." Rarely has music I'd never go out of my way to hear again enriched a moviegoing experience so much. (Well, OK: actually, I would go out of my way to hear "I'm Not in Love" again. And "Cherry Bomb," of course, but that's the song that doesn't really fit with the rest anyway. And "Escape [The Piña Colada Song]" has made a marvelous transition from lame '70s song to Immediately Recognizable Joke about the Lameness of Most '70s Songs. It is a lamememe!)

Trailers

• Elvis: That's the Way It Is--Yes, the excellent 1970 documentary on the King's Vegas comeback concert, made big and rereleased.
• Exodus: Gods and Kings--Of course! Why has it taken so long to get state-of-the-art CGI plagues of Egypt!
• The Judge--Looks like August: Osage County with a sex change (Downey and Duvall).
• Addicted--Soap from a soapy novel, looks like.
• No Good Deed--No, dammit, I don't want Idris Elba playing a family terrorizer!
• Unbroken--WWII pilot tortured by the Japs, who have returned to such clichéd villain stature that I think it must be OK to call 'em Japs again. Angelina Jolie directed, for cripes sakes!
• Big Hero 6--Does the big guy remind anyone else of Strong Sad?
• Into the Woods--I know a lot of people who are wondering whether they're going to screw this up.
• The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies--Yeah, OK. I left the party early.