Blue door

Brooklyn

Crit

So Saoirse Ronan is like the anti-Wood Harris (see my Creed blurb): I feel as if I've seen every film she's made. That not even remotely true, this being only the fourth. Maybe it's that she left such an indelible mark on Atonement, Hanna, and The Grand Budapest Hotel (a doubly indelible mark!) that she's more present in memory than on the screen.

With a lesser 21-year-old actor in damn near every scene, this might still be a charming slice of transatlantic Eisenhower era life; Ronan makes it more compelling than it has any right to be. Unfortunately, she can't do anything to keep it from being irksomely rushed at the end. I was reminded in the end credits that the screenplay is by Nick Hornby, who writes 80% excellent novels but can't seal the deal.

Trailers

• Demolition--This may be Jake Gyllenhaal's bid for the Damaged Guy Oscar®.
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2--I'll admit it: I enjoyed the first one. But was this necessary?
• Carol--Oh, yes.
• Anomalisa--Charlie Kaufman, stop action, I'm in.

Event horizon

Room

Crit

I'll cut right to the chase: if you were considering giving this a miss because although you were blown away by Emma Donoghue's novel, you don't think you can put yourself through that again, I advise you to see it: I don't think you can have as intense an experience the second time around in any medium, but the second encounter with the material remains powerful.

If you've not read the novel and are avoiding the film because you fear the intensity of the experience, then your life is so hermetically sealed that you in particular might profit from the experience of one or the other. In which case, I recommend the book: the film is very good, and the screenwriter kept faith completely with the source, perhaps in part because the screenwriter was Emma Donoghue, but having the story come from the perspective of five-year-old Jack is vital, and the printed page allows that perspective to be maintained more cleanly and consistently.

Tell mama

Home-in-time-for-the-Illini-game (well, on DVR) M3

Janis: Little Girl Blue

IFC

Little here that I needed to know that I didn't already know about Joplin, a decade my senior but forever 27. But I didn't come for the knowing, I came for the seeing and the hearing. I have only three regrets in life, and one is never having heard (and seen) her perform live.

Mustang

IFC

Five Turkish sisters shame their family by . . . swimming, fully clothed, with boys? Yep, that's right. Lockup and forced marriages ensue, and only the youngest is emotionally equipped to fight back actively. A depressing, invigorating slice of a life we're fortunate to have avoided.

In Jackson Heights

FF

This was briefly my (Airbnb) neighborhood a couple of times this year, but I had no idea that it's home to what is apparently the oldest NYC gay pride parade, started 20-odd years ago by a guy who's now a councilman. Or how vigorous the organized support for immigrants is. Or how steadfastly the small-business owners oppose the so-called business initiative organization whose primary initiative seems to be to make it easier for Gaps and Walmarts to find homes.

You can observe a lot just by watching, Yogi Berra probably didn't say, but that could be Frederick Wiseman's mantra: point the camera, edit wisely, and respect the audience.

Trailers

• 45 Years--Rampling, Courtenay, and Something Never Spoken Of.
• Every Thing Will Be Fine--I doubt that.
• River of Fundament--5½ Matthew Barney film that is doubtless genius, but I'll take it on faith.
• Son of Saul--Not saying I'll never see another Holocaust film, but the bar is high.

Standing eight count

Creed

Crit

So, I'm looking at Michael B. Jordan in a scene with Wood Harris, and I'm thinking, yeah, if you were going to tab one of these veterans of The Wire to have a huge career, it would have been Jordan, but still: Avon's not exactly chopped pit beef. Well, turns out Harris has been working pretty regularly, just in stuff I haven't seen. Literally: nothing until this. Would've seen him in Ant-Man had the reviews not convinced me I'd hate it; would have seen him in House or Justified had either series drawn me in enough to stay with it. But no. Good to see him here, if only briefly.

And the film? Do you have to ask? Cliché-drenched, surprise-free, and as satisfying (and nourishing) as a plate of mac & cheese. I hated loving it.

Trailers

• The Hateful Eight--Had Christmas w/ Q in 2012, and he's a leading contender this year.
• Central Intelligence--Looks pretty dumb, but damn, The Artist Formerly Known as The Rock is charming.
• Barbershop: The Next Cut--I'll probably just let it grow.

Ploughshares

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, part 2

Crit

Yes, I remember the final book of the trilogy resisting any but the most basic uplift at the end, and being pretty damned depressing as a result. The fourth film of the trilogy (filmmakers don't do math) is true to that spirit. War is hell, and guess what: postwar isn't necessarily peaches and cream.

Two takeaways: the mutts in the tunnels, the f/x stars of the film, which look like love children of orcs and aliens (you know the ones I mean); and a scene between MFW Julianne Moore and the late lamented Philip Seymour Hoffman that distracted me with a recollection of Magnolia.

Trailers

• Gods of Egypt--Wow, what a train wreck this looks like.
• Allegiant--Sequel to Divergent.
• How to Be Single--Seriously, Rebel Wilson is fourth billed? If this is any good, she'll be the reason.
• The 5th Wave--Hmm, trailers for two kickass girls in dystopic futures.

It takes a village

Spotlight

Crit

Damn, I love newspapers, admire then, need them, premourn their inevitable demise. I'm even proud to have spent a third of my working life in newspapers, even though I was always in sports and never did anything braver than deleting a coach's homophobic locker room joke from the executive sports editor's column. But I rubbed shoulders and, after hours, bent elbows with reporters who did more important stuff. (What, you didn't think I was going to write about newspapers without mentioning alcohol, did you?)

Mainly I love it when big (almost always American) newspapers expose the shit that sanctimony and hypocrisy and corruption sink their roots into. And I love movies about those investigations, especially ones that find romance in the drudgery that constitutes 99.9% of good investigative newspaper work.

I don't even need to name the picture that does this best, having reviewed it here with some regularity over the years, but this new one, notwithstanding its bleh title (seriously, in the '70s, when the Globe was putting together a team for special investigative projects, Spotlight was the most appealing name they could come up with?), is a worthy entry in the field.

Never mind the angrymaking reprise of the Boston Globe's investigation into systemic protection and recycling of predatory priests by the Archdiocese of Boston and the Catholic Church more broadly; maybe the most remarkable accomplishment here is conjuring a world where the church still had enough clout--with police, with judges, with politicians, with plutocrats--to stonewall its sins for so long. A church with that kind of power seems a joke now, and it's worth remembering that this story was breaking--against that still powerful resistance--less than 15 years ago.

But ask yourself this question, which writer-director Tom McCarthy, to his credit, does not press: had the Globe not pursued the story, would the church have made an effort to clean its house, or would it have continued reshuffling its pedophiles, monkey business as usual? And if the shit had not hit the fan so messily, would people be talking today about recent and ongoing changes in the character of the papacy, and of the church itself?

The story was pursued as newspapers used to pursue stories, and as all media outlets find it increasingly impossible to do in the era of the 24-hour news cycle: carefully, in depth, without haste, leaving no loose thread that the subjects might use to unravel the whole thing. And damned if it didn't make the world a better place.

Trailers

• Triple 9--Cops, robbers, and cops who are robbers.
• Snowden--The Oliver Stone treatment.

Fair game

Nie yin niang (The assassin)

Crit

Beautiful young woman learns to kick seriously lethal ass but struggles with the ethical implications therein and with the recognition that she has become a pawn in a larger game. But the movie makes only  half-million bucks in a month because it's in Mandarin and lacks exotic special effects.

To be fair, it's also narratively confusing, leaving much not only unsaid but even unhinted at, though to continue to be fair, the shifts in political loyalties, and the reasons for them, are clear enough, and are the nub. And it's gorgeous. Just don't go in expecting Katniss Everdeen.