OPENING
Heavier Trip (NR) This Finnish comedy is about a heavy-metal band that has to break out of prison to play a major music festival. Starring David Bredin, Mats Eldøen, Johannes Holopainen, Samuli Jaskio, Karolis Kasperavicius, and Sinnika Mokkila. (Opens Friday at Alamo Drafthouse Denton)
Her Story (NR) Shattering box-office records in China, this comedy stars Song Jia as a single mother who befriends a new neighbor (Elaine Zhong) at a critical point in her life. Also with Mark Chao, Ren Bin, Zeng Mumei, and Jiang Yi. (Opens Wednesday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Juror #2 (R) Not sure why Warner Bros. is trying to bury this movie. This legal thriller is not fantastic, but it is the best thing Clint Eastwood has directed in quite some time. Nicholas Hoult portrays a magazine writer, expectant father, and recovering alcoholic who serves on the jury of a murder case in Atlanta. He realizes that the accused killer (Gabriel Basso) is innocent, because he himself killed the victim (Francesca Eastwood) without knowing it, so he tries to sway the jury toward a “not guilty” verdict without casting suspicion on himself. Some of the subplots are balky, but the movie manages to take in a great deal of side action and characters without creating too much trouble for itself. Also with Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, Chris Messina, Amy Aquino, Leslie Bibb, Cedric Yarbrough, Chikako Fukuyama, and Kiefer Sutherland. (Opens Wednesday at AMC Parks at Arlington)
Maria (R) Angelina Jolie stars in this biography of opera star Maria Callas. Also with Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer, Stephen Ashfield, Valeria Golino, Caspar Phillipson, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. (Opens Wednesday in Dallas)
Nocturnes (NR) Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan’s documentary profiles entomologists who study moths in the forests at the foot of the Himalayas. (Opens Wednesday in Dallas)
NOW PLAYING
Anora (R) This wild sex comedy won the Golden Palm at Cannes, and is it ever a blast. Mikey Madison plays a Russian-speaking stripper in New York City who’s introduced to a Russian oligarch’s 21-year-old son (Mark Eydelshteyn), who becomes so infatuated with her that he proposes marriage to her so that he won’t have to return to Russia. Writer-director Sean Baker displays some old-school filmmaking chops to go with his oft-remarked-on non-judgmental view of the sex trade, and he executes a great comic set piece where the oligarch’s goons are reduced to helplessness by this tiny woman who’s throwing heavy glass ornaments. I don’t buy the idea that the stripper actually falls in love with her new husband, or that he might ever stand up to the parents who are paying for his partying. Yura Borisov puts in a nicely turned performance as a Russian thug who’s the only man who tries to treat Anora decently, and Madison looks like a new star. Also with Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Vincent Radwinsky, Darya Ekamasova, and Aleksey Serebryakov.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (PG) Judy Greer provides the only note of astringency or liveliness in this rote, muddy-looking adaptation of Barbara Robinson’s beloved novel. The treasured character actress stars a full-time mother who takes over directing her church’s Christmas pageant just in time for the neighborhood’s worst-behaved family of kids to assume the main roles. The book was written back in the 1970s, and the movie unfortunately feels trapped in period amber, as the unparented kids’ antics seem too tame by half. The movie’s religious message is muffled amid the family-friendly cutesiness. Also with Pete Holmes, Molly Belle Wright, Beatrice Schneider, Matthew Lamb, Mason D. Nelligan, Essek Moore, Ewan Wood, Kynlee Heiman, Lorelei Olivia Mote, Danielle Hoetmer, Daina Leitold, Stephanie Sy, and Lauren Graham.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (NR) The latest in the horror-comedy series stars Kartik Aaryan, Vidya Balan, Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Mishra, Ashwini Kalsekar, Rajesh Sharma, and Vijay Raaz.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. (PG-13) This movie has the right message, but it’s a real shame about the execution. Jonas Dassler (from TV’s Dark) portrays the German pastor who travels to America in the early 1930s, falls in love with Black culture, returns to Germany, and speaks out against Adolf Hitler and his regime. The movie’s on solid intellectual ground when depicting a Christian man coming around on the need to assassinate a leader who is murderous and un-Christian, but writer-director Todd Komarnicki runs into all kinds of trouble trying to avoid dead ends and dead spots. The acting at least is worth watching, especially Dassler as a tormented man who nevertheless finds happiness singing jazz at a Harlem nightclub. Also with August Diehl, David Jonsson, Flula Borg, Nadine Heidenreich, Greg Kolpakchi, William Robinson, Katharina Heyer, Lisa Hofer, Moritz Bleibtreu, and Clarke Peters.
Conclave (PG) They really should make more movies about electing a pope. Ralph Fiennes portrays a Catholic cardinal who’s tasked with running the election for a new pontiff after the previous one passes away. Director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) revels in the little details about this infrequent occasion, and the script pretty faithfully follows Robert Harris’ novel with its artfully placed bombshells. The supporting characters are nicely acted by the supporting cast, and Fiennes is in excellent form as a man full of private religious doubts while performing this administrative duty. The setting is so faithfully re-created that you’ll swear the filmmakers snuck the actors and cameras into the Vatican itself. This is the year’s best Christian film, and its best political thriller. Also with Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto, Brían F. O’Byrne, Jacek Koman, Carlos Diehz, Merab Ninidze, and Isabella Rossellini.
Hello Love Again (NR) This Filipino romantic film stars Alden Richards and Kathryn Bernardo as exes who reunite in Canada years after their breakup. Also with Joross Gamboa, Valerie Concepcion, Ruby Rodriguez, Jennica Garcia, Kakai Bautista, and Lovely Abella.
Heretic (R) Hugh Grant is the monster in this haunted-house movie, and he makes it into a barrel of monkeys. He portrays a man who lets two Mormon missionaries (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher) into his home, only to then make it clear that he has no intention of ever letting them leave. The filmmaking team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods is famous for writing movies that don’t have much dialogue (A Quiet Place, 65), and here they seem to be making up for lost words. The movie is so dense with philosophical dialogue, it’s as if George Bernard Shaw had written a horror flick. Still, some of the conversation is quite good, and the performances keep the film from bogging down. Grant’s turn as a Satanic figure who pokes holes in Mormonism and other established religions is a juicy and enjoyable one, and the movie is even-handed enough to save some of the good jokes for the other characters. Also with Elle Young and Topher Grace.
Mechanic Rocky (NR) This Telugu-language action-comedy stars Vishwak Sen, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Shraddha Srinath, Sunil, Naresh, and Raghu Ram. (Opens Friday)
Purna Bahadur ko Sarangi (NR) This Nepalese drama stars Bijay Baral as a struggling musician who’s left to raise his son by himself. Also with Maotse Gurung, Buddhi Tamang, Binod Neupane, Desh Bhakta Khanal, and Mukun Bhusal.
A Real Pain (R) Jesse Eisenberg proves to be the equal of any comedy writer in this movie that he wrote and directed. He portrays a New Yorker who takes his cousin (Kieran Culkin) on a tour of Poland after their Holocaust-surviving grandmother’s recent death. Eisenberg happily cedes the dramatic fireworks to Culkin as a tousle-haired, unemployed, witty, charming man who’s struggling to gain any traction in his life. As a director, Eisenberg moves easily from scene, keeps the story shaggy and episodic, and knows to tone down the hijinks when the tour group reaches Majdanek, a concentration camp site that’s in better condition than most of the others. It’s all worthy of a “l’chaim” over a sturdy Polish beer. Also with Will Sharpe, Daniel Oreskes, Liza Sadovy, Kurt Egyiawan, and Jennifer Grey.
Red One (PG-13) This Christmas movie starts off well, with a terrific premise. After Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped by persons unknown two days before Christmas, his head of security (Dwayne Johnson) contacts the blackhat hacker (Chris Evans) who helped the bad guys locate Saint Nick. Their attempts to recover the hostage are filmed like a spy thriller, along with the workings of Santa’s workshop. Kristofer Hivju turns up as Krampus, too. It all goes well for a while, but Johnson is the wrong actor to portray someone who’s jaded underneath his businesslike exterior. Evans, turning up his native Boston accent considerably, fares better as a shady guy who makes wisecracks as he’s dragged across the globe, but the script dampens down the comedy by making him a crappy dad to a teenage boy (Wesley Kimmel). The sleigh ride runs out of power before the movie is halfway through. Also with Lucy Liu, Bonnie Hunt, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Kiernan Shipka, and Nick Kroll.
Smile 2 (R) Setting this in the world of pop music does all sorts of good things for the sequel to the 2022 horror hit. Naomi Scott portrays a Grammy-winning music star who witnesses her drug dealer (Lukas Gage) fall victim to the smile curse and then starts experiencing terrifying hallucinations herself. Scott is credible as a pop star, and the setup allows writer-director Parker Finn to film some dance numbers and make a heroine who’s more isolated because of her fame than the one in the original film. For all that, the movie falls apart in the last 20 minutes or so, as basic storytelling logic goes out the window and Finn seems uninterested in the issues that he raises with his setup. This is better than the original movie, but it could have been a great horror film. Also with Rosemarie DeWitt, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Dylan Gelula, Ray Nicholson, Peter Jacobson, Iván Carlo, Raúl Castillo, Kyle Gallner, and Drew Barrymore.
Venom: The Last Dance (PG-13) As implied by the subtitle, this looks to be the last installment of the series with Tom Hardy, though a couple of spinoff possibilities present themselves. Now a fugitive from justice, his Eddie Brock tries out a typically half-baked plan to fly across the country to clear his name, only to get sidetracked. As long as he and Venom are on the screen, the film is reasonably entertaining, with Eddie running into an itinerant hippie family and pining for the life they lead, and also stopping in Las Vegas to mess with tourists and play the slots. The rest of the plot is a mess, unfortunately. First-time director Kelly Marcel loses the whole thread of the story in the climax at Area 51, and wastes a rather stacked supporting cast. It really is time for Hardy to get out of this series while he’s ahead. Also with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Alanna Ubach, Cristo Fernández, Hala Finley, Dash McCloud, Peggy Lu, Stephen Graham, and Andy Serkis.
Wicked (PG) Better than the Broadway hit in some spectacular ways. Cynthia Erivo portrays the future Wicked Witch of the West, who enrolls at a magical school and is forced to room with the future Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande). This movie only covers the first half of the show and somehow comes off as maximalist rather than bloated. The vocal contributions come from many different places in the cast, with Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz and Jonathan Bailey showing some springy dance moves in “Dancing Through Life,” performed in front of a rotating bookcase. Grande nails the vibe of a princess with a bitchy “me first” streak, but even she can’t take the spotlight from Erivo. Her skillful handling of the reflective numbers keeps the movie from collapsing, and the climax of “Defying Gravity” blows out the lights in the Emerald City. She doesn’t just sing the showstopper, she is the showstopper. Also with Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Andy Nyman, Keala Settle, Kristin Chenoweth, and Idina Menzel.
The Wild Robot (PG) Not as good as the hype, but still good. Chris Sanders’ animated film is about a helper robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) that activates on an island devoid of humans and learns to communicate with the animals. The film is adapted from Peter Brown’s illustrated novel, and the animators do well to translate Brown’s simple drawings into a world of riotous colors and a robot that can change shape depending on the situation. The plot here has the robot having to take care of a baby gosling (voiced by Kit Connor), and on a story level, it doesn’t compare with either WALL-E or Big Hero 6 as a movie about a robot becoming more human by interacting with our world. Additional voices by Pedro Pascal, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Stephanie Hsu, and Bill Nighy.
Zebra (NR) Satyadev and Dhanajaya star in this thriller as two wealthy Indian businessmen going through a tense financial standoff. Also with Sathyaraj, Amrutha Iyengar, Priya Bhavani Shankar, and Suresh Chandra Menon. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING IN DALLAS
All We Imagine As Light (NR) The winner of the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, this Indian drama stars Kani Kusruti as a nurse in Mumbai who receives an unexpected gift from her ex-husband. Also with Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon, Azees Nedumangad, Madhu Raja, and Lovleen Mishra.
Armor (R) Sylvester Stallone stars as an armored truck security guard who becomes caught in an attempted heist. Also with Josh Wiggins, Dash Mihok, Erin Ownbey, Laney Stiebing, and Jason Patric.
La Cocina (NR) Alonso Ruizpalacios’ dramedy is about the people working at a high-profile new restaurant in New York City. Starring Rooney Mara, Raúl Briones, Anna Díaz, Motell Foster, Laura Gómez, Eduardo Olmos, James Waterston, Lee Sellars, and Oded Fehr.
Elton John: Never Too Late (PG-13) R.J. Cutler and David Furnish’s concert documentary looks back over the pop singer’s 50 years of concert tours.
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