OPENING
Aida y vuelta (NR) Based on the Spanish TV series by the same name, this movie is about the cast of a popular TV show struggling to stay united amid controversy. Starring Carmen Machi, Paco León, Miren Ibarguren, Marisol Ayuso, David Castillo, Eduardo Casanova, Melani Olivares, Mariano Peña, Pepe Viyuela, and Canco Rodríguez. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Blades of the Guardians (NR) This Chinese martial-arts epic stars Wu Jing as a criminal who’s given a chance at redemption by escorting a more dangerous criminal (Jet Li) to prison. Also with Nicholas Tse, Zhang Jin, Wen Junhui, Yu Xing, Yu Rongguang, Kara Ying Hung Wai, Wang Baoqiang, and Tony Leung Ka Fai. (Opens Tuesday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
By Design (NR) Juliette Lewis stars in this satirical comedy as a woman whose wish to become a chair comes true. Also with Mamoudou Athie, Alisa Torres, Clifton Collins Jr., Keir Gilchrist, Ruby Cruz, Bridey Elliott, Madison McKinley, Samantha Mathis, and Robin Tunney. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Cold Storage (R) Adapted from David Koepp’s novel, this science-fiction comedy stars Liam Neeson as a bioterrorism expert who must team up with two minimum-wage security guards (Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell) when a zombie fungus escapes from a secret lab. Also with Lesley Manville, Sosie Bacon, Ellora Torchia, Aaron Heffernan, Rob Collins, and Vanessa Redgrave. (Opens Friday)
Couple Friendly (NR) This Indian romance between motorcycle enthusiasts stars Santosh Sobhan, Manasa Varanasi, Rajeev Kanakala, Livingston, Goparaju Ramana, and Yogi Babu. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Crime 101 (R) Very well made, yet weirdly impersonal. Chris Hemsworth headlines this star-studded piece of L.A. noir as a high-end jewel thief eyeing a huge score. Writer-director Bart Layton (American Animals) adapts this from Don Winslow’s novel and is clearly aiming for an epic character study like Heat, but the main character is someone who tries to make himself as unmemorable as possible, and Hemsworth can’t make anything interesting out of that. The anomie spreads to his interactions with a disgruntled insurance executive (Halle Berry), a down-on-his-luck cop (Mark Ruffalo), a psychopathic replacement (Barry Keoghan), and a love interest (Monica Barbaro). There’s a good car-and-motorcycle chase in the middle and a decent hotel showdown at the end, but it’s not enough to give the movie any sort of personality. Also with Corey Hawkins, Payman Maadi, Devon Bostick, Tate Donovan, Crosby Fitzgerald, Andra Nechita, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Nick Nolte. (Opens Friday)
Funky (NR) This Telugu-language comedy stars Vishwak Sen, V.K. Naresh, Kayadu Lohar, Sri Krishna Gorie, and VTV Ganesh. (Opens Friday)
GOAT (PG) This animated movie is about an undersized goat (voiced by Will Harris) who wishes to play a full-contact version of basketball against much larger animals. Additional voices by Gabrielle Union, Nick Kroll, David Harbour, Nicola Coughlan, Aaron Pierre, Jenifer Lewis, Patton Oswalt, Sherry Cola, Bobby Lee, Jelly Roll, and Steph Curry. (Opens Friday)
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (R) Gore Verbinski’s sense of absurd humor goes missing in this apocalyptic comedy. Sam Rockwell stars as a time traveler from the future who visits the same diner for the 117th time to pick the right combination of customers who will avert an AI-triggered end of human civilization. Despite some worthy performances by Haley Lu Richardson and Juno Temple as two members of his team, the stacked cast appears to be mostly lost. The story becomes stuck in the mud as it approaches the climax and its satire about people becoming smartphone zombies is well wide of the mark. Even a giant kitten-cow monster that eats people and pees out broken glass can’t save this exercise. Also with Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, Georgia Goodman, and Mike Gassaway. (Opens Friday)
Hunting Jessica Brok (NR) This South African thriller stars Danica de la Rey Jones as an ex-special forces soldier who must battle the criminals who have kidnapped her daughter. Also with Clyde Berning, Richard Lukunku, Tamer Burjaq, Anthony Oseyemi, Hlubi Mboya, Jandre de la Roux, and David James. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Mimics (PG-13) Kristoffer Polaha stars in this horror film as a broke ventriloquist who makes a Faustian bargain with a possessed dummy to become successful. Also with Moriah, Chris Parnell, Jason Marsden, Kevin Lawson, Arianne Zucker, Jason Berreth, Jesse Hutch, and Stephen Tobolowsky. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
The Mortuary Assistant (NR) Bollixed in every conceivable way. Based on the video game by the same name, this horror film stars Willa Holland as a novice mortician whose first shift is distinguished by dead bodies getting up from the table and walking off. The movie has an interesting idea inherited from the game, linking the main character’s hallucinations with her childhood trauma and her past as an alcoholic. Unfortunately, director Jeremiah Kipp resorts to jump scares that are purely laughable rather than scary. The effects are so cheesy that you’ll feel sorry for Holland as she tries to give a dramatic performance while books fly out at her from a bookshelf. You could probably make a better horror movie in your basement with a $50 budget. Also with Paul Sparks, John Adams, Keena Ferguson, and Mark Steger. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (R) Based on the 2007 web comedy series, this film stars Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol as Canadian pranksters who accidentally travel back in time to 2008 to play their musical gig at the Rivoli Theatre. Also with Ben Petrie, Ethan Eng, Michael Scott, Reid Janisse, Steve Hamelin, and Maddy Wilde. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
The Observance (R) Kate Dailey stars in this horror film as a woman who wakes from a 5-year coma to find that everyone she knows has joined the same religious cult. Also with Ted Raimi, Donald Morgan, Alec James, Darby Cappillino, Patrick Harney, Anna Borchert, and Ahley Terpstra. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
O’Romeo (NR) This Indian action-thriller is about rival criminal gangs that emerge after the country gains independence in 1948. Starring Shahid Kapoor, Triptii Dimri, Nana Patekar, Avinash Tiwary, Disha Patani, and Vikrant Massey. (Opens Friday)
The President’s Cake (PG-13) Set in the 1990s, this Iraqi film stars Baneen Ahmed Nayyef as a 9-year-old girl who must bake a cake for Saddam Hussein or face the consequences. Also with Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Muthanna Malaghi, and Ahmad Qasem Saywan. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
The Rose: Come Back to Me (NR) Eugene Yi’s documentary profiles the South Korean indie rock band. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Scarlet (PG-13) The lofty expectations set by Mamoru Hosoda’s previous anime films go largely unmet in this Shakespeare pastiche. The story is taken from Hamlet, except it’s a pink-haired princess (voiced by Mana Ashida) trying to take revenge on her murderous uncle (voiced by Koji Yakusho) in the next world. Hosoda’s myriad changes to Shakespeare’s plot don’t add up to a critical mass of craziness, and instead culminates in Scarlet meeting a dead man from the present (voiced by Masaki Okada) who convinces her to let go of past grudges. There are enough touches around the edges to show why Hosoda’s one of the great up-and-coming anime directors, but you’ll have to go to his other movies to see what he’s truly about. Additional voices by Masachika Ichimura, Kotaro Yoshida, Yutaka Matsushige, Kazuhiro Yamaji, Tokio Emoto, Munetaka Aoki, Shota Sometani, and Yuki Saito. (Re-opens Friday)
Seetha Payanam (NR) Aishwarya Arjun stars in this drama as an Indian chef who recovers from a near-fatal accident. Also with Prakash Raj, Arjun Sarja, Jayaram, Niranjan Sudhindra, and Jagapathi Babu. (Opens Friday at AMC Grapevine Mills)
Tu Yaa Main (NR) A remake of the 2018 Thai film The Pool, this Indian film stars Adarsh Gourav and Shanaya Kapoor as social-media influencers who must survive when they’re stranded in the wilderness. Also with Parul Gulati. (Opens Friday)
NOW PLAYING
Aa Bata Aama (NR) This Nepalese drama stars Paul Shah as a man pondering a move out of the country for his career. Also with Pradeep Thawat and Bipana Thapa.
Avatar: Fire and Ash (PG-13) Actually more interesting than the first two films, though that doesn’t make this good. Human being Spider (Jack Champion) gains the ability to breathe Pandora’s air, which only creates more problems because it makes him more attractive to the humans as a test subject. The best thing the series could do is kill off both Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who both were wearing out their welcome even before this movie. While this film is beset by many of the same issues as its predecessors, it at least introduces us to a new Na’vi clan who ally themselves with the humans to get their hands on Earth weapons. They make more interesting villains than any this franchise has had before, and their presence lets us know that the Na’vi are not just innocent victims. A better writer than James Cameron might make this world interesting yet. Also with Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Giovanni Ribisi, Jemaine Clement, David Thewlis, and Kate Winslet.
Bugonia (R) Emma Stone crushes it yet again in this remake of the Korean movie Save the Green Planet! She portrays a pharmaceutical CEO kidnapped by a conspiracy theorist (Jesse Plemons) who’s convinced that she’s actually a space alien disguised as a human. Despite director Yorgos Lanthimos’ well-earned reputation for weirdness, this offers the old-fashioned pleasures of a kidnapping thriller for a good long while, as the captive proves for weaknesses in her angry and unstable captor. Plemons is really good as a guy who is not just another nutcase and is struggling to keep it together, but he’s still swamped by Stone as a woman who’s willing to say anything that she thinks her captor might want to hear and eventually seizes control of the situation in unforgettable fashion. Also with Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.
Clika (R) This drama stars Jay Dee as an aspiring musician who receives a break in his career. Also with Nana Ponceleon, Josh Benitez, James Burbage, Alison Chace, Bourke Floyd, Cory Aycock, and the late Peter Greene.
Dracula (R) A spectacular mismatch of director and material. Luc Besson makes his own adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, with Caleb Landry Jones as the vampire and Zoë Bleu as the wife who’s killed in the 15th century and then reincarnated in the 19th. The filmmakers put a lot of work into re-creating Paris in 1889 but forget about basic stuff like why nobody tells the Romanian soldiers what they’re up against when they raid Dracula’s castle. Jones is charmless and boring as the count, and Besson has no talent either for scaring us or for evoking a love that spans centuries. Even the presence of Christoph Waltz as a vampire-hunting Vatican priest can’t relieve us from the tedium. You wonder why anybody involved with this even bothered. Also with Ewens Abid, David Shields, Matilda de Angelis, and Guillaume de Tonquédec.
F1: The Movie (PG-13) The best auto-racing film ever made, especially if you see it in a theater with good speakers. Director Joseph Kosinski made you feel the speed and torque of the fighter planes in Top Gun: Maverick, and he uses those same skills to tell the story of a washed-up Formula One racer (Brad Pitt) who’s given one last shot to compete at that level by a desperate former racing teammate (Javier Bardem). The roar of the race cars is so intense that you may walk out exhausted from all the sound energy hitting your body. The subplots about our grizzled veteran mentoring a cocky young teammate (Damson Idris) and romancing his team’s technical director (Kerry Condon) don’t pull their weight, but the script delves deep into racing strategy, and the sound engineering and the cameras mounted on vehicles will make you feel like you’re there on race day. Also with Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, Luciano Bacheta, Sarah Niles, Will Merrick, Callie Cooke, Samson Kayo, and Shea Whigham.
Hamnet (R) Beautifully crafted, occasionally crushing, and based on Maggie O’Farrell’s work of speculative fiction, Chloé Zhao’s film is about William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) dealing with the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) from the bubonic plague. The film is quite different from O’Farrell’s novel; instead of adopting different characters’ viewpoints and jumping around in time, the movie proceeds in a linear fashion and sticks with Agnes as she raises the children in Stratford while Will goes off to London and catches on with a theater company. Much like Shakespeare in Love, this movie truly takes flight during a production of a Shakespeare play, when Agnes travels to London and sees her husband’s Hamlet as an expression of his grief over their lost son. Great performances by both leads bring this Hamlet to tragic life no matter how many Hamlets you’ve seen. Also with Joe Alwyn, Freya Hannan-Mills, David Wilmot, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Olivia Lynes, Noah Jupe, and Emily Watson.
The Housemaid (R) Based on Freida McFadden’s best-selling novel, this thriller is a throwback to 1980s psychological thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, but from a female point of view. Sydney Sweeney portrays an ex-convict who takes a job as a live-in maid in a Long Island mansion, only to find her employer (Amanda Seyfried) behaving like such a psycho that it puts her in greater danger than she was in prison. The film ups the book’s violence considerably, which would be great if the acting were better. As it is, Seyfried blows away her co-stars as a wealthy housewife who’s simmering with rage and whose erratic behavior is cagier than it appears. She and Paul Feig’s direction make this about as good an adaptation of the novel as we could have expected. Also with Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, Indiana Elle, Alexandra Seal, and Elizabeth Perkins.
Iron Lung (R) A case against YouTube creators making films, I’m sad to say. Mark Fischbach a.k.a. Markiplier stars in his own adaptation of the video game as a convict who’s promised freedom in exchange for undertaking a dangerous mission where he pilots a solo submarine in an ocean of blood on an alien planet. Markiplier also distributed the movie himself without a studio, and it’s a great story that he’s able to take in so much money and leave such a cultural footprint that way. However, I can’t ignore how he fails to generate a sense of claustrophobia, provide convincing hallucinations of a man losing touch with reality, or deliver a coherent story about the human race facing extinction. It’s all just tedious close-ups of antiquated machinery and pipes dripping water. Also with Troy Baker, Elsie Lovelock, Caroline Kaplan, Elle LaMont, and Seán McLoughlin.
Marty Supreme (R) Josh Safdie’s first solo effort as a director is better than Uncut Gems. Like that movie, it’s a sports-oriented film about a Jewish man who hustles because his life depends on it, but because this Jewish protagonist (Timothée Chalamet) has a great talent for table tennis, it dries out the movie and keeps it from becoming too heavy. Chalamet is electric and dangerous as a guy who is very far from being a nice Jewish boy, who knocks up his neighbor’s wife (Odessa A’zion) and beds a movie star (Gwyneth Paltrow) while trying to negotiate a sponsorship deal with her husband (Kevin O’Leary). Safdie creates set pieces that give us no time to catch our breath and displays creative approaches to music and the casting of the supporting roles. Still, it’s Chalamet’s performance that sells this, especially at the end, when he finds something other than his sport to focus on. Also with Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Tyler the Creator, Larry “Ratso” Sloman, Emory Cohen, Luke Manley, Géza Röhrig, Koto Kawaguchi, Pico Iyer, Fred Hechinger, Penn Jillette, Isaac Mizrahi, George Gervin, and Abel Ferrara.
Melania (PG) Ooh, bad timing! Brett Ratner’s documentary follows Melania Trump in the days before the 2024 presidential election.
Mercy (PG-13) This science-fiction thriller looks cool but fails on a deeper level. Chris Pratt stars as a homicide cop in a near-future L.A. who’s accused of murdering his wife (Annabelle Wallis) and has 90 minutes to prove his innocence. Director Timur Bekmambetov manages well with a thriller that plays out largely on a screen, and even though Pratt spends most of the film immobilized in a chair, he somehow manages to give a good performance as a relapsed alcoholic who reckons with being a deficient husband and father. The detective plot unfortunately has too many watery developments, and the movie hopelessly scrambles its critique of a police state that’s powered by AI and electronic surveillance. Like most of Bekmambetov’s films, this is all sizzle and far too little steak. Also with Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Kylie Rogers, Jeff Pierre, Chris Sullivan, Rafi Gavron, Kenneth Choi, and Ross Gosla.
The Moment (R) Charli xcx tries to go all Spinal Tap in this mockumentary. It doesn’t work. The British pop star portrays herself in the summer of 2024, as her label executives try to keep the “Brat Girl Summer” going. The most fully realized character is Alexander Skarsgård as a famous documentarian who’s hired to direct the concert movie of her upcoming tour and winds up getting her friends fired and making wholesale changes to her choreography, setlist, and staging. The germ of an interesting idea (conceived by Charli herself) is here, but neither the material nor the pop star are funny, and the movie doesn’t include enough of her music. This movie wants to puncture the pop-star mystique around Charli xcx, but it botches the gimmick. Also with Rachel Sennott, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Rish Shah, Hailey Gates, Trew Mullen, Kylie Jenner, Julia Fox, and Rosanna Arquette.
One Battle After Another (R) One of Paul Thomas Anderson’s more purely enjoyable movies stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a former anti-ICE revolutionary who has to save his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a supersoldier (Sean Penn) who has reason to think the girl is his own biological daughter and kill her to destroy evidence of his sexual preference for Black women. The story is loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland and set in the present day, which brings out the antic, puckish side of Anderson’s filmmaking. The film has nerve-frying action sequences, including an inventive car chase in the California desert with the cars appearing and disappearing from view because of the hilly terrain. The film also gets great performances from the newcomer Infiniti, DiCaprio as a father who realizes he’s not doing so good as a parent because he’s drunk and stoned all the time, and Penn as a villain brimming with hatred for this girl he has never met. It’s not as tidy as I’d like, but it’s great anyway. Also with Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Shayna McHayle, Kevin Tighe, D.W. Moffett, and Tony Goldwyn.
Primate (R) From making movies about killer sharks (the 47 Meters Down films), director Johannes Roberts moves on to a killer chimp. Johnny Sequoyah stars as a college student who returns to her home in Hawaii where her deaf father (Oscar winner Troy Kotsur) is housing a monkey in hopes of training it to communicate with humans. Unfortunately, the chimp contracts rabies and starts preying on our heroine’s friends. Despite some holes in the plot and the theme, the movie is adequate enough for what it sets out to do. For a January release, this is just barely good enough. Also with Jess Alexander, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, and Tienne Simon. (Opens Friday)
Send Help (R) For all of us who needed the feral, unhinged, blood-soaked version of Rachel McAdams in our lives. She stars as a strategist for a corporate consulting firm who can’t break the glass ceiling until she and her horrible boss (Dylan O’Brien) are the sole survivors when the corporate plane crashes on an uninhabited tropical island. McAdams’ balls-to-the-wall approach works less well in the middle but better at the beginning (when she’s playing someone who’s too poorly socialized to make friends in the office) and at the end (when the violence takes the movie into Evil Dead territory). Speaking of which, director Sam Raimi can’t keep the movie from falling apart at the end, but the film is still blackly funny and memorable for McAdams’ berserk turn. Also with Edyll Ismail, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang, Thaneth Warakulnukroh, and Dennis Haysbert.
Shelter (R) This is the second movie directed by Ric Roman Waugh to hit theaters in six weeks, and it’s better than Greenland 2: Migration, but not by much. Jason Statham portrays a former soldier and fugitive hiding out on a remote island off Scotland’s coast. When he tries to help an injured girl (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), a rogue spymaster in the British government (Bill Nighy) sends soldiers to kill both of them. Seeing Statham deal with trained killers both on that island and later in London should really be more exciting, and the stuff about the solitary man having to take care of a kid only results in cheap tear-jerking. For all the talent that goes into this low-grade thriller, it really should have amounted to more. Also with Naomi Ackie, Harriet Walter, Bryan Vigier, Tom Wu, and Daniel Mays.
Sinners (R) Ryan Coogler’s foray into Jordan Peele territory is wild and wildly original, even when it doesn’t make sense. Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins who return from Chicago to their Mississippi hometown in the 1930s to open a blues joint with their cousin (Miles Caton) who happens to be an otherworldly musician. Jordan gives two bracing performances as brothers with different jobs and temperaments, the Mississippi town is more layered than we usually see in Hollywood movies, and there’s a great sequence with the blues musician delivering a song so powerful that it opens a rift in time and space as well as attracting vampires. Coogler winds up with a few too many ideas in his intellectual stew, but it frames Delta blues in a wholly unexpected way and emerges as a worthy vampire movie. What other movie can say that? Also with Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Li Jun Li, Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, Jayme Lawson, Saul Williams, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Peter Dreimanis, Omar Miller, Yao, Delroy Lindo, and Buddy Guy.
Solo Mio (PG) Surprisingly not terrible. Kevin James stars in this comedy as a man whose Italian wedding is ruined after his bride-to-be (Julie Ann Emery) leaves him at the altar. With the rest of his honeymoon non-refundable, he stays in Tuscany and enjoys grappa and gelato, makes friends with the other honeymooning couples from America, and even falls in love again. If the movie is too postcard-pretty and the laughs could come more frequently, the pace doesn’t drag. Also with Jonathan Roumie, Kim Coates, Nicole Grimaudo, Julee Cerda, Caterina Silva, Alessandro Carbonara, and Alyson Hannigan.
The Strangers: Chapter 3 (R) The third movie in the slasher series reveals that there wasn’t enough story for one movie in the whole trilogy. Madelaine Petsch returns as Maya, who’s prepared to take revenge on the masked killers only to find that the killers want to recruit her instead. All the scenes play out at a glacial pace, and it makes no sense that Maya might be tempted to join the killers. What the hell was all this for? Also with Richard Brake, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath, Hannah Galway, George Young, Miles Yekinni, Janis Ahern, Pedro Leandro, Dani Klupsch, and Ella Bruccoleri.
Whistle (R) Inexcusably slapdash teen horror flick starts from an interesting point: A group of high-school kids discover an Aztec death whistle whose sound brings about the deaths of anyone who hears it. The movie stars Dafne Keen as a drug-addicted lesbian with survivor guilt who has to save her new girlfriend (Sophie Nélisse) from the curse that they’re both under. The lead actresses are up for this challenge, but the plot is full of laughable holes, starting with the number of students and teachers in this Rust Belt town who can translate pre-Columbian languages. Director Corin Hardy (The Nun) is so concerned with generating cool effects during the death scenes that the story beats feel like they’ve been thrown at the wall haphazardly. A more story-conscious filmmaker could have made a great gay horror film from this. Also with Sky Yang, Percy Hynes White, Ali Skovbye, Jhaleil Swaby, Stephen Kalyn, Nick Frost, and Michelle Fairley.
Zootopia 2 (PG) Not as good as the first one, I’m afraid. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman) have to deal with a new case involving the family of snakes who founded the city and were screwed out of their inheritance by the mammals. Some of the jokes do land like they should, but the metaphors are not as resonant, and the new supporting characters aren’t as well drawn as they were in the original. The fraying partnership between our two cops doesn’t throw up anything new, either. There is a funny subplot with a TV actor stallion (voiced by Patrick Warburton) becoming Zootopia’s new mayor, but it’s not enough to recommend the film. Additional voices by Ke Huy Quan, Fortune Feimster, Andy Samberg, David Strathairn, Quinta Brunson, Danny Trejo, Nate Torrence, Don Lake, Bonnie Hunt, CM Punk, Stephanie Beatriz, Alan Tudyk, Macaulay Culkin, Brenda Song, Tiny Lister Jr., John Leguizamo, Tommy Chong, Auli’i Cravalho, Tig Notaro, Ed Sheeran, Cecily Strong, June Squibb, Michael J. Fox, Josh Gad, Idris Elba, and Jenny Slate.
Dallas Exclusives
All That’s Left of You (NR) Cherien Dabis writes, directs, and stars in this Jordanian film as a mother recalling her teenage son (Adam Bakri) being swept up in an anti-Israel protest. Also with Saleh Bakri, Maria Zreik, Hayat Abu Samra, Ramzi Maqdisi, Muhammed Abed Elrahman, and Mohammad Bakri.
Islands (R) This psychological thriller stars Sam Riley as a washed-up tennis pro at an island resort who finds himself drawn to a tourist couple (Stacy Martin and Jack Farthing). Also with Dylan Torrell, Fatima Adoum, Bruna Cusí, Agnes Lindström Bolmgren, and Ramiro Blas.
A Poet (NR) This Colombian drama stars Guillermo Cardona as a writer who finds a talented teenager (Rebeca Andrade) to mentor. Also with Alisson Correa, Humberto Restrepo, Ubeimar Rios, and Margarita Soto.
Sound of Falling (NR) Mascha Schilinski’s film follows four generations of women experiencing trauma while living in the same house in Germany. Starring Susanne Wuest, Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Luise Heyer, Laeni Geiseler, Lea Drinda, and Florian Geißelmann.
The Voice of Hind Rajab (NR) Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary dramatizes the killing of a 5-year-old girl in Gaza by Israeli armed forces by using her real-life distress calls against staged re-enactments of the emergency workers in Ramallah who answered her. Starring Motaz Malhees, Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, and Amer Hlehel.
