KNIVES OUT

Comedy/Crime/Drama – 2019 – USA – 130 Minutes – Lionsgate – PG-13

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Acclaimed writer and director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) pays tribute to mystery mastermind Agatha Christie in KNIVES OUT, a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death. With an all-star ensemble cast including Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, LaKeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell, KNIVES OUT is a witty and stylish whodunit guaranteed to keep audiences guessing until the very end.

Pound for pound, actor for actor, laugh for laugh, Knives Out may be the most entertaining movie of the year. – Boston Globe

An entertainment that’s as smart, witty, stylish and exhilarating as any movie lover could wish for. It’s tempting to call it the sort of movie they don’t make any more, but they didn’t make all that many way back when, because it’s really hard to pull off a production of such startling quality. If there’s a false note from start to finish I must have been laughing or gasping when it sounded. – Wall Street Journal

Knives Out is a charming and wonderfully crafted whodunnit that, despite the inevitable presence of a dead body, plays like a warm and cozy antidote to the winter chills – Original-Cin

This is a movie in which expertise and good sense win the day; no one is rewarded for stupidity or cruelty. And in that sense, Knives Out isn’t just a beautifully made diversion. It’s also a utopian vision. – Time

One of the consistent pleasures of Knives Out is that, while its style evokes an earlier era, the script is very much a witty response to today’s world. – San Francisco Chronicle

Beyond its waspish wit, a dastardly roll-call of suspects and Daniel Craig’s dapper efforts as our presiding sleuth, the film gives nothing away until the bitter end, thanks to a head-spinning tricksiness of plotting that even Agatha Christie might have conceded was rather ingenious. – The Telegraph

The genre maestro has his audience in good hands, “good” in this instance meaning both “skilled, capable, expert” and “decent, ethically sound.” He’s assembled a dazzling contraption that, if twisted in just the right way, pops open to reveal a nugget of wisdom crystallized by the cathartic final shot: we only really own what we earn. – Playlist

Far from empty sleight-of-hand, Knives Out twists its borrowed, rearranged mechanics into a timely, sincere, and ultimately moving celebration of decency in the face of moral failure. To paraphrase one of Blanc’s funnier musings, that’s the donut within the donut hole. – AV Club

A crackling, devious, and hugely satisfying old-school whodunnit with a modern twist … Even if you do somehow manage to piece the whole thing together in advance, there’s no way of predicting the joy of watching it all unfold. – IndieWire

***12 pm show on Wednesday, December 18 will be played with open captions***

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THE TWO POPES

Biography/Comedy/Drama – 2019 – UK – 125 Minutes – Netflix – PG-13

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Frustrated with the direction of the church, Cardinal Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) requests permission to retire in 2012 from Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins). Instead, facing scandal and self-doubt, the introspective Pope Benedict summons his harshest critic and future successor to Rome to reveal a secret that would shake the foundations of the Catholic Church. Behind Vatican walls, a struggle commences between both tradition and progress, guilt and forgiveness, as these two very different men confront their pasts in order to find common ground and forge a future for a billion followers around the world.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles

What makes The Two Popes so delightful, other than the very funny script, is watching two seasoned actors play off each other for two hours. Both Hopkins and Pryce illustrate what the craft of acting is really about. – The Wrap

The Two Popes is movie nirvana, but anyone watching could appreciate the clash between these opposing dispositions and world views. – San Francisco Chronicle

Anchored by two outstanding performances from Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, the film is a triumph of writing as well as unostentatious filmmaking. – The Hollywood Reporter

It is extremely difficult to make something as invisible and ineffable as religious faith seem real, let alone touching, on film; doing that is only one of the achievements of Fernando Meirelles’ unusual look inside the papacy. – Globe and Mail

Among the virtues of The Two Popes, a sparkling confection with a serious side, is that, given its prosaic title, its crowd-pleasing attributes come as pretty much of a surprise. – Los Angeles Times

The delicate dance between the two veteran actors, both eagerly devouring a late-life jewel of a script, is a joy to behold. – Screen Daily

While its subject may be religious, The Two Popes doesn’t want to convert the viewer. Rather, as an extraordinary piece of writing — and an even more impressive showcase for its actors — it eloquently communicates the importance of giving people something to believe in.- Variety

***12:15 pm show on Wednesday, December 18 will be played with open captions***

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MARRIAGE STORY

Comedy/Drama – 2019 – USA – 136 Minutes – Netflix – Rated R

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A stage director and his actor wife struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal and creative extremes. An incisive and compassionate portrait of a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.

Written & Directed by Noah Baumbach

Starring  Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Merritt Wever, Ray Liotta, Wallace Shawn, Julie Hagerty, Kyle Bornheimer, Mark O’Brien

At once funny, scalding, and stirring, built around two bravura performances of incredible sharpness and humanity, it’s the work of a major film artist, one who shows that he can capture life in all its emotional detail and complexity — and, in the process, make a piercing statement about how our society now works. – Variety

Marriage Story sees the end of a marriage as cause for both mourning and bittersweet comedy. The relationship is changing, but not ending. And the evolution is something to behold. To get a story like this right requires a sense of the comical and the absurd along with the devastating — and Marriage Story delivers. – Vox

At the heart of Marriage Story are two career-best performances from Driver and Johansson. There is sensitivity, wit and intelligence in abundance, and in one barnstorming scene the kind of raw emotional nudity that’s rarely captured on screen: it’s the painful core of the movie which the laughter might ease but can’t erase. – CineVue

The joys, grace notes and riches of Baumbach’s latest are endless. – RogerEbert.com

Marriage Story is an extraordinary tale of untethering, one that will be revisited and referenced for years to come as a near-faultless example of the craft of filmmaking. – Flickering Myth

This is hilarious, heartbreaking cinema – a work that will make you burst out laughing one moment, and leave you tearing your hair out the next. – Globe and Mail

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THE AERONAUTS

Action/Adventure/Biography – 2019 – UK/USA – 100 Minutes – Amazon Studios – PG-13

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In 1862, daredevil balloon pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) teams up with pioneering meteorologist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) to advance human knowledge of the weather and fly higher than anyone in history. While breaking records and advancing scientific discovery, their voyage to the very edge of existence helps the unlikely pair find their place in the world they have left far below them. But they face physical and emotional challenges in the thin air, as the ascent becomes a fight for survival.

Directed by Tom Harper

Starring Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, Himesh Patel

One of the most beautiful and visually exquisite films of the year, The Aeronauts is a true cinematic experience! It must be seen on the big screen! – Behind the Lens

The Aeronauts achieves impressive elevation as a bracing and sympathetic account of two early and very different aviators who together reached literal new heights in a perilous field of endeavor. – Hollywood Reporter

There’s something amiably Quixotic about this recklessly dangerous flight, something innocent, and the vistas of the 19th-century London landscape are really quite something. – The Guardian

When so many supersized blockbusters take the potential of CGI action for granted, “The Aeronauts” finds a fresh use for it by turning the exhilaration of discovery into a real visual treat. – IndieWire

With ace cinematography and sound design, and a truly engaging performance from its female lead, this one surprised me. – RogerEbert.com

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