Innocent puppy bystander
The bad guys in the new action-thriller John Wick learn the hard way not to violate a universal commandment: Don’t mess with a man’s dog.
DVD reviews: ‘La Dolce Vita’ still vital
This week, we begin in Rome: La Dolce Vita (5 stars) Not rated, 174 minutes.
The little tank that could
Brad Pitt and his tank crew single-handedly win World War II in the new action-drama film Fury. Someone had to do it. Writer-director David Ayer (Training Day) draws on nearly 70 years of World War II movies, and the latest special effects, to render a conventional but engaging story about a determined sergeant and his men.
After the wall
A University of North Texas department is remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago with a series of events this month and next.
Ink-stained wretch
Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Nancy and Ronald Reagan and John Kerry are all featured in Kill the Messenger, a taut, fact-based thriller with an apt title. And at its center lies a subversive conspiracy that could only be uncovered with an old-fashioned journalistic investigation.
DVD reviews: White trash noir
This week, we begin in East Texas. In the gritty "Cold in July," a white trash noir set in a small East Texas town in 1989, Michael C. Hall ("Dexter") plays Richard Dane.
Notes on a marriage
Sympathies change, and then they change again in the dynamic Gone Girl, a twisting-turning new crime-thriller from David Fincher. The heralded director builds an engrossing, escalating mystery before unveiling a few surprises that pull the rug out from everyone.
Your chance at ‘Eternity’
It doesn’t seem possible that From Here to Eternity could get more sultry than the film’s iconic passionate kiss on the beaches of Pearl Harbor. But Tony Award-winning musical-maker Tim Rice adapted the film for the stage, and if reports are true, audiences had to fan themselves through the big numbers. A filmed version of the musical — about young Army men in 1941 and the women they love — was made of this spring’s production on London’s West End, starring Darius Campbell as First Sgt. Milton Warden and Rebecca Thornhill as Karen Holmes. The company men doff their shirts and the women play peek-a-boo with pinup-style curves while the band plays on. Fathom Events screens the musical at 7:30 p.m. today at theaters including the Denton Cinemark, 2825 Wind River Lane. A repeat screening is at 7 p.m. Oct. 9. The musical is rated R for adult situations. For tickets, visit www.fathomevents.com.
Stylish accessories
This week, we begin with Audrey: Audrey Hepburn Blu-ray Collection
They rise again
This week we begin in Scotland: Macbeth (****) Not rated, 140 minutes.
Left in a mess
This Is Where I Leave You assembles some of the best comedic talent available to talk about poop, masturbation, Jane Fonda’s breasts, and that old reliable laugh-getter, penis size.
Up from the depths
This week, we begin with the big fellow: Godzilla (***) Rated PG-13, 123 minutes.
On the money
Building menace takes the place of brainless gunplay and excessive violence in The Drop, a new crime drama with an emphasis on the drama. The film does have its violence, and its gunplay, but it achieves its effects elsewhere.
Shared struggle
Movies and guest speakers are at the center of the second annual Recovery Film Festival and Conference on Sept. 18-20 at the University of North Texas Gateway Center.
DVD reviews: Capital Captain
Nothing marks the end of the summer movie season better than the home entertainment arrival of summer’s first big blockbuster.
In the King’s shadow
Earnest and well-intentioned, The Identical is based on a “what if” that straddles the line between ingenious and loopy: Suppose Elvis Presley’s stillborn twin had lived, been raised separately and unaware that he had a brother, and eventually turned into a world-class Elvis impersonator?
‘Past’ back to haunt
This week, we begin in Lake Tahoe:Out of the Past (****) Not rated, 97 minutes.
Mr. ‘November’
Judging from The November Man, based on a novel by Bill Granger, the CIA’s operations in Eastern Europe are a friends-and-family affair. Former colleagues plot one another’s deaths. A junior officer interrogates her superior. A scorned pupil takes aim at his mentor’s loved ones. Geopolitical intrigue ranks second to daddy issues.
DVD reviews: Chereau’s ‘Margot’ still radiant
This week, we begin in 16th-century France. The Cohen Film Collection gives a Blu-ray debut to Patrice Chereau’s original vision of his 1994 epic "Queen Margot" (when released in the U.S., it played half an hour shorter).
Huge noggin gets in the way
Looking below the surface is mandatory for Frank, a strange new film that is unequal parts comedy, satire, allegory and fantasy. Or maybe it’s just something else entirely.
DVD reviews: Both sides of the bars
This week, we begin in prison:Lost for Life (**1/2) Not rated, 74 minutes.
Worth taking a look
Big Brother is alive and well in The Giver, a science-fiction fantasy with plenty to offer young audiences. Adults, too, might appreciate the democratic pleas for individuality and free thinking.
August procedure
The laughs are loud, lewd and low in Let’s Be Cops, a spoof of cop “buddy pictures” that is pretty much the definition of “an August comedy.”
DVD reviews: In the den
Disneynature travels to a remote Alaska island to document the birth of two bear cubs and the first year they spend with their nurturing mother, quaintly given the name Sky.
Half-baked heroes in a half-shell
The steroidal title characters in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles look as if they’re going to end up on a cartoon version of the Mitchell Report. Some day, historians will look back at this generation’s baseball...
Old rugged cross
What might not be apparent at first glance is that the new movie Calvary is a mystery. In the opening scene, an anonymous voice tells a priest during confession that he will kill him in two weeks. The voice also states the time and place.
Give and take
Fathom Events joins the Weinstein Co. and Walden Media in broadcasting the red-carpet premiere of The Giver at select theaters on Monday. Participating Texas cinemas will broadcast a tape delay of the event at 7 p.m. Monday, including a screening at the AMC Highland Village 12 cinema, 4090 Barton Creek.
DVD reviews: French re-master
This week we begin in Nantes: The Essential Jacques Demy
Beyond belief
We need our illusions to live, or so says the main character in Magic in the Moonlight, Woody Allen’s clever new release. The romantic comedy is set in the south of France in 1928, and, although it is beguiling, charming, thoughtful and even challenging, it is neither overtly romantic nor terribly funny.
Cosmic crunch
In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, the villain Lord Beerus, God of Destruction, is awakened from 39 years of slumber to fight a worthy adversary on planet Earth. He finds the Saiyan Goku ready to rumble. Things get epic when other gods join the conflict. Fathom Events and Funimation Entertainment will bring the first Dragon Ball Z feature film in 17 years to more U.S. cinemas on Tuesday and Wednesday Aug. 5 & 6. Local screenings are at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Denton Cinemark, 2825 Wind River Lane. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/1s5wXIH
DVD reviews: A princess remembers
This week, we begin in Monaco: The Grace Kelly Collection
Strung along
To make the world a safer place. That’s it. That’s what motivates the words and actions of virtually every character in A Most Wanted Man, a tense, well-drawn, post-Sept. 11 espionage caper.Anton Corbijn...
DVD reviews: Great War inspired worthy dramas
This week, we begin in the trenches: World War I Centennial Commemorative Collection: Sergeant York, The Big Parade, Wings, The Dawn Patrol.
Not present
Wish I Was Here is a movie about what to do while waiting for someone to die. So, sit back and enjoy the guilt, recrimination, second-guessing and angst — plenty of angst. But wait, did we mention it’s a comedy?
Beck’s activism hits big screen
Fathom Events and conservative commentator Glenn Beck have teamed up for the live simulcast of We Will Not Conform at 7 p.m. Tuesday at theaters around the country, including the Denton Cinemark 14, 2825 Wind River Lane.