The Pledge

On the night of his retirement party, a Nevada detective (Jack Nicholson) tags along to the crime scene of a child murder. When a mentally handicapped suspect is swiftly arrested, coerced into confessing, and commits suicide the would be retiree is less than satisfied. Skipping his fishing trip to Florida, he conducts his own investigation while using the daughter of a new lover (Robin Wright) as bait and putting his own sanity into jeopardy. From a novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Pledge is haunting, poetic, and truly tragic, offbeat and uniquely directed by Sean Penn, with a commanding and sensitive performance by Jack.

**** out of ****

The Big Sick

A Pakistani Chicagoan (Kumail Nanjiani) pursues a stand-up comedy career against the wishes of his traditionalist family. This bond is strained even further when he begins dating an American grad student (Zoe Kazan) who undergoes a sudden, life threatening illness. Written by Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon (whose relationship is loosely represented), The Big Sick is amiable enough if unspectacular and overlong. Nanjiani's deadpan approach is both likable and amusing, and Holly Hunter and Ray Romano add flavor as Kazan's parents.

** 1/2 out of ****

I, Tonya

Growing up indigent with a browbeating, abusive mother (Allison Janney) who pushed her relentlessly to succeed before entering into a pejorative relationship with another victimizer (Sebastian Stan), Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) rose in the figure skating (often against classist opposition) before the infamous Nancy Kerrigan incident at the hands of her husband's boneheaded, rotund, and delusional best friend (Paul Walter Hauser). Craig Gillespie's I, Tonya boasts an excellent all around cast surrounding Robbie, who branches out considerably. The filming is frenetic and exciting while evoking Goodfellas a little too closely, and pulls no punches in its unforeseen, darker subject matter.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Logan

In the not too distant future near the Texas border, a hardened and spent Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) spends his days providing a livery service in order to care for the aged and ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart). Soon he has custody of a young mutant girl with like powers being hunted by daunting forces and must escort her to a safe haven in North Dakota. James Mangold's Logan, the umpteenth entry in the X-Men series was praised in its attempts to match the vulgar, violent, and ruthless excesses of Deadpool, adult alterations that seem totally counterintuitive to the material. The movie has its moments, especially in its fleeting quieter scenes, but at the core of this needlessly brutal work, it's really just another hokey comic book movie. Stewart and Stephen Merchant are effective in supporting roles.

** 1/2 out of ****

Mulholland Drive

A chipper young woman (Naomi Watts) just arrived in L.A. finds an amnesiac (Laura Elena Harring) just involved in terrible car wreck living at her aunt's home. As unrelated plot developments start to cobble up (including the story of an arrogant director (Justin Theroux) being muscled by the mob), the two women's personas seem to merge or take on entirely different realities. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is a film that has both baffled and frustrated me the first couple of times through it due to its resistance to reason and obstinance in the face of logic. Revisiting it again, and expecting those same exasperating feelings to return while not trying to find a coherent plotline, I surprisingly found it to be a fascinating, hypnotic, frightening, suspenseful, and still maddeningly frustrating exercise, with Lynch at the apex of both his form and strangeness. Watts is incredible in essentially a dual role.
*** 1/2 out of ****

Lola

During the German reconstruction period and the miraculous economic boom of the 1950s, officials, planners, and contractors in the city of Coburg are loading their pockets through graft, chief among them a fiendish developer (Mario Adorf) who schemes to curry favor with the new, straight arrow building commisioner (Armin Mueller-Stahl) by plying him through the affections of an ambitious prostitute (Barbara Sukowa). From the same Heinrich Mann novel used to draw Sternberg's The Blue Angel, R.W. Fassbinder's Lola (the last of his BRD trilogy, the second released chronologically) depicts corruption and immorality through a beautiful, ebuillent Technicolor lens with Sukowa mesmerizing as the seductive, calculating social climber.

*** out of ****

Monsieur Hire

While being accused of the murder of a young woman outside of his apartment complex, a well-mannered, immaculately composed peeping Tom (Michel Blanc) observes the daily rituals of his neighbor (Sandrine Bonnaire) who discovers his voyeuristic behavior and seems to return his affections. Patrice Leconte's Monsieur Hire, from a novel by Georges Simenon, is elegantly made and exactingly directed, with a wonderful score from Michael Nyman, and a plot that takes a surprising trajectory for such a simple premise.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Mother!

A poet (Javier Bardem) and his considerably younger wife (Jennifer Lawrence) live in their recently renovated house which had burned to cinders. Now they receive uninvited guests (Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer) who can’t take a hint and refuse to leave, with the crowd soon growing to mass proportions with apocalyptic implications and consequences. With absurdism akin to a Bunuel movie plus a tinge of Rosemary’s Baby, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! is an outrageous allegory on the creative process which is fascinating to see just how far the thin premise can be stretched. Lawrence delivers an overwrought, impressive performance.

 *** ½ out of ****

It

Evil personified in the form of a sinister clown and thriving on fear vanishes children of Derry, Maine every 27 years, its latest occurrence in 1989 when a group of misfit preadolescents are forced to confront the malevolent being. The latest update of Stephen King's novel works best when fitting in the Stand by Me mould, with the juvenile actors well cast and appealing, but loses its viability in the horror sequences which are dubious and exasperating, especially in the later stages of the film.

*** out of ****

Veronika Voss

A once prominent movie star (Rosel Zech) who earned her start under Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry becomes romantically involved with a reporter (Hilmar Thate) who suspects her neurologist (Annemarie Durringer) of keeping the faded actress under her influence through the use of morphine. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's reimagining of the tragic demise of German actress Sybille Schmitz (his death mirroring her own not long after the release of the film) is shot in brilliant black and white in a melodramatic almost campy mood yet of course with the darker undertones evoking Wilder's Sunset Blvd or even What Ever Happpened to Baby Jane. Zech and Thate are both superb.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Stronger

While waiting for his girlfriend (Tatiana Maslany) to complete the 2013 Boston Marathon, Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) lost his legs in the terrorist bombing. Struggling to rehabilitate and adjust to his now onerous and often very painful life, he finds himself unwillingly thrust into the spotlight while his ordeal wears heavily on those around him. David Gordon Green's treatment of this true to life story is all about the two excellent lead performances which get thwarted by stupid supporting characters, dumb comic relief bits, and the expected inspirational mushy fodder in the second act, all elements that would have proved completely dispensable to the story.

** 1/2 out of ****

Mudbound

As war rages in Europe and the Pacific, a college graduate and inexperienced farmer (Jason Clarke) moves his new bride (Carey Mulligan) to rural Mississippi to apply the trade where, in tough times, they lean on a poor sharecropping family (headed by Rob Morgan and Mary J. Blige). When both families see members return from oversees (Garrett Hedlund and Jason Mitchell), their friendship stokes the ire of prejudice and leads to tragic consequences. Dee Rees' Mudbound is a painterly period piece, leisurely, novelistic, somewhat elliptical and routine, with fine work from a talented cast.

*** out of ****