Local & Repertory

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs Discussion follows the screening of a documentary profile of the noted activist. (NR)

Keystone Church, 5019 Keystone Pl. N., 632-6021, meaningfulmovies.org. Free. 7 p.m. Fri.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure This 1989 time-travel comedy about two genial teenage ninnies struck an extended Reagan-era chord. Their sheer cluelessness, and affability, made them like chips off the old Gipper. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter may be dumb American teens, but they’re dumb American teens willing to learn a bit about history (just enough to graduate high school and preserve their band, Wyld Stallyns). Meeting Lincoln and Socrates, among other historical figures, may not make them wise. But at least they cheerfully embrace the idea of wisdom, instead of sneering at it. A 1991 sequel didn’t recapture the B&T magic, yet a trilogy—said to be in development—might work if the two characters were brought forward to early middle age, kids, wives, and mortgages. By now, they might be a little more receptive to lessons ignored in their youth. The late George Carlin plays Bill and Ted’s grizzled mentor. (PG) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Egyptian, 801 E. Pine St., 324-9996, siff.net. $7-$12. 11:55 p.m. Sat. & Sun.

Czech your Head Short films featuring puppetry and stop-motion from the Czech Republic are screened. (NR)

Grand Illusion, 1403 N.E. 50th St., 523-3935, grandillusioncinema.org. $5-$9. 1 p.m. Sun.

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Double Indemnity Barbara Stanwyck’s double-crossing Phyllis is perhaps the iconic femme fatale of film noir—a sultry schemer who, in Billy Wilder’s superior 1944 adaptation of the James M. Cain crime novel, seduces a sap (Fred MacMurray) and tricks him into murdering her husband. Walter’s pal and fellow insurance investigator (Edward G. Robinson) is the only figure of decency in the movie. And he warns Walter about what will inevitably follow the fatal train “accident” that Phyllis orchestrated: “Murder’s never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later. And when two people are involved, it’s usually sooner.” (NR) B.R.M. Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684. $7-$9. 7 p.m. Fri.-Weds. & 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

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Goodbye to Language We haven’t seen it, and Jean-Luc Godard’s new 3-D movie may never open in Seattle for a regular engagement. So this is a rare opportunity, presented by Northwest Film Forum, SAM, and Paul Allen’s newly renovated Cinerama. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw calls it “an uncompromising and exasperating 70-minute cine-collage placed before us on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, composed of fragments of ideas, shards of disillusionment.” (NR)

Cinerama, 2100 Fourth Ave. Tickets: 448-6880 and cinerama.com. 7:30 p.m. Tues.

Leon: The Professional Long before she won her Black Swan Oscar, Natalie Portman starred with Jean Reno in this stylish, violent 1994 English-language picture from Luc Besson. The European cut verges on kinderporn, so we’re guessing this version favors bullets over January-November age-inappropriate romance between the European hitman and the 12-year-old orphan girl he takes under his wing. Extra bonus: the over-the-top corrupt New York cop played by Gary Oldman—just what kind of drugs is he on? (R) B.R.M. Central Cinema, $7-$9. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Weds.

Lion’s Main Art Collective The group presents an evening of short films dedicated to LGBT themes by Northwest artists. (NR)

Central Cinema, $10-$12. 8 p.m. Thurs.

Saturday Secret Matinee Hosted by The Sprocket Society, this Saturday matinee series (through March 28) features the 1941 serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, preceded by various vintage cartoons and shorts. Total program length is about two hours. (NR)

Grand Illusion, $5-$9. 1 p.m. Sat.

Event Yadda. (NR)

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Event Yadda. (NR)

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Event Yadda. (NR)

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Event Yadda. (NR)

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Ongoing

Annie Previously filmed in ’82, the beloved 1977 Broadway show gets a thorough reworking, with rewritten lyrics, funked-up music, and a time-shift to the present day. (The comic-inspired original was a Depression-era fable, complete with cameo by Franklin Roosevelt.) Though it’s going to get lambasted, this new Annie is actually kind of fun on its own terms, with a rapid-fire pace and actors who aren’t afraid to be silly. The role of Annie usually goes to girls who sound as though they’ve swallowed Ethel Merman’s trumpet, but here the part is played by soft-voiced Quvenzhane Wallis, the kid from Beasts of the Southern Wild. Annie’s no longer a little orphan, but a foster child, raised in a Harlem group home by the booze-swilling Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz). The campaign managers of a billionaire mayoral candidate named Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx, in good form) determine that this child would look great in pictures with their guy. So Annie becomes the ward of the workaholic tycoon, and you know where it goes from there. (Songs like “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard Knock Life” remain, of course, with new arrangements.) The movie gets messier as it goes, but the actors are peppy and a sense of goodwill pervades—even mean Miss Hannigan is revealed to be misunderstood. (PG) ROBERT HORTON Meridian, Thornton Place, Lincoln Square, Bainbridge, others

Big Eyes The pancake-eyed-waif portraits of Walter and Margaret Keane became inexplicably popular during the ’60s. For director Tim Burton, at least, they still hold a kitschy fascination. As we see in this lighthearted, factually inspired account, the Keanes’ success was born from the beatnik Bay Area of the late ’50s, reversed at the 1964 World’s Fair, and collapsed during the Nixon end of the ’70s. The nation turned more cynical during that span, or developed more sophistication, but Burton isn’t interested in diagnosing the American mood or deciding why the Keanes’ art had its appeal. Big Eyes is a simple comedy of female vindication, and it’s enjoyable as such. Any film with Amy Adams (as the naive painter Margaret), Christoph Waltz (as her credit-stealing husband Walter), and Terence Stamp (as the New York Times critic who calls them out) is a film I want to see. Because of Waltz’s lupine charm, Walter’s decision to slap his name on Margaret’s art doesn’t seem so implausible. (“People don’t buy lady art,” he says, and it’s true during this sexist Mad Men era.) Burton’s been down this road before with Ed Wood, also written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Yet if Margaret is a less colorful figure than Wood, and if we can laugh about her art today, we can never mock her. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Pacific Place, Sundance, Lincoln Square, Oak Tree, others

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Birdman A movie star in a career skid since he stopped playing a masked superhero named Birdman back in the ’90s, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is preparing his big comeback in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver stories, funded and directed by himself. Obstacles abound: Riggan’s co-star (Andrea Riseborough) announces she’s pregnant with his child; his grown daughter (Emma Stone) is his assistant, and not his biggest fan; a critic plans to destroy the play. And, in the movie’s funniest headache, Riggan must endure a popular but insufferable stage actor (Edward Norton, doing a wonderful self-parody) who’s involved with the play’s other actress (Naomi Watts). This is all going on while Riggan maintains a tenuous hold on his own sanity—he hears Birdman’s voice in his head, for one thing. To create Riggan’s world, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki present the film as a continuous unbroken shot (disguised with artful digital seams). Birdman serves so many heady moments it qualifies as a bona fide happening. It has a few stumbles, but the result is truly fun to watch. And Keaton—the former Batman, of course—is a splendidly weathered, human presence. Ironically or not, he keeps the film grounded. (R) R.H. Sundance, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Pacific Place, others

Exodus: Gods and Kings Ridley Scott has surely been waiting all his life to get a crack at the florid yarn-spinning of the Old Testament. Christian Bale creates a somber Moses, adopted brother of Egyptian king Ramses (Joel Edgerton, from The Great Gatsby). You know the story: When an enslaved Hebrew elder (Ben Kingsley) informs Moses of his actual Jewish heritage, our hero goes through a spiritual crisis, is banished, and returns to help his people wait out the plagues. The storytelling has been surefire stuff for a millennium and a half, and it still plays. Scott creates the big computer-generated vistas of pyramids and palaces, but the digital flatness diminishes the impact after a while. Both Bale and Edgerton seem on the way to interesting character detail, but there’s so much to cover they can’t complete the task. And forget about developing the roles played by Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, Hiam Abbass, and other good actors; they barely register in the spectacle. Only Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom) gets anything memorable going, and he’s playing a caricature of pagan depravity. Exodus violates the 11th commandment of Hollywood: Thou shalt not bore the audience. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Majestic Bay, Sundance, Kirkland, Ark Lodge, Meridian, Lincoln Square, Oak Tree, Cinebarre, others

Foxcatcher The wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), who won gold in the 1984 Olympic Games, isn’t very bright. He’s got a puppy-dog earnestness; his ears have turned to cauliflowers after so much time on the mat; he’s accustomed to taking orders from his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), who also won gold in ’84. Yet Mark is suddenly on his own when he accepts the patronage of the eccentric multimillionaire John E. du Pont (Steve Carell). In Bennett Miller’s clinically chilly true-crime tale, the murderous outcome is never in doubt. One brother will perish and du Pont go to jail (where he died in 2010). There was the same kind of underlying criminal inevitability to Miller’s 2005 Capote, where the surprise lay in how a talented, frivolous writer created his unlikely masterpiece. Here, I’m sorry to say, there’s no such consolation. Foxcatcher is uniformly well crafted and acted, though Carell playing the villain isn’t really the selling point. With his birdlike prosthetic nose, craned neck, and opaque, upper-toothed smile, Carrell’s du Pont remains a mystery, but not an interesting mystery. Yet even if Miller can’t find a satisfying denouement for Foxcatcher, Mark—whom Tatum ably invests with inchoate currents beneath that bulging brow—becomes a clay-footed figure of inarticulate tragedy. (R) B.R.M. Sundance, Meridian, Lincoln Square, others

The Gambler This movie has its roots in Dostoyevsky and a thoughtful, near-classic ’70s film by James Toback (James Caan was the the star). The lead role is a failed novelist and university professor, whose gambling problem and apparent death wish is at the crux of the story. Not a Mark Wahlberg role, in short. But he plays it, and he’s terrific. Wahlberg’s Jim has a great deal to feel burned out about. He’s disgusted with his career as a writer, he insults his students, and he asks his mother (Jessica Lange) for enormous amounts of money. Badly in debt, Jim has one talented student (Brie Larson, the gifted actress from Short Term 12) who knows about his gambling. Written by William Monahan and directed by Rupert Wyatt, The Gambler isn’t too interested in psychological digging, although there’s something intriguing about Jim’s assertions that he isn’t actually a gambler. (Maybe he just really wants to lose, in every sense.) But sometimes plot can carry the day, and the strands of The Gambler—Jim parlaying his various debts against each other, and betting on a basketball game—are skillfully played. (R) ROBERT HORTON Pacific Place, Thornton Place, Lincoln Square, Cinebarre, others

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Peter Jackson’s crowded final film of the J.R.R. Tolkien universe begins in mid-breath. Fiery breath: The flying dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) was loosed at the end of Part Two, and his flaming rampage is in full swing as Five Armies commences. With no memory-refreshing from the previous chapters, we launch into a dozen or so plotlines: all those names and all those creatures, plus cameo appearances from LOTR cast members. The hubbub renders nominal hero Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) a team player rather than a true protagonist. The second half of the picture is overwhelmed by a giant battle (there may be five armies involved, but I’m a little vague on that), which ping-pongs between thousands of computer-generated soldiers and clever hand-to-hand combat involving the principals. Jackson is as resourceful as ever at exploiting cool locations—crumbling bridges and iced-over lakes—for cartoony stunts. Such ingenuity is at the service of a project that lost its emotional core when Jackson decided to take Tolkien’s relatively streamlined novel and pump it up into three plus-sized movies. It’s still pleasant to see Bilbo in the company of the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), but the rest of the cast hasn’t taken up the slack. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Cinerama, Meridian, Pacific Science Center IMAX, Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, Lincoln Square, Thornton Palce, others

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The Homesman Though ailing at the movies, the myth of the West is alive and well in American politics, currently full of gun-totin’, hog-castratin’ candidates. Yet The Homesman is so good it makes you wish director and co-star Tommy Lee Jones could somehow make a Western a year, just to keep exploring the pockets of American frontier experience that still need filling in. This one offers a series of new wrinkles, beginning with its route: The story goes from west to east, the opposite of most Westerns. During the 1850s, Nebraska “spinster” Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank, a fine and precise performance) volunteers to transport three women back to Iowa. They’ve been driven mad by the prairie and their men, or at least they have become no longer socially acceptable. Claim-jumper and full-time scalawag George Briggs (Jones) will accompany Mary on her grim, weekslong job. Their episodic adventures bring them into contact with a variety of frontier types along the way (played by Tim Blake Nelson, James Spader, Hailee Steinfeld, Barry Corbin, and no less than Meryl Streep). The setup suggests the potential for showing the West from the female characters’ perspective, which isn’t entirely the case, although the story does depict the unfairness of frontier life for women. The real subject is the West itself—the brutality of it and the price paid for settling it. (R) R.H. Pacific Place, others

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The Imitation Game A ripping true story can survive even the Oscar-bait effect. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the brilliant English code-breaker Alan Turing as a borderline-autistic personality, a rude brainiac who during World War II fiddles with his big computing machine while his colleagues stand around scratching their heads. Turing’s homosexuality only gradually enters the picture, and even when he proposes marriage to fellow code-breaker Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), it isn’t treated as a really big deal. Even if the movie sketches simplistic conflicts among its principal characters, the wartime world is so meticulously re-created and the stakes so compelling that it emits plenty of movie-movie sparks. (Morten Tyldum, of the ridiculously entertaining Headhunters, directs.) But the real reason to like this movie is that it’s so diligently pro-weirdo. Especially in Cumberbatch’s truly eccentric hands, Turing stays defiantly what he is: an oddball who uses rationality to solve problems. The film suggests that Turing does not have to become a nicer person—he beat the Germans’ Enigma code and won WWII, so let him be. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Cinema Egyptian, Sundance, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, others

Interstellar Reaching about 90 years forward from its start in a near-future dystopia, Christopher Nolan’s solemn space epic commits itself both to a father/daughter reunion and the salvation of mankind. Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper is sent on a mission to plunge into a wormhole near Saturn because Michael Caine tells him to. And no one in a Chris Nolan movie can say no to Michael Caine, here playing a professor named Brand who also sends along his scientist daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) with Cooper and two others. Before leaving, Cooper tells his daughter—played by three actresses at different ages—that maybe they’ll be the same age when he returns home, because of Einstein and other stuff we slept through in AP physics. The two ceremoniously synchronize their watches, sure to figure later—two hours for us, rather more for them—in the story. Cooper and company must investigate possible planets for colonization (scouted in advance by other astronauts). One is water, the other ice, and both prove quite lethal. There’s some action (though none so elegant as in the much superior Gravity), but what Nolan really wants Cooper’s team to do is discuss relativity, gravity, the fifth dimension, and quantum data (the latter requiring a visit to a black hole). There’s talk of ghosts and a cosmic “they” who chose Cooper for his long mission. But with the frequent recitations of Dylan Thomas poetry and the grown Murph (Jessica Chastain) stabbing chalky equations on a blackboard, the movie feels like an undergraduate seminar in space—one that’s three hours long. (PG-13) B.R.M. Pacific Science Center IMAX, Meridian, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, Kirkland, Cinebarre, others

The Interview TV producer Aaron Rapaport (Seth Rogen) wants to be taken seriously—no easy task with the fluffy talk show known as Skylark Tonight. Hosted by the smiling nitwit Dave Skylark (James Franco), the program’s ideal episode isn’t hard news from Iraq but Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as himself) sitting in a pen of puppies. Dave has no such 60 Minutes aspirations to quality, but he wants to keep his producer and BFF happy (and keep himself on the air), so he immediately agrees to the interview conditions of his biggest fan: North Korean despot Kim Jong-un (the very game and amusing Randall Park), whom the CIA wants them to kill. No further plot summary is required here, since The Interview has become the biggest story of the year from Hollywood. The film is like a mashup of a James Bond movie and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: Two minor players, clowns, hopelessly out of their league, with no 007 to guide them on their assassination errand in Pyongyang. It’s also a bromantic triangle as Kim slyly seduces Dave with margaritas, basketball, bling, and confessions of self-doubt. Meanwhile Aaron clings to their CIA-sponsored goal, even while falling for stern PR officer Sook (Canadian actress Diana Bang, doing a lot with a little). This bro-ssassination comedy is nowhere near as smart as Team America: World Police, so far as U.S. imperialism or foreign dictators are concerned. But neither does it need to be. (R) BRIAN MILLER Ark Lodge, Bainbridge

Into the Woods Cue the irony that this sly modern classic musical (songs by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine) has been taken up by Disney, history’s busiest purveyors of the happy ending. Its fairy-tale happy ending comes halfway through the action, then Cinderella and company must decide what to do next. Into the Woods presents a crowded roster, with Meryl Streep earning top billing as the Witch, the blue-haired crank who sets things in motion with a curse. (James Corden and Emily Blunt play the baker and wife who want a child; also on hand are Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, and Johnny Depp as various familiar fairy-tale characters.) The blend of rustic locations and studio-built woods is eye-filling, especially when the characters cross the border from the realistic realm to the enchanted forest. In general, though, director Rob Marshall (who guided Chicago to its dubious best-picture Oscar) brings his usual clunky touch, hammering home the big moments and underlining subtlety with a broad brush. The singing tends toward the Broadway-brassy, although Blunt and Corden—working in a more casual style—are completely charming. A bit of the 1987 show’s subversive message still peeks through, making this an unusual blockbuster to unleash at Christmastime. (PG) ROBERT HORTON Ark Lodge, Majestic Bay, Pacific Place, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Thornton Place, Bainbridge, Kirkland, others

Night at the Museum: Curse of the Tomb After two Night movies, the core cast is well established: Ben Stiller’s security guard Larry overseeing a magically animated menagerie of historical characters (played by Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, etc.) and beasts (most notably an incontinent monkey). The plots of the Night trilogy aren’t important or even interdependent; this one concerns a magical Egyptian tablet, which animates all the museum displays, that must be transported to the British Museum for repair, like some broken iPad. Tomb is actually lighter on the chases and anarchic wreckage than expected. By now, the museum’s nighttime secret has become a showbiz attraction and humble Larry a backstage impresario trying vainly to get his charges to perform on cue. (Stiller also doubles as a dumb, sweet Neanderthal named Laaa, who has a mighty appetite for Styrofoam packing kernels.) Apart from the chases, peeing monkey, and medieval ninja antics of Sir Lancelot (Downton Abbey’s quite amusing Dan Stevens), all pleasing to kids, parents will appreciate the interplay among the not-quite-condescending cast. What comes through most in this enjoyable hodgepodge adventure is Stiller’s all-too-recognizable brand of impatience and fatigue: a bit of the indie-world midlife panic from Greenberg, the realization that I’m getting too old for this shit. That’s why the Night series ends here. (PG) B.R.M. Bainbridge, Admiral, Lincoln Square, Kirkland, Thornton Place, others

Nightcrawler Titled and released as if it were a Halloween horror flick, Dan Gilroy’s dark media fable has more in common with Network than Nosferatu. Lou (the politely creepy Jake Gyllenhaal) is identified as an earnest, calculating criminal in the opening minutes; he’s never less than transparent about his motives, most of which appear to have been gleaned from self-help books and inspirational Internet sites. He’s an amoral American hustler, a type descended from Dale Carnegie and Sammy Glick. A career in stolen scrap metal soon gives way to freelance videography at L.A. car wrecks and crime scenes, and Lou’s basest impulses are naturally encouraged by a ratings-starved TV station. (Rene Russo is amusingly aroused as the station’s “vampire shift” manager—a venal Mrs. Robinson who mentors eager Lou.) Nightcrawler is more a parable of unfettered capitalism—there’s your horror—than realistic media satire. Lou’s swift progress in TMZ-land brings him a rival (Bill Paxton) and a naive protegee (English actor Riz Ahmed), but no one here has—or needs—much depth. Lou has no history, no family, only his hollow aphorisms of success. Nightcrawler never quite settles on a satisfactory tone between squeamish laughter and a smarter, Chayefskian disgust, but Lou you remember—a creature for these craven times, prospering from our need to see the worst. (R) B.R.M. Meridian

The Theory of Everything The Stephen Hawking biopic opens with our hero (Les Miz star Eddie Redmayne) as a young nerd at university, where his geeky manner doesn’t entirely derail his ability to woo future wife Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). Hawking is diagnosed with motor neuron disease at age 21 and given a two-year prognosis for survival—one of the film’s sharpest ideas is to allow time to pass, and pass, without pointing out that Hawking is demolishing the expectations for someone with his condition. James Marsh’s movie is officially adapted from (now ex-wife) Jane Hawking’s memoir, so the love story has its share of ups and downs. This is where Theory manages to distinguish itself from the usual Oscar bait. Whether dealing with Jane’s closeness to a widowed choirmaster) who becomes part of the Hawking family, or Stephen’s chemistry with his speech therapist, the film catches a frank, worldly view of the way things happen sometimes. No special villains here—you might say it’s just the way the universe unfolds. Redmayne’s performance is a fine piece of physical acting, and does suggest some of the playfulness in Hawking’s personality. From now until Oscar night, you will not be able to get away from it. (PG-13) R.H. Harvard Exit, Lincoln Square, Kirkland, Oak Tree, others

Top Five If Chris Rock’s movies were as good as his interviews, he’d be racking up year-end critics’ awards right about now. The story unfolds over the course of a long day in New York, as a once-popular comedian named Andre Allen (Rock) desperately promotes his new movie. He’s talking to a New York Times writer (Rosario Dawson) throughout the day, a device that’s less about illuminating his character and more about highlighting their growing rapport. (Although one long slapstick recollection about a lost weekend in Houston keeps the movie 2014-level raunchy.) Rock has gathered a batch of colleagues to contribute smallish roles, including Kevin Hart, Tracy Morgan, and Cedric the Entertainer. As for Rock’s performance, even playing opposite the lively Dawson doesn’t make him a more fluid actor. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of mixing comedy and Woody Allenesque introspection—I guess the comparison here is with Allen’s Stardust Memories, but that movie wasn’t especially strong, either. The “problems” that come with wealth and celebrity are a wobbly basis for comedy, despite the laughs scattered through Top Five. (R) ROBERT HORTON SIFF Cinema Uptown, Sundance, Ark Lodge, Pacific Place, Thornton Place, others

Unbroken The greedy guy on a life raft who eats all the chocolate bars is surely going to die. That’s just one of the moral lessons in Angelina Jolie’s adaptation of the remarkable life story Unbroken, a recent bestseller by Laura Hillenbrand. Since indefatigable hero Louis Zamperini endured so much during World War II—surviving a bomber crash in the Pacific, 47 days on that life raft, then two years of brutal mistreatment in Japanese POW camps—Jolie needs to extract plenty of lessons, or at least uplift, during her very sincere, stolid movie. Flashbacks extend to Zamperini’s solid family upbringing during the Great Depression and Olympic running exploits, but most of the film consists of Louis (Jack O’Connell) stoically suffering. During the long imprisonment, sadistic warden Watanabe (Japanese pop star Miyavi) becomes slightly and slyly more interesting while Louis remains the same solemn martyr. Oddly, Jolie shies away from the viscera of war. Death is kept at a distance, like the silently exploding bombs Louis drops from his B-24. When his comrades perish, they do so quietly and without evident suffering. Considered as another patriotic tribute to The Greatest Generation (now mostly gone), Unbroken isn’t a terrible movie. Yet as it grinds its way to victory, which is to say survival, there’s the unpleasant sense that we’re prisoners, too, and Jolie our cruel captor. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance, Pacific Place, Lincoln Square, Thornton Place, Kirkland, Cinebarre, Bainbridge, others

Wild Though I have reservations about the fulsome emotional blasts of director Jean-Marc Vallee (like his Dallas Buyers Club), and though the adaptation by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, An Education) leans rather too hard on the death of bestselling memoirist Cheryl Strayed’s mother (played by Laura Dern), this is a movie that—like its solitary hiker heroine—cannot be stopped. Reese Witherspoon’s ironclad casting makes matters even more inevitable. Here is a woman who bottoms out—with men, drugs, and grief—then straightens out while hiking 1,100 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Oregon, even without disavowing all her past actions. Wild is essentially a memory trip, presented non-sequentially, as Cheryl plods north. Various men figure in her past (including a brother), but none memorably. In the movie’s second half, more maudlin than its smart start, Wild is all about mommy. Yet don’t mistake Wild for an easy, conventional healing narrative (though healing does of course come at the end). Rather, it’s more a coming-to-terms account. Or as our heroine puts it, “Problems don’t stay problems. They turn into something else”—in this case a book and surefire hit movie. (R) B.R.M. Guild 45th, SIFF Cinema Uptown, Big Picture, Kirkland, Meridian, Thornton Place, Lincoln Square, others

Winter Sleep The rustic hotel at the heart of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep is a strikingly unfamiliar place: Located somewhere in Turkey’s Anatolian countryside, perched on a rocky slope, the buildings seem to emerge directly from the stone of the hillside itself. In the course of 196 slow minutes, we discover the world of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer, from Rosewater), who inherited the inn and is now running it after working as an actor for many years. He also inherited a bunch of local rental properties, the income from which allows him to sit around penning op-ed newspaper essays while washing his hands of the economic woes of his tenants. After a brilliant opening hour, Ceylan falls out of rhythm—he has cited the influence of Chekhov on this film, but Chekhov kept the drumbeat and the humor going. Two extremely long and talky sequences dominate the middle of Winter Sleep: Aydin and his sister (Demet Akbag) calmly engaging in a duel of mutual laceration; and Aydin and his younger wife (the superb Melisa Sozen) arguing over her charity work—he insists on “helping” her with things she desperately needs to do herself. Those scenes are precise and well observed, but the film has a hard time finding its stride again. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion

Zero Motivation The comedy in Zero Motivation, sometimes dark, springs not from combat but from tedium on an IDF base somewhere in the desert. There are no car bombs or terrorists, only the daily monotony of typing reports, making tea, and shredding documents in what used to be called the secretarial pool. Zero Motivation is based on the IDF experiences of writer/director Talya Lavie, who has little use for heroics or nostalgia. She filters her distaff story through three different women facing the same oppressive sexism of the military. Slackers Zohar and Daffi are besties who at first appear to be cut from the same cloth. They’re bored and resentful upon returning to base after a short leave, but Zohar (Dana Ivgy) seems more resigned to the situation. Meanwhile the slightly more chipper Daffi (Nelly Tagar) is determined to transfer back to Tel Aviv. To do this, she must impress her boss Rama (Shani Klein), one of the few female officers on base. Lavie’s characters are clockwatchers whose response to the absurdities of military life is mostly deadpan. They’re women engaged in everyday resistance to bureaucracy, one reason the film often feels like a sitcom-during-wartime. Still, 34 years after Private Benjamin, Zero Motivation is a welcome film long overdue. (NR) B.R.M. Harvard Exit