Opening
The Fault in Our Stars Shailene Woodley and Augustus Waters play young teenagers in love. One problem: They’ve both got cancer. (PG-13)
Sundance Cinemas, Ark Lodge, others
Night Moves Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard, and Dakota Fanning play three eco-terrorists determined to bomb an Oregon dam. No thriller as directed by Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Wendy & Lucy), the movie turns out to be a slow and deeply undercharacterized study in alienation. You find yourself rooting for the dam, hoping they’ll blow themselves up instead. (R)
Sundance
Local & Repertory
As You Like It
Georgy Girl: Lynn Redgrave stars in this fairly beloved 1966 adaptation of the Margaret Forster novel. With James Mason, Alan Bates, and Charlotte Rampling. (NR)
Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org, $63-$68 series, $8 individual, Thurs., 7:30 p.m.
Clerks Kevin Smith had his 1994 indie breakthrough with this amusingly foul-mouthed study in New Jersey desperation. He and Jason Mewes would dust off their Silent Bob and Jay characters several more times. (R)
Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., 267-5380, nwfilmforum.org. $6-$11. 7 p.m. Fri.-Sat.
Emulsion A man broods obsessively over the disappearance (and possible murder) of his wife, missing for a year, in this English psychological thriller from 2011. (NR)
Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $9. 8 p.m. Thurs.
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Steven Spielberg’s 1989 smash triumphantly concluded the biggest trilogy of the Reagan Era. (We’ll ignore 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that craven, LaBeouffian brand-extension to the series; seeing the late River Phoenix here in Last Crusade’s opening train-top sequence is a sad reminder of sequels not made.) It was a considerable coup for Spielberg and producer George Lucas to cast grumpy old Sean Connery as Indy’s dad, and his bickering with the equally cranky Harrison Ford is always fun to watch. Last Crusade is a first-rate popcorn movie, a big improvement over Temple of Doom, with chases galore and an aerial dogfight launched from a zeppelin (over what’s clearly Southern California, but never mind that). As the Jones’ loyal comrade in archaeology, the late Denholm Elliot also helps to class up the picture, asking at one point in the action, “Is there anyone here who speaks English? Or maybe even ancient Greek?” Note additional Sat./Sun. matinee screenings at 3 p.m. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, $6-$8. 7 p.m. Fri.-Tues.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me That 1992 prologue to David Lynch’s two-season TV enigma didn’t exactly resolve every unanswered question from the series, but it surely helped foster Seattle’s thriving Twin Peaks cult (which extends, of course, all the way to North Bend, where part of the show was shot). Yakima’s Kyle MacLachlan, Kiefer Sutherland, and Chris Isaak play the FBI investigators who essentially prepare the ground for the “Who killed Laura Palmer?” conundrum that follows. (R) B.R.M. Central Cinema, $6-$8. 9:30 p.m. Fri.-Tues.
Ongoing
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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins—one black, one white—never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society—but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres—the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality—and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) B.R.M. Guild 45th, others
Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism—apart from the constant Twitter plugs—is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene—but no, he’s only there to help. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. Just expect no salt. (R) B.R.M. Sundance, Majestic Bay, others
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Fed Up Narrated by Katie Couric, Stephanie Soechtig’s advocacy doc is slickly made, studded with food gurus (Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, etc.), and sympathetic to the sad young teens we see struggling with obesity. Yet heredity is only part of our four-decade obesity epidemic, which the filmmakers convincingly trace back to a collision between industry and regulators. On the one hand, the FDA is supposed to keep our food healthy. On the other, the USDA’s goal is basically to sell as much food as possible—including corn; and from that, high fructose corn syrup. Which side do you suppose is winning? “It’s fair to say the U.S. government is subsidizing the obesity epidemic,” says Pollan, who then pauses a beat. “Indirectly.” Fed Up convincingly argues how the processed food industry has so successfully engineered its products since the ’70s to be addictive yet never sating. Willpower counts for little (ask any alcoholic or junkie). “We are not going to exercise our way out of this obesity problem,” says one nutritionist. Exercise is just another panacea, like “low-fat”—and a smokescreen by the food industry to distract from its culpability. Viewers will not be surprised when parallels to Big Tobacco are explicitly drawn. (PG) B.R.M. Varsity
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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier—the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson—all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th
Neighbors This fun but formulaic comedy pits Seth Rogen, as a married homeowner and new father, against Zac Efron, playing the rival patriarch of a rowdy frat house next door. We’ve got to get Delta Psi put on probation, so our baby can sleep at night! The conflict writes itself, and you really do feel these likeable two stars could do more. Efron, once the Disney idol, is certainly capable of undermining his image. When Rogen and wife (Rose Byrne) trick him into a fight with a loyal frat bro (Dave Franco), pushing and shoving give way to the dreaded mutual testicle grab. Efron declares, with berserk conviction, “I’ll hold onto your balls forever!” Rogen again inhabits the familiar role of the shambling, genial dude who doesn’t want to be an adult. When he and the wife get into a fight, they debate who ought to be the “Kevin James”—i.e. the irresponsible partner—in their marriage. But, really, the term they ought to be using is “Seth Rogen.” And that’s the problem with this movie’s ambition: It simply lets Rogen be Rogen. (R) B.R.M. Cinebarre, others
