Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) doesn’t make much of a living selling milkshake machines to drive-iin restaurants in “The Founder,” until he meets the McDonald brothers. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. The Weinstein Co. Movies playing in town for Feb. 3
B ARRIVAL
R; for brief strong language. 116 minutes.
A science-fiction story starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner about aliens and the global crisis that ensues. Adams plays an academic linguist who is called into service by the U.S. government when a dozen enormous alien space craft alight around the planet. Renner is partnered with Adams to determine why the aliens are here and what their purpose is. – Michael Heaton
D THE BYE BYE MAN
PG-13; for terror, horror violence, sexual content, some language and teen drinking. 96 minutes.
The Bye Bye Man is a scary ghoul with a skinless dog who stalks and kills anyone who speaks his name out loud. It’s impossible to care about any of the characters because they don’t care about themselves. Faye Dunaway and Carrie-Anne Moss show up in small parts, exuding more coolness in a couple of minutes than any of the young actors in the leads. – San Francisco Chronicle
A A DOG’S PURPOSE
PG. 100 minutes.
Based on the best-selling novel by W. Bruce Cameron. Comedic actor Josh Gag gives a human voice (that only the audience can hear) to Bailey, the dog that morphs into three other canines over the course of the film. In this universe, dogs return as other dogs after death. Directed by Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom; with Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton and Bryce Gheisar. – Michael Heaton
D ELLE
R; for violence involving sexual assault, brief graphic nudity, and language. 131 minutes.
This French psychosexual thriller goes rapidly back and forth between being ludicrous and offense. Dutch director Paul Verhoeven best known for the Michael Douglas-Sharon Stone sex thriller “Basic Instinct,” has hit a new low with this rape fantasy drama starring Isabelle Huppert. – Michael Heaton
C+ FENCES
PG-13; for thematic elements, language and some suggestive references. 133 minutes.
A Pulitzer and Tony-winning work by August Wilson who finished the screenplay before he died in 2005. Directed by and starring Denzel Washington who plays a former Negro League baseball player, ex-convict and current 1950s-era garbage man. He’s a loud-mouthed narcissist and a bully who is bitter about the hand life has dealt him. With Viola Davis. – Michael Heaton
A- THE FOUNDER
PG-13; for brief strong language. 115 minutes.
Michael Keaton employs all of his intensity and charm to play Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman who discovered the clean, efficient and popular burger operation that brothers Maurice “Mac” (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick (Nick Offerman) McDonald are running in Southern California. Kroc and the mellow McDonald brothers enter a partnership in which Kroc will franchise McDonald’s restaurants and share profits with the brothers. Before long, cracks appear in the business partnership. – Julie E. Washington
B GOLD
R; for language and some sexuality/nudity. 121 minutes.
It’s been said that Matthew McConaughey is a character actor trapped in a leading man’s man body. His latest film directed by Stephen Gaghan, is his most character work yet, with him playing a balding, paunchy, cigarette-chomping gold prospector. Inspired by true events, McConaughey plays Kenny Wells, a third-generation Reno, Nevada, mining prospector, carrying the Washoe Mining Co. through the good times and the bad. By 1988, he and his employees are operating out of a local bar trying to get investors on the hook to fund mineral mines around the world. – Tribune News Service
A- HIDDEN FIGURES
PG; for thematic elements and some language. 126 minutes.
At the start of the Space Race in the 1950s, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, a precursor to NASA, needed “human computers” with the ability to do advanced calculations in their minds. A number of black math teachers made significant contributions to the Mercury missions. “Hidden Figures” focuses on three of these women, played by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae, each with her own challenges and goals. – Julie E. Washington
B+ JACKIE
R; for violence and language. 100 minutes.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was public: A nation, and the world, observed it in shock and sorrow, and mourned. But the grief following his death was also private, and it is this grief that “Jackie” invites us to observe, in tight close-up. It’s a tough role, to be sure, requiring Natalie Portman to peel back layers upon layers of the protective armor Jackie wore to get to the elusive, real woman. -Joanna Connors
A LA LA LAND
PG-13; for some language. 128 minutes.
Writer-director Damien Chazelle is unapologetic about having his actors suddenly break into song and movements to express their thoughts. He also cast two of Hollywood’s hottest young stars, sexy-girl-next door Emma Stone and brooding Ryan Gosling, who both have music and dance credentials. Stone is an aspiring actress who is enduring audition hell, Gosling is a jazz musician who dreams of opening a jazz club for serious musicians and jazz aficionados. – Julie E. Washington
B+ LION
PG-13; for thematic material and some sensuality. 121 minutes.
“Lion” tells the story (based on true events) of 5-year-old Saroo, who lives in poverty in India in the mid-1980s. One night, he falls asleep on a train and winds up in an orphanage and is adopted by an Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham). Flash-forward 25 years and life seems good for Saroo until he begins obsessing about finding his biological family in India. – Michael Heaton
A MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
R; for language and some sexual content. 135 minutes.
A beautiful film that is tragic and moving. Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, a working-class man (Casey Affleck) is forced to care for his dead brother’s son (Lucas Hedges) in a New England fishing town. – Laura DeMarco
B MOANA
PG, for perio, some scary images and brief thematic elements. 103 minutes.
The newest feature film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, is set in the Pacific Islands. Spunky teenager Moana longs to sail across the wide expanse, but the village chief forbids sailing beyond the reef that surround their island. With voices of Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson. – Julie E. Washington
C+ MONSTER TRUCK
PG; for action, peril, brief scary images and some rude humor. 104 minutes.
Aimed at the under-10 set, “Monster Truck” has several good things going for it, including a couple of big-name actors, exciting car chases and a handful of laughts. Flawless special effects allow the computer-generated squid-thing to interact realistically with humans and trucks. On the other side of the scales, mediocre acting and writing kept the film in the so-so zone. -Julie E. Washington
A MOONLIGHT
R; for violence, depictions of drug use and sexual content. 111 minutes.
A coming-of-age story like no other, is already being called one of the year’s best movies. It unfolds in three distinct sections that illuminate stages in Chiron’s growth living in Miami. Writer-director Barry Jenkins cast three mostly unknown actors – Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes – to portray Chiron over two decades. Throughout the film, he still longs for meaningful connections, identity and acceptance. – Julie Washington
A PATERSON
R; for language. 118 minutes.
Directed by Jim Jarmusch, Paterson (Adam Driver) wakes up every morning and checks the time on his watch. He pours a bowl of Cheerios and heads out to work with his lunch pail, with sandwiches made by his wife. All day long he drives a city bus, in Paterson, New Jersey. In the evening, he takes the dog for a walk, stops for a beer and chat at the corner bar. Paterson is a man out of his time, but his quest is timeless. – Laura DeMarco
C+ PATRIOTS DAY
R; for violence, graphic images, drug use. 130 minutes.
The story of the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon and the search for the two men who planted the bombs that killed three and hurt more than 250. Director Peter Berg, who wrote the screenplay with Matt Cook and Joshua Zeturner, has meticulously re-created everything. But because the events were covered so thoroughly in the news media, this retelling offers nothing new. – Fresno Bee
A ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY
PG; for mild action/peril and some rude humor. 133 minutes.
“Rogue One’s” fast-moving, action-filled story line strikes the right balance between familiar touchstones and new worlds, characters, weapons and spaceships. Set before the events of 1977’s “Star Wars: Episode IV – a New Hope” is heavy on action and moves at a breathless pace. Jyn (Felicity Jones) is valuable to both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. She is the daughter of a reluctant genius who was forced by the Empire to develop the planet-eating Death Star. She has been on her own when Imperial troops killed her mother and took her father prisoner. – Julie
C+ SING
PG; for some rude humor and mild peril. 108 minutes.
Directed by Garth Hennings, Illumination Entertainment branches out into the world of all talking, dancing, singing creatures great and small, mashing that up with the wildly popular phenomenon of singing-competition reality show. The result, an amusing riff on genres, a “Zootopio Idol.” With voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and John C. Reilly. – Tribute News Service
B+ SPLIT
PG-13; for disturbing thematic content and behavior, violence and some language. 117 minutes.
The performance of James McAvoy, as a psychologically damaged man who contains 24 different personalities, is worth seeing. He is malevolently magnificent in the role of a severely mentally ill man who kidnaps and confines three teenage girls in an underground lair. Written and directed by M. Night Shayaalan; with Betty Buckley, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jessica Sula and Haley Lu Richardson. – Michael Heaton
C 20th CENTURY WOMEN
R; for sexual material, language, some nudity and brief drug use. 118 minutes.
Writer/director Mike Mills’s tribute to his divorced mother who raised him with the help of a couple other women. Annette Bening plays Dorothea Fields, a quirky, 50-something, chain-smoking single mom struggling to raise her adolescent son. The characters renting rooms in Fields’ large dilapidated house aren’t bad or deplorable in any moral sense. Their intentions are good, but they haven’t the slightest idea how to implement them. Simply put, they are not very interesting people. – Michael Heaton
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