Meadowland, I Smile Back, Suffragette, A Ballerina's Tale

Meadowland

I Smile Back



Suffragette

A Ballerina's Tale



Quick capsules on a mixed week at the movies:

Calvary, A Five Star Life, Alive Inside

Calvary

A Five Star Life



Alive Inside

Irish dialogue (without subtitles) + religious themes = I was never the target audience for "Calvary."

The Company You Keep

What a cast. What a fucking cast. Get this: Robert Redford. Shia LaBeouf. Julie Christie. Susan Sarandon. Nick Nolte. Chris Cooper. Terrence Howard. Stanley Tucci. Richard Jenkins. Brendan Gleeson. Brit Marling. Sam Elliott. Anna Kendrick. Usually only Woody Allen can assemble so many talented actors willing to take scale to work with him, but Redford's called in a lot of chits and the results are enormously entertaining. What a pleasure it is to see every important role in a picture filled by someone with whom we feel an immediate connection and who can be counted on to deliver the goods.

Safe House

There are a few terrific chase sequences in the spy-world thriller "Safe House," especially the first one, a giddy and vertiginous (and totally preposterous) thrill ride through the streets of Johannesburg. There are also a lot of fights: gunfights, knife fights, fistfights. Eh. But what puffs the movie up to two hours are a bunch of long, slow, talky scenes that go nowhere exciting. Ryan Reynolds looks sexy as shit, but lacks the movie-star quality - the heft - of, say, a Matt Damon. Denzel Washington is quietly likable here, but the movie's not as much fun as his recent "Unstoppable." Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard and Vera Farmiga lend solid support as Reynolds' CIA bosses, but the picture plays out predictably and at great length.