Hail Caesar!, Rams

Hail, Caesar!

Rams (Hrútar)





Capsules as we flip the calendar to February:

Terminator Genisys, Magic Mike XXL, Jimmy's Hall, A Murder in the Park, Amy

Terminator Genisys

Magic Mike XXL



Jimmy's Hall

A Murder in the Park



Amy

Capsule reviews on a mixed week of movies:

Foxcatcher, Beyond the Lights

Foxcatcher

Beyond the Lights

"Foxcatcher" is two and a quarter hours of beautifully mounted artistic images in search of a story.

White House Down, I'm So Excited!, The Heat, The Stroller Strategy

White House Down

I'm So Excited!

The Heat

The Stroller Strategy

"White House Down" is the most preposterous movie of the year. "I'm So Excited!" is by far - and I mean this in the best possible way - the faggiest. "The Heat" has some of the biggest laughs. And "The Stroller Strategy" may be the most witless. Each sits on the cusp of the next lower star rating but reaps the benefit of my Wimbledon-induced, sleep-deprived laxity.

This is the End

I have no problem with in-jokes, or humor about how fabulous it is to be a Hollywood celebrity and not one of the poor saps in the paying audience.

Side Effects

The protean director Steven Soderbergh, whose "sex, lies, and videotape" snuck the Palme D'Or out from under Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" at Cannes in 1987 (earning him a permanent soft spot in my heart), has in the subsequent quarter-century given us terrific films as disparate as "King of the Hill," "Out of Sight," "Traffic," and "Ocean's Eleven." For his self-labeled swan song, though, he's chosen a convoluted and supremely silly thriller that, with its one-car crashes, lesbian therapists, and involuntary institutionalizations, ends up bordering on camp.

10 Years

The high-school-reunion comedy "10 Years" got lost in the shuffle of new releases this weekend, which is a shame. It's an audacious amount of fun, about as good as a movie of its aspirations could be. Sure, some of the cast are old enough that maybe it should have been called "15 Years" (there are a few Gabrielle-Carteris-on-"90210" moments), but you'll be too caught up in its combination of sharp dialogue and sweet nostalgia to mind.

Magic Mike

Some movies must be seen in first run, at a theater full of screaming women (or men, as the case may be). Such is the case with Steven Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike,” which would be much drearier to watch alone at home.

21 Jump Street

I was all set to have a blast watching the movie "21 Jump Street" - a friend had told me it was beyond funny - and it kept feeling like it was about to happen, but it never did. It's a movie where nobody behaves the way a human being would in similar circumstances, so it's essentially absurdist humor, which is very hard to pull off. And it never quite finds its groove for more than a moment at a time; it's an uneasy mix of desperation, the actors flailing about and ever more profanity where the funny lines are supposed to go, and unwarranted nonchalance, as though the set-up were funny enough without worrying about the execution.