Jackie, The Comedian, Things to Come

Jackie

The Comedian

Things to Come (L'Avenir)

Capsules on a light but truly terrible December week of movies:

Elle, Bleed for This, Manchester by the Sea, Nocturnal Animals, The Edge of Seventeen, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Elle

Bleed for This



Manchester by the Sea

Nocturnal Animals



The Edge of Seventeen

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk








Capsules on a mixed week of movies:

Born to be Blue, Valley of Love, I Saw the Light, Take Me to the River

Born to be Blue

Valley of Love



I Saw the Light

Take Me to the River






Capsules on a mediocre week at the movies:

In Another Country

What an odd little movie is Hong Sang-soo’s English/French/Korean hybrid “In Another Country,” which offers only the sparest of intellectual pleasures. A nonsensical two-minute framing device leads into three half-hour stories about a Frenchwoman named Anne staying at a small seaside inn several hours outside of Seoul. In the first, Anne is a successful film director; in the second, a philandering spouse; in the third, a divorcée whose husband has left her for a Korean woman. Isabelle Huppert plays all three Annes, and if it were Eddie Murphy, he’d have demanded they list his name thrice in the credits.

Amour

Powerful, at times wrenching as it plays out, Michael Haneke's Palme D'Or-winning "Amour," about the ravages of partial paralysis and stroke-induced cognitive degeneration on an elderly woman and the husband she's spent her life with, lacks lasting resonance when you realize how little you know about them as people after spending more than two hours with them.