A Bigger Splash, The Family Fang, Dark Horse, Viva, Gayby Baby, Memoria

A Bigger Splash

The Family Fang

Dark Horse

Viva

Gayby Baby

Memoria

Five recommendations out of six in a strong week at the cinema:

The Gift, Ricki and the Flash, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Cop Car, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Dark Places

Ricki and the Flash

The Gift



Shaun the Sheep Movie

Cop Car



Diary of a Teenage Girl

Dark Places






Notes on a good week in film:

Penguins of Madagascar, Horrible Bosses 2

Penguins of Madagascar (my rating)

Penguins of Madagascar (Scruffies' rating)

Horrible Bosses 2

Quick capsules on Wednesday’s big Thanksgiving weekend releases:

Disconnect

Henry Alex Rubin's "Crash"-meets-the-Internet roundelay "Disconnect" is slick, watchable, and structurally sound for the first hundred minutes but doesn't know how to end in the last fifteen and winds up with little to say. The three primary interlocking storylines involve cyber-bullying, identity theft, and the exploitation of minors on sexually explicit websites.

Identity Thief

Melissa McCarthy’s genius is allowed out only for short walks in the disappointing new comedy “Identity Thief.” The rest of the time (an overlong 107 minutes), she’s chained to one of the more preposterous, logic-defying plots in recent memory, in which law enforcement in one state shrugs off felonies committed in another, abductees escape from captivity with the ease of Houdini, and the most important people in the life of Jason Bateman’s Sandy Bigelow Patterson treat him as if they’ve never met.