Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
A flaccid cash grab
Movies
Ra
Director Maki Mizui’s mini tour-de-fource
Jessabelle
Generic Southern Gothic horror filled with clichés
The Theory of Everything
A brainy bio on Stephen Hawking
Into the Woods
Some magical moments, some missteps
Song One
An intuitive, low-key musical love story
Hana to Alice Satsujin Jiken
A sweet and expressive prequel to Hana & Alice
The Imitation Game
Smartly entertaining biopic on Alan Turing
Chef
A relaxed, slow-food cinematic meal, set to great salsa, R&B and funk music
Nurse 3-D
A witless, self-satisfied, wink-wink, cult-movie-wannabe
Annabelle
Skippable, this is
Predestination
A complex, time-travel mind-messer
Drive Hard
What happened to John Cusack?
Good People
How about Moronic People?
Sharon Van Etten
Torch songs for the indie era
Present For You
Claymation/live-action hybrid about a salesman-turned-hit man
Rudderless
Bar band film that gets knocked off course
American Sniper
Bradley Cooper’s performance is a personal best
The Fault in Our Stars
Earning tears, offering honesty and humor
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her
A powerful cinematic experiment
Last Paradise
Documentary on the genesis of extreme sports
Foxcatcher
Gripping, chilling and deeply sad
KANO: 1931 Umi no Mukō no Kōshien
Over-sentimental, obvious and just too long
Begin Again
A charming film with good music and appealing characters
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
A sloppily-written waste of pixels lacking genuine fun
The Face of Love
An odd movie that makes a maudlin story work
20,000 Days on Earth
An innovative look at a fictitious “day in the life” of Nick Cave
Mortdecai
A Johnny Depp vanity action/mystery/caper flick
Draft Day
Simultaneously convoluted and simplistic drama
Elsa & Fred
Cute in spots but contains no surprises
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Soulless and more than a little dull
Wild Card
Statham fan-pleasing, forgettable pseudo-noir
Sayonara Kabukicho
An ensemble drama featuring ex-AKB48 Atsuko Maeda
What We Do in the Shadows
A laugh-out-loud funny mockumentary
Annie
Never rises above adequate family entertainment
Still Life
Pasolini’s lovingly handmade character study