A full post-Oscars week for local releases includes the winner for Foreign Language Film, genre thrillers from Ireland and Japan, and a much-anticipated adaptation of a classic fantasy novel.
Director Ava DuVernay's version of Madeleine L'Engle's
A Wrinkle in Time (pictured) overcomes sluggishness to deliver its empowering message with unsettling visual imagination. The darkly comic thriller
Gringo features some bumpy storytelling but one terrific Charlize Theron performance. More dark humor and some ace technical credits elevate the tale of homicidal high-schoolers in
Thoroughbreds. The story of an alien invasion gets a unique but uneven approach in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's
Before We Vanish. Zombie horror gets a fresh socio-political subtext in
The Cured, but some needed detail is lacking.
Eric D. Snider finds
The Strangers: Prey at Night a motive-less step down from the 2008 original.
Also opening this week, but not screened for press: Thieves use a massive storm as cover for robbing the U.S. Treasury in
The Hurricane Heist.
In this week's feature review, a second look at the Oscar-winning
A Fantastic Woman reveals something a bit less stunning than it appears at first glance.