Film

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 23, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 23, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 23, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 23, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 23, 2014

Lucky Them It’s always a shock to hear a favorite old song, be it “Creep” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and wonder, Holy shit, how did I get so old?!? That’s the dilemma for Seattle music writer Ellie (Toni Collette), 40-ish and sleeping with men too young for her, clinging to print in the Internet age, keeping her CDs when the rest of the world has moved on to Spotify and the cloud. Ellie’s old boyfriend, presumed a suicide in Snoqualmie Falls, wears a very Cobainesque halo. He’s been gone 10 years, which places Ellie in an indeterminate post-grunge limbo. The music may have died; music journalism is certainly dying (cue an old stack of The Rocket Ellie uses for research); and her love life is nearly DOA. Directed by local filmmaker Megan Griffiths (The Off Hours, Eden), Lucky Them is a lightweight, inoffensive formula picture that borrows Seattle as a scenic backdrop; you could say the same about Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, only that film brought a lot more writing talent to our city. Here, the writer is Connecticut journalist/actress Emily Wachtel, and she’ll have to write a few dozen more screenplays before filling even one of Ephron’s pumps. This one limps along like it’s got several pages missing, or was stapled in the wrong order. (R) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Monday, June 23, 2014

Manakamana Placing the camera inside a moving gondola, running up and down the hill to a Nepalese monastery, sounds like a purely formal exercise. Each trip takes about eight and a half minutes; and directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez divide their movie into two halves: uphill journeys and down. It sounds terribly boring, like some kind of a process doc that simply illustrates the world without illuminating it. And yet the film takes on a kind of fascination for its anthropological aspect. Each car carries a little group of strangers (to us), two or three people related in some way: an old married couple, peasants, making a pilgrimage; three more affluent metal-loving teens, evidently from the city, with cell phones and digital cameras to do selfies; a pair of hired musicians who tune their instruments and rehearse; even two Western tourists with SIGG water bottles and Moleskine notebooks. Each vignette is a bit like staring through a one-way mirror at these passengers. (Though again, they’re quite aware the camera is running, and were “cast” for the doc as in any Hollywood feature, as the directors admit.) Would this movie work if, say, filmed inside an elevator at Pacific Place? The claustrophobic intimacy and self-consciousness might not translate; and I’ve never seen any goats at the mall. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Monday, June 23, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

The Dance of Reality Bring on the legless dwarfs, cue the full-frontal nudity, and pass the peyote: Alejandro Jodorowsky has made a new movie. Born in 1929, Jodorowsky was already a veteran of wigged-out experimental theater when he devised El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973), films that crammed together intense violence, spiritual searching, and preposterous grotesquerie-guaranteeing their success as counterculture happenings. (Jodorowsky essentially invented the midnight-movie phenomenon.) His latest is an autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in small-town Chile. There’s something almost heartwarming about the fact that this movie is-for all its zaniness-almost a normal film. Jodorowsky himself appears as the narrator, a dapper man given to trailing aphorisms in his wake. His youthful self (played by Jeremias Herskovitz) is a sensitive lad, coddled by a Rubensesque mother (Pamela Flores, whose dialogue is entirely sung) and bullied by a hard-backed Communist father (Brontis Jodorowsky, the director’s son-he was the kid in El Topo). We witness the father’s macho child-rearing habits and his mission against Chile’s right-wing president, a cause that leads to a long and curious third-act detour including dog shows and political torture. Around this curved spine of plot, Jodorowsky brings in a carnival sideshow, sharp childhood observations, and frequent bouts of on-camera urination. Dance of Reality has its share of mystifying moments. But the overall impression is energetic and imaginative, suggesting that all his past insanity had done wonders for this octogenarian’s creative process. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 N.E. 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 $5-$7 Monday, June 23, 2014

The Discoverers This generous-hearted little indie was actually made before Griffin Dunne popped up as a graying hippie naturopath in Dallas Buyers Club, and he  brings to both films a warm ember of goodwill. When young, he had an exasperated sense of humor-I can’t believe this is happening to me! Thirty years later, a showbiz survivor, all that has happened and more. Playing failed history professor Lewis Birch, now reduced to teaching at a Chicago community college, Dunne has the salted beard and laugh lines of a man who expected the worst and got it. Dragging his two sullen teenagers (Devon Graye and Madeline Martin) to the Idaho home of his disappointed parents, the recently divorced Lewis finds his father (Stuart Margolin, forever Angel on The Rockford Files) is near-comatose with grief at being widowed. He runs off, possibly senile, to join an annual gathering of Lewis and Clark re-enactors (hence Lewis’ own name), who wear buckskin and bonnets, shoot game with muskets, and churn their own butter. Lewis’ kids are eye-rollingly aghast at the family rescue mission, which forces them to join the corny charade. Writer/director Justin Schwarz hews to familiar themes and family conflicts in his debut feature. The Discoverers feels like a lot of indies you’ve seen before, only milder and more forgiving. Lewis, like his namesake, is still the idealist who believes in a grand, inclusive America (read: Birch clan). It’s an old-fashioned vision that, like the movie, is hard to dislike. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 23, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 23, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 23, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Monday, June 23, 2014

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Silent Movie Mondays Organist Jim Riggs plays a live score for The WInd, starring Lillian Gish as a woman unraveling on the prairie. Victor Sjostrom directs the still affecting picture from 1928. (NR)

The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $5-$10 Monday, June 23, 2014, 7pm

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The African Queen In The African Queen, you get Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, their little boat, and a very hokey-but very enjoyable-mismatched romance as they careen downriver toward a German gunship. World War I has broken out in Europe, and Hepburn’s spinster is determined to strike a blow for England. Bogart’s drunken river captain wants nothing to do with heroics-he’s like Casablanca’s Rick gone to seed (the part earned him an Oscar). But wouldn’t you know he gradually softens to Hepburn and embraces her cause? Director John Huston shot the 1951 Technicolor picture on location in Africa, where Hepburn got very sick while Huston and Bogart got very drunk. (Also 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.) (NR) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Monday, June 23, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The rather charming heist movie Bottle Rocket (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by the Vegas gambling tale Hard Eight (from Paul) on Wednesday. Both are debut features. (NR)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, June 23, 2014, 7 – 8pm

Under the Skin Yes, this is the movie where Scarlett Johansson gets naked and-playing an alien huntress cloaked in human skin-lures men to their deaths. Let’s get that out of the way early. Adapting a 2000 novel by Dutch writer Michael Faber (not really a sci-fi guy), Jonathan Glazer dispenses with suspense or context. Instead we have process. Aided by some motorcycle-riding minions, Johansson’s unnamed character functions like part of the same hive-mind. She’s more worker bee than killer, a drone programmed to do one particular thing. This consists of driving around Scotland in a white van, calling out to single men with a posh English accent, then leading them back to her glass-floored abattoir. Her victims follow willingly and seem to die painlessly. (Also naked and erect.) Not only is the eerie, affectless Under the Skin not really sci-fi, it’s not really horror, either. Johansson is suitably blank (and gorgeous) for her dispassionate role, with several scenes filmed with ordinary Scots who were unaware of the hidden cameras. Intelligence is here vying with instrumentality. If this alien can question her role, consider her apartness from the hive, might she then have a soul? (NR) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, June 23, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Escape From New York One of the undersung bad-ass screen heroes of the 1980s, Snake Plissken gave Kurt Russell a signature role in John Carpenter’s blunt dystopian satire, set in the far off year of 1997. Everyone knows the plot to the 1981 escape movie, in which Snake has to break into prison (i.e. Manhattan) to rescue the same president who’s run our country into the ditch and oppressed the underclass, whose numbers certainly include Plissken and his criminal cohort. (Payback is sweet, so long as you’re paid for it.) Carpenter’s oeuvre generally depends on a no-nonsense, working-class hero fighting a corrupt system-or monsters, as in The Thing, his best pairing with Russell. He and Russell reunited less successfully for 1996’s Escape From L.A. (set in the distant year of 2013), and if ENY isn’t a great movie, it’s the template for a franchise with an iconic hero. Talk of a remake has been swirling for years (to star Gerard Butler? Jeremy Renner? Jason Statham? Tom Hardy?). Mega producer Joel Silver wants to reboot it as a trilogy, natch, since New York itself is an international, salable brand. And who today can’t relate to ENY’s themes of social inequality? Mostly shot in St. Louis, of all places, ENY boasts a supporting cast too weirdly diverse to have been equalled before or since: Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, and Ernest Borgnine. Try matching those players today on IMDb. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Monday, June 23, 2014, 9:30 – 10:30pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Lucky Them It’s always a shock to hear a favorite old song, be it “Creep” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and wonder, Holy shit, how did I get so old?!? That’s the dilemma for Seattle music writer Ellie (Toni Collette), 40-ish and sleeping with men too young for her, clinging to print in the Internet age, keeping her CDs when the rest of the world has moved on to Spotify and the cloud. Ellie’s old boyfriend, presumed a suicide in Snoqualmie Falls, wears a very Cobainesque halo. He’s been gone 10 years, which places Ellie in an indeterminate post-grunge limbo. The music may have died; music journalism is certainly dying (cue an old stack of The Rocket Ellie uses for research); and her love life is nearly DOA. Directed by local filmmaker Megan Griffiths (The Off Hours, Eden), Lucky Them is a lightweight, inoffensive formula picture that borrows Seattle as a scenic backdrop; you could say the same about Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, only that film brought a lot more writing talent to our city. Here, the writer is Connecticut journalist/actress Emily Wachtel, and she’ll have to write a few dozen more screenplays before filling even one of Ephron’s pumps. This one limps along like it’s got several pages missing, or was stapled in the wrong order. (R) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Manakamana Placing the camera inside a moving gondola, running up and down the hill to a Nepalese monastery, sounds like a purely formal exercise. Each trip takes about eight and a half minutes; and directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez divide their movie into two halves: uphill journeys and down. It sounds terribly boring, like some kind of a process doc that simply illustrates the world without illuminating it. And yet the film takes on a kind of fascination for its anthropological aspect. Each car carries a little group of strangers (to us), two or three people related in some way: an old married couple, peasants, making a pilgrimage; three more affluent metal-loving teens, evidently from the city, with cell phones and digital cameras to do selfies; a pair of hired musicians who tune their instruments and rehearse; even two Western tourists with SIGG water bottles and Moleskine notebooks. Each vignette is a bit like staring through a one-way mirror at these passengers. (Though again, they’re quite aware the camera is running, and were “cast” for the doc as in any Hollywood feature, as the directors admit.) Would this movie work if, say, filmed inside an elevator at Pacific Place? The claustrophobic intimacy and self-consciousness might not translate; and I’ve never seen any goats at the mall. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Dance of Reality Bring on the legless dwarfs, cue the full-frontal nudity, and pass the peyote: Alejandro Jodorowsky has made a new movie. Born in 1929, Jodorowsky was already a veteran of wigged-out experimental theater when he devised El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973), films that crammed together intense violence, spiritual searching, and preposterous grotesquerie-guaranteeing their success as counterculture happenings. (Jodorowsky essentially invented the midnight-movie phenomenon.) His latest is an autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in small-town Chile. There’s something almost heartwarming about the fact that this movie is-for all its zaniness-almost a normal film. Jodorowsky himself appears as the narrator, a dapper man given to trailing aphorisms in his wake. His youthful self (played by Jeremias Herskovitz) is a sensitive lad, coddled by a Rubensesque mother (Pamela Flores, whose dialogue is entirely sung) and bullied by a hard-backed Communist father (Brontis Jodorowsky, the director’s son-he was the kid in El Topo). We witness the father’s macho child-rearing habits and his mission against Chile’s right-wing president, a cause that leads to a long and curious third-act detour including dog shows and political torture. Around this curved spine of plot, Jodorowsky brings in a carnival sideshow, sharp childhood observations, and frequent bouts of on-camera urination. Dance of Reality has its share of mystifying moments. But the overall impression is energetic and imaginative, suggesting that all his past insanity had done wonders for this octogenarian’s creative process. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 N.E. 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 $5-$7 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Discoverers This generous-hearted little indie was actually made before Griffin Dunne popped up as a graying hippie naturopath in Dallas Buyers Club, and he  brings to both films a warm ember of goodwill. When young, he had an exasperated sense of humor-I can’t believe this is happening to me! Thirty years later, a showbiz survivor, all that has happened and more. Playing failed history professor Lewis Birch, now reduced to teaching at a Chicago community college, Dunne has the salted beard and laugh lines of a man who expected the worst and got it. Dragging his two sullen teenagers (Devon Graye and Madeline Martin) to the Idaho home of his disappointed parents, the recently divorced Lewis finds his father (Stuart Margolin, forever Angel on The Rockford Files) is near-comatose with grief at being widowed. He runs off, possibly senile, to join an annual gathering of Lewis and Clark re-enactors (hence Lewis’ own name), who wear buckskin and bonnets, shoot game with muskets, and churn their own butter. Lewis’ kids are eye-rollingly aghast at the family rescue mission, which forces them to join the corny charade. Writer/director Justin Schwarz hews to familiar themes and family conflicts in his debut feature. The Discoverers feels like a lot of indies you’ve seen before, only milder and more forgiving. Lewis, like his namesake, is still the idealist who believes in a grand, inclusive America (read: Birch clan). It’s an old-fashioned vision that, like the movie, is hard to dislike. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Tuesday, June 24, 2014

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The African Queen In The African Queen, you get Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, their little boat, and a very hokey-but very enjoyable-mismatched romance as they careen downriver toward a German gunship. World War I has broken out in Europe, and Hepburn’s spinster is determined to strike a blow for England. Bogart’s drunken river captain wants nothing to do with heroics-he’s like Casablanca’s Rick gone to seed (the part earned him an Oscar). But wouldn’t you know he gradually softens to Hepburn and embraces her cause? Director John Huston shot the 1951 Technicolor picture on location in Africa, where Hepburn got very sick while Huston and Bogart got very drunk. (Also 3 p.m. Sat.-Sun.) (NR) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The rather charming heist movie Bottle Rocket (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by the Vegas gambling tale Hard Eight (from Paul) on Wednesday. Both are debut features. (NR)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Escape From New York One of the undersung bad-ass screen heroes of the 1980s, Snake Plissken gave Kurt Russell a signature role in John Carpenter’s blunt dystopian satire, set in the far off year of 1997. Everyone knows the plot to the 1981 escape movie, in which Snake has to break into prison (i.e. Manhattan) to rescue the same president who’s run our country into the ditch and oppressed the underclass, whose numbers certainly include Plissken and his criminal cohort. (Payback is sweet, so long as you’re paid for it.) Carpenter’s oeuvre generally depends on a no-nonsense, working-class hero fighting a corrupt system-or monsters, as in The Thing, his best pairing with Russell. He and Russell reunited less successfully for 1996’s Escape From L.A. (set in the distant year of 2013), and if ENY isn’t a great movie, it’s the template for a franchise with an iconic hero. Talk of a remake has been swirling for years (to star Gerard Butler? Jeremy Renner? Jason Statham? Tom Hardy?). Mega producer Joel Silver wants to reboot it as a trilogy, natch, since New York itself is an international, salable brand. And who today can’t relate to ENY’s themes of social inequality? Mostly shot in St. Louis, of all places, ENY boasts a supporting cast too weirdly diverse to have been equalled before or since: Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, and Ernest Borgnine. Try matching those players today on IMDb. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Tuesday, June 24, 2014, 9:30 – 10:30pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Lucky Them It’s always a shock to hear a favorite old song, be it “Creep” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and wonder, Holy shit, how did I get so old?!? That’s the dilemma for Seattle music writer Ellie (Toni Collette), 40-ish and sleeping with men too young for her, clinging to print in the Internet age, keeping her CDs when the rest of the world has moved on to Spotify and the cloud. Ellie’s old boyfriend, presumed a suicide in Snoqualmie Falls, wears a very Cobainesque halo. He’s been gone 10 years, which places Ellie in an indeterminate post-grunge limbo. The music may have died; music journalism is certainly dying (cue an old stack of The Rocket Ellie uses for research); and her love life is nearly DOA. Directed by local filmmaker Megan Griffiths (The Off Hours, Eden), Lucky Them is a lightweight, inoffensive formula picture that borrows Seattle as a scenic backdrop; you could say the same about Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, only that film brought a lot more writing talent to our city. Here, the writer is Connecticut journalist/actress Emily Wachtel, and she’ll have to write a few dozen more screenplays before filling even one of Ephron’s pumps. This one limps along like it’s got several pages missing, or was stapled in the wrong order. (R) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Manakamana Placing the camera inside a moving gondola, running up and down the hill to a Nepalese monastery, sounds like a purely formal exercise. Each trip takes about eight and a half minutes; and directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez divide their movie into two halves: uphill journeys and down. It sounds terribly boring, like some kind of a process doc that simply illustrates the world without illuminating it. And yet the film takes on a kind of fascination for its anthropological aspect. Each car carries a little group of strangers (to us), two or three people related in some way: an old married couple, peasants, making a pilgrimage; three more affluent metal-loving teens, evidently from the city, with cell phones and digital cameras to do selfies; a pair of hired musicians who tune their instruments and rehearse; even two Western tourists with SIGG water bottles and Moleskine notebooks. Each vignette is a bit like staring through a one-way mirror at these passengers. (Though again, they’re quite aware the camera is running, and were “cast” for the doc as in any Hollywood feature, as the directors admit.) Would this movie work if, say, filmed inside an elevator at Pacific Place? The claustrophobic intimacy and self-consciousness might not translate; and I’ve never seen any goats at the mall. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Dance of Reality Bring on the legless dwarfs, cue the full-frontal nudity, and pass the peyote: Alejandro Jodorowsky has made a new movie. Born in 1929, Jodorowsky was already a veteran of wigged-out experimental theater when he devised El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973), films that crammed together intense violence, spiritual searching, and preposterous grotesquerie-guaranteeing their success as counterculture happenings. (Jodorowsky essentially invented the midnight-movie phenomenon.) His latest is an autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in small-town Chile. There’s something almost heartwarming about the fact that this movie is-for all its zaniness-almost a normal film. Jodorowsky himself appears as the narrator, a dapper man given to trailing aphorisms in his wake. His youthful self (played by Jeremias Herskovitz) is a sensitive lad, coddled by a Rubensesque mother (Pamela Flores, whose dialogue is entirely sung) and bullied by a hard-backed Communist father (Brontis Jodorowsky, the director’s son-he was the kid in El Topo). We witness the father’s macho child-rearing habits and his mission against Chile’s right-wing president, a cause that leads to a long and curious third-act detour including dog shows and political torture. Around this curved spine of plot, Jodorowsky brings in a carnival sideshow, sharp childhood observations, and frequent bouts of on-camera urination. Dance of Reality has its share of mystifying moments. But the overall impression is energetic and imaginative, suggesting that all his past insanity had done wonders for this octogenarian’s creative process. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 N.E. 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 $5-$7 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Discoverers This generous-hearted little indie was actually made before Griffin Dunne popped up as a graying hippie naturopath in Dallas Buyers Club, and he  brings to both films a warm ember of goodwill. When young, he had an exasperated sense of humor-I can’t believe this is happening to me! Thirty years later, a showbiz survivor, all that has happened and more. Playing failed history professor Lewis Birch, now reduced to teaching at a Chicago community college, Dunne has the salted beard and laugh lines of a man who expected the worst and got it. Dragging his two sullen teenagers (Devon Graye and Madeline Martin) to the Idaho home of his disappointed parents, the recently divorced Lewis finds his father (Stuart Margolin, forever Angel on The Rockford Files) is near-comatose with grief at being widowed. He runs off, possibly senile, to join an annual gathering of Lewis and Clark re-enactors (hence Lewis’ own name), who wear buckskin and bonnets, shoot game with muskets, and churn their own butter. Lewis’ kids are eye-rollingly aghast at the family rescue mission, which forces them to join the corny charade. Writer/director Justin Schwarz hews to familiar themes and family conflicts in his debut feature. The Discoverers feels like a lot of indies you’ve seen before, only milder and more forgiving. Lewis, like his namesake, is still the idealist who believes in a grand, inclusive America (read: Birch clan). It’s an old-fashioned vision that, like the movie, is hard to dislike. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Wednesday, June 25, 2014

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Escape From New York One of the undersung bad-ass screen heroes of the 1980s, Snake Plissken gave Kurt Russell a signature role in John Carpenter’s blunt dystopian satire, set in the far off year of 1997. Everyone knows the plot to the 1981 escape movie, in which Snake has to break into prison (i.e. Manhattan) to rescue the same president who’s run our country into the ditch and oppressed the underclass, whose numbers certainly include Plissken and his criminal cohort. (Payback is sweet, so long as you’re paid for it.) Carpenter’s oeuvre generally depends on a no-nonsense, working-class hero fighting a corrupt system-or monsters, as in The Thing, his best pairing with Russell. He and Russell reunited less successfully for 1996’s Escape From L.A. (set in the distant year of 2013), and if ENY isn’t a great movie, it’s the template for a franchise with an iconic hero. Talk of a remake has been swirling for years (to star Gerard Butler? Jeremy Renner? Jason Statham? Tom Hardy?). Mega producer Joel Silver wants to reboot it as a trilogy, natch, since New York itself is an international, salable brand. And who today can’t relate to ENY’s themes of social inequality? Mostly shot in St. Louis, of all places, ENY boasts a supporting cast too weirdly diverse to have been equalled before or since: Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, and Ernest Borgnine. Try matching those players today on IMDb. (R) BRIAN MILLER Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$8 Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 9:30 – 10:30pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, June 26, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, June 26, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, June 26, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, June 26, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, June 26, 2014

Lucky Them It’s always a shock to hear a favorite old song, be it “Creep” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and wonder, Holy shit, how did I get so old?!? That’s the dilemma for Seattle music writer Ellie (Toni Collette), 40-ish and sleeping with men too young for her, clinging to print in the Internet age, keeping her CDs when the rest of the world has moved on to Spotify and the cloud. Ellie’s old boyfriend, presumed a suicide in Snoqualmie Falls, wears a very Cobainesque halo. He’s been gone 10 years, which places Ellie in an indeterminate post-grunge limbo. The music may have died; music journalism is certainly dying (cue an old stack of The Rocket Ellie uses for research); and her love life is nearly DOA. Directed by local filmmaker Megan Griffiths (The Off Hours, Eden), Lucky Them is a lightweight, inoffensive formula picture that borrows Seattle as a scenic backdrop; you could say the same about Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, only that film brought a lot more writing talent to our city. Here, the writer is Connecticut journalist/actress Emily Wachtel, and she’ll have to write a few dozen more screenplays before filling even one of Ephron’s pumps. This one limps along like it’s got several pages missing, or was stapled in the wrong order. (R) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Thursday, June 26, 2014

Manakamana Placing the camera inside a moving gondola, running up and down the hill to a Nepalese monastery, sounds like a purely formal exercise. Each trip takes about eight and a half minutes; and directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez divide their movie into two halves: uphill journeys and down. It sounds terribly boring, like some kind of a process doc that simply illustrates the world without illuminating it. And yet the film takes on a kind of fascination for its anthropological aspect. Each car carries a little group of strangers (to us), two or three people related in some way: an old married couple, peasants, making a pilgrimage; three more affluent metal-loving teens, evidently from the city, with cell phones and digital cameras to do selfies; a pair of hired musicians who tune their instruments and rehearse; even two Western tourists with SIGG water bottles and Moleskine notebooks. Each vignette is a bit like staring through a one-way mirror at these passengers. (Though again, they’re quite aware the camera is running, and were “cast” for the doc as in any Hollywood feature, as the directors admit.) Would this movie work if, say, filmed inside an elevator at Pacific Place? The claustrophobic intimacy and self-consciousness might not translate; and I’ve never seen any goats at the mall. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$11 Thursday, June 26, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Dance of Reality Bring on the legless dwarfs, cue the full-frontal nudity, and pass the peyote: Alejandro Jodorowsky has made a new movie. Born in 1929, Jodorowsky was already a veteran of wigged-out experimental theater when he devised El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973), films that crammed together intense violence, spiritual searching, and preposterous grotesquerie-guaranteeing their success as counterculture happenings. (Jodorowsky essentially invented the midnight-movie phenomenon.) His latest is an autobiographical look at the filmmaker’s youth in small-town Chile. There’s something almost heartwarming about the fact that this movie is-for all its zaniness-almost a normal film. Jodorowsky himself appears as the narrator, a dapper man given to trailing aphorisms in his wake. His youthful self (played by Jeremias Herskovitz) is a sensitive lad, coddled by a Rubensesque mother (Pamela Flores, whose dialogue is entirely sung) and bullied by a hard-backed Communist father (Brontis Jodorowsky, the director’s son-he was the kid in El Topo). We witness the father’s macho child-rearing habits and his mission against Chile’s right-wing president, a cause that leads to a long and curious third-act detour including dog shows and political torture. Around this curved spine of plot, Jodorowsky brings in a carnival sideshow, sharp childhood observations, and frequent bouts of on-camera urination. Dance of Reality has its share of mystifying moments. But the overall impression is energetic and imaginative, suggesting that all his past insanity had done wonders for this octogenarian’s creative process. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 N.E. 50th St, Seattle, WA 98105 $5-$7 Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Discoverers This generous-hearted little indie was actually made before Griffin Dunne popped up as a graying hippie naturopath in Dallas Buyers Club, and he  brings to both films a warm ember of goodwill. When young, he had an exasperated sense of humor-I can’t believe this is happening to me! Thirty years later, a showbiz survivor, all that has happened and more. Playing failed history professor Lewis Birch, now reduced to teaching at a Chicago community college, Dunne has the salted beard and laugh lines of a man who expected the worst and got it. Dragging his two sullen teenagers (Devon Graye and Madeline Martin) to the Idaho home of his disappointed parents, the recently divorced Lewis finds his father (Stuart Margolin, forever Angel on The Rockford Files) is near-comatose with grief at being widowed. He runs off, possibly senile, to join an annual gathering of Lewis and Clark re-enactors (hence Lewis’ own name), who wear buckskin and bonnets, shoot game with muskets, and churn their own butter. Lewis’ kids are eye-rollingly aghast at the family rescue mission, which forces them to join the corny charade. Writer/director Justin Schwarz hews to familiar themes and family conflicts in his debut feature. The Discoverers feels like a lot of indies you’ve seen before, only milder and more forgiving. Lewis, like his namesake, is still the idealist who believes in a grand, inclusive America (read: Birch clan). It’s an old-fashioned vision that, like the movie, is hard to dislike. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, June 26, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Thursday, June 26, 2014

Bobcat Goldthwait The sasquatch, and sasquatch hunters, have given rise to an entire subgenre of movies-few of them overt horror flicks. At SIFF ‘11, we had Letters From the Big Man; and Harry and the Hendersons remains a fond staple of the VHS era. Now comedian-turned-director Goldthwait adds Willow Creek to the hairy canon, as two would-be filmmakers try to make a documentary about Bigfoot. Their stumbling project seems like a lark, some sort of YouTube stunt for the sasquatch-believing Jim (Bryce Johnson). His more skeptical, reluctant girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) is mainly trying to preserve their relationship. “We can believe in different things and still be a couple,” she says without much confidence. Their efforts to interview the locals have a certain Guffmanesque quality; once they get into the woods, however, things take a Blair Witch turn. Goldthwait and his two stars will attend the screening. Following their Q&A is Goldthwait’s 2009 dark comedy World’s Greatest Dad, filmed here in Seattle, with Robin Williams as a grieving parent who finally finds success as a writer after faking his late son’s memoir. He’s a guy, like the sasquatch hunters, undone by misplaced ambition. In both movies, a supposedly creative endeavor spins disastrously out of control. (NR) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $10-$15 Thursday, June 26, 2014, 7 – 8pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, June 27, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, June 27, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, June 27, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, June 27, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, June 27, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, June 27, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, June 27, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Friday, June 27, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Friday, June 27, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, June 27, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Friday, June 27, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, June 27, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, June 27, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Friday, June 27, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Saturday, June 28, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Saturday, June 28, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, June 28, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, June 28, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, June 28, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, June 28, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, June 28, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Saturday, June 28, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Saturday, June 28, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Saturday, June 28, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, June 28, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Saturday, June 28, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Sunday, June 29, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Sunday, June 29, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, June 29, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, June 29, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, June 29, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, June 29, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, June 29, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Sunday, June 29, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Sunday, June 29, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Sunday, June 29, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, June 29, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Sunday, June 29, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, June 30, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, June 30, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 30, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 30, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 30, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 30, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 30, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Monday, June 30, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Monday, June 30, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, June 30, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Monday, June 30, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 30, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, June 30, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Monday, June 30, 2014

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Finding Vivian Maier The biggest discovery of 20th-century photography was made in 2007 by Chicago flea-market maven/historian John Maloof. Vivian Maier was a nanny who died soon thereafter, indigent and mentally ill, a hoarder. Maloof bought trunks of her negatives with no idea what they contained. The revelation of those images, in a series of art shows and books, immediately placed her in the front rank of street photographers like Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand. But who the hell was she? Now Maloof and Charlie Siskel have directed a kind of documentary detective story about the enigmatic spinster (1926-2009). It’s an irresistible quest, as Maloof interviews the now-grown kids Maier cared for, plus a few fleeting friends and acquaintances, who had no idea of her gifts. Maier was almost pathologically secretive (“sort of a spy,” she said), but all photographers hide behind the camera. Would she have wanted her images seen by the public? Maloof conclusively answers that question. Would she have wanted his movie to be made? All her grown charges say the same: No. (NR) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, June 30, 2014, 7 – 8pm

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Silent Movie Mondays Organist Jim Riggs plays a live score for Show People, starring Marion Davies, with half of Hollywood dropping by for cameos. All programs include shorts and post-film discussions. (NR)

The Paramount, 911 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101 $5-$10 Monday, June 30, 2014, 7pm

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The rather charming heist movie Bottle Rocket (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by the Vegas gambling tale Hard Eight (from Paul) on Wednesday. Both are debut features. (NR)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, June 30, 2014, 7 – 8pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Tuesday, July 1, 2014

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The rather charming heist movie Bottle Rocket (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by the Vegas gambling tale Hard Eight (from Paul) on Wednesday. Both are debut features. (NR)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 7 – 8pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 2, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Wednesday, July 2, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 2, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Wednesday, July 2, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, July 3, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, July 3, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 3, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 3, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 3, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 3, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 3, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine??s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Thursday, July 3, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Thursday, July 3, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 3, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Thursday, July 3, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 3, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 3, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Thursday, July 3, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 4, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 4, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 4, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 4, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Friday, July 4, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Friday, July 4, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Saturday, July 5, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Saturday, July 5, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, July 5, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, July 5, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, July 5, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, July 5, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, July 5, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Saturday, July 5, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Saturday, July 5, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Saturday, July 5, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Saturday, July 5, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, July 5, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Saturday, July 5, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Saturday, July 5, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Sunday, July 6, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Sunday, July 6, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, July 6, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, July 6, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, July 6, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, July 6, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, July 6, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Sunday, July 6, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Sunday, July 6, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Sunday, July 6, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Sunday, July 6, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, July 6, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Sunday, July 6, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Sunday, July 6, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, July 7, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Monday, July 7, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, July 7, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, July 7, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, July 7, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, July 7, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, July 7, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Monday, July 7, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Monday, July 7, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Monday, July 7, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Monday, July 7, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, July 7, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Monday, July 7, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Monday, July 7, 2014

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The rather charming heist movie Bottle Rocket (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by the Vegas gambling tale Hard Eight (from Paul) on Wednesday. Both are debut features. (NR)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Monday, July 7, 2014, 7 – 8pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Tuesday, July 8, 2014

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The Magnificent Andersons This series salutes the unlikely duo of Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. The rather charming heist movie Bottle Rocket (from Wes) plays Tuesday, followed by the Vegas gambling tale Hard Eight (from Paul) on Wednesday. Both are debut features. (NR)

SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St. (Seattle Center), Seattle, WA 98109 $6-$11 Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 7 – 8pm

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Wednesday, July 9, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 9, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Wednesday, July 9, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, July 10, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Thursday, July 10, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 10, 2014

Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form-his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama also some alarming shifts in tone-suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part-momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 10, 2014

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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead-but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah-he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman-he did the first Bourne picture-understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 10, 2014

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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew-an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (Rated PG-13, also plays at SIFF Cinema Uptown.) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 10, 2014

Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 10, 2014

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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does-winningly, amusingly, credibly-is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy-caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office-as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Thursday, July 10, 2014

Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful-you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer-who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Thursday, July 10, 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier-the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson-all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, 911 N.E. 50th St., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ‘04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Guild 45th, 2115 N. 45th St., Seattle, WA, 98103 $10.50 Thursday, July 10, 2014

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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie-more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair-The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker-a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Price varies Thursday, July 10, 2014

Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter-also loaded with charisma-whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit, 807 E. Roy St., Seattle, WA 98102 $10.50 Thursday, July 10, 2014

22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case,  college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, July 11, 2014

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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins-one black, one white-never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society-but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres-the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality-and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Yes, there are suitors for both girls; and yes, there are rash proposals, teary confidences, concerned aunts, unexpected inheritances, and significant walks in the park. Yet Dido’s slavery-equality dilemma deepens the usual courtship complications. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) BRIAN MILLER Varsity Theatre, 4329 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 $10.50 Friday, July 11, 2014

Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism-apart from the constant Twitter plugs-is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene-but no, he’s only there to help. And even Oliver Platt, as the churlish food critic who becomes involved in a Twitter war with Carl, turns out to be a decent guy, not an asshole at all. (Wait, what?) So what are the obstacles here? There are none. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. It even adds a road trip-Miami to L.A.-and a wedding as extra toppings. Just expect no salt. (R) BRIAN MILLER Sundance Cinemas, 4500 9th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Call for price Friday, July 11, 2014