By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
In Amarillo theaters this week: Two of 2017's most well-regarded dramas hit screens, as does a Lyndon Baines Johnson biopic and some favorite holiday movies.
New in theaters
Lady Bird
Freshly named the best-reviewed movie ever on Rotten Tomatoes, Lady Bird is a coming-of-age drama about a young woman (Saorise Ronan, Brooklyn) in the early 2000s trying to find herself by rebelling against her Catholic school and her mother (Laurie Metcalf). It's not about the former First Lady; see below for her. "Lady Bird" is the whimsical nickname Ronan's character has bestowed upon herself as she approaches her senior year in high school, which the audience follows in its ups and (mainly) downs. Writer-director Greta Gerwig's film (her first as a solo director) "finds fresh purchase in well-trodden territory by observing the human carnival from a girl’s point of view," writes Slate's Dana Stevens. "(W)hat might have been a by-the-numbers proposition turns out to be fizzily funny and wistfully affecting, a story whose familiar contours nevertheless contain something utterly original and revelatory," writes the Washington Post's Ann Hornaday. (R for language, sexual content, brief graphic nudity and teen partying; click here for showtimes at Cinemark Hollywood 16, 9100 Canyon Drive)
LBJ
Rob Reiner returns to the director's seat for this biopic focusing on Lyndon Baines Johnson's term as John F. Kennedy's vice-president and his assumption of the presidency following Kennedy's assassination. Woody Harrelson puts on some big honking prosthetic ears to play the famed Texan politician, with Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lady Bird Johnson and Martin Donovan as JFK. As I wrote in my review, LBJ is "just a middle-of-the-road biopic is unfortunate, then, but at least it has Woody Harrelson's fine work as Johnson to boast of." (R for language; click here for showtimes at Premiere Cinemas Westgate Mall 6, 7701 W. Interstate 40)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The ever-formidable Frances McDormand stars in the latest film from Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) as the mother of a murdered daughter whose killer has yet to be found. Frustrated with the slow pace of the investigation, she rents three billboards outside town to shame the town's sheriff (Woody Harrelson) into action. "Three Billboards ... is a character study, even though the parts never stop moving — it’s wildly violent, brilliantly funny and deeply moving. And so smart," writes the Toronto Sun's Liz Braun. (R for violence, language throughout, and some sexual references; click here for showtimes at Hollywood 16)
Special engagements
A Christmas Story
A weekly series of holiday movies continues with this sardonic, nostalgic classic about a boy and his overwhelming desire for a Red Ryder BB gun. It'll screen at noon Saturday at United Artists Amarillo Star 14, 8275 W. Amarillo Blvd. (PG)
White Christmas
The ultimate holiday musical screens at 2 p.m. Sunday and 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday as part of Cinemark's Classics Series at the Hollywood 16. (NR)
Dust 2 Glory
Documentarian Dana Brown explores the Score Baja 1000, one of the toughest desert races in the world, in this follow-up to 2005's Dust to Glory. It'll screen at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Amarillo Star 14. (NR)
Opening Dec. 7
The Disaster Artist, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the hilariously awful film The Room and its one-of-a-kind auteur Tommy Wiseau (played by director James Franco), arrives in the wake of rave reviews. Advance tickets are available at Amarillo Star 14.
Still in theaters
A Bad Moms Christmas (AS-14, H-16); Coco (AS-14, H-16); Daddy's Home 2 (AS-14, H-16) Despicable Me 3 (WM-6); The Foreigner (WM-6); It (WM-6); Justice League (AS-14, H-16); The Lego Ninjago Movie (WM-6); Murder on the Orient Express (AS-14, H-16); My Little Pony: The Movie (WM-6); Roman J. Israel, Esq. (AS-14, H-16); The Star (AS-14, H-16); Thor: Ragnarok (AS-14, H-16); and Wonder (AS-14, H-16). (Click on titles for my reviews and on theaters for showtimes.)
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and on Facebook.
