By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
Movies opening this weekend in Amarillo include a timely thriller starring George Clooney, horror films with Kevin Bacon and Patrick Stewart, and another visit from Bueller ... Bueller ... Bueller.
Money Monster
A braying, Jim Cramer-like host of a cable financial advice show gets taken hostage on a live broadcast by a conned man who’s mad as hell and not gonna take it any more. George Clooney is the host – who, no surprise, turns out to have a heart of gold – while Jack O’Connell (Unbroken) is the hostage-taker and Julia Roberts is the producer trying to keep everything under control. The Jodie Foster-directed thriller also stars Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe, Giancarlo Esposito and many other familiar faces. Reviews are mostly solid: “Unlike, say, The Big Short, Money Monster is not offering explanation or catharsis. Instead, it supplies a curious sort of comfort. (And also some pretty good laughs along the way.),” A.O. Scott writes for the New York Times. “Corporate bigwigs may be robbing us blind and celebrity pseudo-journalists may be lying to our faces, but as long as there are some old-school movie stars left in the world we can feel a little better about the state of things.” (R for language throughout, some sexuality and brief violence; United Artists Amarillo Star 14, 8275 W. Amarillo Blvd., and Cinemark Hollywood 16, 9100 Canyon Drive)
The Darkness
A teenager (David Mazouz, Gotham) unleashes accident hell when he brings a Native American artifact home from a family vacation in the Grand Canyon. (Reminds me of the time I found a tiki idol in Hawaii and fell off a surfboard, woke up with a giant tarantula on my chest and got trapped in a cave.) Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell star. It wasn’t screened for critics, so enter at your own risk. (PG-13 for thematic elements, some disturbing violence, brief sensuality and language; Amarillo Star 14 and Hollywood 16)
Green Room
Patrick Stewart taps into his dark side in a big, big way in this thriller. He’s Darcy Banker, a white supremacist who owns a backwoods Oregon nightclub where an unsuspecting punk band has just played a gig. The members (including Anton Yelchin and Alia Shawkat) end up seeing something they aren’t supposed to and are trapped backstage by Banker and his henchmen. Reviews are overwhelmingly positive: “(Director Jeremy Saulnier does) everything right: the cast, the music, the editing, the way he leads you one way and then clobbers you (and some of his ill-fated characters) when you (and they) are least expecting it,” writes Steven Rea for the Philadelphia Inquirer. (R for strong brutal graphic violence, gory images, language and some drug content; Amarillo Star 14)
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba
This biopic, the first Hollywood movie to shoot in Cuba since 1959, is based on the true story of a journalist (Giovanni Ribisi) who’s invited to go fishing with Ernest Hemingway (Adrian Sparks) after writing a fan letter to the famed author. Reviews are abysmal: “It’s … an unintentionally hilarious example of biopic gone wrong. … Guns are dandled, suicide is threatened, fish are caught, unwieldy metaphors (a drowning bee, rescued!) are displayed — and through it all, (director Bob) Yari keeps cutting to shots of typewriters, lest we forget that we’re in the presence of a great writer,” writes Moira Macdonald for the Seattle Times. (R for language, sexuality, some violence and nudity; Premiere Cinemas Westgate Mall 6, 7701 W. Interstate 40)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
The ultimate goof-off movie is back in theaters for a 30th-anniversary screening by TCM, screening at 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday at both Amarillo multiplexes. (PG-13)
