Here are selected capsule reviews of movies in current release.
– = New this week
– Notting Hill (star) (star) (star) 1/2
Hugh Grant plays a humble bookseller who ends up in an improbable relationship with a starlet (Julia Roberts). This is a romantic comedy that just flat-out works. It’s funny, sympathetic, mostly smart, and it boasts a likable cast of characters led by two performers who have star power and know how to use it. PG-13. 2:05. — M.C.
– The Thirteenth Floor (star) 1/2
Another weak sci-fi thriller with a maddeningly denmse plot about the blurring boundaries between reality and a computer game. What really confused me was why everyone gets all upset at the news that they’re part of a game. People in Hollywood live with this fact every day, and no one seems to mind. R. 1:40. — B.S.
– Three Seasons (star) (star) (star) 1/2
“Three Seasons” works an unconventional kind of magic. You don’t just watch this movie; you feel it with all your senses. It’s a Vietnamese-language film that illuminates — often with much beauty — the old and new cultural forces at odds in modern Saigon. PG-13. 1:53. — M.C.
– The Winslow Boy (star) (star) (star)
David Mamet’s adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s 1946 play, about the patriarch of an upper-class English family in 1912 who fights the political establishment to clear the sullied name of his 13 year-old son. Despite some theatrical devices that bog the story down at the end, this good-looking film is a pleasure to watch. G. 1:50. — J.P.
