The following films open today. Where the film is opening is indicated in parenthesis, and if the movie is in four or more local theaters it is noted with “Countywide.” Check your favorite source for theater addresses, movie times and ticket prices.
American Pastoral. Ewan McGregor makes his directing debut in this adaptation of the Philip Roth novel. McGregor also plays Swede Levov, the former high-school-football star whose wife, Dawn (Jennifer Connelly), was the beauty queen. Vietnam War-era married life in the suburbs is swell until their daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning), who grappled with a stutter throughout her youth, joins a group of yippies that bombs the local post office and goes into hiding. Early reviews praised the acting and directing. The script? Not so much. (Edwards Westpark, Irvine)
I'm Not Ashamed. Pure Flix, a Christian indie movie and TV studio based in Scottsdale, Arizona, lifts this drama from the journals of Rachel Joy Scott (Masey McLain), the first victim of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. Mass killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are played by David Errigo Jr. and Corey Chapman, respectively. (AMC Fullerton)
In a Valley of Violence. Written and directed by Ti West, this western stars Ethan Hawke as a PTSD-suffering drifter who rides south to Mexico to escape a mysterious U.S. Army past, lands in a tiny border town where he runs afoul of local law enforcement and sees his beloved pet dog killed before his eyes as he's left for dead. But when he recovers . . . look out! John Travolta co-stars. (AMC Orange 30 at The Outlets)
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Tom Cruise is back as Lee Child's tough-guy former Army MP. Based on Child's 18th novel in the Reacher series, the story has Jack trying to prove the innocence of the head of his old investigative unit, Army Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who has been arrested for treason. In doing so, Reacher uncovers a major government conspiracy. (Countywide)
Keeping Up With the Joneses. Jeff and Karen (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher) are convinced something is up with their new neighbors, the Joneses (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot). He speaks Chinese, she's a master at darts, and both look like movie stars. As you might expect from director Greg Mottola's (Superbad) action comedy, those instincts prove correct. (Countywide)
Ouija: Origin of Evil. It's 1965 Los Angeles. A widow and her two daughters add a Ouija board to their scam séance business, and—viola—pure evil arrives. Made on a micro-budget in 2014, the original Ouija scared up $50.8 million domestically and $100 million worldwide. The plot to the sequel sounds better than the original's. Henry Thomas, Elizabeth Reaser, Doug Jones, Parker Mack, Sam Anderson, Kate Siegel, Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson star. (Countywide)
Silver Skies. Rosemary Rodriguez's dramedy about a group of eccentric seniors having their lives turned upside down due to the sale of their beloved apartment complex touches on ageism, Alzheimer's and elder abuse. George Hamilton, Valerie Perrine, Barbara Bain, Jack McGee, Alex Rocco, Mariette Hartley, Jack Betts and Mr. Johnny fever himself Howard Hesseman star. (Regency Rancho Niguel, Laguna Niguel)
Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween. As usual, Tyler Perry wrote, produced, directed and stars in this Madea franchise film that actually began as a movie-within-a-movie spoof in Chris Rock's Top Five in 2014. Lionsgate later approached Perry about making it into a real film. The story features Madea fending off killers, ghosts, ghouls, zombies and misbehaving teens on Halloween—the ultimate dress-up holiday for the ultimate dressed-up movie character. Bella Thorne, Cassi Davis, Patrice Lovely, Andre Hall and Yousef Erakat co-star. (Countywide)
We Are X. Stephan Kijak’s documentary looks at the rise of glam-metal band X Japan, which formed in Chiba in 1982, attempted to make it in America and performed at a 2014 reunion concert at Madison Square Garden. (Regency South Coast Village, Santa Ana)
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.