Bella (PG-13)
Who’s in it: Eduardo Verastegui, Tammy Blanchard
What it’s about: Chef Jose (Verastegui) leaves his post at his brother’s swanky Manhattan restaurant to chase down waitress Nina (Blanchard), who was fired for being late and possibly drunk. Turns out that Nina is really pregnant, and Jose wants to help.
Worth watching? “[The] movie is full of long, melodramatic monologues, meagerly developed motivations and TV-movie staging. The choppy narrative makes the story unnecessarily confusing and largely uninteresting.”
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[ GLENN WHIPP, L.A. DAILY NEWS ]Control (R)
Who’s in it: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton
What it’s about: Ian Curtis goes from obscurity to fame — and self-destruction — as lead singer of the 1970s rock band Joy Division.
Worth watching? “As Deborah Curtis, the woman who marries Ian Curtis, bears his child and suffers his fame almost as much as he does, Samantha Morton again shows why she’s one of her generation’s best actors. …
But it is Sam Riley, making his movie debut as Curtis, who provides constant revelation. … He makes Curtis’ often-opaque personality so recognizably, palpably human. And, in case you were wondering, the original Joy Division’s music is rendered so perfectly here that you almost can’t tell the difference between the movie’s band and the real group’s recording of ‘Atmosphere’ that accompanies the closing credits.”
[ GENE SEYMOUR, NEWSDAY ]Slipstream (R)
Who’s in it: Anthony Hopkins, Stella Arroyave, Christian Slater, John Tuturro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Camryn Mannheim, Jeffrey Tambor, S. Epatha Merkerson, Fionnula Flanagan, Lisa Pepper, Kevin McCarthy
What it’s about: Screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins) begins to have trouble discerning fantasy from reality in his waking life.
Worth watching? “[Director Anthony] Hopkins’ stream-of-consciousness effort is no less obvious for being a mess.”
[ BOB STRAUSS, L.A. DAILY NEWS ]