Movie guide: 'Smallfoot,' 'Night School,' 'Sisters Brothers' opening this weekend

Movies in theaters the week of Sept. 28

Four stars: superior. Three stars: good. Two stars: average. One star: poor. D (drug use), L (language), N (nudity), S (sexual situations, references), V (violence). Ratings by Film Critic Dann Gire, unless otherwise noted.

Opening this week

"Blaze" - Ethan Hawke directs an absorbing film about the promising but self-sabotaging career of the late musician Blaze Foley (masterfully played by Ben Dickey) and his wife Sybil Rosen (Alia Shawkat). The biopic benefits from grounded performances, Hawke's sensitive direction and on-point musical performances. Reviewed by Ann Hornaday. (R) D, L, S. 128 minutes.   

"The Children Act" - Emma Thompson plays God with convincing aplomb in this understated, superbly acted adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2014 novel. She stars as a judge who must decide the fate of a teenage leukemia patient whose Jehovah's Witness parents refuse a blood transfusion that could save his life. Reviewed by Ann Hornaday, Washington Post. (R) S. 105 minutes.   

"Colette" - Wash Westmoreland's handsome but too-timid period film stars Keira Knightley as author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, who blazed a relentlessly unconventional path through Belle Epoque Paris, leaving behind a litany of affairs, scandals and dozens of books. Reviewed by Jake Coyle, Associated Press. (R) N, S. 121 minutes.   ½

"Hell Fest" - A masked serial killer stalks a horror-themed amusement park, terrorizing patrons. (R) L, S, V. 89 minutes.

"Little Women" - Louisa May Alcott's classic gets its umpteenth screen adaptation, this one a modern update starring Sarah Davenport as aspiring writer Jo. (PG-13) D. 112 minutes.

"Night School" - A smooth-talking salesman (Kevin Hart) seeking his GED joins a group of misfits in a class presided over by a no-nonsense teacher (Tiffany Haddish). The crude comedy has heart and an important message, but the road to knowledge here passes through bodily fluids. Reviewed by Pat Padua, Washington Post. (PG-13) D, L, S, V. 111 minutes.   ½

"Pick of the Litter" - Five Labrador retriever puppies compete to become guide dogs for the blind in a documentary that piles on the cuteness and generates deep respect for those who train the dogs to be canine superheroes. Not rated, but for general audiences. 81 minutes.    ½

"The Sisters Brothers" - John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix play the title brothers, accomplished hit men following a target during the heights of the Gold Rush. Jacques Audiard's Western is spiked with violence, but there's a sweetness as well. Reviewed by Ann Hornaday. (R) L, S, V. 121 minutes.   

"Smallfoot" - A Yeti (voiced by Channing Tatum), raised in a community where government deceit has kept his massive fellow creatures from knowing that humans exist, befriends a "smallfoot" (James Corden) in a needlessly complicated animated tale that delivers an unexpected lesson in integrity. (PG) 109 minutes.   ½

"Trico Tri Happy Halloween" - A middle-class Hispanic family moves to a Miami house haunted by mischievous ghosts. (NR) 89 minutes.

Picks

"BlacKkKlansman" - Spike Lee's spot-on, politically prescient serio-comedy stars an affable but edgeless John David Washington as a real-life black Colorado Springs cop who infiltrates the local Ku Klux Klan, with the help of a Jewish cop played by Adam Driver. The result is Lee's most accessible, impassioned and go-for-broke work since "Do the Right Thing." (R) L, S, V. 88 minutes.    

"Christopher Robin" - Ewan McGregor stars as the title character in a beautifully composed but unsurprisingly conventional fantasy in which Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood gang set out to save their now grown-up human friend from a bad case of acute adulthood. (PG) 104 minutes.   

"Crazy Rich Asians" - An economics professor from China (Henry Golding) brings his girlfriend (Constance Wu) to Singapore for a friend's wedding and to meet his parents. She's shocked to find out they're multimillionaires. The hotly anticipated rom-com, featuring an all-Asian cast, does not disappoint. Reviewed by Ann Hornaday, Washington Post. (PG-13) L. 121 minutes.   

"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" - The incandescent Lily James plays a younger Donna (Meryl Streep) during an eventful summer where she meets (and sleeps with) the three men who could be the father of her daughter (Amanda Seyfried). It's a ridiculous yet fun romp soundtracked by ABBA. Reviewed by Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press. (PG-13) S. 114 minutes.   

"Mission: Impossible - Fallout" - Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the Impossible Missions Force must recover three stolen plutonium cores that an arms dealer and a terrorist group intend to use to target the world's holiest of places. Cruise blows way past James Bond for sheer athleticism and astonishing stunts in this tightly wound thriller. (PG-13) L, V. 147 minutes.    ½

"The Nun" - This fifth installment of "The Conjuring" series tells the origin story of demon nun Valek. This time, our protagonist is Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a novitiate who is dispatched by the Vatican, along with Father Burke (Demian Bichir), to a remote Romanian abbey where a young nun has just hung herself. Reviewed by Jake Coyle, Associated Press. (R) V. 96 minutes.   

"Puzzle" - Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald brings quiet radiance and sly humor to her role as a Connecticut homemaker who discovers a talent for jigsaw puzzles and enters a tournament with an idiosyncratic man, played with seductive fun by Irrfan Khan. Reviewed by Ann Hornaday, Washington Post. (R) L. 102 minutes.   

"Searching" - John Cho stars as a desperate father who uses his daughter's computer to search for the missing teen, discovering along the way how little he knew her. Aneesh Chaganty's timely thriller unfolds largely through a single computer screen and depicts how cruel people can be on the web. (PG-13) D, L, S. 102 minutes.   

"The Wife" - Bjorn Runge's sublimely wrought drama captures the complex and contradictory nuances that accompany long-term marriages. Glenn Close stars as the wife of a celebrated author, creating a subtle, astonishing performance worthy of an Oscar nomination. (R) L, S. 100 minutes.    ½

Passables

"Alpha" - Sheer spectacle dominates Albert Hughes' ambitious and flawed prehistoric adventure about the pivotal moment when a man first domesticates a wolf, paving the way for lupines to earn their canine status and work toward the coveted title "Man's Best Friend." With Kodi Smit-McPhee. (PG-13) V. 97 minutes.   ½

"Fahrenheit 11/9" - The latest documentary from agent provocateur Michael Moore attempts nothing short of a magic act: turning despair into hope. He starts off with the question asking how Trump got elected, then moves on to the Flint water crisis, and then to grass-roots activists (David Hogg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) who are impatient for change. Reviewed by Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post. (R) L. 125 minutes.   ½

"The House With a Clock in Its Walls" - As far as kid-centric comic horror goes, Eli Roth's film has everything going for it, outside of originality and cleverness. A young orphan aids his magical uncle (Jack Black) in locating a clock with the power to bring about the end of the world. Cate Blanchett is superb as the stylish sorceress Mrs. Zimmerman. (PG) 104 minutes.   ½

"Life Itself" - Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas and Samuel L. Jackson star in Dan Fogelman's series of five intertwined, overlapping chapters, each brandishing a Hallmark card message of hope and light through the darkest times of sadness and suffering. (R) D, L, S, V. 117 minutes.  

"Lizzie" - The new indie thriller starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart presents a quasi-feminist take on the infamous true story of Lizzie Borden, who may or may not have axed her father and stepmother to death in 1892. Was it a sordid relationship that led to the killings? Reviewed by Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post. (R) V, N, S, L. 106 minutes.  

"The Meg" - Jason Statham stars as a tough-guy deep sea diver in Jon Turteltaub's formula but commercially attractive creature feature about a prehistoric giant shark that turns everything in the ocean into appetizers. (PG-13) L, V. 114 minutes.   ½

"Operation Finale" - Ben Kingsley paints a chilling portrait of Adolf Eichmann in Chris Weitz's post-WWII wannabe thriller about Israeli agents abducting the former Nazi administrator and forcing him to stand trial for his war crimes during the Holocaust. With Oscar Isaac and Nick Kroll. (PG-13) L, V. 109 minutes.   ½

"Peppermint" - Jennifer Garner stars as a mom who learns how to dispatch bad guys in all sorts of gruesome and psychotically theatrical ways to avenge the murders of her husband and daughter by agents of a powerful drug boss in Pierre Morel's cliched, bloody revenge tale. Reviewed by Lindsey Bahr. (R) L, V. 102 minutes.  

"The Predator" - A mercenary (Boyd Holbrook) teams up with an evolutionary biologist (Olivia Munn) and others to battle aliens, but plot and character become collateral damage in a free-for-all of goofy jokes, blood-splattering violence, cluttered visual effects and preposterous stunts. (R) L, S, V. 107 minutes.   ½

"A Simple Favor" - A fashion publicist (Blake Lively) disappears after leaving her son with a friend, a widowed parenting vlogger (Anna Kendrick), in Paul Feig's hybrid of twisty mystery and absurdist comedy. The film, however, makes a better comedy than thriller. Reviewed by Sonia Rao, Washington Post. (R) D, L, N, S, V. 116 minutes.   ½

"White Boy Rick" - A 14-year-old (newcomer Richie Merritt) turns FBI informant to avoid prosecution for selling guns to drug dealers with his father (Matthew McConaughey) in an interesting - and depressing - fact-based crime drama. When he's cut loose, Rick puts his new skills to use as a real drug dealer. Reviewed by Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post. (R) D, L, N, S, V. 110 minutes.   ½

Unpreviewed

"Assassination Nation" - After a malicious data hack, chaos descends and four girls must fight to survive. (R) 110 minutes.

"Hell Fest" - A masked serial killer stalks a horror-themed amusement park, terrorizing patrons. (R) L, S, V. 89 minutes.

"Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation" - The animated monsters set sail on a cruise ship, where Dracula falls for a mysterious captain. (PG) 97 minutes.

"Little Women" - Louisa May Alcott's classic gets its umpteenth screen adaptation, this one a modern update starring Sarah Davenport as aspiring writer Jo. (PG-13) D. 112 minutes.

"Slender Man" - In a small Massachusetts town, a group of friends attempt to prove that Slender Man, of internet lore fame, doesn't exist … until one of them goes missing. (PG-13) L, S. 93 minutes.

"Unbroken: Path to Redemption" - The sequel picks up the true story of Olympian and World War II hero Louis Zamperini as he marries, wrestles with despair and finds faith. (PG-13) V. 98 minutes.

Foreign language

"Batti Gul Meter Chalu" - In Hindi.

"Chekka Chivantha Vaanam" - In Tamil.

"Devadas" - In Telugu.

"The How's of Us" - In Tagalog.

"Manmarziyaan" - In Hindi.

"Nannu Dochukunduvate" - In Telugu.

"Nawab" - In Telugu.

"Pataakha" - In Hindi.

"Stree" - In Hindi.

"Sui Dhaaga" - In Hindi.

"20 Again: Miss Granny"- In Tagalog.

"U Turn" - In Telugu.

"Ya Veremos" - In Spanish.