Amy Diaz – Page 34

At the Sofaplex 22/01/20

The Tragedy of Macbeth (R)

Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand.

Joel Coen directs and adapts this Shakespeare play starring Brendan Gleeson, Corey Hawkins, Harry Melling and Stephen Root. Washington and McDormand are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, slowly going mad with guilt and paranoia after the murders they commit to become king and queen of Scotland. (Spoiler alert, I guess, if you “read” Macbeth in high school without actually reading it.)

The look of this eerie black and white adaption is probably its most striking feature. It is set in a kind of minimalist world that suggests a vaguely late medieval/early Renaissance Scotland, but in a very modernist clean-lines furniture sort of way. Fog regularly rolls through stark landscapes or brutalist castle ramparts to underscore the evil, corruption and uncertainty of the moment. And if all that sounds a bit much, Washington and McDormand keep the whole thing down on earth with performances that make all that 400-year-old dialogue feel natural. Even if “Shakespeare adaptation” has the ring of homeworkiness about it to it you, this briskly paced, engrossing presentation will, I think, overcome whatever reluctance you might have (yes, this is Shakespeare, but it is also a Coen movie) and is worth a watch. A Available on Apple TV+.

Spencer (R)

Kristin Stewart, Jack Farthing.

Directed by Pablo Larrain, who also directed 2016’s Jackie, which, as I think other critics have noted, feels like very much a part of the same cinematic universe. In both instances, the focus — the sole, almost claustrophobically narrow focus — is the turmoil of a woman wrestling with celebrity and the strains of a seemingly “fairy tale” marriage. In this case, Diana Spencer (Stewart), still the wife of the Prince of Wales, is white-knuckling it through a multi-day family Christmas with Queen Elizabeth (Stella Gonet) and the royal family, including Charles (Farthing), the husband she has clearly become estranged from. She is happy to see her sons (Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry) but otherwise literally sick to her stomach over the visit, frequently throwing up from the pressure. She chafes against the rules, the pre-planned wardrobe picked out and labeled for each meal and event, the many discussions about how open her bedroom curtains are or aren’t. At times, she finds comfort in Maggie (Sally Hawkins), a sympathetic staff member who helps dress her, and in chef Darren (Sean Harris). And, as she works out her feelings about being trapped in this lousy marriage with this stifling family, she occasionally talks to distant ancestor Anne Boylen (Amy Manson), who understands the hurt of your husband giving you the same necklace as he gave his mistress.

As with Jackie, Spencer is more about feeling, the emotions of Diana, the mood of the moment or the tone of different relationships she has, than it is about linear storytelling. Though the action stays in those few Christmas days, she wanders back to her childhood, back through different iconic Diana dresses, into her family’s former house. In some ways this is a movie about the performance of a performance, Stewart doing Diana doing the “Princess Diana TM” shtick with the head tilt and the soft-spokenness but maybe also trying to figure out who she would be if she didn’t do that character anymore. And it’s an interesting watch. I can understand why Stewart has been drawing much awards acclaim. Her Diana is mannered — something I also thought about Natalie Portman’s Jackie Kennedy — but she’s captivating and you feel her getting to the emotion of the character. B Available for rent or purchase.

The Tender Bar (R)

Ben Affleck, Christopher Lloyd.

JR (Daniel Ranieri as a kid, Tye Sheridan as a college student, Ron Livingston as an adult in voiceover) knows his mom (Lily Rabe) isn’t happy when they have to return to live with her parents (Lloyd, Sondra James) on Long Island, but he is delighted. The crowded house is frequently full of cousins and an aunt who, like JR’s mom, leaves and comes back when life doesn’t work out. And his Uncle Charlie (Affleck) is around — taking care of the family and tending bar at his place, The Dickens. Uncle Charlie gives impressionable JR lessons in “man sciences” (things like always have a little stash of money you hold back in your wallet and don’t spend at the bar, open doors for women, take care of your mother) and a community in the bar regulars. He also introduces JR to books — the canon of Dickins, later Orwell, and the like — and helps reinforce JR’s mother’s obsession with his going to an Ivy League college. But while she wants JR to become a lawyer — though not, as everyone jokes, to sue his father (Max Martini), a radio DJ who left them, for child support — JR’s love of Uncle Charlie’s books has him convinced he is going to be a writer.

Directed by George Clooney, The Tender Bar is a very straightforward kind of memoir telling a very straightforward kind of story about a boy growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. It feels a little too simple sometimes for the kind of golden (and awards-seeking) sheen it puts on everything. In this year of Belfast and Licorice Pizza, this take on the coming-of-age story feels a little mustier, a little like something that would feel at home in the theaters of the mid-1990s. The performances are fine — this kind of character feels like the optimistic variation of the one Affleck has played several times before. But while he doesn’t bring much new to the role, it and the movie overall are mildly, benignly interesting. B- Available on Amazon Prime.

Sing 2 (PG)

Voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon.

Also lending their voices to this animated tale are Scarlett Johansson, Tori Kelly, Taron Egerton, Nick Kroll, Garth Jennings, Jennifer Saunders, Chelsea Peretti, Nick Offerman, Eric André, Pharrell Williams, Letitia Wright, Halsey, Bono and Bobby Cannavale doing the villain, a hotel-owning, gold-gilded office-having bully who pronounces “huge” as “U-ge” and maybe the one thing we, as Americans, could all agree on is that we can cool it with that kind of character for a while, huh?

The troop of performance-loving animals returns, still working for showman Buster Moon (McConaughey) in his theater, performing in a song-filled Alice in Wonderland show. When an attempt to take the show to the big city fails, Buster decides to bring the show to the talent-seeking hotel owner Mr. Crystal (Cannavale) anyway. Without intending to, the troop sells him on Gunter’s (Kroll) idea of a space-set jukebox musical, featuring the music of reclusive megastar Clay Calloway (Bono). Crystal wants something even better — Clay himself.

We get a mixed truffles chocolate box full of storylines — some characters working to convince Clay to come back to performing, some characters working out the difficult elements of their roles in the show, some characters dealing with the petulant fragile-egoed only-cares-about-his-image Crystal and his spoiled daughter.

There are a lot of characters and one of them is angry a lot — was an early complaint from one of my kids, who walked away from the movie about 20 minutes in. They seemed bored at points, but enjoyed the music and some of the sillier moments of physical comedy. And they did all wander back to the TV by the end, which features the music and production of the show-within-a-show. I mention these junior reviews in part because to watch this movie you are either going through the process of herding everybody into a movie theater or spending $24.99 for 48-hour VOD rental. Either way, for younger kids, the payout might not be worth the return in terms of kid engagement and enjoyment. My 6-year-olds might be right on the line of kids who have the patience for all of this movie’s scenes of talking and who are old enough for the threats of physical violence from the my-way-at-all-costs Crystal. Because the movie has so many storylines, we don’t get to spend as much time with any one character. As with the first Sing, the music is ultimately the movie’s most compelling star. C+ In theaters and available for rent.

Scream (R)

Scream (R)

Another girl, another ghostface but same old Woodsboro in Scream, the fifth movie in the Scream series, which started way back in the prehistoric days of 1996.

That movie was also called Scream. This Scream, hewing to its meta roots, explains how franchise continuations these days can’t just reboot from zero and they can just be straight sequels, making this a “requel” combo of new blood and legacy characters.

Sure, kids, let’s.

Another Woodsboro high schooler, Tara (Jenna Ortega), answers a landline expecting an acquaintance and instead getting chatted up by an unfamiliar voice about scary movies. Unlike Drew Barrymore during the Clinton administration, Tara isn’t killed, just horribly horribly injured. Her estranged older sister, Sam (Melissa Barrera), returns to Woodsboro to tend to her — with boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid) in tow. Sam explains to Richie that her town has a history with slashers, how every few years some killer puts on a ghostface mask and reenacts the murders of the friends of then-teen Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell), crimes that eventually fed the popular Stab movie series. What she doesn’t tell him right away is that she has a connection to that original spate of murders and she’s afraid that that connection is why her sister was targeted.

When more people are killed, Sam turns to an expert — Dewey Riley (David Arquette). No longer a sheriff and divorced from wife Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), Dewey is reluctant to get involved but, of course, he is eventually drawn in. Naturally, Tara has a friend group and it is through them that we learn the rules of the requel and how Stab (and Scream) is a conscious back-to-basics approach to horror in a world where elevated horror-as-social-commentary entries are getting more of the spotlight.

These are all cute ideas and the movie executes them totally OK-ish-ly. The first Scream made its mark with not just its humor but the way it messed around with the rules of classic horror while also following those rules. There is some of that here, some messing around with our expectations and what a “requel” needs to be, but I feel like there was one extra turn, one extra bit of off-kilter-ness needed to make this pop. When it comes to the legacy characters, the movie makes good use of about half of them. I like the character of Sydney as presented here but the movie seems to run out of things for her to do. Cox’s Gale doesn’t have much to do from the start and really seems like she was inserted just to bring in those streaming-era Friends binge-ers.

Likewise, the new blood, as I’m pretty sure the movie itself calls them, are spunky modern-horror teens similar to the kids from those Netflix horror movies from last fall. Their pre-loaded self-awareness, though, makes their discussions about “who is the killer” and “who is the main character” feel less like a bit of meta cleverness and more like just how these very online kids talk. It is all fine but it did not particularly tickle me with its wit. Barrera, whom I have most recently seen before this in In the Heights, is a good lead, perfectly able to do both the scream queen stuff and the “girl fights back” bits.

This movie is perfectly accessible to fans of the original Scream movies and moviegoers too young to remember them. It goes down smooth, even if it isn’t particularly complex or inventive and doesn’t leave you wanting even a little bit more. C+

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language throughout and some sexual references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett with a screenplay by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick (based on characters by Kevin Williamson), Scream is an hour and 54 minutes long and distributed by Paramount Pictures in theaters.

Featured photo: Scream.

Kiddie Pool 22/01/20

Family fun for the weekend

At the movies

Catch some family-friendly screenings at area Chunky’s Cinema Pubs (707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com) this weekend. On Friday, Jan. 21, the “Little Lunch Date” screening is of Happy Feet (G, 2006). The show starts at 11:30 a.m. and admission is free but reserve seating with purchase of a $5 food voucher.

On Friday, Jan. 21, it’s a “Lights Up, Sound Down” sensory-friendly screening of recent release Sing 2 at 3:45 p.m. Tickets cost $6.49.

And if you’re always on the lookout for kid-friendly screenings, you may want to save the date for a screening of Smallfoot (PG, 2018) on Saturday, Jan. 29, at 10 a.m. at Red River Theatres (11 S. Main St. in Concord; 224-4600, redrivertheatres.org). The event is part of the city’s Winterfest and tickets cost $5.

On the stage

Catch the final performance of the Palace Youth Theatre’s January presentation of Matilda Jr. on Thursday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m. at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588). All of the roles are performed by student actors in grades 2 through 12, according to the website. Call the theater for tickets.

In a book

Jack Dalton, the kid conservationist and 11-year-old author, will read the book Kawan the Orangutan: Lost in the Forest at the Bookery Manchester (844 Elm St. in downtown Manchester; bookerymht.com) on Saturday, Jan. 22, at 11:30 a.m. for storytime and crafts.

In nature

Looking for something to get little ones outside during the week? The New Hampshire Audubon is holding nature outings at the Brockway Nature Preserve in Hopkinton for 3- to 5-year-olds and their parents on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month from 10 to 10:45 a.m. This next session, on Tuesday, Jan. 25, is titled “Who Made that Track?” Admission costs $10 per family and space is limited; go to nhaudubon.org to register.

At the museum

Or get some science indoors on Tuesday at the SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; 669-0400, see-sciencecenter.org) for Storytime Science Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for ages 2 to 5 and their caregivers. Pre-registration is required and space is limited to 10 family units. The program will cover STEM topics through storytelling, movement, experiments and more, according to the website. The program costs $3 in addition to admission, which is $10 for ages 3 to adult and free for kids under 3 years old.

On the court

Catch some UNH basketball live and in person (masked up, according to school rules). The men’s team plays UMass Lowell on Saturday, Jan. 22, at 4 p.m. On Wednesday, Jan. 26, the men’s team will play Maine at 7 p.m. (a game rescheduled from Jan. 12). Also Wednesday, catch the women’s team in their game against Maine at 4 p.m. All games will be played at Ludholm Gym on the UNH campus in Durham. See unhwildcats.com for directions, policies and to buy tickets, which cost $10 general admission, $8 for kids and seniors.

In the kitchen — save the date

Looking to get kids some hands-on kitchen experience but not, you know, in your kitchen? The Culinary Playground (16 Manning St. in downtown Derry; 339-1664, culinary-playground.com) has several upcoming classes for kid-parent teams. While many of the January and February classes have sold out, there are still openings for March and April classes on cinnamon rolls ($58 for a parent-child team, ages 6+), I Love Paris baking class, which includes French macarons ($60 for a parent-child team, ages 8+), and a homemade pasta for cheese ravioli class ($50 for a parent-child team, ages 6+). Call or go online to register.

The 355 (PG-13)

The 355 (PG-13)

A group of bad-ass international spy-type ladies kick some international bad-guy butt in the big bucket of movie theater popcorn that is The 355 — or, at least, that’s the movie I wanted to see.

In actuality, while that description basically holds, The 355 is something less than that. These are all awesome actresses, all in their 40s no less, who all get a chance to kick and punch and throw elbows, taking down countless henchmen. They get to be tough, walk tough, dress tough — and dress fancy during one part of their mission. And yet the movie never revs up. Every time the movie is about to get going, it feels like the energy just dissipates.

CIA agent Mace (Jessica Chastain) and fellow agent (and longtime friend) Nick (Sebastian Stan) are tasked with going to Paris to meet with a rogue Colombian intelligence agent, Luis (Edgar Ramirez), who is looking to sell a tech gizmo that allows anyone (or any government or any terrorist organization) that possesses it unfettered access to any closed system in the world. The drive can down planes, black out cities, unleash nukes, yada yada — you’ve seen variations of this McGuffin before.

Naturally, the CIA isn’t the only interested party. While Mace and Nick pose as a honeymooning couple at a cafe, German intelligence officer Marie (Diane Kruger) is making espressos and waiting for her chance to grab the bag that has the drive. When she does, chaos ensues. Mace chases Marie but doesn’t get her before she’s able to get away — not, Marie is disappointed to learn, with the drive. Nick meets up with a group of baddies seeking the drive and soon Mace finds herself alone and under suspicion. Needing help to track down Luis, she turns to MI6 agent Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o). When they catch up with Luis, they find that not only is Marie still on his trail, but he’s been joined by Graciela (Penelope Cruz), a psychiatrist who works with Colombian intelligence who has been sent to bring Luis back in.

Eventually Graciela, Khadijah, Marie and Mace decide to work together to fight off the bad guys and get the potentially civilization-toppling drive into safe hands. That goal, they learn, is shared by Chinese intelligence agent Lin Mi Sheng (Fan Bingbing).

As I said, all of these actresses are in their 40s (which I mention because it’s just cool to see) and all are credible as strong women with special evil-defeating skills. This should work; I should have run home from the theater having had so much fun that I immediately attempted to pre-order the movie for regular comfort food watching. But this movie lacks the kind of energy, the crackle of fun, that you expect from something with this much potential. Its runtime is just over two hours which feels like too long for what it’s doing, made even draggier by some pokey pacing and some real “who cares” backstories. (There is also something odd about many of Fan Bingbing’s scenes; I spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether she had been green-screened in after the fact. If nothing else, it probably goes to how pasted together the story felt when it comes to putting all the lady spies together.)

That you could guess every single twist and turn is not fatal — I was expecting The 355 to be kinda dumb. Heck, I was looking forward to enjoying a kinda dumb action movie with ladies Jason-Bourne-ing it up. But this movie doesn’t let its formidable cast loose and doesn’t have the internal cleverness to be as smart or as goofy as it needed to be. C+

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, brief strong language and suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Simon Kinberg with a screenplay by Theresa Rebeck and Simon Kinberg, The 355 is two hours and two minutes long and is distributed by Universal Studios in theaters.

Licorice Pizza (R)

A 15-year-old living in the San Fernando Valley in the early 1970s has big dreams — one of which is marrying the 25-year-old photographer’s assistant he meets on school picture day — in Licorice Pizza, which is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, son of frequent Anderson actor the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) has some movie and TV credits on his resume and, despite not yet driving, runs a PR firm with his mother (Mary Elizabeth Ellis). I’m not telling you this to brag, he says to Alana (Alana Haim, of the band Haim), when he first meets her as she’s offering combs and a mirror to high schoolers lining up to get their photos taken. He explains he’s just telling her how he can afford dinner at Tail o’ the Cock, the steakhouse that is his usual Thursday night hangout spot (he does PR for the owner). He invites her to stop by — and Alana both laughs at his chutzpah and is intrigued.

She does stop by, they hang out and she gives him her number — but reminds him that they aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, that such a relationship would be illegal, that he’s just a kid. And yet, she continues to hang out with him. When Gary’s chance encounter with a discount waterbed has him suddenly enter the waterbed business, Alana joins him as his business partner, helping him sell them over the phone and even driving the truck to install one. Later, as she tries to break free of his strange teenage friend group by volunteering for a political campaign, she nevertheless calls on Gary to shoot an ad for the candidate. And that shoot is where he gets the idea to start a pinball parlor — Gary is always on the make, always looking for his next thing. And, he seems perfectly content to look for new girlfriends, even while never letting go of the idea that Alana is the girl he’s going to marry.

Presumably, when he graduates from high school.

Throughout this strange, rambling hang in Encino, we meet real and fictionalized versions of L.A. personalities and showbiz people, from fellow younger actors (played by Skyler Gisondo) and to older stars (played by Christine Ebersole, Sean Penn) to more general Hollywood types (played by Bradley Cooper, Maya Rudolph).

In a movie full of great, fun performances, Cooper Hoffman (18 in real life) and Alana Haim stand out for turning in the loose, natural performances you come to an artier movie hoping for. Even before I realized who Hoffman’s father was, I found myself thinking “this kid has some real Michael Gandolfini energy” — something about him makes you think both of the discipline of the father as well as the rawness of a young actor’s performance.

Haim is equally precisely cast. It feels like a cop-out to just describe her as natural — her sisters here are played by her real-life sisters, her parents are played by her actual parents. But she gives such a round and real performance. Perhaps the highest compliment I could pay is that she feels like a girl in a Sofia Coppola movie, one who feels like a whole complete person, still figuring herself out but living a whole life from the first frame.

I could never completely forget that this movie was asking me to be all “aw, youth” about a (thankfully, fairly chaste) relationship between a 25 (at least) -year-old and a 15-year-old, no matter how precocious he is. You don’t have to think about it (or the gender politics of the situation) too hard for it to all feel icky.

So there’s that.

But then there was the other part of this movie, the one about rotary phones and newspapers the size of tablecloths and Pontiacs and those steakhouse-as-Tudor-pub restaurants (that vaguely call to mind the old style of Pizza Hut) and 1970s-era radio and aging Golden Age of Hollywood stars and a land where everybody is sort of an actor and the look of the warm sun of inland Los Angeles. My feelings about that aspect of the movie aren’t nostalgia, exactly; this all predates me. But Licorice Pizza puts you in a very specific space, and weaves its groovy-man fairy tale in such a way that I felt not just pulled in but charmed by the spirit of it. It made me think about all the times I’ve seen 1950s suburbia or 1950s Brooklyn presented with that same comforting glow of consequence-free misadventures and coming-of-age bravado. Fairy tale feels like the right way to describe all of this, a fairy tale of 1970s southern California.

With a really great soundtrack. A-

Rated R for language, sexual material and some drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza is two hours and 13 minutes long and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures in theaters.

FILM

Venues

AMC Londonderry
16 Orchard View Dr., Londonderry
amctheatres.com

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

Capitol Center for the Arts
44 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, ccanh.com

Cinemark Rockingham Park 12
15 Mall Road, Salem

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

Dana Center
Saint Anselm College
100 Saint Anselm Dr., Manchester, anselm.edu

Fathom Events
Fathomevents.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

LaBelle Winery
345 Route 101, Amherst
672-9898, labellewinery.com

The Music Hall
28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth
436-2400, themusichall.org

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

The Strand
20 Third St., Dover
343-1899, thestranddover.com

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• Licorice Pizza (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord on Thursday, Jan. 13, at 3:30 & 7 p.m.; Friday, Jan. 14, through Sunday, Jan. 16, at 12:30, 3:45 & 7 p.m.; Thursday, Jan. 20, at 3:45 & 7 p.m.

• The Tragedy of Macbeth (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord on Thursday, Jan. 13, at 4 & 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Jan. 14, through Sunday, Jan. 16, at noon & 5 p.m.; Thursday, Jan. 20, at 5 p.m.

• C’mon C’mon (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Jan. 14, through Sunday, Jan. 16, at 2:30 & 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, Jan. 20, at 7:30 p.m.

• Nanook of the North (1922), a silent documentary with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Sunday, Jan. 23, at 2 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre. Suggested donation of $10.

• For Heaven’s Sake (1926), a silent film starring Harold Lloyd with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 6 p.m. at the Flying Monkey. Suggested donation of $10.

• Dark Mountain (2021) on Wednesday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m. at the Flying Monkey. Tickets cost $12.

• Blood and Sand (1922), on Sunday, Feb. 13, at 2 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre. Suggested donation of $10.

Featured photo: The 355..

Kiddie Pool 22/01/13

Family fun for the weekend

Blaze of glory

The Educational Farm at Joppa Hill (174 Joppa Hill Road in Bedford; theeducationalfarm.org, 472-4724) will hold its second annual Burning of the Greens on Saturday, Jan. 15, from 5 to 8 p.m. Bring your Christmas tree for the Bedford Fire Deparment-tended bonfire and enjoy s’mores, hot cocoa and (weather permitting) ice skating at the farm rink.

You can also visit the farm any day from dawn to dusk (find information about hiking trails on the website). The rink is open when the weather is cold enough and skating costs $5 per skater. Looking for some fresh eats? The farm stand is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesdays.

Fire and ice

All ages can find fun this weekend at LaBelle Lights, the light display on exhibit at the winery’s Derry location (14 Route 111) through February. The display is open Thursdays through Fridays; on Friday, Jan. 14, and Saturday, Jan. 15, LaBelle is celebrating a Fire & Ice Weekend with performances, bonfires, fire and ice-themed eats at the market and themed cocktails at the restaurant Americus. Tickets for the light display cost $15 for ages 13 and up, $10 for 65+, $8 for ages 4 to 12; kids 3 and under get in free, according to labellewinery.com. Find our story about the LaBelle Lights display in the Dec. 30 issue of the Hippo; the e-edition is available at hippopress.com.

Family race

• As the name indicates, you’ll want to layer appropriately for the Freeze Your Buns 5K race series, which kicked off on Jan. 2 and has its second race Sunday, Jan. 16, at 9 a.m. on the road between the Conway Arena and the Nashua YMCA in Nashua. Show up early to register on site; the cost is $20 for the remaining races ($12 for ages 17 and under). See the course map at gatecity.org/freeze-buns-5k-series. The remaining races will take place Jan. 30, Feb. 13 and Feb. 27.

• Or spend Sunday morning tackling the 3-mile HPM Insurance Snowflake Shuffle in Bedford. The race starts at 9:30 p.m. at 25 Constitution Dr. and follows a course along Route 101 to Pilgrim Drive, Meetinghouse Road and Liberty Hill Road before circling back to Route 101, according to the course map at millenniumrunning.com/snowflake. Registration costs $35 for 21+, $30 for youth and is open through Saturday, Jan. 15, at 9 a.m. (there is no race-day registration), the website said.

Outdoor adventure

• Squam Lakes Natural Science Center (23 Science Center Road in Holderness; nhnature.org, 968-7194) has programs for adventurers this Saturday, Jan. 15. A Mt. Fayal Winter Hike will begin at 9:30 a.m. Geared at ages 12 and up, the guided hike will include a search for signs of animals and winter tree identification, with snowshoes available if needed, the website said. The cost is $11 per person

At 1 p.m., catch the guided tour of the live animal exhibit trail, an event open to ages 6 and up. Learn about how the animals adapt to winter. The cost is $11 per person. For either program, registration is required by noon on the previous day.

• Kids looking for more exploration in their outdoor experiences may want to check out programs at Beaver Brook Association (117 Ridge Road in Hollis; beaverbrook.org, 465-7787). Starting Wednesday, Jan. 19, kids in grades 4 through 8 can take part in the afterschool hiking club from 3:45 to 5:15 p.m. The 2-mile hike will feature trail exploration, education about hiking, trail games and survival basics, according to the website. The seven-week series runs through March 9 and costs $105. Beaver Brook also kicks off a homeschool : outdoor adventures program for ages 9 through 13 on Jan. 19. That seven-week session runs from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays and costs $210. Kids will learn to identify animal tracks and signs, build forts and fires, snowshoe, play games and do woodworking along with sledding or hiking, the website said.

Save the date

The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org, 742-2002) will hold its Dinosaur Valentine’s Day Party on Sunday, Feb. 13, from 1 to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $16 per person (kids under 1 year old are free). The day will feature special Valentine’s and dinosaur crafts, dinosaur stories, a meeting with a costumed dinosaur and a sweet treat, according to the website. Space is limited and masks are required for all over 24 months old, the website said.

Nightmare Alley (R)

Nightmare Alley (R)

Step right up and enjoy the thrills, chills and stylish miasma of dread concocted by director and co-writer Guillermo del Toro in Nightmare Alley.

It’s 1939 when we first see Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper). He’s dragging a body into a hole in the floor of a dilapidated house and then lighting the house on fire. Walking away from the flames, he eventually boards a bus and rides until the end of the line, which happens to be very near to a low-budget carnival. He wanders around, ducking out of the geek show (man eats live chicken) before Clem (Willem Dafoe) can collect the 25-cent admission. Carnival boss Bruno (Ron Perlman) catches him but takes pity on him, offering the nearly wordless Stan a job helping to break down the sets and tents and haul the carnival to the next town. Stan does alright with the job, and they keep him around. At first he helps out Clem but later he worms his way into the act of Zeena (Toni Collette), who does mystical readings and psychic-type work. She and her partner Pete (David Strathain) used to have a more elaborate mind-reading act, but Pete is now too lost in his alcohol addiction to help Zeena that much. Stan, however, sees the potential in starting their act up again. He also woos quiet performer Molly (Rooney Mara). He even helps her improve her act by building an electric chair with a lot of accompanying set design that gives the whole thing an air of mad-science and danger.

Eventually, Molly and Stan do strike out on their own, taking their mind-reading act on the road and performing in hotels. But then Stan stumbles into doing a bit of medium work, helping a rich couple (Peter MacNeill, Mary Steenburgen) communicate with their son who died during World War I. It’s a trick he performs with help from Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a psychiatrist who has been treating the couple. Stan realizes that with inside knowledge from Ritter about patients’ deepest secrets, he can have a very profitable side gig of helping the wealthy obtain peace. But, as several of the carnival workers warn him, that kind of con has a lot of potential dangers.

I feel like this movie is built backward from Cate Blanchett’s femme fatale stylings (which are great because she’s always great styled that way), the mood of descending doom created by situating the movie during the early days of World War II and the blend of con-artistry and implied magic of a traveling carnival. Those are the ingredients, now build a meal from that — is what Nightmare Alley feels like. But it’s a bit like building a meal from gravy, whipped cream and nuts. Sure, there’s something there, but it doesn’t feel substantial enough to justify the giant serving dish.

Nightmare Alley is long — two and a half hours — and feels it. I feel like it could have made its points about the darkness of the human heart in at least 45 fewer minutes. The movie loads up on Chekov guns (including a literal gun that appears in the second act), and we have to wait a long time to watch each one go off in a way that is neither dramatically satisfying nor particularly necessary. I get why, with sets and costumes and a score this noirily gorgeous, the movie would want to include as much of the atmospherics as possible. But I think the performances here — Bradley Cooper feels particularly flat — are not helped by giving us more of them.

Nightmare Alley has plenty of that del Toro vibe — dark, creepy, beautiful, with interesting touches of humor — but it is otherwise fairly ho-hum. B-

Rated R for strong/bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Guillermo del Toro with a screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Kim Morgan (based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham), Nightmare Alley is two hours and 28 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Searchlight Pictures.