The Current Cinema

Movies worth watching:

DELIVER US FROM EVIL: Documentary, 01:41 minutes, Rated NR: This spellbinding documentary about a notorious pedophile priest deserves to be in the running for an Oscar. Filmmaker Amy Berg makes a strong case for a cover-up of Father Oliver O’Grady’s heinous acts by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in California. When she catches up with him in Ireland, where he was deported after his conviction for sexual abuse, he’s leading the life of Riley. He seems eerily removed from his wrongdoings, as if he were an actor playing a pedophile.

THE DEPARTED: Action/Adventure, 02:30 minutes, Rated R: This is Martin Scorsese’s most enjoyable film in years, and his first in 15 years that isn’t a failed attempt at a masterpiece, but rather a fabulously successful attempt at a good movie. Matt Damon is a police mole, working for a gangster (Jack Nicholson), and Leonardo DiCaprio is a spy working for the police from within the gangster’s crew, in this complicated, irresistible and always entertaining picture.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND: Drama, 02:03 minutes, Rated R: An immediate contender for Oscar consideration and a spot on critics’ top 10 list, this startlingly original drama imagines a fictional relationship between Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and a young Scottish physician who becomes one of his closest confidants. Forest Whitaker gives the performance of his career as the strongman, playing him as a charming seducer who only occasionally shows sides of the madman within. James McAvoy is the doctor who finds the lure of power irresistible.

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP: Drama, 01:45 minutes, Rated R: Flying solo for the first time as a screenwriter, French director Michel Gondry proves he has more of a sense of humor than was evident in “Human Nature” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Gael García Bernal is both funny and edgy as an aspiring graphic artist in Paris who has trouble distinguishing between his dreams and waking life. This becomes particularly problematic when he falls for his neighbor, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. The best way to enjoy this mind-bender is to not try to make sense of it. Just let it wash over you.

TIM BURTON'S THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN DISNEY DIGITAL 3D: Animation, 01:16 minutes, Rated PG: