Opening this week:

Brendan Kiley on the Darby Crash hagiography What We Do Is Secret: “Note to the world: Unless you’re a reporter or a historian, striving for authenticity is played. Fuck authenticity, whether you’re writing a novel or starting an Indian restaurant. We don’t need authentic, we need imaginative and good.”

Paul Constant pretty much likes Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married: “Anne Hathaway should be commended for not drooling all over the part in a Method-inspired frenzy. Her performance meshes easily with Debra Winger’s unrepentantly distant mother; the two seem seriously confused—and injured—by their own awful actions even as they commit them. But it’s Rosemarie DeWitt’s Rachel who holds everything together; she’s a normal woman trying to enjoy her wedding day, even as two self-involved drama queens tear it apart.”

And he’s pretty much bored with Secrecy: “You wish the filmmakers would realize that there’s a perfect, preexisting technology for transmitting this kind of information-dense material; using this technology, interested parties can work through the material at their own speed and go back through parts they maybe didn’t initially absorb with maximum efficiency. It’s called a book.”

Body of Lies, according to Eli Sanders, appears to be exactly as good as the millions of other spy-action movies: “If you’re not worried about plot déjà vu or stale themes, and are into spy-action movies mainly for the spy-action itself, then Body of Lies is just perfect. People die—mercilessly, surprisingly, repeatedly. Friends betray friends. Helicopters swoop in to blow up SUVs holding jihadists wielding RPG launchers. Vans roll through crowded Arab markets trying to snatch up wanted types without attracting notice. And through it all, the unblinking eye of the CIA drone hovers over the action—the view from on high, repeatedly laid low by the complexities of life on the ground.”

As I mentioned yesterday, there are two timely documentaries out right now: here’s Eli Sanders on Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, and Christopher Frizzelle on I.O.U.S.A.

And in Concessions, I torture myself (why!?) with the conservative “comedy” An American Carol. Sorry, Republican relatives. I’m mad at you guys.

Over in Limited Runs, there’s a Shakespeare-on-film series going on at SIFF Cinema, including Richard III and the Orson Welles-in-blackface Othello. Grand Illusion has Anatomy of a Murder and some rare religious propaganda films from Ron Ormond. There’s a new 35-mm print of The Godfather at Cinerama. Northwest Film Forum is showing the dark and lovely The Exiles. The Egyptian midnight movie is Pulp Fiction, if you need to see it again. And tomorrow, from 4 pm to midnight, MOHAI is hosting the Revenant Film Festival for all your zombie needs.

For anything I missed, check out our Movie Times page.