Birdman
There's no doubt that Alejandro González Iñárritu's latest is very clever about what it says. The question is if it has anything to say. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Chinatown
"I goddamn near lost my nose! And I like it! I like breathing through it." Laurelhurst Theater.

Dear White People
The central conflict in Dear White People is driven by Sam (Tessa Thompson, AKA Jackie from Veronica Mars!), a fired-up young activist who hosts a satirical radio show where she instructs white people on the nuances of how to behave in a multiracial world. There's entirely too much plot, but Dear White People shines interpersonally, as its characters navigate how race factors into relationships, self-presentation, and group identification. And it doubles as a catalog of how creepy even the most well-intentioned white people can be—if you haven't yet gotten the "don't touch black people's hair" memo, there are some skin-crawlingly effective scenes that will drive the point solidly home. ALISON HALLETT Cinema 21.

Dumb and Dumber To
Dumb and Dumber To might be dumber than its predecessor, but it's not as funny. MARJORIE SKINNER Various Theaters.

The Eve of Ivan Kupalo
This surrealist horror/romance about murder and sorcery was too weird for Communist Russia, where it was banned in 1968. Then again, we're pretty sure everything was banned in Communist Russia in 1968. Hollywood Theatre.

Feast Your Eyes: The Food Films of Les Blank
Screenings of digital restorations of Blank's documentaries Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers, and Yum, Yum, Yum: A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking. Screenings accompanied by jambalaya. You know, to eat! Hollywood Theatre.

Grindhouse Film Festival
See My, What a Busy Week! Hollywood Theatre.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

Interstellar
To say too much about the journey of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his small team of astronauts—Amelia (Anne Hathaway), Doyle (Wes Bentley), Romilly (David Gyasi), and two friendly robots (!)—would kneecap Interstellar's eye-widening moments of fear, excitement, melancholy, and above all else, discovery. ERIK HENRIKSEN Various Theaters.

Keep On Keepin' On
See review this issue. Living Room Theaters.

Lindy Hop, Jumpin' Jazz & Jitterbug
Film historian Dennis Nyback curates a collection of classic jazz dance footage. Hollywood Theatre.

Low Down
Joe Albany (John Hawkes) was a brilliant jazz pianist and a terrible father. Based on the memoir of daughter A.J. Albany (Elle Fanning)—the first book local literary magazine Tin House ever published—Low Down is a minor-key, melancholic remembrance of Albany's grim, heroin-glazed '70s. Hawkes is great, as is Glenn Close as his long-suffering mother, but the film, shot in overbearing yellows, might be a little too close to Albany's actual life: It's aimless and relentlessly bleak. (Trivia! This movie has supporting roles by Cersei Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Karl Tanner, and Flea, who isn't in Game of Thrones but probably should be.) NED LANNAMANN Cinema 21.

Nightcrawler
A pulpy rush that's shot to mirror the nocturnal, grainy world of freelancers who monitor the police scanner and speed to crime scenes to be the first one with sensational video. Unblinking and gaunt, Jake Gyllenhaal's Bloom is a fascinating misfit who discovers his strengths in this new, macabre calling. NED LANNAMANN Various Theaters.

Reel Feminism
A film series sponsored by In Other Words Feminist Community Center. This month's film: Ladonna Harris: Indian 101. More at cstpdx.com. Clinton Street Theater.

Rosewater
Longtime viewers of The Daily Show will recognize former Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari as a frequent guest on the program. In 2009, he appeared in a segment that also featured Daily Show contributor Jason Jones pretending to be a spy. It was meant as a joke, but it led, in part, to Bahari's incarceration. The Daily Show's host, Jon Stewart, felt kind of bad about it. So he took a summer off from the show and directed a movie about Bahari, writing the script with J.J. Abrams and casting Gael García Bernal as the Iranian Canadian journalist. Whatever greenness Stewart displays as a filmmaker is offset by his earnestness in telling Bahari's story. NED LANNAMANN Various Theaters.

Strange Brew
"Give in to the dark side of the force, you knob." Academy Theater.

The Theory of Everything
See review this issue. Various Theaters.

World War I on Film
The Great War started 100 years ago, and as the four films in the NW Film Center's World War I film series plainly indicate, there was nothing "great" about it. Two of the selections are among the greatest movies you will ever see: Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory is a bitter, ferociously intelligent takedown of officer hierarchy, reining in Kubrick's typically sprawling pessimism into a razor-sharp hour and a half. It might be his best movie. Jean Renoir's The Grand Illusion is its diametric opposite, a film full of hope, humanity, and hilarity, following a group of French soldiers through a string of German POW camps. Perhaps this is overstating it, but taken together, these films might fully explain the duality of human nature. The groundbreaking but maudlin All Quiet on the Western Front and the lengthy, silent The Big Parade round out the series. NED LANNAMANN NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium.

You've Got Mail
With its central conflict about the death of publishing, Meg Ryan's beautiful face before it changed forever, and the best character actors, Nora Ephron's screwball comedy remains one of her most underrated movies. I'm not even embarrassed to say that, because Ephron's screenwriting is perfect and You've Got Mail was the only movie she made that includes a plot point about a butterfly in a subway car, which is maybe the cutest visual reference to Milan Kundera in cinematic history. MEGAN BURBANK Fifth Avenue Cinema.