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This is how bad Labor Day weekend is for movies: The best movie opening today is 30 years old.
That would be Ivan Reitman's action comedy "Ghostbusters," which is getting a one-week run to mark its 30th anniversary. Watching it recently, The Cricket found the first half-hour to be tedious but once it gets rolling, and Bill Murray is allowed to show his goofball charm, it still delivers the laughs.
The Tower Theatre has this weekend's best new movie: "Frank," an offbeat comedy-drama that follows a young musician (Domhnall Gleeson) as he joins a band led by a mercurial genius (Michael Fassbender) who hides his face within a giant papier-mache head. Loosely inspired by a real person, the British entertainer Chris Sievey, a k a Frank Sidebottom (think Pee-Wee Herman meets Andy Kaufman, wearing a big head), the movie is a strange exploration of talent, mental illness and the twin pursuits of fame and art.
Less successful is "Life of Crime," a lackadaisical adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel. Set in Detroit 1979, it follows two hapless crooks (John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey) who kidnap a rich woman (Jennifer Aniston) with the intent of making her corrupt developer husband (Tim Robbins) pay a large ransom. What they don't know is the husband is filing for divorce, and would rather see his wife dead. The pacing is pokey, and tone shifts too jarring. (It's playing at the Broadway Centre Cinemas, which are open again today after a four-day closure for remodeling. Pardon their dust.)
The only Hollywood entry that was screened for critics is "The November Man," a spy thriller that opened on Wednesday. Pierce Brosnan plays a semi-retired CIA assassin who ends up in a brutal cat-and-mouse chase through Belgrade with his protege (Luke Bracey). Brosnan is cool, as usual, but the violence is erratic and the plot predictably cynical.
There are three new movies at various multiplexes that were not screened for critics: The "found footage" horror thriller "As Above / So Below"; the biopic "Cantinflas," which tells the life story of the beloved Mexican comedian; and "50 to 1," and independently produced inspirational drama about the 2009 Kentucky Derby champ Mine That Bird.