Is there a common insect prettier than the monarch butterfly with its large, wide orange wings, black veins and white spots? Summerlong they visit us by the millions, moving south to winter in Mexico. This stylish documentary dramatizes their journey, and the scientific detective work that solved the age-old puzzle about where and how they travel annually. Returning from a long run last year at the Omnitheater, it shows the life cycle as a tiny egg planted on a milkwood leaf munches the toxic plant to become a caterpillar 2,000 times bigger in mass. It also showcases zoologist Fred Urquhart, whose wing tagging research into their migrant paths began in the 1940s. The breakthrough moment came three decades later when Urquhart, studying a monarch colony in Mexico, finds one tagged PS 397 by James Street, a junior high school volunteer from Hopkins. Impressive to view in Imax 3-D, it's a true story that will inspire viewers to plant a milkweed garden.
Rating: R for strong violence, drug content and language. In subtitled French, Italian and English.
This testosterone-fueled crime thriller, set in drug-riddled Marseilles at the height of the 1970s heroin epidemic, plays like a gritty sidebar to "The French Connection." From the first scene of a motorcycle zipping through traffic toward unidentified trouble, you feel you're watching a fast-burning fuse headed for a mountain of dynamite. Jean Dujardin plays the new sheriff in town, determined to bring down the Corsicans, Neapolitan Italians and thugs cooking huge boatloads of opium for huge numbers of American addicts. He's almost the physical twin of his arch enemy, the syndicate boss played with swagger by Gilles Lellouche. Their battle unfolds over a crackling 135 minutes. The middle-class lawman and ultrawealthy pusher are so focused on bringing down the opposition that each pushes his own marriage to the point of collapse. Cédric Jimenez directs with electric energy. While the story lacks focus here and there, the film never feels overplayed. It's a work of bloody style and solid substance.
