The weekend’s best movies, Feb. 10
James Baldwin’s writings on race (spoken by Samuel L. Jackson) are interspersed with footage of Baldwin making speeches and appearing on talk shows.
Rated PG-13. 95 minutes.
The Salesman: A husband and wife, actors appearing in an Iranian production of “Death of a Salesman,” have their lives thrown off balance when the woman is attacked by an intruder while taking a shower.
In Farsi with English subtitles.
Rated PG-13. 125 minutes.
In this very good and peculiar German comedy, a father subjects his high-strung businesswoman daughter to an unexpected kind of shock therapy, using joke-shop fake teeth, a fright wig and a freakish sense of humor as tools of enlightenment.
The movie is somewhat too long, but has fine direction by Maron Ade — who doesn’t lose sight of the serious issues here — and outstanding performances from Peter Simonischek and Sandra Huller.
Rated R. 162 minutes.
Writer-director Mike Mills tells the story of a woman raising a teenage son in 1979, and of the young women, boarders in her house, who assisted in raising him.
Rated R. 118 minutes.