This week’s movie releases

The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, Toy Story 2 — under the right circumstances, middle segments of trilogies can often turn out to be the best; the material matures without yet having the chance to go off. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, based on the second book of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy of dystopian sci-fi novels for young adults, is looking like it might end up slotting into that category, judging by the sparkling reviews it has received on both sides of the Atlantic. Fresh from winning the reality show bloodbath that were the 74th Annual Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) leave home again to embark on their victory tour, on the way sensing a revolution might be brewing in the districts. But unbeknownst to them, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is plotting to get them back into the arena in the 75th Games, in which the competitors will be drawn from the past champions. Francis Lawrence takes over from Gary Ross behind the lens for this sequel, which again features Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks, as well as new recruits Philip Seymour Hoffman and Liam Hemsworth.

Like a modern-day Rat Pack, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline team up to play a quartet of lifelong friends out on the town in Last Vegas. Douglas, the last of the four to get married, is preparing to wed his thirtysomething girlfriend, so the old-timers organize a bachelor weekend in Sin City hoping to party like it’s 1959. Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) directs.

The film that won Amat Escalante the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, as well as Mexico’s official entry for next year’s Oscars, Heli is an uncompromising tale of drug violence and its effects on its title character’s family. A young car factory worker, Heli (Armando Espitia) lives with his wife, baby son, father and younger sister, whose police cadet boyfriend’s plan for them to run away together brings tragedy.

Another ‘Story’

Also a festival winner — bagging Best Film at Valladolid’s recent Seminci festival — Yôji Yamada’s Tokyo Family pays homage to Yasuijiro Ozu’s 1953 masterpiece Tokyo Story. Mirroring the older movie’s plot, it follows an elderly couple’s visit to the Japanese capital to see their children, who are too busy to spend much time with them.

Juliette Binoche takes the lead in Camille Claudel 1915, a biopic focusing on the final years of the troubled sculptor in an asylum in southern France, directed by the critically divisive Bruno Dumont.