These movies open today in Orange County theaters.
Titles rolling in four or more OC movie houses are indicated with (Countywide).
Check your favorite source for show times.
Believe. Director Billy Dickson's holiday drama is about a small-town business owner trying to save the local Christmas pageant. Because, as Fox News will tell you, there is a War on Pageant. Ryan O'Quinn, Shawnee Smith, Danielle Nicolet and Kevin Sizemore star. (Countywide)
Chongtian huo. Ringo Lam's crime thriller is about a security guard who becomes embroiled in a battle to protect stem cell research, which can potentially cure cancer, from falling into the wrong hands. Hsiao-chuan Chang, Amber Kuo, Leon Lai and Ka Tung Lam star. (AMC Tustin Legacy at the District)
The Forgotten. In Oliver Frampton's Mexican horror flick, Tommy is sent to live with his father in an abandoned council estate, where at night the son hears strange noises. He is then essentially abandoned by his father, so with his new friend Carmen they try to solve the mystery of the noise using only their makeshift lanterns. Clem Tibber, Shaun Dingwall, Elarica Johnson and Lee Arnold star. (AMC 30 at the Outlets, Orange)
Hard Tide. From directors Robert Osman and Nathanael Wiseman (who also stars) comes this UK thriller about an unlikely friendship forged when a small-time drug dealer and a neglected 9-year-old girl are forced to go on the run together. Mem Ferda, Alexandra Newick and Oliver Stark co-star. (AMC 30 at the Outlets, Orange)
Hot Property. Also from the UK comes director/co-writer Max McGill's anarchic satire for “generation rent.” The un-rom-com, set amid London's deranged property market and self-parodying hipster culture, touches on love, greed and psychotic estate agents. MyAnna Buring, Kate Bracken and Andrew Havill star. (AMC 30 at the Outlets, Orange)
Incarnate. Brad Peyton of San Andreas and San Andreas 2 fame directs this horror flick about a scientist with the ability to enter the subconscious minds of the possessed. He must save a young boy from the grips of a demon with powers never seen before, while facing the horrors of his past. Carice van Houten, Aaron Eckhart, David Mazouz and Catalina Sandino Moreno star. (Countywide)
Kahaani 2. Sujoy Ghosh's thriller is about a mysterious woman charged with kidnapping and murder. Vidya Balan, Arjun Rampal, Jugal Hansraj and Kharaj Mukherjee star. (AMC 30 at the Outlets, Orange; Edwards Westpark 8, Irvine)
Los Parecidos (The Similars). See Aimee Murillo's “Mexico's Ghosts Haunt the Characters of Isaac Ezban's The Similars.” (The Frida Cinema, Santa Ana)
Man Down. I heard star Shia LaBeouf talking about this post-apocalyptic thriller on Kevin & Bean, and the film sounded interesting (although Shia, more so). A retired U.S. Marine searches desperately for the whereabouts of his son, accompanied by his best friend and a survivor. Directed by Dito Montiel, Man Down co-stars Jai Courtney, Gary Oldman and Kate Mara. (Countywide)
Suddenly Seventeen. Director Mo Zhang, the daughter of Chinese cinematic great Zhang Yimou, returned to China from the U.S. to make her directorial debut that's also an adaption of an Internet novel. It's about 28-year-old Liang Xia (Ni Ni), who is unhappy in love and eats a magical chocolate that wipes her memory and turns her back into a 17-year-old. Zhang changed the novel's premise, which kept Liang at 17, so that her heroine flips back and forth in age every five hours. (AMC 30 at the Outlets, Orange)
The Unmarried Wife. Director Maryo J. De Los Reyes' rom-dram is about a businesswoman who confronts her husband about his infidelity. Dingdong Dantes, Angelica Panganiban and Paulo Avelino star. (AMC 30 at the Outlets and Cinemark Century Stadium 25, both in Orange)
White Island. Benjamin Turner's comic thriller from the UK starts on the island of Ibiza, where a guy has to help his best friend become unentangled with a gang. Once back in London, our hero must use what he learned on the island about life being precious to convince his former boss and mentor not to kill himself. Lyndon Ogbourne, Billy Zane, Billy Boyd and Joel Dommett star. (AMC 30 at the Outlets, Orange)
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.