Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

DELI Man

This love letter to the Jewish deli is both charming and repetitive. Director Erik Greenberg Anjou focuses on the Jewish deli as both a business enterprise and cultural hallmark, interviewing owners (particularly Ziggy Gruber, owner of Kenny and Ziggy’s Deli in, randomly, Texas) and delighted customers, all who wax poetic about pastrami and their grandfathers. But one loving account is very much like another, and they all run together without a clear sense of direction after a while. Jewish delis are great, and Jewish delis are disappearing. Got it. Things don’t get much deeper or more complex than that. At least the sandwiches look oh-so-savory. Plays at noon, 3:30, 7 and 8:45 p.m. July 19 at the Movie Museum

INFINTELY POLAR BEAR

Loving father and husband Cameron Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) suffers from bipolar disorder, which ― in the not-exactly-progressive year of 1978 ― has left him unemployed, disowned by his wealthy family and misunderstood. Then, his wife (Zoe Saldana) leaves him in charge of their two daughters while she goes back to school. The film isn’t quite sure where it wants to go tonally, veering between quirky depictions of mental illness through the girls’ eyes to wisps of the genuine despair both their parents feel as they struggle against socioeconomic hurdles. The two perspectives don’t mesh quite right all the time, but when they do, it’s like a punch to the heart.

Opens July 17 at Kahala Theatre