Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16. Night at the Museum (PG, 109 min.) Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.
Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16. Black Christmas (R, 97 min.) A gory remake of the 1974 slasher film, from your coal-in-the-stocking friends at Dimension Films.
Dreamgirls (PG-13, 131 min.) The powerhouse Broadway musical about a Supremes-like vocal trio comes to the screen with Beyonce Knowles, Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy. Greece: Secrets of the Past: The latest IMAX feature offers a travelog of the Greek Isles and an "archaeological mystery" enhanced by digital re-creations of such ancient spectacles as the creation of the Parthenon and the volcanic destruction of Santorini.
Narrated by Nia Vardalos ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding"). Runs through June 22, 2007. Tickets $8; $6.
25 children (ages 3-12); group rates available. Crew Training International IMAX Theater at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 763-IMAX for general information or 320-6362 for reservations.
Apocalypto (R, 138 min.) The premise of Cornel Wilde's "The Naked Prey," the jungle savagery of a 1980s Italian cannibal film and the sadomasochistic martyr-complex obsessions that apparently churn like a ball of snakes inside Mel Gibson's head inform the director's latest "epic snuff film" (to quote The Associated Press), in which a Mesoamerican Indian named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) is pursued through the forest by a gang of bloodthirsty Mayans from a terminally decadent and immoral "civilization" clearly intended to mirror our own. With a cast of Native American unknowns and dialogue spoken in the ancient Yucatec language, the movie likely wouldn't exist if not for the success of Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"; that film ended with the Resurrection, but this time we get to see the torture victim fight back.
Filled with images of Holocaustal extermination (what do we make of this, given the charges of anti-Semitism that swirl around Gibson?), the movie is troubling and powerful, with the forced march through the Mayan city being perhaps the most stunning cinematic tour de force of the year. Peabody Place 22, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.
Blood Diamond (R, 138 min.) A "King Solomon's Mines" for the troubled consciences of a post-colonial age (complete with a lead African character named Solomon), director Edward Zwick's beautifully photographed rouser is very effective as a violent, big-budget and adult-oriented action-adventure; it's less successful when it slows the narrative to address directly the politics of "conflict diamonds." Leonardo DiCaprio is the mercenary seeking the priceless title jewel; Djimon Hounsou is the fisherman who knows the hiding place of the diamond but is more interested in finding his kidnapped son.
Set mainly in war-torn Sierra Leone in 1999, the movie offers further proof that Africa is desperately in need of cinematic as well as economic rehabilitation: Surely English-language filmmakers can find modern stories on the continent that don't involve bloodthirsty black militias and inhuman white exploiters? Peabody Place 22, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16. Casino Royale (PG-13, 144 min.
) The 21st "official" James Bond film is a "Batman Begins" back-to-basics reboot: Although set in the world of post-9/11 counterintelligence ("I miss the Cold War," muses Judi Dench's M), new Bond Daniel Craig is Bond as a newborn, an agent only recently granted 007 status (we get to see his first two kills). Craig is a memorable and convincing Bond whose "blunt instrument" physique suits the new film's tougher, relatively realistic action and espionage; but, although I approve of this approach in theory, I found myself curiously unmoved by the film (directed by Martin Campbell from a script that is fairly faithful to Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, published in 1953). Charlotte's Web (G, 98 min.
) Spending time with director Gary Winick's live-action and CGI animals is in no way an adequate substitute for the much richer experience of E.B. White's 1952 novel; even so, this movie is effective and entertaining, with Julia Roberts appropriately sounding like both a loving mother and an angel as she gives voice to Charlotte, the spider who befriends a young pig named Wilbur (Dominic Scott Kay).
White's tale is so sweet and wise that even stench jokes and flatulence gags can't strip it of its dignity. I confess: By the end of the film, my eyes were as moist as a spider's web in the morning dew. Deck the Halls (PG, 95 min.
) Danny DeVito vs. Matthew Broderick in the battle of the Christmas lights. Stage Cinema 12, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.
Deja Vu (PG-13, 126 min.) "Man on Fire" collaborators Denzel Washington and director Ridley Scott reunite for this action film about a time-traveling ATF agent. Employee of the Month (PG-13, 103 min.
) A superstore stock boy (Dane Cook) and cashier (Dax Shepard) vie for the title honor in hopes of winning a date with the store hottie (Jessica Simpson). Eragon (PG, 104 min.) Visual effects artist-turned-director Stefen Fangmeier establishes himself as the Uwe Boll of family-friendly fantasy with this numbingly derivative and borderline incoherent adaptation of the surprise best-seller by teenage author Christopher Paolini.
Edward Speleers stars as the farm youth "chosen" to be a heroic dragon rider; Jeremy Irons is his Obi-Wan; John Malkovich is the campy evil king; and Robert Carlyle is a Wormtongue-esque sorcerer who is the movie's only entertaining character. Even the dragon is dull. Flicka (PG, 100 min.
) Alison Lohman stars in the latest adaptation of "My Friend Flicka," the classic novel about the bond between horse and child. With Maria Bello and Tim McGraw as the girl's parents. Gridiron Gang (PG-13, 127 min.
) "The Longest Yard" meets "Hoosiers" as The Rock creates a winning football team at a juvenile detention center. Happy Feet (PG, 108 min.) "March of the Penguins," "Moulin Rouge," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "An Inconvenient Truth," the holiday TV special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and Australian director George Miller's earlier kiddie movie for adults, "Babe: A Pig in the City," are a few of the works brought to mind by this unusual, occasionally ultra-cute and surprisingly moving computer-animated film about an odd young penguin named Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) who becomes an Arctic savior after being rejected by his flightless tribe for preferring dancing to finding his (ugh) "heartsong.
" The movie is suffused with music -- the penguins perform numbers by Prince, Queen, the Beach Boys and many others (Mumble's father is a penguin named Elvis, voiced by Hugh Jackman) -- but it also functions as a weirdly scary "first contact" science-fiction story with an earned eco-message, linking it to Miller's breakthrough movies, "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior." The Holiday (PG-13, 136 min.) Cameron Diaz falling for Jude Law, OK; but Kate Winslet falling for Jack Black?
A romantic comedy from director Nancy Meyers ("Something's Gotta Give"). The Illusionist (PG-13, 109 min.) Edward Norton is convincingly intense as a master magician with possibly supernatural powers in this sumptuously produced puzzler set in an elegant fin de siecle Vienna of top-hatted police inspectors, ectoplasmic apparitions and sinister princes who carry jewel-encrusted swords.
Writer-director Neil Burger has several tricks up his sleeve; he makes us aware that our response to the action onscreen is a testimony to the conjurations of the filmmakers (the costumes, the characterizations, the special effects), just as the reactions of the people in the movie affirm the magician's talents. In a sense, the film is as much about the audiences that experience its sleight of hand as it is a love story about a magician who longs for a duchess (Jessica Biel) betrothed to a crown prince (Rufus Sewell). With Paul Giamatti as a sympathetic police inspector.
Jet Li's Fearless (PG-13, 103 min.) Shot in and around Shanghai, this is a beautifully produced and satisfying throwback to such historical Hong Kong martial arts epics of the 1990s as "Once Upon a Time in China." Now 43, Li claims this will be his last traditional martial arts film; that may explain why he seems to be the project's true auteur, rather than veteran director Ronny Yu or legendary fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping.
Almost a dramatic infomercial for the benefits of Chinese martial arts, the movie is filled with dialogue that defines the tenets of wushu while offering a welcome alternative to ideas about vengeance and power that motivate too many movie heroes and too many real-world personal and political transactions. Sample inspiration: "Fear and respect are not the same." Marie Antoinette (PG-13, 123 min.
) Let them eat cake? Director Sofia Coppola feeds it to us in spoonfuls -- pink, sugary, decadent. Indeed, the entire film seems to have been squeezed onto the screen from a confectioner's pastry bag.
Perhaps Coppola (herself the member of a royal Hollywood family) identifies with her youthful 18th Century celebrity monarch heroine (Kirsten Dunst), who never tires of extravagance but eventually begins to appreciate nature and Rousseau as well as wigs and bon-bons; but if the movie's celebration of surface suggests the director's "The Virgin Suicides" and "Lost in Translation" weren't as deep as they originally seemed, it also indicates that Coppola is growing in her understanding that in the movies, eye candy can convey more meaning than words. (And the anachronistic songs by The Cure and the Gang of Four don't hurt.) The Marine (PG-13, 92 min.
) Pro wrestler John Cena get mad. Beat up bad guys. Rescue wife.
Win Oscar? The Nativity Story (PG, 100 min.) This tale of an unwed pregnant teen whose parents worry about her getting stoned isn't entirely disconnected from director Catherine Hardwicke's previous sallies into juvenile delinquency, "Thirteen" and "Lords of Dogtown"; the difference here is that the pregnant teen is a virgin, and we're talking about actual stones.
Unfortunately, Hardwicke approaches the New Testament material with indecision, caught between a desire to "humanize" the venerated Mother of God (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and a fear that too much naturalism will alienate the target audience. The resulting combination of caution, respect, authenticity and occasional Hollywood flourishes (a special-effects shaft of light connects the Bethlehem manger to heaven) proves deadly to a drama as Sunday-school familiar as this one. With Oscar Isaac as the puzzled but loyal Joseph.
Open Season (PG, 87 min.) A sort of Looney Tunes redux of "Born Free," this promising debut feature from a new CGI company, Sony Pictures Animation, is enhanced by stylized character design that is witty and pleasing: These deer, skunks, beavers and other critters not only look but move funny. Martin Lawrence provides the voice of Boog, a pet grizzly bear who learns to adjust to life in the wild with the comic help of a goofy mule deer (Ashton Kutcher).
Paul Westerberg provides the songs; I don't begrudge him the paycheck, but there's something offputting about watching a cartoon bear emote while the former voice of the Replacements gruffly croons, in the key of melancholy: "A good day / Is any day that you're alive ...
" Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (PG-13, 151 min.) Cannibals, a tentacled "kraken" and a crew of undead barnacly monster-pirates are among the threats (and treats) in director Gore Verbinski's amusing but exhausting sequel to his 2003 mega-hit. The plotting is simple-minded yet confusing, as Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) embark on a series of repetitive quests that are cut short only by the cliffhanger non-ending.
The Prestige (PG-13, 130 min.) Christopher Nolan ("Memento," "Batman Begins") directs the season's second magician movie (after "The Illusionist"), this time starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival conjurers in turn-of-the-century London. Adapted from a novel by Christopher Priest, the film's twisted plot -- part "Sleuth," part "Itchy Scratchy," part science fiction (David Bowie appears as maverick inventor Nikola Tesla) -- is likely to reward repeat viewings.
The Pursuit of Happyness (PG-13, 118 min.) Fans of such books as "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" should be well pleased with this fact-inspired urban-blight "Kramer vs. Kramer" about a heroic single father and struggling portable-bone-density-scanner salesman (Will Smith) who escapes poverty in 1980s San Francisco by becoming a stock broker.
"I'm in a competitive internship at Dean Witter!" he announces triumphantly, which is not exactly as memorable a movie exultation of defiance as "I'm Spartacus!" Director Gabriele Muccino establishes a convincingly gritty sense of place and time, and the movie doesn't shrink from depicting the humiliation of the salesman's downward spiral through an economy that literally drains him of his life's blood, which he sells by the pint for a few extra dollars.
Even so, it's hard to cozy up to a movie that segregates people into these categories: Guitar-strumming hippie chicks, homeless nutcases, Chinese-speaking day care operators and non-Smith black folks -- bad; rich white stock brokers with box seats at 49ers games -- good. With Smith's real-life son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, as his screen son. Peabody Place 22, Ridgeway Four, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.
The Queen (PG-13, 97 min.) Helen Mirren -- is she the world's greatest living actress? -- stars as Queen Elizabeth II in this impeccably produced examination of the royal family's reaction to the 1997 death of Princess Diana, which -- according to the film -- created a "constitutional crisis" and a low-key but high-stakes and extremely formal political chess match between the 71-year-old Elizabeth and England's young, newly elected Labor prime minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen).
Directed by adaptable veteran Stephen Frears ("The Grifters," "High Fidelity") from a script by Peter Morgan, the movie is sympathetic to the queen (she's presented as an old-fashioned but witty and self-aware stoic who wears sturdy shoes and knows her way around an automobile engine) and to the monarchy (which Frears equates with the proud, endangered stag that roams the grounds of Balmoral Castle -- a stag that also symbolizes the stalked-to-death Diana). Whether the monarchy is worthy of such affection is a debate for another movie; this one works wonderfully on its own terms. The Return (PG-13, 85 min.
) Sarah Michelle Gellar must be a supernatural multitasker. See her battle ghosts in "The Grudge 2"; then trot down the multiplex hall to a different auditorium and watch her learn yet again that "some spirits never die." Peabody Place 22, Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema.
Rocky Balboa (PG, 103 min.) Thirty years after "Rocky," writer-director-star Sylvester Stallone returns to "yo" again in a movie that -- like its hero -- suffers from a bad case of calcium on the joints. Initially, the pace of the film is as geriatric as the recent Frazier-Herenton bout, which is perhaps appropriate for an elegiac film about a man trying to come to terms with his legacy (to set the mood, the famous Bill Conti fanfare often is stripped down here to a moody piano solo).
The pace picks up after unpopular champ Mason Dixon (Antonio Tarver) agrees to box "the Italian Stallion" in an exhibition match that Rocky's barmaid friend says will prove "the last thing to age on somebody is their heart." What it really confirms is Stallone's status as both an auteur and a self-parody. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (G, 92 min.
) Tim Allen as Santa vs. Martin Short as Jack Frost. The loser: Once again, the dignity of the Santa Claus character itself.
Peabody Place 22, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema. Saw III (R, 107 min.) Worse than simply grisly, grimy and unpleasant, the "Saw" films also are pretentious, as the psychotic Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) -- a sort of splatter Mitch Albom -- tries to teach life lessons to various ingrates by torturing and murdering them.
Bell brings surprising dignity to the role (this time, the dying Jigsaw at least gets more screen time than his freaky bike-riding puppet alter ego); unfortunately, the visually spastic direction of Darren Lynn Grossman ("Saw II") does no service to the performance or to an over-clever script by franchise creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Winchester Court 8, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema. Snakes on a Plane (R, 106 min.
) The one thing that could kill the phenomenon that is "Snakes on a Plane" has arrived: "Snakes on a Plane." As has been widely reported, the Internet-generated buzz inspired by the project's tell-it-like-it-is title became so intense that the giddy producers upped the level of gore, sex and Samuel L. Jackson profanity to meet fan expectations; based on the film's modest box office performance, those fans remained the only people who really wanted to see the movie, despite the hype.
The publicity created unrealistic expectations: I like seeing a fanged reptile leap from a barf bag onto an airline passenger's face as much as the next person, but I was disappointed that this readymade camp classic is more an "Airport" sequel with snakes than a horror movie in the air. Directed by David R. Ellis, who proved himself an efficient pulp storyteller with "Final Destination 2" and "Cellular.
" The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (R, 91 min.) Technically accomplished repulsiveness is the hallmark of director Jonathan Liebesman's origin-of-Leatherface prequel to the 2003 remake, which attempts to justify its ugly sadism through some very black comedy (courtesy of deranged pseudo-sheriff R. Lee Ermey) and a revival of the Vietnam-era cultural politics of Tobe Hooper's original film.
Here as in 1974, the cannibal family represents an adult establishment that turns young people into not just cannon fodder but literal fodder. "Freedom isn't free," says the hippie-and-Commie-hating Ermey, as he brutalizes his victims -- one of whom happens to be a draft dodger. Turistas (R, 94 min.
) Like many horror movies, director John Stockwell's "'Hostel' with a tanline" (to quote Variety) about hot young ill-fated vacationers in Brazil is as conflicted as the U.S. psyche -- it's progressive and reactionary, penitent and punishing.
The movie locates the ghastly fates of its involuntary organ-donor victims in the history of U.S. arrogance toward the underdeveloped countries of the world, yet suggests that our national xenophobia is justified: Never trust a foreigner, the movie reminds us, even when she's in a bikini.
Speaking of arrogance, the end credits thank "the people of Brazil" for their "cooperation and hospitality," which is about like Sacha Baron Cohen thanking Kazakhstan. Unaccompanied Minors (PG, 89 min.) "Home Alone" meets "The Terminal" when kooky kids break the rules and act the fool after being stranded by a snowstorm at a major airport.
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