Due to the Independent's shortened holiday production schedule, movie times are unavailable this week.
Beaver Creek Shopping Center, off NC 55, Apex. 676-3456.
600 Blue Ridge Rd, Raleigh. 282-9003.
8611 Brier Creek Pkwy, Raleigh.
484-9994.
5501 Atlantic Springs Rd, Raleigh. 645-1111.
Colony Shopping Center, 5438 Six Forks Rd, Raleigh. 856-0111.
501 Caitboo Ave, Crossroads Shopping Center, Cary.
226-2000.
770 Cary Towne Blvd, Cary. 463-9989, .
2600 Timber Dr, Garner. 779-2212.
201 E Hargett St, Raleigh.
834-4040.
2109-124 Avent Ferry Rd, Raleigh. 834-2233.
4150 Main at North Hills St, Raleigh. 786-4511.
9525 Chapel Hill Rd, Morrisville.
645-1111.
Corner of Glenwood Ave and Lynn Rd, Raleigh. 226-2000.
Falls Village Shopping Center, Raleigh. 847-0326. .
1620 Glenwood Ave, Raleigh. 856-0111.
9500 Forum Dr, Raleigh.
846-3904.
1205 Timber Dr East, Garner. 676-FILM.
309 W Morgan St, Durham. 560-3030, .
1056 W Club Blvd, Durham.
286-1001, .
8030 Renaissance Pkwy, Durham. 676-3456.
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2523 E Club Blvd, Durham. 688-1037.
1800 Martin Luther King Blvd, Durham. 489-9020.
Timberlyne Village Mall, 1129 Weaver Dairy Rd, Chapel Hill.
968-3005.
Southern Village, NC 15-501 South, Chapel Hill. 932-9000.
Timberlyne Shopping Center, 120 Banks Dr off Weaver Dairy Rd, Chapel Hill. 933-8600.
123 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill.
967-8665.
119 N Main St, Graham. (336) 226-1488.
5050 Durham Rd, Roxboro. (336) 598-5050.
Chronological by date and time
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism: Friday, Jan 5, potluck at 7:30 pm, movie at 8: Robert Greenwald's film examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news.
Durham Co-op Grocery, 1101 W Chapel Hill St. Free.
Film Capsules
Our rating system uses zero to four stars.
If a movie has no rating, it has not been reviewed by Laura Boyes (LB), Godfrey Cheshire (GC), David Fellerath (DF), Neil Morris (NM) or Zack Smith (ZS).
Opening This Week
The Independent went to press late last week. As of Fri, Dec 22, no new releases were scheduled.
Current Releases
Rated R. mdash;GC
BAABUL (RESPECTED FATHER) mdash;A jewellery tycoon (Amitabh Bachchan) and his son (Salman Khan) meet cute with an artist (Rani Mukherjee). The youngsters court, marry and have an adorable son, but fate intervenes.
This tear soaked melodrama tackles the controversial issue of widow remarriage, still frowned upon in conservative Hindu circles. Rani seems to relish her scenes with old pro Amitabh, but he can phone in those Daddy parts, first fun loving and then sobered by tragedy. The sky is always crying in this glossy misfire.
mdash;LB
Bhagham Bhag (Run Away) mdash;Govinda, the king of 1990s Bollywood comedy, teams with reigning 2000s champ Akshay Kumar in some slapstick nonsense about an Indian theater company in London. But, we can't wait to see them dance together. The theme song mysteriously appropriates a phrase from Rosemary Clooney's "Mambo Italiano.
" Not rated. mdash;LB
Blood Diamond mdash;No doubt the campaign against conflict diamonds is a worthy one, but the film plays like a typically self-righteous Hollywood sermon wrapped around a very bloody, totally predictable and unbelievable adventure yarn constructed of jackhammer "action beats." Even fine performances by leads Leonardo DiCaprio (sporting a South African accent) and Djimon Hounsou can't offset the formulaic filmmaking, or Jennifer Connelly's lame turn as an activist reporter.
Rated R. mdash;GC
BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN mdash;Inventive British TV satirist Sacha Baron Cohen makes his big-screen starring debut playing Borat, an eager, culturally obtuse Kazakh TV reporter road tripping across the United States. Though the comedy sometimes relies a bit too obviously on gross-out and lowbrow provocations (including its absurdist take on Jews), its relentless ingenuity and its star's wacky winning presence make it unfailingly amusing, a sure guarantee of many Cohen comedies to come.
Rated R. mdash;GC
CANDY mdash;Let me tell you about Candy and Dan, two Australian junkies growing up the best they can. Candy (Abbie Cornish) is a blond apple of her parents' eye, Dan (Heath Ledger) is the sweet dope that she loves.
However, heroin is the thing they love most, the candy that makes their life so wild, so free, so pathetic. This movie, like so many other junkie movies, proves to us that drug addicts are among the most boring people on earth. Oh yeah, life goes on.
And on and on. With Geoffrey Rush. Rated R.
mdash;DF
mdash;GC
Director Gary Winick's effort is quite watchable, but if you are looking for an enchanting movie filmed in Australia about an underdog pig, talking farm animals and their human minders, go rent Babe. Rated G. mdash;NM
Come Early Morning mdash;Previously known as an actress, Joey Lauren Adams makes an extremely impressive debut as writer-director, as well as turning out the best Southern film of 2006, in this flavorful indie dramedy about a Little Rock gal named Lucy, who's trying to move beyond her habit of getting drunk and hooking up with stray guys.
Ashley Judd is superb in the lead role, with fine work by Diane Ladd, Scott Wilson and Jeffrey Donovan. Rated R. mdash;GC
DECK THE HALLS mdash;Fa la la la blah.
While not as egregiously offensive as Christmas with the Kranks, this undercooked turkey of a holiday flick is so by-the-numbers it's almost unbelievable that there are three credited screenwriters. Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito are lifeless in paycheck roles as Christmas-obsessed neighbors who go to war. If you can't get enough of Christmas movies involving flaming trees and characters falling down in the snow .
.. rent National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
Rated PG. mdash;ZS
D E J Agrave; VU mdash;Denzel Washington plays an ATF agent assigned to solve a terrorist explosion onboard a New Orleans ferry and the possibly related murder of a young lady (Paula Patton). Investigators employ a covert device that allows them to peer four days into the past, but film's true thematic grit comes when they stumble onto a way to transmit messages, and perhaps more, across dimensions.
Directed by Tony Scott, the script evokes such films as Twelve Monkeys and Primer. Rated PG-13. mdash;NM.
The giddy international caper encourages you to rev your engines, check your brain and dhoom, dhoom. Not rated. mdash;LB
Dreamgirls mdash;A '60s girl group reaches the top, but only after fronting Deena (Beyonc e ), a beauty with crossover appeal, and benching the raw sound and plump physique of the more talented Effie (Jennifer Hudson).
This movie stars Beyonc e . Does no one see the irony in this? The pastiche score of R B, Motown and disco sounds is convincing, but devolves into one power ballad after another.
American Idol confirms the public's insatiable thirst for these anthems, but enough already. Rated PG-13. mdash;LB
ERAGON mdash;One part Star Wars, one part The Lord of the Rings, and three parts crap.
Rated PG. mdash;NM
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION mdash;Christopher Guest steps outside his usual mockumentary approach in this hilarious satire about a low-budget Southern-Jewish-World War II-dying-mother coming-out drama with musical numbers called Home for Purim that unexpectedly earns Oscar buzz. Though not all the actors get enough screen time and the plot is predictable, Consideration is a poignant and dead-on take on Hollywood buzz that deserves a nod of its own mdash;which would only make it funnier.
Rated PG-13. mdash;ZS
The Fountain mdash;Though the visual gifts Darren Aronofsky displayed in pi and Requiem for Dream are again apparent in this lush yarn, the story itself is full of New Age waftiness and jejune romanticism; like too many tales in graphic novels in comic books, it seems to spring from vague pop-culture fantasies and received ideas rather than any perception of the real world. At once overblown and underwhelming, it suggests that Aronofsky is an inventive stylist who desperately needs the help of a good writer.
Rated PG-13. mdash;GC
The Good Shepherd mdash;Focused on a buttoned-down counterintelligence expert played by Matt Damon, Robert De Niro's second directorial outing examines the CIA's roots and first 30 years through a dark, complex drama that's rich enough to evoke comparisons to classics like The Godfather and All the President's Men. Though Eric Roth's script doesn't finally live up to its epic ambitions, this is still one of the year's most fascinating and intelligent films.
Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Billy Crudup and De Niro himself costar. Rated R. mdash;GC
HAPPY FEET mdash;Spawned from the machinations of March of the Penguins, this bird-brained eco-musical posits that penguins are not only hatched under daunting natural obstacles, but born bearing intrinsic familiarity with an anthology of late 20th century American pop music.
What starts out as part The Jazz Singer, part Footloose ends up a contradictory fiction where human encroachment on an endangered ecosystem is halted only when the inhabitants of that environment adopt Western pop culture. Rated PG. mdash;NM
The History Boys mdash;Nicholas Hytner's film of Alan Bennett's West End-to-Broadway hit has the typical strengths and weaknesses of its theatrical kind.
Set in an '80s British class of boys hoping to study history at university, a milieu rife with homoerotic, student-teacher and teacher-administrator tensions, the film boasts a cavalcade of witty writing and expertly engaging work by star Richard Griffiths and a slew of young newcomers. But Bennett's script is also overlong and too pleased with its facile, two-dimensional, ultimately sentimental view of human nature. Rated R.
mdash;GC
Rated PG-13. mdash;NM
JONESTOWN: the life and death of peoples temple mdash;Before there was a catchphrase ("Drinking the Kool-Aid"), and before there was a pretty good band (Brian Jonestown Massacre), there was a terrifying mass suicide among cultists in Guyana, South America. The group's paranoid leader Jim Jones originally hailed from the Bay Area, ministering to lost souls of the 1960s.
Not rated.
Kabul Express mdash;Documentary filmmaker Kabir Khan fictionalizes his post 9/11 reportage in Afghanistan, as two Indian reporters (John Abraham and Arshad Warsi) search for a Taliban soldier to interview. Filmed in Afghanistan, the piercingly blue sky shimmers over the expanse of rubble and endless dusty roads, and one shot of a blue burkha-clad woman, standing on a cliff and merging into the infinite sky, is surely one of the most breathtaking of the year.
Not rated. mdash;LB
LET'S GO TO PRISON mdash;How the hell did so many talented comedians make this? Directed by and co-starring Bob Odenkirk (Mr.
Show), co-written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant of Reno 911! and starring the smarm-tastic Will Arnett of Arrested Development, Prison is a 90-minute version of the Saturday Night Live sketch where Jerry Seinfeld was sent to OZ masquerading as a satirical look at the flaws in the penal system. The Arrested Development episode where Arnett spent a night inside and got shanked by White Power Bill was better mdash;and shorter.
Rated R. mdash;ZS
THE NATIVITY STORY mdash;With all the provocative potential at its disposal, the real pity is how conventional this PG-rated, by-the-Good Book rendering from director Catherine Hardwicke turns out. The visual effects are on par with a made-for-cable television movie, and there is little intrigue once the narrative starts down its inexorable path toward a sacred birth sans umbilical cord, staged with as much spontaneity as the living Nativities you see outside churches every December.
Rated PG. mdash;NM
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM mdash;Somehow, the melding of the talents behind The Pacifier, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Just Married and the Pink Panther and Cheaper by the Dozen remakes isn't the disasterpiece it could have been. However, this tale of a shlubby night guard (Ben Stiller) dealing with exhibits coming to life at the Museum of Natural History doesn't offer much beyond typical bland family fare.
Points to Robin Williams for not going over the top as Teddy Roosevelt, and also to the filmmakers for assembling an eclectic cast including Mickey Rooney, Ricky Gervais and Dick Van Dyke. Rated PG. mdash;ZS
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS mdash;With its early Reagan-era milieu, the most textured parts of this inspiring rags-to-riches biopic of struggling Chris Gardner (Will Smith) accentuate the intractable class and economic divide that often smothers even the most well-intentioned and hard-working among us.
And, the film's most effective moments are the tender and genuine exchanges between Gardner and his young son, played by Smith's real-life son Jaden. Still, director Gabriele Muccino essentially crafts a glorified after-school special imbued with more filler than focus. Rated PG-13.
mdash;NM
mdash;GC
In the end, Rocky Balboa is not unlike its centerpiece Las Vegas exhibition bout mdash;a meaningless spectacle that fails to advance the Rocky lore. Rated PG-13. mdash;NM
STRANGER THAN FICTION mdash;Will Ferrell is closer to Peter Sellers in Being There than his usual manic self as Harold Crick, a lifeless IRS agent who's unknowingly the subject of a tragic novel by a blocked author (Emma Thompson).
As Ferrell hears Thompson's incessant voice-over narration about his pathetic existence, he attempts to rebel against his plot-oriented death by seeking help from an English professor/lifeguard (Dustin Hoffman) and pursuing romance with a tax-dodging baker (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Rated PG-13. mdash;ZS
UNACCOMPANIED MINORS mdash;This refreshingly entertaining holiday flick aims to channel the mixture of slapstick and poignancy of John Hughes' Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but winds up closer to Home Alone.
Based on a story from This American Life, it chronicles the misadventures of a small group of children-of-divorce (including Tyler James Williams from TV's Everybody Hates Chris and Brett Kelly from Bad Santa) who find themselves snowed in at an airport on Christmas Eve and run amuck while avoiding the Scrooge-esque airport head (Lewis Black). Rated PG. mdash;ZS
WE ARE MARSHALL mdash;Charlie's Angels mastermind McG gets serious with this based-on-a-true-story tale of Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, but the results take a genuinely moving true story and impose a traditional "underdogs come together" sports film onto it.
Rated PG.
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