★★★ It takes a deft touch to create a protagonist who’s both sympathetic and an indictment of an over-privileged generation. But that’s what writer-director-star Lena Dunham pulls off playing Aura, a would-be filmmaker who has graduated from college and returned home to New York to crash with her artist mother (real-life mom Laurie Simmons) and over-achieving teenage sister (real-life sister Grace Dunham) while she “figures some stuff out.” Dunham is a disarmingly appealing on-screen presence, and she’s just as deft behind the camera, putting together precise compositions that make any comparison to mumblecore just lazy. But her savviest work comes as a writer, constructing a story of 20-somethings-including Aura and the two guys who become sort-of-romantic-interests treating their financially strapped journeys of self-discovery as an inalienable right. Aura’s interaction with a saucy high-school friend (Jemima Kirke) doesn’t always feel fully integrated, and the supporting performances are at times perfunctory. But there’s a wonderfully wise level of self-deprecation to a movie that knows the dismissive power of describing someone as “famous in, like, an Internet kind of way.” (NR) (Nickelodeon Theatre)
127 Hours ★★★★ The true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston’s remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal Sandhill)
Blue Valentine ★★★★ Flooded with romantic memories of their courtship, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) use one night to try and save their failing marriage. (R) (Carmike 14)
The Mechanic An elite assassin (Jason Statham) takes on an apprentice (Ben Foster) who has a connection to one of his earlier targets. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime)
The Rite A disillusioned American seminary student who attends exorcism school at the Vatican, encountering demonic forces and an unorthodox priest (Anthony Hopkins) who introduces him to the darker side of his faith. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime)
Black Swan ★★★★ Once again, director Darren Aronofsky conveys what the world looks like to people who have fallen into madness and obsession. Ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) begins to crack under the pressure of being cast as the lead in a production of Swan Lake that demands she play both the White Swan and its darker counterpart. The psychological tension involves Nina’s relationship with her controlling mother (Barbara Hershey), and what the pursuit of perfection can do to the soul — and it hardly takes a road map to find that subtext. But Aronofsky makes those ideas enthralling as we watch Nina crumble into hallucinations (or are they?) of physical transformation, Portman effortlessly playing someone whose sense of self is falling apart. There are bound to be viewers who find Black Swan too archetypal to be emotionally satisfying — or, for that matter, too just-plain-weird. Maybe that’s just further indication that Aronofsky has once again nailed the experience of prowling around inside someone else’s subconscious, seeing things you’d really prefer you hadn’t seen. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ★★★ Attempting to revive its appeal to the “faith audience,” this third installment of the Narnia series peppers its episodic adventure with unsubtle allegory. Youngest Pevensie siblings Lucy (Georgie Hensley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) return to Narnia with their annoying cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) to join King Caspian (Ben Barnes) in battling a nameless, faceless evil force. Nameless, faceless evil forces don’t make for the most compelling cinema, of course; a green mist doesn’t match Tilda Swinton’s smooth White Witch malevolence. There is, however, the welcome addition of Eustace, and the terrific casting of Poulter. He’s one of many characters with important lessons to learn, which is where the collision between conventional fantasy and Christian subtext gets awkward; scenes dealing with moral struggle are plunked down as though required to fill some quota. The charms of the film are challenged by the realization that, once again, Aslan is bound to turn into the leo ex machina that will solve all the really difficult problems with a mighty roar. (PG) (Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande)
Country Strong ★★ At the outset, when writer-director Shanna Feste drops us without any background into the interaction between Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow), an alcoholic country music star in rehab, and Beau (Garrett Hedlund), an orderly and would-be singer-songwriter, it feels like a bold move. Then it becomes clear that Feste just doesn’t have the time to give any of the film’s relationships the context they need. It’s really sort of a romantic rectangle, involving not just Kelly and Beau but also Kelly’s manager/husband (Tim McGraw) and the beauty queen-turned-singer who accompanies them all on Kelly’s comeback tour. And every one of the various subplots feels half-formed, like short stories that have been pasted together to make a feature. The music, even to a non-country fan, sounds pretty good; Hedlund in particular has a wonderful, earthy baritone. But it gets swallowed by a tale that resorts to melodrama when it can’t find the time to develop any actual drama. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal 7)
The Dilemma ★★ I’d bet there was the germ of something unique in Alan Loeb’s original script, a high concept that turns into a darker comedy about the secrets everyone keeps. Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) are best friends since college and business partners on the verge of a big contract — so is this the right time for Ronny to tell Nick that he caught his wife, Geneva (Winona Ryder), with another guy? Vaughn has solid moments in prime motor-mouth mode, and there’s an unexpectedly sly supporting turn by Channing Tatum as Geneva’s lover. There are also individual scenes that suggest what might have been, had director Ron Howard been willing (or able) to commit to an edgier tone rather than pretending it’s all a light-hearted lark. The resulting mess isn’t funny enough to disguise its fear of saying anything really interesting. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
The Fighter ★★★ Like Rocky, David O. Russell’s tale of a scrappy, working-class nobody who gets a title shot works not just because of its underdog sports-movie machinations but because of its quirky sense of character and place. It’s the real-life story of “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a brawler from Lowell, Mass., who struggles between looking out for his own career and staying loyal to his family, including employing his ex-boxer, crack-addict half-brother Dickie (Christian Bale) as his trainer. While Russell includes stuff like the obligatory “winning streak” montage, he offers plenty of smaller character moments, allowing the story and the terrific performances — particularly Bale’s sensational, motor-mouthed Dickie — room to breathe. Of course, eventually we’re going to need to see Micky in the ring, and while there’s nothing overtly wrong with the fight scenes, there’s nothing particularly interesting about them, particularly after the looser, funkier opening 90 minutes. The Fighter understands that we need to care just as much about what happens when the hero isn’t wearing a pair of gloves. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal 7; Regal Sandhill)
Green Hornet ★★★ Nerdy-goof superhero fan Seth Rogen co-writes and stars in a movie that’s much more nerdy-goofy than it is superheroic — much to its advantage. Rogen plays Britt Reid, a slacker billion-heir who decides to turn his new combination of money, ample free time and a genius engineer and kung fu dynamo named Kato (Jay Chou) for a partner into a stab at masked crime-fighting. Unfortunately, he’s utterly inept and kind of a jerk — which Rogen plays up to very funny effect. Director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) feels like entirely the wrong choice for this sort of movie, and the action sequences are perfunctory when they’re not frantically edited. But in a way, the whole story is just a terrific gag at the expense of blockbuster moviemaking — a satire of egomaniacal boys wanting to make sure everyone knows they’ve got the coolest toys. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
Get Low ★★★★ A backwoods hermit decides to throw a party for his own funeral while he’s still alive. (PG-13) (Carmike 14)
Gulliver’s Travels ★★ Jack Black looms massively over the rest of the landscape, overwhelming everything around him — or at least that seems to have been the intent. In an adaptation that it’s best to pretend has nothing to do with Jonathan Swift, Black plays newspaper mail-room slacker Lemuel Gulliver who — in an attempt to impress the travel editor (Amanda Peet) he’s crushing on — feigns the ability to take on an assignment in the Bermuda Triangle. And thus he winds up shipwrecked in Lilliput, a big man at last among its tiny inhabitants. Aside from a few amusing pop-culture gags — Gulliver builds himself up among the Lilliputians by telling the Star Wars and Titanic stories as stuff that happened to him — it all feels mostly designed as a vehicle for Black to do his familiar shtick as a blustering loser. And while he generally doesn’t force things to the point that he becomes annoying, neither can he support a bunch of random, episodic nonsense with the same basic premise delivered more cleverly in Kung Fu Panda. (PG) (Carmike 14; Regal 7)
The Heart Specialist The chief resident of a shady hospital tries to hide his shady past. (NR) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong)
Inside Job ★★★ Charles Ferguson (No End in Sight) takes on the world financial collapse of 2008 — an ugly picture of financial institutions run amok, and the supporting players making too much money to worry about possible consequences. While Ferguson isn’t the first to attempt a layperson’s perspective on this complex mess, he does a very efficient job of summarizing key points: untrustworthy securities ratings agencies, academic economists with conflicts of interest, etc. But while the film is informative and solidly constructed, Ferguson also doesn’t disguise the incredulity in his voice when interview subjects provide ridiculous answers; he plays our surrogate, the guy shaking the cages of jagoffs who got away with millions. As cathartic as those moments might be, they make it harder to focus on how the perpetrators are more than capable of hanging themselves with their own words. (PG-13) (Carmike 14; Regal 7)
The King’s Speech ★★★ It’s too easy for laud Colin Firth for his performance here, yet it’s also too easy to fold your arms defiantly against the high-toned look of the film, thus missing its considerable charms. In 1934 England, the Duke of York (Firth) begins working on his crippling stutter with unconventional speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), even as events rush him toward the likelihood that he may become king. The relationship between Logue and the monarch-to-be is the focal point, and director Tom Hooper gives a delightful spark to their sessions. There’s nothing profound going on in this tale of a prince finding common ground with a commoner — simply a satisfying pairing of two talented actors. While Firth is certainly good, Rush actually proves more impressive; his performance is a unique mix of simple self-confidence and roguish humor. It’s a bit harder to embrace the woes of an emotionally stunted blue-blood, but while Firth might not give the performance of the year, he makes for half of one hell of a team. (R) (AMC Dutch Square, Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
Little Fockers ★★ In the closing scene of this latest return to the clash between neurotic male nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his hard-nosed father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro), Greg’s dad (Dustin Hoffman) says, “We have to laugh at the things that make us human: farts, burps …” And thus is excused a simmering heap of pointlessness-cum-sentimentality. The ostensible plot has Jack worrying about the family legacy after he has a heart attack, and hoping Greg has the stuff to become a patriarch. But really it’s all an excuse for an episodic parade of broad physical gags and situations where a third party arrives at precisely the moment required to completely misunderstand what’s going on. Owen Wilson provides low-key appeal returning as Kevin, but his refusal to overplay a scene only makes the manic desperation of the rest of the film more depressing. You know what else makes us human? The ability to use at least an ounce of brains to avoid complete wastes of our time and money. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal Sandhill)
No Strings Attached ★★★ The premise, of course, is very naughty and edgy: Two people trying to have a purely sexual relationship without letting inconvenient things like emotions get in the way. But there’s such a thing as overplaying your hand. Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) bump into each other repeatedly over the years, until medical resident Emma suggests the physical-only arrangement to fit her hectic life. Portman and Kutcher are both solid — though the psychology behind their characters’ respective views of romance seems logically reversed — and there are laughs spread throughout from a supporting cast including Kevin Kline and Greta Gerwig. It’s just a shame that Elizabeth Meriweather’s script seems so determined to be as outrageous as possible, at the expense of a natural flow to the relationship. It’s a movie that doesn’t seem to understand its own message — that you’ve got to find a way to integrate the heart and the groin. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Columbia Place; Regal 7; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
Season of the Witch ★ A heroic Crusader and his closest friend return home after decades of fierce fighting, only to find their world destroyed by the Plague. The church elders, convinced that a girl accused of being a witch is responsible for the devastation, command the two to transport the strange girl to a remote monastery where monks will perform an ancient ritual to rid the land of her curse. They embark on a harrowing, action-filled journey that will test their strength and courage as they discover the girl’s dark secret and find themselves battling a terrifyingly powerful force that will determine the fate of the world. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal Sandhill)
Tangled ★★★★ Disney might be concerned about emphasizing that this is a musical fairy tale about a princess — but even if this feels like a greatest-hits medley, it’s still charming, funny and deliciously entertaining. As per tradition, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is held captive in a tower by an evil stepmother (Donna Murphy), until her true love (Zachary Levi) comes to rescue her. But the filmmakers are savvy enough to build an emotional hook of teen rebellion and over-protective parenting on which to hang a familiar format. And while plenty of Tangled feels familiar, from the song types to individual scenes, they nail the execution. Alan Menken’s tunes are Broadway-catchy; all three central voice performances are terrific. The comic relief proves genuinely amusing, while the action beats are choreographed for excitement and for laughs. It’s a shame that marketing worries appear to have inspired the studio to disavow a genre that has brought so much cinematic pleasure. Say it with me now: It’s a musical fairy tale about a princess. When we’re all humming and smiling our way through the happily-ever-afterward of watching, those silly words shouldn’t matter. (PG) (Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande)
The Tourist ★★★ If you look too closely at anything about this remake of a 2005 French caper, it’ll fall apart entirely — so best to enjoy its purely superficial pleasures. Under heavy surveillance in Paris, Elise (Angelina Jolie), the lover of an on-the-lam thief, tries to throw authorities off the trail by picking a random guy on a Venice-bound train — American traveler Frank (Johnny Depp) — and pretending he’s the post-plastic-surgery target. Unfortunately, that suddenly puts Frank in the crosshairs not just of the authorities, but of the homicidal businessman from whom he stole billions. Don’t try to buy that authorities have engaged for two years in an operation as clumsy as what we see, or that all the plot turns make any logical sense. Simply enjoy Depp’s cagy performance — his startled utterance of the film’s lone F-bomb is priceless — and the way director Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) uses the music and scenery to capture the vibe of vintage romantic capers. (PG-13) (Carmike 14; Regal 7)
Tron: Legacy ★★★ The 3-D version of the film only kicks into 3-D when the action moves from the real world to The Grid, the digital universe first visited by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) in the original 1982 computer-animation groundbreaker. That Wizard of Oz-ish transition feels like it might be necessary after we get the angsty back-story of how Flynn’s now-20-something son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) needs to enter The Grid to resolve his daddy abandonment issues. The Grid 2.0 proves unexpectedly breathtaking, serving up a break-neck 20 minutes of pure visual cool. But the minimalist narrative of the original is lacking here, and it’s hard to embrace the idea that there’s anything at stake emotionally in something that feels like you should be pumping quarters into it every 15 minutes. Tron: Legacy wants to lecture us about immersing ourselves in the digital world at the risk of our interactions in the real world. We could have enjoyed its candy-coated delights without having to be warned that there’s no place like home. (PG) (Carmike 14; Columbia Place; Regal 7; Regal Sandhill)
True Grit ★★★★ Joel and Ethan Coen — always unfairly accused of favoring craftsmanship over emotion — might have crafted their most deeply felt movie yet. Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the 14-year-old daughter of a murdered Arkansas farmer, hires infamous U.S. Marshal “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track and bring to justice the man responsible. Even the least-loved Coen films have offered superficial pleasures, and this one has plenty: punchy dialogue; shimmering cinematography; Matt Damon’s nimble performance as a puffed-up Texas Ranger. The soul of the story, however, is the relationship between Rooster and Hattie, both brilliantly performed; what develops between Mattie and Cogburn is pure respect for someone with a toughness each had thought only existed in themselves. Mattie might be the perfect Coen heroine, with a controlled exterior that makes it seem as though there’s nothing more emotional going on beneath the surface. Her final act in the film shows that perception to be a miscalculation — and maybe folks have been making the same miscalculation about the Coens all these years. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Sandhill)
The Way Back ★★★ When they escape a Siberian labor camp in 1940 seven courageous multi-national prisoners discover the true meaning of friendship as their epic journey takes them across thousands of miles of hostile terrain en-route to India and their freedom. (PG-13) (Regal Columbiana Grande)
Yogi Bear ★★ A documentary filmmaker (Anna Faris) travels to Jellystone Park to shoot a project and soon crosses paths with Yogi Bear (voice of Dan Aykroyd) and his sidekick Boo-Boo (voice of Justin Timberlake). (PG) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
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