Special screenings
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
John Cameron Mitchell, Michael Pitt, Miriam Shor. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. 95 minutes. Rated R.
A transsexual punk rocker from East Berlin tours the U.S. with her band as she tells her life story and follows the ex-boyfriend/bandmate who stole her songs. Film and live cast performance. Tropicana Cinemas, 3330 E. Tropicana Ave., 243-7469. Second & fourth Sat of month, 9:30 pm, $10. Info: www.rhpsvegas.com.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, Jeffrey Tambor. Directed by Ron Howard. 104 minutes. Rated PG.
Adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ classic children’s book about a creature intent on putting an end to Christmas. The District at Green Valley Ranch, 2300 Paseo Verde Parkway, Henderson, 564-8595. 12/21, 7 pm, free.
IMAX Theatre
Deep Sea 3D, Fighter Pilot, Mystery of the Nile, Dinosaurs 3D: Giants of Patagonia, Lions 3D: Roar of the Kalahari
Call for showtimes. $11.99 each show.
Luxor, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 262-4629.
It’s a Wonderful Life
James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore. Directed by Frank Capra. 130 minutes. Rated PG-13.
An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he never existed. The District at Green Valley Ranch, 2300 Paseo Verde Parkway, Henderson, 564-8595. 12/22, 7 pm, free.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Tim Curry. Directed by Jim Sharman. 100 minutes. Rated R.
The perennial 1975 cult classic is a mix of horror, comedy and musical, featuring sex, transvestites and the Time Warp. Augmented by a live cast and audience participation. Onyx Theater inside The Rack in Commercial Center, 953 E. Sahara Ave., #101. First & third Sat of month, 11:30 pm, $7. Info: 953-0682 or www.divinedecadence.org.
The Santa Claus Brothers
Voices of Brian Cranston, Caroline Rhea, Harland Williams. Directed by Mike Fallows. 60 minutes. Rated G.
With Santa Claus set to retire, his three sons compete to see who will take over the family business. Galaxy Cannery, 2121 E. Craig Road, 639-9779. Thru 12/31, noon, $3.
New this week
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (Not reviewed)
John Ortiz, Steven Pasquale, Johnny Lewis. Directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause. 86 minutes. Rated R.
Warring creatures from space descend on a small town, where unsuspecting residents must band together for any chance of survival.
Charlie Wilson’s War *** 1/2
Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Julia Roberts. Directed by Mike Nichols. 97 minutes. Rated R.
See review Page 41.
The Great Debaters **
Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker. Directed by Denzel Washington. 123 minutes. Rated PG-13.
See review Page 41.
Juno *** 1/2
Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner. Directed by Jason Reitman. 92 minutes. Rated PG-13.
See review online.
The Kite Runner ***
Khalid Abdalla, Zekeria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, Homayoun Ershadi. Directed by Marc Forster. 122 minutes. Rated PG-13.
See review online.
Margot at the Wedding ****
Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, Zane Pais. Directed by Noah Baumbach. 91 minutes. Rated R.
See review online.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Not reviewed)
Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger. Directed by Jon Turteltaub. 124 minutes. Rated PG.
Treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) looks to discover the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by uncovering the mystery within the 18 pages missing from assassin John Wilkes Booth’s diary.
P.S. I Love You (Not reviewed)
Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow. Directed by Richard LaGravenese. 126 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help her ease her pain and start a new life.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street *** 1/2
Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman. Directed by Tim Burton. 117 minutes. Rated R.
See review online.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story *** 1/2
John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Tim Meadows. Directed by Jake Kasdan. 91 minutes. Rated R.
See review oline.
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Not reviewed)
Alex Etel, Ben Chaplin, Emily Watson. Directed by Jay Russell. 111 minutes. Rated PG.
A lonely boy discovers a mysterious egg that hatches a sea creature of Scottish legend.
Now playing
Across the Universe ***
Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson. Directed by Julie Taymor. 131 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A psychedelic take on the stage trend of the “jukebox musical,” Universe uses more than 30 Beatles songs in service of the rather bland story of young lovers Jude (Sturgess) and Lucy (Wood), set against the turmoil of the 1960s. Just as often silly as it is clever, Universe is the work of a filmmaker whose large and wonderful visions feel cramped inside a trite and forgettable little fable. –JB
Alvin and the Chipmunks (Not reviewed)
Jason Lee, voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney. Directed by Tim Hill. 91 minutes. Rated PG.
Three chipmunk brothers are adopted by a man named Dave (Lee) and turned into singing sensations.
American Gangster *** 1/2
Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin. Directed by Ridley Scott. 157 minutes. Rated R.
Gangster switches back and forth between 1970s Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas’ (Washington) empire-building and New Jersey narcotics cop Richie Roberts’ efforts to take him down. It’s a sweeping period epic, based on a true story, and Washington and Crowe (as Roberts) bring the requisite heft to lift the film to grand heights. Beginning with the death of Lucas’ mentor, the previous drug lord of Harlem, Scott meticulously charts the former bodyguard’s rise to prominence. With the pieces in place, Scott moves them expertly toward their inevitable collision; when Washington and Crowe finally share a scene toward the end of the film, it’s well worth the wait. –JB
Atonement ***
Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai. Directed by Joe Wright. 122 minutes. Rated R.
Atonement is best in its first third or so, which focuses on a tense day at the English country estate of the Tallis family on the eve of the Second World War. Precocious and self-important 13-year-old budding writer Briony (Ronan) witnesses a series of incidents between her older sister Cecilia (Knightley) and Robbie Turner (McAvoy), the son of the family’s housekeeper. Misinterpreting the pair’s budding love as something more sinister, Briony, through a series of tragic coincidences, ends up condemning Robbie to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. When the film switches perspectives and time frames to focus on Robbie, now a soldier in the war a few years later, it’s less effective. Filmmaking skill aside, Wright never quite connects the emotion of the story to his awe-inspiring presentation of it, and that leaves the film beautiful but always just out of reach. –JB
August Rush **
Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Directed by Kirsten Sheridan. 114 minutes. Rated PG.
Cute musical prodigy Evan (Highmore) is a sad orphan who runs away from his seemingly innocuous group home to search for his parents. Following the music of his soul (or something like that), he heads to NYC, where he’s picked up by a Dickensian mentor/corruptor called Wizard (Williams, disturbingly pierced and soul-patched), absorbed into a photogenically diverse group of street-musician moppets and rechristened August Rush. Sheridan lacks the sense of whimsy necessary to carry off so many illogical plot developments, and the leaden script is full of empty romantic pronouncements that sound neither believable nor wondrous. –JB
Awake (Not reviewed)
Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Lena Olin. Directed by Joby Harold. 78 minutes. Rated R.
A man (Christensen) suffers “anesthetic awareness” and finds himself awake and aware, but paralyzed, during heart surgery. His young wife (Alba) must wrestle with her own demons as a drama unfolds around them.
Bee Movie ** 1/2
Voices of Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick. Directed by Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith. 90 minutes. Rated PG.
Disaffected honeybee Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld) is unwilling to commit himself to a regimented life of honey production and eager to experience life beyond the hive. So Barry ventures into the human world, where he breaks the bee law against communicating with people and strikes up a friendship with florist Vanessa (Zellweger). There are a few funny lines here and there, and the bee society is sometimes creative and clever. But the film is mostly a collection of tired celebrity voice cameos and stale Seinfeld riffs repackaged to relate to the bee world. –JB
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead ** 1/2
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Marisa Tomei. Directed by Sidney Lumet. 116 minutes. Rated R.
A seemingly foolproof robbery scheme goes horribly awry for loser brothers Andy (Hoffman) and Hank (Hawke). Both hurting for money, they hatch a scheme to knock off the suburban jewelry store owned by their parents. No one gets hurt, insurance takes care of Mom and Dad, and the brothers come away with a tidy profit—right? Well, of course not, and how it all unravels is what should make the movie interesting. But veteran director Lumet structures the film in an odd temporal loop, doubling back multiple times to show various perspectives. It’s a tired tactic that consistently works against the story’s momentum. Just when Lumet starts to build some decent tension, he cuts back, losing the suspense and replacing it with a rehash of what we’ve already seen. –JB
Beowulf ****
Voices of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 113 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have taken an ancient narrative that was as base as “monster shows up, hero kills monster, repeat,” and with a little creative license, have crafted an epic tale that functions as an ode to mythological hubris. The story now has ironies that any modern audience can appreciate and snappy one-liners worthy of any action-packed popcorn movie. The motion-capture technique has preserved all of the subtle, human nuances in the performances that might have been overlooked in a drawn-from-scratch approach, and as a result, it’s easy to forget that you’re watching a cartoon. But action is the main attraction, and Beowulf is relentlessly brutal in this regard. –MSH
Dan in Real Life *
Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook. Directed by Peter Hedges. 95 minutes. Rated PG-13.
That Carell is able to make newspaper advice columnist Dan Burns even somewhat likable is a testament to the actor’s charisma, since Dan engages in stupid and insensitive behavior almost from the moment that he shows up at his parents’ house for a family-reunion weekend. A widower raising three daughters on his own, Dan starts out as a fairly typical lunkheaded sitcom-style dad. He runs into Marie (Binoche), with whom he makes an immediate connection. He returns to the family home only to discover that Marie is actually the new girlfriend of his brother Mitch (Cook). None of the characters behaves in a way that even approaches believability, and for a film that is supposed to be life-affirming and heartwarming, Real Life has about as much genuine feeling as a cheap greeting card. –JB
Enchanted *** 1/2
Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden. Directed by Kevin Lima. 107 minutes. Rated PG.
Adams plays Giselle, an animated Disney girl hoping to marry a prince. The cartoon Prince Edward (Marsden) rescues Giselle, and they fall in love. But Edward’s stepmother, a bitter, evil queen, throws Giselle down a well that leads to live-action, modern New York City. Divorce lawyer and single dad Robert (Dempsey) finds her and reluctantly lets her stay on his couch. Although Enchanted doesn’t fully take advantage of its unique idea, it’s still a hugely entertaining, clever comic fairy tale. –JMA
Fred Claus *
Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Miranda Richardson, John Michael Higgins. Directed by David Dobkin. 116 minutes. Rated PG.
What if Santa Claus had a brother, and that brother was Vince Vaughn? That’s the premise behind Fred Claus, and it’s just as thin as Santa’s latex-covered hands are thick. The problem is that for all of Vaughn’s fast-paced babbling, nothing winds up being very funny. In an attempt to compensate, the film struggles to find something else to be about, but every subplot is so random and poorly thought-out, it just leaves us scratching our heads. –MSH
The Golden Compass ** 1/2
Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig. Directed by Chris Weitz. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13.
The orphaned Lyra (Richards) lives at tweedy Jordan College in alternate-world Oxford, England, occasionally visited by her distant uncle Lord Asriel (Craig), an explorer investigating a mystical substance called Dust. Lyra is quickly whisked away from Jordan by the charming Mrs. Coulter (Kidman) to work as her ostensible apprentice for a pending voyage to the frozen northern land of Svalbard. It isn’t long, though, before Lyra discovers that Mrs. Coulter is at the head of a conspiracy to kidnap children and do something nasty to them. It’s all a little much, and Weitz rushes through it like it’s a race, turning in a film much shorter than your typical fantasy epic, but also much less satisfying. –JB
Gone Baby Gone *** 1/2
Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris. Directed by Ben Affleck. 114 minutes. Rated R.
Longtime residents of Boston’s working-class Dorchester neighborhood, private-dick couple Patrick Kenzie (Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Monaghan) are hired to investigate the kidnapping of a 4-year-old girl, ostensibly because potential witnesses are more likely to talk to them than to the cops. The deeper they look, however, the murkier things get—and even when the case is “solved” (sooner than you expect), uneasy questions linger, as does the film’s all-enveloping sense of moral turpitude. Quietly morose rather than operatically overheated, Affleck’s film won’t likely win any major Oscars, despite featuring the single best performance I’ve seen all year. But it should earn its director something more valuable still: respect. –MD
Hitman * 1/2
Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko. Directed by Xavier Gens. 100 minutes. Rated R.
Hitman is the latest in a series of movies based on video games that ignore what makes their source material unique. In the video-game series, you play the part of a chrome-domed contract killer, code-named 47. You’re assigned a target, and you have to figure out one of many clever ways to assassinate this person (and only this person). You’re actually penalized for collateral kills. That means that Olyphant, who plays 47 in the film, would really suck at Hitman. In addition to leaving far too many bodies in his wake, Olyphant is never sure whether to play 47 as stone cold or to wink at the camera. It doesn’t help that the equally confusing script has no shame in finding the most ludicrous ways to get us into an action sequence as quickly as possible. –MSH
I Am Legend **
Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan. Directed by Francis Lawrence. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A few years after an “elegant” man-made virus has wiped out most of the world’s human population, Robert Neville (Smith), a military microbiologist stationed in Manhattan and the city’s last healthy biped inhabitant, scavenges the island for supplies in the company of his German shepherd. Battling loneliness, he also conducts experiments to reverse the effects of the disease on “dark-seekers”—physically ravaged, vampire-like victims of the disease who huddle in cavernous hovels during the day and feed by night. The introduction of a pair of healthy, itinerant survivors (Braga and Tahan) midway through is the final straw, and from there the movie lumbers toward a hasty, predictable conclusion that even manages to mangle the meaning of Matheson’s lovely title. –MH
I’m Not There **
Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw. Directed by Todd Haynes. 135 minutes. Rated R.
I’m Not There is Haynes’ exegesis of the many personae of Bob Dylan. No matter how well-worn your copies of Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks, odds are good that you’ll emerge from its welter of references and allusions utterly befuddled. Six different actors play Dylan, each one representing a different period of his life and a unique facet of his mercurial public image. I’m Not There, with its panoply of surface affectations and its deliberate structuring absence, is more of a great idea for a movie than a great movie per se. Rabid Dylanistas may appreciate it somewhat more than the great unwashed, but even those who recognize every stray reference will likely experience the film as little more than a vaguely playful blur. –MD
Into the Wild *** 1/2
Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt. Directed by Sean Penn. 147 minutes. Rated R.
Christopher McCandless was a young Emory grad who donated his life savings to Oxfam International, broke off all contact with his family and spent two years as a wandering nomad, eventually starving to death alone in an abandoned bus outside Alaska’s Denali National Park. Penn opens Into the Wild with Chris’ trek into the Alaskan wilderness, and after a quick flashback to his college graduation, the film alternates between his final, fatal weeks in Alaska and the various pit stops he made during the nearly two years it took him to get there. However insufferable one may find Chris’ general attitude, it’s impossible not to be charmed by the open, welcoming relationships he forms with practically everyone he encounters. The film isn’t so much a character study as it is a genial portrait of self-marginalized America as seen through the eyes of its newest and most eager member. –MD
Lars and the Real Girl ** 1/2
Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider. Directed by Craig Gillespie. 106 minutes. Rated PG-13.
If the title character of Lars and the Real Girl were in fact real, he’d be locked up in a mental institution where he belonged. He’d be getting professional psychiatric help to deal with his extreme fear of human contact, his abandonment issues and his long-term delusion that a lifelike sex doll he names Bianca is actually his half-Brazilian, half-Dutch wheelchair-bound girlfriend. But he’s not real; he’s a character in a movie, so instead Lars (Gosling) is encouraged in his delusion by his entire hometown. By dialing down the comedy and playing up the pathos, Gillespie puts the movie in a sort of empty middle space, with situations that are patently absurd but meant to be somehow touching and sweet. –JB
Lions for Lambs *
Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Michael Pena, Derek Luke. Directed by Robert Redford. 88 minutes. Rated R.
The film switches among three intersecting stories, two of which involve little more than people sitting in a room and debating issues. A world-weary reporter (Streep) interviews an ambitious young senator (Cruise) about a new military strategy in Afghanistan, while an equally world-weary college political-science professor (Redford) debates a jaded student who refuses to engage with class material. Meanwhile, a pair of soldiers (Pena, Luke) are shot down and stranded on a mountain in Afghanistan. All the good intentions in the world can’t make up for Lions’ complete failure as drama, or its wooden, statistics-laden dialogue that comes off more like dueling position papers than actual human beings having a conversation. –JB
Michael Clayton *** 1/2
George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton. Directed by Tony Gilroy. 119 minutes. Rated R.
Michael Clayton (Clooney) works at a high-powered Manhattan law firm where he is the in-house “fixer,” the man who makes nasty problems go away. The film finds Clayton trying to clean up the mess caused by his friend and mentor, Arthur Edens (Wilkinson), after Edens suffers a nervous breakdown in the middle of a deposition for a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. The movie proceeds so smoothly and efficiently that at times it seems almost mechanical, and the sequences that fill in Clayton’s back story feel a bit incomplete. But Clooney fills in the emotional blanks with his alternately steely and haggard performance, making Clayton more than just a piece in a puzzle. –JB
The Mist *** 1/2
Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden. Directed by Frank Darabont. 127 minutes. Rated R.
After a particularly bad storm in a small New England town, a mysterious mist rolls in, trapping a group of ordinary folks in a grocery store. The mist is pervasive and dangerous, full as it appears to be of malicious insect-like creatures. Hero David Drayton (Jane) tries to rally the townspeople and come up with a plan of survival, while doomsaying religious nutbag Mrs. Carmody (Harden) preaches that the end of days has arrived, and calls for human sacrifice. The film’s commentary on religious fundamentalism is sloppy, but its ability to build tension is much more effective, with Darabont making good use of the mist to show only the most disturbing bits of the creatures outside. –JB
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (Not reviewed)
Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman. Directed by Zach Helm. 93 minutes. Rated G.
Molly Mahoney (Portman) is the awkward and insecure manager of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, the strangest, most fantastic toy store in the world. But when Mr. Magorium (Hoffman) bequeaths the store to her, a dark and ominous change begins to take over the Emporium.
No Country for Old Men ****
Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. 122 minutes. Rated R.
While hunting in the West Texas mountains, Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a hard-luck but humane Vietnam War vet, stumbles across a botched heavyweight drug deal and impulsively makes off with a $2 million cache of very dirty money. When a delayed bout of guilt inadvertently tips off his identity to the thugs involved, Moss becomes the quarry of ultraefficient psychopathic hit man Anton Chigurh (Bardem) and kind-hearted but demoralized small-town sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Jones). In a return to the bleak physical setting and hair-trigger brutality of 1984’s Blood Simple, the brothers Coen pull out of their multi-film slump and then some with this violent, pitch-black adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 chase thriller. –MH
The Perfect Holiday (Not reviewed)
Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Queen Latifah. Directed by Lance Rivera. 96 minutes. Rated PG.
Too busy to think about herself, Nancy (Union), a divorced mother of three, has been single so long she’s forgotten what it’s like to have romance in her life. Unbeknownst to her, the man of Nancy’s dreams is waiting in the mall disguised in a fake white beard and dressed in a jolly red suit.
Saw IV (Not reviewed)
Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Scott Patterson, Lyriq Bent. Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. 108 minutes. Rated R.
Sadistic killer Jigsaw subjects more people to elaborate torture devices.
Strength and Honor * 1/2
Michael Madsen, Vinnie Jones, Michael Rawley. Directed by Mark Mahon. 104 minutes. Not rated.
Madsen plays retired Irish boxer Sean Kelleher. Soon after his wife dies of a vaguely defined illness, his cute little son is diagnosed with the same problem. If only Sean had the money he needed to pay for a highly experimental operation to save his son’s life! How convenient, then, that that exact amount of money is the prize for winning an underground bare-knuckle boxing tournament. The dialogue and production values are both cheap, and the uplift is as contrived and unconvincing as the latest Blockbuster-approved American Pie sequel. –JB
This Christmas (Not reviewed)
Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, Chris Brown. Directed by Preston A. Whitmore II. 117 minutes. Rated PG-13.
This year, Christmas with the Whitfields promises to be one they will never forget. All the siblings have come home for the first time in years, and they’ve brought plenty of baggage with them. As the tree is trimmed and the lights are hung, secrets are revealed and family bonds are tested.
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; MD Mike D’Angelo; MH Mark Holcomb; MSH Matthew Scott Hunter