Movie Capsules: Now showing

"The Alps" is showing at the IMAX Theater at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.

OPENING TODAY

Invictus (PG-13, 133 min.) See review.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Larger Than Life... in 3D: Dave Matthews Band (Not rated, 105 min.) For one week only, a concert film featuring the popular rock group, with opening acts Ben Harper and Gogol Bordello.

Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Princess and the Frog (G, 97 min.) See review.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Red Cliff (R, 148 min.) See review on Page 18.

Studio on the Square.

SPECIAL MOVIES

"The Alps" is showing at the IMAX Theater at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.

The Alps: The latest IMAX film follows climber John Harlin III in his attempt to climb the Eiger in the Swiss Alps. Runs through Nov. 12, 2010. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times. alpsfilm.com

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for tickets and reservations.

The Conversation (PG, 113 min.) Gene Hackman stars as a paranoid surveillance expert in this 1974 classic from Francis Ford Coppola, as intense in its own small-scale way as the director's "Godfather" films and "Apocalypse Now."

7 p.m. Thursday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $7, or $5 for Brooks and Indie Memphis members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (Not rated, 50 min.) A talented family of Muppet otters makes holiday music in this charming 1977 Jim Henson production. A live performance by Memphis' Last Chance Jug Band follows the film.

3 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: free. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Santa vs. the Snowman: Through Dec. 31. Meet Santa, the Snowman and all the elves and reindeer at the North Pole in this story of holiday spirit and friendship. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children, under 3 free.

Crew Training IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Tickets and reservations: 320-6362.

Under the Sea: This new IMAX adventure transports you to some of the most exotic and isolated undersea locations on Earth. Runs through March 5, 2010. Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

Crew Training International IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for reservations and tickets.

NOW SHOWING

Armored (PG-13, 88 min.) Matt Dillon plans a heist.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Blind Side (PG-13, 126 min.) Sarah Palin isn't the only gun-toting, ex-cheerleader, conservative Christian sports mom back in the news. We've also got Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, the no-nonsense, git-'r-done Memphian whose rescue of inner-city gentle giant and future football star Michael Oher provides the real-life inspiration for director John Lee Hancock's tearless tearjerker (steel magnolia Leigh Anne leaves the room whenever she's about to cry). Played with quiet, hulking dignity by Quinton Aaron, Michael is presented as a passive, almost infantile figure (his only apparent friend is his adoptive brother, the Tuohy's wise-cracking young son), as well as an attractive ideal for white audiences: a kid from the 'hood who is not only not a threat to the suburbs but actually a protector of white culture, roused to anger only in defense of Leigh Anne's honor while his real mother (native Memphian Adriane Lenox) languishes in Hurt Village with her crack pipe. On the positive tip, the movie -- which functions primarily as a star vehicle for Bullock -- presents a welcome sympathetic portrait of the type of "traditional values" family rarely seen onscreen. With Tim McGraw as Leigh Anne's husband, Grizzlies broadcast analyst Sean Tuohy, and Atlanta as Memphis.

Ridgeway Four, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (R, 117 min.) A long-delayed sequel to the 1999 DVD cult hit.

Ridgeway Four, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

The Box (PG-13, 116 min.) Director Richard Kelly follows the modern cult classic "Donnie Darko" and the ambitious failure "Southland Tales" with another implausible yet compelling science-fiction mystery about the hidden dark forces that control "reality." The first half is a brilliantly realized exercise in sustained tension, as mysterious stranger Frank Langella tells married couple Cameron Diaz and James Marsden they will earn $1 million if they only push a button and cause the death of a stranger; the suspense fades as the story becomes increasingly confusing and bizarre.

Bartlett 10.

Brothers (R, 110 min.) Tobey Maguire is an Afghanistan vet, Natalie Portman is his wife, and Jake Gyllenhaal is Tobey's bro.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

A Christmas Carol (PG, 96 min.) The "motion capture" process, in which an actor's performance is translated into digital animation, enables Jim Carrey to "become" all three ghosts as well as Ebenezer Scrooge in director Robert Zemeckis' adaptation of Charles Dickens' often-told (too often-told, in fact) holiday tale about the miser who becomes a philanthropist after a night of supernatural finger-wagging.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema (in 3-D), Majestic, Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Pardiso (in 3-D), Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D).

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (PG, 90 min.) Part Jerry Bruckheimer, part Betty Crocker, this Sony Pictures Animation feature begins as a jokey, slapstick, computer-generated cartoon for kids and expands into a clever and even thrilling disaster-movie spoof that should delight fans of all ages -- it's "Apocalypse Chow," with super-sized extra toppings of everything.

Stage Cinema.

Couples Retreat (PG-13, 114 min.) Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau in embarrassing hijinks.

Stage Cinema.

An Education (PG-13, 95 min.) Set in 1969 London, this impeccably mounted and acted BBC Films production from director Lone Scherfig is the type of sturdy character study and "movie of quality" that habitués of the modern "art" house expect but too infrequently experience. Adapted by popular British novelist Nick Hornby from Lynn Barber's coming-of-age memoir, the movie chronicles the initially flattering and exciting but inevitably troubling courtship/seduction of Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a pretty and extremely bright but naive 16-year-old virgin, by David (Peter Sarsgaard), a seemingly sophisticated charmer almost twice her age.

Ridgeway Four.

Everybody's Fine (PG-13, 95 min.) Robert De Niro sheds the rote grimaces and autopilot mugging that have come to typify his recent commercial film work to deliver an honest, thoughtful, relatively unmannered performance as a bored, retired widower who embarks on a surprise cross-country tour to visit his farflung children (Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore), who harbor surprises of their own. Writer-director Kirk Jones' nicely constructed revamp of "Stanno Tutti Bene," a 1990 Italian film, is let down by its sentimental final act, but this family-reconciliation drama is otherwise a nicely constructed showcase for the artful turns of its stars.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Fame (PG, 107 min.) An update of the 1980 musical about a New York performing arts high school.

Bartlett 10.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (PG, 87 min.) "How can a fox ever be happy without a chicken in its teeth?" That profound question of identity and purpose, asked by a raffish red predator with the voice of George Clooney, haunts this work of stop-motion wit and wonder from director Wes Anderson, a celebration of "wild animals with true natures and pure talents" (artists and children?) adapted from a 1970 book by Roald Dahl.

Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16, Paradiso.

The Fourth Kind (PG-13, 98) Beyond the third kind: Milla Jovovich has a spooky alien encounter.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic.

G-Force (PG, 88 min.) Have you ever wondered what a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced talking-animal movie would be like? Me, neither. But here's the answer: The Disney/Bruckheimer collaboration "G-Force," in which the car chases, explosions, transforming robot battles and "Mission: Impossible" suspense sequences are as intense as in an "adult" movie, except instead of Tom Cruise and Will Smith, the heroes are members of an elite squad of commando guinea pigs and insects, plus one star-nosed mole. With Memphis' Chris Ellis as "the director of the FBI," and a clever cameo appearance by Loudon Wainwright III, best known for his novelty hit, "Dead Skunk."

Bartlett 10.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (PG-13, 120 min.) The cartoon inspired by the Hasbro "action figures" inspired this chuckleheaded but coherently staged action movie that overcomes the burden of its reported $170 million budget to be surprisingly fun.

Bartlett 10.

The Hangover (R, 100 min.) Or: Dude, Where's My Bachelor? Sometimes tasteless, frequently hilarious, this "Superbad" with grown-ups (the dentist played by Ed Helms even resembles an adult "McLovin") chronicles several hours of irresponsible, occasionally criminal male conduct, as three best buds road-trip to Vegas for an overnight bachelor party.

Bartlett 10.

I Can Do Bad All By Myself (PG-13, 113 min. ) Taraji P. Henson meets Madea.

Bartlett 10.

The Invention of Lying (PG-13, 105 min.) Ricky Gervais is the only man who knows how to fib in a world of truth-tellers.

Bartlett 10.

Julie & Julia (PG-13, 124 min.) An old-fashioned star vehicle of the highest order, director Nora Ephron's fact-based saga about the dubious drama of (a) cooking and (b) blogging would be flat as a soufflé without egg whites if not for the charm of its lead actresses, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, who are in almost every scene, although never together. Streep is the warbly, big-boned Julia Child in the 1950s, before she became TV's "French Chef"; Adams is Julie Powell in 2002, who earned an online following by chronicling her attempt to cook all 524 recipes in Child's famous cookbook in 365 days.

Bartlett 10.

Law Abiding Citizen (R, 122 min.) Its title heavy with irony if light one hyphen, director F. Gary Gray's implausible and morally confused revenge thriller casts Gerard Butler as a grieving yet bloodthirsty antihero who might have been produced by gene-splicing the Charles Bronson of "Death Wish" with Jigsaw, the mastermind of the "Saw" franchise: Jamie Foxx co-stars as a career-first assistant district attorney who represents the flawed justice system that the film half-heartedly defends.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Studio on the Square.

Ninja Assassin (R, 99 min.) Although the ultrabloody nonstop mayhem is too frequently staged and edited with the chaos of a Jason Bourne action sequence rather than the violence-as- performance art elegance of a Shaw Brothers kung-fu epic, this is an exuberantly absurd 'B' movie that never tries to be to be anything but a slick update of the cheap martial arts thrillers distributed by Cannon Films in the 1980s. (To make this connection explicit, Sho Kosugi, star of 1981's "Enter the Ninja" and its followups, appears as a fighting-clan master.) The South Korean pop singer who calls himself Rain is the title hit man, whose depredations lead to an action free-for-all that would have been ballyhooed during the good old days of exploitation advertising as "Ninjas vs. Commandos!"

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, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Old Dogs (PG, 88 min.) If you thought "Wild Hogs" was a riot, and apparently many of you did (the 2007 movie earned $170 million at the U.S. box office), you may be amused as well by the golf balls to the crotch, the karaoke jokes, the comical use of the "Chariots of Fire" theme, the bachelors-try-to-cook-food humor and the other comedy innovations found in this second slice of middle-age crazy from director Walt Becker and star John Travolta, joined this time by Robin Williams, who is manic enough by himself to make up for the loss of Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Paranormal Activity (R, 86 min.) With the help of the marketing geniuses at Paramount, director Oren Peli's spooky, creepy, genuinely dread-inducing film -- shot in one location in a week for about $15,000 -- has become an Internet and box-office phenomenon, and the most fan-hyped horror hit since the similarly camcorded and micro-budgeted "The Blair Witch Project." As in "Blair Witch," the movie is presented as a "found" work of art: a documentary constructed from the artless videos recorded by a young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) who believe that a ghost may be haunting their split-level San Diego starter home, an Everyplace of 21st-century generic drabness, with sectional sofa, black leather couch, big-screen TV and -- maybe -- one demon.

Palace Cinema.

Pirate Radio (R, 116 min.) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh (as a government prude) head an ensemble cast in this would-be Ealing Studios-style comedy from writer-director Richard Curtis ("Love Actually") about a rogue radio station operating out of a party ship in the North Sea that brings nonstop rock and roll to UK teenagers in 1966, when pop music was played on the BBC for only a few hours per week. Tom Sturridge is the teen newcomer whose coming-of-age experiences aboard the boat keep the story on course, even when we'd rather that it drift into the Sargasso Sea of tomfoolery. The movie overstates the Establishment-vs.-youth culture impact of Britain's real-life offshore radio stations, but you may not mind as long as Curtis cranks up the hits by the Kinks, the Who and the Troggs after the BBC excludes rock from the airwaves.

Ridgeway Four.

Planet 51 (PG, 97 min.) This is a trite compendium of everything that's wrong with non-Pixar computer-animated feature films.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (R, 110 min.) Set in Harlem in 1987, director Lee Daniels' often grotesque and harrowing story of ghetto perseverance has been both wildly overpraised and unfairly maligned since its debut this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it earned the top awards in drama, the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize. Thrust into the mainstream by the endorsements of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who signed on as "executive producers" after the project was finished, the film creates remarkable sympathy and understanding for its title character (played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe), who is certainly one of the more unique heroines in movie history: an obese, basically illiterate, welfare-dependent, sexually abused 16-year-old junior high student with a Down syndrome daughter and another child on the way; both pregnancies were caused by her father. At times, the movie feels like a particularly intense "ABC After School Special," as an angelic teacher with the unlikely name of Blu Rain (Paula Patton) helps Precious free herself from her monstrous mother (sure-bet Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winner Mo'Nique) and pull herself from desperation to the brink of self-sufficiency. Fortunately, Sapphire's story and the film's performances are powerful enough to compensate for Daniels' occasional tastelessness and his unnecessary camera tricks.

Majestic, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Stepfather (PG-13, 102 min.) Dylan Walsh does his best, but trying to top Terry O'Quinn's witty performance in the original 1987 cult-classic version of "The Stepfather" is like trying to replace Anthony Perkins in a "Psycho" sequel.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, CinePlanet 16.

Transylmania (R, 95 min.) In the tradition of such "biting" 1980s comedies as "Once Bitten" and "Transylvania 6-5000" comes this spoofy response to the current vampire craze.

Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

2012 (PG-13, 158 min.) The bad news: The world as we know it has come to an end. The good news: Mommy's new boyfriend was squashed in the gears of a giant high-tech ark, so Daddy's back in the picture! These events are presented as being of more or less equal significance in the latest preposterous, overlong exercise in gleeful world-smashing spectacle from post-Irwin Allen master of disaster Roland Emmerich.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (PG-13, 130 min.) Kristen Stewart's Bella Swan (her name is still the best thing in the series) is torn between her love for self-exiled prettyboy bloodsucker Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and her attraction to Native American werehunk Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) in this wheelspinning sequel, in which the virginal Bella's tedious moping (she longs to be "bitten," get it?) takes center stage until a poorly delivered telephone message (what a lame dramatic device!) implausibly sends everyone to Italy to confront the vampire lawmaking coven, the Vulturi.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Whiteout (R, 101 min.) The misleading trailer suggests "Nancy Drew vs. the Thing," but this graphic-novel adaptation is more "CSI: Antarctica" -- a straight if occasionally gruesome murder mystery, boosted by the novelty of its subzero South Pole setting. At least director Dominic Sena has sense enough to include an early scene of Kate Beckinsale in her underwear before smothering his star -- cast as a tough U.S. marshal! -- in parkas and snow pants.

Bartlett 10.

Zombieland (R, 88 min.) According to movie tradition, a bullet to the brain can drop a zombie; the typically less lethal presence of Bill Murray, however, is all that is needed to stop "Zombieland" dead in its tracks.

Bartlett 10.

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