Movie Capsules: Now Showing

Magnet Releasing

Slashed by 140 minutes to a still-challenging 148, ''Red Cliff'' is the most expensive film ever produced in Asia.

Capsule descriptions and mini-reviews by The Commercial Appeal movie writer John Beifuss.

OPENING TODAY

Avatar (PG-13, 162 min.) James Cameron finally follows "Titanic," with a sci-fi eco-fable action spectacle that is alleged to be the most expensive movie ever. (Reported budget: $240 million.)

Magnet Releasing

Slashed by 140 minutes to a still-challenging 148, ''Red Cliff'' is the most expensive film ever produced in Asia.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema (in 3-D), Majestic, Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Bright Star (PG, 119 min.) See review.

Ridgeway Four.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? (PG-13, 104 min.) See review.

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

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (Not rated, 159 min.) See review on Page 21.

Studio on the Square.

The New Daughter (PG-13, 108 min.) Like 2008's "Midnight Meat Train" and September's "Blood Creek," this horror movie -- about a scary child, played by Ivana Baquero, of "Pan's Labyrinth" -- is being dumped into a handful of second-run, reduced-admission theaters. The shocker: It stars Kevin Costner.

Bartlett 10.

The Road (R, 108 min.) See review on Page 20.

Ridgeway Four.

Opening Wednesday

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel (PG, 89 min.) Chipmunks got back, as Alvin, Simon and Theodore discover when they meet a trio of rodent babes, the Chipettes.

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.

Up in the Air (R, 109 min.) George Clooney makes a living firing people in a movie that's being touted as the front-runner for this year's Best Picture Oscar.

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

SPECIAL MOVIES

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.

Li'l Film Fest 12: "Free Footage": The biggest Li'l Film Fest yet features a record 19 five-minutes-or-shorter films from area artists, including such notables as Morgan Jon Fox, Adam Remsen and John Pickle. The requirement: Each film had to incorporate specific "free footage" provided by Live From Memphis, the arts organization that coordinates each Li'l fest.

2 p.m. Saturday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $5. Visit livefrommemphis.com.

Metropolitan Opera: Les Contes d'Hoffman (Not rated, 250 min.) An author encounters four demons in Offenbach's fantasy about the German writer E.T.A. Hoffman, presented in a live-from-New York satellite transmission.

Noon Saturday, Paradiso. Tickets: $20. Visit malco.com.

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.

Tetro (R, 127 min.) Vincent Gallo stars as a troubled writer in the latest film from director Francis Ford Coppola, who will answer questions from the audience after the screening via a live satellite transmission set up between Memphis and his California Bay Area home.

3 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $15, or $10 for Brooks and Indie Memphis members. Visit indiememphis.com or brooksmuseum.org, or call 544-6208.

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, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Astro Boy (PG, 94 min.) Because this computer-generated feature from director David Bowers and Imagi Animation Studios is faithful in some respects to its key Japanese sources, the 1950s comic book and 1960s TV cartoon created by the so-called "God of Manga," Osamu Tezuka, it may creep some people out -- parents more than children, no doubt. The title hero (voiced here by Freddie Highmore) is, in fact, a robotic replica of a dead child; kids will love identifying with his super strength and flying ability, but his weird origin contributes to the film's schizophrenic tone, as rousing action set pieces alternate with grim ecological and anti-military messages (a robotic weapon of mass destruction is dubbed "The Peacemaker").

Bartlett 10.

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.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

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, Palace Cinema, 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), Paradiso (in 3-D), Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D).

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (PG-13, 109 min.) The first of Darren Shan's Young Adult vampire novels comes to the screen in a fun, energetic adventure with plenty of inoffensive ghoulish touches that should please kids and adult horror buffs alike. Chris Massoglia and Josh Hutcherson are teenage best friends whose arachnophilia and adolescent rebelliousness, respectively, lure them into the ancient rivalry between a traveling carnival of Tod Browning/Ray Bradbury oddities (including nonmurderous vampire John C. Reilly) and a corps of evil bloodsuckers known as "the vampinese."

Bartlett 10.

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.

Bartlett 10.

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 habituées 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 who seems to offer a shortcut to the life of existential novels, foreign films and jazz nightclubs that Jenny longs to inhabit. The stay-in-school message is surprisingly conventional, but its delivery is entirely pleasurable

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' 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, Collierville Towne 16, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

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. The handcrafted, old-fashioned, seemingly magical process of stop-motion animation is perfectly suited to the eccentric Anderson, who has delivered his most enjoyable film since "The Royal Tenenbaums" in 2001: a so-called children's movie in which the increasingly destructive battle between well-financed farmers and clever woodland creatures becomes a commentary on the cost of war in our real world.

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.

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.

Invictus (PG-13, 133 min.) Director Clint Eastwood's new movie is as formal and deliberate as its lead character, septuagenarian South African President Nelson Mandela, as portrayed with trademark self-conscious dignity by Morgan Freeman. Based on Mandela's 1995 attempt to generate unity by urging black South Africans to support the world-championship run of the almost all-white national rugby team (a longtime symbol of apartheid), the film risks dullness and embraces preachiness to pursue an idea that is given lip service by politicians but is rarely addressed in motion pictures: "How do we inspire ourselves to greatness?" Mandela's (and Eastwood's) answer: Reject revenge, because "forgiveness liberates the soul." With a buffed-up Matt Damon as real-life rugby star Francois Pienaar.

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

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.

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!" The director is James McTeigue, whose "V for Vendetta" promised a more purposeful if not more entertaining followup.

Majestic, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

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. Travolta and Williams are aging bachelors and sports marketing business partners thrown for a loop when an old one-night-stand (Kelly Preston, Travolta's real-life wife) shows up with Williams' previously unknown children, young twins played by Ella Bleu Travolta (yes, John and Kelly's daughter) and Conner Rayburn. The results are utterly predictable and only fitfully amusing.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, 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.

Bartlett 10.

Planet 51 (PG, 97 min.) This is a trite compendium of everything that's wrong with non-Pixar computer-animated feature films. The voice actors (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jessica Biel) mostly were chosen for their name recognition, not their mellifluousness; the "jokes" -- presented in the relentless, absurdist fashion of a "Family Guy" episode -- seem pulled from a checklist of stale pop-culture references (the Macarena, Facebook, "2001," etc.); the soundtrack is burdened with blah covers of pop/rock songs; and so on. The message of tolerance is welcome but obvious: People aren't "alien" just because they look strange, as an American astronaut discovers when he lands on an Earth-like planet of green outer-space beings. The cartooning is nice and fluid, but otherwise this is a wretched feature debut for Spain's Ilion Animation Studios.

Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, 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.

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

The Princess and the Frog (G, 97 min.) Disney's ballyhooed return to hand-drawn animation is the first to feature an African-American "princess," but hold your applause: The heroine, a Jazz Age New Orleans working-class girl named Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose), spends most of the movie inside the emerald skin of a bayou amphibian. Say it loud, I'm green and I'm proud: "It's not slime, it's mucus," Tiana asserts during the film's final act, by which time she's become resentful of those who shun her batrachian tackiness; she's also fallen for the similarly hoodooed Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos), who, in his human form, resembles every other blandly handsome European Disney prince except for his ethnically indeterminate dusky pallor. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, who revived the Disney animation tradition (and the company's fortunes) with "The Little Mermaid" in 1989, this "warts and all" love story curiously lacks bounce; Randy Newman's musical numbers are toothless pastiches of classic Louisiana song types, so it's up to the flamboyant voodoo villain (beautifully voiced by Keith David) and the comical supporting critters (a Satchmo-esque alligator, a Cajun firefly) to give the film bite.

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.) Swords clash, arrows fly, schemers plot, warships burn and beautiful women brew tea in this gargantuan epic, set in ancient imperial China, that is the first Asian film from director John Woo since the ace action specialist left Hong Kong for Hollywood in the early 1990s. Trimmed by 140 minutes to a still challenging 148 minutes for release in the West, this is the most expensive film ever produced in Asia (budget: about 80 million, in U.S. dollars) and also the most successful to date at the Chinese box office, where it recently supplanted "Titanic." The battlefield violence is essentially as repetitious as the gags in a Road Runner cartoon, but Woo -- the auteur as Wile E. Coyote -- introduces enough gimmicks ("the tortoise formation"), tricks and variations to keep things interesting.

Studio on the Square.

Saw VI (R, 93 min.) This latest slice of ultraviolence would make a good co-feature with Michael Moore's "Sicko," as self-righteous maniac Jigsaw -- apparently a fan of the public option -- plays his bloody, lethal "games" with health insurance professionals who deny coverage to the needy. Director Kevin Greutert's not-so-grand guignol is gruesome in the extreme, but also clever; and as usual, Tobin Bell elevates the grimy material with his sensitive-beyond-the- call-of-duty work as Jigsaw.

Bartlett 10.

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.

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. Inspired by pseudoscientific claims that the Mayan calendar predicts the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, the film is a sort of disaster-genre greatest hits collection, gathering tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanoes and other special-effects traumas into that paradoxical form of entertainment that allows viewers to escape their real-life woes by imagining something far, far worse. This is the type of movie in which a huge ark, loaded with humanity "to ensure the continuity of the species," doesn't just crash into random noncelebrity obstructions as it floats on a newly formed ocean but into Air Force One and Mount Everest, in immediate succession. With John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Woody Harrelson as a backwoods radio prophet and Danny Glover as the president of the United States.

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.

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. The most amusing moments are those in which director Chris Weitz indulges the desires of author Stephenie Meyer's primarily female fan base, as when he has Jacob gratuitously remove his shirt to mop Bella's blood or depicts Edward crossing a street in smoldering slow-motion.

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

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.

© 2009 Go Memphis. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.