movies

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

OPENING TODAY

Drag Me to Hell (PG-13, 99 min.) Sam Raimi, director of the "Spider-Man" movies, return to his "Evil Dead" roots with this particularly relevant horror thriller with a real estate theme.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.

Sugar (R, 120 min.) See review on Page 18.

Ridgeway Four.

Up (PG, 102 min.) See review on Page 16

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), Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

SPECIAL MOVIES

Bicycle Film Festival: See story on Page 13.

Today and Saturday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Glenn Beck Common Sense Comedy Tour: The Fox News Channel political commentator and TV and radio host appears onstage, live via satellite from Kansas City, in a show that will be beamed to more than 440 movie screens nationwide. As Beck explains on his Web site: "We might as well laugh a little before Comrade Obama has us all wearing fur hats and waiting in line to buy toilet paper."

7 p.m. Thursday, Paradiso. Tickets: $20. Visit malco.com.

Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk: The latest IMAX documentary follows two environmentalists on a daring rafting ride down the Colorado river. Narrated by Robert Redford; music by the Dave Matthews Band. Runs through Nov. 13. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 763-IMAX for general information or 320-6362 for reservations.

Hunger (Not rated, 96 min.) Michael Fassbender stars as doomed Irish hunger-striker Bobby Sands in this "mesmerizing" and "truly extraordinary" film (according to Salon.com), set in an infamous Belfast prison in 1981. Directed by Steve McQueen (no relation to the late "Bullitt" star), 1999 winner of the Turner Prize, the United Kingdom's most prestigious and publicized award for young artists.

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $7, or $5 for Brooks or Indie Memphis members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Memphis Film Festival: See story on Page 14.

Thursday through Saturday, June 6, Whispering Woods Hotel and Conference Center, Olive Branch. Visit memphisfilmfestival.org.

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs: Follow researchers and explorers as they piece together archaeological and genetic clues of Egyptian mummies. The IMAX film plays through Nov. 13. Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 763-IMAX for general information or 320-6362 for reservations.

Young Frankenstein (PG, 106 min.) "Abby Normal," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Where wolf?" -- this loving homage to the Universal monster movies of the 1930s may be Mel Brooks' masterpiece.

7:15 p.m. today at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main. Admission: $6 per adult, $5 per senior or child (12 and under). Visit orpheum-memphis.com or call 525-3000.

NOW SHOWING

Angels & Demons (PG-13, 139 min.) Menacing clerics, skull-lined catacombs, branding irons, the ancient cult of the Illuminati and the gimmicky serial murder of four Roman Catholic cardinals -- these elements promise a good, goofy time at the movies, yet director Ron Howard's bloated followup to "The Da Vinci Code" is even more burdened than its dull predecessor with a desire to avoid risibility. But how un-silly can a movie be when it's about a conspiracy to blow up the Vatican with an antimatter time bomb? Tom Hanks -- shorn of his Muck Sticky "Da Vinci" hairdo -- is back as Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon, recruited by the Holy See to trace a sort of Kook's Tour trail of crime through the chapels, obelisks and tombs of ancient Rome. The highfalutin science-vs.-religion philosophizing that occurs is little more than stained-glass window dressing that camouflages what otherwise might be a nice, entertaining murder mystery.

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.

Dance Flick (PG-13, 83 min.) Another movie-genre spoof, this time from the Wayans Brothers.

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

Duplicity (PG-13, 125 min.) Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are deceitful lovers and corporate spies in this clever but flat film from writer-director Tony Gilroy, who makes the mistake of applying the artful lighting, measured pace and severe sensibility of his fine "Michael Clayton" to screwball caper material. The convoluted, backtracking story becomes a bit of a slog, so that Gilroy's cynical message -- never trust anybody -- seems inevitable rather than surprising. The most entertaining characters are the rival CEO's played by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson; they deserve a movie of their own.

Bartlett 10.

Fast & Furious (PG-13, 107 min.) The definite articles are gone but the stars are back: Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reunite, eight years after "The Fast and the Furious."

Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Fighting (PG-13, 105 min.) Terrence Howard introduces Channing Tatum to the profitable world of organized bare-knuckle street-brawling.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (PG-13, 100 min.) Arrogant womanizer Matthew McConaughey learns a supernatural lesson in this Dickens-inspired romcom.

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

Goodbye Solo (Not rated, 91 min.) Writer-director Ramin Bahrani -- himself a first-generation American, the son of Iranian immigrants -- brings a researcher's integrity, an artist's compassion and a detective's eye for the neglected detail to his tales of this country's struggling international underclass; in this, Bahrani's third distributed feature, the hero is a chatty Senegalese cab driver (Souléymane Sy Savané) in Winston-Salem, N.C., whose seemingly indefatigable optimism and almost aggressive friendliness are challenged by the tightlipped old man (former Elvis crony Red West) who hires him to be his driver for a possibly suicidal one-way ride to Blowing Rock, a landmark so high above sea level that, according to legend, objects thrown from its summit don't fall but are blown up into the sky, into heaven. (Flight and all it implies -- ascension, escape, freedom, glory, risk -- is a key motif here.) Bahrani imbues the stunning location photography with an almost mystical apprehension, especially during the story's moving final act in the misty mountains and darkling forests of the Blue Ridge parkland -- haunted vistas that would have impressed Caspar David Friedrich, and that seem otherworldly and unreal, despite their authenticity. In his first lead role, veteran actor West is as singular as the landscape; his gruff gravitas and Sad Sack saucer eyes suggest a deglamorized, proletarian Robert Mitchum.

Ridgeway Four.

Hannah Montana: The Movie (G, 102 min.) Drawing from the traditions of Cinderella (the scullery maid who is really a princess) and Superman (the superbeing who pretends to be a "normal" person), the push-and-pull tension of the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana dichotomy provides the premise for this feature-length expansion of the hit TV show about a teen girl (Miley Cyrus) who enjoys the "Best of Both Worlds" through her secret life as a pop sensation. Deciding that his increasingly spoiled daughter needs a time-out for "Hannah detox," Miley's onscreen and real-life daddy, Billy Ray Cyrus, takes "the most popular teenager in the world" back to the family farm, where Miley regains her appreciation for Minnie Pearl collector's plates while also introducing the locals to a new "hip-hop" dance craze, "The Hoedown Throwdown." Shot in Middle Tennessee, this hit musical diversion for training-bra initiates should do wonders for the Volunteer State's film industry, if not for its reputation for worldliness. Says Billy Ray, after a waiter places a lobster in front of him: "That's a heck of a crawdad, isn't it?"

Stage Cinema, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Haunting in Connecticut (PG-13, 92 min.) Never play hide-and-seek in a haunted house, unless you want to discover you're sharing your dumbwaiter hidey-hole with a ghostly charred corpse. That's what happens to one of the unfortunate kids in director Peter Cornwell's lukewarm chiller, perfectly timed for the current housing crisis. Virginia Madsen stars as a mother-I'd-like- to-(haunt) who relocates her family to unfortunately named Goats Woods, Conn., so her teenage son, Matt (Robert Pattinson-lookalike Kyle Gallner), can be closer to the hospital treating his cancer. Mom picks out a rambling old house that is "spacious and affordable... I'm just wondering, what's the catch?" The catch: The house was formerly a funeral home-cum-crematorium where seances were conducted by a boy medium who spit ectoplasm from his orifices like supernatural toothpaste from a squashed tube while also opening a gateway to our world for the disgruntled dead. "Based on the true story," according to the credits -- not a true story, but the true story, as if this post-Amityville boofest has been vetted for authenticity by some sort of paranormal accreditation agency.

Bartlett 10, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Hotel for Dogs (PG, 100 min.) Director Thor Freudenthal's Nickelodeon adaptation of a 1971 novel by Lois Duncan offers an appealing wish-fulfillment fantasy for kids, with Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin as resourceful foster siblings who secretly transform an abandoned inner-city hotel into a luxury home for stray pooches that -- like the orphaned kids -- are unwanted because "they're not puppies any more." Young viewers will enjoy the hotel's makeshift Rube Goldberg contraptions, which include a "fetching machine," automatic poop-disposal toilets and a vending machine that dispenses shoes for chewing; parents, meanwhile, will appreciate the kindness-promoting message.

Bartlett 10.

I Love You, Man (R, 105 min.) Director John Hamburg's entertaining comic "bromance" flirts with darkness but ultimately proves as light as the escapist "chick flicks" it parodies, as husband-to-be Paul Rudd -- a guy who's had plenty of girlfriends but no close male buddies -- goes on several "man dates" to audition a potential best man for his wedding. The most likely candidate proves to be Jason Segel, as a suspiciously carefree bachelor with a yen for Rush and fish tacos. Nonessential but fun, thanks to Rudd's performance as an awkwardly un-macho hetero male whose idea of a perfect evening is snuggling with his fiancée (Rashida Jones) while watching Johnny Depp in "Chocolat."

Bartlett 10.

Is Anybody There? (PG-13, 95 min.) This sentimental BBC Films production overcomes the potential deadliness of its "cute" old folks' home setting and the programmatic uplift of its theme (end-of-his-rope curmudgeon teaches ghost-obsessed whippersnapper "to make contact with the living"), thanks to the pictorial tastefulness of director John Crowley and a brace of fine performances. Bill Milner ("Son of Rambow") plays the friendless 10-year-old; Michael Caine -- who makes acting seem effortless, pleasurable and even noble -- is the lead codger, a scruffy retired magician who resents the infirmities and indignities of old age. The movie has been renamed for U.S. advertising purposes from its more colloquial original title, "Is There Anybody There?," a phrase spoken by Caine during a seance he conducts for the boy's benefit; the question isn't heard again, but it hangs over the rest of the film, existential and desperate, as Caine's character begins to slide into senility.

Ridgeway Four.

Knowing (PG-13, 122 min.) A preposterous meld of in-your-screaming-face end-times anxiety, special-effects cataclysm and booga-booga M. Night Shenanigans, this wacked-out, quasi-religious "Donnie Darko" for dummies earns my endorsement not because it's coherent but because it's so over the top that it's engrossing, even when director Alex Proyas (the intriguing "Dark City," the rusty "I, Robot") is focusing on the emoting of Nicolas Cage rather than on an scary plane crash, a shocking subway disaster or (in what may be a movie first) a burning moose. Cage plays a widowed M.I.T. professor whose belief that life is a result of "chemical accidents" with "no grand meaning" is shaken when he discovers that a 50-year-old note contains details about five decades of disasters, including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and several tragedies yet to come. The film exploits fears of ecological and infrastructural collapse while also providing a distressing yet reassuring parable (you know, like the Flood) for an increasingly skeptical nation.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Last House on the Left (R, 109 min.) Unlike its grungy inspiration, director Dennis Iliadis' remake of Wes Craven's infamous 1972 shocker is shot and scored with such delicacy and technical professionalism it might as well be, say, the life story of Gandhi rather than a wallow in rape, murder and sadistic, audience-rousing vengeance (true to the domestic associations of the title, the evildoers are dispatched with garbage disposal and microwave oven). The varnish of "art" applied to the story's ugly content is supposed to serve as a defense against the movie's critics; instead, it's evidence of the film's cowardice and cynicism.

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Madea Goes to Jail (PG-13, 103 min.) This time Tyler Perry's pistol-packin' grandmomma is raising hell behind bars.

Bartlett 10.

Monsters vs. Aliens (PG, 94 min.) Like all DreamWorks Animation features, this colorful homage to the science-fiction B-movies of the 1950s relies overmuch on non-sequitur pop-culture jokes, worn-out comedy crutches (TV weathermen sure are vapid!) and celebrity voices; but the central "monster" and heroine, Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), who's hit by a meteorite on her wedding day and grows to be a friendly update of Allison Hayes in 1958's "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," is a character with real, um, weight. The action set pieces -- especially a battle with a giant egg-like alien robot on the Golden Gate Bridge -- are spectacular. Susan's co-stars include a Black Lagoon refugee, the Missing Link (Will Arnett); a "Fly" guy, Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie); the gargantuan (and inarticulate) Insectosaurus; and -- best of all -- B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a dimwitted blob. Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon.

Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, Palace Cinema.

Next Day Air (R, 84 min.) Forty years from now, this Guy Ritchie/Quentin Tarantino-influenced crime comedy about a misdelivered cache of cocaine may be fascinating for its relentless early 21st-century "urban" slang and attitude; let's hope it also seems antique for the idea that guns are as accessible as Kleenex and as amusing, when used as comic props, as rubber chickens. Novel only for its African-American and Hispanic cast and African-American director (music video veteran Benny Boom, making his feature debut), this coarse and visually ugly movie gets by solely on the appeal of its talented ensemble, which includes Donald Faison and Mos Def as stoner deliverymen, Mike Epps and Wood Harris as bumbling bank robbers and Yasmin Deliz as a head-bobbing hottie.

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

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (PG, 105 min.) Security guard Ben Stiller is joined by such living exhibit figures as Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) as he infiltrates the nation's most famous museum complex.

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.

Observe and Report (R, 86 min.) Writer-director Jody Hill's second feature (after the word-of-mouth cult comedy "The Foot Fist Way") has been described -- not inaccurately -- as a combination of "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." The bipolar suburban rent-a-cop played here by Seth Rogen also recalls another Scorsese malcontent, Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), the demented would-be stand-up jokester in "The King of Comedy." But if Hill's ambitious, aggressive and confused film reveals the telegony of movies past, it's also very much -- and this may be the most disturbing thing about it -- a child of its time. Arriving after a string of deadly mass shootings in America, this tale of a deluded, frustrated, gun-obsessed wannabe hero (imagine Barney Fife as reimagined by Jim Thompson) is a comedy with a foot on the neck of the Zeitgeist, and it's this pressure on the trachea that crushes the laughter in our throats. With Ray Liotta as a police detective and Anna Faris as a sexy but crass cosmetics clerk.

Bartlett 10.

Obsessed (PG-13, 109 min.) Beyoncé gets mad when white skank Ali Larter goes after her man, Idris Elba.

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

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (PG, 91 min.) Kevin James ("The King of Queens") is the title bumbler in this surprise box-office hit.

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Race to Witch Mountain (PG, 99 min.) Director Andy Fickman and wrestler-turned- family-friendly movie star Dwayne Johnson (no longer billing himself as "The Rock") follow their bland collaboration "The Game Plan" with a noisy, action-heavy revamp of "Escape to Witch Mountain," the well-remembered 1975 Disney film about a pair of fugitive children who prove to be paranormally gifted extraterrestrials. (Times change: In the first film, the kids were pursued by Ray Milland in a luxury car; this time, they're on the run from a Predator-like alien assassin in a flying saucer.) AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig are fine as the space siblings, and Johnson is both cut and cute as a heroic cabbie, but this "X Files" for small fry has about as much heft as a bubble of swamp gas.

Bartlett 10, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

17 Again (PG-13, 102 min.) Matthew Perry wishes he could be young again and wakes up to find himself transformed into high school senior Zac Efron.

Stage Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

The Soloist (PG-13, 117 min.) Robert Downey Jr. is Los Angeles Times reporter Steven Lopez and Jamie Foxx is homeless, schizophrenic, classically trained street musician Nathaniel Ayers in this based-on-a-true-story inspirational drama -- and American movie debut -- from British director Joe Wright (the ampersand version of "Pride & Prejudice"), who resists tugging at the heartstrings even as Ayers coaxes the melodies of his beloved Beethoven from the catgut of his violin and cello. Emphasizing wry humor and gritty "realism" over in-your-face uplift, Wright has created a sort of mainstream art film; but even in what is essentially a two-man drama, he seems a man born to make epics: The colorfully choreographed, impeccably composed Bedlam of bedbug-infested bedhead insanity found in the homeless shelter depicted here is a rival for the organized chaos of Wright's already famous Dunkirk beach sequence in "Atonement."

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Star Trek (PG-13, 127 min.) Director J.J. Abrams' megabudget reboot of the beloved science-fiction franchise rushes along at warp factor 12, crowding its story with an impressive amount of characterization and action as it introduces new actors (Chris Pine is Kirk, Zachary Pinto is Spock) in youthful Starfleet-recruit versions of the roles made famous by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and others in the 1966-69 TV series. The result is fun and ingenious (a time-travel subplot enables this new "Trek" series to exist alongside the "alternate history" of the original program), but like most of the 10 previous movies, it doesn't approach the quality of the best television episodes of "Star Trek" or "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Obviously eager to guide his redesigned Enterprise to where no "Star Trek" film has gone before (into the box-office stratosphere, alongside that other space opera, "Star Wars"), Abrams let the phones of most past "Trek" actors remain quiet, but he did recruit king-of-all-media Tyler Perry to play a Starfleet admiral. As Nimoy's Spock (the one oldtimer who does appear here) would say about that decision, if he were a Paramount stockholder: Logical -- not fascinating, but logical.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Taken (PG-13, 91 min.) Liam Neeson makes like Charles Bronson to rescue his kidnapped 17-year-old virgin daughter from the swarthy threat of white-slaver Albanians and their Arab patrons in this morally specious but undeniably efficient brainstem-tickler from director Pierre Morel (the superior futuristic actioner "District B13") and indefatigable producer-writer Luc Besson ("The Transporter," "Unleashed"). The combination of Neeson's gravitas and Morel's coherent staging of the violence makes this the most effective action/revenge film in years.

Bartlett 10.

Terminator Salvation (PG-13, 115 min.) It's crabby human freedom fighters vs. even crankier Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots of all models and makes (hey, fanboys, dig those literally electric eels!) in this appropriately mechanical fourth film in the series, programmed for maximum blockbuster efficiency by the director who calls himself McG. Essentially, this is a grim and gritty war movie, airlifted and updated from 1940s Europe to America in 2018, complete with ambushes in bombed-out city streets, ego clashes among resistance fighters, Holocaust references of dubious tastefulness (the robots shuffle their human prisoners into what we presume to be death camps) and a final-act secret infiltration of the enemy's headquarters. Christian Bale -- whose infamous leaked-from-the-set tirade is longer and more passionate than any monologue in the movie -- stars as rebel soldier John Connor, the prophesied hope of mankind, but the true lead is Sam Worthington as a convicted killer from 2003 who wakes up from a medically induced coma to find himself in the nightmare world of the "Terminator" franchise. In its own blunt-force-trauma way, the film's man-vs.-machines theme confronts viewers with the same key question that is at the center of such such less-hardware-heavy fantasy masterpieces as "Frankenstein," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Planet of the Apes" and, yes, "Pinocchio" -- a question that that never loses relevance: What makes us human?

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.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PG-13, 109 min.) It's no suprise the pirated, incomplete version leaked to the Internet didn't dent this Marvel Comics adaptation's muscular box office: "Wolverine" without special effects is like "King Kong" without the ape. Reprising his scene-stealing (scene-slashing?) role from three previous films, Hugh Jackman is the title mutton-chopped mutant, a surly Canadian with retractable adamantium claws and an intractable personality who -- even in his pre-"X-Men" days -- attracts trouble the way Magneto attracts metal: Among the "freaks" he battles and befriends are Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), John Wraith (will.i.am), the Blob (Kevin Durand) and his bloodthirsty brother, Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber). As staged by director Gavin Hood ("Tsotsi"), the almost nonstop action in this sometimes callous tale of revenge is poised halfway between the ADD whiplash of "Crank" and the more elegant spectacle of "Spider-Man"; as pure pulp entertainment, it works.

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.