Capsule descriptions by The Commercial Appeal movie writer John Beifuss.

OPENING TODAY

Dear John (PG-13, 108 min.) A soldier (Channing Tatum) falls for a college student (Amanda Seyfried) in this adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' best-seller.

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

From Paris With Love: See review.

Forest Hill 8, 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.

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. 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.

British Television Advertising Awards (Not rated, 80 min) The 2009 edition of the annual compilation of the UK's smartest, sexiest and most irreverent TV commercials. Recommended for ages 13-plus. (Rescheduled from a Jan. 29 screening, canceled due to the ice storm.)

2 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Tickets: $7, or $5 for students and Brooks members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Metropolitan Opera: Simon Boccanegra (Not rated, 225 min.) Four decades into his Met career, tenor Placido Domingo sings the title role in Verdi's political thriller, presented live via satellite from New York.

Noon Saturday, Paradiso. Tickets: $20.

Oxford Film Festival 7: Features, shorts, documentaries, cartoons, panels, celebrities and more, at multiple venues in Oxford, Miss. Sample movie titles: "Night of the Loup Garou" and "For The Love Of Movies: The Story Of American Film Criticism."

Through Feb. 7. Visit oxfordfilmfest.com.

Pink Palace IMAX Film Festival: Saturdays & Sundays in February, plus Presidents Day (Feb. 15). See all your favorite IMAX films: "Dolphins" (1 p.m.); "The Alps" (2 p.m.); "Under the Sea" (3 p.m.); "Journey Into Amazing Caves" (4 p.m.); and "Mystery of the Nile" (11 a.m. Saturdays only). Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 for children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Visit online: memphismuseums.org

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

Somers Town (Not rated, 71 min) Shane Meadows -- "the cinema's poet laureate of hardscrabble Midlands living," according to the Village Voice -- directed this 2008 black-and-white film about working-class London youths. Part of the library's "Wider Angle Film Series," dedicated to international cinema.

7 p.m. Wednesday, Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, 3030 Poplar. Admission is free; children under 17 admitted with parent or guardian. Visit filmmovement.com or call 415-2726.

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.

Who Does She Think She Is? (Not rated, 73 min) Pamela Tanner Boll (producer of the Oscar-winning "Born into Brothels") co-directed this documentary, which examines the challenges of modern life by focusing on "five fierce women" who refuse to be defined solely by their families or jobs.

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

NOW SHOWING

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (PG, 89 min.) Richard Widmark is dead, but his spirit improbably lives on in Alvin, Simon and Theodore, who send an old lady in a wheelchair down a steep flight of stairs, as if in homage to the film-noir classic "Kiss of Death." The harmonizing rodents also smash their human sponsor, Dave Seville (Jason Lee), with a piece of stage scenery, putting him in traction for most of the film; maybe what this "squeakquel" needs isn't a reviewer but an exterminator.

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

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

Bartlett 10, Majestic.

Avatar (PG-13, 162 min.) Twelve years after "Titanic," writer-director James Cameron returns with the most expensive movie ever (reported budget: $240 million), a science-fiction eco-spectacle that could be described as "Dances with Wolves" or "The New World" in outer space, as a paraplegic Marine (Sam Worthington) on the distant planet Pandora in the year 2154 rejects his imperialistic, exploitative and genocidal mission after spending time in a genetically manufactured "avatar" body among the indigenous Na'vi: blue-skinned humanoids who hunt with bows and arrows, ride pterodactyl-like "banshees" and live in harmony with the planet's bioluminescent flora and fauna (including several amazing monsters).

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

Bad Lieutenant -- Port of Call: New Orleans (R, 122 min.) Director Werner Herzog (making a rare return to fiction filmmaking) plus star Nicolas Cage (reminding us why we used to like seeing him onscreen) wreak welcome insanity in this post-Katrina tale of a coke-snorting, crack-smoking cop playing both sides of the levee in the Big Sleazy. The film opens with a snake slither-swimming through the bars of a flooded cellblock and later introduces an injured alligator and a pair of iguanas (who seem to be crooning New Orleans soul great Johnny Adams' "Release Me"), but Cage may be the most reptilian presence here: He's a bug-eyed hustler with a badge, in love with a high-priced call girl (Eva Mendes), in debt to a bookie (Brad Dourif) and in apparent cahoots with an inner-city drug kingpin (Alvin Xzibit Joiner). If the film lacks the scuzzy cinéma vérité allure and confounding moral anger of its inspiration, Abel Ferrara's 1992 New York-set "Bad Lieutenant" with Harvey Keitel, it's nonetheless bolder and more distinctive than almost anything else now in theaters. Here's hoping Herzog has jumpstarted a grindhouse-meets-arthouse franchise: "Bad Lieutenant: Beale Street," anyone?

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

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, 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.

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

The Book of Eli (R, 118 min.) With a knife that would scare a samurai and the world's last remaining Bible as his prized possessions, butt-kicking prophet of God Denzel Washington wanders an ashy wasteland in this Mad-to-the-Max post-apocalyptic Western from director brothers Albert and Allen Hughes ("Menace II Society"). Evil Gary Oldman covets the Good Book, because he believes its words have the power to convince others to do his bidding; the film seems to suggest the Bible really is the key to salvation but leaves enough wiggle room for those who prefer a secular interpretation. Bad casting: Mila Kunis as a post-disaster barmaid who looks like she just stepped off a fashion runway. Moment of grace: Denzel listens to a Memphis soul classic, Al Green's Willie Mitchell-produced cover of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," on his iPod. A truly daffy movie.

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, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (PG, 90 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Couples Retreat (PG-13, 114 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Crazy Heart (R, 112 min.) As "Bad Blake," a broke, alcoholic country singer-songwriter nicknamed "the Wrangler of Love," Best Actor nominee Jeff Bridges brings all his four decades of deceptively casual charm and unpretentious smarts to what is proving to be his signature role. Adapted by debuting director Scott Cooper from a novel by Thomas Cobb, the film is something of an anomaly on the current movie landscape: a relaxed, 1970s-style character study more interested in observing behavior than in surprising viewers with the "twists" of a story, as Blake seeks romantic refuge with a single mother (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who knows better. The film's original songs, performed by Bridges, mostly were written by T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton, but viewers may prefer Blake's explanation for the compositions. When asked, "Where did all those songs come from?" he responds: "Life, unfortunately."

Ridgeway Four, Cordova Cinema.

Daybreakers (R, 98 min.) Australia-based brothers Michael and Peter Spierig follow their 2003 zombie splatterspoof "Undead" with this energetic and more ambitious film, which imagines that a plague has transformed almost every person on Earth into a vampire. The catch: With few humans remaining, the blood supply is running out. Ethan Hawke is the conflicted vampire scientist ("Life's a bitch and then you don't die," he deadpans) searching for a hemo-substitute .

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? (PG-13, 104 min.) Adorable if adulterous and agnostic salad-fancying nitwit city slickers save their marriage with the help of a God-fearing, meat-eating "Sarah Palin" and her wise sheriff husband in this formula romantic comedy, which could be described as "Green Acres" in Red State drag, plus guns. Hugh Grant -- no longer an actor but a catalog of stammers, blinks, puppy-dog pouts and other tics -- and Sarah Jessica Parker are the verging-on-divorce Manhattanite Morgans, shipped off to Montana after they become witnesses in a federal murder case. Romcom auteur Marc Lawrence wrings a few laughs from the story's cityfolk-sure-are-funny-around- grizzly-bears-and-milk-cows situations, but only Sam Elliott (the sheriff) and rifle-toting Mary Steenburgen (referred to as "Sarah Palin") emerge with their dignity intact.

Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Edge of Darkness (R, 117 min.) As a Boston cop whose prodigal daughter is murdered on his doorstep, Mel Gibson makes a tailor-made return to tough-guy stardom in this potent murder mystery/conspiracy thriller with an aura of old-school gloom. Directed by Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") from a 1985 BBC miniseries, the real antecedent here is Fritz Lang's 1953 masterpiece "The Big Heat," in which humble police detective Glenn Ford is galvanized by the murder of his wife into becoming the rogue disrupter of a vast conspiracy of corrupt wealth and politics. As both TEA partiers and Bolsheviks would tell you, narratives about angry, rough-edged men toppling the palaces of power never lose their allure. The fine supporting cast includes Ray Winstone as an erudite if Cockney-accented assassin/fixer who delivers the story's noir motto: "We all know what the facts are. We live a while, and then we die sooner than we'd planned."

Forest Hill 8, 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.

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, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Extraordinary Measures (PG, 106 min.) Doctor Harrison Ford helps father Brendan Fraser search for a cure for a childhood genetic disorder.

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

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.

Bartlett 10.

The Hurt Locker (R, 131 min.) Wired like a ticking time bomb, director Kathryn Bigelow's stunner focuses on three soldiers in an Army bomb-disposal unit as they try to survive the final 38 days of their field rotation in the forbidding, alien environment of Iraq. A thoughtful nail-biter, the film inspires us to appreciate the precariousness and relative brevity of existence, as the soldiers' encounters with IEDs and wired-to-explode Iraqis become extreme representations of the tug between life and death that challenges each of us every day, however mundane and seemingly safe our environment.

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?"

Raleigh Springs Cinema.

It's Complicated (R, 118 min.) Meryl Streep is a successful yet reassuringly domestic businesswoman (she owns an upscale bakery) who begins an affair with her self-centered and remarried ex-husband while being wooed by the architect designing the expansion of her already House Beautiful-ready home in the latest from writer-director Nancy Meyers.

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

Law Abiding Citizen (R, 122 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Leap Year (PG, 100 min.) Amy Adams and Matthew Goode find romance in Ireland.

Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Legion (R, 101 min.) Movies don't get much more wick wick wack than this amusingly God-awful -- and yes, that's God with a capital 'G' -- horror-action spectacle that alternates between outrageous camp and sobersided sanctimony as it slouches toward immortality via some future incarnation of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." The apparent bad guy is God Almighty Himself, who has "unleashed" the "dogs of heaven" -- his angel army -- to destroy humankind because he's "lost faith" in his creations. Instead of simply smiting us, however, the angels for some reason prefer to possess humans, "Exorcist"-style, turning them into Romeroesque zombies who mass on Dennis Quaid's isolated desert diner to destroy a pregnant woman whose unborn baby is the "hope" of humankind. Paul Bettany is the rogue angel Michael, who thinks humanity is worth saving. The daffy highlight: A sweet little old lady transforms into a shark-toothed, wall-crawling spider-granny.

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

The Lovely Bones (PG-13, 135 min.) Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's best-seller is set in suburban Pennsylvania, but the director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and the "King Kong" remake seems to have been reluctant to leave Middle-earth and Skull Island behind. Throughout the film, he guides us through tediously inventive computer-generated heavenly landscapes that are part nightmare, part "Teletubbies," when what we really want to see is more of the creepily mundane interior of a serial killer's orderly home. Saorsie Ronan is wonderful as the 14-year-old murder victim who narrates the film and watches the effect of her death on her friends, parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz) and murderer (scene-stealing Stanley Tucci), but the distorting wide-angle lenses and broad staging that Jackson favors expose the sappiness of the story's comforting Family Circus notion that departed loved ones continue to hover around us and cheer us on.

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

The Messenger (R, 112 min.) In the first Iraq War home-front drama that's a worthy companion piece to Kathryn Bigelow's occupation actioner, "The Hurt Locker," Ben Foster plays a young "model soldier" with a nervewracking mission: He's assigned to the New Jersey Casualty Notification team that informs area "NOKs" -- military nomenclature for next of kin -- that an Army husband, son, daughter or other loved one has been killed. The first part of the film is as gripping and suspenseful -- in its less-violent way -- as Bigelow's, as Foster and team leader Woody Harrelson bring their bad news to the homes of unsuspecting family members in a series of devastating vignettes, beautifully wrought by director Oren Moverman and co-scripter Alessandro Camon. The story lose some momentum, however, once Foster begins pursuing an unwise romance with war widow Samantha Morton.

Stage Cinema.

Nine (PG-13, 110 min.) If you remember the lugubriously comical Bela Lugosi accent used by Jason Segel when performing his "Dracula" puppet opera in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," you've got a notion of Daniel Day-Lewis' "singing" voice as movie director Guido Contini in this lumbering and pretentious so-called musical, adapted from a 1982 Broadway production that itself was inspired by the 1963 movie "81/2 ."

Stage Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Ninja Assassin (R, 99 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Planet 51 (PG, 97 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Preacher's Kid (PG-13, 101 min.) LeToya Luckett is the "prodigal daughter" who returns home after running away to join the cast of a touring gospel stage play in this Christian-themed film.

Majestic, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso.

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire (R, 110 min.) Thrust into the mainstream by the endorsements of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, the film creates remarkable sympathy and understanding for its title character (played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe), who is one of the more unique heroines in movie history: an obese, basically illiterate, welfare-dependent, sexually abused 16-year-old junior high student.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

The Princess and the Frog (G, 97 min.) Disney's ballyhooed return to hand-drawn animation is the company's first film 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).

Majestic, DeSoto Cinema 16, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Sherlock Holmes (PG-13, 130 min.) As reimagined for the 21st-century multiplex and enacted with a semi-maniacal gleam in his eye by a mischievous Robert Downey Jr., this latest Holmes -- never seen with a deerstalker and magnifying glass but frequently stripped down to suspenders and pantaloons, the better for bare-knuckle brawling -- may displease Arthur Conan Doyle purists but should find favor with audiences eager for a fun, witty action movie (call it "Indiana Holmes"). Adopting a somewhat toned-down version of the hyperkinetic style he brings to his British gangster yarns, director Guy Ritchie finds ways to justify Holmes' almost Supersherlock fighting prowess (the detective uses his big brain to deduce an opponent's weaknesses.

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

A Single Man (R, 101 min.) With its artfully desaturated color scheme and its impeccably costumed actors, the directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford resembles a tasteful magazine layout with a 1962 Southern California theme. But the stiffness and joylessness (who ever imagined watching Julianne Moore twist to "Green Onions" could be so grim?) is appropriate. Adapted from a 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, this is the story of the possible last day in the life of a middle-aged college professor (a superb Colin Firth) who is not just in mourning for the death of his longtime lover (Matthew Goode) but is preparing his suicide. Unwanted and unacknowledged by his lover's family, the professor is unable to mourn publicly; the film is a sensitive portrait of a man who feels wiped away by a society that forces his true self to be, in his word, "invisible."

Ridgeway Four.

The Spy Next Door (PG, 92 min.) A CIA agent faces his toughest assignment: Babysitting three kids! In other words: "The Pacifier," but with Jackie Chan.

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

The Stepfather (PG-13, 102 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Surrogates (PG-13, 89 min.)

Bartlett 10.

Tooth Fairy (PG, 102 min.) Hockey player Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson must atone for a bad deed by spending one week as the magical tooth fairy.

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.

To Save a Life (PG-13, 130 min.) A faith-based film about a high-school star athlete.

Cordova Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

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.

Bartlett 10.

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 pretty-boy bloodsucker Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and her attraction to Native American werehunk Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) in this wheel-spinning sequel.

Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Up in the Air (R, 109 min.) George Clooney stars as a proudly independent corporate "downsizer," who claims to love the relationship-free life of airports and hotels mandated by his career; he's matched by Vera Farmiga -- acting without a shred of insecurity or audience-pandering cuteness -- as a sympathetic and sexy frequent flier, and Anna Kendrick as the upstart colleague who wants to revolutionize the "firing" industry and make Clooney's job obsolete.

Ridgeway Four, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Collierville Towne 16, Studio on the Square.

When in Rome (PG-13, 91 min.) A better fit for one of the Eternal City's apocryphal vomitoriums than for a movie theater, this embarrassment casts Kristen Bell as a stubbornly single Guggenheim curator (!) pursued by a series of wacky suitors (illusionist Jon Heder, sausage mogul Danny DeVito, etc.) after she liberates their wishing coins from a magic fountain of love in Rome. Bell's conundrum: Is hunky sportswriter Josh Duhamel sincere in his sudden courtship, or also bewitched? Charmless and unbelievable, from a director who specializes in the stupefying, Mark Steven Johnson ("Daredevil," "Ghost Rider").

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

The Young Victoria (PG, 100 min.) Charming Emily Blunt is the teen Queen Victoria.

Studio on the Square.