Movie Capsules: Now showing

Fox Searchlight

George Clooney (from left), Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller star in "The Descendants."

Capsule descriptions by The Commercial Appeal movie writer John Beifuss.

OPENING FRIDAY

Beauty and the Beast (G, 91 min.) The 1991 Disney animated classic returns, converted into 3D.

CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Stage Cinema (in 3-D).

Carnage (R, 79 min.) See review on Page 12.

Cordova Cinema, Studio on the Square.

Contraband (R, 110 min.) Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale in a race-against-the-clock crime thriller.

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

The Iron Lady (PG-13, 105 min.) See review on Page 15.

Cordova Cinema, Ridgeway Four.

Joyful Noise (PG-13, 118 min.) See review on Page 16.

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

SPECIAL MOVIES

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Not rated, 100 min.) Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver and other "movement" leaders are featured in this documentary, constructed from rediscovered vintage footage shot by Swedish journalists in America.

7 p.m. Thursday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Tickets: $8, or $6 for museum members. Visit brooksmuseum.org.

Born To Be Wild: The latest IMAX film is "an inspiring story of love, dedication and the remarkable bond between humans and animals" that focuses on efforts to reintroduce rescued elephants and orangutans into the wild. Narrated by Morgan Freeman. Runs through Nov. 16.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call (901) 320-6362 for show times, tickets and reservations.

Into the Abyss (PG-13, 107 min.) Conversations with Texas death row inmate Michael Perry and those affected by his crime -- a senseless triple murder -- provide the foundation for this capital punishment-themed documentary by Werner Herzog, which asks why people -- and the state -- kill.

2 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Tickets: $8, or $6 for museum members. Visit brooksmuseum.org.

National Theatre Live: Collaborators (Not rated, 180 min.) A new play about an imaginary encounter between Joseph Stalin and the playwright Mikhail Bulgakov. Presented live via satellite from the London stage, the play is the latest work from John Hodge, screenwriter of "Trainspotting."

1 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Tuesday, Paradiso. Tickets: $20 for adults, $10 for children. Visit malco.com.

The Skin I Live In (R, 117 min.) Horror, sex, surgery, abduction, Titian and Antonio Banderas are among the intriguing ingredients in the latest one-of-a-kind film from Spain's Pedro Almodóvar.

2 p.m. Saturday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Tickets: $8, or $6 for museum members. Visit brooksmuseum.org.

The Ultimate Wave Tahiti: Viewers will learn how waves influence and shape our planet while they ride alongside champion surfer Kelly Slater as he challenges Tahiti's toughest wave. Runs through March 2. Tickets $8.25, $7.50 senior citizens, $6.50 children ages 3-12 and children under 3 free.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call (901) 320-6362 for show times, tickets and reservations.

NOW SHOWING

The Adventures of Tintin (PG, 107 min.) As frenetic if hardly as entertaining as "Raiders of the Lost Ark," this "performance capture" animated film from director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson ("the two greatest storytellers of our time," according to the immodest trailer) introduces us to its boyish newspaper reporter hero as he is being caricatured by a street artist. The resulting sketch is based on one of the signature drawings of Tintin by the young hero's creator, the late Belgian comic-book artist known as Hergé; unfortunately, the portrait calls our attention to the contrast between the wit, economy and charm of Hergé's original art and the expensive, labor-intensive kitsch of the performance-capture images. The action set pieces are spectacular, as Tintin (voiced/enacted by Jamie Bell), his fox terrier, Snowy, and new drunken ally, Captain Haddock (the performance-capture Man of a Thousand LED Faces, Andy Serkis), race against an evil adversary (Daniel Craig) to claim a sunken pirate treasure, but Tintin remains a dull if intrepid blank; we don't identify with him or fear for his safety, so his adventures leave us breathless with exhaustion, not excitement.

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

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (G, 90 min.) Another "squeakquel."

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

Arthur Christmas (PG, 100 min.) This digitally animated holiday bandwagon-jumper lacks the visual charm of the stop-motion Plasticine animation that is the signature of England's Aardman studios; otherwise, it's funny and clever and even moving, as might be expected from the company responsible for "Wallace & Gromit."

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Courageous (PG-13, 130 min.) Four Christian sheriff's deputies and their new Latin amigo (I'm resisting using the word "mascot") struggle with the responsibilities of work and family in this fourth feature film from Albany, Georgia's Sherwood Pictures, the startlingly successful "movie ministry" of Sherwood Baptist Church.

Bartlett 10.

The Darkest Hour (PG-13, 89 min.) The kills are super-cool, as invisible energy "ghosts" from outer space flash-fry humans (and dogs) in dust-devil swirls of ash and spark; unfortunately, everything else is utterly perfunctory in this alien invasion mini-epic that presents trapped-in-Moscow twentysomethings Emile Hirsch, Max Minghella and Olivia Thirlby as the potential saviors of Earth. Poor Earth. Directed by Chris Gorak.

CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), Majestic, Palace Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Stage Cinema (in 3-D), Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Descendants (R, 115 min.) A certain contender for most of the major Oscars, the first film in seven years from director Alexander Payne ("Sideways") casts George Clooney as Matt King, a haole (white person in Hawaii) lawyer with royal Hawaiian blood who is facing two terrible deadlines: As trustee, he must determine what to do with his family's "huge parcel of virgin land," worth millions; and as husband, he has to decide when to pull the plug on his comatose wife. Payne -- whose other films include "Election" and "About Schmidt" -- specializes in depictions of aging white males in crisis; he's a humanist director who favors people over style and confrontations and conversations over set pieces, but he relies too much on storytelling crutches (Matt's voiceover narration is annoying and redundant). Beautifully shot on location, the film becomes more enjoyable and somehow even looser as its plot tightens (Matt learns his wife was having an affair), and the focus expands to Matt's relationship with his two daughters, a troubled teenager (Oscar-worthy Shailene Woodley) and an eccentric youngster (Amara Miller). The memorable supporting cast includes Nick Krause as an affable teen stoner named Sid, and Robert Forster as Matt's belligerent father-in-law.

Cordova Cinema, Ridgeway Four.

The Devil Inside (R, 87 min.) More exorcism antics.

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

Dolphin Tale (PG, 113 min.) Winter the dolphin, Harry Connick Jr.

Bartlett 10.

Don 2 (Not rated, 145 min.) A "Bollywood" gangster epic about an Indian crime kingpin (Shah Rukh Khan).

Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Footloose (PG-13, 113 min.) Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough.

Bartlett 10.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (R, 158 min.) Director David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's phenomenally successful international best-seller is a movie of extreme length as well as unassailable technical polish and posh production values, but the gloss doesn't hide the gruesomeness: In its bid to be the first major-studio "mainstream" franchise worthy of its R rating, "Girl" is unflinching in its intermittent depiction of sexual exploitation and brutality. It's this injustice that motivates the series' indelible outsider avenger heroine, Lisbeth Salander, portrayed with a remarkable mix of confidence and vulnerability by Rooney Mara; Daniel Craig is the disgraced investigative journalist who recruits the punk-garbed genius computer hacker to help investigate a decades-old disappearance connected to a savage string of Bible-inspired murders. With its cold and spooky Scandinavian mise-en-scène, which merges hard-angled IKEA modernism with the misty irrationality of a Nordic fairy tale, the film is superior to the Swedish version of "Girl" that appeared in 2009, but it's not as gripping as Fincher's previous serial-killer masterpiece, "Zodiac." Even so, it reminds us why murder mysteries and investigative procedurals -- useful parables about the certainty of death that have pretty much migrated to television -- can be especially compelling in a darkened theater.

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

Happy Feet Two (PG, 103 min.) Director George Miller's sequel to his 2006 Best Animated Feature Oscar-winner is a pointless and plotless disappointment, but it gives a major role to Memphis kid rapper Lil P-Nut, who supplies the voice of a scene-stealing fat-and-fluffy kid penguin named Atticus, whose take on LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" ("Don't call it a comeback!") was a major part of the ad campaign.

Bartlett 10, Majestic.

Hugo (PG, 127 min.) Advertised as a children's adventure, Martin Scorsese's first 3D feature might more accurately be described as a love letter to cinema, set in the city of storybook romance, Paris. Even the movie's clockwork automaton is motivated by a symbol of love: It is brought to life by a key shaped like a Valentine's heart. Asa Butterfield stars as Hugo, a young 1930s orphan who lives in hiding in a bustling train station, where he tends the great clocks; aided by a precocious, book-smart girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), he uncovers a mystery involving a toymaker (Ben Kingsley) and a real-life master of cinematic invention and special effects, Georges Méliès, a stage magician turned filmmaker who marvels that the movies represented "a new kind of magic" -- a statement that endorses Scorsese's decision to embrace the spirit of Méliès and explore the new magic of digital 3D. A plea for film preservation as well as a demonstration of smart 3D composition (Scorsese uses the illusion of depth to draw viewers into the image, rather than causing them to flinch from the screen by flinging objects at the camera), the movie is filled with references to silent cinema, including painstaking re-creations of scenes from Méliès shorts that represent a true expression of devotion, from one filmmaker to another. The cumulative impact is surprisingly powerful, and even uncanny. It's also something very rare: a celebration of past achievement that doesn't succumb to nostalgia.

Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Immortals (R, 110 min.) The most unpretentious -- or should that be ridiculous? -- film yet from style-drunk director Tarsem Singh ("The Cell," "The Fall") is also his most enjoyable, a Cuisinart-blended shot of Greek mythology and ultraviolent 3D digital effects that choke the viewer with unrelenting and impractical decor and design. (The gods of Olympus dress like extras from a silent Soviet science-fiction movie.) Mickey Rourke is evil King Hyperion; the next screen Superman, Henry Cavill, is heroic Theseus; Freida Pinto is a virgin oracle; and old-timer John Hurt and hunky Luke Evans are different aspects of Zeus.

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

In Time (PG-13, 110 min.) One of the few legitimate science-fiction specialists in Hollywood, writer-director Andrew Niccol (who wrote and directed "Gattaca" and wrote "The Truman Show") returns with another story of paranoid conspiracy, set in a near future in which "time is now the currency": The genetically engineered citizens stop aging at 25 and die a year later, unless they're rich enough to extend their potentially eternal young adulthoods. Prophetically arriving at about the same time as the Occupy Wall Street protests, the film couldn't be more relevant: It's very much a comment on the increasingly immoral wealth gap ("Darwinian capitalism," in the words of the time-rich elitist played by Vincent Kartheiser of "Mad Men.") Unfortunately, it's also ham-handed, especially when Niccol panders to the perceived interests of the mainstream audience with indifferently staged thriller-action sequences. Justin Timberlake stars, as the "ghetto" resident who tries to expose this rigged system; Amanda Seyfried is the radicalized high-society refugee who becomes his helpmate and bedmate.

Bartlett 10.

Jack and Jill (PG, 91 min.) Not since Max Baer donned ringlets and petticoats to portray Jethrine Bodine on "The Beverly Hillbillies" has a drag act been as ghastly as the one perpetrated by Adam Sandler in this alternately tasteless and schmaltzy comedy about a privileged Hollywood adman (Sandler) who ultimately learns to love his obnoxious, awkward sister (also Sandler, wearing a long black wig, so he resembles a Bronx Cher worthy of a Bronx cheer).

Hollywood 20 Cinema, Majestic.

J. Edgar (R, 137 min.) Like the ultimately unknowable subject of this ambitious biopic, director Clint Eastwood has spent almost his entire adult life being regarded as an icon of law enforcement and often violent justice, and he understands the tension between private behavior and public image; it's this tension that apparently interested Eastwood in this difficult project about longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (PG-13, 133 min.) The first live-action film from director Brad Bird ("The Iron Giant," "Ratatouille") doesn't reach the giddy action heights of his incredible "The Incredibles," but it occasionally comes close, with a chase through a dust storm and an already famous sequence in which IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise, increasingly cipher-like) attempts to scale the glassy exterior of the world's tallest manmade structure, the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai. Better still is the scene in which Hunt and his comic-relief associate (Simon Pegg) infiltrate the Kremlin with, essentially, a high-tech magic trick; the playfulness of the effect demonstrates the usefulness of Bird's background in the astonish-the-audience culture of animation. With Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton as the other members of Hunt's outcast team.

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

Moneyball (PG-13, 133 min.) Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill.

Bartlett 10.

The Muppets (PG, 109 min.) "As long as there are singing frogs and joking bears... the world can't be such a bad place after all." That's the hopeful philosophy of a pleasant felt-and-foam Muppet-sized individual named Walter (voiced and enacted by puppeteer Peter Linz) in this valiant and worthy Disney attempt to revive the late Jim Henson's distinctive creations for a generation of kids perhaps more familiar with Kim Kardashian and Snooki than with Kermit and Piggy. Co-scripter and über-Muppet fan Jason Segel stars as Walter's best friend and unlikely brother; the duo's physical differences aren't remarked upon except in a rather brilliant existential song, in which the brothers ask themselves: "Am I a man? Or am I a Muppet?" The plot finds the brothers encouraging Kermit to round up the old gang -- Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo the Great, and so on -- to put on a fundraising show to save the dilapidated Muppet Theater from being torn down by a greedy oilman (Chris Cooper); the premise provides a framework for jokes, slapstick and musical numbers, which demonstrate that Henson's live-action puppety ethos remains irresistible. Directed by James Bobin ("The Flight of the Conchords"), the movie is so steeped in nostalgia and the fear of obsolescence that sometimes it's almost melancholy (the Muppets are told they're no longer "relevant" in a "hard, cynical world"); as a result, it may appeal more to adult fans than to child initiates.

Collierville Towne 16, Stage Cinema.

My Week with Marilyn (R, 101 min.) Sort of like "Me and Orson Welles" but with a more curvaceous title celebrity, this impeccably produced and thoroughly entertaining backstage showbiz yarn examines a few days in the presence of greatness through the eyes of a starstruck young man, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who parlays a job as gofer on the tense set of Laurence Olivier's 1957 production "The Prince and the Showgirl" into a short-term one-sided love affair with "the most famous woman in the world," Marilyn Monroe. Michelle Williams brings depth and compassion to her performance as Hollywood's tragic blond bombshell, and her sincerity invests the entire film with a sort of grandeur.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

New Year's Eve (PG-13, 119 min.) In the tradition of "Valentine's Day," an all-star romantic-comedy romp from director Garry Marshall.

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

Paranormal Activity 3 (R, 84 min.) A prequel to a prequel, this third and least persuasive film in the low-budget faux found-footage fright franchise confounds the continuity of previous entries and adds few new scares.

Bartlett 10.

Puss in Boots (PG, 90 min.)

Bartlett 10, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Real Steel (PG-13, 127 min.) Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo.

Bartlett 10.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (PG-13, 129 min.) You don't need a deerstalker and a magnifying glass to track the subtext in this fatiguing Arthur Conan Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell "bromance"-plus of a sequel, in which the master detective's pursuit of the evil Moriarty (Jared Harris) seems secondary to his badgering of his former longtime companion, the newlywed Dr. Watson (Jude Law). In one scene, Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) dresses in drag, tosses his sidekick's wife from a train, and commands: "Like down with me, Watson"; in another, he asks Watson to dance. At least these moments add interest to returning director Guy Ritchie's otherwise overwrought action-adventure, with its no longer novel Holmes-deduces-the-future slow-motion fight scenes and whiplash stylistic diversity. Noomi Rapace (the original "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo") is wasted as a gypsy fortune-teller, but Stephen Fry steals every scene as Holmes' epicene diplomat brother, Mycroft.

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

The Sitter (R, 82 min.) Smart-aleck college student Jonah Hill is unprepared for the challenges of babysitting.

CinePlanet 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Majestic, Palace Cinema, Stage Cinema.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (R, 127 min.) Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's adaptation of John le Carré's 1974 best-seller -- famously adapted in 1979 by the BBC, with Alec Guinness in the lead -- is as deceptive, withholding and cerebral as its anti-James Bond hero, veteran British secret service agent George Smiley, played here by a gray and unreadable Gary Oldman. The complex story finds Smiley trying to sniff out the Soviet "mole" in the service's ranks; suspect spies are represented by such fine character actors as Colin Firth, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds. Although the camerawork is stealthy and unshowy, the film is among the most visually striking and purposeful of recent years. The busy production design, which takes full advantage of the spacious horizontal emphasis of Alfredson's widescreen compositions, is a marvel of authentic 1970s period detail and meaningful geometry: Windows, bookshelves, soundproofed isolation chambers and other rectangular elements frequently partition the frame into grids, to suggest entrapment and to echo the story's chess motif. The film occasionally loses its balance as it walks the fine line between control and inertness, between repression and coma, but it's not without emotion: The resolution exposes the movie as a sort of love story (like Alfredson's previous movie, the vampire masterpiece "Let the Right One In"), but its passions are so hidden, many viewers may never notice.

Paradiso.

Tower Heist (PG-13, 104 min.) Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy.

Majestic.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1 (PG-13, 118 min.) While certain political groups try to push through "Defense of Marriage" legislation and "personhood" amendments, moviegoers and readers vote by the millions in favor of a series that approves of marriage between human and nonhuman, and that suggests that a vampire or werewolf can be just as worthy of love as a conventional "person." Yet this first chapter of the conclusion of the "Twilight" series also conveys a paradoxical "pro-life" message, as virgin-no-more Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) insists on carrying to term the bloodsucking half-vampire baby in her belly, the result of her bed-shredding honeymoon with hooded-eyed Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).

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

War Horse (PG-13, 146 min.) Inspired and forced, cornball and true, Steven Spielberg's sweeping saga of the unbreakable bond between unworthy man and noble animal may not be a masterpiece, but it's a welcome rarity: a quality "family" film with appeal for audience members of all ages, and a movie that suggests that people of decency and integrity are not an endangered species. Adapted from the 1982 children's book by Michael Morpugo that also inspired the Tony Award-winning Broadway play, the movie ranges from the green shires of England to the blasted "no man's land" battlefields of World War I, as a "fancy horse" turned work horse turned cavalry steed named Joey copes with separation from his beloved Albert (Jeremy Irvine), a bright-eyed farmboy. The film owes as much to movie history as to historical reality, but the John Ford references pay off big time during the theoretically gladdening but in fact heartbreaking reunion finale, in which the "strong, decent and very fine" Joey is shown by the framing and editing to be as apart and alone as John Wayne at the end of "The Searchers" -- a veteran of terrible experiences no one else can understand.

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

We Bought a Zoo (PG, 124 min.) Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson take over a failing California menagerie.

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

Young Adult (R, 94 min.) Charlize Theron's Mavis Gary is no serial killer, but she's another memorable Theron "Monster": an alcoholic and seriously depressed 37-year-old "psychotic prom queen bitch" and teen-novel ghost writer who returns to the smalltown Minnesota scene of her high-school triumphs to steal her now happily married ex-boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) from his special-needs teacher wife (Elizabeth Reaser) and infant daughter. A reunion of the "Juno" team of director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody, the film is darkly entertaining but sour.

Studio on the Square.

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