“The Guardian”
*** Maybe it’s the intelligently cooked-up chemistry between Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher as Coast Guard rescue swimmers at different ends of their careers. Or maybe it’s the fine independent streak of their love interests (Sela Ward and Melissa Sagemiller). Or maybe it’s simply a relief to take in a movie free of terrorists of unknown nationality or heroes defusing bombs and dodging bullets. Likely, it’s the pleasant convergence of all these qualities that makes Andrew Davis’ “The Guardian” such fine popcorn fare.|PG-13|135 minutes|Released today|Lisa Kennedy
“Jesus Camp”
** An exploration of the potent mix of religious fervor and politically charged ideas, “Jesus Camp” should make viewers uncomfortable – secularists and mindful evangelicals alike. Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady intend it to be. Pentecostal children’s pastor Betsy Fischer suffers the little ones unto her camp for wee evangelicals in Devil’s Lake, N.D. Among the gathered are Levi, Rachael and Tory, three of the most articulate, practiced kids you’ll see who don’t carry Stage Actors Guild cards. “This is a pretty sicko world,” Fischer tells her charges early in the film. And it’s hard to quibble with that. But, contrary to Fischer’s glib claim, one needn’t be an “extreme liberal” to be troubled by her focus on the youngest in the family. There’s a reason brutal regimes recruit tykes. When she celebrates the receptivity of kids to the message of Christian soldiering, she sounds purely strategic.|PG-13|85 minutes|Released today|Lisa Kennedy
“This Film Is Not Yet Rated”
** Filmmaker Kirby Dick turns this potentially intriguing documentary into a largely annoying stunt film. The movie ratings board certainly deserves ridicule and investigation, but Dick hires some of the worst private eyes in Los Angeles to follow the elusive board members and confront them about their decisions. Meanwhile, he’s obsessed with censorship of sex scenes when most families are more worried about the violence and profanity in PG-13 movies. Some interesting questions are raised, though, including whether the government would do a better job rating movies because at least then the secretive process would be forced open to public scrutiny.|NOT RATED|97 minutes|Released today|Michael Booth
“Employee of the Month”
* 1/2 Except for stand-up comic Dane Cook, who manages to come off as likable enough in this dreadful workplace tale, everyone else involved belongs in the unemployment line. In a perfect world, this miserably idiotic movie would put an end to Jessica Simpson’s alleged acting career (since last year’s woeful “The Dukes of Hazzard” has not already done the trick). Simpson’s so flat and vacuous that it’s an insult to all the equally untalented yet unknown pretty faces looking for a break in Hollywood that she got the role. But she’s lovely to just sit and stare at, and she’s a pop star whose celebrity makes movie marketers’ chores that much easier.|PG-13|108 minutes|Released Jan. 16|David Germain, Associated Press
TV ON DVD
“The Best of Hootenanny”|Johnny Cash, Ian and Sylvia, Judy Collins, Doc Watson and Miriam Makeba are among the musicians captured in this three-disc set that features almost 90 musical performances from the short-lived 1960s folk show. The set also has standup comedy by Woody Allen, Bill Cosby and others.|$44.98|Released today Jan. 16|David Germain, Associated Press
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING | Top DVDs SALES
SALES
1. Snakes on a Plane
2. Jackass: No. 2
3. The Covenant
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
5. Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby
RENTALS
1. Snakes on a Plane
2. The Covenant
3. Jackass: No. 2
4. Invincible
5. The Devil Wears Prada
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Relative Strangers
Robert Mitchum: The Signature Collection
Sherrybaby
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Walker, Texas Ranger: Season 2
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