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Here are selected minireviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically.
Some reviews originate at other newspapers that do not award star ratings.
“35 Shots of Rum”
Family Drama. ****. Not Rated. The heart of the matter is the loving father-daughter bond formed in the absence of a wife and mother. They are happy as they are, yet father, Lionel, at times gently encourages his daughter’s independence even as she resists it. Life’s inevitable changes prompt father and daughter to look inward and to sort out their feelings and to contemplate the future. (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times) 100 minutes
“2012”
Super Disaster. ** 1/2. PG-13. The director stages earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. He reduces Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington and even Vatican City to rubble. You’ll likely be laughing too hard to care. For a movie about the end of the world, “2012” pulses with a goofy sort of life. “2012” is overwrought and overproduced, an orgy of Hollywood excess and incoherence. It’s also among the most entertaining movies you’ll see this year. (Christopher Kelly, McClatchy Newspapers) 160 minutes
“Amelia”
Bio-pic. **. When Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra takes off to soaring music, it might have been a sign of rousing things to come for this biopic starring Hilary Swank as the aviator and Richard Gere as her husband, the publisher and PR inventor George P. Putnam. Instead it stalls, never really connecting audiences to Earhart’s passion for flight. Directed by Mira Nair, “Amelia” isn’t a flying machine with an adventurer at the wheel. It’s more like an Airbus with attractive passengers. (Kennedy) 111 minutes
“Antichrist”
Cruel Allegory. ***1/2. Not rated but explicit material. A therapist and his wife return to a cabin after the death of their young son. What happens at that wooded homestead called Eden goes from healing to hellish in mythic — arguably misogynist — ways. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourgh perform their roles seemingly without nets for the emotional and physical demands of Lars Von Trier’s magnificent and cruel drama. (Kennedy) 109 minutes
“Astro Boy”
Sci-fi. ***. PG. The hero, who is about the same age as his target audience, is smarter, braver and stronger than the adults in his world. Toby is also a quick learner; after he dies in an accident, he’s reborn inside a robot that looks just like him and retains all of his memories. (Roger Ebert) 90 minutes
“The Blind Side”
Drama. ***. PG-13. The mystery of what makes Leigh Anne Tuohy such a steely magnolia isn’t resolved in John Lee Hancock’s affirming drama. But Sandra Bullock’s turn as the woman who brings a hulking, shut-down, African American teen named Michael Oher into her well-to-do Memphis family convinces us it has a lot to do with love. Tim McGraw and newcomer Quinton Aaron also star in this adaptation of Michael Lewis terrific nonfiction tale of gridiron star Oher and the Tuohy’s, football and family. (Kennedy) 126 minutes
“The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day”
Crime Drama. **. R. For most of its running time, “All Saints Day” plays like a boozy, amiably foulmouthed remedial school reunion: Here are the three stoogelike Boston detectives, here’s the ghost of Rocco, and doddery old Gerard Parkes as a bartender with Tourette syndrome. “All Saints Day” still feels like it was edited with a hacksaw, and the crude comic dialogue still scrapes along the barroom floor, but the general vibe is one of relaxed, murderous high spirits, and the movie’s hardly ever smug. (Ty Burr, Boston Globe) 87 minutes
“Capitalism: A Love Story”
Documentary. **. R. Michael Moore stars in a Michael Moore doc about the wages of capitalism. Having just marked the anniversary of the $700 bailout of Wall Street, the timing is spot on. But overly familiar jests (showing up at the AIG headquarters blowhorn in hand demanding our money back) and jousts (talking to a Wall Street Journal columnist who values the free market over democracy) don’t make Moore’s assault on greed as informative or entertaining as his own works. Moore’s the pity. (Kennedy) 127 minutes
“Coco Before Chanel”
Bio-pic. ***. PG-13. Director Anne Fontaine takes seriously the life and talents of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel without ever sacrificing the film’s refreshing elan. Audrey Tautou is soft-eyed and tough-minded as the orphan whose rough upbringing shaped her inventive designs. Benoît Poelvoorde brings enjoyble frisson as Étienne Balsan, Coco’s patron and pragmatic paramour. Also featured: Emmanuelle Devos and Alessandro Nivola as the man called “Boy.” (Kennedy) 110 minutes
“Disney’s A Christmas Carol”
A Classic. ***. PG. Get past the bah-humbugging Disney’s branding of Charles Dickens invites and audiences can settle in for Robert Zemeckis’ entertaining “performance capture” retelling of the tale of a miser made a better man by the visits of four ghosts one Christmas Eve. Jim Carrey is agile, winning and oft unrecognizable as Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghost of Xmas. Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins also appear in multiple roles. (Kennedy) 95 minutes
“An Education”
Coming-of-age. *** 1/2. PG-13. Director Lone Scherfig and vivacious newcomer Carey Mulligan are terrifically in sync in this adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir. A good thing. Because this truimphant coming-of-age story about 16-year-old Jenny’s relationship with older suitor David (Peter Sargaard) set in a London suburb in 1961 requires finesse. Afred Molina and Cara Seymour are funny-sad as parents a little too willing to be conned. At the Mayan. (Kennedy) 95 minutes
“The Fantastic Mr. Fox”
Animated. ** 1/2. PG. What a delightful outing director-writer Wes Anderson provides in this (and Noah Baumbach’s) adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s tale. When the 0h-so-clever and dapper Vulpes vulpes of the title takes on three gluttonous (and increasingly infuriated) farmers by the names of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, it’s quite the adventure. George Clooney and Meryl Streep provide the voices of Mr. Fox and his no-bull Missus. Jason Schwartman plays their sulkly son Ash, who gives in to the stuff of kid anxieties when his near-perfect cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) arrives. A vivid example of stop-motion animation, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is yet another sign we’re living in an animation heyday. (Kennedy) 88 minutes
“The Fourth Kind”
Thriller. **. PG-13. Someone or something has been terrorizing the people of Nome, Alaska. “The Fourth Kind,” is an unintentionally silly thriller about alien abduction. For those who care about such things, encounters of the fourth kind are ones in which the subject’s body is physically carried off, often to be probed in ways that are far too horrible to describe. (Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post) 98 minutes
“The Invention of Lying”
Comedy. *** 1/2. PG-13. “The Invention of Lying” is a remarkably radical comedy. It opens with a series of funny, relentlessly logical episodes in a world where everyone always tells the truth, and then slips in the implication that religion is possible only in a world that has the ability to lie. Then it wraps all of this into a sweet love story. Ricky Gervais plays a pudgy everyman named Mark, whose secretary, Tina Fey, tells him she has loathed every day she worked for him. (Roger Ebert) 99 minutes
“The Men Who Stare at Goats”
Comedy. ** 1.2. R. There are some truly funny moments in this adaptation of Jon Ronson’s nonfiction book about a military operation that trained soldiers in paranormal warfare. But, given the context of wars the U.S. remains embroiled in, the audience is right to expect more pointed, poignant insights — paranormal or otherwise. Jeff Bridges, George Clooney and Kevin Spacey star as the founder of the New Earth Army and his two most talented conscripts. Ewan McGregor plays the reporter who stumbles upon their much weirder than fiction story. (Kennedy) 95 minutes
“Michael Jackson’s This Is It”
Almost-concert Film. ***. PG. This film was undertaken too soon to be the watershed documentary the extraordinary performer deserved. The movie is less a full-on portrait than a tantalizing sketch of an artist at work. And the movie is for — and of — fans. There’s an astonishing precision to Jackson and Travis Payne’s choreography. (Kennedy) 90 minutes
“New York, I Love You”
10 Short Films. ***. R. Ten directors, ten short films, all take place in New York City. Look at the cast and credits to form an idea of the directors and actors at work here. By its nature, “New York, I Love You” can’t add up. It remains the sum of its parts. If one isn’t working for you, wait a few minutes, here comes another one. (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) 110 minutes
“Pirate Radio”
Nostalgia. ***. R. It’s about the heyday of offshore “pirate radio” stations — broadcasting from old merchant ships to a Britain dying to hear the Golden Age of British pop, but denied it by the staid BBC. The good ship Radio Rock is filled with the usual dizzy cast of castaways It’s 1966, and they’re all stuck on a rusty red hulk in the North Sea, where they live, sleep, drink and kick out the jams. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 112 minutes
“Planet 51”
Animated Sci-fi. ** 1/2. PG. The 1950s Hollywood tradition was that an alien spaceship landed on Earth and was surrounded fearfully by military troops. “Planet 51” is true to the tradition, but this time the ship comes from Earth, and it lands on a planet inhabited by little green men. It’s still the 1950s, however. It’s perfectly pleasant as kiddie entertainment, although wall-to-wall with pop references to the American 1950s.(Roger Ebert) 90 minutes
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
Drama. ****. R. You’ll remember her name. Claireece Precious Jones is an obese, illiterate, abused Harlem teen. Yet Gabourey Sidibe’s performance makes those woefully adjectives insuffient of her humanity. And Mo’Nique’s turn as her brutalizing mother is jaw-dropping. This front runner for an Oscar is directed by Lee Daniels and produced by local company Smokewood Entertainment. Mariah Carey and Paula Patton also star.(Kennedy) 109 minutes
“The Road”
Apocalyptic Allegory. ** 1/2. R. A father and his young son make their way toward the coast after an unspecified disaster has wrecked the planet. Viggo Mortensen plays “The Man.” His son, “the Boy,” is portrayed by Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee. Austrailan Director John Hillcoat could find few more dedicated partners in this horrowing undertaking than Viggo Mortensen. He’s a truth seeker. In mining for the authentic, he makes the Man a complex but hardly admirable figure. Charlize Theron appears as the Man’s wife and the Boy’s mother. While Hillcoat deftly reaps the grim, he never heeds the seedling of hope in this big-screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-winning fable about parental love in an abject world. (Kennedy) 113 minutes
“A Serious Man”
Period Drama. ** 1/2. R. Joel and Ethan Coen’s quietly amusing, philosophically rich tale about a beset family man is set in a Minnesota suburb 1967, a time when the Coens themselves were coming of age outside Minneapolis. Michael Stuhlbarg is Larry Gopnick. The physics professor isn’t Job. These days it doesn’t take as much to send a man of faith reeling. But he does embark on a journey to understand God’s will leads him to three rabbis and one divorce lawyer. The ensemble is pitch perfect: especially Richard Kind as Larry’s beleaguered Gopnick brother and Fred Melamed as his wife’s lover. (Kennedy) 105 minutes
“Where the Wild Things Are”
Children’s Classic. *** 1/2. PG. Spike Jonze adapted Maurice Sendak’s beloved kids book about a boy named Max who journeys to a place inhabited by creatures that declare him king. Jonze not only finds his inner “rumpus,” to borrow a word, he goes wild. Dave Eggers cowrote this artful celebration of the unruly. Flush with its own peculiar energy, the movie stars the voice talents of James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper to name a few, as the wild things. Max Records impresses as sweet, impossible, hurting, creative Max. Catherine Keener plays his mother. (Kennedy) 101 minutes
“Zombieland”
Zombie Comedy. ***. R. We pity the foolish zombie who tries to take a bite out of Tallahassee in this comedy that values the prey over the predators. Woody Harrelson is the gun-toting zombie slayer. Jesse Eisenberg endears as Columbus, the guy who proves flight might be just as effective as fight. Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone are sister survivors Little Rock and Wichita the women they meet on the road. In a world in which loved ones (or the cute girl next door) turn ravenous, trust is an issue. (Kennedy) 81 minutes
