Film clips

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

LITTLE ROCK — At area theaters 78 AMELIA, PG Hilary Swank plays aviator Amelia Earhart and Richard Gere plays her partner and eventual husband, publisher George Putnam. (120 minutes) 77 ASTRO BOY, PG A young robot with incredible powers, created by a brilliant scientist, learns the joys and emotions of being human and gains the strength to embrace his destiny. Animated.

(94 minutes) 68 THE BOX, PG-13 Cameron Diaz plays a teacher faced with a terrible choice: a box with a button that, if pushed, will bring her a million dollars but will also simultaneously take the life of someone she doesn’t know. (116 minutes) 86 THE BOYS ARE BACK, PG-13 Clive Owen plays a man who must raise his two sons alone after the untimely death of his second wife. (104 minutes)90 BRIGHT STAR, PG English poet John Keats and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, start a passionate and forbidden affair in 1818 London. (119 minutes) 88 BRONSON, R Tom Hardy plays a young Brit who, while serving 34 years for the armed robbery of a post office, turns into “Charles Bronson.” With Matt King, Kelly Adams, Amanda Burton, Edward Bennett-Coles; directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. (110 minutes) 80 A CHRISTMAS CAROL, PG Disney’s animated trip through Christmas past, present and future with miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (voice of Jim Carrey, who also does the voices of all three ghosts), who must learn to unlock his cold, money-grubbing heart before it’s too late. (96 minutes) 87 COCO BEFORE CHANEL, PG-13 Audrey Tautou plays Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who begins her life as a headstrong orphan and eventually becomes the legendary couturier. Subtitled. (110 minutes) 75 COUPLES RETREAT, PG-13 Four Midwestern couples on a group-rate vacation to a tropicalisland discover that the resort’s couples therapy is not optional.

(107 minutes) 68 THE FINAL DESTINATION, R Bobby Campo plays the guy whose horrific premonitions of others’ gruesome deaths keep coming true. With Shantel VanSanten; directed by David R.

Ellis. (82 minutes) 68 THE FOURTH KIND, PG-13 Milla Jovovich plays a psychologist who discovers, through videotaped sessions with traumatized patients, the reason for a disproportionate number of mysterious disappearances in and around Nome, Alaska, since the 1960s: They’ve been abducted by aliens.

(98 minutes) 85 G-FORCE, PG Highly trained guinea pigs are the secret weapons in a government espionage program. Animated. (90 minutes) 80 G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, PG-13 The elite G.I. Joe team uses ultramodern spyware and military weaponry to fight a corrupt international arms dealer.

(118 minutes) 70 HALLOWEEN II, R Michael Myers returns home to Haddonfield, Ill., to take care of some unfinished family business. (101 minutes)90 THE HURT LOCKER, R Three members of the Army’s elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad battle insurgents and each other as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad. (131 minutes) 75 I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF, PG-13 Madea turns over three trouble making teens to their nightclub singer aunt, who is not interested in or prepared to take care of them. (113 minutes) 83 THE INFORMANT!, R Matt Damon plays a rising star at agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland who suddenly turns whistle-blower, but he may be too loose a cannon for the FBI. Based on a true story. (108 minutes) 85 THE INVENTION OF LYING, PG-13 A scriptwriter (Ricky Gervais) in a world where no one lies decides to be the first to do so. (100 minutes) 76 JENNIFER’S BODY, R A gorgeous cheerleader is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a small Minnesota farming town, leaving it up to her “plain Jane” best friend to stop her and destroy the source of her evil transformation. (102 minutes) 90 JULIE & JULIA, PG-13 A going-nowhere office worker (Amy Adams) challenges herself to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) Mastering the Art of French Cooking within a year. (123 minutes) 70 LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, R Gerard Butler plays a family man who, years after his wife was murdered during a home invasion, begins to take revenge on the prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) and others who allowed one of her killers to get off lightly. (108 minutes) 79 THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, R A reporter (Ewan Mc-Gregor) in search of his next big story encounters an enigmatic Special Forces operator (George Clooney) on a mind-boggling mission. (90 minutes)89 MICHAEL JACKSON’S THIS IS IT, PG Kenny Ortega’s documentary glimpse into the final days of Michael Jackson, compiled from an estimated 80 hours of rehearsal and behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson preparing for his 50 sold-out London shows, plus interviews with collaborators and close friends. (121 minutes) 86 9, PG-13 In a future where the world’s machines have decimated the human population before being largely shut down, a group of small creations must outwit and fight against a marauding mechanized beast. Animated.

(79 minutes) 89 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, R A young, middle-class couple move into what seems like a typical suburban “starter” tract house and become increasingly disturbed by a possibly demonic presence that is most active in the middle of the night. (99 minutes) 85 PARIS, R A man waiting for a life-saving heart transplant gets a very different idea of how he might spend the time still left to him with the invasion of his world by his sister (Juliette Binoche) and her three children. Subtitled.

(130 minutes) 80 PIRATE RADIO, R Rogue disc jockeys in the 1960s drive the British government crazy by playing rock records in defiance ofthe law from a boat in the middle of the North Atlantic. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Kenneth Branagh; directed by Richard Curtis. Colonel Glenn 18. (129 minutes) 70 SAW VI, R Jigsaw-like schemes kill more people. (120 minutes) 87 SHORTS, PG An 11-year-old who lives in the town where the country’s hottest do-it-all gadget is manufactured gets knocked in the head by a rainbow-colored rock that appears to have even more power than the gadget. (97 minutes) 70 THE STEPFATHER, PG-13 In this remake of a 1987 film, a young man just back from military school begins to suspect that his mother’s seemingly loving new boyfriend could be hiding a dark side. (101 minutes) 83 2012, PG-13 Nostradamus and the Mayans, among others, predict the end of the world by the end of 2012; this movie posits a global cataclysm and a heroic struggle by the survivors. With John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson; directed by Roland Emmerich. (158 minutes) 90 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, PG A rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home escapes to where the Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as he longs for a kingdom to rule. (94 minutes)

Movie-rating point system

Movies are rated on a scale from 50 to 100. Guidelines for moviegoers:

96-100 Transcendent

90-95 Exceptional

80-89 Better than most to remarkable

70-79 Average

60-69 Awful to mediocre

50-59 Irredeemable

MovieStyle, Pages 38 on 11/20/2009

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