LITTLE ROCK — At area theaters
68
ALEX CROSS, PG-13 Tyler Perry takes on the role of the title homicide detective/psychologist, who may have met his match in a serial killer (Matthew Fox). (101 minutes)
89
ARGO, R Based on supposedly recently declassified documents. Ben Affleck directs and plays a CIA rescue specialist who concocts (with Alan Arkin and John Goodman) a cockeyed plot to create a fake movie as a way of rescuing six Americans who escaped the 1979 Iranian takeover of the American embassy and subsequent 444-day hostage crisis. (120 minutes)
71
ATLAS SHRUGGED PART II,
PG-13
With the global economy on the brink of collapse and brilliantly creative folks continuing to mysteriously disappear, a tycoon discovers in an abandoned factory a revolutionary motor that could seemingly power the world. (112 minutes)
84
BRAVE, PG A courageous young Scottish princess (voice of Kelly Macdonald) inadvertently unleashes chaos in the kingdom while battling tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts and finding the meaning of true bravery. Animated. (100 minutes)
75
THE CAMPAIGN, R When a long-term North Carolina congressman (Will Ferrell) commits a major public gaffe before an election, a pair of ultra-wealthy CEOs plot to put up an unlikely rival candidate (Zach Galifianakis) to gain influence over their district. (97 minutes)
86
CHASING MAVERICKS, PG Based on the true story of surfing icon Jay Moriarty, involving a young man’s quest to surf Northern California’s most dangerous wave, and the local legend who takes him under his wing. (117 minutes)
87
CLOUD ATLAS, R A soul is shaped from a killer into a heroand a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. (172 minutes)
72
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, PG-
13
Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader, converted from hero to fugitive after he takes the blame for the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, this time pitted against the deadly masked terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy) and cunning cat burglar Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). (164 minutes)
88
END OF WATCH, R Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena play young cops patrolling the meanest streets of south-central Los Angeles. (109 minutes)
78
THE EXPENDABLES 2, R The reunited Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews), with a couple of new members (Liam Hemsworth, Yu Nan) aboard, take on what appears at first to be a simple job - until things go wrong, whereupon they are compelled to seekrevenge in hostile territory where the odds are, of course, stacked against them. (102 minutes)
86
FLIGHT, R Denzel Washington plays a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a heroic feat of flying in a damaged plane, saving 98 lives, but whose behavior on the night before the flight comes under intense scrutiny. WithKelly Reilly, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, John Goodman; directed by Robert Zemeckis. (139 minutes)
73
FUN SIZE, PG-13 Victoria Justice plays a sarcastic teenager forced to take her little brother trick-or-treating, and must then recruit a trio of friends to find him when he disappears into a sea of trick-or-treaters. (90 minutes)
85
HERE COMES THE BOOM, PG A former collegiate wrestler (Kevin James) is now a 40-something, apathetic biology teacher in a failing high school who begins, as cutbacks threaten to cancel the music program and lay off its teacher (Henry Winkler), to raise money by moonlighting as a mixed-martial-arts fighter. (105 minutes)
80
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, PG Dracula opens a lavish five-stake resort - where monsters and their families can live it up in safety and comfort, free from meddling from the human world - as a way of controlling theadventurous spirit of his teenage daughter, who’s in grave peril of falling for an ordinary human. Animated. (91 minutes)
70
ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT
, PG
Squirrelly Scrat’s nutty, timeworn pursuit of the accursed acorn triggers a continental cataclysm, in the midst of which Manny, Diego and Sid encounter a ragtag menagerie of characters determined to stop them from returning home. Animated. (94 minutes)
88
LOOPER, R In the not-too-distant future, time travel is real but illegal and only available on the black market, and the mob uses it to get rid of folks they don’t like by sending them 30 years into the past, where hired gun Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is waiting. Then the mob decides to close the loop and sends back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis). (118 minutes)
78
THE MAN WITH THE IRONFISTS
, R
Director RZA plays a Chinese village blacksmith forced by radical tribal factions to create elaborate tools of destruction, but who becomes the savior of his adopted people when he learns to channel an ancient energy to transform himself into a human weapon. With Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Dave Bautista, Byron Mann, Daniel Wu, Pam Grier. (96 minutes)
90
THE MASTER, R A young drifter (Joaquin Phoenix), picked up by the charismatic leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of a fringe religion, begins to doubt the faith - and his mentor. (137 minutes)
78
THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN
, PG
A happily married couple (Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton), dreaming about what their someday-child will be like, find a youngster (C.J. Adams) on their doorstep, bearing some unexpected gifts. (125 minutes)
83
THE PAPERBOY, R Lured by imploring letters from a beautiful siren, a hard-nosed reporterand his partner return to a Florida town to investigate a seemingly unjust imprisonment of a hardened backwoods criminal, convicted without conclusive evidence or even a fair trial in the killing of the town’s sheriff. (101 minutes)
81
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4,
R
More paranormal activity has been occurring since the new neighbors moved in next door. (88 minutes)
88
PARANORMAN, PG Misunderstood Norman (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee) is the only available ghoul whisperer when his small town comes under siege by zombies. Stop-motion animated. (93 minutes)
89
PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
, PG-13
Logan Lerman plays a high-school freshman whose social prospects are limited by the recent death of a friend and an even more recent breakdown of sorts, until hebefriends a charismatic, openly gay senior (Ezra Miller) and his stepsister (Emma Watson). (103 minutes)
81
PITCH PERFECT, PG-13 Anna Kendrick plays a college kid who finds herself in the midst of an unpopular group of misfit girls with one thing in common: how well they sing together. So of course they set forth to conquer the cutthroat world of college a cappella groups. (112 minutes)
68
THE POSSESSION, PG-13 After their youngest daughter becomes oddly obsessed with an antique wooden box she bought at a yard sale, a couple (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick) discover the presence of a malevolent force: The box was built to contain a dibbuk, a dislocated spirit that inhabits and ultimately devours its human host. (91 minutes)
85
RESTLESS HEART: THE CONFESSIONS OF AUGUSTINE
, not rated
The first full-length feature film on the life and times of the fifth-century philosophersaint, Augustine of Hippo. With Allesandro Preziosi, Monica Guerritore, Johannes Brandrup, Serena Rossi and Franco Nero; directed by Christian Duguay. (127 minutes)
89
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, R A comedy, believe it or not, in which a struggling screenwriter (Colin Farrell) inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends (Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell) kidnap a gangster’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved Shih Tzu. (109 minutes)
79
SILENT HILL: REVELATION,
R
A young woman (Adelaide Clemens) and her father (Sean Bean), on the run from dangerous forces that she doesn’t fully understand, discovers she’s not who she thinks she is and the revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her forever. (94 minutes)
82
SINISTER, R Ethan Hawke plays a true-crime novelist whose discovery of a box of mysterious, disturbing home movies plunges his family into a nightmarish experience of supernatural horror. (110 minutes)
72
TAKEN 2, PG-13 The retired CIA agent (Liam Neeson) who in the first movie stopped at nothing to save his daughter from Albanian kidnappers now has been taken hostage with his wife during a family vacation in Istanbul by the vengeful father of one of the original kidnappers, and it’s up to the daughter to help them escape, get the family to safety and systematically take out the kidnappers - one by nasty one. (92 minutes)
74
TOTAL RECALL, PG-13 A remake of the Paul Verhoeven/ Arnold Schwarzenegger 1990 sci-fi trailblazer (based on Philip K. Dick’s short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”), this time with Colin Farrell as a factory worker haunted by dreams of a previous life thatturn out to be actual suppressed memories. (118 minutes)
86
TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE,
PG-13
Clint Eastwood plays an ace baseball scout with whom age is starting to catch up, but he refuses to be benched for what may be the final innings of his career. The one person who might be able to help is also the one person he’d never ask: his high-powered lawyer daughter (Amy Adams). (111 minutes)
85
WRECK-IT RALPH, PG John C. Reilly is the voice of the title video game character, tired of being overshadowed by Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer), who decides he’s now going to be the “good guy” and sets off on a game-hopping journey across the arcade. Animated, with voices of Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Ed O’Neill, Adam Carolla, Dennis Haysbert, Edie McClurg; directed by Rich Moore. (108 minutes)
Movie-rating
point system
Movies are rated on
a scale from 50 to
- 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 35 on 11/09/2012