LITTLE ROCK — At area theaters
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)
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)
87
CLOUD ATLAS, R A soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. (172 minutes)
62
THE DETAILS, R A couple’s 10-year suburban idyll goes awry when raccoons tearing up the purportedly perfect backyard lawn set off a bewildering chainreaction involving a crazy cat lady, multiple infidelities, extortion, organ donation and somebody on the wrong end of a bow and arrow. (91 minutes)
88
EASY MONEY, R A lower-class Swedish business student (Joel Kinnaman) falls in love with a sexy heiress and is lured into a world of crime in order to maintain his high-living facade so he can continue mingling with Stockholm’s wealthy elite. Subtitled. (124 minutes)
90
FINDING NEMO 3D, G Disney adds an extra dimension to the tale of animated and overly protective clownfish Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks) and fuzzy-minded fish Dory (voice of Ellen DeGeneres), on a quest to rescue Marlin’s short-finned son Nemo (voice of Alexander Gould) after a fishing boat separates them in the Great Barrier Reef. (104 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 thenight before the flight comes under intense scrutiny. (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 the adventurous spirit of his teenage daughter, who’s in grave peril of falling for an ordinary human. Animated. (91minutes)
74
HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET
, PG-13
A recent divorcee (Elisabeth Shue) seeking a fresh start and her daughter (Jennifer Lawrence) find the small-town house of their dreams, which, of course, also houses a chilling secret. (101 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
LIFE OF PI, PG A young man who survives a tragic disaster at sea forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship’s only other survivor - a Bengal tiger. With Suraj Sharma, Irffan Khan, Gerard Depardieu, Adil Hussain, Rafe Spall; directed by Ang Lee. (127 minutes)
90
LINCOLN, PG-13 Director Steven Spielberg’s take on the tumultuous final months in office of the 16th president (Daniel Day-Lewis). (120 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 (JosephGordon-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 IRON FISTS
, R
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. (96 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)
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 smalltown 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 he befriends 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)
79
RED DAWN, PG-13 In this remake of John Milius’ 1984 uberpatriotic potboiler, young American patriots seek refuge in the woods and become guerrilla fighters to save their fellow citizens, liberate their town and take back their freedom from the foreign paratroopers who have taken over. With Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Connor Cruise, Jeffrey Dean Morgan; directed by Dan Bradley. (114 minutes)
73
RISE OF THE GUARDIANS, PG The immortal Guardians - Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and Jack Frost - do battle to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children everywhere from an evil spirit seeking to take over the world. Animated. With voices of Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher, Jude Law; directed by Peter Ramsey. (97 minutes)
86
SAMSARA, PG-13 Director Ron Fricke offers a “journey of the soul” through “powerful images pristinely photographed in 70mm and a dynamic music score” that“illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of the nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet.” (99 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)
88
SKYFALL, PG-13 Craig, Daniel Craig is back as Bond, James Bond, this time finding his loyalty to M (Dame Judi Dench) tested as her past comes back to haunt her. And as MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost. (143 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)
88
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE,
R
Sean Penn plays a 50-year-old ex-rock star, still dressing “goth” and living in Dublin off his royalties until his father’s death bringshim back to New York to fulfill his dad’s unfinished quest for revenge. With Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch, Eve Hewson; directed by Paolo Sorrentino. (111 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 that turn out to be actual suppressed memories. (118 minutes)
87
28 HOTEL ROOMS, not rated After a one-night stand on a business trip, the man and the woman (Chris Messina, Marin Ireland) continue to meet and develop a profound relationship that threatens to affect everything else in their lives. Directed by Matt Ross. (82 minutes)
82
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2
, PG-13
Bella (Kristen Stewart), beginning her new life as a vampire and mother, must defend her and Edward’s (Robert Pattinson) newborn daughter against the nasties that are determined to destroy the child. (116 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. (108 minutes)
84
WUTHERING HEIGHTS, not
rated
The rocky and long-term love story between the daughter of a country gentleman farmer and the orphan he once rescued from the streets. With Kaya Scodelario, James Howson, Oliver Milburn, Nichola Burley, Steve Evets; directed by Andrea Arnold. (129 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 37 on 11/30/2012