LITTLE ROCK — At area theaters
67
THE APPARITION, PG-13 Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan play a couple haunted by a presence accidentally conjured during a university parapsychology experiment. (88 minutes)
85
ARBITRAGE, R Richard Gere plays a billionaire hedge fund magnate, the very portrait of success in American business, who, on the eve of his 60th birthday, finds himself desperately trying to sell his trading empire to a major bank before the extent of his fraud is discovered. With Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Susan Sarandon; directed by Nicholas Jarecki. (100 minutes)
89
THE AVENGERS, PG-13 Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency SHIELD, pulls together the title superheroes of all those preceding Marvel-based, big-screen comic book adventures, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America: The First Avenger (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), to battle the unexpected enemythreatening global safety and security. (142 minutes)
80
BARFI!, not rated An Indian charmer’s bittersweet relationship in Darjeeling with two beautiful young women sets in motion a chain of events that will turn his life upside down. With Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ileana D’Cruz; directed by Anurag Basu. (120 minutes)
72
THE BOURNE LEGACY, PG-13 Jeremy Renner plays another estranged assassin, put through the same super-secret government genetic modification program that produced Jason Bourne, and who, like Bourne, has been marked for elimination. (135 minutes)
75
THE CAMPAIGN, R When a longterm 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)
72
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, PG-
13
Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader, converted fromhero 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)
72
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: DOG DAYS
, PG
The latest film in a series based on books by author/cartoonist Jeff Kinney, in which pre-teen hero Greg is still having his worst summer ever. (94 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 seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are, of course, stacked against them. (102 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. With voices of Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett; directed by Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich. (104 minutes)
65
HIT & RUN, R Co-director Dax Shepard plays a nice guy with a questionable past who risks everything when he breaks out of the witness protection program to deliver his fiancee (Kristen Bell) to her dream job in Los Angeles. (100 minutes)
86
HOPE SPRINGS, PG-13 Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a devoted couple with a lot of years of married life under their belts. Looking to spice things up, she hauls him to a week of marriage therapy with a renowned couples specialist (Steve Carell), who tries to help them shed their bedroom hang-ups and re-ignite the spark that caused them to fall for each other in the first place. (100 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 Maxnny, Diego and Sid encounter a ragtag menagerie of characters determined to stop them from returning home. Animated. (94 minutes)
77
LAST OUNCE OF COURAGE, PGThe 14-year-old son of a soldier killed in battle finds himself at odds with his war-hero grandfather, who is battling what he sees as a loss of fundamental freedoms, as they try to cope with loss. With Marshall R. Teague, Jennifer O’Neill, Fred Williamson, Jenna Boyd, Rusty Joiner, Hunter Gomez; directed by Darrel Campbell, Kevin McAfee. (101 minutes)
87
LAWLESS, R Based on the true story of the infamous bootlegging Bondurant brothers, whose loyalty is put to the test against the backdrop of the nation’s most notorious crime wave in Prohibition-era Virginia. (115 minutes)
89
MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED
, PG
Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe, still fighting to get home to their beloved Big Apple, find the perfect cover for a transit of Europe: a traveling circus. Animated. (93 minutes)
79
MADEA’S WITNESS PROTECTION
, PG-13
The gentle chief financial officer of a Wall Street investment bank (Eugene Levy)with growing family problems escapes into the witness protection program - hiding out, natch, with Madea (writer-director Tyler Perry) - when it turns out his firm has been operating a mob-backed Ponzi scheme and that he has been set up as the fall guy. (114 minutes)
88
MOONRISE KINGDOM, PG-13 Two 12-year-olds living on a New England island in the summer of 1965 fall in love and run away together as a violent storm bearing down on the island complicates the effort of her parents and his scout troop to find them. (94 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)
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)
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)
67
RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION,
R
In this fifth installment in a continuing franchise, a deadly virus continues to transform humanity into legions of the flesh-eating undead, and globe-trotting Milla Jovovich remains humanity’s last hope. With Michelle Rodriguez, Sienna Guillory, Kevin Durand, Shawn Roberts; directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. (97 minutes)
87
ROBOT & FRANK, PG-13 A retired cat burglar (Frank Langella) with a fading memory finds his love for larceny reinvigorated after his concerned son gives him a robot that is a household helpmate, a companion - and a competent criminal sidekick. (90 minutes)
81
SLEEPWALK WITH ME, not
rated
Comedian-playwright-filmmaker Mike Birbiglia’s semi-autobiographical tale of a burgeoning stand-up comedian struggling with the stress of a stalled career, a stale relationship and wild spurts of severe sleepwalking he is desperate to ignore. With Lauren Ambrose, Carol Kane, James Rebhorn, Aya Cash, Alex Karpovsky; directed by Birbiglia. (80 minutes)
79
SPARKLE, PG-13 In the late1960s, when Detroit was America’s music mecca, a prodigy (Jordin Sparks) who is the youngest of three sisters struggles to become a star while overcoming issues that are tearing her family apart. (116 minutes)
85
STEP UP REVOLUTION, PG-13 A wealthy businessman’s daughter arrives in Miami hoping to become a professional dancer and falls in love with the leader of a flash-mob dance crew striving to win a contest for a major sponsorship opportunity. As you might expect, she and he team up to thwart her father’s plan to redevelop the crew’s neighborhood and displace thousands of people. (99 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)
77
2016: OBAMA’S AMERICA, PG In this film, author and conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, whose writings about President Obama have created controversy (to say the least), covers four continents “to find answers to Obama’s past” and speculates where America will be in 2016. (89 minutes)
68
THE WORDS, PG-13 His literary star rising after he publishes the next great American novel, a young writer is haunted by a secret: He didn’t write it. (96 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 09/21/2012