Film clips

— 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. (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 enemy threatening global safety and security. (142 minutes) 87 BACHELORETTE, R Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher and Lizzy Caplan play dysfunctional friends serving as bridesmaids at the wedding of a girl they mocked mercilessly in high school. With James Marsden; directed by Leslye Headland. (87 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)

67 THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY, PG-13 A brash Wall Street trader (Henry Cavill), racing to rescue family members kidnapped while vacationing in Spain, exposes a sinister government conspiracy and unearths dark family secrets. (93 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)

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)

77 DREDD 3D, R Karl Urban plays the comic book character Sylvester Stallone first brought to the screen, the fearsome urban cop/judge/jury/executioner, the only semblance of order in a chaotic, irradiated wasteland that used to be the East Coast, whose new challenge is to rid the city of a dangerous drug. With Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey; directed by Pete Travis. (95 minutes)

88 END OF WATCH, R Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena play young cops patrolling the meanest streets of south-central Los Angeles. With Anna Kendrick, Frank Gillo, America Ferrera; directed by David Ayer. (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 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. (104 minutes)

82 HEROINE, not rated A voyeuristic, behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of a “Bollywood” superstar. With Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Emraan Hashmi, Divya Dutta, Lillete Dubey; directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. (140 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)

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. With Max Thieriot, Gil Bellows; directed by Mark Tonderai. (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)

77 LAST OUNCE OF COURAGE, PG The 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. (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 mobbacked Ponzi scheme and that he has been set up as the fall guy. (114 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. With Jesse Plemons, David Warshofsky, Amy Adams, Rami Malek; directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. (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)

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)

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 globetrotting Milla Jovovich remains humanity’s last hope. (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. (80 minutes) 79 SPARKLE, PG-13 In the late 1960s, 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)

87 TOYS IN THE ATTIC, not rated This stop-motion animated film is set in the attic of a Prague home divided into the land of happy toys in the West and the Land of Evil in the East, where the despotic ruler (voice of Douglas Urbanski) and his band of sinister minions, insects and rotted vegetables have kidnapped a beautiful doll (voice of Vivian Schilling). To the rescue: teddy bear (voice of Forest Whitaker), a mechanical mouse (voice of Joan Cusack) and marionette puppet (voice Cary Elwes). Directed by Jiri Barta. (76 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). With Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Robert Patrick, Matthew Lillard, Scott Eastwood, Joe Massingill; directed by Robert Lorenz. (111 minutes)

77 2016: OBAMA’S AMERICA, PG Dinesh D’Souza, whose writings about President Obama have created controversy, covers four continents “to find answers to Obama’s past.” (89 minutes)

82 UNCONDITIONAL, PG-13 A young woman with a storybook life loses faith after the violent death of her husband, but finds it again in a reunion with an old friend. With Michael Ealy, Lynn Collins, Bruce McGill; directed by Brent McCorkle. (97 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 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 35 on 09/28/2012

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