OPENING FRIDAY
AMELIA (PG) Hilary Swank stars as the legendary female aviator Amelia Earhart in the new film from Mira Nair.
ASTRO BOY (G) See review.
CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT (PG-13) About a Boy and American Pie director Paul Weitz helms this light-hearted horror fantasy about a teenager who becomes the apprentice to a supernatural carnival. The cast includes Salma Hayek, “Fringe’s” Michael Cerveris, Orlando Jones and John C. Reilly, cast against type as a vampire.
COCO BEFORE CHANEL (PG-13) French darling Audrey Tautou brings the iconic designer to life in Anne Fontaine's new biopic.
ONG BAK 2 (R) Tony Jaa stars and co-directs this prequel to his ass-kicking martial arts flick, Ong Bak.
SAW VI (R) They’re still making these?
STILL WALKING (NR) See review.
DULY NOTED
CAFÉ DE LOS MAESTROS (NR) (2008) Get a behind-the-scenes look at Argentina's treasured musical form: tango. Before witnessing a musical spectacle at the famed Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, director Miguel Kohan takes his audience through rehearsals, reminiscences, rounds at the bar, and trips to the repair shop with with the gentlemen who keep tango alive in Argentina. $6-$7. 8 p.m. Fri., Oct. 23. High Museum, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4444. www.high.org.
NORA'S WILL (NR) (2008) In this understated comedy, Nora, a Jewish woman and longtime sufferer from depression, after many suicide attempts finally takes the right number of pills to end her life. She leaves everything in order, including a refrigerated feast for the upcoming Passover, but forgets that Jewish law doesn't allow for burials on holidays. Conflict arises when everyone from her atheist ex-husband to her Catholic maid to her Jewish-orthodox son voices a different opinion on how the matter of her burial should be handled. $6-$7. 8 p.m. Sat., Oct. 24. High Museum, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4444. www.high.org.
CONTINUING
9 3 stars (PG-13) In a post-apocalyptic city, robotic ragdolls, including inquisitive 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), fight off the remnants of the war machines that destroyed humanity. With so many computer-animated cartoon features devoted to pop-savvy kiddie comedies about talking animals, it's refreshing to see a CGI adventure with a unique vision. Director Shane Acker's vision of jerry-rigged, Rube Goldberg-style inventions and landscapes can be fascinating. That said, 9 is PG-13 for a reason, and may be too intense for little kids and too dark for many adults. It's like Pinocchio vs. Terminator. — Curt Holman
A PERFECT GETAWAY (R) Cliff and Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are an adventurous young couple celebrating their honeymoon by backpacking to one of the most beautiful - and remote - beaches in Hawaii. Hiking the wild, secluded trails, they believe they've found paradise. But when the pair comes across a group of frightened hikers discussing the horrifying murder of another newlywed couple on the islands, they begin to question whether they should turn back.
ALIENS IN THE ATTIC (PG-13) Aliens in the Attic, co-scripted by one of the writers of Madagascar and the Academy Award-winning Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbits, is an adventure/comedy about kids on a family vacation who must fight off an attack by knee-high alien invaders with world-destroying ambitions - while the youngsters' parents remain clueless about the battle.
ART AND COPY 3 stars (NR) Fans of "Mad Men" will want to check out the Plaza Theatre's run of this documentary about the recent history of the advertising industry and it's relationship between art and commerce.
THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX 4 stars (R) In 1970s Germany, leftist journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) abandons her middle-class journalism career to become an accomplice for a band of thieving revolutionaries lead by Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreau) and Gudrun Ensslin (sexy Johanna Wokalek). Director Uli Edel’s two-and-a-half hour epic moves at such a rapid pace that individuals and their stories can become a blur, but The Baader Meinhof Complex features thrilling re-enactments and an intriguing perspective on the life of radical groups. — Holman
BIG FAN 4 stars (R) "Paul from Long Island" (Patton Oswalt), a parking lot attendant and obsessed fan of the New York Giants, has a life-changing encounter with a star linebacker (Jonathan Hamm). Writer/director Robert D. Siegel also wrote the screenplay for The Wrestler and shows a similar insight to the subcultures and rituals of sports culture. Oswalt gives Paul a compulsiveness comparable to his voice performance inRatatouille and offers a grim character study of an individual who can't imagine a better life. — Holman
THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS 4 stars (NR) Agnès Varda plays with a Faulknerian notion of time and memory in this memoir-ish documentary. Known by some as the grandmother of French New Wave, Varda's earliest films predate Godard, Truffaut, and Chabrol's work and certainly belong in the same canon. Yet, The Beaches of Agnès isn't the indulgent celebration of self that memoirs often resemble. In a series of vividly surreal set pieces, Varda's willing to be as silly as she is heady. The combination is mesmerizing. — Wyatt Williams
BLACK DYNAMITE 4 stars (R) Mack daddy and one-man killing machine Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) wages a vendetta against jive turkeys who killed his brother and peddled dope to kids. His righteous battles uncover a conspiracy that takes him from the 'hood all the way to "the Honky House." Giving credit where it's due, White's portrayal of Dynamite is effortless and shows a rarely seen comedic side. As the story progresses, the jokes start to get a bit stale, but the film revives itself as it reaches its oddly climactic ending. Although Black Dynamite successfully spoofs the campy essence of blaxploitation films of the '70s, it perfectly balances its riffs as an homage to the badass alpha-male leads and social-message vehicle the genre spawned. — Edward Adams
THE BOYS ARE BACK (PG-13) Joe Warr (Clive Owen), a wise-cracking sportswriter, finds himself a single parent of two after his wife's tragic death. The three boys must find their way together and learn the graces of everyday life and love.
BRIGHT STAR 4 stars (PG) The Piano director Jane Campion offers a deeply felt retelling of the doomed love affair between romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and neighbor/clothing designer Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Though set around the same time as all those Jane Austen movies, Bright Star presents far more of the dirt, pungency and claustrophobia of the era than the usual period piece. Avoiding melodrama, Bright Star captures the aching futility of love and its redemption — at least in the textbooks — through Keats' immortal verse. — Holman
THE BURNING PLAIN (R) Oscar-nominated screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga makes his directorial debut with this drama starring Charlize Theron as a restaurant manager whose life becomes connected to other women in America and Mexico, including Kim Basinger.
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY 3 stars (PG-13) In a semi-sequel to his 1989 documentary Roger & Me, Michael Moore offers a critique of the excesses of the capitalist system, focusing most of his ire on the huge banks and mortgage companies at the center of the 2008 economic meltdown. Moore doesn't have to look far to uncover horrifying tales of corporate greed and malfeasance, and offers some optimistic anecdotes about the benefits of worker-owned companies. His patented showboating stunts prove as empty and annoying as ever, however, and he waffles the issue as to how to replace the free enterprise system.— Holman
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 3 stars (PG) Young crackpot inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) accidentally revitalizes his struggling hometown with a gizmo that causes "food weather" to fall from the sky. When greed and pride cause ginormous menu items to wreak havoc, it's like a Roland Emmerich disaster film combined with an all-you-can eat buffet. The sight gags, splendid animation and effective use of 3-D make up for the thin characterizations, and the metaphors for excess consumption make the film comparable to a Happy Meal version of Super Size Me. — Holman
COUPLES RETREAT 2 stars (PG-13) Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell play spouses contemplating divorce who invite six friends to a resort that requires conspicuously more "couples skill-building" than Jet-Skiing. Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau star and co-wrote the script (with Dana Fox), presumably so they could take a paid vacation in Bora Bora. At any rate, a laziness infuses the performances (with Malin Akerman and Kristin Davis thanklessly playing their spouses) and script, which offers shallow insights about relationships. Droll performances from Faizon Love and Bateman and scene-stealing work from Jean Reno and Peter Serafinowicz as touchy-feely islanders keep Couples Retreat from being a lost vacation.
EXTRACT 3 stars (R) "Arrested Development's" Jason Bateman plays Joel, owner of a beverage company called Reynold's Extract, who juggles a corporate buyout, a personal injury lawsuit, a sexually disinterested wife (Kristen Wiig), a manipulative hottie (Mila Kunis) and the occasional horse tranquilizer. Mike Judge, who previously helmed the cult hits Office Space and Idiocracy, tends to be kind of half-assed with plot and structure, but deserves employee of the month for his hilarious, quotable dialogue and work with actors including Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons and David Koechner, and Gene Simmons in a hilarious cameo as a personal injury lawyer with unbelievable helmet-hair. — Holman
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER 2 stars (PG-13) Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a hapless would-be architect who falls for free-spirited Summer (Zooey Deschanel), despite her aversion to emotionally committed relationships. Quirky to a fault but nicely acted by Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel, the film offers a fresh substitute for cookie-cutter rom-coms, but Woody Allen brought more insight to scrambled chronology and surreal set-ups inAnnie Hall. Summer would be on stronger ground if it offered a strong female perspective to balance Gordon-Levitt's character.— Holman
FAME (PG) The High School Musical franchise no doubt inspired this PG-rated "reinvention" of the R-rated Alan Parker film from 1980 about the students and teachers at the New York School of Performing Arts.
THE FINAL DESTINATION (R) The fourth and allegedly "final" film in the Final Destination series follows a group of young people who avoid a disaster at a race track, only to fall prey to more outlandish demises after the fact. Presented in 3-D at participating theaters, so you can feel like stuff is flying right at your head.
FREE STYLE 1 star (PG) High School Musical's Corbin Bleu plays Cale Bryant, a small town teen with ambitions of becoming a pro motorbike racer. While Free Style features some cool slow-motion stunts, they all look alike, while the plot merely rehashes the go-for-it clichés of a zillion other race movies, including Cars. See Whip It instead.
GAMER (R) Gerard Butler stars in this futuristic action-satire in which real humans become unwitting pawns in a violent, multi-player on-line game created by an evil rich guy ("Dexter's" Michael C. Hall).
G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA (PG-13) Stephen Sommers, director of the first two Mummy movies, literally turns actors into action figures in this adaptation of Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy franchise. Remember, this draws on its 1980s incarnation, when G.I. Joe is not a person, but an organization that takes on the terrorist group called Cobra.
GOOD HAIR 3 stars (PG-13) Inspired by his young daughter's worry over having "bad hair," Chris Rock embarks on a globetrotting documentary about the African-American hair-care industry, which provides a font of humor and sociological observations. The film merely makes fun of four rival contestants in the "hair battle" at Atlanta's annual Bronner Brothers Hair Show, but provides fascinating commentary on how weaves and relaxer can take a toll on health, bank accounts and self-image of the style-conscious. — Holman
HALLOWEEN II (R) Laurie Strode struggles to come to terms with her brother Michael's deadly return to Haddonfield, Ill. Meanwhile, Michael prepares for another reunion with his sister.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE 4 stars(PG-13) The romantic misadventures of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his pals Ron and Hermione (Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) distract them from the secret plans of Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) to respectively hinder and help the malevolent Lord Voldemort. The sixth Harry Potter film conspicuously lacks the headlong momentum and political metaphors of Order of the Phoenix, director David Yates' previous effort. Between a suspenseful first section and an eventful (if anticlimactic) finale lies a pleasant but draggy stretch primarily about teen hormones and magic charms, but it's all essentially a prelude to the final two films. — Holman
THE HURT LOCKER 5 stars (R) In 2004 Baghdad, two U.S. "bomb techs" (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty) hope to finish their tour without getting killed by the confident, reckless Sgt. James (Jeremy Renner in a star-making performance). Director Kathryn Bigelow presents the most original and gripping war film since Saving Private Ryan by crafting bomb disposal set pieces that draw the audience's attention as taut as a tripwire. Compared to other Iraq War films, The Hurt Locker keeps its politics close to the chest, while exploring the psychological impact war can have on our soldiers' psyches. — Holman
I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF (PG-13) Heavy-drinking nightclub singer April (Benjamin Button's Taraji P. Henson) attempts to care for three troubled young people with a little help from Madea in Tyler Perry's latest feature film. Look for such local stage actors as Tess Malis Kincaid and Eric Mendenhall.
I SELL THE DEAD 3 stars (NR) In 19th-century Ireland, a pair of bickering body snatchers ("Lost's" Dominic Monaghan and horror director Larry Fessenden) discover that the real money lies in the undead. First-time director Glenn McQuaid clearly grooves on the grisly morality tales of the old-school Tales From the Crypt comic books, as well as the lurid look of England's Hammer Studios horror films. Cult character actors like Hellboy'sRon Perlman and Angrus Scrimm contribute to the film's shlocky entertainment value. Dig it. — Holman
ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (PG) In the third, 3-D entry in the Ice Age franchise, the wisecracking prehistoric mammals discover a subterranean realm populated by dinosaurs. Simon Pegg joins the vocal team of Ray Romano, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, et. al.
THE INFORMANT! 3 stars (R) Looking more like Philip Seymour Hoffman than Jason Bourne, Matt Damon plays an Archer Daniels Midland executive who blows the whistle on the company's corporate malfeasance, even though he's a pathological liar up to his neck in personal misdeeds. Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh takes the genre of crusading David vs. corporate Goliath on its head and reveals the commonplace banality of corporate chicanery and the flaws of the criminal justice system. Soderbergh shows little faith in the material as comedy, larding the soundtrack with whacky, kazoo-heavy ragtime, but supporting players like Tony Hale deliver enough laughs to balance the books. — Holman
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 3 stars (R) In Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fantasy, the Basterds are a band of Jewish-American G.I.s, led by Brad Pitt's drawling lieutenant, who murder Nazis behind the lines in occupied France. Inglourious Basterds spends surprisingly little time on the title characters, or even caper-style action scenes of WWII mission movies, and opts for long, talky confrontations involving French, German and British agents. Christoph Waltz's misleadingly polite Nazi lives up to the hype as the villain of the year, but the film's restless approach to its multiple storylines makes it feel less, rather than more, meaningful. — Holman
THE INVENTION OF LYING 3 stars (PG-13) On an alternate world that knows no deceit or falsehood, underachieving screenwriter Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) discovers the ability to lie and turns society upside down. Gervais and co-writer/co-director Matthew Robinson take the premise to fascinating lengths when the Biblically-named Mark describes an afterlife and implies that organized religion is a lie. Unfortunately, the film backs off from its more provocative ideas and contorts its concept to create rom-com complications for Mark and his true love (Jennifer Garner). Still, its funny lines, big ideas and parade of amusing cameos make Lying one of the year's most interesting comedies. Honest. — Holman
IT MIGHT GET LOUD 3 stars (PG-13) Having tackled global warming with his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, director Davis Guggenheim turns to global loudening in this portrait of electric guitarists from three generations: Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge and the White Stripes' Jack White. The trio's "summit" - part rap session, part jam session - includes a terrific cover of a hit from the Band but doesn't seem to be quite the revelation Guggenheim hoped for. The threesome provides insightful perspectives on rock music, with the younger guitarists seeming ambivalent about the styles of the elders. Plus, their shop talk can be fascinating. — Holman
JENNIFER'S BODY 2 stars (R) A hot, slightly bitchy high schooler (Megan Fox) turns into a hotter, bitchier, boy-eating cannibal when a satanic ceremony goes wrong. A mousy teen nicknamed "Needy" (Mamma Mia!'s Amanda Seyfried) tries to stop her former BFF. The sophomore script from Diablo Cody, Oscar-winner for Juno, goes off in too many thematic directions, including high school spoof, Sept. 11 satire, female-phobic shlock and feminist empowerment fantasy. A versatile, witty lead actress could have pulled Cody's ideas together, but Fox's slammin' body can't compensate for her flat delivery and empty eyes. — Holman
JULIE & JULIA 3 stars (PG-13) A woman verging on 30 and frustrated in a temp secretary job takes on a yearlong culinary quest: to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She chronicles her trials and tribulations in a blog that catches on with the food crowd.
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN 3 stars (R) After home invaders kill his wife and daughter, “tinkerer” Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) exacts revenge on Philadelphia’s criminal justice system, particularly district attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who cut a deal to give a sleazy killer a light sentence. If you like films with inventive “kills” but are too embarrassed to see the Saw series, Law Abiding Citizen puts a thin veneer of respectability over the bloodshed. It’s hard to care very much about Foxx’s crises of conscience, but Butler makes a fine villain, less like Charles Bronson in Death Wish than The Joker in The Dark Knight. — Holman
LORNA'S SILENCE (R) The Dardenne brothers, who directed the intriguing drama The Son, helms this film about two pretty Albanian immigrants in Belgium seeking to find better lives.MY ONE AND ONLY (PG-13) The beautiful Ann Devereaux (Renée Zellweger) leaves her adulterous husband Dan (Kevin Bacon) behind and hits the road. She drags her two teenage sons George (Logan Lerman) and Robbie (Mark Rendall) along for the ride and together they discover a new meaning of family.
MY SISTER'S KEEPER (PG) A young girl (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin), brought into the world as a genetic match for her ailing older sister, sues her parents for medical emancipation. Cameron Diaz plays the no-doubt conflicted mom and Alec Baldwin plays as the younger sister's lawyer. It's hard to imagine any summer movie being a bigger, more overt tear-jerker than this one.
NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU 2 stars (R) Last year’s charming French anthology film Paris Je T’Aime gets a tepid American treatment in the Big Apple. Filmmakers from around the world — including Mira Nair, Fatih Akin and, inexplicably, Rush Hour’s Brett Ratner — provide a series of short New York stories generally about love and mistaken first impressions. Predictable twists and false notes dominate the film, which features agreeable performances by Chris Cooper, Robin Wright Penn and Maggie Q. — Holman
ORPHAN (R) Talented indie actors Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard play a couple who adopt a 9-year-old Wednesday Addams lookalike (Isabelle Fuhrman) who turns out to be a bad seed.
PARIS (R) Adored director Cédric Klapish (L'Auberge Espangole) and a cast of all-star French actors (including Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Melanie Laurent, Fabrice Luchini, Francois Cluzet and Karin Viard) give us a unique and romantic story of Parisian life and love.
THE PROPOSAL (PG-13) Sandra Bullock plays a Canadian-born New York book editor who pretends to be engaged to her assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to avoid deportation. It sounds like Green Card gives way to Meet the Parents when they fly to Alaska to meet his family.
A SERIOUS MAN 4 stars (R) A Jewish physics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) endures crises of family, career and religion in the Minneapolis suburbs of 1967. The Oscar-winning Coen brothers mine their own childhood for a Kafka-esque, seriocomic spiritual quest in which God, if He even exists, refuses to provide answers to the protagonist’s sufferings. The Coens offer caricatures of most of the Jewish characters, but nevertheless touch on provocative issues of the ineffability of the universe. — Holman
THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE (PG-13) This documentary profiles Vogue magazine Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour and the preparations for the magazine's massive fall fashion issue in 2008.
SHORTS (PG) Sin City director Robert Rodriguez reverts to his Spy Kids family-oriented mode for this suburban fable about a boy who finds a rock that can make wishes come true.
SOMERS TOWN 4 stars (NR) Two teenage boys form an unlikely friendship in central London. The pair not only bonds over little adventures like stealing laundry and making money from an eccentric neighbor but also become closer through their shared love of a French waitress at their local café.
SORORITY ROW (R) A group of sorority girls attempt to cover up a prank turned deadly, only to be stalked by an unknown killer. It's a remake of 1983's The House on Sorority Row, raising the question, are there any slasher films left that haven't been remade?
THE STEPFATHER (PG-13) A teen returns from military school to discover that his mom (Sela Ward) has remarried, but his new stepfather (Dylan Walsh) may not be the all-American aad he appears. A remake of the nifty 1987 suspense film starring Terry O’Quinn of “Lost.”
SURROGATES 2 stars (PG-13) In the near future, most Americans vicariously live their lives through perfect android "surrogates" that they operate safely from home. Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent who unplugs his surrogate self to investigate a conspiracy in the flesh. This adaptation takes the premise of the graphic novel (from Atlanta's Top Shelf Productions) and pushes it into fascinating directions that resonate with contemporary trends in the Internet and social networking. The sheer number of twists push the film into silliness and director Jonathan Mostow doesn't distinguish between robotic acting and simply bad acting. — Holman
TOY STORY 3-D DOUBLE FEATURE 5 stars (G) In anticipation of next summer's Toy Story 3, Disney re-releases the computer-animated comedies that made Pixar the preeminent family filmmakers of our time. Enhanced with 3-D effects, the first Toy Story offers a winning introduction to the Pixar formula by exploring the rivalry of two playthings, Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). Toy Story 2 is the rare sequel that improves on the original by giving Woody a dilemma that involves the contemplation of his own mortality, along with hilarious one-liners and rousing action scenes. — Holman
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN 1 star (PG-13) The Autobots, those heroic space robots, must protect Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) from the evil Decepticons when the teen journeys from college campus to Egyptian desert to find an Earth-shaking artifact called the Matrix of Leadership. Bay's original Transformers was hardly an exercise in subtlety, but at least it offered a sense of discovery and built some genuine suspense. At once sillier and more pompous, the sequel makes a chaotic hash of things from practically the first scene and draws out for two and a half deafening hours. If only it could transform into a movie that doesn't suck. — Holman
THE UGLY TRUTH (PG-13) In this rom-com from the director of Monster-in-Law, an unmarried morning TV show producer ("Grey's Anatomy's" Katherine Heigl) becomes reluctantly teamed with a boorish on-air personality (300's Gerard Butler) for a series on dating and relationships. I wonder if they'll fall in love?
UP 5 stars (PG) An elderly widower (voiced by Ed Asner) uses zillions of balloons to take his house on airborne adventure, unwittingly bringing a pesky boy scout (Jordan Nagai) along for the ride. Monsters, Inc. director Pete Docter helms Pixar's latest masterpiece, which begins with an achingly lovely montage of a marriage and builds to a rousing adventure story that combines Jules Verne, Indiana Jones and some of the most hilarious dog jokes every put on film. Plus, the instantly iconic image of the floating house accumulates considerable richness as a metaphor for life and memory. — Holman
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE 4 stars (PG) The talented, intriguingly named Max Records plays “Max,” a boy who flees his neglected, latch-key existence for the land of the Wild Things, but he discovers the challenges of meeting the emotional needs of his monstrous but childlike playmates. Director Spike Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers freely adapt Maurice Sendak’s archetypal picture book and render the wild things as chubby costumes with highly expressive, CGI-tweaked facial features (and such voice actors as James Gandolfini and Lauren Ambrose). Too melancholy and occasionally draggy for young kids, Where the Wild Things Are nevertheless offers a visually remarkable meditation on the complex emotions of childhood. — Holman
WHIP IT 4 stars (PG-13) A reluctant small-town beauty contestant (Ellen Page) discovers her true calling as "Babe Ruthless," a speedy competitor in Austin, Texas' rough-and-tumble roller derby. First-time filmmaker Drew Barrymore plays a supporting role but brings more skill and subtlety to her direction than she often shows in her likeable (if one-note) acting. The big-hearted film refuses to demonize antagonists like the suffocating mom (Marcia Gay Harden) or the bullying rival (Juliette Lewis), and overall Whip It skates away with the clichés of underdog sports and coming-of-age comedies. — Holman
WHITEOUT (R) Underworld's Kate Beckinsale plays a U.S. marshall tracking a killer in Antarctica when the sun is about to set for six months. This long-delayed action film is based on Greg Rucka's graphic novel, which has a similarly stark color scheme as Sin City — only white.
A WOMAN IN BERLIN 4 stars (Not rated) A German patriot (Nina Hoss) witnesses and endures brutal treatment at the hands of the Russian army during the occupation of Berlin in the final throes of World War II. Based on a controversial memoir published in 1959 by an author known only as "Anonyma," A Woman in Berlin captures the moral complexities of war-time atrocities, as Hoss's character and the other German citizens suffer from treatment comparable to what the Germans inflicted on the Jews and Russian citizens. Though the film occasionally makes for difficult viewing, it's an undeniably powerful work. — Holman
WORLD'S GREATEST DAD 3 stars (R) Two former madcap comedians - director Bobcat Goldthwait and star Robin Williams - defy expectations in this strong, controlled dark satire about a would-be author and high school teacher (Williams) saddled by a sullen teenage son (Daryl Sabara, now unrecognizable from theSpy Kids movies). In a high school-set spoof reminiscent ofElection and Heathers, the film skewers society's manufactured heroism, and Williams suppresses his usual shtick to offer a compelling portrait of quiet desperation. — Holman
ZOMBIELAND 4 stars (R) Four mismatched survivors (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) road-trip across zombie-ravaged America in this comedy. Although the George Romero-inspired trope should have completely decomposed by now, Zombieland finds new life in the genre through a clever script and snappy direction. England'sShaun of the Dead did the rom-zom-com concept first and better, but Zombieland plays like a more raucous American-style variation on the same themes. It's like the difference between Flight of the Conchords and Tenacious D. — Holman
