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ALEX CROSS (PG-13) I’ve never read
one of James Patterson’s bestsellers
featuring police detective/forensic
psychologist Alex Cross, but I did see
Kiss the Girls, which I recall enjoying.
Alex Cross is no Kiss the Girls. In
Detective Dr. Cross’ third cinematic
case, Tyler Perry takes over for the
much more capable Morgan Freeman,
who portrayed Cross in Kiss the Girls
and Along Came a Spider. Perry’s
Cross must hunt down Picasso (a
muscular skeleton that once was Jack
from “Lost”), a professional assassin-
cum-serial killer whose first murder is
a mass one.
ANNA KARENINA (R) Joe Wright
reunites with his Pride & Prejudice and
Atonement slat Keira Knightley for what
could be another Oscar heavyweight.
Acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard
(Ftosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead)
adapted Leo Tolstoy’s acclaimed novel
about the titular aristocrat (Knightley)
who embarks on an affair with young
Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson,
Kick-Ass). The strong cast includes
Jude Law as Anna’s husband, the
excellent Kelly Macdonald (“Boardwalk
Empire,” Brave), Matthew Macfadyen
(Wright’s Mr. Darcy), Olivia Williams
and Emily Watson. (Cine)
BRAVE (PG) A good, not great, Pixar
film, Brave strays into traditional
Disney territory after a tremendously
magical first act. Headstrong Scottish
Princess Merida (wonderfully voiced
by Kelly Macdonald) wants to choose
her own destiny. She does not want to
marry the first-born of the clans allied
with her father (v. Billy Connolly), but
her mother, Queen Elinor (v. Emma
Thompson), will hear none of her
complaints.
CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: WORLDS
AWAY (NR) Never been to a Cirque
du Soleil show? Now you don’t have
to, as producer James Cameron (his
last film, Avatar, was kind of a big
deal) and director Andrew Adamson
(Shrek, Shrek 2, two of the three The
Chronicles of Narnia films, The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince
Caspian) bring the show to a theater
near you. Did I mention it's in 3D?
CLOUD ATLAS (R) For the ambitious
Cloud Atlas, the Wachowski siblings
and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) have
masterfully adapted David Mitchell’s
award winning novel, intermingling six
disparate stories, spanning from 1849
to 106 Winters After the Fall. Each
anecdote stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry,
Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim
Sturgess, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant
and more in varying layers of makeup.
While none of the stories warrants their
own full-length feature, the six inter
connected narratives are interwoven so
skillfully and at such a swift pace that
no one has enough time to overstay
its welcome. The lush, imaginative
film’s most serious flaw is its repertory,
several of whom seem out-of-place
(Oscar winners Hanks and Berry, most
notably) in the film’s fantastical future
bookend.
DJANGO UNCHAINED (NR) I needed
only hear “The New Film by Quentin
Tarantino” to be all in for Django
Unchained. A former slave, Django
(Jamie Foxx), becomes a bounty hunter
under the tutelage of former dentist, Dr.
King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). The
two gunmen are after some bad dudes
as well as the Mississippi planta
tion owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo
DiCaprio), who owns Django's wife
(Kerry Washington). With Samuel
L. Jackson, Walton “Boyd Crowder”
Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James
Remar, Michael Parks and Don
Johnson as Big Daddy.
END OF WATCH (R) Writer-director
David Ayer has had enough practice
at the tough cop thriller; he wrote
Training Day, Dark Blue and S.W.A.T.
before directing Harsh Times (which
he also wrote) and Street Kings. It was
about time he got one perfect, and End
of Watch may be as close as he ever
gets. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael
Pena vividly play Brian Taylor and Mike
Zavala, two hotshot cops partnered on
the violent streets of South Central Los
Angeles. The partners’ genuine love for
each other drives this film from open
to close and makes the otherwise rote
gangs and gunplay narrative so much
more affecting.
FLIGHT(R) Robert Zemeckis returns
to live action movies for adults (since
2000’s Cast Away) with this Denzel
Washington-starring, after-work special
about alcoholism dressed up as an
airplane crash drama. Captain Whip
Whitaker (Washington) may be a great
pilot, but he’s not such a great guy. Yet
while hungover, still drunk and high on
coke, Whitaker saves most of the 102
souls on flight 227 after a mechani
cal failure requires him to pull off an
unconventional crash landing. (Cine)
• THE GUILT TRIP (PG-13) Certainly
not as laughless as its trailers suggest,
The Guilt Trip mines some genuine
comic chemistry between its leads,
Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand, as
Andy Brewster, a son traveling across
the country with his mother, Joyce.
The many car-bound scenes featuring
just the two stars generate the movie’s
biggest laughs. Unfortunately, Andy
and Joyce make some excruciating pit
stops that fall back on the sitcomishly
simple gags like a Texan eating contest
(which, for what little it’s worth, does
involve Barbra as opposed to Rogen).
That the producers cast Adam Scott
and Ari Graynor in such tiny roles is
unforgivable. Though not nearly as
bad as it could be, sons and daughters
would be better off steering their moth
ers toward one of the several better
cinematic products out this holiday
season.
HERE COMES THE BOOM (PG-13)
Adam Sandler’s made plenty of pic
tures worse than this Kevin James
vehicle about outlandish ways to save
education. James' Scott Voss is a high
school biology teacher who turns to
I’m trying to save your career!
MMA to fund the extracurriculars at
his struggling school. An appealing
supporting cast includes Salma Hayek,
Henry Winkler, Greg Germann and real
life MMA fighter Bas Rutten (after an
appearance in Paul Blart: Mall Cop
and voice work in Zookeeper, he’s
becoming a James regular) to assist
the extremely likable James in an odd,
family-friendly mash-up of educational
messages and inspirational sports,
where the sports are extremely vicious.
It doesn’t NOT work, but more refined
audiences will cringe at the movie’s
genial attitude toward violence.
• HITCHCOCK (PG-13) Hitchcock is
one of those biopics that has a leading
performance (in this case, two leading
performances) that are much bigger
and better than the whole. Though
Anthony Hopkins’ Hitch can sound a
bit Lecter-ish at times, Sir Tony mostly
makes you forget you’re not watching
the real, corpulent auteur in action. One
wishes the film would simply recount
the tumultuous making of Psycho, a
film that has become one of the cin
ematic master’s most significant works,
rather than subjectively poke around
so much in Hitch’s decidedly unique
psyche. Dreams of real-life monster Ed
Gein (Michael Wincott) dance in the
director’s head as he and his devoted
wife, Alma Reveille (Golden Globe
nominee Helen Mirren), deal with their
singular marital issues. (Cine)
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED
JOURNEY (PG-13) While this first
film lacks the epicness of Jackson’s
previous series entries, it makes up
for it with its comically entertaining
dwarves and rousing action sequences.
Bilbo’s first meeting with Gollum is so
well-crafted and performed by WETA’s
effects wizards and motion-capture
genius Andy Serkis, who is still being
shunned by awards groups lacking
vision. This return journey to Middle-
earth is an adventure worth taking over
the holiday season.
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (PG) Unlike
the superior ParaNorman, which was
a genuinely, safely frightening family
horror flick, Hotel Transylvania is an
amusing, run-of-the-mill animated
family movie where the main characters
are harmless monsters.
JACK REACHER (PG-13) Tom Cruise
brings Lee Child’s popular character,
Jack Reacher, to the big screen with
hopes of a new franchise to replace
(supplement) Mission: Impossible.
Reacher, a former U.S. Army MP,
lives the life of a drifter, traveling from
town to town, helping those in need;
the movie is based on Child’s ninth
Reacher novel, One Shot. Director
Christopher McQuarrie won an Oscar
for his script of The Usual Suspects.
With Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall,
Richard Jenkins, David Oyelowo and
Werner Herzog (?!).
LES MISERABLES (PG-13) Tom
Hooper follows up his Oscar-winning
The King’s Speech with this big screen
adaptation of the blockbuster musical
based on Victor Hugo’s epic novel. In
19th-century France, paroled prisoner
Jean Valjean (Golden Globe nominee
Hugh Jackman) seeks redemption,
while being hunted by the determined
Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). The
cast includes Amanda Seyfried as
Cosette and Golden Globe nominee
Anne Hathaway as Fantine.
LIFE OF PI (PG) Do not let the under
whelming previews deprive you of one
of the year's most moving, most artistic
films of the year. The opening anecdote
relating the origin of Pi’s name con
jures up the modern fairy tale magic of
past crowd-pleasers Amelieand Hugo.
Newcomer Suraj Sharma, stranded for
lengthy sequences with nothing but a
tiger for a costar, and the ever-excellent
Irrfan Khan (most recently seen in The
Amazing Spider-Man) deliver delicate
performances. Lee smartly utilizes
3D technology to add depth to the
storytelling and awe to the viewing
experience; Life of Pi will probably be
the only award winning film of 2012 I
recommend seeing in 3D.
LINCOLN (PG-13) Historical biopics
do not come much more perfect than
Steven Spielberg’s take on our 16th
president’s struggle to end slavery by
way of the 13th Amendment. Rather
than tell Abraham Lincoln's life story,
screenwriter Tony Kushner (the Oscar
nominee for Munich also wrote the
excellent “Angels in America") chose
the ideal, earth-shattering month
upon which to focus. He populates
Spielberg’s 19th-century hallways with
living, breathing figures of American
history like William Seward (David
Strathairn), Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy
Lee Jones), Alexander Stephens
(Jackie Earle Haley), Edwin Stanton
(Bruce McGill) and Ulysses S. Grant
(Jared Harris), but the film will be
remembered and lauded as another
platform from which Daniel Day-Lewis
can solidify his claim to the title of
greatest living actor.
LOOPER (R) Whoa! Ever since Brick, I
have waited for Rian Johnson to make
good on that coolly stylish teen-noir’s
immense promise. Johnson might
still have better films to come, but this
tricksy, time travel, sci-fi noir ensures
Bricks promise has been fulfilled. In
a future where time travel is an illegal
reality, hitmen called loopers wait in the
past for gangsters to send them their
targets. Armed with a blunderbuss,
Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) awaits his
marks, knowing one day he will have
to “close the loop,” meaning kill his
older self.
MONSTERS, INC. (G) Disney is
re-releasing Monsters, Inc. in 3D
to remind audiences of Sulley and
Mike before June’s prequel, Monsters
University. The cute story involves top
scarer Sulley (v. John Goodman) and
his pal, Mike (v. Billy Crystal), whose
lives are turned upside down when a
child ventures into Monstropolis.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (R)
While the quality of Paranormal Activity
4 is little changed from its three pre
decessors (they are all above-average
examples of how to shoot found
footage flicks), the tense atmosphere,
where the scares collectively imagined
and anticipated by the audience are so
much more terrifying than anything
delivered by the film, is utterly absent.
< PARENTAL GUIDANCE (PG)
Billy Crystal and Bette Midler star as
old-school grandparents forced to care
for their decidedly 21st-century grand
children. Director Andy Fickman’s film
ography is more weak (The Game Plan,
Race to Witch Mountain) than bad (You
Again): I did enjoy his Amanda Bynes
cross-dressing comedy, She’s the Man.
Splash Academy Award nominees
Lowell Ganzand Babaloo Mandel are
credited with the rewrite. With Marisa
Tomei, Bailee Madison (the young
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark star is a
boon) and Tom Everett Scott.
PROMISED LAND (R) Gus Van Sant’s
new film, written by “Office" star John
Krasinski and Matt Damon (from a
story by Dave Eggers), stars Damon
as a salesman tasked with purchasing
property for a natural gas company.
I’m assuming this is a fictionalized
version of the real life “fracking"
drama recounted in Josh Fox’s Oscar-
nominated doc, GasLand. Promised
Land is the winner of the National
Board of Review Award and the NBR’s
Freedom of Expression Award.
RED DAWN (PG-13) This preposter
ous movie borne of the Cold War fears
and tensions of the 1980s need not
have been remade. A motley group
of teenagers (including Chris “Thor"
Hemsworth, Josh “Peeta" Hutcherson
and Tom Cruise’s adopted kid,
CINEMAS
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CINE • 234 W. Hancock Ave. • 706-353-3343 • www.athenscine.com
GEORGIA MUSEUM OF ART • (UGA Campus) 90 Carlton St.
• 706-542-GMOA • www.uga.edu/gamuseum/calendar/films.html
TATE STUDENT CENTER • (JGA Campus) 45 Baxter St.
• 706-542-6396 • www.union.uga.edu/movies
BEECHWOOD STADIUM CINEMAS II • 196 Alps Rd.
• 706-546-1011 • www.georgiatheatrecompany.com
CARMIKE 12 • 1570 Lexington Rd. • 706-354-0016
• www.carmike.com
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• 706-548-3426 • www.georgiatheatrecompany.com
Connor Cruise) stage an insurgency
against communist invaders; the
North Koreans, with an assist from
the Russians, replace the original’s
Soviet/Cuban alliance. The idea that
these teens could transform into an
elite fighting force so quickly either
underestimates North Korean military
readiness or overestimates American
teenagers’ military prowess.
RISE OF THE GUARDIANS (PG)
Author William Joyce’s very cool idea
is brought to the big screen by first
time animated feature director Peter
Ramsey and fantastical executive pro
ducer Guillermo del Toro. Holiday leg
ends North (aka Santa, who is voiced
very Russianly by Alec Baldwin),
Bunny (v. Hugh Jackman) and Tooth (v.
Isla Fisher) are joined by Jack Frost (v.
Chris Pine) as they do battle with the
evil Pitch (v. Jude Law).
SKYFALL (PG-13) Too bad director
Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and
his team of scripters won't just let
Bond be Bond for the entirety of the
film. Skyfallalmost completely unrav
els before the opening credits. The
pre-credits chase—involving Bond,
a female agent, a train and a baddie—
concludes with M (Judi Dench)
showing no faith in her best agent,
a decision that makes little sense in
this, or any, Bond-verse. In three films,
Bond has gone from a newly licensed
Double 0 to a dinosaur; when can Bond
just be Bond again?
TAKEN 2 (PG-13) Most movies fail to
encapsulate the description “unneces
sary sequel" as perfectly as Taken 2.
(I wish it had had some silly subtitle
like Taken2: Takenier, but alas.) As a
consequence of the violent methods
he employed to retrieve his kidnapped
daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), in the
first movie, retired CIA operative Bryan
Mills (Liam Neeson), must face off
against the Albanian dad (played by
go-to Eastern European baddie Rade
Serbedzija) of one of the sex traffickers
he killed during his rescue mission.
THIS IS 40 (R) Judd Apatow spins
off his most successful film, Knocked
Up, by playing catch-up with popular
supporting characters, Pete (Paul
Rudd) and Debbie (Apatow’s wife,
Leslie Mann). This idea is much better
than a sequel starring Seth Rogen or
Katherine Heigl. The rest of the cast
promises so much laughter, it's not
even funny.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING
DAWN—PART 2 (PG-13) The
Twilight Saga has consistently
improved as filmmakers have changed
and the series has... urn... matured?
Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now a vam
pire; she and her husband, Edward
(Robert Pattinson), have a new baby,
Renesmee, whose existence threatens
the vampire world’s ruling family, the
Volturi (led by Michael Sheen).
WEST OF MEMPHIS (R) Another
documentary about the West Memphis
Three? Yes, please. Amy Berg, an Oscar
nominee for Deliver Us from Evil, was
handpicked by producer Peter Jackson
to helm this look into the utter failure
of the Arkansas justice system that
placed Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin
and Jessie Misskelley behind bars for
18 years for the brutal 1993 murder of
three eight-year-old boys.
WRECK-IT RALPH (PG) Good luck
deciding on the year’s best animated
feature from a strong list that includes
Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman
and now Wreck-ltRalph. In Disney’s
latest, Wreck-lt Ralph (v. John C.
Reilly), the bad guy from popular
arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr., decides
he wants to be a good guy. Leaving the
safety of his own regenerating world,
Ralph enters a Halo-ish first-person
shooter named Hero’s Duty in search
of a medal. Too bad Ralph is better at
wrecking things than fixing them.
Drew Wheeler
8
FLAGPOLE.COM • DECEMBER 26, 2012 & JANUARY 2, 2013