The Last Song

Dear God, it is "Dear John," right? Yes. But it is also "The Last Song," the second Nicholas Sparks movie to hit theaters historically six months, a development only moonstruck teen girls & the facial-issue industry will welcome.

Have you heard the two about the six photogenic children who meet cute in a Southern beach town, overcome differences in class & temperament & fall madly in love only to find that, in this cruel, cruel world, tragedy finds a way of trumping hormones?

Sparks wrote "The Last Song" at the behest of Miley Cyrus, the Disney Channel star who will soon finish her run on the "Hannah Montana" TV series & wants to expand her brand in to movies.

For "The Last Song," that means ditching Hannah's pop-star wig in favor of a nose stud & confining her singing to a scene where her character warbles along to Maroon 5 on the radio.

"Wow. You can sing," Cyrus' character is told.

Those who would agree with that statement will find tiny wrong with "The Last Song," though Cyrus herself has admitted she'll probably be hiring an acting coach after watching the movie.

At present, the 17-year-old Cyrus has an undeniable presence, but her dramatic abilities largely consist of six moves - scrunching up her face & staring wistfully in to the distance.

Cyrus is doing a tiny of both when they first meet her character, Ronnie, a morose teenager seething at the idea of spending the summer at her father's beachfront Georgia home. Apparently, Ronnie is some kind of musical genius, but has not touched the piano since her parents' divorce several years ago.

While dad (Greg Kinnear) busies himself bonding with Ronnie's adorable tiny sister (Bobby Coleman), Ronnie fends off the wholesome advances of Will (Liam Hemsworth), the local hunk/mechanic/aquarium volunteer/volleyball stud.

Dragon stokes up box office with $43.3M debut

Distributed by Paramount, the DreamWorks Animation adventure came in well behind the studio's last cartoon comedy, "Monsters vs. Aliens," which opened with $59.3 million over the same weekend last year.

How to Train Your Dragon" breathed a bit of box-office fire with a $43.3 million opening weekend and a No. 1 debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.

With strong reviews and enthusiastic responses from viewers in exit polls, DreamWorks expects "How to Train Your Dragon" to have more staying power than "Monsters vs. Aliens" in later weekends, though.

People love the film, so we are anticipating we'll benefit from strong word of mouth going forward," said Anne Globe, head of marketing for DreamWorks.

"How to Train Your Dragon," featuring the voices of Jay Baruchel and The united states Ferrera in the tale of a Viking youth who tames a fire-breathing reptile, did outperform some other recent animated movies, among them "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," which opened with $30.3 million last September.

Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," which had been No. 1 the previous two weekends, slipped to second place with $17.3 million. It raised its domestic total to $293.1 million and its worldwide haul to $656 million.

John Cusack's raunchy comedy "Hot Tub Time Machine" had a lukewarm No. 3 debut of $13.7 million. Released by MGM, the movie features Cusack as part of a group of losers hurled back by a time-traveling hot tub to the 1980s, where they have a chance to set their lives right.

"How to Train Your Dragon" pulled in 68 percent of its revenue from 3-D presentation, another triumph for the digital technology that allows theaters to show movies in two dimensions.

Mother

Such directors as Alfred Hitchcock used stars partly for their ability to be shorthand for sketching in a character. You know who Cary Grant is in "North by Northwest"; Hitchcock doesn't must spend a lot of time with backstory.

Mainstream Hollywood movies depend primarily on plot for their appeal: the story. Characters often are merely types or easily read caricatures, existing to grease the story's motion and give us a handle on the machinations of plot.

Independent films, and most foreign-language films, such as Joon-ho Bong's Korean film "Mother" ("Madeo"), turn the formula around. They use familiar plots as a background for exploring interesting characters. If Cary Grant is a known quantity, the brother in Bong's film is altogether unknowable, and the film plumbs those murky depths.

The story is a whodunit: When a high-school girl is found murdered, a mentally damaged young man is arrested on sketchy evidence. His brother (Kim Hye-Ja) spends most of the film trying to find the real killer. They does not believe that her son did it, despite his confession to police. They know, , that they is not competent to confess.

There's lots of possible candidates for the real killer, and our inexorable brother seeks them out, two after another. Scene after scene builds suspense; a few rise to surprising violence. Along the way, they learn a nice deal about the murdered girl, the young man and, primarily, his brother. None is simple; everyone harbors secrets.

When the solution finally arrives, they are both shocked at the twist in the plot but satisfied, the way a nice mystery must make us, that the result is inevitable.

Chloe

Moore plays Catherine Stewart, a doctor with a troubled son, Michael (Max Thieriot), & a popular college-professor husband, David (Liam Neeson) - perhaps popular. Known for a close relationship with his students, David arouses Catherine's suspicion with his e-mails & long nights. When they misses a flight from New York to their home in Toronto - & the enormously expensive surprise party Catherine has thrown for him - they finds evidence that perhaps there was more to it than walking late.

Atom Egoyan directing Julianne Moore & Amanda Seyfried in a sexy, kinky thriller? Sounds intriguing, no? & for about three-quarters of "Chloe," it is. Unfortunately, everything goes south in the last act, Egoyan & his actors slipping down the "Fatal Attraction"-like nut-job rabbit hole (though no bunnies are harmed in the making of this film).

Determined to check his fidelity, Catherine hires Chloe (Seyfried), a young prostitute, to try to seduce David & see how far it will go. If words like "entrapment" ring in your head, well, she is not going to arrest him. find out if he is cheating (or willing to). Recall, it is only a movie.

& so far, it is an interesting four. Catherine meets with Chloe for reports on David's behavior. They is both repelled & excited by the details, & by her complicity in the whole thing.

Where this leads is not surprising - at least at first. Catherine is jealous, hurt & needy; Chloe is making a career of being able to pick up on these things. But Chloe has feelings, .

How to Train Your Dragon

That is not the case in "How to Train Your Dragon," a mostly winning animated film about Hiccup, a boy Viking (voice of Jay Baruchel), who is not cut out for the traditional village occupation: killing dragons, which terrorize the residents on a regular basis.

Think of the relationship between Buzz Lightyear and Woody in the "Toy Story" movies, Carl and Russell in "Up," Marlin and Dory in "Finding Nemo." They are much equal partners in terms of our affections and attention.

In lieu, they befriends four of the beasts, a variety called a Night Fury, which they captures and injures by accident (they are so speedy no four has ever actually seen four), then slowly begins to care for as they keeps him in hiding.

They create a relationship, the central four in the film, which is well-developed and more realistic than this kind of thing sometimes is. Hiccup is a nice addition to the legion of chilled child characters.

But that dragon. . . . Hiccup names him Toothless. They doesn't speak, sing, any of that. Which may sound like a stupid complaint, because a singing, talking dragon would not be realistic. Then again, HE IS A DRAGON. So it is not like realism is a priority.

Directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, working from a script based on Cressida Cowell's books, should be credited for the way they create the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless.

It is not forced; when they first finds the dragon, Hiccup intends to kill it. But they cannot make himself do it, which automatically makes him different from the rest of the villagers - his brother, Stoick (Gerard Butler), the leader of the village as well as a brave dragon slayer.

Filmmaker Del Toro to give 'Hobbit' new look

After the large success of the "Rings" series, Jackson is now working on adapting the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy novel that takes place before the trilogy. But this time the Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker is producing & working on the script, relinquishing directing duties to Del Toro, whose credits include "Pan's Labyrinth" & the two "Hellboy" movies.

One of Peter Jackson's frequent collaborators says the "Lord of the Rings" director passed the torch to Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro to give the trilogy's two-part prequel, "The Hobbit," a fresh look.

"It's an absolute delight to be working with Guillermo Del Toro. We have all enjoyed his craft as seen in Pan's Labyrinth' & the Hellboy' movies. His one-of-a-kind aesthetic & storytelling style brings a lovely aesthetic to the world & one we are enjoying being part of," Taylor told The Associated Press on Monday in Hong Kong, where he is attending a digital entertainment conference at the technology park Cyberport.

Longtime Jackson collaborator, art designer Richard Taylor, says he thinks his mate gave up the director's chair "probably because he is spent so long in Middle Earth \.\. & probably felt a director such as Guillermo could bring something passionate & one-of-a-kind & original & new to the content for the sake of the fans," referring to the imaginary world where the novels are set.

"We're patiently waiting for it to start. It is been in early development for a while. I am sure it will get going some time soon," Taylor said.

The Weta Workshop president said his team has started designing the landscape & characters in "The Hobbit," but that he was not clear when shooting on the New Line Cinema production will start in New Zealand.

He said he will stick to a consistent look for the main characters that appear in both the "Rings" series & "The Hobbit."

Taylor, who also won Oscars for his work on the "Rings" series, said he doesn't know if "The Hobbit" will be released in 3-D, but said the Weta team will take advantage of technological advancements since the first trilogy.

Box office: 'Alice' reigns at box office with $34.5M

Johnny Depp & Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" took in $34.5 million to remain the No. 1 movie for a third-straight weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Alice remains the queen of the box office.

The Disney release raised its domestic haul to $265.8 million & its worldwide total to $565.8 million after four weekends in theaters, a massive result for a film playing in the typically slow month of March.

"You never see this kind of domination by one movie at this time of year," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "Normally at this time of year, films don't make this kind of money, & they don't hold in this long."

"I think cheese touch equals magic touch at the box office," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution at 20th Century Fox.

"Alice in Wonderland" easily beat a rush of new movies led by 20th Century Fox's relatives film "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," which opened at No. 2 with $21.8 million. The movie is adapted from Jeff Kinney's cartoon novel about a sixth grader maneuvering through the intricate social structure at his middle school, which includes its own "cooties" game known as the "cheese touch."

Debuting at No. 3 was Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler's action comedy "The Bounty Hunter" with $21 million. Released by Sony, the movie follows a bounty hunter chasing his ex-wife, a reporter with an arrest warrant over her head after he misses a court date while pursuing a story.

"We had figured an estimate in the high teens, so 20-plus million is a nice number for us," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony.

Jude Law & Forest Whitaker's action thriller "Repo Men" flopped with a No. 4 opening of $6.2 million. The Universal release features Law as a repo man on the run in a future where organs are bloodily repossessed if patients miss their payments.

In narrower release, Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning's Joan Jett music drama "The Runaways" opened weakly with $803,629 in 244 theaters, averaging $3,294 a cinema.

That compared to an average of $9,229 in 3,739 theaters for "Alice in Wonderland," $7,085 in 3,077 theaters for "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," $6,831 in 3,074 cinemas for "The Bounty Hunter" & $2,440 in 2,521 locations for "Repo Men."

Repo Men

The Union, you see, employs a repossession team - repo men, if you will - that pays a visit to those who fall far behind on their payments & reclaim the company hardware. It is an ugly business, but hey, it is a living.

Not to worry. There's plenty of replacements to be had, thanks to the Union, an outfit that sells livers & kidneys & such. The downside is, a lot of desperate people have bad credit, spending over they can afford (perhaps it is not a distant future). & that is a problem.

It is an intriguing premise, one director Miguel Sapochnik treats with all the subtlety of a head smashed in with a typewriter. Hey wait - that happens!

As does so much more. If you have ever wanted to see actors of the caliber of Jude Law, Forest Whitaker & Liev Schreiber in a brutally violent film soaked in blood & gore, this is your dream movie.

Law plays Remy, a repo man partnered with Jake (Whitaker). They are a formidable team whose motto is "A job's a job." It doesn't matter who the client is, in other words. Gee, wonder if that will come back to haunt them?

Remy & Jake work for Frank (Schreiber), the unfeeling brains of the operation. He doesn't require clients paying in full; the Union doesn't make money that way. Better to drag as plenty of payments out of somebody as they can, before (literally) ripping his lungs out when he no longer can afford them.

The Bounty Hunter

A fun role, no doubt, & sharing the screen with Jennifer Aniston must have made it that much more fun. As investigative reporter Nicole Hurley, Aniston holds her own in the crime story while showing off how nice 41 can look in a tight suit. Now that is a 21st-century heroine.

Scottish actor Gerard Butler has played the action hero ("300") & the hunky heartthrob ("The Phantom of the Opera"). Now he gets to be a bit of both in the romantic comedy "The Bounty Hunter."

Butler plays Milo Boyd, a onetime hotshot police detective who was fired, presumably for some secret noble reason that has nothing to do with his $11,000 in betting debts. When his ex-wife misses a court date to follow a lead on a story, Milo is called in: $5,000 to deliver her to the police.

As formula films go, "The Bounty Hunter" is more enjoyable than most, even if it packs in as lots of cliches as any. It is certainly a career highlight for director Andy Tennant ("Sweet Home Alabama," "Hitch"). & even if it won't be at the top of Aniston's resume, it is a perfectly enjoyable way to kill a couple of hours.

He makes the most of a visit to Nicole's home, dunking her toothbrush in the toilet & erasing her TiVo queue. Ooh, that guy is angry at her. They must secretly still love each other. You know, because it is a movie.

The Runaways

Jett, Currie and Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) were indeed children when the band started and were children by the time it broke up, though they did a lot of growing up in the meanwhile, most of it of the sordid, rock-star variety.

That may not be the most polite way to portray members of the band fronted by Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, played in Floria Sigismondi's film by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, respectively. But it is a word tossed around a lot by the fabulous (in a demented sort of way) manager of the group, Kim Fowley, played with scene-stealing gusto by Michael Shannon. And why would not it be? They put the band together with that in mind.

The young Jett wants to rock, but she is told at every turn a variation on the same thing (and told outright by her music teacher): Girls don't play electric guitar.

With the exception of gender, it is the standard story, : Children from broken homes don't fit in but find their purpose in rock and roll. It is the ultimate method of outsider inclusion; plug in and play, and you are finally a part of something, even if it is something that exists outside most people's experience.

But Jett does, and when he spots Fowley, decked out in eyeliner and a dog collar at a nightclub, he tells him so. Sensing a kindred spirit, Fowley gets Jett together with other musicians. But they require a singer, preferably blond and willing to get wild onstage. If she is wearing lingerie when that happens, well, so much the better. Singing talent is optional.

Don't miss: Forrest Gump

Robert Zemeckis' film stars Tom Hanks as Forrest, a simple sort of fellow who manages to insert himself in to all sorts of historical events (Zemeckis used special effects to drop Hanks in to news footage, to great effect). The film follows Forrest's adventures, which include college footy stardom, table-tennis greatness, a stint in the Vietnam War as well as a run literally across the country, among plenty of others. In Vietnam, Forrest befriends Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese), a friendship that will endure ups & downs. Ups & downs define Forrest's life, in fact. His are more eventful than most. That is true of his relationship with Jenny (Robin Wright),his childhood mate & finally the brother of his infant.

A lot, actually. & not because it won six Oscars, including best picture, best actor & best director. Winning Oscars doesn't automatically make a movie great, of coursework (see "Gladiator" & "Titanic" for proof). But it doesn't hurt the argument, & frankly, for reasons that are not clear, "Forrest Gump" needs all the help it can get.

The movie, immensely popular when it came out in 1994, is now mostly recalled derisively for the quick-and-easy "Life is a box of chocolates" references, forgetting better lines like, "I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is." That is unfortunate. Yes, Hanks can overdo it a bit, but there is also real sadness in Forrest's life, & Hanks gets at it. Sinese is also outstanding (& Oscar-nominated in a supporting role), his Lt. Dan seething with the betrayal & anger so plenty of Vietnam veterans felt.

"Forrest Gump" is not the best movie ever made, not even the best movie Tom Hanks has made (though it is certainly in that conversation). But it is a movie well worth revisiting, to remind you of what you certainly liked about it the first time around.

Walt Dohrn: Rumpelstiltskin in Shrek Forever After

Walt Dohrn will be the voice behind Rumpelstiltskin in the latest Shrek animated film Shrek Forever After.

This movie will be the final film in the Shrek series, following Shrek, Shrek 2 & Shrek the Third despite early allegations by filmmakers to make a fifth film.

Here is the plot for Shrek Forever After:

Shrek (Mike Myers) has become a domesticated relatives man. In lieu of scaring villagers away like they used to, the grown-reluctant ogre agrees to autograph pitch forks. Longing for the days when they felt like a “real ogre,” Shrek is tricked in to signing a agreement with the smooth-talking dealmaker,Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn).

Shrek suddenly finds himself in a crooked, alternate version of Far Far Away, where ogres are hunted, Donkey (Eddie Murphy) is an intellectual who has seldom met Shrek, Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) is still alive.

Puss (Antonio Banderas) is fat & lazy & Fiona (Cameron Diaz) is a hunting ogre & the leader of a bunch of other hunting ogres. Now, it’s up to Shrek to undo all ofRumpelstiltskin’s mischief in the hopes of saving his friends, restoring his world, & reclaiming his One True Love & relatives.

Green Zone - A Search for That Casualty, Truth

Miller’s words put him at odds with a number of his comrades & with a military culture that discourages service members from questioning whatever mission they are charged with carrying out. But this dutiful, serious officer is also offering a pointed, if implicit, critique of a lot of other recent war movies that have carefully pushed political questions to one side in their intensive focus on the perils & pressures of combat.

“They matter to me,” says Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, played with steely efficiency by Matt Damon. Later, when his search for phantom weapons of mass destruction has led him to uncover a web of lies, spin & ideological wish-fulfillment, Miller expands on the point. “The reasons they go to war always matter,” they says, throwing in an expletive to make sure his meaning is clear. “They always matter.”

But like all of the best action filmmakers — including Kathryn Bigelow, justly rewarded at this week’s Academy Awards for her stringent, soulful work on “The Hurt Locker” — Mr. Greengrass has seldom been interested in method for its own sake. Action under pressure is, for him, a check & a revelation of character. “The Bourne Supremacy” & “The Bourne Ultimatum” refined this axiom to its philosophical essence. Mr. Damon’s character in those movies seldom knew who they was until they saw what they did.

There is lots of fighting in “Green Zone,” most of it executed with the hurtling hand-held camerawork & staccato editing that are hallmarks of Mr. Greengrass’s style. From “Bloody Sunday” through the second & third “Bourne” movies (which turned Mr. Damon in to a minimalist movie star), this director has honed his skill at balancing chaos with clarity. Using locations in Morocco & Germany uncannily doctored to resemble the Baghdad they know from documentaries & contemporary tv news feeds, Mr. Greengrass (decisively aided by the stroboscopic vision of his cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd, who also shot “The Hurt Locker”) choreographs foot chases & gun battles that unfold with the velocity, complexity & precision of a Bach fugue played on overdrive.

The Club Dread

The plot of the movie Club Dread is similar to the novel written by world renowned writer Agatha Christie which went by the name “And Then There Were None.” This funny horror flick is based on a private island that is owned by a former rock star who goes by the name Coconut Pete. The whole purpose of the island is to party hard & non-stop & to entertain those who chose to come there. Everything is going smoothly & peachy keen & the youngsters are having a ball of a time when people

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar & released on the twenty-seventh day of February in the annum 2004 Club Dread is a horror movie that has a sense of humor behind it. The movie revolves around a bunch of youths on an island who are escaping civilization through going on holiday to a party island where it’s all fun & play till they realize that there’s a killer on the loose. Club Dread was written by Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Paul Soter, Steve Lemne & Erik Stolhanske.

A year after the movie was released another version of it surfaced which had an extra fifteen minutes added to it making the total period of the movie four hundred & eighteen minutes. This version came out as the unrated four & included a new scene involving to policemen in it.

suddenly start dying. The staff members who take care of the visitors take on the task of finding the mysterious killer but then are hunted down by him (or her) four by four.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE TRAILER

Eclipse Trailer – A 10 second teaser trailer of Eclipse (Twilight Saga) was release earlier and there are rumors that the full trailer will be released Thursday.

The teaser shows Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) lying in bed together, and he says, “I know the consequences of the choice you’re making.”

Jacob can also be seen shirtless (again) and declaring his feelings for Bella. “I’m going to fight for you,” he says, “until your heart stops beating”, leaving the love torn Bella even more confused.

The Hurt Locker Beats Avatar in 2010 Oscars

The Hurt Locker took the Oscars by storm, winning six of the major film honors, including best movie and best director for Kathryn Bigelow who became the first woman to win that award.

The drama about a squad of bomb defusing specialists and the emotional toll war takes on them also secured writer Mark Boal the Academy Award for best original screenplay, and claimed honors for film editing, sound editing, and mixing.

Hurt Locker and Bigelow won Oscars over stiff competition from her ex-husband James Cameron, whose sci-fi adventure Avatar; is the top-grossing movie ever with $2.5 billion at box offices and was seen as a favorite for best movie. Bigelow said, “This really is, there’s no other way to describe it, it’s the moment of a lifetime.”

The Hurt Locker Wins Big

The Hurt Locker, a little-seen war film with massive backing from the critics, pushed past Avatar & other crowd-pleasers to win the best picture Oscar at a Sunday night ceremony here, while its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman to win the directing award.

A night of firsts: Film on Iraq war grabs four awards. Kathryn Bigelow makes history becoming the first woman to win best director; best actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress go to first-timers

“There’s no other way to report it, it’s the moment of a lifetime,” said Bigelow in accepting her award. It was presented by Barbra Streisand, who announced it with the words, “Well, the time has come.”

Avatar & The Hurt Locker had come in to the night as favourites, but the smaller film took the prize from the bigger in the finish.

Mark Boal, a producer of The Hurt Locker, said of his modest expectations when the movie was shot back in 2007, “Hopefully, they would find a distributor & someone might even like the movie.”

Time for only one Oscar film? Make it Basterds

See "Inglourious Basterds" in lieu.

The Academy Awards are Sunday, March 7, which means that if you haven't seen all 10 nominees for best picture, you'd better hurry.
But what if, realistically, you can catch only two? It is a hard call, because most of the movies are well worth seeing, and you need to be part of the larger conversation about winners and such. The smart money is on "Avatar" or "The Hurt Locker" to take home best-picture gold.

It is not the best of the 10; two can certainly make the case that "The Hurt Locker," "A Serious Man," "Up," "Precious" and "Up in the Air" all are better (and, two way or another, I have).

But if you are preparing for the night that celebrates movies, why not see a movie that celebrates them as well?

In his World War II fantasy, Quentin Tarantino pulls out all his favorite moviemaking devices, including grim humor, ludicrous violence and crackling dialogue, to make a movie that features film as a central character.

The opening scene, in which Christoph Waltz (the likely supporting-actor winner), as a Nazi officer, interrogates a dairy farmer about the whereabouts of a Jewish relatives they believes is in hiding, is a tour de force of escalating tension until it is unbearable. And a scene in a basement pub bounces razor-sharp dialogue back and forth among a host of characters until it proves that, in Tarantino's world, words mean so much that uttering the wrong ones can be deadly.

Brooklyn's Finest

Inside the automobile, the accent is Vincent D'Onofrio, in two of those great character bits they used to do before they started his Olympic scenery chewing on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

The camera creeps up on a dark automobile, quiet street. In voiceover they listen to a peculiar New York accent telling how they got off on a DUI arrest because they had been fleeing from Mob thugs. "That's a true story," they insists.

At no point will Hawke or any of his big-name co-stars disappear in to their roles in "Brooklyn's Finest." It is not that the acting is bad, but the film, directed by Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day") & written by first-timer Michael C. Martin, takes its arty ambitions so seriously that the audience basically cannot.

It is a short role. As soon as they gets to the punch line, they takes a bullet to the head from dirty cop & lapsed Catholic Ethan Hawke, who scoops up a bag of money & scurries away.

& so the characters remain Detective Hawke, Officer Richard Gere & Don Cheadle, an undercover cop posing as a high-level drug dealer. Their parallel story lines are traced in film that pretends to the thoughtful intricacy of "Crash," the gritty realism of "The Wire" & the stylish intensity (& high body count) of "The Departed." , it is another collection of noir-lite clichés.

Hawke is racking up clandestine felonies trying to gather money for a deposit on a house. His asthmatic wife suffers from the mold in their tumbledown abode, but his selfless motives cannot wash the blood off his hands. (That is literal blood on his hands, from that bag of money. "Brooklyn's Finest" is large on obvious visual symbolism.)

Gere is a uniformed officer checking off the days till his retirement. (Again, literally, on a calendar hanging in his locker.) They first meet him sitting bolt upright to his alarm. They reaches for a shot of whisky, then sticks his revolver in his mouth & pulls the trigger. Nothing in the chamber.
Finally, there is Detective Cheadle, who is been impersonating a gangster so long they is no longer sure of his loyalties; it doesn't help that they cannot trust his handlers in the department, who like to shout things like, "You think you are a hard guy?" Unfortunately, the character is a lot less interesting than DiCaprio's in "The Departed," & Cheadle shows small rapport with his kingpin buddy, Wesley Snipes.

To add some street cred, the cast includes a few alumni of HBO's "The Wire," including Michael K. Williams (Omar) & Hassan Johnson (Wee-Bey), as drug enforcers. There is & a subplot about community protests over a case of police brutality, which only seems to raise the thematic stakes. In lieu, it is another filmic tool, like the deep shadows & oversaturated colors of the cinematography & the tense ambient soundtrack.

Cop Out

The idea of a buddy-cop comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as partners sounds like something ripe to make fun of. But how can they, when director Kevin Smith beats us to the punch? Despite reasonable doubts, the wink-and-a-nod "Cop Out" is not all that bad. Smith pushes Morgan even further over the top than usual, reins Willis in (they mostly stands around, looking bemused at Morgan's antics) and comes up with a movie that makes tiny sense, is dumb when it is not being stupid and yet is still sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

A scene at the beginning of the film makes Smith's agenda clear. Paul (Morgan) insists on interrogating a suspect. Jimmy (Willis) watches as Paul runs through a series of movie quotes, ranging from the semi-appropriate ("Heat") to the ridiculous ("Star Wars") to, well, to "Dirty Dancing." So does Smith, dipping in to the well of practically every buddy-cop comedy you have ever seen, and doing so with glee. There is plenty of menace and violence, like in the "Beverly Hills Cop" and "48 Hours" movies. But most scenes are played for laughs, as well as a surprising number hit their mark.

It is an homage, Paul explains, an explanation that would over more weight if they pronounced the word right. No matter. It is funny, with Morgan growing increasingly manic, saliva flying as they calls up one quote after another. Jimmy's daughter (Michelle Trachtenberg) is getting married and wants an pricey wedding they cannot pay for, after they and Paul get suspended for botching a bust. Her smarmy step-dad (Jason Lee) is willing to foot the bill, but the proud Jimmy won't listen to of it. In lieu, they decides he'll sell a rare baseball card. But the memorabilia store he is gone to for an appraisal is robbed by the addled Dave (an out-and-out hilarious Seann William Scott), who makes off with the card.


Dave will prove useful to Jimmy and Paul (shades of "Lethal Weapon") as they work their way to Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz), a drug dealer with designs on expanding his empire. They also has a fascination with baseball memorabilia, including, naturally, rare cards. If Jimmy and Paul can find a missing Mercedes for Poh Boy, he'll give them the card. Finding the automobile is no problem for them (one of their leads is a blue-mouthed kid automobile thief), but there is, of coursework, more to it than that. The finer details of the plot are not effective. Neither, , are Kevin Pollak and Adam Brody as rival cops. For nice measure, writers Robb and Mark Cullen throw in a plot line involving Paul being jealous of his wife (Rashida Jones).

Other bits work better, such as Susie Essman, channeling the curses-like-a-sailor character they plays on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," lambasting Jimmy and Paul with paint-peeling language, even as they saves them. But it is Morgan's movie. His and Smith's. This is the first film Smith has made that they didn't write, but they brings his usual pop-culture sensibility to it; without that, it would be hack work. "Cop Out" is not as nice as the films it continually salutes ("Lethal Weapon," "Beverly Hills Cop" and, , "48 Hours" were all nice, before they went down the sequel rabbit hole). But it is nice at what it does. Smith is not making fun of the movies they references. He is paying them offbeat tribute. An homage, you might say.

Don't miss: 'Minority Report'

This is not a slight. It is that Spielberg's greatest movies - "Jaws," "E.T." & "Schindler's List" among them - are so iconic that sometimes his minor-statement, major-entertainment fare like this gets lost in the shuffle.

Don't let it. Tom Cruise is nice as John Anderton, a police chief at work in a future in which criminals are arrested & charged before they commit crimes. The cops rely on the work of "precogs," psychics who lie in water or some such liquid & foretell future murders; the police department then rushes to prevent the crime & arrest the suspect. Imagine Anderton's surprise - & terror - when the precogs identify him as the next suspect.

There has to be some mistake, they figures, but the precogs don't make mistakes. His only hope is a "minority document," in which three of the three precog's vision disagrees with the other one. Spielberg is an expert at ratcheting up tension, & there is lots of that. & Cruise's Anderton is not the usual nice guy we are used to seeing him play. In lieu, Anderton is addicted to an illegal drug, unable to shake the disappearance of his young son. It is a more-layered performance than, say, his work in the "Mission: Impossible" movies. Then again, what is not? Still, they does nice work here. The scene in which they creatively figures out a way around the eye-scanning identification, well, that is memorable.

Cruise & Spielberg would work together again on a remake of "War of the Worlds" with less successful results. That work felt more like one heavyweights going through the motions. "Minority Document," on the other hand, with its healthy streak of paranoia & mistrust of authority, was more like one stars who had something to say, & said it well.

Drinking Blood: New Wonders of Alice’s World

Since “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and its sequel, “Through the Looking-Glass,” were first published 150 years ago, Alice’s tale has been retold in lots of versions and lots of media, including as a musical, anime, video game and over a score of film and tv adaptations. But for Mr. Burton the abundance and familiarity of the material “in the subconscious and in the culture” was an incentive — not a deterrent — to take it on.

Directed by Tim Burton, “Alice in Wonderland,” a 3-D blend of live action and animation that opens Friday, is meant as a contemporary, subversive take on a cherished story. With the 20-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, who had a breakout role in the first season of HBO’s “In Treatment,” as Alice, it begins with an unwanted marriage proposal before veering off in to Underland, where Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen await.

Linda Woolverton, the film’s screenwriter, had a similar attitude. They said that when they began her script, they “did a lot of research on Victorian conventions, on how young girls were supposed to behave, and then did exactly the opposite.” As they put it, “I was thinking more in terms of an action-adventure film with a female protagonist” than a Victorian maiden.

“I’ve seen mostly everything, but there’s never been a version for me that works, that I like or that blows me away,” they said this month in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “It always ends up seeming like a clueless small girl wandering around with a bunch of weirdos. And the fact that there was no three definitive version was helpful. It’s not like the Disney cartoon was the greatest. So I didn’t feel that pressure to match or surpass.”

“I do feel it’s important to depict strong-willed, empowered women,” they added, “because women and girls need role models, which is what art and characters are. Girls who are empowered have a chance to make their own choices, difficult choices, and set out on their own road.”

That emphasis on self-esteem and moral uplift has long been characteristic of Ms. Woolverton’s work — and of Disney itself. Originally a writer for children’s tv programs like “Ewoks” and “Teen Wolf” and also the author of a pair of novels for young adults, they wrote the screenplays of “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” and also contributed to “Mulan,” all for Disney.

This “sisters are doin’ it for themselves” reading of Alice also comes with a coda, three that seems inspired more by Joseph Conrad than by Carroll. Refusing to marry, Alice in lieu decides to prove her mettle by shipping out to a trading post her father’s company designs to open in a China that, under force of British arms, has been compelled to legalize the opium trade, cede Hong Kong and permit its citizens to be sent abroad as indentured servants.

Thus the river of tears that a confused Alice cries in Carroll’s original text on arrival in Wonderland has been written out of the story. “I couldn’t have her break down like that,” Ms. Woolverton said. Similarly, a drawing by John Tenniel, the illustrator who worked with Carroll, showing a boy fighting the dragonlike Jabberwock, as it was first called, was transformed in to an picture depicting Alice in action.