originally published November 15, 2006

ALL THE KING’S MEN

(PG-13) Writer-director Steven Zaillian uses Warren’s Shakespearean Willie Stark (Sean Penn), based on real-life politician Huey “Kingfish” Long, to portray a man of the people, drunk with power but sober enough to use it properly. Zaillian’s stylistic decision to fashion a '50s melodrama undermines the seriousness of this message. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

BABEL

(R) See Movie Pick. (Beechwood)

BARNYARD

(PG) Otis (Kevin James), a carefree young Holstein, refuses to settle down until his pops Ben (Sam Elliott), gets offed by a pack of coyotes. Pretty creepy to behold and a bit more serious than the preview lets on, Barnyard is the slightest animated kiddie flick of the season. (Georgia Square 5)

BORAT

(R) Armed to the teeth with uncomfortable malapropisms and anti-Semitism, Kazakhstan television personality Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) travels across the United States, unmasking inner bigotry wherever he goes. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan plays its conceit to the hilt. If comedy earned any respect from the Academy, Cohen would be this year’s Oscar frontrunner. No comedian has so totally created a three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood character since Peter Sellers in Being There. Watching Borat must be like reading the giant antics of Rabelais in culturally relevant French or swapping baby recipes with Jonathan Swift. It’s hilariously textbook satire. Or is it? The film lacks a corrective purpose; the Cambridge-educated Cohen serves a stinkingly hilarious plate of mean-spirited, elitist anti-populism. While I can josh about the moral depravity of my American family, I’ll be damned if I need a supercilious Brit calling Lady Liberty a whore. With Borat, Cohen isn’t laughing with the us, he’s laughing at the us, a distinction too fine for an America as stupid as the one he exposes to make. (Beechwood, Carmike)

BORN INTO BROTHELS

(R) 2004. In Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids, documentary filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman inspire the children of prostitutes to look at life through a new lens. Could these kids’ newfound photographic talents be their way out of the devastating poverty into which they were born? Born Into Brothels was the Academy Award winner for Best Feature Documentary. Briski and Kauffman’s film also won an Audience Award at Sundance. Part of the ACC Library’s iFilms series. Shows Thursday, 11/16 (ACC Library)

CASINO ROYALE

(PG-13) I used to spend the weeks before a new Bond film rewatching all of 007’s old adventures, starting at Dr. No. Unfortunately, that plan has been truncated by a real job and a television renaissance. The debut of Bond Six, Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Munich), revisits Ian Fleming’s first novel, in which the British secret agent tussles with baddie Le Chiffre over baccarat. Director Martin Campbell, who already resuscitated Bond in Goldeneye, and a trio of screenwriters that includes Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Crash) have not only updated the card game to poker but have upped the emotional ante for a film that serves to tell how “James Became Bond.” With Eva Green as Vesper Lynd, Jeffrey Wright as yet another Felix Leiter, and Dame Judi Dench returning as M. Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE DEPARTED

(R) Adapted from the Hong Kong actioner Infernal Affairs, The Departed straddles the law with the parallel lives of mob mole Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and police rat Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). Though Colin and Billy’s intense game of rat-and-mouse dominates the film, Jack Nicholson rules it. The Departed is Martin Scorsese’s most purely entertaining film, a collision of ripened filmmaking, colossal acting and a muscular screenplay. (Beechwood, Carmike)

FACING THE GIANTS

(PG) A film from the media ministry at Albany’s Sherwood Baptist Church. Sherwood media minister Alex Kendrick directed, cowrote, co-produced, edited, composed the pompous score, and stars as head football coach Grant Taylor, who turns to the Lord to conquer the “giants of fear and failure.” With an entirely volunteer cast (and a cameo by UGA’s Mark Richt), Giants looks and sounds as homemade as it is. Ends Thursday (Beechwood)

FLICKA

(PG) This isn’t your grandpappy’s My Friend Flicka. Ken McLaughlin, played by Roddy McDowell in the original, now goes by Katie (Alison Lohman, who makes a pretty good teenager for a 27-year-old). Headstrong Katie’s bucking for her chance to one day take over the family ranch, assuming it’s still viable. Katie hopes breaking wild mustang Flicka can prove her ranch handiness to daddy (Tim McGraw). Lohman is always impressive, even if her career choices oddly seesaw between adult and innocent. McGraw he has the comfy durability of a flannel shirt from Sears & Roebuck. Maria Bello’s streak of strong support should continue well into next year. Flicka’s no stud, but sometimes all a family needs is a steady workhorse. Starts Friday(Georgia Square 5)

FLUSHED AWAY

(PG) Flushed Away looks like, sounds and even jokes like Wallace and Gromit. But sadly, it's not Wallace and Gromit. Expecting Aardman Animations’ first fully-CGI feature to be as emotionally engaging and stupendously entertaining as their flagship creations is unfair. It’s still way better than most of 2006’s cartoons, though. After being flushed from his plush home, “society mouse” Roddy (v. Hugh Jackman) enters an ingenious under-London world, which he and pal Rita (v. Kate Winslet) battle the villainous Toad (v. Ian McKellan). The story is as original as that of any children’s film (which is to say not very original at all), but directors Sam Fell and David Bowers and their five screenwriters are a clever bunch, creatively using household flushables to power life in rodent city. Yet it’s the amphibious baddies who steal this tale. McKellan and Jean Reno’s pleasantly gruff tones lend themselves well to animated voicework, and who doesn’t love a frog mime? (Beechwood, Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres)

A GOOD YEAR

(PG-13) The latest vintage from Academy Award winning vintners Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe coats the palate with forced, disingenuous sweetness that masks its sour grapes. Like a British Gordon Gekko, Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) believes greed to be very good. You can practically see the cartoon dollar signs in Max’s eyes after he learns beloved yet estranged Uncle Henry (Albert Finney) has left him his vineyard. A Good Year is Scott, a filmmaker I hold in high esteem (he basically invented the art of modern science fiction with Alien and Blade Runner), at his worst; it’s so photographically slick the emotions have nothing to cling to. Screenwriter Marc Klein says nothing original with the film’s staid structure and gives Max little profundity. The workaholic protagonist, is a self-proclaimed ass who drops witticisms like they were scripted before being disingenuously transformed by the slow pace of life in the country. He’s a crappy kid (Freddie Highmore of Finding Neverland shows some guts next to old pro Finney) that grows up to be a crappy man. Crowe may excel at many genres, but light comedy is not one of them. Don’t bother uncorking this astringent blush. (Beechwood, Carmike)

HALF NELSON

(R) Critical darling Ryan Gosling (The Notebook) has garnered some of his best notices as Dan Dunne, a junior high teacher with a drug problem. Dunne’s life changes when he forms an unlikely friendship with one of his young charges, Drey (Shareeka Epps), after she discovers his secret. Half Nelson, directed by Ryan Fleck and written by Fleck and Anna Boden, has won 10 awards and a Grand Jury Prize nomination from Sundance. This is Half Nelson’s Athens premiere. Shows Friday, 11/17–Sunday, 11/19 (Tate)

HAPPY FEET

(PG) Every Emperor Penguin has a song in its heart. That’s the premise of the big holiday cartoon from Warner Bros., in which Mumble (v. Elijah Wood) searches for acceptance as a dancer in a singer’s world. The story sounds Rudolph-esque, with Mumble falling in with some misfits (led by the Robin Williams-voiced Ramón, one of three characters given life by the hyperactive comedian) and battling an abominable predator before reuniting with his soulmate Gloria (v. Brittany Murphy). Director George Miller gave us Mad Max but was last behind the camera for Babe: Pig in the City. Featuring voicework from Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Hugo Weaving. Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

HARSH TIMES

(R) What a buzzkill. From Bateman to Batman, Christian Bale could seemingly do no wrong. As former Army Ranger Jim Davis, the Brit is wrongfully cast to a criminal degree. Complicit in the crime is Freddy Rodriguez ("Six Feet Under"), who plays Jim’s buddy Mike. Hearing these two fine actors utter the most cringe-inducing dialogue of the year (writer and first-time director David Ayer punctuates every line with two dudes, a dawg and a homie) was the harshest part of these particularly Harsh Times. Recast Ayer’s picture with a couple of younger unknowns, and his tale of a degenerate day in the life could deliver a stout vérité punch to the head. Ayer, previously unknown as the writer of brain-dead action flicks like The Fast and the Furious and S.W.A.T., returns to the mean streets of his Training Day to imitate Larry Clark. Still, Harsh Times never breaches the “homie code,” not even with its moralistic coda. If a thankless role as the bitchy lawyer girlfriend is the best Eva Longoria’s agent can procure, she’d best not quit that weekly gig yet. In the positive column, I now know how to cheat on a “whizz quiz.” (Carmike)

JACKASS: NUMBER TWO

(R) No matter how far they’ve come, these jackasses remain wholly committed to their apparently never-ending series of daring (read: dumb) stunts. Dukes of Hazzard star Johnny Knoxville is nearly blown up, gored and stampeded. Still, infamous yet un-famous Steve-O remains the biggest jackass, posing as shark bait (after painfully piercing his cheek with a fishhook), chugging a beer with his butt, and attaching a leech to his eyeball. All the endangerment proves worth the risk, though I’m surprised the year’s funniest film escaped an NC-17. Is defecating in noxious close-up not enough? The gag’s not even funny and is far more offensive than the censored shot of Chris “Partyboy” Pontius sipping horse semen. The brilliance of Knoxville or Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze, believably transformed into disgustingly naked old people, messing with the minds of an unsuspecting public outweighs the pounds of feces and cups of vomit. When asked why he’d branded a penis on the buttock of buddy Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn responds, “Because it was fun.” The same reasoning could defend Jackass Number Two, but I prefer pointing out that the film is a surrealist, masochistic work of art. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

LET’S GO TO PRISON

(R) The preview for this comedy, starring Will “Gob Bluth” Arnett and Dax Shepard as a rich snob and career criminal who wind up in the slammer together, places it at the top of my holiday hilarity list. Too bad Prison is written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, a duo who have yet to write movie (The Pacifier, Taxi) to match the comedic quality of their television output ("The State," "Reno 911!"). Also starring Chi McBride, David Koechner and Dylan Baker, Prison is directed by "Ben Stiller Show" and "Mr. Show" vet Bob Odenkirk. Opens Friday (Carmike)

MARIE ANTOINETTE

(PG-13) Vive la Révolution! Academy Award winner Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) assaults the haughty sensibilities of the historical epic with her vivacious account of the young Austrian girl who grew up to become France’s Madame Deficit. Coppola wisely entrusts her modern Marie to the definitively contemporary Kirsten Dunst. Though it rushes the French Revolution, this modish Marie Antoinette captures the chi of the times. I have one response for the film’s detractors: Eat cake. Ends Thursday (Beechwood)

THE MARINE

(PG-13) Amidst a horde of humdrum fights and explosions, real-life wrestler John Cena’s John Triton cheats death while attempting to rescue his wife (Kelly Carlson) from murderous thief Rome (Robert Patrick). A weekly installment of "Smackdown!" packs more humor and excitement than this frozen slab of beef. (Georgia Square 5)

MONSTER HOUSE

(PG) The animated Monster House perches on the adolescent precipice between too scary for little kids and not scary enough for teens. Heroes DJ, Chowder and Jenny face the same difficulty - not quite kids, not yet teenagers - on a fateful Halloween when the house next-door comes to life and tries to eat them. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING

(PG) The best cast and crew biblical epics can muster these days is headed by the DP of Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux, Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. One Night with the King recounts how a young Jewish girl (Tiffany Dupont, "The Bedford Diaries") becomes Esther, queen to the great conqueror Xerxes (Luke Goss). Ends Thursday (Carmike)

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST

(PG-13) Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) must retrieve the compass of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) for a power-hungry noble. Meanwhile, Captain Jack is pursued by sea demon Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). Depp still slurs and swishes across the screen, but, called upon to again rescue an entire film, finds himself a few witty doubloons short. (Georgia Square 5)

THE PRESTIGE

(PG-13) Feuding magicians make for terribly intriguing drama in Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to Batman Begins. After his wife dies on-stage in the harrowing Water Escape trick, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) blames rival magician Albert “The Professor” Borden (Christian Bale) and begins a personal/ professional rivalry that can only end in blood. Structurally, Nolan’s twisty tale of vengeance and its illusory curative properties is bloody confusing. Its split chronology can be tougher to follow than Memento’s backward timeline, yet the magical tit-for-tat is novel and anti-heroic. Jackman magnetizes Robert with his perfect plastered showman’s grin and its polar opposite, a steely obsession with settling a score. (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE RETURN

(PG-13) A creepy carousel, a creepy old song (Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams”), and creepy phone calls from Matthew McConaughey (not really but the scary movie is set in Texas) create a pretty creepy, near Carpenterian atmosphere. Then the story gets going and I get confused, the writer (Adam Sussman, who briefly resurrected TV’s Kolchak) gets confused, the director (Asif Kapadia, whose The Warrior won lots of awards) gets turned around, and Sarah Michelle Gellar has really dark hair. Our former Lady of the Buff is Joanna Mills, a traveling saleswoman whose head is filled with nightmares of a woman’s murder. Who is this woman and how is Joanna connected to her? Maybe that Dave Grohl/ Hugh Jackman-looking dude (Peter O’Brien) hanging around that old farmhouse has the answer, but honestly who cares? The Return may look better than your average original Sci Fi Channel production, but its plot is just as holey. Characters seemingly evaporate, and logic comes to a virtual standstill, two forgivable faults if the flick is scary. The Return is not. Unless another late-year, Wolf Creek (I’m talking to you, Turistas and Black Christmas) gem is unearthed, this horror buff plans to make like Rip Van Winkle until 2007. (Beechwood, Carmike)

RUN LOLA RUN

(R) 1998. Lola (Franka Potente, The Bourne Identity) has 20 minutes and three chances to save boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) from robbing a grocery store. Fate has never looked cooler than this live-action Choose Your Own Adventure. I’ve been in love with Potente ever since her magenta shock of hair first streaked across the screen. One of 1998’s most acclaimed films, Run Lola Run received 25 worldwide film awards and another 13 nominations. Shows Thursday, 11/16 (Tate)

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

(R) Writer-director Ryan Murphy, who has chopped, diced, sliced and shredded Augusten Burroughs’ shocking, entertaining life into a tedious, disastrously unfunny film. After Augusten's unstable mother (Annette Bening) and alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin) divorce, the young gay man (an outstanding Joseph Cross) moves in with her mother’s therapist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), and his bizarre family. No bigger travesty of literary cinema will be released this year. Ends Thursday (Carmike)

THE SANTA CLAUSE 3: THE ESCAPE CLAUSE

(G) Christmas movies, like holiday music and decorations, are a taste acquired seasonally. As garish as that neighborhood house clad in icicle light glory glows, you make an annual pilgrimage nonetheless, jingling all the way to whichever radio station’s all-Christmas, all the time. The same goes for the crassly commercial Santa Clause 3. If you’re looking to get your holly jollies early, your cinematic sleigh has arrived. SC3 may use every elfin pun imaginable as Jack Frost (Martin Short) challenges the reign of Santa/ Scott Calvin (Tim Allen), but nothing about the high-concept, low-imagination flick is terrible. SC3 is just an old-fashioned family holiday film. (Beechwood, Carmike)

SAW III

(R) After watching the Jigsaw Killer teach gory life lessons to the flawed and self-absorbed for the bone-crunching, stomach-churning third (but not final) time, I really think the Saw franchise - cheap, bloody, inventive - is brilliant. Saw III recaptures the first flick’s flinch-inducing, claustrophobic sense of abandonment and the grisly upped ante of the first sequel. The third outing may lack its predecessors’ ingenuity, but Jigsaw’s newest contest is his bloodiest. On the brink of death, Jigsaw/ John Kramer (Tobin Bell) stages his final game, having apprentice/ former victim Amanda (Shawnee Smith) nab a depressed doctor (Bahar Soomekh) and a rancorous father (Angus Macfadyen, Braveheart). (Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres); Ends Thursday (Beechwood)

STRANGER THAN FICTION

(PG-13) Stranger Than Fiction is a film you wouldn’t mind engaging in cocktail party convo. Touching on philosophy with a hint of meta, it’s quick and witty without being pretentious. As Harold Crick, an IRS agent who hears of his impending death from the English woman narrating his life, Will Ferrell does a less showy job of being dramatic than Jim Carrey did in The Truman Show. Amazingly, Ferrell, with the most reliable delivery in the business, is as funny as the straight Crick as he was the demented Ricky Bobby. If only he were a stronger romantic lead. The romance between Crick and pretty baker Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) feels false. Was Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), the novelist dictating Crick’s life, to write characters so insincerely motivated, she’d never sell another book. Marc Forster (Finding Neverland was great; Monster’s Ball and Stay, not so much) over-directs Fiction with intense inconsistency. One minute, we’re watching an OCD Fight Club; the next scene is stagy and theatrical. Fortunately, Zach Helm’s screenplay shows the softer side of Being Charlie Kaufman. You can actually see the end of his just-intricate-enough maze. No matter its imperfections, Fiction is no stranger, and a lot better, than your typical congenial diversion. (Beechwood, Carmike)

TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY

(PG-13) Using the basic three-act race movie structure popularized by Days of Thunder, Ricky (Will Ferrell) goes from pit crew to victory lane in less than 200 frames. Talladega Nights is poised to take this year’s Comedy Cup. (Georgia Square 5)

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING

(R) I thought I’d be easier on the sequel to the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After all, the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was no bone chip off the original block. The remakers, Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes, learned nothing from their initial encounter with hulkish icon Leatherface. TXCM: TB trades pulp art for high gloss entertainment, making even this gorehound a little queasy - and not in the good way - with its ho-hum approach to sadism. (Highway 17 Theatres)

WAGE SLAVES: NOT GETTING BY IN AMERICA

(NR) 2002. Wage Slaves chronicles the lives of the the working poor. The film follows five families as they stave off homelessness while working jobs that pay $6 or $7 an hour. The Honorable Steve Jones, chair of Partners for a Prosperous Athens, will open the event being cosponsored by the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government and the School of Social Work. Donations of canned goods and other nonperishables are welcome. Shows Thursday, 11/16 (UGA SLC)