originally published January 10, 2007

ALPHA DOG

(R) Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) hypothesizes the events that led Jesse James Hollywood to become one of the youngest men to reach the FBI’s most wanted list. The wannabe thug life of Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) disintegrates after he and his associates (including Justin Timberlake) kidnap a rival’s brother. With Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone. Opens Friday (Beechwood)

AMERICAN PSYCHO

(R) 2000. Filmmaker Mary Harron (The Notorious Bettie Page) and writer/ actress Guinevere Turner brought Bret Easton Ellis’ horrific satire of 1980s yuppiedom to the big screen with wit, bite and a fine sense of couture. Christian Bale’s creepy cool turn as Patrick Bateman single-handedly transported the former Newsie into well-muscled adulthood. Though the casting quirkily doesn’t fit the Greed Decade surroundings, this powerfully funny, bloody film is as unstoppable as its killer. With Willem Dafoe. Shows Thursday, 1/11 (Tate)

BLACK CHRISTMAS

(R) This gleeful post-slasher flick really gets into the Christmas spirit, making a joyful noise of murder and mayhem. A mischievous twinkle in his eye, writer-director Glen Morgan (the Final Destination series) harkens back to the subgenre’s '80s heyday, when blood flowed like Niagara and naughtiness was considered nice. The revamped flick acknowledges Bob Clark’s million times/ ways superior 1974 chiller, a classic that laid the foundation for Halloween, but waves bye-bye to its suspense and says hello to shock and awful gore while fleshing out the skeletal backstory of deranged killer Billy Lenz. A gaggle of sorostitutes (including genre veterans like When a Stranger Calls’ Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), and two Final Destination 3 alums, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Crystal Lowe) living in Billy’s old home are terrorized the night he finally comes home. Morgan’s unapologetic in his abuse of the holiday theme. Red and green acts of strangulation, mutilation, incest and cannibalism are paced by seasonal ditties. The flick’s mean and nasty, so unlike the sanitized PG-13 crap released every other weekend to sate the preteens. Black Christmas is low-rent (Dimension releases typically are), but in a good way. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

BORAT

(R) Armed to the teeth with uncomfortable malapropisms and anti-Semitism, Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) travels across the United States, unmasking inner bigotry wherever he goes. 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. (Georgia Square 5)

BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN

(NR) 2003. Screening of this film about political activist Bayard Rustin. Though he is virtually unknown, he played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s–1960s. Followed by a discussion with Michael Shutt, Assistant Dean of Students, LGBT Resource Center. Shows Tuesday, 1/16 (Tate)

CASINO ROYALE

(PG-13) How well does new 007 Daniel Craig wear the famed tux? Pretty damn well. Chronicling Bond’s first assignment as a Double O, Casino Royale charts very highly, and so does its new Bond. I don’t know where the Bond franchise is headed, but I do know nobody’s done it better than Casino Royale and Daniel Craig in a long, long time. Ends Thursday (Beechwood)

CHARLOTTE’S WEB

(G) E.B. White’s classic is updated by director Gary Winick (13 Going on 30) and writers Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) and Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge). Fern (Dakota Fanning) still saves Wilbur (v. Dominic Scott Kay, The Wild). Charlotte (v. Julia Roberts) and her erudite webs still enable Wilbur to see December’s snow. The idyllic film, set in the Maine of yesteryear, balances humor, heart and cinematic beauty. White’s vocabulary of values speaks louder than ever through the film’s superstar voice cast, each actor properly matched with his or her character. Charlotte’s Web, some terrific, radiant, humble family film, wins the blue ribbon. (Beechwood, Carmike)

CHILDREN OF MEN

(R) See Movie Pick & Flick Skinny. (Carmike)

CITIZEN KING

(NR) Screening of the two-hour documentary (from the PBS series "The American Experience") about Martin Luther King, Jr., and discussion with Robert Bryant and Brandon Johnson, UGA Graduate Students. Citizen King focuses on the last five years of King's life. Shows Friday, 1/12 (UGA Adinkra Hall)

CODE NAME: THE CLEANER

(PG-13) When janitor Jake Roberts (Cedric the Entertainer) wakes up with no memory, he replaces his staid existence with one of a government agent caught in the middle of some cloak and dagger corporate espionage b.s. Teamed with a beautiful waitress-cum-undercover agent (Lucy Liu), Jake must stop the baddies (a “Battlestar Galactica” Cylon, Edie from “Desperate Houswives,” and the badass Native American from The Brotherhood of the Wolf) from doing something with a computer chip that will allow them to do something bad to the country. (Does the “plot” really matter?) Cedric the Action Star is a ludicrous proposition, and Liu’s falling for his bumbling, sweet janitor is even more unbelievable. I wish someone would hip certain Hollywood producers to the fact that 1980s-brand action comedies are creatively D.O.A. (because Taxi sure didn’t). Even if the genre weren’t past its viability, The Cleaner, directed by Les Mayfield (The Man) with no zig of action and no zag of comedy, surely wouldn’t strengthen any claims on theatrical audiences’ time. Code Name: The Cleaner has more Xbox references than humor (at least Fred Savage’s The Wizard had the honesty to admit its existence as mere crass cross-promotion). (Beechwood, Carmike)

CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER

(R) Acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) returns with another sweeping epic about star-crossed lovers. This time a prince and a royal bodyguard fall in love, and tragedy inevitably ensues. Starring Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha), Chow Yun-Fat and Jay Chou. Opens Friday (Beechwood)

DÉJÀ VU

(PG-13) This sci fi/ action/ romance is never as tricky as it thinks it is, but it’s not a bad way to spend an evening, either. ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) joins a top secret government task force, led by Val Kilmer, to stop the explosion he’s currently investigating from ever happening. The flick tries to blow some scientific mumbo-jumbo up the audience’s collective ass, but it’s too boring and complicated. Ignore the science, enjoy the action. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

DREAMGIRLS

(PG-13) The hit musical is now a Golden Globe-nominated film. Dreamgirls loosely veils the Supremes story in shiny new dresses as Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles) steals the limelight from the trio’s original singer, Effie White (Jennifer Hudson, whose performances, vocal and acting, are receiving raves and awards). Jamie Foxx plays manager/ love interest Curtis Taylor, Jr. and Eddie Murphy is radiating serious Oscar heat as “chitlin’ circuit” singer James “Thunder” Early. Writer-director Bill Condon’s (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey) film will almost surely pick up a Best Picture nomination. Opens Friday (Beechwood)

FACING THE GIANTS

(PG) Sherwood Baptist Church 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.” Giants looks and sounds as homemade as it is. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

FLUSHED AWAY

(PG) Expecting Aardman Animations’ first fully-CGI feature to be as emotionally engaging and stupendously entertaining as Wallace and Gromit is unfair, it's still better than most 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). Directors Sam Fell and David Bowers and their five screenwriters are a clever bunch, creatively using household flushables to power life in rodent city. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

FREEDOM WRITERS

(PG-13) See Movie Pick. (Carmike)

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

(R) Robert De Niro must have been paying attention on set with legendary directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. The famed actor’s Good Shepherd, a shadowy look at the beginnings of the C.I.A., is the best Cold War-era spy movie in years, and the best gangster movie since Goodfellas. Yes, gangster movie. With its origins in Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones Society, the C.I.A. of De Niro and Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Schindler’s List) is a family from which you can never escape. The paranoia it breeds festers inside Edward Wilson (Matt Damon, in his third straight career-redefining performance) as he chooses country over family (as Edward’s wife, Angelina Jolie is the lone girl in this boys club) time and again. Supported by intelligent performances from William Hurt, Alec Baldwin, John Turturro, Michael Gambon and Billy Crudup, The Good Shepherd is completely, suspensefully engrossing. (Beechwood); Ends Thursday (Carmike)

HAPPILY N’EVER AFTER

(PG) Who can blame me for hoping Happily N’Ever After would surprise like last winter’s Hoodwinked, another small-time, animated, fractured fairy tale? Filled with funny tunes and swell voicework, Hoodwinked looks like The Incredibles next to Happily, where fictional childhood acquaintances like Cinderella (v. Sarah Michelle Gellar), her Wicked Stepmother (v. Sigourney Weaver), the Prince (v. Patrick Warburton, who sounds more bored than nonchalantly monotone), Rumplestiltskin, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Seven Dwarfs awkwardly stalk the same badly animated world. The flick’s feeble reason for existing involves Frieda, the Wicked Stepmother, tipping the scales of good and evil toward evil while the Wizard (v. George Carlin) is on vacation. Poorly voiced (the bland Mr. SMG, Freddie Prinze Jr., is our hero, Rick, the royal dishwasher) and unfunny, this 87-minute Shrek wannabe makes me long to watch the two-minute trailer for the ugly ogre’s unsolicited third outing 45 times. Happily does prove one thing, a mild roast of Andy Dick is the smoothest overcaffeinated adult voice supporting cheap children’s cartoons these days. That’s the only positive thing I could say about Happily N’Ever After. (Beechwood, Carmike)

HAPPY FEET

(PG) Mumble the penguin (voiced by Elijah Wood) takes an eye-popping, breathtaking journey from dropped egg to societal savior. Happy Feet taps out a fresh rhythm to which you can dance when it’s not delivering pat lessons on religious intolerance and environmental destruction. Not until the Amigos appear, led by the infectious Ramon (Robin Williams), does this cold film thaw somewhat. Thinking visually, the musically gifted Happy Feet fails to act narratively. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE HOLIDAY

(PG-13) Writer-director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want and Something’s Gotta Give) comes down the cinematic chimney with just about the best present a gal could hope for. Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Jack Black discover that ideal movie love while clad in expensive duds and romping through gorgeous homes. Meyers may need to trim the fat, but her Holiday reminds us Hollywood still has some romantic magic left. Ends Thursday (Carmike); Ends Monday, 1/15 (Beechwood)

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

(PG) 2006. This credible showcase for former presidential candidate Al Gore’s global warming slideshow was 2006’s must-see documentary. Calling humanity “a force of nature,” an energized Gore has toured the world with a souped up PowerPoint that tells the true story about global warming. His message is three parts science, one part homespun wisdom, one part sheer charisma, and a half part stand-up comedy. The film can improve little on Gore’s presentation, a rather frightening lecture about the evils man has wrought upon the world. Cute animated sequences - one by Simpsons creator Matt Groening - provide the sort of eye-catching visuals so popular in documentaries these days (thanks, Michael Moore). Truth director Davis Guggenheim places Gore’s sincerity (he never politicizes an issue he insists we consider a moral imperative) at the center where it can deliver the bad news with a handshake and a pat on the back. The “so-called skeptics” to whom Gore continually refers had best get cracking on their response. An Inconvenient Truth is one hell of a persuasive celluloid assay. Shows Tuesday, 1/16 (Georgia Theatre)

THE NATIVITY STORY

Ends Thursday (Carmike)

A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

(PG) Maybe I should officially turn in my Ben Stiller Fan Club membership. Though I don’t blame Ben for taking the lucrative family film route, Night at the Museum, a barely amusing romp due in large part to everyone but its star, showcases the comedian in all his childish unlikability. Stiller’s short-lived eponymously-titled sketch comedy (“S.Y.S.T.”), There’s Something About Mary and Meet the Parents proved him more than a one shtick pony (unlike Mike Myers, whose been stuck schwinging for nigh on 15 years), but Museum hires him on his umpteenth loser, Larry Daley, a divorced dad we’re supposed to believe in merely because he’s the protagonist. After taking a job as a night guard at the Museum of Natural History, run by Ricky Gervais as another David Brent-alike, Larry discovers the displays - everything from Attila the Hun to the dioramas (Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan rock as rival period miniatures) - come to life when the sun goes down. Teaming with a waxy Teddy Roosevelt (a self-contained Robin Williams), Larry entertainingly learns how to appease his historical charges before stumbling upon a run-of-the-mill museum heist. I’ve spent worse Nights out, but this Museum needs a new curator. (Beechwood, Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres)

OPEN SEASON

(PG) As the voice of Elliot, an obnoxious mule deer exiled from his herd, Ashton Kutcher goofs around the woods for an hour and a half. Unappealing voicework and animation as alluring as a strip mine mar Sony Pictures Animation’s first full-length feature. (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 during a trick, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) blames rival magician Albert Borden (Christian Bale). Structurally, Nolan’s twisty tale of vengeance and its illusory curative properties is bloody confusing, yet the magical tit-for-tat is novel and anti-heroic. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5); Shows Friday, 1/12–Sunday, 1/14 (Tate)

PRIMEVAL

(R) In this creature feature loosely based on true events (it’s been posited that a crocodile killed hundreds near Burundi’s Lake Tanganyika), a news crew (Dominic Purcell and Orlando Jones) investigate a 25-foot South African man-eating crocodile while a warlord hunts them down. Director Michael Katleman’s got beaucoups of TV experience (everything from “The X-Files” to “Everwood”), but his writers, John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris, were responsible for Catwoman. The first of two January flicks about killer crocs. Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

(PG-13) We need a demoralizing message movie like Happyness every so often to keep us on our moral toes. Devoted father and salesman Chris Gardner (Will Smith) finds himself homeless due to bad investments and stupid decisions. But with pluck, moxie and a little luck, he lands on his feet when the greedy rich men of Dean Witter offer him a job after he makes them oodles of money during an unpaid internship. The problem with the well-made Happyness is, if you’re not careful, you’ll swallow the shit it’s shoveling. Director Gabriele Muccino and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (Sideways) have shot a lovely film, and Golden Globe nominee Smith tugs at the heartstrings while interacting with his real-life son, Jaden. But in adapting the real Chris Gardner’s life, Steven Conrad (The Weather Man) sickeningly reifies most Americans’ belief that the plight of the homeless can be eradicated through hard work. (Beechwood, Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres)

ROCKY BALBOA

(PG) Rocky Balboa sketches a realistically downtrodden-but-not-defeated Rocky, now a widower. A nostalgic tour of Rocky’s 1976 haunts - the pet store, his old apartment, Mickey’s gym - sets a laughable early tone that writer-director-star Sylvester Stallone soon turns into genuine tenderness as Rocky finds loneliness to be the one opponent he can’t keep on the mat. A platonic relationship with a minor character from the first film helps Rocky cope with the deliberate absence of his son (Milo Ventimiglia, “Heroes”), but true relief comes from an unlikely source, a computer-generated bout between Rocky and the current undisputed champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon (Antonio Tarver). With the begrudged blessing of the boxing commission and another awe-inspiring training montage set to “Gonna Fly Now,” Rocky steps back into the squared circle for one final shot at glory, respectability and peace. The same goes for Stallone, who squeezes every last bit of whatever talent and stardom he ever had into Balboa. He knows this dumb-yet-wise palooka better than anyone, and Rocky is the single performance he always gets flesh-and-blood right. The bittersweet, reflective Rocky Balboa is a winner, and Rocky is still the champion. (Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres); Ends Thursday (Beechwood)

THE SANTA CLAUSE 3: THE ESCAPE CLAUSE

(G) If you’re looking to get your holly jollies on still, 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. (Georgia Square 5)

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. 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). (Georgia Square 5)

STOMP THE YARD

(PG-13) Avoiding a stint in juvenile hall after the death of his younger brother, DJ Williams (Columbus Short, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”) enrolls in one of Atlanta’s historically black colleges. Soon, his street dance moves project him into a bidding war between two fraternities, both of which are eyeing the prize of a national stepshow championship. With Meagan Good (Roll Bounce, Brick, Waist Deep) and hot R&B sensation Ne-Yo. Directed by Sylvain White (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer). Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THR3E

(PG-13) Based on a book by popular Christian author Ted Dekker, Thr3e might just be the first (but sadly, not the last) of the religious horror movies. I’m not talking The Exorcist/ Rosemary’s Baby/ The Omen-style occult stuff here; Thr3e’s a full-on Sunday morning, back-row Baptist. If seminary student Kevin Parson (Marc Blucas, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," They), his childhood friend Samantha (Laura Jordan), and police psychologist/ fellow victim Jennifer Peters (Justine Waddell) cannot solve the not-quite-Sphinxian brainteasers of RK, the Riddle Killer (a less messy knockoff of Saw’s Jigsaw), in time, people will die from lackluster CG explosions severely hampered by Thr3e’s low budget. I’m not quite sure how the producers of Thr3e expect to sell their flick. Non-churchgoing audiences will have no clue what the movie is, and how many faithful tithers are looking for cheap scary movie thrills (youth group leaders should take note). Thr3e feels like Dario Argento if he were to find God (nonsensical psychological claptrap without style, gore, or busty Eurobabes). Even with the appearance from real horror movie neo-icon Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects), Thr3e - a triumvirate of bad acting, bad writing and bad directing - just makes me dread FoxFaith’s next genre release (October’s House). (Carmike)

TO BE AND TO HAVE

(NR) 2002. In a small, one-room schoolhouse in rural France, Georges Lopez (not to be confused with television comic George Lopez) educates 13 children ranging from four to 12 years of age in reading, writing, arithmetic, cooking and living side by side. César Award-winning director Nicholas Philibert’s To Be and To Have is France’s highest grossing documentary of all time. Winner of the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Documentary. Part of the ACC Library’s iFilms series. Shows Thursday, 1/11 (ACC Library)

WE ARE MARSHALL

(PG) Allowing McG (Charlie’s Angels and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle) to bring the greatest tragedy in college sports history - the 1970 plane crash that killed 75 Marshall football players, coaches and fans - is like letting Michael Bay tackle Pearl Harbor. (We saw how well that turned out.) Mini-Bay McG gets the football right. The games we see are planned like action set pieces, full of energy, suspense and pure adrenaline. It’s the emotion he fumbles. The musky We Are Marshall stinks of cheap sentimentality. The cast is great, though. The insanely talented Ian McShane ("Deadwood") does what he naturally can to humanize the local bigwig whose son, the starting running back, died in the crash, and David Strathairn fusses and twitches as the football-averse college president. Matthew Fox almost had me bawling during his climactic manly cry, though what the hell was Matthew McConaughey doing? His nutjob portrayal of head coach Jack Lengyel might go down as one of those classic oddities, a cult curiosity. Still, try and breathe when the whole film comes down to one play, one moment. Look for former UGA coach Jim Donnan’s early cameo and enjoy Mike Pniewski’s bemused Bobby Bowden. (Beechwood, Carmike)