originally published March 7, 2007

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

(G) Stanley Kubrick's Oscar-winning groundbreaking, super-trippy big-screen adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's classic sci-fi novel about the dawn of man, mysterious black obelisks popping up in unexpected places and dealing with homicidal computers in space. Starring Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Shows Monday, 3/12 (Flicker)

300

(R) Dawn of the Dead ’04 director Zack Snyder’s stylized take on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae, where just 300 Spartans, led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, The Phantom of the Opera), held off a horde of Persians, is my second-most anticipated film of first quarter 2007 (Grindhouse holds down spot number one). Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

AMAZING GRACE

(PG) I really enjoy British history and I love movies, so you’d think any Brit-story flick would be right up my alley. After all, I can’t get enough of Screamin’ Richard Harris in Cromwell, a 1971 minor Oscar winner. Still, Michael Apted’s combined account of William Wilberforce's (Ioan Gruffudd) quest to end slavery in the British Empire and the writing of the famous titular hymn by former slaver and man of God John Newton (Albert Finney being as Finney ever), left me bored. Imagine an ancient British prof’s lecture - slavery, blah, blah, abolition, blah, blah, revolution, blah, blah, “Amazing Grace” - with a gaggle of fine thespians (Finney, Michael Gambon, Ciarán Hinds of “Rome,” Rufus Sewell, and Toby Jones) bickering as the obviously good (read: abolitionist) and bad (read: pro-slavery) Members of Parliament, and you’ve got Amazing Grace. I grow weary of anti-slavery films that represent little more than another example of how the white man had to save the black man (yeah, I’m talking to you, Amistad). Just being about an important topic does not automatically grant importance to a film. At least Amistad captured the horrors of the middle passage; Amazing Grace is just parliamentary procedure. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER

(PG) The Astronaut Farmer ascends to the top of this decidedly lean year’s list of releases. 2007 may be short on quality storytelling, filmmaking and acting, but Mark and Michael Polish (Northfork, Twin Falls Idaho) go 3-for-3 in their fourth feature film. The only way Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) will ever get his homemade rocket off the ground and into orbit is with the support of his wife (Virginia Madsen) and three kids. Nothing, not soul-crushing bureaucracy nor evil, foreclosing banks, can derail a dream shared by an entire family. It’s refreshing to be reminded how tender Thornton can be when he’s not playing a bad Santa. A sterling supporting cast that includes the young actors portraying the Farmer children, Bruce Dern, Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico), the lovable Tim Blake Nelson, and an uncredited Bruce Willis serve to highlight the brilliance of the Polish Brothers’ script that captures the cadence of Texas colloquialism without becoming caricaturish and the reality of family without going squishy. I still believe no audience exists for an anti-authoritarian, leftist family film, but I applaud the Polish twins for taking the chance nonetheless. They prove their own adage. With the support of family, dreams do come true. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

BLACK SNAKE MOAN

(R) Apparently, I am not willing to narratively go wherever Craig Brewer, the Sundance Award-winning writer-director of Hustle & Flow, wants to take me, especially if it’s back to the silly shack in which spurned bluesman Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) chains up a half-nekkid white girl, Rae (Christina Ricci). A crazed, sexually-abused nymphomaniac, Rae lets loose her demons when the one positive thing in her life, boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) joins the Army. Lazarus finds Rae on the side of the road and decides to help her get straight. A crazy flick that baked too long in the hot Southern sun, Black Snake Moan better be some serious camp; otherwise, it’s the least intentionally funny film of the new year. The lithe Ricci writhes around like a caged animal while Jackson, sporting a graying half-ro, pops his crazy eyes. Was Brewer going for horror, porn or art? Black Snake Moan fits none of the aforementioned categories, but I’ll be darned if I can categorize a film where Ricci ruts in a field while wearing shoulder pads and sexually cavorts with a chain. Brewer is a fairly assured director (though the blues club scene struck me as amateurish) to have so thoroughly misjudged his story. Hustle & Flow was a hope-filled, homemade distillation of the New South. Sweaty, seedy and disgusting, Black Snake Moan’s New South is the same as the Old South. (Beechwood, Carmike)

BREACH

(PG-13) Based on the true story of the greatest security breach in U.S. history, the film traces the career of young FBI agent-wannabe Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) after he is handpicked to clerk for über-agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), who has been tagged as a sexual deviant. At first, O'Neill is perplexed; Hanssen appears to be a devoutly religious patriot and family man and the agent to whom O'Neill must report (Laura Linney) appears cagey, cold and calculating. But Hanssen's facade begins to unravel after O'Neill discovers the real reason he has been assigned to keep tabs on the soon-to-retire agent - the Bureau's top Soviet analyst may be a spy. Strong performances here from the world-weary Cooper and the always understated Linney, and the ex-Mr. Reese Witherspoon is game, but is acted right off the screen by his older, more-experienced, more-talented colleagues. Breach is a competent, engaging (only because it is a true story) character study-cum-spy movie, that nevertheless seems dated by its musty Cold War-aroma. [Margaret Moore] (Beechwood)

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

(PG) Real magic lies at the heart of Bridge to Terabithia. To combat the school bullies, Jess (Josh Hutcherson, Zathura) and new girl Leslie (AnnaSophia Robb, Because of Winn-Dixie) forge an idyllic childhood friendship by creating a kingdom across the river running behind their homes. The land of Terabithia may only exist in Jess and Leslie’s minds, but the film brings their fantastical creatures to life with well-crafted CGI and the power of the audience’s own imagination. Director Gabor Csupo seamlessly transitions between depressing reality and the liberating land of make-believe. Hutcherson and Robb ably assist in the move with remarkably assured performances. Anyone familiar with the book knows life’s darkness streaks Bridge’s innocence, and the film does not shy away from this (parents, be warned). But anyone, families especially, willing to watch this film with, as Leslie says, a “mind wide open,” will be justly rewarded. (Beechwood, Carmike)

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. Bond 2.0, a reset of the 40-year-old cinematic franchise, is as explosive as the high octane Brosnan films, dark as the Daltons, and heartrending as On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I’ll need another film to confirm my assessment, but Craig is the best Bond since Connery. He exemplifies the Bond of Fleming’s novels. Gone are the frivolous, featherweight Bonds. Director Martin Campbell crafts an even more stylish, streamlined - if longer - film than Goldeneye. Every fight in Casino Royale includes the most vicious fisticuffs ever seen in a Bond film. The physicality of the free-running stunts is exhaustingly exciting. Still, Bond is no longer a veteran of the Double O ranks; he fails to perform with anything nearing his usually slick perfection and feckless arrogance nearly dooms him. 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 (Georgia Square 5)

CHARLOTTE’S WEB

(G) E.B. White’s classic gets a makeover. 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. Charlotte’s Web, some terrific, radiant, humble family film, wins the blue ribbon. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

DADDY’S LITTLE GIRLS

(PG-13) Tyler Perry's latest, Daddy’s Little Girls, sorely misses his flagship character Madea. We could certainly use some of Madea’s broadly comic antics to relieve just an ounce of the tension from the ultra-dramatic struggles of single father Monty (Idris Elba, “The Wire”) to keep his three cute, non-actor kids out of the hands of his horrid ex-wife and her drug dealer boyfriend. Gabrielle Union tries to assist Monty as the high-powered lawyer who needs a little lovin’ from the right blue collar guy. The laughs are either forced or nonsensical. Daddy’s Little Girls felt like 95 minutes of non-anesthetized surgery to rip the heart strings straight from my chest. (Carmike)

THE DEPARTED

(R) The Departed earned director Martin Scorsese his long-awaited Oscar. Adapted from the Hong Kong actioner Infernal Affairs (See Last Picture Show for a comparison of the two films), The Departed straddles the law with the parallel lives of mob mole Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and police rat Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio). Intelligent and taut, The Departed is Scorsese’s most purely entertaining film. Winner of four Oscars, including Best Picture. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

EPIC MOVIE

(PG-13) Epic Movie is a pile of poo that stinks of everything but the sweat of actual hard, creative labor. A game cast can’t find a single laugh in these blunt stabs at The Chronicles of Narnia, Snakes on a Plane and Harry Potter. (Highway 17 Theatres)

FLUSHED AWAY

(PG) Expecting Aardman Animations’ first fully-CGI feature to be as good 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 under-London world, which he and pal Rita (v. Kate Winslet) battle the villainous Toad (v. Ian McKellan). Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

GHOST RIDER

(PG-13) The idea is simple: guy - Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) - sells soul to Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) and becomes a flaming, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding skeleton supernaturally powerful enough to punish evil. Still, writer-director Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil) finds ways to muck it up. But maybe I’m focusing my Penance Stare a bit too intensely upon Johnson- though his decisions regarding character and sound designs are shiveringly bad - when a more deserving sinner exists. Though the entire cast, save for Sam Elliott, woodenly shuffles from scene to scene, star Cage transgresses most. Cage is that worst kind of actor, a “consummate professional” and “gifted thespian” who believes adding quirks, like a penchant for the Carpenters and devouring jellybeans from a martini glass, builds character. In spite of Cage’s every misstep, when Blaze transforms into the Rider, skull and chopper aflame, Ghost Rider changes as well, from a withered February action film into the hokey, B-list superhero fun it was meant to be. (Beechwood, Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres)

HAPPILY N’EVER AFTER

(PG) Cinderella (v. Sarah Michelle Gellar), her Wicked Stepmother Frieda (v. Sigourney Weaver), the Prince (v. Patrick Warburton), Rumplestiltskin, the Big Bad Wolf, and the Seven Dwarfs awkwardly stalk a badly animated world in a film that is poorly voiced and unfunny. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

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. Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

LAST DANCE

(NR) 2002. If the only thing you dug about this year’s boring Oscar telecast was the cool Pilobolus dance company sequences (they were the guys who made The Departed gun behind the white screen), you should check out this documentary about the collaboration between Pilobolus and Where the Wild Things Are’s Maurice Sendak on a theater production about the Holocaust. Winner of a Certificate of Merit from the San Francisco International Film Festival. Part of the ACC Library’s iFilms series. Shows Thursday, 3/8 (ACC Library)

LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

(R) In this film by Kevin Macdonald, the Academy Award-winning director of One Day in September, Forest Whitaker tackles brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in his Oscar-winning triumph. Recounted through the eyes of Amin’s personal physician, young Scot Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy, Narnia’s Mr. Tumnus, the Faun), Last King chronicles Amin’s downward spiral from charismatic man of the people to mass murderer. With Gillian Anderson and Kerry Washington. Opens Friday (Beechwood)

MUSIC & LYRICS

(PG-13) Music and Lyrics had me at Hugh Grant. Alex Fletcher (Grant), once a member of popular '80s band Pop, has a week to write a hit song for eastern-influenced Britney-Xtina cyborg Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) if he wants another shot at stardom. Fletcher serendipitously hires failed poet/ plant caretaker Sophie (Drew Barrymore) to help him craft “Way Back Into Love,” which is a route the songwriting duo discover for themselves. Music and Lyrics, written and directed by Two Weeks Notice’s Marc Lawrence, is a terrific parody of catchy musical excess and bad hair. (Beechwood); Ends Thursday (Carmike)

A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM

(PG) A barely amusing romp due in large part to everyone but its star (Ben Stiller), showcases the comedian in all his childish unlikability. After taking a job as a night guard at the Museum of Natural History, he discovers the displays come to life when the sun goes down. (Georgia Square 5)

NORBIT

(PG-13) Applying the same Nutty Professor formula - impressive effects by Rick Baker, language and humor just below R-rated, family-unfriendly radar - will probably supply Eddie Murphy with his biggest non-Shrek hit since that other mean-spirited flick constructed completely out of fat jokes, the awful Klumps. Nice guy Norbit (Murphy) is married to Rasputia (Murphy again), a large woman as hideous on the outside as she is within. When Norbit’s soulmate, former orphan Kate (Thandie Newton), returns, the mild-mannered nebbish must find a backbone and fight for his and Kate’s happiness. After watching Murphy regain his respect with the detoxifying Dreamgirls, it’s sad to see him slumming again so soon. (Beechwood, Carmike, Highway 17 Theatres)

THE NUMBER 23

(R) A numerologist’s wet dream, The Number 23 cannot overcome the unfeasible suspension of disbelief required by Fernley Phillips’ screenplay (seriously, the dog that continuously shows up is a ludicrous plot device). The Number 23 relies heavily on clichéd familial interactions to set up its Everyman, Walter Sparrow (the rubber-faced Jim Carrey), and his Everyfamily - baker of overly creative cakes Agatha (Virginia Madsen), and fashionably hip teenage son Robin (Logan Lerman). By establishing the Sparrows as a perfect family, as opposed to a realistic one, their degeneration after Walter loses his mind over the number 23 holds no emotional charge. Watching Carrey battle the number 23 is like watching Tom Cruise play a divorced dockworker in War of the Worlds. Both men have far too much star power to be mistaken for me or everyone else like me. Joel Schumacher art directs the hell out of this unthrilling script, but the man who killed Batman (I’ll never forgive him for those nipples on the Batsuit) has never gotten his pacing down. Schumacher or not, this flick is its star’s vehicle, and though Carrey has proven his talents stretch beyond comedy, The Number 23 is a wrong number. (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

(PG-13) Devoted father and salesman Chris Gardner (Will Smith) finds himself homeless, but with pluck, moxie and a little luck, he lands on his feet when Dean Witter offers him a job after an unpaid internship. In adapting the real 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. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

RENO 911!: MIAMI

(R) I was reticent about the big-screen debut of “Reno 911!,” Comedy Central’s improv “Cops” from the guys behind MTV’s “The State.” The central plot gambit - the incompetent Reno Sheriff’s Department are the only healthy law enforcement left in Miami after a terrorist attack - sounded genuinely humorous, but writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant have a pathetic feature track record (Taxi, The Pacifier, Let’s Go to Prison). I am pleased to announce Reno 911!: Miami is Police Academy for a new millennium, and every thousand years, we need a new Police Academy. Sure, Reno 911!: Miami is Gute-less, but Lennon, Garant, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Wendi McClendon-Covey, Niecy Nash, Carlos Alazraqui, Cedric Yarbroug and Mary Birdsong are the comedic equals of Bubba Smith, David Graf, and Leslie Easterbrook. Plus, Paul Rudd’s hideous Scarface impersonation is almost as good as Michael Winslow’s mouth effects. Sketch comedy is always hit-or-miss, but these cops are sharpshooters. Reno 911!: Miami is as funny as three episodes of the show, but is it worth paying for the humorous milk that Comedy Central nightly gives away for free? It damn sure is. (Beechwood, Carmike)

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. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

STOMP THE YARD

(PG-13) Stomp the Yard isn’t half-bad. It follows DJ (Columbus Short, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”) from underground street dancing in L.A. to the beautiful campuses of the Atlanta University Center. A talented dancer, DJ soon finds rival fraternities fighting over his skills to ensure a victory at the national step show competition. A good old competition movie, but the choreography’s fly and the surrounding melodrama not out of step. (Georgia Square 5)

STRANGERS IN GOOD COMPANY

(PG) 1990. The Women’s History Month Film Festival continues with this mostly ad-libbed film from Academy Award winner Cynthia Scott (she won the 1984 Best Documentary Short trophy for Flamenco at 5:15). When a busload of women is stranded in a remote part of the Canadian countryside, they reflect upon their lives. Strangers in Good Company will be followed by a discussion led by Dr. Anne Glass. Sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Studies and the UGA Libraries’ Media Department. Shows Thursday, 3/8 (UGA SLC)

THE ULTIMATE GIFT

(PG) Faith-based film about a young man (Drew Fuller) who is forced to reevaluate his life after he inherits a series of tasks from his grandfather; tasks that will teach him valuable life lessons. With James Garner and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine). Directed by Michael O. Sajbel (One Night With the King). Opens Friday (Carmike)

WILD HOGS

(PG-13) Wild Hogs is more premise than movie. Four middle-aged suburban eunuchs played by John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy - all of whom could use a little bolstering of their box office track records - try to regain their masculinity by hitting the open road on their bikes. Warning: Most of the jokes are less funny than they may appear. After the movie, you’ll be picking sexual innuendoes - hetero and homo - out of your teeth like so many bugs. (The “Scrubs” fan in me wasn’t totally put off by the homoeroticism-as-humor camping scene involving a far too skintightly-attired John C. “Dr. Cox” McGinley, but middle school boys could have written less juvenile double entendres.) Travolta slathers on his enchanting old musk, Indignation, but mustering up any sympathy for this not-so-wild bunch of grown men was impossible. At least Wild Hogs answers once and for all a decade-old query: Oscar winner Marisa Tomei is alive (though I don’t know that I would call appearing in this comedy well). The tanks of multiplexes across the nation will be filled by Wild Hogs, but the flick’s just coasting on the fumes of its stars’ fading charms. (Beechwood, Carmike)

ZODIAC

(R) See Movie Pick and Flick Skinny. (Beechwood, Carmike)