originally published April 9, 2008

10,000 B.C.

(PG-13) 10,000 B.C. isn’t epic enough to overcome its grievous historical inaccuracies. Without an engaging story or characters to cling to, 10,000 B.C. left me with far too much time to struggle to make a whole out of the ill-fitting pieces of this shattered lost world. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

21

(PG-13) Based on the true life-story of card-counting MIT kids who bilked some Las Vegas casinos for millions, 21 is a crowd pleasing slice of instantly forgettable entertainment. 21 isn’t a bad story, but it deals some clichéd cards. A better director and a more challenging script could have turned 21’s true tale into something more significant. (Beechwood, Carmike)

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, AND 2 DAYS

(R) Filmmaker Cristian Mungiu has become world cinema’s hot new flavor with this drama about a college student seeking an abortion in a Romania repressed by the communist party of Nicolae Ceau
_escu. Mungiu’s film became the first Romanian film to ever garner the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, besting higher profile nominees like the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and David Fincher’s Zodiac. However, it lost the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. Starts Friday (Ciné)

THE AFRICAN QUEEN

(NR) 1951. Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of gruff souse Captain Charlie Allnut in this John Huston classic. Prim and proper Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) accepts passage on Captain Allnut’s wreck, the African Queen, after the Germans force her from the mission work in which she and her brother have been engaged. Sailing the waters of east Africa, Charlie and Rose eventually fall in love as they seek civilization and revenge for the death of Rose’s brother. This beloved film stays afloat due to the amazing chemistry of its two phenomenal lead actors. Shows Saturday, 4/12 (Classic Center)

THE BAND'S VISIT

(PG-13) See Movie Pick. (Ciné)

THE BUCKET LIST

(PG-13) If not for the magnetic allure of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, director Rob Reiner might finally have tumbled to the bottom of moviemaking’s own pit of despair. Hampered by its schmaltzy script, The Bucket List is a road movie for the terminally ill. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

CARAMEL

(PG) I always wondered what Beauty Shop sounded like in Arabic; Lebanon’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (it didn’t make the final five) might just teach me. Writer/director/star Nadine Labaki’s debut is a romcom set in Beirut that centers on the daily lives of five women (Labaki, Yasmine Elmasri, Joanna Moukarzel, Gisèle Aouad and Sihame Haddad) who frequent the same beauty shop where the titular sweet is a key ingredient in a waxing procedure. Ends Thursday (Ciné)

COLLEGE ROAD TRIP

(G) Martin Lawrence is Chief James Porter, the overprotective policeman father who decides to accompany - and mortify - his daughter, high school senior Rachel (Raven-Symoné), on a cross-country trip to pick a college. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

DRILLBIT TAYLOR

(PG-13) Go into Drillbit Taylor realizing that it’s Superbad for the preteens whose parents wouldn’t let them see Superbad (and probably won’t let them see this movie due to its kinship with last year’s surprise smash hit), and one shouldn’t be disappointed. (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE EYE

(PG-13) I know I enjoyed the 2002 Hong Kong chiller from The Pang Brothers (The Messengers) on which this Jessica Alba vehicle was based, but I couldn’t remember why as I watched the remake. The flick from directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud and Gothika scribe Sebastian Gutierrez isn’t bad, but it is boring. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

HORTON HEARS A WHO!

(G) The 1954 children’s classic about Horton the Elephant (v. Jim Carrey), whose giant ears allow him to communicate with the tiny speck that is the town of Whoville is one of the good doctor’s most beloved tales, right behind Green Eggs and Ham. The laughs in Horton are never cheap or juvenile (a plus for the adult Seuss lovers in the crowd), yet they are perfectly pitched for little ones’ ears. (Beechwood, Carmike)

I AM LEGEND

(PG-13) I Am Legend is another addition to one of my all-time favorite movie sub-genres: the post-apocalyptic survival story. Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a military scientist haunted by his past and his failure to stop a mutating virus. The story was adapted from a 1954 novel by Richard Matheson which has already been turned into two movies. This adaptation wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t very good, either. [Alex Moore] Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

IN BRUGES

(R) While In Bruges can be a bit indulgent - trading winks with the audience like any post-Pulp Fiction crimedy - the film brilliantly weaves together its quirky unloveables, its quaint locale, and its graphic violence into a rather tidy little rug that covers up most of the bare patches in the plot carpeting. In Bruges is no Pulp Fiction, but the film is as entertaining a bloody relative as any I’ve met since the late '90s. Ends Thursday (Carmike)

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

(G) 1959. Jules Verne’s classic sci-fi tale has been filmed many, many times, but 1959’s version, anchored by Pat Boone and James Mason, was the first time audiences ventured to the center of the world. Journey to the Center of the Earth is screening as the film festival’s free children’s matinee. Shows Friday, 4/11 (Classic Center)

JUMPER

(PG-13) The good aspects of Jumper are few and include Hayden Christensen’s hotness (or so I’ve been told) and a neat idea about teleportation powers. The rest of the movie was pure two-dimensional fluff. [Alex Moore] Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

THE KING AND I

(G) 1956. Beloved, canonical Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with Oscar winner Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr get to know one another as the King of Siam and the tutor of his many children. I may question the Academy’s decision to award Brynner with a little golden man for going shirtless and saying “Et cetera.” Still, The King and I, with its five Oscars, should have beaten one of the most questionable Best Picture winners of all time, Around the World in Eighty Days, for a sixth. Shows Sunday, 4/13 (Classic Center)

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

(G) 1962. David Lean’s magnificent epic is one of my all-time favorite Best Picture winners, and I’ve seen them all. Peter O’Toole stars as T.E. Lawrence, the controversial, flamboyant British war hero with conflicted wartime loyalties, and his supporting cast (Alec Guinness, José Ferrer, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif and Claude Rains) is nothing short of phenomenal. Lawrence of Arabia won six Academy Awards other than Best Picture, including Best Director, though O’Toole justly lost the Best Actor statuette to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird. Shows Saturday, 4/12 (Classic Center)

LEATHERHEADS

(PG-13) George Clooney’s latest film is like an ugly throwback jersey whose days gone by appeal makes one briefly forget how unfashionable it is right now. Director Clooney momentarily creates a zany Capra-Hawks-Sturges atmosphere; he just doesn’t sustain it. Like 2003’s Down with Love (which also starred Zellweger), Leatherheads is more enamored with its conceit than its conceit is enamoring. (Beechwood, Carmike)

MAD MONEY

(PG-13) Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes rob the Federal Reserve. The leads are game, and interweaving a heist movie with themes of female empowerment gone awry, and the corporate downsizing of white upper-middle class America is intriguing. Too bad the direction stinks. Shows Friday, 4/11–Sunday, 4/13 (Highway 17 Theatres)

MARIANNE AND JULIANE

(NR) 1981. In Germany circa 1968, two priest’s daughters fight for societal change in vastly different ways. Juliane becomes a reporter, while her sister, Marianne, joins a terrorist organization. Two-time Palme d’Or nominee Margarethe von Trotta’s film won three awards from the Venice Film Festival including the coveted Golden Lion and a Best Actress trophy shared by Jutta Lampe and Barbara Sukowa. Part of the Women’s Vision Film Series, a celebration of women filmmakers for Women’s History Month, sponsored by the UGA Libraries. Refreshments will be provided. Shows Tuesday, 4/15 (UGA Library)

MEET THE BROWNS

(PG-13) These Browns aren’t worth meeting. (Beechwood, Carmike)

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS

(PG) A not-awful throwback to matinee serials a la Indiana Jones, National Treasure was a feature-length commercial for American historical tourism. What National Treasure was not - a lobotomized counterfeiter of thrills - happens to be everything its follow-up, Book of Secrets, is. (Georgia Square 5)

NEVER BACK DOWN

(PG-13) You see every one of Never Back Down’s moves coming; this teen fight flick is no sucker punch. Great film if you want to watch a bunch of 20-something dudes act like 17-year-olds and beat the crap out of one another. Ends Thursday (Carmike)

NIM'S ISLAND

(PG) Nim’s Island is a serviceable family friendly adventure film. Imaginative Nim (Abigail Breslin) lives on an isolated island in the South Pacific with her dad (Gerard Butler) and concocts adventures mirroring those of her favorite fictional hero, the world’s greatest adventurer Alex Rover. (Beechwood, Carmike)

NOTORIOUS

(NR) 1946. Hitchcock’s classic about love, deceit and Nazis positively gleams with old Hollywood star power, courtesy of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. The charms of Grant and the beauty of Bergman are matched by the wiliness of Claude Rains as the German spy. Notorious remains one of the master’s best and should not be missed. Shows Friday, 4/11 (Classic Center)

PENELOPE

(PG) Penelope isn’t as bad as its trailers make it look. Nonetheless, this modern fairy tale suffers from the overconceptualization of all Tim Burton wannabes. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

PERSEPOLIS

(PG-13) Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s film recounts recent Iranian history through the limited but expanding scope of a young Iranian girl. How many hundreds of thousands of Iranians also stride confidently through their own insurrectionary Survivor-fueled montage? Persepolis proves there is at least one. Starts Friday (Beechwood)

PROM NIGHT

(PG-13) Another seasonal horror remake, Prom Night tackles the not-so-good Jamie Lee Curtis chiller from 1980 right about the time today’s young ladies and gents are getting dolled up for their own nights to remember. A group of teens are stalked by a crazed former teacher with a murderous obsession. Don’t expect any gore from this PG-13, slasher wannabe. (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

(R) Interactive midnight screening of the 1975 cult classic. Sex, rock and roll, transvestism and murder all come together in this campy romp - the longest running release in film history. [Cotter] Shows Friday, 4/11–Saturday, 4/12 (Ciné)

THE RUINS

(R) See Flick Skinny. The Ruins is an exhaustingly tense trek into the Mexican jungle with four typical American college kids - medical student Jeff (Jonathan Tucker), his girlfriend Amy (Jena Malone), Amy’s best friend Stacey (Laura Ramsey), and Stacy’s boyfriend Eric (Shawn Ashmore) - and their new German friend (Joe Anderson) in search of an ancient Mayan ruin where an unexplainable evil patiently waits to devour them. Dotted with lots of little horrors (a broken back, amputation, self-surgery and more), The Ruins adds up to one big, bad horror flick. (Beechwood, Carmike)

RUN, FAT BOY, RUN

(PG-13) Simon Pegg may be the funniest Englishman not named Ricky Gervais. Written by Pegg and Michael Ian Black, Run, Fatboy, Run has a subtle, steady, British hilarity about it, though I’m not sure Dennis is the right guy for the smart, charming mother of his child. That niggling issue didn’t change the fact that I watched the entire movie with a silly grin and a perpetual laugh. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

SHUTTER

(PG-13) This slice of pitiful PG-13 horror pie tasted just fine to its target audience. The 13 (and unders) in the theater were scared out of their minds by this predictable A-horror remake; however, Shutter caused me to barely shudder. (Carmike)

SMART PEOPLE

(R) After professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) learns he cannot drive due to seizures, he calls on his adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), for help so as not to burden his overachieving teenage daughter (Ellen Page). When one of Lawrence’s former students, Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), appears, the passionless prof’s ice age begins to thaw. Judging from the trailer, Smart People, one of Sundance’s biggest hits, could very well find an audience outside of Park City. The directorial debut of award winning commercial director Noam Murro. Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES

(PG) The Spiderwick Chronicles is based on a series of bestselling books by Terry DiTerlizzi and Holly Black about the Grace siblings, twins Jared and Simon (Freddie Highmore) and sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger), who discover a fantastical world existing unseen within our own after they move into the creepy old house that belonged to their great granduncle, Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn). Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

STEP UP 2 THE STREETS

(PG-13) The limber sequel to 2006’s surprise dance smash, Step Up 2 the Streets is a step down in almost every way. Starts Friday (Georgia Square 5)

STOP-LOSS

(R) A decorated war hero, Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), tries to resume his paused life in his small Texas hometown only to be ordered back to Iraq. Stop-Loss is director Kimberly Peirce’s first film since the Oscar winning Boys Don’t Cry. Can the might of MTV’s teenage tastemakers push this Iraq War drama to box office victory where so many others have failed? Opens Friday (Carmike)

THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL

(PG) This film follows the story of a family of herders in Mongolia's Gobi region, capturing the essence of their tough existence and the beauty of their surroundings through lush cinematography. [Cotter] Shows Thursday, 4/10 (ACC Library)

STREET KINGS

(R) Veteran L.A. cop Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) must negotiate life on the force after the death of his wife, but when evidence surfaces implicating him in the execution of a fellow officer, Tom begins to question his professional loyalties. Street Kings has a strong cast, anchored by Oscar winner Forest Whitaker and “House”’s Hugh Laurie, and director David Ayers knows these streets from Training Day. However, the script has been through quite a few pens, some good (L.A. Confidential novelist James Ellroy) and some questionable (Ultraviolet writer-director Kurt Wimmer). Opens Friday (Beechwood, Carmike)

SUPERHERO MOVIE

(PG-13) Irreverent and filled with visual gags reminiscent of Airplane! and The Naked Gun, Superhero Movie is the first spoof I’ve seen in years that actually earned some real laughs. Ends Thursday (Beechwood, Carmike)

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

(R) The latest film from Paul Thomas Anderson solidifies the writer-director’s position as the most challenging auteur birthed by the 1990s. Daniel Plainview (Academy Award nominee Daniel Day-Lewis) could be any self-made, bastard, millionaire man-monster determined to make a fortune, sanity be damned. This demanding film leaves an impression as deep as the Grand Canyon. Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

UNTRACEABLE

(R) This passable, third-rate, cyber Silence of the Lambs knockoff isn’t as bad as its trailer portends. FBI cyber crime fighter Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) must stop a serial killer before he uses another web audience to sadistically torture and murder his latest victim. Directed by the sturdy Gregory Hoblit (Fracture). Ends Thursday (Georgia Square 5)

THE WAY WE WERE

(PG) 1973. Activist Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) and All-American Carter Hubbell (Robert Redford) fall in and out of love against the historical backdrop of McCarthyism, World War II and golden era Hollywood. Nominated for six Academy Awards. Shows Friday, 4/11 (Classic Center)

WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS

(PG-13) Welcome home patently offensive, incorrect and insulting visions of the South, particularly Georgia. (Georgia Square 5)

WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE?

(PG-13) 1993. Constantly undeserving Oscar nominee Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules) directed this adaptation of Peter Hedges’ novel of Gilbert (Johnny Depp) who must care for his autistic brother (Leonardo DiCaprio) and obese mother (Darlene Cates). Three-time Oscar nominee DiCaprio received his first nomination for Grape. Shows Saturday, 4/12 (Classic Center)

THE WITNESSES

(NR) The New York Times said of this French film: "The Witnesses, set in 1984, observes this [sexually liberated] wonderland shocked out of its complacency by the arrival of AIDS. Suddenly, a closely knit group of friends - straight, gay and bisexual - is forced to confront the uncertainties and terrors of the epidemic in its early days." From acclaimed French director André Téchiné. Proceeds benefit the Boybutante AIDS Foundation. [Cotter] Shows Wednesday, 4/16 (Ciné)

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

(PG) 1974. To take a cue from Igor (the indomitable Marty Feldman), it’s not “too late” to see Mel Brooks’ classic monster movie parody on the big screen. Gene Wilder's Dr. Frederick Frankenstein returns to the family castle and resurrects the family Monster (Peter Boyle) with monstrously hilarious results. Rife with as much comedic evidence as Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein reifies Brooks’ status as one of Hollywood’s all-time funniest filmmakers. Shows Thursday, 4/10 (Classic Center)

Drew Wheeler