Film clips

— At area theaters

87

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN,

PG-13

Andrew Garfield plays the title teenager-turned-web-slingingsuperhero in “a different side of the Peter Parker story,” involving a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his late father, the quest to understand his parents’ disappearance and the lab of his father’s former partner and his Lizard alterego. (136 minutes) 67 THE APPARITION

, PG-13

Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan play a young couple haunted by a presence accidentally conjured during a university parapsychology experiment. With Tom Felton, Julianna Guill, Luke Pasqualino, Suzanne Ford; directed by Todd Lincoln. (88 minutes)

89

THE AVENGERS, PG-13 Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency SHIELD, pulls together the title superheroes of all those preceding Marvel-based, big-screen comic book adventures, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America: The First Avenger (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), to battle the unexpected enemy threatening global safety and security. (142 minutes)

92

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

, PG-13

A 6-year-old girl (Quvenzhane Wallis) from the Southern Delta searches for her long-lost mother after her father falls ill and not just her world but the whole world spins out of balance - soaring temperatures melt polar ice caps, sea levels swell, a race of prehistoric aurochs emerge to reclaim the planet. (93 minutes)

72

THE BOURNE LEGACY, PG-13 Jeremy Renner plays another estranged assassin, put through the same super-secret government genetic modification program that produced Jason Bourne, and who, like Bourne, has been marked for elimination. (135 minutes)

84

BRAVE, PG A courageous young Scottish princess (voice of Kelly Macdonald) inadvertently unleashes chaos in the kingdom while battling tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts and finding the meaning of true bravery. Animated. (100 minutes)

75

THE CAMPAIGN, R When a longterm North Carolina congressman (Will Ferrell) commits a major public gaffe before an election, a pair of ultra-wealthy CEOs plot to put up an unlikely rival candidate (Zach Galifianakis) to gain influence over their district. (97 minutes)

72

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, PG-

13

Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader, converted from hero to fugitive after he takes the blame for the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, this timepitted against the deadly masked terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy) and cunning cat burglar Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). (164 minutes) EK THA TIGER,

not rated

Salman Khan plays a mysterious bachelor who turns out to be India’s top spy whose codename is Tiger, and who discovers his human side on a mission to Dublin to observe a scientist who may be selling secrets to Pakistan. With Katrina Kaif, Girish Karnad, Ranvir Shorey, Roshan Seth; directed by Kabir Khan. (133 minutes)

78

THE EXPENDABLES 2, R The reunited Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews), with a couple of new members (Liam Hemsworth, Yu Nan) aboard, take on what appears at first to be a simple job - until things go wrong, whereupon they are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are, of course, stacked against them. (102 minutes)

65

HIT & RUN, R Co-director DaxShepard plays a nice guy with a questionable past who risks everything when he breaks out of the witness protection program to deliver his fiancee (Kristen Bell) to her dream job in Los Angeles. With Bradley Cooper, Tom Arnold, Beau Bridges, Kristin Chenoweth; co-directed by David Palmer. (100 minutes)

86

HOPE SPRINGS, PG-13 Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a devoted couple with a lot of years of married life under their belts. Looking to spice things up, she hauls him to a week of marriage therapy with a renowned couples specialist (Steve Carell), who triesto help them shed their bedroom hang-ups and re-ignite the spark that caused them to fall for each other in the first place. (100 minutes) Opened Wednesday

84

THE HUNGER GAMES, PG-13 Jennifer Lawrence plays a teenager in a post-apocalyptic United States picked by the evil capital city to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a nationally televised event of fights to the death until there’s only one survivor. (142 minutes)

70

ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT,

PG

Squirrelly Scrat’s nutty, timeworn pursuit of the accursed acorn triggers a continental cataclysm, in the midst of which Manny, Diego and Sid encounter a ragtag menagerie of characters determined to stop them from returning home.Animated. (94 minutes)

86

THE INTOUCHABLES, R An aristocrat (Francois Cluzet) whom a paragliding accident has left a quadriplegic hires a young man from the projects (Omar Sy) to be his caretaker. Subtitled. (112 minutes)

89

MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED

, PG

Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe, still fighting to get home to their beloved Big Apple, find the perfect cover for a transit of Europe: a traveling circus. Animated. (93 minutes)

79

MADEA’S WITNESS PROTECTION

, PG-13

The gentle chief financial officer of a Wall Street investment bank (Eugene Levy) with growing family problems escapes into the witness protection program - hiding out, natch, with Madea (writer-director Tyler Perry) - when it turns out his firm hasbeen operating a mob-backed Ponzi scheme and that he has been set up as the fall guy. (114 minutes)

89

MAGIC MIKE, R In a movie based on his life story, Channing Tatum plays a veteran male stripper who mentors an upstart young dancer (Alex Pettyfer) and schools him in the fine arts of partying, picking up women and making easy money. (110 minutes)

86

MEN IN BLACK 3, PG-13 Agent J (Will Smith) goes back in time to put things right, with partner K’s (Tommy Lee Jones, with Josh Brolin as his younger self) life and the fate of the planet in the balance. (106 minutes)

78

THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN

, PG

A happily married couple (Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton), dreaming about what their someday-child will be like, find a youngster (C.J. Adams) on their doorstep, bearing some unexpected gifts. (125 minutes)

88

PARANORMAN, PG Misunderstood Norman (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee) is the only availableghoul whisperer when his small town comes under siege by zombies. Stop-motion animated. (93 minutes)

83

PREMIUM RUSH, PG-13 Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the best of New York’s agile and aggressive bicycle messengers, is about to put his life even closer to the edge than he’s used to when the day’s last envelope, a “premium rush” run, turns into a life-or-death chase. With Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, Jamie Chung; directed by David Koepp. (91 minutes)

87

QUEEN OF VERSAILLES, PG Filmmaker Lauren Greenfield offers a documentary profile of timeshare entrepreneurs David and Jackie Siegel, who witness the sudden demise of their lifelong dream when the collapse of the economy calls a halt to the construction of their opulent, 90,000-square-foot Versailles-inspired manor. (100 minutes)

78

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

, PG-13

Definitely not a kiddie version of the classic Snow White story. Kristen Stewart is not the only one in the land fairer than the evil queen (Charlize Theron), but she has been training in the art of war with the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) dispatched to kill her. (127 minutes)

79

SPARKLE, PG-13 In the late 1960s, when Detroit was America’s music mecca, a music prodigy (Jordin Sparks) who is the youngest of three sisters struggles to become a star while overcoming issues that are tearing her family apart. (116 minutes) 84 THUNDERSTRUCK

, PG

A hopelessly uncoordinated teen fan magically switches talents with his hero (Kevin Durant as himself), whereupon he becomes the star of his high school basketball team - and Durant suddenly can’t make a shot to save his life. With James Belushi, Brandon T. Jackson, Larramie Doc Shaw, William Ragsdale; directed by John Whitesell. (90 minutes) 77 2016: OBAMA’S AMERICA

, PG

In this film, author and conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, whose writings about President Obama have created controversy (to say the least), covers four continents “to find answers to Obama’s past” and speculates where America will be in 2016. (89 minutes)

Movie-rating

point system

Movies are rated on

a scale from 50 to

  1. Guidelines for

moviegoers:

96-100 Transcendent

90-95 Exceptional

80-89 Better than most to remarkable

70-79 Average

60-69 Awful to mediocre

50-59 Irredeemable

MovieStyle, Pages 37 on 08/31/2012

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