Film clips

At area theaters 75 ADMISSION, PG-13 Tina Fey plays a strait-laced Princeton University admissions officer who is caught offguard when a recruiting visit to an alternative high school overseen by her former college classmate (Paul Rudd) turns up what may be the son (Nat Wolff) she secretly gave up for adoption many years ago.With Michael Sheen, Wallace Shawn, Gloria Reuben, Lily Tomlin; directed by Paul Weitz. (100 minutes) 89 ARGO, R Ben Affleck directs and plays a CIA rescue specialist who concocts (with Alan Arkin and John Goodman) a cockeyed plot to create a fake movie as a way of rescuing six Americans who escaped the 1979 Iranian takeover of the American embassy and subsequent 444-day hostage crisis. (120 minutes) 79 BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, PG-13 Two star-crossed lovers - a young man (Alden Ehrenreich) longing to escape his small town and a mysterious new girl (Alice Englert) - uncover dark secrets about their respective families and their small Southern town. (132 minutes)82 THE CALL, R Halle Berry plays a veteran 911 operator who realizes, after taking a life-altering call from an abducted teenage girl (Abigail Breslin), that she must confront a killer from her own past to save the girl’s life. (95 minutes) 79 THE CROODS, PG When the cave that has always shielded them from danger is destroyed, the world’s fi rst prehistoric family discover an incredible new world filled with fantastic creatures. Animated; with voices of Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman; directed by Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco. (98 minutes) 71 DEAD MAN DOWN, R Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace play two strangers -a professional killer and righthand man to an underground New York City crime lord and a crime victim seeking retribution, respectively - drawn together by a desire for revenge that triggers an escalating trail of mayhem. (110 minutes) 85 DJANGO UNCHAINED, R Director Quentin Tarantino’s double take on race relations in pre-Civil War South combined with an homage to spaghetti Westerns, involving a slave who teams up with a German-born bounty hunter to track down a pair of murderous brothers, then end up battling a treacherous organization that uses slaves for gladiatorial contests. (165 minutes) 75 HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, PG-13 Some 15 years after their celebrated contretemps at the gingerbread house in the forest, the two title siblings are now specialized bounty hunters looking to put down cacklers in black hats.(88 minutes) 68 IDENTITY THIEF, R Jason Bateman plays a regular guy in Denver forced to take extreme measures to clear his name after his identity is stolen by a Miami con artist (Melissa Mc-Carthy). (147 minutes) 87 JACK THE GIANT SLAYER, PG-13 A young man who inadvertently opens a door between our world and the home of fearsome giants reignites an ancient war. With Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Ewan Mc-Gregor; directed by Bryan Singer. (115 minutes)88 LIFE OF PI, PG A young man who survives a tragic disaster at sea forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship’s only other survivor - a Bengal tiger. (127 minutes) 90 LINCOLN, PG-13 Director Steven Spielberg’s take on the tumultuous final months in office of the 16th president (Daniel Day-Lewis). (120 minutes) 81 MAMA, PG-13 Two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day their parents were killed are rescuedyears later and begin a new life, only to find that someone (or something) still wants to come tuck them in at night. (100 minutes) 68 OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, R When a terrorist mastermind captures the White House and kidnaps the president, it’s up to a disgraced former Secret Service agent and his inside knowledge to help his team retake the building and save the chief executive. With Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Dylan McDermott, Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo, Rick Yune; directed by Antoine Fuqua.(120 minutes) 77 OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, PG James Franco plays Oscar Zoroaster Diggs, a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, where he encounters three witches (Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams) who are not entirely convinced he is the great wizard everyone’s been expecting.(127 minutes) 62 PARENTAL GUIDANCE, PG Billy Crystal plays a grandfather who finds that his and his wife’s (Bette Midler) old-school ideas of child rearing con◊ict with 21st-century problems when baby-sitting their three grandchildren. (104 minutes) 87 QUARTET, PG-13 Two lifelong friends and a former colleague living in a home for retired opera singers give an annual Giuseppe Verdi birthday concert; this year, with the arrival of a former grand dame (Maggie Smith), old grudges resurface and threaten the benefit. (97 minutes) 73 RISE OF THE GUARDIANS, PG The immortal Guardians - Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman and Jack Frost - do battle to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children everywhere from an evil spirit seeking to take over the world. Animated. (97 minutes) 87 SAFE HAVEN, PG-13 A mysterious young woman’s reluctance to join the tight-knit community in a small North Carolina town raises questions abouther past, especially when she starts a relationship with a widowed store owner with two children. (115 minutes) 81 SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, R Bradley Cooper plays a manic-depressive who, after spending eight months ina state institution, moves back in with his mother (Jacki Weaver) and father (Robert De Niro). He wants to reunite with his wife; they want him to get back on his feet - and share their obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles - until he meets an intriguing young widow with a similar history (Jennifer Lawrence). (122 minutes) 77 SNITCH, PG-13 Supposedly “inspired by true events.” Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson plays a father who, determined to save his wrongly accused teenage son from a long prison sentence for drug distribution, makes a deal to infiltrate a drug cartel as an undercover informant. (112 minutes) 88 SPRING BREAKERS, R Four girlfriends hold up a restaurant to finance a spring break adventure, but find themselves in debt to a local rapper, drug pusher and arms dealer who lures them into a criminal underworld “that’s as lurid as it is liberating.” With Selena Gomez, James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, AshleyBenson, Heather Morris; directed by Harmony Korine. (94 minutes) 86 STAND UP GUYS, R Al Pacino, Alan Arkin and Christopher Walken play aging crooks who take one last road trip before one of them has to kill the other on a mob boss’s orders. (95 minutes) 82 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2, PG-13 Bella (Kristen Stewart), beginning her new life as a vampire and mother, must defend her and Edward’s (Robert Pattinson) newborn daughter against the nasties determined to destroy the child. (116 minutes) 87 WEST OF MEMPHIS, R Amy Berg’s documentary look at the West Memphis Three case - Damien Wayne Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley arrested, charged and convicted of the murder of three 8-year-old boys in 1993, and the uncovering of new evidence that contributed to the “Alford plea” that freed them after 18 years. (150 minutes) 85 WRECK-IT RALPH, PG John C.Reilly is the voice of the title video game character, tired of being overshadowed by Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer), who decides he’s now going to be the “good guy” and sets off on a game-hopping journey across the arcade. Animated. (108 minutes)

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96-100 Transcendent

90-95 Exceptional

80-89 Better than most to remarkable

70-79 Average

60-69 Awful to mediocre

50-59 Irredeemable