New movies to be released tomorrow on DVD

9 (2009)
Grade: B
9, who is about the size and shape of one of those posable tabletop mannequins used by art students, has a soft burlap body and a zipper up his middle. His outsize eyes blink like camera shutters, and they take in a world of monstrous terror and haunting mystery.

In the 10-minute version of the animated film that bears his name, 9 and his comrades — who I suppose should be called robots, though they are softer and rounder than the contraptions usually evoked by that word — navigate their surroundings without speech. Now, at feature length, the main character’s muteness is a temporary impediment, and he finds himself surrounded by eight other numbered automatons, introduced out of order like a row of Sudoku. (The numerologically inclined will note that the film’s opened in theaters on 9/9/09). Some of these figures speak in the polished tones of well-known actors, including John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly and Crispin Glover.

Once 2 (Martin Landau) gives him a tuneup, 9 begins asking questions in the voice of Elijah Wood. And one of the virtues of this 9, as of its shorter predecessor (both were directed by Shane Acker, who wrote the feature with Pamela Pettler) is that it does not rush toward answers. Instead it lingers in a strange, sinister and brilliantly realized landscape rich with allusions to the histories of painting, animation, fantastic literature and 20th-century totalitarianism.

It’s a lot to stuff into 88 minutes, along with rattling monsters, hectic battle sequences and a series of debates between 9 and 1 (Christopher Plummer) about the proper response to danger. (1 wants to remain safe, hidden and ignorant, while 9 wants to fight, explore and learn. You can guess who prevails). But even though it grows a little busy at times and concludes with an unfortunate and unconvincing foray into mystico-spiritual mumbo jumbo, 9 shows remarkable imagination and visual integrity.

Combining two well-worn, endlessly fertile science fiction conceits — the postapocalyptic planet and the sensitive machine — Acker has made a parable of technological peril that is both exciting and satisfyingly enigmatic. Though he uses the latest computer-assisted techniques, his aesthetic has a pleasingly creaky, handmade feel, as if his main tools were not a mouse and a keyboard but rather a needle and thread.

The evil machines ranged against the soft-bodied robots resemble collaborations between Rube Goldberg and Hieronymus Bosch. They are demonic things with glowing eyes and ferocious appetites. The motive for their murderous zeal is one of the puzzles that 9, in the midst of struggling for survival, must try to solve.

This movie’s affinity with WALL-E, another fable of a soulful machine in a blighted, depopulated milieu, is clear enough, though 9 never achieves that film’s lyrical sublimity. Some of Mr. Acker’s influences are easy to spot, from experimental animators like Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay to Tim Burton, a producer of 9. Its look is smoky, dusty and vaguely European, and its gadgets have an analog solidity that suggests the futuristic nightmares of a long-ago time.

9 and his brethren, scuttling through bombed-out buildings like partisans in an occupied city, evading predatory bird- and spiderlike foes and quarreling among themselves, also try to piece together their own history. Their inquiry is both metaphysical — who made them, and why? — and practical: what are they made of, and how does it work? Answers are parceled out in quieter moments and in vivid rushes of imagery that punctuate the fights and flights.

The action is breathless and intense, the ravenous villains are frightening to behold, and the overall mood is probably too dark and anxious for very young children. But every effort to expand the range of feature-length animation beyond the confines of cautious family fare is to be welcomed, and budding techno and fantasy geeks are likely to be intrigued and enthralled.


JENNIFER’S BODY (2009)
Grade: B-
Hell is a teenage girl. So observes the narrator of Jennifer's Body, tongue in cheek — not to mention other bodily regions.

The high school horror-comedy with a decidedly feminist bite stars Megan Fox as the traffic-stopping title character and Amanda Seyfried as her BFF, Needy.

It is Needy (short for Anita) who narrates the tale of Satanism, ravishment, and revenge in girlspeak courtesy of Diablo Cody, the writer of Juno. (While Cody's dialogue is endlessly repeatable, every line is delivered as though it has air quotes around it.)

As a horror movie, Jennifer's Body doesn't fully deliver. But as a comic allegory of what it's like to be an adolescent girl who comes into sexual and social power that she doesn't know what the heck to do with, it is a minor classic.

Cody and director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux) have a lot of fun setting up Fox — seen here in all her glory, with that double-dip bod and triple-dip eyelashes — as the voluptuous vixen too cool for school and too hot for you. As this sexually ambidextrous character, Fox has a lot of fun, too. Her teasing message: I know what boys want — and I know what girls want, too.

Instead of sacrificing Jennifer as the hot chick who deserves to get punished, as girls of this sort routinely are in horror films, the filmmakers present her as one overwhelmed by hormones and male attention. Jennifer is tired of being the campus lust object. She's tired of the limited menu of men in Devil's Kettle, Minn. She's looking for fresh meat.

So, with bestie Needy in tow, Jennifer goes to the local roadhouse to hear an emo band, Low Shoulder, led by Nikolai (Adam Brody), and makes him her lust object. Then hell is unleashed, and Jennifer becomes a literal man-eater. Yes, there's a satanic initiation with a side of chili con carnage.

In a clunky but not unlikable way, the filmmakers play with ideas about female sexual voracity. At first, it is suggested, Jennifer is a nymphomaniac. The way Cody structured the film suggests that a not-very-interesting phenomenon has taken place when in fact it is later revealed that something much more interesting has happened. As the movie progresses, Jennifer emerges as the Jessica Rabbit of horror — she's not bad, she's just drawn that way.

As hottie and nottie, Fox is appropriately foxy, and Seyfried (a genuine beauty) is made to look geeky. These are archetypal characters, to be sure, but Fox and Seyfried are very good in expressing the intensity of teen-girl friendships.

Kusama, a good director of actresses, doesn't establish her own visual style. Instead, she borrows from other directors (Jennifer's Body pays tribute to many horror flicks, including Carrie, The Silence of the Lambs, Thelma & Louise, and Halloween). This makes the film seem derivative when, in fact, it is an original.


PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2009)
Grade: B
The surprise success of the microbudget indie horror film Paranormal Activity constitutes one of those pop-culture moments when you realize that mass taste is sometimes better than you give it credit for. This may not be the horror movie of the year—that crown still easily goes to Sam Raimi's similarly themed Drag Me to Hell—but it's good enough that its unexpected popularity is heartening. In a genre where a fresh mutilated corpse every 15 minutes has become a reasonable expectation, this slow-paced but relentless spooker is refreshingly un-extreme. It comes by its screams honestly, earning them with incremental, at times agonizing gradations of old-fashioned, what's-that-noise-in-the-hallway suspense.

Though it's a retro haunted-house movie at heart, Paranormal Activity is formally postmodern, departing from the same found-footage conceit as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. A title tells us that the families of Katie Featherstone and Micah Sloat have authorized the use of the images we're about to see. As it turns out, those are both the real-life names of the actors and the character names of the couple we're about to spend 86 claustrophobic minutes with. Micah and Katie live together in San Diego, in a house that, while not a mansion, is pretty swank for a couple in their 20s: two stories, three bedrooms, a backyard pool. (I'll get back to the significance of their apparent financial comfort later.)

In the first scene, Micah is setting up a home video camera in their bedroom, to Katie's mild protests. They've been hearing some weird noises at night around the house, and Micah wants to prove to her that the creaks and rustlings are nothing but normal house-settling sounds (not that he seems all that confident himself). All night, every night, the camera sits fixed at their bedside as they sleep through a crescendo of unexplainable events. Doors open and close. Chandeliers swing. Bedclothes ruffle. None of this is sufficiently horrifying to run screaming out of the house about, but it's enough to convince Micah to continue with the nightly recording, just in case.

The couple's mutual conviction that the haunting is sort of like a mouse infestation, a niggling household problem to keep on top of, is one of the funnier things about Paranormal Activity, which doubles, in its less scary moments, as a domestic comedy. Micah trails Katie around with the camera as they squabble and bargain (he for on-camera sex, she for a moment of privacy). As the creepy nocturnal happenings escalate, each proposes a different solution: She wants to call in a demonologist to exorcise the place (an approach that, by this film's logic, seems as rational and sound as getting a yearly mammogram). He wants to consult a Ouija board—not a popular idea with either Katie, her best friend, or the demon itself, who, when the couple has stepped out for dinner one night, sets the offending occult object on fire.

The writer/director, first-timer Oren Peli, bides his time to a sadistic degree, revealing only as much about the poltergeist as we need to know to keep us anxious. Katie has felt followed by an evil spirit since her house burned down in childhood. (Cut to the events of night No. 8.) A psychic she calls in for a consultation refuses to stay in the house. (Cut to night No. 9.) A childhood photograph of Katie—one that should have disappeared in that long-ago fire—surfaces in the attic. (Cut to night No. 10.) The film is rhythmically punctuated by these long, static shots of the couple sleeping, and we come to dread the nights as much as they do. When you're watching time-lapse film of two people asleep in a dark room, it's surprising how little it takes to scare you: The image of Katie getting out of the bed and standing stock-still next to it as the hours fast-forward past is inexplicably unsettling.

That's all I'll say of the minimalist plot, except to observe that, unless I misunderstood the ending completely, the last few seconds are a bit of a letdown. But since Paranormal Activity has been so widely discussed already—opinion is sharply divided—I'd like to end this review with my own possibly crackpot reading of the film as allegory for the credit crisis. As mentioned above, Micah and Katie live quite nicely for a couple of their age. His job is described only as "day trader," Katie's as "student," and during the 20 or so days of home movies we witness, we never see either leaving the house for work or school. Even if the couple flees the house their overleveraged dollars have bought, Katie's childhood demon will catch up with her eventually, as will Micah's hubris about solving the haunting problem with no help from anyone else. Both of them—especially the day-trading, night-filming Micah—consistently overestimate their own ability to understand and manage the forces that threaten them. And the apparent consumerist complacency of the movie's opening—as Micah fires up his new camera for the first time, Katie teases him about how much it must have cost—soon gives way to a far harsher focus on day-to-day survival. Though it never poses a question more abstract than "Where's that scratching sound coming from?" Paranormal Activity is all about spiritual and ethical debts coming due. As we watch the doomed couple fall asleep night after night, we ask what the day traders never asked themselves: How long can they keep pretending everything's all right?


A PERFECT GETAWAY (2009)
Grade: B
Those who happened to see the big-budget mess The Chronicles of Riddick five years ago may have sworn off David Twohy's films for life.

The cut that played in theaters was just enough of a bloated, over-caffeinated Dune-like spectacle to make audiences forget all the nice touches that the writer-director had with dialogue and action in Pitch Black. It says something that the two Riddick video games were infinitely better, with the pixelated Vin Diesel's performance in the video game somehow more engaging than the flesh and blood actor in the movie.

A Perfect Getaway is a clever, heart-pounding thriller, and a welcome return to form for the director. It probably has a thousandth the visual effects budget of the Riddick movie, lasting 97 minutes without a single explosion. But the acting is strong and the director sets a bold, interesting pace — at times verging on collapsing the fourth wall between the actors and the audience. It's the type of B-movie throwaway thriller that studios program as secondary films during the summer blockbuster season, but Twohy refuses to just go through the motions.

Much of the credit goes to the actors, starting with Cliff (Steve Zahn) as a screenwriter on a honeymoon with his less adventurous wife, Cydney (Milla Jovovich). A male-female pair of serial killers is offing couples in Hawaii, and Cliff and Cydney meet some prime candidates in the form of two grungy hitchhikers, and a seemingly friendly couple that they run across on the trail.

Even with a somewhat over-the-top final third of the film, the weaknesses will occur to audiences only as they think about the film later. Although a second viewing may clarify some inconsistencies, there are definitely a few actions by the principals that don't make sense once the spoilers are revealed.

The dialogue is sharp and funny, with most of the best lines going to Timothy Olyphant as Nick, a hard-core survivalist type whose brain isn't wired like the rest of ours. Twohy also takes two classic moves from the Wes Craven playbook: He uses Cliff's profession to make fun of the genre, while also letting the audience know it's OK not to take the movie too seriously. (A conversation involving the use of red herrings in movies is particularly spot-on, considering this may be the red-herring-est movie of the year.)

And when the bad guys are revealed and it's time for some kill-or-be-killed action, he allows his protagonists to do more than run and scream and trip over stuff. Before it's over, you might end up feeling a little sorry for the villains.


WEATHER GIRL (2009)
Grade: C
Engaging lead performances and snatches of witty repartee help lubricate the creaky plot mechanics in Weather Girl, a lightly amusing but thoroughly predictable dramedy that plays like a Lifetime made-for-cable production with an R-rated soundtrack. Sitcom vet (and, perhaps more important, co-producer) Tricia O'Kelley makes a winning impression in the title role of what's obviously intended as a star-vehicle showcase. Even so, this indie fim relies more heavily on the bigger names in the supporting cast —especially Mark Harmon of the hit television series NCIS — to grab maximum attention.

Opening scenes — as wildly improbable as they are undeniably hilarious — depict the oncamera meltdown of Sylvia Miller (O'Kelley), the "sassy weather girl" (as she's repeatedly referenced) of a Seattle morning TV news show. Long romantically involved with Dale Waters (Harmon), the show's preening host, Sylvia more or less commits career suicide by publicly trashing Dale for his loutish infidelity (and unimpressive sexual prowess) while, off in the control room, members of the snickering production crew — evidently unmindful or uncaring of FCC regulations — allow her foul-mouthed tirade to be aired live.

In the wake of this episode, not surprisingly, Sylvia finds herself unable to land a job at any other Seattle broadcast outlet. So she's forced to move in with her slacker younger brother, acerbic Walt (Ryan Devlin), and take a waitressing job for a demanding restaurateur (a fleeting, funny cameo by Jane Lynch). Sylvia is all the more anxious about being unattached as well as underemployed because, as her best buddies (Alex Kapp Horner, Marin Hinkle) none-too-subtly remind her, she is 35 and counting.

But her friends don't stop there: They also suggest that although Dale behaved atrociously — he cheated on Sylvia with his conspicuously younger co-host (Kaitlin Olson) — he wasn't entirely wrong when he accused Sylvia of maintaining a tight grip on her emotions.

Partly to deflect such criticism, but largely to get herself through a dry and lonely stretch, Sylvia throws herself into a strictly sexual, no-strings-attached relationship with Byron (Patrick J. Adams), Walt's friend and neighbor, a website designer who insists he's "a great rebound guy." Of course, they agree they'll never fall in love, because, hey, he's six years younger than she is, and they really have nothing in common, and she's not looking for anything permanent, and ... OK, so you know where this is going.

Writer-director Blayne Weaver doesn't cover any new ground, but he takes a few clever turns while heading toward the inevitable happy ending. The movie might have been even more effective if he had risked a bit more and pandered a tad less — he and O'Kelley seem reluctant to risk turning off viewers by focusing too long on Sylvia's less attractive but more intriguing qualities.

But O'Kelley and Adams develop an enjoyably edgy/romantic give-and-take, largely because they have some of the film's best dialogue. ("You're sexy," he says, "in a foreign film kind of way, with the angles and the attitude ... ") And Harmon deftly remains one step short of caricature while playing Dale as more clueless than caddish. Other supporting players — including Jon Cryer as a fatuous blind date from hell, and an unbilled Blair Underwood as a TV station manager — are well-cast. The production values are unspectacular, but sufficient.

"Iron Man" strong, but "Baby Mama" collapses

By PHILIP WUNTCH
Film Critic Emeritus

Let's first answer the most obvious question: Yes, it's as good as you've heard.

"Iron Man" stylishly rejuvenates the comic-book-superhero genre. But its success goes deeper than superficial style. The visually inventive film also has wit, heart and, rare for this increasingly paper-thin genre, strong elements of suspense. You know Iron Man will triumph over various forms of adversity, but how he manages it is always intriguing.

Marvel Comics, which produced the film, initiated the ironclad superhero in 1963. But by now, even non-Marvel connoisseurs know that the astonishing iron outfit hides the identity of billionaire Tony Stark, a sassy amalgam of Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner.

Onetime boy-genius Stark now faces middle-age as a boozy womanizer. Upon his father's death, he inherited a vast munitions empire and enjoys being known as "the merchant of death." He gets ironic comeuppance when kidnapped by Afghanistan insurgents who favor Stark Industries weaponry. (Back in '63, the baddies were Viet Cong). His abductors order him to build a new weapon that will turn their leader into "the next Genghis Khan." Instead, the wily Stark invents a iron suit with enough hi-tech gadgetry to allow him to escape their evil grasp.

Upon returning home, he decides to use his personal skills and financial means to make the world a better place. Such a noble change of heart does not please his second-in-command, Obadiah Stain, the silken epitome of corporate greed.

With Tony Stark/Iron Man in virtually every scene, much of the film's success rests on Robert Downey Jr.'s performance, and he underacts magnificently. RDJ, as the smart kids now call him, knows exactly when to curb the histrionics. He succeeds at being sarcastic but not snide and blase but not boring. Even more difficult, upon his reformation, he's earnest but not stodgy.

His physicality, so memorable in the sometimes drab "Chaplin," receives an even more demanding work-out here, and he never falters. He's equally deft with throwaway comic lines, a skill also showcased in last year's unappreciated "Zodiac."

Like any blockbuster, "Iron Man" benefits many careers. For Gwyneth Paltrow, a strong supporting role proves a savvy career move. A post-"Shakespeare in Love" backlash penalized Paltrow for becoming an icon too quickly. But as Pepper Potts, Stark's loyal, intuitive Girl Friday, she delivers a warm and frequently glowing performance that should win new fans. The largely silent romantic moments between Paltrow and Downey have real chemistry.

For years, Jeff Bridges has joked about his curse of giving strong performances in films that failed to attract large audiences. "Iron Man" will vanquish that curse. As duplicitous Obadiah Stane, Bridges' has shorn his wavy locks of hair, which renders his armory of facial reactions all the more emphatic, while his natural, easygoing manner turns Obadiah into a truly deceptive menace. Terrence Howard does a good-sport turn as Stark's Pentagon liaison Rhodey, among the first to learn Iron Man's identity.

A primary beneficiary of "Iron Man"'s victory is director Jon Favreau, whose previous films only hinted at his current milestone. "Elf" was a surprise hit and indicated his skill at playful human interaction. "Made," an indie success, gave evidence of an edgier perspective. But "Zathura: A Space Adventure" proved once again that big budgets do not always mean big movies.

However, working with "Iron Man"'s immense crew, Favreau maneuvers terrific chases, soaring dogfights and imaginative escapes. The final showdown between Iron Man and Iron Monger, which some have dismissed as anti-climactic, is actually a splendid display of action strategy.

Like his star, Favreau proves equally skillful with intimate vignettes, and Stark's one-on-one scenes with friends and foes manipulate the viewer in all the right ways.

I saw "Iron Man" over the weekend with a paying audience. Although it had only been showing for two days, several moviegoers said it was their second or third time to watch the film. As for me, I can't wait to see it again.

"MAMA" PROBLEMS: "Baby Mama," this week's feel-good comedy, collapses in its third act.

Prior to that catastrophe, you can enjoy the performances of Tina Fey as a 37-year-old businesswoman who unsuccessful strives to have a baby, Amy Poehler as the brassy high-school dropout who agrees to be the baby's surrogate mother and Dax Shepard as Poehler's redneck common-law husband.

And you'll delight in the inspired comic antics of Sigourney Weaver as a patronizing surrogacy expert and Steve Martin as Fey's boss, a health-food tycoon who fancies himself a New Age guru.

So what goes wrong with "Baby Mama"? Greg Kinnear does. From his opening scene, his role as a small-time fruit smoothie entrepreneur is an obvious plot device, and Kinnear's smug performance helps not at all. As written, directed and acted, Kinnear's good-guy character leaves a hollow after-taste. And so, I am afraid, does the movie.

First-time director/screenwriter Michael McCullers balances his clunky direction with sharp dialogue for as much as 60 percent of the film. But once the action shifts to Kinnear's fruit-smoothie king, everything tanks.

But do plan on seeing "Iron Man" twice.

"Visitor" mixes human comedy with human drama while "Sarah" is a hoot

By PHILIP WUNTCH
Film Critic Emeritus

Having enjoyed and -- dare I say it? -- even adored director Thomas McCarthy's first film "The Station Agent," I approached "The Visitor" with mild trepidation. Second films have a way of disappointing both filmmaker and filmgoer.

Such hesitation proves happily unfounded. "The Visitor" may not be as immediately huggable as "The Station Agent." But ultimately it's even more provocative and memorable.

Some pundits have labeled the movie a post-9/11 political treatise regarding illegal aliens. But that's only a small fraction of the film's mosaic. It's basically a story of the reawakening of human emotion and the redemptive powers of friendship. Some of its plot twists are forecast as much as an hour before they develop, but director/screenwriter McCarthy's uncanny observation of human behavior makes them flow with natural ease.

Walter Vale, a disenchanted global economics professor played to perfection by veteran character actor Richard Jenkins, provides an initially grim centerpiece. He's the sort of prof students and even colleagues dislike. Unfailingly polite but always dismissive, the widowed Walter mentions his grown son only in passing. With no patience for any shortcomings other than his own, he seems to deserve his own loneliness.

His mundane existence undergoes a drastic change when he leaves his Connecticut campus for a brief visit to a Greenwich Village apartment he once shared with his wife. He finds it occupied by a Syrian musician named Tarek and Tarek's Senegalese girlfriend Zainab. Both are illegal aliens. Walter connects quickly yet convincingly with extroverted charmer Tarek and eventually with the more reluctant Zainab. Most importantly, he bonds with Tarek's devoted mother Mouna.

Tarek teaches Walter to play drums, which provides the emotionally dormant professor a joyous means of self-expression. But Tarek is unjustly arrested and faces deportation when his illegal status is discovered.

Jenkins is probably best-known as a patriarchal ghost in "Six Feet Under" although "Flirting With Disaster" fans will recognize him as the gay FBI agent who gets a hilarious heroin high. "The Visitor" should be his breakthrough movie. Walter being a man of few words, Jenkins exquisitely captures his body English. His facial features have the stillness appropriate for a man unaccustomed to smiling, but even his blankest stares become a mode of communication.

All the performances are superb. Hiam Abbass, fondly remembered from "The Syrian Bride," is a model of powerful understatement as the resolute, proud Mouna, and her relationship with Walter is lovely to behold. The character of warm-hearted Tarek could easily be overplayed, but Haaz Sleiman never strikes a false note, while Danai Jekesai Gurira registers each layer of Zainab's often unspoken emotions. The film is so well-cast that Marian Seldes, one of Edward Albee's favorite stage actresses, gives a sharp performance as a dour piano teacher.

"The Visitor" is a profoundly moving mixture of human comedy and human drama. And always the emphasis is on "human."

ABOUT "SARAH MARSHALL": "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is one cheery, likable movie that, for the most part, manages to be cheery and likable without insulting your intelligence.

It's a comedy of the disasters that befall Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) when he's dumped by Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), the star of a dumbed-down CSI-type television show. (William Baldwin does a hilarious cameo as her co-star.)

Since Peter is the composer of the TV show's music, every working moment reminds him of Sarah. To forget the titular character and find time to work on his long-gestating rock opera based on the Dracula legends, he heads for Hawaii. It's typical of his luck that he winds up at the same hotel where Sarah vacations with new lover, British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

If that sounds like a lame premise, it is. But the screenplay, written by Segel, has an abundance of sharp dialogue and realistically constructed characters. Novice director Nicholas Stoller has a sometimes ponderous sense of pacing, but he's clearly an actor-friendly helmer who knows how to respect a solid screenplay. He draws outstanding performances from a cast familiar to couch potatoes.

"How I Met Your Mother"'s Segel plays yet another variation of that current comedy craze, the protagonist who fails to navigate the seas of romance. Although Peter occasionally resembles the characters immortalized by the young Woody Allen, Segel gives his own touch to the comic mishaps. The screenplay also calls for him to be caught literally with his pants down, familiarizing audiences with Peter's male appendage.

Mila Kunis, known from "Family Guy" and "That '70s Show," enchants both Peter and the audience as a warm hotel employee, while Bell never tries to soften Sarah's self-absorption. Brand is consistently hilarious as Sarah's new main man, whose deceptive friendliness to hapless Peter provides some clever moments. But as Peter's bossy stepbrother, "Saturday Night Live"'s Bill Hader overcompensates for having the screenplay's least developed role.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is, more often than not, a lark and frequently a hoot.

Scorsese lights Stones, Renee bangs heads, saluting "Angels," huggable "Moon"

By PHILIP WUNTCH
Film Critic Emeritus
Some (moderately) short takes on current movies:

RISE AND "SHINE": Martin Scorsese's films, with their editing, camera movements and emotional crescendos, often seem like cinematic equivalents of rock music. Besides, Marty (as all us Scorsese buffs call him) was one of the editors of 1970's seminal "Woodstock" and directed 1978's masterful Band documentary "The Last Waltz."

And now, to no one's surprise, Marty and the Rolling Stones prove to be a rich, rapturous movie marriage. "Shine a Light," best seen in IMAX at Cinemark 17, depicts the Stones' two-day concert at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre. Part of the group's 2006 "Bigger Bang Tour," the concert was in honor of Bill Clinton's birthday. As a cultural landmark, that may not be as epochal as Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday" to JFK, but it still ranks as An Event.

And the movie itself is an event. Aided by 18 cameramen, Marty exquisitely captures the adrenalin rush of a Stones concert. Unlike the recent U2 IMAX movie, "Shine a Light" is not in 3-D. It doesn't need to be. The film's you-are-there urgency allows the intimacy of a one-on-one serenade without losing the excitement of a large concert hall.

"Shine a Light" demonstrates expert use of one of moviemaking's most impactful weapons, the close-up. We get piercing looks at the weatherbeaten faces of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (looking worse than anyone else, but playing great guitar), Ron Wood and Charlie Watts. These craggy close-ups remind us of how the Stones have aged. And, more significantly, how we have aged too.

Jagger and youthful Christina Aguilera perform "Live With Me." Other memorable segments feature "Sympathy for the Devil," "Satisfaction," "Honky Tonk Women," "Faraway Eyes" and "Start Me Up."

"Shine a Light" emerges as a dynamic yet thought-provoking film. It may not generate the legendary legacy of Marty's "The Last Waltz." But it's a great concert movie.

LYNCHING ZELLWEGER: George Clooney is the apparent fall guy for "Leatherheads," his lame attempt to resurrect 1930s-style screwball comedy against a backdrop of 1920s football.

Actually, Clooney is the lesser culprit. He's clearly enamored of 1930s comedies (many of which, incidentally, his father Nick used to introduce in the halcyon days of the American Movie Classics cable network). But as a director, he trades too heavily on nostalgia, hoping that 80-year-old artifacts automatically bring forth a chorus of "ah-h-h-h-h's".

He's also generous as actor/director. Don't get me wrong. Gorgeous George gets plenty of close-ups, and even when covered with mud, his suave composure never wavers. But he realizes the importance of supporting players, and everyone gets the chance to strut.

In the sad case of Renee Zellweger, she gets too many chances to strut, and she abuses all of them. She plays that staple of Hollywood Golden Age comedies, the scrappy, ambitious newspaperwoman. When Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell and Jean Arthur played wise-cracking dames, they often had the good judgment to toss off their lines in an understated manner, allowing the audience to digest them for a few seconds and then laugh even more loudly.

Zellweger doesn't toss off anything. She mugs, grimaces and poses as if auditioning for a reprise of Helen Hayes' stowaway role in "Airport." She bludgeons every line of dialog to the point of agony. At first I wanted to throw something at the screen. By the end of the movie, I wanted to yank her image off the screen and do some bludgeoning myself. Hers is arguably the most annoying performance in any of the current century's A-list movies.

Once upon a time, say a dozen years ago, Zellweger knew the meaning of subtlety. In 1996's virtually forgotten "The Whole Wide World," she played a prim schoolteacher who inspires Robert Howard, tormented author of "Conan the Barbarian." That was, of course, an entirely different role, and as Howard, brooding Vincent D'Onofrio was an entirely different acting partner than cheeky Clooney. But her performance was filled with delightful small touches.

A few of those small touches could have elevated "Leatherheads." Instead, she helps sink the entire enterprise. I found myself whispering, "Go away, Renee, go away." Again and again and again.

SERIOUS "ANGELS": I look back on "Snow Angels" with considerable fondness and even admiration. Yet I walked out of the theater almost totally depressed. The film ends with a glimmer of hope, but what precedes the finale is an unflinching look at human unhappiness.

Small-town high-schooler Michael Angarano has more than his share of teen angst. His parents are splitting up, and he works at a Chinese restaurant, where he harbors a longtime crush on co-worker Kate Beckinsale, who once was his babysitter. She's now in the midst of a bitter estrangement from irresponsible husband Sam Rockwell, her high-school sweetheart. Sam's now a recovering alcoholic and a born-again Christian, and his desperate attempts to win Kate back are heartbreaking.

The movie is beautifully acted, with Rockwell and Angarano hitting all the right, pungent notes. Beckinsale gives a courageous performance, unafraid to reveal her character's less likable qualities. Amy Sedaris, as Kate's weary, sarcastic co-worker, and Olivia Thirlby, as an outspoken geek with designs on Angarano, are delightful.

Onetime Richardson resident David Gordon Green, who adapted the screenplay from Stewart O'Nan's lauded novel, obviously cares deeply for his characters and his actors. He also allows moments of genuine wit to lighten the film's heavy emotional load.

All of us have problems. So do we really need a movie that burdens us with other people's emotional crises? Judging from my own reactions, I say we do. As I said, I left the Angelika feeling depressed. Yet the more I thought about the movie, the more I liked it. Not every movie has to be huggable, and you won't want to hug "Snow Angels." But after you think about it, you'll feel like saluting it. And I'm not referring to the middle-finger salute, which so many other contemporary movies provoke.

FULL "MOON": "Under the Same Moon" is filled with traps, and it escapes almost all of them.

It's the story of 9-year-old Carlitos' clandestine journey from Mexico to Los Angeles, where his illegal-alien mother works. They haven't seen each other in four years, and he wonders if she still loves him.

Of course, she does. She toils rigorously to save enough money to pay for him to join her, all the while trying to hide her illegal status from omnipresent prying eyes. Carlitos, for his part, proves enormously enterprising as he escapes a child prostitution ring and sidesteps other, more humorous, situations.

Along the way, he meets Enrique, an avuncular illegal alien who at first detests having to look after a child but soon becomes Carlitos' biggest champion.

See what I mean about traps? Most of the situations border on cliches, and the characters could easily dwindle into stereotypes. Moreover, the plot's contrivances often stretch credibility.

But director Patricia Riggens, in her feature debut, softens the screenplay's potential blows by understating each emotion-filled vignette. And a trio of triumphant lead performances offer immeasurable aid.

Adrian Alonso, who was 12 when the movie was shot, pushes all the right buttons without making the button-pushing obvious. He's cute without being too cute, and his responses are natural and endearing. Kate del Castillo registers the mother's weariness and hopefulness in equal measure.

As Enrique, Eugenio Derbies has the biggest challenge. His role could have disintegrated so rapidly into the lovable-grouch stereotype. But his comic and dramatic facilities vanquish the cliche.

"Under the Same Moon" is a huggable movie, one you can embrace without feeling guilty.