Scheduled to Open Friday
MR. 3000 (PG-13) -- Hall of Fame baseball player Bernie Mac is forced out of retirement when he learns that three of his 3,000 hits don't count on his career stats total in this comedy directed by Charles Stone III (Drumline). Co-stars Angela Bassett, Chris Noth (Mr. Big!), Paul Sorvino and Michael Rispoli.
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW (PG) -- Sky Captain Jude Law teams with ex-girlfriend and reporter Gwyneth Paltrow to prevent a mad scientist from destroying the world in 1930s New York City in this sci-fi film written and directed by first-timer Kerry Conran, a CGI whiz. Co-stars Michael Gambon, Giovanni Ribisi and Angelina Jolie.
WIMBLEDON (PG-13) -- Fading tennis player Paul Bettany (Master and Commander) romances promising but rebellious newcomer Kirsten Dunsten during his last shot at the All-England Lawn Tennis Championships in this romance directed by Richard Loncraine (Richard III). Co-stars Jon Favreau and Sam Neill.
Now Showing
ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (PG-13) -- Not since Godzilla and Mothra tangled has there been such an anticipated match-up of very, very bad monsters in this film directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat) and starring Sanaa Lathan and Lance Henriksen. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Holiday 12, Movies 8
ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID (PG-13) -- The cast is new but the snake is as big and menacing as ever in this sequel to the campy, so-bad-it's-good 1997 hit that starred Ice Cube, J-Lo and Jon Voight. This cast features Johnny Messner, Morris Chestnut, Peter Curtis and Eugene Byrd. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9
BENJI: OFF THE LEASH! (PG) -- Everybody's favorite mutt sleuth returns to the big screen as Benji teams up with a dog named Shaggy (zoinks!) to help save Benji's mama. Chalmette
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (PG-13) -- Matt Damon returns as David Webb/Jason Bourne in the second installment of the Robert Ludlum spy trilogy. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 20
CATWOMAN (PG-13) -- C- Halle Berry is a shy commercial artist who gets dead at the hand of meanies and reincarnated from the breath of a magic kitty. Time to dress like Donna the Dominatrix and kick some serious ass. (Barton) Chalmette
CELLULAR (PG-13) -- Kidnapped woman Kim Basinger places a panicky phone call to stranger Chris Evans in the hopes of saving herself and her family from kidnapper Jason Statham in this thriller directed by David R. Ellis. Co-stars Jessica Biel and William H. Macy. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9
COLLATERAL (R) -- B+ Hitman Tom Cruise forces cabbie Jamie Foxx to drive him around as he does his 'errands' over the course of one night in this taut and surprisingly cheeky noir thriller from Michael Mann. Cruise is at his coolest, in a deadly way, in this film, while Foxx provides an almost perfect counterpart as his flummoxed, unwilling partner. (Simmons) AMC Palace 20, Grand
COOKOUT (PG-13) -- NBA rookie Storm P finds himself a fish out of water when he throws a picnic for his family and old friends in a posh, white neighborhood in this comedy directed by first-timer Lance Rivera and co-starring Eve, Queen Latifah, Danny Glover, Tim Meadows, Vincent Pastore, Ja Rule, Frankie Faison and Farrah Fawcett. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
DE-LOVELY (PG-13) -- D Another failed attempt at a film version of Cole Porter's life, De-Lovely is better than 1946's Night and Day, but only just. Screenwriter Jay Cocks sinks this film with an over-thought but underdeveloped script that relies too heavily on sophomoric narrative devices. (Carlson) Causeway Cinema
DOLPHINS (NR) -- Fa love Pa! Actor Pierce Brosnan narrates Greg MacGillivray's documentary about the study of dolphins' communication skills. Featuring music by Sting. Entergy IMAX
THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR (R) -- B+ Children's author/artist Jeff Bridges and wife Kim Basinger remain in their own separate worlds of grief following the deaths of their teen sons in this worthy film directed by Tod Williams and based on the first part of John Irving's novel A Widow for One Year. (Simmons) Causeway Cinema
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (R) -- Seven years in the making, this troubled fourth installment of the chilly series about dealing with the devil features priests Stellan Skarsgard (Breaking the Waves) and James D'Arcy (Master and Commander) drawing the short straws this time around. Directed by Renny Harlin, who completely re-shot Paul Schrader's version after replacing him on the set on orders from Warner Bros. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12
EVERGREEN (PG-13) -- A teen embarrassed by her family's poverty longs for material wealth but learns valuable lessons after imposing herself on a privileged family. Written and directed by Enid Zentellis. AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20
GARDEN STATE (R) -- B+ Zach Braff (TV's Scrubs) wrote, directed and stars in this self-consciously offbeat comedy-drama about a semi-successful actor who returns home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral and to confront both his past and his future. (Simmons) Canal Place
GOOD BYE, LENIN! (R) -- A- Wolfgang Becker's comedy concerns an East German teacher who falls into a coma in October of 1989 and wakes up after the fall of the Berlin Wall in a brand new country. Much fun is poked at the idiocies of the Soviet economic system. This film's provocative premise is that the authoritarianism everywhere practiced by Soviet socialists betrayed, but does not erase, the humanity of a communitarian ideal. (Barton) 7 p.m. Thursday at the Deutsches Haus
HERO (PG-13) -- B Zhang Yimou's (Raise the Red Lantern) film can be enjoyed as visual and kinetic art, appreciated for its bursts of color and grace of movement. But in the end the picture takes an unsavory turn. The picture's final lesson is that when something as grand as the construction of a country is the goal, the cost in blood is never too high. That's a premise Slobodan Milosovic would embrace in a heartbeat. (Barton) (Reviewed in this issue.) AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square, Prytania
A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD (R) -- In 1980s New York City at the dawn of the AIDS crisis, bisexual chef Colin Farrell, gay restaurant critic Dallas Roberts and fashion designer Robin Wright Penn form an awkward friendship in Michael Meyer's adaptation of the novel by Michael Cunningham (The Hours). Causeway Cinema
INTO THE DEEP (NR) -- IMAX cameras take a journey through the undersea world. Entergy IMAX
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (R) -- A- Jonathan Demme's remake of the 1962 classic political thriller about a sinister attempt to control the American presidency stands on its own as worth seeing even by those thoroughly familiar with the original. Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber star. (Barton) AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20
MARIA FULL OF GRACE (R) -- B+ First-time filmmaker Joshua Marston's tense drama about a young Colombian woman who agrees to transport pellets of latex-wrapped heroin from Bogota to New York in her stomach benefits from a galvanizing title performance by Catalina Sandino Moreno. Another director might paint Maria as a victim without alternatives, but Marston's script renders her a compellingly complicated character who becomes a drug mule with eyes mostly wide open. (Barton) (Reviewed in this issue.) Canal Place, Causeway Cinema
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (PG) -- A- Co-writer and director Jared Hess has created one of the most blissfully abstract comedies in recent memory in his story about Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder), a dorky high school student who might actually be a superhero. In what almost feels like a goof on John Hughes' '80s teen comedies, Hess has produced something thoroughly offbeat and surprisingly profound, displaying a love for people who aren't nearly as ordinary as we think. Plus it has one of the coolest opening title sequences of all time. (Simmons) Canal Place
THE NOTEBOOK (PG-13) -- Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams co-star in Nick Cassavetes' adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel about a romantic triangle recalled by an older man (James Garner) to his former love (Gena Rowlands), who is now suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Causeway Cinema
OCEAN WONDERLAND (NR) -- IMAX takes its cameras to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the coral reef of the Bahamas. Directed by Jean-Jacques Mantello. Entergy IMAX
OPEN WATER (R) -- C Chris Kentis' low-budget film is the story of a vacationing couple who are abandoned at sea by their scuba-diving boat. A movie about the horrors of powerlessness, this picture is over-long at a scant 79 minutes. (Barton) Movies 8
PAPARAZZI (PG-13) -- Movie star Cole Hauser has revenge on his mind when wife Robin Tunney and his son are injured in an automobile crash caused by celebrity-stalking photographers in this thriller co-starring Tom Sizemore and Dennis Farina with cameos by Chris Rock, Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn and Matthew McConaughey. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2: ROYAL ENGAGEMENT (G) -- Now that American teen Anne Hathaway is firmly set as the princess of Genovia, she must find her prince in this sequel to the 2001 hit. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (R) -- The sequel to the popular 2002 horror film (directed once again by Paul Anderson) features Milla Jovovich as a military type who joins other survivors of a virus outbreak to battle the zombified victims of the disease. Co-stars Sienna Guillory, Mike Epps, Oded Fehr and Jared Harris. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9
SPIDER-MAN 2 (PG-13) -- A- Director Sam Raimi finally displays his spidey sense in this superior sequel to the 2002 hit movie. An unhinged-yet-sympathetic Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) is the villain, but the real struggle here is between identity and secret identity, as Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) wrestles with the tangled question: to be or not to be a webslinger. (Tisserand) Chalmette
SUPERBABIES 2: BABY GENIUSES (PG) -- Talking babies assume superpowers and fight evil in the form of Jon Voight. Stars Scott Baio and Vanessa Angel. Bob Clark directed. AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Movies 8
SUSPECT ZERO (R) -- FBI agent Aaron Eckhart finds his investigation of a serial killer hitting a major moral snag when he thinks retired agent Ben Kingsley might be whacking other serial killers in his own form of street justice. Directed by E. Elias Merhige (Shadow of the Vampire) and co-starring Carrie-Anne Moss. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
VANITY FAIR (PG-13) -- Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) directed Reese Witherspoon in yet another (seventh?) theatrically released adaptation of the William Makepeace Thackeray novel about a working girl in 1820s London who cunningly works her way up the social ladder. The higher she climbs, the more complicated life becomes. Co-stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gabriel Byrne, Jim Broadbent, Eileen Atkins and Rhys Ifans. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 20, Canal Place
THE VILLAGE (PG-13) -- C M. Night Shyamalan's career trajectory continues ever downward with yet another 'movie with a secret' approach that spoils a fairly intriguing story. Rural villagers who adhere to a Luddite lifestyle -- filled with its own creepy superstitions -- start to panic when someone inadvertently breaks a truce with their menacing neighbor in the nearby woods. (Simmons) Movies 8
VOLCANOES OF THE DEEP SEA -- Actor Ed Harris narrates this look at life 12,000 feet below sea level, including the strange creatures that thrive near underwater volcanoes. Entergy IMAX
WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (R) -- John Curran directed Naomi Watts, Mark Ruffalo, Laura Dern and Peter Krause as disaffected mate-swappers in this story based on a combination of Andres DuBus' (In the Bedroom) novella of the same name and his short story 'Adultery.' Causeway Cinema
WICKER PARK (PG-13) -- Heartbroken investment banker Josh Hartnett can't move on with his life, including an upcoming wedding, when he thinks he sees his previous flame in a restaurant and becomes obsessed in this thriller remake of the 1996 French film, L'Appartement. Directed by Brandon Boyce (Apt Pupil). Co-stars Matthew Lillard, Jessica Pare, Diane Kruger and Rose Byrne. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
WITHOUT A PADDLE (PG-13) -- City slickers Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Abraham Benrubi decide to pick up on their dead friend's quest for stolen loot on a canoe trip in this film billed by more than one source as City Slickers meets Deliverance (insert Ned Beatty joke here). AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
YU-GI-OH! (PG) -- The popular Japanese animation show comes to the big screen courtesy of director Ryosuke Takahashi, with the evil spirit Anubis rising from the sands of Egypt. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Chalmette, Movies 8
