Scheduled to Open Friday
ALFIE (PG-13) -- Jude Law takes over for Michael Caine in this remake of the 1966 romantic comedy about a womanizing Englishman in New York City whose playboy status is threatened when one of his girlfriends becomes pregnant. Directed by Charles Shyer (Father of the Bride) and co-starring Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon, Omar Epps, Nia Long and Sienna Miller.
THE INCREDIBLES (PG) -- Pixar CGI film follows an animated super-team family with tons of inner squabbles that is actually in a witness protection program. Directed by Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) and featuring the voices of Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Wallace Shawn, Samuel L. Jackson and Jason Lee.
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AROUND THE BEND (R) -- Michael Caine tries to renew the family ties between his younger-generation relatives (Christopher Walken, Josh Lucas and Jonah Bobo) in this family drama directed by Jordan Roberts. Canal Place
BIRTH (R) -- Thirtysomething Nicole Kidman runs into a boy who claims to be her late husband reincarnate, forcing her to reevaluate her life in this film directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) and co-starring Lauren Bacall, Arliss Howard, Anne Heche and Danny Huston. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 20, Holiday 12
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. Movies 8
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
EVIL REMAINS (R) -- This horror film, shot by writer-director James Merendino in the New Orleans area, explores the frights a student experiences while studying mythology in a haunted plantation home. Stars Estella Warren. AMC Palace 20, Grand, Hollywood Cinemas 9
THE FINAL CUT (PG-13) -- Robin Williams is a man in the future whose job it is to whittle down the memories of dead people's lives to make it easier for surviving friends and family, only to get a jolt from a particular memory of his own. AMC Palace 20
THE FORGOTTEN (PG-13) -- C+ Director Joseph Ruben crafts what amounts to a just-average X-Files rip-off starring Julianne Moore and Dominic West. Moore plays a grieving mother whose sorrow is compounded when husband Anthony Edwards and psychiatrist Gary Sinise tell her that the child she mourns never existed.(Carlson) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (PG-13) -- B Peter Berg's adaptation of H.G.Bissinger's book about the 1988 Permian High School football season in Odessa, Texas, is an effective look at a coach and a bunch of players under too much pressure from a town full of adults who need to live their own lives and not destroy the lives of their children. Formulaic in the big-game, last play strategy that sport-flicks routinely employ, the film has its virtues, but the picture isn't Rocky and it certainly isn't Breaking Away. (Barton) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
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) Causeway Cinema
GERMAN FILM PROGRAM -- Film series continues. This week: Winter Sleepers (1997). 7 p.m. Thursday at Deutsches Haus
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE (PG-13) -- A cyborg clings to what little humanity he can in this sci-fi thriller. In Japanese with English subtitles. AMC Palace 16
THE GRUDGE (PG-13) -- Japanese director Takashi Shimizu takes the trend of American directors adapting Japanese thrillers one step further by remaking his own film in English, with Sarah Michelle Gellar trapped in a haunted house. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 16, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
I &127; HUCKABEES (R) -- A- David O. Russell fulfills the promise of earlier works Spanking the Monkey, Flirting With Disaster and Three Kings with the most novel film of the year so far: a slapstick existential comedy. Rare is the director who can work a film on such seemingly disparate intellectual levels, which Russell does here in exploring the psyche of an environmentalist (Jason Schwartzman), a corporate drone (Jude Law) and an embittered firefighter (Mark Wahlberg), with a little help from 'existentialist detectives' Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin. A pitch-perfect ensemble cast (which also features Naomi Watts and Isabelle Huppert) and a breezy pace balances the heady themes explored by Russell, who co-wrote the script. (Simmons) AMC Palace 20, Canal Place
INTO THE DEEP (NR) -- IMAX cameras take a journey through the undersea world. Entergy IMAX
LADDER 49 (PG-13) -- Fireman Joaquin Phoenix (The Village) contemplates his life while waiting to be rescued from a nasty fire in this drama directed by Jay Russell (My Dog Skip) and co-starring John Travolta, Morris Chestnut and Jacinda Barrett of TV's The Real World (London) fame. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Holiday 12, Movies 8
THE LAST SHOT (R) -- Aspiring indie filmmaker Matthew Broderick gets tangled up in an FBI investigation of the mob led by Alec Baldwin in this fact-based film directed by Jeff Nathanson. Causeway Cinema
THE LIVING SEA (NR) -- Entergy IMAX's premiere film returns, with a look at aquatic life, narrated by Meryl Streep. Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Short. Entergy IMAX
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (R) -- Gael Gabriel Bernal, who was so compelling in both Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien, stars as a young Ernesto 'Che' Guevara at the beginning of his political awakening in this bio-pic directed by Walter Salles (Central Station) and co-starring Rodrigo de la Serna. Canal Place
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. (Simmons) Causeway Cinema
RAY (PG-13) -- B+ Taylor Hackford's vibrant if sometimes clichéd biopic of American music icon Ray Charles (here portrayed admirably by Jamie Foxx) features a strong ensemble cast, wonderful recreations of Charles performing his greatest hits, and deft use of New Orleans scenery and musicians and actors. Hackford's films have almost always been affairs of the heart, one way or another, and it's a shame the original title, Unchain My Heart, wasn't kept, because this film has plenty of it. Co-stars Kerry Washington, Regina King, Aunjanue Ellis, Richard Schiff, Larenz Tate and New Orleans' own Chris Thomas King. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, North Shore Square
SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN (NR) -- The holiday season warms up with this story about a jealous snowman who decides to battle Santa and the North Pole. Entergy IMAX
SAW (R) -- Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) and Leigh Whannell are stalked by a serial killer in this thriller directed by James Wan. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
SHALL WE DANCE? (PG-13) -- Stressed-out accountant Richard Gere decides that taking dance lessons from Jennifer Lopez will save his marriage to Susan Sarandon. Remake of the enchanting 1996 Japanese film of the same name that remains that country's top-grossing Japanese-language film, and is directed by Peter Chelsom of Town and Country fame. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8, Prytania
SHARK TALE (PG) -- The mafia goes truly underworld, or more accurately, underwater, in this animated story about a little fish (voice of Will Smith) who is mistakenly blamed for the accidental death of the son of a shark mob boss (Robert De Niro). AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, Movies 8
SHAUN OF THE DEAD (R) -- London pub crawler Simon Pegg tries to rescue his friends from zombies, with disastrous results, in director Edgar Wright's spoof of the classic horror flick, Dawn of the Dead. Causeway Cinema
STATE PALACE LATE-NIGHT MOVIE SERIES -- New film series continues with Scarface, the campy Brian De Palma movie about a Cuban gangster (Al Pacino) who stakes his claim in the United States. 9 p.m. and midnight Friday-Saturday at the State Palace
SURVIVING CHRISTMAS (PG-13) -- Wealthy Ben Affleck, alone during the holidays, convinces the family living in his childhood house to welcome him in for Christmas in this comedy directed by Mike Mitchell (Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo) and co-starring James Gandfolfini, Catherine O'Hara and Christina Applegate. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
TAXI (PG-13) -- This latest version of the buddy movie (and Queen Latifah star vehicle) appropriately enough puts the Queen behind the steering wheel of a cab, recruited by detective Jimmy Fallon to help him catch a gang of pretty female bank robbers. AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Hollywood Cinemas 9, North Shore Square
TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (R) -- B+ South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker co-directed this puppet-character parody of Hollywood action movies (among other things), with an average Joe puppet recruited by a superhero team to battle evil around the world. (Eddy) AMC Palace 12, AMC Palace 16, AMC Palace 20, Grand, Holiday 12, Hollywood Cinemas 9
THERESE: THE STORY OF SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX (PG) -- Leonardo Defilippis directed this story of the woman (Lindsay Younce) who finds her true faith. AMC Palace 20
VOICES OF IRAQ (NR) -- C This Bush campaign commercial purports that today's Iraqis are happy and hopeful, that most women are Westernized, educated and professional, that Islamic fundamentalism has few adherents, that religious and ethnic tolerance is widespread, that with only the most minor qualifications most people support continuing the American occupation, and that the suicide bombings, mortar attacks and other violent acts of the insurgency are inconsequential annoyances rather than true threats to an enduring peace and establishment of civilized law and order. Count me among those who aren't convinced. (Barton) (Reviewed in this issue.) Canal Place
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
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. Movies 8
WOMAN THOU ART LOOSED (R) -- Bishop T.D. Jakes' best-selling self-help book gets a dramatic treatment from director Michael Schultz, with Jakes starring as a man helping a troubled woman (Kimberly Elise) rise above her world of prostitution and crime. Causeway Cinema, Grand
THE YES MEN (R) -- Documentarians Dan Ollman, Sarah Price and Chris Smith chonicle the exploits of two globalization opponents who enjoy pulling pranks on businesses while posing as members of the World Trade Organization. Canal Place
