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The White Ribbon / **** (R)
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"The White Ribbon" (R, 145 minutes). In a rural German village on the eve of World War One, bad things begin to happen. A murder, a barn fire, a cruel trick. Suspicion turns this way and that, but the facts don't seem to point to a single malefactor. The movie relates what happens but isn't a whodunit, and its message is that evil cannot be completely prevented and sometimes it takes place without a rational reason. The film has been described as about the rise of German fascism, but I think that's to simple. It's about how the rise of fear leads to the loss of freedom. Top winner at Cannes 2009. Four stars
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The Book of Eli / *** (R)
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"The Book of Eli" (R, 118 minutes). Denzel Washington strides west across an apocalyptic post-war America, in possession of a precious book that Gary Oldman, boss of a small town, will kill to possess. Denzel, a dab hand with knife and firearm, is poised somewhere between invulnerable and mystical, and Mila Kunis plays a victim of Oldman who walks along to escape. To call the conclusion implausible would be an insult to the world, but the film is very watchable. Three stars
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A Town Called Panic / ***1/2 (No MPAA rating)
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"A Town Called Panic" (G, 75 minutes). Know how kids play with little plastic action figures that balance their feet on their own little platforms? And how kids move them around while doing their voices and making up adventures for them? Then you have a notion of the goofy charm generated by this new animated comedy from France. Horse, Cowboy and Indian live with Farmer and Policeman in a tiny village?and Horse's birthday inspires strange adventures. So simple it's sophisticated. Three and a half stars
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The Lovely Bones / *1/2 (PG-13)
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"The Lovely Bones" (PG-13). A deplorable film with this message: If you're a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to. You can get together in heaven with the other teenage victims of the same killer, and gaze down in benevolence upon your family members as they realize what a wonderful person you were. Peter Jackson ("Lord of the Rings") believes special effects can replace genuine emotion, and tricks up Alive Sebold's well-regarded novel with gimcrack New Age fantasies. With, however, affective performances by Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci and Saoirse Ronan as the victim. One star
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The Spy Next Door / *1/2 (PG)
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?The Spy Next Door? (PG, 92 minutes). Jackie Chan is a Chinese-CIA double agent babysitting girl friend's three kids as Russian mobsters attack. Uh, huh. Precisely what you'd expect from a PG-rated Jackie Chan comedy. If that's what you're looking for, you won't be disappointed. It's not what I was looking for. One and a half stars.
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Araya / ***1/2 (No MPAA rating)
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"Araya" (Unrated, 90 minutes). This 1959 documentary won the critics' Price at Cannes1959, but was almost forgotten. Restored to pristine beauty 50 years later, it shows the hard way of life of the salt workers on a remote Venezuelan peninsula. Stark, visually poetic, memory of a world that must have been hell to be born into. Three and a half stars
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Youth in Revolt / *** (R)
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"Youth in Revolt" (R, 90 minutes). Michael Cera is laid back to a point approaching the horizontal in a comedy about a 16-year-old who lusts in hapless dreams and whose divorced parents are both shacked up. When his character, Nick Twisp, meets the lovely Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) during family vacations to the Restless Axles trailer camp, it's love, but it's not simple. Cera's self-effacing style works nicely with his urgent desires. Three stars
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The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus / *** (PG-13)
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"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (PG-13, 122 minutes). Heath Ledger on this side of the looking glass, and Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and Jude Law on the other side, in substitute casting after Ledger's death. Works pretty well in Terry Gilliam's phantasmagorical extravaganza about a traveling magic-maker (Christopher Plummer) trying to escape a deal he made for immortality with the Devil (Tom Waits) in exchange for his daughter (Lily Cole). Not very coherent, but is an Imaginarium supposed to be? Three stars
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Leap Year / *** (PG)
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"Leap Year" (PG, 97 minutes). Amy Adams and Matthew Goode have all the charm necessary to float a romantic comedy that follows an ancient plot trajectory with sweetness. Amy flies to Ireland for Leap Day, when she hopes to propose marriage to her fiancé of four long years (Adam Scott), but her journey must overcome many hazards and she's thrown together on the road with a handsome but surly young pub owner (Goode), and what do you expect happens then? Adams and Goode invest a familiar story with fresh appeal. Three stars
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The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond / *** (PG-13)
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"The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" (PG-13, 102 minutes). Never produced, long-forgotten Tennessee Williams screenplay from the 1950s, now filmed with Bryce Dallas Howard as a Southern heiress who tasted the freedom of Paris and now pretends to reenter stultifying Memphis high society. Not a very good screenplay or film, but rich in Tennessee's obsessions, and at its center a great performance by Ellen Burstyn, as old Miss Aggie, who escaped to Hong Kong and opium but has been dragged back it an upstairs bedroom to die. Downstairs, the band plays on. Three stars
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