At The Movies

Opening

Art School Confidential

"Ghost World's" Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes team up again to adapt Clowes' comic story about an arrogant freshman art student who, when he sees that a clueless jock is attracting the glory he feels is due him, hatches an all-or-nothing plan to hit it big in the art world and win the heart of the most beautiful girl in the school. Review on Thursday's Entertainment page. (R)

Goal! The Dream Begins

"CSI" executive producer Danny Cannon directs the story of a young, underprivileged Mexican American soccer player who moves to England to play for the premier club Newcastle United. Review on Friday's Entertainment page. (PG)

Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas)

Based on a true story, the film recreates Christmas night during World War I when enemies were able to lay aside their differences, visit each other's trenches and celebrate the holiday. Review on Thursday's Entertainment page. (PG-13)

Just My Luck
19-year-old Lindsay Lohan eases out of the tween genre by playing a New York career woman, lucky in life, who exchanges a kiss -- and fortunes -- with a hapless stranger. (PG-13)

Poseidon

Disaster movie vet Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot," "The Perfect Storm") offers his big-budgeted take on the 1972 Irwin Allen movie about a rogue wave capsizing a luxury ocean liner. The surviving passengers who band together to try to reach the surface are played by Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum and Jacinda Barrett. Story and review on Pages 4 and 5. (PG-13)

Now Playing

G - General audiences.

Curious George
1/2
Based on the popular children's books, the animated film follows an inquisitive monkey as he travels to the big city. It's soundtrack is filled with original songs by Jack Johnson.

The Wild

The tale follows a New York City zoo lion (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) who enlists his animal friends to escape and search for his cub, who was mistakenly shipped to the wild.

PG - Parental guidance suggested.

Akeelah and the Bee
1/2
An 11-year-old inner-city girl is a surprise contender for the national spelling bee. Keke Palmer steps into the role with poise, panache, and spirit.

Eight Below

Paul Walker is a researcher in Antarctica who recovers the pack of sled dogs they left behind more than six months earlier in a storm. Charting the survival of the dogs, this film will warm the hearts of dog lovers.

Hoot

Carl Hiaasen's award-winning children's book is adapted for the big screen. It's the story of an eighth-grader's campaign to save a family of endangered owls from a developer. But the screen version turns out to be lightweight and bland.

Ice Age: The Meltdown
1/2
The animated sequel might as well come with another subtitle: "Featuring Scrat!" The fanged little goof upstages the top-billed talent with his manic antics to secure his precious acorn. The film is on par with the 2002 original: brisk, pleasant and loaded with slapstick.

RV
1/2
Robin Williams stars as a dad who rents a recreational vehicle to take his family on vacation. Lame jokes and sight gags are repeated so often you feel you're driving in circles.

PG-13 - Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate from children under age 13.

16 Blocks
1/2
A New York cop (Bruce Willis) must escort a convict (Mos Def) from jail to court, but dangerous forces are out to stop them.

An American Haunting
1/2
Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland star in this horror-chiller based on the legend of the Bell Witch, an unrelenting demon that has plagued a Tennessee family since the early 1800s. While it feels like a re-creation of the atmospheric Gothic flicks of the 1960s, it doesn't add up to much of a movie.

ATL

A classic example of a music video director (Chris Robinson) making the leap to feature films and emphasizing style over substance. Robsinson could've made more of this coming-of-age story, and its complex issues of race, class and identity, but comes up short.

The Benchwarmers
1/2
A baseball buffonery comedy, it's about three grown-up dweebs who form a barnstorming team trying to lay the smackdown on full-rostered youth squads.

Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector

The comedian from the Blue Collar Tour stars as a workaday guy happy with his usual round of greasy spoon diners. But his life is turned upside down when he's assigned to investigate an outbreak of food poisonings at swanky restaurants.

Mission: Impossible III

Tom Cruise's superspy series continues, this time helmed by "Lost" co-creator J.J. Abrams. Cruise goes against a weapons and information dealer (Philip Seymour Hoffman). It's a rote replay of some of Cruise's best-known hits.

The Promise

You'll need a bit of patience to sit through the numerous CGI effects and fight scenes in order to get to the emotional core of Chen Kaige's epic fantasy. A lowly slave, his proud general master and a ruthless king vie for the love of a beautiful if imperious princess.

Scary Movie 4
1/2
The latest sequel has sporadic flashes of comic greatness, but it's separated by repetitive sketches that make this movie feel longer than it should.

The Sentinel
1/2
"24's" Kiefer Sutherland is protecting the president again, this time hunting down a suspected Secret Service mole (Michael Douglas), who claims he is being framed.

She's the Man

This movie takes a little bit of "Bend It Like Beckham" and a lot of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and twists them into a cross-dressing teen farce with forays onto the soccer field.

Stick It

It's a retread of 2000's "Bring It On," only with gymnastics in place of cheerleading. Watch the lead performance of Missy Peregrym.

Take the Lead
1/2
Antonio Banderas stars as a former professional ballroom dancer who volunteers at a public school to teach dance. With his gentlemanly manner, Banderas makes a predictable movie more tolerable than it should be.

Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion
1/2
The writer/director/actor reprises his grandmother character from last year's surprise hit "Diary of a Mad Black Woman." This time, Perry's Southern matriarch tries to organize a family reunion while tending to various family crises.

R - Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Friends With Money

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener returns with the story of a quartet of friends from tony west Los Angeles. Three of them are in longtime marriages, while the remaining single one is going through life rather aimlessly.

Hard Candy

Ellen Page gives a riveting performance in this provocative, tense psychological thriller about a teenage girl's revenge on a pedophile.

Inside Man
1/2
A detective matches wits with a bank robber as a dangerous cat-and-mouse game unfolds during a perfectly planned bank robbery. This latest "joint" from director Spike Lee is consistently engaging.

Silent Hill

Another video game adaptation, this one of a woman (Radha Mitchell) looking for her daughter in an abandoned town inhabited by strange creatures.

Slither

Residents of a small town are terrorized by an alien plague in the form of bloodthirsty slugs, whose bite transforms people into monsters. A B-movie delight.

Thank You For Smoking
1/2
This satirical comedy follows the machinations of Big Tobacco's chief spokesman (Aaron Eckhart), who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his 12-year-old son. Perfectly pitched and genuinely funny.

Tsotsi

Set amidst the Johannesburg township of Soweto, the winner of this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar traces six days in the life of a gang leader who ends up caring for a baby accidentally kidnapped during a car-jacking.

United 93

A real-time drama about the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11. The story of the passengers who fought back is told with devastating realism. British writer-director Paul Greengrass ("The Bourne Supremacy") handles volatile material with tact, his detail-laced screenplay based on interviews with family members and reports from the 9/11 commission.

Art House | Revival

THE DORIS DUKE THEATRE, HONOLULU ACADEMY OF ARTS

900 S. Beretania St.; $7 general; $6 seniors, students and military; $5 Academy members (532-8768):

The Devil and Daniel Johnston
1/2
At 1, 4 and 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Somersault
1/2
Review on Page 21. (NR) At 1, 4 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. May 15; and 1 and 7:30 p.m. May 16 to 18.

MOVIE MUSEUM

3566 Harding Ave.; $5, $4 members; reservations recommended due to limited seating (735-8771):

Kings and Queen
At 1, 4 and 7 p.m. Friday.

Shadows In the Sun
At 2, 4, 6 and 8 p.m. Saturday and May 15.

The Wizard of Oz
At 2, 4, 6 and 8 p.m. Sunday.

Red Rock West
At 2, 4, 6 and 8 p.m. May 18.