.MOVIE LISTINGS | MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO

 

OPENING OR RETURNING:
Films open the Friday following date of EW publication unless otherwise noted. See archived movie reviews.

Bend of the River: 1952 Western set in Oregon stars Jimmy Stewart and Rock Hudson. Screens preceded by “Lady in the Lake,” an episode of Murder, She Wrote filmed at Chateau Lorane. 6:45 pm Feb. 2, Lorane Grange. $7 sug. don.

Business of Being Born, The: Ricki Lake executive produced Abby Epstein’s documentary about the maternity care system. “No one, male or female, pregnant or childless, who sees The Business of Being Born will ever see the hospital maternity ward as a normal environment again,” said Salon. Screens as a benefit for the Eugene chapter of the Oregon Midwifery Council. 6:30 pm Feb. 7, Cozmic Pizza. $5-$25 ss.

Cassandra’s Dream: Woody Allen’s latest stars Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor as financially strapped London brothers who turn to crime, only to find their lives and their relationship threatened. PG13. 108 min. Cinemark.

Crossroads Film Festival: Second annual international festival shows films from around the world and uses the proceeds to support programs helping visiting students at OSU. Feb. 3 screenings: New Day in Old Sana’a (Yemen) and Kirikou & the Sorceress (Africa), 1 pm; Blind Shaft (China) and Guantanamera (Cuba), 4 pm; Parineeta (India), 6:30 pm. Festival continues through Feb. Darkside Cinema, Corvallis. $8 per screening.

Eye, The: Jessica Alba plays an accomplished violinist, blind since birth, who discovers after cornea transplant surgery that she can see death … before it happens! With Alessandro Nivola and Parker Posey. PG13. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds: Just what it sounds like: a concert film on tour with the tween sensation. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Jean-Pierre Melville: The French director’s La Cercle Rouge (1 pm), Le Samourai (4 pm) and Army of Shadows (6:30 pm), which topped many critics’ lists last year when it hit American theaters for the first time, screen followed by a discussion with Thomas Blank. Feb. 3, DIVA. Free.

Kinks, The: A 1972 live performance on BBC TV is accompanied by Storytellers featuring Ray Davies. Part of the In-Concert Series. Bijou LateNite.

Over Her Dead Body: Eva Longoria (or is that Longoria Parker?) stars as a bitchy ghost who doesn’t approve of her former fiancé’s (Paul Rudd) new love — who can see her. PG13. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Persepolis: Marjane Satrapi’s fantastic graphic novel memoir makes its way to the screen directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud — and seems to leap straight from the page. Moving, smart, funny and compelling, the story follows young Marjane as she grows up in troubled, tumultuous Iran, then goes to Vienna as a teen to escape the fundamentalist rule. PG13. 95 min. Bijou. See review this issue.

Poultrygeist: Troma Entertainment president Lloyd Kaufman is in town to teach a workshop, and his chicken-zombie horror-comedy (with musical numbers) shows in conjunction with that appearance. Bijou LateNite.

Spidertron: Locally and indepdendently produced sci-fi comedy uses nearby locations, UO students and a whole lot of determination to tell the story of a spaceship crew marooned on an alien planet. Screens at noon Feb. 2, Bijou. Free. www.spidertron.comStrange Wilderness: Steve Zahn and Allen Covert star as the hosts of a failing nature program whose only hope for saving their series is to find something truly different to feature: Bigfoot! R. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Swedish Film Series: Summer With Monika is the story of a young couple who quit their crappy jobs to spend a wonderful summer in central Sweden, but have to return to the daily grind when their food and money run out. 7 pm Feb. 1, 177 Lawrence, UO. Free.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story: While I’m all for both John C. Reilly and the sending up of Walk the Line, this satirical rock ‘n’ roll faux-biopic appears, from the trailers, to be trying too hard. But it’s directed by Jake Kasdan, whose The Zero Effect was shamefully overlooked. Hrm. R. 96 min. Movies 12.

Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival: This collection of conservation-oriented short films covers topics from bicycling to coffee, dogs to salmon, kayaking to lawn tending. Guest speakers will also appear. 7 pm Feb. 7, 180 PLC, UO. $7.

Films open the Friday following EW publication date unless otherwise noted. See archived reviews at www.eugeneweekly.com

 

CONTINUING:

Across the Universe: Julie Taymor (Titus, Broadway’s The Lion King) puts her ambitious but unsatisfying spin on a love story built around Beatles songs, following a young man (Jim Sturgess) and the girl he falls for (Evan Rachel Wood) amid the tumult of the 1960s. PG13. 131 min. Movies 12. (10/18)

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem: Honest to goodness, I didn’t even know they were making another AVP until I saw an ad last week. Directors Colin and Greg Strause did visual effects work on 300, which ought to be enough to get a certain audience into theaters to watch the nasty monsters fight. R. 86 min. Movies 12.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: What’s next? A live-action Care Bears movie starring Jason Lee? (He’s in this and Underdog, for those not keeping track.) Those wacky little creatures with the high-pitched voices will surely cause him some trouble in this newest bit of family fare. With, um, David Cross. Now I’m confused. PG. Cinemark.

Atonement: Finally, Joe Wright’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s exceptional — and exceptionally difficult to summarize — novel comes to town. Atonement takes place across years, as the actions of young Briony (Saoirse Ronan) have lengthy, unimagined consequences to the futures of her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and their housekeeper’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy). R. 123 min. VRC Stadium 15. (1/10)

August Rush: Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers star as a musical young couple whose lovelorn encounter produces a child. Orphaned “by circumstance” (says the description), the boy (Freddie Highmore) grows up to become a musical prodigy. PG. 113 min. Movies 12.

Bee Movie: Not much looks all that sweet about this animated comedy, in which Jerry Seinfeld voices a recent bee college graduate who learns, to his shock, that humans have been stealing bees’ honey for ages and ages. With the voices of Renee Zellweger and Matthew Broderick. PG. 90 min. Movies 12.

Beowulf: Robert Zemeckis, working from a screenplay by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman, directs this version of the story of the warrior Beowulf, with Ray Winstone in the title role and Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother. Reviews are good, but it still looks like a video game. PG13. 114 min. Movies 12. (11/21)

Bucket List, The: Jack Nicholson, I expect this kind of thing from. But Morgan Freeman? In this schmalty-sounding flick about two new friends trying to cram all the adventures of a lifetime into a considerably shorter amount of time? Oh, Rob Reiner. Once upon a time, you made a good movie or two. PG13. 97 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Charlie Wilson’s War: Mike Nichols directs from an Aaron Sorkin script this political … drama? comedy? … about a congressman (Tom Hanks) who combined forces with a CIA agent (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a rich socialite (Julia Roberts) to direct a massive covert operation during the Cold War era. R. 97 min. Movies 12. (1/3)

Cloverfield: It’ll be no surprise to fans of J.J. Abrams’ Lost that the characters in Cloverfield, an Abrams-produced film about a group of friends trying to survive a monstrous attack on Manhattan, have their own MySpace pages — among lord knows how many other sites adding to the movie’s mythos. Though it’s gripping while you’re in the theater, the movie’s flaws start to come to mind once you step back into daylight. PG13. 90 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Dan in Real Life: Poor Dan (Steve Carrell) is an advice columnist with a passel of daughters whose life is further complicated when he falls for his brother’s girlfriend (Juliette Binoche). Also, the brother is played by Dane Cook. PG13. 99 min. Movies 12.

Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The: Julian Schnabel’s affecting film puts viewers inside the mind of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Almaric), the French Elle editor whose entire body was paralyzed — except for one eye, via which he blinks to communicate. Gracefully told and beautifully acted, Schabel’s film is one of the best-received of the year. PG13. 112 min. Bijou. (1/24)

Game Plan, The: The Rock stretches his dramatic skills as a football player faced with a strange challenge: a little girl who claims to be his daughter. PG. Movies 12.

Golden Compass, The: An only slightly above average film based on Philip Pullman’s utterly brilliant novel. In a world much like our own, everyone has an animal companion who’s part of themselves, and one little girl (Dakota Blue Richards) is the key to saving not just her own world, but countless others as well. With Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Sam Elliott. PG13. 113 min. Movies 12. (12/13)

How She Move: Coming of age tale about a young woman whose talent for step dancing helps her continue after her sister’s death. PG13. 98 min. Cinemark.

I Am Legend: Will Smith does the all-by-his-lonesome thing in a New York City left not exactly empty after a manmade virus devastates the globe. During the day, he tries to find other survivors; at night, he tries to survive the creatures that are what’s left of humanity. PG13. 100 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. (12/20)

I’m Not There: Portland filmmaker Todd Haynes’ (Far From Heaven) unconventional Bob Dylan movie is one of the year’s most anticipated — and, for the most part, highly praised. Different actors, including Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger and Christian Bale, play incarnations of Dylan over the decades. “One of the most inventive and joyous movies of the year,” said Salon. R. 135 min. Bijou. (12/6)

Juno: Director Jason Reitman’s turned out another buzzworthy movie, this time with a screenplay by newcomer Diablo Cody. Ellen Page (who was outstanding in Hard Candy) plays a pregnant teenager dealing with herself, her future, her parents, the best friend who fathered the kid and the couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) who wants to adopt it. “Hilarious and sweet-tempered, perceptive and surprisingly grounded,” said the Los Angeles Times. PG13. 96 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. (1/10)

Mad Money: The unexpected trio of Katie Holmes, Queen Latifah and Diane Keaton star as new friends who decide to rob their employer, a Federal Reserve bank, because the system is keeping them down, man. Directed by Callie Khouri, whom some of us will always love for writing Thelma & Louise. PG13. 104 min. VRC Stadium 15.

Meet the Spartans: Didn’t I just joke, a few weeks ago, that apparently everything must get its own send-up movie now? The latest addition to the bloated category spoofs 300, Britney Spears and, um, You Got Served. PG13. 84 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Michael Clayton: George Clooney plays the title character, a “fixer” at a law firm. When one of his colleagues seems to snap, sabotaging a major case, Clayton is forced to take a good look at what he’s doing. “A terrifically engrossing, tethered-to-the-real-world drama,” said Entertainment Weekly. R. 119 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. (10/25)

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium: This story about a magical toy store, its owner (Dustin Hoffman) and the young shop employee who might inherit it (Natalie Portman) is written and directed by Zach Helm, who also wrote last year’s Stranger Than Fiction. G. 94 min. Movies 12.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets: Nicolas Cage returns for more adventure and hijinks — something to do with the president’s secret book (hey, this sounds like Crooked Little Vein!) and clearing his family’s name; did great-great grandpa have something to do with Lincoln’s assassination? With Helen Mirren. PG. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

No Country for Old Men: The latest from the Coen brothers is a near-masterpiece, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel, and it’s earning plenty of acclaim itself. The story involves a small-town sherriff, a deadly drug deal and a psychopathic killer (Javier Bardem). The reviewers say “intense,” “searing,” “an evil delight.” R. 122 min. VRC Stadium 15. (11/29)

Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, The: Those talking side dishes return in the latest Veggie Tales movie, in which three veggie pals set sail into the 17th century and learn what it means to be heroes. G. Movies 12.

Rambo: Jon Rambo (oh, you know who plays him) sees his solitary life in Thailand come to a crashing close when two American human rights missionaries (Julie Benz and Paul Schulze) track him down and ask for his help getting into Burma. When they don’t return, Rambo knows what must be done. And it involves cheesy one-liners! R. 93 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

There Will Be Blood: Oscar-nominated Daniel Day-Lewis stars in Paul Thomas Anderson’s (Magnolia) dark film about an evil oilman who heads to a California town, where a preacher (Paul Dano) accepts his presence on the condition that the oilman will help fund a church. “A force beyond categories,” said Roger Ebert. R. 158 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15. See review this issue.

Twenty-seven Dresses: Current It Girl Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) stars in this always a bridesmaid, never a bride story of Jane, whose sister gets the guy Jane’s in love with. But with James Marsden (Enchanted) around, you’ve got to assume Jane’s not going to have a totally unhappy ending. PG. 107 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

Untraceable: Another movie about the horrors of technology! Goodness! This time, a nasty, tech-savvy internet criminal is killing people at a speed determined by the number of hits his ghoulish website gets. Diane Lane and Colin Hanks are gonna get the bad guy, though. An awful lot seems to go on in the preview for this one. R. 110 min. Cinemark. VRC Stadium 15.

 

MOVIE THEATERS
Use the links provided below for specific show times.

Bijou Art Cinemas
Bijou Theater 686-2458 | 492 E. 13th

Regal Cinemas
VRC Stadium 15 342-6536 | Valley River Center

Cinemark Theaters
Movies 12 741-1231 | Gateway Mall
Cinemark 17 741-1231 | Gateway Mall