Movies

Alice In Wonderland

Walt Disney Pictures

Okay is this going to just be weird Burton and Depp (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) or genius Burton and Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood). Hard to tell. But Alice will be pushing Avatar out of the 3D screens (which is good news) and visually it looks like an awesome acid trip. Rating -RR   Opens March 5.

Green Zone

Universal Pictures

The fourth film in the Bourne franchise… oh wait this isn’t Matt Damon as Jason Bourne going rogue and causing problems for his fellow spies? My bad. This is Matt Damon as Roy Miller, a U.S. army officer who goes rogue after discovering some bad intel and who decides to look for WMDs in an unstable region. Damon does re-team with his Bourne director Paul Greengrass for this routine spy thriller. Rating – RR Opens March 12.

Shutter Island

Paramount Pictures

Well Leo tries out another accent (would that be Boston?) and Scorsese tries his hand at an insane asylum thriller. I’m hoping that now that Marty has his Oscar he can go back to making good movies like he used to. Remember those days? When he made films like Taxi Driver and Goodfellas? Shutter Island looks to be in the same mode as his Cape Fear – decent genre flick but nothing to push the envelope. Rating – RR  Opens February 19.

Creation

New Market Films

Evolutionary but not revolutionary. Charles Darwin is the focus of this biopic as the scientist finds his ideas on evolution coming in direct conflict with the views of his religious wife. Real life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly play the leads. Scientific research doesn’t always make for thrilling cinema but this film tries to find the drama in Darwin’s personal life and professional controversy. Rating RRR

The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski has been making the news recently but less for his film and more for his personal life. The director was prevented from attending the premiere of his film at the Berlin Film Festival because he was under house arrest in Switzerland and facing possible extradition to the U.S. for a decades-old charge of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old. Meanwhile, Polanski’s film deals with a ghostwriter hired to finish a former British prime minister’s memoirs and in the process he uncovers secrets that suddenly put his life in jeopardy. You can decide which drama is the more interesting one to follow. Rating- RR   Opens February 26.