Your guide to the movies playing in Aiken this weekend
The Secret Life of Bees NEW!
"The Secret Life of Bees" is perfectly calibrated to reduce audiences to blubbering husks. I lasted about 30 minutes before having to wrestle down a lump in the throat. I resented it, but the movie - or rather the actresses who inhabit it - so works its magic that resistance is futile. This tale of empowerment from writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood ("Love & Basketball") is based on Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling novel. Young Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) is haunted by her past and her part in the death of her mother. Now she lives in small-town South Carolina with her bitter father (Paul Bettany). The only woman in her life is their housekeeper, Rosaleen ("Dreamgirls" Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson). The time is 1964, and the Civil Rights Act has just become law, putting the good ol' boys in an ugly mood. When Rosaleen's attempt to vote leaves her in a hospital facing criminal charges, Lily decides it's time to hit the road. She springs Rosaleen from the "colored" ward, and the two eventually wash up across the state, where they throw themselves upon the mercy of the Boatwright women. These three spinster sisters live in a garishly painted house and produce honey famed throughout the South. Presiding over the clan is the chief beekeeper, Miss August (Queen Latifah), who has a thing for strays. She gets static for this from Miss June (songstress Alicia Keys), an intellectual beauty with a haughty demeanor. But loving the newcomers is Miss May ("Hotel Rwanda's" Sophie Okonedo), a childlike woman so sensitive she can burst into tears at the death of a butterfly. You can pretty much see what's going to happen here long before it does. Racism will butt heads with open-hearted humanism. Decency will trump prejudice.
Rated PG-13 for thematic material and some violence. 1 hour, 50 minutes.
21âÑ2 stars -- Robert W. Butler, McClatchy-Tribune
W. NEW!
All he wanted to do was watch baseball and drink beer all day. Sounds like a reasonable request. Instead, George W. Bush ended up being chosen as leader of the free world. Twice. That's Oliver Stone's surprisingly fair and balanced take on the president, who truly needs no further parodying. From the earliest announcements about the film, it seemed inevitable what we'd be in for: an evisceration. No other depiction could be possible from any director in Hollywood and especially not from Stone, who previously dug up the White House dirt with "JFK" and "Nixon." Instead, Stone has come up with a rather conventional biopic, albeit one about a person whose decisions have affected the entire planet for the last eight years. Stone, working from a script by Stanley Weiser, doesn't shed much new light on the 43rd U.S. president and often tries to explain away Bush's flaws with pop-psychology insights about "daddy issues," but he makes his evenhanded case in entertaining fashion. As Bush himself, Josh Brolin certainly gets the innate humor within the frequent buffoonery - and he's got the voice and the demeanor down pat - but he also seems to recognize the tragedy of this figure, a man who was in way over his head for one of the toughest jobs in the world. Brolin's so good, he almost makes us feel sorry for Bush. Almost.
Rated PG-13 for language including sexual references, some alcohol abuse, smoking and brief disturbing war images. 129 minutes.
2 ¬½ stars out of 4 -- Christy Lemire, Associated Press
Max Payne NEW!
Coming together to solve a series of murders in New York City are a DEA agent (Mark Wahlberg) whose family was slain as part of a conspiracy and an assassin (Mila Kunis) out to avenge her sister's death. The duo will be hunted by the police, the mob and a ruthless corporation in this movie based on the video game by the same name.
Rated PG-13 for violence including intense shooting sequences, drug content, some sexuality and brief strong language.
Not screened for critics.
Body of Lies
"Rendition." "The Kingdom." "Lions for Lambs." They're all movies about the war on terror that nobody has wanted to see, either because the topic is too daunting or too much of a downer, or it's simply too soon after 9âÑ11. Soon, you'll be able to add "Body of Lies" to that list, even though it's probably the most worthwhile and least preachy of the bunch. "Body of Lies" follows undercover CIA operative Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), who's trying to ferret out the mastermind behind a series of anonymous bombings around the world. At the same time, Ferris' boss, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), is running surveillance and plotting strategy from home with the help of his ever-present cell phone headset and laptop. But despite their shared goals and mutual dependence, Ferris and Hoffman often end up miscommunicating and undermining each other. This becomes especially true when Ferris tries to chat up the smooth Jordanian intelligence chief (Mark Strong, who nearly steals the whole movie).
Rated R for strong violence, including some torture, and for language throughout. 128 minutes.
2¬½ stars out of 4 -- Christy Lemire, Associated Press
The Express
Ernie Davis didn't carry a placard or attend sit-ins or register black voters in Alabama. He became a figure in the civil rights movement simply by running the football better than anyone else in college. "The Express" follows Davis from childhood to his early death from leukemia only a year after becoming the first African-American to win the coveted Heisman Trophy. Gary Fleder's film is less about football than about mortality and race. "The Express" begins in 1959 when Davis, a star of the Syracuse squad, is playing in Austin against a Texas team whose members can hardly draw a full breath for the racial invective they're spewing across the line of scrimmage. Before you know it, a teenage Davis (Rob Brown) is attending Syracuse University. Football coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid) wants Davis so much that he strong-arms recent grad and football legend Jim Brown (Darrin Dewitt Henson) into visiting the Davis home and clinching the deal for the Orangemen. Quaid is almost pitch-perfect as the gruff, old-school mentor who becomes Davis' surrogate father. Davis is portrayed here as a tireless athlete who realizes that his triumphs on the field translate to pride for millions African-Americans.
Rated PG for thematic content, violence and language involving racism, and for brief sensuality. 2 hours and 9 minutes.
3 stars -- Robert W. Butler, McClatchy-Tribune
Quarantine
"Quarantine" is a movie testament to craftsmanship and commitment. The best "Blair Witch" knockoff of them all is basically a zombie movie seen through the viewfinder of a TV news camera - that "found footage" "Blair Witch" Project conceit. But think about what it takes to make that come off - the camera blocking and staging, the choreography that gets our stars and the lights and mikes and camera from one perfect spot to capture what's happening to the next perfect spot, with enough jarring, jumpy bumps in the Steadicam to make it all so nauseatingly real. The jerky motion of the camera may make you sick because this sort of horror isn't to every taste. But "Quarantine" is the first of the "Blair Witch" clones to rip it off without embarrassing those doing the ripping off.
Rated R for bloody violent and disturbing content, terror and language. 89 minutes.
3 stars out of 5 -- Roger Moore, McClatchy Tribune
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Only the meanest of grouches can resist a talking-animal movie. The titular heroine is Chloe (Drew Barrymore), a pooch pampered by her owner Viv (Jamie Lee Curtis). When Viv has to travel out of the country on business, she entrusts the dog to the care of her niece, Rachel (Piper Perabo), who isn't quite as enamored of the pint-size princess. When her friends seduce her into a weekend excursion to Mexico, Rachel takes Chloe along. Other canines include Papi (George Lopez), a love-struck Chihuahua who will do anything to win Chloe's paw, and El Diablo (Edward James Olmos), a dangerous Doberman working for the bad guys. The sequence is funny, unexpected and imaginative. The rest of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is merely cute.
Rated PG for some mildly scary moments of dogs in peril. 85 minutes.
2 stars -- Rene Rodriguez, McClatchy-Tribune
Fireproof
"Fireproof" is the latest film from that cinematic congregation of Sherwood Baptist Church of Albany, Ga. The new film has a bigger-name cast, headed by former "Growing Pains" star and Christian film mainstay Kirk Cameron. The movie is preachy, overwrought emotionally and dully scripted. Cameron plays Caleb Holt, the Albany fire chief, a can-do guy in a righteous profession. His wife, Catherine (Erin Bethea), has gone back to work and isn't doing all the housework any more. And the marriage is in trouble. It's burning down. What can they do to make it "fireproof?"
Rated PG for thematic material involving teen drug and alcohol use, and for some disturbing images. 2 hours, 17 minutes.
2 stars out of 5 -- By Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune