The Austin Chronicle

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Pick of the Week

A Separation

A Separation

PG-13   123 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Nominee for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, this Iranian film is a smart, unusual, and highly involving story about making moral choices in the absence of villains.

New This Week

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu

NR   130 min.   Showtimes

This Bollywood romantic comedy tells the story a pair who accidentally get married after a night of carousing.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

PG   94 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Michael Caine zips around on a giant bumblebee and Dwayne Johnson is a pectoral spectacle in this family-friendly, fantasy-island adventure tale.

Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2012: Animation

Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2012: Animation

NR   80 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Be ready for your office Oscar pool when it rolls around later this month.

Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2012: Live Action

Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2012: Live Action

NR   110 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Good things come in small packages.

Pina

Pina

PG   103 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Wim Wenders celebrates the great, innovative, German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch – in commanding 3-D, no less.

Safe House

Safe House

R   114 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

This hectic, deftly edited, and unexpectedly bracing thriller stars Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds.

This Means War

PG-13   98 min.   Showtimes

Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy, and Chris Pine star in this romcom about two CIA agents who fall for the same gal.

The Vow

The Vow

PG-13   104 min.   Showtimes

A woman awakes from a coma with severe memory loss, forcing her forgotten husband to win her love all over again. Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum star.

First-Run Movies

The Adventures of Tintin

PG   107 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Steven Spielberg brings Hergé's comic books to animated life.

Agneepath

NR   186 min.   Showtimes

Bollywood action thriller.

Albert Nobbs

R   113 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

This melancholy picture is distinguished by Glenn Close's vanishing act in the titular role.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

G   87 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

We're wondering if anyone will call the ASPCA if we leave these animated rodents chipwrecked far from civilization.

The Artist

The Artist

PG-13   100 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

It's a silent, black-and-white film for the 21st century, full of coy delights.

Beauty and the Beast

G   84 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

The Disney classic returns to theatres with a 3-D update.

Big Miracle

PG   107 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski star in this fact-based story that shows us that whales are mammals too.

Chronicle

Chronicle

PG-13   83 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Like a marriage of Cloverfield and Carrie, Chronicle blends faux-naif techniques with a teen telekinesis plot and gets fresh results.

Contraband

R   109 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

This routine story in which Mark Wahlberg plays a man forced to pull one last smuggling job stands out for its stylistic efficiency, stellar cast, and narrative restraint.

The Descendants

R   115 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

George Clooney teams up with Sideways filmmaker Alexander Payne for this funny but tender story that's a little too smug for its own good.

The Devil Inside

R   87 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

A woman tries to determine whether her incarcerated mother is criminally insane or demonically possessed.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

PG-13   129 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

R   158 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Rooney Mara completely nails the role of Lisbeth Salander, and director David Fincher is no slouch either in this perhaps unnecessary remake of the Swedish thriller.

The Grey

The Grey

R   117 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Bloodthirsty wolves and the brutalizing Alaskan elements conspire against a band of airplane crash survivors.

Happy Feet Two

PG   100 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Some penguins march; these animated penguins dance – and sing – just like they did the last time around, only with a little less novelty.

Haywire

R   93 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

A technically exemplary but otherwise unremarkable piece of fisticuffs filmmaking.

Hugo

Hugo

PG   126 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Martin Scorsese steps outside his comfort zone to create an effects-heavy children’s film set in France – and winds up creating one of his most splendid and personal films.

Immortals

R   110 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

There's lots of numbingly choreographed chaos and lascivious bloodletting in this megabudget picture about the Greek gods by the visual stylist Tarsem Singh.

The Innkeepers

The Innkeepers

R   100 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

With slow-burn shudders, Ti West's haunted-inn story provides a stellar model for creeping dread.

The Iron Lady

PG-13   105 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Meryl Streep reunites with her Mama Mia! director to play Margaret Thatcher.

Jack and Jill

PG   91 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Two Adam Sandlers for the price of one? And Al Pacino?! It's still not worth it.

Joyful Noise

PG-13   117 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton duke it out in the homespun world of gospel-music competition.

Man on a Ledge

PG-13   102 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

This semi-functional thriller tingles but never terrifies.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

PG-13   133 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

This fourth entry in the Tom Cruise film franchise is the best of the bunch; it's wacky and keen to please.

The Muppets

The Muppets

PG   98 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

This Muppet reboot is an absolute delight and puts an end to the great Muppet diaspora.

My Week With Marilyn

R   101 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Based on the memories of Colin Clark, this movie recounts his time getting to know Marilyn Monroe while she was in England shooting The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier.

New Year's Eve

PG-13   118 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Did you see Garry Marshall's last all-star movie Valentine's Day? This is the same silly claptrap, just a different holiday.

One for the Money

PG-13   106 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Heigl plays bounty hunter Stephanie Plum in this adaptation of the first book in Janet Evanovich's bestselling crime series.

Puss in Boots

Puss in Boots

PG   90 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

As infectious as the latest viral cat video, this animated film has the added slam-dunk of Antonio Banderas purring the voice of the title character.

Red Tails

PG-13   125 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

George Lucas exec produced – and bankrolled – this action/drama about the historic Tuskegee Airmen.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

PG-13   128 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Robert Downey Jr. inhabits the role of Sherlock Holmes to a near-molecular level in this rushing whoosh of a follow-up to 2009's blockbuster.

Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace

PG   133 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

It's time to find out if a 3-D lightsaber is any more effective than 1999's 2-D model.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

R   127 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Gary Oldman is John le Carré's unflappable spy, George Smiley, in this dandy espionage tale.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1

PG-13   117 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

With this new entry, the series officially marks a transition from relatively harmless Victorian-minded trash to something flatly pernicious.

Underworld: Awakening

R   88 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

When humans sniff out the existence of vampires and Lycans, all hell breaks loose.

War Horse

PG-13   146 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

A stylistic throwback to classic studio movies, Spielberg's film about war as seen through a horse's experience of it rarely rises to the occasion.

We Bought a Zoo

PG   124 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Matt Damon is a widower with two kids who buys a zoo after his wife bought the farm in Cameron Crowe's latest movie.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

We Need To Talk About Kevin

R   112 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Tilda Swinton stars as the mother of a teen rampage killer who has a complicated relationship with her son.

The Woman in Black

PG-13   96 min.      Full Review   Showtimes

Daniel Radcliffe jumps from Hogwarts to this movie's haunted mansion where he stars as a young widower under siege from a malevolent ghost.

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