RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE) The Uninvited: Horror. Starring Emily Browning, David Strathairn and Elizabeth Banks. Directed by Charles and Thomas Guard. (PG-13. 87 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) Some of us older than 30 remember when horror filmmakers made...


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RATING: (ALERT VIEWER)New in Town: Romantic comedy. Starring Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr., Siobhan Fallon and J.K. Simmons. Directed by Jonas Elmer. (PG-13. 96 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) There should be a special Oscar for good actors who still...


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It takes a whole lot of chutzpah, and a real lack of imagination, to make a movie like INew In TownI in 2009. Director Jonas Elmer uses one of comedys oldest tropes, the fish out of water, and pairs it with story of a driven, confident career woman who really only needs a man in her life, plus an appreciation for fine...

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Starring: Kevin James, Jayma Mays, Keir O'Donnell, Bobby Cannavale, Stephen... Review: Shoot me now! It's bad enough that this laugh-free farce featuring Kevin James' bumbling Blart saving a mall from thieves on skates (what a concept!) has shot this hackjob comedy to box office nirvana (a 10-day total of $64.8 million). Now there are plans for a sequel. I guess Blart (blart/fart — very droll!) will continue to stuff his face, live with his mom (Shirley Knight) and daughter (Raini Rodriguez), and pine for sex until his next feat of heroism turns babes into chubby chasers. What a year at the movies this 2009 has been so far. Bride Wars, Underworld: Rise of...

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Starring: Francois Begaudeau Review: Richly deserving of the Oscar nomination it recently received as Best Foreign-Language film, Laurent Cantet's scrappy mesmerizer of a movie about a life in learning sneaks up and floors you. The film is based on an autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau, a French schoolteacher who grapples with junior-high students in a racially mixed section of France. Though Cantet shoots the film documentary style, Bégaudeau, as Francois Marin, is actually playing a fictionalized version of himself — and doing it superbly by the way. The actors are actual students playing at being themselves — also doing it superbly. Using mobile high-definition cameras that prowl around the classroom like proverbial flies on...

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