North Oaks Cinema 6

Steven Spielberg and his jaunty little apologue about the 16th President of the United States aside, it's no longer enough in movies for an historical figure or literary character to do simple stuff like abolish slavery or find a man of... More »

Steven Spielberg and his jaunty little apologue about the 16th President of the United States aside, it's no longer enough in movies for an historical figure or literary character to do simple stuff like abolish slavery or find a man of intelligence and character. Abraham Lincoln is reduced to slaying vampires. Elizabeth Bennet is stuck fighting off zombies. And Hansel and Gretel can’t just kill off one cannibalistic witch and call it a day: In Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, they've grown up to become bounty hunters who must roam the land, kicking gnarly witch butt. Actually, according to this assertively revisionist reading of the Brothers Grimm, young Hansel and Gretel were led into the woods by their parents for a very good reason, having to do with the naked ambition of a very bad witch, Muriel (Famke Janssen). As it turns out, the grown versions of Hansel and Gretel, now celebrity witch hunters-- they're played by Gemma Arterton and Jeremy Renner-- have been brought to a small village to find the crone who's been snatching the local children, and damned if it isn't Muriel herself, accompanied by a whole coven of evildoing uglies in makeup left over from The Devil's Rain. There's actually no pleasure at all to be had in this humorless Hansel & Gretel, which was directed by Tommy Wirkola, whose previous credits include the 2009 Nazi-zombie horror comedy Dead Snow. But there is a truly intriguing mystery here: What on Earth are Renner and Arterton doing in this godforsaken thing? « Less

1:15 PM, 3:00 PM, 4:45 PM, 6:30 PM, 8:15 PM, 10:00 PM

There are big, tall, terrible, fleshy, bulbous-headed giants in the sky-- and, eventually, on earth-- in Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men director Bryan Singer's big-budget, gently revisionist, 3-D spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's a journey... More »

There are big, tall, terrible, fleshy, bulbous-headed giants in the sky-- and, eventually, on earth-- in Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men director Bryan Singer's big-budget, gently revisionist, 3-D spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's a journey facilitated by the eponymous Jack (Nicholas Hoult), the naïve farm boy who trades his horse for magic beans that sprout up like some unholy tincture of Miracle-Gro and HGH, putting both Jack and an intrepid princess (newcomer Eleanor Tomlinson) face to face with mankind's potential extinction. The story is hardly original or surprising, but the supremely confident Singer lends Jack an enjoyably old-fashioned showmanship that recalls a time when movie illusions were created by hand rather than by computer. Hoult (Warm Bodies) makes for an appealing lead, with the hesitant milk-fed smile of the young Tom Cruise and an unforced chemistry with Tomlinson. Simply put: Any five minutes of this is preferable to all of The Hobbit. « Less

1:00 PM, 3:10 PM, 5:20 PM, 7:30 PM, 9:40 PM

It's hard out there for a video game villain—always being attacked, never given the benefit of the doubt, and forever pigeonholed. Such is the fate of Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly), the bad guy in an old-school arcade game. With gigantic hands,... More »

It's hard out there for a video game villain—always being attacked, never given the benefit of the doubt, and forever pigeonholed. Such is the fate of Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly), the bad guy in an old-school arcade game. With gigantic hands, a round face, and overalls strapped over one shoulder, Ralph resembles a human Donkey Kong, and after 30 years of his smash-and-growl routine, he has grown tired of his station in life. At a therapy session for like-minded scoundrels including Super Mario Bros.' Bowser and Street Fighter's Zangief and M. Bison, Ralph wonders aloud why he can’t ever be the hero. A Pac-Man ghost responds, "We can’t change who we are." With bouncy CG that's given greater depth by 3-D, director Rich Moore's film blends the secret-lives-of-toys reality of Toy Story with the self-actualization vibe of Bolt, with the former proving far more electric than the latter. There’s an invigorating energy to the first 20 minutes, with Reilly's ho-hum-glum narration hilariously establishing Ralph's discontent, and Ralph’s travels through the game world marked by one winning cameo after another, including 2-D icons Pac-Man (detested by Ralph) and Q*Bert (now homeless). Thus, it's disappointing to find Wreck-It Ralph squandering the opportunities it sets up, retreating into static be-yourself territory when Ralph gets stranded in a cart-racing game with a smart-talking teen (Sarah Silverman) to save. Wreck-It Ralph's themes don't develop by branching out in wild, unpredictable ways; instead, they become narrower and more monotonous, perhaps replicating the fundamental nature of '80s-era games, which were predicted on basic, repetitive action. « Less

1:30 PM, 3:30 PM, 5:30 PM

Here's a breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy-- playing a multi-named serial liar and credit-card fraud artist we'll call Diana--... More »

Here's a breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy-- playing a multi-named serial liar and credit-card fraud artist we'll call Diana-- clocks Jason Bateman with a vicious neck punch. Bateman-- as yet another sane fellow whose life is infested with plot-driving crazies--clocks, tackles, and even brains her with the stolen bric-a-brac that clutters Diana's home. I'm not going to argue that this man hitting this woman for laughs is a progressive triumph. But it is at least a victory for whatever is the opposite of sexism. McCarthy gets bashed about like a Stooge, and she bashes back with riotous abandon. Sadly, the rest of the movie is a shambles. So, let it be said, this one time only: Here is a comedy that really could use more inter-gender violence. (I’ll leave it to you to parse the sexual politics of McCarthy's insult after Bateman beans her with a knickknack: "You throw like a fuckin' girl!") The rest of the film, they’re solo acts, each doing what audiences expect: She yells and exhibits an unsocialized horniness; he regards her with dismay and disgust. Yes, disgust. There's no way around it: The producers of Identity Thief seem to find McCarthy's real-world body loathsome. Her big comic sex scene is ruined by director Seth Gordon's refusal to shoot her below the chin, and her Diana is later freighted with a sad-clown back story and given a princess makeover—penance, perhaps, for having roughhoused like the boys in the first reel. « Less

1:30 PM, 3:35 PM, 5:40 PM, 7:45 PM, 9:50 PM

You can almost see the minds of the filmmakers working: Someone out there has just got to take umbrage at 21 & Over-- please. But the most offensive thing about the picture-- the directorial debut of the guys who wrote The Hangover-- is how... More »

You can almost see the minds of the filmmakers working: Someone out there has just got to take umbrage at 21 & Over-- please. But the most offensive thing about the picture-- the directorial debut of the guys who wrote The Hangover-- is how inoffensive it is. 21 & Over pretends to take chances even as it timidly retraces the same dance steps we've already seen in movies like, well, The Hangover. Three former high school besties, having gone off to separate colleges some three years earlier, reconnect on the night the youngest of them finally turns 21. The leads are appealing enough in their hapless, just-of-age way. Casey (Skylar Astin, of Pitch Perfect) and Miller (Miles Teller, who gave a terrific performance in Rabbit Hole and is also a veteran of another recent guys out-of-control comedy, last year's Project X) show up at Northern Pacific University to surprise their pal Jeff Chang (Justin Chon, of the Twilight movies), hoping to kidnap him for a night of birthday brewskis. But JeffChang-- his buds long ago having merged his first and last into that catchy uniname-- has an important med-school interview in the morning, and his glowering doctor-dad (François Chau) has showed up to escort him. Somehow, Casey and Miller persuade JeffChang to go out for just one little beer, which will eventually lead to shots of chartreuse-- or something similarly nasty-- being slurped out of a really fat guy's navel. Mayhem ensues, but as any woman writing about guy humor will tell you, it's really all about male insecurity. « Less

7:30 PM, 9:30 PM

Though Snitch loudly announces itself as a social-issues movie, its nominal outrage over the severity of our nation's sentencing laws for first-time drug offenders is quickly subsumed by a jacked-up narrative of a father going to extremes to save... More »

Though Snitch loudly announces itself as a social-issues movie, its nominal outrage over the severity of our nation's sentencing laws for first-time drug offenders is quickly subsumed by a jacked-up narrative of a father going to extremes to save his son. Inspired by a real-life incident detailed in a 1999 episode of Frontline, the film tracks construction-company magnate John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) as he offers to go undercover to nab drug dealers in exchange for a reduced prison sentence for his estranged 18-year-old son, Jason (Rafi Gavron). The teenager, still apparently smarting over his parents' divorce, faces 10 years in jail for accepting a package filled with Ecstasy and refuses to concoct evidence against a friend to lessen his time behind bars. In order to assuage the hurt he's caused his firstborn, John, after reading the Wikipedia entry for "drug cartel," first has closed-door meetings with a federal prosecutor (Susan Sarandon)-- her villainy signaled by both her childlessness and a snide remark about gay weddings-- then drives 1,000 miles in a semi containing mountains of coke secreted in cement bags. As the plot grows more and more absurd-- Benjamin Bratt shows up as a drug kingpin named "El Topo"-- Snitch reveals another kind of political agenda. After telling his co-conspirator in the blow setup that "there's no way I'm going to let either side dictate our fates," John stands in a gun shop, coolly assessing the arsenal that's his for the taking. « Less

1:00 PM, 3:05 PM, 5:10 PM, 7:15 PM, 9:20 PM

WWE Studios, the film production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, breaks from its usual target audience of guys who like films about shirtless, muscley men with The Call, a suspense thriller starring adequate actress and Academy Award... More »

WWE Studios, the film production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, breaks from its usual target audience of guys who like films about shirtless, muscley men with The Call, a suspense thriller starring adequate actress and Academy Award recipient Halle Berry as an overcommitted, hotshot 911 emergency operator. When she makes a rookie-level error that costs a teenage girl her life, she opts to hang up her call center headset-- until the girl's killer kidnaps another teen victim. Locked in a car trunk with a prepaid cell phone, she calls 911. The middle third of the film comprises the phone call, a tight 40 minutes in which the girl, guided by Berry, deploys the contents of the trunk (screwdriver, paint roller handle, cans of white matte finish) to make her kidnapper's vehicle more conspicuous while Berry presses her for details she can relate to the police. In a nod to the studio's usual demographic, two-time WWE tag-team champion David Otunga plays officer Jake Devans, though fans hoping for spinning headlock elbow drops or backflip kicks will be disappointed. When the emergency call ends, Berry drives out to the crime scene the cops traced down and goes all Clarice Starling inside the spooky cabin where the bad guy keeps his Saw basement, which has to be seen as a departure from the film's thin blue line of realism, or the workaday reality that WWE became known for when the Undertaker defeated Kane with his signature Tombstone piledriver at Wrestlemania XX. « Less

1:15 PM, 3:00 PM, 4:45 PM, 6:30 PM, 8:15 PM, 10:00 PM