Movie Stars

Amelia It’s Oscar season: Time to wheel out Hilary Swank for her annual viewing. This biopic of aviator Amelia Earhart is a big, hollow white elephant with a sharp idea struggling to get out: How does a woman marketed to the public as a star turn herself back into a human being? Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor play the men in Earhart’s life. (111 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

Antichrist Lars von Trier’s most extreme film, and that’s saying something. It’s a violently psychosexual drama about an unnamed couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) working out their grief over their child’s death and plunging into an increasingly primeval struggle. Maddening, misogynistic, ridiculous, powerful - not for the faint of heart. (109 min., unrated but plays as NC-17) (Ty Burr)

Astro Boy The latest iteration of the rocket-propelled superboy takes its cues from the original Japanese manga rather than the 1960s TV cartoon and is all the more interestingly weird for it. Freddie Highmore voices the computer animated hero, a Pinocchio-in-reverse who was a little boy and is now a robot. Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, and Donald Sutherland also aurally appear. (94 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant A sardonic vampire movie for teenage boys - a sort of Bill and Ted’s Undead Adventure. There’s plenty of talent before and behind the camera, but director Paul Weitz puts his trust in young lead actor Chris Massoglia, who’s too bland to deliver. John C. Reilly has a high old time as a vampire life coach. (108 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Good Hair A documentary spurred by Chris Rock’s dilemma over how he would care for his two young daughters’ hair. Would he keep it natural? Would he have it relaxed? The film is the antic, free-ranging culmination of his crisis, in which Rock finds great comedy in what still lingers as a tragedy over the black compulsion to strive for a kind of whiteness through hair care. (95 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

The Hagstone Demon You last caught Mark Borchardt raging on about his horror-directing ambitions in the documentary “American Movie.’’ All these years later, Borchardt finally delivers the picture that was in his head, playing an apartment building super whose tenants are being gruesomely murdered. A few fun, cheap scares, and lots of amateur-hour tedium. (103 min., unrated) (Tom Russo)

Heart of Stone A documentary about an inner-city high school - Weequahic High, in Newark - that shows how hard, how necessary, and how infinitely rewarding it can be to open doors for kids who didn’t know they were there. Technically the movie’s nothing much, but it makes Hollywood dramas like “Stand By Me’’ look tame and insipid. (84 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

Motherhood A day in the life of a harried, obnoxiously self-righteous New York blogger and mother of two (Uma Thurman). And an hour-and-a-half you’ll never see again. (90 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

Couples Retreat Painfully unfunny comedy about four couples at a Caribbean relationship-maintenance resort. Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, and Faizon Love play the husbands; Kristin Davis and Kristen Bell are among the wives. A few uncomfortable truths are raised and glossed over, but it’s dumbed-down entertainment aimed at a dumbed-down audience. (107 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

The Damned United Michael Sheen plays the late English soccer coach Brian Clough, who in 1974 is recruited from the bottom of the professional soccer ladder to coach Leeds United, the country’s premier team. There’s a jesting charge to this performance that Sheen’s others, such as Tony Blair and David Frost, haven’t had. Fun. (97 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

An Education A charming, intelligent coming-of-age tale set in early-’60s London. Carey Mulligan is hugely appealing as a levelheaded teenage girl who gets involved with a mysterious older man (Peter Sarsgaard). Nick Hornby adapted the script, Lone Scherfig directed, but the movie belongs to its star. (95 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

The Informant! The true story of corporate whistle-blower Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is given a bright, shallow satiric spin by director Steven Soderbergh. Damon is terrific as the delusional hero, and the movie’s fun to watch, but you can tell it was a lot more fun to make, and that’s a problem. (108 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Law Abiding Citizen Jamie Foxx is a lawyer in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office harassed by a nut (Gerard Butler) angry that the killers of his wife and children didn’t suffer enough. The script forgoes the primacy of revenge fantasy and leans on military-grade weaponry that turns Philadelphia into sections of Afghanistan. (108 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

Love Happens A self-help guru (Aaron Eckhart) in denial over his wife’s death meets a free-spirited florist (Jennifer Aniston). It’s being sold as a romantic comedy but it’s really a Big Cry movie, and it progresses from an acceptably cute to shamelessly sticky. With Dan Fogler, and Martin Sheen. (109 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

More Than a Game This documentary about the pre-NBA career of basketball superstar LeBron James is as much about friendship as sports, focusing on the bond among James and four teammates. The presentation can be overwrought, but the material is emotionally rich. (PG, 105 min.) (Mark Feeney)

New York, I Love You A desultory compilation of short episodes (about 15 or so) that, once assembled into a 110-minute film, are meant to stir in us the feeling that New York City is a sexy, romantic, thrillingly random place where anything can go down. Sadly, two of those things are your eyelids. (R, 110 min.) (Wesley Morris)

Paranormal Activity An invisible force bedevils a San Diego couple - and it’s all captured on videotape! The microbudget Slamdance sensation aims to conjure the ”Blair Witch” terror of being lost in the woods, but director Oren Peli manages only to serve up mild unease in an underfurnished home. (85 min., R) (Justine Elias)

A Serious Man The Coen brothers remake the Book of Job in 1967 suburban Minneapolis. It’s Jewish Bergman and one of their very best films - a pitch-black Old Testament farce in which God is either absent, absent-minded, or mad as hell. Love it or hate it, it’ll haunt you for a long time. Michael Stuhlbarg plays the hapless hero. (105 min., R) (Ty Burr)

Surrogates In the future, we’ll all have robot surrogates, and won’t that be fun? The latest Bruce Willis futuristic action rama-lama is a pretty watchable sci-fi B movie, a case of a good director (Jonathan Mostow) and some intriguing ideas struggling to overcome formula plotting, limp dialogue, and a serious case of the sillies. (88 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Where the Wild Things Are In adapting Maurice Sendak’s classic book, director Spike Jonze has teased out the melancholy along with the magic. The film has more than its share of wild rumpuses, but its heart is in what happens after the rumpus dies down. Max Records is a fine Max; James Gandolfini and others provide voices. (101 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

An archive of movie reviews can be found at www.boston.com/movies. Theaters are subject to change.