Movie capsules

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 docu mentary 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)

Aliens in the Attic How many alien-invasion movies do you see where you root for the aliens to win? Except for one splendidly bizarre kickboxing sequence, this boilerplate action/sci-fi/comedy appears designed for families who never leave the mall. (86 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

The Boys Are Back Clive Owen plays a successful Australian sportswriter whose life gets turned upside down when his wife dies of cancer, leaving him with two boys (Nicholas McAnulty and George MacKay). It’s a solid entry in the Bad Dad Gets It Together genre and Owen is quite touching, but director Scott Hicks pretties away the rawness. (104 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Bright Star A quiet, watchful, transporting film about the romance between the 19th-century poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and the seamstress Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Director Jane Campion stands biopic clichés on their head by making Brawne the subject and Keats the limpid love object; the result is a woman’s film in deep and profound ways. (119 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

Capitalism: A Love Story Michael Moore goes after the entire US economic system. His documentary is long on damning stories of helpless families and officials profiting from the abuse of their power. But in creating this air of unstoppable cosmic economic oppression, he makes us seem a little more helpless than we actually are. (108 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs This 3-D animated romp is more than an extrapolation of the 1978 children’s book about a town where food falls from the sky. It’s a glossy spoof of a disaster movie that looks nothing like the original but creates a vibrant - if derivative - world all its own. Bill Hader voices a nerdy inventor, and James Caan is remarkably appealing as the voice of his gruff, misunderstanding dad. (81 min., PG) (Joanna Weiss)

Coco Before Chanel In which we learn about the life of the legendary fashion designer when she was just a skinny young hat-making courtesan named Gabrielle. Having Audrey Tautou play her is a good idea, since it gives her an occasion she can rise to. It’s unclear what the director and co-writer, Anne Fontaine, thinks fashion means to Chanel. The movie fails to find joy in her creations. With Benoît Poelvoorde and Alessandro Nivola as two of her lovers. (105 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 is a jesting charge to this performance that Sheen’s others, such as Tony Blair and David Frost, haven’t had. It’s fun. (97 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

District 9 Out of left field - South Africa, actually - comes a gritty, grubby, relentlessly paced sci-fi action movie about race and extraterrestrials. Neill Blomkamp has made a smart and frenetic outsider blockbuster, but all the style can’t disguise the story’s shortcomings. Beware of extreme shaky-cam. In English and Prawn, with subtitles. (112 min., R) (Ty Burr)

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)

Fame In this sugarless update of the 1980 movie, innocent songs and unsuspecting dance routines are hacked to bits. Like its predecessor, the 2009 edition is also set at a performing arts high school where a clan of fresh young faces descend for four years of, of - well, that’s part of the problem. We don’t know if these kids have talent or not. I’m gonna live forever? Not this time. (99 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)

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)

The Invention of Lying Ricky Gervais has come up with a wickedly funny idea for a movie - in a world where everyone is brutally truthful, one man lies up the existence of God - and then purged the wickedness right out of it. The laughs are there but squandered by shaky direction and loss of nerve. With Jennifer Garner. (100 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Julie & Julia The easiest thing Nora Ephron has ever done with a movie. Half the film is spent with Meryl Streep as Julia Child in France in 1949. Half is spent 50 years later in Queens with Amy Adams as Julie Powell, who devotes a year (and a blog) to exploring the recipes from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.’’ The movie is more than a tale of two women (although it is certainly that). It’s a tale of two different ages for women. With Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina. (123 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)

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 acceptably cute to shamelessly sticky. With Dan Fogler, Judy Greer, 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 and often involving. (105 min., PG) (Mark Feeney)

Mystic India In this ultra-romanticized vision of India, set in the 18th century, 100-plus architectural and geological locations are the backdrop for a hokey, but true, story of a real boy yogi who left his village in 1792 on a solo, seven-year, 8,000-mile, barefoot pilgrimage. (44 min., G) (Ethan Gilsdorf)

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. (110 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

No Impact Man A confused portrait of a New York eco-warrior - Colin Beavan, who vowed to live for a year without impacting the environment - that somehow puts its confusion to good use. Beavan comes off as a well-meaning twit (his wife, Michelle, is the one we side with), but his quest gradually takes on meaning and accountability. (90 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

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)

The September Issue One of the most revealing movies you’ll ever see about work. R.J. Cutler’s documentary is set at the Manhattan offices of American Vogue. Cutler treats it all seriously, but not too seriously. The people who work at Vogue work hard. They’re serious, really thinking about fashion, how it evolves, and where exactly it belongs in a woman’s life. The best stuff involves the editor, Anna Wintour, and her creative differences with creative director Grace Coddington, who is the movie star. (90 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

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)

Toy Story/Toy Story 2 For this double feature re-release, Disney and Pixar give their original flagship a 3-D makeover so that the movies don’t look stale next to “Up,’’ or next year’s “Toy Story 3.’’ Happily, “Toy Story’’ and current technology do make a terrific match. Seeing the imagery dimensionalized subtly adds to the already tangible curviness of Woody and Buzz’s molded plastic world. (188 min., G) (Tom Russo)

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)

Whip It This comedy about a Texas girl (Ellen Page) who discovers roller derby marks the directing debut of Drew Barrymore, who has so thoroughly laced the movie with her own lunatic affections for women and the human race in general that it ought to be sold as an antidepressant. With Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkat, Juliette Lewis, and the director as a stoner derbyist. Shauna Cross adapted the smart script from her novel. (111 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

Zombieland A short, tatty zombie farce that’s the funniest entry in the genre since “Shaun of the Dead.’’ Playing the handful of post-plague survivors are Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine with a double-barreled shotgun. Gory rather than scary, a little too sloppy, but very entertaining. Surprise cameo by a Beloved Comedy Legend. (83 min., R) (Ty Burr)

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

Wednesday, Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs

35 Shots of Rum

Friday, Kendall Square

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Friday, Kendall Square

The Canyon

Friday, Kendall Square