NYT > Movies

• Murder Most Musical
  “Sweeney Todd” is as much a horror film as a musical. It is also something close to a masterpiece.
• Behind the Music, This Time for Laughs
  “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” has a good beat and you can dance to it, though mostly you’ll probably just tap your foot.
• Good-Time Charlie’s Foreign Affairs
  “Charlie Wilson’s War” may be more of a hoot than any picture dealing with the bloody, protracted fight between the Soviet Army and the Afghan mujahedeen has any right to be.
• A Goofy Scheme to Get the Girl
  The Hungarian cartoon feature “The District!” is a last-minute shoo-in for the title of 2007’s most original animated film.
• Cereal as a Metaphor for Capitalism
  A business course on cutthroat capitalism disguised as a slacker comedy: That’s the kindest way to describe Michael Lehmann’s “Flakes.”
• From Memories, There’s No Escape
  In both novel and film form, “The Kite Runner” recounts a simple yet shrewd story about that favorite American pastime: self-improvement.
• Man About Town, and Very Alone
  In spite of its third-act collapse into obviousness and sentimentality, “I Am Legend” is among Will Smith’s better movies.
• The Folks You Meet on the Border Between Consciousness and Dreams
  “Youth Without Youth” is a narratively ambitious, visually sumptuous surrealist enterprise that tries to bend time and space together as neatly as the folds in an origami swan.
• Out of Warhol’s Inner Circle Into the Void
  “A Walk Into the Sea” is Esther B. Robinson’s documentary about Danny Williams, a former Harvard student who was a part of Andy Warhol’s Factory scene.
• Familiar Faces With a Digital Makeover
  Hollywood continues its tired milking of old television properties with “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” a slick updating of the musical-cartoon franchise.
• Movie Guide and Film Series
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• Harsh Realities and Mystical Power
  For his poetic fourth feature, “Half Moon,” Bahman Ghobadi returns to the desolation of the Kurdish borderlands and the enduring optimism of his people.
• Songs for a Brighter Tomorrow
  Can singing change history? “The Singing Revolution,” a documentary by James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty about Estonia’s struggle to end Soviet occupation, shows that it already has.
• Now You See Me
  “Look,” an unsettling, rudely funny but not entirely credible feature by the writer and director Adam Rifkin, is an ensemble narrative for the age of public surveillance.
• Teachers United
  In “Arranged” two devout Brooklyn schoolteachers clutch hands across the religious divide as their respective families prepare to marry them off.
• Disney Wonders if a Mermaid Can Follow a Trail Blazed by a Lion
  While “The Lion King” on Broadway took everyone by surprise, “The Little Mermaid” comes with one question: Can Disney ever do that again?
• Golden Globes and Oscars Are Drawn Into Strike
  The guild will not allow the Golden Globe show to use its writers, and is denying historical film clips to the Oscars.
• Master of ‘Rings’ to Tackle ‘Hobbit’
  A settlement announced on Tuesday between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema could bring “The Hobbit” to movie theaters by December 2010.
• Cinephiles, Pack Your Bags. An Uncut Version Awaits.
  The phenomenon of so many people visiting Hong Kong to see uncensored films has highlighted changing attitudes toward government censorship of the arts in China.
• New DVDs
  New this week is a Criterion version of “Two-Lane Blacktop,” the rarely seen “Chameleon Street” and a 90th Anniversary United Artists boxed set.
• Met Has New Rival in Operas at Movies
  The San Francisco Opera on Tuesday announced its own plan to transmit operas to movie theaters using a system it says is superior to that of the Metropolitan Opera.
• Evidence in Hollywood Wiretapping Case Is Questioned
  Lawyers for defendants in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case argued that evidence seized from the Hollywood private detective’s offices had been improperly obtained.
• A Warning From Behind the Curtain
  Media consumers have been watching the writers’ strike from the sidelines, but they might take notice if the awards season is replaced by marches and pickets.
• Sex! Drugs! (And Maybe a Little War)
  Mike Nichols, Aaron Sorkin and Tom Hanks find dark humor in a congressman’s foreign adventure.
• Vexing Questions of Jewish Identity
  Jamie Kastner calls his documentary “Kike Like Me” a “black comic road movie about identity.”
• ‘I Am Legend’ Has a Healthy Start
  “I Am Legend” hauled in an estimated $76.5 million in its debut to capture first place in the weekend box-office rankings compiled by the tracking company Media by Numbers.
• Sondheim Dismembers ‘Sweeney’
  Theater buffs have been worried sick about what would happen to “Sweeney Todd” when it was remade as a film. Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the score, eagerly wielded the razor.
• Kurdish Director, Stuck Between Iraq and Iran
  Bahman Ghobadi, the international face of Kurdish cinema, works in countries that are less than accommodating.
• Extreme Sports Vault Onto the Big Screen
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