Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Southaven Cinema.

Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Work and the Glory: American Zion (PG-13, 118 min.) Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are among the historical figures portrayed in this drama about the early days of Mormonism in the American West.

Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag: This IMAX film offers an insider's view into aerial combat. Runs through Nov. 11, with limited showings through March 3, 2006. Tickets: $8; $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children (age 3-12); group rates available.

Indie Memphis Film Festival: The Soul of Southern Film: Close to 100 features, shorts and documentaries, today through Thursday. See story on Page 6.

Mystery of the Nile: Explorers navigate entire length of the Nile River. Limited showings through Nov. 11. Tickets: $8; $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children (age 3-12); group rates available.

Batman Begins (PG-13, 140 min.) Director Christopher Nolan ("Memento") and star Christian Bale (the most convincing Batman yet) give the faithful what they crave: the frightening "avenger of evil" of the comic books, brought to the screen with the prestige cast, technical accomplishment and seriousness of purpose of a David Lean epic. The script smartly returns to the traumatic psychological motivation that has undergirded the story of the orphaned Bruce Wayne's transformation into Batman since Detective Comics No. 33 in 1939, but the result is more verbose than mysterious -- the film feels muffled by the pall of the comic book industry's hard-won "respectability." This Batman is stalking Oscars, not Jokers.

Broken Flowers (R, 105 min.) After receiving an anonymous letter saying he's the father of a 19-year-old son, a rich "over-the-hill Don Juan" (Bill Murray) embarks on a lonely road trip to visit the four ex-lovers (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton) who might be the mother of his theoretical child. A dryly comic road movie, a screwy parody of a detective story and a decades-late coming-of-age tale with a climactic scene that suggests writer-director Jim Jarmusch may be poised to leave deadpan cool behind, this seemingly inevitable full-length teaming of hip insider-outsiders Murray and Jarmusch allows the fiercely independent filmmaker to demonstrate again his conviction that the "strange surprises" of life are to be treasured rather than feared, even when they bring mystery and sadness.

The Cave (PG-13, 98 min.) Paging Dr. Freud: After the chastity belt protection of an ancient church is destroyed, a "virgin cave" is violated by a crack team of explorers (including Cole Hauser and Morris Chestnut), who are punished by hungry winged creatures with fangs. Debuting director Bruce Hunt (an assistant on "The Matrix" series) achieves a certain claustrophobic tension, but the plot's overly familiar scare mechanics are never as interesting as the stalactite/stalagmite architecture of the cave itself.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (PG, 116 min.) This honorable and fairly faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel represents something of a minor comeback for director Tim Burton, who reteams here with his onscreen alter ego, Johnny Depp, after their memorable collaborations on "Edward Scissorhands," "Ed Wood" and "Sleepy Hollow." Those earlier films told of oddball individualists struggling for acceptance within discouraging societies; it's appropriate that the now richly rewarded Burton and Depp would reunite to resurrect Willy Wonka, a creator-artist who established himself as a wealthy and powerful celebrity by embracing rather than denying his eccentricity. Although this "Charlie" may seem too sweet to those with a taste for the dark chocolate of the original book or the 1971 cult classic "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," the film has much to recommend it, including a memorable visit with the squirrels of the "Nut Sorting Room" and superb comic performances by the actors who portray the story's ill-fated children.

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (Not rated, 89 min.) Ingenious and disturbing, Kansas writer-director Kevin Willmott's "mockumentary" satire -- which imagines what society would be like if the South had won the Civil War -- arrives in Memphis as a coincidental audiovisual aid for the debate over the future of the parks named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. "Southern heritage" advocates who argue the war was not about slavery will not be pleased, but others will admire Willmott's darkly comic alternate history, which includes images of the Confederate flag being hoisted at Iwo Jima and planted on the moon, commercials for "the Slave Shopping Network" and clips from such 1950s scare films as "I Married an Abolitionist." As the film's modern-day Confederates pursue "a divinely ordained quest for world dominance," we realize Willmott is not just addressing racial attitudes but encouraging us to contemplate current events.

The Constant Gardener (R, 129 min.) Working from a topical post-Cold War mystery novel by John le Carre, gifted Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles follows his often stunning "City of God" with this story of a low-level British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) in Kenya who is radicalized by his investigation into the murder of his pregnant, activist wife (Rachel Weisz). The film's social-justice agenda is valid, even vital, but it seems to preach to the liberal guilt of the converted -- ultimately, it's more reassuring than revolutionary. There's no denying Meirelles's talent at creating a compelling sense of place, however: The Nairobi shantytowns photographed here are as beautiful/terrifying as the Rio de Janeiro favelas of the director's previous movie.

Domino (R, 120 min.) When Mena Suvari's character complains that her boss has "the attention span of a ferret on crystal meth," she could be talking about filmmaker Tony Scott or perhaps Scott's opinion of his audience. The "Top Gun" director has never been a patient storyteller, but this nonstop collage of varied film stocks and speeds, strobe lighting and hip/ironic soundtrack samples plays more like a two-hour perfume commercial than a feature film. The movie was inspired by the true story of the late Domino Harvey (played here by Keira Knightley), who gave up a life of pampered privilege and a career as a Ford fashion model to run the streets as a bounty hunter; the result isn't really a biopic but a self-referential postmodern fantasy in the manner of "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and "Beyond the Sea," inhabited by cult actors (Mickey Rourke, Lucy Liu) who crowd Domino out of her own fever dream.

Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Elizabethtown (PG-13, 123 min.) A headline in Cameron Crowe's excruciating new film reads: "Blueprint for a Mess." Or is that a copy of the script? Orlando Bloom stars as a depressed athletic shoe designer who returns to smalltown Kentucky for his dad's funeral; along the way, he is inexplicably (from the audience's standpoint) stalked by a smitten flight attendant played by Kirsten Dunst. The screwball comedy masters Crowe tries to emulate, such as Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, revealed character through action; but Crowe ("Jerry Maguire," "Almost Famous") relies on maudlin voice-over narration, "meaningful" speeches and greeting-card sentiment. This is the type of film in which a widow (Susan Sarandon) pays tribute to her late husband by tap dancing to "Moon River" at his funeral, and we're supposed to be charmed. On the plus side, Memphis receives a big plug as a nice place to visit and eat chili (huh??) during the film's pointless road-trip finale; but by the time Elton John sings "Soon as this is over, we'll go home," viewers will be way ahead of him.

Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (PG-13, 120 min.) A literal dramatization of the maxim that possession is nine-tenths of the law, Scott Derrickson's surprise hit combines the suspenseful rhetorical jousting of a trial movie with the creepy scare tactics of a demonic possession story -- it's like a special Linda Blair episode of "Law & Order," with Laura Linney as an ambitious agnostic attorney who defends a priest (Tom Wilkinson) charged with negligent homicide after "an exorcism gone bad." The film panders to the audience's presumed desire for simple good-vs.-evil explanations of faith-shaking malfunctions of the brain and body, making this a sort of "Song of Bernadette" for a violent show-me age, with Emily Rose helping to restore the faith of those around her with visions of hell rather than heaven.

Flightplan (PG-13, 98 min.) We've heard of airlines losing luggage, but kids? Jodie Foster, the mother of two young sons, follows "Panic Room" with another thriller that allows her to physicalize her maternal instincts into action-movie heroics. (Does her experience as a child actor help explain her protective instincts?) Extremely well directed by Germany's Robert Schwentke (in his English-language feature debut), this ingenious inflight update of "The Lady Vanishes" finds the always intense Foster as a grieving widow whose young daughter disappears during a crowded flight over the Atlantic. Only during the final act do the characters begin to behave like movie constructs instead of recognizable people.

Peabody Place 22, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Fog (PG-13, 100 min.) In 1980, John Carpenter solidified his commercial status as the new "master of horror" with his "Halloween" followup, "The Fog," an interesting if uneven ghost story. This unscary remake from director Rupert Wainwright (whose credits include "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em: The Movie") might be remembered as "The Stench," as a cast of pale WB-style hunks and hotties (including "Smallville's" Tom Welling) and a "funny" black guy whose sole purpose is to say words like "dawg" confront a supernatural CGI mist that looks like it could be erased with a couple of mouse clicks. Dawg, this "Fog" is a dog.

Peabody Place 22, Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

G (R, 96 min.) A true independent film that is just now finding limited distribution in a few cities thanks to a grassroots marketing campaign aimed at African-American moviegoers, this updated revamp of "The Great Gatsby" stars Richard T. Jones as Summer G, an enigmatic hip-hop mogul who lives in lonely splendor in the whitebread Hamptons. Director Christopher Scott Cherot ("Hav Plenty") shot this in 2001; he deserves credit for creating a different type of "black" film, but the result is dramatically underwhelming and as visually flat as a made-for-TV movie. The producers may be right to bemoan Hollywood's racial myopia, but it's the movie's execution, not its vision of an alternative African-American cinema, that delayed its release.

The Gospel (PG, 103 min.) Concert performances by Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond and Martha Munizzi highlight this story of a hot R&B performer (Boris Kodjoe) who rediscovers his Christian roots after his father's illness brings him back home to Atlanta.

Peabody Place 22, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Greatest Game Ever Played (PG, 115 min.) Actor Bill Paxton directed this golf drama about the famous U.S. Open of 1913, in which 20-year-old working-class American amateur Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) defeated British reigning champion Harry Vardon (Stephen Villane).

A History of Violence (R, 98 min.) A small-town husband and father (Viggo Mortensen) is hailed as a hero after killing the criminals who invade his diner, but his act of bloody self-defense inspires teen vengeance, domestic violence and territorial invasion -- an escalation with political as well as social implications. Director David Cronenberg -- the very definition of an auteur, from the consistency of his visual economy to the thematic continuity of his 15 features in 30 years -- stages the violence with the thrilling quickness of a duel in a classic Western; then he strangles the cheer in our throats by showing us the consequences of the gunplay. He recognizes our -- his -- attraction to violence, but he makes sure we're aware that there's something irreversible in this transformation of life into meat. The movie reminds us that conventional action filmmakers are as duplicitous as the politicians who won't allow citizens to see the body bags produced by their war.

In Her Shoes (PG-13, 131 min.) How will the discovery of an unknown grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) affect the love-hate relationship between an unlucky-in-love lawyer (Toni Collette) with weight issues and her irresponsible, loose-living sister (Cameron Diaz)? Working from a novel by Jennifer Weiner and a smart script by Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich"), genre-hopping director Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential," "8 Mile") has created a marvelous showcase for his three leads. The film is funny, wise, moving and engrossing -- a "chick flick" that transcends the expected limitations of that judgmental label.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Madagascar (PG, 86 min.) An Ali G-voiced lemur that dances the robot and a crack squad of espionage-agent penguins highlight this frenetic DreamWorks farce in which a quartet of pampered zoo animals are stranded on the title African isle. The broad squish-and-stretch slapstick style of the computer animation is intended to match the gag-a-minute pace, although the results fall short of the classic Looney Tunes episodes that inspired the filmmakers. The voices belong to Chris Rock (a zebra), Ben Stiller (a lion) and Jada Pinkett Smith (a hippo).

Must Love Dogs (PG-13, 98 min.) Will unlucky-in-love fortysomething elementary school teacher Diane Lane fall for "Doctor Zhivago"-obsessed John Cusack, who builds boats by hand, out of wood? Spoiler: Yes.

Proof (PG-13, 99 min.) John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love") directs Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins and Jake Gyllenhaal in this unremarkable adaptation of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play about a demented genius mathematician and his self-sacrificing daughter. Among the startling revelations: Math is precise but life is sloppy.

Red Eye (PG-13, 85 min.) An efficient, unpretentious thriller unburdened by the self-conscious subtext and winking self-referential humor that humanities professor-turned-filmmaker Wes Craven usually imposes on his material, "Red Eye" presents rising star Rachel MacAdams as a smart multi-tasker terrorized within the claustrophobic cabin of an in-flight airliner by sinister Cillian Murphy, the Irish actor whose ghost-pale blue eyes also made a spooky impression in "Batman Begins." The film reminds us that moviegoing and air travel are somewhat similar experiences in which customers who pack themselves into tight rows of padded seats may experience turbulence and even white-knuckled terror at the hands of a pilot/director; the difference, of course, is that moviegoers often want to scream.

Roll Bounce (PG-13, 108 min.) Allusions to the Cosby Kids and 'What's Happening!!' are played for laughs, but they're apt: This is family-friendly youth fare, set in the 1970s, about affable teen roller-skaters from Chicago's South Side who challenge the snooty superiority of a pimped-out roller-rink kingpin named Sweetness (Wesley Jonathan). Director Malcolm D. Lee's crowd-pleaser could use more "Roller Boogie" routines and fewer heart-tugging heart-to-hearts between the young hero (Bow Wow) and his hardworking widowed father (Chi McBride), but a soundtrack heavy on Chic, Johnny 'Guitar' Watson and Kool & the Gang makes up for the mawkishness.

Serenity (PG-13, 119 min.) Compressing "Star Trek's" 10-year journey from small to big screen into barely two years, the short-lived Fox network science-fiction series "Firefly" has been revived -- thanks to its rabid Internet fan base and warp-speed DVD sales -- as this witty Western-in-space, written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon, the cult hero responsible for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Set in a post-Earth future of farflung humans, the action-packed story follows the adventures of a crew of ragtag rebels and a 17-year-old psychic (Summer Glau) operating in the shadow of the conform-or-die "Alliance." Neophytes should have little trouble catching the buzz.

Sky High (PG, 98 min.) The summer's best superhero movie doesn't star Batman or the Fantastic Four but the students of Sky High, a school that's a sort of floating Hogwarts for the children of costumed crimefighters. Director Mike Mitchell's engaging and family-friendly Disney comedy suggests a John Hughes rewrite of "The Incredibles," with Michael Angarano as an insecure teen coping with super-bullies and a super-crush on a sexy senior (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) while struggling to live up to the legacy of his world-saving parents, The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston).

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (PG, 76 min.) A shy fishmonger's son (voiced by Johnny Depp) finds himself claimed in marriage by the title cadaver (Helena Bonham Carter), who pulls the lad from his gloomily Dickensian hometown to the colorful and "lively" land of the dead. Morbid yet charming, this stop-motion followup to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is like one of those old Rankin-Bass holiday specials as imagined by macabre cartoonist Charles Addams, as Burton and co-director Mike Johnson marshal the expected influences (Hammer horror, "Caligari," Gothic literature ) for a fun modern folk tale that demonstrates that social institutions, cultural conventions and family traditions can trap the unwary in an unfulfilled life that is worse than death.

Peabody Place 22, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (Not rated, 70 min.) Whatever power Keith Beauchamp's documentary possesses as a work of art has been superseded by its political impact: The film, with its new eyewitness accounts, was a key influence on the Justice Department's 2004 decision to reopen the investigation into the racially motivated 1955 murder case that became a symbol of what the film refers to as American apartheid. Using photographs, archival footage and the voices of interview subjects rather than the omniscient intonations of a narrator, the film presents a more or less chronological narrative of the short life and gruesome death of Till, a 15-year-old African- American youth found murdered and mutilated in a Misssissippi bayou after allegedly whistling at a white woman. The acquittal of Till's accused killers (who later confessed to Look magazine) by an all-white jury helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement.

Valiant (G, 76 min.) A plucky pint-sized pigeon (voiced by Ewan McGregor) dreams of serving Her Majesty during World War II in this red-headed stepchild of a digitally animated feature, produced by a new company, Vanguard Animation, and distributed with half-hearted fanfare by Disney.

Waiting... (R, 93 min.) Behind-the-swinging- doors antics at a "Shenanigan's" restaurant, with Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and rising cult comic Dane Cook.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (G, 96 min.) Hoppy hoppy joy joy! Produced by England's Aardman Animation, this five-years-in-the-making comedy marks the feature debut of Wallace & Gromit, the whimsical master-and-dog duo introduced in three charming shorts by British stop-motion animator Nick Park ("Chicken Run"). Thankfully, Park and co-director Steve Box do not try to update the old-fashioned, pre-CGI allure and tea cozy warmth of the Aardman esthetic; the character designs embrace rather than deny their Plasticine limitations, which gives the film the literal hands-on, homemade appearance of the ingenious gewgaws and gizmos that Wallace invents for his own cottage industries. The story finds W&G running a humane pest removal service that is threatened by the title vegetable-ravager, a bouncy King Kong with buck teeth, floppy ears and a cotton tail who may be the cuddliest movie monster on record.

War of the Worlds (PG-13, 112 min.) Filled with reminders of 9/11, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of H.G. Wells's 1898 alien invasion novel tries to crash through the psychic guardrail that tells us "It can't happen here," delivering a sci-fi scare film that is confrontational rather than escapist. The brilliantly choreographed action unfolds entirely from the point of view of a divorced blue-collar father (Tom Cruise), who leads his son and daughter through a devastated landscape of increasing violence and panic. Spielberg has created not just the darkest "monster" movie since the 1954 "Godzilla" but a speculative fantasy inspired by the tragic experiences of the victims of overseas wars: This is an American refugee film.

Wedding Crashers (R, 119 min.) Owen Wilson plays cute, but Vince Vaughn amazes as Wilson's motormouthed best friend and confederate womanizer, a demented Don Wannabe who sprays lethal patter the way a Tommy gun sprays lead. The premise and cast build hopes for a modern comedy classic, but director David Dobkin sabotages a script of potentially Billy Wilderesque cynicism with sloppy sentiment and slack pacing.

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