Punch out

The Fighter

What some people call acting others call overacting. Take The Fighter, the new boxing movie that’s got plenty of people all aflutter about the over-the-top performances of Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. Some people love it. Me, I consider it scenery chewing.

David O. Russell’s based-on-a-true-story movie stars Mark Wahlberg as Mickey Ward, a smalltime boxer who became champ for a while back in the ’80s. He lives in Lowell, Mass., where he’s trained by his brother Dickie (Bale), a onetime fighter whose claim to fame was knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard years ago and who’s been reduced to smoking crack and pimping his girlfriend. Mickey’s also managed by his mother Alice (Leo), who boasts big hair, pahk ya cahr en da yahd accent and a brood of angry Irish daughters.

Bale, an actor whose work I often admire, is rail thin, talks a mile a minute and is constantly ducking and weaving, while Wahlberg plays Mickey as the strong, silent palooka who finally gets his head straight when he starts dating Charlene (Amy Adams), a hot bartender with a year’s worth of college and the guts to stand up to Alice and her minions. Once Mickey is free of his family, he starts winning fights, but he can climb only so high without the support of his bruddah and his muddah.

This is the sort of movie where everyone repeats everything everyone else says in a conversation; where the real fighting goes on outside the ring, lessening the impact of what goes on inside it; and where accents get confused with acting. Plenty of critics feel like The Fighter is a shot to the gut. Me, I thought it was just a sucker punch.

OPENING

All Good Things: Ryan Gosling stars as a rich guy whose wife, played by Kirsten Dunst, goes missing. Twenty years later, when the cops reopen the case, he goes on the lam and starts living as a woman. Loosely based on a true story and not well made at all.

Cropsey: Two Staten Island natives make a documentary about the serial killer who murdered kids in their neighborhood while they were growing up.

How Do You Know?: Reese Witherspoon can’t decide between corporate Paul Rudd and jock Owen Wilson. It’s a James L. Brooks movie, so you know Jack Nicholson figures into it somehow.

The King’s Speech: Though he should have taken a walk to the podium this year, Colin Firth will probably win an Oscar for playing King George VI, the monarch who led his people into WWII despite his almost-crippling stammer. Geoffrey Rush is great as his speech therapist. See our review on Page 21.

I Love You Phillip Morris: Jim Carrey is as rubber-faced as ever, playing a gay conman who meets the love of his life, Ewan McGregor, in prison.

The Legend of the Pale Male: Documentary about a young Belgian who spends two decades documenting the life of a rare NYC hawk. It includes just as much triumph, disappointment and heartbreak as any human being’s life.

Tron: Legacy: Disney’s big-budget, 28-years-later follow-up is far more style than substance, as Sam (Garrett Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), enters the grid to rage against the machine. The light cycles are cooler than ever, but the story gets more and more ridiculous as the film progresses.

Yogi Bear: Going 3-D in today’s world just proves that Yogi is, in fact, smarter than the average bear. He’s voiced by Dan Aykroyd, while Boo-Boo gets Justin Timberlake’s pipes.

ONE TIME ONLY

Scrooged: Before he got all serious, Bill Murray made his own version of A Christmas Carol. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 15, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas, and at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 22, at the Pearl Hotel in Point Loma.

A Christmas Story: You’ll shoot your eye out at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 15, at The Pearl Hotel in Point Loma or at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 16, at Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Christmas in August: The San Diego Asian Film Festival presents this wonderful Korean film about a terminally ill man who finds some love in his final days. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 15, at the Museum of Photo graphic Arts in Balboa Park.

Flood Tide: Remixed: Part of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Viva la Revolucion exhibit. The artist Swoon has created a film about four artists who build boats out of found objects so they can set sail before society collapses. A live score will be played by a band made up of some of the cast. Screens at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Dec. 16 and 17, at MCASD’s La Jolla location.

The Wedding Banquet: This is Ang Lee’s comedy about a gay landlord who agrees to marry one of his tenants so his parents will think he’s straight and she can get a green card. Of course, it doesn’t go like that. Screens at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 17, at the Center in Hillcrest. Free.

The Bishop’s Wife: Not the remake with Whitney Houston. This original stars Cary Grant as an angel who shows David Niven and Loretta Young the true meaning of Christmas. Kind of. Screens at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 17, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Repo! The Genetic Opera: Elective Surgery, San Diego’s own Repo! shadowcasting team, throws a holiday party complete with the futuristic organ repossession musical starring Paris Hilton. Sing along at 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18, at Queen Bee’s in North Park.

It’s a Wonderful Life: The biggest problem with Billy Wilder’s wonderful film is that we associate it with Christmas. But it’s still great. James Stewart is George Bailey, a man who gives up his dreams for his family and his town. Screens at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas and 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 20, at the Encinitas Library.

White Christmas Sing-Along: Can you out-croon Bing Crosby? How about Danny Kaye or Rosemary Clooney? Screens at 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Please Give: Catherine Keener has collaborated with Nicole Holofcener on all four of her films, and this is one of their best. Keener’s a New Yorker married to Oliver Platt, selling midcentury furniture they buy from the apartments of old people who have died, consequently experiencing inescapable midlife liberal white guilt. Screens at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 20, at the Central Library, Downtown. Free.

Die Hard: Even though it has Bruce Willis in it, Die Hard is still the best of the holiday action films. Screens at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 20, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Sleepless in Seattle: It’s hard to remember this Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan remake of An Affair to Remember. Screens at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 21, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Elf: Sure, he’s gone on to make a couple of Iron Man movies, but this Will Ferrell Christmas flick was the first time we took Jon Favreau seriously as a director. Screens at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 22, at the Reading Gaslamp Cinemas.

Ho Ho Horrible Imaginings: Christmas Splatterganza: San Diego’s horror film festival gets into the spirit with Christmas Evil, Treevenge and the always-celebratory Thankskilling. It all goes down at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 22, at the Tenth Avenue Theatre, Downtown

NOW PLAYING

Tiny Furniture: Lena Dunham wrote, directed and stars in this wonderfully awkward post-college coming-of-age film, which also features her mother and her sister. You’ll either think it’s a fascinating, insightful film from an assured young director or unbelievably self-indulgent—or both. Ends Dec. 16 at the Ken Cinema.

Black Swan: Natalie Portman has to find both sides of herself as a ballerina obsessed with playing the lead in Swan Lake in the new one from Darren Aronofsky. Well-directed, beautifully shot, completely bonkers.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader: The franchise is reborn after Disney stopped making the films. There’s something quasi-religious about that, right?

Hemingway’s Garden of Eden: Taken from Hemingway’s novel, natch, this one stars Jack Huston as a WWI vet with a gorgeous wife (Mena Suvari) who has an even more gorgeous friend (Caterina Murino). You can imagine how that goes.

Queen of the Lot: An up-and-coming starlet really doesn’t want to let anything stand in the way of fame or true love. Or, maybe, both. Ends Dec. 16 at the La Jolla Village Cinemas.

Samson & Delilah: A pair of Aboriginal teens leave their outback community after tragedy strikes. It won the Camera d’Or at Cannes. 

Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation: It’s been three long years, but S&M are back with a new collection of short flicks that are bloody, nasty and also sick and twisted. It runs Thursday, Dec. 16, at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas. 

The Tourist: Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp team up to kill a bunch of bad guys and rake in piles of money at the box office. 

Whiz Kids: A documentary about three 17-year-old American kids competing in the country’s most prestigious science contest. And you thought American kids weren’t into science.

My Amnesia Girl: Filipino romcom about a guy who gets another chance to pursue his ex after she comes down with amnesia.

Four Lions: Like its protagonists, this satire about bumbling British jihadists doesn’t always hit its target. But when it does, it’s really funny.

Heartless: What’s Jim Sturgess to do when he learns that the London street toughs he’s kicking it with are actually demons?

The Nutcracker in 3-D: Not the next film in the Jackass franchise. 

The Warrior’s Way: A deadly Asian warrior hides out in the American badlands after turning down a mission. Likely the first movie with both Geoffrey Rush and ninjas.

Welcome to the Rileys: James Gandolfini starts to sort out his marriage to Melissa Leo, which has suffered since the death of their daughter, through his platonic friendship with Twilight’s Kristen Stewart. Ends Dec. 16 at the La Jolla Village Cinemas.

Burlesque: Can Cher help small-town girl Christina Aguilera become the best burlesque dancer in L.A.? Yes.

Faster: After a string of family-friendly comedies, the Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson, is back to killing people.

Love and Other Drugs: Anne Hathaway falls for pharmaceutical salesman Jake Gyllenhaal and has an endless supply of Viagra.

Tangled: Disney’s take on Rapunzel is surprisingly terrific. Mandy Moore is the singing princess, Zachary Levi the dashing thief, and they’re both upstaged by an animated horse. And for once, the 3-D contributes to the movie.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: The first half of the two-part final installment assumes viewers know exactly what’s going on as the film opens. It’s as slow as the first half of the epic book it’s based upon, but fans of the Potter franchise won’t want it to end—because when it does, they have to wait until July 2011 to watch the final battle between Harry and Voldemort.

127 Hours: Danny Boyle changes pace once again. Instead of the frenetic energy of Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours is pretty much a one-man show, with James Franco playing Aron Ralston, a hiker forced to cut off his own arm to survive.

Galapagos: An IMAX look at the islands and the animals that made Charles Darwin famous. We’re most fond of the blue-footed boobie. At the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.

Mademoiselle Chambon: A man falls for his son’s homeroom teacher, and the two do their best to keep their urges to themselves. You won’t be surprised to hear it’s in French.

The Next Three Days: Russell Crowe stars in Paul Haggis’ new thriller about a man framed for a murder he didn’t commit. No, wait. It’s his wife that didn’t commit the murder, and he’s got to bust her out of jail and clear her. There’s a twist for you.

Today’s Special: An aspiring chef (The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi) is forced to take over his family’s restaurant after his dad has a heart attack.

Unstoppable: Should be called “Denzel Washington and Captain Kirk versus the Death Train.”

Morning Glory: Cutie Rachel McAdams is charged with saving a flailing morning show, even though her two hosts—Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford—hate each other.

Due Date: Road-trip comedy stars Robert Downey Jr. as a guy desperate to get across the country, but the only way he can do it is by catching a ride with insane Zach Galifianakis. Directed by The Hangover’s Todd Phillips.

Fair Game: Naomi Watts is Valerie Plame and Sean Penn is Joe Wilson in this look at how CIA agent Plame’s identity was leaked to the press after husband Wilson authored a controversial op-ed in The New York Times. The acting’s good, but this should have come out years ago.

Megamind: A new 3-D animated flick with Will Ferrell as the misunderstood bad guy, Brad Pitt as the hero and Tina Fey as the funniest person in the room.

The Girl Who Kicked the hornet’s Nest: The vast conspiracy at the heart of Steig Larsson’s books might be a little far-fetched, but this makes for a nice conclusion to the adventures of Lisbeth Salander. At least until the Hollywood remake. Ends Dec. 9 at La Jolla Village and Hillcrest cinemas.

Inside Job: Matt Damon narrates Charles Ferguson’s exhaustive documentary about which people, exactly, were responsible for the recent global finance crisis.

Jackass 3-D: Shit is flying in 3-D. Literally.

Red: Action-comedy starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and, best of all, Helen Mirren, as retired spies some young whippersnappers are trying to kill.

Secretariat: Thoroughly family-friendly PG version of how one of history’s most famous racehorses got his start.

The Social Network: David Fincher’s new film about the early days of Facebook is more entertaining than 99.9 percent of status updates.

The Town: Ben Affleck directs himself (not a euphemism). He’s a Boston thug torn between bad-guy buddy Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively, a bank manager he once stuck up (also not a euphemism). Oh, and FBI man Jon Hamm is hot on his trail (still no euphemism).

Mao’s Last Dancer: Bruce Beresford directs this biopic of Li Cunxin, who was chosen by the Chinese government to become a world-class ballet dancer. Ends Dec. 9 at La Jolla Village Cinemas.

The Ultimate Wave Tahiti: The latest IMAX entry at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park follows super surfer Kelly Slater as he does his thing on some massive waves.

Hubble: Leonardo DiCaprio lends his pipes to this IMAX film, which uses CGI and real footage to take a close look at saturn’s rings. Just stay away from Uranus. At the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The camp classic continues its ongoing run, Fridays at midnight at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas.