Coraline - Voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman. Directed by Henry Selick. Adapted from the Neil Gaiman novella
Coraline Jones (Fanning) is your typical kid - attention starved and constantly hunting for escapes from boundless boredom. She has purgatory parents - not particularly attentive, but they aren’t going around beating her with a 2x4, either. So what’s a little girl to do when she’s moved into an “apartment” (An old house set up to hold multiple families separately. Something like that, anyways.) In the middle of nowhere? The same thing any other kid would do, of course! She gets nosy, pokes her way around until she finds some trouble to get into.
That trouble just happens to be a locked and covered little door. Come the middle of the night, bricks behind the door vanish and a tunnel into otherworld appears. When she crawls through, she’s confronted with “other,” more catered-to-her needs. Everything. All courtesy of her “other mother.” ... Got to be a moral coming ... Wait for it ... What? “Your parents may be sucky, but believe me, they could be a lot worse.”
Really? That’s the moral?
Great movie, but unsettling. Not recommend for kids unless they need a nightmare. Let’s face it - if you’ve got kids you’re not looking for one more reason to lose sleep. (But some parents take their four-year olds to R rated slasher flicks, so what do I know.) B+ (Joe Allison)

Push - Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Djimon Hounsou (still stuck as “that guy in Amistad) and Camilla Belle
Remember in the 80’s how swapping bodies was in and swapping sex partners was out? Remember in the 90’s how alternate realities were in, and hair metal was out? Remember how in the 00’s (dare you to say that out loud) mutant powers were in, and scientific reasoning was out - until the ‘08 election?
Push is the Judge Reinhold one. (Oh, snap!) Apparently the fact that X-Men jumped the shark, Heroes is barely buoying around,and Jumper deep sixed right out of the gate meant nothing.
Push follows Nick Gant (Evans) and Cassie Holmes (Fanning) as they try to find some money. Wait, no. Help a girl being chased by Divison. Wait, no. Hunt down a case with a cooked up mutant power stoker. Wait, no. Maybe?
I give up. This movie has more personalities than my last girlfriend, none of which were very friendly. There is a broad story that set things up nicely for a sequel that will probably never happen, and visually it has a cool gritty thing going on. But the action sequences were LAME. Better luck next time, if there ever is a next time. D+ (Joe Allison)

The Wrestler - Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood
The Wrestler tells the story of fictional pro-wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Rourke). During his prime, “The Ram” was a main event star. He was on the cover of magazines, had action figures, videos and even headlined Wrestlemania. But now, like many of his real life counterparts, the fame has passed and he finds himself trying to relive the glory days working small, independent wrestling shows on the weekends.
After a serious health scare forces him to retire from the ring, he tries to reconnect with the two women in his life - a stripper (Tomei) and his estranged daughter (Wood). But life in the real world is completely foreign to him and soon “The Ram” is at a crossroads. Is it better to burn out than fade away? While not every wrestler ends up like “The Ram,” far too many do. The movie pulls the curtain back, offering a brutally honest look at the life of a pro wrestler. Great acting, awesome soundtrack, fantastic movie. A+ (Andy Laudano)

My Bloody Valentine 3-D - Reboot of the 1981 film
Let's give this the ol' fly by treatment, eh? Large guy gets trapped in a mine, goes nuts, get rescued, is in a coma, wakes up, goes on a massacre. He's chased back into the mine. Flash forward... Kids survived the massacre, and they want to move on. One had left, but he's back to sell the mine. The psychopath's-styled murders start happening again, just a lot more spaced out than the originals. To sum it up: The opening minutes are gore. And gore. And gore. And more gore. All in lurvly 3-D. (Gimmick? Yep. But the murders are pretty awesome to behold.) Then it pulls a 28 Weeks Later, and the pace bottoms out. Sigh. At least the first part was awesome! D- (Joe Allison)