NOW PLAYING IN HANOVER
By The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Monday, December 3, 2007
MR. MAGORIUM'S
WONDER EMPORIUM
Is this what has become of Dustin Hoffman? After rewriting the book on Hollywood sexiness in "The Graduate" 40 years ago, he has since been reduced to playing an overgrown Oompa Loompa in Zach Helm's colorful bit of family-friendly treacle. Natalie Portman shows up as Magorium's apprentice, who is next in line to inherit her boss's magical toy store, assuming boring ol' Jason Bateman doesn't get in the way as a troublesome accountant.
-- A.J. Fox
BEOWULF
There are two ways to watch "Beowulf," Robert Zemeckis's action spectacular. The first is with an attitude of academic solemnity; the story is adapted from an Old English ballad and will no doubt attract a host of scholars hoping for a resonant adaptation of their favorite Scandinavian myth. These viewers will be sorely disappointed. What they will find is a dizzying pop spectacle, a bastardization of classical source material into a bloody, sexy, relentlessly entertaining roller coaster of a movie. These viewers will get their money's worth. -- A.J. Fox
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Gloriously directed by the Coen Brothers, "No Country for Old Men" is by far my favorite movie of 2007. Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, "Country" tells the story of a fumbled drug deal, and what happens after Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) intercepts the ruins. Philosophical hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) comes after him, and the local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) desperately tries to stop the unfolding bloodbath. Super-violent, intoxicatingly entertaining and philosophically merciless, "Country" is raw, devastating and near-perfect. --Meredith Fraser