At the Movies – 01-16-09

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Hotel for Dogs

Comedy – PG

Hotel for Dogs is a smart, funny comedy adventure that shows how far love and imagination can take you. When their new guardians forbid 16-year-old Andi and her younger brother, Bruce, to have a pet, Andi has to use her quick wit to help find a new home for their dog, Friday. The resourceful kids stumble upon an abandoned hotel and using Bruce’s talents as a mechanical genius, transform it into a magical dog-paradise for Friday – and eventually for all Friday’s friends. When barking dogs make the neighbors suspicious, Andi and Bruce use every invention they have to avoid anyone discovering “who let the dogs in.”

•Directed by: Thor Freudenthal.

•Starring: Emma Roberts, Jake T. Austin, Kyla Pratt, Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon and Don Cheadle.

•This film is rated PG for brief mild thematic elements, language and some crude behavior.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Comedy/Crime – PG

In Columbia Pictures’ comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Kevin James stars as a single, suburban dad, trying to make ends meet as a security officer at a New Jersey mall. It’s a job he takes very seriously, though no one else does. When Santa’s helpers at the mall stage a coup, shutting down the megaplex and taking hostages – Blart’s daughter and sweetheart among them, Jersey’s most formidable mall cop will have to become a real cop to save the day.

•Directed by: Steve Carr.

•Starring: Kevin James, Keir O’Donnell, Jayma Mays, Raini Rodriguez, Shirley Knight, Stephen Rannazzisi, Peter Gerety, Bobby Cannavale and Adam Ferrara.

•This film is rated PG for some violence, mild crude and suggestive humor, and language.

Gran Torino

Action/Drama – R

Clint Eastwood stars in the drama Gran Torino, marking his first film role since his Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood also directs the film in which he plays Walt Kowalski, an iron-willed veteran living in a changing world, who is forced by his immigrant neighbors to confront his own long-held prejudices.

•Directed by: Clint Eastwood.

•Starring: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Brian Haley, Geraldine Hughes, Dreama Walker and Brian Howe.

•This film is rated R for language throughout and some violence.

The Unborn

Horror/Thriller – PG-13

Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body to inhabit. And sometimes it actually succeeds. Casey Beldon hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual advisor, Sendak, who can make it stop. With Sendak’s help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany – a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything and is getting stronger with each possession.

•Directed by: David S. Goyer.

•Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet, James Remar, Jane Alexander and Idris Elba.

•This film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references.

Tags: movies, midway, mall, cinema, 9, alexandria, minnesota