Screen

Please be silent behind the screen...

When Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciaran Hinds and this year’s breakout actress, Jessica Chastain of The Tree of Life and The Help, can’t make much out of a political thriller, you know something’s off with both the political and the thriller components...

ACT OF VALOR After the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a terrorist plot against the U.S., a team of Navy Seals is dispatched on a worldwide manhunt to foil the attack. Rated R. At Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Los Angeles ...

Actors learn only by doing, and by getting in over their heads. In the heyday of the Hollywood studio era, often they’d do this while wearing extremely heavy battle garb, surrounded by extras yelling “Aarrrrrghhhh!” as they run toward the enemy...

10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU Inspired by the classic Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew, and as satirical as it is romantic, this is one teen film that is wide enough to span generations in its appeal. Rated PG-13 At International Film Series. — IFS 21 JUMP ...

Time to wax nostalgic: Once upon a time, many congressional sessions ago, America dreamed of space. Instead of aircraft-carrier saber rattling, international tension was ratcheted in a contest to see who could invent more, reach further. The country was gripped with ...

KID BROTHER (1927...

Paul Newman died, James Cameron came out of retirement and Quentin Tarantino...

American Hustle...

Thwarted by the same awkward timing that zonked Confessions of a Shopaholic two years ago, just when shopaholics began to seem extra-heinous, the film version of I Don’t Know How She Does It doesn’t know how to do what I think it’s trying to do...

Actors so rarely get paid to sit still. This week at the movies, as Tom Cruise is on Imax screens playing a frantic, hamster-like intelligence gatherer in the new Mission: Impossible movie, we have also a superb adaptation of the John le Carre spy novel Tinker, ...

21 JUMP STREET See full review on page 47. Rated R. At Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Los Angeles Times/MCT ACT OF VALOR After the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a terrorist plot against the U.S., a team of Navy Seals is ...