Film Series and Movie Listings AN ANIMATED ACADEMY SALUTE TO UPA (Monday) The animation historian John Canemaker will host this presentation of eight short films from the workshops of United Productions of America, a studio largely formed by disaffected Disney animators who wanted to break away from Disney's naturalistic house style and explore the more stylized design approaches of midcentury modernism. The films to be screened include U.P.A."s two Oscar winners, "Gerald McBoing-Boing" (1950) and "Mister Magoo's Puddle Jumper" (1956). Academy Theater at Lighthouse International, 111 East 59th Street, near Park Avenue, Manhattan , (212) 821-9251, oscars.org/events; $5. (Dave Kehr) 20091210 MADCAP MANHATTAN (Friday through Thursday) Film Forum's December retrospective program is given over to New York-based comedies, beginning on Friday and Saturday with two unavoidable classics of the genre: Leo McCarey's 1937 film "The Awful Truth," with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, and George Cukor's 1938 "Holiday," with Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Lesser-known titles in the first week include William A. Seiter's delightful Depression-era comedy "If You Could Only Cook" (Sunday and Monday), with Jean Arthur and Herbert Marshall, and Alan Arkin's 1971 black comedy "Little Murders" (Wednesday), with the screenwriter, Jules Feiffer, in attendance with the cast members Elizabeth Wilson and Jon Korkes. Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village , (212) 727-8110, filmforum.org; $12. SCOTT MACDonald: Documentary and the Avant-Garde Film (Saturday and Sunday) Mr. MacDonald, a leading scholar of independent films, offers two programs of movies that have blurred the distinction between reportage and personal vision. Saturday's 7:30 p.m. program includes Stan Brakhage's portrait of the Third Avenue El, "The Wonder Ring" (1955); Sunday's lineup features Peter Watkins's early pseudo-documentary "The War Game" (1965), and Arthur and Jennifer Smith's description of their home in Alaska, "Ice Bears of the Beaufort" (2008). Union Docs, 322 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn , uniondocs.org; $7. DINO RISI: COMEDY WITH A TWIST (Friday through Monday, Wednesday and Thursday) The biting social satires of Dino Risi occupied a central place in the school that became known as Commedia all'Italia in the late 1950s and early "60s. The Museum of Modern Art has arranged this fine weeklong tribute to Mr. Risi, which includes his most famous film, the 1974 "Profumo di donna" (remade by Hollywood as "Scent of a Woman"), and his masterpiece, the 1962 "Il Sorpasso" ("The Easy Life"), a uniquely Italian road movie about a playboy (Vittorio Gassman) who dragoons a shy student (Jean-Louis Trintignant) into taking a day trip. Museum of Modern Art Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters , (212) 708-9400, moma.org; $10. Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases, movie trailers, showtimes and tickets: nytimes.com/movies. "ANTICHRIST" (No rating, 1:49) Women: evil or just misunderstood? Leave it to Lars von Trier to ask the tough question, and to provide answers that are both incoherent and appalling. (A. O. Scott) 20091210 "BEFORE TOMORROW" (No rating, 1:33, in Inuktitut) This visually stunning but ethnographically sentimental third film in the Inuit trilogy that began with "The Fast Runner" ("Atanarjuat") is the only one to focus on women's roles as storytellers and repositories of ancient folk wisdom; its perspective might be described as Inuit feminist. (Stephen Holden) 20091210 ★ "BIG RIVER MAN" (No rating, 1:40) John Maringouin directs this richly textured, funny, strange and poignant documentary about an outsized Slovenian, Martin Strel, who, well into adulthood, began swimming some of the longest rivers in the world, including the Amazon. (Manohla Dargis) 20091210 "THE BLIND SIDE" (PG-13, 2:00) Sandra Bullock does good, and then does good some more in this true story of a rich white Memphis family that adopts a homeless young African-American football prodigy. ★ "BRIGHT STAR" (PG, 1:59) Jane Campion, following the biographical record closely, tells the story of John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), star-crossed literary lovers of the Regency period. Thanks to the passionate performances and the director's rough, almost breathless style, what might have been a prettified period drama becomes a seething, swooning inquiry into the nature of love. ★ "BROKEN EMBRACES" (R, 2:08, in Spanish) Exuberant melancholy from Pedro Almodóvar. A blind writer (Lluís Homar) is pulled back into his past, when he was a filmmaker in an ill-fated love affair with an actress played by Penélope Cruz. "BROTHERS" (R, 1:50) In Jim Sheridan's remake of Susanne Bier's 2004 film, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) is back from prison just in time to see his brother Sam (Tobey Maguire) go off to war, leaving behind a wife (Natalie Portman) and two young daughters. An earnest melodrama ensues, at times affecting but never entirely convincing. "COCO BEFORE CHANEL" (PG-13, 1:10, in French) Less a biopic than a study in the manners and morals of a bygone era, Anne Fontaine's film follows the complicated love life and budding ambition of Gabrielle Chanel (Audrey Tautou) on her path from early poverty and heartbreak through independence toward eventual fame. Ms. Tautou, wary and astringent, is excellent, as is Benoît Poelvoorde, who plays Coco's aristocratic lover, Étienne Balsan. "DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL" (PG, 1:35) A big, 3-D spectacle, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge (and also as some of the ghosts who haunt him), this film has a magic that lies not in its effects but in its fidelity to the language and mood of Charles Dickens's immortal tale of greed and grace. "AN EDUCATION" (PG-13, 1:40) Jenny, a London schoolgirl in the early 1960s - played with verve and brass by Carey Mulligan - learns the ways of the world at the hands of an older gentleman (Peter Sarsgaard), who turns out to be sleazier and less worldly than he seems at first. Adapted by Nick Hornby from a memoir by Lynn Bradley and directed by Lone Scherfig, this film is a bit too charmed by its own period atmosphere to take account of the uglier implications of the story it tells. "EVERYBODY'S FINE" (PG-13, 1:40) The only credible scenes in this Christmas weepie starring Robert De Niro as a widowed retired father of four grown children belong to Sam Rockwell, who plays one of his two sons. Otherwise, the movie, adapted from a 1990 film by Giuseppe Tornatore, is false to the core. "GOOD HAIR" (PG-13, 1:35) Spirited, probing and frequently hilarious, Jeff Stilson's documentary follows the comedian Chris Rock as he investigates the complex, often troubled relationship between African-American women and their crowning glory. From beauty shops in the United States to a Hindu temple in India, the film coasts on the fearless charm of its frontman and the eye-opening candor of its interviewees. Digging gingerly into wounds both political and personal, Mr. Rock transforms a world of hurt into a medium for insightful and often uncomfortable observations on race and conformity. (Jeannette Catsoulis) 20091210 "HOME" (No rating, 1:38, in French) Ursula Meier directs a Swiss art-house domestic comedy, with a tragic undercurrent, about an isolated, eccentric family (Isabelle Huppert plays Mom; Oliver Gourmet plays Dad) that becomes undone when the highway next door opens to traffic. ★ "THE HURT LOCKER" (R, 2:10) In this tense, insightful film about a United States Army bomb-disposal squad in Iraq, Kathryn Bigelow has made a crackerjack action picture that is also a drama of character, psychology and ideas. Jeremy Renner, as a soldier who approaches danger with the conviction of an artist and the compulsiveness of an addict, is simply amazing, and the rest of the cast, notably Brian Geraghty and Anthony Mackie, is nearly as strong. ★ "LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET" (No rating, 2:38, in English and French) Frederick Wiseman, master of the long-form, fly-on-the-wall documentary, watches dancers and choreographers, marketers and managers, and the result is a blissful immersion in the world of ballet, which feels by the end like the only world worth knowing. "THE LAST STATION" (R, 1:52) Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), in the twilight of his life, bickers with his wife (Helen Mirren), who fights with her husband's disciples (led by Paul Giamatti), all of it witnessed by a young secretary (James McAvoy). If you like to purchase acting in bulk and literary prestige at a discount, this is the picture for you. "LAW ABIDING CITIZEN" (R, 1:48) A grisly, pointless story of revenge, in which a regular guy (Gerard Butler) turns himself into a murderous superman after his wife and daughter are killed. Jamie Foxx is the prosecutor who tries to stop him but only succeeds in making him madder. ★ "LOOT" (No rating, 1:26, in English and German) Moving from a jungle in the Philippines to an Austrian field at twilight, Darius Marder's engrossing and exquisitely shot documentary tags along with Lance Larson, a Utah car dealer and human magpie. Hunting buried treasure from World War II, Mr. Larson befriends two veterans whose long-suppressed recollections drive the film in unexpected directions. But as the film's frustrating lack of focus becomes an organic embrace of life's unpredictability, what begins as a treasure hunt transforms into a meditation on conscience, memory and the terrible legacies of war. (Catsoulis) 20091210 "THE MAID" (No rating, 1:35, in Spanish) Catalina Saavedra plays the title character in this Chilean movie about a live-in maid whose constricted world begins to crack, allowing life and air to slip in through the fissures. Sebastián Silva directs, slyly. ★ "ME AND ORSON WELLES" (PG-13, 1:53) A charming and modest backstage tale set in 1937, when Orson Welles (Christian MacKay) was preparing a revolutionary modern-dress production of "Julius Caesar" at the Mercury Theater on Broadway. Zac Efron is the teenager who falls in with Welles's company, and in love with Sonja (Claire Danes), the backstage manager. "THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS" (R, 1:35) Grant Heslov directs George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges in a likable, lightweight comedy, based on the nonfiction book of the same title by Jon Ronson, about an Army unit's experiments in parapsychology. ★ "THE MESSENGER" (R, 1:45) Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are Army officers with the grim task of informing the families of soldiers that their loved ones have died overseas. Samantha Morton plays a widow who takes the news with calm sorrow. The terrific performances complement Oren Moverman's sensitive, understated direction and the rich, observant script he wrote with Alessandro Camon. "MYSTERY TEAM" (R, 1:45) A trio of arrested-development kid detectives, now high school seniors, take on a murder case that they're in no way ready to handle. The jokes are hit-and-miss and often crude in this first feature film by the Derrick Comedy sketch group. Donald Glover, D C Pierson and Dominic Dierkes, who collaborated on the screenplay, star. (Daniel M. Gold) 20091210 "NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU" (R, 1:50) The feeling is not mutual. "NINJA ASSASSIN" (R, 1:36) World governments are hiring ninjas to do their dirtiest deeds, and only a rogue ninja (played by Rain, the South Korean former boy-band member) and an Interpol-style cop (Naomie Harris) can expose them. Perhaps in homage to his rippling star, the director, James McTeigue, drenches the film in water; but not even some lovely flashbacks - first love, first wounds, first downpour - can redeem a movie more committed to bloodletting than to any of its characters. "OLD DOGS" (PG, 1:35) Not even the combined talents of John Travolta and Robin Williams can breathe levity into this incoherent family comedy: the worst major studio movie of 2009. "PAA" (No rating, 2:13, in Hindi) Amitabh Bachchan stars with his son, Abhishek, in this Hindi film with an I'm-my-own-grandpa twist. Amitabh, in a sometimes creepy feat of stunt acting plays Abhishek's son, a boy with progeria, a rare disease that makes him age way too fast. The movie, though, is less about the disease than about India, itself simultaneously young and ancient. (Rachel Saltz) 20091210 "PIRATE RADIO" (R, 1:55) A fanciful fiction from Richard Curtis about rebel broadcasters (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, among others) who, in the mid-1960s, blasted British airwaves and eardrums with the Kinks and other youth-quaking greats of the era. "PLANET 51" (PG, 1:31) Almost every element of this animated film about an American astronaut who lands on a distant planet populated by "Shrek"-like little green men and women is borrowed from earlier movies, then tweaked (and invariably softened) to become a reference rather than a copy. ★ "PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE" (R, 1:49) This potent blend of naturalism and melodrama, directed by Lee Daniels, unites a cast that includes the pop stars Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, the comedian Mo'Nique and a fearless newcomer named Gabourey Sidibe in the story of an abused Harlem teenager struggling for dignity and survival. Ms. Sidibe, in the title role, is the key to the film, and her steady, moving performance is a revelation. "THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG" (G, 1:35) It's not easy being green, as the heroine of this polished animated fairy tale - the first from Disney with a black heroine - discovers on kissing a frog. But to judge from how this period movie deals with race, it is a lot more difficult to be black. "THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE" (R, 1:33) If Rebecca Miller's film fits into the dreaded category known as the dysfunctional-family drama, it steers away from the weepy clichés and quasi-therapeutic mumbo-jumbo that have given the genre a bad name. "RED CLIFF" (R, 2:28, in Mandarin) The seminal action director John Woo returns after a six-year layoff with this tale of warring kingdoms, set in the third century A.D., which reunites him with the marvelous Hong Kong actor Tony Leung. While handsome and intelligent and perfectly easy to sit through, it never really approaches the visceral tug of Mr. Woo's crime dramas of the 1980s and "90s. (Mike Hale) 20091210 "THE ROAD" (R, 1:59) How does the world end? Not with a bang or a whimper, but with polite applause for this noble, earnest adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel and something stronger for Viggo Mortensen's performance as a father trying to help his young son survive a postapocalyptic nightmare. ★ "A SERIOUS MAN" (R, 1:45) Old Testament mishigas from Joel and Ethan Coen, who retell the Book of Job as a suburban shaggy-dog story about a harmless physics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) whose life comes unraveled. The usual Coen brothers" whimsy, with its edge of nihilism, takes on a surprising metaphysical resonance. You don't have to be Jewish to like this movie, but it will hurt more if you are. ★ "THE SUN" (No rating, 1:50, in English and Japanese) A beautiful and eccentric act of historical imagination from the Russian director Alexander Sokurov about the emperor Hirohito during the period leading up to and following Japan's surrender to the United States in 1945. "TRANSYLMANIA" (R, 1:35) David and Scott Hillenbrand's vampire-hunter college road trip sex comedy has a problem: someone drained all the laughs. In its undead state, it will find its home in the coffin of late-night cable. "2012" (PG-13, 2:38) Roland Emmerich serves up Old Testament-style destruction with a smile. Chris Weitz directs, Kristen Stewart mopes, Robert Pattison sparkles and Taylor Lautner growls. ★ "UNCERTAINTY" (No rating, 1:45) A taut, skillful exercise in cinematic clockwork, with dialogue largely improvised by the actors, this movie splits into two parallel stories, one a family drama, the other a thriller, after an opening scene in which young lovers (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins) meet on the Brooklyn Bridge on a Fourth of July morning. ★ "UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US" (No rating, 1:33) Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell's absorbing documentary about the Norwegian black-metal music scene examines how a few musicians hijacked an obscure offshoot of heavy metal, and made it world famous, by moving from clown paint and anti-Christian imagery into vandalism, church burning and killing. It also fills in the Norwegian context - cold and dark, liberal but ultraconformist, increasingly globalized - in which these diffident, smart young men came to feel so alienated. ★ "UP IN THE AIR" (R, 1:47) A laugh-infused stealth tragedy from Jason Reitman about a corporate assassin (George Clooney) whose life is upended both by a no-nonsense colleague (Anna Kendrick) and a seductively high-flying female executive (Vera Farmiga). ★ "WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE" (PG, 1:40) Spike Jonze directs this alternately perfect and imperfect if always beautiful live-action adaptation of the Maurice Sendak children's book about a solitary boy, Max (Max Records), liberated by his imagination. The film has been pitched to a distinctly older audience than the picture book's original readers, and some younger children might be scared by the snuffling, growling wild things (voiced by James Gandolfini, among others). "WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE" (No rating, 1:25) A refresher course on the history of American left-wing politics in the 1960s and "70s, as well as an affectionate personal biography of the left-wing political lawyer, this documentary portrays Kunstler as a heroic crusader for justice, but is not entirely uncritical.