Movie stars

From left: Natalie Portman, Danny McBride, James Franco, and Zooey Deschanel… (frank connor/universal pictures via ap)

Previously released ** The Adjustment Bureau Matt Damon spends this sci-fi romance with Emily Blunt running from a mysterious agency trying to keep them apart. Whether this movie works for you largely depends on whether you’re willing to work for it. To which I say: Bring your gym clothes. Damon and Blunt are good together but to what end? Taken rather pointlessly by the writer and director George Nolfi from a short story by Philip K. Dick. (106 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

** Arthur A thin copy of the charmingly vulgar 1981 original. This time, it’s Russell Brand as the filthy rich, alcoholic Englishman New Yorker who still needs a nanny after all these years. She’s played by Helen Mirren, who’s almost too good. Would decades of her care really have produced such a drunken childish slut? With Jennifer Garner as an arranged bride and Greta Gerwig as the woman he really wants. (100 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

*½ Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 About to lose his long-held rights to Ayn Rand’s novel, and perhaps to cash in on apparent Tea Party interest and support, producer John Aglialoro rushed this film into a low-budget production and it shows in every frame. Even fans of Rand’s 1957 anti-government manifesto may balk at having to endure dialogue that would be banal on the Lifetime channel, along with wooden performances and a tedious plot. (97 min., PG-13) (Loren King)

**** Bill Cunningham New York Richard Press’s smart, playful documentary takes a fascinating look at the New York Times photographer: his process, his subjects, his life, his apartment, his neighbors. It’s as much a portrait of a kind of artist as it is a document of a city whose cool has been the victim of one premature obituary after the next. Cunningham doesn’t hide behind his camera so much as live through it. (88 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)

**½ Born to Be Wild 3D Handsomely packaged by Warner Bros., this family-friendly nature doc is so cuddly and soft (and so not deep or dangerous) it’s practically a sleeping bag. The unpaid stars are a collection of at-risk orphaned elephants and orangutans with big, wet eyes and endless appetites for nuzzling. They eat, they bathe, they play. Our hearts melt. So much so that an honest marketer might have just gone ahead and titled the film “Awwwww.’’ (40 min., G) (Janice Page)

** The Conspirator Robin Wright plays Mary Surratt, accused of being part of the plot to kill Lincoln, and James McAvoy is the defense attorney who realizes her military trial is an affront to the Constitution and individual rights. An important film, on a relevant subject, that has had the life beaten out of it by director Robert Redford. (123 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

Source: http://www.boston.com