Film Clips: This weekend’s movie openings and more September 17 2010

• Photo Credit: The Weinstein Co.
• The tragic death of Pat Tillman, NFL player turned Army Ranger.

OPENING FRIDAY
[http://clatl.com/screengrab/archives/2010/09/17/thank-you-cremaster|THE CREMASTER CYCLE (NR) Avant-garde artist Michael Barney directs five films that eschew traditional narrative in favor of powerful, surreal imagery. Showing with De Lama Lamina, Barney’s hour-long concert film of his performance-art collaboration with musician Arto Lindsay.
[http://clatl.com/atlanta/hollywood-product-devil/Content?oid=2114072|
DEVIL (PG-13) Five strangers get trapped together in the same elevator and menaced by a supernatural creature. It’s by Drew and John Erik Dowdle based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan.
EASY A (PG-13) In this comedy, the life of a clean cut, unpopular high school girl (Emma Stone) ironically begins to parallel “The Scarlet Letter,” which she is currently studying in a class, after she becomes the center of her school’s rumor mill after she pretends to lose her virginity and sleep with several classmates, until she decides to use the gossip to advance her social and financial standing.

THE TILLMAN STORY 4 stars (R) Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary recounts the tragic story of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who famously walked away from an NFL contract to enlist in the military following 9/11, only to die in a Afghan friendly fire incident. The title signals that the film is as much about the Tillman family’s attempt to uncover the truth despite the prevarications of political expediency and entrenched military culture. Though arguably guilty of idealizing Tillman as much as the Bush Administration did, the film powerfully personalizes the costs of war. — Curt Holman

THE TOWN 3 stars (R) Tough but noble thief Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) falls in love with a bank manager (Rebecca Hall), who doesn’t know that Doug’s gang recently took her hostage. Other speed bumps on the road to romance include the hair-trigger temper of Doug’s partner Gem (The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner) and the dogged investigation of FBI agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm). Affleck’s sophomore effort as a director proves that his strong debut Gone Baby Gone was no fluke. The movie star gets strong performances from his actors, particularly The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner as Doug’s loose-cannon partner, but for a film called the The Town, the script pays less attention to the texture of the community than the clichés of crime melodrama. — Holman
THE VIRGINITY HIT (R) This mockumentary-style comedy, presented as a sequence of Youtube-worthy video clips, follows a group of teenage boys in their attempts to lose their virginity. (Playing at the Mall of Georgia.)

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