The Blind Side Sandra Bullock plays a Memphis woman who takes in an enormous, athletic African-American. He thrives. She thrives. The film is hard to resist. But it’s another Hollywood movie about a black male rescued from God knows what either by nice white people or sports. Here it’s both. How good we feel is directly proportional to how blind we’re willing to be. (125 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)
Bronson The life and crimes of Michael Peterson (jailhouse name: Charles Bronson), Britain’s most notorious prisoner. A brutally stylized piece of work that confirms Danish-American director Nicolas Winding Refn’s talent and delivers a star in actor Tom Hardy. Too bad we come out knowing as little about Peterson as when we went in. (92 min., PG) (Ty Burr)
The Messenger A forcefully acted and peculiar emotional drama about two soldiers (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson) who inform the next of kin of soldiers killed in service. The movie, which Oren Moverman directed and co-wrote with Alessandro Camon, devotes itself more to the notifiers than the notifications, which in themselves are powerful, and opens into a strange, fraught universe of the men’s downtime. (88 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
Planet 51 A digitally animated family film about an astronaut (voiced by Dwayne “The Rock’’ Johnson) visiting a planet where he’s the alien. Fast, shiny, short, and cheerful; also obnoxious, unoriginal, and potty-mouthed. Young children and adults with a high pain threshold will enjoy the movie during its brief pause on the way to your On Demand menu. (88 min., PG) (Ty Burr)
Precious: Based on the Novel “Push’’ by Sapphire Is America, in fact, ready for a movie about a poor, fat black girl (Gabourey Sidibe) who can’t read and is pregnant, for the second time, with her absent father’s baby? Who cares? It’s here, and it’s very much alive. In its own determined way, this is a work of immense, astonishing joy. It believes that in this girl’s wide, brown face and bleak little life there’s a reason to live. Mo’Nique brings down the house as her mother. (110 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
½ Black Dynamite