Jennifer Lawrence

The gritty, desperate Ozarks milieu of “Winter’s Bone’’ feels so real, so right, that you only slowly realize you’re watching a detective movie. It’s those noir bones that give this social-realist drama its punch, as if Humphrey Bogart had been recast as a 17-year-old girl and dropped into the poorest corner of America. The setting may seem familiar if you saw last year’s estimable art-house hit “Frozen River.’’ Same numbing poverty, same hard women and no-account men holding on by their fingernails in shacks and trailers on rutted back roads.

The most startling sight in "Men in Black 3" isn't any extraterrestrial. It's seeing Josh Brolin being Tommy Lee Jones. Both men play the same character, Agent K, with Brolin as a younger version. It's two sets of squints and snarls for the price of one. A pair of actors playing the same character (sometimes in the same movie, sometimes in different ones) isn't all that common. But it does happen, and sometimes memorably. Both Marlon Brando, in "The Godfather," and Robert De Niro, in "The Godfather: Part II" won Oscars for playing Vito Corleone.

Early on in “The Burning Plain,’’ Charlize Theron tells a friend that she has a new beau. “Do I know him?’’ the friend asks - then quickly adds, “Do you ?’’ It’s a great line, indicating everything we need to know about how unmoored Theron’s character is. “The Burning Plain,’’ in substance if not style, updates the classic weepies Bette Davis specialized in during her heyday. It has adultery, teen love, not one but two highly charged mother-daughter relationships, and a heroine (Theron)

This year's MTV Movie Awards will be a showdown between a bevy of bridesmaids and a cast of killer kids. "Bridesmaids" and "The Hunger Games" top nominees at MTV's annual film honors with eight nods apiece, including bids for best cast, breakthrough performance and movie of the year. Rounding out the best-picture contenders are "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," ''The Help" And "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1. " MTV announced nominees Monday in 12 categories, including six new ones such as "best on-screen dirtbag" and "best gut-wrenching performance.

Movie's good. Book's still better. After a year of incessant pounding from the tribal drums of hype, the film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" has arrived in theaters. The millions of readers, young and old, who devoured Suzanne Collins's future-shock adventure thriller and its two sequels will be satisfied, on balance, by the compromises Hollywood has made while keeping the story essentially true to itself. The many millions more who haven't read the books may have a perfectly entertaining night at the movies while wondering what exactly the fuss was all about.

Jennifer Lawrence will help announce this year's Academy Awards nominees. The 21-year-old actress will join Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak at the nominations announcement on Jan. 24. Lawrence earned her first Oscar nomination last year for "Winter's Bone. " She stars in the anticipated adaptation of "The Hunger Games," set for release in March. Sherak and Lawrence will announce 10 of Oscar's 24 categories at the early-morning press conference.

By signing on to play the heroic Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games," Jennifer Lawrence, an Oscar nominee for 2010's "Winter's Bone," has become an A-lister. She's following in the footsteps of "Twilight" star Kristen Stewart as an actress trying to balance a love of indie films with the allure of mainstream, big-budget success. It's not easy. We caught up with Lawrence, 21, shortly after she started a mall tour to promote the movie, which opens Thursday at midnight. She sounded a bit like her "Hunger Games" character - overwhelmed and a bit shocked by the...

Movie's good. Book's still better. After a year of incessant pounding from the tribal drums of hype, the film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" has arrived in theaters. The millions of readers, young and old, who devoured Suzanne Collins's future-shock adventure thriller and its two sequels will be satisfied, on balance, by the compromises Hollywood has made while keeping the story essentially true to itself. The many millions more who haven't read the books may have a perfectly entertaining night at the movies while wondering what exactly...

. X-MEN: First Class Directed by: Matthew Vaughn Written by: Vaughn, Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Sheldon Turner, Bryan Singer Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, January Jones At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs Running time: 131 minutes Rated: PG-13 (intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief [blue mutant]...

In other Harvard Lampoon news, the humor publication will soon have another parody of a young adult bestseller on shelves. After releasing "Nightlight," a spoof of Stephenie Meyer 's "Twilight," in 2009, the Lampoon will put out "The Hunger Pains," a parody of Suzanne Collins 's dystopian novel, "The Hunger Games," in February, just a few weeks before the big-budget film adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence hits theaters in March....

Previously released ★★★ ½ 21 Jump Street We have lots of terminology for what happens when two male stars appear to have the platonic hots for each other. What Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum have in this very funny, unusually perceptive action-comedy scrambles, transcends, and explodes all of that. They play nincompoop narcs undercover at a high school. The movie may not be consciously exploiting the evolution of male buddydom in Hollywood, but it has redrawn the boundaries.

★★ ½The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye For this documentary, Marie Losier spent seven years documenting the performance artist Genesis P-Orridge who, along with his late wife, Lady Jaye, wanted to create a third gender. The movie is a manic, overmedicated, and remembered elegy. It's also private and personal, more fit for a small, chairless room in a museum than an evening out at the movies. (70 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris) ★★ ½Delicacy A charming but shapeless tale of amour lost and re-found that's mostly about the joys of being in love with Audrey Tautou.

Kids 6 and older The Lorax (94 min., PG) This animated version of the Dr. Seuss children's classic has two goons who loom large and might scare kids under 6. An encounter with a foreboding wasteland is, well, foreboding. But nothing is really too scary here, even in 3-D. The middle ground The Hunger Games (142 min., PG-13) Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss Everdeen, in this adaptation of the first volume of Suzanne Collins's dystopian trilogy. The violence is quite understated, but we do see bloody, painful-looking wounds.

Movie's good. Book's still better. After a year of incessant pounding from the tribal drums of hype, the film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" has arrived in theaters. The millions of readers, young and old, who devoured Suzanne Collins's future-shock adventure thriller and its two sequels will be satisfied, on balance, by the compromises Hollywood has made while keeping the story essentially true to itself. The many millions more who haven't read the books may have a perfectly entertaining night at the movies while wondering what exactly the fuss was all...

Movie's good. Book's still better. After a year of incessant pounding from the tribal drums of hype, the film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" has arrived in theaters. The millions of readers, young and old, who devoured Suzanne Collins's future-shock adventure thriller and its two sequels will be satisfied, on balance, by the compromises Hollywood has made while keeping the story essentially true to itself. The many millions more who haven't read the books may have a perfectly entertaining night at the movies while wondering what exactly the fuss was all about.

This year's MTV Movie Awards will be a showdown between a bevy of bridesmaids and a cast of killer kids. "Bridesmaids" and "The Hunger Games" top nominees at MTV's annual film honors with eight nods apiece, including bids for best cast, breakthrough performance and movie of the year. Rounding out the best-picture contenders are "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," ''The Help" And "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1. " MTV announced nominees Monday in 12 categories, including six new ones such as "best on-screen dirtbag" and "best gut-wrenching performance.

Mark Wahlberg has bailed from the movie "The Silver Linings Playbook" because of scheduling issues, according to Deadline.com. Deadline says Bradley Cooper is in talks to take over the role in the film adaptation of the Matthew Quick book, which is expected to costar "The Hunger Games" actress Jennifer Lawrence . "The Silver Linings Playbook" would have reunited Wahlberg with "The Fighter" director David O. Russell ...