By Matt Brunson

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

DIRECTED BY Francis Lawrence

STARS Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson

It's tempting to refer to Richard LaGravenese as the Doctor Dolittle of screenwriters, as the man who successfully brought Nick Evans' novel The Horse Whisperer to movie houses has now been tasked to do likewise with the adaptation of Sara Gruen's mammoth bestseller, Water for Elephants. But to be fair, LaGravenese is more than just an animal act, as he's known for other lofty cinematic translations like A Little Princess, The Bridges of Madison County and the underrated Beloved. Water for Elephants follows suit: It's an adaptation that manages to be tasteful, mature, and even on occasion insightful. But that can only take a movie so far when there's no one around to constantly fan those flames of literary respect into something inherently, vibrantly cinematic.

By Matt Brunson

OF GODS AND MEN

DIRECTED BY Xavier Beauvois

STARS Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale

The evocative employment of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake was merely one of the reasons why Black Swan emerged as the best movie of 2010, but director Darren Aronofsky and co. were hardly the only filmmakers last year who turned to the 19th-century Russian composer to service their motion picture. Strains from Tchaikovsky's classic ballet feature prominently in one of the climactic scenes in Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men, and its use functions as an emotional release for both the film's anxious protagonists and its equally worried viewers.

The 1960s witnessed battling Jesuses on the nation's screens, as 1961's King of Kings was followed four years later by The Greatest Story Ever Told. King won the box office battle (it earned slightly more and cost much less) while Story could claim Oscar bragging rights (five technical nominations versus King's shutout), but which film is actually better? My vote goes to the first one out the gate.

• Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings

KING OF KINGS (1961)
***
DIRECTED BY Nicolas Ray
STARS Jeffrey Hunter, Rip Torn

Because the makers of King of Kings took a chance by casting heartthrob Jeffrey Hunter as Christ, this was quickly dubbed by industry wags I Was a Teenage Jesus (a play, of course, on the era's I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein). But the film is far better than that label would suggest, even if Hunter, for all his sincerity, is a bit too bland in the pivotal role. What's more, Philip Yordan's screenplay and the unfussy direction by Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) allow the film to sometimes tread off the beaten path of the other religious epics of yesteryear. Gone are many of the standard scenes (e.g. the moneychangers in the temple); in their place is more of an emphasis on the politics of the Roman court, as well as a running contrast between Christ's attempts to free Jewish souls and Barrabas' (Harry Guardino) efforts to liberate the Jewish flesh. Miklos Rozsa's score is outstanding and, with the possible exception of Peter Gabriel's work on The Last Temptation of Christ, the best ever created for a Biblical epic.

• Max von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965)
**
DIRECTED BY George Stevens
STARS Max von Sydow, Martin Landau

Director George Stevens (Giant) certainly knows his way around an awe-inspiring shot, and some well-staged sequences are primarily what The Greatest Story Ever Told has going for it. But the film is largely hampered by the poor all-star casting: Max von Sydow, who can normally act circles around Jeffrey Hunter, is too pious as the Messiah — his lack of animation is better suited to a fresco than a movie — and, on the other end of the spectrum, hammy performances are hand-delivered by Charlton Heston as John the Baptist, Telly Savalas as Pilate, and, in the most notorious bit of casting, John Wayne(!) as a Roman soldier overseeing the crucifixion ("Truly, this man was the son of God," drawls the Duke).

Blu-ray extras on King of Kings consist of two vintage newsreels — one about the film's location shooting near Madrid, Spain, the other on the picture's East and West Coast premieres — and the theatrical trailer. Blu-ray extras on The Greatest Story Ever Told consist of two vintage behind-the-scenes featurettes; one deleted scene; and the theatrical trailer.

(For reviews of more new Blu-ray releases, check out this week’s View From The Couch column at www.clclt.com/film.)

By Matt Brunson

RIO

DIRECTED BY Carlos Saldanha

STARS Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg

The color-drenched animated yarn Rio, which bursts onto the screen scene like a Starburst commercial writ large, contains an early sequence in which the film's caged animal protagonist inadvertently bounces out the back of a moving vehicle and finds himself in strange environs. This is similar to the opening of the recent Rango, which found its central critter likewise falling out of a car and thus suddenly becoming exposed to a life less ordinary. But the difference between the pictures soon becomes clear. Extending an olive branch to adult viewers, Rango was crafty enough to include references to such decidedly grown-up fare as Apocalypse Now and Chinatown. For its part, Rio is strictly for the kids, and anyone expecting this Brazilian-set film to contain any references to City of God (or, heck, even The Boys from Brazil) will be sorely disappointed.

By Matt Brunson

YOUR HIGHNESS

DIRECTED BY David Gordon Green

STARS Danny McBride, James Franco

As screen couplings go, the less charitable might gaze upon the union of Danny McBride and Natalie Portman and be reminded of Princess Leia forced to sit half-naked and chained next to Jabba the Hutt. But this unlikely match is the least of the problems plaguing Your Highness. God almighty, this is one awful movie, a real feat considering that even the most juvenile of comedies can score at least a couple of guffaws off a steady stream of pot and dick jokes. But this stinkbomb manages the unpardonable sin of being boring for long stretches of time as well as unfunny all the time.

By Matt Brunson

THE CONSPIRATOR

DIRECTED BY Robert Redford

STARS James McAvoy, Robin Wright

Boston Corbett, the soldier who fatally shot John Wilkes Booth after the latter assassinated Abraham Lincoln, had years earlier removed his own testicles (with scissors!) so he wouldn't succumb to the feminine wiles of prostitutes. Dr. Samuel Mudd, one of the men convicted as part of the conspiracy to kill the president, is believed by many to merely have been a victim of circumstance, unaware as he tended to Booth's broken leg that this man had just murdered the nation's leader. Clearly, there are many fascinating stories surrounding the death of one of this country's most revered presidents, and The Conspirator relates one of them. But it's a doozy: the arrest and trial of Mary Surratt, the only woman charged with taking part in the plot to kill Lincoln.

By Matt Brunson

ARTHUR

DIRECTED BY Jason Winer

STARS Russell Brand, Helen Mirren

Here's the dirty secret about 1981's Arthur: It's no classic. While a gargantuan box office hit and a double Oscar winner, it hasn't exactly entered the annals as an equal compatriot of, say, Some Like It Hot or Annie Hall — in retrospect, this likable lark wasn't even the funniest film of its year (both Blake Edwards' S.O.B. and Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part I offer more laughs per square footage of film). So the fact that Hollywood has dared to serve up a remake is hardly a earthshaking scandal; after all, it's not like somebody foolishly decided to remake Citizen Kane or The Godfather or Psycho (oops; scratch that last one).