The Movies

Scream 3

$35.2 million | 1 week in release | $35.2 million to date

PLOT Rehash of self-referential horror series about a serial killer who hacks up actors on a movie set.

MESSAGE LifeÕs just like a movieÑone of Wes CravenÕs teen exploitation movies.

CAUTION Rated R for violence, gore, and bad language.

$4.9 million | 6 weeks in release | $37.5 million to date

PLOT A boxing champ spends years in jail for a murder he didnÕt commit; based on the life of Rubin ÒHurricaneÓ Carter.

MESSAGE Prison redemption: Hope can be found even in horrible situations.

CAUTION Rated R for bad language, drug use, and sexual content.

$4.8 million | 8 weeks in release | $128.7 million to date

PLOT Movie version of E.B. WhiteÕs book about a family that adopts a mouse as one of the family.

MESSAGE In any family, every member is important, including adopted ones.

CAUTION Rated PG for bad language.

$4.3 million | 4 weeks in release | $45.5 million to date

PLOT Obnoxious sequel to 1995 blaxploitation hit Friday, about a pothead trying to get even with a local bully who escaped from jail.

MESSAGE Hedonism: Live fast, die young.

CAUTION language and violence

$4 million | 2 weeks in release | $11.8 million to date

PLOT Perverted romance about a British spy who falls in love with a serial killer and watches her.

MESSAGE Voyeurs can be obsessed with the objects of their surveillance.

CAUTION Rated R for violence, sex, nudity, and bad language.

Just missing Alfred HitchcockÕs 100th birthday, Rear Window (Universal; rated PG for violence) is being re-released in new, digitally restored prints. This is arguably his best movie and perhaps the best introduction to the master of suspense. Jimmy Stewart is L.B. Jefferies, a photographer stuck in a wheelchair after an accident. To pass the time between visits from his girlfriend (Grace Kelly), he gets out his binoculars and watches the neighbors. Then he starts to wonder if one of them (Raymond Burr) bumped off his wife. Hitchcock loved taking normal people and throwing them into upside-down worlds. Almost the entire movie takes place in JeffriesÕs apartment, starting light and getting more suspenseful as it moves on. Like Rope, Vertigo, and other films from Hitchcock in the 1950s, a single concept plays out through the movie. Jeffries is safe in his apartment, freely observing everything that goes on around himÑuntil he sees the wrong thing. ThatÕs what gets him in trouble. Rear Window went unseen for years due to lawsuits over its rights, before being thrust back into the world of the classics with a 1980s re-release. This restoration, which will soon be used to make new home-video copies, brings the film back to its 1954 Technicolor glory.