Q. Regarding the upcoming animated film: “How To Tame Your Dragon.” Take a look at the photo recently used as their media promo shot, with graphic phallic imagery so blatantly used. Am I the only adult on the planet who may be wondering how and why the cute Dragon illustrated in the original book suddenly takes on a highly suggestive shape? (Sally Davis, Irvine, CA) A. I guess it all depends on how you look at it.
“Nick Nolte: No Exit” (Unrated, 74 minutes). Nick Nolte interviews himself, and is less than chatty but always charismatically enigmatic. Others discuss him, including Nick Nolte, Jacqueline Bisset, Rosanna Arquette, Barbara Hershey, Ben Stiller, and Powers Boothe. Watchable, but unsatisfying. Two stars
“Formosa Betrayed” (R, 100 minutes). In 1983 a Chicago FBI agent is sent to Taipei to investigate the murder of a Taiwanese professor from Lake Forest. He stumbles on a situation with the roots in the postwar years, when the natives of Formosa (as Taiwan was then known) lost control of their land to the nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek. The movie’s agenda is to be a thriller and simultaneously argue its anti-Chiang viewpoint; that makes it a little clunky, but possibly more involving. Two and a half stars
“Diary of a Wimpy Kid” (PG, 92 minutes). Nimble, bright and funny comedy about the hero’s first year of middle school. Zachary Gordon stars as the uncertain newcomer, and Robert Capron is his pudgy best pal, who still acts like a kid. Chloe Grace Moretz sparkles as the only student who’s nice to them, and the movie amusingly remembers the tortures of early adolescence. Based on the books by Jeff Kinney. Three and a half stars
“Repo Men” (R, 111 minutes). A giant corporation will provide you with a human heart or other organ, at a high price. If you fall behind in payments, they send around a Repo Man who stuns you, slices open your body, reaches in, and repossesses the organ. The hero (Jude Law) is a repo man who finds the corporation is after his heart. The props must have cleaned out the Organ Meats cooler at a meat market. Also with Alice Braga, Forest Whitaker and Liev Schreiber. Two stars.