NEW RELEASES

'PREMONITION' - Sandra Bullock plays a housewife who suffers a terrible premonition in the psychological thriller 'Premonition.' CNS Photo courtesy of Ron Batzdorff.

PREMONITION - Alfred Hitchcock has been dead since 1980, but he didn't leave his lessons on how to make taut thrillers in an unmarked grave. Somebody, please, get a few of those lessons to the makers of "Premonition." Not exactly a thriller, never quite a chiller, hardly suspenseful, it is, at best, a Sandra Bullock vehicle made of vanishing vapors. As Linda, she goes through the whole movie wondering if husband Jim is dead, or will die, or if she's dreaming, or having a psychic vision, or just having her head bounce as the ball on the script's roulette wheel. Jim, played as a stolid hunk of generic husband and dad by Julian McMahon, is constantly running off to business engagements. Which is, perhaps, a functionally viable definition of death. One day he's dead, the next day he's in her bed (alive?). The only thing carrying this doozy along is the personality of Bullock: sane, honest, stable, warmly sympathetic. That she has evolved beyond the long girlish phase of her career means she needs womanly options that are not patched together from mindless "concepts" like "Premonition." An MGM release. Director: Mennan Yapo. Writer: Bill Kelly. Cast: Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon, Kate Nelligan, Nia Long, Peter Stormare. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, Rated PG-13; 1 star.

RECENT RELEASES

RATINGS 4 STARS - Excellent. 3 STARS - Worthy. 2 STARS - Mixed. 1 STAR - Poor. 0 - Forget It (a dog.)

300 - Some movies of carnage open our minds to war, death and history in a valid way, like Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima films. And then there are the bloody piles of raw meat for finger-lickin' oafs, like "Apocalypto" and "300." The movie has even more death than Mel Gibson's Mayan epic, a gain that adds up to a minus. Zack Snyder of "Dawn of the Dead" (the 2004 version) filmed Frank Miller's graphic novel, about the brave 300 Spartans who blooded the huge Persian army at Thermopylae in 480 BC. It sure is graphic. And ugly. Shot as a vision of digital mud smeared with frosty whites and spraying spots of computerized blood, "300" is not for fans of Richard Egan in "The 300 Spartans" (1962). There are endless spearings and beheadings, plus dying horses and a whole wall made of corpses. You wouldn't wish to smell this movie, but we nearly can. It is too dumb as drama, even as war spectacle, to be transporting, frightening or sickening. Just numbing. A Warner Bros. release. Director: Zack Snyder. Cast: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, Rodrigo Santoro. Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes; Rated R; 1 star.

BLACK SNAKE MOAN - Perhaps not since Susan George slathered  her body all over Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" (1971) has an  actress achieved such sluttiness as Christina Ricci in "Black  Snake Moan." The title alone should warn off Ricci's early  fans, who loved the moon-faced cutie of "The Addams Family"  (1991). That girl is gone. Now, as sexpot Rae, Ricci is  slenderly nubile and runs around clothed in sweat, a skimpy  half-top and tiny panties. Old abuse vibes trigger nymphomania  in Rae, who adores bullet-headed lover Ronnie (Justin  Timberlake) but, once he exits, is available to his best  friend and other studs. With less verve, Rae is a waif-eyed  young woman, treated as less than a whore. Director and writer  Craig Brewer wallows luridly with her, while Samuel L. Jackson  steals the movie as Laz (Lazarus). When Laz discovers Rae  bloodily beaten on the road after her latest rape encounter,  he takes her in, charitably. The ruling idea is that Laz,  though full of blues old and new, will deny himself devil lust  and so save them both.  There are facile abortion mentions and  dim stuff about Rae's miserable mother. But the movie snakes  along with an earthy hiss, thanks to music, Jackson and  Ricci's painful availability. A Paramount Vantage release.  Director, writer: Craig Brewer. Cast: Samuel L. Jackson,  Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, John Cothran Jr., Michael  Raymond-James. Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes. Rated R. 2 1/2 stars.

ZODIAC - "Zodiac," the movie, is a killer. Zodiac, the  killer, is an elusive psychopath who terrorized and taunted  the Bay Area beginning in the late '60s, mocking police and  newspaper reporters who became fixated on nailing him. They  never did. Director David Fincher, noted for dark and  disturbing tales like "Fight Club" and "Seven," has made a  provocative film that is less about the grisly details of the  murders - though they are presented in gripping set pieces -  than what the obsession to find the manipulating maniac did to  the journalists and detectives enveloped by this grim, tough  case. At more than 2 1/2 hours, "Zodiac" is like a deep,  involving book, a page-turner that you can't put down. You  keep reading and, in this case, you keep watching. A Paramount  Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures release. Director: David  Fincher. Writers: James Vanderbilt (screenplay) and Robert  Graysmith (book). Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and  Robert Downey Jr. Running time: 2 hours, 34 minutes. Rated R.  3 1/2 stars.

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER -  Heading south from the quirks of  "Twin Falls Idaho," the Polish brothers (Mark, Michael) have  gone to New Mexico, which subs for Texas, and made a sweet,  congenial comedy of dreams. "The Astronaut Farmer" contains no  murderously jealous astronauts. Billy Bob Thornton, looking  more than ever like a Dust Bowl version of Humphrey Bogart, is  the dreamer named Farmer who wants to be an astronaut. Charles  Farmer was once a hot Air Force pilot, but when his father  died (suicide), he fell from NASA training and settled on the  ranch, where cattle deposits and bank debts pile up. So what  to do, stuck with 300-plus acres, a big barn and time to  tinker? Of course: build a mighty rocket, with flight capsule  on top.  This oddball has something beyond root-for-the-roots  sentiments. Thornton, well into his own orbit, is very  genuinely appealing as a guy who wires his big dream machine  to a loose but glowing screw in his head. Rise up, farm bird.  A Warner Bros. release. Director: Michael Polish. Writers:  Mark and Michael Polish. Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia  Madsen, Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern, J.K. Simmons, Gary Houston,  Tim Blake Nelson. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. Rated PG.  3 stars.

THE NUMBER 23 - It's supposed to get downright spooky after  a while. Except it doesn't. Animal-control guy - that is,  dogcatcher - Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) starts reading a  tattered little self-published novel called "The Number 23"  that his wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen), picked up in a used  bookstore. Eerily, the plot of the book parallels his own  life. Eerier still - except it's not - is the book's  fascination with what's known in certain more suggestible  circles as "the 23 enigma."  Carrey for the most part dials  down his energy level, but given that he's calibrated  differently from the rest of us, his Walter is strung taut  enough that even semi-dozing in his doggie van he suggests  oncoming heebie-jeebies.  A New Line Cinema release. Director:  Joel Schumacher. Writer: Fernley Phillips. Cast: Jim Carrey,  Virginia Madsen, Danny Huston, Rhona Mitra, Lynn Collins.  Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. Rated R. 1 1/2 stars.