BIG SCREEN

The Box (PG-13): -- After the spectacular failure of his ambitious second film Southland Tales, writer-director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) goes the simpler, high-concept route with this thriller adapted from a tiny Richard Matheson short story, about a married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) given a wooden box. Push its button, and you become instantly wealthy -- but someone, somewhere, drops dead. Would you do it? Come on, you know you would.

Disney's A Christmas Carol (PG) -- Director Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Back to the Future) continues his obsession with the computer-generated rotoscope animation of The Polar Express and Beowulf with this 3D, IMAX-size retelling of the Dickens classic, starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge.

The Fourth Kind (PG-13) -- So we all now know what a close encounter of the third kind is. But what about . . . the fourth kind? (Cue Twilight Zone music.) Residents of a remote Alaska town, some of whom disappear without a trace, are about to find out. Milla Jovovich stars as the psychologist who discovers many of her patients are suffering from the same malady: Alien abduction.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (R) -- Actor-turned-director Grant Heslov adapts Jon Ronson's book about a reporter (Ewan McGregor) in Iraq who meets a soldier (George Clooney) who claims to be a former member of a secret unit that uses paranormal powers to carry out missions. Do Mulder and Scully know about this? Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Stephen Lang co-star.

The Baader Meinhof Complex (R) -- The spirit of fascism reawakens in 1970s Germany in director Uli Edel's fact-based drama about the Red Army Faction, a terrorist group of young fascists hunted by a driven police detective.

-- RENE RODRIGUEZ

SMALL SCREEN

V (8 p.m. Tuesday, ABC) -- See review on 1M.

Weird Florida: Roads Less Traveled (9 p.m. Monday, WLRN-PBS 17) -- Skunk apes! The world's smallest police station! A rooster graveyard! A castle built from junk! The biggest problem in making this documentary (based on folk historian Charlie Carlson's book) was probably figuring what to leave out.

High Noon (10 p.m. Thursday, Turner Classic Movies) -- His gutless town leaves sheriff Gary Cooper alone to face a band of vicious outlaws on the day he's scheduled to retire and marry Grace Kelly. This 1952 examination of conscience and courage might be the best Western ever made, even though it doesn't have a single space alien.

-- GLENN GARVIN

Let Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin program your TiVo! Just click on his best bets for the week at www.tivo.com/guruguide.

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