Heist

Anthony Carleo needed to ditch some "cranberries. " Fast. And this week, authorities said, he found an eager buyer. The man agreed to meet Carleo at the lavish Bellagio casino, where in early December a gunman had swiped $1.5 million in casino chips, including $25,000 chips known as cranberries, and sped off on a motorcycle. Las Vegas police say Carleo sold the man a $25,000 Bellagio chip that Carleo said had been stolen. The next night, court papers said, Carleo sold the man four more.

Martha Marcy May Marlene 20th Century Fox, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99 Writer-director Sean Durkin's terrifying feature debut stars Elizabeth Olsen as an unstable young woman who flees a cult led by a coolly persuasive sociopath (played by a guitar-slinging John Hawkes) and seeks refuge with her uptight upper-middle-class sister (Sarah Paulson) in a swank lakeside vacation home. At night Martha hears knocking sounds on the roof, which may just be sounds of nature or may be warning signals from her old "family" coming to reclaim her. Or — even scarier — both the knocking and Martha's memories may be delusions.

A man who allegedly posed as the driver of an armored car faces grand theft charges stemming from a Gardena casino heist that netted about $140,000, police said Monday. Meanwhile, detectives continued to seek alleged accomplices of Carl Skinner, who was arrested Thursday. Skinner, 40, of Gardena, was taken into custody in connection with the March 10 theft from the Normandie Casino, said Gardena Police Lt. Ron Panter. Skinner drove up to the casino in a van falsely labeled as a Loomis Armored vehicle, Panter said.

Mark Wahlberg doesn't keep an office. The 40-year old actor, who is one of Hollywood's most bankable stars and is becoming one of its most ambitious producers, prefers to hold court at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel, a million miles away from his troubled beginnings in Dorchester, Mass. Whether it's breakfast with his wife and four kids or a meeting with an actor or a business partner, Wahlberg spends hours at the restaurant that once kicked out Marlene Dietrich for wearing pants.

The so-called Biker Bandit pleaded guilty here Tuesday to carrying out a movie-worthy heist at the Bellagio casino in which the helmet-wearing thief waved a gun at a craps table, swiped $1.5 million in chips and escaped on a black motorcycle. Anthony Carleo, 29, admitted to armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, sparing him a trial on multiple felony counts. He faces at least three years in prison when he is sentenced in August, said Christopher Owens, the assistant district attorney handling the case.

Three masked men robbed a Stone Mountain sex shop after tying up employees with black fur handcuffs and silver leg irons taken from the store shelves, police said. Authorities said the men stole $230 from the cash register. No one was hurt.

Brazilian police say they've recovered two more stolen paintings but have yet to find a missing Picasso from a Sao Paulo art museum heist in June. Police spokesman Mauricio Rodrigues said that officers recovered the paintings by Brazilian artists Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and Lasar Segall on Wednesday night. Three of four paintings -- worth $630,000 and stolen from the Estacao Pinacoteca Museum on June 12 -- have now been recovered, including the Picasso print "The Painter and the Model," discovered in an attic on the city's outskirts in July.

Thieves broke the windows of a chic Paris jewelry store at noontime Thursday and, before the eyes of flabbergasted clients, stole gems worth $384,000, police reported.

The FBI recovered as much as $18 million that was stolen six months ago in one of the biggest heists in U.S. history. A paper trail that began in a trash bin in Asheville, N.C., and led agents to Mexico City ended at a small rental storage unit in Mountain Home, N.C., where former armored car driver Philip Noel Johnson allegedly stashed millions from the March 29 heist. More than $18.8 million was taken from an armored car vault in Jacksonville, Fla., authorities said.

Ben Affleck and Rebecca Hall, the hedgehog and the fox, combine forces to excellent effect in "The Town," a fast-paced, character-driven heist movie that combines robberies with romance and solidifies Affleck's reputation as an actor with a genuine gift for directing. The hedgehog, in philosopher Isaiah Berlin's celebrated formulation, knows one big thing, and the big thing Boston native Affleck knows inside out is his hometown. It's the site of this film, his "Gone Baby Gone" directing debut, as well as the Oscar-winning "Good Will Hunting" screenplay that launched his career.

For more than two years the bank robber dubbed the Geezer Bandit has flummoxed law enforcement, pulling off 16 heists and leaving little evidence behind. Now the FBI concedes the catchy nickname that the agency bestowed on the bandit — and that helped make him a minor folk hero — may have been a misnomer. Amateur sleuths, taking their lead from television detective shows, have long surmised that the Geezer Bandit is not a senior between 60 and 70 years old, but a younger man, perhaps wearing a theatrical mask.

Hollywood hyphenate Alan Alda adds playwriting to his credits with the opening of "Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie," which runs through Dec. 11 at the Geffen Playhouse. Alda, 75, also appears on-screen as a Wall Street swindler in the Eddie Murphy-Ben Stiller caper comedy "Tower Heist. " Tell me about your fascination with Marie Curie. What led me to write a play about her was I realized from reading what a dramatic and important life she led. But what kept me writing about her is how much of a hero she's become to me – a personal hero – because she never let any obstacle stop her, and she had many, many obstacles, as a woman, as a scientist, as a foreigner in the country in which she worked.

"Puss in Boots" made off with the most loot at the box office this weekend, swiping the No. 1 spot from "Tower Heist," expected to be the most popular film with moviegoers. Heading into the weekend, pre-release audience surveys had indicated that the new Eddie Murphy-Ben Stiller comedy would gross around $30 million and beat the animated 3-D holdover. But DreamWorks Animation's film about a feline swashbuckler voiced by Antonio Banderas proved to be surprisingly resilient in its second week of release: Ticket sales dropped only 3%, and the film raked in an additional $33 million, according to studio estimates.

'Tower Heist' MPAA rating: PG-13 for language and sexual content Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes Playing: In general release

Two stoners will probably have trouble stealing the loot from a group of thieves at the box office. "Tower Heist," a comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller about a bunch of crooks attempting to pull off a robbery, is poised to run away with the most ticket sales this weekend. The movie is expected to open with between $25 million and $30 million in sales, according to those who have seen pre-release audience surveys. That should be enough to beat out "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas," the third installment in the comedy series, which will probably collect around $16 million.

"Tower Heist" is a modern comic fable about working stiffs (the serving class of a cushy NYC high-rise) stung by Wall Street excesses (the penthouse billionaire, the lost pension fund) trying to stick it to "the man" in some soul-satisfying ways. So a downer that is an upper in an "Upstairs Downstairs" kind of way. But hey, we'll take the laughs where we can get them in these bleak times, right? And with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy top-lining this high-gloss house of cards, sometimes it works.

"Nobody gets hurt . . . no bad guys, just good guys," Matt Dillon's scheming security guard tells a recruit in "Armored," a solid heist flick elevated by its ensemble cast and the visual eye of Hungarian-born director Nimrod Antal ("Kontroll"). Naturally, in the best B-movie tradition, the guard's assessment of things doesn't work out quite as planned. People get hurt and some of the good guys aren't so good after all when a $42-million payday enters the picture. You'd think more than one of these guys would have the presence to ask: What's a little money between friends?

Eddie Murphy had a simple suggestion about six years ago: Why not make an all-black version of "Ocean's Eleven"? Director Brett Ratner and producer Brian Grazer loved the comedian's idea, and before long, the trio was throwing around ideas about who could star opposite Murphy: Jamie Foxx, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan and Chris Tucker headed the list. The resulting movie, Universal Pictures' "Tower Heist," arrives in theaters this weekend, where it will face solid competition from Warner Bros.' "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.

Facing threats of a boycott from theater owners, Universal Pictures has abandoned its controversial plan to make "Tower Heist" available to consumers via video on demand just three weeks after the movie opens in theaters. Universal Pictures said in a statement Wednesday that it would delay its experiment in premium home video on demand "in response to a request from theater owners" but added it would continue to seek ways to deliver movies to the home more quickly. "We look forward to working with our partners in exhibition to find a way to experiment in this area in the future," the studio said.