New Releases
BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS (NR) During the latter stages if China's "Cultural Revolution," two precocious teens are shipped off to a mountainous region for Maoist re-education, only to charm and entrance the villagers around them. While on a visit to a larger city, the pair meet and fall for the daughter of a renowned tailor. When the boys stumble upon a suitcase full of banned books, they spend hours reading them to the girl in a secret meeting place. Opens Oct. 14 at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
THE FOG (R) A remake of a lesser-known John Carpenter horror outing (about pirate ghosts a tad scarier than the ones found in old episodes of Scooby-Doo), the 2005 edition of The Fog was made unavailable to movie critics until it was too late to review the thing in time for opening day. The studio's lack of faith in the film might just tell you as much as an actual review would. Stars Tom Welling, Maggie Grace and Selma Blair. Opens Oct. 14 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
THE MEMORY OF A KILLER (R) This subtitled Dutch import about a hitman who breaks his contract (he refused to kill a child, of course) and turns on his client adds something we haven't seen before to this familiar storyline — the hitman himself has advanced symptoms of Alzheimer's. Opens Oct. 14 at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
RECENT RELEASES:
2046 (R) The film is sort of a (very) loose sequel to Wong Kar-wai's masterful In the Mood for Love, with Tony Leung returning as Chow, whose unspoken and unconsummated, but no less grand, romance with a married woman was the bittersweet focus of that movie. The film takes place in the years following In the Mood for Love, with our once-wounded-in-love hero now an emotionally distant womanizer who we see crossing paths with a series of beautiful and mysterious women moving in and out of the hotel room across from his. We eventually come to see that the film's title refers not just to the room inhabited by Chow's various girlfriends, but also to the very curious sci-fi novel he's writing (and that we see visualized and paralleled throughout the film), which posits a place populated by androids with "delayed emotional reactions" and where all memories come to roost. Also stars Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wong, Gong Li and Maggie Cheung. HHHH
THE ARISTOCRATS (NR) The Aristocrats tells us one of the oldest and (prior to this documentary) most obscure jokes around, a monstrously filthy monologue that describes all manner of depraved sexual atrocities. The joke is told, retold, inverted, subverted and dissected by dozens of famous comedians, but although much of this material is outrageously funny, even insightful, the movie eventually begins repeating itself, finally verging on overkill. Then again, would you expect less from the a film that attempts to cast itself as the last word on a killing joke? Features Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, Drew Carey, George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Idle, Paul Reiser, Chris Rock, Bob Saget, Robin Williams and Jon Stewart. HHH 1/2
ASYLUM (R) It's Wuthering Heights in a loony bin when the repressed young wife of an asylum administrator becomes obsessed with a hunky, brooding inmate. Director David Mackenzie is back on the passion-adultery-murder turf familiar from his dank and gritty Young Adam, although the treatment here becomes so broad and absurdly overheated that the movie sometimes feels like one of those Harlequin novels. The film transforms into something twistier and far more interesting in its last act, complete with a fabulously bizarre and complex finale that's well worth waiting for, but the bulk of Asylum isn't nearly as strange, erotic or as symbolically rich as it seems to want to be. Stars Natasha Richardson, Ian McKellen and Marton Csokas. HHH
THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED (NR) A curiously chilled-out but nonetheless satisfying remake of James Toback's Fingers, with Romain Duris (L'Auberge Espagnole) assuming the Harvey Keitel role as a gifted classical pianist living a life among the violent fringes of society. Director Jacques Audlied (Read My Lips) provides a moodier, less sensationalistic focus for Toback's visceral 1978 cult fave, while subtly closing the gap between the dueling sides of the main character's nature (he's more of a sleazy opportunist here than a sadistic, outright criminal, though not above occasionally solving problems with a baseball bat). The premise is still a bit far-fetched, but the elegantly understated direction and Duris' quietly intense performance make it work. Also stars Niels Arestrup, Jonathan Zaccai and Aure Atika. HHH 1/2
BROKEN FLOWERS (PG-13) Bill Murray plays an over-the-hill Don Juan named, appropriately enough, Don — who, despite his love of the ladies, seems so lethargic that he's on the verge on evaporating right into the ether. When a letter arrives one day from an anonymous ex informing him that he's the father of her 19-year-old son, Don dips his toes back in the world, setting out to revisit his former flames from two decades past in an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery. Also stars Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy, Julie Delpy and Tilda Swinton. HHH 1/2
THE CONSTANT GARDENER (PG-13) Ralph Fiennes plays a mild-mannered diplomat whose wife gets herself murdered when she comes a little too close to a scheme by nefarious European drug companies using unsuspecting Africans as human guinea pigs. Director Fernando Meirelles makes the most of the material, letting it play out in scrambled time, often shooting from the hip in a slightly toned-down version of that visceral style he employed in City of God, and layering the film with a convincing atmosphere of escalating dread (punctuated by a few brief but intense action sequences). It's only toward the end that the film lets its political messages get the better of it, and the discerning viewer is advised to run for cover when The Constant Gardener chooses to unleash its inner Erin Brockovich. Also stars Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy and Pete Postlethwaite. HH 1/2
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (PG-13) Actor Liev Schrieber (The Manchurian Candidate) makes his directorial debut with this black comedy based on Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling novel about a Jewish-American writer traveling to Europe in search of family secrets. Elijah Wood heads up a crew of quirky characters, and the whole thing almost certainly gains in authenticity from having been shot on location in Prague. Also stars Eugene Hutz and Boris Leskin. (Not Reviewed)
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE (R) Horror fans walking into The Exorcism of Emily Rose expecting a head-swiveling, pea-soup-puking time should take heed. This movie belongs to that most dreaded of all genres, the courtroom drama, with a little bit of horror thrown in to keep the natives from getting too restless. What we have here is an account of the trial of a kindly priest (Tom Wilkinson) accused of manslaughter in the botched exorcism of college freshman Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). Everybody has a story to tell, and a series of witnesses take the stand with conflicting accounts of poor Emily's struggle with what some call paranoid schizophrenia and others swear is possession. There are a few things going bump in the night here and there, but the scares turn out to be mere visual aids to an endless series of overly earnest arguments in which various characters weigh in on whether Emily is possessed or just paranoid. Also stars Laura Linney and Campbell Scott. HH
FLIGHTPLAN (PG-13) Jodie Foster plays grieving aeronautics engineer Kyle Pratt, traveling home with her 6-year-old daughter, Julia, to bury her husband after his suicide. Onboard the plane, Foster awakens, panicked, to find her child missing. No one claims to have ever seen the girl and Pratt is assumed delusional and dangerous. Peter Sarsgaard plays the sympathetic air Marshal who attempts to help solve the mystery of the missing girl. With cool camera angles and intense close ups, the movie has an eerie, Twilight Zone-esque feel. Foster's usual command of raw emotion makes an otherwise blah film incredibly intense and thrilling. Also stars Sean Bean. HHH
—Yeatie Morgan
THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED (PG) Actor turned filmmaker Bill Paxton makes quite a leap here, following his intensely disturbing 2001 directorial debut about religious fanaticism and serial killers, Frailty, with this heartwarming crowd-pleaser about the game of golf. More than that, though, The Greatest Game Ever Played is an underdog movie in the classic Disney mold, although it's anything but subtle in its aggressive use of golf as an arena for class struggle and the enormous divides between haves and have-nots. The movie has a tough time finding its focus and its footing for the first act, but it eventually settles into a fairly straight-forward account of the 1913 U.S. Open, in which Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf), a 20-year-old amateur from the wrong side of the tracks, successfully took on a slew of seasoned professionals, most of whom Paxton casts as lackeys of the snooty, idle rich. Also stars Stephen Dillane, Josh Flitter and Elias Koteas. HH 1/2
GRIZZLY MAN (R) Werner Herzog, a cosmic absurdist who has always been drawn to obsessives and holy fools, seems to have found a perfect subject in the bizarre life and death of Timothy Treadwell, an environmentalist and self-appointed protector of wild life who died at the fangs and claws of one of his beloved grizzly bears. Treadwell was a bundle of contradictions, an insecure, aging nature boy and an overbearing (pun unavoidable), egomaniacal clown — think Queer Eye's Carson Kressley crossed with John Denver — who manufactured his own larger-than-life image and religiously committed it to videotape in hundreds of hours of self-shot footage. Herzog incorporates much of this footage into Grizzly Man, sometimes commenting upon it (in his amusingly foreboding German accent) as a way of shaping and expanding the story, but often simply letting Treadwell's words and actions speak for themselves. The results make for one of the best films of the year. Currently at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. Call to confirm. HHHH
HAPPILY EVER AFTER (NR) Run of the mill kvetching about a bunch of middle-aged guys feeling trapped by marriage, work and life in general, and compensating by fantasizing about sex (and, in some cases, acting out those fantasies). The film happens to be French, but it's very nearly as shallow and clichéd as what you'd expect in an equivalent tale from Hollywood, and is only slightly redeemed by the presence of the always engaging Charlotte Gainsbourg (Serge's daughter) and a few tasty cameos by the likes of Johnny Depp and Anouk Aimee. The blame for this self-indulgent time waster can mostly be laid at the feet of writer-director Yvan Attal, who also co-stars as Gainsbourg's philandering husband, who acquitted himself much better in the similarly themed but somewhat more energetic My Wife is an Actress. Also stars Alain Chabat, Emmanuelle Seigner and Alain Cohen. HH
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (NR) David Cronenberg's aptly titled movie begins and ends with the happy household of the Stall family, an all-American clan headed up by Tom (Viggo Mortensen) and loving wife Edie (Maria Bello), who considers him "the best man I've ever known." Cronenberg lets us know from the start that chaos is just a shot away, and the movie's calm is soon enough shattered by an act of extreme violence that turns Tom into a local hero. With fame comes unwanted attention, though, in the form of some unsavory out-of-towners (headed by a marvelously ominous Ed Harris) claiming that Tom is not the person he says he is. A History of Violence is tough to talk about without giving away crucial plot twists, but suffice to say that the film shoves our faces in the notion of violence as a transforming phenomenon, as alluring as it is appalling, and eventually focusing on a family bonding over blood. In the end it may feel a little like Cronenberg's giving us his version of an action movie, but don't go expecting Lethal Weapon. All History ultimately has in common with a Mel Gibson movie is a beginning, a middle and an end. Also stars William Hurt. HHH 1/2
IN HER SHOES (PG-13) Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette play radically dissimilar sisters whose only common ground is a love for footwear, in this meandering, unfocused romantic comedy from normally dependable director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential, 8 Mile). Collette plays the plain but dependable sister while Diaz gets to smolder and twitch as the sexy but dysfunctional bad-girl sister, a terminally unemployed nut-job who sponges off her sibling and then sleeps with her boyfriend. To its credit, this is a chick flick that doesn't focus on the sisters' man troubles so much as on their relationship to each other, but the characters and their conflicts are still pretty broadly drawn, and things soon become trite, then ridiculous. The responsible sister finds inner peace by getting in touch with her irresponsible side and quitting her well-paying, anxiety-producing job, while the ne'er-do-well sis straightens up, bonds with a gaggle of old folks (including her estranged grandmother) and, in her spare time, overcomes the heartbreak of dyslexia. Also stars Shirley MacLaine. HH 1/2
INTO THE BLUE (PG-13) An intense opening sequence suggests a film of intrigue and adventure, but it quickly becomes clear that Into the Blue is little more than an excuse to display a bunch of beautifully-tanned hard bodies, under the guise of an adventure-gone-awry in the Caribbean. Sam (Jessica Alba) and Jared (Paul Walker) are among a small group of divers who discover a sunken airplane full of narcotics and a legendary shipwreck, all in one day. Ultimately, Jared must decide what is most important to him — love or money. Not that we really care how it all turns out; the film drags for so long that even a few last-minute thrills can't revive it from its comatose state. Also stars Josh Brolin, Scott Caan and Tyson Beckford. H 1/2
—Yeatie Morgan
JUNEBUG (NR) Director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan demonstrate a genuine understanding and affection for their small-town subjects (even though I'd wager the filmmakers are somewhat more attuned to their big city characters), and when somebody in this movie does something odd or wacky it usually feels like a natural extension of who that person is, rather than simply something scripted for our amusement. We spend time with some very funny people here, but the movie is smart and subtle enough to allow us to smile at its characters without turning them into cartoons. Junebug isn't a movie that's going to change anybody's life, but there's a surprising amount of clever and thoughtful details packed into this small film. Stars Embeth Davidtz, Amy Adams, Allessandro Nivola, Benjamin McKenzie, Scott Wilson and Celia Weston Currently at Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. Call to confirm. HHH 1/2
JUST LIKE HEAVEN (PG-13) A comedy that raises serious questions about enjoying the now and avoiding regret, Just Like Heaven stars Reese Witherspoon as Elizabeth Martinson, a dedicated young ER doctor with too little time for anything other than work. One serious car accident later, ghost Elizabeth now has all the time in the world, and she spends most of it haunting her old apartment and harassing its new tenant, grieving widow David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo). Comedic highlights come courtesy of Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder, who plays a guy with a "gift" for spirit communication. Also stars Donal Logue. HHH
Quilin J. Achat
LORD OF WAR (R) There's a lot of stylish hubris but little that's particularly original about Lord of War, director Andrew Niccol's epic story about the rise and fall of an international gun runner. The movie spans two decades in the life of ambitious anti-hero Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), whose compulsively chatty voice-over accompanies the proceedings. Cage's bizarrely exaggerated performance ranks among his most maddeningly self-conscious, while the movie veers erratically from gritty realism to unconvincing, overheated melodrama to tongue-in-cheek farce, with a stop or two in between for some Scarface-esque excess. Also stars Jared Leto, Ian Holm, Bridget Moynahan and Ethan Hawke. HH 1/2
OLIVER TWIST (PG-13) Charles Dickens' oft-told tale of a plucky young orphan navigating the mean streets of 19th-century London has another big-screen go-around courtesy of that most angst-ridden of directors, Roman Polanski. Sir Ben Kingsley is on hand as well, assuming the role of everybody's favorite Jewish stereotype, the notorious Fagin. Also stars Barney Clark, Jamie Foreman and Harry Eden. (Not Reviewed)
PROOF (PG-13) A so-so play becomes a so-so movie in Proof, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow as the frumpy and somewhat unstable daughter of a famously deranged and now deceased math whiz (Anthony Hopkins). This is well-acted but not particularly engaging stuff (unless, I suppose, you happen to be a world-class math geek yourself or just can't get enough stories about clingy, grown-up daughters hung up on their thoroughly messed-up fathers) and, despite efforts by class-act director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) to open up the material, it's all terribly stage-bound. In a nutshell, another tastefully sleepy, middle-brow art film to be seen, filed away and forgotten. Also stars Hope Davis and Jake Gyllenhaal. HH 1/2
ROLL BOUNCE (PG-13) Director Malcolm D. Lee (Undercover Brother) offers what we suspect might be the silliest movie of the year. Lil' Bow Wow stars as Xavier ("X" to his friends), leader of a hotshot roller-skating gang (we kid you not) on the south side of '70s Chicago. When their rink closes, the gang heads uptown to a swankier one, where they engage in a skate-off against rival rollers. And, oh yeah — it's a musical. Also stars Chi McBride and Mike Epps. (Not Reviewed)
SERENITY (PG-13) Devoted fans of Firefly, the short-lived show from cult TV guru Josh Whedon (Buffy, Angel), will likely go crazy for this big screen version, but the results are decidedly more mixed for the rest of us. Serenity is set in a future some 500 years from now, and follows a band of misfit rebels as they're chased across the universe by the Alliance, an oppressive coalition government that wants to get its hands on River (Summer Glau), a powerful, 17-year-old psychic traveling with the rebels. The storyline has even more interesting complications and convolutions, but the film doesn't really tie them together in a cohesive, satisfying way, and Serenity tends to lurch ahead in a curiously clunky, episodic manner that seems more suited to the small screen than the big one. The dialogue is frequently clever, but most of the characters tend to talk and act either like ancient samurais or, mostly, like cowboys (as Whedon openly admits, the concept here is basically an old fashioned western in space). Also stars Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin and Sean Maher. HHH
A SOUND OF THUNDER (PG-13) Peter Hyams hasn't made a half-way decent movie since 1981's Outland, but if you think that Time Cop represented the director's absolute low point, wait until you get a load of this hunk o' junk. A Sound of Thunder is sloppy, half-hearted sci-fi action about a bungled trip to the past that affects everything in the present (well, it's the future, technically, since the movie takes place in 2055 — but never mind). The way the movie visualizes how the world changes is unimaginatively conceived (mostly just a bunch of overgrown vegetation and roaming packs of silly lizard-primate mutations) and the cheap-looking CGI is as unconvincing as the general level of acting on display (Ed Burns, in particular, looks like he's embarrassed to be here half the time; the other half of the time he just looks bored). Also Stars Ben Kingsley and Catherine McCormack. H
THUMBSUCKER (R) It's not Napoleon Dynamite by a long stretch, or even Rushmore, but Mike Mills' directorial debut covers some of the same, suburban teen-angst territory and emerges as one of the funniest and most smartly written comedies of the moment. Lou Pucci (who took home a well-earned award from Sundance for his performance) stars as Justin, a thumb-sucking loner who transforms into a high school debate team attack dog, and then into something even stranger. Thumbsucker doesn't provide any revelations, but it's equally good detailing its wacky adults as it is exploring the inner life of its teenage characters. Pucci is a real find, but he's only part of a wonderful ensemble cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Vince Vaughn and Keanu Reeves as a very strange orthodontist. Also stars Vincent D'Onofrio and Benjamin Bratt. Currently at Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. Call to confirm. HHH 1/2
TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE (PG) Corpse Bride is the sweetly macabre tale of a delicate young lad (voiced by Johnny Depp) who accidentally weds a dead girl and winds up preferring the no-airs company of her deceased pals to that of the pompous living. The movie starts out somber and a bit stodgy, with a severe visual palate in effect that's just a half-notch removed from pure black and white; it's only when the film shifts locales to the land of the dead that it finally comes alive, paradoxically enough, bursting into pastel color and bombarding us with a slew of half-morbid, half-wacky sight gags. At that point it becomes a treat to simply drink in the movie's elaborate, self-created fantasy world, its crazy, off-kilter shadows and expressionist sets populated by chorus lines of dancing skeletons direct from the Day of the Dead (the Mexican holiday, that is, not the Romero film). Also featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Albert Finney and Christopher Lee. HHH 1/2
TRANSPORTER 2 (PG-13) Jason Statham stars in a sequel to the 2002 action movie that became an unexpected hit when it appeared on DVD. This time out, Statham's ex-special forces operator is lured back into action when a pair of young boys are kidnapped. Also stars Alessandro Gassman, Keith David and Amber Valletta. (Not Reviewed)
UNDERCLASSMAN (PG-13) A rough-around-the-edges L.A. cop goes undercover at a posh private school and culture clash hilarity ensues. Maybe. Stars Nick Cannon, Roselyn Sanchez and Shawn Ashmore. (Not Reviewed)
AN UNFINISHED LIFE (PG-13) Morgan Freeman turns out to be just about the only thing worth watching in Lasse Hallström's long-stalled project An Unfinished Life, a tepid melodrama where pretty much everything that's going to happen is known within the first 10 minutes. Precocious young daughter in tow, battered woman Jennifer Lopez travels to Wyoming and moves in with estranged father-in-law Robert Redford, who still blames Lopez for the death of his son, her husband, many years ago. It's only a matter of time before bonding happens between all of the feuding parties here, and the movie plods along on autopilot, occasionally injecting its cliché-ridden story with bits of overplayed symbolism. Despite sitting around unreleased for two years, An Unfinished Life feels, well, unfinished — technically polished but narratively sloppy and rushed, with half-hearted performances (Redford delivers one of his blandest turns ever), and moments where it seems like scenes have been arbitrarily excised. Also stars Becca Gardener and Josh Lucas. HH
WALLACE AND GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (G) Cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his faithful, mystery-solving pooch Gromit, stars of several Oscar-winning shorts by animator Nick Park (Chicken Run), arrive in fine form for their feature film debut. The plot here, by turns delightfully droll and ludicrous, is sort of a Sherlock Holmes mystery meets The Fly by way of The Wolf Man, in which a human character, after having his psyche accidentally fused with that of a rabbit's, winds up transformed by night into a giant, rampaging bunny. It's up to our heroes to save the day, naturally, as they trip the light fantastic through a steady stream of sight gags, slapstick, puns, quirks (including several characters whose obsession with vegetables verges on the perverse), screwball set-pieces and bad English dental work. The movie's premise is just a wee bit thin to sustain an 85-minute running time, but Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a mostly wonderful ride, as well as a terrific homage to those old Universal horror films of the 1930s. As in all of Park's movies, there's charm, wit and visual style to burn, all delivered via some quaintly dated but lovely-to-look-at claymation and a sublimely silly and oh-so-British comedic sensibility. Featuring the voices of Peter Sallis, Ray Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter. HHH 1/2
YES (R) Sally Potter is a filmmaker whose ambitious, high-concept projects run the gamut from the brilliantly enigmatic (Orlando) to the embarrassingly insipid (The Tango Lesson), and her latest, Yes, falls squarely into the most unfortunate recesses of that later category. Among its many misguided pretensions, Yes features dialogue spoken entirely in iambic pentameter (yes, it's just as awful as you're imagining), and focuses on an Irish-American scientist (Joan Allen) and a dark-skinned Lebanese waiter (Simon Abkarian), known only as "He" and "She," whose adulterous affair becomes a clumsy encapsulation for the current state of post 9/11 geo-politics. This is the sort of thing that gives art films a bad name. Also stars Sam Neill and Shirley Henderson. H
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
This article appears in Oct 12-18, 2005.