RECENT RELEASES
AEON FLUX (PG-13) Based on the popular MTV animated series of the '90s, Aeon Flux takes us 400 years into the future to the last city on Earth. Charlize Theron, making her debut in the sci-fi action genre, stars as an underground operative leading the rebels against totalitarian rule of a seemingly perfect society. Also stars Martin Csokas, Jonny Lee Miller and Frances McDormand. (Not Reviewed)
BEE SEASON (PG-13) Bee Season, which is the new film from Scott McGehee and David Siegel (Suture, The Deep End), is a very curious, vaguely cerebral drama about a household in crisis when sixth grader Eliza (Flora Cross) turns out to be a total savant in the area of spelling, causing her academically minded, control freak dad (Richard Gere), a religious studies professor, to begin instructing her in the ways of Kabbalah in order to maximize her gift. Meanwhile, Gere's son (Max Minghella) is getting cozy with the Hare Krishnas on the sly, and mom (Juliette Binoche) is slipping out at night to indulge in a few deep, dark secrets of her own. The basic form here is pure soap, but with flashes of oddly shaped substance and a sprinkling of mysticism that, while it doesn't quite mesh with the rest of the material, is fascinating all on its own. Buying Gere as a Jewish scholar, on the other hand, is a stretch no one should be required to attempt. Also stars Kate Bosworth. 3 stars.
CAPOTE (R) Anyone who has read In Cold Blood or seen the 1967 movie version will be basically familiar with the raw material here — a pair of drifters reveal themselves to a reporter while awaiting execution for the senseless slaughter of a Kansas family — but Capote yanks the focus away from the killers and puts it squarely on the writer and his process. That writer is Truman Capote, portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in a performance that gives us traces of all the Capotes that we think we know — the narcissistic dandy, the sensitive artist, the twee fop with the whiney baby voice, the literary powerhouse — and fuses them all into a character too complex and human to be pigeonholed by any of those descriptions. Also stars Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr and Chris Cooper. 4.5 stars.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2 (PG-13) So what is this, like the third movie in as many weeks about the trials and tribulations of families too big for their own good? This one's a sequel to the 2003 comedy, featuring Steve Martin as the head of a massive brood who find themselves squaring off against another family almost as large as theirs while on vacation. Also stars Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, Eugene Levy, Piper Perabo and Tom Welling. (Not Reviewed)
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (PG) Although it gets off to a decidedly slow start, this big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis' beloved book turns out to be pretty smashing entertainment. Four heroic young siblings stumble into the film's magical realm of talking animals, evil queens, fauns, gryphons, centaurs, satyrs, Cyclopses and even a stripped-down Kris Kringle. The sheer profusion of fantastical beasties on display is worth the proverbial price of admission. It all culminates, as if you couldn't guess, in a massively proportioned Lord of the Rings-lite battle royale between the forces of good and evil, but hey, you could do a lot worse. Stars Tilda Swinton, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Anna Popplewell, William Moseley, James McAvoy and Jim Broadbent. 3.5 stars.
THE FAMILY STONE (PG-13) With a carefully calculated humor-to-pathos ratio and a sleigh-ful of crowd-pleasing clichés in tow, The Family Stone is a warm puppy of a movie, so desperate to be loved that it practically pees all over itself. The basic set-up here involves a yuletide reunion with the Stones, a mostly good-natured and open-minded bunch who nevertheless find themselves deeply offended when one of the adult siblings (Dermot Mulroney) brings his painfully uptight fiancée (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet the family. Oh, and did I mention that the doe-eyed younger Stone brother is not only gay but deaf, and has an impossibly adorable African-American boyfriend to boot? Or that Mother Stone is terminally ill and played by Diane Keaton? Or that Parker's perfect sister (Claire Danes) eventually shows up and lights up everyone's life in a way that instantly telegraphs the entire last act of the movie? It all bubbles over in a mad rush of predictable partner-swapping and soul-baring as The Family Stone struggles to convince us that its glib, cookie-cutter story is less bogus than it really is. But the movie's "truths" are worse than superficial — they're insincere — and the only insights found here are as cheesy as they are disposable. Also stars Rachel McAdams and Luke Wilson. 2 stars.
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE (PG-13) A sad and pointless remake of the 1977 George Segal/Jane Fonda comedy about nice middle-class folks reduced to robbery when the economy crashes. The original was no great shakes itself, but the 2005 version is a chore to sit through, as well as a terrible waste of two good performers, Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni, neither of whom has ever been less funny (at least in a movie that's nominally a comedy). The first half of the film joylessly details the couple's descent into fiscal hell (culminating in scenes of self-mutilation played for laughs), while the second half features a series of painfully unfunny slapstick robberies and brazenly unsubtle satires of corporate greed. Unpleasant and depressing stuff recast as comedy for America's New Dark Ages. Also stars Alec Baldwin and Jeff Garlin. 1.5 stars.
GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (PG-13) Ostensibly, actor-turned-director George Clooney's remarkable new film is a more-or-less true account of that pivotal moment in American politics when CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow dared speak out against Joseph McCarthy, the Commie-hunting U.S. Senator who turned paranoia into a national pastime. David Strathairn is an effective presence as Murrow, a 1950's proto-liberal media star (Murrow might just be the Anti-O'Reilly) who spoke his mind and crusaded tirelessly for the truth, brow furrowed earnestly and a burning cigarette permanently wedged between his fingers. Clooney chose to shoot in black and white, a wise decision that lets us know that Good Night and Good Luck is art, too, while blending seamlessly with the extensive archival footage of McCarthy incorporated into the film. Also stars Robert Downey Jr, George Clooney, Ray Wise, Patricia Clarkson and Frank Langella. 4 stars.
HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (PG-13) Although somewhat darker in tone than its predecessors, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is every bit as blockbusterific as the rest of the series, and, despite its long length, is designed for maximum efficiency. The new Potter adventure moves at a brisk clip, re-establishing old characters and introducing new ones while supplying an abundance of those purely fantastic flourishes that fans of the series have come to expect. Director Mike Newell pares away Rowling's gratuitous sub-plots and paces what's left beautifully, segueing from moments of light comedy and budding romance to sequences of unexpected intensity. The story is, as usual, more basic good-versus-evil stuff, but Newell and company present it in such fine style that we barely notice the empty calories. Stars Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes and Michael Gambon. 4 stars.
THE ICE HARVEST (R) It's After Hours meets Double Indemnity when John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton attempt to embezzle a fortune from the mob, and spend one long, bizarre night suffering the consequences. The director here is Harold Ramis of Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day fame, but The Ice Harvest, despite a few brief and understated laughs, is a million miles from those basically sunny comedies. The film is set at night and almost exclusively in the seedy underbelly of Wichita, Kan. (and yes, Virginia, there is a seedy underbelly to Wichita), where Cusack and company spend most of the movie drinking, ogling strippers, squabbling, making scenes and avoiding their pursuers. As the movie's noir elements really begin kicking in, there are femme fatales, double and triple crosses galore and bodies to be disposed of as well, and the whole thing, while not exactly original or too terribly clever, is nicely situated somewhere between the Coens' Blood Simple revisionism and a satisfyingly familiar old school classic. Also stars Oliver Platt, Connie Nielsen and Randy Quaid. 3.5 stars.
JARHEAD (R) Director Sam Mendes does an awful lot of rambling and posturing here, while showing precious little of the insight that elevated his American Beauty above its pretensions. Jarhead is a war movie where the war is barely seen. This might be his whole point — something about modern warfare being a largely technological exercise devoid of heroism or human drama — but that doesn't make the film any less dull. There's not much excitement, tension or depth as we watch a bunch of newly-minted marines go through basic training, clean toilets, talk about wives and girlfriends. The soldiers don't wind up seeing combat until the last 20 minutes or so, at which point we get a handful of arresting images of the killing fields of Kuwait, but not much else. The real war always seems to be happening somewhere else, and all the characters can do is complain about it. You might say that Jarhead is an anti-war movie — not in the sense that it's against war, but in that it almost deliberately seems to be going against the grain of what we expect a war movie to be. Stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Saarsgaard, Lucas Black, Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper. 2.5 stars.
JUST FRIENDS (PG-13) Nothing says Happy Holidays like a really lip-smackingly nasty comedy about obnoxious people doing stupid, humiliating or otherwise outrageous things at Christmastime — and that's exactly what Just Friends is. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just Friends stars Ryan Reynolds as a suave L.A. player desperately trying to seduce the beautiful girl he secretly adored back when he was a fat dweeb in high school. The movie's minor characters are its strong suit — Anna Faris is brilliant as a slutty airhead pop star who owes a little too much to Britney Spears — but Just Friends is generally a lot of good, trashy fun, and maybe even a touch more clever than you're expecting. Also stars Amy Smart and Chris Klein. 3 stars.
KING KONG (PG-13) Director Peter Jackson goes back to the basics here, re-setting this classic tale in its original timeframe and remaining extremely faithful to the original story, while giving it lots of room to breathe. Besides the seriously hefty running time (nearly every minute of which deserves to be there), Jackson ups the ante in other significant ways, intensifying the action on all fronts and clarifying the beauty-and-the-beast bond that is key to the story. King Kong is basically beautifully realized old-school filmmaking with a 21st-century facelift, and Jackson segues skillfully from humor to horror to adventure to romance. Adrien Brody is well cast as the sensitive hero, as is Jack Black (keeping his eyebrows under control and playing it relatively straight for once), and Naomi Watts exhibits star power to burn. But the real star here is Kong himself. Jackson's Kong is a personality kid who takes CGI to infinity and beyond, whether he's gazing contemplatively at a sunset or tearing up the city trying to locate his special blonde, just like Jimmy Stewart obsessing on Kim Novak in Vertigo. And when the monkey finally climbs that famous building in the end and has his Top-of-the-World-Ma moment, there's little doubt that Jackson's doomed monster is also one for the ages. Also stars Jamie Bell, Colin Hanks and Andy Serkis. 4.5 stars.
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (PG-13) Beautiful to look at and with barely a thought in its pretty little head, Memoirs of a Geisha takes what might have been a culturally-specific slice of Asian subject matter and inexplicably infuses it with heaping helpings of that old Chicago razzle-dazzle. The film takes place in Japan around the time of the Second World War, but it's a Hollywood fantasy-Japan, where everybody speaks English and acts like they're in an American movie. We're thrust headlong into the tale of Sayuri (Zhang Zyiyi), a penniless waif who is forced into service at a geisha establishment and eventually inducted into their ways. The movie rushes through this crucial training period, shredding nuances along the way, in order to cast itself as your basic, overheated melodrama dwelling on various thwarted love affairs and romantic rivalries. An overlong film that feels rushed at all the wrong moments, Memoirs turns out to be a visually impressive but hopelessly generic soap gussied up with a few superficial exotic flourishes. Amplifying the scent of kitsch in the air, the non-native-speaking actors all speak a lightly accented English better suited to an old Godzilla movie than a serious dramatic venture. Also stars Ken Watanabe, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Koji Yakusho and Kaori Momoi. 2.5 stars.
MUNICH (R) Despite a marketing campaign that sells it as a more-or-less straight-ahead suspense thriller, Munich is a glum, oddly muddled affair, so consumed with wallowing in ethical ambiguities and hand-wringing over endless cycles of violence that it forgets to give us an engaging story. Director Steven Spielberg focuses on the aftermath of the slaughter of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics — when a hit squad was dispatched to assassinate the Palestinian organizers of the massacre — but Munich is less concerned with creating a visceral thrill ride out of the often horrifying mechanics of revenge than with grinding our noses in the pointlessness of it all. If you were expecting a Kill Bill adrenaline rush recast as a less guilty pleasure, forget it. Spielberg leans over so far backward in an effort to be evenhanded that there's really no one to root for or against, a problem exacerbated by too many forgettable characters saddled with flat-footed dialogue endlessly re-stating the movie's thesis that violence begetting violence can only be wrong. Stars Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer and Michael Lonsdale. 3 stars.
NINE LIVES (R) In Nine Lives, director Rodrigo Garcia, son of the great writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, focuses on mostly older women from various walks of life, placing them in small groups of two or three and in situations both commonplace and extraordinary. Robin Wright Penn meets an old flame in a grocery store, Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning have a picnic in a cemetery, Sissy Spacek cares for her disabled husband in one segment and then meets her lover in a motel in another. Some of the stories aren't quite as captivating as others, but the acting is uniformly excellent, and the cumulative effect something to be remembered. Also stars Amy Brenneman, Molly Parker, Kathy Baker and Holly Hunter. 3.5 stars.
PARADISE NOW (NR) Walking a very fine line between humanist art-cinema and Palestinian agit-prop, Paradise Now dares to present what is essentially a sympathetic look at suicide bombers. The wannabe terrorists of Paradise Now are people we can relate to, who love their mothers, have girlfriends, quirks and aspirations, and who just happen to be angry or disaffected enough to have been recruited for a "martyrdom mission" to kill as many innocent people as possible. Never mind about the potential victims being innocent; the movie flits right over that little detail, so you're likely to miss it too. Paradise Now bears a superficial resemblance to the thriller genre, but what we mostly get is a relentless drumbeat of human desperation, punctuated by a series of litanies in which our "heroes'" principal enemies, the Israelis, are routinely reduced to faceless, sadistic monsters. Regrettably, the film's effort to supply its suicide bombers with a human face hinges to an alarming degree on dehumanizing their intended victims. Stars Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Ashrof Barhom and Lubna Asabel. 2.5 stars.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (PG) So yes, Hollywood, Bollywood and PBS have already weighed in with adaptations of Jane Austen's beloved novel. But don't let that scare you away from this latest film version. For one thing, director Joe Wright gives us the most vivid depiction yet of the very real class differences that separate filthy-rich Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen) from the merely filthy Bennets and their proud daughter Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). And if the rest of the Bennet girls are almost too authentically annoying in their giggly obsession with marriage, the underlying sense of economic desperation feels right. Donald Sutherland, so effective lately as snaky Senator Templeton in TV's Commander in Chief, shows his range in a subtle and ultimately quite touching performance as Elizabeth's weary dad; doleful yet dreamy MacFadyen is the most believable Darcy yet; and Knightley, if a little too perky, is at least as much of a natural wonder as the lush English countryside that surrounds her. 3.5 stars.
THE PRODUCERS (PG13) A shrill and shambling attempt to bring Mel Brooks' much-loved Broadway production to the big screen, The Producers arrives feeling like a thing embalmed. Director Susan Stroman, who also directed the popular stage version, shoots the proceedings very much like a play, emphasizing the static, stage-bound nature of the beast, and hammering home mugging performances that might have played just fine in a live setting but fall flat on screen. Factor in routine choreography as well as a last act that goes nowhere and takes forever getting there, and you've got a less than memorable movie. The story concerns a second-rate Broadway producer (Nathan Lane) who, upon discovering he can make more money from a sure flop than he can from a sure hit, teams up with his accountant (Matthew Broderick) to stage the worst show ever seen. That play is a little romp entitled Springtime for Hitler, which, though amusing enough, wasn't nearly the epitome of bad taste Brooks thought it to be even when he first conceived it back in 1968. The movie now seems as dated as it is lifeless and, without the hugely magnetic presence of Zero Mostel (who starred in the original film version), Brooks' faux-Marx Brothers borscht-belt shtick sinks like a rock. Also stars Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell, Gary Beach and Richard Bart. 2 stars.
RENT (PG-13) Jonathan Larson's rock opera of Puccini's La Boheme (set in Manhattan's East Village of the 1980s) seemed dated from the first day it appeared — an unintentional middle-brow parody of the very artists and eccentrics it wanted to ennoble — and the years have been especially unkind. We get over two hours of a multicultural, polysexual crew of starving artists prancing around crooning occasionally eloquent but more often sappy, preachy and pretentious lyrics about all sorts of social issues, set to an ungodly mix of bad Tin Pan Alley tunes and overblown dino-rock. The play Rent was a half-decent idea with a very limited shelf-life and it should have been allowed to die a dignified death, but no such luck. Stars Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, Rosario Dawson, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and Wilson Jermaine Heredia. 2 stars.
RUMOR HAS IT (PG-13) Rob Reiner produces another romantic comedy with a moderately witty storyline. Jennifer Aniston stars as Sarah Huttinger, an obituary writer and emotionally distraught bride-to-be who learns that her family was the inspiration for the novel and film The Graduate. After certain parental possibilities come to light, she goes searching for Beau Burroughs, an ex-lover of her deceased mother and living grandmother (played by none other than Shirley MacLaine). After meeting Burroughs (Kevin Costner) and finding out he is not the man he could have been, Sarah's confusion grows while she finds herself lodged between an ironic attraction to this older man and engagement to her fiancé, Jeff (Mark Ruffalo). Despite a promising start and sporadically hilarious moments, a rushed conclusion makes Rumor Has It merely average. 2.5 stars.
SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC (R) A lot of people who caught Sarah Silverman's show-stopping turn in The Aristocrats are already calling her the new Lenny Bruce, but it takes a lot more than a filthy mouth and a knack for provocation to sustain great comedy. And though Silverman's comic timing is almost always impeccable as she revels in taboos from sex to race to 9/11 to AIDS in Jesus is Magic, there's a certain sameness to the material that eventually makes this particular brand of outrageousness feel just a little bit over-thought and, well, tired. Still, there's a lot of funny stuff in this barely feature-length document of the comedian's live show, and Silverman makes good use of her fresh-faced, nice-Jewish-girl-next-door persona to deliver a barrage of decidedly non-PC bombshells. Silverman fans will find much to like in Jesus is Magic, but the film would have probably played better as an hour-long HBO Special. Also stars Bob Odenkirk and Brian Posehn. 3 stars.
SAW II (R) As with the original Saw, an appreciation of Saw II largely depends on one's appetite for seeing people getting sliced, diced, skewered and charred. The premise here once again involves characters trapped in a controlled environment and picked off by a deranged but brilliant sicko in ways that the filmmakers hope we'll find ingenious. Stars Donnie Walhberg, Tobin Bell and Lyriq Bent. 2 stars.
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (R) The year's most meticulously detailed, deeply personal and magnificently neurotic account of a family splitting apart at the seams. Director Noah Baumbach (who, just on the strength of this and his earlier Mr. Jealousy, has got to be considered one of the most promising filmmakers in America) uses his own family as source material for the Berkmans, a Brooklyn-based clan bound for glorious things, if disaster doesn't get them first. The family members are a bright, talented bunch headed up by a mother and father (Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney) who are both writers, one whose star is rising, one with a star seriously falling, and whose marriage is well on the way to its messy end. That doesn't translate well for the two Berkman boys — 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) and older brother Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) — as they struggle with the gravitational pull of screwed-up, hyper-intellectual parents and adjust to the unpleasant, absurd realities of divorce. The Squid and the Whale is a delicate film about people who are often brutally honest, with Baumbach managing to find something appealing and even endearing in characters who are frequently selfish, arrogant and flat-out pretentious. Also stars William Baldwin and Anna Paquin. 4.5 stars.
SYRIANA (R) A film that attempts to be the last word on that scariest of unholy trinities — oil, money and blood — Syriana sometimes seems less like a political art-film and more like a thinking man's horror movie (think Land of the Dead with less cannibalism and where the zombies are rewritten as CIA agents). Writer-director Stephen Gaghan, screenwriter of Steven Soderbergh's similarly timely Traffic, throws together an almost unmanageable ensemble of some two dozen characters, from American politicians and oilmen to Arab sheiks and suicide bombers, in an ambitious attempt to offer up a mosaic of the enormously complicated forces (economic, religious, cultural, etc.) fueling immoral acts on both sides of the ongoing War on Terror. Syriana links political intrigue with human drama, telling its global story almost exclusively through short, intimate, mostly enigmatic scenes that almost never take place in the same place twice, and that reveal their full meaning only in a larger context. There's much that's thought-provoking and even important about Syriana, but the effect of the film is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle that disorients us so much in the beginning we begin to lose patience with seeing it through to completion. Stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Mazhar Munir, Tim Blake Nelson, Amanda Peet and Christopher Plummer. 3.5 stars.
USHPIZIN (NR) A poor, ultra-Orthodox Jewish couple in Jerusalem discover the hard way to be careful what you wish for (or pray for) in this modern folk fable from Israel. Financially strapped Moshe and his wife Malli (real life couple Shuli Rand and Michal Bat Sheva Rand) consider the sly low-lifes that show up at their door as a "gift from God," but eventually find their saint-like patience taxed when the uninvited guests begin turning their world upside down. Ushpizin (literally Holy Guests) was made with the cooperation of Jerusalem's notoriously publicity-shy Hassidic community, and the film offers, beyond the modest charms of its story, a rare look at the inner workings of a rarely seen culture. Also stars Shaul Mizrahi and Ilan Ganani. 3 stars.
WALK THE LINE (PG-13) Walk the Line is an engaging, star-studded production that gives us a more or less accurate accounting of Johnny Cash's life, but there's a generic feeling to the movie very much at odds with the edginess of its subject. The movie follows Cash's rise to stardom in the '50s and his subsequent fall, duly noting the marital problems, the drug problems, the inevitable cold turkey turn-around and the eventual comeback. The film is a little too concerned, though, with creating an overly tidy arc out of the events of Cash's life, and there's little here of the epic scope of Ray, no real sense of why Cash was important. Joaquin Phoenix does a serviceable job evoking Cash's physical presence, and Reese Witherspoon's perky Carter is a lot of fun to watch (and fun to listen to; she's a surprisingly strong country singer) — but, frankly, this couple could be almost any pair of innocuously attractive lovebirds. 3 stars.
ZATHURA: A SPACE ADVENTURE (PG) A follow-up of sorts to 1995's Jumanji, Zathura: A Space Adventure is based on another Chris Van Allsburg book about children playing games that magically become real, and a bit dangerous. It's all basically in good fun, though, and the virtual realities never get too threatening or too complicated. The setting this time is outer space, and the heroes are two young brothers who suddenly find themselves besieged by rampaging robots, deadly meteor showers and evil, reptilian aliens. Director Jon Favreau gives us an exhilarating, straight-up action adventure, albeit one with moments of intensity that may be a bit much for viewers under the age of, say, 7. Stars Josh Hutcherson, Jonah Bobo, Dax Hucherson and Tim Robbins. 3.5 stars.
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
This article appears in Dec 28, 2005 – Jan 3, 2006.