A GOOD YEAR (PG-13) It's nice to see the Gladiator dream team of Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott trying something different — and the breezy romantic comedy of A Good Year is certainly a change from the elaborately produced seriousness we expect from this pair. But while we welcome Crowe and Scott letting their hair down to toss off some silly, throwaway moments, A Good Year often appears to be nothing but throwaway moments. Based on Peter Mayle's book, this uninspired retread of A Year in Tuscany stars Crowe as icy stock trader Max Skinner, a self-described "famously callous" type who flees dreary London for the vineyard he's just inherited in Southern France. Provence turns out to be charming beyond words, of course, the residents are lovably eccentric, and romance quickly rears its head in the form of a comely local restaurateur, as Scott charts Max's predictable transformation from soulless bastard to sensitive bon vivant. The problem here isn't so much that the movie is all complete fluff; it's that Crowe and Scott just don't seem comfortable working in this vein. The goal may well have been to channel the great French humorist Jacques Tati (there's even a cute little dog here by that name), but the comedy on display generally amounts to a fairly vapid mix of sexual innuendo and awkward slapstick. Crowe wears large glasses, falls in swimming pools, and drives around in a funny little yellow car (to the strains of French pop songs and vintage Nilsson), and we can literally see him and Scott straining to drum up the requisite amount of fun. Also stars Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard, Abbie Cornish, Didier Bourdon, Tom Hollander and Freddie Highmore. 2.5 stars
THE HISTORY BOYS (R) Adapted from Alan Bennett's play of the same name, Nicholas Hytner's new film follows a group of very bright and very precocious English schoolboys trying to figure out how to get into Oxford. Stars Richard Griffiths, Stephen Campbell Moore, Frances de la Tour, Dominic Cooper and Samuel Barnett. (Not Reviewed)
NATIVITY STORY (PG) The bizarre synchronicity of its teenaged star's real-life pregnancy aside, Nativity Story takes its place in the culture as an irony-free affirmation of faith, a surprisingly stodgy but absolutely sincere love letter to Mary, the Mother of God. The film gains a degree of authenticity from its out-of-the-way location shooting in Morocco and Italy (including the village where Mel Gibson filmed Passion of the Christ) to brief snatches of biblical Aramaic sprinkling the English dialogue (although the cast displays a mish-mash of accents that range from Zorba the Greek to Yiddish Borsht Belt to Count Chocula). Digital effects aren't overly pronounced, and the movie has that by-now requisite bleached-out, semi-sepia look that screams "authenticity" and "taste." Otherwise it's pretty much business as usual, a better-than-average Davy and Goliath episode with slightly more animated characters and competent but curiously bland filmmaking chops. Looking at this as the beginning to a contemporary trilogy on the life of Jesus, Hollywood style (with Gibson providing the end, and Scorsese the much maligned middle), then Nativity Story might just be the most moderate of the lot, with a gentleness that approaches colorlessness (think of it as the anti-Passion). What we have here is a carefully faithful reading of material that's all about faith but decidedly lacking in vision. Also stars Oscar Isaac, Hiam Abbas, Shaun Toub, Ciaran Hinds, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Stanley Townsend and Alexander Siddiq. 2.5 stars
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM (PG) It's a toss up who's the real star here — Ben Stiller or the special effects — in a comedy-adventure about a hapless security guard who discovers all the exhibits in the Museum of Natural History are coming to life. Also stars Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Dick Van Dyke and Carla Gugino. (Not Reviewed)
ROCKY BALBOA (PG) Three decades after the original Rocky and 16 years after the franchise's last hurrah, Sylvester Stallone's most iconic character returns to the big screen for yet another bout of head-bashing and obstacle overcoming. Also stars Burt Young, Antonio Tarver, Geraldine Hughes and Milo Ventimiglia. (Not Reviewed)
TURISTAS (R) A bus trip in the wilds of Brazil takes a turn for the worse for a group of white, hot-bodied turistas. With the same concept as Hostel — tourists out of their element fight for their lives — Turistas comes off as more stark reality than slick slasher flick; the tropical locations aren't cinematically-enhanced, the gore isn't dressed-up with gallons of blood, and the idea behind the horror — that the white man is being punished for his cultural insensitivity — is interesting, if not entirely original. Each tense scene builds upon the last, and the villain is ultimately inflexible, a man driven to uphold the moral views that shape his world. Stars Josh Duhamel, Melissa George and Olivia Wilde. 3 stars —Wendy Withers
