RECENT RELEASES
BABEL (R) Many tongues are spoken and many stories interwoven in Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu's Babel, but, like those blind men feeling up the elephant, each of the movie's characters has only the foggiest notion of the big picture of which they're a part. Babel continues the patented blend of interlocking narratives and scrambled time frames that Innaritu and screenwriting partner Guillermo Arriaga dished out in Amores Perros and 21 Grams, a method that links its characters' lives by a series of coincidences rendered cosmic in the unbearable randomness of being. In Babel's version of chaos theory, a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and a Japanese businessman on vacation gives his hunting rifle to a Moroccan guide, eventually resulting in the guide's youngster accidentally putting a bullet in Brad Pitt's wife (Cate Blanchette). This in turn causes Pitt's and Blanchette's housekeeper, on the other side of the world, to risk missing her son's wedding unless she brings the couple's kids with her to Mexico, where beautiful and dangerous things await. And so on and so on. There are some painfully potent moments here, but the filmmakers' grasp sometimes exceeds their reach; simply put, we too often feel the movie straining to supply the connections necessary for making sense of the chaos. Still, Babel is bound and determined to pull off its cosmic hat trick and, even with all the metaphysical doodling and contrived rearranging of structure, the film gives us slabs of emotion that ring raw and true, with an English Patient-esque mix of ingenious editing, seductive cinematography and solid performances that goes a long way toward winning us over. Also stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi and Elle Fanning. 3.5 stars
BORAT (R) A subversive mockumentary after the style of Christopher Guest (but pound-for-pound funnier), Borat is a road trip across America in which many of the key players appear bizarrely unaware that they're participants in a massive hoax. Our guide is British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, adopting the persona of clueless Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdivev (a recurring character from his Da Ali G Show), who travels coast to coast in a feces-smeared ice cream truck, ostensibly in an effort to see what makes this country tick. A typical Kazakh (which is to say, Cohen's lampooning of otherness manifested as a "typical" Kazakh), Borat is a sweetly contemptible, hygienically-challenged moron, a product of a decimated, inbred environment with a rabid fear of Jews, independent women, homosexuals and virtually anything else that moves. Borat plays into just about every conceivable stereotype, and half the fun of the movie is watching the reactions of the people he encounters, many of them presumably ignorant of the fact that he's an actor playing a part. Some of these people react to Borat's wildly inappropriate words and deeds in stunned revulsion, others with disturbing affection, but either way the way the results are as spontaneous as they are hilarious. Also stars Ken Davitian, Pamela Anderson, Pat Haggerty and Alan Keyes. 4.5 stars
BOYNTON BEACH CLUB (NR) Bittersweet comedy about a group of wacky senior citizens in a South Florida retirement community imperfectly coping with the loss of loved ones. Susan Seidelman directs, a long ways down the road from Desperately Seeking Susan. Stars Dyan Cannon, Brenda Vaccaro, Sally Kellerman and Joseph Bologna. (Not Reviewed)
CASINO ROYALE (PG-13) As with Batman Begins, Casino Royale reinvents its iconic hero, bringing him back to square one by stripping him of excess camp and clichés. The movie follows the exploits of a leaner, meaner, younger Bond (Daniel Craig) as he embarks upon his first big case, charting its hero's Anakin Skywalker-like course as he works his way past human emotions to become the smooth super-assassin we all know and love. Most of the 007 must-haves are here — a charismatic villain (this one weeps blood), cool credit sequence, beautiful girls, exotic locations (Madagascar, Nassau, Venice, among others), spectacular action set-pieces — but the movie is so determined to be taken seriously that much of the pure, outsized fun so crucial to the Bond experience winds up M.I.A. And although Daniel Craig is a more than interesting choice to play Bond (he's probably the best actor to step into 007's shoes since Sean Connery), I'm not quite convinced. Even if you get past the reality of a blonde Bond, Craig comes off too much like an unnaturally buff method actor; he inhabits the inside of his character fine, but doesn't seem nearly as comfortable communicating the flashy, iconic exterior. It's quite possible the actor and the filmmakers will get the mix down in future projects, but Casino Royale is more interesting than genuinely enjoyable, a 007 project mostly valuable for testing the waters. Also stars Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeffrey Wright and Caterina Murino. 3 stars
DÉJÀ VU (PG-13) ADD-challenged director Tony Scott, back from the dead after Domino, manages to impress with what amounts to a virtual remake of Otto Preminger's classic film noir Laura, re-envisioned here as a post-9/11 sci-fi action flick. Denzel Washington stars as ATF agent Doug Carlin, whose investigation of a terrorist bombing becomes linked to the murder of a beautiful girl whom Carlin, shades of Laura, begins to obsess upon. (This being 2006, though, and Scott being Scott, instead of the elegant femme specter of Laura, Déjà Vu's dead girl is first introduced to us as a mutilated — but still beautiful — corpse.) The movie works backwards and forwards simultaneously, beginning basically as a mystery, with fantasy elements mostly taking the form of high-tech toys, Then, about an hour in, Déjà Vu morphs into full-blown sci-fi, treading deep into time travel territory (albeit with one foot firmly placed in adrenaline-goosing car chase scenes and monster explosions) and, against all odds, makes the fusion work. The scientific basis of the movie's sci-fi is pretty dodgy if you think about it for longer than a few seconds, but Déjà Vu is well worth its admission price as a tightly constructed and well played action-thriller. The film was shot on location in New Orleans, and the local flavor is a major perk. Also stars Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, Adam Goldberg and Jim Caviezel. 3.5 stars
FAST FOOD NATION (R) The take on the wages of junk food offered up here is ultimately a pretty tepid one. Working from a script by Eric Schlosser, who wrote the 2001 bestseller on which Fast Food Nation is based, director Richard Linklater gives us several seemingly unrelated characters and then, shades of Short Cuts and all things Babel-like, cuts between them. Greg Kinnear plays a marketing director on a fact-finding mission to discover how so much cow manure is getting into a fast food chain's beef (this being the nominal mystery driving this curiously shapeless film). Several of the high school kids that the movie introduces us to turn out to be fry cooks with dreams of rebellion (which don't particularly come to much), and the vast majority of the illegal immigrants that the movie follows wind up working in a massive meat packing plant where working conditions are beyond horrific. Linklater cuts between the various characters in a blithely scattershot way that worked fine in Slacker, but that seems weirdly out of place and overly relaxed here, sometimes to the point of trivializing the movie's ability to function as a serious social critique. Characters float in and out of the proceedings with disconcerting randomness (Kinnear actually seems to be the star here until he simply disappears altogether at the mid-point), and, even more bewildering, most of these characters come off as curiously underdeveloped sketches barely come to life. Dietary activists are likely to find Richard Linklater's new film a very minor footnote to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, rather than an amplification of Spurlock's enthusiastic agitprop. Cineastes and fans of Linklater's impressively eclectic oeuvre are equally likely to be disappointed with a film that, when you get right down to it, just isn't very meaty. Also stars Bobby Cannavale, Paul Dano, Ashley Johnson, Ana Claudia Talancon, Wilmer Valderrama, Patricia Arquette, Kris Kristofferson, Ethan Hawke, Avril Lavigne, Bruce Willis and Luis Guzman. 2.5 stars
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (R) As in Unforgiven and other key Clint Eastwood films, Flags of our Fathers is about mythmaking and heroes who are not really heroes. There will be those who hail Flags of our Fathers as Eastwood's most "important" movie for addressing this favorite subject in such an epic and obvious way, but it is for exactly those same reasons that the director's new film feels so turgid. The movie's main characters are the three surviving soldiers from the famous photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima (Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach), recruited for a nationwide publicity campaign to beef up the war effort. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding that photograph are considerably fuzzier and less heroic than they seem, and the three soldiers spend most of the movie trying to keep it together while selling an illusion to the public. For 132 rather long minutes, Eastwood and screenwriter Paul Haggis (master of the ham-fist from Crash) lurch back and forth between scenes showing us the chaos and cruelty of war and scenes showing us how that same war is packaged and sold, sanitized into something curiously bloodless. The battle scenes are plenty graphic but the storytelling sputters and sprawls so badly that it's hard to get emotionally involved. The movie's rhythm is all fits and starts, with several characters appearing out of thin air to briefly take center stage (particularly in the last act) and others so sketchily developed that there's an awful lot of agonizing going on here about people we barely know. The production (by Spielberg) screams class and the material begs to be taken seriously, but Eastwood makes his points in the film's first 15 minutes and then essentially just repeats himself. Also stars Barry Pepper, Paul Walker, Jamie Bell and John Benjamin Hickey. 2.5 stars
FLUSHED AWAY (PG) The latest project from those ever-reliable genius types at Aardman Studios (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run) is the animated tale of two mice — posh urban rodent Rodney (voiced by Hugh Jackman) and his scruffy female counterpart Rita (Kate Winslet) — sharing an amazing adventure in London. More accurately, the movie situates itself in a miniaturized clone of London located in the sewers below the real city, and populated by a wonderfully eccentric menagerie of mice, frogs and slugs of indeterminate origin (the later being the movie's biggest scene stealers who break out in song at the most bizarre moments). The Anglo-centric humor may occasionally drift over the heads of younger viewers (there's wordplay here on distinctly British patter such as "diverting" and "smashing," and at one point a cockroach can be seen reading Kafka), but the movie is basically good, silly fun for everyone. The characters all have personality to spare, elements of slapstick, adventure and romance are expertly fused and paced, and the classy CGI animation skillfully emulates the charming stop-motion style for which Aardman is so well known. Also featuring the voices of Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis. 3.5 stars
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (PG-13) A worm's-eye view of Hollywood, For Your Consideration should have been Christopher Guest's ready-made masterpiece. Guest and his collaborators are some very funny people, and they know this terrain as well as anybody does, but For Your Consideration rarely offers much beyond some pretty mild amusements, and the level of satirical insight on display here is a notch or two below even the filmmaker's recent A Mighty Wind. The new film revolves around a little independent film (an unintentionally kitschy item called Home for Purim) that's inexplicably managed to generate some Oscar buzz, but, to no one's surprise, Guest and cowriter Eugene Levy use the storyline as a jumping-off point for a series of sketches skewering actors, agents, publicists, critics and various other sundry members of the movie industry. Curiously, though, much of the humor comes off as flat, toothless this time around, and even weirdly dated (jokes about out-of-touch agents exploring the "world Interweb," anyone?), to the point where even a standout performance by Guest regular Catherine O'Hara can't quite turn it all around. Also stars Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge. 2.5 stars
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
HAPPY FEET (PG) Cashing in a craze that crystallized with those scene-stealing undercover birds in Madagscar and that officially reached epic proportions in March of the Penguins, this latest entry in the world of kiddie animation features more singing, dancing penguins than even the more dedicated penguinophile may be prepared to handle. Music is supplied by an eclectic line-up including k.d. lang, Prince and Pink, and this might be as good a time as any to mention that the whole project comes with the obligatory "Featuring the voice of Robin Williams" warning. Also features the voices of Elijah Wood, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brittany Murphy and Hugo Weaving. (Not Reviewed)
HARSH TIMES (R) Christian Bale, firmly re-entrenched in American Psycho territory, sheds his Bat-wings to assume the role of a messed-up wannabe cop playing both sides of the law on his way to oblivion. Writer-director David Ayer reprises many of the key elements of his earlier Training Day as the film follows Bale and his somewhat less dysfunctional sidekick Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under) in a step-by-step day-in-the-life, observing them as they drive around South Central drinking, drugging, picking fights and spiraling from bad to worse. Violence erupts periodically in obscene bursts and bad behavior abounds but, Bale's terrific performance aside, the movie seems a little too fond of merely wallowing in its characters' obvious pain and rarely gets beyond that. At times, it's almost as if we're watching a slicker, less complicated spin on Harvey Keitel's self-destructive journey in Bad Lieutenant or even De Niro's inner city road trip in Taxi Driver. Much like Training Day before it, Harsh Times tinkers in interesting ways with the basic building blocks of your typical testosterone epic, but the film's awkward juggling of art and sensationalism basically just moves in one direction, which is down. Also stars Eva Longoria, Tammy Trull and Terry Crews. 3 stars
THE ILLUSIONIST (R) Eisenheim (Edward Norton) is a master magician in 19th century Vienna, summoning ghosts from mirrors and commanding orange trees to grow from seeds in seconds. Exploiting the power of art and of the supernatural, the charismatic Eisenheim's cosmic parlor tricks soon gain him a rabid following among the local hoi polloi — putting the magician on a direct collision course with their sadistic, egomaniacal ruler, Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). There's also a beautiful woman (Jessica Biel) in the mix, natch, desired by both men, and so making this royal pissing match all the more personal and vicious. For most of its running time, The Illusionist has the good sense to keep its mysteries exactly as they should be: mysterious. It's a handsomely crafted, pleasant enough diversion, but the film nearly squanders its accumulated good will in a cheap-shot ending that attempts to "surprise" us by tying up every loose end in an elaborate M. Night Shyamalan meets The Usual Suspects bow. Also stars Paul Giamatti. 3 stars
JESUS CAMP (NR) The documentary Jesus Camp is scary stuff indeed, focusing on good intentions gone horribly wrong at a summer camp for Christian youth, where future "soldiers in the army of God" are indoctrinated into the faith in an aggressively intolerant manner that can't help but bring to mind those Pakistani madrasses incubating the future Jihadists of global Islamo-Fascism (or whatever it's called this week). These Christian campers clearly revel in their roles, ranting against Harry Potter (a warlock who should be "put to death"), dismissing Global Warming while praying to a life-size cardboard images of George Bush and shaking in convulsive fits of tearful, religious fervor at the drop of a hat. Supervising the fun and games is camp director Becky Fischer, a rotund Pentecostal minister given to typing her sermons in a font resembling dripping blood. Jesus Camp emphasizes the inane and potentially dangerous aspects of its subjects to the point where we sometimes feel that we're simply gawking at geeks and freaks (images of children in religious trances are often accompanied by ominous electronic music more suitable for The Omen), but, on the whole, it's still extremely effective stuff. Held over at Tampa Theatre. Call theater to confirm. 3.5 stars
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (R) The current darling of the Sundance crowd and the feel-good bummer of the summer, Little Miss Sunshine is all about gawking at the geeks. The family members in this bittersweet comedy are all hugely dysfunctional and the movie turns them into such ridiculous figures of fun that it often feels condescending, but Little Miss Sunshine is ultimately much more interested in being endearing than offensive. Or, heaven forbid, edgy. Everything here is fair game for comedy (the more embarrassing the better), but husband and wife co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris diligently avoid letting comic exaggeration slide into cruelty, supplying a comforting squeeze of the hand of a full-blown group hug whenever possible, so that we walk away from even the most potentially unpleasant scenes feeling uplifted rather than dirty. The result is a movie that, although often very amusing, also feels more than a little forced as it struggles to balance its quirkiness with the big, fat heart it wears so proudly on its sleeve. The excellent ensemble cast includes Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin. 3 stars
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
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (R) Based on Augusten Burroughs' bestselling autobiography, Running with Scissors is the story of a kid growing up weird and aimless in the weird and aimless '70s. Everyone in the movie is basically just a grotesque cartoon, from the main character's self-destructive monster of a mother (Annette Bening as a self-medicating, would-be poet spewing out bad, Sylvia Plath knock-offs) to a menagerie of stridently dysfunctional family members that make the Royal Tenenbaums look like the Cleavers. To its credit, Running with Scissors attempts something fairly difficult, segueing between comic surrealism and painful psychodrama, but director Ryan Murphy (making his feature debut after a highly successful run on TV's Nip/Tuck) doesn't seem to have the firmest grip on his materials. The movie's mood swings feel almost arbitrary, the pitch is nearly always hysterical (which rarely translates as funny), and the writing simply isn't sharp or focused enough to supply the characters with the interior lives they so desperately need. Ultimately, we don't really care very much about anyone on the screen, as Running with Scissors veers from bleakest tragedy to oddball comedy, with the volume set permanently on high and only the most cursory attention to flow. Also stars Brian Cox, Joseph Cross, Alec Baldwin, Evan Rachel Wood, Jill Clayburgh, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Gabrielle Union. 1.5 stars
SHUT UP AND SING (R) The Dixie Chicks, Texas musicians with sweet voices and passionate political beliefs, are probably best known at this point for publicly confessing (at the height of the Iraq War, and on foreign soil, no less) to being "ashamed" of the current U.S. president — a remark that serves as the pivotal event in Barbara Kopple's new documentary. Shut Up and Sing is a well-meaning but ultimately unrevealing examination of the shitstorm that ensued, flipping back and forth between the initial controversy in 2003 and then examining the Chicks' lives two years after the fall, as they attempt to resurrect their careers after alienating a large portion of their conservative, country-music-loving base. There are lots of pointless detours here (scenes detailing the singers' difficulties getting pregnant and feuds with fellow musician Toby Keith seem like padding) — and, when you come right down to it, the film's three primary subjects just aren't all that interesting, either as personalities or as thinkers (two are sweet but pretty much faceless, one is simply strident). But if you're a fan of the music, obviously none of this will matter. Stars Natalie Maines, Emily Robison and Martie McGuire. 2.5 stars
STRANGER THAN FICTION (PG-13) Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) discovers that he's the main character in a novel-in-process and that his death is imminent unless he can actually locate the mysterious author and somehow change the book's ending. Needless to say, this revelation causes our terribly uptight hero to loosen up, find love, learn to play guitar and discover the true meaning of life. The obvious references here are Groundhog Day, Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation and, for all its flaws, I Huckabees — but while there are plenty of amusing moments to enjoy in Stranger Than Fiction, art and reality collide here in ways more cute than clever. There's nothing in Zach Hem's script that's remotely as thought-provoking as even the least of Kaufman's projects, nor anything as genuinely profound as the lessons learned in Groundhog Day, and metaphysics here serve as window dressing for what is basically just a moderately engaging romantic comedy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah. 3 stars
TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY (R) Tenacious D is pretty much a love-it-or-hate-it proposition and, from where I'm sitting, there's not much to love about Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny. This is stoner retro-comedy, pure and brain-cell-decimated simple, a notch above Half Baked (but several notches below Cheech and Chong), and the movie's gleeful wallowing in its own stupidity doesn't make it any more appealing. There are no distinctions drawn here between heroes and losers, and both functions are filled by Jack Black and Kyle Gass, two ordinary schlubs charged with the divine mission of becoming the "greatest rock band of all time." This band turns out to be Tenacious D, natch, and director Liam Lynch (Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic) follows Black and Gass, performers of very limited range (putting it mildly), as they rehearse their boring, hard rock ditties, endure a series of humiliations, and do an awful lot of standing around while repeating various catchphrases. There are a few worthwhile bits here — an opening homage to Tommy is inspired, a cameo by Tim Robbins is a treat, and a Sid-and-Marty-Kroft-esque mushroom trip isn't bad either — but the rest is often excruciating. Tenacious D is probably best experienced in small doses, and this 98-minute dose can be painful. Also stars JR Reed, Troy Gentile, Tim Robbins and Ben Stiller. 2 stars
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
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2006.