NEW THIS WEEK:
THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE (R) Daniel Day-Lewis was coaxed out of semi-retirement to act in this new project by his director-wife Rebecca Miller (Personal Velocity), making it all the more disappointing that the film turns out to be not particularly good. Basically shapeless and heavy-handed at all the wrong moments, The Ballad of Jack and Rose is about, among other things, the fading dreams and perhaps too-intimate relationship of a terminally ill, hippie-dippie dad and his precocious, nearly-grown daughter. Day-Lewis plays the dad, Jack, a chain-smoking environmentalist living in something approaching total isolation with his beautiful, budding daughter, Rose (Camilla Belle). It all feels rather airless; the characters' "lively" quirks are supposed to keep us engaged, but even the good performances here can't disguise the rambling self-consciousness of what amounts to a seriously flawed script. The film opens up, briefly, when Jack brings a woman into the house to act as a surrogate wife-mother (a pair of teenaged boys are attached, providing some amusing interactions), but Day-Lewis' central character remains too vaguely drawn and unsympathetic, and the movie's core father-daughter dynamic is a mess. Things only get worse as Jack gets sicker, and the movie becomes simultaneously sappier and more scattered. Also stars Catherine Keener and Jena Malone. Opens April 22 at Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa and Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. Call theater to confirm. 
DUST AND GLORY (NR) With his acclaimed surfing documentary Step into Liquid, and now this look at off-track racing, filmmaker Dana Brown seems to be positioning himself as the American cinema's resident chronicler of extreme sports, if not its poet laureate. Dust and Glory introduces us to the Baja 1000, an annual competition in which dune buggies, dirt bikes, monster trucks and anything else that moves take it to the limit along a long, treacherous desert track. The movie was reportedly shot with small, lightweight digital cameras in order to get right in there with the drivers and really pump up the sense of speed and danger. For anyone suffering from motion sickness: Caveat Emptor. Featuring Mario Andretti, Rick Johnson and Mike McCoy. Opens April 22 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
THE INTERPRETER (PG-13) Glossy production, political relevancy and an A-List of names behind and in front of the cameras can't save director Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter, a suspense thriller with very little suspense and even fewer thrills. Nicole Kidman stars as a U.N. translator who accidentally overhears a plot to assassinate an African dictator and then finds herself locking horns with and (you guessed it) eventually drawn to the secret service agent (Sean Penn) handling the case. At root, the plot is simple – a race against time to stop foreign terrorists from making a spectacular kill on American soil – but the movie is so concerned with making us think it's smarter than it is that it endlessly and needlessly complicates itself with Maguffins involving the various competing (and imaginary) African factions who may or may not be part of the conspiracy. Nothing too terribly interesting results from any of this, and the movie's topical touchstones, such as global terrorism and ethnic cleansing, aren't explored so much as they're used as texture and background scenery. (The film would probably have been far more compelling had Pollack dived right into the whole ideological morass of terrorism and jettisoned his movie's African orientation for a less PC but infinitely more applicable Islamist one.) There are some exciting individual sequences in The Interpreter but they don't hang together or add up, and the simmering but basically dull romance between Kidman's and Penn's characters is a cliché of the worst sort. It's hard to shake the feeling that the movie's script was pieced together from the suggestions of too many cooks, with the only unifying element being director Pollack's proudly liberal faith in the grand and glorious possibilities of the United Nations – a sensibility that's sure to go over big with megaplex audiences across America. Also stars Catherine Keener. Opens April 22 at local theaters.
A LOT LIKE LOVE (PG-13) Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet star in a romantic comedy following two friends as they slide in and out of each other's lives over the course of seven years, only to eventually look deep into each other's eyes and arrive at the conclusion that, after all those years of looking for love in the wrong places, the two of them are actually? Aw, but that would be giving it away (as if you didn't already know). Also stars Kathryn Hahn and Kal Penn. Opens April 22 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED (NR) Say what you will about Irish filmmakers Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Brian, they were certainly in the right place at the right time during the 2002 coup that briefly ousted Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chavez, and then the counter-coup that returned him to power. Positioned right along Chavez inside the besieged presidential palace, Bartley and O'Brian were in a perfect position to capture events as they unfolded, presenting us with an eyewitness account of chilling immediacy. Beyond this, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised more than lives up to its name by offering up a devastating critique of the media, with the filmmakers' footage differing radically from the "official" version of events reported in papers and TV in Venezuela and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the film is itself not immune to distortions of the truth, tending to whitewash Chavez (an undeniably charismatic leader who some see as a demagogue), and drop a few too many unsubstantiated hints of conspiracy. Still, Bartley and O'Brian's rough, raw, low-tech approach is just about perfectly suited to the compelling non-fiction drama generated by their material. Plays one night only, 8:30 p.m. Saturday, April 23, at Covivant Gallery, 4906 N. Florida Ave., Tampa. Call 813-234-0222 for more information.
RECENT RELEASES:
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (R) A remake of the much-loved but not very good haunted house flick from 1979, this new Amityville hails from the team responsible for the recent revisiting of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which undoubtedly accounts for the copious amounts of gore, grisly sadism and generally messed-up atmosphere. The remake begins with creepy noises and quickly escalates into squabbles and open rifts between the various family members inhabiting a malignant house that's clearly seeking to possess and destroy them. Shortly thereafter, Amityville '05 tips its hand and then peaks way too early – less than half an hour in, the house is dripping blood all over the place and ghostly, ghoulish visions are leering over every shoulder – all but deflating the movie's more subtle, psychological side, particularly its Shining-lite proposition that true horror is what lurks beneath the surface of the All-American Happy Family. Still, Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George turn in serviceable performances as the besieged leads, and there's no denying that the movie produces a handful of solid albeit uninspired scares. At the very least, think of this as further proof that every decade or so we simply must have another movie where someone looks into the camera and screams, "There's something evil in my house!" Also stars Philip Baker Hall and Jesse James. 1/2
BORN INTO BROTHELS (NR) Academy Award-winning documentary about the children of Calcutta prostitutes and the efforts of filmmaker Zana Briski to get the kids out of their Red Light Hell and into some better place. Briski, a photojournalist by trade, equips the children with simple point-and-shoot cameras, teaches them the basics of photography, and we watch as the budding young artists use their newfound ability to document their world as a means of rising above it. It's a fascinating process, all captured in this film, and even though it's a foregone conclusion that not all of the kids will be somehow magically empowered (their environment is simply too overwhelming and too awful for that to happen), there's a substantial amount of hopefulness to be found in Born Into Brothels. Briski is nothing if not a dedicated humanitarian, so much so that the film suffers a bit by having the filmmaker inject so much of herself into the proceedings (by necessity, some might argue), but there's no denying that this is finally the kids' show all the way. It's also, at root, a moving testimony to the transformative power of art. Co-directed by Ross Kauffman. 1/2
THE BOYS AND GIRL OF COUNTY CLARE (NR) Colm Meaney and Bernard Hill deliver strong performances as a pair of estranged Irish brothers who meet after 20 years to face off in a national music competition. Fans of Irish ceili music will find much of interest here, and there are more than a few moments of grand local color and fine Irish charm. The film itself is a mixed bag, though, with a steady infusion of foul language and some graphic gross-out humor (notably, a scene involving vomit and dentures), making it a little difficult to take the sweet-natured whimsy all that seriously. The movie begins in fine style, with some amusingly drawn characters engaging in various bits of drollery and borderline slapstick, but The Boys and Girl of County Clare eventually bogs down in soap, as the film's various familial tensions, secrets and lies boil over into the predictable. Also stars Andrea Corr and Charlotte Bradley.
DEAR FRANKIE (PG-13) Emily Mortimer stars as a young Scottish woman on the run from an abusive husband and distraught over having to pretend to her deaf 9-year-old son, Frankie (Jack McElhone), that his M.I.A. dad's a heroic naval officer perpetually away at sea. When Frankie notices that dad's ship has docked in their town, Mortimer resorts to hiring a handsome stranger to play the paternal part, and, from there, sparks fly in all the expected directions. Dear Frankie boasts some strong performances (particularly from Mortimer) and handsome cinematography, but that doesn't quite compensate for the predictable plotting, sappy soundtrack or general air of shameless sentimentality. Also stars Gerald Butler, Sharon Small and Mary Riggans.
DOWNFALL (R) It's the last days of World War II, and Hitler and his inner circle of madmen, mistresses and visionary monsters are holed up in a vast underground bunker, waiting as the Russians take Berlin and the entire universe seems to collapse in a deluge of chaos and blood. This two-and-a-half-hour German import is one of the most highly acclaimed films of the past few years, making it doubly shameful that Downfall's distributors wound up sneaking the film into a handful of Bay area theaters with virtually no advance notice, thereby effectively preventing local critics from seeing the movie in time to review it. Hopefully, it will still be playing by the time you read this. Stars Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara and Juliane Kohler. Currently at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. (Not Reviewed)
FEVER PITCH (PG-13) Without looking at the credits of Fever Pitch, you'd probably never know this was directed by gross-out kings Bobby and Peter Farrelly (There's Something about Mary, Kingpin, et al). There are a handful of gags involving Farrellian fave topics like vomit and testicles, but this is otherwise a surprisingly conventional and sweet-natured romantic comedy. Former SNL funnyman Jimmy Fallon stars as a mild-mannered Boston schoolteacher, whose seasonal transformation into a rabid Red Sox fan threatens his budding relationship with a pretty young professional (Drew Barrymore). It's all fairly predictable stuff but it goes down fairly easy, thanks largely to some brisk direction by the Farrellys, who imbue the proceedings with their typical respect for working class authenticity and pepper the script with just enough clever dialogue and amusing jokes. The main problem here is Fallon, who's far better than he was in Taxi but still looks like someone who simply can't carry a movie. Fallon is both funny and likeable in Fever Pitch, but with such a limited emotional range and so lacking in depth that it's hard to believe anything we watch him going through. Also stars Jason Spevack, Jack Kehler and Ione Skye. 1/2
FRANK MILLER'S SIN CITY (R) Maybe the most extravagantly brutal live-action cartoon ever made, Robert Rodriguez's new movie boasts a ravishing look, an all-consuming attitude, and, most of all, a devotion to excess. Sin City takes the form of a series of vignettes, all set in a Mickey-Spillane-meets-Grand-Guignol universe, and all about bad people doing bad things in a very bad place. This is the sort of movie where even the good guys are bad, where characters are shot dozens of times before they finally die, and where faces are beaten to a bloody pulp, all captured in loving close-up as if to demonstrate the true meaning of pulp fiction. Rodriguez is officially the director here (with pal Quentin Tarantino listed as "guest director"), but, as the movie's full title more than implies, this is Frank Miller's show all the way. Miller is the designer and guiding light of the graphic novels on which Sin City is based, and virtually every frame of the film is a stunning ode to the monochromatic artistic sensibility that permeates Miller's work. Stars Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro and Rosario Dawson.
GUESS WHO? (PG-13) An updating of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner's societal critique/comedy from the late '60s, retold from a contemporary African-American angle and with the genders reversed (e.g. wary black dad deals with nervous white boy marrying into the family). Oh, and that's Ashton Kutcher apparently stepping into Sidney Poitier's shoes as the interracial X-factor. So this is progress? Also stars Bernie Mac. (Not Reviewed)
GUNNER PALACE (PG-13) A rambling and pleasantly chaotic documentary whose very shapelessness seems nicely suited to its subject matter – the day-to-day life of American soldiers stationed in Iraq. In September 2003, four months after Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, filmmakers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein hooked up with a U.S. Field Artillery Unit headquartered in one of Uday's bombed-out pleasure palaces, and then proceeded to document what they saw. Gunner Palace gives us a grunts'-eye view of life on the mean streets of Baghdad, as we follow the soldiers on what they mockingly refer to as "minor combat" missions ("major combat" having been officially declared over some months back). In between the scary night patrols, tussles with hostile natives and false alarms, Tucker and Epperlein turn the cameras on the G.I.s in more relaxed moments as they float around in Uday's pool or engage in a little frank talk about the blessing and curse of trying to save the Arab-Islamic World from its own follies. 1/2
IMAGINARY HEROES (R) We've seen this story way too many times before – at least half of them at the Sundance Film Festival – and this particular version is one of the weakest yet. It's all here – the angst-ridden, dysfunctional suburban family, the weird-for-weirdness'-sake characters, the gratuitously depressing story arc – and I didn't believe any of it for a second. Sigourney Weaver delivers a sporadically amusing performance as the matriarch of the film's battered and broken brood, but that's about the only reason to see this derivative and badly written Ordinary People-Lite. Imaginary Heroes is shallow stuff pretending to be deep, a movie that strives for profundity but that would do well to remember that cynical does not necessarily equal smart. Also stars Jeff Daniels and Emile Hirsch. 1/2
IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL (NR) Jessica Yu's film begins by acknowledging the fundamental mystery being addressed – the life and work of outsider artist Henry Darger – and then steps back and luxuriates in its contradictions. In the Realms of the Unreal doesn't attempt to fill in the blanks by explaining the man or analyzing his art, but rather lets both speak for themselves. We get a handful of interviews with Henry's neighbors and his longtime landlady, but Yu's film mostly chooses to immerse us in Darger's world as seen through The Work – a brightly colored landscape populated by eerily perfect little girls (many of whom inexplicably sprout male genitalia), ferocious twisters with human faces, strange chimerical creatures who fly through the air or cavort in the fields, and horrifying apocalyptic battles flowing with the blood of child martyrs and the all-consuming Glory of God. It's a place both innocently beautiful and utterly terrifying, filled with ridiculous contradictions and, as the film seems to indicate, most likely a mirror reflection of Henry Darger's mind. Accompanying the images are excerpts from Henry's autobiographical notes that, thanks to Yu's skillful editing, hint at the rich connections between Darger's cloistered life and the fantastic mythology of The Work. Featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning and Larry Pine. Currently at Sunrise Cinemas in Talmpa. Call theater to confirm. 1/2
MELINDA AND MELINDA (PG-13) Woody Allen's latest film offers what purports to be two versions of a single story, as a pair of playwrights sit around a dinner table spinning alternate takes, one comic and one tragic, on the same basic scenario. This would appear to be an ideal framework for Allen, whose best work has always skillfully balanced those twin poles and whose entire career has often been reductively framed as a battle between the "funny/good" early Woody and the "serious/boring" later Woody. Unfortunately, the movie never lives up to its intriguing premise, with neither of the stories featured in Melinda and Melinda amounting to much or dovetailing with the other in particularly interesting ways. Most problematic of all, there simply isn't much difference between what's supposed to be comic and what's supposed to be tragic in the two simultaneous narratives of Melinda and Melinda, other than casting comedian Will Ferrell (self-consciously aping Allen's patented delivery) in one of the stories, and some overly manipulative soundtrack music (nervous Stravinsky and Bartok for the "serious" story, jaunty jazz and Tin Pan Alley for the "funny" one). Probably to no one's surprise, it all takes place in Woody's beloved Upper East Side, a place exclusively inhabited by clean, cultured and deeply neurotic New Yorkers, and a feeling of deja vu is inescapable. Also stars Radha Mitchell, Amanda Peet, Chloe Sevigny and Jonny Lee Miller.
MILLIONS (PG) Millions is a fairytale and proud of it, a sweet, heartfelt story of children navigating the adult world, and of the perils and pleasures of lost and found treasure. Our heroes are 7-year-old Damian (Alexander Etel) and his slightly older brother Anthony (Lewis McGibbon), two Liverpool lads who, the week before the UK's conversion to the Euro, find a bag of soon-to-be-worthless English pound notes that must be spent in a very short period of time. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) finds both humor and emotional resonance in the boys' mostly bungled attempts to satisfy their materialist fantasies, even as they're unable to resist throwing pizza parties for the homeless or stuffing wads of cash through the mail slots of neighbors. It's all good fun and, by the final act, the mad rush to spend the money takes on a life of its own, as Boyle and Boyce throw in an emotional catharsis for the movie's wee-est player and a bona fide miracle or two. Also stars James Nesbitt, Daisy Donovan and Christopher Fulford. Currently at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota and Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. 1/2
MISS CONGENIALITY 2: ARMED AND FABULOUS (PG-13) Workmanlike writing and direction are the best things you can say about this sequel in which agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock), now a big media celebrity doing PR for the FBI, gets pulled back into active duty when her pal, Miss USA, is kidnapped. There's a female buddy movie angle here too – with Regina King on hand as the antagonistic bodyguard with whom Bullock will inevitably bond – and a couple of forgettable sidekicks, including a clueless male agent and Bullock's mincing Queer Eye for the FBI Agent stylist. The film juggles its various elements, mixing a little bit of comedy with a little bit of action, but not much happens and it's all equally predictable and bland. A virtual cameo by William Shatner breathes momentary life into the proceedings, but the rest is numbingly dull and listless, right down to the obligatory outtakes over the closing credits. Also stars Treat Williams, Ernie Hudson, Enrique Murciano and Diedrich Bader.
NOBODY KNOWS (PG-13) Based on a true story that shocked Japan in the late '80s, Nobody Knows offers a refreshingly unsentimental and unsensationalized account of four young brothers and sisters getting by more or less or their own. Twelve-year-old Akira (Yagira Yuya) is the man of the house, while a flaky, promiscuous mom flits in and out of the kids' lives, disappearing from the scene altogether by the film's mid-point. Abandoned and unschooled, both formally and in the ways of the world, the kids create their own insular community, and Nobody Knows takes place almost entirely within that private world of the children's apartment, with only occasional forays into the outside world. Director Kore-eda Hirokazu (After Life, Mabarosi) coaxes some amazingly rich and natural performances from his young, non-professional actors, adding to the documentary-like effect created by Yutaka Yamazaki's supple but never slick, handheld camerawork. A long, leisurely, finely detailed experience, Nobody Knows is a film to sink into. Also stars Kitauru Ayu, Kimura Hiei, Shimizu Momoko and Japanese pop star You (yep, that's her name) as the mother.
THE RING TWO (PG-13) Enigma and atmosphere loomed large in the original Ring, but all that is essentially absent from The Ring Two, leaving us with just another pedestrian horror sequel. The tormented mother-son pair (Naomi Watts and David Dorman) from the original movie are back, relocated in a small Oregon town where, wouldn't you just know it, the dreaded, death-dealing forces that haunted them in the first Ring resurface. The movie is basically just Watts and her young son being put through their more-or-less predictable paces by the original film's demonic entity (whose inscrutable strangeness now seems little more than just another generic, Freddy Krueger-esque boogeyman), with recycled images from the first Ring scattered throughout. There are a handful of interesting moments, and the film almost achieves some sort of belated lift-off in its last act, but it's ultimately just a mess, a typical case of too many script doctors canceling out each other's better impulses. You know you're in trouble when the only real innovation worth mentioning is a herd of evil, computer-generated deer. Also stars Simon Baker, Elizabeth Perkins and Sissy Spacek.
RORY O' SHEA WAS HERE (R) You can see the wheels spinning on this one. It's a given that Oscar voters love a movie about a guy in a wheelchair, so just imagine how nuts they'll go for a movie about – wait for it – two guys in wheelchairs. Then again, the only thing worse than a bad Holocaust movie is a bad movie about a guy in a wheelchair, and Rory O'Shea Was Here is one of the worst. Good intentions aside, this is a notch or two down from your run-of-the-mill feel-good movie about disabled individuals, a clumsy, confused and heavy-handed attempt to cloak rampant corniness and PC messages in an air of irony and hipness. James McAvoy stars as Rory, a dashing young Irish punk whose struggle with muscular dystrophy can't dampen his Indomitable Spirit (TM – All Rights Reserved). The first half of the movie puts Rory through his paces in a home for the disabled, following our pierced and punked-out provocateur as he rages against institutional authority. It's My Left Foot meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (with Rory as the Nicholson martyr figure), although the movie's cloyingly sentimental second half becomes more like a riff on a standard buddy picture, with Rory and a pal with cerebral palsy moving into a flat together and helping each other in and out of trouble.
SAHARA (PG-13) A bland, by-the-numbers action-adventure project mostly notable for being the directorial debut of someone named Breck Eisner, who just happens to be the son of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Sahara is based on one of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt books, with an artificially tanned and carefully rumpled Matthew McConaughey playing Pitt as a cocky, carefree Indiana Jones-lite. The plot is a mishmash that brings together a search for a lost civil war battleship, a deadly virus, corrupt Euro-industrialists and African warlords, with some faux-007 music slapped on the ostensibly suspenseful parts, and classic rock chestnuts by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Steppenwolf liberally and gratuitously applied elsewhere. On the upside, there's nothing too terribly awful or pretentious here, but everyone seems to be sleepwalking through their non-demanding roles, from Steve Zahn as the obligatory comic relief sidekick to Penelope Cruz as the love interest. You might just find yourself dosing off, too. Also stars William H. Macy. 1/2
THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (R) As the title suggests, this is a movie that's ostensibly about angry or otherwise disappointed people, two of whom are aging alcoholics – but against all odds, The Upside of Anger turns that daunting subject matter into what is sometimes very funny material. This movie is far from perfect, but it's still a must-see, if only to see Joan Allen in a career-topping performance as a suburban housewife dealing with four grown (and nearly-grown) children, as well as a washed-up baseball player (Kevin Costner) who comes sniffing around and winds up staying for the long run. Costner's no slouch either as the boozing, aging good-time boy getting by on the fumes of fame and fortune. All the expected bases are covered here, but the film manages to take us to a few unexpected places, too. Also stars Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell and Mike Binder (who also directs). Currently at Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. 1/2
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
This article appears in Apr 20-26, 2005.