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)
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. Currently at Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. Call to confirm. 4 1/2 stars.
CHICKEN LITTLE (G) Disney's latest computer-animated feature offers an increasingly familiar scenario: plenty of great stuff to look at, but not much by way of memorable characters or even a stick-to-your-ribs story. Featuring the voices of Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Joan Cusack and Steve Zahn. 2 1/2 stars.
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 1/2 stars.
EL CRIMEN FERPECTO (NR) El Crimen Ferpecto (The Ferpect Crime — the typo is intentional) gives us all the basic building blocks of noir — deception, amoral behavior, and, finally, murder — in the decidedly black comedy of a suave, up and coming department store manager whole ambitions go horribly wrong. The director here is Spanish auteur Alex de la Iglesia, an inspired lunatic wholse movies are all over the map but often outlandishly funny. Stars Guillermo Toledo, Monica Cervera, Luis Varela and Enrique Villen. 3 1/2 stars.
GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN' (R) Director Jim Sheridan (In America), diving for the first time into non-Irish subject matter, tries to do for hip-hop star Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson what Curtis Hanson did for Eminen in 8 Mile. 50 Cent plays Marcus, a thinly veiled version of himself, who grows up fatherless and floundering in the Bronx, drifts into drug-dealing and eventually into prison, where he vows to turn his life around. The parallels to 8 Mile and, particularly, to Hustle & Flow are unavoidable as Marcus struggles to make the leap from gangsta to rapper, but Get Rich never achieves the emotional power or stylistic command of either of those films. Also stars Joy Bryant and Bill Duke. 3 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. Currently at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota and Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. Call to confirm. 4 stars.
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. 2 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.
HELLBENT (R) Despite being aggressively marketed as a "gay slasher movie," and despite nearly every one of its characters being in fact homosexual, Hellbent plays it surprisingly straight, you should pardon the expression, when it comes to its craft. Taking place on Halloween eve (arguably the most important date on the queer calendar), the movie follows a quartet of hunky revelers as they're stalked and picked off, one by one, by a buff, bare-chested dude in a devil costume. There's perhaps just a smidgeon more character development here than you might expect, but Hellbent is more interested in being a competent genre flick than in coming off as clever or campy, much less subversive or original. The basic, time-honored slasher flick formula is followed closely here and, outside of the characters' sexual orientation, Hellbent doesn't seem remotely interested in screwing with that formula. Stars Dylan Fergus, Hank Harris, Andrew Levitas, Matt Phillips and Bryan Kirkwood. 2 1/2 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 1/2 stars.
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. Also stars Shirley MacLaine. 2 1/2 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 1/2 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.
KISS KISS, BANG BANG (R) Lethal Weapon screenwriter Shane Black makes his directorial debut with Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, a hugely entertaining effort starring Robert Downey Jr. in his juiciest performance in years. Downey is a fine bundle of nerves as Harry, a petty thief turned actor, who hooks up with a gay detective called — drum roll, please — Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), in a Bizarro World reconfiguration of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover's odd couple act. The first half hour or so of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang almost completely forgoes plot in order to set these weirdly mismatched characters loose in what is essentially a wicked little satire of the Hollywood scene. When the plot does finally kick in it hardly matters, since Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang turns out to be modeled on those wonderfully convoluted, classic Raymond Chandler noir-mysteries where even the writer isn't sure who killed whom and why. Also stars Michelle Monaghan and Corbin Bernsen. 4 stars.
THE LEGEND OF ZORRO (PG) A sequel a little too desperate to emulate the success of the popular Mask of Zorro but not quite sure how to go about it, The Legend of Zorro is as shapeless and uninspired as the original was elegant and sure of itself. Stars Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rufus Sewell. 2 1/2 stars.
NINE LIVES (R) Director Rodrigo Garcia, son of the great writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, specializes in feature-length films that are actually collections of smaller pieces, sketches of sorts, that at their best have a rarified literary feel not unlike that of a good short story. Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her wove together five brief tales, while Ten Tiny Love Stories was pretty much what its title advertises. Garcia's latest, Nine Lives, 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. Currently at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. Call to confirm. 3 1/2 stars.
NORTH COUNTRY (R) An uncomplicated but rousing tale of female empowerment and workers' rights in the good ol'-fashioned, issues-oriented style of Norma Rae and Silkwood, North Country is the story of how the nation's first class-action suit for sexual harassment came about. Charlize Theron stars as Josey Aimes, who runs away from an abusive husband only to land smack dab in the middle of a workplace polluted by some of the nastiest testosterone around. As we follow Josey's escalating humiliations at the hands of male co-workers and bosses, North Country combines elements of thriller, soap opera and courtroom drama, even as it succeeds in personalizing a critical moment in American history. North Country is the Hollywood debut of the New Zealand director Niki Caro, whose much-loved Whale Rider also featured a lone female treading in traditionally male territory, and the filmmaker fleshes out the dynamics of Aimes' tight-knit, Minnesota mining community with the same careful attention to detail she brought to the male-dominated Maori society of her earlier film. Also stars Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sissy Spacek, Richard Jenkins and Sean Bean. 3 1/2 stars.
PARADISE NOW (NR) Walking a very fine line between humanist art-cinema and Palestinian agit-prop, Paradise Now is already controversial — and marketable — for daring 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. The fact that these speeches are placed in the mouths of sensible, sympathetic characters — and not some wild-eyed Team America terrorists drooling over the dangled carrot of 72 virgins — makes the slippery slope of the film's morality all the more bothersome (calmly delivered rationales for murder are so carefully folded into the body of the narrative that they do their dirty work on an almost subliminal level). 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 1/2 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 1/2 stars
PRIME (PG-13) Written and directed by Ben Younger (Boiler Room), Prime takes a witty yet realistic look at the complications that arise in cross-generational dating. Academy Award nominee Uma Thurman stars as Rafi, a 37-year-old divorcee living and working in Manhattan. After meeting and getting to know Dave (Bryan Greenberg) in more positions than she ever thought possible, Rafi begins to see the possibility of loving another, even if he is 14 years younger than her, proving that the power of attraction lies not within the boundaries of social "norms" but outside definition and rationality. Falling in love doesn't happen without some obstructive consequences, however, as Rafi and Dave soon learn through Dr. Lisa Metzger (played by Meryl Streep), Rafi's therapist and, as we soon find out, also Dave's rather distressed mother. From the almost stereotypical romantic comedy introduction to its fitting conclusion, Prime is a well-balanced, live-and-learn type of film with spark, touch and very little lag. 3 1/2 stars
RENT (PG-13) Good intentions aside (and certainly railing at AIDS, urban gentrification and compromising your dreams qualifies as good intentions), I didn't much care for Rent back when it was the hottest ticket on Broadway — and it's even a harder sell now, in its big-screen incarnation. 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 multi-cultural, 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. Director Chris Columbus, not the most creative filmmaker in the world, is unflappably faithful to the original production, complete with the appearance of most of the original cast, many of whom are now way too old for their parts. To be fair, though, the movie's problems are not really all Columbus' fault. Probably the only directors who could have pulled this off are Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Stars Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, Rosario Dawson, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and Wilson Jermaine Heredia. 2 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
SEPARATE LIES (R) A hit-and-run incident shakes up life and exposes tensions in a quiet, upper-class neighborhood in the English countryside in this study of murder and adultery among people who aren't supposed to go in for that sort of thing. Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson deliver typically fine performances as the couple at the center of it all, and Rupert Everett steals the show as the pampered and vaguely unpleasant neighbor who becomes one more monkey wrench among many. 3 1/2 stars
SHOPGIRL (R) Shopgirl is Martin's much ballyhooed "serious" project, based on his novella, and full of unrequited longing and flawed, disappointed characters. The movie is beautifully crafted but basically another one of those mopey, middle-aged male fantasies in which an older man hooks up with a younger woman and the heart proceeds to want what the heart wants. Martin plays the older man who pursues and lands the titular shopgirl (Claire Danes), an aspiring artist who pays the rent by working behind the counter at Saks. There's a scruffy young slacker in the romantic mix as well, amusingly played by Jason Schwartzman. 2 1/2 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. Currently at Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota. Call to confirm. 4 1/2 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. When the film finally does begin giving up its secrets, its worldview turns out to be not nearly as complex and subtle as first imagined, and an over-obvious strain of political correctness compromises the movie's later sections. Stars George Clooney (nearly unrecognizable as a paunchy graybeard), Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Mazhar Munir, Tim Blake Nelson, Amanda Peet and Christopher Plummer. 3 1/2 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. Currently at Burns Court in Sarasota. Call to confirm. 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 1/2 stars
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2005.