NEW RELEASES
LAND OF THE DEAD (R) Twenty years after he wound up his legendary zombie trilogy with Day of the Dead, director George Romero unexpectedly offers up a fourth installment in the series, with a premise that builds intriguingly on what went before. The world pretty much belongs to the living dead this time out, as the remnants of human civilization (including Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo) pretend it's business-as-usual behind the walls of a fortified city. For horror buffs, this could be one of the high points of this or any other summer. Also stars Asia Argento. Opens June 24 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
RIZE (PG-13) Former music video whiz-kid and Vanity Fair fashion photographer David LaChapelle forgoes the glossy imagery that made his rep for a tough, stripped-down style in this documentary on dance as therapy and battle zone in urban America. Grainy black-and-white footage of the Watts race riots and a revisiting of the Rodney King calamity serve as a prologue to Rize's real agenda: the intense, physically torturous dance forms that emerged in the African-American community as a reaction to racism and as an alternative to gang life. The movie focuses on clowning – a speeded-up style popularized by Tommy Johnson, a community healer in a rainbow-colored fright wig and full clown make-up – and then examines the ways of krumping, an even more extreme and radical off-shoot of clowning that's taking America's inner cities by storm. Rize devotes quality time to both styles, which have the effect of watching a strobed image or someone being electrocuted, and various dancers with names like Termite, Dragon, Tight Eyez and Miss Prissy wax eloquent on their seemingly impossible moves and what makes them do it. The dancing is incredible – fast, aggressive and pushing all sorts of limits whereby anger and negativity are transformed through art – and it all culminates in a massive clowns vs. krumpers show-down in a big, downtown L.A. arena that must be seen to be believed. Opens June 24 at local theaters.
1/2
RECENT RELEASES:
3-IRON (R) This latest offering from South Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) is the enigmatic tale of a young man (Jae Hee) who, while breaking into a supposedly vacant home for a little inscrutable but harmless pranksterism, encounters and hooks up with a curiously likeminded woman (Lee Seung-yeon). The film unfolds in dreamlike fashion, told through images and the silences between actions, and with a minimum of dialogue. The cumulative effect is often just short of hypnotic. The tone here is considerably less nasty than in Kim's previous Bad Guy and The Isle, but that won't save the film from the scorn of viewers with little patience for connecting the dots of a deliberately open-ended (some might say ambiguous) narrative puzzle. Moviegoers who can deal with minimalist action, measured pacing and who like a little metaphysical sizzle in their cinema – and you know who I'm talking to – will be amply rewarded. Also stars Kwon Hyuk-ho.
1/2
THE ADVENTURES OF SHARKBOY AND LAVAGIRL IN 3D (PG) Much like the Spy Kids movies, Robert Rodriguez's new Sharkboy and Lavagirl has an awful lot of silly, sloppy, barely coherent fun tapping directly into something purely childlike. The plot, such as it is, amounts to bursts of frenetic, video-game-like activity in which our protagonists navigate various levels while propelling themselves to a finish line, and pacing and logic just fly out the window. For all its goofiness and clumsiness, Sharkboy feels like the real deal. I bet Bunuel and the original surrealists would have gone nuts over Sharkboy and Lavagirl, and you don't get a better endorsement than that – except maybe from your pre-schooler. Stars Taylor Dooley, Taylor Lautner, Cayden Boyd, George Lopez, David Arquette and Kristin Davis.
1/2
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (R) A remake of the much-loved but not very good haunted house flick from 1979, this new Amityville 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.
1/2
BATMAN BEGINS (PG-13) Less a re-invention and more a bare knuckled reaction to Batman – or at least to what the Dark Knight Franchise has become in its last few big screen incarnations – Batman Begins is good enough to almost make us forget the wretched excesses of those last two Joel Schumacher-helmed outings. Don't come expecting a knock-your-socks-off action/special effects love fest, but rest assured that Batman Begins is a damned good comic-book movie for grown ups, by far the best we've had since the last X-Men flick. There are no nippled bat-suits, few bad puns during the heat of battle and, blessedly, no Robin to be found here, with director Christopher Nolan (Memento) taking the high road in terms of mood, atmosphere and even narrative – all unsullied by the faintest whiff of camp, surprisingly literate (at least for a summer blockbuster) and, for the most part, dark, dark, dark. Nolan and scripter David S. Goyer contemporize the Caped Crusader (capably played by Christian Bale) by turning him into a sort of terrorist-battling vigilante ninja, while making him more mythic than ever by exploiting the psychological and emotional issues that lie at the heart of the Batman/Bruce Wayne persona. Gotham City is no longer the cool amusement park ride Tim Burton made it out to be, but the version here – a tasty blend of Lang's Metropolis and Fellini's Satyricon – will suffice; the supporting cast is mostly impeccable, and Liam Neeson even shows up spouting a mix of Zen riddles and Nietzsche by way of the Sith. Also stars Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Katie Holmes, Rutger Hauger and Morgan Freeman.
CINDERELLA MAN (PG-13) This biopic of James Braddock (Russell Crowe) depicts the Depression-era boxer as a cross between Rocky Balboa, Forrest Gump and Mother Teresa, with many poignant scenes of the fighter's wife and kids making do on watered-down milk and the sorts of paper-thin slices of bologna that Mickey and Donald eat in old cartoons. The film's second half details Braddock's comeback, with several big fight scenes and many opportunities for the unflappably tough-but-fair, proud-but-humble Braddock to deliver fatherly advice and husbandly affection. Cinderella Man certainly looks the part of an Oscar contender, all classy production values and emoting, A-list stars, but its high emotions can't completely disguise a lack of depth. Also stars Renée Zellweger and Paul Giamatti.
CITIZEN VERDICT (NR) Reality TV and the American legal system are the primary targets in this bungled project, set in Tampa but shot mostly in South Africa and Canada, from South Florida filmmaker Phillippe Martinez. Jerry Springer references himself, playing a sensationalistic TV personality who hooks up with a tough-on-crime Florida governor (a sleepwalking Roy Scheider) to produce a new show where viewers put someone on trial, vote on the verdict, and then get to witness a pay-per-view execution. Citizen Verdict's themes are undeniably important but they've all been tackled many times before, usually with significantly more skill and imagination. It's hard to say whether Citizen Verdict lacks the courage of its convictions or if it simply lacks vision, but the movie seems to be working overtime to please all the people all the time, and, as is usually the case with something so transparently desperate, fails. Also stars Armand Assante and Justine Mitchell.
CRASH (R) In a nutshell, Crash is a sort of A-Z guide to racial tensions in modern America, and about how even the best of us sometimes use those tensions to drive ourselves and each other crazy. The movie takes the form of an Altman-esque ensemble piece a la Short Cuts, with writer-director Paul Haggis (screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby) introducing some dozen characters of various ethnic backgrounds, and then elaborately interweaving their lives over a brief period of time. Ultimately, everything is laid out in a manner that's just a bit too symmetrical, with all of the stories neatly counter-balanced and with the narrative-advancing coincidences piling up so thick and fast it's nearly overwhelming. Still, it's hard to complain too loudly about a filmmaker trying to do too much for once as opposed to too little. Stars Don Cheadle, Ryan Phillippe, Terrence Howard, Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Esposito, Larenz Tate, Thandie Newton, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Brendan Fraser.
1/2
DEEP BLUE (NR) There's some astonishing footage in this feature-length documentary, beginning with sequences of death squads of tireless sharks laying into their prey, and killer whales seizing sea lion pups and flinging their bloody corpses 20 feet in the air. It's not all Faces of Death territory, though; Deep Blue isn't coy about the harsher truths about our underwater neighbors, but the film is almost always realized in the very best of taste, and is more often than not both fascinating and hypnotic. The movie shows us things both terrible and wonderful – all set to vaguely Wagnerian music performed by the Berlin PhilharmonicThe final 20 minutes is pure sci-fi: a close-up look at the impossibly strange creatures that inhabit those deepest depths of the ocean where the sun don't shine. Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt.
1/2
HIGH TENSION (R) Ultra-intense, unabashedly nasty and a big hit in Europe last year, the French slasher film High Tension (also known as Haut Tension and as Switchblade Romance) finally gets its American release, trimmed of a few gory moments in order to snag an audience-friendly "R" rating, and with several scenes newly dubbed in English to accommodate the subtitle-shy, multiplex masses. Luckily, the movie's best moments are essentially dialogue-free, so the dubbing is only occasionally a serious distraction, and most of the film's steadily mounting tension and big shocks are communicated just fine. High Tension is basically a straight-up, old-school slasher flick, albeit one crafted handsomely enough to almost transcend its influences, and with a curious and controversial 11th-hour twist that redefines the movie's sexual politics. A family locked in an isolated country home with a psycho killer is really all you need to know about this one, but proceed with caution. Stars Cecile de France, Maiwenn le Besco and Philippe Nahon.
1/2
THE HONEYMOONERS (PG-13) Cedric the Entertainer is no Jackie Gleason and Mike Epps is certainly no Art Carney, but both revisit the roles of those late actors in this Hollywood update of The Honeymooners. Your typical movie method for success applies: re-cast the classic characters with recognizable names, make the story only marginally similar to that of the show, and throw in a few memorable lines and musical refrains just in case someone in the audience actually watched the original television sitcom. But the loss of the show's spirit, the ridiculous plot and the predictable outcome are not really the film's downfall – The Honeymooners just isn't that funny. Also stars Gabrielle Union, Regina Hall and John Leguizamo.
1/2
-Zach Rosenfeld
HOUSE OF WAX (R) If you're expecting anything remotely like a remake of the 1953 Vincent Price film by the same title, forget it. What we have here is one of those ultra-aggressive, modern-day descendants of the slasher movie and the Texas Chainsaw school. There are lots of creepy mannequins on display, the one big holdover from the original House of Wax, but the movie mostly eschews atmosphere in order to do what's expected of it. Half of the film is devoted to young girls wandering around in tight T-shirts and putting themselves and their studmuffin boyfriends in jeopardy, while the other half (well, maybe not a full half, but it feels like it) is comprised of extremely freakish and brutal sequences of torture and death. To the movie's credit, it does what it does pretty well, and some of its imagery is genuinely disturbing in a borderline surreal way. Stars Paris Hilton, Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt and Jared Padalecki.
IN MY COUNTRY (R) Samuel L. Jackson stars as an African-American journalist sent to South Africa to cover a national conference in which the old demons of Apartheid are conjured up and confronted. The movie clearly wants us to think long and hard about the evils that humans perpetrate upon one another, but it pounds its messages home in stilted and hopelessly heavy-handed fashion, even as it's unable to resist throwing in a cheesy and completely unnecessary romance between Jackson's character and an Afrikaans poet (Juliette Binoche) that only makes all the political sermonizing all the more difficult to swallow. Also stars Brendan Gleeson.
KICKING & SCREAMING (PG) Despite the title, this is a curiously listless comedy from wild man Will Ferrell. The former SNL player isn't given much room to stretch or improvise as the incompetent coach of a kids' soccer team, and there are even more wasted opportunities when Ferrell finds himself competing against the league's Ubercoach – his own bullying, alpha-male dad (Robert Duvall). There are a few amusing moments as Ferrell's character finds his inner sports jerk and transitions from mild-mannered to over-caffeinated and hyper-aggressive, but Kicking & Screaming is, for the most part, formulaic family fun, with an assembly-line feel to nearly every aspect of the project. Also stars Mike Ditka and Kate Walsh.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (R) Ridley Scott's two-and-a-half hour epic about the religious Crusades of the middle ages is a rigorously even-handed epic about a subject over which, nearly a millennium later, passions still run dangerously high. The film treads so gingerly on its core conflict, in fact, that it feels very nearly drained of passion – perhaps the deadliest sin for a movie that is ostensibly about, above all else, passion. Kingdom of Heaven is too long by at least half an hour, its central figure (a blacksmith-turned-knight portrayed by Orlando Bloom) is curiously uncharismatic, and too much of its running time is taken up with speechmaking and pretty platitudes. Also stars Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, David Thewlis, Ghassan Massoud and Brendan Gleeson.
1/2
LAYER CAKE (R) More fun with London's crime underworld from first-time director Matthew Vaughan, a man whose producer credits on Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch betray his obvious affection for this sort of material. The story here isn't particularly new – a smooth criminal (Daniel Craig) seeking retirement gets sucked back into the biz for a last big score – but there's more than enough colorful characters, smart and nasty, slang-ish dialogue and twists to make it all worth our time. The cast is consistently strong too, particularly Craig and co-stars Colm Meaney and Michael Gambon. Vaughan's direction is remarkably assured for a first-timer, ominously insinuating and un-flashy in a way that his colleague, Ritchie, could only dream of. Also stars George Harris and Sienna Miller.
1/2
THE LONGEST YARD (PG-13) In this remake of the 1970s flick, Adam Sandler stars as former professional football player Paul Crewe, whose career ends after he allegedly throws a game. A series of unfortunate events lands him in jail, where, after some persuasion by Warden Hazen (James Cromwell of Six Feet Under), he decides to start his own football team of convicts, to play against the guards. The key difference from the original movie is the humor. Sandler sheds the sketch comedy shtick of Saturday Night Live while still generating laughs and coming off as a proficient actor. The film also stars Burt Reynolds and Chris Rock, who lead the ensemble cast of convicts. Reynolds, who played the original Crewe, has developed a latent campiness in his old age that allows him to eke out a passable comedic performance. Also stars rap artist Nelly.
-Matthew Pleasant
LOOK AT ME (PG-13) Another wry, sophisticated comedy from the French husband-wife team of writer-director Agnes Jaoui and co-writer Jean-Pierre Bacri (The Taste of Others). The target this time is the Parisian literary world, and the finely detailed ensemble approach calls to mind Mike Leigh, while the abundance of sophisticated, witty, neurotic and pretentiously urbane characters makes Jaoui's film often seem like a French version of a Deconstructing Harry-era Woody Allen project. The cast includes Jaoui and Bacri themselves, he as a talented but insufferably narcissistic writer and she as the voice coach of the famous writer's overweight and unloved daughter (Marilou Berry). The film is full of flunkies, toadies, geniuses and poseurs, all jockeying for position, waxing eloquent, sucking up and backstabbing, and the screenplay, while talky almost to a fault, is also clever, insightful and richly deserving of the award it won last year at Cannes. Also stars Laurent Grevill.
1/2
LORDS OF DOGTOWN (PG-13) This move arrives a full four years after Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary about the very same story that made waves at Sundance. In effect, the audience is being fed the fantasy version after having seen the "real" one. The usual sports movie drill applies: underdogs come together and succeed like never before due to work, skill and serendipity; underdogs become superstars; superstars are then broken up by sex, money and merchandising; superstars are humbled and eventually return to their origins. It's a shame that the end result isn't terribly inspiring, nor are the skating tricks, which are often blundered by Hardwicke's obnoxious reliance on shaky-cam and hyperediting. Unless you're a skateboarding enthusiast, you'd be better served renting the documentary, which is far superior in its treatment of the people, the story and the history. Also stars Heath Ledger and Johnny Knoxville.
-Zach Rosenfeld
MADAGASCAR (PG) Four animal buddies escape from New York's Central Park Zoo and make a dash for the proverbial wild, only to discover that freedom has its own set of complications. Although less frenetic and cluttered than that other recent digital animation, Shark Tale, DreamWorks' Madagascar is fraught with its own problems, including an over-reliance on predictable, kid-friendly slapstick, and a story that takes forever to get going and then slides into some odd and unsatisfying areas. The animation looks great, though (in a more exaggerated, stylized way than we're used to), several of the characters are memorable (the lemur king and a quartet of penguins are particular crowd-pleasers), and, although there isn't all that much adult-oriented pop-culture reference and humor here, when it comes it's right on target. The gag about over-educated monkeys flinging pooh at Tom Wolfe is a movie moment for the ages. Featuring the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith.
MAD HOT BALLROOM (PG) There are plenty of fancy moves in this pleasantly uplifting documentary about fifth graders discovering the joys of ballroom dancing, but the best and fanciest moves of all are the sights and sounds of the kids joyfully, awkwardly and sometimes painfully discovering themselves. Filmmakers Marilyn Agrelo and Amy Sewell point their cameras at three groups of children from three very different public schools in the New York area – poor and mostly Dominican Washington Heights, upscale Tribeca, and the middle-class Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn – and watch as these 10 and 11 year olds rumba, merengue, tango and foxtrot their ways through an unexpectedly intense competition and a whole bunch of personal changes. Comparisons with Spellbound are unavoidable, but Mad Hot Ballroom, for all its special moments, doesn't quite achieve that film's scope, depth or grace. Still, it's a heartwarming and highly entertaining portrait of cultural diversity and growing pains. Stars Allison Sheniak, Alex Tchassov, Emma Biegacki, Tar Devon Gallagher, Cyrus Hernstadt, Yomaria Reynoso, Wilson Castillo and Michael Vaccaro. Currently playing at Sunrise Cinemas in Tampa. Call to confirm.
1/2
MINDHUNTERS (R) Fading stars Christian Slater and LL Cool J are among a team of FBI agents participating in a simulation exercise gone horribly wrong when one of the team members turns out to be a serial killer. The movie is basically a dumbed-down and amped-up variation on that old mystery-story schematic where a murder is committed in a locked room and we have to figure out which of the guests is the killer. The, uh, innovation here is that few clues are supplied and all of the suspects are simply knocked off (in gruesome fashion) one by one, virtually eliminating any possibility of the guesswork that might have generated some suspense or fun. Mindhunters lurches on, sloppily written and not particularly scary (except for that shot of Christian Slater's ass), finally resorting to flinging red herring after red herring at us and winding up with the biggest letdown since someone first heard that the butler did it. Also stars Val Kilmer, Jonny Lee Miller, Will Kemp and Kathryn Morris.
1/2
MONSTER-IN-LAW (PG-13) Jennifer Lopez stars as Charlotte Cantilini, an artist who, while working to further her career, meets the love of her life in the form of a handsome, charming doctor, Kevin (Michael Vartan of Alias fame). Unfortunately, he also happens to be the son of Viola Fields, a Barbara Walters-esque television interviewer played by Jane Fonda. Of course, no one is good enough for her baby, so the over-protective Fields devises a underhanded plan to botch her son's imminent nuptials. The film also stars Wanda Sykes as Ms. Fields' personal assistant, holding together the less-humorous scenes between Lopez and Fonda, only appearing in frame long enough to deliver punchy one-liners. Also stars Will Arnett.
-Matthew Pleasant
MR. AND MRS. SMITH (PG-13) For all the sound and fury, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a pretty listless affair, massaged by a Hollywood slickness that makes the whole thing a little obscene, and not in a good way. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play John and Jane Smith, a seemingly ordinary suburban couple who are really top-secret super assassins, and who eventually wind up in each other's professional sights. You gotta love the metaphor of the Smiths destroying their pristine yuppie homestead in the process of trying to eliminate one another, but the movie never really does much with its True Lies meets War of the Roses premise. The basic story is routine, overlong, and told with so little joy and spontaneity that even the frequent and considerable slugfests are a bit, well, sluggish. Also stars Vince Vaughan.
PALINDROMES (NR) Todd Solondz's new film takes Bunuel's old Obscure Object of Desire trick and amplifies it fourfold, casting eight different actors to play Aviva, the runaway 13-year-old girl who is Palindromes' main character. Palindromes is, in many ways, an updated, more perverse Perils of Pauline, with Aviva yanked from the bosom of her cozy suburban family and out into the real world, where she encounters a series of strange and often unpleasant things. Solondz sometimes seems to be trying to pass off a sick joke as something more, but most of Palindromes hits its mark, and the people we meet are mostly complicated creatures, worthy of compassion as well as ridicule. It's clear that Solondz has a fascination for the grotesque and the mean-spirited, but the best parts of Palindromes push past that, to a place that calls cruelty into question by appearing to revel in it. Stars Ellen Barkin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Christopher Penn, Shayna Levine and Debra Monk.
1/2
THE PERFECT MAN (PG) Hillary Duff stars as an adorable teen who invents a secret admirer for her equally adorable but terminally lovelorn single mom (Heather Locklear). What follows is a predictable and basically dumb comedy of errors in which Mom falls in love with the imaginary boyfriend she's never seen, even as Duff falls for a dreamboat of her own. Heather Locklear does some passable acting-by-default (the lines in her pretty but now middle-aged face finally beginning to suggest character even when it's not necessarily there), but ultimately, the movie's just a dumber Sleepless in Seattle for 12-year-olds who write poems about orchids and unicorns. Also stars Chris Noth, Mike O'Malley and features gratuitous cameos by Queer Eye guru Carson Kressley and comedian Caroline Rhea, unpleasantly channeling Rosie O'Donnel.
1/2
PULSE: A STOMP ODYSSEY (G) The producers and creators of the Broadway hit Stomp set their sights high with this 40-minute, large-format IMAX film. Pulse is not exactly an adaptation of the urban-oriented Stomp show, but, rather an ambitious pan-global survey of sound and rhythm in all its manifestations. The film was shot on five continents, and, although it is essentially wordless, it's anything but silent, communicating a world of nuances through a seemingly limitless variety of clicks, whispers, woops, warbles, grunts, growls and howls. It's an inspirational and sometimes overwhelming sensory assault, with the only problem being the filmmakers' annoying penchant for rapid-fire editing that someone probably thought was clever or trendy, but that often simply diminishes the integrity of the performances (especially on that huge IMAX screen, where we're constantly swiveling our necks in an effort not to miss anything). Playing at Imax Dome Theater at MOSI in Tampa.
1/2
THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS (PG) A tale of relentless female bonding based on Ann Brashare's best-selling book about four gal pals on the cusp of womanhood, this is the sort of movie where the only males in the audience are likely to be there in quiet desperation, attempting to score points for sensitivity with their female companions. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants cuts willy-nilly between the stories of what its characters did on their summer vacations, giving us essentially four soap operas for the price of one. It's all very Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Bend It Like Beckham meets Real Women Have Curves, sure, but not quite as brain-dead as you might imagine. Stars Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Jenna Boyd and Bradley Whitford.
STAR WARS: EPISODE III – REVENGE OF THE SITH (PG-13) Although it's technically the middle installment of the Star Wars series, Episode III is where all the chickens come home to roost – and, to cut right to the chase, Lucas gets it mostly right. There's no secret to what happens here, but the way the movie grooves on the tragic inevitability of its events is impressive, infusing the tale with an intensity that's nearly operatic. It's not all icing, of course – Lucas remains an erratic director with an annoying tendency to cram in something for everyone, and Episode III suffers from clunky dialogue, bad acting (particularly from Hayden Christensen), inelegant rhythms and some serious inconsistencies of tone. Still, flawed as it is, the film is far more cohesive and complex than anyone could have expected, and a satisfying experience over all. Also stars Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman and Jimmy Smits.
1/2
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
This article appears in Jun 22-28, 2005.