ICE PRINCESS (G) Michelle Trachtenberg stars as a bookish high-schooler who transforms into a figure-skating swan in this latest offering from Disney. Much drama ensues involving her mother, some skating prodigies and a cute zamboni driver. Also stars Joan Cusack and Kim Cattrall. (Not Reviewed)
THE JACKET (PG-13) The early sections are enigmatic, filled with haunting visuals and foreboding, Gothic atmosphere, but when The Jacket's mysteries are eventually revealed, they're simply not all that, well, mysterious. The storytelling methods here deliberately mirror the fractured thought processes of the film's narrator - a mental patient (Adrien Brody) who might or might not be traveling between the present and the future to solve the mystery of his own life and death - so it's impossible to say for certain what we're to make of it all. (The upside of this, of course, is that even if you hate the film, you may still have fun arguing about what it really "means.") Like Jacob's Ladder, this is another film about an unhinged veteran of an unpleasant war, haunted by demons that might be real and might be figments of his own messed-up mind. Both movies trade in conspiracy theories, rampant paranoia, muddled metaphysics, temporal disorientation, barrages of ambient sound, and the supremely seductive notion of latching on to an unpopular war as a metaphor for whatever ails ya. Metaphysically inclined viewers might take the entire movie as the extended hallucination of a deranged mind, or even as the final flash of a consciousness being extinguished, although to this viewer the whole thing ultimately feels a lot like a surprisingly generic sci-fi thriller, albeit one with delusions of grandeur. Also stars Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
MAN OF THE HOUSE (PG-13) Judging from the trailer and the, uh, concept alone, this looks like the very bad pilot for the worst sitcom you never saw. Just to press the point, I first laid eyes on this movie's trailer one night during a commercial break on Mad TV, and my wife and I were both convinced that it was part of the show - just one more absurd spoof of a movie so bad nobody would ever make it. Tommy Lee Jones stars as a cranky Texas Ranger living in a house filled with perky cheerleaders. Also stars Anne Archer, Brian Van Holt, Christina Milian and Paula Garces. (Not Reviewed)
MEET THE FOCKERS (PG-13) If you liked Meet the Parents, odds are you'll love this sequel, which has pretty much everything the original had plus a little something else just to make sure all the bases are covered. Besides the patented oil-and-water dynamic between Ben Stiller and his future in-laws, we get an even more strained (and consequently, in movie logic, wackier) dynamic between those same, uptight WASPy future in-laws and Stiller's own oversexed and way ethnic parents (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand). The main show here is Hoffman and Streisand, who are actually quite funny together, despite being saddled with a script that too often relies on jokes about old people having sex and that apparently thinks the ultimate in hilarity is to simply have someone say anything that pops into their heads in Yiddish. Also stars Blythe Danner and Teri Polo.
THE PACIFIER (PG) Vin Diesel does Ahnold doing his Kindergarten Cop thing, as a tough ex-Navy S.E.A.L. charged with protecting a pack of adorable kiddies. Also stars Lauren Graham, Faith Ford and Brittany Snow. (Not Reviewed)
PAPER CLIPS (G) A well-meaning but not particularly engaging documentary about a group of high school students from an isolated Tennessee community who, after learning about the horrors of WWII, erect an elaborate memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The movie's heart is clearly in the right place, but the phenomenon of young minds opening up to history and the world would be much better served if the film took a less sentimental and self-congratulatory tone, qualities that aren't helped by music and narration that yank our emotions around like someone trying to train a none-too-bright puppy. 1/2