CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (PG) The idea of two people bringing 12 more into the world seems more irresponsible now than it did in 1950, when the original Cheaper By the Dozen was made. (The two films have only the title in common.) Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt and their brood nevertheless offer 99 fun minutes, as long as you stop thinking about our finite resources and focus on slapstick, puke, dog-in-crotch jokes and the love underneath it all. —Steve Warren
CITY OF GOD (NR) We've seen this story before, more or less — the blood, the psychopaths, the budding psychopaths, the all-too-young victims of urban decay — but never quite like this. City of God is a movie bursting with life in all its nuances, often entwining beauty and ugliness in complex ways that are going to make a lot of audience members somewhat less than comfortable. The movie covers several decades in the lives of various low-level gangsters who inhabit a seedy housing project on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The stories flip back and forth through the years, giving the film a fluid, elastic sense of time, recalling the postmodern playfulness of Pulp Fiction or Amores Perros, and the style is frequently dazzling. Director Fernando Meirelles' movie comes off as a compelling social history as eccentric and epic in scope as P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights, but it also succeeds on a very personal level. This is a comic tragedy about people who appear to change and to speed along at the speed of sound while, in actuality, they're standing absolutely still. Stars Alexandre Rodriguez, Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge and Leandro Firmino da Hora. City of God will be re-opening on Friday, Feb. 6, at AMC Veterans and Madstone Theaters. Call theaters to confirm. 1/2
COLD MOUNTAIN (NR) There's more than a whiff of dread hanging in the air in director Anthony Minghella's wildly tragic-romantic opus, and it won't be giving away much to mention that it all ends badly. Jude Law and Nicole Kidman (sporting not-too-embarrassing Southern accents) star as a pair of absurdly clear complected, Civil War-era lovebirds buffeted by the cruel winds of destiny. He's been to hell and back in the war, and spends most of the movie's two-and-a-half hours trudging through the ravaged countryside, encountering various colorful characters along the way, as Kidman's voice-over periodically implores "My love, my love, where are you?" The film practically begs for consideration as Minghella's Gone With the Wind, or maybe his Pilgrim's Progress, a panoramic study of a vanished America, bolstered by handsome cinematography and oodles of lively performances. Even at 150 minutes the movie feels rushed, though, visibly straining to cram in too many characters and events. For all the epic sprawl, there's a scattered, episodic quality to the film that makes even the better performances feel a bit like cameos. And even though everyone's faces are dutifully smudged and fingernails are appropriately dirty, Kidman and Law rarely fail to look like fashion models striking poses out in the wild. Also stars Renee Zellweger and Natalie Portman.
THE COMPANY (PG-13) This is, in many ways, a very different sort of movie than anything Robert Altman's done before. There are no intricate and eccentrically dovetailing storylines, no biting satirical edge, no loopy outbursts from the actors, hardly even a trace of that trademark overlapping dialogue. Instead, we get a dance movie in the purest sense, a film curiously free of ego or artifice. The Company is essentially a filmed record of the Joffrey Ballet in rehearsal and performance, and what passes here for story seems almost like window dressing. Altman presents us with a series of dances recorded at various stages of development by cameras that glide gracefully but unobtrusively alongside the performers. An emphasis on medium and long shots gives us a palpable sense of the dancers' connection to one another, almost as if we're witnessing a community of movement in which the individual dancers have become one extended organism — a body of bodies. Altman's camera rarely calls attention to itself, displaying an unfussy reverence toward its subject, and at its best, this film recalls what Bergman did for Mozart in The Magic Flute. Stars Neve Campbell, Malcolm McDowell and James Franco. Held over at Channelside and Burns Court, Sarasota. Call theaters to confirm. 1/2