NEW THIS WEEK:
AROUND THE BEND (R) Just in time for Halloween comes the inaugural film from writer/director Jordan Roberts. It's about spooky skeletons — no, not the ambulatory remains of the dead — the kind that reside in proverbial closets. This type of skeleton waits for a prime opportunity to emerge and reveal discomforting, fundamental truths about its owner, spawning films with pathos-invoking plots and soul-searching characters. That Christopher Walken fills a primary role in this movie should make it just a smidge creepier. Also stars Michael Caine and Josh Lucas. Opens at Burns Court on Oct. 29. Cal to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
BIRTH (R) Ponderously artsy and turgid almost beyond belief, Birth is a very beautiful and very boring movie that can't make up its mind whether it's a psychological thriller, a bizarre love story or some big, fat, metaphysical statement on the nature of the universe. Nicole Kidman stars as an upper-crusty Manhattanite whose seams begin cracking when a 10-year-old boy (Cameron Bright) shows up at her door claiming to be the reincarnation of her dead husband. The mood is heavy and the pensive characters speak in terse, dense, oddly balanced cadences that seem lifted from a mid-'60s Ingmar Bergman film — or, more specifically, from Woody Allen doing Bergman. The whole thing frequently borders on unintentional parody, an investigation of spiritual dread on the Upper West Side a la Allen's Interiors, where every character's request to pass the salt is supposed to be charged with enigma. Birth is elegantly shot and lushly scored, but the movie doesn't seem half as meaningful as it wants us to believe, and could certainly have benefited by allowing a glimmer of humor to poke through on occasion. The film is a radical and not particularly satisfying change of pace and direction from Jonathan Glazer, director of the ferociously energetic Sexy Beast. Also stars Danny Huston, Anne Heche and Lauren Bacall. Opens Oct. 29 at local theaters. 
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS (R) Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend and Penelope Cruz star as a trio of lovers in 1930s France in this war drama by director/writer John Duigan. Opens Oct. 29 at Sunrise Cinemas and Burns Court Cinemas. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
RAY (PG-13) While not quite the modern American classic we were hoping for, Ray is still solid entertainment and a particular joy for Ray Charles fans (and who isn't these days?). The movie presents Charles as a fusion of musical genius, tortured soul and Daredevil/Zatoichi (with an impressively developed hearing sense compensating for his blindness), and then dutifully walks us through the high and low points of his life. We get the music (thankfully, and lots of it), the childhood traumas, the drugs, the womanizing, the refusal to see blindness as a handicap, and the eventual rise to fame. We watch as Charles finds his own sound, pioneering a fusion of gospel and R&B that paved the way for the Sex 'n' God funk of Prince and a million others. Then there's the break-out to a blacker shade of pop music gobbled up by white kids at the cusp of the '60s, the controversial crossover into country and western, and the inevitable move to a big label and what many perceived as the middle of the road. The music is glorious, of course (with a heavy concentration on Ray's brilliant mid- to late-'50s period), and Jamie Foxx's performance/impersonation ranks with Jim Carrey's impeccable Andy Kaufman, but Ray is not immune to many of the problems that inevitably plague bio-pics. As is common with this form, the movie tends to play like a greatest hits (and flops) of Charles' life, with equal weight given to nearly everything, too much crammed in, and too little transitional material. The movie makes a stab at a narrative center, supplied by Ray's lifelong battle with heroin, but it's a battle we barely know is being waged until the movie's last few scenes. There are also some hackneyed attempts at pop psychology (in which an annoying succession of flashbacks loom large), but these are basically minor bumps in what is for the most part a pretty groovy road. Also stars Kerry Washington and Regina King. Opens Oct. 29 at local theaters. 1/2
THE YES MEN (R) Two regular guys pretend to be corporate bigwigs in order to expose the evils of powerful corporations (and to have some fun, of course), in this documentary by filmmakers Chris Smith and Sarah Price. Opens Oct. 29 at sunrise Cinemas. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
RECENT RELEASES:
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS (R) Adapted from Evelyn Waugh's 1930 novel Vile Bodies, this feature-film debut for British writer/actor Stephen Fry follows an ensemble cast of witty, literate partygoers through 1930s London. Stars Stephen Campbell Moore, Emily Mortimer and Peter O'Toole, with cameos by Dan Aykroyd, Stockard Channing and others. Held over at Sunrise Cinemas. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
CELLULAR (PG-13) A woman's panicky distress call randomly appearing on a man's cell phone jump-starts a feature-length cat-and-mouse chase. Stars Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, William H. Macy, Jason Statham and Noah Emmerich. (Not Reviewed)
CODE 46 (R) Director Michael Winterbottom's future-noir places Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton in an Orwellian world where their love is doomed not only by "genetic incompatibility," but also by law. Held over at Sunrise Cinemas. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
DIVAN (NR) Pearl Gluck's acclaimed documentary chronicles her journey to Hungary in search of a couch that's been in her family for years. The quest inevitably becomes a sort of history lesson (with particular attention paid to the Communist era and the Holocaust), as Gluck, a lapsed Orthodox Jew, eventually confronts her past in the form of various members of her staunchly religious family. Currently playing at Sunrise Cinemas. Call theater to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
THE FINAL CUT (PG-13) Robin Williams stars in a vaguely metaphysical-sounding sci-fi drama about a man who edits the memory chips placed in human beings at birth. Also stars Mira Sorvino, Jim Caviezel, Mimi Kuzyk and Thom Bishops. (Not Reviewed)
THE FORGOTTEN (PG-13) In The Forgotten, the latest Julianne Moore vehicle, the question posed is: "Could there be a function of the brain that causes someone to invent a fictional life for themselves? If so, is this function compelling enough to build a decent movie around? No? Oh hell, we'll just do it anyway." This laughably contrived psychological thriller opens on a distraught Telly Paretta (Moore) agonizing over the loss of her 5-year-old son, Sam. Although Sam's disappearance was surrounded by questionable circumstances and it was never determined whether the kid was dead or simply missing, mom-of-the-year Telly only decides to investigate after she is told that Sam never existed at all. The already shaky plot worsens in execution, with the Sam-napping attributed simultaneously to Telly's faltering sanity, clandestine government agencies, shape-shifting pilots, and what appears to be a giant, human-sucking vacuum cleaner in the sky.
—Casey Clague
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (PG-13) Thoughtful and well-acted, Friday Night Lights gets what high school football in small-town America is all about. Odessa, Texas, the small town in question, has a history of state championships and nothing less than perfection will do. These people are serious. Walk down Main Street on game night and you'll find "Gone to Game" signs in all the shop windows. Visit the local Wal-Mart and you might catch the head coach (Billy Bob Thorton) being accosted by alumni boosters making veiled threats about winning or else. This is a film so focused on football, it contains only one scene involving girls and no scenes set in a classroom. Varsity Blues it's not. Instead, Director Peter Berg looks for realism in the relationships of the characters and in the brutality of the sport. Even though the plot spins in some predictable sports movie ways, the results are well above-average for the genre. 1/2
—Joe Bardi
GARDEN STATE (R) A flawed but extremely promising debut from writer-director-star Zach Braff that blends darkly surreal comedy with some genuinely and oddly touching moments. Aspiring L.A. actor Andrew Largeman (Braff) returns to his New Jersey hometown for the funeral of his mother, only to find that life in the hinterlands is crazier than ever. The dialogue is clever — sometimes a little too clever, perhaps, in a showy, self-satisfied way — but the film tempers its precociousness with a successful blend of the appealingly sweet and the just plain weird. Also stars Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ian Holm and Ron Liebman. 1/2
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE (PG-13) Director Mamoru Oshii's much-anticipated sequel to his brilliant and very successful 1995 anime Ghost in the Shell is openly (even proudly) indebted to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Like Scott's classic film, Ghost in the Shell 2 is a sci-fi noir, a mystery that takes place in a beautifully grimy retro-future where constant rain splatters on darkly glistening allies and where the line between man and machine is so fine as to be non-existent. The plot here is so convoluted it's nearly incomprehensible — something to do with a tough-talking cyborg and his human partner trying to figure out why sex androids are beginning to freak out and kill their human masters — but the blend of 2-D and 3-D animation is stunning, and the film is filled with an abundance of intriguing philosophical concepts that, for the truly adventurous, fairly demand a second or even a third viewing to really be appreciated.
THE GRUDGE (PG-13) The latest example of Hollywood's current obsession with remaking Japanese horror films, The Grudge gives us Sarah Michelle Gellar wandering through a haunted house that puts its inhabitants in a state of rage so all-consuming they die from it. Also stars Jason Behr and Clea Duvall. (Not Reviewed)
I ♥ HUCKABEES (R) What director David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings) seems to be aiming for here is an experimental fusion of screwball comedy and one of those "meditations on identity" that Charlie Kaufman knocks off in his sleep. The result is a movie that takes enormous chances and falls flat on its face, filled with wall-to-wall existentialist hair-splitting that a crueler critic might unkindly refer to as philosophical masturbation. The story here, or as close to a story as Huckabees gets, involves a lank-haired environmentalist-cum-poet named Albert (Rushmore's Jason Schwartzman) who hires a couple of wacky "existentialist detectives" (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) in order to find out why he suddenly feels that life has no meaning. The movie alternately meanders and zips through a series of verbal and visual non sequiturs, related in a scrambled, non-linear manner that apes the patterns of human memory, not unlike a more frenetic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that wears its philosophical pedigree on its sleeve. The movie is smart as a whip, in an almost painfully self-conscious way, but it's not particularly interesting, and the wordplay — non-stop chatter, really, shtick — ultimately begins to take on the abrasive quality of white noise. The rapid-fire, often overlapping dialogue in Huckabees has the ring and rhythm of classic screwball, but little of the wit, and Russell's apparent strategy of transforming the characters' angst into the stuff of madcap entertainment is a noble experiment that simply doesn't work. I ♥ Huckabees seems far less concerned with being focused or funny than with simply being "different," and we wind up feeling like we're being subjected to a Where's Waldo? for the cerebral set. Also stars Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts and Isabelle Huppert. 1/2
LADDER 49 (PG-13) Well made and horribly depressing, Ladder 49 leaves the viewer with an admiration for the craft that went into the film and a desire to somehow purge it from memory. Joaquin Phoenix stars as a Baltimore firefighter injured and trapped in a burning high-rise. As he drifts in and out of consciousness and the other members of his crew desperately try to find and rescue him (much yelling over saws and fire), the film presents us with an overview of his life. The standard "rookies' first day," firehouse-hazing and love-interest scenes are all present and accounted for, and the structure will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a movie. However, the acting and direction rise well above the material, and therein lies the dilemma. While it is easy to admire Ladder 49 for its technical prowess, it's also tempting to leave the theater in search of a stiff drink — or a noose.
—Joe Bardi
MEAN CREEK (NR) Mean Creek tells of a prank gone wrong, a trip down river with a canoe full of kids plotting revenge on a bully for beating up one of their circle. Everyone reveals a bit more of themselves than expected during the trip — most of all the bully, who turns out to be spoiled, obnoxious and annoying but not nearly the monster everyone was expecting — but, in the tradition of all good noir tragedies, a plan once put into motion is too late to stop. The movie generally avoids heavy-handed moralizing of the After School Special sort, but there's no mistaking it as a morality tale, with the weight of the characters' actions taking on a terrible mass that eventually colors and crushes everything in its path. Writer-director Jacob Estes has cobbled together what is basically a very promising first feature, reassembling some tried and true elements into an interesting new shape. Stars Rory Culkin, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck and Carly Schroeder. Held over at Burns Court Cinemas. Call theater to confirm. 1/2
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (R) A beautifully observed road movie/buddy pic that gains considerable resonance from the fact that one of its central travelers is a young Che Guevara, sowing a few wild oats before becoming the revolutionary poster-boy who went on to famously fight in Cuba and die in Bolivia. The movie follows 23-year-old medical student Ernesto Guevara (Gael Garcia Bernal as a sweetly sincere pre-Che Che), and his slightly older friend Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna), as they embark on an epic journey across Latin America on a rickety motorbike dubbed "The Mighty One." The early portions of the film are loose and lively and not in a particular hurry to get anywhere fast, unfolding as a vibrantly colored On the Road, with our heroes revealing themselves as less interested in earth-shaking self-discovery than in the simple pleasures of having a good time. The movie becomes more downbeat but no less engrossing as it progresses, with Director Walter Salles (Central Station) tracing with admirable subtlety the young Guevara's changing connection to the world and his budding political consciousness. Also stars Gustavo Bueno, Mia Maestro and Jorge Chiarella.
PROTEUS (NR) Directed by the always-intriguing John Greyson (Lilies, Zero Patience), this complex and visually elegant work blends powerful realism, blatant artifice and historical anachronisms a la Derek Jarman to tell the politically charged love story of a Dutch sailor and an African herdsman imprisoned in South Africa in the 1730s. Proteus is a strange, challenging film that recalls the glory days of queer cinema when the artsy, anything-goes spirit of early Todd Haynes, Greg Araki and Christopher Munch ruled the roost. Stars Neil Sandilands, Rouxnet Brown, Shaun Smyth and Kristen Thomson.
RAISE YOUR VOICE (PG) Not much surprising about this saccharine-sweet "girl-triumphs-over-inner-turmoil" blockbuster. Hilary Duff, a teen-movie repeat offender, stars as Terri Fletcher, a small-town girl whose livelihood depends on getting into a prestigious summer program at a music conservatory in L.A. Tragedy strikes when her brother is killed in a car accident after the two of them deviously attend a rock concert; racked with guilt, Terri almost can't find the urge to sing. Almost. Of course, she must strive for her brother's sake, even if it means overcoming contrived dialogue; unconvincing, shamefully stereotypical characters; plot seams that feel more like speedbumps; and an utter lack of artistic vision. Undoubtedly, any truly prestigious art school would be expected to produce more than a few songs of substandard MTV-ified drivel — but the musicians in the film just can't deliver. Sometimes a spoonful of saccharine won't help the medicine go down.
—Casey Clague
ROSENSTRASSE (R) More atrocities of the Holocaust are brought to light in this film about a daughter's discovery of what her mother went through during WWII. German with English subtitles. Held over at Burns Court Cinemas. Call to confirm. (Not Reviewed)
SHALL WE DANCE? (PG-13) This is the one with manly man's man Richard Gere making goo-goo eyes at sultry Jennifer Lopez, although there's little indication that anyone's heart is remotely in what they're supposed to be doing. Gere plays a successful, middle-aged lawyer, seeking refuge from the drudgery of wife and kids by escaping into the arms of the black-eyed beauty (Lopez) who works at the local dance studio. Since Gere's character ultimately can't bring himself to even make a decent pass at JLo, he settles for taking dance lessons from her, turning all that fancy dancing into some sort of symbol for personal freedom, self-expression or whatever. Shall We Dance? is a movie about passion that feels like it's been systematically drained of passion, typical Hollywood twaddle defanged and de-sexed to the point of self-obliteration. Also stars Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci. 1/2
SHARK TALE (PG) Shark Tale takes the familiar fable of the brave little tailor and sets it in an underwater realm, with Will Smith giving voice to a poor little fish who becomes a celebrity when he's mistaken as a fearless shark slayer. There's also a big, scary-looking shark who just wants to cuddle, and a typical array of uplifting messages about the value of family, tolerance and being true to yourself. The computer-generated animation is as dazzling as we've come to expect in these big-budget CGI projects, but the movie's humor and incessant pop culture references seem to consist largely of leftovers from Shrek. Featuring the voices of Jack Black, James Gandolfini, Angelina Jolie, Renee Zellweger and Martin Scorsese. 1/2
SHAUN OF THE DEAD (R) Poor Shaun. He's 29, stuck in a dead-end job, has an obnoxious slob for a roommate, his girlfriend's just dumped him, he's hung-over, and everyone around him is turning into rampaging, flesh-munching zombies. Don't be fooled by the buckets of blood and unrepentant gore in Shaun of the Dead; a wittier, funnier horror spoof you're unlikely to find, at least for the film's first 45 minutes or so. The movie loses some steam in its second half, struggling a bit to sustain the energy and the joke, but the cumulative effect might just be the most monstrously funny and splendiferously gross homage to genre flicks since Peter Jackson's Brain-Dead. Stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Dylan Moran and Bill Nighy. 1/2
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW (PG) A large-scale achievement that manages to simultaneously seem retro and futuristic, Sky Captain features cutting-edge technology in the service of a storyline that harkens back to the days of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. While the actors are flesh-and-blood — or, in the case of Angelina Jolie, fleshy-and-bloody-hot — practically everything around them was created on computers by debuting writer-director Kerry Conran and his team. Conran's script is serviceable enough, with heroic aviator Sky Captain (Jude Law) and spunky reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) trying to unravel a mystery whose ingredients include the disappearance of prominent scientists, the destruction of New York City by gigantic robots, and the emergence of a mysterious figure known as Dr. Totenkopf.
—Matt Brunson
SURVIVING CHRISTMAS (PG-13) Ben Affleck stars as a rich advertising salesman who, when dumped by his girlfriend and lacking a family of his own, attempts to rent a stranger's brood (James Gandolfini's) for the holidays. Surviving Christmas tries to put a seasonal spin on the screwball comedy. Unfortunately, it lacks the timing and comes across as equal parts cruel and annoying. Neither Affleck nor Gandolfini ever find their footing with the material, and the results are often awkward. Even the usually terrific Catherine O'Hara is humbled in a ludicrous subplot involving a modeling shoot. The film is not completely devoid of laughs, and a few bits about signed contracts and a grandparent called "Doo-Dah" get a Santa-like belly laugh, but by the time the perfunctory romantic interest (Christina Applegate) pops up, you may begin wondering why it's Christmas in October. Opens Oct. 22 at local theaters.
—Joe Bardi
TAXI (PG-13) Speed demon cabbie Queen Latifah teams up with bumbling undercover cop Jimmy Fallon in pursuit of sexy female bank robbers in this astonishingly lame remake of Luc Besson's 1999 action comedy. Fallon, who has done some very funny things on Saturday Night Live, seems noticeably uncomfortable in this very badly written role, and barely warrants a single laugh throughout the movie's entire running time. The film lacks the high style and crisp editing associated with a Besson project, the performances are phoned-in, and there's really no story here to speak of, hence very little reason at all to see Taxi. Also stars Jennifer Esposito.
TEAM AMERICA:WORLD POLICE (R) South Park bad boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone dish up an all-puppet raunch-fest that more than lives up to its claim of being "the most outrageous movie of the year," complete with copious amounts of puppet gore, puppet sex and virtually non-stop, gleefully foul puppet profanity. Team America also happens to be one of the funniest movies of the year (if you can suspend your more sensitive, politically correct instincts), at least until the energy level begins to flag when some of the jokes start repeating themselves after the first hour or so. Still, the crude, Thunderbirds-style marionette animation (with no attempt to even hide the strings) is a perfect vehicle for Parker and Stone's spoof of big, dumb action movies, the musical numbers are as clever as they are hummable, and the movie has the dubious distinction of featuring what has to be the funniest vomiting scene ever (Monty Python included). 1/2
WHAT THE #$*! DO WE KNOW? (NR) An unsatisfying and unintentionally bizarre mish-mash of talking heads, animated sequences and a more-or-less straight narrative about a grumpy photographer (Marlee Matlin) who gets her world view kicked in the ass, What the Bleep… offers up a veritable Dummy's Guide to The Universe. The movie distills the principles of quantum physics into a basic message, endlessly repeated, that we make our reality, hence our own happiness, and frames that message as fuzzy-headed mystical claptrap that begins to seem like a New Age recruitment film or maybe even a classic Kurt Vonnegut parody. The talking heads — a mix of scientists and spiritualists (including famous psychic J Z Knight channeling the 35,000-year-old sage Ramtha) offer up their psychobabbling soundbites and quasi-mystical wisdom as Matlin's character acts out their theories in a series of curious little vignettes that culminate with her transformation from angst-ridden sourpuss to smiling child of the universe. Despite a sprinking of intriguing concepts, the film gives metaphysics a bad name. Also stars Barry Newman and Elaine Hendrix. Now playing at Tampa Theatre and Burns Court Cinemas. Call to confirm. 1/2
WOMAN THOU ART LOOSED (NR) The production values scream Lifetime Movie of the Week, but that only adds to the non-polished, no-frills power of this heartfelt drama about a young African-American woman fighting an uphill battle with the ongoing effects of child abuse, prison, drugs and assorted other problems. Kimberly Elise (The Manchurian Candidate) delivers a tough and thoroughly believable performance as Michelle, a woman struggling to deal with an all-consuming desire for revenge as she comes to grips with a stepfather who raped her as a child, and a mother who seems deep in denial. There are some stagey and overwritten scenes here, but the project blazes with honesty and the numerous scenes shot at an actual revival meeting provide an interesting and effective framework for the film's narrative and messages. Also stars Clifton Powell and Loretta Devine. 1/2
Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 1, 2004.