FINAL DESTINATION 2 (R) In this sequel to the psychological thriller that attempts to dispel the myth of accidental death, the premise remains the same. Death, shrouded in mystique, determines everyone's expiration date. When the timeline of fate is disrupted, reverberations of wanton tragedy follow. The plot flows well but obviously cannot be taken too seriously. The film relies on death's cruel and gory manifestations to yield cheap thrills. Stars Ali Larter, A.J. Cook, Michael Landes. 
1/2 —Corey Myers
FRIDA (R) A long-gestating dream project of many (including its star, Salma Hayek), Frida is a competently made but not particularly remarkable film that falls victim to many of the problems commonly associated with bio-pics. The film is true to its life of its subject — the great mono-browed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo — and director Julie Taymor (Titus) makes herself subservient to the material, often to the point of invisibility. The result isn't bad so much as it's an overly restrained and disappointingly conventional affair. The main focus is on Frida's long, passionate and extremely complicated relationship with the painter Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). Both were fascinating people, but the script's handling of their relationship becomes predictable. Also stars Geoffrey Rush, Ashley Judd and Ed Norton. Now playing at Burns Court Cinema, Sarasota. Call theater to confirm.
GANGS OF NEW YORK (R) Martin Scorsese's enormously ambitious new film about mid-1800s blood feuds and power struggles is a huge, magnificently sprawling thing that manifests all the power and resonance of classical myth. The movie's focus is the love-hate relationship between the characters played by Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio, but Scorsese constantly layers his cinematic mural with additional characters, historical nuances and stories-within-stories. Gangs of New York is certainly History Writ Large, but the bulk of it is as accessible as anything this director's ever done. The movie is big, bloody, ornate, passionate and full of over-the-top emotions, like a grand opera reimagined as a really cool comic book. Also stars Cameron Diaz.
A GUY THING (PG-13) Paul (Jason Lee) is slated to get married in a week when he wakes up after his bachelor party to find a strange girl named Becky (Julia Stiles) in his bed. Desperate to make sure that his fiancee, Karen, played by Selma Blair, doesn't find out, Paul begins telling fib upon fib to save his impending nuptials. The film's main problem is that it's difficult to see Jason Lee as anyone other than himself on screen. Blair, on the other hand, slips easily into the role of the perfect if dispassionate bride-to-be, while Stiles plays the cool and quirky Becky well enough. Also stars James Brolin. —Ana Lopez
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (PG-13) Julia Roberts had her Pretty Woman. Sandra Bullock had her While You Were Sleeping. If her film becomes a box office hit, Kate Hudson will have her How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days to turn her into America's latest A-list sweetheart. She's utterly winning as a women's magazine columnist who, for the sake of a story on what females shouldn't do when dating, hooks up with a guy with the intent of driving him away within ... well, check the film's title. She settles on a slick ad man (Matthew McConaughey, easier to take than usual), unaware that he's made a bet that he can get any woman to fall in love with him within the same time period. For a film that wallows in the usual male-female stereotypes, this one's surprisingly light on its feet, thanks in no small part to its well-matched leads. Alas, the third act follows the exact pattern as almost every other romantic comedy made today (most recently Two Weeks Notice and Maid In Manhattan): The deceptions become unearthed, the pair break up, some soul searching takes place, and bliss arrives after a madcap chase. Leave before this excruciating finale and you should have an OK time. 1/2
GODS AND GENERALS (PG-13) Ted Turner Pictures offers a would-be epic of the first two years of the Civil War, and it feels like it was shot in real time. Gettysburg writer-director Ronald Maxwell does a fine job at battlefield reenactment, especially for the extended sequence of Fredericksburg, but has no clue how to make such figures as Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang) into intriguing characters. The film's tedium is easier to forgive, though, than its whitewashing of the institution of slavery, which here merely seems like a bad career choice. —Curt Holman
THE HOURS (PG-13) The film interweaves moments from the lives of three women living in three separate times and places, straining to establish unifying themes involving feminine strength (or lack thereof), motherhood, lesbianism and suicide. In the best segment, the writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) skulks about in 1923, chain-smoking and mulling over ideas for a new book. In the worst segment, a contemporary New York publisher (Meryl Streep), nicknamed for a character in Woolf's book, prepares a party for Harris' dying writer. In between, there's Julianne Moore as a 1950s housewife who reads Woolf's book, quietly cracks up, and checks into a hotel with a year's supply of sleeping pills. Also stars Toni Collette and Claire Danes.
