KILL BILL, VOLUME TWO (R) There's still a goodly amount of blood and guts to be found here, but if KB1 was all form and slick, shocking exteriors, then KB2 often appears to be the inside of the story, the so-called heart. Tarantino's new movie sometimes almost seems to be on the verge of becoming a blood-spattered chick flick about the, uh, complicated relationship between Uma Thurman's retired assassin and her former employer and lover, Bill (David Carradine). In the end, KB2 is more interesting for how it defies expectations than for what it actually achieves, but it's nice to see that Tarantino hasn't completely turned his back on the idea of telling a genuine story peopled by real-live humans with real-live emotions. Also stars Michael Madsen and Darryl Hannah. 
MAN ON FIRE (R) Reigning action hero/sensitive guy Denzel Washington and precocious cutie-pie Dakota Fanning star in this Tony Scott-directed thriller about a disillusioned bodyguard who goes ballistic when the child he's sworn to protect is abducted. Also stars Radha Mitchell. (Not Reviewed)
MEAN GIRLS (PG-13) Although its plot is nothing special — a new kid in school butts heads with a clique of popular girls — Mean Girls might just be the funniest and most spot-on movie about high school since Welcome to the Dollhouse or Heathers. The movie has a ball picking apart the rigid and elaborately cruel codifications of high school life — how students are identified and categorized according to everything from what they wear to where they sit — and it does it all with considerable smarts. Like Dogville, Mean Girls also has last-act problems, but, on the whole, screenwriter Tina Fey (Saturday Night Live) has crafted a lean, mean entertainment that manages to be both playful and subversive while exhibiting plenty of mainstream appeal. Stars Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amy Poehler, Tim Meadows and Tina Fey. 1/2
THE NOTEBOOK (PG-13) Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams (the head mean girl from Mean Girls) star as star-crossed lovers in this slow-moving, sticky-sweet, cliche-ridden romance. The tale is told in flashback, with a nicely evoked setting of coastal North Carolina in the 1940s being one of the film's few saving graces. The source here is yet another assembly line product generated by romance novelist Nicholas Sparks (Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember), so you pretty much know what you're getting into even before the opening credits roll. Also stars James Garner, Gena Rowlands, James Marsden and Sam Shepard. Opens June 25 at local theaters. 1/2
RAISING HELEN (PG-13) If the cast of Sex and the City had ever met The Brady Bunch, this fiasco would be the result. When her sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, Helen Harris (Kate Hudson) suddenly transforms from a cheeky Manhattan party girl to a single mother with three children. Her difficulty dealing with the transition is highlighted throughout the film: she screams about how she can no longer fit into a size two and she doesn't have the courage to kick her attention-starved niece's drunken 15-year-old friends out of her apartment. Even though there are some strikingly funny moments, melodramatic scenes neutralize the humor. Also, when Helen goes job searching and ends up as a secretary at a used car dealership, it discouragingly reinforces the stereotypical notion that women with children can't have successful careers. Also stars John Corbett and Joan Cusack.
—Whitney Meers
SACRED PLANET (G) Robert Redford narrates this Large Format IMAX journey to various exotic locations around the world. (Not Reviewed)
SAVED! (PG-13) Director Brian Dannelly may think he lassoed himself some first-rate gonzo satire, but this drama of hypocritical Christian high school students toothlessly mimics the biting wit of Alexander Payne (Election). The unfunny dramedy tippy-toes to avoid outright blasphemy in depicting the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of a good girl (Jena Malone) after she tries to "cure" her boyfriend of homosexuality. The only real relief from this airless morality lesson is a wry performance by Macaulay Culkin as a paraplegic student flirting with his wild side and a hilarious turn by Martin Donovan as Pastor Skip, a hip-hop-spouting youth minister — the 2004 version of the guitar-strumming, Jesus-is-just-alright '60s pastor.
