Outtakes

AGAINST THE ROPES (PG-13) "Make yourself invisible" are practically the first words we hear uttered to Meg Ryan's character when she's just a little girl, so it's a sure bet that the grown-up version will turn out to be anything but. Against the Ropes is the absurdly inept and by-the-numbers biopic of Jackie Kallen (Ryan), a gutsy female who became a boxing manager and rose to the top ranks of that poisonously sexist world. With Kallen's quasi-feminist posturing and outlandish outfits, the movie seems to want to be considered as some sort of ringside Erin Brockovich, but the shallow stereotypes, hackneyed dialogue and narrative cliches put it much closer to the unintentional camp of Showgirls. There's a clumsy, generic feel to just about every minute of this soulless project, culminating in the inevitable big championship bout between Ryan's independent fighter and a nasty company man. Guess who wins? Also stars Omar Epps and Tony Shalhoub. 1/2

ALONG CAME POLLY (PG-13) As its title more than suggests, what we have here is a romantic comedy that feels like a series of slapped-together outtakes from There's Something About Mary. The relationship at the center of the movie is a by-the-numbers case of opposites attracting (Ben Stiller's uptight insurance analyst falls for Jennifer Aniston's free-spirited eccentric), with semi-funny physical humor and Farrelly Brothers-ish toilet jokes abounding. There's even a blind ferret subbing for the little pooch in Mary. On the plus side, Aniston makes her underwritten character feel surprisingly real, and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Alec Baldwin deliver a few solid chuckles on the sidelines. Stiller plays the same character he always plays, and is usually much better when reacting to situations than when he's trying to drum up some laughs on his own. Also stars Debra Messing and Hank Azaria.

BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS (PG-13) Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer star in this sequel to last year's popular comedy about a group of folks frequenting a small barbershop on Chicago's South Side. This time out, the movie's got gentrification on its mind, as the mom and pop stores in the barbershop's neighborhood begin losing ground to an invasion of Starbucks-esque establishments. Also stars Sean Patrick Thomas and Eve. (Not Reviewed)

BIG FISH (PG-13) Tim Burton's new movie often appears to be one absurd image and taller-than-tall tale after another. Strip away all the baroque detours, though, and you'll find a simple saga about estranged sons making peace with absent fathers, a scenario that trades in a familiar Hollywood sentimentality straight out of any number of so-so movies with names most of us have already forgotten. It's a meticulously crafted movie and, in its way, an immensely enjoyable one, but that instantly identifiable, auteurist hand behind Ed Wood and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is almost nowhere to be found. You might say that Big Fish represents a more mature Burton, a now nearly fully domesticated filmmaker capable of creating mellower movies that don't feel the pressing need to assert their originality with every frame. With its kinder, gentler quirkiness, Big Fish has the unmistakable feel of a fairy tale, but one told by a grown-up. Stars Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Helena Bonham Carter. 1/2

BROKEN LIZARD'S CLUB DREAD (R) Like it or not, those button-pushing wackos that gave the world Super Troopers are back. This time, dead bodies start showing up on an island pleasure resort, and the bubble-heads in residence try to stop boozing long enough to discover the culprit. Stars Bill Paxton and Jay Chandrasekhar. Opens Feb. 27 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT (R) Ashton Kutcher stars as a troubled young man who discovers he can travel back in time to "fix" the childhood traumas that screwed him up so badly. Only problem is that once Kutcher gets back to the present, he finds that things haven't necessarily changed for the better. The Butterfly Effect is a less-than-inspired What If project, in which the principal pleasure is supposed to lie in watching the various alternate versions of the main character's reality unfold. Unfortunately, neither the main character nor his realities are particularly interesting, the movie's way too clumsy and silly to handle delicately the themes it touches upon (such as child abuse), and Kutcher simply can't act his way out of a paper bag. Also stars Amy Smart.

CALENDAR GIRLS (PG-13) The sort-of-true story about a small English town shaken up by middle-aged members of a Yorkshire women's club who pose nude for a charity calendar, foregoing the usual rural scenery and artful flower arrangements. Some of the best moments occur during a delightful sequence involving a bashful photographer and 12 giggling 50-somethings peeling off their skivvies. The wonderful Helen Mirren (Gosford Park) stars as the ringleader, and considering how hot she is for 59, one wonders how much fortitude her decision to pose actually took. The film is altogether until a rambling third act that had me asking: "Is there still more?" The answer is that there wasn't, but the filmmakers thought there should be. Unnecessary length aside, this film captured the idea of women's empowerment in a way that 10,000 Christina Aguilera songs couldn't, and for that, I applaud. Also stars Julie Walters. 1/2—Laurie Stark

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

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

CONFESSIONS OF A TEEN DRAMA QUEEN (PG) Expect coming-of-age cuteness galore as big city gal Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday) is dragged kicking and screaming to suburban hell when her parents relocate to a small town in New Jersey. Also stars Adam Garcia, Alison Pill and Carol Kane. (Not Reviewed)

THE COOLER (R) A Vegas fairy tale starring William H. Macy as a well-meaning sad sack (Macy's forte) whose luck is so bad it's infectious. Macy's luck seems to turn around when he falls in love with a frisky cocktail waitress (Maria Bello), but complications set in from all directions, beginning with an old-school casino boss (Alec Baldwin) with his own plans for Macy. The movie's amusing enough and boasts three terrific performances in Macy, Baldwin and Bello, but first-time director Wayne Kramer still only barely manages to avoid skirting any number of cliches and stereotypes. Also stars Ron Livingston and Paul Sorvino. At Regal Channelside, Beach Theatre, Sarasota Hollywood 20, and Regal Hollywood in Sarasota. Call theaters to confirm.

DIRTY DANCING: HAVANA NIGHTS (PG-13) Not so much a sequel as a "re-imagining" of the 1987 hit, told from the perspective of an 18-year-old American girl in Cuba on the eve of the revolution. Diego Luna from Y Tu Mama Tambien plays the Yankee babe's sexy pool boy, who also just happens to be the island's best dirty dancer. Stars Romola Garai. Opens Feb. 27 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)

THE GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING (PG-13) A beautiful but ultimately shallow account of the unspoken bond that develops between the 17th-century Dutch painter Vermeer (Colin Firth) and the 17-year-old housemaid who becomes his model. The film's look is ravishing — there's a lovely quality to the light and compositions that deliberately emulates Vermeer's own paintings — but the movie unfolds in a painfully slow, static way that goes against the grain of its sensual imagery. Girl with a Pearl Earring is all hushed tones and stolen glances, with performances so subdued as to be nearly unreadable. That's probably by design, but it all still feels too detached to make much of an impression. Also stars Tom Wilkinson. 1/2

IN AMERICA (NR) Jim Sheridan's new film is about characters haunted by death, but it's also something of a fairytale, the sweetly old-fashioned kind that come complete with three wishes. The director wrote the film with his two grown daughters, drawing upon their early memories to fashion In America's more-or-less autobiographical account of a family of Irish immigrants struggling to get by in New York City. That magic dissipates during the film's later sections, however, when the movie cops out with a number of conventional flourishes, including a terminal illness for one of the characters and a complicated pregnancy for another. Even more problematic is the movie's awkward, eleventh-hour shift into darker territory, with an orgy of blood, death and drama-queen theatrics that would make a Palestinian suicide bomber blush. It's almost enough to make us forget that In America is also a movie that brims with life. Stars Samantha Morton, Paddy Considine, Djimon Hounsou, Sarah Bolger and Emma Bolger.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (PG-13) The grand finale of Peter Jackson's masterful adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's books is a 210-minute, total immersion experience that's apt to leave one feeling both exhilarated and emotionally exhausted. All in all, it's a deeply satisfying conclusion to a series that now seems all but assured of a place in cinema history as the War and Peace of fantasy-adventure movies. 1/2

LOST IN TRANSLATION (PG-13) Sofia Coppola's playful and elegantly deadpan film is a cinematic poem for people who don't think they like poetry. The movie's not-so-secret weapon is Bill Murray, who plays a burned-out movie star a decade or two past his prime and reduced to hawking whiskey for Japanese television. Murray's character hooks up with another American stranger in a strange land, (Ghost World's Scarlett Johansson), and the movie follows the two jet-lagged and utterly disoriented Yanks running wild through the sensory overload of downtown Tokyo and, in their down time, back at the hotel. Coppola's eccentric little wisp of a film is a pure beauty, achieving a seemingly effortless balance of understated wit, lyricism, and off-the-wall absurdity. Also stars Giovanni Ribisi. Now playing at Madstone Theaters 1/2

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (PG-13) Director Peter Weir's latest film is every bit the rousing, testosterone-infused adventure you're probably expecting, but it's also an above-average character study, and a finely drawn portrait of seafaring days in the early 19th-century. Based on Patrick O'Brian's popular novels about Captain Jack Aubrey, Master and Commander follows Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and the crew of HMS Surprise as they travel the seven seas (well, two or three of them), playing cat-and-mouse with a bigger, faster, better-armed French vessel. For all its mainstream appeal, Master and Commander in many ways harks back to its director's earlier efforts — quiet, delicately textured films like Picnic at Hanging Rock — that relied as much on atmosphere as on plot. Weir's a good enough filmmaker to infuse this big-budget, big-name production with artistry, without alienating the affections of audiences primarily craving exhilarating action scenes. Also stars Paul Bettany and Billy Boyd. 1/2

THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS (R) Revolutions begins with a series of elegant set pieces, leading to a CGI-generated machines-versus-humans battle of numbingly epic proportions (with visuals ripped from Aliens via Robocop), and concludes with Keanu Reeves' savage messiah dishing up some obligatory cosmic comeuppance. There are few surprises this time out, but the movie feels more cohesive than the last installment, and it's so well made that we can't help but get caught up in all the fireworks. Several of the more intriguing (and complicated) ideas from Matrix Reloaded are left hanging, but the over-tidy simplification actually helps us get involved with the movie on an emotional level, rather than just in a visceral or cerebral way. Also stars Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Jada Pinkett Smith. 1/2

MIRACLE (PG) There are no real surprises in Disney's latest inspirational, based-on-fact sports story, but the actors are refreshingly natural, and the production is considerably less glossy and saccharine than what you'd expect. The movie's real strength, however, is Kurt Russell (sporting a Fargo-esque Minnesota accent, the world's worst haircut and an even more atrocious wardrobe) as the tough but fair coach of the United States ice hockey team, circa 1980. Miracle is basically an account of Russell whipping his boys into shape as an apprehensive America — demoralized by long gas lines, hostages in Iran and a candy-ass President — roots for their underdog home-team against the seemingly invincible Soviet players. As if the title weren't enough of a tip-off, the movie's arc and ending are absolutely predictable, but it does have its charms. Also stars Patricia Clarkson and Noah Emmerich.

MONA LISA SMILE (PG-13) New teacher Julia Roberts shakes things up at a conservative college for women in the 1950s, in this Dead Poets Society for girls. Roberts butts heads with the uptight administration and snooty students, deals with the affections of a suitor or two, and ultimately serves as an inspiration and guiding light to scads of bright young women who might otherwise have spent their lives making meatloaf for their hubbies. Roberts might just be atoning for Pretty Woman with her strong, vaguely bohemian character here, but the movie is just too shallow and predictable to really qualify as anything special. Also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Marcia Gay Harden. 1/2

MONSTER (R) First-time director Patty Jenkin's movie is harrowing stuff, topped by Charlize Theron's astonishing turn as real-life female serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Monster is one long howl of pain, focusing on the relatively brief period when hate-wracked Aileen Wuornos made the leap from bargain basement hooker to insatiable serial killer. The movie manages to paint Wuornos as a victimizer and as a victim, eliciting both our horror and empathy (sometimes in the same breath), and the frame of mind we're put in is anything but a simple one. As for Theron's spine-tingling performance, it will make it difficult to ever look at this actress in the same way again. It's the sort of performance that starts in a very physical place and then extends outward in all directions, devastating everything in its path with its sheer intensity. Also stars Christina Ricci. 1/2

MY ARCHITECT: A SON'S JOURNEY (NR) Nathaniel Kahn's provocative and deeply poetic exhumation of his famous and impossibly complicated father, the great architect Louis I. Kahn, yields both more and less than what was bargained for. The filmmaker revisits the old haunts and architectural glories of his father, tracking down virtually everybody who ever knew Louis and conjuring up a world of memory and theory. The talking heads don't always offer much, but plenty is revealed through the architect's art. (We're presented with image after gorgeously photographed image of such breathtaking Kahn achievements as the Salk Institute in La Jolla, the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth, and the American Wind Symphony Barge, a whimsically Fellini-esque boat that transforms into a concert stage.) What eventually emerges in My Architect is a portrait of a visionary artist and an infuriatingly enigmatic human being, and a film with all the passion, mystery, tears and joy of first-rate, fully fleshed fiction. The movie succeeds handily at making the case that our best hope of understanding a deeply flawed human artist like Kahn is by taking a hard look at his art. Held over at Madstone Theaters. Call theater to confirm.

MYSTIC RIVER (R) Clint Eastwood's latest directorial offering dives into somewhat unfamiliar waters, with mostly successful results. Mystic River is an epic tragedy about how two devastating events, a quarter-century apart, change a handful of lives in a Boston working class neighborhood. Eastwood's film is uncharacteristically filled with charged symbols and nakedly emotional Big Speeches, but the top-notch ensemble cast is good enough to pull it off and leave us wanting more. Tim Robbins is particularly effective as the damaged man-child who never quite recovered from being molested as a child, and Sean Penn burns up the screen as a man with a dead daughter and one too many secrets. Also stars Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney, Laurence Fishburne and Marcia Gay Harden. 1/2

PETER PAN (PG) A beautifully imagined retelling of J.M. Barrie's 1924 classic, faithful in essence and in particulars to its source while adding some creative touches of its own. Director P.J. Hogan (the "wedding guy" behind Muriel's Wedding and My Best Friend's Wedding) laces a slightly darker and more erotic tone throughout, with Wendy, Tink and Hook all smacking lips over Peter at one point or another. (Even weirder, Wendy also seems to find something, uh, strangely compelling about Hook — who is played, kinkily enough, by the same actor who plays her father.) The film looks gorgeous, with some nifty special effects and a strong cast that includes Jeremy Sumpter (the first actual boy to ever play Peter!), Ludivine Sagnier (Swimming Pool) as Tinkerbell, and Jason Isaacs as the best Hook since Dustin Hoffman's turn in Spielberg's underrated Hook. There are some overly sentimental moments here, to be sure, but some magical ones too. When all's said and done, the movie succeeds mightily on smarts, style and sheer fairy power — and we're not talkin' Queer Eye here. Also stars Olivia Williams and Rachel Hurd-Wood. 1/2

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE (PG-13) Diane Keaton delivers a memorable performance, both touching and very funny, as a middle-aged woman who finds herself all shook up in love for the first time in ages. Jack Nicholson is also in fine form as the aging playboy playing romantic head games with our heroine, and Frances McDormand and Amanda Peet work wonders with small roles as Keaton's sister and daughter, respectively. Other than some very engaging performances, however, there's not all that much going on in Something's Gotta Give, a romantic comedy that breezes along on a handful of cute jokes and the sort of star power that transcends a so-so script. It's all appealing enough until a disastrously predictable last act appears, demonstrating nothing less than the fact that the movie has simply run out of ideas. Also stars Keanu Reeves.

STUCK ON YOU (PG-13) As if further proof were required, this new project from the Farrelly Brothers shows the team's patented brand of "offensive" comedy has become an occasionally amusing but, for the most part, rigorously inoffensive formula that the filmmakers can apparently whip up in their sleep. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear generate some good chemistry as a pair of conjoined twins ("We're not Siamese," snips Damon's character. "We're American"), but the filmmakers seem to be pulling their punches and playing it safer than ever. Also stars Eva Mendes, Wen Yann Shih, Seymour Cassel and Cher. 1/2

TIBET: CRY OF THE SNOW LION (NR) We've seen and heard most of this before, but that doesn't dampen the power of this provocative and passionate new documentary on the tragic history of Tibet's subjection by its infinitely more powerful (and brutal) neighbor, China. Tom Peosay's film is concise, informative and unabashedly one-sided, making its argument with sufficient skill to almost make us forget that political propaganda is still political propaganda, regardless of which side of the argument we happen to be on. The imagery is by turns exotic and horrifying, the Dalai Lama smiles for the camera, Martin Sheen narrates, and George W. shows up at the end to show us who the real villain is here. 1/2

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (NR) French animator Sylvain Chomet's debut feature is unlike anything we've seen before, although its feel is timeless and its wildly imaginative story is barely a story at all. What we get here is a nonstop parade of odd, inexplicably amusing sights and sounds: a cat-and-mouse game involving a clubfooted grandma, a dangerously obese canine, and a pencil-necked Tour de France cyclist with absurdly overdeveloped calves. Triplets creates its own singular universe, a surreal, vaguely sinister but wholly delightful place not unlike the worlds created by Jeunet/Caro (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children) or Jacques Tati (Chomet's official "creative inspiration"). The movie's Tati-like dialogue mostly consists of grunts, mumbles and yelps, the plot is always secondary to a nonsensical anti-logic as mysterious as it is loony, and the hand-drawn animation does things that computers can only dream of. It all blends together beautifully, albeit in a strange, elliptical way that will probably sail right over the heads of toddlers weaned on the clean, emotionally satisfying cause-and-effect of Finding Nemo.

TWISTED (R) Ashley Judd is the only thing remotely worthwhile about this depressingly sub-generic thriller from once-reliable director Philip Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Henry and June). Judd stars as a newly promoted homicide detective investigating a series of murders in which she's the prime suspect. (It seems the gal's given to self-destructive one-night stands, slurping mass quantities of wine, then passing out and waking up with her bed-partner dead.) Then again, this is one of those idiotic movies where everyone acts guilty and where everyone's a potential killer, but none of it matters because nothing makes sense and no characters are developed enough for us to remotely care about them. Samuel L. Jackson's here too, walking through this mess of a movie just long enough to collect a paycheck. Also stars Andy Garcia. Opens Feb. 27 at local theaters.

WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT (PG-13) Slight, sitcom-ish fare with Gene Hackman as a former U.S. President corralled into running for mayor of the small town to which he's retired. Ray Romano is the local plumber he winds up running against, and wouldn't you just know that they're both also pursuing the same girl (Maura Tierney, who seems smarter and better than just about everyone and everything else in the movie). Welcome to Mooseport gets a bit of mileage contrasting Hackman's worldly, conniving politician with Romano's flannel-shirt-wearing everyman, but the best you can really say about this predictable, pedestrian comedy is that the performers are watchable and the movie itself is inoffensive. Also stars Marcia Gay Harden, Christine Baranski and Rip Torn.

WHAT ALICE FOUND (R) There's undeniable promise but also missteps aplenty in this coming-of-age/road movie that inexplicably nabbed a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. Emily Grace stars as 18-year-old Alice, who runs away from her dead-end life up North and hits the open road in search of sunny Florida beaches and whatever. What Alice finds, as the movie has it, is something altogether different, beginning with a kindly older couple who offer the girl a ride and turn out to be anything but what they initially seem. First-time director A. Dean Bell allows the film's relationships to play out in ways that often seem like something intriguing is on the verge of happening, but the movie ultimately just doesn't have too much to say about anything. There's a klutzy, amateurish quality about this shot-on-video project that's endearing at first, but soon overstays its welcome. Also stars Judith Ivey and Bill Raymond. Opens Feb. 27 at Madstone Theater. Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted.

This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 3, 2004.