Upcoming Releases
BELLA (PG-13) A huge crowd pleaser on the festival circuit (it snagged the Audience Award winner at the Toronto Film Festival), Bella offers sincerity, romance and emotional uplift for miles. As far as subtlety or originality go, the movie doesn't fare nearly so well. Eduardo Verastegui stars as Jose, a once-promising soccer player who succumbs to some terrible tragedy (nameless for most of the film but easy to decipher) and winds up a mournful, bushy-bearded cook in his brother's restaurant. Enter Nina (Tammy Blanchard), a spunky, pregnant waitress who seems to be the only one capable of lifting Jose out of the dumps. Director Alejandro Monteverde follows the couple on a daylong outing as they bond over lunch, hang at the beach and bask in the warm and fuzzy glow of Jose's immigrant family. It won't be giving away much to reveal that everybody goes home happy. Also stars Manny Perez, Angelica Aragon and Jaime Tirelli. Opens Oct. 26 at local theaters. 2.5 stars
DAN IN REAL LIFE (PG-13) Steve Carell stars as single dad with a house full of girls and a serious crush on his brother's girlfriend (Juliette Binoche). Also stars Dane Cook, John Mahoney and Emily Blunt. Opens Oct. 26 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
KING OF CALIFORNIA (PG-13) Further exploring the vein of aging eccentrics he's begun playing of late (epitomized by the pot-smoking head-case in Wonder Boys), Michael Douglas stars as Charlie, a recently released mental patient with wild eyes and formidable facial hair. There's an appealingly odd edge to King of California but the film is rooted in fairly conventional father-daughter bonding stuff, as Charlie moves back in with his level-headed teenaged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and, despite the love obviously dying to bust out in all directions, makes life immensely difficult for the girl. Things are further complicated when Douglas' character becomes obsessed with locating the treasure he's convinced is buried beneath his local Costco, but King of California is only intermittently successful as it treads a fine line between quirky character study and screwball adventure. Also stars Willis Burks II, Greg Davis Jr. and Gerald Emerick. Opens Oct. 26 at Tampa Theatre. 3 stars
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (PG-13) A Sundance favorite that falls all over itself in an effort to be both enormously quirky and enormously sweet — but never achieves even a fraction of the depth it seems to be implying. Ryan Gosling stars as painfully shy and thoroughly delusional Lars, who buys himself an anatomically correct blow-up doll, introduces it around as his new girlfriend and, apparently won over by the sheer purity of his innocent soul, gets everyone in his community to treat it as a real person. Screenwriter Nancy Oliver (Six Feet Under) peppers the script with graceful moments, but the story never really gets beyond its one-joke premise, and most of the characters basically come across as caricatures pitched somewhere between Fargo and Napoleon Dynamite. Gosling remains one of our finest actors, although he spends too much time here simply blinking his eyes, the movie's code for a man furiously trying to shut out the world. Also stars Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer, Kelli Garner and Paul Schneider. Opens Oct. 26 at local theaters. 2.5 stars
SAW IV (R) Yet another installment of the torture-porn franchise that just wouldn't die. Stars David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Brooke Nevin, Jackie Long and Matthew Lawrence. Opens Oct. 26 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
RECENT RELEASES
3:10 TO YUMA (PG-13) As in the 1957 film that inspired it, 3:10 to Yuma gives us a tightly wound cowboy cast adrift in an existential wilderness — Dan Evans (Christian Bale), a cash-strapped rancher who agrees to help transport notorious Alpha-male outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to jail. It's a journey that quickly turns tense, then treacherous, laying souls bare and, more often than not, revealing a terrible void where a conscience should be. As Yuma heads toward its big showdown and virtually every one of the movie's heroes reveal themselves as rats deserting a sinking ship, the film drops the ball a bit, but that's almost to be expected. Without at least a glimmer of light at the end, audiences would probably never have been able to bear all the surrounding darkness. Last act problems aside, 3:10 to Yuma is a solid piece of work, a western respectful of old-school conventions while breathing some new life into the form. Also stars Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Ben Foster, Dallas Roberts, Logan Lerman and Alan Tudyk. 3.5 stars
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (R) A languorous art-western in the fabled mold of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Heaven's Gate and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, Andrew Dominik's two-hour-and-40-minute The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. Some will see it as a pretentious slog, others as sheer poetry, but one thing's for sure: They don't make 'em like this anymore. The film presents Jesse James (Brad Pitt) as an early contender in the Cult of Personality — he and Mark Twain were the only Americans known in Europe in the late 19th century — and much is made here of the urge to bask in the outlaw's celebrity, of people wanting to hang around him, even to be him. Meandering back and forth through time, the movie lays out its elliptical story assisted by a melancholy, matter-of-fact voice-over that gives up its details as methodically as Robert Bresson making his case in The Trial of Joan of Arc. The movie throws out much of the James legend, meditating upon its anti-hero as he goes through wild mood swings, alternately depressed, buoyant and unhinged, and ultimately even takes on a weirdly Christ-like aspect, wondering which of his squabbling gang members is going to betray him. James' Judas turns out to be Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), a confused hanger-on whose obsession borders on the homoerotic and whose titular act of violence briefly makes him even more famous than the celebrity killer he kills. An appreciation of The Assassination of Jesse James hinges less on suspension of disbelief than on suspension of our reliance on snappy pace and linear plotting, but those who do give themselves over to the film's demanding poetry may find themselves well rewarded. Also stars Sam Shepard, Paul Schneider, Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, Garret Dillahunt, Mary-Louise Parker and Michael Parks. 4.5 stars
THE COMEBACKS (PG-13) Inspirational sports movies finally get what they deserve in this "hilariously irreverent" spoof of the genre. Or so we're lead to believe by the studio — which didn't manage to screen the movie in time for a review. Stars David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Brooke Nevin, Jackie Long and Matthew Lawrence. (Not Reviewed)
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE (PG-13) A sequel of sorts to Kapur's '98 take on England's "virgin queen," Elizabeth: The Golden Age lacks even the vaguely Gothic kitsch-horror appeal or its predecessor, as it flits uneasily between two narrative streams that don't ever mesh particularly well. In one parallel plot, we have Elizabeth entertaining the possibility of a suitor (suffering several fops and buffoons before locking eyes on smoldering he-man Clive Owen, as Sir Walter Raleigh), while in the other we get some fairly pedestrian cloak-and-dagger stuff in which assorted Catholic agents scurry about the fringes of the film conspiring to undo the Protestant monarch. Neither of these stories amounts to much, with the romantic angle boiling down to a half-hearted triangle between Raleigh, the Queen and her lady-in-waiting (Abbie Cornish) that never really goes anywhere. Meanwhile, the movie lurches through a dangerously condensed, black-and-white version of history in which dastardly Catholics lust for innocent Protestant blood, culminating with a big Spain-England smackdown and a flurry of thoroughly unconvincing CGI battles. The sets and costumes are sometimes eye-catching, and Blanchett, ever the trooper, does a commendable job with what she has to work with, but the movie's attempts at humanizing its eponymous monarch are dodgy at best, and its history lesson is strictly Cliffs Notes. Also stars Geoffrey Rush, Rhys Ifans, Jordi Molla and Samantha Morton. 2.5 stars
THE FINAL SEASON (PG) Fact meets feel-good schmaltz in Hollywood's latest sports drama, which is based the true story of the Norway Tigers. The setting is the small Midwestern town of Norway, Iowa, which takes great pride in its high-school baseball team and for good reason: The Tigers have won 19 state championships over 24 years of competing. Conflict arises when the school board threatens to disband Norway's high school as part of a statewide plan to merge small schools with larger ones. When the school's legendary head coach steps aside to take a job in the major leagues, the new, more inexperienced coach (played by Sean Astin) is faced with finding a way to make the team's final season count. While sports movie clichés abound, The Final Season has enough heart (and enough zippy one-liners) to overcome the weight of banality and rise above its shortcomings. Also stars Powers Boothe, Rachel Leigh Cook and Tom Arnold. 3 stars —Caitlin Kuleci
GONE BABY GONE (R) Casey Affleck stars in brother Ben's surprisingly good directorial debut about something rotten in a working class Boston neighborhood where a little girl has gone missing. Gone Baby Gone is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, and, frankly, Affleck outdoes Eastwood in his understanding of the author's Boston-based turf. Affleck goes for maximum authenticity, trolling through the city's seedier sides with a camera that discretely observes the nonglamorous flora and fauna, making good use of virtual unknowns in several key roles. The director occasionally even shows himself to be a touch over-enamored with his blue collar grotesques — it sometimes seems like every Beantown resident with a hair lip, goiter or obesity problem gets screen time here — but Gone Baby Gone still manages to be an effectively disquieting descent into a local underworld. Lehane's source material culminates in a series of dubious plot twists involving a conspiracy of least likely suspects, but Affleck wisely uses this as a springboard to get into something more interesting, albeit uncomfortable. Also stars Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan and Titus Welliver. 3.5 stars
GOOD LUCK CHUCK (R) If you have no greater expectations than a trite romantic comedy, then this one's for you. In Mark Helfrich's directing debut, Dane Cook plays Charlie Logan, a stereotypical noncommittal-bachelor-type who gains a reputation for being his exes' "good luck charm" and lives out all his wildest, no-strings-attached sex fantasies as a result. In sum, Charlie gets laid and the women get married. But like any mediocre date movie, Chuck eventually tires of his ways and starts developing serious feelings for the not-so-lucky, cute and klutzy penguin specialist Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba). Predictable high jinks ensue, and if you can see past the cheesy moments, you might actually find yourself laughing. 2 stars —Katherine Clement
THE HEARTBREAK KID (PG-13) The studio didn't screen this in time for our review, so we're as in the dark as you are about what the Farrelly Brothers will wind up doing with Neil Simon and Elaine May's fractured romance The Heartbreak Kid. Stars Ben Stiller and Michelle Monaghan. (Not Reviewed)
INTO THE WILD (R) This is Sean Penn's meandering but strangely compelling take on the true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a child of privilege who burned his IDs, gave away his money and, reborn as Alexander Supertramp, hit the open road. Into the Wild unfolds on a certain level as a road movie, with Chris/Alex hooking up with fellow travelers as he makes his way across the country, but the film also offers frequent flashbacks providing a parallel story obsessing on the familial tensions supposedly being left behind. The flashback structure and ominous, anguished tone of the voice-overs leave little doubt that we're witnessing a tragedy, however, and the movie's pervasive fatalism provides a bottom note even to Into the Wild's brighter moments. To his credit, and despite a soundtrack studded with painfully sincere Eddie Vedder songs, Penn doesn't turn Alex into a hero — his quest ultimately seems as foolish as it is noble. The film is too long by at least a half hour, and its frequent attempts to provide Alex with metaphorical surrogate families are a bit transparent, but there's something important being communicated here about the beauty and folly of attempting a personal spiritual revolution, the closest corollary being Herzog's Grizzly Man. Also stars Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Brian Dierker, Kristen Stewart and Hal Holbrook. 3.5 stars
THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB (PG-13) Based on Karen Joy Fowler's novel, and a goodly notch up from your standard chick-flick fare, The Jane Austen Book Club introduces us to five females of various ages and temperaments, and then shepherds them through a series of romantic ups and downs. Different though they are, the women are bound by a love of literature (specifically Austen) and all saddled with loutish, disposable or conspicuously absent male partners — and so their book club, formed as an "antidote to life," essentially becomes a forum for the characters to vent about their own lives. There's also a lone male (Hugh Dancy) who worms his way into this estrogenic inner circle, providing a romantic foil for one of the women, and an Austen-ian object of desire who saunters around the edge of the film offering heavy-lidded temptation. The club members sip vast quantities of wine and discuss the novels that, naturally, wind up providing perfect parallels for the what's happening in their own lives, and it all culminates in a shower of tears, confessions, reconciliations and declarations of love (at a library soiree, no less). The movie's not without its share of dopey chick-flick conventions and cute reaction shots from canines, but there's also some surprisingly clever stuff going on here. Favorite loaded image: the thwarted stud covering up his arousal by hastily plopping a Jane Austen paperback in his lap. Stars Kathy Baker, Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Amy Brenneman, Maggie Grace and Jimmy Smits. 3 stars
THE KINGDOM (R) The clash of civilizations is writ large all over The Kingdom, but what the movie basically offers is straight-forward, relatively agenda-free entertainment — a fast-moving police procedural with thriller and action movie accents. The film's title refers to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where a small team of FBI agents (led by Jamie Foxx) has grudgingly been allowed to investigate a brutal massacre of Americans. Struggling to solve a mystery in a place that doesn't accept them, The Kingdom's American agents are some of the strangest strangers in a strange land since Sidney Poitier's Mr. Tibbs. Eventually, Foxx and friends abruptly shift into full battle mode, blasting away with heavy-duty assault weapons and burning up the Riyadhi roads in high-speed car chases as the Americans find themselves besieged in an Islamist enclave, and The Kingdom starts looking like an even more hellish version of Black Hawk Down. Director Peter Berg maximizes the chaos by shooting in that intentionally jerky ADD-esque style popularized by films like United 93 and The Bourne Ultimatum, a technique that aims to present everything as somehow edgier and more "real" — although when Foxx begins single-handedly blowing away the bad guys, reality is best taken with several grains of salt; he's clearly as indestructible as any action hero. Also stars Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman, Jeremy Piven, Danny Huston, Ashraf Barhom and Aku Suliman. 3.5 stars
MICHAEL CLAYTON (R) A character study of a man defined by his compromises, Michael Clayton stars George Clooney as a former prosecutor gone to seed and long reduced to working as a fixer for a big law firm. It's a no-brainer Clayton's in trouble from the first moment we see him — the GPS on his swanky Mercedes is on the blink, after all, movie-metaphor-ese for the guy's moral compass being out of whack — but half the pleasure of Michael Clayton is watching its title character's slow-mo meltdown lead up to that revelatory moment of painful self-knowledge. The other half of the movie's pleasure takes the form of a curiously gripping conspiracy thriller that percolates on such an ominously low frequency it almost catches us off guard when it finally officially announces itself. What lies at the heart of Michael Clayton isn't ultimately that far removed from conventional socially-conscious melodrama, but where the movie excels is in how it puts all this together, coming at the story from unexpected angles and neatly folding its sweeping political agenda into the personal struggles of its individual players. Also stars Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe and Ken Howard. 3.5 stars
MR. WOODCOCK (R) Phallic shadows fall mightily all over Mr. Woodcock, but, sadly, the film lacks the frenetic energy or even the gross-out bravado of Balls of Fury. Seann William Scott stars as John Farley, a successful self-help author who returns to his hometown only to find his mom (Susan Sarandon) dating the titular Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), the sadistic, ultra-macho gym teacher who tormented him all through high school. A heated pissing contest naturally results, with the two men competing for the affections of Sarandon, engaging in a movie-long match of wits and brawn, and all but whipping out their johnsons while running for the measuring sticks. Thorton's Woodcock (and yes, the name means exactly what you think it does) is cut from much the same cloth as his self-involved jerk-offs in Bad Santa, Bad News Bears and School for Scoundrels, but a little bit of this sort of concentrated obnoxiousness goes a long way. There's an undeniable charisma that Thornton brings to the role, but the movie itself is dull and, for the most part, painfully void of real laughs. Also stars Amy Poehler and Ethan Suplee. 1.5 stars
SUPERBAD (R) The next generation in American Pie's mutated strain, Superbad is so hilariously dirty that we don't always recognize its jokes can also be pretty darned smart. Our horndog heroes are Evan (Arrested Development's Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill, the flabby roommate from Knocked Up), best pals who, along with their even more pathetic friend, Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), embark on a mission to buy booze and get laid at the big, end-of-high-school party. A comedy of errors ensues where absolutely everything goes wrong, and the more wrong things go, the funnier they get. One bizarre detour leads to another, until Superbad finally arrives at an extremely odd and — hang on, now — poignant place where the kids' sexual and romantic fantasies all come true, albeit in classic Monkey's Paw fashion, with every major and minor triumph compromised by something a little bit sad or unpleasant. The script here (by Ali G Show writers Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan, who also starred in Knocked Up) practically assures our helpless, guilty laughter but grounds the gross-out shenanigans in a coming-of-age narrative that bends clichés to its will, even as it grants flesh and blood to even its most obnoxious characters. But don't let that fool you; Superbad is rarely less than rude, crude and ridiculous, thank goodness, and no one gets let off the hook here. Also stars Emma Stone, Martha MacIssac, Bill Hader and Seth Rogan. 3.5 stars
THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE (R) Dead hubby David Duchovny is one of the several things lost in that fire, and Benicio Del Toro plays Jerry, the childhood pal and intermittent drug fiend who winds up comforting bereaved widow Audrey (Halle Berry). The movie tries too hard to slather artistic credibility on what is basically an extremely simple story, piling on the heavy-duty symbolism (we're supposed to read that titular blaze as an essentially metaphorical purging, apparently), and the artsy frills just don't jive with Things' movie-of-the-week scenario — Jerry bonds with Audrey's adorable kids! Jerry relapses into drugs! Audrey anguishes! Jerry bounces back! Director Susanne Bier seems to be telling a story that she's faintly embarrassed by, and the more she spins her wheels, the more superficial Things We Lost in the Fire becomes. Also stars Omar Benson Miller and Alison Lohman. 2 stars
This article appears in Oct 24-30, 2007.