Special screenings
The Bone Collector
Angelina Jolie, Denzel Washington, Queen Latifah. Directed by Phillip Noyce. 118 minutes. Rated R.
Washington plays a quadriplegic homicide detective. He and his female partner (Jolie) track down a serial killer. Whitney Library, 5175 E. Tropicana Ave., 507-4010. 6/17, 11:30 am, free.
The Flower of My Secret
Marisa Paredes, Juan Echanove, Carmen Elias. Directed by Pedro Almodovar. 103 minutes. Rated R.
Leo (Paredes) is struggling through a wretched marriage and a split in her professional career: She longs to be taken seriously as a novelist but has been churning out financially successful schlock romances for years under a pseudonym. In Spanish with English subtitles. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 6/19, 7 pm, free.
Gold Diggers of 1933
Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. 96 minutes. Not rated.
A millionaire turned composer rescues unemployed Broadway people with a new play. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 6/19, 1 pm, free.
IMAX Theatre
Deep Sea 3D, Fighter Pilot, Mystery of the Nile, Lions 3D: Roar of the Kalahari
Call for showtimes. $11.99 each show.
Luxor, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 262-4629.
Naruto
Uncut episodes from the first three seasons of the Japanese animated series about the struggles of three young ninjas. For adults 18+ only. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3458. 6/16, 2 pm, free.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Tim Curry. Directed by Jim Sharman. 100 minutes. Rated R.
The perennial 1975 cult classic is a mix of horror, comedy and musical, featuring sex, transvestites and the Time Warp. Augmented by a live cast and audience participation. Tropicana Cinemas, 3330 E. Tropicana Ave., 243-7469. Sat, midnight, $10. Info: www.rhpsvegas.com. Onyx Theater inside The Rack in Commercial Center, 953 E. Sahara Ave., #101. First & third Sat of month, 11:30 pm, $7. Info: 953-0682 or www.divinedecadence.org.
Saturday Morning Matinee
Check out videos for kids in the Young People’s Library. Enterprise Library, 25 E. Shelbourne Ave., 507-3760. 6/23, 11 am, free.
New this week
Boy Culture (Not reviewed)
Derek Magyar, Patrick Bauchau, Darryl Stephens. Directed by Q. Allan Brocka. 88 minutes. Not rated.
A successful male escort describes in a series of confessions his tangled romantic relationships with his two roommates and an older, enigmatic male client.
DOA: Dead or Alive ***
Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Devon Aoki. Directed by Corey Yuen. 87 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Not reviewed)
Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis. Directed by Tim Story. 92 minutes. Rated PG.
The enigmatic intergalactic herald known as the Silver Surfer comes to Earth to prepare it for destruction. As the Silver Surfer races around the globe wreaking havoc, Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben must unravel the mystery of the Silver Surfer and confront the surprising return of their mortal enemy, Dr. Doom, before all hope is lost.
Jindabyne **
Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, Chris Haywood. Directed by Ray Lawrence. 123 minutes. Rated R.
Once ***1/2
Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova, Geoff Minogue. Directed by John Carney. 85 minutes. Rated R.
Nancy Drew ***
Emma Roberts, Tate Donovan, Max Thieriot, Laura Elena Harring. Directed by Andrew Fleming. 99 minutes. Rated PG.
Paano Kita Iibigin (Not reviewed)
Regine Velasquez, Piolo Pascual. Directed by Joyce E. Bernal. 115 minutes. Not rated.
Fired from her job and evicted from her apartment, Martee (Velasquez) brings herself and her son to Zambales for a vacation. In a dilapidated resort owned by Lance (Pascual), Martee finds work, and love.
Steel City **
Tom Guiry, John Heard, Clayne Crawford, America Ferrera. Directed by Brian Jun. 95 minutes. Rated R.
Now playing
28 Weeks Later ***1/2
Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner. Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. 99 minutes. Rated R.
Opening during the outbreak depicted in the original film, Weeks wastes no time in first creating and then compromising our loyalty. No sooner have we been introduced to married survivors Don (Carlyle) and Alice than we’re watching our ostensible hero callously abandon his wife to the infected hordes. Seven months pass. The epidemic, successfully contained, is now over. (Ha.) Civilians slowly return to what remains of London, now under military jurisdiction; among the first wave of resettlers is our cowardly buddy Don, who’s been reunited with his two young children. Credit Fresnadillo for continually finding new and innovative ways of creeping us out, from a lengthy sequence shot through a night-vision rifle scope to the unexpected lyricism of one character’s post-transformation onslaught. –MD
300 **
Gerard Butler, David Wenham, Lena Headey, Vincent Regan. Directed by Zack Snyder. 117 minutes. Rated R.
The film is about the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Thanks to the whiny indecision of corrupt religious leaders and spineless bureaucrats, Spartan King Leonidas (Butler) is unable to take his full army to meet the massive Persian forces, and must make do with only 300 of his best soldiers, acting as his personal retinue. It’s brutal, it’s painful, it’s mind-numbing and, most disturbingly, it’s a rallying cry for the testosterone-heavy that posits “no mercy” as the most noble sentiment in the world. –JB
After the Wedding **1/2
Mads Mikkelsen, Rolf Lassgard, Sidse Babett Knudsen. Directed by Susanne Bier. 120 minutes. Rated R.
Mikkelsen sinks into the role of Jacob, a man with a mysterious past who runs an orphanage in India. He flies to Denmark to meet with a rich bigwig, Jørgen (Lassgård), and raise money to run his organization. Jørgen invites Jacob to his daughter’s wedding, where Jacob runs into an old flame, now Jørgen’s wife, Helene (Knudsen). He does the math and realizes that he’s the birth father of the young blushing bride, Anna (Christensen). None of this will be particularly surprising to anyone who’s ever watched a soap opera or a melodrama. –JMA
Away From Her ***
Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Michael Murphy, Olympia Dukakis. Directed by Sarah Polley. 110 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Grant and Fiona have been married for more than 40 years when the film begins. We get the sense that for the last several years they’ve had a happy life. That is, until Fiona begins forgetting things, and the onset of Alzheimer’s threatens their close bond. There’s much to like in this assured and insightful debut. As in most films directed by actors, the performances are strong all around. Polley makes effective use of a fractured narrative and some luminous visuals. –BS
Black Book ***1/2
Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman. Directed by Paul Verhoeven. 145 minutes. Rated R.
he film starts with the bombing of the farmhouse in which Dutch Jew Rachel Stein (van Houten) has been hiding from the Nazis, and that sets her on an odyssey through the underground resistance, where she dyes her hair blond and takes on the name Ellis de Vries. Not content simply to lay low until the war ends, Rachel/Ellis teams up with anti-Nazi fighters to take on the German occupants of Holland. The staid World War II epic has become Hollywood’s most boring awards-baiting genre, and Black Book sidesteps all that by being unabashedly lurid and melodramatic, with tons of suspense and plenty of silly plot twists. In Dutch and German with English subtitles. –JB
Blades of Glory **
Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler. Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck. 93 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Ferrell’s macho, womanizing and buffoonish blowhard, perfected in Anchorman and Talladega Nights, shows up again as Chazz Michael Michaels, a renegade figure skater with a sex addiction and a fondness for leather. He’s acting opposite Heder, a one-note actor if ever there was one, as Jimmy MacElroy, Chazz’s fey rival-turned-partner thanks to a skating-bylaws loophole that allows them to compete as a pair even after they’ve been banned from singles competition after a nasty fistfight. So it’s Ricky Bobby and Napoleon Dynamite on skates, with exactly one joke for the whole movie: Figure skating sure is gay, isn’t it? –JB
Bug ****
Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr. Directed by William Friedkin. 102 minutes. Rated R.
Cocktail waitress Agnes (Judd) lives a sad, lonely existence, hiding from a sadistic ex (Connick) and mourning the loss of a young son. Her best friend introduces her to Peter (Shannon), and they hit it off. Before long, Peter begins to feel bug bites and announces that bugs are crawling around under his skin. Agnes begins to believe him, and she, too, suffers bites. This is a crazy, intense creepster of a movie, masterfully directed in great sinking movements. It’s The Exorcist for a darker time. –JMA
Delta Farce (Not reviewed)
Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, DJ Qualls. Directed by C.B. Harding. 90 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Three bumbling Army reservists bound for Iraq are accidentally dropped at a Mexican village besieged by hostile forces.
Disturbia ***
Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss. Directed by D.J. Caruso. 104 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Kale Brecht (LaBeouf) is confined to his house. His only visitors are his friend Ronnie and love interest Ashley (Roemer). His life is quickly reduced to a vicarious existence as he spends his time looking out the window at his neighbors. Paranoia sets in and he begins to suspect one of them could be a killer. Our protagonist is on house arrest, complete with alarm on his ankle. This is both a strength and a weakness. As remakes of Hitchcock masterpieces (Rear Window) go, this one is actually pretty good, at least until the climax devolves into a slasher flick. –BS
Fracture **1/2
Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, Rosamund Pike. Directed by Gregory Hoblit. 112 minutes. Rated R.
Ted Crawford (Hopkins), villain extraordinaire of the psychological thriller Fracture, methodically manipulates both the legal system and arrogant young prosecutor Willy Beachum (Gosling) after being arrested for the attempted murder of his wife. The film hums along at a steady clip, navigating narrative twists and turns that may be complex but seem wholly predetermined and inorganic. –JB
Georgia Rule *1/2
Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman. Directed by Garry Marshall. 113 minutes. Rated R.
This rather feeble fish-out-of-water comedy stars Lohan as a rebellious teen named Rachel, who’s been sent to live with her sassy grandma (Fonda) in a movie-stereotype small town in Idaho to learn some old-fashioned values. Then this happens, at about half an hour into the movie: Rachel casually divulges the fact that her stepfather started sexually abusing her when she was 12 years old. This unexpected revelation changes the whole tenor of the film—or at least it should. But Marshall blithely soldiers on with the city-girl-in-a-small-town hijinks, and Rachel’s past as a serial liar throws the whole sexual-abuse scenario into doubt in an uncomfortable and dramatically unsatisfying manner. –JB
Gracie *
Carly Schroeder, Dermot Mulroney, Elisabeth Shue. Directed by Davis Guggenheim. 95 minutes. Rated PG-13.
In 1978 New Jersey, Gracie (Schroeder) has an oddly close, tender relationship with her brother. They never fight, and she tells him she loves him just before he gets into a car with his buddies. Not surprisingly, he dies. Gracie decides to try out for his place on the soccer team, but everyone else agrees that it’s crazy for girls to play soccer. Gracie tumbles headfirst into the tired, bloated “inspirational sports drama” formula, following each required turn so blindly and blandly that it ends in yawns rather than cheers. –JMA
Hostel: Part II ***
Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips. Directed by Eli Roth. 93 minutes. Rated R.
Plot-wise this is virtually the same movie as the first one, with American girls being tortured in Eastern Europe swapped in for American boys, and it’ll never be mistaken for anything more than a cheap, trashy exploitation movie. But it’s actually pretty good at being that, and the slight changes in structure make it a bit more successful than the first movie. Roth has wisely pretty much ditched the political commentary, which was muddled and unsuccessful the first time out, and allowed his main characters to be mostly sympathetic without embodying any ugly-American stereotypes. This formula wouldn’t work again, but the second time around finds enough variation to be satisfying for those who don’t expect too much. –JB
Journey From the Fall ***
Kieu Chinh, Long Nguyen, Diem Lien. Directed by Ham Tran. 135 minutes. Rated R.
The film follows Long (Nguyen), a man imprisoned for his political ideals after the fall of Hanoi in 1975, and his mother, wife and son, who attempt to escape to America at Long’s urging. Long then contends with what is essentially a death camp, where, dressed in rags, he’s forced to clear mine fields at gunpoint. A linear narrative would’ve freed our minds to enjoy the outstanding performances, reflect on the suffering of the Vietnamese people and ponder the possibilities of history repeating itself in Iraq. I suppose all of that’s still possible. Just remember to bring Tylenol for the film’s first half. –MSH
Knocked Up ***
Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann. Directed by Judd Apatow. 129 minutes. Rated R.
The wholesome values in Knocked Up are effectively intermixed with the movie’s real selling point, its outrageous humor, but it’s clear which side wins out. That makes the film either an act of subversive genius—getting stoners and slackers to appreciate the importance of parenthood—or a strangely conservative scolding in the guise of a dumb comedy. As tempting as it is to give Apatow credit for subversion, it might be safer to say that he’s really just telling his audience to grow up and accept some responsibility. That’s exactly what happens to Ben Stone (Rogen), a prototypical representative of the Apatow demographic, when his one-night stand with driven E! news producer Alison Scott (Heigl) results in an unplanned pregnancy. –JB
Mr. Brooks ***1/2
Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore, Dane Cook. Directed by Bruce A. Evans. 120 minutes. Rated R.
Mr. Brooks (Costner) has a slight addiction to bloodshed. He’s been going to AA meetings to help suppress these urges, but that little devil on his shoulder keeps egging him on. Temptation is beautifully personified by Marshall (Hurt), who’s not so much Brooks’ alter-ego as he is a bad-influence type of imaginary friend. Marshall periodically pops up to offer Brooks fathering advice, remind him of little details he might forget and, of course, persuade him to massacre copulating couples for kicks. In spite of the convoluted finale, Mr. Brooks still ends up being good, twisted fun. –MSH
Next **
Nicolas Cage, Jessica Biel, Julianne Moore. Directed by Lee Tamahori. 91 minutes. Rated PG-13.
This is a curiously pointless movie, with a plot that puts all of its emphasis on what would seem like the least important goal. That is, the FBI expends nearly all of its efforts to track down Cage’s magician who can see two minutes into the future, rather than, say, stopping the terrorists who are about to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. And after all of Cage’s running from them, the whole terrorist thing is a big anticlimax, followed by the stupidest twist ending ever. The movie practically taunts you about how it’s wasting your time. Plus, Cage and Biel have to be the ickiest and least believable screen couple of all time. –JB
Ocean’s Thirteen ***
George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. 113 minutes. Rated PG-13.
As in the first film, our heroes have targeted a fabulous Las Vegas casino—this one owned not by Andy Garcia’s Terry Benedict, who’s partially bankrolling the operation, but by a preening, back-stabbing mogul named Willie Bank (Pacino). Their objective isn’t quite what you’d expect, though. Ocean & Co. don’t want Bank’s vast fortune for themselves—they’d just prefer that Bank, who’s both humiliated and hospitalized their jovial mentor, Reuben (Elliott Gould), possess a whole lot less of it. For the most part, Ocean’s Thirteen reverts to the breezy, weightless antics—charismatic men plotting byzantine schemes in exotic locales—that made Eleven such forgettable fun. –MD
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End *
Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush. Directed by Gore Verbinski. 168 minutes. Rated PG-13.
At World’s End picks up, as these things tend to do, roughly where its slightly less inflated predecessor ended, with Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) allied with Captain Barbossa (Rush) and the surviving swabbies of the Black Pearl to rescue Jack Sparrow (Depp) from the very euphemistically named Davy Jones’ locker. Even if you loved The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest, this dour, tedious, aggressively unfunny, egregiously padded helping of celluloid fluff will only waste your time and money. –MH
Shrek the Third **
Voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas. Directed by Chris Miller. 92 minutes. Rated PG.
The loveable titular ogre (voiced by Myers), already saddled with talking-animal sidekicks Donkey (Murphy) and Puss In Boots (Banderas) and married to princess-turned-ogre Fiona (Diaz), acquires a horde of new friends and foes in this latest installment. Chief among them is the supremely uninteresting Artie, cousin to Fiona, and Shrek’s choice to succeed Fiona’s late father as the king of Far, Far Away, because the ogre himself would rather not rule. What started out as a genial stab at Disneyfied fairy tales has morphed into a catch-all parody with no focus and even less bite. It’s hard to buy into the movie making fun of anything when it’s become such an easy target for mockery itself. –JB
Spider-Man 3 ***
Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church. Directed by Sam Raimi. 140 minutes. Rated PG-13.
You want villains? Our boy Spidey must contend not just with the Sandman (Church), an ex-con brawler capable of departiculating his entire body at will; not just with Harry Osborn (Franco), who’s discovered his late father’s secret laboratory and refashioned himself as a junior version of the Green Goblin; but also with a malevolent hunk of symbiotic black goo from outer space, which first attaches itself to one of Spider-Man’s costumes and later transforms snotty rival Daily Bugle photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) into a fanged mutant Spider-Clone known as Venom. You want romance? Mary Jane (Dunst) is still around, but she’s now simmering with jealousy at the vapid blond advances made by Peter’s science lab partner. The overall game plan involves tossing so much sheer stuff at us that we’ll be too dizzy and distracted to notice that no single element is actually working. –MD
Surf’s Up **1/2
Voices of Shia LaBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel. Directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck. 85 minutes. Rated PG.
Cody Maverick (LaBeouf) doesn’t fit in with his penguin kin, preferring to surf over gathering fish and tending eggs. Cody travels to fictional Pen Gu Island for a big surf competition, where he falls for a lifeguard named Lani (Deschanel) and learns totally deep life lessons from his idol, an aging surf champion named Big Z (Bridges). It’s breezy and fitfully amusing stuff, and directors Brannon and Buck make at least a token effort to break out of the monolithic computer animation pack with the mockumentary gimmick, although livening up one tired genre by combining it with another is not necessarily a formula for success. –JB
Vacancy (Not reviewed)
Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale, Frank Whaley. Directed by Nimrod Antal. 80 minutes. Rated R.
A young married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They realize that unless they escape, they’ll be the next victims of a snuff film.
The Valet (Not reviewed)
Daniel Auteuil, Kristin Scott Thomas, Gad Elmaleh. Directed by Francis Veber. 85 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A porter and a supermodel have to pretend to be a couple in order to salvage a CEO’s marriage.
Waitress ***1/2
Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Jeremy Sisto. Directed by Adrienne Shelly. 107 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Jenna (Russell) is an unhappily married—and very unhappily pregnant—waitress at a small-town diner who’s constantly dreaming up exotic pies and naming them after whatever crisis she’s currently undergoing. Abortion, it seems, is out of the question—the possibility is never so much as raised—but Jenna’s red-state family values don’t stop her from embarking upon a guilty, start-stop affair with her hunky but equally married new obstetrician (Fillion). This all goes more or less where you’d expect it to, but it’s hard to begrudge familiarity when it’s accompanied by such dizzy warmth and offbeat charm. –MD
Wild Hogs ***
John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allen, William H. Macy. Directed by Walt Becker. 99 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Wild Hogs is about four guys who set off on a motorcycle trip across America. The road trip is inspired by the midlife crises of the four friends. The plot works methodically to solve these problems as soon as they’re introduced, without the slightest touch of subtlety. So the film’s intro, with its predictable dialogue drowning in the overly sentimental score, doesn’t bode well. But something wondrous happens. As soon as their hogs hit the highway, the movie becomes consistently funny. –MSH
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; MD Mike D’Angelo; MH Mark Holcomb; MSH Matthew Scott Hunter; BS Benjamin Spacek