Special screenings
199 Lives: The Travis Pastrana Story
Directed by Gregg Godfrey. Not rated.
Documentary on motocross champion Travis Pastrana. Regal Cinemas Red Rock, Santa Fe Station, Century Orleans, Sam’s Town. 4/16-4/17, 7 pm, $10. Info: fathomevents.com.
Anime Vegas
Showings of the latest Japanese animation. Some programs for mature audiences only. West Charleston Library, 6301 W. Charleston Blvd., 501-3964. 4/12, 10:30 am-4:30 pm, free. Info: animevegas.net.
The Big Read 1920s Film Series
Thru 4/27, showings of films set in the 1920s, including The Great Gatsby, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Bullets Over Broadway, Chicago, The Sun Also Rises, The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Eight Men Out, The Cat’s Meow, Mrs. Dalloway, Some Like It Hot, various times and library district locations. Info: lvccld.org.
The Cat’s Meow
Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Edward Herrmann. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Speculative account of a mysterious Hollywood death at a star-studded gathering aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht in 1924. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 4/15, 7 pm, free.
Enchanted
Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden. Directed by Kevin Lima. 107 minutes. Rated PG.
A fairy-tale princess is sent to modern New York City by an evil queen. County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 4/12, 2 pm, free.
IMAX Theatre
Deep Sea 3D, Mystery of the Nile, Dinosaurs 3D: Giants of Patagonia, Lions 3D: Roar of the Kalahari, Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure
Call for showtimes. $11.99 each show.
Luxor, 3900 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 262-4629.
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. 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 divinedecadence.org.
Roxie Hart
Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, George Montgomery. Directed by William A. Wellman. 75 minutes. Not rated.
Rogers is Roxie Hart, a 1920s showgirl who for the sake of a publicity stunt confesses to a murder. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 4/15, 1 pm, free.
New this week
CJ7 ***
Stephen Chow, Jiao Xu, Kitty Zhang Yugi. Directed by Stephen Chow. 86 minutes. Rated PG. In Cantonese with English subtitles.
See review Page 41.
Persepolis (Not reviewed)
Voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn. Directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. 95 minutes. Rated PG-13.
English-dubbed version of the French animated film about a girl’s coming-of-age in Iran.
Prom Night (Not reviewed)
Brittany Snow, Johnathon Schaech, Jessica Stroup. Directed by Nelson McCormick. 88 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Donna’s senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, but a sadistic killer from her past has different plans for her and her friends.
Smart People ** 1/2
Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church, Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker. Directed by Noam Murro. 95 minutes. Rated R.
Street Kings **
Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie. Directed by David Ayer. 107 minutes. Rated R.
Taxi to the Dark Side ***
Directed by Alex Gibney. 106 minutes. Rated R.
A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory ** 1/2
Directed by Esther Robinson. 75 minutes. Not rated.
Now playing
10,000 BC **
Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis. Directed by Roland Emmerich. 109 minutes. Rated PG-13.
In a small mountain village, the dreadlocked inhabitants speak modern American English with an all-purpose “foreign” accent, give great credence to the prophecies of the local crazy old lady and hunt big CGI woolly mammoths. Here vapid protagonist D’Leh (Strait) grows up in love with Evolet (Belle), a refugee from a nearby village ravaged by violent outsiders. When those same villains show up on horseback, kidnapping many members of D’Leh’s tribe (including Evolet), he sets out to rescue them, no matter what the cost. Although there is one exciting action sequence, most of the movie is given over to tedious wandering through mountains, jungles and deserts, or the soporific romance between D’Leh and Evolet. –JB
21 ** 1/2
Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey. Directed by Robert Luketic. 123 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Sturgess is entirely bland and unconvincing as MIT senior Ben Campbell, whose need for funds to pay for medical school drives him to join the card-counting team run by math professor Micky Rosa (Spacey). The five students constantly practice their strategy for winning at blackjack, then head to Vegas on weekends to put it into effect. In the absence of the in-depth explanations that come from a good piece of nonfiction prose, the movie ought to be carried by compelling characters, but none of the main players has more than one dimension. The real story has been buried under all this unnecessary flash and fantasy. –JB
The Band’s Visit *** 1/2
Sasson Gabai, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri. Directed by Eran Kolirin. 84 minutes. Rated PG-13. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.
An Egyptian police band comes to Israel to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center, but a mix-up sends them to the wrong town. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, the musicians have no choice but to befriend and rely on the locals until they’re able to take the next bus to where they need to be. Writer-director Kolirin gives a decidedly low-key account of the evening that the band members spend in the town of Bet Hatikva. While no one talks about the strained relations between their two cultures, the effort to bridge the gap is always lurking in the background. Given how well the characters manage, it’s easy to imagine that the entire situation could be resolved if only the Alexandria Police Orchestra could visit every little town in Israel. –JB
The Bank Job *** 1/2
Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, Daniel Mays. Directed by Roger Donaldson. 110 minutes. Rated R.
All that’s really known for sure about the 1971 London caper that inspired the film is that a group of amateur thieves tunneled their way into the basement vault of Lloyds Bank in Marylebone and made off with the contents of dozens of safe-deposit boxes. Though arrests were eventually made, little of the booty was ever recovered, and the incident quickly and rather mysteriously vanished from news reports. This prompted speculation that items involving national security had been pilfered, and the filmmakers have merrily woven the juiciest theories into a preposterously entertaining tapestry of scandal and intrigue, involving everything from evidence of police corruption to snapshots of Princess Margaret getting boned on some Caribbean island. –MD
The Bucket List ** 1/2
Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes. Directed by Rob Reiner. 97 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Early in The Bucket List, each of the film’s protagonists (auto mechanic Carter Chambers and hospital magnate Edward Cole) discovers that he has only a few months left to live—a year at most. Chambers (Freeman) draws up a list of things he’d like to do before his final kick, Cole (Nicholson) adds several items, and the next thing you know they’re flitting around the globe in Cole’s private jet, carpe-ing the holy hell out of every precious diem they have left. Any buddy movie rises or falls on the chemistry between its stars, and Freeman’s avuncular warmth offsets Nicholson’s irascible cynicism in a predictable but nonetheless satisfying way. And even at its most formulaic, the film manages the occasional surprise. –MD
Charlie Bartlett ***
Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis, Kat Dennings. Directed by Jon Poll. 97 minutes. Rated R.
After getting expelled from yet another ritzy private school, Charlie (Yelchin) enrolls at the local public school. Once there, he starts a prescription-drug ring in the boys’ bathroom and adopts the toilet seat as the new psychiatrist’s couch. As an added bonus, the pest of the principal’s office falls in love with none other than the principal’s daughter. The movie tends to ramble, frequently including scenes that fail to progress the story. Director Poll would have benefited from a dose of some Charlie-prescribed Ritalin to maintain his focus. But Yelchin’s performance as the ever-endearing Charlie makes up for Poll’s concentration problems. His onscreen presence makes it easy to sit back and be entertained. –TC
College Road Trip (Not reviewed)
Martin Lawrence, Raven-Symoné, Brenda Song. Directed by Roger Kumble. 83 minutes. Rated G.
A college-bound girl (Raven-Symone) has her hopes of independence shattered when her overbearing police-chief father (Lawrence) insists on escorting her on a road trip to prospective universities.
The Counterfeiters **
Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow. Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. 98 minutes. Rated R. In German with English subtitles.
The appealing, long-faced Markovics plays Salomon Sorowitsch, who makes a comfortable living crafting fake passports and such before the Nazis discover and arrest him. They force him to use his skills to imitate the British pound and the American dollar, with which the forces of evil will attempt to destroy the world economy. He and his team go to work, but certain men are more interested in subverting the evil plan than in saving their own lives. Ruzowitzky presents this material in the clumsiest, most mundane way imaginable. Though The Counterfeiters does indeed contain an amazing story, it is by no means a good film; it’s proof that one element does not automatically translate into the other. –JMA
Doomsday (Not reviewed)
Rhona Mitra, Sean Pertwee, Bob Hoskins. Directed by Neil Marshall. 105 minutes. Rated R.
A team of people venture into a walled-off city to find a cure for a disease threatening the future of the human race.
Drillbit Taylor **
Owen Wilson, Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile, Leslie Mann. Directed by Steven Brill. 102 minutes. Rated PG-13.
After getting beat up one too many times during their first few days of high school, Wade (Hartley), the skinny one, and Ryan (Gentile), the fat one, place an online ad for a bodyguard. The only candidate they can afford, though, is the title character (Wilson), a homeless veteran who convinces the boys that he has special-forces training that will help them take down their tormentors. You can guess what happens from there, although it takes far too long and engages in far too many detours along the way. –JB
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! ***
Voices of Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Carol Burnett. Directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino. 88 minutes. Rated G.
Carrey carries the weight of a hyperactive pachyderm with a propensity for folding his large, malleable ears into headgear. Upon discovering that an endangered microcosm of life exists upon a speck of dust, he undertakes a treacherous journey to secure a safe haven atop Mount Nool for the diminutive Whos, vocally mimicking ninjas, airline pilots and even JFK along the way. The film is visually impressive, from subtly waving strands of hair to Seuss’ signature towers of household items and giant machinery, and more faithful to the author’s vision than were the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Cat in the Hat. Unfortunately, with jokes like, “How many times have I told you, the jungle is no place to act like an animal,” Horton is nowhere near as witty as, say, Shrek. –JS
The Eye (Not reviewed)
Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey. Directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud. 97 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A woman (Alba) receives a corneal transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world.
Fool’s Gold * 1/2
Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland. Directed by Andy Tennant. 110 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A murderous rap star/loan shark using his incompetent cronies to recoup his investment. An overly generous multimillionaire trying to connect with his tabloid-fodder daughter. A newly divorced pair of treasure hunters who give new meaning to the words “sexual history.” What do they have in common? Not as much as Fool’s Gold would like you to believe. The movie expects audiences to simply accept that this motley crew of characters might actually come together in pursuit of an 18th-century sunken treasure. But Fool’s Gold’s players are more caricatures than characters; only Hudson manages to infuse the otherwise absurd film with a hint of believability and comedy. Fool’s Gold delivers too many fools and too little comedy gold. –TC
Funny Games ****
Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet. Directed by Michael Haneke. 107 minutes. Rated R.
Arriving one sunny afternoon at their summer home in the Hamptons, an affluent and from all appearances perfectly normal family—Watts and Roth as Mom and Dad, Devon Gearhart as their towheaded pre-teen son—notices a pair of young men in tennis whites chatting with their neighbors. Before long, this obsequious duo (Pitt and Corbet) show up at the house, ostensibly to borrow some eggs. Turns out they’re much more interested in the family’s golf clubs and kitchen knives. Why are they torturing these poor people? Why, for our own delectation, of course, as Pitt’s smiling killer makes clear in a series of knowing winks and quick asides delivered directly to the camera lens. It’s a uniquely nerve-shredding and thought-provoking treatise on screen violence, one explicitly designed to make you feel uncomfortable about your own voyeuristic bloodlust. But to say that this movie isn’t for everybody is a gross understatement. –MD
The Hammer **
Adam Carolla, Oswaldo Castillo, Heather Juergensen. Directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. 90 minutes. Rated R.
Carolla is Jerry Ferro, an aimless loser who celebrates his 40th birthday by getting fired from his job as a carpenter and dumped by his girlfriend. His only refuge are the boxing classes he teaches at the local gym, thanks to his status as a former Golden Gloves champion. One seemingly lucky punch attracts the attention of a veteran coach, who gives Jerry hope that he might have a shot at trying out for the Olympic boxing team. The movie hits all the expected beats, giving Jerry a cocky young rival who eventually becomes his ally; a spunky, supportive new love interest; a grizzled old trainer; and a wacky sidekick. It lopes along at a genial but lifeless pace; never does there seem to be much at stake for Jerry or anyone else, and the victories and defeats are presented with equal indifference. –JB
In Bruges ****
Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes. Directed by Martin McDonagh. 107 minutes. Rated R.
The surreptitious plot revolves around two less-than-superb hitmen. In fact, they hardly seem suited for contract killing at all. The younger of the two, Ray (Farrell), has only performed two murders, and both at the same time. Only one of them was intentional. The elder assassin, Ken (Gleeson), is gentle and relaxed, seeming less interested in taking lives than in taking in the sights of Bruges, the well-preserved medieval town the two men are sent to following Ray’s debacle of an inaugural hit. The screenplay’s like a superb hitman—by the time you realize what it’s actually been doing, it’s already done. The difference is, after experiencing In Bruges, you’re still around to appreciate its brilliance. –MSH
Jumper 1/2
Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson. Directed by Doug Liman. 88 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Teleporting Jumpers like David Rice (Christensen), who have existed in secrecy for millennia, are constantly hunted by a group of xenophobic zealots known as Paladins, whose mission in life is to exterminate David’s kind. Why? Beats me. The chief Paladin, Roland (Jackson), repeatedly intones that “only God should have such power,” and suggests that Jumpers are invariably corrupted by their absolute freedom of movement. Liman and his effects team do their damnedest to dazzle us, warping the frame at the point of rupture and accompanying each jump with a vaguely metallic “whoosh!” noise, but the novelty, which is negligible to begin with, wears off in a big hurry. Jumper’s most serious problem is its leading man, whose overpowering aura of whiny entitlement could make any film insufferable. –MD
Leatherheads ***
George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski. Directed by George Clooney. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Clooney sets up a romance between two strong-willed, sharp-tongued people, aging pro football player Dodge Connelly (Clooney) and reporter Lexie Littleton (Zellweger). The two exchange barbs as Lexie works on a story about football star Carter Rutherford (Krasinski), who’s been lured away from the much more popular college circuit to play for Dodge’s struggling pro team, the Duluth Bulldogs. The back-and-forth zing is what saves Leatherheads from being terminally dull. The film can’t commit to its screwball ambitions, though, and Clooney’s pacing, crucial to the dizzying exchange of witty rejoinders, is off. That inconsistency prevents Leatherheads from being the breezy delight it sets out to be. –JB
Married Life ** 1/2
Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams. Directed by Ira Sachs. 90 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Richard (Brosnan) tells us of his friend, Harry (Cooper), who seems happily married. One day at lunch, Harry confides in his friend that he is leaving his wife (Clarkson) for a younger woman. Her name is Kay (McAdams), a bottle-blond widow who steps in and joins them at the table. Richard confides in the audience that he, too, desires Kay. Harry is such a thoughtful husband that he doesn’t want to put his wife through the pain and humiliation of divorce. No, murder would be much more merciful, he decides. All the subterfuge is married to the slow buildup and delayed payoff of a Douglas Sirk-style melodrama. Sometimes, two people just shouldn’t get into bed together. –BS
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day ****
Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Ciaran Hinds. Directed by Bharat Nalluri. 92 minutes. Rated PG-13.
McDormand plays Guinevere Pettigrew, an unemployable governess in the late 1930s. On the search for a new job, she finds herself quite suddenly and unexpectedly employed as a “social secretary” for rising singer and actress Delysia Lafosse (Adams). It goes without saying that the film hinges on Adams and her perky, wide-eyed, rapid-fire patter. She embodies a kind of cutie-pie, clueless innocence to balance her debauchery; it’s a Carole Lombard-like role that few living actresses could pull off. The soulful, earthy McDormand perfectly complements her, filling in as the better half of a kind of Jeeves and Wooster team for modern-day multiplexes. Depending on your leaning, Miss Pettigrew will go perfectly with either tea and cucumber sandwiches, or a chilled martini. –JMA
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Not reviewed)
Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger. Directed by Jon Turteltaub. 124 minutes. Rated PG.
Treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) looks to discover the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by uncovering the mystery within the 18 pages missing from assassin John Wilkes Booth’s diary.
Never Back Down * 1/2
Sean Faris, Amber Heard, Djimon Hounsou, Cam Gigandet. Directed by Jeff Wadlow. 110 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Lower-class kid Jake (Faris) and his single mother and younger brother move to yuppie country. By the end of his first day at school, Jake has stumbled into a surreal fantasy world, where everyone looks like a supermodel (except for the one goofy kid who will inevitably become Jake’s sidekick), and the most popular kids beat each other senseless in mixed martial arts brawls, where victory guarantees you a high spot on the social ladder and a kick-ass fight clip on YouTube. Jake resists fighting for all of 30 seconds before remembering the movie’s title. Never Back Down is certainly as bad as its Steven Seagal-style title suggests, but I didn’t quite hate it. In fact, there are some unintentionally hilarious moments that almost make the film worth seeing. –MSH
Nim’s Island ** 1/2
Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler. Directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin. 95 minutes. Rated PG.
Eleven-year-old Nim (Breslin) lives alone on a remote South Pacific island with her marine-biologist dad, Jack (Butler), talks to animals and doesn’t go to school. Agoraphobic adventure writer Alex Rover (Foster) has e-mailed Jack about facts on volcanos for her latest book, but instead reaches Nim, who is Alex’s biggest fan (she thinks “Alex” is a man). When Jack goes off to search for new forms of sea life and goes missing in a storm, and “pirates” (actually tourists) threaten to invade Nim’s island, Nim pleads for Alex to leave the safety of her sanitized apartment and help. The filmmakers manage to re-create the summery brightness of the Indiana Jones films, achieving a refreshing, clean-air quality. But they utterly fail to capture the briskness and supple movement of an adventure film. –JMA
The Other Boleyn Girl ** 1/2
Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana. Directed by Justin Chadwick. 115 minutes. Rated PG-13.
The film’s account of the rivalry between Anne Boleyn (Portman), second wife of King Henry VIII of England, and her sister Mary (Johansson), who was the king’s mistress before he married Anne, is often rather bland and flat, and when the movie does occasionally unleash its seedier side, it does so awkwardly and unconvincingly. It’s not accurate enough to be a valuable history lesson, and its departures do little to justify themselves dramatically. It’s just another pointlessly dressed-up take on a story that’s already plenty overdressed. –JB
The Ruins (Not reviewed)
Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, Laura Ramsey. Directed by Carter Smith. 91 minutes. Rated R.
A group of friends have their leisurely Mexican holiday take a turn for the worse when they embark on a remote archaeological dig in the jungle, where something evil lives among the ruins.
Run Fatboy Run ** 1/2
Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria. Directed by David Schwimmer. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Since freaking out on his wedding day, Dennis (Pegg) has had a strained but cordial relationship with bakery-owner Libby (Newton), with whom he has a five-year-old son (Libby was pregnant on the day Dennis abandoned her). Spurred on by the presence of an unctuous new boyfriend (Azaria) in Libby’s life, Dennis decides to finally make up for his mistake and prove he’s changed. How does he do that? By entering the same charity marathon that Libby’s new beau Whit is training for. None of it’s particularly sharp or new, and the plot proceeds along lazily predictable lines. –JB
Semi-Pro ** 1/2
Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin. Directed by Kent Alterman. 90 minutes. Rated R.
Ferrell is disco one-hit wonder Jackie Moon, who used his music royalties to buy up an ABA basketball team in Flint, Michigan, and install himself as both the coach and the star player. With attendance barely in the double digits and a team full of lovable losers who aren’t exactly great basketball players, the Flint Tropics have only one chance to make it into the NBA as it absorbs the struggling ABA. It’s your classic sports-underdog formula, and the script never deviates from it. What laughs there are come from the absurdity of certain extended set pieces, no doubt largely improvised by Ferrell and the requisite who’s-who of current screen and TV comedy. –JB
Shine a Light ***
Directed by Martin Scorsese. 122 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Shine a Light kicks off in high-energy vérité mode, shifting locations more frantically than any Bond or Bourne adventure and capturing quick, jagged impressions of the endless negotiations and logistical hassles involved in preparing to shoot a Rolling Stones concert. Shine a Light delivers roughly half of a first-rate performance. The greatest-hits selections, concentrated mostly at the beginning and end of the film, tend to fall flat, often to the point where they make the Stones come across as a fairly mediocre Stones cover band. And various special-guest appearances amount to little more than stunts. But the band perks up considerably when tackling less well-worn material. At moments like these, the Stones genuinely seem like a band and not just a traveling Smithsonian exhibit. Still, it’s hard to argue that the world really needed another Stones concert flick at this late date, even one directed by Scorsese. –MD
Shutter (Not reviewed)
Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor, David Denman. Directed by Masayuki Ochiai. 85 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident.
The Spiderwick Chronicles ****
Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker. Directed by Mark Waters. 97 minutes. Rated PG.
Show me a world with cell phones, single moms and SUVs and then reveal that every dandelion seed has a hidden mystical creature in it, and I’m as amazed as the film’s hero. The Spiderwick Chronicles never feels slow, but it is very deliberate in its pacing, and only gradually shows us the hidden magic in the mundane world we all know. Truth be told, the special effects aren’t even that convincing. The trolls and goblins look cool, but they also look very digital. But by the time the epic battle between the movie’s child heroes and the evil Mulgarath finally takes place, the spectacular images involved seem truly spectacular. This is also the first fantasy movie I’ve seen in a long time that didn’t set itself up for a sequel (or trilogy), and it’s the first one in a long time that I kind of wish had. –MSH
Stop-Loss ** 1/2
Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum. Directed by Kimberly Peirce. 113 minutes. Rated R.
Three Army grunts—Brandon (Phillippe), Steve (Tatum), and Tommy (Gordon-Levitt)—are welcomed home as conquering heroes following the completion of their tour of duty in Iraq. Brandon, though ultra-patriotic and super-tough, wants nothing more to do with the military, having seen too many buddies turned into dog chow by IEDs. But too bad: Uncle Sam still wants him, and an obscure contractual sub-clause known as the “stop-loss” measure allows the Army to prolong his hitch indefinitely. Aghast to discover that he’s being shipped right back to the front line, Brandon impulsively goes AWOL, fleeing cross-country with Steve’s pretty fiancée (Cornish) in tow. Peirce does a remarkable job with the early Iraq-set material. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is a tedious morass of generic anti-war platitudes, served up with blind conviction but almost zero insight. –MD
Superhero Movie (Not reviewed)
Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald. Directed by Craig Mazin. 85 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A send-up of superhero films.
There Will Be Blood ****
Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. 158 minutes. Rated R.
The film, which spans the period from 1898-1927, follows the meteoric rise to fortune of a rapacious prospector, Daniel Plainview. Unforgettably embodied by Day-Lewis, Plainview is first seen mining silver in an astonishing wordless prologue that lasts nearly 15 minutes. A few years later, he’s established himself as an oil man, traveling with his adopted son H.W. (Freasier) from one impoverished burg to another. All goes smoothly until Plainview runs up against his equal in greed and hypocrisy, a boy preacher by the name of Eli Sunday (Dano), who uses his influence to blackmail Plainview into supporting his Church of the Third Revelation. The ensuing battle of wills between the forces of capitalism and organized religion could scarcely be uglier. Anderson’s mastery of the medium has never been in doubt, but There Will Be Blood is even more impressive for the comparative restraint he shows here. –MD
Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (Not reviewed)
Angela Bassett, Jenifer Lewis, David Mann. Directed by Tyler Perry. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A single mom takes her family to Georgia for the funeral of her father. There, her clan is introduced to the crass, fun-loving Brown family.
Under the Same Moon ****
Adrian Alonso, Kate del Castillo, Eugenio Derbez. Directed by Patricia Riggen. 109 minutes. Rated PG-13. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Every Sunday morning, Carlitos waits by the same telephone at the same time for the chance to have a five-minute conversation with his mother, Rosario (del Castillo). He begs her to let him leave Mexico and join her illegal-alien stint in Los Angeles, and she adamantly refuses his request, hoping to spare him the treacherous crossing. But when Carlitos’ grandmother and caretaker suddenly dies, he decides to make his way across the border to find his mother. Writer Ligiah Villalobos has succeeded in creating a film that is simultaneously entertaining and thought-provoking. With equal parts comedy and drama, Villalobos keeps viewers on an emotional merry-go-round. The result is a finely balanced tale of a son’s irrepressible love for his mother. –TC
Vantage Point ** 1/2
Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Matthew Fox. Directed by Pete Travis. 90 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Quaid plays a Secret Service agent just returning to duty after taking a bullet for the president (Hurt) during an assassination attempt. He ends up caught in the middle of another assassination attempt, an elaborate and often nonsensical terror plot carried out during a peace summit in Spain. After shots are fired and two bombs go off, the movie is essentially one long chase sequence, but the filmmakers drag it out by employing a useless gimmick that keeps restarting the story from a different character’s perspective. It’s merely a cheap way to create false suspense, and also robs the movie of any chance for meaningful character development, so that we might care whether these people get blown up, or catch the undermotivated bad guys. –JB
The Witnesses ***
Emmanuelle Béart, Sami Bouajila, Johan Libereau, Michel Blanc. Directed by André Téchiné. 112 minutes. Not rated. In French with English subtitles.
Veteran French director Téchiné stages a rambling but often affecting account of the early days of the AIDS epidemic as filtered through a small group of friends and lovers. The shifting focus makes it hard to grab onto one character, although Béart’s narration and strong performance make a convincing case for her Sarah as the film’s anchor. She and her companions rarely do or say anything profound, but by the end of the film you’ve come to care about and identify with them at least a little bit, which is probably worth more than yet another lesson about the costs and consequences of AIDS. –JB
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; TC Tasha Chemplavil; MD Mike D’Angelo; MSH Matthew Scott Hunter; JS Julie Seabaugh; BS Benjamin Spacek