Special screenings
African-American Heritage Double Feature
Showing of The Great White Hope and Men of Honor. Sahara West Library, 9600 W. Sahara Ave., 507-3630. 2/11, 1 pm, free.
Apart From That
Kathleen McNearney, Alice Ellingson, Michelle Sheiman. Directed by Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker. 120 minutes. Not rated.
A Native American road-striper, a student beautician, a Vietnamese banker, his adopted American son and an elderly exhibitionist attempt to find their footing in a world of miscommunication, denial and unmet expectations. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 2/7, 7 pm, free.
Dam Short Film Festival
Showcase of over 125 short films from around the world, with special programs devoted to filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames and Jim Blashfield. Plus reception, panel, awards. Boulder Theatre, 1225 Arizona St., Boulder City. 2/7-2/9, various times, $5 per screening. Info: 293-4848 or www.damshortfilm.org.
Good Luck Chuck
Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler. Directed by Mark Helfrich. 96 minutes. Rated R.
In order to keep the woman of his dreams from falling for another guy, Charlie Logan has to break the curse that has made him wildly popular with single women: Sleep with Charlie once, and the next man you meet will be your true love. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 2/9, 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 Postman Always Rings Twice
Lana Turner, John Garfield, Hume Cronyn. Directed by Tay Garnett. 113 minutes. Not rated.
A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband ... but once the deed is done, they must live with the consequences of their actions. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 2/12, 1 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. 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.
Vertigo
James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 129 minutes. Rated PG.
A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her. Whitney Library, 5175 E. Tropicana Ave., 507-4010. 2/10, 11:30 am, free.
The Way I Spent the End of the World
Doroteea Petre, Timotei Duma, Cristian Vararu. Directed by Catalin Mitulescu. 106 minutes. Not rated. In Romanian with English subtitles.
A coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old girl, set in Communist-era Romania. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 2/12, 7 pm, free.
New this week
Fool’s Gold
Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland. Directed by Andy Tennant. 110 minutes. Rated PG-13.
The Hottie and the Nottie (Not reviewed)
Paris Hilton, Joel David Moore, Christine Lakin. Directed by Tom Putnam. 91 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Nate (Moore) moves to LA to track down Cristabel (Hilton), the woman he’s been in love with since childhood, only to discover that his plan to woo her has one hurdle to overcome: What to do with Cristabel’s ever-present, not-so-hot best friend?
Kurt Cobain About a Son ** 1/2
Directed by AJ Schnack. 96 minutes. Not rated.
Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show
Directed by Ari Sandel. 100 minutes. Rated R.
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (Not reviewed)
Martin Lawrence, James Earl Jones, Joy Bryant. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A successful talk show host leaves Los Angeles to reunite with his family in the Deep South.
Now playing
27 Dresses ***
Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Edward Burns. Directed by Anne Fletcher. 107 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Romantic comedies don’t come much more by-the-numbers than 27 Dresses. It begins and ends with a wedding, the inevitable lovers initially hate each other in order to have sexual tension, and, by the end, all conflicts and rivalries are resolved without a single sore feeling. But this story of the eternal bridesmaid finally getting her day begins to grow on you, courtesy of Heigl’s effortless charm. Her chemistry with Marsden is intoxicating enough that we don’t see some of the requisite reversals and temporary heartaches coming. –MSH
Alvin and the Chipmunks (Not reviewed)
Jason Lee, voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney. Directed by Tim Hill. 91 minutes. Rated PG.
Three chipmunk brothers are adopted by a man named Dave (Lee) and turned into singing sensations.
American Gangster *** 1/2
Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin. Directed by Ridley Scott. 157 minutes. Rated R.
Gangster switches back and forth between 1970s Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas’ (Washington) empire-building and New Jersey narcotics cop Richie Roberts’ efforts to take him down. It’s a sweeping period epic, based on a true story, and Washington and Crowe (as Roberts) bring the requisite heft to lift the film to grand heights. Beginning with the death of Lucas’ mentor, the previous drug lord of Harlem, Scott meticulously charts the former bodyguard’s rise to prominence. With the pieces in place, Scott moves them expertly toward their inevitable collision; when Washington and Crowe finally share a scene toward the end of the film, it’s well worth the wait. –JB
Atonement ***
Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai. Directed by Joe Wright. 122 minutes. Rated R.
Atonement is best in its first third or so, which focuses on a tense day at the English country estate of the Tallis family on the eve of the Second World War. Precocious and self-important 13-year-old budding writer Briony (Ronan) witnesses a series of incidents between her older sister Cecilia (Knightley) and Robbie Turner (McAvoy), the son of the family’s housekeeper. Misinterpreting the pair’s budding love as something more sinister, Briony, through a series of tragic coincidences, ends up condemning Robbie to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. When the film switches perspectives and time frames to focus on Robbie, now a soldier in the war a few years later, it’s less effective. Filmmaking skill aside, Wright never quite connects the emotion of the story to his awe-inspiring presentation of it, and that leaves the film beautiful but always just out of reach. –JB
August Rush **
Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Directed by Kirsten Sheridan. 114 minutes. Rated PG.
Cute musical prodigy Evan (Highmore) is a sad orphan who runs away from his seemingly innocuous group home to search for his parents. Following the music of his soul (or something like that), he heads to NYC, where he’s picked up by a Dickensian mentor/corruptor called Wizard (Williams, disturbingly pierced and soul-patched), absorbed into a photogenically diverse group of street-musician moppets and rechristened August Rush. Sheridan lacks the sense of whimsy necessary to carry off so many illogical plot developments, and the leaden script is full of empty romantic pronouncements that sound neither believable nor wondrous. –JB
Bee Movie ** 1/2
Voices of Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Matthew Broderick. Directed by Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith. 90 minutes. Rated PG.
Disaffected honeybee Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld) is unwilling to commit himself to a regimented life of honey production and eager to experience life beyond the hive. So Barry ventures into the human world, where he breaks the bee law against communicating with people and strikes up a friendship with florist Vanessa (Zellweger). There are a few funny lines here and there, and the bee society is sometimes creative and clever. But the film is mostly a collection of tired celebrity voice cameos and stale Seinfeld riffs repackaged to relate to the bee world. –JB
Beowulf ****
Voices of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Crispin Glover. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 113 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have taken an ancient narrative that was as base as “monster shows up, hero kills monster, repeat,” and with a little creative license, have crafted an epic tale that functions as an ode to mythological hubris. The story now has ironies that any modern audience can appreciate and snappy one-liners worthy of any action-packed popcorn movie. The motion-capture technique has preserved all of the subtle, human nuances in the performances that might have been overlooked in a drawn-from-scratch approach, and as a result, it’s easy to forget that you’re watching a cartoon. But action is the main attraction, and Beowulf is relentlessly brutal in this regard. –MSH
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
Cassandra’s Dream ****
Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor, Tom Wilkinson. Directed by Woody Allen. 108 minutes. Rated PG-13.
McGregor and Farrell are both superb as working-class London brothers; their mother regularly glorifies her wealthy brother and criticizes their struggling father. When they approach their uncle (Wilkinson) for cash, he asks a favor in return: knock off a business associate who plans to testify against him. Cassandra’s Dream is a surprisingly solid, expertly constructed crime drama. –JMA
Charlie Wilson’s War *** 1/2
Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Julia Roberts. Directed by Mike Nichols. 97 minutes. Rated R.
Hanks puts his enormous charm to use as the seemingly oblivious politician who latched onto the conflict between the Russians and the Afghans in the 1980s and made it into his personal crusade, increasing funding for covert operations and, as the movie would have it, becoming almost single-handedly responsible for repelling the Russians from Afghanistan. This, apparently, is what has been missing from all of this year’s movies about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East: humor. It seems like a simple thing, but the reason that Charlie Wilson’s War is just about the only one of these films worth seeing is that it actually cares about entertaining its audience, about giving them something to laugh at and have fun with before hitting them over the head with how bad things are. –JB
Cloverfield *** 1/2
Michael Stahl-David, Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller. Directed by Matt Reeves. 84 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A group of Manhattan twentysomethings throw a going-away party for their friend Rob (Stahl-David), about to take a new job in Japan. The mundane relationship dramas among Rob and his buddies are all documented by the appealingly goofy Hud (Miller), who for the bulk of the movie wields the handheld camera that provides the viewer’s only perspective. For 15 minutes or so, we’re watching what look like everyday home movies, and then something happens: A giant monster attacks Manhattan, and all hell breaks loose. What makes Cloverfield stand out from a Roland Emmerich movie is that it eliminates almost all of the big-picture storytelling (the politicians, the military, the scientists) and keeps its focus solely at ground level, on the average people whose lives are forever changed by this inexplicable and horrific event. –JB
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ***
Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze. Directed by Julian Schnabel. 112 minutes. Rated PG-13. In French with English subtitles.
Schnabel’s biopic is about Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former editor of France’s Elle magazine. In his early 40s, Bauby suffered a severe stroke that left him entirely paralyzed aside from his left eye, which he used to write an acclaimed memoir by blinking words out one letter at a time thanks to a code devised by his speech therapist. Although the instinct to canonize his subject must have been strong, Schnabel concentrates mostly on atmosphere over melodrama, and thus ends up with a movie that is creative and often touching, if a little thin beyond its stylistic departures. –JB
Enchanted *** 1/2
Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden. Directed by Kevin Lima. 107 minutes. Rated PG.
Adams plays Giselle, an animated Disney girl hoping to marry a prince. The cartoon Prince Edward (Marsden) rescues Giselle, and they fall in love. But Edward’s stepmother, a bitter, evil queen, throws Giselle down a well that leads to live-action, modern New York City. Divorce lawyer and single dad Robert (Dempsey) finds her and reluctantly lets her stay on his couch. Although Enchanted doesn’t fully take advantage of its unique idea, it’s still a hugely entertaining, clever comic fairy tale. –JMA
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.
First Sunday (Not reviewed)
Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Katt Williams. Directed by David E. Talbert. 96 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Durell (Cube) and LeeJohn (Morgan) are best friends and petty criminals. When told they have one week to pay a $17,000 debt or Durell will lose his son, they come up with a desperate scheme to rob their neighborhood church.
The Great Debaters **
Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker. Directed by Denzel Washington. 123 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Washington plays teacher Mel Tolson in the inspired-by-real-events story of a 1935 college debate team struggling to fight through racism in the Deep South in order to tackle the Ivy League. As both director and star, Washington walks us through the inspirational-teacher playbook. This is the kind of movie where all white characters are either corrupt lawmen or gun-toting, redneck pig farmers. There are good points to be made with this story, but as any good debater knows, constantly resorting to hyperbole only undermines your argument. –MSH
Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert (Not reviewed)
Directed by Bruce Hendricks. 74 minutes. Not rated.
Concert film from the recent Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus tour, presented in 3D.
How She Move **
Rutina Wesley, Dwain Murphy, Tre Armstrong. Directed by Ian Iqbal Rashid. 91 minutes. Rated PG-13.
After a sibling’s death, a teenager uses supreme stepping skills to win a dance competition. In an effort to escape her crime-ridden neighborhood, Raya (Wesley) joins up with a local all-male step group hoping to become the first coed team to win the ultimate step contest, Stepmonster. Unfortunately, Raya bulldozes over the people who try to help her, quickly losing any sympathy she may have garnered from her unlucky circumstances. Since the stale story is secondary to the stepping, How She Move would have benefited from forgoing the fiction altogether in favor of a documentary about the steposphere. –TC
I Am Legend **
Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan. Directed by Francis Lawrence. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A few years after an “elegant” man-made virus has wiped out most of the world’s human population, Robert Neville (Smith), a military microbiologist stationed in Manhattan and the city’s last healthy biped inhabitant, scavenges the island for supplies in the company of his German shepherd. Battling loneliness, he also conducts experiments to reverse the effects of the disease on “dark-seekers”—physically ravaged, vampire-like victims of the disease who huddle in cavernous hovels during the day and feed by night. The introduction of a pair of healthy, itinerant survivors (Braga and Tahan) midway through is the final straw, and from there the movie lumbers toward a hasty, predictable conclusion that even manages to mangle the meaning of Matheson’s lovely title. –MH
Juno *** 1/2
Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner. Directed by Jason Reitman. 92 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Pregnant high-school student Juno (Page) is a sullen indie-rock chick who sleeps with her best friend/bandmate Bleeker (Cera) because she’s “bored,” listens exclusively to punk rock made before she was born and peppers her speech with self-consciously artificial language that proves how much smarter she is than just about everyone she interacts with. Reitman continues to show his aptitude for sharp comedy in the face of situations that most people would find appalling, and he brings the at-times overly mannered screenplay to life in a visually inventive way, downplaying the preciousness that could make it come off like a riot-grrrl version of a Wes Anderson movie. –JB
The Kite Runner ***
Khalid Abdalla, Zekeria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, Homayoun Ershadi. Directed by Marc Forster. 122 minutes. Rated PG-13.
At the heart of the movie are the natural and moving performances of the two boys, Ebrahimi as Amir and Mahmidzada as the sad but loyal servant Hassan. Although from different social classes, they are inseparable, enjoying dubbed American Westerns at the theater and flying kites in the streets of Kabul. These early sequences provide a vibrant portrait of the culture of late-’70s Afghanistan, until Hassan chases a fallen kite down the wrong alleyway one day. Soon after, the Soviets invade. Forster’s direction is sincere but still manipulative, as the picture’s structure is mostly an alternating series of inspirations and catastrophes. –BS
Mad Money ***
Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes. Directed by Callie Khouri. 104 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Our band of thieves includes Keaton as a woman who just wants to preserve her quality of life; Latifah as a single mother who just wants to provide for her two children; and Holmes as a spunky and sweet girl who joins the thieving duo just because she’s tickled to be included. They’re not even stealing money that anyone would suffer to lose. They’re taking worn-out cash scheduled to be shredded. The heists are clever enough to make us forgive their implausibility, and the significant others of these lady thieves offer touching support and hilarious one-liners. Mad Money’s no classic, but you won’t mind giving the price of a ticket to these lighthearted hoodlums. –MSH
Meet the Spartans (Not reviewed)
Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra, Ken Davitian. Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. 84 minutes. Rated PG-13.
The creators of Date Movie and Epic Movie parody the latest blockbusters.
Michael Clayton *** 1/2
George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton. Directed by Tony Gilroy. 119 minutes. Rated R.
Michael Clayton (Clooney) works at a high-powered Manhattan law firm where he is the in-house “fixer,” the man who makes nasty problems go away. The film finds Clayton trying to clean up the mess caused by his friend and mentor, Arthur Edens (Wilkinson), after Edens suffers a nervous breakdown in the middle of a deposition for a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. The movie proceeds so smoothly and efficiently that at times it seems almost mechanical, and the sequences that fill in Clayton’s back story feel a bit incomplete. But Clooney fills in the emotional blanks with his alternately steely and haggard performance, making Clayton more than just a piece in a puzzle. –JB
The Mist *** 1/2
Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden. Directed by Frank Darabont. 127 minutes. Rated R.
After a particularly bad storm in a small New England town, a mysterious mist rolls in, trapping a group of ordinary folks in a grocery store. The mist is pervasive and dangerous, full as it appears to be of malicious insect-like creatures. Hero David Drayton (Jane) tries to rally the townspeople and come up with a plan of survival, while doomsaying religious nutbag Mrs. Carmody (Harden) preaches that the end of days has arrived, and calls for human sacrifice. The film’s commentary on religious fundamentalism is sloppy, but its ability to build tension is much more effective, with Darabont making good use of the mist to show only the most disturbing bits of the creatures outside. –JB
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.
No Country for Old Men ****
Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. 122 minutes. Rated R.
While hunting in the West Texas mountains, Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a hard-luck but humane Vietnam War vet, stumbles across a botched heavyweight drug deal and impulsively makes off with a $2 million cache of very dirty money. When a delayed bout of guilt inadvertently tips off his identity to the thugs involved, Moss becomes the quarry of ultraefficient psychopathic hit man Anton Chigurh (Bardem) and kind-hearted but demoralized small-town sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Jones). In a return to the bleak physical setting and hair-trigger brutality of 1984’s Blood Simple, the brothers Coen pull out of their multi-film slump and then some with this violent, pitch-black adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 chase thriller. –MH
One Missed Call (Not reviewed)
Edward Burns, Shannyn Sossamon, Ana Claudia Talancon. Directed by Eric Valette. 87 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves—messages which include the date, time and some of the details of their deaths.
The Orphanage ** 1/2
Belen Rueda, Roger Princep, Fernando Cayo. Directed by J.A. Bayona. 100 minutes. Rated R. In Spanish with English subtitles.
The Orphanage concerns a fiercely protective mother (Rueda) whose child, an adopted, HIV-positive boy named Simon (Princep), goes mysteriously missing. Mom Laura insists that Simon is alive even after everyone else has given up. She believes that some sort of spirits are haunting the former orphanage where she herself grew up, which is now her family’s home. And spirits are haunting the sprawling mansion’s many hallways and hidden passages, of course, although it takes Bayona a damn long time to get to them, and his digressions along the way are often soporific. Bayona throws in lots of slow creaks and clangs, the art-house-horror equivalent of the jump moment, but none of them can rouse the movie from its terminal emotional torpor. –JB
Over Her Dead Body **
Paul Rudd, Eva Longoria Parker, Lake Bell. Directed by Jeff Lowell. 95 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Kate (Parker) is one bossy bride. She harangues the caterers, yells at her future sister-in-law and even rejects her angel ice sculpture due to its lack of wings. But five minutes into Over Her Dead Body, that same wingless angel crushes Kate. Even the groom (Rudd) appreciates the irony. One year later, Rudd’s Henry meets psychic/caterer Ashley (Bell), and so they start their utterly predictable romance. But Kate, who’s now a ghost, thinks keeping Henry and Ashley apart is her key to escaping the waiting room to the afterlife. What follows is a series of events in which Kate tries to scare, annoy and intimidate Ashley into dumping Henry while simultaneously attempting to make viewers laugh. Alas, neither task is accomplished. –TC
Passage to Zarahemla (Not reviewed)
Summer Naomi Smart, Moronai Kanekoa, Brian Kary. Directed by Chris Heimerdinger. Rated PG-13.
Suddenly orphaned, Kerry and Brock flee to a long-lost relative’s farm, where parallel realities—ancient and modern—mysteriously collide.
Persepolis ****
Voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux. Directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. 95 minutes. Rated PG-13. In French with English subtitles.
At age 9, Marjane Satrapi saw her entire world changed when the Islamic Revolution hit Tehran. Women were forced to wear the veil, and people were being imprisoned and executed. In private, Marjane listens to her educated parents and their opinions on the war and its outcome. It fuels her imagination, and she seeks her own types of freedom, including bootleg cassettes of Iron Maiden. As a teenager, she travels to Austria but can’t make a home for herself there. Paired with co-director Paronnaud, Satrapi has turned her graphic novel into a powerful animated feature. Though the film leaves out the subtle and complex political nuances of the book in favor of speed and brevity, it’s also a good deal livelier and funnier. –JMA
The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (Not reviewed)
Voices of Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki, Cam Clarke. Directed by Mike Nawrocki. 85 minutes. Rated G.
Elliot, Sedgewick and George are vegetable friends who work as busboys at Pirate Times Dinner Theater. They would like to be stars of the show, but their character flaws keep them from being in the limelight.
P.S. I Love You (Not reviewed)
Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow. Directed by Richard LaGravenese. 126 minutes. Rated PG-13.
A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help her ease her pain and start a new life.
Rambo **
Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden. Directed by Sylvester Stallone. 93 minutes. Rated R.
Rambo (Stallone) has been living in Thailand for some time, world-weary and cynical, catching snakes and piloting a longboat up the Salween River for a living. American missionaries approach him for a ride into Burma, a deadly war zone, so that they can hand out Bibles and encouraging words. Not surprisingly, their chosen village is attacked, and they are captured. So a band of scurvy, tattooed mercenaries join Rambo on a rescue mission that lasts the entire second half of the film and results in mighty amounts of carnage. Stallone plays Rambo with very little dialogue, which is good, because whenever anyone speaks, it’s cringe-worthy. Rambo really doesn’t bother to ask where this relic of a character fits today. –JMA
The Savages ***
Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco. Directed by Tamara Jenkins. 113 minutes. Rated R.
Forty-ish Jon (Hoffman, really working the schlump), a college professor specializing in Brecht, and Wendy (Linney, surprisingly manic), a failed playwright subsisting on temp work, must put aside decades of interpersonal rancor in order to tend to their ailing father, Lenny (Bosco), whom they both resent for having been a distant and demanding figure throughout their motherless childhood. Black humor abounds, but the prevailing mood is one of defeat and frustration, especially since both of these adult children are struggling at work and hopelessly entangled in failed relationships. What keeps you from wanting to slit your wrists is the typically nuanced work of Linney and Hoffman, both of whom mine coarse nuggets of emotional truth from the sediment created by years of buried discontent. –MD
Strange Wilderness (Not reviewed)
Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, Jonah Hill. Directed by Fred Wolf. 87 minutes. Rated R.
With the ratings dropping for a wilderness-themed TV show, the hosts go to the Andes in search of Bigfoot.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street *** 1/2
Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman. Directed by Tim Burton. 117 minutes. Rated R.
Demented barber slits the throats of his customers, who are then ground up and baked into meat pies by his equally amoral accomplice, Mrs. Lovett. Sweeney Todd is the alias of a man named Benjamin Barker, who was falsely imprisoned by a corrupt judge with designs on Barker’s lovely wife. Freed from prison some 15 years later, Barker/Todd returns to London seeking revenge, only to be informed by Mrs. Lovett, whose mingy bakery is just downstairs from his former home, that his wife is long dead and his daughter is now the judge’s ward. The film veers back and forth between intimacy and extravagance, and the juxtaposition of Sondheim’s lyrical melodies and intricate wordplay with Burton’s great geysers of arterial blood—this is decidedly not a film for the squeamish—produces a delectable cognitive dissonance. –MD
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
U2 3D (Not reviewed)
Directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington. 85 minutes. Rated G.
Concert film of U2 performances from their most recent tour, in 3D.
Untraceable * 1/2
Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks. Directed by Gregory Hoblit. 100 minutes. Rated R.
Following pretty much every cliché known to the serial-killer genre, Untraceable has its particular psychopath broadcasting his grisly killings online, with the speed at which his victims die determined by how many sickos (just like the people who watch this movie!) log on to his website. Although Hoblit has made his share of passable-to-more-than-passable thrillers, here he and his three screenwriters generate essentially no suspense, showing us the killer early on and then having Lane’s FBI agent solve the whole case in one rushed, exposition-heavy scene. Instead of genuine tension, we get cheap gross-outs ripped off from movies like Hostel, making Untraceable into torture porn for housewives. –JB
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Not reviewed)
Alex Etel, Ben Chaplin, Emily Watson. Directed by Jay Russell. 111 minutes. Rated PG.
A lonely boy discovers a mysterious egg that hatches a sea creature of Scottish legend.
Weirdsville **
Wes Bentley, Scott Speedman, Taryn Manning. Directed by Allan Moyle. 90 minutes. Rated R.
Speedman and Bentley play burnout best friends Dexter and Royce with affable chemistry, but almost from the start the movie puts them in situations that are serious bummers, starting with the overdose and apparent death of their friend Matilda (Manning), a fellow junkie also known to turn a few tricks. Matilda turns out to be only slightly dead, but Dexter and Royce’s efforts to cover up her overdose and pay off a debt to a local drug dealer lead to a long night of twists and turns. It all sounds wacky and sufficiently amusing, but writer Willem Wennekers throws elements around haphazardly, and he and director Moyle switch tones so frequently that it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cringe. –JB
Youth Without Youth *** 1/2
Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 124 minutes. Rated R.
Roth stars as Dominic Matei, an aged scholar circa 1938, who has devoted his life to learning the origins of language. He decides to kill himself, but is instead struck by lightning. This somehow restores his body to that of a 40-year-old man, including a new set of teeth! He often speaks to a doppelganger, a mirror image of himself that dispenses advice. But he also discovers that he has supernatural powers, such as the facility to read, write and understand multiple languages, and to absorb an entire book in seconds. In some ways, the film is unremarkable, but in other ways, it’s far too astonishing and complex to be easily dismissed. –JMA
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; TC Tasha Chemplavil; MD Mike D’Angelo; MH Mark Holcomb; MSH Matthew Scott Hunter; BS Benjamin Spacek