Special screenings
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.
It
Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin. Directed by Clarence G. Badger. 72 minutes. Not rated.
A salesgirl with plenty of sex appeal pursues a handsome playboy. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 4/1, 1 pm, free.
Mitchellville
John D. Harkrider, Herb Lovelle, Michael Voyer. Directed by John D. Harkrider. 83 minutes. Not rated.
In the process of delving into his troubled past, a Wall Street lawyer is haunted by dreams of a corporate conspiracy and seeks redemption by taking flute lessons. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 4/3, 7 pm, free.
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Campbell Scott, Matthew Broderick. Directed by Alan Rudolph. 126 minutes. Rated R.
Dorothy Parker remembers the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table. Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road, 507-3400. 4/1, 7 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.
Samson and Delilah
Broadcast of the San Francisco Opera’s production of Camille Saint-Saens’ classic opera. Rave Town Square, 6587 Las Vegas Blvd. S., 362-7283. 3/29-3/30, 12:30 pm; 3/31-4/1, 7:30 pm, $20.
The Zula Patrol: Animal Adventures in Space
Five never-before-seen episodes of the animated show about the ecological adventures of a team of aliens. Regal Cinemas Santa Fe Station, Village Square, Century Orleans, Sam’s Town. 3/29, 10 am, $7. Info: www.fathomevents.com.
New this week
21 ** 1/2
Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey. Directed by Robert Luketic. 123 minutes. Rated PG-13.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days ***
Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov. Directed by Cristian Mungiu. 113 minutes. Not rated. In Romanian with English subtitles.
Married Life ** 1/2
Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams. Directed by Ira Sachs. 90 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Run Fatboy Run ** 1/2
Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria. Directed by David Schwimmer. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Stop-Loss ** 1/2
Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum. Directed by Kimberly Peirce. 113 minutes. Rated R.
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.
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
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.
The Band’s Visit
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
Be Kind Rewind***
Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover. Directed by Michel Gondry. 101 minutes. Rated PG-13.
There’s a corner video store—Be Kind Rewind—that has never made the transition from VHS to DVD. Jerry (Black), bosom pal of Be Kind employee Mike (Mos Def), absorbs a massive electrical charge one night, and merely upon entering the store the following day, manages to demagnetize the entire inventory. Fearful of losing a slightly batty but valued customer who’s keen to catch up with Ghostbusters, Jerry and Mike proceed to grab a cheap video camera, scrape up some chintzy costumes and produce a 15-minute version starring themselves. Before you can say “yeah right okay sure,” their renditions of everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Rush Hour 2 have the neighborhood lined up around the block. Be Kind Rewind just sorta ambles along, goofy as hell, hoping you’ll be charmed by its absence of flash; only the homemade-movie excerpts are genuinely funny. –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.
Definitely, Maybe **
Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Abigail Breslin. Directed by Adam Brooks. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13.
The film’s strained gimmick is that Will (Reynolds), about to get a divorce from his unseen wife, recounts the story of their romance to his curious daughter, Maya (Breslin), who has somehow gone all of her 10 years of life without ever learning how her parents met or where they lived or what they did before she was born. Will variously seems ready to commit to college sweetheart Emily (Banks); free-spirited writer Summer (Weisz); and cynical co-worker April (Fisher). Since none of them can be knocked out of the running right away, the movie equivocates on each, never tipping the sympathy too far toward one particular object of affection, and the result is three movies’ worth of rom-com clichés stuffed into one. –JB
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
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
Look **
Hayes McArthur, Giuseppe Andrews, Miles Dougal, Spencer Redford. Directed by Adam Rifkin. 98 minutes. Rated R.
Shot entirely from the perspective of surveillance cameras, Rifkin’s Look is a gimmick in search of a purpose. Although the writer-director finds a variety of angles and vantage points from which to document his characters via theoretical Big Brother-style spying devices, only once does he justify this method of shooting by giving it any bearing on the story or the lives of the characters. Instead, we’re left with what is essentially yet another intersecting-characters dramedy, a genre so well-worn, especially in indie film, that the addition of the occasional bit of night vision or videotape degradation certainly can’t make it fresh again. –JB
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
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
Penelope***
Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Catherine O’Hara, Peter Dinklage. Directed by Mark Palansky. 102 minutes. Rated PG.
Her blue-blood family having been struck with an unfortunate curse, the titular heroine (Ricci) was born sporting a prominent snout, one that keeps the well-heeled boys at bay and her mother (O’Hara) in a perpetual state of maternal hysteria. Only once she is loved by “one of her own kind” can Penelope break the curse, regain her proper human schnoz and presumably live happily ever after. Sure, parts are weighed down by earnest cutesiness, but what Penelope is lacking in indie cred it makes up for with its vibrant sets, costumes and special effects. –JS
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
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
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.
Sleepwalking **
Nick Stahl, AnnaSophia Robb, Charlize Theron, Dennis Hopper. Directed by William Maher. 100 minutes. Rated R.
Stahl plays the “sleepwalking” James, a dead-eyed slacker with a dead-end job and a dreary apartment. If only all this dreariness had felt palpable, rather than painted on by a production designer. One day James’ sister Joleen (Theron) disappears, and his 11-year-old niece Tara (Robb) turns up hoping to enlist his help in finding her; she eventually coaxes her uncle to skip town. Their money carries them only as far as James and Joleen’s father’s chilled, dried, wind-blown farm. The old man (Hopper) immediately puts them to work, barking at them and slapping them around when he’s displeased. This all leads up to an all-too-obvious conclusion, and every shot that Maher sets up points inexorably toward it. –JMA
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
Step Up 2 the Streets (Not reviewed)
Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman, Telisha Shaw. Directed by Jon M. Chu. 98 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Romantic sparks occur between two dance students from different backgrounds at the Maryland School of the Arts.
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
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
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
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins *
Martin Lawrence, James Earl Jones, Joy Bryant. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Lawrence stars as the successful host of a sleazy talk show, engaged to a Survivor winner (Bryant). They visit his Southern family, the source for a lot of unsolved childhood anguish. Funny people abound, such as Cedric the Entertainer, Mo’Nique and Mike Epps, but their antics can’t save this lazy, bloated, stupid affair. Writer-director Lee sets up all the typical jokes with no skill or timing, and his attempts at heartfelt drama flop; in fact, his camera seems to have trouble even following any kind of physical movement. This is the type of thing his cousin Spike has railed against for years. –JMA
JMA Jeffrey M. Anderson; JB Josh Bell; TC Tasha Chemplavil; MD Mike D’Angelo; MH Mark Holcomb; MSH Matthew Scott Hunter; JS Julie Seabaugh