|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
November 21-27, 2002 movie shorts NewDIE ANOTHER DAY See Cindy Fuchs’ review on p. 49. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Ritz 16; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Main St.) THE EMPEROR’S CLUB It’s a peculiarity of Hollywood cliches that education is only a fit subject when it concerns the very privileged or the very not. The Emperor’s Club falls into the former category, set at a prestigious boarding school (transparently modeled after Philips Exeter, right down to the motto) and focusing on the conflict between beloved teacher Kevin Kline and problem child Emile Hirsch. Hirsch, the spoiled child of a U.S. senator, has intelligence but no character -- “character” is a word that gets used a lot here -- which we find when the class reunites in the movie’s ungainly closing third, when we come out of what’s apparently been only a long flashback. Replacing actors we’ve been watching for more than an hour is a risky (and, really, foolhardy) move -- the grownups don’t look a thing like their young counterparts, and the restaging of the school’s “Mr. Julius Caesar” says less about character than it does about daffy prep-school traditions.--Sam Adams (Bala; Ritz Five; Ritz 16) FRIDAY AFTER NEXT “I look at myself and the movies I do as a brand,” Ice Cube tells Variety. No doubt, he works hard for the money, but this subset of the brand is particularly weak. Just in time for “Christmas in the hood” (and the “ho, ho, ho” joke is too obvious and unfunny), first-time director Marcus Raboy has Craig and Day-Day (Cube and Mike Epps) start new jobs as rent-a-cops down at the mall. They’re short on rent money, this time out because they’ve been robbed by a raggedy Santa in orange sneakers. Conveniently, Craig’s Willie (John Witherspoon) and Elroy (Don “D.C.” Curry) also work down at the mall, in their new BBQ joint. And on this Friday, they do what they always do: complain about their money situation, run from thugs, call each other names, smoke weed, flirt with a pretty girl, tangle with church ladies and fear the Tiny Lister stand-in (here, Terry Crews as a lunky ex-con with a hankering for sex with short men, say, a mini-pimp played by Katt Williams). And they end up throwing a party, where Clifton Powell brings girls and Witherspoon has bowel issues. In other words, nothing’s changed, except maybe that you’ve seen this before, twice, and Chris Tucker has moved on to more lucrative jokes.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Main St.) INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN See Sam Adams’ review (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)
8 MILE If there is raw ambition and desire in 8 Mile, most of it is in the syncopated blasts of “Lose Yourself,” Eminem’s advance-released single from the film’s soundtrack. The movie shows only how Rabbit, an aspiring rapper whose character is modeled after Eminem, arrives at a point where the passion starts to brew. Director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) gives us the semi-glossy, semi-gritty life of a clan of young adults in 1995 Detroit. Rabbit is the group’s quietest member, revered for his lyrical skills but mocked for his “hot” mother (Kim Basinger). Frustrated and ambivalent, Rabbit can’t seem to find a way to show off his talents. In steps Mekhi Phifer, with astoundingly phony dreadlocks, plays Future, who hosts a weekly MC battle at a downtown club and urges Rabbit to freestyle. It’s a credit to Eminem that he can play a role close to home and make us forget, if only occasionally, that he is Eminem. Most of the time, Rabbit looks more fragile than angry: The bleached blond hair has been replaced with a buzzcut and even when he gets physically violent, there is a boyish look of fear in Rabbit’s eyes. There’s also a discomfiting sense that 8 Mile is some kind of apologia for Eminem the pop star. Amid his friends, Rabbit is the center of wisdom and calm. In one scene we find Rabbit rapping about the difference between “faggots” and “gays”; what he objects to is cowardice, not homosexuality. Too often, he is portrayed as an innocent victimized by his mother, by poverty and by his own fear. What Hanson seems to forget is that Eminem is a compelling persona precisely because of his conflicts and contradictions. Rabbit’s onstage antics have all the self-deprecating humor and wordplay of his real-life prototype. Only here do we understand how an art form can both inspire these characters and provide them with needed escape. But it also raises the deep suspicion that Eminem’s life might be best told through his own songs.--Elisa Ludwig (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bridge; Bryn Mawr; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview) Barbershop As The Girl in Barbershop, Philadelphia’s own E-V-E shows again that she plays very well with boys. In her first extended film role (that is, more than the few lines she had in XXX), she holds her own on screen with some very charismatic actors, including Ice Cube, Sean Patrick Thomas, Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Michael Ealy and Keith David. The film, directed by Tim Story, has the sort of charm and easy pacing of one of Cube’s Friday films -- the characters, most of whom work in Cube’s Chicago barbershop, share experiences and jokes (with Cedric, unsurprisingly, generating most laughs). The plot is basic, though more strained than it needs to be, with Cube selling the shop (in his family for over 40 years) to gangster David in the morning, then endeavoring to reverse the decision over the rest of the day, and Anderson and his partner Lahmard Tate wrestling, quite literally, with an ATM they’ve stolen, transporting it from place to place in hopes of getting access to its hidden riches. Cube comes to realize the importance of the shop as community gathering place. And everyone learns a useful lesson.--C.F. (UA Cheltenham)
If watching Bloody Sunday isn’t like reliving the events in question -- and it would be foolish to pretend that it could be -- it’s still as visceral an experience as you’re likely to get from a fictional film. Shot in jagged, hand-held style, the film recreates the events of Jan. 30, 1972, when British troops fired into a crowd of civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13. Writer/director Paul Greengrass, working from Don Mullan’s non-fiction account, leaves some questions open, like the matter of which side fired the first shot, and clearly depicts angry Catholic youths firing (albeit ineffectually) at British troops. But there’s no ambiguity as to the deaths involved, the one-sidedness, or the fact that the victims were unarmed civilians. Greengrass’ approach means those unfamiliar with the tragedy (or who only know the song) won’t be able to pick out most of the characters, although James Nesbitt makes a strong impression as Ivan Cooper, the pacifist politician who orchestrated what was supposed to be a peaceful civil rights protest against the odious practice of “internment without trial.” But you don’t need to develop sentimental attachments to understand the horror of what’s going on -- Bloody Sunday makes you feel every bit.--S.A. (Bryn Mawr)
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Michael Moore, even if, or especially if, you agree with his politics. Moore specializes in political theater, but his record on follow-up isn’t great, to say nothing of his willingness to trim the truth to fit an easy argument. That’s what makes Bowling for Columbine such a surprise: it’s not afraid to ask questions it doesn’t know the answers to. Calling it disorganized or inconclusive misses the point; Moore has deliberately taken on a subject -- the American propensity for violence -- that can’t be explained, just to see how close to the impossible he can get. Ranging all over the place, both physically and thematically, Bowling begins, of course, with our fondness for guns, but Moore, an NRA member and former child marksman, pushes past that answer; Canada, he points out, has more guns per household, although nothing remotely approaching our gun deaths. Moore points fingers at retailers who offer cut-rate ammunition, at racial and economic disparities, and at a media that makes it seem like we’re more violent than we actually are. He goes to Columbine, and to Littleton, interviewing people from Marilyn Manson to South Park’s Matt Stone -- who, with his account of growing up bullied in Colorado, emerges as the movie’s voice of reason -- to NRA President Charlton Heston, who blames the U.S.’s rate of violence on “ethnic mixing.” Bowling is a sprawl, it’s true, but it’s ambitious, not confused.--S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse)
With hip-hop as its primary metaphor, history and setting, this romantic comedy gets over on its standard plot: Sanaa Lathan, newly hired NY editor for XXL must discover and declare her love for her childhood friend, Taye Diggs, now a producer at a commercial label, even as they both become entangled in other relationships. That is, he marries upper-crusty Nicole Ari Parker, and she thinks about marrying basketball star Boris Kodjoe. Supporting plots include Diggs’ signing of cab driver/ MC Mos Def, and Lathan’s friendship with Queen Latifah. Lathan also provides ongoing narration of her efforts to reconcile her love for the ideals of hip-hop and its commercial imperatives, often crass: the example here is a duo called the Hip-Hop Dalmatians (Erik Weiner and Reggi Wyns), complete with spotted fur jackets, who cover McCartney and MJ’s “The Girl is Mine” as “The Ho is Mine.” Jokes aside, the film is earnest about its dedications -- to hip-hop and, happily, to strong women overcoming familiar plot set-ups. --C.F. (Cinemagic; UA Riverview) COMEDIAN Christian Charles’ documentary purports to document Jerry Seinfeld’s return to standup, following his decision to walk away from the most popular sitcom in television history. Charles and producer Gary Streiner followed Seinfeld (also credited as a producer) around for more than a year, as well as another, supposedly up-and-coming comedian repped by Seinfeld’s agent George Shapiro, Orny Adams. That Adams comes off as unkind and self-involved, and Seinfeld as humble and hardworking hardly seems a coincidence, but maybe it’s just “real life.” Jerry’s efforts to develop a solid 50 minutes of material don’t seem so strenuous, but he does spend some time in front of the camera not speaking, pondering. He brings the (pregnant) wife and kid on the comeback tour, to clubs in New York, New Jersey, California and Ohio, ending with the big-deal, new-suited appearance on Letterman. He spends time in the clubs chatting comedic strategies with buddies Colin Quinn, Chris Rock, Ray Romano and Gary Shandling, and meets with role models Robert Klein and Bill Cosby (to whom he is especially deferential, as well he should be: the man does two sets of 2 hours and 20 minutes each, in his 60s). The movie doesn’t document Seinfeld’s return or even his ways of working, so much as it offers glimpses of same. Its 81 minutes of muddy-looking digital tape are culled from some 600 hours, and the sketchy shape seems a function of the necessary major lopping. --C.F. (Bryn Mawr; Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)
Todd Haynes’ magnificently obsessed version of a Douglas Sirk melodrama introduces Cathy (a blond, peppy Julianne Moore), the perfect suburban wife and hostess, with two children, a black maid (Viola Davis) and a hard-working husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid). But all is not well in the Magnatech household. Frank slips out of work one night, to a dimly lit underground bar. In a real ’50s melodrama, this is as far (farther, even) than we’d go: Audiences of the time wouldn’t have missed the implication that Frank was drifting into a life of sexual perversion, and he’d end up either dead or doomed by the final reel. But Haynes twists the genre against itself -- Frank’s plight is portrayed as it would have been at the time, but we’re understanding, not clucking our tongues. The resurgence of the passion Frank thought he’d quelled is hardest on Cathy, who turns to her gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) for help. Trouble is, Raymond is black, and in 1950s Hartford, their relationship is more than unseemly; as her marriage to Frank grows worse and eventually dissolves, Cathy’s relationship to Raymond grows deeper, more emotionally intimate (although the two hardly even touch). Unlike traditional melodrama characters, though, Cathy isn’t brought low because of her faults, but because of her strengths. However frowned upon for her relationship with Raymond, Cathy never actually cheats on her husband, even after she knows he’s cheated on her. When Frank unburdens himself to Cathy, draped almost completely in the shadows of their split-level living room, Quaid’s voice reaches an anguished pitch, but his body remains almost perfectly erect, as if he’s so trapped by the codes of masculine behavior he can’t draw breath. Far from Heaven is a stylistic marvel: though it’s still a little more impressive than impassioned, the sophistication with which Haynes has intermingled the modern and postmodern is awe-inspiring.--S.A. (Bala; Ritz Five; Ritz 16) FEMME FATALE Brian De Palma is doing to himself what he used to do to Hitchcock, which is to say Femme Fatale is to Dressed to Kill as Dressed to Kill is to Vertigo. Somewhere in the generations, the image has gotten blurred, because I’d rather sit through Snake Eyes again than even think about De Palma’s latest, a sleazy, leering metathriller whose thrills are too common to enjoy and too cheap to last. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, whose idea of acting the tough girl is dropping her “g”s, plays a jewel thief who double-crosses her fellow heisters, then hides out for seven years, when, with the help of a nosey papparazo (Antonio Banderas), her past starts to catch up with her. The film begins with a bravura heist sequence set during the Cannes Film Festival -- oh, the self-referentiality of it all! -- but De Palma pushes the audience away at the same time he reels them in. (Ryuichi Sakamoto’s absurdly lush score is a prime offender.) Romijn-Stamos’ role, that of a chameleon who switches accents and personalities like changing her socks, would be a stretch for a real actress, not that De Palma’s even shown any interest in working with them -- this is, after all, a man who used Melanie Griffith more than once. The film loops back on itself and plays endless tricks, but De Palma seems to have lost any feel for connecting with an audience, or even the desire to do so. It’s about as exciting as watching someone else jerk off, unless you like that sort of thing, in which case it’s not.--S.A. (AMC Andorra; UA Riverview) FRIDA The innovative melding of art and biography grants Taymor’s film -- written by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas, and based on a biography by Hayden Herrera -- an uncanny and welcome grace. Certainly, some moments reflect the reasons for making the movie to begin with: the rich textures of the artist’s experience, the grand scope of the legend that has since grown up around Frida Kahlo. They don’t come often enough, so that the film lapses into mundane biopic structure. But when they do come, they suggest something of the artist’s brilliance, as well as her struggles with perpetual, various pain. It’s well known that Frida (played by Salma Hayek, who spent some eight years pulling this project together) suffered mightily and throughout her life, emotionally, spiritually and physically: a 1925 trolley wreck breaks her back and leaves her in a body cast for years. This pain became the primary source of her art (her many self-portraits are her most famous legacy) as well as a dreadful, inevitable focus. Throughout Frida’s recovery, her photographer father (Roger Rees) dotes on her, while her mother (Patricia Reyes Spíndola) frets that her chance for proper marriage is over. This standard parental divide more or less sets up Frida’s lifelong investment in genderfuck: She rejects expectations that girls should stay home and cook, throwing herself into her painting and politics (she and her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) were dedicated Communists) with bracing enthusiasm. When Diego asks her to marry him (admiring that she is “a woman with cajones”), she articulates these principles and so, the film’s thematic focus: If Diego, 21 years her senior, cannot promise fidelity, he must be loyal. He agrees, they wed, serial disasters ensue.--C.F. (Bala; Ritz East; Ritz 16) GHOST SHIP Directed with speed but no energy, Ghost Ship efficiently cranks up the tension for a while, but the energy is released without event. It helps to know that director Steve Beck’s only previous credit is the William Castle remake Thir13en Ghosts, since this one’s similarly shameless about milking the shocks. Gabriel Byrne (who hasn’t been an even half-decent movie in how long?) plays the captain of a tugboat full of sea-beaten salvagers who happen upon a rusted ocean liner that’s been missing for 40 years. (No guessing how the passengers perished; that’s revealed in a too-clever-by-half opening sequence.) Wouldn’t you know it, the darn boat seems to have this nasty habit of killing people, and so it does in increasingly gruesome ways. Borrowing heavily from The Shining (the little girl ghost is a dead ringer for those creepy kids) and going so far as to rip off The Lost Boys, Ghost Ship is most notable for reuniting ER’s Carol (Julianna Margulies) and Shep (Ron Eldard). Really, there’s nothing else. -- S.A. (UA Riverview) HALF PAST DEAD The latest entry into the Steven-Seagal-with-rap-costar mini-genre pairs the born-again Buddha with two: Ja Rule (as a version of his hip-hop persona -- adorable, bighearted thug) and Kurupt (as skinny-funny third guy). Set in a sort-of future, the film places Ja and Seagal as prisoners in the newly reopened, Oz-ified Alcatraz (Seagal is not really an inmate, but an undercover fed). Morris Chestnut breaks in to the prison with a super-SWAT-type team, planning to force “dead man walking” Bruce Weitz to confess the location of $200 million in gold. But Don Michael Paul’s debut feature piles on much rain and lightning, Matrix-y costumes, time-lapsing zap-pans and all varieties of shooting: two-fisted, from mid-air, faux-video-gaming. My favorite fight pits Seagal against Chestnut on giant chains, kicking and swinging at each other like they’re in some heavy-metal version of Crouching Tiger’s bamboo trees scene. --C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham) HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS The first Harry Potter was perhaps the only literary adaptation in memory to be better loved by those who had read the books than those who hadn’t -- Chris Columbus’ literal-minded faithfulness may produce insufferably lengthy films (the new one clocks in at 2 hours, 41 minutes), but they also allow you to pass leisurely through J.K. Rowling’s magnificent plots. (You can tell they’re bad movies based on good books.) At least they continue to pick good actors to add to a cast that includes Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman and the late Richard Harris (who sounds as if he barely made it through production). This time around, Kenneth Branagh joins the cast as the pompous, vain Gilderoy Lockhart (funny how well Branagh can play an arrogant prick) and The Patriot’s Jason Isaacs steps in as Lucius Malfoy, father of the bratty Draco. Columbus’ pacing is still murderously slow, his ideas as pedestrian as the worst TV -- an evil character gets a band of light across the eyes, and so forth. More than the exits, what Chamber makes you impatient for is the day when Y Tu Mamá También’s Alfonso Cuarón takes the helm with movie no. 3. Now that should be something to see. --S.A. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; Bridge; Narberth; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)
Philippa (Cate Blanchett) deposits a homemade bomb in a trash can inside a Turino office building. Minutes later, armed officers burst into Philippa’s apartment and drag her down to headquarters. Interrogators call her a terrorist and demand to know her affiliation. Unaware what has happened, she is horrified to learn that she killed innocents; she crumbles and faints. When she comes to, she insists -- in English translated by novice policeman Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi) -- that her target was one wealthy businessman, Vendice (Stefano Santospago), who sells drugs, in particular to her recently overdosed husband. Filippo falls in love with her and helps her escape. Weird, startling and heartbreaking, the questions emerging in Philippa and Filippo’s trajectory -- toward capture? toward flight? -- are unanswerable and increasingly abstract. Alongside such intangibles, Blanchett’s and Ribisi’s equally luminous performances are surprisingly corporeal.--C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse) I-SPY At last, Eddie Murphy has found and committed to the role that makes him he most money. His version of Kelly Robinson, the tennis player/spy Robert Culp made famous on television, is (quite unbelievably) a champion middleweight boxer, as fast- and foul-mouthed as you’d expect. Teamed with Owen Wilson (pretending to be part of the boxer’s entourage), he heads to Budapest to find an invisible plane, stolen by Malcolm McDowell and now up for bids by especially wealthy evil-doers.--C.F. (AMC Andorra; UA Grant; UA Riverview) JACKASS: THE MOVIE (Not reviewed.) A haiku: Hi Johnny Knoxville, I'm nine and I think you're cool. Watch me burn my nuts. (UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview) MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING Toula (Nia Vardalos) falls in love with Ian (John Corbett) and everything’s just wonderful with her Greek family -- except he isn’t Greek. What follows is essentially Meet the Greek Parents: The large, gregarious family is suspicious of Ian the Protestant and -- gasp -- vegetarian.--Ryan Godfrey (UA Grant; Ritz East; Ritz 16) PAID IN FULL The third film from Damon Dash and Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Productions, Paid In Full is based on a true story. Wood Harris plays Ace, a dry cleaning shop employee who becomes an infamous dealer in ’80s Harlem; his boys include flashy Mitch (Mekhi Phifer) and mundane Calvin (Kevin Carroll). When he scores a connection with living-lovely Lulu (Esai Morales) and Mitch does a stint in prison, Ace moves on up, quickly. Betrayal rears its ugly head in the form of Roc artist Cam’ron (making his film debut), jumpy, ambitious and too gaudy for Ace’s taste, especially when he and his girl (who happens to be Mitch’s sister) have a baby. It’s good to learn lessons, no matter how late and even if the costs, for others and yourself, are tremendous. But, for all the generous efforts by Harris, Phifer and Cam, as well as director Charles Stone III (who made the Budweiser “Whassup” ads and whose next film, Drumline, is already well-buzzed), the film is tired. --C.F. (UA Riverview)
Part of growing is admitting your age. So if Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love strains less overtly for “mature” themes than his overreaching Magnolia, it’s because Anderson is beginning to stop pretending to be his 60-year-old idols. That interest is repaid in a performance of surprising depth from Adam Sandler, who plays Barry, a variation on his own honed-to-bluntness comic persona -- with the catch that the world around him is anything but comic. Sandler is as much of a manchild here as in any one of his tiresome movies, but his boyish façade is frequently shattered by explosive fits of rage. Since at times, Anderson seems merely to be testing his audience’s capacity for annoyance, the challenge for Sandler and Emily Watson, then, is to meet cute amid the din, which they do with ample charm. Punch-Drunk Love has the focus that’s been missing from Anderson’s films, along with a manic energy all its own.--S.A. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)
Ana (excellent America Ferrera) is graduating from Beverly Hills High School. But unlike her privileged classmates, she can’t count on going to college: her mother Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros) and sister (Ingrid Oliu) need her to work at the sister’s sweatshop. Equally stubborn and impassioned, Carmen and Ana argue vigorously -- about Ana’s curvy body, Carmen’s unlikely pregnancy, Ana’s white boyfriend, and “real women’s” expectations and desires. Written by George LaVoo and Josefina Lopez (based on her play), and winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Dramatic Audience Award winner, Patricia Cardoso’s first feature is alternately soapy and rousing, predictable and resourceful. A refreshing alternative to most high school movie girls, Ana has a sense of who she is and where she comes from. --C.F. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16) RED DRAGON As Red Dragon begins, we’re invited to titter as Hannibal Lecter, many years before The Silence of The Lambs, serves the brains of an inept flautist to the symphony orchestra’s board; Lecter’s transformation into a cannibalistic comedian is complete. Red Dragon, based on the same book that spawned Manhunter, steals more than a few pages from Silence’s book; plot dictates that Lecter be found in the same cell where he’d be visited by Clarice Starling years later, but director Brett Ratner (the Rush Hours) seems like he’s determined to copy the infinitely superior film shot for shot, at least in the confrontations between Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, once again) and profiler Will Graham (Ed Norton). The setup is similar to Silence, with Lecter enlisted to help catch a killer (Ralph Fiennes) who’s been murdering families and replacing their eyes with shards of mirror. It’s the most vicious of Thomas Harris’ books, but Ratner’s affectless hack direction abandons any moral sense. At this point, the series’ true auteur is producer Dino de Laurentiis, who’s steered the films ever more towards cheap sensationalism, to the point where they’d have to climb up to be in the gutter. --S.A. (UA Riverview)
The director of Mouse Hunt and The Mexican doesn’t seem like the greatest choice to remake a cultishly popular Japanese horror movie, but The Ring’s premise is simple, creepy, and inescapable: a videotape which kills everyone who watches it after exactly seven days. Skeptical reporter Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive) watches the tape after her niece dies mysterious, and then the clock starts ticking. Though Watts’ investigation takes her all over gloomy Seattle, you hardly ever see more than two or three people in the frame -- the film thrives on isolation, the product of a society centered around the TV. Though The Ring abuses the loud-noise scare, it successfully rachets up the tension and never goes slack, meaning you keep having to find new edges on your seat. --S.A. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)
Roger Dodger opens with a bravura sequence, the kind that either elevates or sinks an entire film. Drunk less on alcohol than on his own glibness, Roger (Campbell Scott), a mid-level ad exec who’s enjoying a boozy lunch with several colleagues, launches into a spellbinding explanation of how men are about to become “extinct.” They’ve had their traditional roles usurped, -- all that’s left is for women to figure out how to reproduce without sperm and men will be nothing more than a source of cheap labor. It’s hogwash, the worst kind of antifeminist drivel, but Scott puts it across with conviction. That’s pretty much what Dylan Kidd’s debut feature is about. There’s no particular insight into relations between the sexes; Kidd doesn’t have the heart for real provocation. And the plot’s just enough to serve: Roger is abruptly saddled with his teenage nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), who’s decided it’s time for Uncle Roger to teach him the finer points of wooing the fairer sex. Roger jumps at the chance -- but as is usually the case in a movie set in the span of a day, Roger is near his breaking point. Like a lot of mid-scale indies, Roger Dodger is essentially a one-character movie, but there are worse actors to focus your attention on than Campbell Scott.--S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse) THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 In Michael Lembeck’s 8-years-in-the-making sequel, Tim Allen must tend to his son (Eric Lloyd), who’s been tagging school walls with pro-Christmas graffiti; and he must fulfill the Second Clause, which is to marry by Christmas Eve or the “de-santafication process” will rob all children of the holiday forever. His subsequent romancing of the son’s principal (Elizabeth Mitchell) is by the numbers, but the duplicate Santa he leaves at the plant, to look after the multi-culti elves’ last-minute toy production, is increasingly loony-tunes, occasionally even funny. The action split, however, means that the regular Santa story is more markedly tedious by comparison.--C.F. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)
The International Space Station is lofty testament to the wonders of worldwide cooperation in the name of science. It also makes for some amazing cinematography. Space Station, the latest IMAX film, gives viewers the typical IMAXian bird’s-eye view of things -- in this case, life aboard a space station -- with a twist. The film, a co-production of IMAX and Lockheed Martin, was shot by astronauts, who not only master the elements of space travel, but do a very fine job taking pictures as well.--Howard Altman (Tuttleman Imax Theater, Franklin Institute)
Clearly cast in the mold of Buena Vista Social Club, Paul Justman’s documentary concerns The Funk Brothers, the unofficial conglomeration of musicians who backed virtually every hit from Motown’s Detroit era. Based on Allan Slutsky’s biography of legendary bassist James Jamerson, Shadows mixes interviews with the surviving Funk Brothers with new performance footage, where Chaka Khan, Bootsy Collins, Ben Harper, Joan Osborne and others step in for Motown’s greatest vocalists. Based on an orchestral style that kept individual musicians from standing out and a factory mentality that discouraged the lifting of the curtain, these musicians have languished in obscurity despite being part of some of pop music’s best-known songs. You don’t feel educated so much as elated -- by the music, and the sense of a lingering wrong finally redressed. --S.A.(Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16) THE TRANSPORTER Ex-Special Forces operative Jason Statham transports packages for wealthy, not exactly legal clients. He doesn’t want to know reasons or contents, just destinations and payments. When he discovers that one of his packages is a girl in a duffel bag (Shu Qi), his order comes undone, and he must save her, stop a plot to enslave a truckload of illegal Chinese émigrés, take down a smarmy villain called Wall Street (Matt Schulze) and perform any number of breathtaking martial arts, underwater and road-warrior-style stunts. Speedy, colorful and clever, this Luc Besson-produced film sets up Statham as yet another next-generational, hybrid action hero.--C.F. (UA Riverview) THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE Here’s a great idea: Jonathan Demme pays homage to the French New Wave. Here’s a not-so-great idea: Marky Mark in a beret. The Truth About Charlie, Demme’s nouvelle vague remake of Stanley Donen’s Charade, is a hapless mishmash of spy-movie cliches and an aimless attempt to undercut them. As in the 1963 original, Regina (played here by Thandie Newton) is a freshly married woman who returns from vacation to find her apartment stripped bare, her husband Charlie vanished along with all her worldly possessions. The police report that he’s dead, apparently thrown from a train outside town, but more uncertainties are soon to follow -- like the matter of her husband’s real name, or that he was some sort of government operative instead of an art dealer.--S.A. ( UA Riverview) 
-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there
Recent Comments
Trailer!: Valhalla Rising `A really very good blog to visit it has got all the important stuff that i wanted to know about, I like the posts on this blog and i want to subscribe ` » WHAT WE HEART: Jersey Shore letterpress prints, yo! `I bought one. I really did.` » CONCERT REVIEW: Snoop Dogg @ TLA, 2/28 `I took a picture at the Snoop Dogg show 2/28 at TLA and the guy that took the picture said i could find it under Capitalrecords.com but i had know luck ` » Notes from the Weekend: March 15 `saturday i went to hawthornes and drank more than half a growler of brooklyn cookie jar porter to myself... it was awesome but headache the next day was ` » Two new approaches to water bottles `thank you for posting this!!!` » What's your St. Patty's Day soundtrack? `Fugazi: Live in Kilkenney, Ireland 5/7/99` » NOW OPEN: Gaetano's Italian Deli `Whose bread are they using?` » $3 Irish-inspired snacks all week at Swift Half `I don't know if I can suffer through even my last 3 days working in Wilmington when I know that yummies like these exist on the lunch plates of philadelphians. ` » NOW HEAR THIS: "Philadelphia Born & Raised" by Meek Mill ft. Freeway, Black Thought & Young Chris
`Yo! Why's Meek sporting a Yankees hat while reppin' the 215?
Does having the image reversed make it an anti-Yankees hat?` »
Popular Articles
Reinventing Arlen One year after he fled the GOP, Pa.'s senior senator is scratching and clawing to do what he does best: survive. The Next Movement Oh! Pears' Corey Duncan is assembling an ambitious rock orchestra. The Climb Behind Ladder 15's Ansill-fied revamp. Post Post
A local smarty-pop college band takes the plunge.  Philadelphia Orchestra: Four Tickets for April 8, 2010 | Philadelphia Orchestra: Four Tickets for June 3, 2010 | Paddy Whacks Irish Sports Pub (all locations!) | Skirmish Paintball | Swanky Bubbles | Gillian's ticket | Cafe Nola | Hollywood Tans: $50 for $25 | Mango Moon | Firefly Photography HALF OFF DEPOT Why live life at full price? 
"Great vision without great people is irrelevant."
—Jim Collins, Author,
"Good to Great" 
Search Real Estate
Today's Big Deal:
| |||||||||||||||||||
BLOODY SUNDAY
