New Movie Shorts

AMERICAN WEDDING

All Stifler all the time. This is the inclination, if not the fact, of this third installment of the Weitz brothers’ gross-out comedy franchise (though this time, they only executive produce). Seann William Scott’s breakout character here connives to disrupt Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan’s wedding, or more precisely, to nail her lithe sister (blandly played by January Jones). Also looking to win the new girl is Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas), now a NYU grad, but his Voltaire-quoting routine pales in comparison to Stifler’s latest ploy -- Lacoste shirts and lavender sweaters. Stifler’s takeover encapsulates the trilogy’s trajectory -- away from all things girly and deep into boys. Here the college graduates are as horny and clumsy and silly as their high school incarnations, and all the "sweet" stuff is sloughed off: no more Chris Klein or Tara Reid, just erections, humping dogs, shaved balls, poo jokes, strippers (Fraulein Brandi, played by Amanda Swisten, and Officer Krystal, played by FHM cover girl Nikki Schieler Ziering) and Stifler out-dancing and wholly impressing a bar full of gay men. You might even call it Stifler’s personal evolution. Thank goodness it’s over now. --Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Bryn Mawr; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

GIGLI

First off, it’s pronounced "Jeely." This is important less for the sake of accuracy than so your friends can’t blame you for telling them to desperately avoid something called "jiggly." As the titular hitman in Martin Brest’s un-romance, Ben Affleck’s chin threatens to overshadow his face, and his biceps threaten to overshadow his performance -- he’s got the likeable lug down, except for the likeable part. As a fellow assassin, assigned to watch Gigli watch the kidnapped brother of a Federal prosecutor, Jennifer Lopez starts by reminding you what an appealing star she can be and finishes by reminding you why you hate her so much. (A headline in this week’s Onion reads: "Focus Groups Demand New Ending In Which Both Affleck and Lopez Die.") Have we mentioned the pointedly unadvertised fact that Lopez’s character is a lesbian who ends up getting it on with the guy even after she’s told him she won’t? The best you can say is that Gigli is more offensive to retarded people than lesbians; though there’s nothing wrong with newcomer Justin Bartha’s performance as the kidnappee, his character could have been replaced by a small dog without requiring a major rewrite. On second thought, though, maybe it is more offensive to suggest that a lesbian, when faced with a distraught ex-lover who tries to commit suicide in her kitchen, would safety-pin herself into a shredded t-shirt before running to the hospital. For sheer idiocy, though, it’s hard to beat the duelling monologues where the two characters debate the nature of male and female sexuality, with heavy reference to the biological. (Seriously, if I never hear Ben Affleck say the word "penis" again, it’ll be too soon.) After hearing Affleck do a watered-down version of Magnolia’s "respect the cock" speech and J to tha Lo give it up for the almighty beaver, you can only cringe further at the notion that someone, somewhere must once have described the scene as "European." Additionally featuring some of the worst acting Al Pacino and Christopher Walken have done in years (and that is saying something), Gigli won’t be the worst movie to come out of Hollywood all year, but it’s sure to be one of the most forgettable. How do you pronounce that thing again? --Sam Adams (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Ritz 16; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

THE HOUSEKEEPER

Jean-Pierre Bacri and ...milie Dequenne bring such conviction to their roles that they almost make Claude Berri’s tired midlife crisis yarn believable. As a recent divorcé struggling to regain his balance, Bacri (best known for his collaborations with wife Agnès Jaouï), brings a petty, very French fussiness to his deeply sad character, while Dequenne (Rosetta) does her best with a woman conceived in terms of plot rather than character: a young woman, down on her luck, who turns to housekeeping to make a few Francs and slowly falls in love with her employer. An uneven two-hander, The Housekeeper, adapted and directed by the 69-year-old Berri, not surprisingly throws its weight behind Berri’s character, whose selfish exploitation of his young employee’s emotional need comes too little and too late. Thankfully, Dequenne doesn’t play her as the bombshell the script would seem to suggest, but it only helps so much. --S.A.(Ritz East; Ritz 16)

LUCIA, LUCIA

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Is this the sequel

to Sex & Lucia? I'd

rather see Sex, Sex.

(Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

MADAME SATÃ

Karim Aïnouz's portrait of life in the slums of 1930s Rio de Janeiro boasts vivid imagery (courtesy of Behind the Sun and Central Station cinematographer Walter Carvalho), but a thinly conceived central character. João Francisco dos Santos, eventually known as Madame Satã (though long after the movie's events have ended), is something of a legendary figure, a tough-talking, short-tempered sometime-pimp, sometime-transvestite who, as portrayed by Lázaro Ramos, can also do a spinning kick like nobody's business. The trouble with the movie's João, whether on the level of script or performance, is that he's always flying into a violent rage, the transition so instantaneous and frequent that it begins to lose meaning, despite the ample provocations provided. Madame Satã has its striking moments, but it eventually wears you out. --S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse)