New Movie Shorts

CONCERT FOR GEORGE

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Rock stars sing the songs
Of the late George Harrison,
While I gently weep.

(Roxy)

GOOD BOY!

Dogs are from outer space, sent to Earth centuries ago on a mission of 'domination and dignity.' Somewhere along the way, the domination part was lost, and then the dignity part -- well, scrambling for rubber balls and leaping for Frisbees isn't precisely what the leaders back on Dog Star had in mind. When Canid 3942 (voiced haphazardly by Matthew Broderick) arrives to check progress, he accidentally zaps his temporary owner boy (Liam Aiken) so he can understand dog-speak -- you know, like Eddie Murphy. Since 3942's ship has crashed, like Uncle Martin's, he's feeling dislocated, like ET. Conveniently, so's the kid, because his parents (Molly Shannon and Kevin Nealon) serially buy, renovate and sell houses. The local dogs -- including a foofy poodle (Delta Burke), a spirited boxer (Donald Faison) and a nervous whippet (Brittany Murphy) -- join in the training: kid learns to be responsible and 3942 learns to be a doggy. The most vexing question has to do with target audience: The movie is too slow for little kids (the bunch with me were running up and down the aisles and asking mom, 'Is it over yet?'), too silly for preteens and way too self-serious for anyone over 14. --Cindy Fuchs (Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

HOUSE OF THE DEAD

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Listen up, rave kids:
Just say no to X or else
zombies will kill you.

(AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

MYSTIC RIVER

If Mystic River didn't try so hard to be a great movie, it might actually be one. As it is, it's merely close to great. Clint Eastwood, directing but not acting, is onto a deep, ugly subject, via Brian Helgeland's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel: the way crimes of sufficient awfulness can scar not only their victims, but witnesses and whole communities, and how the perpetrators of such crimes are often victims themselves. In a sense, all of Mystic River is about what happens in the first several minutes, when three young boys in working-class Boston are reprimanded by men who claim to be cops, and take one of them off in their car. Decades later, Dave (Tim Robbins) is still haunted by the four days the men held him captive and sexually abused him, and his once-inseparable friendships with Jimmy (Sean Penn) and Sean (Kevin Bacon) have languished or dissolved. But an even more horrible crime stirs up all the old anguish and resentments, and the men find themselves no better equipped to cope as grown-ups than they were as children. Eastwood keeps pulling the camera way ... up ... high to suggest moral weight, and his crashing score smothers many a tender moment, but allows Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden, as his increasingly distraught wife, to do some of their quietest and most effective work. Unfortunately, the movie ruins what could have a similarly evocative finish with a bombastic climax that reaches for a grand statement but only muddies the waters. Skip Laura Linney's Lady Macbeth speech and the oh-so-ironic parade, and pretend the movie ends after an offscreen character says 'I'm sorry,' and you'll see what might have been. --Sam Adams (Bryn Mawr; Ritz East)