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NEWS
| | A&E MoviesA Dirty Shame A concussion unleashes the erotic fire within formerly repressed convenience store manager Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman), who joins forces with sexual healer Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville) to push carnal boundaries. But Sylvia’s mother (Suzanne Shepherd), distressed that her Baltimore neighborhood is suddenly teeming with swingers and queers and bears — oh my! — vows to save the city from sex addiction. Director John Waters’ exuberant catalog of outré sex practices will probably land with the force of an explosion. But the one-time enfant terrible has become a dirty grandpa trying to shock with hoary jokes. The cast is fabulous, the rockabilly soundtrack adds a percussive thrill, but the bathroom humor never rises above the mildly amusing. Cellular Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) has been kidnapped, and she doesn’t know why — or where she’s being held. On a smashed-to-bits phone, she manages to wiretap her way into dialing the cellular number of impossibly handsome slacker Ryan (Chris Evans). Together they have to piece together the mystery before his phone signal dies, or else Jessica and her entire family will be killed. What follows is a breathlessly paced and brainlessly plotted thriller that involves corrupt cops, big, bruising kidnappers whom Basinger successfully fights at every turn, and some miraculous cell-phone technology that isn’t available to people who aren’t in the movies. It would all be terrifically tense if it weren’t so stupendously ridiculous. But that dumbness is part of its late-summer appeal; and though it’s as hilariously disposable as, well, a dead cell phone, it’s no less entertaining for it. First Daughter All that college freshman Samantha (Katie Holmes) wants is a normal life of classes and keggers. But as the daughter of the U.S. president (Michael Keaton), she endures a fishbowl existence of omnipresent security and prying reporters, which grows worse when she finds love with dorm resident advisor James (Marc Blucas). The president and first lady (Margaret Colin) are creepy enough that a better movie would have used the story as a springboard to expose the hollowness of politicians; but about the best that can be said for this anemic teen romance is that Holmes is effortlessly charming, and she and Blucas make a pretty pair. The actors’ appeal is wasted as the movie sinks into a morass of ridiculous situations, risible dialogue, and anorexic characterizations. The Forgotten Grieving mother Telly Peretta (Julianne Moore) can’t let go of the memory of her dead son, an 8-year-old boy who may or may not have ever really existed. It seems that she’s the only person in her circle of friends and family who remembers the child. Just as she meets a neighbor (Dominic West) who also lost a daughter and his own memory of her, the Feds step in to run interference while Telly begins a desperate search to uncover the truth. “Desperate” also describes the script, which takes a compelling idea — governmental conspiracy and mind-control — and negates it with third-act cheesiness and silly sci-fi impossibilities. This paranoid thriller starts out riddled with tension and loses its way completely, insuring that it — like other botched suspense films — will wind up forgotten. Friday Night Lights Football is serious business in Odessa, Texas, so the townsfolk let Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) know that his job depends on his Permian High Panthers winning the state championship. That goal becomes tougher when star running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) blows out his knee. This drama is allegedly based on the real-life Panthers’ almost-Cinderella 1988 season, but the characters are stock sports caricatures lost in a field of gridiron clichés. Director Peter Berg tries to add verisimilitude with a documentary shooting style, but his staccato editing leads the film to frequently resemble a commercial for Monday Night Football. Hardcore football fans will revel in the on-field action, while everyone else will wonder why anyone should care about Gaines or his team. I Heart Huckabees Existentialist detectives Bernard (Dustin Hoffman) and Vivian (Lily Tomlin) believe everything is connected. Their former pupil, Caterine (Isabelle Huppert), has gone nihilist, stressing the cruel randomness of life. These high-minded gumshoes and their opposing doctrines compete for the souls of environmental activist Albert (Jason Schwartzman), department-store executive Brad (Jude Law), spokesmodel Dawn (Naomi Watts), and fireman Tommy (Mark Wahlberg). Luckily, a philosophy degree is not required to appreciate the absurdity of this screwball comedy with a brain. The cast clearly relishes the opportunity to perfect their pratfalls while spitting out sparkling one-liners. Hoffman and Tomlin are particularly charming as the cheerful shamuses who never give up on a client. Rarely have serious questions of being and nothingness been rendered this silly or this fun. Ladder 49 Firefighter Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix) has fallen and can’t get up. As he lies on the cement floor of a burning warehouse, trapped by the flames, his life literally passes before his eyes in this sentimental drama in which easy emotions are tapped at regular intervals. Flashbacks tell the 10-year story of Jack’s experience as a rookie in a company with a stoic yet kind and wise chief (John Travolta); they also reveal details of his marriage, children, injuries, doubts, and close calls with death. In the end, the audience is left with a simplistic account of heroism instead of a complex view of human reality. The movie is well-meaning and inoffensive enough, and the fiery action sequences are palm-sweat-inducing; but the bland attempts to lionize all firefighters as noble gods make for a film that never reaches the top rungs. Raise Your Voice For Terri Fletcher (Hilary Duff), being blonde and cute just isn’t enough — she needs to sing. But when she’s accepted for summer placement at a prestigious music conservatory, her overprotective father (David Keith) denies her permission to go. Does that stop her? No way. With a little scheming help from an understanding mom (Rita Wilson) and her free-spirited aunt (Rebecca DeMornay), Terri runs off to L.A. to express herself creatively. The 90 minutes of this movie are as sunny, wholesome, and smoothly predictable as a glass of full-fat milk — it turns out Terri’s a musical genius and a diplomat, smoothing grumpy Dad’s ruffled feathers with a well-placed tear or two. But bemoaning its obviousness is useless, since preteen girls — the target audience — will thrill to their heroine’s pluck and welcome every calculated plot twist like it’s never been done before. Like, ever. Shark Tale Great white mobster Don Lino (Robert DeNiro) sends his sons out into the ocean so that older son Frankie (Michael Imperioli) can teach timid Lenny (Jack Black) how to be a proper shark. But an anchor lands on Frankie’s head, leaving Lenny too fearful to go home, while opportunistic fish Oscar (Will Smith) becomes a local hero by claiming to have slain the shark. This pallid cartoon’s idea of being clever is to re-create Times Square on the ocean floor, but the animation is just so-so, with only Don Lino, Lenny, and puffer fish Sykes (Martin Scorsese) having any personality. Aquatic creatures spouting old movie clichés is amusing for about five minutes, and the story is so thin as to be practically nonexistent. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow An evil scientist (the late, digitized Laurence Olivier) wants to destroy the world, so it’s Joe “Sky Captain” Sullivan (Jude Law) to the rescue. Together with reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Captain Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie), he battles multiple armies of robots in the search for the man who wants to control the fate of the planet. This is grand-scale silliness, lacking the galloping momentum and excitement of modern retro-classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Sky Captain still has plenty to recommend it. The old-fashioned, color-tinted, black-and-white look created by using blue-screens and complicated computer tricks makes for a gorgeous eye-candy experience. So does the all-too-brief presence of Jolie as a saucy, in-command military leader whose winking performance is enhanced, not obscured, by a very sexy eye patch. Tarnation With initial production costs of only $218, this documentary memoir recalls director Jonathan Caouette’s troubled childhood in Texas in the 1970s and ‘80s. The film opens in the present, with the adult Caouette, now in a gay relationship, learning about the lithium overdose of his mother, Renee. Then, in crazy-quilt fashion, he intercuts old family snapshots with home-movie footage and factual narration to trace Renee’s descent from beautiful child model to institutionalized madwoman, and to recount his own struggles in foster homes and with mental illness. Exceedingly arty and oddly detached, the film at times seems more like an album of horrifying family experiences than a meaningful reflection on surviving insanity and abuse. In the end, many viewers may simply be relieved that their own messed-up families look like the Cleavers by comparison. Taxi New York police detective Washburn (Jimmy Fallon) loses his driver’s license, so when he gets a report of a bank robbery in progress, he flags down Belle’s (Queen Latifah) tricked-out, turbo-charged taxi. The chase goes awry, putting Belle’s nascent cab-driving career and Washburn’s badge in jeopardy, unless they can somehow catch the thieves. For all the time the characters spend in cars, this stalled comedy goes nowhere fast. Endless car chases, some fine stunt driving, and a handful of carefully choreographed accidents are designed to please NASCAR fans, but the humor falls as flat as a punctured tire. Nonstop cracks about someone’s bad driving simply aren’t funny, although at least they aren’t as tasteless as the jokes about Washburn’s lush of a mother (Ann-Margret). Wimbledon Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) is a former tennis champ from England, now fallen in rank and on the verge of retirement. Enter Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), a young American tennis upstart. Their blooming courtside romance reinvigorates Colt’s life and game as he enters what is to be his final shot at the Wimbledon tournament. Naturally, conflicts arise that could jeopardize their love and their careers, but the lack of real suspense ensures that audiences aren’t on the edge of their seats about the outcome of either. Meanwhile underdeveloped secondary plotlines fill up the empty spaces, and too many supporting characters dilute the punch of what could have been a more focused movie. But in the end, dry British banter and a charming performance from Bettany lifts this love match from mediocrity. | |
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