Short Subjectives July 05 2006

Opening Friday

??
· FALL TO GRACE 2 stars. (NR) See review.

??
· THE HEART OF THE GAME 3 stars. (PG-13) See review.

??
· ISLAM: WHAT THE WEST NEEDS TO KNOW (NR) This documentary explores the nature of Islam, its relationship to violence and the implications for the non-Muslim world.

??
· PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST 3 stars. (PG-13) See review on page 49.

??
· THE ROAD TO GUANTÁNAMO 3 stars. (NR) See review.

??
Duly Noted

??
· BE HERE TO LOVE ME: A FILM ABOUT TOWNES VAN ZANDT 3 stars. (NR) Alt-country cult crooner Townes Van Zandt’s (1944-1997) troubled life is exhumed in this tribute to the boozing and drug-addicted singer who also wrote — according to fans (and interviewees) like Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Steve Earle — transcendent, beautiful songs. Home movies, interviews with childhood friends, fellow musicians, wives, children and Van Zandt himself give a taste of his influence and gift. Though Margaret Brown’s often unfocused documentary leaves the musician essentially unknowable, it’s a circumstance perhaps more attributable to Van Zandt’s hard-to-hold nature than Brown’s failings as a director. July 7-13. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft. — Felicia Feaster

??
· COACHELLA (NR) This performance documentary about California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival features such musicians as the White Stripes, Björk, Iggy Pop, the Flaming Lips, Prodigy and Kool Keith. Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival. Thurs., July 8, 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. $8. 404-881-2100. www.foxtheatre.org.

??
· FILM LOVE: WARREN SONBERT (NR) Frequent Small Meals presents a program of short films by Warren Sonbert, including “Amphetamine,” “Where Did Our Love Go?” “Honor and Obey” and “Friendly Witness.” Thurs., July 13, 8 p.m. Eyedrum, 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. $5. 404-522-0655. www.eyedrum.org.

??
· 500 YEARS LATER 3 stars. (NR) Director Owen Alik Shahadah addresses one of the biggest, most challenging themes of world history: the legacy of slavery for present-day people of color. A kind of loose collage of music, statistics, archival footage and impassioned interviewees, 500 Years Later touches on the nature of the slave trade, the inequities in the criminal justice system, the emphasis of white beauty in pop culture, the cultural shortcomings of education, the need for reparations and more. By touching on so many huge, fraught issues, the film rushes over material that deserves deeper exploration. Movies with a Mission. Thurs., July 6, 6 p.m. Apex Museum, 135 Auburn Ave. Free. www.sankofaspirit.com. — Curt Holman

??
· ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN (PG) The trio of mismatched mammals from Ice Age returns facing a catastrophic thaw (anticipating the concerns of Al Gore’s global warming documentary). Queen Latifah offers an amusing vocal performance as a massive mammoth who believes herself to be a petite possum. Flicks on Fifth. Wed., July 12, 9 p.m. Fifth Street between Spring and Williams streets. 404-894-2805. www.flickson5th.com.

??
· MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION (PG-13) Tyler Perry writes, directs and cross-dresses in this sequel to Diary of a Mad Black Woman as an African-American matriarch who must sort out her family’s problems while planning a reunion. Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival. Sun., July 9, 7 p.m. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. $8. 404-881-2100. www.foxtheatre.org.

??
· THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) (R) The cult classic of cult classics, the musical horror spoof follows an all-American couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) to the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a drag-queen/mad scientist from another galaxy. It’s all fun and games until Meat Loaf gets killed. Dress as your favorite character and participate in this musical on acid. Midnight Fri. at Lefont Plaza Theatre and Sat. at Peachtree Cinema & Games, Norcross.

??
· SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS (R) This documentary chronicles the casting, rehearsal and presentation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest by inmates of Kentucky’s Luther Luckett Correctional Complex. Like in Shakespeare’s time, men play female roles, while the incarcerated actors emphasize the play’s forgiveness themes. Thurs., July 6. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft.

??
Continuing

??
· THE BREAK-UP 2 stars. (PG-13) A Chicago slob (Vince Vaughn) and his high-strung girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston) pull the plug on their mismatched relationship but each refuses to vacate their shared condo. Surprisingly, War of the Roses-style hijinks fail to ensue, despite a few amusing scenes from Jon Favreau and Jason Bateman. Vaughn and Aniston gamely attempt to emote beyond their usual big-screen personae, but the film isn’t serious enough to be a good drama or funny enough to be a satisfying comedy. — Holman

??
· CARS 4 stars. (G) In an alternate America populated by talking, thinking automobiles, a racing rookie (voiced by Owen Wilson) gets waylaid in a dying Route 66 tourist trap and gradually learns to appreciate small-town values. The predictable plot keeps Cars from competing in the class of such computer-animated masterpieces as Finding Nemo, but Pixar’s seventh cartoon feature benefits from gorgeous visuals, breezy comedic timing and genuine affection for the roadside attractions and car culture of yesteryear. — Holman

??
· CLICK 2 stars. (PG-13) Venturing into the “Beyond” section of Bed, Bath & Beyond, harried Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) stumbles upon an eccentric employee (Christopher Walken) who gives him a universal remote with the power to control his life. He can mute the dog’s barking, fast-forward through foreplay and even listen to audio commentary (provided by James Earl Jones) on past events in his life. For the first hour, this clever concept leads to some genuine laughs but more often gets buried under the sort of adolescent humor that long ago became the actor’s calling card. Then the movie morphs into an update of It’s a Wonderful Life, with Michael learning valuable lessons as his life turns tragic. The comedy isn’t as pointed as desired and the drama isn’t as maudlin as expected, yielding decidedly mixed results. — Matt Brunson

??
· THE DA VINCI CODE 2 stars. (PG-13) In Ron Howard’s sluggish adaptation of the oft-imitated best seller, Tom Hanks plays a symbolism professor who becomes embroiled in a mystery that reaches back to the Last Supper. The original novel used a second-hand Robert Ludlum plot to link some gossipy bits of religious and art history, but the long, draggy film takes the thin characters too seriously and finds no conspiratorial fun in its overheated content. — Holman

??
· THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 3 stars. (PG-13) For a time, this film adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s fictionalized tell-all book about working for Vogue editor Anna Wintour is as much fun as flipping through a glossy mag, full of attitude, supermodels and big-city bitchiness. Anne Hathaway plays the recent grad and aspiring journalist who gets a job at the high-fashion Runway magazine, where she is tortured by boss-from-hell Meryl Streep, whose wondrously snarky performance steals the show. But director David Frankel (a regular “Sex and the City” director who should know better) can’t leave well enough alone. Burdened by mainstream convention, his film quickly unspools into a tiresome bottom-of-the-barrel teen film instructing us that fashion is shallow and meaningless and we were silly girls to believe otherwise. — Feaster

??
· THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT (PG-13) None of the original actors or directors of this racing flick franchise turn up for the third outing, in which Lucas Black and Bow Wow take on Tokyo’s underground culture of “drift racing.”

??
· GARFIELD: A TAIL OF TWO KITTIES (G) Bill Murray again provides the voice of the lasagna-snarfing feline in this sequel, set in the United Kingdom.

??
· IMAX THEATER Amazon (NR) This documentary traces the Amazon River from its source in the Andes mountains to the Amazon river basin and captures the beauty of its diverse wildlife. Through Aug. 18. Dolphins (NR): Pierce Brosnan narrates this slick look at dolphins and the bathing-suited scientists who study them. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

??
· AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH 4 stars. (PG) Former Vice President Al Gore lays out the scientific underpinnings of global warming to devastating effect. Essentially a filmed lecture interspersed with biographical material, Davis Guggenheim’s documentary contains some narrative limitations but otherwise presents a profoundly disturbing portrait of an impending global catastrophe, delivered by Gore with unexpected humor and passion. — Holman

??
· KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS 2 stars. (PG) Scott Marshall, the director of Keeping Up With the Steins, is the son of Garry Marshall (The Princess Diaries) and the nephew of Penny Marshall (Big). As a Hollywood dynasty, this bunch doesn’t exactly compare with the Hustons or the Fondas, but like father and aunt, Scott can be counted on to contribute harmless, middle-of-the-road pap guaranteed not to furrow brows or trouble minds. In this benign comedy-drama, a 13-year-old (Spy Kids’ Daryl Sabara) eyes his upcoming bar mitzvah with a mixture of dread and resignation. Cast members contribute to the congenial mood, but the comic quotient is increasingly tepid and the life lessons tossed around like seeds aren’t especially original or inspiring. — Brunson

??
· THE KING 3 stars. (R) A creepy morality tale and Southern gothic directed by Brit James Marsh and written by indie hot-stuff Milo Addica (Monster’s Ball, Birth), this compelling but uneven film — which tends to overplay its string of horrific events — stars Gael García Bernal as an illegitimate Navy vet who travels to Corpus Christi to reconnect with the fundamentalist pastor (William Hurt) he claims is his daddy, and his fragile, innocent young daughter (an enthralling Pell James). — Feaster

??
· THE LAKE HOUSE 2 stars. (PG-13) Two strangers (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves) who become pen pals come to the startling realization that they’re actually corresponding over the years — she’s writing and receiving his letters in 2006, he’s doing likewise in 2004 — and that the mailbox at the title property serves as a magic portal. The Lake House has its heart in the right place, but the end result doesn’t even begin to inspire the requisite level of swoony romance on our parts. Director Alejandro Agresti is more interested in the film’s look than its substance, while David Auburn’s script is arid and uninvolving. As for the leads, Reeves acquits himself nicely — he’s long learned how to take advantage of his scruffy appeal — but Bullock once again plays against her natural charisma by offering a dour, dull characterization. After about 20 minutes, you just wish somebody would tickle her. — Brunson

??
· LOOK BOTH WAYS (PG-13) Sarah Watt wrote and directed this unexpectedly light-hearted Australian films about four friends wrestling with mortality over a hot weekend.

??
· THE LOST CITY 1 star. (R) A counter to the recent burst of Che-chic, this interminable exercise in grandiose male angst features Cuban actor Andy Garcia starring and directing. His lifeless Godfather-style epic and occasional love story (in which the woman is a beautiful, vacant object bounced this way and that according to the story’s needs) takes place in the pre-Castro ’50s. It features Garcia as a son of the Havana aristocracy and owner of the El Tropico nightclub who sees his family politically divided by the Cuban revolution, and his glittering, sexy world traded for pompous revolutionaries and bossy women in fatigues. Characters speak in ridiculous, canned clichés and the rhythms of the film seem lifted from a range of other period dramas, mostly Coppola’s. — Feaster

??
· NACHO LIBRE 3 stars. (PG) Jack Black plays Ignacio, an extremely well-fed ophan who works at a monastery while dreaming of becoming one of Mexico’s revered masked wrestlers. The comedy feels like the result of Black watching director Jared Hess’s Napoleon Dynamite with his School of Rock screenwriter Mike White and screaming “Dude, I wanna work with you!” Questionable ethnic stereotyping and a one-joke act by Black nearly keeps the film pinned down for the count. — David Lee Simmons

??
· THE OMEN 2 stars. (R) The 1976 version of The Omen still holds up after 30 years. That’s reason enough to Netflix that baby and skip the flat remake that’s currently haunting multiplexes. The devil taking over the world is a terrifying concept, yet here there’s so little urgency to the proceedings that you’d think his master plan extended only to prank phone calls to the Vatican and T-P-ing ministers’ houses. The new film is mostly faithful to its predecessor — an American ambassador (Liev Schreiber) and his wife (Julia Stiles) learn too late that their adopted son is the Antichrist — but the fact that this produces snickers rather than scares suggests that it might find its niche as a camp outing. — Brunson

??
· OVER THE HEDGE 3 stars. (PG) A fast-talking raccoon (voiced by Bruce Willis) cons a surrogate family of woodland creatures into raiding a regimented suburb for junk food. Compared to DreamWorks’ other computer-animated cartoon features like Madagascar, Hedge keeps pop references to a minimum and comes up with some highly amusing satire of humanity’s culture of consumption. The bathroom humor might be too high for some parents’ approval, so consider the film as a Toy Story for grown-ups. It’s anti-development themes would be right at home in Gwinnett County. — Holman

??
· PEACEFUL WARRIOR (PG-13) Scott Mechlowicz plays a young gymnast who finds inner peace amid high-stakes competitions, thanks to the sage advice of Nick Nolte.

??
· A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION 2 stars. (PG-13) “Hee Haw” for the public radio set, renowned director Robert Altman offers a film version of Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio show. An array of stars parade across the screen, from Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as crooning sisters to Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as dirty-minded cowboys (and Lindsay Lohan thrown in for some teen bait). But Altman, undoubtedly encumbered by a creaky Keillor script that interweaves a film noir element with the imagined demise under the wrecking bar of the “Prairie” show has a hard time translating its homespun, quirky Americana so dependent on the imaginative space of radio to the literalism of film. — Feaster

??
· SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY 4 stars. (NR) An engrossing portrait of one of the biggest names in contemporary architecture, this documentary made by Hollywood director Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa) delves into the creative process and inner neuroses of the man behind the Bilbao Guggenheim and other noteworthy buildings, offering a refreshingly personal perspective on Pollack’s longtime friend. Though Pollack skates fairly quickly over Gehry’s critics and tends to lard the film with he-man heavyweights, from actor Dennis Hopper to Disney’s Michael Eisner, all testifying to friend/collaborator Gehry’s greatness, the doc has enough heft and intellectual curiosity to rise above its boy’s club tendencies. — Feaster

??
· SUPERMAN RETURNS 3 stars. (PG-13) After five years in outer space, Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to Earth to discover that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has a son, and Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has a new world-conquering scheme. Bryan Singer, director of the first X-Men movies, spins the film as a nearly obsessive sequel to Christopher Reeve’s initial outings as the Man of Steel — which makes it all the more obvious that Routh, despite his wholesome farmboy qualities, is an amiable blank compared to Reeve’s witty portrayal. The film features spectacular action set-pieces and some delicious villainy by Spacey, but never really gets inside Superman’s head. — Holman

??
· THANK YOU FOR SMOKING 4 stars. (R) Aaron Eckhart of In the Company of Men plays Nick Naylor, a proudly unprincipled tobacco lobbyist who tries simultaneously to be a professional liar and a good father. Smoking takes palpable delight at the double-speak of the spin industry — Nick claims that lobbyists like him stick up for “little guys” like loggers, sweatshop owners and land mine developers — and features many hilarious set pieces. As Nick weighs being a good role model to his son (Cameron Bright), the film never cops out by giving him a bogus change of heart, and he takes pride in his lack of integrity. — Holman

??
· WATER (NR) Set amid India’s colonial independence movement of the 1930s, Deepa Mehta’s film depicts a group of impoverished widows and a man who follows Mahatma Gandhi despite his lower-caste status.

??
· WORDPLAY 3 stars. (NR) Taking his inspiration from that other nerd-ascendent doc Spellbound, first-time director Patrick Creadon’s profile of the contestants at the 2005 Stamford, Connecticut American Crossword Puzzle Tournament tries to generate suspense from that race-to-the-finish event. The doc is more successful when it focuses in on the lore and logistics of puzzle culture: from its reigning geek king New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz to celebrity crossword fans like Bill Clinton and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart who engagingly analyze the appeal and meaning of puzzles.

??
· X-MEN: THE LAST STAND 2 stars. (PG-13) The last film in the comic-book trilogy trades former director Bryan Singer’s witty approach to despised superheroes for newcomer Brett Ratner’s sloppy, overstuffed story. The invention of a “cure” for superpowered mutants leads to a stand-off between the good guys of Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and the tattooed baddies of Magneto (Ian McKellan), and theoretically serves as a potent metaphor for real-world discrimination. Despite some admittedly rousing battle scenes, The Last Stand looks cheap, suffers from too many plot threads and fails to give comic books a good name. — Holman