Short Subjectives September 28 2005

Opening Friday

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· THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED (PG) An amateur, working-class golfer (Holes’ Shia LaBeouf) takes on the defending British champion at the 1913 U.S. Open. Expect lots of triumphant, feel-good sports movie rah-rah.

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· INTO THE BLUE (PG-13) This thriller stars The Fast and the Furious’ Paul Walker and Sin City’s Jessica Alba as divers who run afoul of dangerous criminals when they discover a downed cargo plane on the ocean floor. (Hey, is this a remake of The Deep? Sure sounds like The Deep.)

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· A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE 5 stars. (R) See review.

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· MIRRORMASK 2 stars. (PG) See review.

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· OLIVER TWIST (PG) See review.

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· SERENITY (PG-13) 3 stars. See review.

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· THE THING ABOUT MY FOLKS (PG-13) For this week’s family road trip comedy, Paul Reiser wrote, produced and stars in this schmaltzy project about a son trying to patch things up between his bickering parents (Peter Falk and Olympia Dukakis).

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Duly Noted

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· THE CHINESE BAR (2003) (NR) A would-be filmmaker and a documentarian strike up a creative and romantic partnership at an Argentinian bar where the tango is alive and well. Free. Latin American Film Festival. Sun., Oct. 2, 3 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Hill Auditorium, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

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· DAYS OF SANTIAGO (2004) (NR) A young Peruvian has difficulties adjusting to life in his hometown of Lima after spending years fighting wars with Ecuador, terrorists and drug traffickers. $5. Latin American Film Festival. Fri., Sept. 30, 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

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· FAVELA RISING (NR) This documentary profiles Anderson Sá, a drug dealer-turned-Afro-reggae musician and nonviolent social revolutionary. $5. Latin American Film Festival. Sat., Oct. 1, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium, 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

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· FIRE EYES (2004) (NR) Award-winning Somali filmmaker Soraya Mire directs this documentary about female genital mutilation in Somalia. Fri., Sept. 30, 7 p.m. Southwest Arts Center, 915 New Hope Road. 404-505-3220.

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· HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE 4 stars. (2004) (PG) In industrial-era Europe, a repressed shop girl becomes transformed into a elderly (but spunky) woman after getting embroiled with feuding wizards. Hayao Miyazaki, the world’s greatest living director of animated films, offers some wild, whimsical variations on themes similar to his Oscar-winning Spirited Away, in which another spellbound girl found romance, empowerment and outlandish monsters. At times, the rules of Miyazaki’s world can be confusing, but the director rightly appreciates that the magic of a story often lies in its mystery. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). Sept. 30-Oct. 6. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. 404-651-3565. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft. — Curt Holman

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· MEGACITIES (1998) (NR) This German documentary explores the underground cultures of some of the world’s most sprawling cities by focusing on several individuals, including street performers, homeless kids and hustlers. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). Thurs., Sept. 29. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. 404-651-3565. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft.

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· OLYMPIA (1938) (NR) Hailed as one of the greatest sports documentaries ever produced, this chronicle of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games breaks ground in technical achievements and includes Jesse Owen’s triumphant races. Film Retrospective: Leni Riefenstahl. $4. Wed., Oct. 5, 7 p.m. Goethe-Institut Atlanta, 1197 Peachtree St. 404-892-2388. www.goethe.de/ins/us/atl/enindex.htm.

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· RACE IS THE PLACE (NR) This documentary examines racial stereotypes and artists’ responses to them. Free. Tues., Oct. 4, 7:30 p.m. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, 450 Auburn Ave. 404-331-5190. www.imagefv.org.

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· THAT’S JUST WRONG! (NR) Atlanta underground filmmaker Joe Christ wrote, directed and stars in this trashy, tongue-in-cheek tale about a stalker (Christ) who moves in to his victim’s suburban Atlanta home. $4. Sat., Oct. 1, 6 p.m. Smith’s Olde Bar, 1578 Piedmont Avenue. 404-875-1522. www.joechrist.com.

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· TO KNOW THE WORLD: FILMS AND VIDEOS BY ROGER BEEBE (NR) Roger Beebe’s experimental films meditate on such innately American subjects as strip malls, gas stations and postcards. The filmmaker attends the retrospective of his work, which features a live performance by singer Erin Tobey accompanied by a Kodachrome slide show. $5. Mon., Oct. 3, 8 p.m. Eyedrum. 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 404-522-0655. www.eyedrum.org.

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Continuing

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· THE ARISTOCRATS 4 stars. (NR) George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Sarah Silverman, John Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg and scores of other comedians take turns telling — or commenting on — an old, notoriously offensive joke usually reserved for other comedians instead of their audiences. Depending on your tolerance for humor based on every imaginable human depravity, you might not always find The Aristocrats a funny gag, but this documentary (from Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette) earns some honest laughs while offering fascinating — and uncomfortable — insights into the minds of professional jokemeisters. — Holman

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· BROKEN FLOWERS 2 stars. (R) Cinema’s two reigning Zen masters of deadpan understatement, Bill Murray and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, dial it back a little too far in this melancholy comedy. Murray’s aging Don Juan road-trips to see which of four ex-lovers (played superbly by Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton) is the mother to the son he never knew. With such self-conscious tedium and heavy-handed symbols, Broken Flowers feels wasteful of its terrific cast, although Murray’s touchingly subtle work strikes some highly affecting chords in the last 15 minutes. — Holman

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· THE BROTHERS GRIMM 1 star. (PG-13) Inveterate scenery chewer and slapstick fan Terry Gilliam directs the blandly Caucasian team of Matt Damon and Heath Ledger in an annoyingly manic action-adventure yarn. The two 19th-century German brothers Wilhelm and Jacob, who wrote fairy tales like “Rapunzel” and “Snow White,” become swashbuckling adventurers in screenwriter Ehren Kruger’s hands. The brothers fight to exorcise a haunted German forest of its ghouls. A tangled, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink storyline proves Gilliam was not paying attention when he re-read all of those simple but effective Grimm tales. — Felicia Feaster

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· THE CONSTANT GARDENER 4 stars. (R) In this flashy, faithful adaptation of John Le Carré’s espionage best seller, Ralph Fiennes plays impressively against type as a meek diplomat in Africa investigating the murder of his activist wife (Rachel Weisz). Director Fernando Mereilles brings a similar intensity and eye for telling detail that marked sizzling City of God and makes The Constant Gardener one of the rare political thriller’s that’s actually about politics. Too many characters seem to exist simply for exposition instead of insight, but the film stirringly blends suspenseful paranoia, tragic romance and indignation at corporate misdeeds in the Third World. — Holman

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· CORPSE BRIDE 3 stars. (PG) A misunderstood young artiste (voiced by Johnny Depp) finds himself married to a half-skeletal dead woman (Helena Bonham Carter) in this stop-motion animated film co-directed by Tim Burton. The morbid animation style and Danny Elfman songs evoke memories of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the thin story fails to measure up. Nevertheless, nearly every frame of Corpse Bride offers a clever, memorable image, and the comedy clicks in the last act when the dead reunite with the living. — Holman

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· ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (1958) 3 stars. (NR) The first feature film of renowned French director Louis Malle gets started at the point when most thrillers enter the home stretch: Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet have a torrid phone conversation before implementing a fool-proof plan to kill her husband. A small mistake, however, throws their plan awry and keeps the pair separated for the entire movie, conveying not the usual sense of amoral passion of most film noir, but the alienation and despair following World War II. — Holman

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· THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE 2 stars. (PG-13) A morally conflicted, atheist attorney (Laura Linney) defends a brooding priest (Tom Wilkinson) of negligent homicide in the wake of an unsuccessful exorcism. With an Oscar-caliber cast and a premise that blends courtroom drama with supernatural conflicts, this supernatural thriller promises scares and thoughtful content, and fails to deliver them both. You’d do better with a Halloween episode of “Law and Order” than Exorcism’s lame legal plot points and muddled spirituality. — Holman

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· FLIGHTPLAN 2 stars. (PG-13) On the heels of Red Eye comes this month’s aerial thriller. This one, about a widow (Jodie Foster) whose daughter disappears during an intercontinental flight, quickly begins its narrative descent and eventually explodes on contact, creating fireballs of flaws so massive, they obliterate entire theater auditoriums and even singe the concession stands. Foster’s performance deserves a better showcase — instead, she’s much like the lone suitcase that’s left on the baggage claim belt, circling wearily while surrounded by an atmosphere of indifference. — Matt Brunson

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· THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN 4 stars. (R) Can a sheltered, geeky electronics store employee (“The Daily Show’s” Steve Carell, who co-wrote the script) discover the joys of man-on-woman action, or will fate conspire comedically against him? This raunchy but surprisingly sweet comedy with a relaxed, engaging cast takes great pleasure in examining society’s sexual obsessions and the anxiety it engenders. It’s a little long, but like the cable cult-flick Office Space, it gets plenty of mileage from taking place in the same generic, chain-store America where must of us live, work and play. — Holman

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· IMAX THEATER — The Living Sea (NR): Humpback whales, golden jellyfish and giant clams star in this documentary about the diversity of undersea life, with music by Sting and narrated by Meryl Streep. Closes Fri., Sept. 30. Mystery of the Nile (NR): This IMAX adventure follows a small group of reporters and filmmakers as they travel 3,000 miles up the Nile River. Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets (NR): This exploration of one of America’s greatest natural wonders retraces the canyon’s history, from Native Americans to modern-day whitewater rafters. Opens Sat., Oct. 1. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

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· JUNEBUG 4 stars. (R) This deeply charming, tender story about a Southern homecoming, bristles with honest observation and wit, much of it transmitted by Amy Adams as a pregnant Southern ball of fire. George (Alessandro Nivola) and his sophisticated new wife, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), head from their Chicago home to visit his folks in North Carolina where they find a South defined by close, unspoken family ties and no small amount of heartbreak, as captured by first-time director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan. — Feaster

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· JUST LIKE HEAVEN 2 stars. (PG-13) In sort of an undead Goodbye Girl, the intangible specter of a workaholic doctor (Reese Witherspoon) haunts the depressed, slobby hunk (Mark Ruffalo) who sublet her apartment. Witherspoon and Ruffalo improve on overly familiar material and Jon Heder, who played the title role in Napoleon Dynamite, has a small, scene-stealing role as a slacker psychic. If you’ve ever seen a Meg Ryan movie, you won’t find much new here. — Holman

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· LORD OF WAR 2 stars. (R) A good idea badly executed, this drama about an international arms dealer (Nicolas Cage) is immediately doomed because writer/director Andrew Niccol can’t resist soft-pedaling his odious central character. And while Niccol rightly feels that the easy procurement of weapons — not to mention the resultant casualties of war (usually women and children) — is an important issue that requires further discussion, he would have had more success had he placed his data in the context of compelling entertainment. Instead, he merely uses numbing voice-over narration to pile on the statistics and crunch the figures. By the time the movie ends, we’re more primed to take a pop quiz than take a stand. — Brunson

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· PROOF (PG-13) 2 stars. Director John Madden’s film joins Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia and that other bug house drama Girl, Interrupted in the sorority of films about beautiful, tortured women that give paltry indications of what that pain feels like. Paltrow has delivered the actorly goods in previous work such as Shakespeare in Love, but her mumbling monotone becomes irritating as a too-easy shorthand for depression. Her golden girl radiance could have used a brown rinse to convince us she is the self-defeating, shut-in math genius worried that she may have inherited her brilliant father’s (Anthony Hopkins) propensity for mental illness. — Feaster

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· RED EYE 3 stars. Red Eye qualifies as the best movie that director Wes Craven has ever made. Unlike his usual junk (The Last House on the Left, Scream), this at least feels like an A-list project rather than the masturbatory exercises in misogyny he tends to foist upon the public. Rachel McAdams delivers a strong performance as Lisa Reisert, whose flight home to Miami turns into a terror trip once she discovers that the charming guy (Cillian Murphy) sitting next to her will involve her in an attempted political assassination. Red Eye may not expand the parameters of the thriller genre, but it certainly knows how to make its way inside its well-established conventions. Unfortunately, that can only take it so far, and even at 85 minutes, the movie begins to coast as it reaches its obvious climax. — Brunson

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· SHORT CUT TO NIRVANA: KUMBH MELA 2 stars. (NR) Every 12 years, an epic religious pilgrimage takes place outside Allahabad, India, with crowds estimated between 30 million and 70 million. Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day’s documentary on the festival takes a chaotic look at the phenomenon, capturing the carnival-esque spirit of gurus who perform stunts like nail-sitting and three-day burials to prove their devotion and draw crowds. The film never gets viewers in touch with the gathering’s spiritual importance or historical significance, and a potentially enlightening opportunity feels squandered. — Feaster

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· 2046 4 stars. (R) Obsessive Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai crafts a sort-of-sequel to his art-house hit In the Mood for Love. Replacing unconsummated romance with unattached intimacy, 2046 proves an equally lush but more complex study in style and mood, as Tony Leung’s dissolute writer becomes involved with some of Asia’s most beautiful women, most prominently Crouching Tiger’s Zhang Ziyi as a heartbroken call girl. Rather than try to decode all of the director’s post-modern plot twists, you’ll have a more satisfying time bathing in the film’s voluptuousness. — Holman

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· AN UNFINISHED LIFE 2 stars. (PG-13) A gruff cowboy (Robert Redford) who still blames his daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez) for his son’s death isn’t thrilled when she shows up uninvited with her young daughter (Becca Gardner) in tow. It’s good to see Redford playing a character who’s more ornery than iconic, and the impressive Gardner provides a boost to every scene in which she appears — she especially blossoms opposite Morgan Freeman, cast as Redford’s trusty companion. Yet the camaraderie between the Redford and Freeman characters isn’t always convincing — it plays like an inferior version of the Freeman-Eastwood tag team in Million Dollar Baby — while the heavy-handed moralizing leads to all the expected climaxes and conclusions. — Brunson