Short Subjectives March 14 2001

Opening Friday
ENEMY AT THE GATES (R) ** 1/2 The 1942-43 Battle for Stalingrad boils down to a duel between two men, Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law) and Major Konig (Ed Harris), the top snipers for the Russians and Germans respectively, in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s epic that looks great but isn’t always as suspenseful or dramatically effective as it might be. The big battle sequence at the beginning invites comparison to Saving Private Ryan and suffers from that comparison. Mad magazine readers will appreciate a hint of “Spy vs. Spy” in this story of “Sniper vs. Sniper,” while historians may consider it an example of reductio ad absurdam. — STEVE WARREN
EXIT WOUNDS (R) Steven Segal shears his pony locks to play a tough inner city cop out to fight “domestic terrorism” and corruption on the force, battling hip hop performer DMX, who stars as seedy crime lord Latrell Walker.
FAITHLESS (R) ***1/2 From a script by noted Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and directed by one of his most talented actresses, Liv Ullmann, Faithless follows the dissolution of a marriage and the profound effect on the child of a woman (Lena Endre) who has an extramarital affair. Endre gives a stunning, sympathetic performance as a woman whose reckless love affair with her husband’s best friend turns into an all-consuming nightmare in this thoughtful film based on an actual event in Bergman’s own life. — FELICIA FEASTER
Duly Noted
AND YOUR LOVE TOO *** In this rarely-seen East German film from 1962, Armin Mueller-Stahl stars as Ulli, a political idealist in Berlin who must contend with the apathy of his countrymen and the corruptive influence of the west. The problem is complicated by the erection of a barrier between the two halves of the city (later to become the Berlin Wall). But this armed barricade, which has since come to symbolize political oppression, is looked upon by Ulli as salvation, a cultural dam that will not only cure the political malaise of his fellow Berliners, but also cure strained relationships with his brother (Ulrich Thein) and girlfriend (Kati Szekely). Directed by Frank Vogel. March 14 at 7 p.m., as part of Germany’s Other Cinema film festival at the Goethe Institut Atlanta. --BRET WOOD
BANDIT QUEEN As part of Women’s Awareness Month, Georgia Tech presents the raw depiction of India’s Phooloon Devi based on the book by Mala Sen. A low-caste woman sold into marriage at the age of 11 and raped repeatedly as a young woman, Phooloon wages a class war and becomes one of India’s most wanted outlaws, stealing from the rich and evading police until her surrender in 1983. March 15 at 7:30 p.m. 368 Skiles, Georgia Tech University.
THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS A tribute to Atlanta’s black media during National Black Press Week, this dramatic film about the efforts of black media pioneers will be followed by a question-and-answer session with a panel of local media professionals. March 15 at 7 p.m. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site Theater.
BOESMAN & LENA *** Blacklisted Hollywood director John Berry helms this adaptation of South African playwright Athol Fugard’s 1969 drama. Angela Bassett and Danny Glover play a homeless couple burned out of their Capetown squatters camp and engage in an emotional meltdown, propelled by the injustices of apartheid, poverty and their own dissolving, abusive relationship. March 16 at 8 p.m. High Museum of Art — FF
CONFEDERACY THEORY Atlanta-based filmmaker Ryan Deussing’s documentary portrait of the Confederate flag debate in South Carolina is presented by IMAGE and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., National Historic Site as part of the Developing Racial Equality through Arts and Music (DREAM) film series promoting racial equality and social justice. March 22 at 7:30 p.m. MLK National Historic Site, 450 Auburn Ave.
COLLECTORS *** A chilling, often downright sickening documentary portrait of two men who worship a bizarre kind of celebrity: the serial killer. Collectors follows Rick Staton and Tobias Allen as they indulge their merry hobby of amassing serial killer artwork and relics. Products of the Age of Irony, when even the most gruesome and cold-hearted endeavors can be written off as cultural anthropology and harmless fun, Allen and Staton dig their own grave with the shovel director Julian Hobbs provides. March 9-15, GSU’s cinéfest. -- FF
DARK DAYS First-time director Marc Singer goes beneath the streets of New York City to explore the infrastructure of subway tunnels and the people who inhabit them. March 9-15 at GSU’s cinéfest.
THE EIGHTH DAY Belgian businessman Auteuil undergoes a personality transformation after spending time with a man with Down’s Syndrome. Shown as part of Francophonie 2001: A Celebration of the French-Speaking World. March 22 at 10 a.m. Lefont Garden Hills Theater.
MY UNCLE ANTHONY Claude Jutra’s tale of a 15-year-old boy growing up in a mining town in the 1940s, shown as part of Francophonie 2001: A Celebration of the French-Speaking World. March 20 at 10 a.m. Lefont Garden Hills Theater.
NOBODY WANTED TO DIE Part of the series “Opening the Archives: A Program of Banned Soviet Films from the 1960s and ’70s Recently Released by Russian Archives,” this tale of family revenge takes place during the Soviet postwar annexation of Lithuania. Directed by Vitautas Zalakiavicius. March 14 at 7:30 p.m., 205 White Hall, Emory.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (R) The cult classic of cult classics, the 1975 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 Meatloaf gets killed. Dress as your favorite character and participate in this musical on acid. Fridays at midnight, Lefont Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce De Leon Ave.
SUGAR CANE ALLEY Jose’s grandmother risks all to get the 11-year-old boy an education so that he may escape the backbreaking work and poverty of Sugar Cane Alley, the shack-lined street of a sugar cane plantation in Martinique. Francophonie 2001: A Celebration of the French-Speaking World. March 21 at 10 a.m. Lefont Garden Hills Theater.
THE TASTE OF OTHERS Designated Best Movie of the Year” in France, Agnes Jaoui’s eccentric film introduces a hodgepodge of characters who never should meet, but when they do, go so far as to fall for each other. Castella, a business executive who is dragged to the theater by his wife, becomes entranced by the show’s star, Clara, who by chance becomes his English teacher later in the film. Francophonie 2001: A Celebration of the French-Speaking World. March 21 at 7:30 p.m. Lefont Garden Hills Theater.
TIGERLAND (R) *** 1/2 Joel Schumacher takes a break from grinding out crap with a drama about young men training at Fort Polk, La., to be sent to Vietnam in 1971. The screenplay cleverly combines elements of war and anti-war movies. Roland Bozz (Colin Farrell’s breakthrough role) is a Christ figure, taking suffering on himself to spare his comrades. The military equivalent of a jailhouse lawyer, he uses his expertise more for others than for himself. He has the skills for soldiering but wants only to get out of the army. Matthew Libatique’s excellent hand-held camerawork lends a documentary feel without becoming annoying. March 18 at 6 p.m. Parkway Pointe. — SW
Continuing
ALMOST FAMOUS (R) ***1/2 Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe romanticizes his experiences as a 15 year-old Rolling Stone reporter, on tour with a fictional band called Stillwater. The film oversells the puppyish cuteness of leads Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit but offers a pleasingly nostalgic portrait of a rock writer and the rock industry’s loss of innocence, with terrific turns by Billy Crudup, Jason Lee and Philip Seymour Hoffman. — CURT HOLMAN
ANTITRUST (PG-13) ** 1/2 Though not as memorable as Arlington Road, the last paranoid thriller in which Tim Robbins played a villain, Antitrust is a good popcorn movie that’s aimed at a younger audience and should do the job for them. Robbins is a Bill Gates-like computer mogul, Ryan Phillippe the hotshot garage geek who goes to work for him but discovers his dark secrets and has to bring down his empire. It’s like a chess game, only more visual. The geek-speak dialogue sounds credible without being intimidating. — SW
BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (NR) *** ’80s artist Julian Schnabel steps up to the filmmaking plate again after his promising 1996 Basquiat to deliver another noteworthy portrait of an idiosyncratic artist rebelling against convention. This time it’s Cuban dissident writer and homosexual Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem), who was aggressively persecuted by Castro’s forces after the revolution for both his work and his sexuality. This bio-picture, featuring bizarre cameos from Johnny Depp and Sean Penn, is lyrically constructed, with a surreal rhythm that manages to span decades in Arenas’ often brutal, lonely life without losing a sense of the artist’s perspective. — FF
BLOW DRY (R) ** 1/2 Certainly better than The Big Tease, last year’s entry in the subgenre of hairdressing competition movies, this whimsical dramedy about young love and old grudges is aimed at fans of The Full Monty and Waking Ned Devine. But when you learn at the outset the leading lady is dying, you know it’s not an all-out laughfest. In the Yorkshire town hosting the British Hairdressing Championships, Alan Rickman and Natasha Richardson were married until she ran off with his model (Rachel Griffiths) 10 years ago. Terminally ill Richardson wants to mend fences and enter the competition as a team with Rickman. — SW
CAST AWAY (PG-13) *** Director Robert Zemeckis and his Forrest Gump star Tom Hanks have created another crowd-pleaser in what begins as a modern-day Robinson Crusoe story but comes out looking like a “Survivor” spin-off. Dumped in the Pacific, Chuck Noland (Hanks) spends four-plus years on an otherwise uninhabited island, developing survival skills gradually and realistically. The plot eventually gets Hollywood-ized, but it’s amazing how long Zemeckis resists commercial impulses, aside from the whole movie being such a commercial for Chuck’s employer, FedEx, that failing an Oscar, it has a chance to win a Clio. — SW
THE CAVEMAN’S VALENTINE *** Samuel L. Jackson plays a piano prodigy turned street lunatic who suspects a celebrated photographer (Colm Feore) of murder in this stylish oddity. It’s hard to accept its sleuthing premise or narrative logic, but Jackson gives a vivid, charismatic performance and Eve’s Bayou director Kasi Lemmons offers plenty of weird and haunting images. - CH
CHOCOLAT (PG-13) **1/2 Free-spirited Juliette Binoche opens a chocolate shop in a repressed village, setting up a didactic conflict of indulgence versus denial. The French locales, food and faces are lovingly photographed (the disarming ensemble includes Judi Dench, Johnny Depp and Alfred Molina), but it cannot equal the comparably themed but richer Babette’s Feast. Chocolat melts in your hands, not in your heart. — CH
CHUNHYANG (NR) *** Easy on the eyes but hard on most Western ears, Im Kwon Taek’s celebration of Korean culture has moments of Kurosawa-like sweep and incredible beauty. It tells of 18th-century lovers, the son of a governor and the daughter of a courtesan, who marry secretly before he goes away for three years. When she refuses the advances of the new governor she is sentenced to death. The copious narration is sung/chanted/spoken in pansori form, making a kind of folk-opera with exotic sounds that are not an easily acquired taste. — SW
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (PG-13) **** An enchanting tale set in early 19th-century China, Ang Lee’s (Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm) atmospheric Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon rekindles the Hong Kong flame of gravity-defying martial arts action and tender sentiment. Lee invests the usual astounding acrobatics with his characters’ pangs of regret, love and loss as two martial arts masters, (Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh) teach a spoiled young aristocrat (Zhang Ziyi) about the moral responsibilities of the Giang Hu martial arts way in this subversive, beautifully realized coming-of-age story. — FF
DOUBLE TAKE (PG-13) * 1/2 This action comedy wants to keep you guessing who the good guys and bad guys are, but you’re more likely to wonder why you wasted your money on this crap. Orlando Jones, a fine comic, is supposed to play straight man to the even wackier Eddie Griffin, but the script is so inconsistent it’s as if different scenes had different writers and directors who didn’t confer with each other. Double Take won’t leave you doubled over with laughteror even singled over. SW
DOWN TO EARTH ** Though he’s given strong supporting performances, Chris is not yet the Rock on which to build a movie. In this remake of Heaven Can Wait he plays a would-be comic who’s called up to heaven prematurely and sent back in the body of a rich white man. There are a few good lines and moments, but it feels overall like a mediocre sketch comedy. A Chris Rock concert movie would have been far more entertaining. I thought the Warren Beatty version was overrated, so as much as I like Rock, I can’t work up much enthusiasm for an inferior remake. — SW
DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? (PG-13) * 1/2 Underachievers need role models too. Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott), the latest incarnation of Bill & Ted, are stoner/slackers who save the universe while trying to remember what they did the night before. The plot-heavy comedy is as witless as it is brainless, the guys cute but not funny or believable, individually or together. Their odyssey — with the emphasis on the “od”surrounds our heroes with zany stereotypes, from a transsexual stripper to donut-loving cops. What Kutcher and Scott should really be asking is, “Dude, where’s my agent?” SW
THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE (G) *** Besides being one of the year’s funniest comedies, Disney’s latest animated feature is a perfect mating of voice actors with characters: David Spade as the spoiled emperor who’s turned into a llama; John Goodman as the kindly peasant who turns the other cheek to help him; Eartha Kitt as a classic Disney villain who lacks only a song; and Patrick Warburton as her dim thug. The drawing style is simpler than in most of Disney’s classics, but the picture’s packed with fun, action and comedy that appeals to all ages. — SW
THE FAMILY MAN (PG-13) **1/2 A Republican plot to make poor working stiffs content with their lot so they won’t begrudge the wealthy their new tax breaks, this dramedy is a virtual big-budget remake of Me Myself I, in which Rachel Griffiths was better than Nicolas Cage is here as someone visiting an alternate universe for a “glimpse” of how life would have been had they married for love 13 years ago instead of pursuing a single, career-oriented life. Tea Leoni is this version’s greatest asset as the old girlfriend with whom playboy Cage gets to sample married life. — SW
15 MINUTES ** Larger-than-life characters, largely unmotivated acts of atrocity and a total disregard for dramatic continuity propel this disorganized and densely packed police thriller/would-be media satire about a green arson investigator and a celebrity homicide cop (Robert De Niro) on the trail of a pair of brutal and unusually image-conscious Eastern European thugs. Like a bigger, stiffer Two Days in the Valley(also by writer/director John Herzfeld), but without the neat cat-fight between Teri Hatcher and Charlize Theron. Why bother? — EDDY VON MUELLER
FINDING FORRESTER (PG-13) ** Gus Van Sant revisits Good Will Hunting territory in a tale of a brilliant but unrecognized student and athlete (newcomer Robert Brown) who bonds with a reclusive, Salingeresque novelist (Sean Connery). The pair has enjoyable moments together, but van Sant is clearly more interested in the basketball games and the Bronx setting than the film’s contrived prep-school conflicts and its lip service to great literature. As yet another story of a reluctant young genius, it could be called Good Will Finding. — CH
??GET OVER IT (PG-13) ** Tommy O’Haver follows Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss with a teen comedy that presents a John Hughes-wannabe script in the style of a Beach Party movie. Ben Foster, an unlikely leading man, is no way a match for Kirsten Dunst, his best friend’s younger sister who becomes his Ms. Right while helping him get over Melissa Sagemiller. Casting Sisqo and Zoe Saldana as African American friends of the white leads feels calculated, more a matter of demographics than democracy, especially when Sisqo’s big number is tacked on at the end to stretch the film to minimal feature length. — SW
THE GIFT (R) ** Where do I go to return The Gift? Cate Blanchett plays a small town medium who gets embroiled in violence and sleazy behavior in a script, co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, that plays like “Peyton Place” with ESP. Director Sam Raimi injects a few shocks, but the film proves too over-the-top to be taken seriously, and with too many classy performers (including Keanu Reeves and Hilary Swank) for camp value. — CH
HANNIBAL (R) *** The sequel to The Silence of the Lambs substitutes a well-cast Julianne Moore for Jodie Foster, but more problematically offers director Ridley Scott’s baroque gloss for Jonathan Demme’s solid sobriety. The results can border on camp, especially when the eerie Anthony Hopkins bites into culinary puns, but the well-crafted cat-and-mouse scenes keep the suspense at a delicious simmer. — CH
HEAD OVER HEELS (PG-13) ** Freddie Prinze Jr., the Prinze never known as an artist, can’t convince us he’s an actor, let alone a killer, so we don’t seriously suspect him for a moment when new girlfriend Monica Potter, a blonde Julia Roberts wannabe, thinks she sees him commit a murder. While the characters and situations would seem to lend themselves more to wit than lowest-common-denominator humor, this dumbing-down of the plots of Rear Window and Charade suggests those films might have been more successful if they’d included an exploding toilet scene. — SW
IMAX AT FERNBANK: ADVENTURES IN WILD CALIFORNIA (NR) *** It’s “California Dreamin’” for the new millennium as IMAX and Everest director Greg MacGillivray pack a lot of extreme sports and environmentalism into 40 unhurried minutes, including sky- and sea-surfing sequences that put Hollywood movie stunts and special effects to shame. You’ll see baby otters and bald eagles being prepared by humans for life in the wild and trees that have lived for 3000 years. You’ll ride a roller coaster at Disneyland, walk down the red carpet at the Academy Awards and descend 125 feet into a hollow space in an ancient sequoia. Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m., 1, 3 and 5 p.m., Sun. 1, 3 and 5 p.m. and Fri. 8 and 10 p.m. BEAVERS (NR) ** 1/2 Two furry rodents build a dam and a family in an IMAX nature film that strains to fill 40 minutes. There’s glorious photography of the wilderness of Alberta, Canada, blessedly little narration, and fascination in watching these natural-born engineers at work. Fans of Animal Planet should enjoy this giant-screen study of another of nature’s wonders. Mon.-Sat. at 10 a.m., noon, 2 and 4 p.m., Sun. at noon, 2 and 4 p.m., and Fri. at 7 and 9 p.m.. Films run through March 23 at Fernbank Museum of Natural History, 767 Clifton Road. — SW
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (PG) ** 1/2 Luminous and beguiling, Wong Kar-Wai’s brooding tale of a lovesick couple in 1960s Hong Kong achieves a tone of aesthetic beauty and aching desire rarely approached by contemporary filmmakers. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung star as neighbors in a cramped apartment building who drift, almost reluctantly, into a relationship of deep yearning and unspoken desire, while their spouses are busy will dalliances elsewhere. Wong’s visual finesse (lushly photographed by Christopher Doyle) imbues the delicate plot with a unique flavor of romance-noir, and the carefully chosen music and brilliantly realized period fashions only make this heady romantic brew only more intoxicating. — FF
LEFT BEHIND (PG-13) ** If I go to hell for this lukewarm review, the road will be paved with the fundamentalist filmmakers’ good intentions. Based on a novel that projects the prophecies of Revelation onto modern times on the assumption they’ve begun to come true, it wastes too much time making a mystery of what every viewer knows: the millions who suddenly disappeared went to Heaven in the Rapture. In a less predictable plot line, two men try to take over the world by ending war and hunger. With the prophecies carved in stone and the wheels set in motion, resistance should be futile. — SW
MALENA (R) *** Cinema Paradiso’s Giuseppe Tornatore offers another nostalgic glimpse of an Italian childhood, focusing here on adolescent Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) and his obsession with a shapely war widow (Monica Belucci) during World War II. The film treats Belucci as a sex object, but that’s part of the point, as the rest of Renato’s village judges her character based on her appearance. The moments of broad comedy and gorgeous photography make up for its uncharitable view toward the Italian people. — CH
THE MEXICAN (R) *** In this disposable but entertaining star vehicle Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts have a relationship so dysfunctional you wonder why they bother, but that’s Hollywood’s idea of romance. They’re apart for most of the picture, the heart of which is Roberts’ association with James Gandolfini, a hitman with a twist who kidnaps her to ensure Pitt brings an antique pistol back from Mexico. Overall the movie’s a mixed bag, with more positives (a literate, often witty script; slightly surreal visuals) than negatives (cliched scenes and plot twists, Nancy Sinatra’s overplayed “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” on the soundtrack). — SW
MISS CONGENIALITY (PG-13) ** 1/2 Despite plot holes you could sail the Titanic through, so-so comedy and borderline-pathetic action scenes, this is a star vehicle for Sandra Bullock and she carries it off triumphantly as an FBI agent whose feminine side emerges when she goes undercover as a contestant to save a beauty pageant from a mad bomber. Benjamin Bratt makes a good foil as the fellow agent she’ll wind up with once they resolve their character flaws. While the script could have used a lot more polishing, director Donald Petrie salvages it by focusing on the characters and letting his actors save the day. — SW
MONKEYBONE (PG-13) *** Let the Grinch keep Christmas! Here’s a really imaginative fantasy — think The Wizard of Oz with sex and death — from Henry Selick (The Nightmare before Christmas). Comatose cartoonist Brendan Fraser fights for life and the woman he loves (Bridget Fonda) in a fantasmagorical purgatory while being tormented by Monkeybone, the cartoon character that represents his repressed libido. Selick blurs the lines between live action, puppetry, CGI and various forms of animation. Chris Kattan is terrific as a dead gymnast with a broken neck. — SW
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (PG-13) ***1/2 George Clooney plays an escaped convict dragging his buddies across the Depression-era Deep South in search of hidden treasure and also trying to stop his wife’s remarriage in this uneven but brilliantly bizarre screwball send-up of ’30s folk history and Homer’s ancient epic, The Odyssey. The film features a number of Coen Brothers alums, including John Goodman (standing in for the Cyclops) and John Turturro (who almost gets turned into a frog). The title comes from Sullivan’s Travels, which you should also see, dammit. — EVM
102 DALMATIANS (G) ** 1/2 Second verse, same as the first — with a little less energy. Cruella De Vil (Glenn Close, more subdued this time) steals another hundred or so puppies and is the catalyst for another couple of dog-lovers (Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Evans) to fall in love with each other. Gerard Depardieu does the heavy camping as Le Pelt, a coat-urier who joins fur-ces with Cruella as history repeats itself. Had I seen 102 Dalmatians before 101 I’d probably like it better, but seeing them in the correct sequence there’s too much “Been there, done that” to appreciate the sequel fully. — SW
THE PLEDGE (R) *** Less than the sum of its parts, which include odd, beautifully photographed locations and small appearances by big actors, this serious version of Fargo, adapted from a Friedrich Durrenmatt novel, was directed somberly by Sean Penn as an American art film. Jack Nicholson plays Jerry Black, a Reno police detective whose retirement party is interrupted by the rape/murder of an 8-year-old girl. Jerry obsessively structures his life around solving this and related crimes, with ironic results. The Euro-pacing rules out mainstream audiences; others may be mildly disappointed, but Pledge is no lemon. — SW
POLLOCK (R) *** This cinematically conventional biopic of abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock is a vivid portrait of a veritable sphinx. Directed by and starring Ed Harris, Pollock follows the professional rise and obligatory unraveling of the gifted painter, focusing on his marriage to fellow artist Lee Krasner. As evocative as Harris’s portrayal of the sinewy and scowling artist is, he fails (or chooses not) to offer any insights into Pollock’s swollen ego, alcoholic rage and generic mad genius behavior, leaving Pollock unavoidably unsatisfying as a result. — FF
PROOF OF LIFE (R) **1/2 Knowing about Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe’s off-screen romance adds fuel to the tepid fire onscreen in Taylor Hackford’s Casablanca-style action-romance that doesn’t have enough of either. Instead of Bogie’s mystique, Crowe might as well wear a neon “hero” sign as the hostage negotiator who falls in love with Ryan while trying to free her husband (David Morse, taking acting honors) from banana-republic rebels. The script is needlessly complex in some areas while totally neglecting others, but the movie looks good and moves fast so you may not notice. — SW
RECESS: SCHOOL’S OUT (G) ** 1/2 It’s Die Hard in grade school, as T.J. and his friends, AWOL from specialized summer camps, foil a plot to abolish summer vacation by creating permanent winter on Earth. As in “Disney’s Recess” on TV, characters close in age to those of “South Park” are involved in situations that rapidly become surreal — like older “Rugrats.” Children should relate to the goings-on, and most of the movie, including a soundtrack of ’60s hits, should be equally easy for grown-ups to take. I enjoyed it enough that I’ll have to go to Critics Camp this summer for reprogramming. — SW
RUGRATS IN PARIS: THE MOVIE (G) ** 1/2 A child’s first lesson in international awareness (through largely stereotypical French and Japanese characters), the sequel has celebrity voices and references to R-rated movies for baby-sitters. Coco La Bouche (Susan Sarandon), a milder, French-accented Cruella De Vil, brings the gang over so Stu Pickles can do Reptar repair at EuroReptarland. Coco needs to marry for a promotion and widowed Chas Finster wants a new mommy for Chuckie, so Coco goes to work. Adult issues are seen mostly from the children’s point of view, and there’s still plenty of time for jokes about the Rugrats’ real concern: body functions. — SW
SAVE THE LAST DANCE (PG-13) **1/2 A teen film with a little more on its mind than most, this MTV production manages to address some hot-button topics, like interracial dating, while offering an appealing cast of actors as high school students who get down nightly at an after-hours hip-hop club. Julia Stiles is a tragedy-paralyzed ballerina whose mother’s death sends her to live with her slacker dad in inner-city Chicago. The tragedy puts her dreams of Juilliard on hold until she hooks up with Sean Patrick Thomas, a Georgetown-bound boy from the hood who helps her put the bounce back in her step with after school hip-hop lessons in this harmless, at times even thoughtful, teen romance. — FF
SAVING SILVERMAN (PG-13) ** Steve Zahn and Jack Black, who were on the fast track to success, take a detour in this moronic comedy that may have seemed funny on paper. They try to keep their pal Jason Biggs from marrying controlling bitch Amanda Peet by doing the only logical thing: kidnapping her, faking her death and hooking him up with Amanda Detmer, the girl he loved in high school who is about to take her final vows as a nun. All this and Neil Diamond, too! It would have taken far better direction than Dennis Dugan (Big Daddy) provides to save Saving Silverman. — SW
SEE SPOT RUN (PG) ** David Arquette plays the Adam Sandler role in a virtual remake of Big Daddy that adds a dog to the young boy he has to bond with to win his lady love. They all are chased by hitmen because the dog is the FBI’s top canine agent and has bitten off one of Paul Sorvino’s testicles. With so much plot, See Spot Run has less depth than Big Daddy — and that’s a terrible thing to say about any movie! Michael Clarke Duncan plays the dog’s FBI partner in a humiliating piece of buffoonery and racial stereotyping. — SW
SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (R) **** A snarling, slavering, demonic Willem Dafoe delivers the ghoulish goods in this slightly stuffed but beautifully mounted historical-horror-comedy-biopic about the making of Nosferatu in 1922. John Malkovich plays a strong second fiddle as F.W. Murnau, a director so dedicated to making the ultimate vampire movie that he hires a real vampire to play the lead. — EVM
SNATCH (R) *** As in his debut film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie doesn’t construct plots so much as geometry exercises, setting groups of heavily-armed cockney hoodlums and hitmen in motion and seeing how often they collide. Nominally concerned with fixed boxing matches and the scramble for a stolen diamond, Snatch offers more of the same, with better jokes, a broader canvas and Brad Pitt stealing the show as a gypsy boxer whose accent is hilariously impenetrable. — CH
STATE AND MAIN (R) **1/2 Such enjoyable actors as Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sarah Jessica Parker put what bite they can into David Mamet’s limp showbiz satire. In depicting the havoc wreaked by a film crew on a Vermont village, Mamet means to pay tribute to small-town Americana, but his town comes across as phony as a theme park attraction, and wife Rebecca Pidgeon is over her head as the story’s romantic lead. — CH
SUGAR & SPICE (PG-13) ** Here’s the stupid cheerleader movie