Short Subjectives December 25 2002

?Opening Wednesday
ANTWONE FISHER (PG-13) The screenplay’s the story here, and Denzel Washington (in his directorial debut) gets out of its way, letting his actors relate it honestly without gumming it up with show-off stylistics. Antwone Fisher wrote the script, based on his own life story, and he and Washington luck out by having engaging newcomer Derek Luke handle the heavy lifting, playing a troubled sailor whose anti-social behavior brings him into contact with a Navy psychiatrist (Washington) who eventually helps him get to the root of his emotional problems. --Matt Brunson

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (PG-13) Steven Spielberg’s most purely entertaining film since the early 1980s finds Leonardo DiCaprio as a chameleon-like high schooler who flees his broken home by brazenly passing as an airline pilot, an Atlanta pediatrician and more. Tom Hanks finds plenty of rueful humor as the Joe Friday-esque FBI agent who’s always one step behind. When other filmmakers remake classics like Charade, they’re striving for the kind of ease, star power and fluency that this film generates without breaking a sweat. --Curt Holman

EVELYN (PG) Pierce Brosnan takes a break from James Bond for some double-o hokum as a single dad challenging the Irish church and legal system to get his kids back. The climactic courtroom scenes hold our interest, but director Bruce Beresford tries so hard to offer a wholesome crowd-pleaser, he waters down the darker implications of the material in favor of sugary platitudes. With Stephen Rea, Aidan Quinn and Alan Bates taking turns intoning “David and Goliath” cliches as the legal team.

THE LION KING (G) Disney’s highest grossing film ever gets the IMAX treatment. Sort of like Hamlet on the plains of Africa, it depicts a young lion trying to reclaim his place atop the food chain from his usurping uncle. It’s not really in the league of classics like Pinocchio or Beauty and the Beast, despite its all-star voice cast and Elton John/Tim Rice songs that a generation of kids knows by heart. Regal Cinemas Mall Of Georgia IMAX, 3379 Buford Drive, Buford. --CH

PINOCCHIO (G) Italy’s Roberto Benigni goes from the World War II ghettos of Life is Beautiful to the workshop of Gepetto with a live-action version of the fairy tale about the walking puppet with the prominent proboscis. Will Americans flock to see the full-grown Benigni wearing a harlequin costume and playing the “wooden boy?”

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (PG) This archetypal tale of resisting oppression resembles a runaway’s tale from Uncle Tom’s Cabin transported to the outback setting of Walkabout. In 1931 three Aboriginal girls of mixed parentage are stolen from their families to be forcibly integrated into white society, until they escape and try to make their way home along the 1,200-mile fence of the title. With a chilling blandness, Kenneth Branagh plays the career bureaucrat who believes the policy of state-sanctioned kidnapping is doing the Aborigines a favor. --CH

br>?Opening Friday
CHICAGO (PG-13) First-time feature director Rob Marshall reclaims the musical genre from Moulin Rouge with this sexy, robust, big-screen version of Bob Fosse’s cynical stage hit. As Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones play Jazz Age murderesses vying for the attentions of superlawyer Richard Gere, showbiz and the legal system prove to be opposite sides of the same tarnished coin. The entire cast, including John C. Reilly and Queen Latifah, reveal remarkable musical showmanship, selling the hell out of the vaudeville-style numbers. --CH

?Duly Noted
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 Meatloaf gets killed. Dress as your favorite character and participate in this musical on acid. Midnight Fri. at Lefont Plaza Theatre and Sat. at Marietta Star Cinema.

br>? Continuing
ABOUT SCHMIDT (R) Jack Nicholson does an about-face in his performance as a smaller-than-life midwestern insurance executive facing multiple crises mostly funny ones upon retirement. Election director Alexander Payne’s critique of American mediocrity can feel snide and elitist, but also has considerable comic invention, from Schmidt’s inappropriate letters to an impoverished African boy to Kathy Bates and Dermot Mulroney as the prospective in-laws from hell. --CH

ADAM SANDLER’S 8 CRAZY NIGHTS (PG-13) Basically a frat-house version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this animated effort shows how an anti-social slacker becomes a swell guy thanks to the efforts of a diminutive elderly man. As is par for the course, the movie turns faux-sentimental in time for the fadeout, but before that, we’re subjected to the usual Sandler gross-out humor. Yet even the scatological gags aren’t as offensive as the product placement pimping. --MB

ANALYZE THAT (R) Sure, “The Sopranos” does the whole mobster/shrink thing with deeper insights and better jokes, but the original comedy with Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal provided harmless laughs. The follow-up even nods to the HBO series by having the gangster consult for a similar TV show, but the idea gets wasted> Otherwise, the sequel is like beating a dead horse — then putting its head in somebody’s bed. --CH

BARBERSHOP (PG-13) Ice Cube goes for a day-in-the-life-of-the-‘hood vibe comparable to his trilogy of Friday films, but this modest comedy centered around a Chicago hair-cuttery feels trimmed of laughs. The labored slapstick with two accident-prone ATM thieves and the squabbles between the barbers are about as thin as a comb-over. As the oldest and most outspoken barber, Cedric the Entertainer makes a lonely effort to give the film some old-school personality. --CH

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (R) An often cruelly jocular agitprop documentary about an out-of-control American gun culture, Michael Moore’s (Roger & Me) nightmare tour of America’s covert foreign policy, Michigan Militia and NRA rallies, conspiratorial kooks and sleazy TV producers makes a good case for the hair-trigger viciousness of our eye-for-an-eye culture even as it reduces painful, profound issues to irony-laced, laughable sport. At United Artists Tara Cinemas. --FF

DIE ANOTHER DAY (PG-13) Pierce Brosnan’s fourth outing as 007 isn’t the best Bond film by a long shot, but it may be the fastest. Director Lee Tamahori brings a breakneck pace and a spirited willingness to show the audience some wild, new spectacle, notably a melting ice palace and chases across a frozen lake. Homages to earlier films are plentiful, while Halle Berry, as comely assassin Jinx, and Judi Dench, as Bond’s spy boss, each have Academy Awards, lending a little legitimacy to the silly puns and stunt work. --CH

8 MILE (R) Bratty rapper Eminem plays a struggling hip-hop artist loosely based on himself in this struggling-artist story from Academy Award-caliber director Curtis Hanson. Structured around a series of public rap “duels,” the film plays like a Rocky or Karate Kid movie, only with profane rhymes substituting for fisticuffs. If not a versatile thespian, Eminem proves comfortable in front of the camera, and the film reveals a genuine interest in hip-hop culture and the impoverished Detroit setting. --CH

EL CRIMEN DE PADRE AMARO (R) A hunky young priest (Y Tu Mama Tambien’s Gael Garcia Bernal) moves to a corrupt town and finds his morals put to the test, not the least by a teenage parishioner (Ana Claudia Talancon). With everything from highway robberies to cats that eat communion wafers, the film provides some watchable melodrama. But neither director Carlos Carrera nor his main character show much interest in spirituality, making the film a heavy-handed critique of Catholicism, but with little soul-searching of its own. At Lefont Plaza Theatre. --CH

DRUMLINE (PG-13) A brilliant but insolent drum prodigy (Nick Cannon) joins the marching band of fictitious “Atlanta A&T University” and learns that there’s no I in team. Even skeptical audiences will gladly march to music and moves of the marching band’s “drumline,” while the script ably explores the tensions between showmanship and musical accomplishment. Only Cannon’s shallow performance hits discordant notes. --CH

EMPIRE (R) John Leguizamo plays an up-and-coming, South Bronx crimelord whose bid for to make a Wall Street killing leads to bloodshed. Featuring Denise Richards, Isabella Rossellini and Fat Joe.

EQUILIBRIUM (R) In the post-WW III future, feelings which cause violent conflict have been outlawed, and butt-kicking cleric John Preston (Christian Bale) is the man who enforces this law of the land. A sci-fi effort to put a topical Prozac Nation spin on a Fahrenheit 451 story line, this Matrix-style film disappoints in every case — neither brainy science fiction nor a galvanizing action thriller. --FF

FAR FROM HEAVEN (PG-13) A rhapsodic, and often surreally accurate homage to the classic 1950s melodramas made by one of the genre’s greatest subversives, Douglas Sirk, this tale of homosexuality and prejudice in 1957 Connecticut stars Julianne Moore and has all the stifled passion and bone-deep malaise of a Sirk production. As he did in the neo-rock opera Velvet Goldmine, director Todd Haynes has revitalized a disparaged genre, the women’s picture, and in the process made one of the most heartfelt expressions of female confinement around. --FF

FRIDA (R) Tony Award winning director Julie Taymor brings a slightly off-kilter sensibility to this strong bio-picture of the tempestuous life and times of Mexican painter and feminist icon Frida Kahlo. Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina as the love of her life, Diego Rivera, are convincing and human as the terminally at-odds husband and wife whose fascinating involvement with the art and radical politics of the ’30s and ’40s makes them long overdue for such a film treatment. . At United Artists Tara Cinemas. --FF

FRIDAY AFTER NEXT (R) The Ice Cube series of comedies becomes a trilogy, with Mike Epps and John Witherspoon returning for this Christmas-themed installment.

GANGS OF NEW YORK (R) Though Martin Scorsese’s historical epic has a more conventional plot line than his more morally ambiguous, violence-soaked films, Gangs of New York is no small feat. A vortex of crime and corruption based on the real life mire of 1800s Manhattan street gangs, Gangs is a smarter than average epic, though far short of Scorsese’s best work. Its greatest saving grace is a brilliantly charismatic, psychopath leader of the Native gang, Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) whose often justified guttersnipe rage far outshines the milquetoast heroism of his Irish gang rival played by Leonardo DiCaprio. --FF

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (PG) Schoolboy sorcerer Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his pals try to solve a series of mysterious attacks at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The first film found narrative momentum in Harry discovering his place in the newfound magical realm, but the sequel plays like an overlong Hardy Boys story set in Disneyworld’s Haunted Mansion. Exciting scenes involve monstrous spiders and snakes, and Kenneth Branagh conjures huge laughs as a fatuous professor, but they can’t make up for the slack storyline and surplus characters. Call it Harry Potter and the Chamber of Exposition. --CH

THE HOT CHICK (PG-13) A high school hottie (Anna Faris) wakes up to find herself trapped in the body of a 30 year-old man (Rob Schneider). If you’ve always wanted to see Schneider prancing like a schoolgirl, this is the film for you.

I SPY (PG-13) Mindless entertainment, with the emphasis on mindless — unless you happen to find particularly entertaining the idea of yet another buddy/action comedy in which mismatched partners must overcome cultural differences (and death-defying stunt sequences) to save the world. This in-name-only “remake” of the ’60s secret-agent series features a disarmingly agreeable turn by Owen Wilson as the flustered straight man, but Eddie Murphy really ought give his obnoxious smart-ass routine a rest. --Bert Osborne

IMAX Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West (NR) Jeff Bridges narrates this sweeping documentary that traces the famed explorers’ 8,000-mile trek across America. Through March 14. Australia: Land Beyond Time (NR) Check out the kangaroos, koalas and other denizens of Down Under in this travelogue of the world’s biggest island. Through Dec. 13. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. www.fernbank.edu.

JONAH: A VEGGIETALES MOVIE (G) Who says Hollywood has no new ideas? Here we have an animated, musical interpretation of the Bible story, with Jonah portrayed by a talking asparagus — no doubt to be swallowed by a vegetarian whale. It’s the first feature film from a popular Christian video series for kids.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (PG-13) The middle film based on Tolkein’s Middle-Earth epic is so full of spectacle it makes Fellowship of the Rings look like director Peter Jackson was just clearing his throat. It’s also a more black-and-white affair, stressing mortal combat over moral struggles as heroes like Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) resist the forces of evil. The schizophrenic Gollum, an all-CGI creation superbly voiced by Andy Serkis, has the most complicated inner life and proves the film’s unlikely star. --CH

MAID IN MANHATTAN (PG-13) (PG-13) It wants to be Jennifer Lopez’s own monogrammed version of Pretty Woman, but the end product is more like Pretty Woeful. Lopez plays a hotel employee who, in one of those “mistaken identity” crises pulled off with more elan by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, finds herself wooed by a compassionate Republican who believes she’s another hotel guest. Ralph Fiennes is uncharacteristically relaxed as the politician, but this unimaginative effort marches with martinet precision through the usual cringe-worthy circumstances. --MB

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING (PG) While not as accomplished as Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, this is nevertheless a gratifying romantic comedy that gently tweaks stereotypes even as its characters wallow in them. Adapted by Nia Vardalos from her own one-woman show, the film centers on the plight of a 30-year-old lonelyheart (Vardalos) who risks the wrath of her family when she falls for a non-Greek (John Corbett). --MB

PERSONAL VELOCITY (R) Though writer/director (and daughter of Arthur) Rebecca Miller’s film about three different women’s lives — in a nutshell, an abused wife, a preppy and a punk rocker — can bear traces of the overly precious, purposeful ambiguity of the modern short story, it also benefits from the craftsmanship and subtleties more often seen in contemporary prose than in most movies. It is hard to think of a recent film with such challenging female characters engaged in such psychologically murky situations. At Lefont Garden Hills Cinema. --FF

RED DRAGON (R) The second film adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon feels less like a remake of Michael Mann’s menacingly sterile Manhunter than a stylistic imitation of Jonathan Demme’s impeccable Silence of the Lambs. Director Brett Ratner offers an overlong but adequately suspenseful B-movie with an A-list cast that boasts remarkable work from Ralph Fiennes as a tormented killer and Emily Watson as his sightless paramour. Anthony Hopkins still zestfully chews scenery and hapless co-stars alike as Hannibal Lecter, but hopefully his third outing marks his retirement from the role. --CH

THE RING (PG-13) Mulholland Drive’s Naomi Watts plays a Seattle reporter investigating an urban legend about a videotape that kills its viewers — which may be no myth. This American remake of the superb Japanese thriller Ring can be both more self-consciously arty and more expensively gory than the restrained original. Director Gore Verbinski nevertheless finds some honest, atypical scares, generating paranoia of communications technology with the spookiest staticky TV set since Poltergeist. --CH

THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 (G) In the modestly entertaining original, Tim Allen played a hapless Joe who became a better dad by taking the role of St. Nick. The sequel, at one point known as The Mrs. Clause, finds Allen’s portly Kris Kringle tasked to find a wife in modern-day America.

SOLARIS (PG-13) Steven Soderbergh’s remake of the 30-year-old Russian science-fiction film is more of a psych 101 exercise than a sci-fi vehicle. The film’s quiet, minimal tone is a little too subtle for George Clooney, playing a psychiatrist who investigates why surveyors of an alien planet have all gone insane. Though the film has an intriguing first act and raises questions worthy of a good “Star Trek” episode, it shies away from the premise’s deeper implications about grief and memory. --CH

SPIRITED AWAY (PG) When her parents are turned into pigs, a Japanese girl enters the realm of spirits and deities to save them and herself. An Alice in Wonderland for the 21st century, this animated treasure finds director Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke) at the height of his powers, offering mature characterizations, sharp conflicts without violence and one of the strangest, least predictable coming-of-age stories you’ve ever set eyes on. --CH

STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN (PG) The Funk Brothers — the unsung session musicians on the Motown label — finally get their due for providing pop music with more hits than any other combo in history. The respectful but spirited documentary delivers earthy interviews with the surviving musicians as well as exuberant performances from a 2000 reunion concert, with the likes of Joan Osborne and Chaka Khan singing classics like “Heat Wave” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” At Lefont Plaza. --CH

STAR TREK NEMESIS (PG-13) The tradition that even-number “Star Trek” films are better than the odd ones holds up — barely — with the Enterprise’s tenth outing. Captain Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) conflict with a more youthful doppleganger (Tom Hardy) leads to choppy plotting, weak comedy and sets as cheesy as the original series’. But with a worthy villain, stellar combat scenes and Stewart at the helm, Nemesis sees the audience to a safe harbor. --CH

SWEET HOME ALABAMA (PG-13) You get a more accurate depiction of the South in that movie about the Country Bears than this lazy, laugh-deficient romantic comedy. Reese Witherspoon plays a hotshot designer engaged to the son of New York’s mayor, who she must get a divorce from the laid-back husband (Josh Lucas) she abandoned in her sleepy Alabama home town. Witherspoon’s controlled performance gives a few grace notes to a predictable parade of both Southern and wedding movie cliches. --CH

TREASURE PLANET (PG) Disney’s heart is in the right place for this animated, space-faring version of the Robert Louis Stevenson adventure, which boasts spectacular set pieces and a nice relationship between cabin boy Jim Hawkins and a cybernetic pirate named Silver. But unnecessary ballast comes from such shameless, pandering touches as a wisecracking robot (voiced by Martin Short), a pop power ballad, a cutesy alien sidekick and interludes for extreme sports. --CH

THE TUXEDO (PG-13) The best special effect in a Jackie Chan movie is always Chan himself, which makes the affable performer’s latest American vehicle an especially ill-fitting and ill-conceived affair. Chan plays a bumbling, insecure chauffeur who dons a top-of-the-line government issue suit that turns him into a superspy of sorts. Dressed to thrill, he teams up with a rookie agent (Jennifer Love Hewitt, enjoyably awful) to stop a power-mad bottled-water magnate (dull Ritchie Coster). It’s always a rush to witness Chan kick and chop his way across the screen, but the film forces him to play second fiddle to the dull effects that allow the suit to come to life. --MB

TWO WEEKS NOTICE (PG-13) Sandra Bullock pratfalls her way through this inane romantic comedy as a klutzy environmental lawyer who reluctantly agrees to work for a millionaire playboy (Hugh Grant), but discovers her true feelings for him only after submitting her titular resignation. The hackneyed script from Marc Lawrence (Miss Congeniality, Forces of Nature) feels lifted from a handful of better films, and both leads show a “let’s-just-go-with-it” kind of resignation. --Tray Butler

WES CRAVEN PRESENTS THEY (PG-13) Robert Harmon, director of the cult suspense film The Hitcher, presents this horror flick about hotties who fear that their “night terrors” suggest that bona fide boogeymen are stalking them.

THE WILD THORNBERRIES MOVIE (PG) With such ambitious animated works as Monsters, Inc. being created specifically for the big screen, it’s becoming increasingly hard to justify plunking down hard-earned cash to sit through yet another big-screen adaptation of a currently popular cartoon television series. This time, it’s The Wild Thornberrys Movie, a takeoff on the show about a 12-year-old girl who, like Dr. Dolittle, has the ability to talk to the animals. This is basically a glorified TV episode — not painful, but awfully hard to get excited about. --MB