Short Subjectives October 30 2003

Capsule reviews of films by CL critics

Opening Friday?
AUTUMN SPRING (2001) (PG-13) This dramedy from Czechoslovakia stars Vlastimil Brodsky (in his last film role before his suicide) as an irrepressible practical joker unwilling to admit to his own mortality. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

THE CREMASTER CYCLE Image Image Image Image (NR) See review.

THE HUMAN STAIN Image Image (R) See review.

IN THE CUT Image Image Image (R) See review.

PARTY MONSTER Image Image (R) See review.

PIECES OF APRIL Image Image (PG-13) See review.

PREY FOR ROCK ‘N’ ROLL Gina Gershon plays the lead singer of Clam Dandy, an all-girl punk band, who’s tempted to quit the music by her upcoming 40th birthday. Lori Petty and Drea de Matteo co-star in the film version of Cheri Lovedog’s play. At Madstone Theaters Parkside.

?Opening Saturday
BROTHER BEAR (G) A young man is transformed into a bear in this talking-animal animated family film. Parents will note that “SCTV’s” Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas reprise their voices as Doug and Bob Mackenzie as two moose.

?Duly Noted
THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) Image Image Image (R) An aging slacker (Jeff Bridges) and his bowling buddies (John Goodman, Steve Buscemi) become embroiled in a kidnapping plot among Los Angeles’ rich and decadent. For their follow-up to the Oscar-winning Fargo, the Coen Brothers seem to have emptied their notebooks of amusing one-liners and weird images for a finished product that’s well-polished but aggressively inconsequential. Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, midnight. Lefont Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon, 404-873-1939. www.lefonttheaters.com --Curt Holman

DEAD ALIVE (1992) Image Image Image Image (R) Before Peter Jackson achieved cinematic respectability with The Lord of the Rings, he made playful, nastily inventive flicks like this one, in which a milquetoast faces his Oedipal issues when his domineering mother becomes a ravenous zombie. The film’s slapstick suggests Laurel and Hardy with stray body parts, making Dead Alive the funniest gorefest — or maybe the goriest laughfest — ever made. Beware the cannibal baby. Oct. 30-Nov. 1. Madstone Theaters Parkside. --CH

DRACULA (1931) (NR) This Spanish-language version of the Bela Lugosi Dracula was filmed simultaneously at night on the same soundstage with a different cast, to sex up and arguably improve on the more famous English version. Films at the High. Latin American Film Festival. Oct. 31, 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

LITTLE OTIK (2000) (NR) Ingenious Czechoslovakian animator Jan Svankmajer offers a twisted fairy tale about a childless couple who carve a wooden infant as a surrogate baby, only to see it come to life with an insatiable appetite. Oct. 31-Nov. 6, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993) Image Image Image Image (PG) The skeletal lord of Halloween becomes smitten with Christmas and decides to replace Santa Claus, with chaotic results, in this stop-motion animated musical produced by Tim Burton. With more big laughs and fewer downbeat Danny Elfman songs, it could be a genuine classic, but as is, it offers such visual delights that nearly every frame qualifies as a work of art. Oct. 31-Nov. 6, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR (2002) (NR) Director Helvecio Ratton presents the high-spirited story of Radio Favela, a musically and politically rebellious radio station established in the 1980s by four black teens from the Belo Horizonte shantytown. Films at the High. Latin American Film Festival. Nov. 1, 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org. and Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m., Madstone Theaters Parkside

THE STATE I AM IN (2002) (NR) With a plot reminiscent of River Phoenix’s Running on Empty, this drama depicts two former terrorists living incognito with their daughter in Portugal, until a single inattentive moment makes them fugitives in Germany. Recent Films from Germany. Nov. 5, 7 p.m. Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, 1197 Peachtree St., Colony Square. $4. 404-892-2388.

28 DAYS LATER Image Image Image Image (R) Trainspotting director Danny Boyle helms a stylish piece of schlock as a handful of normal humans contend with an epidemic that has turned England’s populace into raging berserkers. The last act’s detour into Lord of the Flies territory dilutes some of the film’s finely drawn tension, but it still proves a smart throwback to the end-of-the-world flicks of the 1970s. Oct. 30, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. --CH

?Continuing
ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (1979) (R) Director Ridley Scott restores some scenes, shortens others, polishes the visual effects and restores the negative of his classic “haunted spacecraft” horror film. Excelled in some ways by its sequel Aliens, it’s still a showcase for the nightmarish designs of H.R. Giger and the acting of such players as Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, John Hurt and Harry Dean Stanton.

BEYOND BORDERS Image Image (R) With a title that sounds like a Barnes & Noble commercial, this failed attempt to revive the old-style romantic epic is equally unsuccessful as an infomercial for refugee aid organizations, since it shows ways in which these charities are compromised. Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen are torn between their love for each other and their love of helping refugees (she has a husband too, but he hardly figures into the equation) over 11 years of danger-filled meetings in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Chechnya. If not for the grim reality of the backdrops, Beyond Borders would be laughable. --Steve Warren

THE HOLY LAND Image Image Image (NR) A rabbinical student (Oren Rehany) becomes enthralled with a Russian sex worker (Tchelet Semel) in this bittersweet dramedy set in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Writer-director Eitan Gorlin explores Israel’s uneasy mixture of the worldly and the pious (the title is nothing if not ironic), and his avoidance of easy stereotypes helps the film rise transcend its low budget, thick accents and technical limitations. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. --CH

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (PG-13) Image Image Image Image A darker than average date movie involving a white-hot divorce lawyer (George Clooney), a gold-digging vixen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and their tangled up relationship, mixed parts revenge and romance. The Coen Brothers (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?) keep the dialogue fast and furious, and make some fascinating Julius Caesar allusions along the way, but falter when they back off from the black humor. --Tray Butler

IMAX THEATER: Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure Image Image Image Image (NR) The greatest survival story of the 20th century lends itself to IMAX treatment. Kevin Spacey narrates Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antarctica by dogsled without his usual sarcasm but without overselling it either. The visuals combine Frank Hurley’s original photographs and film footage, which retain amazing clarity, with recreations of the original expedition. Through Dec. 6. Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey *** (NR) This world music sampler with the emphasis on percussion was filmed on five continents by the creators of the stage musical Stomp. The Stomp cast is augmented by a dozen acts representing the sounds that have influenced them, performing for about two minutes each. For all the time, money and effort involved the result should have been better. Through Feb. 6. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu. --SW

KILL BILL VOLUME 1 Image Image Image (R) Quentin Tarantino’s geek side returns with a vengeance in the first half of his loving yet overblown salute to kung fu movies and other cult revenge flicks. A blonde assassin (Uma Thurman) tracks down the former colleagues who betrayed her, and while Tarantino strives for the grandiosity of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, he undercuts himself with ironic jokes closer to McG’s Charlie’s Angels. It’s up to Uma to carry the film — and she does, conveying a toughness oddly comparable to Lee Marvin. Volume 2 is due in February. --CH

LOST IN TRANSLATION Image Image Image Image (R) Director Sofia Coppola’s (The Virgin Suicides) much-anticipated second film brings together Bill Murray and indie flick ingénue Scarlett Johansson as accidental tourists in Tokyo. Both insomniacs at crisis points in their marriages, the two start a unique friendship that takes through from karaoke clubs to titty bars in a soft-focus search for connection and meaning. Coppola strings together enough tiny brilliant moments to overcome the film’s nearly absent plot and produces a sophomore effort almost as sparkling as her first. --TB

MYSTIC RIVER Image Image Image (R) A continuation of the fixations with masculine strength, vengeance and the violent extremes that have defined Clint Eastwood’s directorial and acting career. Sean Penn, a vast improvement on Eastwood’s typically wooden action heroes, is a grieving father determined to punish whoever murdered his 19-year-old daughter. Eastwood’s emotionally fraught film is hardly the masterpiece it’s been made out to be, often weighed down by a ponderous, conventional police investigation plot and a tendency to spell out his aims in canned dialogue and elementary exposition. But as a sustained treatment of male grief and insight into Eastwood’s auteurist fixations, Mystic River is undeniably fascinating. --Felicia Feaster

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO Image Image (R) Robert Rodriguez’s third film in the El Mariachi trilogy he inaugurated in 1992 shows signs of wear and tear. Antonio Banderas returns as the gunslinger/musician with revenge on his mind as he goes after the general planning to assassinate Mexico’s president. But the outrageous gunplay and ironic violence borrowed from Hong Kong films has now become as tired as old-style Hollywood action formula, while Rodriguez’s indie irreverence has soured into cynicism in this cryptically plotted, banal mayhem. --FF

RADIO Image Image (PG) Like Remember the Titans but less memorable, this fact-based story depicts a do-gooder high school football coach (Ed Harris) as he fights prejudice in a Southern town in the 1970s. The issue isn’t race but retardation as the coach helps a young man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) by making him a combination of tackling dummy and mascot beloved by football fans in South Carolina. The manipulative script will draw the desired reactions from the easily moved. --SW

RUNAWAY JURY Image Image Image (PG-13) Gary Fleder’s rapid direction of this John Grisham adaptation carries you over the plot holes as “jury consultant” Gene Hackman helps defend a gun manufacturer against Dustin Hoffman’s prosecution of a wrongful death suit. Rachel Weisz promises to sell the jury to the highest bidder and John Cusack’s on the panel to make it happen. Contrived action scenes are there because movie audiences are no more interested in principles than gun manufacturers are. --SW

SCARY MOVIE 3 (PG-13) With its PG-13 rating, the third in the series of horror spoofs promises to be less raunchy than its dirty-minded predecessors as it lampoons recent horror films such as The Others, The Ring and Signs. The trailer includes a few genuine laughs, like crop circles that read “Attack Here.”

THE SCHOOL OF ROCK Image Image Image Image (PG-13) As fraudulent substitute teacher Dewey Finn, Jack Black offers an endlessly hilarious, PG-13 version of his Tenacious D persona, a posturing, legend-in-his-own-mind rock star. When Dewey teaches his class of private school fifth-graders how to be head-bangers, School of Rock takes the mush-mouthed clichés of a zillion “underdog” movies and cranks them up to 11. With Slacker director Richard Linklater and Chuck & Buck actor/scripter Mike White, Black offers the kind of formula film that gives the formula a good name. --CH

SECONDHAND LIONS Image Image Image (PG) Secondhand plots, anyone? Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and Haley Joel Osment play two uncles and the boy dumped on them for a summer. Writer-director Tim McCanlies combines tall tales, a child coming of age among eccentric relatives and greedy relatives hovering over a huge inheritance. Caine’s never at his best trying to drawl (remember Hurry Sundown?) but he’s okay and the other two are great. Be prepared for heavy, family-friendly sentimentality mixed with considerable humor. --SW

THE STATION AGENT Image Image Image Image (R) Director Thomas McCarthy debuts with a low-key charmer about a train-obsessed dwarf named Fin (Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train depot in rural New Jersey and makes it into his new home. The reclusive Fin is befriended by a local hot dog stand owner Joe (Bobby Cannavale) and a grieving, tragedy-plagued artist Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) and the trio form their own band of outsiders. McCarthy adds his own unique retro-loving, idiosyncratic outsider to the Jim Jarmusch and Hal Hartley indie oeuvre. But in this case, Fin is more than a rebel by choice and his inescapable physical difference adds a poignancy to the film’s quirky sensibility. --FF

SYLVIA Image Image (R) Promising New Zealand director Christine Jeffs and screenwriter John Brownlow deliver a patently boring biography of doomed American writer Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow), who committed suicide in 1963. Focusing on the tempestuous relationship between Plath and husband/poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig), Jeffs unfortunately reduces Plath’s difficulties to stormy jealousy over his imagined or real (the film isn’t always firm on this detail) affairs. A deeply disappointing treatment of an important woman’s life. --FF

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE Image Image Image Image (R) It’s less a remake and more a retelling, but still an intense, well-executed horror experience. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original sacrificed reality after about an hour to descend into pure, gruesome insanity, but this version remains anchored in the plausible. The sexy teenage protagonists have relatively complex moral decisions and chainsaw-wielding “Leatherface” has an identity and back-story. There’s a lot of slashing, chasing and crazy violence, but it still makes sense. --Steve Yockey

UNDERWORLD Image (R) Kate Beckinsale’s pistol-packing vampire gets the hots — or whatever vampires get — for werewolf-to-be Scott Speedman, in defiance of their species’ century-spanning feud. Less Romeo meets Juliet than Anne Rice meets The Matrix, this sleekly-shot but confusing supernatural shoot-em-up scarcely even gives us a good look at the werewolves. It’s like watching a drawn-out Marilyn Manson video, but the final third becomes so absurd, it’s fun to howl at. --CH

VERONICA GUERIN Image Image (R) Ireland’s crusading, martyred muckraker (played by Cate Blanchett) gets a Hollywood-sized biopic thanks to blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher. While Guerin’s reportage on Dublin’s drug lords leads to moments of high intensity, the film never adequately examines the journalist’s willingness to endanger herself and her family in pursuit of the story, and instead portrays her as a garden-variety boat-rocker. --CH

WONDERLAND Image Image (R) For those who are still losing sleep over the 1981 murders of four drug dealing associates in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon — a crime in which porn star John Holmes was implicated — James Cox has your film. Wonderland is an unnecessarily thorough, Rashomon-styled film examining this crime from myriad angles. --FF