Short Subjectives May 20 2004

?Opening Friday
LOST BOYS OF SUDAN (NR) See review.

RAISING HELEN (PG) Party girl Kate Hudson must grow up when she becomes guardian to her sister’s three children in Garry Marshall’s witty and winning — though overlong and predictable — comedy. The cinematic equivalent of comfort food, it improves on the similarly themed Uptown Girls and Jersey Girl. When forced to choose between acting and being cute, Hudson invariably makes the wrong decision, but that’s why you love her. --Steve Warren

SUPER SIZE ME (NR) See review.

STATESIDE (NR) A young Marine (Jonathan Tucker) on leave falls in love with a young musician (Rachael Leigh Cook) suffering from a mental illness. The quirky supporting cast includes Val Kilmer, Joe Montana, Carrie Fisher and Ed Begley Jr.

YOUNG ADAM (NC-17) See review.

?Duly Noted
BIG FISH (PG-13) On his deathbed, a colorful Southerner (Albert Finney) tells his fanciful life story to his skeptical son (Billy Crudup) in Tim Burton’s latest tribute to the imagination. With Ewan McGregor radiantly playing Finney’s younger self, the tall tales that dominate the film are comic, magical and appropriately “Southern.” Only the present-day scenes with the humorless son drag on the film’s otherwise delightful pageant of witches, giants and misguided poets. May 21-27. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. --Curt Holman

ED WOOD (1994) (R) The most satisfying film directed by Tim Burton goes behind the scenes of the profoundly unsatisfying and incompetent films directed by Ed Wood (Johnny Depp). As the go-getting, cross-dressing Wood makes such legendary bombs as Glen or Glenda? and Plan Nine From Outer Space, Burton both parodies and pays tribute to American enterprise. But the film’s heart lies in the friendship between the generous Wood and the ailing Bela Lugosi, a role that justly earned Martin Landau an Academy Award. May 21-27. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. --CH

FEBRUARY ONE (NR) Documentarians Steven Channing, Rebecca Cerese and Cynthia Hill recall how four college freshmen, now called “the Greensboro Four,” challenged segregation by staging the first lunch counter sit-in at a North Carolina Woolworth’s. May 20, 7:30 p.m. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, 450 Auburn Ave. Free. 404-352-4225. www.imagefv.org.

48 HOUR FILM PROJECT: 36 local film teams compete for the “Best Film of Atlanta.” The catch is, it must be written, shot and edited in 48 hours. A kick off party is Fri., May 21, at 6 p.m. at Artisan Pictureworks, 800 Forrest St. The final results will be screened May 25-27 at 7 and 9 p.m. at Madstone Theaters Parkside. For information, visit www.48hourfilm.com.

JAIL PARTY (NR) Filmmaker Donnie Leapheart presents a seriocomic satire on the gangstas-from-da-hood genre. May 22, 9 p.m. Eyedrum. 290 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. $3. 404-522-0655. www.eyedrum.org.

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE (1999) (NR) In Rituparno Ghosh’s poignant character study, a middle-aged spinster’s life turns upside down when she rents her family mansion to a film crew. Film Festival of India. May 21, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. 1280 Peachtree St. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

MAQBOOL (2003) (NR) A mob boss’ beautiful mistress and his right-hand man conspire to seize control of his gang. This modern Bombay crime drama takes its inspiration from Macbeth, as the title suggests. Film Festival of India. May 22, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. 1280 Peachtree St. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA (1991) (NR) Jet Li plays a 19th-century Chinese folk hero who clashes with Western interlopers and local mobsters in this handsome, breezy historical adventure. To understand why so many film buffs go bananas over Hong Kong movies, watch this flick’s hilariously creative fight scene in a warehouse full of ladders. Playing on a double bill with Once Upon a Time in China 2. May 20. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org.

THE PUBLISHER (NR) The second chapter in this two-part biographical documentary depicts the rise of Axel Springer, who became post-war Europe’s biggest newspaper publisher and was an early proponent of German reunification. Biographies: History, Politics and Scandals. May 26. 7 p.m. Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, 1197 Peachtree St., Colony Square. $4. 404-892-2388.

THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER (1975) (G) Peter Sellers returns to the role of accident-prone Inspector Clouseau. Christopher Plummer and Catherine Schell lend a little class, but this outing can’t measure up to A Shot in the Dark. May 26, 7 p.m. Mick’s Bennett Street, 2110 Peachtree Road. Free with dinner. 404-351-6425.

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 Marietta Star Cinema.

SANDY SPRINGS: OLD SOUTH TO NEW SOUTH (NR) This video based on the Heritage Sandy Springs Oral History Program recounts the history of the North Atlanta community. May 22, 11 a.m. Madstone Theaters Parkside, 5920 Roswell Rd. $4. 404-851-9101. www.heritagesandysprings.org.

?Continuing
BOBBY JONES — STROKE OF GENIUS (PG) Jim Caviezel brings what passion he can to the role of our local hero, arguably the greatest golfer ever (certainly the best who never turned pro), but writer-director Rowdy Herrington paints Jones as almost as saintly as Jesus. There’s no drama, as the people around him don’t change — or age — over some 25 years. Unless you’re a golf nut it’s just two-plus hours of men hitting little white balls with sticks. At Madstone Theaters Parkside. --SW

BON VOYAGE (PG-13) A group of frivolous French aristocrats (including Isabelle Adjani and Gérard Depardieu) don’t let the Nazi occupation dampen their spirits in Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s World War II lark.

BREAKIN’ ALL THE RULES (PG-13) Daniel Taplitz’ amusing relationship comedy has a plot like a sitcom written by Shakespeare. Jamie Foxx writes a handbook on breaking up, then accidentally steals Gabrielle Union from his cousin (Morris Chestnut) and gets mixed up in his boss’ (Peter MacNicol) romance with gold-digger Jennifer Esposito. You won’t remember it tomorrow but it’s a fun date movie while it lasts. --SW

BROKEN WINGS (R) An Israeli widow and her four children (a singer-songwriter, a basketball player, a videographer and a bed-wetter), devastated by the death of their husband/father, face a lifetime of crises in 48 hours. The characters command such interest you don’t realize the melodramatic level of Nir Bergman’s debut film for most of its length. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. --SW

CRIMSON GOLD (NR) Acclaimed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami depicts a put-upon pizza delivery man (Hussein Emadeddin) whose rage at life’s inequities builds to an explosion of violence. Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

ENVY (PG-13) An office drudge (Ben Stiller) burns with jealousy when his neighbor (Jack Black) gets rich off an invention that vaporizes dog doo. As an anarchy-spouting barfly, Christopher Walken acts with greater comic depth than Stiller or Black, who essential do sketch comedy here. An unattractive, shapeless waste of funny performers, the film leaves you green with something other than envy. --CH

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY No stars (NR) Director James Ronald Whitney’s bottom-feeding reality-movie pits six desperate New York actors against each other in an escalating, grotesque series of games founded on potty humor and sexual embarrassment for the pathetic jackpot of $10,000. With its emphasis on sexual degradation and disturbing emotional revelation (childhood rape and prostitution are offered up for entertainment value) Games may make viewers feel like by-proxy participants in a creepy, abusive game of Truth or Dare. --FF

GODSEND (R) The latest version of an old story features Robert De Niro as a Dr. Frankenstein-wannabe geneticist who thinks he can reproduce a dead child through cloning, and Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as the grieving parents who just lost their eight-year-old son. Director Nick Hamm doesn’t maximize what thrills the screenplay offers, leaving a potential horror film in the “psychological thriller” category. --SW

I’M NOT SCARED (R) In the sun-drenched Italian countryside a boy discovers a child his age held prisoner in a hole in the ground. Gabriele Salvatores (director of the Oscar-winning Mediterranneo) presents a good scare or two, but mostly emphasizes the real, unromanticized anxieties of childhood. As the film accelerates to its conclusion it trades its more chilling impllications for Hardy Boys plotting, but still tells a suspenseful tale about how kids aren’t always as innocent as we think. --CH

IMAX THEATER: Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees (NR) As much about the lady as the animals she’s studied for more than 40 years, this pleasant but unexciting film features more observation than information about an extended family of Tanzanian chimps and their baboon buddies. Johnny Clegg’s music is a plus. Through July. (SW) Ghosts of the Abyss (G) James Cameron heads back to the subject that made him “king of the world,” only this time he tackles the Titanic in a documentary format. The director employs all the state-of-the-art technology at his disposal to travel underwater and take us inside the legendary shipwreck. (Matt Brunson) Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

JAMES’ JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM (NR) A wide-eyed African Christian (South African actor Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe) embarks on a picaresque pilgrimage to the Holy Land in this mix of social commentary and modern fable. Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

MAN ON FIRE (R) John Creasy (Denzel Washington) doesn’t say much about himself, but you’ve seen enough movies to recognize a burned-out drunk seeking redemption right off the bat. He’s hired as bodyguard for Dakota Fanning in Mexico City, and she re-humanizes him before she’s kidnapped and he sets out for revenge. Brian Helgeland’s screenplay leaves serious questions if you stop to think about it, but director Tony Scott ensures you won’t, keeping the film well paced and visually exciting with some amazing montages. You can’t expect a movie to entertain and make sense in 2004. --SW

MEAN GIRLS (PG-13) “Saturday Night Live“‘s Tina Fey puts a salty, fun spin on the pop psychology book about cutthroat girl cliques Queen Bees and Wannabes in her Heathers-esque screenplay about a home schooled nerd-turned-hottie (Lindsay Lohan) who attempts to infiltrate the A-list girl clique the Plastics. The usual teen girl comedy stereotypes are here — like the nearly slasher film sense of rage directed at the Plastics queen bee — but Fey has enough been-there perspective and shrewd attentiveness to the absurdities of the form to make it all work. --FF

MICKEY (PG) John Grisham swapped legal thrillers for the Little League to write and finance this wholesome, family-oriented film about a fugitive father (Harry Connick Jr.) whose fast-pitching son (Shawn Salinas) begins drawing the wrong kind of attention.

NEW YORK MINUTE (PG) Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have come a long way since the slew of ’90s straight-to-video fodder that made them rich, but their filmmaking skills haven’t. In the jail-bait twins’ first big-budget movie, perfectionist Ashley and free-spirited Mary-Kate head to New York City for a scholarship competition and Simple Plan video shoot, respectively. The girls face a series of pointless and predictable misadventures, sparked by a Eugene Levy’s obsessive truancy officer and Andy Richter’s bumbling limo driver. --KK

THE PUNISHER (R) Based on the Marvel Comics character, The Punisher hides the heart of a cheap action movie underneath its designer knockoffs. An undercover FBI agent (Thomas Jane) participates in a bust that kills the son of a crime lord (John Travolta), who takes vengeance on the agent’s entire family. Jane doesn’t officially become The Punisher until the end of the movie, but he gives and receives plenty of punishment on the way to his Othello-inspired revenge. --SW

THE RETURN (NR) After an absence of 12 year, an enigmatic father revisits the teenaged sons he’s never known and drags them on an increasingly-fraught fishing trip. First-time director Andrei Zvyagintsev emulates the eerie, icy formalism of Stanley Kubrick as power struggles play out until the shocking climax. With a grim but gripping story rich with allegory, The Return does for father-son bonding what Animal Farm did for agriculture. Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. --CH

RHINOCEROS EYES (R) What might have made for an interesting short film becomes a stretched-beyond-its-capablities feature about a shy, shut-in gopher in a movie prop house Chep (Michael Pitt) who will go to any lengths to secure the odd prop requests made by the beautiful Fran (Paige Turco). Director Aaron Woodley (David Cronenberg’s nephew) is clearly inspired by the fantastic worlds of Jan Svankmajer and Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. But his imagination seems to begins and end with the set design and the story fizzles early on. At Madstone Theaters Parkside. --FF

SACRED PLANET (G) Exceptionally beautiful, even by Imax standards, Sacred Planet takes a visit to “some of the last pristine places on Earth” — or as they’re known in some circles, undeveloped real estate. Narrated by Robert Redford, segments filmed on three continents provide similar ecological messages from people who “live in harmony with their natural surroundings” through methods independently thousands of miles apart at a time before long-distance travel or communication. If this doesn’t make you hug a tree, nothing will. At Regal’s Mall of Georgia Imax Cinema. --SW

SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... AND SPRING (NR) This critically-acclaimed Korean film depicts life at a Buddhist temple in five seasonal vignettes than span decades and convey both the serenity of Zen contemplation and the power of earthly temptations.

TROY (R) Everyone has an Achilles’ heel in Wolfgang Petersen’s high-testosterone spectacle loosely based on Homer’s Iliad. The full-scale, widescreen war between Greece and Troy thrilling narrows to a duel between two souls: steadfast, doomed Hector (Eric Bana) and arrogant, conflicted Achilles (Brad Pitt). At times Troy suffers from the bloat-for-bloat’s-sake of a DeMille epic, yet the flawed protagonists make the film far more complex and engrossing than Gladiator. --CH

TWENTYNINE PALMS (NR) The most exasperating work since Elephant but without that film’s satisfying payoff, Bruno Dumont’s intentionally vague drama is for people who want to watch a couple (Katia Golubeva, David Wissak) have sex for an hour and a half (before something finally happens), but are too embarrassed to rent porn videos. --SW

THE WHOLE TEN YARDS (PG-13) Though a seemingly blessed event for America’s cultural landscape, the forthcoming end of “Friends” will give the disbanded cast more time to make unnecessary flicks like this one. In this sequel to The Whole Nine Yards, retired mob man Jimmy The Tulip (Bruce Willis) comes to the aid of insufferable neighbor Nicholas “Oz” Oseransky (Matthew Perry), when Oz’s wife (Natasha Henstridge) is kidnapped by the Hungarian mob, led by comically menacing Kevin Pollak. The far-fetched caper proves that wacky hijinks and organized crime shouldn’t mix. --KK