Short Subjectives August 19 2004

Opening Friday
THE BLIND SWORDSMAN: ZATOICHI (PG-13) Takeshi Kitano revives the Zatoichi franchise, legendary in the Far East, hoping it’ll catch on in the West. The writer/director/editor plays Zatoichi under his acting name, Beat Takeshi, in a film that’s a mess, though not entirely in a bad way. The comedy, drama, violent action and musical numbers prove fun, but don’t always work together well in this outrageous import. Landmark Midtown Art Cinema. -- Steve Warren

BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE (NR) See review, right.

CODE 46 (R) See Michael Winterbottom, director of 24 Hour Party People, helm a sci-fi thriller in which the illicit love affair of one couple (Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton) defies the segregated society of the near future.

EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (R) This prequel to the famed horror flick provides the backstory of elderly exorcist Father Merrin (now played by Stellan Skarsgaard), who wrestles with demons in post-World War II Africa.

INTIMATE STRANGERS (R) In a distinctly Hitchcockian vein, French director Patrice Leconte (Man on the Train) puts a deft, thoughtful spin on thriller conventions in his story of a beautiful, troubled woman (Sandrine Bonnaire) who confesses her myriad sexual frustrations to the repressed, romantically unfulfilled tax lawyer (Fabrice Luchini) she mistakes for her psychoanalyst. — Felicia Feaster

THE MOTHER (R) Director Roger Michell turns away from Brit-fluff like Notting Hill for this meaty tale, scripted by Hanif Kureishi, about a sixtysomething grandmother (Anne Reid), whose husband’s death inspires her sexual awakening. But for all its liberating, enlightened treatment of geriatric sensuality, the film features an assortment of obnoxious, unsympathetic characters who challenge you to truly care about their emotional predicaments. The plotline comes straight out of Jerry Springer, but with all the trappings of thoughtful art cinema. — FF

SHE HATE ME (R) See review on page 71.

WE DON’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (R) See review on page 70.

WITHOUT A PADDLE (PG-13) Three 30-year-old boys (Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard) postpone maturity by searching for the money D.B. Cooper supposedly carried when he disappeared. The best thing you can say about this comedy is that it represents a step up for the director of Little Nicky. Deliverance references abound, including an appearance by Burt Reynolds as a mountain man. Alternating between being not quite serious and not quite funny — but trying harder to be funny — Without a Paddle could be a decent movie when it grows up. — SW

?Duly Noted
THE DARK CRYSTAL (1983) (PG) Fantasy fans take note: Muppet creators Jim Henson and Frank Oz direct this elaborate epic about a pair of hobbit-like “Gelflings” who tangle with evil weirdoes over a world-conquering chunk of crystal. Fri.-Sat., Aug. 20-21, midnight. Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, 931 Monroe Drive.

KILL BILL VOLUME 1 (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 blond 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. On a double bill with Volume II. Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival. Sun., Aug. 22, 7 p.m. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. $8. 404-881-2100. www.foxtheatre.org. -- CH

KILL BILL VOLUME 2 (R) When the Bride (Uma Thurman) announced her plan to kill Bill in last fall’s first volume of Quentin Tarantino’s revenge epic, who expected her to talk him to death? Tarantino trades swords for words in the second part, which plays like a deliberately paced, character-driven commentary on the kind of schlocky films he celebrated in Volume 1. Darryl Hannah’s glam, one-eyed assassin and a flashback to ’70s-style kung fu training provide kitschy kicks, but the emphasis rests on Thurman and David Carradine’s soft-spoken, drawn-out conversations of a love gone wrong. On a double bill with Volume I. Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival. Sun., Aug. 22, 7 p.m. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. $8. 404-881-2100. www.foxtheatre.org. -- CH

SHREK 2 (PG) Big green ogre Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) and his bride Fiona (Cameron Diaz) learn that her seething father (John Cleese) and a scheming fairy godmother (a hilarious Jennifer Saunders of “Absolutely Fabulous”) want to ruin their marriage. The sequel emphasizes quantity of jokes over quality, although some definitely hit, especially when Antonio Banderas’ Puss In Boots is onscreen. But most of the pop references feel too safe and familiar, as if entirely written by DreamWorks’ publicity department. Area theaters and Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival, Thurs., Aug. 19, 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. $8. 404-881-2100. www.foxtheatre.org. --CH

THE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL (NR) See review on page 67.

?Continuing
ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (PG-13) “Whoever wins ... we lose.” Wrong! At first Aliens and Predators alike kill off minor human characters, but eventually root for one side to prevail. There’s not much plot and what there is, is crap. Predators and Aliens fight every hundred years in a pyramid buried under Antarctic ice. Sanaa Lathan leads the archaeologists who get caught in this century’s pissing match. On a visual, visceral level, AVP is mildly effective, but keep your expectations low. --SW

ANCHORMAN (PG-13) In the mythic 1970s, preening San Diego anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Farrell) bristles when forced to share the news desk with female reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). Adam McKay’s newsroom comedy pokes fun at easy targets like ’70s fashion and sexism rather than sink its polished teeth into telejournalism. Farrell and his news team (particularly “The Daily Show’s” Steve Carrell) inject themselves into increasingly surreal and utterly hilarious situations as the film goes on. Names like Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn) are worth the price of admission. --CH

BEFORE SUNSET (R) Sequels are rarely as satisfying as this one, a wonderful re-acquaintance with French pessimist Celine (Julie Delpy) and American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) who had one night of bliss in Vienna in Richard Linklater’s 1995 original Before Sunrise. But if the prequel was defined by youthful possibility and its two ethereal, dewy leads, Sunset is enriched by its older, wiser performers, and Linklater has matured alongside them. He invests his film with real intellectual and spiritual weight as Jesse and Celine contemplate what might have been, while holding onto the profoundly romantic belief that human connection and love may be the best chance we have. --Felicia Feaster

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (PG-13) Two years after he thought he was out, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) gets pulled back in following a double assassination. Director Paul Greengrass abandons the documentary style of his prior film Bloody Sunday to offer the usual convoluted hokum and hop from India to Naples to Washington to Berlin to Moscow. There may be more action this time, but like the plot, it’s less easy to follow. --SW

COLLATERAL (R) Tom Cruise takes a change-of-pace role as a perfectionist hitman who forces Jamie Foxx’s hapless cabbie to chauffeur him around for a night of mayhem. A taut, essentially two-character piece that criss-crosses LA., Collateral resembles Training Day as another slick, tightly-written B-movie with big name actors. The film lives up to director Michael Mann’s reputation for precise shots and polished editing, even if it the final showdowns feel like a burnished version of a made-for-cable crime thriller. --CH

THE CORPORATION (NR) Like a graduate seminar taught by Fight Club’s David Fincher, this brainy but entertaining documentary charts the rise of the modern corporation from a one-trick pony to a national religion that has lately put dibs on Bolivian rainwater, the genetic components of life and, oh yeah, our souls. A film that should become required viewing in every American high school. --FF

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR (R) This adaptation of part of John Irving’s novel A Widow for One Year depicts a grieving mother (Kim Basinger) who tries to bury her grief for her deceased sons by having an affair with a much younger man (Jon Foster). Jeff Bridges, Mimi Rogers and Elle Fanning also star.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (R) Michael Moore’s fiery polemic about post-9/11 politics sheds more heat than light, but deserves attention for the questions it raises about some of the major issues of modern American history. Moore levels his trademark sarcasm at George W. Bush, but spends most of the film despairing over the economic forces that send young people into military service at the time of an unjustified war with Iraq. Despite its fuzzy reasoning and incomplete arguments (Moore never acknowledges Saddam Hussein’s blood-drenched human rights record, for instance), Fahrenheit 9/11 remains one of the most urgent and explosive documentaries ever made. --CH

GARDEN STATE (R) Zach Braff of the NBC sitcom “Scrubs” writes, directs and stars in this droll, amiable dramedy that loses some of its considerable charm as it goes along. Braff plays a emotionally detached, aspring actor in Los Angeles who gets a new lease on life over an eccentric homecoming in New Jersey. Braff injects some droll sight gags (reminiscent of “Scrubs’” own sense of humor) into his often sharp script, but the last act relies on symbols and epiphanies that feel derivative from the films of more seasoned directors. --CH

HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE (R) I’m not stoned: this half-baked comedy from the director of Dude, Where’s My Car contains a seed of serious racial-political subtext. Two friends — an uptight Korean-American (Jon Cho) and an insolent, Indian-American (Hal Penn) — smoke pot one fateful Friday night and embark on an epic quest across New Jersey for White Castle sliders. The jokes range from hilariously gross to tediously gross, but as the two heroes face living stereotypes of their own ethnicities as well as the taunts of racist white guys, the film reveals an idea or two about what it means to be a minority in America. --CH

A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD (R) With his entire family dead by the time he’s a teenager, Bobby (Colin Farrell) spends his life trying to find a place to call home. As a grown-up he creates a blissful with two iconoclastic refugees from New York’s East Village (Robin Wright Penn, Dallas Roberts) who form their “funny family” on a farmhouse in upstate New York. Farrell’s moving performance and first-time director Michael Mayer’s heartfelt, if at times superficial, adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel capture the sense of magnitude and emotional nourishment in ordinary life and relationships. The film rises above its awkward early scenes of Bobby’s youth, which feature cheesy Sixties set dressing and young actors less able to convey Cunningham’s weighty ideas. --FF

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (R) A strung-out Gulf War veteran (Denzel Washington) suspects that the decorated soldier-turned-politician (Liev Schreiber) from his old command may be under the control of sinister puppet masters. Director Jonathan Demme doesn’t so much remake John Frankenheimer’s suspenseful Cold War satire as reprogram it for the War on Terror, and delivers a fearsome political thriller in its own right. Meryl Streep grabs with gusto the Angela Lansbury role as the most ruthless Mom since Medea. --CH

MARIA FULL OF GRACE (R) A clear-eyed, almost documentarian account of a 17-year-old Colombian (Catalina Sandino Moreno) who decides to smuggle a bellyful of heroin into the United States as a mule. First-time NYU-schooled filmmaker Joshua Marston avoids sensationalism in his remarkably sober and engrossing story of Moreno’s white-knuckle progress from Colombia to Jamaica Hills, Queens. --FF

METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER (NR) The -beating heavy metal persona gets a kinder, gentler treatment in this fascinating documentary from Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofksy (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost). Metallica, the world’s most successful metal band, struggles to cut a new record, hire a new bassist, spend time with their families, get sober, resolve childhood traumas, stop fighting and prove, as notes vocalist/recovering alcoholic James Hetfield, “you can make aggressive music without negative energy.” A subversive peek into how bickering rockers resolve to find some male identity beneath the rock star posturing. --FF

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (PG) In Jared Hess’ debut film, Jon Heder superbly plays the teenage anti-hero, a petulant curly-haired beanpole equally annoyed by life at home and high school. As long as Napoleon Dynamite restricts itself to the title character’s geeky misadventures, the film finds laughs that are plentiful if not exactly deep. But Hess gives Napoleon’s older relatives, like his chat room-obsessed brother (Aaron Ruell), ridiculous traits merely to mock them, and frequently cribs from the filmmaking styles of Todd Solondz and Wes Anderson. --CH

OPEN WATER (R) Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis play an overscheduled couple whose scuba trip takes a terrifying turn when the tour boat abandons them in the middle of the ocean. Director Chris Kentis makes the couple’s flight feel unnervingly plausible, especially when the digital video camera films live sharks within feet of the actors. Like a masterful short story, Open Water sustains a mood of sheer dread and captures both the fear and stoic resignation in the face of mortality. --CH

RIDING GIANTS (PG-13) The high-water mark in the surfing documentary, this exhilarating history finds the sensitivity behind the cowabunga. Director Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys) interviews surfing’s early greats like Greg “the Bull” Noll, Jeff Clark — a thoughtful surfer who discovered a big-wave paradise hidden outside San Francisco — and the current star of big wave surfing Laird Hamilton, who reveals a shockingly un-extreme tender side. The big waves are here, the wipeout footage and the war stories of surfing’s myriad perils: sharks, broken necks and death. But behind the tanned skins, blinding white grins and boyish athleticism, Peralta finds a mystical, life-altering element to surfing that makes it more than just gnarly waves. --FF

SINCE OTAR LEFT (NR) There are endless delights in store in this drama of three generations of Georgian women who try to cope when the matriarch’s (Esther Gorintin) beloved son Otar emigrates to Paris, leaving the women floundering in the decaying capital town of Tbilisi. The performances are sublime, especially Gorintin as a white-haired, and amazingly willful granny. And the film’s subtle affirmation of how family is a balm against life’s hardships makes for a deeply moving film. --FF

YU-GI-OH! THE MOVIE (PG) The big-screen version of one of those TV-cartoon-and-trading-card phenomena, a la Pokemon.

ZHOU YU’S TRAIN (PG-13) A man, a woman, another man and ... a train. The first human-meets-machine romantic quadrangle is a maddeningly obtuse story of an artist (Gong Li) torn between her love for a veterinarian (Honglei Sun) and a poet (Tony Leung Ka Fai). Traveling by train to visit the men, Li has ample time to gaze dreamily out the window, or run in slow motion through train stations. Much time and energy wasted on those frou-frou expressions of romantic ennui derail this endless romance early on. --FF