Short Subjectives February 03 2005

Opening Friday

BOOGEYMAN (PG-13) Get boogie fever in this horror film about a man, traumatized by mysterious events from his childhood, who must face his demons when he returns to the old homestead. Lucy Lawless of “Xena: Warrior Princess” has a supporting role.

CALLAS FOREVER (NR) In this imaginary episode from the last year in the life of Maria Callas (Fanny Ardant), a punk rock promoter (Jeremy Irons, of all people) suggests the opera diva lip-sync to the classic recordings of her youth. Director Franco Zeffirelli actually directed on stage and television.

MOOLAADE (NR) See review.

PAPER CLIPS (G) See review.

THE WEDDING DATE (PG-13) “Will & Grace’s” Debra Messing tries her hand at big-screen romantic comedy as a single gal who hires a male escort (Dermot Mulroney) to pass as her boyfriend at her sister’s wedding. It’s no accident if the project gives you a Julia Roberts vibe: Mulroney just happened to co-star in My Best Friend’s Wedding, too.

Duly Noted

AFTER LIFE (1998) (NR) Acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda presents a bittersweet, offbeat tale about limbo, in which the newly dead get to choose their happiest memory, which will take them to eternity. Great Japanese Filmmakers. Free. Thurs., Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m. 205 White Hall, Emory University. 404-727-5087. www.college.emory.edu.

BERLIN IS IN GERMANY (2001) (NR) See review on this page.

BUTTERFLY (2000) (NR) The High Museum’s program of films about the Spanish Civil War begins with this nostalgic, disturbing boy’s-eye view of the events leading up to the conflict in a Gallican town in 1936. $5. On the Side of Freedom. Feb. 5, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. 1280 Peachtree St. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

I HEART HUCKABEES (R) “Screwball sophistry” could describe this fast-talking, deep-thinking comedy from Three Kings director David O. Russell. A frustrated environmental activist (Jason Schwartzman) finds himself torn between the forces of order, represented by Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman’s “existential detectives,” and a nihilistic - but sexy - French intellectual (Isabelle Huppert). Huckabees tests your tolerance for deadpan whimsy but pays off with persistent laughs and relevant commentary on suburban sprawl and celebrity-obsessed corporate culture. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). Thurs., Feb. 3. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. - CH

OMOCHA (1999) (NR) Kinji Fukasaku, director of the cult film Battle Royale, presents this tale of a girl from a poverty-stricken family who works as a maid in a geisha house, and grows up to be a geisha herself. Great Japanese Filmmakers. Free. Thurs., Feb. 3, 7:30 p.m. 205 White Hall, Emory University. 404-727-5087. www.college.emory.edu.

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 Peachtree Cinema & Games, Norcross.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD (R) A put-upon English bloke (co-writer Simon Pegg) gets so caught up in his girlfriend and roommate problems that he scarcely notices the apocalyptic zombie crises happening around him. Writer/director Edgar Wright rises above the undead genre’s schlocky traditions with a first act of comic genius. The intensity of the zombie-siege sequences runs contrary to the film’s deadpan comedy, but its rapid pace, hilarious ensemble and inventive action scenes make it a splatter classic. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). Thurs., Feb. 3. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. - CH

Continuing

ALONE IN THE DARK (R) Christian Slater stars as a paranormal investigator in this horror film based on a “shoot-the-demon” kind of video game - you know, as opposed to the “shoot-the-zombie” game. Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff co-star.

ARE WE THERE YET? (PG) Ice Cube follows the accident-prone trail blazed by the Vacation movies as a child-hating bachelor who delivers two hostile tots (Aleisha Allen and Philip Bolden) from Portland to Vancouver. Are We There Yet? amusingly plays off Cube’s crabby demeanor, but for every honest laugh there’s a lame gross-out or a shameless bid for sentiment. Rather than ask Are We There Yet? just stay home. - CH

THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON (R) Sean Penn tries to offer his own Taxi Driver or The King of Comedy in this portrait of an alienated office furniture salesman who becomes obsessed with killing Richard Nixon. Though based on a real individual, Nixon never shows enough insight into its anti-hero to be more than a portrait of a nutjob, and Penn’s one-note performance relies too heavily on nervous tics. Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle get little to do in supporting roles, but Jack Thompson steals the film as Penn’s boss, a ruddy, beaming emblem of duplicitous U.S. salesmanship. - CH

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (R) A snowbound Detroit station-house falls under siege from a death squad of crooked officers out to kill Laurence Fishburne’s dapper crimelord and any witnesses inside, cop and robber alike. This remake of John Carpenter’s tense, lo-fi 1976 action flick features bigger-name actors (Gabriel Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Drea de Matteo) and slick effects, but never makes good on the promise its exciting prologue. Consider it an assault on Carpenter’s originality and your own spare time.- CH

THE AVIATOR (PG-13) It’s not perfect, but Martin Scorsese’s biopic of ingenious, mentally unbalanced billionaire, aviator and film director Howard Hughes is as entertaining as all get-out, capturing both his nearly supernatural creativity and his debilitating, obsessive manias. DiCaprio proves up to the task of embodying this wildly contradictory man, adding both pathos and perversity to Scorsese’s portrait of a deeply flawed but iconoclastic American. This meaty epic provides the added bonus, for Scorsese fans, of shedding light on his career-long propensity for obsessive, charismatic film anti-heroes, and for illuminating the many connections the director undoubtedly sees between Hughes and his own creative pursuits always endangered by human fallibility and even madness.- Felicia Feaster

BAD EDUCATION (NC-17) Borrowing influences from Fassbinder, Sirk, Hitchcock and Buuel, Spain’s Pedro Almodovar creates one of his most satisfying, emotionally fraught film fantasias to date. Centered on how the sexual abuse of a schoolboy (played as an adult by the astounding Gael Garcia Bernal) at the hands of a Catholic priest effects his grown-up relationship with a long-lost lover (Fele Martinez), the film moves back and forth in time and never quite assures us as to the truth or fantasy of the unfolding events. Loaded with melancholy and lensed in the director’s familiar candy-coated tones, Bad Education is a study in stirring, powerful contradictions. - FF

THE CHORUS PG-13) Sure it’s a sack of clich&233;s that those with an intolerance to glucose will want to avoid. But if you’re in the mood for something unthreatening and mildly sweet, then this crowd-pleaser that made French audiences go gaga and Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee is an expectation-affirming diversion. The appealing G&233;rard Jugnot plays a failed musician who takes a job at a remote reform school for boys at the end of World War II. As one might guess from the title, he do-re-mi’s the delinquent children into a chorus of angels. - FF

CLOSER (NR) A clever, but hardly earth-shattering adult drama about the interlocking sex lives of two couples in contemporary London, Mike Nichols’ titillating but contrived film adapts Patrick Marber’s hit 1997 stage play. Julia Roberts and Jude Law prove remarkably banal as the adulterous pair who set the sexual roundelay in motion. Far better are Natalie Portman as an emotionally vulnerable stripper and a laceratingly clever Clive Owen as Roberts’ cuckold husband and one of the most intriguing combinations of masculine vulnerability and vengeance to strut across a movie screen. - FF

COACH CARTER (PG-13) This sports drama drafts Samuel L. Jackson as a basketball coach who benches his undefeated team due to their poor academic record. It’s directed by Thomas Carter, which sounds like nepotism but probably isn’t.

ELEKTRA (PG-13) Not a sequel to Ben Affleck’s damned Daredevil flick, but a spin-off with Jennifer Garner of “Alias” reprising her role as a tough forking assassin. (No, really. She uses big ninja forks.) The X-Files director Mark Bowman helms this outing, in which Elektra protects a little girl from a super-powered hit squad.

FAT ALBERT (PG) Fat Albert (Kenan Thompson) and his retro-cartoon crew leap through a TV screen into the real world to help a lonely teenager whose grandfather recently died. Just like the original ’70s show “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”, the film aims problem-solving, self-empowering educational messages at kids and tweens. Adults who wander in the theater for nostalgia’s sake may be disappointed, but parents will appreciate the clean language and gentlemanly behavior of the flesh-and-blood cartoon characters. - Heather Kuldell

FINDING NEVERLAND (PG) Director Marc Forster finds a connection between Scottish author J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) and his most famous creation, Peter Pan. Both desire to avoid the bitter realities of death and growing up by escaping to a Neverland of perpetual childhood. Depp gives a magical performance in this wonderfully bittersweet, loose adaptation of Barrie’s life, which imagines how his friendship with four young boys and their widowed mother (Kate Winslet) - and their shared experience of death - might have inspired him to create Peter Pan. - FF

HIDE AND SEEK (R) Robert De Niro follows up last fall’s creepy-kid movie Godsend with another creepy-kid movie as the father of Dakota Fanning, whose imaginary friend seems to be disturbingly real.

HOTEL RWANDA (PG-13) Don Cheadle superbly portrays a middle-class Rwandan hotel manager who rescues hundreds of Tutsis during the country’s 1994 genocide. Irish filmmaker Terry George uses suspense film techniques to seize our attention for the film’s angry themes, holding the nations of the West directly responsible for their inaction during the massacres. Hotel Rwanda combines a compelling narrative with moral clarity better than any political film of the past year. - CH

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (PG-13) Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero) continues to apply his art-film aesthetics and critiques of violence to the Hong Kong action film in this romance set in 859 A.D. China as the Tang dynasty crumbles. Undercover cop Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is assigned to track blind courtesan Mei (Zhang Ziyi) who may be a member of the underground rebel group, the House of Flying Daggers. Yimou’s treatment of two lovers struggling between weightless, acrobatic highs and earthbound obligations give the film a trace of substance amidst the requisite, often taxing martial arts fighting scenes. - FF

IMAX THEATER: Amazing Journeys (NR) Here’s the movie Imax was made for! Neither didactic nor evangelical, it appeals to all ages and images you’ll never forget. The film examines migration - of monarch butterflies, gray whales, red crabs, zebras and wildebeest, birds and humans. Director George Casey adds cinematic touches of comedy, drama and suspense to avoid a dry documentary feel in what may be the best Imax film yet. (Steve Warren) Africa: The Serengeti (NR) An East African safari captures “the Great Migration” of more than two million wildebeests, zebras and antelope over 500 miles across the Serengeti plains, with such predators as lions and cheetahs in hot pursuit. The Greatest Places (NR) It’s location, location, location in this de facto “Best of IMAX” overview of the world’s most spectacular places. Fridays at 10 p.m. (CH) Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

IN GOOD COMPANY (PG-13) In this deeply charming, soulful dramedy, a 51-year-old executive (Dennis Quaid) sees his job threatened when his company is swallowed up by a megaconglomerate and a barely-out-of-acne 26-year-old wunderkind (Topher Grace) becomes his boss. Paul Weitz’s film continues some of the themes of male bonding and boyish malaise established in his equally winning About A Boy while adding an appropriate acidic perspective on corporate America’s inhumane modus operandi. Hard to believe this comes from the man who also brought us the unctuous American Pie. - FF

KINSEY (R) Writer-director Bill Condon lays out the importance of Alfred Kinsey, whose ground-breaking - and still controversial - research on American sexuality emphasized facts, not disapproving morality. At times Condon oversimplifies to score easy points against repressive figures, but Kinsey uses the complexity of sex to explore how “normalcy” proves to be a slippery concept. Neeson’s fascinating portrayal captures both Kinsey’s scientific passions and his shaken confusion when he realizes that keeping emotions separate from sex is easier said than done. - CH

LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (PG) In this gloriously gothic adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s best-selling, darkly comic children’s books, the woeful but resourceful Baudelaire orphans match wits with their conniving Uncle Olaf (Jim Carrey). Casting Carrey as a ham actor turns out to be a disastrous choice that feeds the comic’s most affected instincts. But Liam Aiken and Emily Browning make appeallingly melancholy young heroes, and their last-minute escapes from Olaf’s death-traps prove deliriously creative. - CH

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (R) Wes Anderson compounds his investment in self-contained snow-globe worlds and obnoxious fathers who begrudgingly nurture wistful boys in this outrageously fanciful story. A Jacques Cousteau-type ocean explorer (Bill Murray) tracks the deadly “jaguar shark,” even as his illegitimate son (Owen Wilson) attempts to corner the wily adventurer. Story plays second fiddle to oddball bits of business and Anderson’s meticulously stage-managed film world. Despite a scattershot story line, Anderson’s unique, always emotionally rich world view gives his films their charming integrity. - FF

A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG Scarlett Johansson’s high school drop-out moves in with a pair of bookish barflies (John Travolta and Gabriel Macht) in Shainee Gabel’s adaptation of the novel Off Magazine Street. Initially the first-time filmmaker intoxicates us with the music and local color of New Orleans, but becomes increasingly trite and simplistic. As a lecherous, literate dandy, Travolta’s performance amounts to calculated slumming in a transparent bid to renew the credibility he found with Pulp Fiction. - CH

MEET THE FOCKERS (PG-13) Meet the Parents’ Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller) introduces his prospective in-laws, including Robert De Niro’s control freak, to his touchy-feely parents (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand). Streisand and Hoffman take palpable pleasure at teasing De Niro and provide broad but rich comic turns that, alas, can’t redeem Fockers’ forced humor of Stiller’s humiliation. Plus, with so many jokes about breast milk, procreation and parenting, it’s like a commercial to get out there and breed. - CH

MILLION DOLLAR BABY (PG-13) While America’s critics are busy hurting themselves trying to come up with more accolades for this “masterpiece” by American film “genius” Clint Eastwood, the rest of us scratch our heads in utter disbelief, wondering what all the fuss is about. This clich&233;-addicted boxing drama, laquered with a feigned working class melancholy cribbed from previous pugilist pictures, depicts a spunky blue collar boxer (Hilary Swank) who lives out her daddy fantasies when a grizzled boxing trainer (Eastwood) overcomes his aversion to girl fighters and coaches her to victory. - FF

OCEAN’S TWELVE (PG-13) Director Steven Soderbergh’s nostalgia for the slick European heist flicks of earlier decades gives the Ocean’s Eleven sequel just enough fizz to make it worthwhile. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and the rest return for a convoluted series of robberies and double-crosses that feel a little too much like the stars’ own European press tour. Jokes about co-star Julia Roberts’ own celebrity would feel overly self-conscious if they weren’t genuinely funny. - CH

THE PAINTING This below-the-radar indie may have its heart in the right place, but its approach to race is naive and its sense of drama excruciatingly amateurish. Heath Freeman plays Randy, a rich white kid in St. Louis being virtually raised by his black chauffeur (Clifton Davis) and his extended family. Randy grows up into a civil rights crusader who marries a black woman and apparently carries the burden of racial oppression on his narrow shoulders. Fearful of ambiguity, the directors can’t just make Randy a decent guy, they have to make him a super-hero blinding us with his virtue and pushing the many black characters to the side as he battles the forces of racism. - FF

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (PG-13) A crazed musical genius (Gerard Butler) bedevils a 19th century French opera house, especially a lovely ingenue (Emmy Rossum). Fans of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will lap up director Joel Schumacher’s faithful film adaptation: The baroque, lavish production design serves the excesses of the musical score, and gives you the feeling of being immersed in an elephantine Broadway show. - CH

RACING STRIPES (PG) This mix of live action and animation depicts an ambitious zebra (voiced by Frankie Muniz) who longs to compete against professional race horses. Other voices for talking animals include Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Foxworthy, Snoop Dogg and Dustin Hoffman.

RAY (PG-13) Director Taylor Hackford presents a refreshingly candid and earthy biopic of blind pianist Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx), whose womanizing and drug addiction emerge, the film suggests, from a kind of competitiveness with sighted musicians. Roof-rocking tunes like “Hit the Road, Jack” and “What’d I Say” capture the excitement of live performances, while the script and Foxx’s justly praised performance persistently look beneath Charles’ cheerful, avuncular persona to find the fiercely determined artist underneath. - CH

SIDEWAYS (R) A failed novelist (Paul Giamatti) takes his oldest friend, a has-been actor (Thomas Haden Church) for a pre-wedding trip through California wine country in the latest examination of American mediocrity from About Schmidt director Alexander Payne. The most highly praised film of 2004, Sideways expounds a surprisingly sincere belief in wine as a metaphor for life, and for a while unfolds as a mellow, impeccably acted idyll (with terrific supporting turns from Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh). Payne eventually sheds his merciless insights on his self-absorbed male characters, but like a fine wine, his harsh sensibilities have mellowed with age. - CH

STRAIGHT-JACKET In this spoof of 1950s showbiz, a closeted gay matinee idol (Matt Letscher) reluctantly marries a love-struck studio secretary (Carrie Preston) to maintain his heterosexual image before the American public. Occasionally director Richard Day’s low-budget parody finds laughs at the expense of Hollywood hypocrisy, but the film’s first half strains to set an arch, witty tone. And when the actor falls for an out-and-proud leftist novelist (Adam Greer), the film’s bald sermonizing plays it surprisingly, uh, straight. - CH

A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT (R) A young Frenchwoman (Amelie’s Audrey Tautou) launches an obsessive search for her fiancee (Gaspard Ulliel), officially declared lost in the no-man’s-land of World War I. Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet applies his visionary intricacy to a sprawling account that alternates between quirky comedy and graphic war-time horrors. Jeunet’s approach sacrifices some emotional depth for novelistic breadth, but by the end the film fills us with a sense of awe that encompasses the world at its most terrible and beautiful. - CH

WHITE NOISE (PG-13) In this supernatural thriller, Michael Keaton plays a grieving widower who receives messages from his murdered wife. No relation to Don DeLillo’s terrific novel of the same title, but you should read it anyway.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE This adaptation of Shakespeare’s problem comedy puts the stereotypical portrait of moneylender Shylock (Al Pacino) in the context of the anti-Semitism of 16th century Venice. Director/adaptor Michael Radford brings nothing to the film that Shakespeare’s text can’t support, and with Pacino’s smoldering, reined-in performance, persuasively turns the comedy into Shylock’s tragedy. Despite the effervescence of Lynn Collins’ Portia, the airy romantic subplots never meet the level of Shylock’s fiery drama, but Venice still proves to be one of the wisest yet least jokey Shakespearean film comedies. - CH

THE WOODSMAN (R) Kevin Bacon provides a controlled, empathetic performance as a convicted child molester trying to suppress his criminal impulses and lead a normal life. As Bacon’s romantic interest, Kyra Sedgwick rises above the script’s love-of-a-good-woman stereotypes. First-time director Nicole Kassell resorts to some heavy-handed symbolism (especially involving Little Red Riding Hood), but Bacon redeems the film with some of the most impressive - yet least showy - examples of the actor’s craft seen in years. - CH??