Short Subjectives May 12 2005

Opening Friday

IT’S ALL GONE PETE TONG (R) See review on p. 68.

KICKING & SCREAMING (PG) Will Ferrell plays an average dad whose Oedipal rivalry with his own father (Robert Duvall) erupts when they coach opposing Little League soccer teams. The trailer makes it look like a great idea - for a 10-minute sketch.

LIPSTICK & DYNAMITE (Not Rated) See review on p. 67.

MINDHUNTERS (R) See review to right.

MONSTER-IN-LAW (PG-13) See review on p. 65.

UNLEASHED (R) Who let Jet Li out? The martial arts star plays a nameless enforcer, conditioned by a Scottish mobster (Bob Hoskins) to be a ruthless fighter, only to discover his humanity when befriended by a blind piano tuner (Morgan Freeman). Written and produced by La Femme Nikita’s Luc Besson.

Duly Noted

ALLTALK VIDEO_VOX (NR) This benefit for Atlanta nonprofit organizations features six documentaries on social issues, ranging from Ukranian adoption to gender issues to urban poverty. Thurs., May 12, 7:30 p.m. Apache Caf&233;, 64 Third St. $5. 404-876-5436. www.livinglounge.com.

FAITH AND FILM FESTIVAL (NR) Atlanta’s Art Within hosts a festival of more than 50 short films - including “Most,” a Best Live Action Short Film Oscar nominee from 2003 - that focus on matters of faith and religion. May 13-22. Fri., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. $10 for single tickets. www.faithandfilmfestival.com.

THE GARDENER (2003) (NR) In this smash-hit Bollywood musical, an elderly couple (Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini) on the verge of retirement face complications from their five grown sons. Film Festival of India: Bollywood and Beyond. Sat., May 14, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. 1280 Peachtree St. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

THE INCREDIBLES (PG) Former costumed crime-fighter Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) and his family must pass as ordinary suburbanites until a mysterious archvillain inspires them to flex their super-muscles once more. Pixar’s computer-animated classic fits in more with James Bond and Marvel Comics than family films like Finding Nemo, and the metaphors for conformity and midlife crisis will strike deeper chords with parents than kids. But the spectacular derring-do in the second half will inspire all audiences to cry, “Look! Up on the screen!” Sat., May 14, 7 p.m. Inman Middle School, 774 Virginia Ave. $5. - Curt Holman

JUDGE IN FEAR (1996) (NR) An unconventional attorney defends an unpopular judge accused of murdering a prostitute. Recent Films from Germany. Wed., May 18, 7 p.m. Goethe Institute Inter Nationes, 1197 Peachtree St., Colony Square. $4. 404-892-2388.

LULU AND THE GIRLS OF AMERICUS, GEORGIA 1963 (NR) This documentary profiles some of the surviving women who fought to desegregate a small Georgia town in 1963. May 19, 7:30 p.m. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, 450 Auburn Ave. Free. 404-352-4225. www.imagefv.org.

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.

SHORT CUT TO NIRVANA (2004) (NR) This documentary attempts to convey the scope of India’s 2001 Kumbh Mela event, a Hindu festival held once every 12 years that attracts nearly 70 million gurus and pilgrims. Film Festival of India: Bollywood and Beyond. Fri., May 13, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. 1280 Peachtree St. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

Continuing

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (R) As a creep show, this slicked-up hokum (based on Jay Anson’s novel) about a haunted house is painfully inadequate, preferring to traffic in quick shots of blood-dripping ghouls than establishing any real sense of dread. I’ve seen episodes of “Sesame Street” that were more frightening than this generic junk. - Matt Brunson

BEAUTY SHOP (PG-13) Barbershop it ain’t, though it recycles almost every plot point from that Ice Cube comedy. But Beauty Shop has its own frothy appeal held together by the warm, charismatic presence of Queen Latifah as a hair entrepreneur who quits a chic salon to open her own beauty shop in the ­hood. The scenes where her diverse staff gleefully riff, vamp and insult over the hot rollers offer something to hold onto amidst an uninspiring plot involving Latifah’s efforts to hold onto the salon when the Man comes calling. It’s all lighter-than-air, but it’s hard not to be momentarily charmed by all the assembled intergenerational girl power and fizzy energy. - Felicia Feaster

CRASH (R) Writer/director Paul Haggis (whose Million Dollar Baby script just won an Oscar) presents one of those sprawling multi-character films set in Southern California, only it emphasizes racism as the unifying element. Both thought-provokingly relevant and shamelessly manipulative, Crash presents a simmering melting pot of frustrated Los Angelenos waiting to take out their rage on the first person of a different color who crosses their path. The engrossing scenes and dedicated actors (including Don Cheadle in the central role as an honest LAPD detective) make up for Crash’s heavy-handed storytelling. - CH

DOWNFALL (R) The surreal horrors of war alternate with intimate, documentary-style close-ups of the final days of the Third Reich’s high command in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s powerful film. Bruno Ganz provides a terrifying yet humanizing portrayal of an aging Hitler, capable of both monstrous cruelty and unexpected tenderness. The scrupulously researched film offers eyewitness accounts of the chaotic collapse of Berlin’s defenses and, within Hitler’s bunker, the destruction of Nazi illusions of greatness. - CH

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (NR) Alex Gibney’s documentary about the rise of the business world’s $65 billion uber-successful Enron empire and its subsequent undoing is as much fun as can be had watching the gory spectacle of American greed in action. Though American legend has since recast the tale of Enron into aberrant corporate legend, to Gibney’s credit, he spreads blame around and shows how the particular immorality of placing money before people practiced to an excessive degree at Enron is just standard operating procedure in an American business world and government deeply tied to the Enron fall. - FF

FEVER PITCH (PG-13) Workaholic careerist Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) and boyish math teacher Ben (Jimmy Fallon) fall in love, but his superfan obsession with the Boston Red Sox throws their relationship a curve ball. The pointedly unfunny first half-hour makes Fallon and Barrymore look like big-screen comedy rookies. But once the film starts digging into sports rituals, fan psychology and incompatible passions, Fever Pitch turns into the rare Hollywood romantic comedy that’s actually about something. - CH

GUESS WHO (PG-13) In this race-versed remake of 1968’s famed mixed-marriage comedy Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Bernie Mac plays a temperamental dad nonplussed by her daughter’s white boyfriend (Ashton Kutcher). Apart from a handful of intriguingly tense scenes, the remake avoids the complexities of race in America to become little more than a rip-off of Meet the Parents. Mac’s slow-burning presence and moments of effortless cool give Guess Who what little soul it has. - CH

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (PG) After alien bureaucrats blow up the Earth, the last surviving Englishman (“The Office’s” Martin Freeman) reluctantly treks through the stars to find the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything. Supporting players like Bill Nighy and the clever visual design best capture the deadpan comedy of Douglas Adams’ beloved novel, but otherwise the film resorts to a strained, frenzied pace. “Don’t Panic” may be the motto of the galactic travel guide that gives this sci-fi spoof its name, but director Garth Jennings’ film often feels on the verge of freaking out. - CH

HOUSE OF D (PG-13) Maybe not a “D,” but this coming-of-age yarn from writer-director-actor David Duchovny certainly rates no better than a “C.” In the 1970s, 13-year-old Tommy (Anton Yelchin) hangs around with a mentally challenged janitor who gets erect watching horror flicks and who’s prone to telling teenage girls that he’s got a big penis. And as if this isn’t frightening enough, also consider that he’s played by Robin Williams in full cuddly-creepy mode. - MB

HOUSE OF WAX (R) This updated version of Vincent Price’s beloved 3-D horror flick features two crazies who kill attractive young people to make waxy statues. A film with waxwork humans and Paris Hilton? The joke practically writes itself.

IMAX THEATER: Bugs! (NR) A praying mantis and a butterfly “star” in this documentary about the insects of the Borneo rainforest - some of whom will be magnified 250,000 times their normal size on the IMAX screen. The Living Sea (NR) Humpback whales, golden jellyfish and giant clams star in this documentary about the diversity of undersea life, with music by Sting and narrated by Meryl Streep. (CH) Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

THE INTERPRETER (PG-13) Despite the way it uses African genocide as rocket fuel for its thrill ride, Sydney Pollack’s film is a moderately stylish, serviceable drama about a United Nations interpreter (Nicole Kidman) raised in Africa who overhears a murder plot against the leader of her violence-torn African homeland. The Secret Service agent (Sean Penn) who initially thinks she may be involved in the assassination conspiracy transforms into her protector. The fact that Pollack had permission to shoot in the U.N. adds immeasurably to its slick good looks, though the film never follows through on its initial advocacy for peaceniking over warmongering. - FF

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (R) Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter William Monahan take great pains to make sure the Arabs are not unduly villainized in his ho-hum Crusades epic of one bloody period in the century-spanning Christian battle for control of the Holy Land. Orlando Bloom, whose charismatic kilowattage is a mere flicker compared to that other Ridley hunk, Russell Crowe, plays a humble French blacksmith who transforms into one of those oxymorons so beloved by Hollywood: a pacifist who knows when to lay down the cross and start kicking some ass. - FF

KING’S RANSOM (PG-13) Plus-sized comedian Anthony Anderson stars in this comedy about an arrogant businessman who engineers his own kidnapping to keep his soon-to-be ex-wife from cashing in on their divorce. In the tradition of Ruthless People, things don’t go according to plan.

KUNG FU HUSTLE (R) Stephen Chow, director of the little-seen but superbly silly Shaolin Soccer, drop-kicks the kung fu genre in this goofy, gravity-defying combo of two-fisted action flick and anything for a laugh parody. Matrix-style computer effects serve inventive, Mad Magazine-style sight gags, in which gangsters break into dance routines and middle-aged dorks turn out to be martial arts masters. If a bit more cartoonish than necessary, Kung Fu Hustle still puts a supersonic spin on the chop-sockey flick. - CH

LOOK AT ME (PG-13) This Cannes Film Festival Best Screenplay winner depicts the relationship between a celebrity novelist and his overweight, insecure daughter, who tries to use singing to assert her own identity.

A LOT LIKE LOVE (PG-13) A Lot Like Love is a lot like When Harry Met Sally crossed with Serendipity, as two people wonder whether they’re better off remaining friends or whether the stars have something more intimate in mind for them. Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet are likable, but Colin Patrick Lynch’s script never wholly convinces us that these two need to be together. - MB

MILLIONS (PG) Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) applies his special effects-heavy hand to the story of 7-year-old Damian (a routinely adorable and freckled Alex Etel) whose imaginary friends are Catholic saints. When a bag stuffed with money falls from a passing train, Damian wants to give the windfall to charity and his older brother wants to invest it in real estate. But the saints and the spiritual dilemma of how to spend that money are just two of Boyle’s many passing fancies. He is far more interested in doing visual loop-de-loops and imagining that childhood wonder is best evoked with gee-whiz effects. - FF

OFF THE MAP (PG-13) Roger Dodger director Campbell Scott helms this hopeful tale of a free-spirited New Mexican couple (Sam Elliott and The Upside of Anger’s Joan Allen) and their bow-hunting 11-year-old daughter.

THE PACIFIER (PG) Navy SEAL Lt. Shane Wolfe (Vin Diesel) is assigned to take care of the five out-of-control children of a missing scientist whose wife is sent on a secret mission. Every predictable single-guy-versus-child joke occurs - like changing a diaper with pliers - plus, a few twists that are just bizarre. As we learned in Kindergarten Cop, a tough guy is no match for unruly kids and unruly kids are no match for a tough guy’s discipline. - HK

PALINDROMES (NR) Master of Ick, King of Creep Todd Solondz returns to his stomping ground of a sleaze-infested America in this story of a pregnant 13-year-old girl forced to have an abortion by her pro-life mother (Ellen Barkin). Then, she finds shelter in the arms of a Christian pro-life family. Solondz remains a button-pusher, but as he did in Welcome to the Dollhouse, Solondz finds something tragic and compelling in yet another story of a young girl swimming against life’s brutal current. - FF

ROBOTS (PG) Robots is like the engine of a Honda Civic under the hood of a Cadillac Escalade. It offers a reliable ride in an otherwise fantastic physical world. Young Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) is a poor, small-town robot made of hand-me-down parts who dreams of becoming an inventor in the big city. The bland plot is propped up with relatively amusing pop-culture references, but not as seamlessly as Pixar’s productions. - HK

SAHARA (PG-13) There is something about the cocky, thrill-seeking, globe-trotting adventurer Dirk Pitt with his ability to stamp out the world’s problems in a single-blow that just seems, well, ill-timed considering the mounting crises of African genocide and the war in Iraq raging abroad. In this cartoonish adaptation of adventure novelist Clive Cussler’s novel, Pitt is a former Navy SEAL turned international treasure hunter with the cool of James Bond and the chops of an army-of-one. He’s in Africa hunting a long-lost Civil War battleship and helping a World Health Organization doctor (Penelope Cruz) find the source of a plague killing local villagers in this theme park ride of a movie, not surprisingly directed by outgoing Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner’s son Breck Eisner. - FF

SIN CITY (R) Based on Frank Miller’s hard-boiled cult comic books of the same name, Sin City wallows unapologetically in violence, T&A and other preoccupations of adolescent boys of all ages. Co-directors Miller and Robert Rodriguez leer over interlocking tales of chivalrous antiheroes (led by a hulkingly charismatic Mickey Rourke) who take on a corrupt city’s sadistic power brokers. Though the film’s black-and-white images can sear your retinas, its repetitive plots, grisly slapstick and predictable misogyny can leave you embarrassed to be a geek. - CH

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (R) A suburban mother of four (Joan Allen) has anger management issues after her husband’s disappearance. This dreary dramedy from writer-director Mike Binder (HBO’s “The Mind of the Married Man”) never lets her anger reverberate thematically through the film, and proves a tepid romance like an imitation Terms of Endearment. As a former major league baseball player, Kevin Costner steals the show by displaying the comfy charisma that made him a star in the first place. - CH

WALK ON WATER (NR) While on assignment in Berlin, a ruthless, homophobic Israeli intelligence agent befriends the gay grandson of his target, a Nazi war criminal. With subtitles.

THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL (NR) Homeless musician Mark Bittner becomes caretaker to San Francisco’s populace of brightly plumed wild parrots in this likable documentary. Practically on a first-name basis with the birds, Bittner identifies with the birds’ “outsider” status and other surprisingly human personality traits. With the relaxed, ambling structure of a walk in the park, the documentary offers a kind of bird’s-eye view of the misplaced priorities of modern life. - CH

WINTER SOLSTICE (R) Writer-director Josh Sternfeld’s quiet debut film doesn’t explode or simmer - it just happens, making us feel not like we’re watching the lives of a lonely widower (Anthony LaPaglia) and his two sons (Aaron Stanford and Mark Webber), but sitting across the table from them. Though nearly all of the characters’ deepest feelings go unspoken, the film builds up so many truthful moments that it captures the conflicts and reconciliations of real life. - CH

XXX: STATE OF THE UNION (PG-13) With Vin Diesel branching out as the Pacifier, Ice Cube plays another “extreme” secret agent in this sequel to XXX, concerning militaristic crazies trying to take over the U.S. government. Sure, like that could ever happen.??