Short Subjectives February 21 2007

Opening Friday

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THE ABANDONED (R) An American film producer returns to her Russian homeland and seeks clues to her mother’s mysterious death by visiting a haunted, ghostly farm.

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AMAZING GRACE (PG) 3 stars. Director Michael Apted (49 Up) examines the attempts of British reformers in Parliament led by William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) to end the Empire’s slave trade toward the end of the 18th century. While Apted’s own attempts to quicken the film’s extended storyline spanning nearly two decades by using flashbacks falls a bit short, the compelling subject matter and Gruffud’s earnest performance are engaging enough. Veteran British actors Albert Finney and Michael Gambon lend a capable hand in supporting roles, with Finney playing a repentant slave-ship captain who eventually penned the famous gospel song of the movie’s title. (Online review and podcast interview with Ioan Gruffud available at atlanta.creativeloafing.com; click on Flicks.) — David Lee Simmons

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THE ASTRONAUT FARMER (PG) 2 stars. Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) is a Midwestern rancher and dad with a devoted wife (Virginia Madsen), whose secret passion is to ride the rocket he is building in his barn into space. Directors Mark and Michael Polish’s film is an attempt to revisit the kind of idealized American small town and man-with-a-dream that propelled the 1930s and ’40s films of Frank Capra. But instead, this improbable, ham-fisted attempt at homespun message film feels hopelessly contrived, full of nostalgia for a time when men were men and women were women and all was right in America. (See Billy Bob Thornton interview.) — Felicia Feaster

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FLANNEL PAJAMAS (NR) 3 stars. Former October Films exec Jeff Lipsky centers his second feature film on a young Manhattan couple, Stuart Sawyer (Justin Kirk) and Nicole Reilly (Julianne Nicholson), and the fits and starts of their relationship from a first blind date through marriage and the eventual conflicts that threaten their relationship. Some of the stilted, contrived indie dialogue threatens to destroy the authenticity of a film which in every other regard struggles for and achieves an admirable sense of truthfulness. — Feaster

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INDIGÉNES (DAYS OF GLORY) (NR) 4 stars. See review.

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THE NUMBER 23 (R) 2 stars. See review.

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RENO 911!: MIAMI (R) 4 stars. In this made-for-film version of Comedy Central’s hit show “Reno 911,” the extremely dysfunctional police force heads down to Miami for a national police convention (that they were mistakenly invited to) and ends up “policing” the entire city as a bio-terrorism threat keeps all of the other officers detained. (Exclusive podcast interview with Lt. Jim Dangle and Deputy Travis Junior at atlanta.creativeloafing.com; click on Flicks.) — Noah Gardenswartz

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Duly Noted

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MARION BRIDGE (NR) Based on a play by Daniel MacIvor and directed by Wiebke von Carolsfeld, the film won the Best Canadian First Feature Award at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival. Exquisitely acted film observing the tensions between three grown-up sisters attending to their dying mother in a small Nova Scotia town. Canada’s Best. Sat., Feb. 24. 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Theatre. 1280 Peachtree St. $7. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

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MOTHRA (1961) (NR) 3 stars. When explorers kidnap two fairy-sized girls from a mysterious island, a train-sized caterpillar storms Japan and turns into a monstrous moth to get them back. This splashy, colorful entry in the genre of giant Japanese creature-features features the most relatively benign monster in the stable. Presented by Silver Scream Spookshow. Sat., Feb. 24, 1 and 9:30 p.m. Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce De Leon Ave., $6-$10. 404-873-1939. www.plazaatlanta.com. ­-- Curt Holman

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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.

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THREE TIMES (NR) A rapturous trio of love stories shot in different styles and set in three different locales and eras: a pool hall in 1966, an exclusive brothel in 1911 and the urban landscape of today’s Taipei. From director Hou Hsiao Hsien. In Taiwanese and Mandarin with subtitles. Celebrating Taiwan’s Cinema. Fri., Feb. 23. 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Theatre. 1280 Peachtree St. $7. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

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Continuing

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ACADEMY AWARD SHORTS (NR) 4 stars. Landmark presents two programs of the complete nominees of the upcoming Oscars in both the live-action and animated-short-film categories. Buzz-worthy shorts include “West Bank Story,” about competing falafel stands against the backdrop of the Middle Eastern conflict, and “Lifted,” a comic tale about alien abduction from Cars creators Pixar.

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BABEL (R) 4 stars. A freak mishap has far-reaching repercussions that effect the lives of a pair of American tourists (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), two young Moroccan shepherds, a Mexican nanny (Adriana Barraza) and a deaf Japanese teenager (Rinko Kikuchi). Amores Perros director Alejandro González Iñárritu presents another gripping, gritty and well-acted set of intersecting narratives that feature raw performances (particularly from Rinko Kikuchi) and moments of nearly unbearable suspense. On reflection, Iñárritu’s themes of language, globalization and human connection don’t quite come together, but Babel’s passion and visceral image give it power that transcends borders. — Holman

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BECAUSE I SAID SO 1 star. A nasty piece of cinema posing as a romantic comedy, Because I Said So is this year’s Monster-In-Law, a vicious stab at the maternal instinct that also manages to humiliate the iconic actress at its center. Diane Keaton headlines the film as Daphne, a 59-year-old woman who still dotes on her youngest daughter, Milly (Mandy Moore). Determined to find Mr. Right for Milly, Daphne interviews prospective suitors and settles on a wealthy architect (Tom Everett Scott), but her plans are upset by the additional presence of a struggling musician (Gabriel Macht). For all its faults, the movie’s most unforgivable sin is its treatment of the great Diane Keaton: Watching her humiliated on camera in the service of such a loathsome character (she shrieks! she whines! she falls on her ass!) is inexcusable. Just a few years ago, Keaton played a character who was sexy, funny and intelligent in Something’s Gotta Give. This one’s more like Something Gave Out. — Matt Brunson

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BLOOD DIAMOND (R) 3 stars. A white soldier-turned smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a black fisherman (Djimon Hounsou) become unwilling partners in the effort to recover a huge, uncut diamond amid the chaos of a civil war in Sierra Leone. Glory’s Edward Zwick directs a crisply paced, superbly photographed film, replete with magnificent vistas and harrowing action scenes. Despite the film’s justified indignation over “conflict diamonds,” however, the plot proves utterly familiar and the horrific black-on-black violence will more probably stick with the audience more than contempt for the Western corporations that profit from it. — Holman

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BREACH (PG-13) 3 stars. Breach chronicles the true-life saga of the apprehension of agent Robert Hanssen, who in 2001 was brought down for his role as a longtime spy for the Russians. The superb Chris Cooper plays Hanssen, who’s presented as a deeply religious man with a disdain for homosexuals, strong-willed women and many of his peers at the bureau. He’s assigned a clerk named Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe), not realizing that the young man is a budding agent who’s been ordered by his superior (Laura Linney) to spy on him and collect any potentially incriminating evidence. Breach is competent without being particularly distinguished, with Cooper working hard to provide any psychological subtext to the story behind the headlines. — Brunson

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BREAKING AND ENTERING (R) 2 stars. Master of the respectable literary adaptation, Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Cold Mountain) works from an original script this time and the strain shows. Jude Law plays an angst-wracked London yuppie with a Bergman-depressed, half-Swedish girlfriend (Robin Wright Penn) and an urge to roam. He finds his social consciousness raised and his libido spiked in the bed of a Bosnian refugee (Juliette Binoche). Everyone’s pretty and the cinematography by Benoît Delhomme is exquisite. White liberal guilt has never been quite so lovely or so self-serving. — Feaster

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BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA (PG) 4 stars. Though the trailers for this children’s story suggest two middle-schoolers (in touching performances from Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb) lost in their own private Narnia or Middle Earth, the melancholy but lovely effect of this film is more Finding Neverland. Deeply progressive by most kid’s film measures, Bridge features two protagonists who challenge the usual boy/girl stereotypes and really conveys both the exquisite heights of imagination children achieve, as well as how crushing loss looks through their eyes. — Feaster

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CHILDREN OF MEN (R) 5 stars. In England of 2041, following a global epidemic of infertility, a cynical Englishman (Clive Owen) becomes caught up in a revolutionary group’s plan, hinging on the miraculous secret of a young woman (Claire-Hope Ashitey). Alfonso Cuaron, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, retains the premise but departs from the spirit of P.D. James’ novel to focus on xenophobia, homeland security and urban unrest. Trading high-tech sci-fi trappings for gritty, present-day concerns, Children of Men practically shimmers with tense scenes and rich themes, culminating with a breathless, wordless extended sequence that pleas for peace and the recognition of our shared humanity. -- Holman

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DREAMGIRLS (PG-13) 4 stars. Based on the long-running Broadway musical, Bill Condon’s rousing film adaptation parallels the rise of a fractious girl group inspired by The Supremes with the changes in African-American culture in the 1960s and 1970s. Playing a role based on Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jamie Foxx virtually drives the plot but lacks a show-stopping number of his own, hinting that there’s a hole in the material. It’s still a delightfully cast show, featuring Beyoncé Knowles as a Diana Ross-esque chanteuse, Eddie Murphy as an electrifying R&B star hitting the skids and newcomer Jennifer Hudson as a demanding, discarded diva; a role that’s already made the “American Idol” contestant the front runner for this year’s Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. — Holman

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EPIC MOVIE (PG-13) Some of the creators of the Scary Movie franchise branch out to poke fun at seemingly every big-budget movie from the past year or so, including The Chronicles of Narnia, Superman Returns, The Da Vinci Code and Snakes on a Plane. At least someone still remembers Snakes on a Plane.

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GHOST RIDER (PG-13) Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage has a superhero fixation: He named himself after “Luke Cage, Power Man,” gave his son Superman’s Kryptonian name “Kal-El” and almost played the Man of Steel in the 1990s. As a consolation prize, he steps into comic-book cinema as Ghost Rider, an obscure Marvel Comics hero from the 1970s, playing a motorcyclist cursed with a flaming skull and hellfire powers who chooses to fight against the forces of evil (led by former Easy Rider Peter Fonda).

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HANNIBAL RISING (R) This prequel thriller presents some of the back-story of everyone’s favorite cannibal head-shrinker, Hannibal Lecter, back when he was a creepy European youth (A Very Long Engagement’s Gaspard Ulliel) orphaned in World War II.

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IMAX THEATER Deep Sea (NR) Get an up-close-and-personal look at sea turtles, giant octopi and other strange and colorful marine life in this visit to the ocean floor. Greece: Secrets of the Past (NR) This documentary explores the archeological secrets of Ancient Greece and features the Parthenon in its original glory as well as the volcanic eruption that buried the island of Santorini. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

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INLAND EMPIRE (R) 4 stars. David Lynch, 61, is at it again, this time bringing his forays into the unconscious to viewers via newfangled digital video. His reliable muse Laura Dern plays another innocent dipping into the world’s dark side as an actress who finds playing a slatternly character bleeds into her real life, splitting her consciousness into two. Lynch’s film bounces between Hollywood and Lodz, Poland (home of the country’s national film school), reality and surreality, innocence and corruption. Even more than Mulholland Drive, Lynch’s meandering waking nightmare explores the dangers in a Hollywood where acting and other creative endeavors threaten to split the psyche into two. — Felicia Feaster

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LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (R) 3 stars. Clint Eastwood’s follow-up to his WWII drama Flags of Our Fathers looks at the definitive battle of Iwo Jima through the eyes of Japanese grunts trying against hopeless odds to protect their island from an onslaught of American invaders. Eastwood’s decision to imagine history through the Other’s eyes and film his drama in Japanese with English subtitles was an impressive creative gamble. Much of the film has a depressing fatalism matched by Eastwood vet Tom Stern’s eerie cinematography, though it doesn’t feel as if Eastwood has really reconceptualized the war film in any larger sense. — Feaster

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THE MESSENGERS (PG-13) The Pang Brothers, directors of such Hong Kong horror flicks as The Eye, helm this suspense story in which children see ominous apparitions invisible to adults at a secluded North Dakota farm.

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MUSIC AND LYRICS (PG-13) 3 stars. A has-been 1980s pop star (Hugh Grant) gets a chance to jumpstart his career if he can write a new song, so he enlists a quirky amateur (Drew Barrymore) to come up with the words. After a shaky start, Music and Lyrics turns into a surprisingly smart and pleasant romantic comedy that persistently avoids the genre’s cliched complications. Grant proves reliably amusing and Barrymore has never been more charming, and their relationship credibly unfolds against a backdrop of the forced intimacy of a creative partnership, as well as the strains of the music industry’s pressure to artistic compromise. — Holman

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NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM (PG) 4 stars. The occasionally unfunny Ben Stiller is inspired and feeling his comic imp in this very enjoyable romp about a slacker divorced dad Larry (Stiller) who tries to win back his son’s affection by taking a job as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History and discovers that the displays of animals, explorers, cavemen and soldiers come alive at night. With its subtext of male anxiety and championing of book learnin’ and the lessons of history, Shawn Levy’s film offers equal entertainment for adults and children including a crack-comic cast featuring “The Office’s” Ricky Gervais as the museum boss and a dementedly funny Mickey Rooney as a retiring night guard. — Feaster

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NORBIT 2 stars. There’s a reason makeup artist Rick Baker owns six Academy Awards, and it can be seen in his latest collaboration with Eddie Murphy. Baker (The Nutty Professor) had a hand in the designs Murphy dons in this comedy, and as usual, his efforts elicit gasps of admiration. Also worthy of (guarded) praise is Murphy himself, who once again is able to create a deft comic persona. That would be the title character, a mild-mannered nerd who ends up marrying a frightening, 300-pound behemoth named Rasputia (also Murphy). Like the geek Murphy played in Bowfinger, Norbit is a likable man whose rotten luck and sweet demeanor earn our sympathies. What doesn’t engender audience goodwill is the rest of this picture, which is mean-spirited to its core. The stereotype most likely to offend is its centerpiece: Rasputia, an African-American caricature who’s oversexed, overfed and in all other regards over-the-top. First, Martin Lawrence as Big Momma, then Tyler Perry as Madea, and now this? Enough already. — Brunson

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NOTES ON A SCANDAL (R) 4 stars. If you need an antidote to the usual schoolroom inspirational a la Freedom Writers, then this nasty slice of Brit-misanthropy should be just the ticket. From Patrick Marber’s script and Zoe Heller’s novel, the film begins as an engrossing thriller about the parasitic relationship between a beautiful, bourgeois inner-city London schoolteacher (Cate Blanchett) and the older dominatrix schoolmarm (Judi Dench) who develops an unhealthy fascination with her colleague’s indiscretions and supple flesh. But its initially thrilling knee-deep cynicism soon mutates into a blatantly misogynist, homophobic portrait of Dench’s hellbent crone, a turnaround which makes it into a very guilty pleasure indeed. — Feaster

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THE PAINTED VEIL (PG-13) 3 stars. English newlyweds (Naomi Watts and Edward Norton) wrangle with their marital difficulties against the backdrop of a cholera outbreak and political unrest in rural China in the 1920s. Watts reunites with John Curran, her director for We Don’t Live Here Anymore for a visually impressive, emotionally intimate tale with tensions that hit closer to the bone than the usual straight-laced Merchant-Ivory period piece while conveying more breadth of feeling than Curran’s previous film. Norton and especially Watts superbly convey the spouses’ different difficulties in expressing themselves. — Holman

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PAN’S LABYRINTH (R) 4 stars. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s (Hellboy, Cronos) exquisitely gothic fairy tale concerns a little girl (Ivana Baquero) who escapes the nightmarish Spanish Fascist stepfather and violence of the adult world in prolonged fantasies of descent into a magical underworld overseen by an enormous talking faun, Pan. Del Toro, supported by an excellent cast of female actresses, delivers an achingly beautiful parable about the willful desire of children to imagine an alternative reality. — Feaster

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (PG-13) 3 stars. Will Smith is earnest and appealing, even if his enthusiasm is more believable than his sorrow in this fact-based film about a man struggling to change his life. In this valentine to the American dream, Chris Gardner (Smith) has been abandoned by his wife to care for his 5-year-old son while trying to change from a homeless medical supply salesman with a high school diploma to a Dean Witter stockbroker. Just when director Gabriele Muccino digs beneath his glossy Hollywood tale and shows the domino-effect hardship of being poor, something fraudulent or superficial steals his thunder. But the story’s sentimental take on black fatherhood and the well-done father-son relationship account for a great deal of its appeal. — Feaster

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THE QUEEN (PG-13) 4 stars. Helen Mirren is enthralling as the emotionally flummoxed Queen Elizabeth II who finds herself stuck in the middle of royal protocol and modernization when former princess Diana dies. An often hilarious portrait of the bizarre WASP rituals of the royals and the media blitzkrieg surrounding Diana’s death, Stephen Frears’ exceptionally enjoyable tragicomedy is a tour de force all around. — Feaster

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SMOKIN‚ ACES (R) Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. Narc director Joe Carnahan helms this hip action flick that features Jeremy Piven of Entourage as “Aces” a Vegas performer whose decision to snitch incurs the wrath of various mob hitmen. The cast includes Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ryan Reynolds and such unusual suspects as Jason Bateman and Alicia Keys.

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STOMP THE YARD (PG-13) A troubled 19-year-old dancer from Los Angeles enrolls in Atlanta’s fictional Truth University, where he gets caught up in romance and the “step show” competitions of black fraternities.

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TYLER PERRY’S DADDY LITTLE GIRLS (PG-13) Reverse-Cinderella tale centers about a successful attorney (Gabrielle Union) who falls in love with a financially challenged mechanic (Idris Elba) who is a single father of three children. The relationship hits a snag when the janitor’s ex-wife comes back into his life and threatens to take away their kids.

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VENUS (R) 3 stars. An elderly English character actor (Peter O’Toole) moons over a coarse but comely young woman (Jodie Whittaker) while grappling with the prospect of his mortality. Having played kings, artists and madmen throughout his career, Venus brings O’Toole down to Earth for one of his most touching, naturalistic performances. O’Toole’s Oscar-nominated work elevates a pleasant but minor film which reveals a surprisingly pointed sense of humor, particularly in O’Toole’s scenes with the excellent Leslie Phillips, who plays his bickering best friend. — Holman

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VOLVER (R) 5 stars. Pedro Almodóvar proves yet again that he is one of the most engaging filmmakers working today. He balances intense feeling and giddy silliness without sacrificing humanity or heart in this tale of a devoted mother, played by an intoxicating Penélope Cruz, who finds herself disposing of a dead husband, running an illegal restaurant and fending off her mother’s ghost. Blending elements of Italian neorealist cinema, classic Hollywood melodramas like Mildred Pierce and outrageous Almodóvarian wit, Volver is an earthy, heartfelt pleasure from top to bottom. — Feaster