Short Subjectives August 01 2007

Opening Friday

??
BECOMING JANE (PG-13) Director Julian Jarrold’s historically based romance provides the context for Jane Austen’s writing in a love affair between the famous British author (Anne Hathaway) and Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy).

??
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (PG-13) See review.

??
BROOKLYN RULES (R) Michael (Freddie Prinze Jr.) narrates the story of about growing up with friends on the tough streets of Brooklyn in Michael Corrente’s coming-of-age drama co-starring Alec Baldwin and Scott Caan.

??
COLMA: THE MUSICAL 3 stars (PG-13) See review.

??
GOYA’S GHOST 3 stars (PG-13) See review.

??
HOT ROD (PG-13) “Saturday Night Live” newcomer Andy Samberg hits the big screen as a clumsy, moped-riding daredevil in “SNL” writer Akiva Schaffer’s action comedy.

??
EL CANTANTE (R) Spanning roughly 30 years, Leon Ichaso’s biopic drama chronicles the rise of the Puerto Rican Salsa singer Hector Lavoy and stars Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez.

??
UNDERDOG (PG) Comic actor Jason Lee lends his voice to the rhyming canine who saves the day in Frederik Du Chau’s comedy inspired by the original Saturday-morning cartoon.

??
Duly Noted

??
FAY GRIM 1 star (R) Parker Posey stars in Hal Hartley’s sequel to Henry Fool. Cinefest, Georgia State University Center, 44 Courtland St., Suite 240. 404-413-1798. www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcft.

??
IMAX THEATER The Alps Follow John Harlin III in MacGillivray Freeman’s visually breathtaking documentary as he attempts to climb the same summit that proved fatal to his father 40 years ago. Coral Reef Adventure IMAX cameras travel farther than ever before to capture underwater images of the Pacific Ocean’s beautiful coral reefs for this documentary. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu.

??
ISIDORE BETHEL Film Screening Eyedrum presents a night of 11 films by young Atlanta filmmaker Isadore Bethel. $5. Fri., Aug. 3. 8 p.m. Eyedrum, 290 MLK Jr. Drive, Suite 8. 404-522-0655. www.eyedrum.org.

??
THE LIVES OF OTHERS 4 stars (R) Despite being set in recent history, The Lives of Others is also a cautionary tale, offering a possible window into our own future for its message about the life-sapping potential of a government that puts power above its human citizens. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s engrossing Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film follows an East Berlin secret policeman or “Stasi” as he suffers his first twinge of guilt over spying on and subsequently destroying the lives of his fellow Germans. When he is ordered to spy on a playwright and his girlfriend, Capt. Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) begins to sympathize with them. The Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave. 404-873-1939. www.plazaatlanta.com. -- Felicia Feaster

??
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.

??
Continuing

??
1408 (PG-13) Stephen King’s twisted mind and extensive collection spawn yet another horror flick, brought to life this time by Swedish director Mikael Håfström, Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack, who plays a skeptical horror novelist checking into the Dolphin Hotel’s infamous room 1408.

??
ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE (R) Boyish infatuation with Mandy Lane’s (Amber Heard) girlish figure leads to obsession and murder on the part of one admirer in Jonathan Levine’s horror movie.

??
BLACK SHEEP 2 stars (R) The lambs don’t stop screaming in this horror parody from New Zealand when genetic engineering leads to man-eating sheep as well as part-human muttony mutants. For a while the one-joke film proves highly amusing, but the novelty wears off, leaving only juvenile gross-outs and too-easy bestiality gags. Baaah. — Curt Holman

??
CAPTIVITY (R) Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door, House of Wax) plays Jennifer, a fashion model abducted, held against her will and tortured in a thriller from Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields).

??
EAGLE VS. SHARK (R) A hopelessly romantic waitress (Loren Horsley) falls for an overly vengeful video-game clerk (Jemaine Clement) in writer/director Taika Cohen’s quirky love story.

??
EVAN ALMIGHTY 2 stars (PG) In this superficial yarn, selfish freshman congressman Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) finds his political career derailed by a holy decree from God (Morgan Freeman) to build an ark. A crass attempt to get the fundamentalists and progressives on the same page, this misguided comedy about environmentalism-through-Scripture suggests Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets Mr. Smith Goes to Washington without either film’s integrity or skills. -- Feaster

??
EVENING 2 stars (PG-13) From a novel by chronicler of WASP angst Susan Minot, Evening follows the various bees in the bonnets of an upper-crust Yankee clan on the 1950s weekend of their youngest daughter’s (Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep’s daughter) marriage. The story flashes back and forth between the present, as Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) lies dying of cancer, and that fateful weekend when she was a young bohemian bridesmaid (Claire Danes) observing the strange rituals of the rich. Despite a powerhouse cast including Toni Collette, Meryl Streep, Natasha Richardson and Glenn Close this is all very tepid, uninvolving stuff. -- Feaster

??
FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER 2 stars (PG) If it weren’t for the bad casting, dialogue and direction, this sequel about a surrogate family of super-powered celebrities might be a pretty good movie. The extraterrestrial menace from the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones, with voice by Laurence Fishburne) gives some urgency and scope that’s faithful to the classic Marvel Comics series, but not enough to redeem the film’s awful sense of humor. -- Holman

??
GOLDEN DOOR 3 stars (PG-13) Members of a deeply superstitious Sicilian family experience drastic levels of culture shock while emigrating to America in the early 20th century. Despite its slow pace, the film deserves attention for its sympathetic and at times surreal portrait of the cruelties of the immigration experience. -- Holman

??
HAIRSPRAY 4 stars (PG) Yes, it lacks the funky soul sounds of John Waters’ original 1988 film of race and tail-shaking in 1962 Baltimore. But director and choreographer Adam Shankman clearly understands the value of keeping things moving in this rousing, infectiously toe-tapping film version of the Broadway musical. Shankman retains Waters’ smart-aleck, golly-gee-for-grime spirit and manages to distract from the relative horror of John Travolta (in the Divine role) in a female skin suit. Nikki Blonsky is sassy as the chubby, dance-crazy, integrationist teenager Tracy Turnblad, but it’s Christopher Walken as her joshing dad who often steals the show. -- Feaster

??
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX 4 stars (PG-13) Harry Potter’s (Daniel Radcliffe) attempts to defend against evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) are hindered when cruel but cutesy-voiced Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) seizes control of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Low on jokes and wonder, Phoenix offers the tightest, most focused film in the franchise, that plays like a taut, anti-authority thriller rich with political metaphors. It’s The Empire Strikes Back of the franchise. -- Holman

??
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY (PG-13) Adam Sandler and Kevin James star as straight firefighters posing as gay life partners to take advantage of the insurance benefits in Dennis Dugan’s comedy. Co-stars Jessica Biehl.

??
INTRODUCING THE DWIGHTS (R) Tim Dwight (Khan Chittenden) learns to deal with the volatile emotions of the women in his life when his dream girl (Emma Booth) and his overbearing mother (Brenda Blethyn) clash in director Cherie Nowlan’s comedy.

??
JOSHUA 2 stars (R) Director George Ratliff’s (Hell House) devil-child Manhattan Gothic borrows heavily from Rosemary’s Baby in telling the story of an eerily perfect 9-year-old prep schooler whose creepy behavior begins to scare his yuppie parents after they bring home his newborn sister. Beyond updating the semi-cheesy demonic kid horror genre with a gloss of indie cool (hep cats Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga star), Ratliff doesn’t appear to have much of consequence to say and his psychological thriller ends up a silly muddle. -- Feaster

??
KNOCKED UP 4 stars (R) On the foundation of just two films, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and now Knocked Up, writer/director Judd Apatow is rewriting the adolescent sex comedy a la Porky’s and American Pie with smarter, more incisive — and hilarious — results. The story of an over-achieving beauty (Katherine Heigl) whose one-night stand with overgrown slacker Seth Rogen leaves her with child, the gimmick is a little creaky, but the humor and generational read on savvy women and Peter Pan men is spot-on. — Feaster

??
LA VIE EN ROSE 5 stars (PG-13) An extraordinary, transcendent biopicture treating the trauma-plagued life of parental neglect, drug addiction and loss but also the amazing artistic legacy of French national icon and chanteuse Edith Piaf. Olivier Dahan’s direction is stunning and star Marion Cotillard disappears into the role with remarkable ease. -- Feaster

??
LABYRINTH (PG) Presumably the Oscar-winning success of last year’s Pan’s Labyrinth has inspired the re-release of this more family-friendly fantasy directed by the Muppets’ Jim Henson, in which a teenage girl (Jennifer Connelly) journeys into the magical realm of the Goblin King (David Bowie) to rescue her baby brother. Co-stars Muppets collaborator Frank Oz.

??
LICENSE TO WED 1 star (PG-13) This toxic-waste comedy, offensive in its idiocy, places loathsome characters in absurd situations. Under the disinterested supervision of director Ken Kwapis, four writers jury-build a premise that finds engaged couple Ben (John Krasinski) and Sadie (Mandy Moore) forced to pass a marriage-preparation course supervised by the cruel and voyeuristic Rev. Frank (Robin Williams). Williams is in his manic, whoring mode here, an approach well past its expiration date. Williams has made so many one-star comedies it’s impossible to keep count at this point. But rest assured there’s a multiplex in hell that screens them on a perpetual loop. -- Matt Brunson

??
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD 3 stars (PG-13) In the fourth Die Hard film, supercop John McClane (Bruce Willis) and a scruffy hacker (Justin Long, the “I’m a Mac” guy) thwart the plan of an evil genius (Timothy Olyphant) to crash America’s computer, banking and utility services. Director Len Wiseman (the Underworld franchise) offers loud, elaborate 1980s-style action scenes (not to mention some old-school misogyny) but can’t measure up to director John McTiernan’s two efforts in the series. — Holman

??
MY BEST FRIEND 4 stars (PG-13) Patrice Leconte’s (Man on the Train) tale of a silly wager, in which an anti-social antiques dealer (Daniel Auteuil) tries to prove he is likable by producing a best friend in 10 days develops into a rueful commentary on the poignancy of human connection. The likable Dany Boon is the gregarious taxi driver who helps “teach” Auteuil how to be a friend. ­-- Feaster

??
NO RESERVATIONS 2 stars (PG) Catherine Zeta-Jones plays an uptight, perfectionist chef at a luxe Manhattan bistro (and thus, in the logic of Hollywood single-woman dramedies, desperately unhappy) who is schooled in love and loosening up by an annoyingly groomed hipster sous chef Aaron Eckhart wearing feathered hair and Crocs. Based on the 2001 German comedy Mostly Martha. ­-- Feaster

??
OCEAN’S THIRTEEN 4 stars (PG-13) In Steven Soderbergh’s latest fizzy, flashy caper film, unflappable Danny Ocean (George Clooney) enlists his band of hipster heisters to sting scuzzy casino magnate Willie Bank (Al Pacino with a mesmerizing fake tan). Despite few emotional stakes and plot complexity that crosses the line into incoherence, Soderbergh and company’s cool cleverness hits the jackpot anyway. -- Holman

??
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END 3 stars (PG-13) Jettisoning clarity of plot and character like so much ballast, the overstuffed final film in Gore Verbinski’s swashbuckling trilogy lives up to its origins as a diverting theme-park ride, particularly in a pitched battle between two ships in a whirlpool and the surreal sequence of Capt. Jack Sparrow’s (Johnny Depp) rescue from Davy Jones’ Locker. — Holman

??
RATATOUILLE 5 stars (G) Despite having a cast that’s nearly half rodent, Ratatouille breaks from the Pixar formula of cute, funny action comedies about talking toys/bugs/cars/etc. for an ingenious, bittersweet culinary farce. The brilliant gags might tickle your sweet tooth, but the film also serves rich, hearty subtext about life’s sensual pleasures and the necessity of personal evolution. And it looks good enough to eat. — Holman

??
RESCUE DAWN 5 stars (PG-13) Werner Herzog’s POW escape film feels more like his own classics of human confrontation with nature such as Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo than the usual action-movie, foreign-prison-break film. A captivating Christian Bale plays real-life German-American pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down over Laos and managed to make his way to freedom from a jungle POW camp. Utterly restrained and meditative, the film brings the nimble, metaphysical touch of an art-house master to an often gung-ho genre. ­-- Feaster

??
SHREK THE THIRD 2 stars Slovenly ogre Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) shirks his royal duties by trying to enlist the only other heir, meek teen Arthur (de facto king of pop Justin Timberlake). Smug and self-congratulatory, Shrek the Third lacks the freshness and energy of its predecessors and takes perfunctory potshots at such cutting-edge topics as high school, dinner theater, hippies and vain, snobby princesses (although such voice actresses as Amy Sedaris offer amusingly ditzy turns). — Holman

??
SICKO 5 stars (PG-13) Propumentarian Michael Moore thankfully tends to fade into the background in this impassioned film about the United States’ health-care crisis. Apart from the occasional stunt, such as a trip to Cuba to promote nationalized health care, Moore instead lets the victims of America’s bureaucracy-choked and bottom-line-minded health-care business show — in chilling but also often humorous terms — how adequate medical treatment has become a luxury item in this country. ­-- Feaster

??
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE 3 stars (PG-13) See Springfield Product.

??
SUNSHINE 2 stars (R) Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) dabbles with pre-Star Wars sci-fi in his serious-minded but unsteady account of eight scientists on a doomed space mission to reignite the sun before it snuffs out. Sunshine pays nail-bitingly close attention to the risks of space travel, but the last half hour flames out as the film jettisons scientific plausibility and visual coherence in favor of slasher-flick conventions and pseudo-mysticism. Stars Cillian Murphy. — Holman

??
SURF’S UP (PG) Another CGI film about adorable penguins, except this time a “documentary” crew takes audiences behind the scenes at the Penguin Surfing World Championship, following the world’s greatest penguin surfers. The tuxedoed surfer dudes are voiced by Shia LeBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, Mario Cantone and more.

??
TALK TO ME 4 stars (R) Kasi Lemmons’ (Eve’s Bayou) by-turns thoughtful and highly amusing biopicture looks at the astounding career trajectory, in both its quick rise and idiosyncratic fall, of the outspoken, charismatic 1960s ex-con-turned-DJ Petey Greene (Don Cheadle) — and radio exec Dewey Hughes (Chiewetel Ejiofor) — who gave a voice to black Americans from his Washington, D.C., radio pulpit. Cheadle is mesmerizing and Lemmons’ film is a needed reminder of both the smaller voices lost in the bluster of history, and a politically resonant expression of the need to speak out, now more than ever. — Feaster

??
TRANSFORMERS 3 stars (PG-13) Armageddon and Pearl Harbor director Michael Bay plays with the most expensive toys in the planet in this loud, destructive live-action version of the Hasbro properties. The plot, themes and characterization are laughable at best (except for Shia LaBeouf’s ingratiating, steadying work in the leading “human” role), but the special-effects extravaganza of giant robots whaling on each other is kind of awesome. Co-stars Jon Voight and Tyrese Gibson. — Holman

??
THE TREATMENT 3 stars (R) A neurotic prep-school teacher (Chris Eigeman) falls for a beautiful widow (Famke Janssen) despite his preoccupation with his tough-love Freudian therapist (Ian Holm), who may or may not exist. Director Oren Rudavsky’s therapy-based comic conceit feels painfully out of date, but Eigeman’s solid, shtick-free performance makes The Treatment feel like more than just another Woody Allen wannabe. — Holman

??
WHO’S YOUR CADDY? (PG-13) The board president of a country club in the Carolinas strongly discourages an Atlanta rap mogul (Big Boi) from joining, but the rapper and his entourage remain tenacious in Don Michael Paul’s comedy.

??
YOU KILL ME (R) Ben Kingsley and Téa Leoni team up as a recovering-alcoholic hit man and his supportive girlfriend in John Dahl’s killer comedy co-starring Luke Wilson and Bill Pullman.