Short Subjectives November 06 2003

Opening Friday
AUTUMN SPRING (2001) (PG-13) This dramedy from Czechoslovakia stars Vlastimil Brodsky (in his last film role before his suicide) as an irrepressible practical joker unwilling to admit to his own mortality. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

BUBBA HO-TEP (R) See review.

ELEPHANT (R) See review.

ELF (PG) See review.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (NR) It’s rare to have one of the Gospels read cover-to-cover in church and this three-hour epic shows why. Pictorial elements can’t make the slow and redundant parts interesting, despite Christopher Plummer’s reverent reading of all but the dialogue. A relatively PC translation was used and the Jewish producers have added disclaimers to avoid charges of anti-Semitism, but Jesus (British stage actor Henry Ian Cusick) and his people are nevertheless pale-skinned with European features. Many believers will prefer the film to Bible studies that require them to do their own visualizing.--Steve Warren

LOVE ACTUALLY (R) Love is all around in this British Love Boat (on dry land) that makes a case for the ubiquity of pop music. In the five weeks leading up to Christmas, dozens of characters initiate, maintain or break off relationships of a romantic, sexual, familial or platonic nature. Excellent casting makes each person stand out, whether the actor is familiar (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson) or not (Heike Makatsch, Andrew Lincoln). Richard Curtis, the witty writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral, makes his directing debut with a commercial movie that gives commercial movies a good name.--SW

THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) (NR) George Cukor directs one of the most scintillating screwball comedies every made, as Katharine Hepburn’s society girl tries to choose between her debonair ex-husband Cary Grant, her social-climbing fiancé John Howard and down-to-earth Spy magazine reporter Jimmy Stewart — who won an Oscar for his role. At Madstone Theaters Parkside.--Curt Holman

THE SINGING DETECTIVE (R) The late Dennis Potter’s 1986 miniseries is revered for breaking new ground, but countless imitations have raised the bar too high for Keith Gordon’s spotty film version to get over. Memory, fantasy and reality mix in the addled mind of mystery writer Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.), hospitalized with severe psoriasis, as he becomes his fictional hero working a case involving people from his past and present, all of whom stop periodically to lip-synch records from the 1950s.--SW

?Duly Noted
CINEMA MEXICO: IN SHORT (NR) This program of award-winning short films from Mexico includes the comedy “Flower Pot,” the hypnotic love story “From Mesmer With Love” and the moving portrait “Gertrudis Blues.” Latin American Film Festival. Nov. 7, 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

I AM BOLIVAR (2002) (NR) TV spoof gives way to serious political commentary in this film about a Latin American star of telenovelas (Robinson Diaz) who grows to believe he’s the great revolutionary Simon Bolivar and is exploited by celebrity-hungry politicians. Latin American Film Festival. Nov. 8, 8 p.m., Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org. and Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m., Madstone Theaters Parkside

LITTLE OTIK (2000) (NR) Ingenious Czechoslovakian animator Jan Svankmajer offers a twisted fairy tale about a childless couple who carve a wooden infant as a surrogate baby, only to see it come to life — with an insatiable appetite. Nov. 6, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565.

A MAP OF THE HEART (2002) (NR) Karoline Eichhorn plays a woman who separates from her lover while on a Corsican holiday, only to fall for a young German. Recent Films from Germany. Nov. 5, 7 p.m. Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, 1197 Peachtree St., Colony Square. $4. 404-892-2388.

MAROONED IN IRAQ (2001) (NR) Not a critique of the current U.S. foreign policy, Bahman Ghobadi’s film depicts a group of Iranian Kurd musicians traveling across Iraq to stay ahead of Saddam Hussein’s anti-Kurd forces. Nov. 7-13, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993) (PG) The skeletal lord of Halloween gets a serious case of Christmas spirit and decides to replace Santa Claus, with chaotic results, in this stop-motion animated musical produced by Tim Burton. With more big laughs and fewer downbeat Danny Elfman songs, it could be a genuine classic, but as is, it offers such visual delights that nearly every frame qualifies as a work of art. Nov. 6, Cinefest, GSU Student Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR (2002) (NR) Director Helvecio Ratton presents the high-spirited story of Radio Favela, a musically and politically rebellious radio station established in the 1980s by four black teens from the Belo Horizonte shantytown. Latin American Film Festival. Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m., Madstone Theaters Parkside. www.high.org.

?Continuing
ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (1979) (R) Director Ridley Scott restores some scenes, shortens others, polishes the visual effects and spruces the negative of his classic “haunted spacecraft” horror film. Excelled in some ways by its sequel Aliens, it’s still a showcase for the nightmarish designs of H.R. Giger and the acting of such players as Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, John Hurt and Harry Dean Stanton.

BEYOND BORDERS (R) With a title that sounds like a Barnes & Noble commercial, this failed attempt to revive the old-style romantic epic is equally unsuccessful as an infomercial for refugee aid organizations, since it shows ways in which these charities are compromised. Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen are torn between their love for each other and their love of helping refugees (she has a husband too, but he hardly figures into the equation) over 11 years of danger-filled meetings in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Chechnya. If not for the grim reality of the backdrops, Beyond Borders would be laughable.--SW

THE HUMAN STAIN (R) The adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel casts Anthony Hopkins as a Jewish professor whose use of a racial epithet sends him on a personal tailspin. But rather than explore the book’s themes about political correctness and racial self-loathing, Robert Benton’s icily formal film emphasizes the professor’s May-December affair with an uncouth janitor (Nicole Kidman masquerading as white trash). Wentworth Miller’s flashbacks as the young Hopkins touch on the complex ethnic implications of a film that otherwise ducks controversy at every turn.--CH

IN THE CUT (R) An English professor (Meg Ryan) put off by the emotional messiness of sex grows attracted to a cocky, sleazy homicide detective (Mark Ruffalo) investigating the grisly murders of women. Jane Campion’s adaptation of Susannah Moore’s book gets points for its bedroom frankness, and loses them for its thudding themes that sex, men and marriage are all bad. The film proves rather effective as a unsettling, paranoia-inducing mood piece, but Ryan works so hard against her lightweight image that she never makes pleasure seem very pleasurable.--CH

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (PG-13) A darker than average date movie involving a white-hot divorce lawyer (George Clooney), a gold-digging vixen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and their tangled up relationship, mixed parts revenge and romance. The Coen Brothers (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?) keep the dialogue fast and furious, and make some fascinating Julius Caesar allusions along the way, but falter when they back off from the black humor.--Tray Butler

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 blonde 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. Volume 2 is due in February.--CH

LOST IN TRANSLATION (R) Director Sofia Coppola’s (The Virgin Suicides) much-anticipated second film brings together Bill Murray and indie flick ingénue Scarlett Johansson as accidental tourists in Tokyo. Both insomniacs at crisis points in their marriages, the two start a unique friendship that takes through from karaoke clubs to titty bars in a soft-focus search for connection and meaning. Coppola strings together enough tiny brilliant moments to overcome the film’s nearly absent plot and produces a sophomore effort almost as sparkling as her first.--TB

MAMBO ITALIANO (R) Paul Sorvino and Ginette Reno anchor a stereotypical Italian-Canadian family in a gay rewrite of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Their 27-year-old son Angelo (Luke Kirby) moves out and sets up housekeeping with Nino (Peter Miller), a cop who’s not as ready to be out as Angelo is. This formulaic feel-good movie relies too heavily on stereotypes, but has more going for it than that. All pasta sauces use the same ingredients but some cooks combine them better than others. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.--SW

MYSTIC RIVER (R) A continuation of the fixations with masculine strength, vengeance and the violent extremes that have defined Clint Eastwood’s directorial and acting career. Sean Penn, a vast improvement on Eastwood’s typically wooden action heroes, is a grieving father determined to punish whoever murdered his 19-year-old daughter. Eastwood’s emotionally fraught film is hardly the masterpiece it’s been made out to be, often weighed down by a ponderous, conventional police investigation plot and a tendency to spell out his aims in canned dialogue and elementary exposition. But as a sustained treatment of male grief and insight into Eastwood’s auteurist fixations, Mystic River is undeniably fascinating.--FF

OUT OF TIME (PG-13) Director Carl Franklin returns to his One False Move roots for this neo-noir that never rises above the status of an enjoyable popcorn movie, despite beautiful widescreen cinematography and Denzel Washington’s star turn as a Florida police chief who becomes the chief patsy in a double homicide. As Denzel’s estranged wife and mistress respectively, Eva Mendes and Sanaa Lathan affirm their readiness for full leading lady status.--SW

PARTY MONSTER (NR) A frenetic, often uneven biopic of New York promoter Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin), who with muse James St. James (Seth Green) helped define the Club Kid subculture of the early ’90s but squanders his gains in the drug-induced murder of his dealer. Heavy on style, and seemingly tripping on its self-conscious rendition of a particular aesthetic, the film works as a fashion show but fails as a time capsule.--TB

PIECES OF APRIL (PG-13) Novelist and screenwriter Peter Hedges has a great track record for maintaining tenderness despite his characters’ comic foibles. But that ability fails him in this slight, flip story of a black sheep, April (Katie Holmes) living in a depressing walk-up on the Lower East Side, who tries to reconcile with her family by inviting them to Thanksgiving dinner. Hedges attempts to inject some gravitas by having April’s mother (Patricia Clarkson) dying of cancer, but his constant jokiness creates a distance from these characters. The usual dysfunctional family jocularity fits badly with a last-minute, disingenuous effort to extract emotional investment from his audience.--FF

PREY FOR ROCK & ROLL (R) The songs kinda suck and the story takes too many detours (a few of them interesting) into soap opera territory. But if you’ve ever liked Gina Gershon — and I’ve been hooked since Showgirls — don’t miss her ultimate showcase as an all-girl rock band’s bisexual leader who’s turning 40 without having found music industry success. At Madstone Theaters Parkside.--SW

RUNAWAY JURY (PG-13) Gary Fleder’s rapid direction of this John Grisham adaptation carries you over the plot holes as “jury consultant” Gene Hackman helps defend a gun manufacturer against Dustin Hoffman’s prosecution of a wrongful death suit. Rachel Weisz promises to sell the jury to the highest bidder and John Cusack’s on the panel to make it happen. Contrived action scenes are there because movie audiences are no more interested in principles than gun manufacturers are.--SW

SCARY MOVIE 3 (PG-13) Unlike Keenan Ivory Wayans’ previous, R-rated horror spoofs, the third film’s less restrictive rating means no nipples and no cum shots but still allows most of Pamela Anderson’s breasts and hints of pedophilia and bestiality. The real problem with Airplane! director David Zucker’s cameo-laden combination of the plots of Signs and The Ring with bits of 8 Mile and The Matrix is that it isn’t funny. The filmmakers have lost their Wayanses.--SW

THE SCHOOL OF ROCK (PG-13) As fraudulent substitute teacher Dewey Finn, Jack Black offers an endlessly hilarious, PG-13 version of his Tenacious D persona, a posturing, legend-in-his-own-mind rock star. When Dewey teaches his class of private school fifth-graders how to be head-bangers, School of Rock takes the mush-mouthed clichés of a zillion “underdog” movies and cranks them up to 11. With Slacker director Richard Linklater and Chuck & Buck actor/scripter Mike White, Black offers the kind of formula film that gives the formula a good name.--CH

THE STATION AGENT (R) Director Thomas McCarthy debuts with a low-key charmer about a train-obsessed dwarf named Fin (Peter Dinklage) who inherits an abandoned train depot in rural New Jersey and makes it into his new home. The reclusive Fin is befriended by a local hot dog stand owner Joe (Bobby Cannavale) and a grieving, tragedy-plagued artist Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) and the trio form their own band of outsiders. McCarthy adds his own unique retro-loving, idiosyncratic outsider to the Jim Jarmusch and Hal Hartley indie oeuvre. But in this case, Fin is more than a rebel by choice and his inescapable physical difference adds a poignancy to the film’s quirky sensibility.--FF

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (R) It’s less a remake and more a retelling, but still an intense, well-executed horror experience. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original sacrificed reality after about an hour to descend into pure, gruesome insanity, but this version remains anchored in the plausible. The sexy teenage protagonists have relatively complex moral decisions and chainsaw-wielding “Leatherface” has an identity and back-story. There’s a lot of slashing, chasing and crazy violence, but it still makes sense.--Steve Yockey

VERONICA GUERIN (R) Ireland’s crusading, martyred muckraker (played by Cate Blanchett) gets a Hollywood-sized biopic thanks to blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher. While Guerin’s reportage on Dublin’s drug lords leads to moments of high intensity, the film never adequately examines the journalist’s willingness to endanger herself and her family in pursuit of the story, and instead portrays her as a garden-variety boat-rocker.--CH

WONDERLAND (R) For those who are still losing sleep over the 1981 murders of four drug dealing associates in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon — a crime in which porn star John Holmes was implicated — James Cox has your film. Wonderland is an unnecessarily thorough, Rashomon-styled film examining this crime from myriad angles. Director Cox uses the hook of Holmes’ possible involvement to lure viewers into a film with very little to say about Holmes or his porn career but a lot of flash and bluster to disguise such gaping absences.--FF