Short Subjectives February 17 2005

Opening Friday

BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (PG) See review.

BIGGER THAN THE SKY (PG-13) In this modest-scaled romance, a lonely guy (Marcus Thomas) finds himself cast as the big-nosed title character in a small-town theater’s production of Cyrano de Bergerac, cast opposite “Sex and the City’s” John Corbett and “Felicity’s” Amy Smart.

CONSTANTINE (R) See review

THE SEA INSIDE (PG-13) Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, this Spanish film depicts quadriplegic Ramon Sampedro (Javier Bardem) and the endgame of his decades-long battle with Spain’s government and legal system to end his life. Rather than rely on flashbacks or courtroom theatrics, Sea finds drama in the emotional dynamics between Ramon and the other people in his life: He’s like the sun around which every one else orbits. At times director/co-writer Alejandro Amenábar succumbs to TV-movie clich&233;s, but Bardem provides a remarkably melancholy, charismatic performance, despite barely moving a muscle. - Curt Holman

SKY BLUE (NR) See review

SON OF THE MASK (PG) This sequel to Jim Carrey’s fun special-effects comedy The Mask stars neither Carrey nor Cameron Diaz, but Jamie Kennedy as a would-be cartoonist who stumbles across the magical headgear of the title. In nods to Norse mythology, Bob Hoskins and Alan Cumming play Odin and Loki, respectively.

Duly Noted

THE ART & CRIMES OF RON ENGLISH (NR) Ron English’s artworks featuring renditions of corporate henchmen like Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse were prominently featured in Morgan Spurlock’s fast-food expos&233; Super Size Me. Fans of English’s culture jamming will find even more fodder in Pedro Carvajal’s documentary, in which English’s paintings are often a detour from his real love: creating mock billboards lampooning our fast food, gas-guzzling, Bush/Cheney warmongering nation. It’s easy to admire English’s chutzpah (a parody of Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign featuring Charlie Manson-as-spokesman is genius) in beating advertising at its own game, even if his tactics can seem a little drama queen, and at times just plain obnoxious. Feb. 18-24. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. - Felicia Feaster

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) (R) A French gamin (Julie Delpy) and a young American (Ethan Hawke) meet on a train and spend a serendipitous night in Vienna talking about love, fate and cultural differences. Taken on its own, Sunrise alternates between romantic charm and annoying self-absorption. But when viewed as Act One of a tale that culminates with 2004’s Before Sunset, the characters’ youthful idealism takes on an added weight and poignancy. Thurs., Feb. 17. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. - CH

BEFORE SUNSET (R) Sequels are rarely as satisfying as this one, a wonderful reacquaintance with French pessimist Celine (Julie Delpy) and American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) who had one night of bliss in Vienna in Richard Linklater’s 1995 original Before Sunrise. But if the prequel was defined by youthful possibility and its two ethereal, dewy leads, Sunset is enriched by its older, wiser performers, and Linklater has matured alongside them. He invests his film with real intellectual and spiritual weight as Jesse and Celine contemplate what might have been, while holding onto the profoundly romantic belief that human connection and love may be the best chance we have. Thurs., Feb. 17. Cinefest, GSU University Center, Suite 211, 66 Courtland St. $5 ($3 until 5 p.m.). 404-651-3565. www.cinefest.org. - FF

CHARISMA (2000) (NR) Acclaimed Japanese horror filmmaker Kurosawa Kiyoshi presents the tale of a detective who accidentally causes a hostage’s death. When he takes a retreat in the mountains, he gets involved in a feud over a mysterious tree. Great Japanese Filmmakers. Thurs., Feb. 17, 7:30 p.m. 205 White Hall, Emory University. Free. 404-727-5087. www.college.emory.edu.

CHELSEA GIRLS WITH ANDY WARHOL (1994) (NR) This documentary from artist Michael Auder collects footage of Pop art icon Andy Warhol, filmed at work and play, in public and private, from 1971 to 1976. Auder will be in attendance. Garage Projects. Thurs., Feb. 17, 5:30 and 6:50 p.m. Castleberry Hill Arts District, 261 Peters St. Free. 404-302-9074. www.garageprojects.com.

FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE FILM FESTIVAL (NR) The fifth annual French and Francophone Film Festival presents a week’s worth of French cinema, including Jacques Tati’s classic comedy Playtime, the bullfight aftermath of Carnage, the Congolese political sports flick Hop, and the drama of rival brothers, Son Frère. French and Francophone Film Festival. Feb. 17-21. 205 White Hall, Emory University. Free. 404-727-5087. www.college.emory.edu.

THE GOOD FIGHT (1984) (NR) This documentary recounts the story of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the 3,200 American volunteers who fought against Francisco Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War, then faced accusations of being Communist sympathizers in the United States after World War II. On the Side of Freedom. Sat., Feb. 19, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium, 1280 Peachtree St. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

LOST IN TIME (2003) (NR) In this romantic drama, Cecilia Cheung stars as a woman who loses her fianc&233; in a car crash and decides to raise his 5-year-old son on her own. Hong Kong Panorama. Fri., Feb. 18, 8 p.m. Woodruff Arts Center, Rich Auditorium, 1280 Peachtree St. $5. 404-733-4570. www.high.org.

MONSIEUR IBRAHIM (R) Set in a slightly unrealistic, gorgeous 1960s Paris, this sweet film centers on an outwardly suave but lonely Jewish teenager (Pierre Boulanger) who gets some much-needed paternal guidance from an intense, spiritual Arab grocer (Omar Sharif, in the title role). The chemistry between Sharif and Boulanger, and the film’s tender treatment of a male friendship founded on mutual emotional need outweighs its cinematic-luxe treatment of the working class Rue Bleue neighborhood where the pair live, as well as a slightly strained effort to forge an instructive friendship between Arab and Jew. French and Francophone Film Festival. Fri., Feb. 18, 8 p.m. 205 White Hall, Emory University. Free. 404-727-5087. www.college.emory.edu. - FF

NOWHERE IN AFRICA (2001) (R) This Best Foreign Language Oscar winner follows a bourgeois Jewish family as they flee 1937 Germany to eke out an existence on the Kenyan savannah. Director Caroline Link reveals much of the film through the eyes of a 5-year-old girl, who finds Africa to be a place of endless wonders even as she sees the pressures of refugee life undermine her parents’ marriage. Link never loses sight of the film’s intimate, complicated relationships, even when they’re flung against panoramic landscapes and buffeted by the tides of history. Recent Films from Germany. Feb. 23, 7 p.m. Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, 1197 Peachtree St., Colony Square. $4. 404-892-2388. - CH

SHORT LIVED! A FILM SLAM (NR) IMAGE Film & Video Center’s freewheeling evening of short films takes inspiration from “The Gong Show,” as a panel of judges, egged on by the audience, will dictate whether films will run to the end or will get “gonged” in progress. Awards will be given for the best and worst efforts of the evening. IMAGE Film & Video Center, Mon., Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m. The Earl, 488 Flat Shoals Ave. $5 (free for IMAGE members). 404-352-4225. www.imagefv.org.

YUMEJI (1991) (NR) Seijun Suzuki’s film, loosely based on the life of early 20th-century painter Yumeji Takehisa, presents a dreamlike series of interconnected vignettes of the artist drifting from one beautiful woman to another. Great Japanese Filmmakers. Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m. 205 White Hall, Emory University. Free. 404-727-5087. www.college.emory.edu.

Continuing

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 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. - FF

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

BEING JULIA (R) In this adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s novel Theatre, Annette Bening gives one of the year’s best performances as a 1938 London stage diva who falls in love with a much younger man and learns the difference between acting and living. Apart from Bening’s rich, rewarding portrayal, Being Julia offers a light-hearted but fairly frivolous melodrama about temperamental theater artists. But the story builds to a satisfying conclusion and Juliet Stevenson provides an amusing turn as Bening’s no-nonsense dresser. - CH

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.

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

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.

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

GUERILLA: THE TAKING OF PATTY HEARST (NR) Filmmaker Robert Stone harks back to one of America’s strangest cases of home-grown terrorism when a band of radicals kidnapped and brainwashed heiress Patty Hearst into joining their cause. Stone opted not to interview Hearst and instead focus on the Symbionese Liberation Army, but with the primary kidnappers dead or incommunicado, the account feels second-hand, like following the case in the media of the mid-1970s. Guerilla provides a frequently gripping account despite its limited perspective. - CH

HITCH (PG-13) It’s a rare director and actor who can handle the contrapuntal demands of romantic comedy. As inoffensively lovable as Will Smith is, he makes a far better class clown than a love-burned romantic lead. “Hitch” is a Manhattan matchmaker schooling nerdy guys to romance their dream girls who must learn to love again from a newspaper gossip columnist (a brittle Eva Mendes). When Hitch coasts on factory-assembled comic convention (black guy teaches white guy how to play it coooool) the film is on firm ground. When it asks Mendes and Smith to summon up some chemistry, and heads toward a canned matrimonial denouement, the fun turns into grueling ordeal. - FF

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: 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. 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

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

ONG-BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR (R) You may not think you want to see a subtitled movie about Thai kickboxing, but believe me, you do. Watching Tony Jaa punch, flip and propel himself through this pulpy, fast-paced tale gives you a heady thrill of discovery akin to the ground-breaking, head-breaking early work of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Apart from the exotic opening scene (a kind of Extreme Capture the Flag game in a tree), the plot won’t win any prizes for originality, but with such brutal brawls and exuberant chase scenes, Ong-Bak is a kick in the head. - 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

PAPER CLIPS (G) In 1998, middle schoolers in the small Tennessee town of Whitwell looked outside of their white Protestant reality. A school project meant to teach them about the Holocaust quickly grew into a community building exercise in group empathy. The students began by collecting 6 million paper clips to represent the Jews killed in the Holocaust, but by the end of their project had also created a monument on school grounds and inspired journalists, Holocaust survivors and children around the world. Though they appear to have trained at the knee of “60 Minutes,” filmmakers Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab inspire genuine emotion despite an over-reliance on dry-as-dust documentary storytelling. - FF

POOH’S HEFFALUMP MOVIE (G) You can always trust your pre-Pixar-age kids with Winnie the Pooh and his neighbors, but the latest visit to the Hundred Acre Wood will prompt grown-ups to groan, “Oh, bother.” A heffalump scare puts Pooh and company in a tizzy until young Roo discovers that the elephantine critters are just plain folks. With sappy songs by Carly Simon, the film can’t tell outright treacle from the pleasing, gentle whimsy of the early Pooh films, but the toddlers won’t mind. - 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

UNCLE NINO (PG) A dysfunctional Chicago family (including Joe Mantegna and Anne Archer) draws closer together during a visit from long-lost Uncle Nino from Italy in this wholesome film for all ages.

THE WEDDING DATE (PG-13) To spite her ex-fianc&233;e a single New Yorker (Debra Messing) pays a suave male escort (Dermot Mulroney) $6,000 to pose as her new boyfriend for her sister’s lavish wedding in England. On “Will & Grace,” Messing’s acting style could be called “Jennifer Aniston for the hearing impaired,” but Date derives instead from Julia Roberts’ hit films: It’s a nuptial spoof with Dermot Mulroney, like My Best Friend’s Wedding, a romantic comedy set in England like Notting Hill and a glorification of prostitution, like Pretty Woman. Talk about “something borrowed.” - CH

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??