Opens Friday
BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS
Originally filmed in 2002,
Xiao cai feng
is set in 1971 in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, as two Chinese university students (Kun Chen and Ye Liu) are sent to a labor camp in a mountain mining village to be cleansed them of their decadent Western education. When the two bored young intellectuals meet a beautiful, gifted young peasant woman (Xun Zhou), they decide to steal books (ergo, Balzac) and educate her. Guess their Western education didn't include anything about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil…a little book larnin' can be a dangerous thing, perhaps especially in Maoist regimes.
The Screen, NR, 110 min.
CAPOTE
Finally, it's here: Philip Seymour Hoffman takes the part he was born to play as the eerily soft-voiced semi-unwitting New Yorker chronicler of Kansan serial killers; Catherine Keener gets to be Harper Lee; and frankly, we don't want to say much more about this before we've seen it, other than it's going to be a corker, folks.
UA DeVargas, R, 98 min.
CRONICAS
Sebastián Cordero's thriller about an ambitious reporter from Miami (John Leguizamo) in pursuit of a serial killer and pedophile known as the "Monster of Babahoyo" also stars Leonor Watling and Damián Alcázar, and winds up being as much about the ratings-hungry news media as anything else.
CCA, R, 108 min.
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
Nervous fans of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel will be relieved to know that Liev Schreiber's last name means "writer" in German. Not only is the actor's script his first, but he's also newly sitting in the director's chair-fortunately he made the genius decision to cast Elijah Wood, formerly a traumatized hobbit (and panty thief in
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
) as, well, Jonathan Safran Foer, who travels to the Ukraine to find the mysterious woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Eugene Hutz gamely steps in as Alex, the "translator" who not be speek de Englitch so gut-like ("that is just his seeing-eye bitch").
UA DeVargas, PG-13, 106 min.
GODZILLA
No, no, no; not Matthew Broderick, not Hank Azaria. In its original incarnation (and here shown as a bright new nicely tidied-up print),
Gojira
had not so much to do with rubber model monsters knocking down power lines but more to do with post-war nuclear proliferation terror-an issue which, you might imagine and correctly so, held particular relevance for the Japanese circa 1954.
CCA, NR, 98 min.
THE LEGEND OF ZORRO
And this film needed to be made because…? There's an oddly historical feeling to the trailer, above even the fact that it's set in 19th century California; it's as though the movie were made 12 years ago and has been sitting around some back lot in a can gathering dust, waiting to go straight to video. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reprise their original roles as the passionately duelling de la Vegas (so much for the old Gay Blade).
UA South, PG, 100 min.
PRIME
Uma Thurman plays Rafi, an overworked, 37-year-old Upper East Sider with a therapy habit and a recent divorce; Meryl Streep's Lisa Metzger, extremely convincing as her analyst, frumpy and comforting. Then Ms. Uma meets and begins dating a younger man, a 23-year-old painter from Brooklyn (
One Tree Hill
's Bryan Greenberg). And ay caramba, are they ever hot-and-heavy together, but of course there's a wrinkle, and it's the kind of problem no one would have but in a movie: Her new boy toy is her analyst's son. Hijinks will ensue, you betcha.
DreamCatcher, UA North, PG-13, 99 min.
SAW II
Like its indie horror predecessor, only more so; stars Donnie Wahlberg, Franky G and Beverley Mitchell, among other unfortunates who are captured and offed by mischievous rapscallion Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in ever-more elaborate, grotesque and gratuitous ways. Whyfore? One does not know.
UA North, R, 91 min.
SEPARATE LIES
The Screener rashly predicts that Tom Wilkinson will be a household name after this film opens wide. Well, anyway in
her
household he will be (though actually he has been for some time now, since
In the Bedroom
and
Wilde
). With screenplay and direction from the awfully clever Julia Fellowes (
Gosford Park
), and costars Emily Watson and Rupert Everett, we Anglophiles expect nothing less than brooding, gloriously emotionally repressed and overwrought Real Acting, of a kind only plummy-voiced British luvvies can pull off.
Jean Cocteau, R, 90 min.
THE WEATHER MAN
Chicago weatherman David Spritz (Nicholas Cage, with a mop of hair far too plenteous to be real) at last gets his chance to audition for a national morning show. But his dad (Michael Caine), kids and ex-wife (Hope Davis) are dead-set against his moving to New York. Apparently the message is that life, like weather, can't be predicted or controlled. This otherwise average-looking offering stands out because of director Gore Verbinski, known chiefly for three achievements:
Pirates of the Caribbean, Mousehunt
and, perhaps not least, the Budweiser bullfrogs. If nothing else, it should be entertaining to see what Verbinski does with a script that doesn't have frogs, mice or pirates in it.
UA South, R, 102 min.
click here for movie theaters and showtimes
Short Runs
BEST OF YOUTH
So comprehensively epic it has to be shown in two parts, this current crowning glory of Italian cinema spans four decades in the lives of Roman brothers Nicola and Matteo, taking in almost every piece of European history in recent memory along the way; last year's Cannes Jury Prizewinner.
The Screen, R, 366 min.
DANCES OF ECSTASY
Documentarians Michele Mahrer and Nicola Ma travelled the world from Turkey to Nigeria, the Kalahari to Brazil, recording rituals to discover the nature of the altered state people seek in religious trance, induced by rhythm, music and above all dance-what do Sufi whirling dervishes and teens at an all-night rave have in common? Sunday's showings will present the extended version, lasting three hours.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 80 min.
FAIRLY ODD PARENTS: SCARY GODPARENT
GOOSEBUMPS: GHOST NEXT DOOR
GOOSEBUMPS: SCARY HOUSE
Don't the wonderfully literal titles say it all? Kids under twelve get in free, if their grownup chaperones aren't too frightened to accompany them.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 77 and 88 min.
MACHUCA
It's the most genuine sign of a country's having come to terms with the messier details of its recent past that its movie producers become willing to back an historically astute film. Now that there's some padding between Pinochet and the present tense of Chile, we're lucky enough to have Andrés Wood's lyrical, funny and also unapologetic, ruthlessly accurate child's-eye version of the events of 1973. Gonzalo (Matías Quer) is an awkward upper-class 12-year-old who's befriended by a scholarship boy from Santiago's shantytown, Machuca (Ariel Mateluna)-and the politics of Gonzalo's family suddenly don't quite stack up for him anymore.
CCA, NR, 121 min.
MARGARET MEAD FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
The American Museum of Natural History's traveling festival wraps up this week with
How to Fix the World, Oscar
, and
HOPE-HOWSE in Action
(focusing on the Santa Fe-area nonprofit which serves high-security inmates).
7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 1. Free. Planetarium, Santa Fe Community College, 6401 Richards Ave., 428-1375
THE RIVER
The Cinematheque offers a rare chance to see an exquisitely restored print of Jean Renoir's 1951 late film
Le fleuve
, based on Rumer Godden's novel and set in a placid, pre-Independence India, where three teenaged English girls come of age. Son of Impressionist painter Auguste, the director (
La règle du jeu, La grande illusion
) hired an interesting assistant for the shoot: a young Bengali named Satyajit Ray.
CCA, NR, 95 min.
SEEING DR. ZHAO
Yep, it's that Dr. Zhao, the one who practices Chinese herbal medicine right here in our own humble town; in Candy Jones' documentary, his patients share stories of transformation and healing.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 45 min.
THAT MAN: PETER BERLIN
It's a Eurotrash Fabulous Thursday with Jim Tushinski's documentary on the gay porn icon with the trademark blond bob and tight britches, tracing the life of Mapplethorpe's model from his birth in wartime Germany to present-day San Francisco.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 80 min.
TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
Leonard Cohen narrates this unique exploration of the teachings of the Buddhist text; filmed on location in India, the documentary records sacred rituals passed from priest to student, using animation to envision the soul's passage into liberation.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 93 min.
TOUCH THE SOUND
After introducing us to the work of Andy Goldsworthy,
Rivers and Tides'
Thomas Riedelsheimer brings us another uncommon artist in this documentary about world-class, Grammy-winning percussionist Evelyn Glennie, whose ability to perceive and create riotous cascades of sound is not in the least limited by the fact that she is profoundly deaf.
The Screen, NR, 95 min.
THE WHITE ZOMBIE / THE GHOUL
A vintage Halloween double-header pits Bela Lugosi against Boris Karloff.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 146 min.
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Now Showing
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
As John Le Carré's diplomat Justin Quayle, Ralph Fiennes embodies the introverted expatriate, quietly manicuring Kenya into Kensington Park. When his impetuous young wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) is found murdered, however, along with the man thought to be her lover, Quayle turns falcon and begins to ask undiplomatic questions, revealing a connection between pharmaceutical companies and the British High Commission and catapulting into mortal danger himself. Strong performances by Bill Nighy and Pete Postlethwaite add to the accelerando of Meirelles' chaotic, shimmering visual narrative. (Read the
.)
UA DeVargas, R, 129 min.
CORPSE BRIDE
In a brooding gray 19th-century European village, on the eve of his wedding to sensitive, shy Victoria (Emily Watson), an equally bashful Victor (Johnny Depp) accidentally marries the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), a maiden no less alluring for being deceased and a trifle decayed. Trademark stop-motion mastery from Tim Burton (
The Nightmare Before Christmas
) makes it possible to completely forget this macabre little fairytale is animated. And speaking of animation, how can Victor return to his above-ground love when life after death seems so much livelier-or as one character says plaintively, "Why go up there when people are dying to get down here?" We take his point. (Read the
.)
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, UA North, PG-13, 76 min.
DOMINO
Thanks for nothing, Richard Kelly; the
Donnie Darko
writer has morphed the story of Laurence Harvey's knockabout daughter (who was never a Ford model but did work briefly as a bail recovery agent, in between bouts of struggling with the drug habit which eventually killed her) into "a punk-rock fever dream." Translation? Tony Scott's erratic camerawork makes you feel like barfing if you actually watch the screen; everything is tinted green for no discernible reason; and there's not so much as a vestige of the wild, troubled young woman herself left visible for our interest or sympathy. Keira Knightley (
Bend It Like Beckham
) pouts and smirks in the title role, limply supported by Mickey Rourke, Christopher Walken, Lucy Liu and Jacqueline Bisset.
DreamCatcher, UA South, R, 130 min.
DOOM
Based on the seminal video game and set on Mars, where the red threat is either zombies from hell or a government experiment gone awry, depending on your sources,
Doom
stars The Rock, along with other actors of whom you've never heard (perhaps to preserve your sentiments when they're heedlessly slaughtered) and remains loyal to its origins, with a fantastic volume of gore and scenes filmed from the POV of the shooter, the better to make you feel like you're trapped in a video game over which you have no control.
DreamCatcher, UA North, R, 130 min.
DREAMER: INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY
A spirited horse, a plucky little girl, Kurt Russell-we can't ask for much more. Though as it turns out, we also get Kris Kristofferson, Elisabeth Shue, David Morse and Luis Guzmán-to say nothing of Dakota Fanning, who'll probably soon have earned enough to buy Montana if she wants. Ms. Fanning plays Cale, a feisty young 'un determined to bring together an injured filly with her dour dad, who's recently been given the sack. Let the healing begin!
DreamCatcher, UA South, PG, 102 min.
ELIZABETHTOWN
Orlando Bloom stars in Cameron Crowe's latest film as the typical mighty-man-fallen-to-incredible-depths that Crowe so loves to champion (cf
Jerry Maguire
); he plays Drew, an athletic shoe designer whose new sneaker is a failure of epic proportions which will cost his employer nearly one billion dollars in losses-and then receives word that his father has died and he must return to a small town in Kentucky to retrieve the body. On the flight there, Drew meets Claire (Kirsten Dunst), an eccentric flight attendant who comes to his emotional rescue-therein revealing the secret ingredient of Crowe's male fantasies, the hope that some enabling muse will come along and say, "I love you even if you're a loser." But since Crowe has already made this film, and made it better, there is little point to the blandness here. (Read the
.)
DreamCatcher, UA North, PG-13, 123 min.
THE FOG
We're really not sure why this blood-curdling classic of vengeful shipwrecked revenants needed to be remade, especially with the director responsible for
Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em: The Movie
behind the camera instead of John Carpenter. But the mysterious forces of evil have decided that once again the precipitation's getting cranky. Selma Blair (
Hellboy
) must fill the, um, shoes worn 25 years ago by Adrienne Barbeau; but without Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, John Houseman, Hal Holbrook and Debra Hill's crack writing…frankly, we've been more frightened by a steam iron.
DreamCatcher, UA South, PG-13, 100 min.
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) has a peaceable Midwestern life with wife Edie (Maria Bello) and their two children, until a violent robbery of his diner during which Tom kills both criminals and saves his coworkers, to everyone's surprise-including his. Before long a mysterious man in black sunglasses turns up (the delightfully villainous Ed Harris) and it starts to look as though there's more to Tom than meets the eye. At times shimmering with art-house photography and at others clumsy and overt, betraying its origins as comic-book parable, History provides intriguing, inscrutable cinema about which audiences can argue fiercely for quite some time to come. (Read the
.)
UA DeVargas, R, 96 min.
IN HER SHOES
Adapted from Jennifer Weiner's novel,
In Her Shoes
is the sort of film most heterosexual men won't be rushing out to see. The good news, however, is that as far as tearjerking, syrupy-sweet sloppiness goes, there are worse cinematic concessions to be made in order to appease the woman in your life. Toni Collette stars as Rose, a straitlaced, bordering-on-dowdy lawyer whose life is interrupted by her hard-partying, whorish ditz of a younger sister, Maggie (Cameron Diaz), who uses her sister's shoes without permission (not to mention humps Rose's boyfriend). When Rose finally has enough, she kicks Maggie to the curb. With nowhere else to go, Maggie journeys to Florida to see Ella (Shirley MacLaine), the grandmother she and Rose never knew they had; Maggie finds purpose amid the senior citizens who populate Ella's retirement community, and Rose begins to blossom-pun intended-as she finds love and happiness. (Read the
.)
UA North, PG-13, 130 min.
JUNEBUG
Director Phil Morrison and writer Angus MacLachlan's mercurial first film stars Embeth Davidtz as outsider art dealer Madeline, courting a reclusive painter in North Carolina. What better occasion to meet the family of her new husband George (Alessandro Nivola)? Her encounters with his hostile mother (Celia Weston), laconic father (Scott Wilson), churlish younger brother (Ben McKenzie) and extremely effusive, extremely pregnant sister-in-law (Amy Adams, who pocketed a special jury prize from Sundance) are by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching. (Read the
.)
UA DeVargas, R, 107 min.
NORTH COUNTRY
See SFR's
.
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, R, 123 min.
SERENITY
From start to finish, Joss Whedon's
Serenity
is nothing but messy formulaic fun, with an unexpectedly mordant script and characters that suck you in immediately. It's gloriously over-the-top, relationship-driven space opera of a kind seldom seen on the big screen since
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
; you don't have to be a fan of Whedon's short-lived TV series
Firefly
to appreciate the setup. Serenity's successful only because of a certain chemistry between its cast members-it's sci-fi made with paper clips and twine; and, miraculously, the whole shebang flies. (Read the
.)
UA South, PG-13, 119 min.
STAY
See SFR's
.
UA South, R, 99 min.
THE TALENT GIVEN US
If you went as yourself this Halloween, how would anyone know? Screenwriter Andrew Wagner's given it a shot by making a movie in which his family members (including him) all play…themselves. His father suffers from an unidentified neuropathic disorder which leaves his balance unsteady, his mouth permanently ajar and, his fractious mother doesn't hesitate to let anyone in earshot know, their sex life dead in the water. On the spur of the moment they decide they'll drive from New York to LA with their two daughters (both real-life actresses) to surprise Andrew. In the end it's a non-actorly transparency which turns the talents behind
Talent
from mere exuberant (and often irritating) hamminess into something movingly real. (Read the
.)
Jean Cocteau, NR, 97 min.
WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT
Finally, after five long years, thousands of pounds of clay and 250 toiling animators, some little bendy Britons to fill that gaping wound left in our lives since
W&G: A Close Shave
. Nick Park's Wensleydale-loving inventor Wallace (still given voice by 84-year-old Peter Sallis) and his expressively silent pup Gromit seek to exterminate the mysterious critter eatin' th' wegetubbles of Lady Tottington (the omnipresent Helena Bonham Carter), vying with her scurrilous suitor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes) to do so before the peckish hare ruins the town's annual giant veg contest. Huzzah for Plasticene!
DreamCatcher, UA South, G, 85 min.
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