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Opens Wednesday
GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN'
There may be other people in this movie (for instance,
Hustle & Flow
's Terrence Howard) but few of them will be as discussed as its star, Curtis Jackson (aka rapper 50 Cent)-in part because the film's story is taken from Jackson's own life as a street kid turned drug dealer turned rap phenom. But rather as
8 Mile
benefitted from Curtis Hanson's being there to rein in Eminem,
Get Rich
can't help but profit from the direction of Jim Sheridan, who has his own kind of street cred
(In the Name of the Father, In America, The Boxer).
DreamCatcher, R, 134 min.
Opens Friday
DERAILED
***image3***God forbid that Brangelina should have cause to gloat, but Jennifer Aniston, whose agent ordinarily gives every indication of actually knowing how to read scripts (
Office Space, The Good Girl
), must have been in rehab when he gave the nod to this lulu of a thriller. Aniston stars as Lucinda, an evil-vixen executive (sure…) who lures Charles (Closer's rugged Clive Owen) into a little adulterous hanky-panky; but practically before they even get their seedy hotel room key, they're already being blackmailed. As usual, the dumbed-down moral is that Adultery Is Bad-you'd think we'd have that sussed after Adrian Lyne beat it into our heads with
Fatal Attraction
and
Unfaithful
, but apparently not.
CCA, R, 120 min.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
The thought may have crossed your mind that our era already has more than enough film adaptations of Jane Austen; it certainly has occurred to us. And the woman only wrote seven books, so it's not like screenwriters can scrape the barrel and come up with the equivalent of
Barnaby Rudge
or some such (although come to think of it, you don't get many
Northanger Abbey
s). Any rate, here it is again, this time with Keira Knightley as Everywoman heroine Elizabeth Bennet, Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn as her parents and, as Mr. Darcy, Matthew MacFadyen, who has the unenviable task of surviving comparisons to Colin Firth.
UA DeVargas, PG, 127 min.
THE PRIZE-WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO
***image2***Julianne Moore reprises her 1950s housewife (
Far from Heaven, The Hours
) as Evelyn, mother of 10 (yep) and wife to a man who can't seem to make ends meet (Woody Harrelson, whose horn-rimmed glasses and goofy haircut imply that he's acting, here). In desperation, Evelyn turns to writing jingles for contests-and then wins, repeatedly, keeping her family in washing machines, automobiles, and lifetime supplies of cream of celery soup. Look for newbie director Jane Anderson to recreate such authentic period details as television aerials and jello salad with marshmallows, shredded coconut and fruit cup.
Jean Cocteau, PG-13, 99 min.
ZATHURA
Fans of actor-director Jon Favreau's
Swingers
and
Made
probably wouldn't have him figured for a kids' movie guy; but after 2003's
Elf,
it's clear the guy can still manage to be reasonably funny even on a big budget. Based on the book by children's writer and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg (
The Polar Express, Jumanji
), the story is simple: Two young brothers (Jonah Bobo and the next It Child, Josh Hutcherson) discover a dusty old vintage board game called Zathura, which turns their house into a rocket ship hurtling through outer space.
DreamCatcher, UA South, PG, 113 min.
Opens Friday, Nov. 16.
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GANGES: RIVER TO HEAVEN
See SFR's review.
CCA, NR, 79 min.
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Short Runs
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BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS
Filmed in 2002,
Xiao cai feng
is set in 1971 in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, when two Chinese university students (Kun Chen and Ye Liu) are sent to a labor camp in a mountain mining village to purify them of their 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….
The Screen, NR, 110 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?
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 80 min.
DO I LOOK FAT?
This Fabulous Thursday documentary explores the relatively recent phenomenon of gay male culture's obsession with fitness extending into eating disorders and compulsive overexercising in the pursuit of the perfect body. Shows with
Bigger
, a short film about using silicon implants to, well, you know.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 71 min.
DORIAN BLUES
Tennyson Bardwell's sweetly innocent coming-out comedy stars
What I Like about You
's Michael McMillian as the young gentleman Dorian of the title (a tip of the hat to Wilde), who's discovering he prefers Ken to Barbie while his extremely conservative parents (Charles Fletcher and Mo Quigley) and brother (Lea Coco) react pretty much exactly as you might think they would.
CCA, NR, 88 min.
ETHICS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Sure to be a Santa Fe pleaser, this rare address of the XIV Dalai Lama to Westerners on the eve of the 21st century considers such political matters as conflict, force and violence. His Holiness also takes questions from the audience in London's Royal Albert Hall.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 81 min.
THE FILMS OF ANDY WARHOL
In association with the O'Keeffe Museum (referencing its current Warhol exhibition), the Screen presents a mini-festival weekend of Warhol's experimental cinema, as he discovered, apologies to his Purple Badness, joy in repetition:
Kiss, Beauty #2
and
Lonesome Cowboys,
with special guest Gerard Malanga (actor, underground poet, The Factory co-founder and sometime assistant director to Warhol), as well as two films directed by Malanga (
Film Notebooks
and
In Search of the Miraculous
) and a poetry reading by him. No
Sleep
or
Empire
this time around.
The Screen, NR, various runtimes
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HARLAN COUNTY, USA
The 1976 Oscar-winner, here shown in a newly restored print, changed documentary filmmaking in much the same way that James Agee and Walker Evans forever altered the course of journalism with
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
Director Barbara Koppel lived with her subjects, coal miners and their struggling families, in Kentucky during a bitter, lingering strike as the miners sought to unionize. With a heartbreaking score featuring authentic folk music by artists like Hazel Dickens and Nimrod Workman, Harlan County can be relied upon to take up residence in your brain and not go anywhere for quite a spell.
CCA, PG, 103 min.
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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.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: WHERE'S GARY?
We have no idea; but we bet if you attend this double episode of the yellow swiss-cheesed one who lives beneath the sea, you'll find out.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR
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SUDDEN RAIN: THE FILMS OF MIKIO NARUSE
Nervy, damn-the-torpedoes maneuvers like this are why we can't help but love the Screen, who for the next 12 Sundays will be showing fearsomely prolific (but little-known outside Japan) director Naruse's work, continuing with his 1960
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
, again starring Hideko Takamine (from last week's
Lightning
) as a late-career geisha at a crossroads.
The Screen, NR, 111 min.
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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.
TROPICAL MALADY
Its title perhaps better translated as
Strange Animal
, Thai writer-director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film straddles genres: half-gay love story between a soldier (Banlop Lomnoi) and a country boy (Sakda Kaewbuadee); half-monster myth, involving a Thai folk legend about a shapeshifter living deep in the jungle, a theme partly inspired by the work of Jacques Tourneur (
I Walked With a Zombie, Cat People
). The Cannes-selected film will only be onscreen for four days, so catch the beast while you can.
The Screen, NR, 120 min.
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Now Showing
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CAPOTE
In September of 1959, two men broke into a Kansas farmhouse where they'd been told $10,000 was hidden. Finding only about $50, they shot and killed the family of four, only to be apprehended soon afterward. Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman, in the role of his career), at loose ends after the fantastic success of
Breakfast at Tiffany
's, persuaded his editor at the New Yorker to let him write about the case; the film follows him from his trip to the Midwest with best friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener, similarly brilliant), where he began researching what was to become
In Cold Blood
. Director Bennett Miller, writer Dan Futterman and Hoffman make it clear that
In Cold Blood
doesn't just refer to the two murderers; they don't seek to whitewash Capote's self-serving qualities, and the result is an uncannily accomplished character assassination turned ode to its careerist yet immensely gifted subject-a film awash in structured ambiguity, and delicately scary.
UA DeVargas, R, 98 min.
CHICKEN LITTLE
Somehow, Zach Braff is pretty much the last guy in the world you'd peg to play an animated chicken, but there it is. This fairy-tale revamp (you know, baseball plus aliens who want to take over the world-your standard stuff) manages to waste the vocal talents of Garry Marshall, Patrick Stewart, Amy Sedaris, Wallace Shawn, Steve Zahn, Joan Cusack, Adam West and Don Knotts (as Mayor Turkey Lurkey).
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, UA South, G, 77 min.
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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.
UA DeVargas, R, 129 min.
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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.
UA North, PG-13, 76 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 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. As he's about to kill himself, Drew 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, he 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.
UA North, PG-13, 123 min.
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GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
See SFR's review.
UA DeVargas, PG, 93 min.
IN HER SHOES
The good news is that as far as tearjerking, syrupy-sweet sloppiness goes, there are worse cinematic concessions to be made by straight men in order to appease the women in their lives. Toni Collette stars as Rose, a straightlaced lawyer whose life is interrupted by her hard-partying ditz of a 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 seniors who populate Ella's retirement community, and Rose begins to blossom-pun intended-as she finds love and happiness.
UA North, PG-13, 130 min.
JARHEAD
Three actors at the top of their game (Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx) and one of our most enigmatic directors (Sam Mendes of
American Beauty
and
Road to Perdition
) take on Anthony Swofford's Desert Storm memoir. The result is cryptic at best, veering confusingly between cinematic cliché and the blank-faced, stultifying boredom of war. Mendes self-consciously references Vietnam-era classics like
The Deer Hunter
and
Apocalypse Now
, but it's utterly unclear where he's trying to position the film, and despite strong performances, the film never really makes its point.
DreamCatcher, UA North, R, 122 min.
THE LEGEND OF ZORRO
And this film needed to be made because…? It has an oddly historical flavor, even taking into account the fact that it's set in 19th century California, almost as though the movie were made 10 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 pick up their original roles as the passionately duelling de la Vegas, whose marriage is on the skids because the señor just can't quit with the mask-wearing and the crime-fighting, even though his son (Adrian Alonso) doesn't get to see much of Dad and Mrs. Zorro has started dating Rufus Sewall (go her!).
DreamCatcher, UA South, PG, 100 min.
NORTH COUNTRY
After the final scene, this story of the nation's first sexual harassment class-action lawsuit is merely a decent film when it could have been a great one. Truly brilliant performances from Charlize Theron, Richard Jenkins, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Sean Bean-practically the whole bloody cast-are undercut by a soggy script that unravels into a loose collocation of emotional scenes and a sputteringly sentimental courtroom set piece that would have been ludicrous in
Ally McBeal
. The acting's almost enough to make you overlook the fact that you're having An Important Message crammed down your throat-but close just doesn't cut it with Oscar-bid dramas of this kind; for more authentic and less schlocky labor history, stick with
Norma Rae
(or better still
Harlan County, USA
).
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, R, 123 min.
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PRIME
This little piece of guilty pleasure is an oddball mix of terrible situation comedy (Uma Thurman's dating her therapist's son, oh no, whatever will she do!) and a bittersweet Manhattan romance built along the lines of
Annie Hall
. Recently divorced 37-year-old Rafi begins dating 23-year-old David, never dreaming that he's the son of her Jewish therapist (Meryl Streep, hamming it up)-or imagining that the two of them will fall thuddingly in love, only to discover the difficulties of being a couple when one of you is ready for parenthood and the other still plays Nintendo. Don't let
Prime
's stupid plot device keep you from seeing it-but be prepared to get verklempt.
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 captured and offed by that mischievous rapscallion Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in ever-more elaborate, grotesque and gratuitous ways, like a Rubik's Cube that's trying to kill you.
DreamCatcher, UA North, R, 91 min.
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SHOPGIRL
Steve Martin stars in the screen version of his own novella, which he also adapted, playing Ray Porter, a hollow-man millionaire who takes a shine to the glove saleswoman at Saks, starving artist Mirabelle (an underworked-of late Claire Danes)-who's dating Jeremy, an impecunious and romantically clueless young font designer (
Rushmore
's Jason Schwartzman). Will she choose finesse over
jeunesse
, or someone who honks the horn when he picks her up for a date over someone who knows how to read a wine list? It's worth spending the hour and a half to find out, largely thanks to Danes' acting (she's unvarnished, emotionally plain, and it works) and some unabashed scene-stealing from Schwartzman-though Steve Martin's no Bill Murray.
UA DeVargas, R, 104 min.
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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!
UA South, G, 85 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, and his detractors like to throw food at him. Apparently the message is that life, like weather, can't be predicted or controlled. It's an average-to-middling offering from director Gore Verbinski, heretofore known chiefly for three achievements:
Pirates of the Caribbean, Mousehunt
(beloved to insomniac film critics everywhere) and, perhaps not least, the Budweiser bullfrogs; he gives us a piece of quiet entertainment trying to depict depression that too often errs on the side of tiresome.
UA South, R, 102 min.
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NOTHING TRIVIAL ABOUT IT
This week's winner is
Alex Peterson
, who correctly identified the dialogue "That's right, Marian! We're just talking!" as being from Robert Altman's
Short Cuts
; he also correctly named Altman's forthcoming film,
A Prairie Home Companion
. Alex will receive a DVD chosen from our eclectic collection here at the SFR offices. This week's question: In what film does Ava Gardner so winsomely warble "Coming through the Rye"? Send your responses to
.
