Due to the ever-changing nature of the movie biz, showtimes as they appear in ANY and ALL newspapers should always be double-checked with the theaters before setting off for a night at the flicks.
click here for movie theaters and showtimes
Opens Friday
BALLETS RUSSES
Unfulfilled balletomanes, form a line starting in the corner to watch some of the greatest dancers of the 20th century, in both priceless archival footage and as their present-day elderly and still-impassioned selves. Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine's bravura documentary attempts to illuminate the fanaticism audiences once felt for the ballet by unearthing the story of Ballets Russes, who never played in Russia and who were actually two rival companies. It's all here-the steps, the pain, the jealous choreographers, the audience adulation, the glamour, the poverty, the ground glass in the toe shoes-and told by the dancers themselves, including Irina Baronova, Frederic Franklin, Nathalie Krassovska (long ago the Screener's teacher, a notorious eccentric who always brought her little white dog to class), Alicia Markova, Tatiana Stepanova and Maria Tallchief.
The Screen, NR, 118 min.
COWBOY DEL AMOR
Michele Ohayon's funky, funny look at a bluntly offensive matchmaking scheme is the kind of film you want to dislike and instead wind up enjoying hugely. Non-gay cowboy Ivan Thompson, divorced after 17 years of unholy matrimony, can't line up the next Mrs. Thompson-until his Mexican ranch-hand suggests placing a personals ad in a Juarez newspaper. But the startling flood of replies gives the entrepreneurial gringo pause: To heck with marriage, there's a business opportunity here, an unexploited market waiting to be tapped. Faster than you can say "Russian mail-order bride," Ivan's South-of-the-Border service, Cowboy Cupid, matches traditionalist (not to say sexist) men of the West and those who, dismayed by the women's movement, want someone more old-fashioned (not to say uneducated and compliant) with women looking to move North, and everyone's happy-or are they?
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 86 min.
ELLIE PARKER
Naomi Watts, most recently seen doing backflips to entertain an irascible giant gorilla, here clings to her dwindling thespian credibility by appearing in Scott Coffey's indie fable of an extremely unemployed LA actress (originally a 16-minute short, elaborated into a feature by her
Mulholland Drive
costar). Australian Watts gets to speak with her own accent for a change-and we get to see exactly how you change pants while driving at the same time (hint: have car insurance). Chevy Chase costars as the hapless actress' agent, while Coffey is her (possibly gay) boyfriend; mildly amusing for most of us but sure to be wet-yourself hilarious if you've ever tried to cry on cue.
CCA, NR, 95 min.
MATCH POINT
It's here, it's here! Okay, we'll calm down-it's just that we'd started to wonder if we had to write Woody Allen personally and petition for a Santa Fe screening of his latest foray, which ventures not only out of Manhattan into London but also away from his well-worn genre turf into the arena of the romantic thriller, allegedly with astonishing success. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Scarlett Johansson are the adulterous tennis-playing duo, Emily Mortimer and Matthew Goode their cuckolds, and, perhaps most astonishingly, no one in the entire film remotely resembles Woody Allen-not even a little bit.
Jean Cocteau, R, 124 min.
NAKED IN ASHES
When the subject matter's so fascinating (the inventive, astounding ascetic practices of India's purported 13 million Hindu yogis) it almost doesn't matter that American-born director Paula Fouce's filmmaking is nervous, skittery and weak-unless you're looking for her to provide an intellectual scaffolding to frame what you're seeing. Don't get us wrong; what you see is pretty darn spectacular (the uncut hair, the curling fingernails, the standing on one leg for decades, the pulling a car with one's penis-oh yes; all this and more) but it would be nice if the film's stance weren't quite so wide-eyed and rapt while somehow simultaneously managing to condescend-a yogic feat almost worthy of its own documentation.
CCA, NR, 103 min.
THE NEW WORLD
Since his jaw-dropping US debut in
Tigerland
, we've been frankly disappointed by Colin Farrell, who first snagged our attention whilst a lad as brooding horseman Danny in
Ballykissangel
. In
The New World
, Farrell reverts to those underdog Irish roots and it's a beautiful thing to see-as is the rest of writer-director Terrence Malick's gorgeously photographed take on the mythical history of Pocohontas. Malick has always been known for taking his sweet time between films (
The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven, Badlands
) but here his languorousness also makes itself felt during shots and between scenes. While the story is familiar (starving, smelly, violent European colonists too dumb to grow their own corn, saved by the compassionate if regrettable intervention of the Powhatan tribe), Malick unobtrusively turns an unseen facet toward us: An arresting, quiet romance between two people from irreconcilable cultures. The remarkable Q'Orianka Kilcher stars as Pocohontas, who's fascinated with the newcomers in general and John Smith (Farrell) in particular. Yet even the details of their intense, ill-fated love affair and her eventual marriage to John Rolfe (Christian Bale) fade, immersed in the larger frame of Malick's downright feminist love for the prelapsarian innocence of the new American world itself, sentenced to loss and waste almost as soon as it is sighted by the old.
PG-13, 135 min.
TRANSAMERICA
See SFR's
.
R, 103 min.
UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION
If you loved Kate Beckinsale wearing a rubber outfit in Underworld, you'll, um, love her wearing it again, as the battle between Lycans (werewolves) and Death Dealers (vampires) toils onward with no apparent end in sight. Ms. Beckinsale, as voluptuous vampire heroine Selene, along with her half-canine love interest Michael (Scott Speedman) must battle intra-species prejudice, gravity and murky lighting; they are aided and/or hindered by confusingly better actors, including Bill Nighy and Derek Jacobi.
DreamCatcher, R, 103 min.
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Short Runs
BE HERE TO LOVE ME
If you're already a fan of the late Texas guitarist Townes Van Zandt, you've probably been looking forward to Margaret Brown's documentary for months now. If, on the other hand, you've never heard of him, it doesn't actually matter, because the mix of home footage, live performances and interviews with his peers, friends and admirers (Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, to name only a few) will suck you into the life of a songwriter whose personal misery contrasted sharply with his uniquely commanding ability to put into words and music all the emotions that the rest of us feel but often can't articulate.
CCA, NR, 99 min.
BREAKFAST ON PLUTO
Cillian Murphy's pretty. We knew this, of course (
28 Days Later, Red Eye
)-but we mean
really
pretty. And that's a good thing when you're in a Neil Jordan film (
The Crying Game, Interview with a Vampire
), because you'll inevitably be wearing eyeliner. Jordan teams up again with novelist Pat McCabe (
The Butcher Boy
) to adapt and direct the heartwrenching story of Kitten Brady, born Patrick, who leaves small-town Ireland for London to find his mum-and a more exciting (and potentially dangerous) life as a transvestite cabaret singer in the swinging '60s and '70s. Jordan stalwarts Liam Neeson (
Michael Collins
) and Stephen Rea (
The End of the Affair
) costar; flawless period details and a spot-on performance from the ever-astounding Murphy make Pluto unmissable.
CCA, R, 135 min.
BURNING MAN: BEYOND BLACK ROCK
One of the hits at December's film festival, this is the documentary for all of us who are intrigued by the unique city of 30,000 created for seven days every summer in the Black Rock Desert-but not quite intrigued enough to brave the sun damage, or the transition into full-bore "gift community" culture. The filmmakers assiduously tracked Burning Man folk and their doings for a solid 18 months, resulting in a most thorough documentary of the organization.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 105 min.
EdGAR CAYCE: THE BEAUTIFUL DREAMER
Another film festival fave, this curiously engrossing documentary reveals the life story underlying the legend of "the Sleeping Prophet," a clairvoyant who gave over 14,000 readings during his lifetime-and allegedly healed thousands of incurable illnesses, making him perhaps the first medical intuitive on record. It's not the most beautifully filmed doc you'll ever see, but the subject is so eerily fascinating and filmmaker Darrah Meeley's research so thorough that you soon forget to notice.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 62 min.
LOSING GROUND
Poker, of course, is suddenly, unexpectedly
au courant
, whether online or on green baize, with stars like George Clooney and Matt Damon and ordinary mortals alike clustering eagerly around the big-money tables (and usually losing their knickers in the process). Brian Wizemann adapts his own stage play for film and in the process gets lucky with some fabulous actors to realize his real-time story of seven strangers who meet in a Vegas video-poker bar: the result is a bitter, patient and intimately observed study of what compels human beings toward addiction.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 72 min.
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
Drenched in a subtly literary perfume, Noah Baumbach's debut invites comparison to the fiction of Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, though the more obvious antecedent is Wes Anderson's
The Royal Tenenbaums
. The film's opening-a combative tennis match in which Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and his older son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) play doubles against wife and mother Joan (Laura Linney) and younger son Frank (Kevin Kline's progeny Owen)-promptly sets the stage for ferocious family conflict centered around the parents' divorce. in a painfully accurate performance, Daniels gains our compassion for the irritating Bernard by revealing his insecurity with his wife's writing career (suddenly more successful than his own). As the boys side with different parents, they reinvent their respective dysfunctionalities (Walt adopts his father's more noxious mannerisms, Frank develops precocious tastes for beer and autoeroticism). By the time he deploys the film's most dramatic, Godardesque shots, upping the emotional ante at the last minute, Baumbach has earned the right to do so.
The Screen, R, 80 min.
WINTER SOLDIER
One of the strongest anti-war films ever made, this 1972 documentary interviewing stricken, remorseful Vietnam veterans (including John Kerry) will show only once, with filmmaker Lucy Massie Phoenix and featured veteran Scott Camil both in attendance.
The Screen, NR, 96 min.
ZONA ROSA
Fabulous Thursday's documentary explores the Zona Rosa or the red-light nightclub district of Mexico City, where gorgeous young male strippers and drag queens live and work surrounded by an ever-growing gay culture scene-though the state government strives to maintain "decency" by whatever means necessary. Worth catching, if only for the Big Banana contest, which is pretty much about what you think it is.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 70 min.
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Now Showing
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Screenwriting team Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (adapting Annie Proulx's story) have achieved the gape-worthy: They've actually succeeded in making something new under Hollywood's world-weary sun. While Westerns have always been homoerotic (almost a tautology of the genre), never has
Lonesome Dove
merged so honestly and so meltingly with, say,
Maurice
. Add the lyrical direction of Ang Lee and you get an old-fashioned big-screen romance, which only incidentally happens to be between two men. Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger, who recalls Brando or Dean in the fluency of his inarticulacy) meet one summer when they pair up to watch a herd of sheep; Jack is a rodeo charmer, as playful and sensual as Ennis is laconic and introverted. Soon both men find themselves struggling to ignore the obvious; without putting too fine a point on it, they fall in love. Yet even this charmed state of affairs can't continue indefinitely; the agonizing repercussions of one's fearful renunciation of the other reverberate through the remainder of the film, a tragic denial of self. It's heartbreaking, it's beautifully filmed and it's making money; ride 'em, cowboys.
UA DeVargas, R, 134 min.
CASANOVA
Heath Ledger seems determined to lose whatever patina he's acquired by appearing in the above cowboy film by making himself ridiculous as the notorious lover in this poorly scripted, clunkily directed (for shame, Lasse Hallström!) mess, costarring Sienna Miller as fiery feminist Francesca Bruni, Jeremy Irons as a papal inquisitor and an utterly wasted Oliver Platt-presumably cast here on the basis of his work in a far superior flick, one also set in Venice during the same historical period:
Dangerous Beauty
. Come to think of it, that film has a more convincing fiery feminist, too; a more daring fifth-act escape;
and
Rufus Sewall, which is plenty enough for us. (See full-length
.)
UA North, R, 108 min.
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
Amidst the folderol lies a film worth watching if you can manage to ignore the tug-of-war over its alleged religious content; its highlight is without a doubt Tilda Swinton in the role she was destined to inhabit from birth: that of the White Queen. Alas, that's about it in an otherwise run-of-the-mill big-budget Disney kiddie-trap (though Georgie Henley as Lucy is unsettlingly good); Aslan's being voiced by Liam Neeson renders him cuddly rather than bloodcurdling, and the battle scenes, while large and bustling, don't give you the sense of impossible odds and insanely high stakes they did in the
LOTR
trilogy. A good dose of Sir Ian or even Viggo would have gone a long way-the actors here just aren't of the same caliber, and when you combine that with some frankly silly direction, this story of four British schoolchildren who accidentally wander into a magical land at war seems neither enchanting nor believable.
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, UA South, PG, 140 min.
GLORY ROAD
See SFR's
.
DreamCatcher, UA North, PG, 106 min.
GRANDMA'S BOY
Adam Sandler made it, but even he has the good sense not to appear in it. Put as succinctly as possible, a video-game tester (Allen Covert, veteran of other Sandler projectiles) must move in with his grandmother and her two elderly roommates, for reasons of an impecuniosity related to Filipino sex workers. Enjoy, enjoy.
UA South, R, 94 min.
HOODWINKED
The new animation from Edwards brothers Cory and Todd (
Chillecothe
),
Hoodwinked
updates the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood with fast and furious gags, dollops of sarcasm and the vocal talents of Glenn Close, Anne Hathaway, James Belushi, David Ogden Stiers, Chazz Palminteri and Xzibit. As we grow more and more discriminating about our animation, though, the dicey art of smaller-studio features such as this one doesn't compare well with the realization of Tim Burton or Nick Parks-or even
Shrek
's Andrew Adamson.
UA South, PG, 80 min.
HOSTEL
Though optimistically referencing Takashi Miike's torture/art film
Audition
, Tarentino protégé Eli Roth's
Hostel
has much more in common with
American Pie
, successful only in insulting our intelligence. The twist this time is that the torturees are college-boy Eurotrippers so idiotic that, after 45 minutes of watching them smoke pot and have sex with Bratislavan beauties who will "do anything for an American," you're almost looking forward to their inevitable slaughter. Predictable and poorly acted,
Hostel
tries to compensate for its lack of wit with copious gore; Roth hasn't figured out how to make a film that genuinely terrifies, rather than one about as scary as a mass-manufactured Halloween costume. (J Christopher Dupuy)
DreamCatcher, UA North, R, 95 min.
KING KONG
Contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing as "too much of a good thing." Case in point: director Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic, clocking in at over three hours. Jack Black stars as Carl Denham, a filmmaker looking to salvage the ruins of his latest picture by trekking to legendary Skull Island with Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts), a struggling young actress and Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody), an up-and-coming playwright-culminating with the capture of Kong (and leading to an unfortunate incident involving a skyscraper). Jackson never relents in his nonstop thrill-ride approach.
Kong
should be seen on the big screen; but if you arrive an hour late and leave 20 minutes early, you won't see a good movie, you'll see an excellent one.
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, UA North, PG-13, 187 min.
THE LAST HOLIDAY
Queen Latifah stars as Georgia Byrd, who's always lived a retiring, modest life-until she learns she has only three weeks to live. But
The Last Holiday
isn't that prototypical Scrooge turnaround, wherein the bad guy becomes increasingly pious as the afterlife draws nearer. It's simpler, a story about a blue-collar worker who quits her job, cashes in her IRA and embarks on the lavish trip to Europe she's always dreamed of, complete with fabulous makeover and flirtation with handsome foreigners (Giancarlo Esposito and Gérard Depardieu)-as well as a surprise visit from Sean (LL Cool J), the coworker on whom shy Georgia has always had an unspoken crush. Director Wayne Wang (
Smoke, Maid in Manhattan
) has given us a playful, fun and life-affirming movie about seeing the world with fresh eyes and contagious enthusiasm. (JCD)
DreamCatcher, UA South, PG-13, 112 min.
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
We feel about
Memoirs
the way we felt about
The Last Samurai
(not Helen DeWitt's novel, but the cinematic cheap shot starring Ken Watanabe-and, oh yeah, Tom Cruise): It's pretty, it has three of the world's most beautiful actresses in it (
Raise the Red Lantern
's Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, who has a sexy, elegant dignity not seen on screen since Ingrid Bergman, and feisty Zhang Ziyi, always good for a firecracker or two)
-and
it stars Ken Watanabe, too. Unfortunately, it's also an unadulterated bore; when you first hear Zhang's voiceover: "Mine is a story that should never have been told"-well, let's just say it begs the question.
UA DeVargas, PG-13, 145 min.
MUNICH
Gratifyingly, Spielberg's latest is neither a) pro-Zionist, b) pro-Palestianian or c) some facile combo of the two, glued together with why-we-can't-all-just-get-along agitprop. Instead it's tight, well-paced filmmaking, if a bit on the windy side. Eric Bana does most of the work in his outstanding portrayal of Avner, the Mossad agent assigned by Golda Meir to lead a crack team (Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds and Hanns Zischler) responsible for taking out those behind the Munich assassinations-as it's Avner who serves as the group conscience, with brooding, Hamlet-like moral indecision, uncertain as to whether Israel has identified the right targets or simply wants the heads of any 11 Palestinian sympathizers, no matter their guilt or innocence. (See full-length
.)
UA DeVargas, R, 164 min.
THE PRODUCERS
Once there was a stage musical which became a film; it then became a musical again, but a different one-and now that musical is a film once more. If you think that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are funny as Bialystock and Bloom, then you clearly wouldn't know Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder if they auditioned you for the role of Hitler. Mel Brooks' pungent satire (pillorying both unscrupulous showbiz and the ignorant enthusiasms of upper-class art consumers) seems irretrievably lost beneath the bajillions of dollars which have traded hands, and not even some inspired casting (leggy Uma Thurman as dancing Swedish marvel Ulla and Will Ferrell as Nazi playwright Franz Leibkind) can do much to hold up the resultant unwieldy chimera, which starts to seem like an endless loud party downstairs at 2 in the morning. Despite frequent frenetic showstoppers, the show just goes on…and on…and on.
UA DeVargas, PG-13, 134 min.
RUMOR HAS IT
We'd be so happy if we could tell you what a delight this little film is; that Jennifer Aniston's funny and adorable, Mark Ruffalo and Kevin Costner are completely believable as her swains, that there's nothing annoying about her family's cavalier attitude toward their own class status (Pasadena, and very, very,
very
rich) and that the supporting roles for Mena Suvari, Richard Jenkins and Shirley MacLaine are rich and well-developed. But if we said this to you, our nose would grow even longer than it is already. This is an abysmal movie, out of which we watched audience members walk in small, determined groups; the script tries, from time to time, in a sprightly, cheerfully insistent way to accomplish various things, but then it subsides, defeated by its own bewilderment and clumsiness. It's all made worse by the fact that this family is supposed to be the family on which the Robinsons are based in
The Graduate
; but inviting comparison to a much better film isn't actually a very smart move, leading viewers to the obvious conclusion.
DreamCatcher, UA South, PG-13, 96 min.
SYRIANA
In writer-director Stephen Gaghan's complex, multilayered political thriller, oil is the driving force behind an intricate web of deception, murder and corruption. Using an interwoven story structure similar to that of his Oscar-winning
Traffic
screenplay, Gaghan offers a conspiracy-minded view of the interconnected world of oil sales, strife in the Middle East and duplicitous business endeavors. With an ensemble featuring George Clooney as a burnt-out CIA operative, Matt Damon as an idealistic derivatives trader, brilliant work from Tim Blake Nelson, Will Hurt and Jeffrey Wright, and perhaps most remarkably an arresting performance from Alexander Siddig as a liberal, Western-thinking Saudi prince,
Syriana
is a bold-albeit left-leaning-work not afraid to spark discussion. Weaving an intricate tapestry of overlapping story and character arcs, Gaghan attempts to explain what is going on in the world today, as oil reserves quickly diminish and no one wants to be left in the dark, literally; the result is a smart thriller that rebukes the clichés and trappings normally associated with this genre.
UA North, R, 126 min.
TRISTAN & ISOLDE
More
Braveheart
than
A Knight's Tale
, this Scott-brothers-produced version of the medieval romance is refreshingly tragic-and surprisingly entertaining. Though
Tristan & Isolde
is another story of star-crossed young lovers (in this case, James Franco and Sophia Myles), we're spared the topical references and hip-hop soundtrack that typically accompany movies dealing with doomed teenaged love. Instead,
T&I
presents a dilemma with which most modern romances don't usually grapple (although romance in any era is fraught with terrifying choices): How can we choose between friendship and love when the only way to gain one is to lose the other? When the stakes include not only Tristan's affection for his father-figure and mentor King Mark (Rufus Sewall), but also the fate of Cornwall and Britain, it's difficult to justify wrecking everything for the sake of a love stronger than death, no matter how Wagnerian. (JCD)
UA North, PG-13, 140 min.
Nothing Trivial about It
This week's DVD goes unclaimed, as no one knew William Wyler's original casting choices for
The Children's Hour
: Katherine Hepburn and, incredibly, Doris Day (reminiscent of David O Selznick screen-testing Lucille Ball to play Scarlett O'Hara). For another crack at the DVD, tell us the name of the only film in which Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro have appeared onscreen together? Send your (correct) answers to
.
click here for movie theaters and showtimes
Due to the ever-changing nature of the movie biz, showtimes as they appear in ANY and ALL newspapers should always be double-checked with the theaters before setting off for a night at the flicks.
