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.
Designates items highlighted in this week's issue.
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Barnyard: The Original Party Animals
In this animated story of epic times at the farm, Otis (voiced by Kevin James) is a carefree jokester of a bovine (who enjoys activities like cow-tipping) until his father, the patriarch of the farm (Sam Elliott) is attacked by coyotes and Otis is forced to become a more responsible member of the barnyard community. Courtney Cox's vocal talents make an appearance as Daisy, Otis' lady love, and Danny Glover is Miles, the sidekick mule.
Dreamcatcher, PG, 83 min.
The Night Listener
Robin Williams stars as Gabriel Noone, a popular late-night radio host who shares personal stories with his listeners, including accounts of his partner, Jess (Bobby Cannavale) who is HIV-positive. When Jess' condition improves and he bails, Gabriel becomes intrigued by the memoirs of a 14-year-old boy, Pete (Rory Culkin), who is HIV-positive as well. The memoirs include accounts of horrible abuse, and after some investigation, and a phone call from Pete which is unexpectedly cut off, Gabriel begins to doubt the truth of the stories. With Toni Collette.
UA DeVargas, R, 91 min.
Talladega Nights
Will Ferrell is Ricky Bobby, a race car driver who was born in the back seat of a Mustang. He's at the top of his game until the arrival of Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Choen, otherwise known as Ali G) a Perrier-sponsored French driver. With the help of his best friend, Cal (John C Reilly) Ricky Bobby must learn to overcome his fears and defeat the foreign competition. This is old-hat for Ferrell, with much of the same humor he's employed in previous features like
Old School
and
Anchorman
, which was also a product of director Adam McKay.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, PG-13, 110 min.
Who Killed the Electric Car?
See
.
CCA, G, 92 min.
Cats of Mirikitani
Jimmy Mirikitani isn't your typical crotchety old man. Sure the 85-year-old artist has been through a lot, losing family in WWII, homelessness in New York City, being followed around for a documentary…The artist brushes all this aside with a smile and a motto, "Make art not war."
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 74 min.
The Conrad Boys
Brothers Charlie (Justin Lo) and Ben (Boo Boo Stewart) suddenly find themselves alone in the world after their mother dies unexpectedly. Nineteen-year-old Charlie is faced with the task of caring for his 9-year-old brother. This proves to be increasingly difficult, with the distractions of romance: Charlie meets Jordan (Nick Bartzen), an attractive drifter. To make matters worse, the boys oft-absent father, Doug (Barry Shay) re-enters their lives and wants to take care of Ben.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 94 min.
I Know I'm Not Alone
Michael Franti's documentary explores what it's like to be an ordinary person in a war-zone: specifically, in Israel, Palestine and Iraq. The film strives to give voice to those who are often silent in mainstream media: average people whose lives are directly affected by war. Franti's style is simple and spare, the footage is captured guerrilla style, and most of the soundtrack is Franti's own guitar strumming. As an extra feature, there's a 30-45 minute performance art piece proceeding the film, which is a call to political action.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 95 min.
Kids First! Film Club: Miss Spider, The Prince, The Princess and the Bee
For one day only, kids and parents can enjoy even more animated fun about insects and the trials and tribulations of their daily lives. Shimmer is a beetle who discovers that she may be a princess. With Miss Spider, she goes on a quest to discover her royal heritage, as well as, of course, her true self.
Santa Fe Film Center, G, 51 min.
Loose Change: Second Edition
"The question for all of us to ask ourselves is how did American Airlines Flight 77 with a 124 foot wing span and a 44 foot tall tail stabilizer fit into the 16 foot diameter hole in the Pentagon as stated by the government?" That's a long question, and we'd be willing to bet there's a short answer provided at this screening. A discussion follows each showing: Look for men in black planted in the audience, posing as maté drinkin', unshaven, wild-eyed vegan holy men.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 60 min.
Love and Suicide
The first entirely US-shot feature to be made in Cuba since 1959, Love is the story of Tomas (Kamar de los Reyes), a drifter who travels to the country to find the difference between love and suicide. Along the way he meets fellow wanderer and hippie Nina (Daisy McCrackin) and taxi driver Alberto (Luis Moro), who help Tomas to rediscover the simpler things in life, and return to a slower, more peaceful pace. Directed by Lisa France, the nominee of two Independent Spirit awards for her film
Anne B. Real
,
Love & Suicide
offers a rare glimpse of a Cuba largely unknown to Americans.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 90 min.
Mother Theresa
This biopic portrays the life of visionary, Nobel Peace Prize-winner and human being extraordinaire Mother Theresa. A focus on the power of love emphasizes the ways in which Mother Theresa was unique, particularly her willingness to believe that anything is possible. From everyday miracles to diplomatic negotiations, this film illuminates Mother Theresa's incredible perseverance. With Golden Globe winner Olivia Hussey in the title role.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 90 min.
Return to Chiapas
Warmly received at the 2005 Santa Fe Film Festival, this documentary reveals what has happened to the Zapatistas in the 10 years since 1994. Features photojournalist Araceli Herrera, directed by Athena Madis.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 80 min.
Sabrina
The perfect antidote to the lamebrained summer nonsense cluttering our collective cultural consciousness, this classic 1954 romantic comedy featuring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden reminds us why we loved movies in the first place. Showing with the short film
Little Black Boot
, a Cinderella parody.
Santa Fe Film Center, G, 113 min.
The Ant Bully
Following in the footsteps of 1998's
A Bug's Life
and
Antz
, this is the latest animated feature centered around the lives of insects. Lucas (voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen) is an elementary-school-aged suburban boy who is bullied at school and takes out his subsequent anger on the ant colony in his backyard. To show him the error of his ways, an Ant Wizard (Nicholas Cage) decides to shrink Lucas to insect-size. With Meryl Streep as the voice of the all-powerful Ant Queen, Lily Tomlin as a senile (human) grandmother and Julia Roberts as an Ant Nurse.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, PG, 88 min.
An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore in all of his earnest glory, post-Presidential hopes, touring the country and exhorting anyone who will listen to take global warming seriously. Gore's screen persona turns out to be "disarming, funny and animated," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, and that goes a long way toward sustaining the hour-and-a-half litany of urgency and unfolding environmental catastrophe.
UA DeVargas, PG, 95 min.
Brick
Writer/Director Rian Johnson's debut outing has been garnering strong reactions, ranging from purple prose accolades to trashings. The film itself reaches ambitiously by combining two long-standing genres-the schoolyard drama and the film noir detective story. What makes it work is unassailable confidence, a canny sense of style and expert timing. Using stylish but not too showy dissolves, jump cuts and wide angle shots, the director evokes John Huston, Jean-Luc Godard and John Hughes without resorting to slavish imitation. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Nora Zehetner, Noah Segan, Noah Fleiss, Emilie de Ravin and Meagan Good.
CCA, R, 110 min.
Cars
Pixar strikes again with this animated feature garnering generally positive reviews. Voice work by Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt has heightened the buzz. The LA Times, joining a chorus of applause, raves "what's surprising about this supremely engaging film is the source of its curb appeal: It has heart."
UA South, G, 116 min.
Clerks II
In 1994, director Kevin Smith made
Clerks
, the now cult classic, shot in low-budget black-and-white, about the misadventures of convenience store workers. Fast-forward more than 10 years, add an indie-darling (Rosario Dawson), shoot in color and you've got
Clerks II
. The old store has burnt down, and its employees Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) are forced to go find work in the fast-food industry. This time around expect jokes about
The Lord of the Rings
. And of course, Smith favorites Jay and Silent Bob make a nipple-twisting/gross-out-joke appearance.
UA South, R, 97 min.
The Devil Wears Prada
Anna Hathaway reprises her
Princess Diaries
ugly duckling persona in this film, based on the book of the same name, which chronicles the experiences of an assistant to the former editor of Vogue. Meryl Streep co-stars as the devil herself, Miranda Priestly, the editor of the fictional magazine Runway.
Prada
is a glamorous look inside the New York fashion scene, which most of us are too dowdy to even dream about entering-a glimpse that is resplendent with sexy clothes and peppy music montages. With Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt.
UA DeVargas, PG-13, 106 min.
District B-13
Luc Besson helped to pen the screenplay for this French action sci-fi comedy directed by Pierre Morel. Set in the Paris ghettos of 2010, a cop and an ex-thug try to defuse a neutron bomb. Plot takes a back seat to some of the best stunt work around, with actors flying (without the use of strings or CGI) over Parisian rooftops.
The Screen, R, 85 min.
John Tucker Must Die
In the deluded world that is high school in the movies, several pretty, popular cheerleaders discover that their boyfriend (John Tucker, portrayed by Jesse Metcalfe) has been triple-timing them all. In order to orchestrate revenge, the girls set up John to fall for a new cheerleader, thereby embarrassing him by getting him to wear women's underwear and climb around on hotel balconies. With teen-flick standbys Brittany Snow, Ashanti and Sophia Bush as some of John Tucker's girlfriends in question and Jenny McCarthy as a "cool mom." The
review: "Burn the negative."
UA South, PG-13, 87 min.
Lady in the Water
The always fantastic and understated Paul Giamatti and Ron's also red-headed daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, star in this film about the underworld creeping into planet Earth through an apartment complex. Superintendent Cleveland Heep (Giamatti) leads a fairly banal existence until he discovers an eerie and unusual creature (Howard) inhabiting the deep end of his pool. Written and directed by M Night Shyamalan (
The Sixth Sense
,
The Village
), this tale originated as a bedtime story for his two daughters before becoming slightly more sinister (and apparently less entertaining) for its screen adaptation.
Dreamcatcher, UA South, PG-13, 110 min.
Little Man
The boys who brought you 2004's
White Chicks
, the Wayans Brothers, are back with this film about an escaped criminal, Calvin (Marlon Wayans), who is able to pose as an orphaned baby because of his short stature. Finding refuge with a childless suburban couple, Marlon struggles to convincingly pose as a toddler. Expect lots of little-person jokes and bathroom humor. Quite literally, in fact: One critical scene revolves around Marlon trying to avoid taking a bath with his new foster father. With Shawn Wayans and Kerry Washington.
Dreamcatcher, UA South PG-13, 90 min.
The Lost City
The Lost City
is mired with one-dimensional characters and a storyline that slogs along like a humid island afternoon. Andy Garcia plays Fico Fellove, the proprietor of El Tropico, a top Havana nightclub in the days before the revolution. Unlike his two brothers (Enrique Murciano, Nestor Carbonell), who are both active participants in the growing revolutionary movement, Fico calls to mind
Casablanca
's Rick, whose nightspot aimed to be a late-night DMZ where the politics of the day gave way to the blur of the night. Overlong by a good half-hour to 45 minutes,
The Lost City
gets sidetracked with a fruitless love story and Fico's indecision about what to do once his nightclub is removed from his ownership. The movie is as languid as its tropical setting, and even Dustin Hoffman's brief turn as the gangster Meyer Lansky doesn't usher in a fresh breeze.
CCA, R, 143 min.
Miami Vice
Crockett and Tubbs make a long awaited reappearance. How have we managed to do without them in this world chock full of swarthy psychopathic coke dealers and heroin-addled pimps? Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx and Gong Li mix it up under the supervision of original television series creator and writer/director Michael Mann (
Collateral
,
Heat
,
The Insider
,
Last of the Mohicans
). Perhaps it's merely cheeky deconstructionist ironic Lacanian postmodern metaphysics, but surely all this talent can't be wasted on a lame retro nostalgic homage to a male-fantasy cultural artifact. The plot involves elements of drug dealing, murder and ill-advised romance. Go figure. A quote from Farrell's Crockett: "Do you understand the meaning of the word 'foreboding,' as in badness is happening right now?"
Dreamcatcher, UA North, R, 113 min.
Monster House
Steve Buscemi and Maggie Gyllenhall lend their vocal talents to this story about kids from next door who take on a different sort of haunted house. This one gobbles things up from the street, eating even cop cars alive. It also grumbles, groans and moves at will. When mom and dad go out of town, three neighborhood kids (including an ambitious Girl Scout) take on the house with the usual daring-do supplies: flashlights and bed-sheet capes.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, PG, 91 min.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Uma Thurman kicks some serious ass (again) as Jenny, a clingy, neurotic, insecure ex-girlfriend who just happens to have super powers. Part romantic comedy and part action flick,
Ex-Girlfriend
starts predictably enough with the usual jealous-girl jokes, then takes a turn for the bizarre when Jenny drops her ex-boyfriend's (Luke Wilson) car in the middle of the road and attacks him with a great white shark in his apartment. Brought to you by Ivan Reitman, who directed the Luke Wilson picture
Old School
, as well as classics like
Ghostbusters
and
Kindergarten Cop
.
Dreamcatcher, US South, PG-13, 95 min.
Only Human
"The ghost of Billy Wilder clearly hovers behind an agile, rapidly paced script. A sharp yet compassionate observation of human failings," raves Variety about this romantic comedy. The elements for non sequitur are all there: a Spanish TV personality brings her Palestinian boyfriend home to her dysfunctional Jewish family. With Terese Peligri and Dominic Harari.
CCA, NR, 89 min.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Johnny Depp fully inhabits his seagoing spin on Keith Richards, wrapping his lips around florid syllables or turning drunken stumbles into something approaching graceful pirouettes. Screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio try to give the character some tension between his cowardly nature and a sense of loyalty, but they know well enough not to mess too much with what worked the first time. Once
Dead Man's Chest
gets started, it rolls along with all the energy a summer movie should aspire to.
Dreamcatcher, UA DeVargas, UA North, PG-13, 145 min.
A Prairie Home Companion
Robert Altman's newest, with a screenplay by Garrison Keillor, imagines what would happen if the small radio station producing "Prairie Home Companion" were purchased by a major media outlet. The film follows a fictional cast and crew as they prepare for their last broadcast. Features the usual Altman stellar cast including Kevin Kline, Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin.
The Screen, PG-13, 105 min.
A Scanner Darkly
As in 2001's
Waking Life
, director Richard Linklater employs interpolated rotoscoping, an advanced animation technique which looks like painting over the filmed frames. The effect is aesthetically pleasing if somewhat disorienting. With Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey, Jr., and Woody Harrelson.
UA DeVargas, R, 100 min.
Scoop
See
.
UA DeVargas, PG-13, 96 min.
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Some buildings are stark, square and tall, others look like aliens dropped them onto the landscape at some unknown point in history but manage to stand out and fit in simultaneously. Frank Gehry's buildings are the latter. From his line drawings, which in no way resemble anything but scribbles, to models of paper and clay of different scales, he's made a name a living creating some of the most bizarre places on the planet. Director Sidney Pollack follows Gehry through his process and into a few of these structures with the eye of an admirer, offering only a touch of criticism, in a documentary filled with personality, art and unusual shapes. (Patricia Sauthoff)
CCA, PG-13, 83 min.
Stolen
When 13 paintings were stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, the walls remained bare. Garnder's will stated that nothing be changed after her death and the blank spaces and frames that once housed Rembrandt, Degas and Manet are almost as powerful as the missing paintings. Blythe Danner and Campbell Scott help tell the story of the hunt for these missing treasures.
The Screen, NR, 85 min.
Strangers with Candy
Amy Sedaris stars as an ex-con/junkie who returns to high school to get a degree and do it right. Sedaris isn't afraid to look unattractive on the big screen (something of an achievement in Hollywood) nor does she shy away from making a fool of herself, resulting in a more enjoyable show for all of us. With Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello (who also directed) and Matthew Broderick.
UA DeVargas, R, 97 min.
Superman Returns
Superman Returns
to earth, after a five-year hiatus, just in time to keep Lex Luthor from taking over the world. Aside from Lois Lane writing the Pulitzer Prize winning "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman," nothing much seems to have happened during his extended vacation. But he's back and he's got a world to carry on his shoulders. While
Superman Returns
is the fun, brainless Hollywood movie that should be expected, it tries to be symbolic, by using the symbolism of Atlas and Christ in the most literal ways possible, so as not to be missed by anyone. It's the kind of movie that you were already going to see or not. If you do, you'll enjoy it, if you don't, you won't miss a thing. (Patricia Sauthoff)
UA South, PG, 157 min.
Wordplay
This essentially harmless documentary follows a group of veteran competitors as they prepare for, arrive at and finally contend in the Olympics of crosswording, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Conn. The filmmaker, Patrick Creadon, doesn't quite trust these nerds to hold our attention, so he introduces two other threads: the making of New York Times crossword puzzles, which is fairly interesting, and the crossword-related reflections of a handful of notables, which are kind of a drag.
The Screen, PG, 94 min.
You, Me and Dupree
Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon star as an unlikely trio living together in the suburbs. Wilson relies on slapstick and physical comedy in his familiar role, Hudson pulls out her dimples and plays adorable and Dillon's Carl is trying desperately to be a grownup.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, UA South, PG-13, 108 min.
