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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Beerfest
Beer is hilarious. Dumb guys are hilarious. Germans can, of course, be very funny too. Dumb guys who drink lots of beer competing with evil Germans in an underground beer drinking contest that has sinister echoes of
Fight Club
are maybe not so funny. But who knows? Jay Chandrasekhar (
The Dukes of Hazzard
,
Super Troopers
) directs. Featuring Paul Soter, writer of
Club Dread
, with cameos from Cloris Leachman and Jürgen Prochnow.
Dreamcatcher, R, 110 min.
Invincible
Mark Wahlberg plays real-life Vince Papale, an ordinary working stiff who gets a chance to be a member of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. He's 30 years old! But even more unspeakably shocking, the absolutely unimaginable truth of it: He never played college ball. We can hear the gasps spreading around Santa Fe like so many air brakes. Rest assured, Papale ended up overcoming the (almost) insurmountable handicap of never playing college ball. He played three seasons (from '76 through '78) with the Iggles as a wide receiver and has fairly respectable stats, considering that, at 30 years old, he was the oldest rookie in the history of the NFL who
never played college ball
. With Greg Kinnear and Elizabeth Banks.
Dreamcatcher, PG, 128 min.
The Road to Guantanamo
See
.
CCA, R, 95 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.
Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
An engaging documentary exploring Turkish music, a lesser known form of so-called world music. We like Istanbul, which was Constantinople. I mean, even Old New York was once New Amsterdam (see
).
The Screen, NR, 90 min.
Darshan: The Embrace
A documentary exploring the life and spirit of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. You can call her "Amma." Have you been hugged today? If not, check out the life of the world's best hugger. Directed by Jan Kounen, with "startlingly beautiful cinematography" by Sebastien Pentecouteau.
The Screen, NR, 93 min.
For the Love of Dolly
Can anything good come out of Pigeon Forge, Tenn.? But of course. Dolly Rebecca Parton, for one. A loving tribute to an American original (including a trip to Parton's theme park, Dollywood), the film also promises to get inside the hearts and minds of hardcore Dolly fans.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 56 min.
Kids First! Film Club: Spongebob Squarepants: Karate Island
Seven brand new episodes including
Squidbob TentaclePants
,
Krusty Towers
,
Mrs. Puff
,
You're Fired
,
Ghost Host
and of course,
Karate Island
. Free for young 'uns who are accompanied by an adult.
Santa Fe Film Center, G, 77 min.
Lady Vengeance
Park Chanwook's revenge trilogy (
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
and
Oldboy
) comes to completion in the story of Lee Geum-Ja, a 19-year-old "fall girl" arrested for a kidnapping and sent to prison for 13 years. She forms solid alliances with her fellow inmates and hatches a revenge plan which unfolds after her release. Steven Rea writes, "The violence, while less over the top and orgiastic than Park's two previous installments, is still hard and crackling. The sex is grim and graphic. And deadpan nihilism permeates the air." The perfect date movie!
The Screen, R, 112 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.
Minik
Collectors go for all sorts of strange things: cacti, stick insects, old glass insulators from power lines. In the Victorian era, it was all about specimens. A species didn't exist until it was dead and dissected and in an herbarium or otherwise recorded. This documentary tells the story of New York City's Museum of Natural History and its attempt to collect a family of indigenous people from Greenland, with the usual hilarious results: The entire family dies of tuberculosis except for Minik, a young boy. A macabre touch: The remains of Minik's relatives become part of the museum's collection. Minik himself does manage to return to Greenland, only after assimilation into "civilized" society. Produced, written and directed by Axel Engstfeld.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 80 min.
Short Story Festival Screenings
Two evenings of films hosted by the Santa Fe Short Story Festival. Saturday's event features a reading, discussion and screening of a short film (promisingly, starring John Cleese and Connie Booth) based on Chekhov's
Romance with a Double Bass
. Sunday's event focuses on Richard Wright's
The Man Who Was Almost a Man
, the film version of which, perhaps not as promisingly, stars LeVar Burton.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, various runtimes
Stairways to Heaven: The Practical Magic of Sacred Spaces
A documentary exploring the space between the worlds: as in, ours and the next. Using ancient monuments (like Stonehenge, presumably actual size, not 18 inches tall), great Gothic cathedrals (with secret Templar messages hidden in them) and the fairly recent advent of crop circles, the "spiritual technology" of the ancients is revealed. Could there be a better complement to
Loose Change: Second Edition
? We humbly predict this film will play in Santa Fe well into the next ice age.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 54 min.
Stolen
When 13 paintings were stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, the walls remained bare. Gardner'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.
Three Times
A O Scott of the New York Times, not particularly known for gushing, effusive splatters of praise, wrote of this film: "A masterpiece. This is why cinema exists." If you've been wondering why cinema exists, here's your chance to be reminded. It's a romantic tale of three love stories that are actually the same love story. Set in three different times (1911, 1966 and 2005), with the same two actors. Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou.
The Screen, NR, 120 min.
Accepted
It's every high school senior's dream: Screw higher education and make up a college where students can study what they like, someone's crackpot uncle poses as the dean, and your main facility is an abandoned psychiatric hospital. When Bartelby B Gaines (Justin Long-the guy from the new Apple commercials) is rejected from all of the schools to which he applies, he creates the fictitious South Harmon Institute of Technology in order to placate his parents. Soon, college-app-rejects from all over are showing up at South Harmon, ready to take classes. Or maybe just major in hanging by the pool and perfecting the art of the wet t-shirt contest. With Blake Lively as Monica, the girl of Bartelby's dreams, and Lewis Black as the uncle who masquerades as administration.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, PG-13, 90 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.
UA North, PG, 88 min.
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, UA South, PG, 83 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.
The Descent
After a tragic accident, six friends decide that the next logical step is to go spelunking together. It all begins innocently enough: The girls, despite their tragedy, are fairly carefree and ready to enjoy their caving adventure. However, things begin to go awry before too long: Someone gets stuck, they bicker, and oh, the tunnel caves in. Suddenly our heroines are trapped, there may or may not be someone else in the cave with them, unusual predators emerge, and headlamp batteries only last for so long. In true thriller style, when you're trying to survive deep in the depths of the earth, the worst part of fear is fear itself. Directed by Neil Marshall.
UA South, R, 99 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.
The Heart of the Game
Filmed over a seven-year period, this documentary by Ward Serril profiles Bill Resler, a university professor who also coaches a high school girls' basketball team. Entertainment Weekly raved, "this film is a furious full court press, its subjects aflame with the kind of passion only youth can furnish." Other critics hurl similarly glowing praise with words such as thrilling, exhilarating, inspiring, fascinating and occasionally, life-changing.
UA DeVargas, G, 105 min.
I Like Killing Flies
Kenny Shopsin, a chef immortalized in a New Yorker profile by Calvin Trillin, works in a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet, yet manages to keep 900 items on his menu. Was he the inspiration for Seinfeld's Soup Nazi? Possibly, as he has the tendency to ban people from eating his creations for transgressing his strict codes. The Hollywood Reporter raves: "A rare, hilarious and ultimately touching look at the kind of American iconoclast that barely exists anymore."
CCA, R, 80 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 Reel.Com review: "Burn the negative."
UA South, PG-13, 87 min.
Little Miss Sunshine
A mixed bag cynical road trip that halfway morphs into a family situation comedy lovefest. While precisely stylized use of the camera evokes a boldness reminiscent of
The Graduate
or early Woody Allen, endearing moments are the glue holding this frequently cynical movie together. When the family finally arrives at its destination, the depiction of child pageant queens, at once disturbing and hilarious, is the cherry on top of this wild ride. The result is a climactic scene that is pretty near perfect: both laugh-out-loud surprising and endearingly inevitable. With Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Abigail Breslin and Greg Kinnear. There's a special appearance by Alan Arkin himself at the 8:10 showing on Friday, Aug. 25 for a Q and A.
UA DeVargas, R, 110 min.
Material Girls
The execrable and unaccountably popular Hilary and Haylie Duff star in this film with a
Simple Life
ripoff plot. When two rich girls (heiresses with little dogs, celebrity birthday parties on the agenda and a cosmetic company inheritance) suddenly lose it all, they must learn to live like the other half and perhaps actually do a bit of work. Of course, valuable life lessons are learned, and the girls discover that there's more to life than being really fantastically, unbelievably wealthy. This is precisely the kind of heartwarming, uplifting, inspiring yet quirky message the fantastically wealthy need to hear.
UA South, PG, 97 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?"
UA North, R, 113 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.
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.
UA North, PG-13, 145 min.
Pulse
Technology takes a turn for the worse when a wireless connection (yes, that's right, the kind you surf the net with) between our world and the world of the dead is opened. For four college kids, this means that every time they flip open their cell phones or obsessively check their e-mail, they run the risk of death or, even better, eternal damnation. Adapted from a Japanese version by the king of modern pulp horror, Wes Craven (the
Scream
franchise).
Pulse
promises lots of high-pitched shrieking and at least a few gory, digital deaths.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, PG-13, 90 min.
Scoop
Watching this once-great filmmaker flounder behind the camera over the last decade is like those images of Willie Mays stumbling through the outfield at the end of his career, too stubborn to ride gracefully into the sunset with his Hall of Fame credentials.
Scoop
finds Allen attempting to return to frothy comedy with a suspense twist. His comedic touch has ossified to the point where nothing funny can grow organically out of the situations he creates.
UA DeVargas, PG-13, 96 min.
Snakes on a Plane
Like
Tremors
and
Eight Legged Freaks
before it,
Snakes on a Plane
exploits our tendency to squirm at the mere mention of creepy-crawlies. In an age of ultra-high-security air travel, it's not quite clear how a crate of fatally dangerous snakes makes it onto a jet crossing the Pacific, but it is this unusual means of assassination that mobster Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson) intends to use to get rid of a key witness in a case against him. Samuel L Jackson is Neville Flynn, an FBI agent extraditing the witness. Of course, Flynn is also our foul-mouthed hero, as the passengers band together against their venomous would-be-killers. Jackson reportedly took the role without reading the script, because he thought the title was hilarious. The film has gotten so much advance buzz that its title is actually an acronym on blogs and in e-mails: "SoaP," a wildfire meme basically meaning "dude, that's so lame and ridiculous that it's cool."
Dreamcatcher, UA North, R, 106 min.
Step Up
Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) is an archetypal boy from the wrong side of the tracks who lands himself a community service gig at the prestigious Maryland School for the Arts. Before long, he's busting out his mad break-dancing skills in the parking lot, and is spotted by Nora (Jenna Dewan) who recruits him to be her dance partner. This may be Tyler's chance to be upwardly mobile, if he can survive the world of competitive dance. With Rachel Griffiths as an administrator at the school, and choreographed by the acclaimed Anne Fletcher.
Dreamcatcher, UA South, PG-13, 98 min.
Talladega Nights
Even highbrow art-film snobby friends of ours are (sometimes reluctantly, as if to avoid scratching their smartypants persona) praising this Will Ferrell comedy. We wonder what diehard, poor white trash NASCAR fans think.
Dreamcatcher, UA North, PG-13, 110 min.
Who Killed The Electric Car?
If we could all pick a washed-up actor to deliver our eulogies, most of us probably wouldn't put Ed Begley, Jr., at the top of the list. Such, however, is the fate of the electric car, at whose mock interment the former
St. Elsewhere
healer is joined by the likes of
thirtysomething
alumnus Peter Horton and
Baywatch
babe emerita Alexandra Paul. There's something almost necrophiliac about this film's obsession with its subject, which failed in part because few people really wanted a vehicle that pooped out after 60 or 70 miles.
CCA, G, 92 min.
World Trade Center
Oliver Stone's latest is a different sort of action film: Rather than chronicling political intrigue (
Nixon
,
JFK
) or colossal conquerors of the past (
Alexander
) Stone takes on the events of 9.11 in New York City. A New Yorker himself, Stone offers us the story of two Port Authority cops, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, respectively) who become trapped under the World Trade Center rubble when they go to evacuate the buildings. Stone has been quoted as saying "it's not political," but we'll take a wait-and-see approach on that. With Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello as the significant others of Will and John.
Dreamcatcher, UA DeVargas, UA South, PG-13, 125 min.
Zoom
Tim Allen seems to have a fondness for films in which he gets to ride around in spaceships. But unlike 1999's
Galaxy Quest
(in which Allen went head-to-head with aliens and battled rock monsters), which was appealing in a campy sort of way, this film is without irony and aims to please the younger set. Four kids with superpowers have been using their talents to empty community pools and make the chili explode in the cafeteria lunch line, until they are called upon by a super-top-secret government agency to (what else) save the world. Allen is their trainer of sorts, and a former superhero himself. With Courtney Cox along for the (voiceover) ride.
Dreamcatcher, UA South, PG, 95 min.
