Movie listings and reviews for the week of October 5-11, 2005.
Opens Friday
IN HER SHOES
The lobby posters make it look like it's Cameron Diaz's show, but this latest from director Curtis Hanson (
Wonder Boys, LA Confidential
) is an ensemble family drama also starring Toni Collette (
About a Boy, Muriel's Wedding
) and our very own Shirley MacLaine. Freeloading Maggie (Diaz) finally pushes her straight-laced sister (Collette) to kick her out; what's a ditzy girl to do, other than move in with an unlikely grandma (MacLaine)? Instead of further padding Diaz's coffers, here's hoping
In Her Shoes
brings good things to the overlooked Collette, always game to gain weight and go brunette for work.
UA North, PG-13, 130 min.
***image4***
***image1***
THE MEMORY OF A KILLER
Originally entitled
The Alzheimer Case
, this Flemish gem may be the most arresting, poignant meditation on the remembrance of things past since
Memento
. Assassin Angelo Ledda (Jan Decleir) heads for Belgium for one last piece of work before his mind deserts him entirely, but when he sees the object of his contract and balks at carrying out the hit, he's pursued by bad and good guys (Koen De Bouw and Werner De Smedt as Antwerp cops Vincke and Verstuyft)-yet the disease rapidly stripping him of his faculties may be his most dangerous foe.
CCA, R, 120 min.
THUMBSUCKER
Mike Mills' freshman effort stars Lou Pucci (
Empire Falls
) as the regressed adolescent of the title, whose dentist (Keanu Reeves, naturally) uses hypnotism to cure him of his oral fixation. The resulting effervescent chaos spills over into the lives of surrounding adults (bewildered parents Tilda Swinton and Vincent D'Onofrio, along with Vince Vaughn and Benjamin Bratt, who seems hellbent to make it big this year).
UA DeVargas, R, 96 min.
TWO FOR THE MONEY
Somewhere along the line Al Pacino stopped acting (
Dog Day Afternoon, Carlito's Way
) and started hollering (
The Scent of a Woman, The Devil's Advocate
). At least with Matthew McConaughey, who plays the Cocky Young Upstart in this drama of squillions won and lost in the seedy world of sports betting, you don't have the same tragic sense of talent squandered. The setting may be vaguely novel, but you've already seen this movie ad nauseam (
Wall Street, The Boiler Room…
); consider staying home and renting
Glengarry Glen Ross
instead.
DreamCatcher, UA North, R, 122 min.
WAITING…
It's taken writer-director Rob McKittrick eight years to get his debut film on the table, ever since the dismal days when, just like its characters, he was a waiter at an unnamed theme restaurant (dubbed "Shenanigan's" in the movie). Lying somewhere along the continuum between gross-out comedy and Linklaterish disaffection, like
Office Space
if it were set in Chotchkie's,
Waiting…
features Ryan Reynolds (the poor man's Will Farrell?), Anna Faris (
Lost in Translation
and assorted
Scary Movie
s) and Luis Guzmán (still waiting for his
Hotel Rwanda
to come in). Remember the hotel-caterers scene in
Fight Club
? Let's just say that if you've never worked in a restaurant, after watching this movie you'll, um, probably want to start tipping your flair-bedecked waitperson a whole lot more.
UA South, R, 100 min.
***image2***
***image1***
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.
Short Runs
2046
Wong Kar Wai's unofficial sequel to
In the Mood for Love
picks up where that atmospheric mood piece left off, as leading man Tony Leung sits around in his hotel room smoking and desultorily writing a science-fiction novel called
2046
-when, that is, he's not caddishly breaking the hearts of women who could do so much better (including Faye Wong, Maggie Cheung, Gong Li and, giving the film a jolt of irritable energy, sexy Zhang Ziyi). Fans of its immediate progenitor will bask in
2046
's visual neon-green, rainy-street set pieces and elliptical camera work; but if you're a
Chungking Express
kinda girl, you'll find it labyrinthine and brocaded to no discernible end.
CCA, R, 129 min.
***image1***
À TOUT DE SUITE
Writer-director Benoît Jacquot's (
Sade
) limpid homage to the New Wave, perhaps
À bout de souffler
in particular, revises the familiar wistful black-and-white story of attractive young outlaws on the run-but this time foregrounds the perspective of the bandita: Isild Le Besco glows as the upper-class art student uncertainly following her petit-ami bank robber (Ouassini Embarek) into his seemingly glamorous and passionate life of flight from the law.
CCA, NR, 95 min.
***image1***
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,
Best of Youth
promises to be worth every twinge of sciatica.
The Screen, R, 366 min.
THE DOGWALKER
Writer-director Jacques Thelemaque's hymn to the City of Angels and its dogwalking wounded inhabitants returns for another performance. When pothead Ellie (Diane Galdry) finally flees an abusive relationship, prickly businesswoman Betsy (the late great Pamela Gordon) offers her a peripatetic canine job-and a chance to start over again.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 99 min.
***image1***
MANGO KISS
Directed by Santa Fe's Sascha Rice and co-starring Sally Kirkland,
Mango Kiss
offers an edgy, hilarious take on contemporary lesbian culture and its discontents. When Lou (Michelle Wolff) falls in love with her best friend and fellow performance artist Sassafras (Danièle Ferraro), the two take an unexpected tumble into the San Francisco world of S/M and non-monogamy. Screenwriter Sarah Brown will be on-hand for an after-film Q&A.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 84 min.
***image1***
MIDDLE EAST FILM FESTIVAL
See
.
CCA, ratings and runtimes vary
NINA SIMONE: LOVE SORCERESS
Rare concert footage of a 1976 show in Paris grants us front-row seats to see the legendarily witchy pianist, singer and "High Priestess of Soul," idiosyncratic and divertingly crabby.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 75 min.
NUDITY REQUIRED
Keith Andreen and Roberto Raad star in writer-director Steven Boe's satire as sexually deprived bowling-alley clerks who come up with the perfect girl-getting scheme: auditioning local actresses for their purported "erotic thriller." The results? Strange plot developments and disappointingly little nudity.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 101 min.
ROBOTS
Kids First! presents this visually scintillating, sparsely plotted CGI extravaganza, featuring the unenthusiastic vocal talents of Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Greg Kinnear, Robin Williams
et alia
.
Santa Fe Film Center, PG, 91 min.
***image1***
SEARCHING FOR THE WRONG-EYED JESUS
Wrong-Eyed Jesus
throws itself with headlong abandon and tender regard into the South's culture of staying up all night playing music on Saturday, which don't conflict at all with settin' in the front row of the Pentecostal church come Sunday morning.
The Screen, NR, 82 min.
***image1***
THE SORCERESS' APPRENTICE
Mexican
curandera
Ana Maria de Villar gave Judith Fein and Paul Ross permission to share her sorcery with the outside world; while Ross filmed, Fein studied ancient techniques such as working with candles and eggs, assisted with healings and learned the locations of secret "witch trails."
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 62 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 actual sacred rituals passed from priest to student, using animation to envision the soul's passage into liberation.
Santa Fe Film Center, NR, 93 min.
***image1***
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.
Now Showing
THE 40-YEAR-OLD-VIRGIN
Judd Apatow (who wrote the sadly short-lived
Freaks & Geeks
) and Steve Carell (
Anchorman, The Office
) co-wrote the script, but it's Carell who has the honor of portraying Andy Stitzer, the sweetly geeky guy who's never, ever gotten his groove on. Catherine Keener (
Lovely & Amazing, Adaptation
) is the object of his clumsy affection, while Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Romany Malco play office chums determined to ensure he's deflowered for once and for all. No matter how raunchy, it's hard not to like any movie that ends with a Bollywood dream-sequence musical number ("Kumbaya," anyone?).
UA North, R, 116 min.
***image1***
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 unhesitating accelerando of Meirelles' chaotic, shimmering visual narrative.
UA DeVargas, R, 129 min.
***image1***
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 (Johhny 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 (
Nightmare Before Christmas
) makes it possible to forget that this macabre little fairytale is animated-speaking of which, 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.
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, UA North, PG-13, 76 min.
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
When Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson) attempts a fatally unsuccessful exorcism on poor slavering Emily (Jennifer Carpenter) rather than encouraging her to take her meds, he's on trial for negligent homicide and it's up to agnostic attorney Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) to defend him. Apparently "the first courtroom horror drama" ever (though it may also be the last),
Emily Rose
suffers from great genre confusion; at least its courtroom scenes provide relief from all the wallpaper-shredding and raving in Latin.
DreamCatcher, UA North, PG-13, 114 min.
FLIGHTPLAN
In a recent interview, Jodie Foster confessed, "I know it's a mystery to everyone why I choose the things that I do." Well, yes, now that you mention it.… Recently widowed Kyle Pratt (Foster) knocks back some Xanax for the red-eye flight which also bears her husband's body back to the US; but when she awakens, her daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) has disappeared-and even worse, the patronizing stewardesses, captain (Sean Bean) and air marshall (Peter Sarsgaard) all maintain she was never on board. Could it be that the distraught Kyle is a few peanuts short of a Snickers bar? Can the same be ventured for Ms. Jodie?
DreamCatcher, UA DeVargas, PG-13, 93 min.
***image1***
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
See SFR's
.
UA DeVargas, R, 96 min.
INTO THE BLUE
Jessica Alba's derrière stars in this corned-beef hash of about 18 other movies shot underwater, from
The Deep
to
Thunderball
, with a dash of
Cliffhanger
thrown in. Alba (
Fabulous Four, Sin City
) once snorkeled as one of Flipper's friends of the sea; here she appears with Paul Walker and Scott Caan (yep, the son of Santino Corleone) as divers who come upon a submerged plane wreck and its sunken treasure in the form of cocaine, whose druglord owner would really,
really
like to have it back.
DreamCatcher, UA North, PG-13, 110 min.
***image1***
JUNEBUG
Director Phil Morrison's and writer Angus MacLachlan's mercurial first feature 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.
UA DeVargas, R, 107 min.
JUST LIKE HEAVEN
The pitch practically writes itself: "It's
Ghost
, only funny…it's
City of Angels
crossed with Terry Schiavo…really, you're gonna love it." It's hard to find much of interest in this schlocky, credulity-straining love story between a morosely relocated Mark Ruffalo and his unexpected, ethereal housemate (Reese Witherspoon, playing a comatose woman, no pun intended, who hovers in limbo between life and death), costarring
The Tao of Steve
's Donal Logue and
Napoleon Dynamite
's deadpan Jon Heder.
DreamCatcher UA DeVargas, UA South, PG-13, 95 min.
LORD OF WAR
Writer-director Andrew Niccol's gift so far (
Gattaca, The Truman Show
) has been dislocating his characters in false utopias that seem perfect until the misfit hero reveals their ugly utilitarianism. But in
Lord of War
, antihero Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage) is responsible for creating his own hell as an enterprising Ukranian immigrant who goes from small-scale gunrunning to major global weapons deals-until, like Ray Liotta's mobster in
Goodfellas
, he's too far in to get off the grift without paying a price. Niccol manages to get viewers' attention by playing with the darkest of subject matters (eg, third-world landmine victims), though he burdens his own script with Yuri's heavy-handed educational voiceover.
DreamCatcher, UA North, R, 122 min.
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
Despite the amazing endurance of the critters themselves,
March of the Penguins
is crippled by narration which puts forth a sentimentalized version of the penguins' unwavering drive toward procreation. In its favor,
March
features eye-popping cinematography, but why ruin gorgeous hard-won camera work of Antarctic wildlife by hand-feeding us the Dr. Seuss interpretation? Nature is far more interesting when unembellished by the gravelly tones of Morgan Freeman telling us what to feel.
CCA, DreamCatcher, G, 80 min.
OLIVER TWIST
Roman Polanski (
Chinatown, Tess, Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist
…we could go on) follows in David Lean's footsteps, remaking Dickens' classic novel of crime and punishment with
Pianist
scriptwriter Ronald Harwood, Barney Clark as the gormless Oliver, Ben Kingsley chewing up the role of Fagin and a gazillion-dollar replica of 19th century London. Polanski's version promises to be the most grimly realistic yet, with alcoholics, prostitutes and children sold into slave labor galore-hardly stuff to sing about.
Jean Cocteau, PG-13, 130 min.
***image1***
SERENITY
See SFR's
review
.
UA South, PG-13, 119 min.
ROLL BOUNCE
And what have we here? A brightly hued, spangly, sprawly rip-off of a '70s film (
Roller Boogie
with Linda Blair), now helmed by Spike Lee's little cousin Malcolm D Lee, written by the guy behind
Beauty Shop
and starring Bow Wow as the leader of skate-champion wannabes who are daunted when their home rink closes and they must compete at Sweetwater Roller Rink, the Bolshoi of skate jams-where they also hope to woo its bevy of high-class lovelies. Fear not; our heroes will be couple-skating under the disco ball by story's end.
UA South, PG-13, 112 min.
THE SKELETON KEY
Forget demon possession;
Skeleton Key
gets its thrills from good old-fashioned hoodoo. Kate Hudson (
Almost Famous
) is the gutsy blonde ingenue who crawls around the attic of her Louisiana bayou home, bumping into dusty old things and gasping; John Hurt and Gena Rowlands join in the fun as her creepy employers-are they Evil, or just Weird?
Skeleton Key
ends with a twist that promises you'll leave the theater grinning-because, after all, nothing puts a smile on your face like human sacrifice.
UA South, PG-13, 104 min.
