New Releases
LAST HOLIDAY A remake of a 1950 British comedy starring Alec Guinness, Last Holiday is better than expected thanks to its retooling as a vehicle for Queen Latifah. Director Wayne Wang, who probably eyes the career of Ang Lee and wonders where he went wrong, has long been demoted from indie darling (Smoke) to mainstream hack (Maid In Manhattan), and his desire to appease the studio gods means that there's very little innovation on view in this predictable picture. But Queen Latifah and her supporting cast -- to say nothing of the gorgeous location shooting and eye-popping shots of delectable food dishes -- go a long way toward making this digestible. Latifah stars as Georgia Byrd, a working-class woman who, upon learning that she'll die in three weeks, cashes in all her assets and heads off to the Grandhotel Pupp (located in the Czech Republic) with the intent of winding down her life in luxury. While at the hotel, she befriends the cook (Gerard Depardieu -- how I've missed him!), offers sage advice to assorted individuals (among them Giancarlo Esposito's silky Senator and Alicia Witt's kept woman) and butts heads with her former boss, the hardhearted CEO of a national retail chain (Timothy Hutton). Meanwhile, her love interest (LL Cool J) back home discovers her dark secret and hightails it to be by her side. The message of the film is that everyone -- no matter their lot in life -- should be treated with dignity and respect, but after watching Latifah receive endless massages, hit the snowy slopes and chow down on lobster and lamb, most moviegoers will be forgiven for believing that the true message of the picture is that (duh) it's better to be rich than poor. Rating: ** 1/2
Current Releases
BREAKFAST ON PLUTO Given the film's unsteady start, patience is integral to one's enjoyment of Neil Jordan's adaptation of the novel by Patrick McCabe. As the movie progresses, Jordan's eccentric choices and the life journey of his never-say-die protagonist both begin to click: The movie springs from hard-to-watch to difficult-to-resist, and by the end, it's hard to let it go. Jordan follows the misadventures of transvestite Patrick "Kitten" Braden (Murphy) as the lad navigates his way through the often dangerous terrain of Ireland and England in the 1960s and 1970s. Taking a whimsical approach to the episodic structure, Jordan's movie feels like a melding of Forrest Gump, Candide and the strain of "magical realism" that was so fashionable in the foreign cinema of the 1990s. Murphy initially appears to be coasting on Kitten's flamboyant traits, yet as our understanding of the character deepens, his bravura turn grows in stature. Rating: ***
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN The secret behind this adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story is that behind its convenient (and infuriating) designation as "the gay cowboy movie," this is as universal as any cinematic love story of recent times. Scripters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and director Ang Lee have managed to make a movie that vibrates on two separate settings: It's a story about the love between two men, yes, but it's also a meditation on the strict societal rules that keep any two people -- regardless of gender, race, class, religion, etc. -- out of each other's arms. In detailing the relationship between Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), Brokeback Mountain is about longing and loneliness as much as it's about love -- indeed, loss and regret become tangible presences in the film. Gyllenhaal delivers a nicely modulated performance, but this is clearly Ledger's show: He's phenomenal as Ennis, and his character's anguish causes our own hearts to break on his behalf. Rating: ***1/2
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE Christians, heathens and everyone in between will be inspired to hold hands and sway to the gentle rhythms of this epic yarn. C.S. Lewis' source material -- the first book in a series of seven -- sprinkled Christian allegories throughout a fantasy tale that was aimed primarily at children, and the movie steadfastly respects Lewis' intentions. Like the best kid flicks, it never talks down to its target audience, and its religious themes -- issues involving honor, forgiveness and redemption -- embody the true spirit of Christianity and in effect serve as an antidote to the sadistic theatrics of Mel Gibson's garish snuff film, The Passion of the Christ. With its story of four plucky siblings attempting to save a strange land from the machinations of an evil queen (Tilda Swinton), this seems as inspired by the recent Lord of the Rings flicks as by anything on the written page. But the child actors are appealing, the supporting critters add color and the brisk story line fuels the imagination. Rating: ***
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE It wouldn't take much for Fun With Dick and Jane to emerge as a superior remake, given that the 1977 original looks especially dismal these days. That laughless comedy employs two actors of marginal comedic abilities -- Jane Fonda and George Segal -- in a lumbering yarn about a well-to-do married couple who turn to crime once the husband loses his job. This new version one-ups its predecessor right out of the starting gate by casting two bona fide comedians -- Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni -- in the central roles. This is strictly a congenial, end-of-year trifle aimed at providing families with somewhere to go after all the presents have been opened. It's a pleasant enough diversion, offering a few chuckles, allowing Carrey to occasionally mug and keeping the paying customers satisfied. Rating: **1/2
HOODWINKED This independent toon flick isn't exactly awful, but with its crude animation, lumbering story line and forgettable songs, it's hard to envision any demand even for its mere existence. Clearly aping the Shrek films, this attempts to put a spin on the classic children's fairy tales by adding all manner of so-called "hip" references and grownup-geared plot maneuverings, approaches that grow more stale with each passing year. Hoodwinked is basically Little Red Riding Hood by way of Rashomon, as amphibious Detective Nicky Flippers (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) hears variations on the saga from four different participants: Red (Anne Hathaway), Granny (Glenn Close), the Wolf (Patrick Warburton) and the Woodsman (Jim Belushi). Viewers who haven't completely Zenned out during the showing will easily guess the identity of the true culprit. Rating: *1/2
KING KONG Does Peter Jackson's heavily hyped remake of the 1933 masterpiece improve on its landmark predecessor? Of course not. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to think of any area in which it's better than the original -- even the occasionally crude effects from 1933, crafted from blood, sweat, tears and tiny models, stir the soul more than the CGI trickery on view here. But on its own terms, this new version gets the job done. In essence, Jackson has taken the 103-minute original and stretched it out to a 190-minute running time. The three-act structure remains intact, however, as filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) and actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) journey to Skull Island, meet the great ape and bring him back to New York City. Despite an abundance of thrills, Jackson respects that King Kong is above all else a love story between woman and beast -- and it's a measure of Watts' skills that she generates enormous chemistry with an animal that's created out of computer codes rather than flesh and blood. HHH1/2
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA Director Rob Marshall's adaptation of the Arthur Golden novel plays like a Disney version of a Zhang Yimou movie, though the end result isn't as dreadful as that designation might suggest. While set in Japan, this examines many of the same sorts of clashes as Zhang's Chinese epics, yet Marshall (Chicago) isn't able to transform his film into anything more than a lush melodrama filled with pomp and pageantry. As movie artifice, it's above average, but it goes no deeper than that. The struggles of the characters -- particularly the penniless foster child who grows up to become the legendary geisha known as Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang) -- make for adequate screen entertainment, though the movie curiously mutes the tragic dimension of women being bartered over and sold like trinkets in an open-air marketplace. The entire cast is fine, but the best performance comes from Gong Li as the seasoned geisha who makes life difficult for Sayuri. Rating: **1/2
MUNICH Steven Spielberg's Munich is largely a fictionalization of the events that transpired after that tragic day at the 1972 Olympics in Germany, when a group of Palestinian terrorists slaughtered the Israeli athletes they were holding as hostages. The movie reveals that the Israeli government sent a select band of assassins to eliminate everyone who was responsible for the massacre. But these characters aren't positioned as Israel's version of The Untouchables, with clear-cut visions of right and wrong. Instead, as they carry out each hit on their eye-for-an-eye agenda, each man reacts differently to the consequences of their actions. Is this brand of retribution just? Or are they in effect embracing the same ideology that drives the terrorists? Spielberg's muddying of the moral waters is already drawing heat, but it's to his credit as a filmmaker of consequence that he asks the hard questions and doesn't flinch from any unsettling truths that might emerge. Rating: ***
THE PRODUCERS Mel Brooks' 1968 movie was resurrected by the comic legend himself as a Broadway musical that scored with critics and audiences alike. That another movie version would follow is no surprise; what's startling is how the picture plays as little more than a static filming of the stage play, barely more mobile than those one-set Shakespeare dramatizations that used to pop up regularly on PBS. Yet director Susan Stroman's staging is by no means a death blow. On the contrary, The Producers functions in much the same way as the recent screen adaptation of Rent by emphasizing melody and mirth over movement -- in fact, it works even better thanks to the presence of master ham Nathan Lane. In the Gene Wilder role of the timid accountant Leo Bloom, Matthew Broderick strains too hard to be funny; Lane, on the other hand, is a riot in the Zero Mostel part of Max Bialystock, the struggling producer who determines that a dreadful show called Springtime for Hitler is his ticket to riches. Rating: ***
RUMOR HAS IT... Scripter T.M. Griffin comes up with a clever premise: Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) learns through a series of events that Charles Webb's best-selling novel The Graduate was based on the experiences of her own family -- specifically, the mother (now deceased) and grandmother (Shirley MacLaine), who more than 30 years earlier had slept with the same man (Kevin Costner). The hook turns out to be the most entertaining aspect of the film, as Sarah strives to learn exactly how all the pieces of the Graduate puzzle fit together. But once she becomes romantically entangled with Costner's character, the picture grinds to a halt, losing its comic conceit and getting bogged down in the mundanity of its older man-younger woman relationship. Director Rob Reiner then proceeds to make matters worse, repeatedly mistaking frantic for funny and turning these initially promising characters into gibbering idiots. Rating: **
OPENS FRIDAY, JANUARY 20:
MATCH POINT: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson.
THE NEW WORLD: Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer.
UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman.
