Current Releases
BLACK SNAKE MOAN After earning positive notices for his breakthrough feature, 2005's Hustle & Flow, writer-director Craig Brewer returns with another look at Southern discomfort deep-fried in a greasy pool of sex and song. Befitting the double meaning of its title, Black Snake Moan provides a pleasurable bait-and-switch, beginning as a funky, freaky "woman in chains" offshoot and ending up as a more traditional tale about redemption and life's second chances. Set in a swampy Tennessee burg, this stars Samuel L. Jackson as Lazarus, a former blues musician who rescues town tart Rae (Christina Ricci) after he discovers her battered body in the ditch next to his house. Working through his own domestic crisis -- his wife has just left him for his brother -- Lazarus decides to redeem himself by simultaneously saving this woman, chaining her to his radiator and attempting to purge her of her sexual demons. What Lazarus doesn't know is that his own demons will be better tamed by the love of a good woman -- in this case, the helpful pharmacist (S. Epatha Merkerson) who works in the nearby town -- and that Rae's soldier-boy steady (Justin Timberlake) has just returned after an aborted Iraqi tour of duty and is looking high and low for his sweetheart. Black Snake Moan is far more scattershot than Hustle & Flow, but its unorthodox yet earnest approach to religion, a sizzling soundtrack, and spot-on performances by Jackson and Ricci keep the whole brew bubbling. ***
BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA There's a gentle strain seeping back into today's family films, a development that should be encouraged at every turn. When movies aimed at the smallest fry feature characters belching and breaking wind at regular intervals, it's clear that the tide has turned since the decades of such marvelous and -- I hasten to add -- enduring masterpieces like Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians; even the recent live-action take on Charlotte's Web couldn't resist occasionally pandering to the crusty-snot-nosed kids in the audience. Like the film versions of A Little Princess and The Neverending Story, Bridge to Terabithia wasn't made for them; instead, it's for bright, inquisitive children (and attendant adults) who subscribe to the theory that imagination is one of the most wonderful tools available. Based on Katherine Paterson's award-winning book, this explores the relationship between two outcast middle-schoolers (Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb, both highly appealing) and the adventures they share as they create a magical kingdom in the woods that rest behind their respective houses. If the effects involved in the creation of their imaginary world seem on the thrifty side, that's OK, since the heart of the story rests in the manner in which children are able to cope with loneliness, ostracism and even death. Incidentally, co-writer David Paterson is Katherine's son, which helps explain the film's fidelity to its source material. ***
GHOST RIDER Is it possible that before making the big-screen version of Ghost Rider, writer-director Mark Steven Johnson had never even read a Ghost Rider comic book? The original Johnny Blaze wasn't a joke-a-second character like Peter Parker or The Fantastic Four's Ben Grimm; he was more somber, as one would expect from a biker who sold his soul to the devil (to save the life of a loved one) and then found himself living under a curse that transformed him into a flaming-skull creature whenever in the presence of evil. Of course, when you hire Nicolas Cage to star in your movie, it's safe to assume that camp was what was intended all along. Despite all the eye-popping and head-rolling, Cage doesn't deliver the movie's worst performance; instead, he lands in the show position, right under Eva Mendes as the somnambular love interest and the mesmerizingly awful Wes Bentley as one of the least convincing -- and therefore least threatening -- villains of recent vintage. On the plus side, the special effects are pretty cool, and it was inspired to cast Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles (Easy Rider, meet Ghost Rider). Otherwise, this is yet another comic book adaptation that goes up in flames before our very eyes. *1/2
THE HOST Just as the original 1954 Japanese cut of Godzilla warned against the evils of nuclear proliferation, this Korean import similarly rails against a host of societal ills, including humankind's disregard for nature, the ability of America to force its will on the rest of the globe, the false front provided by governments declaring bogus "terror alerts," and media insensitivity. Yet these themes only simmer in the background, and even the creature feature often takes back seat to a sturdy and even touching comedy-drama about the importance of familial fortitude. The central character is Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), a dimwitted food-stand vendor and unlikely father to bright young Hyun-seo (Ko A-sung). When an enormous mutant emerges from the Han River, munches on a few humans, and then takes Hyun-seo back to his lair, it's up to Gang-du and other family members to rescue the girl, battling military personnel every step of the way. Full of memorable imagery (amusing sight gags easily commingle with more brutal shots) and anchored by the human story at its center, The Host is only harmed by the varying quality of its special effects. Created by the companies that worked on the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings flicks, the effects are slick to a fault, with seamless visuals compromised by obvious CGI renditions, often within the same scene. Still, given that the movie works best when focusing on the people rather than the predator, that amounts to a minor quibble: This is a monster movie for those who like a little meat on the genre's bones. ***1/2
I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE It's inconceivable that the names Eric Rohmer and Pootie Tang would ever appear in the same sentence, yet that's the result of cowriter-director-star Chris Rock making I Think I Love My Wife. The film is a remake of 1972's Chloe In the Afternoon, the sixth and final movie in philosophical French director Rohmer's "Moral Tales" series (issued by Criterion last year). Now, Rock and his Pootie Tang cohort Louis C.K. have teamed up to rework Rohmer's story into a moderately amusing but ultimately scattershot comedy about Richard Cooper, a businessman whose marriage to a schoolteacher (Gina Torres) has become so stagnant that he constantly daydreams about other women. Into his office walks Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington), a high-maintenance friend from his long-ago clubbing days. Bringing to mind the "Darling Nikki" from Prince's Purple Rain soundtrack, she tempts Richard by injecting some much-needed fun back into his life, thereby requiring him to decide whether he should cheat on his sexually frigid spouse. The level of humor is all over the map, yet while the script by Rock and C.K. offers a few salient points about the challenges posed in keeping any marriage fresh, any benefit of the doubt as to the picture's worth goes out the window upon the arrival of a dreadful conclusion that's not only poorly conceived and executed but also reverses one of the story's major conflicts with no explanation. I'm sure Rock meant well, but the next time he feels the urge to improve upon the French, he should try his hand at baguettes. **
THE LIVES OF OTHERS Pan's Labyrinth deserved to win the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, of course, but the Academy's selection of The Lives of Others hardly qualifies as an outrage. While it'd be easy to cynically rack up this film's victory to the fact that the organization's septuagenarians would more readily respond to a film about the good old days of the Cold War than to a fantasy yarn that would require them to use their imagination, the truth is that this German import is both emotionally and intellectually stimulating, a winning combo under any circumstances. Beginning in 1984, the story focuses on Captain Gerd Wiesler (excellent Ulrich Muhe), an interrogator for the East German secret police. Wiesler believes in the principles of the German Democratic Republic, and he dutifully agrees to monitor the activities of a prominent playwright (Sebastian Koch) suspected of traitorous activities. But after learning that the powers of the state are being abused by a high-ranking official (Thomas Thieme) who's only interested in the writer's actress girlfriend (Martina Gedeck), Wiesler begins to soften, finally allowing a ray of humanity to crack his rigid dogma. Never mind chronology: Thanks to modern cinema (especially documentaries and films made by a guy named Spielberg), the Cold War feels even more distant and buried in the past than World War II, yet here's writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck hitting a home run with a frightening drama that expertly evokes a period when spies would routinely come in from the cold. ***1/2
THE NUMBER 23 These days, a Hollywood filmmaker serving up a murder-mystery has to work overtime to slip one past dedicated movie fans. Sadly, the folks behind The Number 23 apparently didn't even work past their lunch break, given the obviousness of the end result. Jim Carrey, once again trying to break out of funnyman mode, delivers his darkest (if hardly most successful) performance to date -- he plays Walter Sparrow, a dog catcher whose brooding personality often seems at odds with his role as a devoted husband (to Virginia Madsen's Agatha) and father (to Logan Lerman's Robin). Walter comes into possession of a self-published book called The Number 23, and as he reads the story of a saxophone-playing detective named Fingerling (played in dramatizations by Carrey) and his carnal entanglements with an Italian femme fatale called Fabrizia (also Madsen), he becomes convinced that the book is about him, an especially disturbing revelation once he discovers that Fingerling commits murder. The stylish opening credits, which reveal the titular digit's connection to various tragedies in history (e.g. 9/11/2001 is 9 + 11 + 2 + 1 = 23), is the best part of the movie; after that, it's all hit-and-miss, with Carrey gamely navigating his way through a supposedly tangled tale that's ultimately as easy to unravel as two nylon stockings. **
SHOOTER Shooter kicks off with a scene in which a young man flashes a picture of his fiancée to his partner, which in movie parlance of course means he won't be around much longer. Shooter also includes a sequence in which our put-upon protagonist reaches his boiling point upon learning the worst news a movie hero can hear: The villains went and shot his faithful dog (big mistake, guys). It's a testament to all concerned that Shooter can include such hoary clichés and not only survive them but also make them fun to watch one more time. Crisply directed by Antoine Fuqua and adapted from Stephen Hunter's Point of Impact, this casts Mark Wahlberg (who portrayed a shooter of an entirely different kind in Boogie Nights) as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine sniper who's duped into taking part in a political assassination and then served up as the lone gunman. Refusing to go down easy, he instead uses all his training to get back at the slimy suits who framed him, along the way enlisting the aid of an earnest FBI rookie (Michael Pena). Comparisons to Sylvester Stallone's equally ill-treated combat vet from two decades ago are paper-thin, since this film is anything but a Rambore; instead, it benefits from some taut action sequences, a well-chosen supporting cast (66-year-old Levon Helm, not looking a day over 99, steals the film as a gun enthusiast), a deep cynicism about how this country operates behind closed doors, and the sight of a smoldering Wahlberg already building on that Oscar nod for The Departed. ***
300 Positioned as the Ultimate Fanboy Movie, this adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel is indeed ferocious enough to satisfy basement-dwellers with its gore, violence and chest-pounding machismo while savvy enough to downplay the homoeroticism that will ever-so-subtly cause heretofore unexplained stirrings in the loins of these same armchair warriors. Yet for all its brutality, 300 has as much chance of satisfying a sizable female contingent, since it's ultimately a beefcake calendar posing as a motion picture (interesting, then, that the lockstep online trolls attack anyone who doesn't rave about the film as being like "a girl"). Beyond its demographic-targeting, however, its greatest claim to fame is that it's positioning itself as the next step on the evolutionary CGI ladder, offering (in the words of director and co-writer Zack Snyder) "a true experience unlike anything you've ever seen before." Snyder was responsible for the surprisingly accomplished Dawn of the Dead remake three years ago, but here he seems to have been swallowed up by the enormity of the project, which depersonalizes the major players in the battle between the Spartans and the Persians to such a degree that one ends up feeling more sympathy for the shields that end up receiving the brunt of the sword blows and arrow piercings. 300 contains a handful of staggering images -- and, for once, the color-deprived shooting style fits the tale being spun -- but Sin City, a previous adaptation of a Miller work, offered more variety in its characterizations and, more importantly, in its cutting-edge visual landscape. **1/2
WILD HOGS This simple-minded comedy has the audacity to reference Deliverance in one scene, yet the only folks who'll be squealing like a pig are the ones who fork over 10 bucks, only to find themselves royally screwed after enduring its inanities. Four Cincinnati bunglers (John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy), each suffering though some pathetic form of mid-life crisis, decide to embark on a road trip to the West Coast. They mount their motorcycles with the intent of rediscovering life's little pleasures, but it's not long before these queasy riders are having to cope with menacing bikers, "bomb"-dropping birds and a homosexual highway patrolman (John C. McGinley). The "gay panic" humor is so rampant that it's reasonable to wonder if cast and crew members wrapped each shooting day by beating up a homosexual off-screen. Scatological humor also gets a workout, and there's a late-inning cameo by a Ghost Rider cast member who at this point in his career seems resigned to parodying himself. Speaking of Ghost Rider, there's nothing in this alleged comedy (and companion biker flick) nearly as amusing as the revelation that there's a song on the GR soundtrack called "Satan's Penis." Then again, given all the middle-aged paunch on display in this film, it's perhaps a missed opportunity that no one had the foresight to pen a ditty called "Tim Allen's Beer Gut." *1/2
ZODIAC Refusing to wear out its welcome even at 160 minutes, Zodiac is a satisfying hybrid of a police procedural (think L.A. Confidential), a journalism yarn (think All the President's Men) and a serial killer flick (think The Silence of the Lambs). That it doesn't come close to breathing the rarefied air of the three aforementioned classics isn't necessarily meant as a putdown, but it's clear that David Fincher's new movie doesn't provide the same level of either visceral thrills or sublime plotting as its predecessors. Instead, Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) and scripter James Vanderbilt prefer to keep most emotions in check, putting their heads down and dutifully relating the real-life story of how a notorious murderer managed to elude the authorities for decades. Working from a book by Robert Graysmith, the film casts Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist who becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth behind the series of grisly slayings plaguing the Bay Area. Yet Graysmith isn't alone in his fanatical devotion to the case: The mystery also haunts the dreams of Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) and detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), and as the years march on, the trio's pursuit of justice (or is it merely ego gratification?) begins to take its toll on health, marriage and career. Methodical in its storytelling yet purposely ambiguous in its intentions, Zodiac is a welcome change from the witless murder-mysteries that usually clog our multiplexes. ***
OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 30:
BLADES OF GLORY: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder.
THE LOOKOUT: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels.
MEET THE ROBINSONS: Animated; voices of Wesley Singerman, Stephen J. Anderson.
THE NAMESAKE: Kal Penn, Tabu.
