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SPIRITED AWAY If there's a film genre that qualifies as an open invitation for moviemakers to let it all artistically hang out, it would be the animated field, where writers and directors don't have to worry about special effects proving too costly or stars turning too temperamental. In the animated kingdom, the imagination is truly king, and it's depressing to note just how small-minded most of its product has turned out over the years. A wonderful exception, however, is Spirited Away, Japan's all-time top moneymaker and the best animated feature since Beauty and the Beast 11 years ago. Creative beyond all reason or expectation, this latest effort from the revered Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki is a phenomenal achievement, a gorgeous-looking piece of cinema that stirs memories of everything from Alice In Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz to Where the Wild Things Are and Yellow Submarine. Featuring visions more suited to a hallucinatory dream than a movie screen, this picture, about a young girl who's forced to work in a bathhouse that caters to spirits, takes particular delight in confounding our expectations every step of the way -- not since Being John Malkovich has a movie proven to be so gloriously unpredictable. And perhaps only the Cantina in Star Wars can match this film's bathhouse as a sight for soaring eyes unable to believe the sheer number of unusual creatures sauntering through the place. Yet while Spirited Away would be worthwhile simply as an ocular treat, the story's also solid, concerning itself with timeless issues like honor, sacrifice, responsibility and respect. 
THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE It's easy to appreciate what Jonathan Demme was trying to do with this remake of Charade without actually enjoying any part of it. Stanley Donen's effervescent effort from 1963 isn't exactly a classic, but with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn breezing through an engaging mystery-romance set in Paris, it's awfully enjoyable stuff. Demme probably figured a straight retelling simply couldn't compete, so he used the occasion as an opportunity to simultaneously pay homage to the French New Wave of the 60s, get back to the hipster style of filmmaking he employed in Something Wild and Married to the Mob, and hand his Beloved star Thandie Newton a potential star-making role. His ambition should be applauded but his creation should be avoided, as the truth about Charlie is that it's a brazenly misguided project. Full of schizophrenic edits that could leave a viewer with a permanent case of the shakes, shot in a frequently warped style that makes most characters appear about as misshapen as a balloon figure in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and full of maddening asides and non sequiturs, this yarn about a widow pursued by various shady characters who were all involved with her late husband never locates an appropriate wavelength. (It's a bad sign when preview audiences sit stone-faced through the lighter passages and giggle during the supposedly serious moments.) Newton acquits herself well enough, but Mark Wahlberg, in Grant's old role of the mysterious suitor, seems more a schoolboy than a sophisticate. 1/2
TUCK EVERLASTING A movie that the less charitable might describe as a castrated cross between Highlander and Lolita, this is actually based on the beloved 1975 children's book by Natalie Babbitt. In the hands of the Disney studio and director Jay Russell (who helmed the sweet family flick My Dog Skip), this sounds like it couldn't miss -- and yet it does, thanks largely to an overly reverential tone that ends up sucking the life out of a movie that's about living forever. Set in 1914, the story centers on the encounter between 15-year-old Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel), daughter of the richest man in town, and the Tucks, a poor family living deep in the woods on her father's property. Winnie eventually discovers that all the members of the clan -- dad Angus (William Hurt, whose peculiar accent sounds more Swedish than Scottish), mom Mae (Sissy Spacek) and sons Jesse (Jonathan Jackson) and Miles (Scott Bairstow) -- once drank from a mountain spring whose water has given them immortality. Winnie falls for Jesse, a 104-year-old man stuck in a 17-year-old body, but their May-December romance gets interrupted by the aptly credited Man in the Yellow Suit (Ben Kingsley), whose banana of an outfit makes him seem less a malevolent figure and more like an adornment on one of Carmen Miranda's old outfits. A movie as tightly drawn as the corset that Winnie must endure, Tuck Everlasting is simply too plodding and ponderous to evoke the sense of magic and wonder that this story demands.
