ANGER MANAGEMENT After delivering subtle, shaded performances in The Pledge and About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson reverts back to his familiar "wild and crazy guy" persona in Anger Management -- yet that's not a bad thing. Nicholson gamely gets into the swing of the satire as Buddy Rydell, an unorthodox therapist whose methods threaten to completely unnerve his latest patient, a meek businessman (Adam Sandler) railroaded into subjecting himself to the good doctor's anger management program. It's doubtful we'll ever see Sandler tackling Hamlet or Willy Loman (and would we want to?), but both last fall's Punch-Drunk Love and now Anger Management demonstrate that he can be an engaging presence when he drags himself away from projects aimed at mentally deficient frat boys. Even if some of the situations seem overly familiar (the Yankee Stadium climax) or needlessly protracted (ditto), the movie zips by on the strength of some big laughs, sharply cast supporting roles (notably John Turturro and an unbilled Heather Graham) and the two well-matched stars at its core. 
CHARLOTTE FILM SOCIETY Movies begin this Friday at the Manor and continue the following Friday at Movies at Birkdale. Call 704-414-2355 for details.
* 8 WOMEN There may be eight women, but there are also three movies on view here -- and only one of them is an unqualified success. As a showcase for some of France's greatest actresses (including Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Emmanuelle Beart), this Gallic import is a naughty delight, as we watch these consummate pros inhabit their wicked roles with obvious zeal. Yet as a movie musical in which the characters spontaneously burst into song and dance, it's rather clumsy (certainly no Moulin Rouge), and as a murder-mystery, it's wretched -- even a random episode of Scooby-Doo makes more sense than what's presented here. How much viewers enjoy this, then, depends on to what extent they're able to focus on the shining stars at the center while ignoring the narrative debris surrounding them. 1/2
* Also: A major disappointment considering all the talent involved, HEAVEN () is a listless drama about a widow (Cate Blanchett) whose attempt to kill the drug dealer responsible for her husband's death backfires spectacularly. Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) directed from a script by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (the Three Colors trilogy); winner of the Palme D'Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, Emir Kusturica's UNDERGROUND (1/2), set in Yugoslavia over the course of several decades, tries for the same strain of wartime absurdity as The Tin Drum and Europa Europa but doesn't completely pull it off.
A MAN APART A Traffic for the action crowd, A Man Apart takes an unblinking view of drug cartels before eventually revealing its true colors as a generic shoot-'em-up yarn. Vin Diesel, whose magnetism apparently only blossoms when he's playing flippant anti-heroes (Pitch Black, XXX), is all chiseled nobility in this film, and the result is a dull performance that points out the actor's limitations (when his character gets weepy during one sequence, it's like watching a single raindrop making its way down a craggy mountainside). He's cast as Sean Vetter, a DEA agent whose wife (Jacqueline Obradors) is killed by a drug lord known only as Diablo. Close to cracking (at least that's what the script suggests; given Diesel's monotonous performance, it's hard to tell), Vetter is forced to turn to the drug kingpin (Geno Silva) he put behind bars to obtain information that will lead him to his quarry. Director F. Gary Gray has proven himself to be an effective director of action flicks (The Negotiator, Set It Off), but here his talents have deserted him. Like View from the Top, this one's been sitting on a studio shelf for quite some time, suggesting that Hollywood must presently be engaging in its own version of a yard sale. 1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
ALL THE REAL GIRLS Writer-director David Gordon Green, an NC School of the Arts grad, follows 2000's George Washington with another movie shot entirely in rural North Carolina (in this case, Marshall). This sophomore effort is so laid back -- so in tune with the naturally sleepy rhythms of everyday existence -- that it feels unlike any love story I've seen in quite some time, with a simplicity and directness that truly touch the heart. Twenty-two-year-old Paul (Paul Schneider) has spent his entire life wooing women and then dumping them, but with virginal 18-year-old Noel (Zooey Deschanel), he feels a special connection, one that makes him want to do right by her. Yet ultimately it isn't Paul who takes a misstep, and soon the pair are working hard to salvage their tainted romance. Green has a strong love for -- and deep understanding of -- his small-town characters: When they say something that shows they're not exactly the brightest bulbs in the box, it's a way of acknowledging their limitations, not a way of getting a cheap laugh at the expense of ignorant Southern yahoos. I won't reveal how it all turns out, but I will say that Paul's statement after he's been damaged -- "If anybody smiles at me ever again, I'm gonna freak out" -- will bring a rueful smile to the lips of anyone who has ever loved and lost, even if only temporarily. 1/2
BASIC The satisfaction derived from such "gotcha!" titles as Seven and The Usual Suspects is that these movies successfully take us for a perplexing ride before zapping us with a surprise ending that feels absolutely right. Conversely, many similar brain twisters have fallen flat from the start, by offering supposed plot turns that are obvious 10 minutes into the picture. Basic, the new thriller from director John McTiernan (career high: Die Hard; career low: last year's Rollerball remake), doesn't exactly reside in either camp. Not even Nostradamus could have predicted every twist in this convoluted thriller, yet in the end, we don't feel fulfilled as much as happy to get out of the auditorium alive. (The woman seated next to me succinctly summed up the experience as the movie headed into its 48th change of narrative direction by groaning, "Not again...") Initially, the intrigue is entertaining, as an ex-Army Ranger (John Travolta) in Panama is tapped to find out what went wrong on a military exercise that led to the death of a reviled sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson). Two witnesses -- one tight-lipped (Brian Van Holt), the other flamboyant (Giovanni Ribisi, adding to his string of rancid performances) -- offer differing versions of what went down, but any hope of a modern-day Rashomon is soon dashed as the movie gets bogged down in a haphazard series of twists, turns, backslides and pirouettes -- very few of which make sense after the whole story is revealed.
THE CORE Burrowing beneath the earth rather than taking off into space, The Core is an inverted Armageddon, and the fact that it isn't even one third as doltish as that inexplicable blockbuster means the battle's already half-won. To be sure, the movie's science wouldn't hold up under the scrutiny of an 8-year-old, but viewers fond of similar (and similarly far-fetched) fantasies like At the Earth's Core and Journey to the Center of the Earth should have a reasonably good time. Instead of "A" list stars like Armageddon's Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, this one features "B+" caliber actors like Aaron Eckhart and Delroy Lindo, solid performers who make up in professionalism what they lack in box office appeal. They lend conviction to this drama in which Earth faces imminent destruction after its inner core stops rotating, thereby causing an increasing number of global catastrophes. Realizing that the only way to save the world is to get the core spinning again, a team of "terranauts," climbs aboard a specially designed subterranean vehicle and heads due south, straight to the center of the planet. Even if the pedestrian script isn't as compelling as the special effects, Jon Amiel's competent direction and an able cast provide this with a certain measure of respectability. 1/2
DREAMCATCHER Long past his glory days as a two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter, William Goldman has spent the last two decades as a hack-for-hire, churning out witless scripts (The General's Daughter) while bitterly criticizing Hollywood luminaries in the pages of Premiere and Variety. Bad karma apparently continues to dog this man, since his latest project, an adaptation of Stephen King's novel, fails in spite of its initial promise and impeccable production values. At first, this movie from reliable director Lawrence Kasdan (who co-wrote the script with Goldman) looks like it's going to be an effective supernatural thriller, centering on four lifelong friends (Thomas Jane, Damian Lewis, Jason Lee and Timothy Olyphant) whose childhood acquaintance, a simpleminded boy, imbued them with unusual powers. Despite the obvious cribbing of other King material (Carrie, The Stand, "The Body"), the first section of the film maintains an eerie grip. But like Signs, the picture suddenly shifts gears to turn into a choppy, noisy FX blowout, with alien invaders primed to take over the planet and a team of military men (led by a wasted Morgan Freeman) dispatched to annihilate them.
HEAD OF STATE If there was ever a time when we could use a raucous political satire to shake things up -- to stick it to an insidious and evil administration -- well, this is clearly that time. Unfortunately, Head of State clearly isn't that movie. Rather than grab the political bull by the horns -- like Warren Beatty's Bulworth a few years back or Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine a few months ago -- Chris Rock (serving as star, director, co-writer and co-producer) is content to make a comedy that could easily play on network TV as a pilot for a proposed sit-com. (My Big Fat Freak Election, anyone?) Still, for a movie that traffics in timidity rather than temerity, this is better than Rock's recent output for the simplest of reasons: It offers laughs, something his other comedies forgot to do. He plays a Washington, DC, alderman who's picked to run for the top office after the presidential and vice presidential candidates are killed when their planes crash into each other. Nobody expects much from the rookie politico, but once he starts speaking from the heart rather than the script, his poll numbers start to climb. A handful of inspired gags goose a shoddy production, with Bernie Mac providing an additional lift as Rock's brother, a bail bondsman who becomes his younger sibling's unlikely running mate. 1/2
PHONE BOOTH It's only April, yet Colin Farrell has already appeared in as many movies this year as Daniel Day-Lewis has headlined over the course of the past decade. Following a co-starring role in The Recruit and a supporting turn in Daredevil, Farrell finds himself top-billed in this efficient drama that was delayed because of the real-life sniper shootings. The Irish actor plays Stu Shepard, an obnoxious New York publicist who gets pinned in a phone booth by a sniper (Kiefer Sutherland) who has already offed a pedophile and a ruthless CEO and now wants to take Stu to task for his boorish behavior toward others. OK, let's get the idiocy out of the way: In a city the size of New York, determining that a publicist whose primary flaw is his rudeness should be third in line to die would be like learning there's a special room in Hell reserved for Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin and...Pete Rose. Get past this dubious logic, however, and what's left is a taut psychological thriller that's directed for maximum impact by Joel Schumacher and vigorously performed by Farrell. And while most films that run under 90 minutes are generally long-on-the-shelf duds that sacrificed all coherency to the cutting room floor -- see the 85-minute View from the Top -- this one's a happy exception: With a crisp running time of 80 minutes, Phone Booth knows exactly when it's time to clear the line.
VIEW FROM THE TOP Gwyneth Paltrow's participation in such brainy entertainment as Shakespeare In Love and Emma makes it easy to forget that this talented actress has starred in her share of imbecilic features, most notably the tepid thriller Hush, the karaoke debacle Duets, and now this clunker about a small-town girl who dreams of making it as a flight attendant. Starting out as a stewardess for a dinky airline, Donna Jensen (Paltrow) soon lands a position with the classy Royalty Airlines. She seems poised for great success, but conflict rears its head once she falls for a law student (Mark Ruffalo) whose own career would keep her grounded in Cleveland rather than flying the New York-to-Paris route. There's much to cherish in this so-bad-it's-good movie, the sort that would have been right at home on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The leaden dialogue is chuckle-worthy, while the sentimental moments are hilarious in their earnestness -- in fact, the only parts of this film that aren't funny are, appropriately enough, the comedic bits. This is also the sort of mishmash that finds room for an offensive gay caricature (Joshua Malina), plenty of back-catalog tunes on the soundtrack, and a cameo by that esteemed thespian Rob Lowe. 1/2
OPENS FRIDAY:
Anger Management: Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson.
Ghosts of the Abyss: Bill Paxton, Tava Smiley.
