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PIECES OF APRIL A hit at Sundance, this pulls off a nice balancing act between humor and heartbreak as it makes its way toward its deeply satisfying finale. Set on that most American of holidays, the movie sits back and watches as estranged April Burns (Katie Holmes) does her best to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for her family -- a family that's quite reluctant to show up at all. The clan's car trip provides Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent) plenty of opportunities to strut her stuff as April's bitter mom, a woman who's dying of cancer, while the interludes between April and her assorted neighbors are the ones that best convey the spirit of the holiday being celebrated. With its cathartic ending, Pieces of April clearly earns its tears. 
RADIO Inspired by a true story, this centers on a mentally challenged kid (Cuba Gooding Jr.) in South Carolina and the high school coach (Ed Harris) who transformed their lives. Films like this one are created solely to pummel our tear ducts, yet Radio left me unmoved. Maybe it was because Mike Tollin directed this with all the flair of an infomercial. Maybe it was because of the shameless script by Mike Rich (Finding Forrester). Maybe it was because Gooding is never allowed to play a three-dimensional character but rather a manifestation of a white man's cause, human currency to be handed around whenever a character needs his or her consciousness raised. Then again, maybe it was simply because the theater's air conditioning unit was drying up my contacts something fierce, making tears an impossible acquisition.
SCARY MOVIE 3 Scary Movie 3 features the likes of Charlie Sheen, Pamela Anderson, Simon Cowell and a Michael Jackson clone -- certainly some folks' idea of a good time, but little more than an act of sheer desperation as far as I'm concerned. Then again, this series has always been about low-brow entertainment, but at least the original picture delivered plenty of laughs. Operating like an inferior issue of Mad magazine with all the pages mixed up, this randomly ping-pongs between tepid take-offs of The Ring, Signs, The Matrix Reloaded and 8 Mile. The notion of Leslie Nielsen playing the US President is funny in theory, but this film even blows the comic potential of that situation. 1/2
THE SCHOOL OF ROCK Director Richard Linklater's previous credits include Waking Life and Dazed and Confused, while scripter Mike White's resume contains The Good Girl and Chuck & Buck. These indie faves won't ever be mistaken for multiplex blockbusters, yet here the pair have teamed up for this accessible comedy about a failed rock star (Jack Black) who lands a job as a substitute teacher at a posh private school, whereupon he begins teaching his buttoned-down fifth grade charges about the glories of rock & roll. It sounds like the sort of sanitized product that might star Eddie Murphy (Dokken Day Care?), yet what gives the movie any semblance of an edge is Black, whose relentless manic energy perfectly suits the project.
SYLVIA Failing to convey the imagination of Frida, the poignancy of Iris, or the profundity of Virginia Woolf's plight in The Hours, Sylvia brings up the rear when it comes to films about tortured women trying to create art while contending with mental and/or physical anguish. Known in shorthand as the suicidal author of The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath won't see that description expanded by this dreary effort that's more interested in documenting a tragic love affair than getting inside this woman's head. Whether Plath's art and death were fueled by much beyond romance gone awry seems almost beside the point in this picture, which focuses almost exclusively on the soap opera angle and in effect paints largely unsympathetic portrayals of both Sylvia (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her husband, poet Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig).
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE Loosely based on the exploits of serial killer Ed Gein, both film versions (1974 and 2003) deal with five college-age kids whose ill-advised road trip through a desolate part of Texas puts them in contact with a murderous, cannibalistic clan whose most terrifying member (Leatherface) is a hulking psychopath who wears his victims' faces as masks. The bottom line? The original picture is a genuine classic of the genre, a punishing, unrelenting nightmare that never allows viewers even a moment of sanity or security. This doltish new version, on the other hand, is nothing more than business as usual, a feeble retelling that guts the integrity of the original and wears its own cynicism like a ragged mask. 1/2
