Current Releases

BASIC INSTINCT 2 While many reviewers (to say nothing of Razzie Award voters) consider Sharon Stone a miserable actress, I can honestly say I would require all four fingers and the thumb of one hand to count her memorable performances. That number includes her fine work in last summer's Broken Flowers, as well as her star-making performance as the ice pick-wielding author Catherine Tramell in the 1992 smash hit Basic Instinct. But what Hollywood giveth, Hollywood taketh away, meaning that the role that made her an A-lister might now be the same role that effectively kills her struggling career. In BI2, Stone is simply awful, replacing the sexy insouciance from the first film with a beady stare that would seem more appropriate coming from a dead codfish than a calculating nympho adept at playing twisted mind games. This needless sequel is badly photographed, flatly directed, indifferently acted and wretchedly scripted -- a train wreck all the way around. *

FAILURE TO LAUNCH In this sputtering romantic comedy, Matthew McConaughey plays Tripp, a 35-year-old who still lives at home with his parents (Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates). Anxious to get their grown boy out of the house, the folks hire Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), a professional consultant who -- get this -- makes a career out of building up the self-esteem of adult males still living at home by romancing them and then dumping them once they feel independent enough to move out on their own. McConaughey and Parker try, but they can't save a premise as insipid as this one. Instead, the fun can be found in the margins: Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha have their moments as Tripp's friends, Zooey Deschanel adds some much-needed edge as Paula's droll roommate, and Bates and Bradshaw invest their characters' relationship with the humor and empathy that's sorely missing from the top-billed stars' dalliances. **

FRIENDS WITH MONEY Movies like Friends With Money can often be termed "slice of life" films, but when they're as tasty as this one, a slice won't suffice: We end up longing for the whole pie. Set in LA, this rich seriocomic gem centers on the daily activities of four close female friends. Three of them indeed have money: screenwriter Christine (Catherine Keener), clothing designer Jane (Frances McDormand) and stay-at-home mom Franny (Joan Cusack). The friend without money is Olivia, whose lifestyle forces the others to reflect upon their own circumstances. I greatly enjoyed writer-director Nicole Holofcener's previous two pictures, 1996's Walking and Talking and 2002's Lovely & Amazing, but this might be her most accomplished work yet. Her greatest strength as a writer rests not in her dialogue (though it's top-grade) but rather in the manner in which she proves to be enormously generous of spirit with all her characters. ***1/2

INSIDE MAN Inside Man is A Spike Lee Joint, sho nuff, which may explain why it isn't your typical heist flick in either structure or spirit. Bank robber Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) and his crew take over Manhattan Trust, bully the hostages and make the usual demands from an NYPD repped by Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) -- so far, so Dog Day Afternoon. But the addition of a mysterious power player (Jodie Foster) to the equation takes the story in a different direction, and it eventually becomes clear that Lee and writer Russell Gewirtz aren't as interested in the thriller components as in making astute observations about contemporary society, especially as it relates to a post-9/11 mindset. For better or worse, Lee downplays his usual technical flourishes, though one defining Spike Lee signature move is certain to draw cheers from the faithful. ***

LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN The latest hollow exercise in hipster chic is the sort of convoluted, twist-packed yarn that strains to be unpredictable but is actually even easier to figure out than those Jumble puzzles that appear in the dailies. Josh Hartnett, cinema's favorite lightweight, plays Slevin, a seemingly guileless guy who finds himself caught in a power struggle between two rival crime lords (Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley). Bruce Willis is on hand as, natch, the taciturn hitman who turns out to be more involved than he initially appears. Hartnett would seem hard-pressed to carry a basket of laundry, let alone carry a motion picture, while the three reliable vets seem almost bored trying to keep up with the plot's changes of direction. The movie's saving grace is Lucy Liu: Cast as a chatty neighbor who helps Slevin piece together the mystery, she's a breath of fresh air in a genre that too often suffocates on its own fumes of pungent testosterone. **

PREACHING TO THE CHOIR A small movie with big emotions, Preaching to the Choir -- directed by York, SC, native Charles Randolph-Wright -- receives this month's Truth In Advertising Award: There's not much on tap that's particularly surprising, meaning that this may have trouble luring anyone besides the faithful (read: target audience) into the fold. Yet the lack of pretension, the exuberant musical numbers and the conviction of the actors easily overcome some narrative rough spots to transform this into an agreeable picture for moviegoers of all persuasions. The story centers on two orphaned brothers growing up in Harlem; Wes (Darien Sills-Evans) becomes the neighborhood preacher while Te (Billoah Greene) goes on to become a hardcore rapper in Hollywood. But circumstances force Te to return home, and his decision immediately affects all the members of this staid community, particularly his brother. The two lead actors are as likable as everything else in this dulcet entertainment. ***

THE SHAGGY DOG Borrowing elements from 1959's The Shaggy Dog and 1976's The Shaggy D.A. but mostly wandering off in its own direction, this turkey -- excuse me, dog -- casts Tim Allen as a lawyer who periodically turns into a canine after being bitten by a 300-year-old sheepdog. Allen is given far too many opportunities to grotesquely ham it up -- for his next film, how about a nice, quiet role as a corpse? -- while Spencer Breslin adds to our misery as Allen's son, a dweeb with a jones for all things Grease (his rendition of "You're the One That I Want" sounds like a cat being shoved tail-first into a blender). In between Allen's mugging and the lame slapstick sequences, we're treated to a parade of creepy CGI effects; still, even these aren't as disturbing as the sight of Allen lifting his leg while using a urinal, or a shaggy Allen telling another dog that "maybe later" he'll sniff his butt. *

SLITHER If nothing else, this deserves credit for offering a break from the current trend of nihilistic horror flicks whose sole purpose is to devise groovy new ways to kill people. Make no mistake: Slither offers gore by the bucketful, but the movie's in the spirit of those enjoyable, us-against-them monster yarns that ran rampant in decades past. Starting out as an alien invasion opus before switching gears to become a quasi-zombie flick, the film involves a gelatinous E.T. whose master plan employs hundreds of slugs that take over humans' bodies by entering through the mouths; naturally, the entire planet is doomed unless an amiable sheriff (Nathan Fillion) and a concerned housewife (Elizabeth Banks) can figure out a way to shut down the otherworldly operation. Slither takes its time getting started, but once it does, it never lets up, throwing the blood, slime and one-liners (some woeful, most witty) at the screen with feverish abandon. ***

TAKE THE LEAD Inspired by a true story, this centers on the efforts of ballroom dance instructor Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) to teach his elegant craft to a high school class of rowdy inner-city youths. Initially resistant to his efforts, the kids eventually come around once Pierre agrees to mesh his moves with their hip-hop music. The issue of whether the best way to reach troubled kids is by diluting what they should learn with components of what they like is an interesting one -- it would take a more courageous movie than this one to even attempt to answer that, but for its part, this allows both sides to weigh in on the argument. The climactic dance competition is clumsily presented, and I could have done without the heavy-handed "villains" of the piece. Still, Banderas and his young co-stars are appealing, and the subplots involving the students' troubled home lives carry more currency than one might expect. **1/2

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING The so-called "culture of spin" gets taken for its own spin in this lacerating adaptation of Christopher Buckley's 1994 novel. Even with a too-brief running time of 92 minutes, the movie manages to pack in all manner of material both saucy and dicey, yet when the smoke clears, what's most visible is the emergence of Aaron Eckhart as a major talent. He's terrific as Nick Naylor, who excels as chief spokesman for the tobacco industry even though he realizes he's despised by a significant part of the population. Nick earns the admiration of Big Tobacco's Big Daddy (Robert Duvall), but he has his hands full bonding with his own son (Cameron Bright), who adores his dad but often asks tough questions about his profession. Writer-director Jason Reitman keeps the laughs flying during the first half, then slows down enough to lay the groundwork for a satisfying conclusion. ***1/2

TSOTSI Tsotsi is the South African word for "thug"; here, it's also the name used by a Johannesburg punk (Presley Chweneyagae) who shoots an upper-class woman and steals her car, failing to realize that an infant boy is resting in the back seat. Deciding to keep the child, he forces a single mom (Terry Pheto) to help him, but he soon softens thanks to these two new people in his life. Winner of this year's Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, this South African import takes a sentimental view of what can largely be construed as unsentimental circumstances, yet its selling point is the subtlety by which it spreads around its empathy. The sturdy performances by Chweneyagae and Pheto are as understated and matter-of-fact as the rest of the picture, signaling that writer-director Gavin Hood (adapting a novel by playwright Athol Fugard) made sure everyone was on the same page right from the start. ***

THE WILD Comparisons to the fine Madagascar aren't necessary to point out the myriad shortcomings of The Wild, which manages to be abysmal on its own terms. Fast-paced is one thing -- Bugs Bunny and crew all but turned it into an art form -- but this ADD-affected movie seems to have been made by mentally stunted adults after they've popped a dozen uppers and downed two dozen cups of coffee. The CGI animation is impressively lifelike, though it begs the recurring question as to why we would want our animated movies to not look like animated movies. Everything else about this toxic toon is intolerable, especially the sidekicks who accompany Samson the lion (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) as he leaves the comforts of the New York zoo to search for his wayward son in a faraway jungle. Nigel the koala (Eddie Izzard) rates a special mention, emerging as the most loathsome animated character since Martin Short's insufferable robot B.E.N. in Treasure Planet. *

OPENS FRIDAY, APRIL 28:

AKEELAH AND THE BEE: Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne.

HARD CANDY: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page.

RV: Robin Williams, Kristin Chenoweth.

STICK IT: Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym.

UNITED 93: David Alan Basche, JJ Johnson.