New Releases
LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD Looking for comedy is fine, but it would have been better if Albert Brooks had gone looking for balance in his latest screen undertaking. Fans of the self-effacing comic will find many moments to cherish here, but overall, Brooks never has a clear handle on the material and as a result the movie slips away from him. Playing himself, Brooks finds that he's been chosen (only because more popular comedians weren't available) by the US government to go to I
ndia and return with a 500-page report on what makes Muslims laugh. Assisted by two low-level bureaucrats (John Carroll Lynch and Jon Tenney) and a bright Indian student (lovely Sheetal Sheth), he hits the streets of Delhi, puts on a concert and even illegally sneaks across the border into Pakistan to interview some aspiring comedians. Even taking into account its sizable Muslim population, India proves to be a curious setting for a film that should logically take place in the Middle East, but a similar half-baked attitude plagues the entire production, which contains several choice moments but never gathers any real steam as it heads toward its soggy conclusion. Despite a few soft jabs at topical issues -- for instance, how the mere suggestion of an American presence on foreign soil might be enough to create an international incident -- the movie is ultimately more about Brooks' attempts to gauge his own waning popularity than to provide any insights into another culture. Rating: **
Current Releases
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN The secret behind this adaptation of Annie Proulx's short story is that behind its convenient (and infuriating) designation as "the gay cowboy movie," this is as universal as any cinematic love story of recent times. Scripters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and director Ang Lee have managed to make a movie that vibrates on two separate settings: It's a story about the love between two men, yes, but it's also a meditation on the strict societal rules that keep any two people -- regardless of gender, race, class, religion, etc. -- out of each other's arms. In detailing the relationship between Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), Brokeback Mountain is about longing and loneliness as much as it's about love -- indeed, loss and regret become tangible presences in the film. Gyllenhaal delivers a nicely modulated performance, but this is clearly Ledger's show: He's phenomenal as Ennis, and his character's anguish causes our own hearts to break on his behalf. Rating: ***1/2
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE Christians, heathens and everyone in between will be inspired to hold hands and sway to the gentle rhythms of this epic yarn. C.S. Lewis' source material -- the first book in a series of seven Narnia adventures -- sprinkled Christian allegories throughout a fantasy tale that was aimed primarily at children, and the movie steadfastly respects Lewis' intentions. Like the best kid flicks, it never talks down to its target audience, and its religious themes -- issues involving honor, forgiveness and redemption -- embody the true spirit of Christianity and in effect serve as an antidote to the sadistic theatrics of Mel Gibson's garish snuff film, The Passion of the Christ. With its story of four plucky siblings attempting to save a strange land from the machinations of an evil queen (Tilda Swinton), this seems as inspired by the recent Lord of the Rings flicks as by anything on the written page. But the child actors are appealing, the supporting critters add color and the brisk story line fuels the imagination. Rating: ***
HOODWINKED This independent toon flick isn't exactly awful, but with its crude animation, lumbering story line and forgettable songs, it's hard to envision any demand even for its mere existence. Clearly aping the Shrek films, this attempts to put a spin on the classic children's fairy tales by adding all manner of so-called "hip" references and grownup-geared plot maneuverings, approaches that grow more stale with each passing year. Hoodwinked is basically Little Red Riding Hood by way of Rashomon, as amphibious Detective Nicky Flippers (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) hears variations on the saga from four different participants: Red (Anne Hathaway), Granny (Glenn Close), the Wolf (Patrick Warburton) and the Woodsman (Jim Belushi). Viewers who haven't completely Zenned out during the showing will easily guess the identity of the true culprit. Rating: *1/2
KING KONG Does Peter Jackson's heavily hyped remake of the 1933 masterpiece improve on its landmark predecessor? Of course not. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to think of any area in which it's better than the original -- even the occasionally crude effects from 1933, crafted from blood, sweat, tears and tiny models, stir the soul more than the CGI trickery on view here. But on its own terms, this new version gets the job done. In essence, Jackson has taken the 103-minute original and stretched it out to a 190-minute running time. The three-act structure remains intact, however, as filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) and actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) journey to Skull Island, meet the great ape and bring him back to New York City. Despite an abundance of thrills, Jackson respects that King Kong is above all else a love story between woman and beast -- and it's a measure of Watts' skills that she generates enormous chemistry with an animal that's created out of computer codes rather than flesh and blood. Rating: ***1/2
LAST HOLIDAY There's very little innovation on view in this predictable picture (a remake of a 1950 comedy starring Alec Guinness), but Queen Latifah and her supporting cast -- to say nothing of the eye-popping shots of delectable food dishes -- go a long way toward making it digestible. Latifah plays a store clerk who, upon learning that she'll die in three weeks, cashes in all her assets and heads off to a swanky European resort to spend her final days in luxury. The message of the film is that everyone -- no matter their lot in life -- should be treated with dignity and respect, but after watching Latifah receive endless massages, hit the snowy slopes and chow down on lobster and lamb, most moviegoers will be forgiven for believing that the real message is that (duh) it's better to be rich than poor. Rating: **1/2
MATCH POINT An upwardly mobile tennis instructor (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in London woos a rich woman (Emily Mortimer) but finds himself lusting after an American actress (Scarlett Johansson). Writer-director Woody Allen may have caught a showing of Fatal Attraction before embarking on his screenplay, but more likely, he was inspired by classics of film and literature (most notably Crime and Punishment). Given his reference points, this finds him in a contemplative mood, examining the tug-of-war between love and lust and allowing his protagonist plenty of opportunities to mull over the degree to which blind luck shapes our lives. The film is exceedingly well-written and exquisitely performed (Johansson stands out in her best performance to date), yet for all its dissimilarities to past Allen films, it still ends up playing like a remake of Crimes and Misdemeanors: Allen could have offered more surprises and still retained his thematic stance. But for the most part, Match Point delivers on its premise, and it's gratifying to see Woody back in the game. Rating: ***
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA Director Rob Marshall's adaptation of the Arthur Golden novel plays like a Disney version of a Zhang Yimou movie, though the end result isn't as dreadful as that designation might suggest. While set in Japan, this examines many of the same sorts of clashes as Zhang's Chinese epics, yet Marshall (Chicago) isn't able to transform his film into anything more than a lush melodrama filled with pomp and pageantry. As movie artifice, it's above average, but it goes no deeper than that. The struggles of the characters -- particularly the penniless foster child who grows up to become the legendary geisha known as Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang) -- make for adequate screen entertainment, though the movie curiously mutes the tragic dimension of women being bartered over and sold like trinkets in an open-air marketplace. The entire cast is fine, but the best performance comes from Gong Li as the seasoned geisha who makes life difficult for Sayuri. Rating: **1/2
MUNICH Steven Spielberg's Munich is largely a fictionalization of the events that transpired after that tragic day at the 1972 Olympics in Germany, when a group of Palestinian terrorists slaughtered the Israeli athletes they were holding as hostages. The movie reveals that the Israeli government sent a select band of assassins to eliminate everyone who was responsible for the massacre. But these characters aren't positioned as Israel's version of The Untouchables, with clear-cut visions of right and wrong. Instead, as they carry out each hit on their eye-for-an-eye agenda, each man reacts differently to the consequences of their actions. Is this brand of retribution just? Or are they in effect embracing the same ideology that drives the terrorists? Spielberg's muddying of the moral waters is already drawing heat, but it's to his credit as a filmmaker of consequence that he asks the hard questions and doesn't flinch from any unsettling truths that might emerge. Rating: ***
THE NEW WORLD It seems almost incidental that Terrence Malick uses actors and scripts and props while creating his works, because what he's producing are visual poems. As always, the cameraman is the star, yet any ambience created in tandem by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and Malick repeatedly dissipates in the face of the plodding treatment of fascinating material: the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and, more specifically, the relationship between lithe Native American girl Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) and sensitive English settler John Smith (Colin Farrell). Hitchcock once cracked that actors should be treated like cattle, but Malick seems to have adopted that statement as philosophy: His indifference to the accomplished performers milling around the set (Christopher Plummer and Christian Bale among them) is so apparent that one almost wonders why he didn't just cast this with mannequins (he seems equally bored with prose). Where's a mischievous raccoon when you really need one? Rating: **
THE PRODUCERS Mel Brooks' 1968 movie was resurrected by the comic legend himself as a Broadway musical that scored with critics and audiences alike. That another movie version would follow is no surprise; what's startling is how the picture plays as little more than a static filming of the stage play, barely more mobile than those one-set Shakespeare dramatizations that used to pop up regularly on PBS. Yet director Susan Stroman's staging is by no means a death blow. On the contrary, The Producers functions in much the same way as the recent screen adaptation of Rent by emphasizing melody and mirth over movement -- in fact, it works even better thanks to the presence of master ham Nathan Lane. In the Gene Wilder role of the timid accountant Leo Bloom, Matthew Broderick strains too hard to be funny; Lane, on the other hand, is a riot in the Zero Mostel part of Max Bialystock, the struggling producer who determines that a dreadful show called Springtime for Hitler is his ticket to riches. Rating: ***
OPENS FRIDAY, JANUARY 27:
ANNAPOLIS: James Franco, Tyrese Gibson.
BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE 2: Martin Lawrence, Nia Long.
THE MATADOR: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear.
NANNY MCPHEE: Emma Thompson, Colin Firth.
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