New Releases
CLERKS II Even as the lone wolf reviewer who considers Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back a guilty pleasure of the most shameless order, it saddens me that I can't offer Kevin Smith's latest Jersey hurl similar props. The sequel to the 1994 film that placed Smith on the indie map in the first place, Clerks II is pretty much what you'd expect from this often crude, often insightful filmmaker, only with too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Twelve years down the road, wishy-washy Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and foul-mouthed Randal (Jeff Anderson) are still the clerks at the Quick Stop convenience store -- at least until it burns down at the start of this film. The pair then take jobs flipping burgers for the Mooby's fast food chain (also seen in Dogma), and a year down the road finds Dante planning to marry his dominant girlfriend (Jennifer Schwalbach) and move to Florida to work for her dad. Randal isn't happy that his buddy will be abandoning him; neither is Becky (Rosario Dawson, quite delightful here), the Mooby's manager who enjoys her easygoing relationship with Dante. That's more than enough plot, since with Smith, the wordplay's the thing. There's a lengthy argument between film geeks from the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings camps, a lengthy chat on the grossness of a particular sex act, and a lengthy discussion on whether Dante should be content with his present existence or whether it's really necessary for him to leave the Jersey turf he's always called home and rebuild his life from scratch. The verbal exchanges aren't as clever as in past Smith flicks, and while the romance and the raunch coexisted easily in the wonderful Chasing Amy (still his best film), here they're often at odds: It's already pushing it that Smith has two characters make their declarations of love at a site where a hairy brute plans to both blow and screw a donkey, but Smith upsets the balance by allowing the scene to continue for an eternity. Even those reliable cutups Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) aren't allowed to live up to their potential. **
STRANGERS WITH CANDY A riff on the popular (if short-lived) Comedy Central show of the same name, Strangers With Candy is a mess as a movie: crudely shot, flatly staged and lazily plotted. Even the laughs -- and there are a handful of notable ones -- don't always come easily. Yet when compared to recent sourballs like You, Me and Dupree and Little Man, this is bleedin' Young Frankenstein. The key to its success -- at least, whatever success it can muster -- is the manic work of Amy Sedaris, who plays 40-something junkie-whore Jerri Blank. Recently released from prison -- and learning that her dear daddy (Dan Hedaya) has been in a coma for decades -- Jerri decides to straighten out her life by picking up where she left off when she ran away from home as a teenager. In other words, she goes back to high school, where her odd (to say the least) appearance and habits earn her the scorn of the popular kids and relegates her to also-ran status along with the typical assemblage of geeks (including the requisite pretty girl made to look ungainly, winningly played here by Maria Thayer). The central plot thrust -- Jerri hopes to win a science competition -- is so formulaic that even as spoof material, it never jibes with the quirkiness that defines the rest of the picture. But that won't matter to Sedaris devotees, who will be happy enough to see the comedienne tackling her signature role one more time. Strangers With Candy isn't subtle -- for instance, the school's black principal (Gregory Hollimon, like Thayer a series regular) is called Principal Blackman -- and the crudity runs rampant. But while it doesn't appear to have much going for it, it's admittedly one of the few recent gross-out comedies that manages to serve up some nyuks to go along with the yucks. **1/2
Current Releases
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA Meryl Streep deserves all the accolades she can stomach for her poison-dipped performance in this satisfying screen version of Lauren Weisberger's best-selling novel. As Miranda Priestley, the ice-cold and rock-hard editor of the fashion magazine Runway, Streep delivers a terrific comic performance, as rich as the ones she gave in Postcards from the Edge and the otherwise unwatchable She-Devil. But let's not undervalue the contribution of Anne Hathaway (Brokeback Mountain), who's just fine as Andy Sachs, a college grad whose cluelessness about the fashion industry proves to be a drawback in her stint as Miranda's worked-to-the-bone assistant. (Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt, as Andy's more seasoned and more cynical coworkers, likewise deserve kudos.) The film's peeks into the fashion world are amusing, and the script makes some salient points about the lengths to which a person will allow themselves to be humiliated simply to hold onto a job. Once the focus turns to Andy's crisis of conscience, the picture loses some of its bite. But not Meryl, whose ferocious work continues to take a sizable chunk out of the couture culture. ***
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH The cacophonous naysaying has already begun (largely by those who haven't seen the movie, natch), but this absorbing documentary about global warming gently pushes a message that all Americans of sound mind and good conscience can embrace: Let's work together to make the world a better place. It's a tall order, but the beauty of the film is that it inspires audience members to actually believe they can be a part of something important -- as Gore notes, all the resources are already available for combating global warming, and the only thing that's missing is "political will." Personal anecdotes, charts, slide shows and even cartoons are employed to allow the information to be easily digested by almost anyone. As for Gore, he's far more personable and animated than he ever was on the campaign trail -- what remains unchanged is his blazing intelligence, a far cry from the monosyllabic chimp presently sitting in the White House. As has been the case with Jimmy Carter, getting ousted from office might end up being the best way for Gore to serve his country. ***1/2
LITTLE MAN When an unsuspecting couple (Shawn Wayans and Kerry Washington) end up in possession of a stolen diamond, criminal dwarf Calvin Sims (Marlon Wayans) disguises himself as a baby in order to infiltrate their home and retrieve the priceless bauble. A robustly performed sequence involving a rectal thermometer is amusing (or maybe I just felt compelled to laugh at something), but the rest is slapdash and bare, despite Marlon's Herculean efforts to turn Calvin into a notable comic creation. The incessant barrage of just-under-the-MPAA-radar crudity leaves the impression that director Keenen Ivory Wayans felt constrained by a PG-13 rating when he really had an R in mind. I'm not saying an R rating would have necessarily made Little Man a better movie, but at least it would have made it a more honest one. *1/2
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST Those expecting amazing feats of derring-do won't be disappointed by this sequel to the 2003 smash. The effects-driven action scenes are clearly the picture's highlights, and they alone make this worth the price of admission. But while the first Pirates felt like both a self-contained movie and the theme park attraction on which it was based, this one just feels like a roller coaster ride, full of momentary thrills but leaving little in its wake except a sudden desire to rest for a minute. It isn't breathless as much as it grows tiresome, and it's especially depressing to see how little the characters have been allowed to evolve. The central thrust finds Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) tangling with the ghostly Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in an effort to save his own soul from eternal damnation; it's possible that his scheme will require sacrificing his friends (Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley), but that's a compromise the self-serving Jack can accept. The best fantasy tales are often the ones in which the special effects are subservient to the characters, not the other way around; still, this moves quick enough to keep most customers satisfied. **1/2
A SCANNER DARKLY Once again employing the rotoscoping process that he used in 2001's Waking Life (basically, filming in live-action and then tracing over the images), writer-director Richard Linklater this time unleashes the technique on Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel -- a match made in hallucinatory heaven. Seven years from now, 20 percent of the population will be comprised of junkies, and the US government is trying its best to break the nation of its habit. It sends an agent known only as Fred (Keanu Reeves) into the field to track down the suppliers of a deadly drug called Substance D. Posing as a slacker named Bob Arctor, he forges relationships with several dopers (Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane), but as his own use of Substance D continues to fry his brain, he finds it increasingly difficult to ascertain what's real and what's imagined. Even with its animated overlay, A Scanner Darkly is far more restrained in its storytelling methods than other notable "drug flicks" (Requiem for a Dream, Naked Lunch), though the uniqueness of its visual style (that "scramble suit" is a wow!) nevertheless insures that there's always something eye-catching on view. ***
SUPERMAN RETURNS A viewer would have to go back 28 years to find the motion picture that still ranks as the finest superhero movie ever made. The 1978 version of Superman still holds up beautifully, with dazzling special effects, plenty of heart and spunk, and career performances by Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder as Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Director Bryan Singer (X-Men and X2) has a great affinity for that film, and he pays his respects with a new picture that's neither a remake nor a direct repudiation; instead, he imagines Superman Returns as a continuation of the original saga, a chance to advance the story without radically altering it. Like Christopher Nolan with Batman Begins, Singer has elected to add dramatic heft to a deceptively simple comic-book framework, by spending as much screen time on the characters' mental battles as on the gee-whiz theatrics of Superman's crime-fighting prowess. The script's mixture of melodrama and mirth seems just right, and newcomer Brandon Routh is effective as the Man of Steel and his bumbling alter ego. ***1/2
WORDPLAY An entertaining and enlightening documentary on, of all things, crossword puzzles, this lovely piece showcases the power of the American language and the pure, untainted joy that puzzle aficionados feel as they interlock their answers in the grids found within the pages of the New York Times. The film's central figure is the Times' crossword editor Will Shortz, though celebrity puzzle fans (Bill Clinton, Ken Burns and Jon Stewart among them) also have their say. As in many recent docs, the movie wraps up with a major competition, in this case the 28th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. This finale will inevitably be compared to the nail-biting contest at the end of Spellbound (a great film that's already established itself as the gold standard in this sub-genre), and in that respect, it does fall short of generating the same level of excitement. But because we're watching a documentary about intellectual excellence, we're not really expecting to find our hearts racing anyway. Wordplay functions as a playful celebration of brain power, and in that respect, it gets its point Across. And Down. ***1/2
YOU, ME AND DUPREE Inflicting pain -- both on its characters and on hapless audiences -- seems to be the play of the day as far as this cesspool of a movie is concerned. Owen Wilson plays Dupree, a slacker who's invited to stay with his best friend Carl (Matt Dillon) and Carl's new wife Molly (Kate Hudson). It takes about 10 seconds before he makes himself a nuisance -- stopping up the toilet, masturbating into Carl's socks and nearly setting the house on fire. This torturous comedy serves as the ultimate litmus test when it comes to one's tolerance of Wilson's patented surfer-boy routine: Effective when used in the service of a likable character, it's endlessly irritating when attached to a role as obnoxious as Dupree. A black-comedy specialist like Danny DeVito might have wrung some wicked laughs out of this material, but the amateurs in charge here rachet up the unpleasantness but fail to leaven it with any compensating humor. *
OPENS FRIDAY, JULY 28:
THE ANT BULLY: Animated; voices of Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts.
JOHN TUCKER MUST DIE: Jesse Metcalfe, Ashanti.
MIAMI VICE: Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell.
SCOOP: Scarlett Johansson, Hugh Jackman.
STRANGERS WITH CANDY: Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert.
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