Hitting the theaters
Opening this week
Body of Lies
–
”
Rendition.
”
”
Redacted.
”
”
The Kingdom.
”
”
In the Valley of Elah.
”
”
Lions for Lambs.
”
They’re all movies about the war on terror that nobody has
wanted to see, either because the topic is too daunting or too much
of a downer, or it’s simply too soon after 9/11. Soon, you’ll be
able to add
”
Body of Lies
”
to that list, even though it’s probably the most worthwhile and
least preachy of the bunch. The pieces would all seem to be in
place for a compelling take on this complex topic: strong work from
acting heavyweights Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio; an
intricate script from William Monahan, an Academy Award winner
for
”
The Departed
”
; and the virtuoso visual styling of director Ridley Scott. Of
course, it looks great as it bounces breathlessly between Iraq and
Jordan, Qatar and the Netherlands, Dubai and the Virginia suburbs.
And yet the result, with its many explosions and shootouts, too
often feels like a generic action picture, albeit one with
weightier stuff on its mind.
Based on the novel of the same name by Washington Post columnist
David Ignatius, whose knowledge of the subject matter would seem to
be unimpeachable,
”
Body of Lies
”
follows undercover CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio), who’s
trying to ferret out the mastermind behind a series of anonymous
bombings around the world. At the same time, Ferris’ boss, Ed
Hoffman (Crowe), is running surveillance and plotting strategy from
home with the help of his ever-present cell-phone headset and
laptop. But despite their shared goals and mutual dependence,
Ferris and Hoffman often end up miscommunicating and undermining
each other. This becomes especially true when Ferris tries to chat
up the smooth Jordanian intelligence chief (Mark Strong, who nearly
steals the whole movie). R for strong violence, including some
torture, and for language throughout. 128 min. Two and a half stars
out of four.
Hitting the theaters
Opening this week
By The Associated Press
Body of Lies – “Rendition.” “Redacted.” “The Kingdom.” “In the Valley of Elah.” “Lions for Lambs.” They’re all movies about the war on terror that nobody has wanted to see, either because the topic is too daunting or too much of a downer, or it’s simply too soon after 9/11. Soon, you’ll be able to add “Body of Lies” to that list, even though it’s probably the most worthwhile and least preachy of the bunch. The pieces would all seem to be in place for a compelling take on this complex topic: strong work from acting heavyweights Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio; an intricate script from William Monahan, an Academy Award winner for “The Departed”; and the virtuoso visual styling of director Ridley Scott. Of course, it looks great as it bounces breathlessly between Iraq and Jordan, Qatar and the Netherlands, Dubai and the Virginia suburbs. And yet the result, with its many explosions and shootouts, too often feels like a generic action picture, albeit one with weightier stuff on its mind.
Based on the novel of the same name by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, whose knowledge of the subject matter would seem to be unimpeachable, “Body of Lies” follows undercover CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio), who’s trying to ferret out the mastermind behind a series of anonymous bombings around the world. At the same time, Ferris’ boss, Ed Hoffman (Crowe), is running surveillance and plotting strategy from home with the help of his ever-present cell-phone headset and laptop. But despite their shared goals and mutual dependence, Ferris and Hoffman often end up miscommunicating and undermining each other. This becomes especially true when Ferris tries to chat up the smooth Jordanian intelligence chief (Mark Strong, who nearly steals the whole movie). R for strong violence, including some torture, and for language throughout. 128 min. Two and a half stars out of four.
The Express – When Ernie Davis (Rob Brown) joined the football team of the Syracuse Orangemen, he started on a journey that would change history. His work as a running back earned him the Heisman Trophy, and he became the first African-American ever to earn that honor. The film follows his journey on the field and his relationship with his coach Ben Schwartzwalder (Dennis Quaid). Though his NFL career never got off the ground, he became a symbol for the civil rights movement. Drama/Biography, PG.
Quarantine – Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) is a young reporter looking for the big story that will jumpstart her career. She and her cameraman (Steve Harris) go out at night in search of stories, one night tailing a local fire crew. When the crew gets a call from an old lady trapped inside an apartment building, they start a rescue mission. But the tenants of the building have been trapped for a reason and film quickly spirals into a thriller. Also starring Jay Hernandez and Johnathon Schaech. Horror, R.
Playing Oct. 10 – Oct. 16
Pinnacle staff report
Appaloosa – Two friends are hired to sherriff a western town, but things are complicated when a widow shows up in town. Drama, R.
Beverly Hills Chihuahua – Warning: This film contains talking animals – and their not animated. In the film from Raja Gosnell, a shi-shi Beverly Hills Chihuahua gets parted from her owner while on vacation from Mexico. Voiced by Drew Barrymore, Chloe runs into a motley crew of Mexican dogs as she tries to find her way back home across the border. Comedy, PG.
Blindness – The blind literally lead the blind – to hell and back – in this pretentious, preposterous allegory. An unnamed disease afflicts the unnamed citizens of an unnamed city, all of which is too precious. The victims are left sightless but they see white instead of black, a sensation one character compares to “swimming in milk.” Once they’re rounded up by soldiers and quarantined in a grubby, abandoned mental asylum, their worst primal instincts emerge: urination and defecation in the hallways, theft, assaults and, ultimately, rape. The physical and moral deterioration calls to mind the situation in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, but director Fernando Meirelles, in adapting a novel by Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago, is clearly trying to suggest that society similarly could collapse anywhere, anytime. Rather than being thought-provoking, though, the whole dreary exercise feels like an overlong beat-down – as if we’re being scolded just for showing up. Even Julianne Moore can’t liven up this slog, despite a typically strong performance as the one person who can still see (which is never explained, probably because it’s an arbitrary plot device). She pretends she’s blind, though, to stay with her husband (Mark Ruffalo), who is an eye doctor. Other victims include a little boy, a hooker with a heart of gold (Alice Braga) and an elderly man (Danny Glover), all of whom were the doctor’s patients, and a bartender (Gael Garcia Bernal) at the hotel where the prostitute worked. Thriller, R.
Eagle Eye – When Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) receive mysterious phone calls, they have to stick together to protect their families and to stay alive. Each phone call pushes the pair to put themselves in even more dangerous situations and makes them watned fugitives. Action, PG-13.
How To Lose Friends & Alienate People – After “The Devil Wears Prada” detailed an up-and-comer at Vogue magazine, “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People” attempts to do the same with Vanity Fair. Cross your fingers that Hollywood eventually gets to Field & Stream. Based on the memoir by Toby Young, “How to Lose Friends” is about a British journalist named Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) hired from across the pond to come to New York and write celebrity profiles for Sharps magazine – a clear stand-in for Vanity Fair, complete with a doppelganger for Graydon Carter, played by Jeff Bridges. Surrounded by serious, unfunny and superficial colleagues, Sidney is a loutish, uncool party crasher who cheerfully claims “Con Air” is the greatest film ever made. Here, Americans are the straight men, the ones that need to loosen up. Only fellow scribe Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst) can stand his boorish behavior, and only just. There is some satire here of the entertainment industry, but where there might be biting observation, there are mostly pratfalls, “limpy pig” dances and full-frontal nudity. Comedy, R.
Lakeview Terrace – In this drama, a Los Angeles Police Department officer (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to force an interracial couple who just moved in to leave the neighborhood. Instead of taking the harrassment from the self-appointed neighborhood watchman, they fight back. Also starring Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington. Thriller, PG-13.
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist – Someday, Michael Cera will show us what else he can do. He surely must have someone else inside him besides the poignantly verbal but sweetly awkward nerd we’ve come to know and love in such movies as “Superbad” and “Juno,” and the late, great TV series “Arrested Development.” For now, though, Cera is that guy again, but he also shows some potential as a viable romantic lead – albeit an unconventional one. He and Kat Dennings have a lively, easy chemistry with each other as a couple of high school seniors prowling the streets of New York on an all-night quest to find their favorite underground band. Cera’s Nick is an average middle-class New Jersey kid who is obsessed with Tris (Alexis Dziena), the unfaithful ex-girlfriend who dumped him, and the CD mixes he makes for her of his favorite indie rock tunes aren’t winning her back. But they do win the heart of Dennings’ Norah, a classmate of Tris’ who thinks Nick must be the coolest guy in the world, based solely on his musical taste. One night, through a convoluted confluence of events, Nick and Norah find themselves thrown together. The comedy from Peter Sollett (“Raising Victor Vargas”), based on the book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, is aimed squarely at 20-something hipsters, but it’s a worthy successor to those 1980s John Hughes movies that were sweetly romantic without trying hard to be. Romantic comedy, PG-13.
Nights in Rodanthe – Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane) is married to Jack (Christopher Meloni) with a couple of kids at home. But when she becomes overwhelmed, she heads to a tiny coastal town to take care of her friend’s bed and breakfast for the weekend. There she meets Paul Flanner (Richard Gere), a doctor who is trying to reunite with his estranged son. Based on the book by Nicholas Sparks. Drama, PG-13.
Hitting the couch
Movies out on DVD and Blu-Ray Oct. 14
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Nearly 20 years after he literally rode off into the sunset, the world’s most-famous archaeologist-adventurer returned to the big-screen, a bit rustier for the mileage but still able to throw a good punch. The summer blockbuster reunites Harrison Ford’s Indy with the love of his life, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, reprising her “Raiders of the Lost Ark” role), and introduces Shia LaBeouf as the couple’s love child, who tags along on a quest involving aliens from another dimension. Spielberg notes in an interview segment on the two-disc DVD and Blu-ray sets that he always viewed the sunset shot that ends “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” to be his farewell to Indy but that Ford, executive producer George Lucas and the fans would not let the franchise rest. While Spielberg said no to Lucas’ initial idea to have Indy in an all-out battle with extraterrestrials, he eventually came around to a compromise story that pitted Indy and Soviet operatives (including Cate Blanchett) in a Cold War race to discover the alien power of a crystal skull. Extras include extensive behind-the-scenes material on visual effects, stunts, makeup and the far-flung locations where the movie was shot. The two-disc DVD set also comes in a “Complete Adventure Collection” that includes previously available single-disc releases of the first three Indy flicks. Two-disc DVD set, $39.99; two-disc Blu-ray set, $39.99; “Complete Adventure” DVD set, $99.98. (Paramount)
Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection – Eight of the suspense master’s tales are gathered in a boxed set, led by Hitchcock’s best-picture Academy Award winner “Rebecca,” starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, the Ingrid Bergman classics “Spellbound,” co-starring Gregory Peck, and “Notorious,” with Cary Grant. Also included are “Lifeboat,” featuring Tallulah Bankhead; “The Paradine Case,” with Peck; “Sabotage,” adapted from Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent”; and the murder mysteries “The Lodger” and “Young and Innocent.” The eight-disc package comes with a 32-page booklet with background on Hitchcock, while each film has commentary from cinema historians and a mix of featurettes and vintage interviews with the director. Some of the movies also are accompanied by radio dramatizations that aired in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, and the set features an American Film Institute tribute to Hitchcock. “Rebecca,” “Spellbound” and “Notorious” also are available separately. DVD set, $119.98; “Rebecca,” “Spellbound,” “Notorious” DVDs, $19.98 each. (20th Century Fox)
War, Inc. – John Cusack, Dan Aykroyd, Hilary Duff and Marisa Tomei star in a satire about the business of war that centers on a U.S. operative who goes undercover in a corporate overseas job to carry out the assassination of a foreign oil minister. DVD, $28.98; Blu-ray, $34.98. (First Look)
Chaplin – Robert Downey Jr. stars as comedy legend Charles Chaplin in Richard Attenborough’s film biography, which gets a DVD makeover in a 15th-anniversary edition that includes two featurettes and a home movie on Chaplin. Attenborough also contributes fresh recollections about the film. DVD, $19.98. (Lionsgate)
Televisions out on DVD Oct. 14
That ’70s Show: The Complete Series Stash Box – Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher and their pals from the decade of disco and bell-bottoms return with this massive set packing all 200 episodes of the comedy series. The 32-disc set has dozens of background segments, along with commentary and a booklet with cast interviews, photos and a copy of the series finale script. DVD set, $199.98. (20th Century Fox)
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – The Eighth Season – William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger lead the Vegas team in the flagship series of the forensics franchise. Season eight’s 17 episodes come in a five-disc set. DVD set, $84.98. (Paramount)
The Unit: Season 3 – Dennis Haysbert stars as the leader of a U.S. military strike force carrying out top-secret missions. The three-disc set has the third year’s 11 episodes, most accompanied by cast and crew commentary. The package also has deleted scenes and a handful of featurettes. DVD set, $39.98. (20th Century Fox)
Nash Bridges: The First Season – Don Johnson and Cheech Marin are San Francisco cops in the crime series that debuted in 1996. A two-disc set has the first eight episodes, plus commentary and interviews with Johnson and Marin. DVD set, $42.99. (Paramount)
The Partridge Family: The Complete Third Season – Shirley Jones, David Cassidy, Susan Dey and the family that sings together return with a three-disc set packing all 25 episodes from year three. DVD set, $29.95. (Sony)
The Universe: The Complete Season Two – The science series explores space travel, supernovas, black holes, the possibility of alien life and other cosmic matters. The second season’s 18 episodes are included in a five-disc set. DVD set, $44.95. (A&E)
