The Day the Earth Stood Still
– While the original 1951 sci-fi classic was a simple story of
deep ideas, Keanu Reeves’ remake is an overblown, puny-minded tale
featuring extraterrestrials too stupid or lazy to do a background
check on the species they condemn. Alien Klaatu (Reeves) arrives,
makes a halfhearted request for huma
nity to take better care of the Earth, then decides our species
isn’t worth the bother. After targeting humankind for
extermination, he abruptly flip-flops and realizes we have our good
points, too, and rushes around to reverse cataclysmic events he’s
set in motion. Jennifer Connelly’s hard to buy a
s an astro-biologist who befriends the alien, and Kathy Bates is
horribly miscast as the U.S. defense secretary. The stiff and stony
Reeves scores a new high on his own personal Zen-meter, coming
across as so aloof and lifeless that he might as well have played
Klaatu’s inscrutable robot pal, Gort.
Action, PG-13.
Hitting the theaters
Opening this week
By the Associated Press
The Day the Earth Stood Still – While the original 1951 sci-fi classic was a simple story of deep ideas, Keanu Reeves’ remake is an overblown, puny-minded tale featuring extraterrestrials too stupid or lazy to do a background check on the species they condemn. Alien Klaatu (Reeves) arrives, makes a halfhearted request for humanity to take better care of the Earth, then decides our species isn’t worth the bother. After targeting humankind for extermination, he abruptly flip-flops and realizes we have our good points, too, and rushes around to reverse cataclysmic events he’s set in motion. Jennifer Connelly’s hard to buy as an astro-biologist who befriends the alien, and Kathy Bates is horribly miscast as the U.S. defense secretary. The stiff and stony Reeves scores a new high on his own personal Zen-meter, coming across as so aloof and lifeless that he might as well have played Klaatu’s inscrutable robot pal, Gort. Action, PG-13.
Doubt – For a film about moral ambiguity, “Doubt” does an awful lot of hand-holding. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, a charismatic, mavericky Catholic priest, is obviously a good guy, even though he’s suspected of sexually abusing the school’s only black male student. Meryl Streep, as the principal at St. Nicholas in the Bronx, is obviously the villain for her unflappable certitude and fearsome authoritarianism. None of the above is ever in question as writer-director John Patrick Shanley brings his Pulitzer Prize-winning play to the screen.
Shanley, whose only previous directing effort was 1990’s “Joe Versus the Volcano,” lacks the ability as a filmmaker to wring much nuance out of his own material in cinametic form. He relies too heavily on obvious symbolism to suggest turmoil – a torrential storm that furiously churns leaves and snaps tree branches, for example – rather than allowing the story’s innate tension to play out for itself. Streep is really acting here; you can see the sausage being made, but at least it’s an amusing process. She’s just withering as Sister Aloyisius Beauvier, knocking down her students and fellow nuns alike with everything from a roll of the eyes to a smack on the back of the head. Amy Adams has some lovely small moments as the naive young nun torn between her inherent desire to believe the good in Hoffman’s Father Flynn and her allegiance to the skeptical Sister Aloyisius, and Viola Davis has one great scene that provides much-needed context and unexpected perspective as the mother of the boy in question. Drama, PG-13.
Gran Torino – Considering that Clint Eastwood’s most iconic roles have been serious ones, it’s easy to forget that he can be funny – that he possesses terrific timing with his sly sense of humor. He grumbles and growls his way through his most entertaining performance in years as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran and lifelong auto worker who’s disgusted with the changes in his blue-collar, suburban Detroit neighborhood. There are unshakable shades of Dirty Harry here, as well as Frankie Dunn, his curmudgeonly character in 2004’s “Million Dollar Baby,” his most recent screen appearance.
At 78, he combines both the tough and playful sides of his personality – in front of and behind the camera as star and director – with “Gran Torino,” which begins in broadly entertaining fashion but ultimately reveals that it has weightier matters on its mind. Having just buried his saintly wife, all the retired Walt wants to do is be left alone with his dog, his guns and his beer. A vocal bigot, he certainly doesn’t want to be bothered by the growing Asian population all around him, and especially not the Hmong family living next door. Despite hurling every imaginable epithet at these people – Nick Schenk’s script is unabashed in its political incorrectness – Walt can’t seem to avoid them. Sure, the premise is predictable. You know from the beginning that Walt’s contact with his neighbors will soften him. And maybe the performances are a bit stiff from his young actors, all untrained first-timers. But “Gran Torino” becomes more intriguing as the journey its takes us on evolves and grows darker. Drama, R.
Nothing Like the Holidays – Like the plantains and empanadillas that adorn the film’s Christmas dinner table, “Nothing Like the Holidays” is comfort food. Though its title suggests uniqueness, “Nothing Like the Holidays” is exactly like most holiday films, with the notable exception of an almost entirely Latin cast. John Leguizamo, Freddy Rodriguez and Vanessa Ferlito play the sons and daughter of Edy (Alfred Molina) and Anna Rodriguez (Elizabeth Pena). As families are wont to do in holiday films, all have congregated for Christmas – in this case, at their home in Chicago’s largely Puerto Rican neighborhood Humboldt Park. “Nothing Like the Holidays” comes from the producers of “Soul Food,” and like that film, revels in its ethnicity. Working from the simpleminded script by Rick Najera and Alison Swan, director Alfredo De Villa (“Washington Heights”) – shooting on location – lets his camera linger on the kitchen cutting board, the snowy urban landscape of Humboldt Park, the traditional Christmas march through the community. It’s at these moments that one realizes “Nothing Like the Holidays” was really meant to be a documentary showing the vibrant, festive Puerto Rican community of Humboldt Park. As a fictional film, though, it needs a story. Comedy, PG-13.
The Reader – As in director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare’s last pairing, 2002’s “The Hours,” “The Reader” has the flawless production values and sheen of prestige that make it easy to admire, and yet an emotional detachment that makes it difficult to embrace fully. Thankfully, Kate Winslet bares not just her body but her soul with a performance that pierces the genteel polish of this high-minded awards-season drama. As the central figure in this adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 novel, Winslet is in the nearly impossible position of trying to make us feel sympathy for a former Nazi concentration camp guard – but, being an actress of great range and depth, she very nearly pulls off that feat completely. What holds her and the film back from greatness is the oversimplification of imagery and symbolism that emerges as “The Reader” progresses, as it morphs from an invigorating love story to a rather conventional courtroom drama. Hare has tweaked the book’s linear narrative, jumping around in time through the recollections of love-struck Michael Berg (played beautifully as a teen by David Kross and more somberly as an adult by Ralph Fiennes). As a stoic, divorced lawyer in the 1990s, Michael reflects on the affair he had in post-World War II Germany with the austere Hanna Schmitz (Winslet), when he was just an innocent 15-year-old and she was a tram worker some 20 years his senior. There’s a palpable giddiness to the way they discover each other, to the way their unlikely affair blossoms, with Michael reading the classics of Homer and Chekhov to Hanna before their afternoon romps in her small, dingy apartment. Then, as a law student eight years later, Michael is stunned to learn the true nature of his first love’s past when he conveniently stumbles upon her trial for Nazi war crimes. Drama, R.
Playing in theaters Dec. 12 – Dec. 18
Australia – Overlong and self-indulgent, Baz Luhrmann’s homage to epic adventure films feels like a slog through the outback itself. And yet it can be a visually wondrous journey, one with striking visuals that will take your breath away again and again. No one ever doubted the director’s capabilities as an inventive aesthetic stylist – this is the man, after all, who dared to set the balcony scene in a swimming pool in his revisionist of “Romeo + Juliet,” who turned “Moulin Rouge!” into a dizzying dance of light and color, complete with Elton John and Nirvana songs.
Here, he focuses his considerable talents on a more traditional genre: the big, old-fashioned, wartime romance. The result is grandiose and dazzling, repetitive and predictable. Set in pre-World War II, “Australia” stars Nicole Kidman as the British aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley, who travels to the Northern Territory ranch of Faraway Downs to confront the absent husband she suspects of philandering. She immediately clashes with the roguishly charming Drover (Hugh Jackman in full-on Sexiest-Man-Alive mode), who works on the ranch, and Luhrmann is clearly aiming to replicate the kind of chemistry Bogart and Hepburn enjoyed in “The African Queen” with their antagonistically flirty banter. Once Lady Ashley discovers her husband is dead, it’s no big shocker that she finds herself falling in love with the place, and with the Drover (and really, how could she resist?). It also comes as no surprise that, after expressing zero fondness for children, she experiences maternal instincts for the impish Aboriginal boy Nullah (Brandon Walters), who’s adorable but also an unfortunate racial stereotype. Drama, PG-13.
Bolt – Harmless as a puppy, “Bolt” comes bounding into theaters, stumbling over its big, goofy paws, wagging its fluffy tail and begging to play ball. It’s sweet and eager to please but, sadly, nothing terribly special: Girl finds dog, girl loses dog, girl gets dog back.
You’ve seen this sort of thing countless times before, namely in any movie with the word “Lassie” in the title. But if you happen to be a girl who loves dogs, you may find yourself wiping away a tear or two. This animated 3-D adventure follows a scrappy, white shelter mutt named Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) who isn’t a superhero, but he plays one on TV. Trouble is, he has no idea he’s an actor in a role. He thinks he’s really saving plucky, young Penny (Miley Cyrus) – his “person,” as he’s so proud to call her – from bad guys and explosions over and over again. When Bolt accidentally gets shipped across the country from Hollywood to New York City, in totally contrived fashion, he must make that tried-and-true, intrepid trek back home. Along the way he befriends the street-wise, wisecracking alley cat, Mittens (Susie Essman in a slightly less vulgar mode than you’d find her on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), and the overeager, overfed hamster Rhino (the scene-stealing Mark Walton), who’s obsessed with television and is totally psyched about the prospect of being Bolt’s crime-fighting sidekick. A sort of small, furry Louie Anderson look-alike, the delusional hamster is an undeniable hoot but “Bolt” goes to him a few times too many for the reliable laugh; a little of Rhino goes a long way. Animated, PG.
Four Christmases – The size difference between Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon isn’t the only thing keeping them apart. His signature rat-a-tat overconfidence and her pleasing girl-next-door perkiness turn out to be an awkward mix. Individually likable, Vaughn and Witherspoon never mesh as a couple. And that’s a problem, since we’re meant to root for them to stick together through the myriad obstacles thrown their way during one massively contrived Christmas. It doesn’t help their cause that they’re saddled with hackneyed holiday gags: wacky relatives making inappropriate remarks, decorations that cause severe bodily harm, uncomfortable gift exchanges. And “Four Christmases” began with some promise, too.
Vaughn’s Brad and Witherspoon’s Kate are a happily unmarried couple. They keep things lively by role-playing at bars, as they do in the film’s amusingly naughty opening, and they lie to their families about doing charity work to avoid seeing them during the holidays. Then, when they’re caught on the news getting stuck at the airport on the way to Fiji, they get roped into seeing both sets of parents – who are divorced – hence, they must celebrate four Christmases. The visiting begins in painfully broad fashion with Brad’s family, all white-trash stereotypes led by Robert Duvall. Vaughn makes the movie tolerable here and there with his easy delivery of some brash lines, but this kind of slapsticky physical comedy doesn’t suit Witherspoon, and director Seth Gordon fails to make best use of the qualities that make this bright actress shine. Comedy, PG-13.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – The pampered zoo animals of the 2005 animated hit this time are dropped off on the African mainland for what amounts to more of the same in this shrill, unamusing sequel. Key voice stars Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith return, along with Sacha Baron Cohen and Cedric the Entertainer. Operating on the principle that the bigger the menagerie, the merrier the movie, the filmmakers tack on fresh characters to the point of distraction, including the late Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin and singer will.i.am. With so many characters to cram in and not much for many of them to do, the sequel ends up a choppy, episodic affair.
Whether or not they’ve seen or remember the original flick, young kids will eat up this manic mess, a nonstop rush of slapstick and jabbering dialogue. The noise and mayhem will annoy, or at least bore, most parents, who can take some solace in the movie’s brisk running. Animation, PG.
Punisher: War Zone – Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) is a vigilante anti-hero known as the Punisher. He has been fighting crime outside the law enforcement arena for six years. When he disfigures a mob boss, the man takes on a new alias and sets out to find the Punisher. In the meantime, the FBI has created a Task Force to seek him out, too. Action, R.
Transporter 3 – Jason Statham in another quick action movie where he is a gun for hire who needs to transport goods – usually humans. In this latest installment Frank Martin (Statham) must to deliver the daughter of a Ukranian government official from Marseilles to Odessa. Action, PG-13.
Twilight – Teenage girls will surely squeal with delight throughout this feverishly awaited adaptation of the hugely selling vampire novel. Just the very sight of the word “Twilight” on screen inspired piercing screeches of glee at a recent screening. And the arrival of our tormented monster-hero Edward Cullen is certain to send another wave of shivers, and that’s before he ever sinks his teeth into anything – or anyone.
Director Catherine Hardwicke was also clearly taken by the character, and by the actor playing him, Robert Pattinson: She shoots him as if he were the featured model in an Abercrombie & Fitch ad, adoringly highlighting his angular cheekbones, his amber eyes (with the help of color contacts), those pouty red lips and that lanky frame. He might be too pretty – and perhaps that’s a crucial key to the character’s popularity among girls and young women. He’s a non-threatening, almost asexual vampire. But much of what made the relationship between Edward and the smitten Bella Swan work in Stephenie Meyer’s breezy book is stripped away on screen. The lively banter – the way in which Edward and Bella teased and toyed with one another about their respective immortality and humanity _ is pretty much completely gone, and all that’s left is one-note, adolescent angst. It doesn’t help that, as Bella, Kristen Stewart looks singularly sullen the entire time. She’s supposed to be enraptured by the thrills of her first love. Instead, she merely appears to be in the throes of pain. Bella’s story, for the uninitiated: The quiet, awkward girl moves from Phoenix to rainy Forks, Wash., to live with her police-chief dad (Billy Burke in a bad cop mustache) and quickly finds herself entranced by her mysterious, ethereal classmate Edward. At first, Edward fights his all-consuming attraction to Bella but eventually finds he can’t stay away. Good thing, too, because she’ll need him to protect her from even greater dangers than the one he potentially presents – and that’s where “Twilight” really collapses in a heap of cheesy visual effects. Drama, PG-13.
Hitting the couch
Movies out on DVD and Blu-Ray Dec. 16
Mamma Mia! – The Broadway musical “Mamma Mia!” brings together Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgard. Before Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) marries, she is determined to find out which man is her real father of three of her mother’s former boyfriends. The movie has plenty of hits from ABBA, but hearing Brosnan sing may hurt a few ears. On DVD and Blu-Ray.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) is back to fight the Dragon Emperor in the latest Mummy movie. He is helped along by his son Alex (Luke Ford) and Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah). Adventure, PG-13. On DVD and Blu-Ray.
Burn After Reading – Burn After Reading – The latest film from bothers Ethan and Joel Coen promises to be as much of a screwball as all their other movies. A CIA agent loses a disk with his memoirs, and it ends up in the hands of two gym employees who plan to sell it. The film stars Coen regulars George Clooney and Frances McDormand, as well as Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. Comedy, R. On DVD and Blu-Ray
The House Bunny – House Bunny – Shelly (Anna Faris) is a past her prime Playboy bunny who has just been kicked out of the mansion. She takes on employment as a house mom for a group of misfit sorority girls instead of finding a real job and place to live. Soon she finds she has more to offer the girls than she thought, and they have more to offer her. Also starring Colin Hanks, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings and Julia Lea Wolov. Comedy, PG-13. On DVD
Traitor – When FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) investigates an international conspiracy, all fingers seem to point at Samir Horn (Don Cheadle), a former CIA agent. Also starring Archie Panjabi and Jeff Daniels. Drama, PG-13. On DVD.
Death Race – In the future, the most popular sport will be a race to the death involving cars. Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is a former convict who is forced into just such a race by the warden (Joan Allen) of a prison. He must find a way to survive the death match. Action, R. On DVD and Blu-Ray
Television shows out on DVD Dec. 16
Generation Kill – A Rolling Stone reporter, embedded with The 1st Recon Marines chronicles his experiences during the first wave of the American-led assault on Baghdad in 2003. On DVD.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. 6
Ice Road Truckers: The complete Season Two
