By Don Morton

The Triplets of Belleville

Sylvain Chomet demonstrates with this satiric, visually stunning film that Miyazaki is not the only one making non-mainstream animations these days. Champion, a top Parisian bicycle racer, is kidnapped by gangsters during the Tour de France and taken to a vaguely North American place called Belleville to compete, in chains, with two other kidnapped bikers, in a bizarre kind of live arcade racing/gambling setup. Whereupon Champion's grandma (and ferocious trainer), Madame de Souza, and his dog set out to rescue him. In Belleville, they run across an eccentric trio of former vaudevillians who help them in their quest. This award-winning delight is endlessly inventive; I mean stuff you could never even imagine imagining. It's in French, but there's precious little talking at all, and none of it important (but great sound design). It's charming but scary, light but mournful, comic yet haunting and clearly quite impossible to describe. Not for kids. Don't miss it. (Japanese title: Belleville Rendez-Vous)

Cinema 8

The Terminal

In this fish-out-of-water fairy tale from Steven Spielberg, a guileless eastern European man (an excellent Tom Hanks) arrives at JFK airport just as there's a coup d'état in his home country. His passport is invalid and he cannot go home, so he must remain in the airport. Which he does for five months. For about 45 minutes, this is an unhurried, sweet and funny film, as our hero sets up house, finds employment, and interacts with a variety of airport denizens. But then it starts to get cute and increasingly forced, and as the belief-suspension requirement mounts, enjoyability suffers.

Cinemas 3 11 45 61 70 90 95 96 101 108 109 110 111 112 113 120 130

Alien vs. Predator

This schlockfest has been judged rather harshly as a cheap gimmick from an astoundingly originality-impaired filmmaker (Paul W.S. Anderson, who gave us the equally sledgehammered Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil), an attempt to resurrect two fading franchises and attract that pivotal demographic: non-reading 11-year-olds. But I'm here to state, unequivocally, that this monster mash is every bit as good as Freddy vs. Jason. Every bit. It effectively dispenses with those pesky human characters, which mostly scream, and with other distractions like plotlines. Who wins? Who cares?

Cinemas 2 10 45 60 90 96 99 101 109 110 111 112 113 120 130

Man on Fire

Revenge-violence flick has a former mercenary with major guilt and drinking problems (Denzel Washington) taking the job of guarding a little girl (Dakota Fanning) in kidnap-prone Mexico City. He's all business at first, but they gradually bond, and their scenes together are the best part of the movie. Then the kidnap happens, and the payoff is bungled. Tony Scott's increasingly grating MTV editing and camera work overwhelm this already thin plot, and it's way too long at 145 minutes, but fine performances by the leads elevate it to the watchable level.

Cinemas 4 5 47 6390 96 109 120 130

Kiss of Life

Peter Mullen is an aid worker in Bosnia so desperate to get back to London and save his marriage that he decides to hitch it. His wife (Ingeborga Dapkunite), is dealing with their two bratty kids and the usual concerns and dangers of life in the big city, and waiting impatiently for his return. One character in this moody British arthouse melodrama seems to exist in an area between life and death. This first effort by Emily Young, though a thoughtful and ambitious exploration of alternate realities, is an intriguing failure, and would perhaps have been more effective as a short.

Cinemas 25

Buffalo Soldiers

Attention in this edgy, feature-length sitcom about some major US military misbehavior in peacetime Germany revolves around a gleefully greedy (and not all that likable) company clerk and black marketeer (Joaquin Phoenix). Think Radar gone bad, or Sgt Bilko meets Heist. His army motto could be "Steal all you can steal." He's got the dim-witted company commander (Ed Harris, cast against type and showing some unexpected comedic talent) in his pocket; he's bonking the commander's wife, and generally takes his dereliction of duty very seriously. Then this new, incorruptible top sergeant (Scott Glenn) shows up with his daughter (Anna Paquin), and the game's afoot. This film had the epic misfortune to have been premiered three days before 9/11, and was shelved for two years, it being considered "unpatriotic" to portray the US military as anything but heroic. It's darkly satiric, spot-on and highly irreverent. But unpatriotic? Please.

Cinema 49

De-Lovely

Cole Porter bio-pic has so many songs (performed with varying degrees of success by artists like Natalie Cole, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall and Robbie Williams) that you'd have to call it a musical. A clever framing device has the aged Porter (an elegant, witty, Kevin Kline) watching a ghostly rehearsal of a musical based on his life. Ashley Judd contributes a beautifully nuanced performance as the love of Porter's life-although a platonic one, as Porter was openly gay. Your enjoyment of this one will of course depend on your appreciation of the man's music. I found it de-lightful.

Cinemas 52 130

How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog

Screwball little film about a glib, curmudgeonly stage director who speaks almost entirely in snide, misanthropic rejoinders and observations. (This would be one of the most irritating, overwritten movie roles of all time were it not for the fact that said curmudgeon is played by the verbally nimble Kenneth Branagh, and he makes it work.) His wife (a dazzling Robin Wright Penn), however, wants kids. The standoff is resolved when he meets a little neighbor girl with a touch of MS and they do the About a Boy thing. Not for everyone, but I found it charming, smart and constantly amusing.

Cinema 42

Stuck on You

It's safe to say that this new flick from those gleefully vulgar, defiantly non-PC Farrelly Brothers (There's Something About Mary; Me, Myself and Irene) is the funniest movie about Siamese twins ever made. Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon are, literally, joined at the hip. No, not immediately funny, but once (if) you get used to the central premise, you will, as is often the case with the Brothers' movies, be laughing in spite of yourself. It works because it's infused with the Brothers' contagious respect for the handicapped, and it's kind of sweet. Cher appears in a hilarious self-satire.

Cinema 32

Wicker Park

This English-language remake of the 1996 French L'Appartement is hard to describe without revealing too much. But I can say that this human thriller involves a love quadrangle and a non-linear time line, offers some fine emotional realism and solid acting throughout (by Josh Hartnett, Rose Byrne, Diane Kruger and Matthew Lillard), and though you will have to pay close attention, this will be rewarded. There are no coincidences. You know you're being jacked around by this increasingly complex (or overplotted; not everyone loved it) mystery, but I had fun figuring out just how.

Cinemas 41 91

The Incredibles

Pixar, the superhero of animators, again pushes the envelope with their most ambitious film to date, the story of a family of superheroes driven to middle-class suburban exile (in the “Superhero Relocation Program”) after being sued too many times for unlawful rescue. Now out of shape and working for an insurance company, Mr. Incredible (voice by Craig T. Nelson) experiences a mid-life crisis and begins doing a little superheroing on the side, and soon the whole family (Holly Hunter as Elastigirl, Sarah Vowell as Violet, who does invisibility and force fields, Spencer Fox as speedy Dashiell, and baby Jack Jack, whose super powers have yet to be determined) is back in the crime-fighting business. Also Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Pena and writer/director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) as “E,” an amusing “Q”-type gadget-master. Everything works in this uplifting film, thanks to a script that’s smart, imaginative and astute. Kids will love it; but it’s the adults who will get it. I’d see it again.

Cinemas 1 4 5 23 40 47 60 70 71 81 82 90 95 96 99 101 109 110 111 112 113 114 120 130

Bad Santa

This unrepentantly rude antidote to Christmas cheer by Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Crumb) is a darkly comic tale about a foul-mouthed, drunk, puking, fornicating, safecracking department store Santa Claus (a "courageous" performance by Billy Bob Thornton) who is being stalked by a nerdy, needy little dweeb. I wanted to like this more than I did. Normally I praise movies that flaunt Hollywood formula, but I found this one-joke misstep to be mean-spirited and not all that funny. And Santa's monotonous cussing is so repetitive and unimaginative that it gives cussing a bad name.

Cinemas 20 64 71 101

The Polar Express

Talk about bells and whistles! A little boy of an age where cursed maturity causes one to begin to doubt the Santa thing one night finds waiting for him outside his bedroom window a huffing, puffing steam train bound for the North Pole. This wondrous animation by Robert Zemekis (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Back to the Future 1-3, Forrest Gump) is for anyone who is into steam locomotives, roller coasters, and, of course, Christmas. It was filmed entirely with motion-capture technology (think Gollum in LOTR), with Tom Hanks in no less than six roles. There's a definite Wizard of Oz/Alice in Wonderland feel to this fresh, visually magnetic Christmas odyssey, with the creativity as dazzling as the action sequences. But it's briefly but terribly sappy in spots, mostly musical ones, and emotionally, it left me just a wee bit unsatisfied. Dazzled, but unsatisfied. We'll see if it becomes the Christmas classic it imagines itself to be.

Cinemas 1 29 31 44 55 62 71 82 90 95 96 99 101 107 109 110 111 112 113 114 120 130

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Cool title, and it's every bit as fun as it sounds. This richly textured and exhilaratingly retro film, done almost entirely in blue-screen to allow the digital geniuses total creative freedom, is unarguably an exercise in style over substance, but what style! Buck Rogers meets Fritz Lang's Metropolis. A real story would have made it even better. Set in 1939-almost obsessively so-what little plot there is centers on title character Jude Law and plucky girl reporter Gwyneth Paltrow's heroic efforts to save the world from a mad scientist and his army of giant robots.

Cinemas 2 10 26 45 60 90 95 96 101 109 110 112 114 120 130

End of the Century

When Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy Ramone burst out of Queens in 1974 with their refreshing, triple-time, misfit-rock anthems ("1-2-3-4!"), the leather-jacketed, high-school punks had no idea they were spawning a new musical movement; that others would take credit for it; and that they, though loved by their fans and adored overseas, would never have a hit record. This moving and often funny documentary by Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields shows that though uniform in dress and adopted surname, they were far from united in political or personal outlook. Hell, they were a rock band.

Cinema 24

Collateral

Hit man (Tom Cruise) in LA for an evening of mayhem chooses cab driver Jamie Foxx to drive him around from hit to hit because his cab is clean, he knows the city, and he seems malleable. He gets two out of three. Cruise is scarily credible, cast against type as the hit man (and irritatingly pretentious philosopher), but the film's dynamism comes from Foxx's character, whose previously unrecognized strengths emerge. The two do not bond. This film from Michael Mann (Ali, The Insider) is purposeful and propulsive, as much about the characters as it is about gunplay and car chases.

Cinemas 3 11 26 45 53 61 70 81 90 95 99 101 109 110 111 112 113 114 120 130

Connie and Carla

Disappointing second feature from Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) has two female singers (Vardalos and Toni Collette) on the run from the mob masquerading as drag queens. But while it aspires to be a distaff Some Like It Hot, it only gets as far as Sister Act. It probably would have been better had they looked even remotely like drag queens (at least Whoopi vaguely resembled a nun). Anyone who buys this ruse was probably fooled by Clark Kent's glasses. In a weak and weepy subplot, David Duchovny, a wishy-washy love interest for Vardalos, is attempting a reconciliation with his long-lost, female-impersonator brother. Ho hum. Jeez, go rent Priscilla. Or Birdcage. Still, there are about a dozen good, even original laughs, and despite the fact that drag queens traditionally lip-synch, these two can really belt out a song. And don't forget the dynamite appearance by Debbie Reynolds. But on the whole, nice try, girls, but no, um, cigar.

Cinema 56

Saw

Overdone gothic-industrial B-horror flick opens with two men (Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell) waking up chained to the plumbing on opposite sides of a disused public toilet, with the only route to freedom being the macabre use of the provided hacksaws. Se7en meets Cube. Kind of takes that "coyote ugly" joke to extremes. Their captor, a serial-killing puppet master with an apparent flair for production design, puts his victims in situations where death is the likely outcome. Flashbacks within flashbacks provide several gratuitous examples. Yuk. Hard-core, easily amused horror fans only, please.

60 99 101 113 114

Secret Window

Johnny Depp is a novelist struggling with a devastating case of writer's block, an impending divorce and an exceedingly grungy bathrobe. He's taken refuge in an isolated cabin in the woods to try to get his life back together, and is quite surprised when this evil hillbilly (an excellent John Turturro) shows up claiming that the writer stole a story from him and demanding credit and money. He blows the guy off, thinking his threats are empty. They're not. While satisfactorily claustrophobic, with some nicely percolating suspense, this pulpy psycho-thriller by David Koepp (Panic Room) is not Stephen King's best writing, and has some monumental last-act problems. But it's not his worst, either. Depp, though, has never been better, and makes this so-so movie worth watching, as he did with Pirates of the Caribbean. Can't wait until he gets to be in a good movie. Also Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton and Charles S. Dutton.

Cinemas 2 10 56 61 70 90 95 101 109 107 110 111 112 113 114 120 130

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The action starts in this re-release (1993) of one of the most creative products of Tim Burton's haunted brain when Halloween Town's headman Jack Skellington, bored with the usual Halloween celebrations, discovers a gateway to Christmas Town. Enchanted with this new-to-him holiday, the well-meaning but misguided Jack decides to import it, with predictably (and very entertainingly) disastrous results. Done in stop-action animation and filled with delightfully twisted characters, it's straightforward enough for kids (though probably not very little ones), but the jokes are aimed at adults.

Cinemas 5 56 60 90 101 111 112 113 130

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