Murderball

The title is the slang term for quad rugby, a violent, full-contact sport played by quadriplegics in Mad Max wheelchairs who are not the least bit interested in your wimpy sympathy and patronization. And forget all that triumph-over-adversity garbage. Aside from about 20 minutes devoted to actual, fast and furious matches, this life-affirming crowd-pleaser concentrates on the daily lives of the participants—eating pizza, getting dressed, playing practical jokes, having sex. (Turns out a wheelchair is a babe magnet.) Rehabilitation from a broken neck, the film shows, is actually more of a psychological process than a physical one, and most of these guys are less handicapped in spirit than many “able-bodied” people. They also prove that a disabled person can easily be as big an asshole as a pro athlete, and the real antagonism in the rivalry between Team USA and Team Canada, coached by a defecting American, gives the film a nice edge. I guarantee you will not go away disappointed. (85 min)

Cinema 35

Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties

The title’s the wittiest thing in this unwanted sequel to the pointless first movie. The anthropomorphized fat cat, the stupid non-animated dog and their clueless owner travel from the US to Britain, a favorite destination of lazy, creatively bankrupt sequel writers, for the purpose of embarrassing both countries with a lame “Prince and the Pauper” plot. Lots of talking barnyard animals, like Babe, except the part about being funny. Didn’t laugh at all at the first, even less at the sequel. Take your kids to see it—if you want to lower their lifelong expectations for entertainment. (78 min)

Cinema 125

The Sentinel

Serviceable if implausible beltway potboiler built on the tried-and-true formula of a good guy (Secret Service agent Michael Douglas—who’s sleeping with First Lady Kim Basinger no less) wrongly accused and going on the run to find the real mole and foil a plot to kill the President, while antagonistic fellow agent Kiefer Sutherland (whose wife he apparently bonked, too) chases him around. Starts out strong but soon unravels due to sloppy editing. Eva Longoria makes nice window dressing. It’s not a bad movie, just a bit mechanical and, well, bland. Go rent In the Line of Fire instead. (105 min)

Cinemas 2 51 61 99 109 110 112 113 114 116 117 118 119 120 125

The Shaggy Dog

Disney, clearly nearing the bottom of the barrel, dusts off this 1959 Fred MacMurray chestnut about a 300-year-old Tibetan dog captured by an evil, animal-testing pharmaceutical company exec (Robert Downey Jr: get a new agent!) to develop a longevity drug. The dog bites a lawyer (Tim Allen), who naturally turns into a dog. Your enjoyment of this fur-fetched tale will depend on whether you dig Allen’s moronic shtick—scratching behind his ears, licking his wife good morning (ick!), lifting his leg to pee; you know, funny stuff. Or whether your age is in single digits. (98 min)

Cinema 116

World Trade Center

This is the true story of the rescue of two cops (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) from the ruins of the WTC (two of only 20 to be pulled out). I’m a bit on the fence about this dressed-up movie-of-the-week. The acting (also Maria Bello & Maggie Gyllenhaal) is superb, the camerawork perfect and the script well written. Oliver Stone doesn’t even try to cram some political viewpoint down our throats. It demonstrates the personal strengths the tragedy brought out. It’s emotionally reassuring. And these men deserve to be recognized. I just can’t get the word “commercial” out of my head. (129 min)

Cinemas 3 26 45 60 70 90 95 99 102 107 109 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 125 126

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

This is a lovingly crafted character study on the art, music and very troubled life of the man Kurt Cobain called the greatest living songwriter. Bands such Yo La Tengo, Pearl Jam and Wilco have covered his tunes. Writer/director Jeff Feuerzeig’s unyieldingly sympathetic, award-winning documentary (Best Director at Sundance 2005) examines not only the line between genius and madness, but suggests that, certainly in this case, the two states are inextricably connected. The compulsively creative (also manic-depressive, narcissistic and schizophrenic) Johnston, whose whole life has been highly medicated, only goes off his meds to perform, and anything can happen. You may ask “What’s the big deal?”—until you hear his heartbreakingly beautiful songs, which uncannily and with deceptive simplicity reveal innermost feelings, possibly yours, certainly mine. Feuerzeig brilliantly assembled a wealth of home movies and audio cassettes supplied by Johnston, who was fond of filming and recording himself, and credits Johnston’s parents, who give new meaning to the term “long-suffering.” Resembles Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 Crumb, and is equally well made and equally disturbing. (110 min)

Cinema 37

Capote

First of all, don’t even think about seeing this movie until you have read (or re-read) Truman Capote’s “non-fiction novel” In Cold Blood. Second, Bennett Miller’s haunting film is not a biography of the title author (Oscar-winning performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman). It’s about what went into the writing of the groundbreaking non-fiction book about four senseless murders in Kansas in 1959 and what it took out of Capote, emotionally and morally, in his quest for literary acclaim. He never completed another book and died early. Also Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr. and Chris Cooper. (116 min)

Cinemas 52 100

The Cave

Crack team of ridiculously well-equipped cave divers ventures into a vast, partly underwater cave system and find that it’s inhabited by these flying, swimming, see-in-the-dark, pointy-toothed underwater Aliens. If this surprises you, you really should get out more. This creature-feature’s slick production values and great sets are sunk by a lackluster cast, led by Cole Hauser, who makes a better villain, and uninspired direction by first-timer Bruce Hunt. Only suspense involves the order in which the spelunkers are killed off (not that it matters) and eaten (not necessarily in that order). (97 min)

Cinema 43

The Devil’s Rejects

When I looked up my review of metal rocker Rob Zombie’s 2003 House of 1000 Corpses, a “homage” to ’70s roadside slasher flicks, I found that it was one of the few movies I have walked out of halfway through. Didn’t even make it to the halfway point in this sequel. Life’s too short. Both of these vacuous hick-sploitation movies involve repetitively banal, sadistic killing and maiming, horrid dialogue and camerawork (though these are intentional), and casts of cult-movie faves. So unless you’re a teenager looking for a way to piss off your parents, reject this one. (101 min)

Cinema 19

Lady in the Water

M. Night Shyamalan has long been coasting on the success of The Sixth Sense. Well, this waterlogged turkey should end that. It’s the laughably silly tale of this benevolent fairy (Bryce Dallas Howard) named “Story” who lives under a swimming pool and surfaces to provide enlightenment to the human race. Gets hokey at the prologue. While Paul Giamatti valiantly tries to inject some credibility, this is way too much New Agey disbelief to suspend. And M. Night expands his usual walk-on to a larger role this time. A mistake. Loved Bob Balaban’s film critic character, though. (110 min)

Cinemas 1 29 55 62 71 82 90 95 96 102 109 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 125 126

September Tapes

Starts out as a documentary by a ballsy if incredibly self-involved and perhaps suicidal filmmaker, a legend in his own mind, who resolves to “do something” about 9/11 and goes to Afghanistan just months later to look for Osama Bin Laden himself. As it spooled by, my admiration for the guy’s guide and especially his cameraman grew. Was this guy that good or just lucky? < Spoiler Alert! > Then, as events became progressively less believable, I realized I was watching a shallow Blair Witch pseudo-documentary that ultimately trivialized its subject. This is pathetic. (95 min)

Cinema 19

Supercross

Bike racer doods and doodettes talk fast and ride fast in this overpowered niche flick, but the part that could have used a little speeding up—the plot—is left trundling along on a Honda 50. The sports movie formula is strictly adhered to: nasty, arrogant front-runners, prevailing underdogs, manufactured romantic conflict, The Big Race, etc. (Supercross, by the way, is dirt bike racing indoors with a lot of jumps.) The giggle-worthy script and acting are as perfunctory as in a porno flick—just enough to get back to the action—and often unintentionally funny. Directed by a stuntman. (92 min)

Cinema 19

The Lake House

This remake of the 2000 Korean movie Il Mare (but with a happier Hollywood ending) is a Twilight Zoney kind of time-travel romance between two people (Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock—Speed) who live in the same house—a glass-and-steel monstrosity on Lake Michigan—but at different times (he in 2004 and she in 2006) and pass notes via a magic mailbox. They also have the same dog; don’t ask. It’s the kind of fairy-tale movie where it’s best to shut off the logic-processing part of your brain and go with the flow. Despite copious plot holes and loopy premises, none of which particularly bothered me, it’s very seductive and has a strong human element. It takes chances. Call me a softie, but it got to me. You may like it more than you care to admit. And you know it hurts to say it, but Keanu does a pretty good job, keeping it low-key and as believable as possible. Bullock dials down the cute and is equally convincing. (97 min)

Cinemas 1 30 48 60 82 90 95 96 99 102 109 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 125 126

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

It’s jail or Japan for a lead-footed American teen delinquent, so he becomes a kind of exchange student majoring in illegal street racing at a Tokyo high school. In short order he has a sidekick, a Japanese girlfriend (who’s about as Japanese—or teenage—as I am), and enemies within Tokyo’s stylish, hip (and fictitious) street racing scene. Some diverting races through the streets of Shibuya, which, as everyone knows, are deserted at midnight. But it’s hopelessly formulaic and dull. Thank God for Brian Tee, whose cartoon yakuza villain is so bad he made the movie worth watching. Nice coda. (104 min)

Cinemas 11 50 61 90 96 102 109 110 112 113 114 116 117 118 119 120 125 126

The Doctor, the Tornado and the Kentucky Kid

This is one of those sports movies that will not win any new converts but will delight anyone already into it. The sport this time is MotoGP motorcycle racing, which we are told is the two-wheel equivalent of F1. It follows three champion-level bike racers (or, if you prefer, extremely well-coordinated hicks) as they prepare for a race at California’s Laguna Seca racetrack. Shot in low-res video, it’s predictably repetitive but includes a technical analysis of the sport that will be of interest to some. A bit long for this kind of thing, even if it is narrated by Ewan McGregor, a fan. (107 min)

Cinema 16

White Noise

Most glaring unexplained phenomenon in this humorless, unsatisfying metaphysical mystery is what Michael Keaton is doing in it. This guy’s dead wife is trying to reach him through a new-agey pseudo-science just left of astrology called EVP, for Electric Voice Phenomenon—people from The Other Side talking to you via recorded radio static and TV snow. Well, surprise, this Sixth Sense rip-off doesn’t make a lot of sense, and aside from one (and only one) off-the-shelf shock moment, isn’t all that creepy either, unless you suffer from an unnatural fear of being bored to death. (101 min)

Cinemas 6 102

X-Men: The Last Stand

Our multifaceted mutant mob of clawed, furry, magnetic storm-makers, flame-throwers, ice-throwers, injury-healers, mind-readers and energy-suckers has lost its mentor but must still do battle with a new Force of Evil in this philosophically pretentious second sequel…and they lose. The Mentor I’m talking about is X-Men 1&2 director Bryan Singer, who left to do Superman Returns, and the FoE is crap director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour 1&2, Red Dragon), whose disjointed, ham-fisted, frenetic-yet-bland approach circus-juggles a few too many mutants and subplots. Has to do with a new mutant kid whose body manufactures an antibody, a “cure” if you will, for mutants. The franchise’s message about it being okay to be different is all but buried in melodrama and soapy sentiment. Still, the nifty, SFX-laden action set pieces are fun on their own. Warning: a few major characters die. But don’t worry. Famke Janssen, who died in XM2, is written back in, but in a much scarier, reborn super-X-persona, so anything is possible. And the final scenes hint that this film’s very title is not necessarily accurate. (103 min)

Cinemas 2 26 56 61 70 90 96 99 102 107 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 125 126

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s response to the question, “Do you think sex is dirty?”: “Only if you’re doing it right.” When the sexual status of the title character is discovered by his co-workers (Paul Rudd, Romany Malco and Seth Rogen), they make it their crusade to change it for him, offering questionable advice (“Date drunks”), setting him up with unsuitable babes, etc. But he’s really attracted to an over-40 single mother (expertly played by Catherine Keener—good chemistry). This crude but sweet-spirited sex comedy succeeds largely on Steve Carrell’s spot-on performance in the title role, helped greatly by the fact that, though this is a one-joke movie, the writers (Carrell co-wrote with director Judd Apatow) manage to come up with enough original tweaks to that joke (speed dating, detachable shower heads, condoms, straightforward “morning problems,” body waxing) to maintain momentum. What could have been just another Hollywood gross-out is surprisingly astute, actually insightful, and more than a little knowing. Lots of sight gags and one-liners, and one hell of a (musical!) ending. (115 min)

Cinema 117

Miami Vice

Irrelevant big-budget cop opera is immediate and stylish, but also overblown, self-serious, frequently padded and ultimately uninvolving. I’m not sure why it’s called Miami Vice. While the pastels of the fatuous ’80s TV show have been replaced by nearly monochromatic grays and blues, calling it “gritty” would be confusing that term with “grainy,” as in film stock (shot in HD video). Sin City is gritty. Still, there’s some fine-art photography that’s way better than the action. Not much violence, but a constant, nicely palpable potential for such. Anyone else getting tired of Colin Farrell? (132 min)

Cinemas 3 26 45 60 70 90 95 99 102 109 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 125 126


Kinky Boots

Match Point

Woody Allen doesn’t cast himself in his new flick (nor is there a neurotic surrogate), it’s not set in New York (but London), no older men cavort with young girls, and it’s not even a comedy, unless you’re hugely cynical about human nature. What this wicked, sexy thriller is is a return to form for the iconic director and one of the best movies of the year. None of the characters is particularly likable. Social-climbing tennis pro (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is wooing the daughter of an upper crust British family (Emily Mortimer) but can’t keep his eyes (or his hands) off her brother’s American fiancée (Scarlett Johansson). I won’t tell you any more, but it’s about the tangled webs we weave, the part that luck (good, bad, dumb) plays in the lives we fancy ourselves in control of, and the perils of getting what you wish for. Several vicious little plot twists and an ending you’ll be unprepared for. Cinematographer Remi Adefarasin adds a nice Hitchcockian flavor. (124 min)

Cinemas 7 41 109 119

United 93

We knew there would someday be commercial movies on this subject, and this first such film, while a knuckle-biter, is thankfully lacking in sensationalism or sentimentality. It is of course the story of a passenger revolt that may or may not have happened aboard the fourth hijacked plane on 9/11, the one that failed to reach its target of the White House or the Capitol building. Writer/director Paul Greengrass offers no character development for these unlikely heroes, and hired no big names to play them. It’s like they’re, well, people you’d meet on a plane. And the military and air traffic personnel on the ground are largely playing themselves. The terrorists are not unduly demonized; there are no politics or preaching. It’s commercial but not exploitive, and it’s as accurate and factual as it is possible to be, pieced together from black box recordings and cellphone calls. When the lights came up I was surprised to notice that every muscle in my body was tense and that there were tears streaming down my face. An overused term, but this is a must-see. (108 min)

Cinemas 102

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Sequel shares the original’s strengths as well as its weaknesses: it’s ungainly, repetitive and way too long. But every scene with Johnny Depp sparkles with his swishy wit (give that makeup person an Oscar!). The rest is mostly melodramatic padding involving Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom. Gripes aside, there’s still plenty of popcorn fun of the coyote/roadrunner variety, notably the hamster wheel and Sparrow-kebab sequences. Also Bill Nighy with a squid on his face. Arrrgh! (155 min)

Cinemas 23 47 60 90 95 96 99 102 107 109 111 112 113 114 115 116 118 119 120 125 126

Dust to Glory

You want car chases? Dana Brown (Step Into Liquid) will give you car chases. This dynamic documentary captures the contained madness and pure adrenalin rush of the 32-hour countercultural plane crash known as the Baja 1000, the world’s longest non-stop, point-to-point motor race. The rules are few: anyone can enter, on virtually any vehicle, from $2 million, 800-horsepower trophy trucks and dirt bikes of all sizes to pre-1982 Volkswagen Beetles. It’s like the Paris-Dakar rally on uppers. If you finish at all, you’re a winner. Writer/director Brown uses more than 50 cameras, providing everything from swooping, helicopter-eye views to glimpses of what the drivers see through cameras mounted on cars and bikes. One focus is on dirt biker Mike “Mouse” McCoy, who elects to do the entire 1,000 miles solo. And Brown narrates the whole thing in the casual, folksy manner that he clearly inherited from his surf-movie-legend father Bruce (The Endless Summer). Hell of a ride. (97 min)

Cinema 96


My Architect

This is a haunting personal documentary by the illegitimate son of visionary but bankrupt architect Louis I. Kahn, who designed the revolutionary Salk Institute, the Yale Art Gallery and Bangladesh’s capital building. Nathaniel Kahn interviews such contemporaries as Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei and Frank Gehry, tours his buildings, adds his own memories and those of Kahn’s cohorts, and finds that his charismatic dad was brilliant but unreliable, stubborn and secretive, and by the way maintained three families. Kahn died in 1974, when his son was 11, and in many ways remains a mystery. (116 min)

Cinema 39

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