CONTINUING
Here are selected minireviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically. Ratings range from zero to four stars.
“ATL”
TEEN DRAMA|***|PG-13|Though the specter of drugs is part of “ATL,” it isn’t a drug movie, and it doesn’t send its characters on a harrowing journey into danger. It’s a film about growing up and working, about falling in love, about planning for your future, and about the importance of friends. For Rashad (Tip
Harris), the best day of the week is Sunday, because that’s when he and three friends head for the Cascade, a roller rink where they show off with intricately choreographed moves on the floor. It’s also where Rashad falls in love for the first time. (Roger Ebert)|105 minutes
“Aquamarine”
COMING OF AGE |** 1/2|PG|The adventures begin when Claire and Hailey find a mermaid in the pool. Which means they have to deal with the mermaid, the moving-away thing and a cute lifeguard named Ray. There’s nothing original about “Aquamarine,” which owes a fish-out-of-water debt to “Splash.” But there’s a sense that the script understands how tween girls think and what interests them (or maybe it’s just what we hope interests tween girls): romance, not sex. Their innocent crush on Ray, for instance, is adorable, as are their not-quite-successful attempts to pick up dating techniques from the sages at Seventeen. (Chris Hewitt, Knight Ridder Newspapers)| 107 minutes
“Ask the Dust”
PERIOD DRAMA|***|R|Writer-director Robert Towne wanted to make “Ask the Dust” for more than 30 years. He read John Fante’s novel about a young Italian-American writer who finds his muses in the dust-choked, sun-bleached environs of 1930s Los Angeles while writing “Chinatown.” With Colin Farrell’s muscularly delicate performance, Towne has created a moody, emotionally elegant drama. Salma Hayek plays Camilla, Arturo Bandini’s love and nemesis. “Rent’s” Idina Menzel repels then mesmerizes as the other handmaiden to Arturo’s growth, Vera Rifkin. There’s a blues played here for a kind of bygone storytelling. “Ask the Dust” mourns a city long ago lost even as it celebrates an old-school belief in “the writer.” (Lisa Kennedy)|117 minutes
“Basic Instinct 2”
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER|*|R|Fourteen years ago, Sharon Stone became a star when her character was (or wasn’t) the killer in “Basic Instinct.” Now in a move that speaks to moviedom’s basest instinct, Catherine Tramell is back with a sequel. Ta-ta, San Francisco. Hello, London. Gone is detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) as her lover-nemesis. In his place – but hardly as galling or interesting – is criminal psychiatrist Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey). Tramell still writes crime novels, still partakes in adventurous sex, still has too close a proximity to murdered guys. But the writers forgot to update her story’s sexual politics. As Glass diagnoses, Tramell may be a neurotic risk-seeker, but for us, the thrill is long gone. (Kennedy)|113 minutes
“Brick”
HIGH SCHOOL NOIR|***|R|It’s all here, the cliques, the provisional relationships, the exploitative friendships. Yet high school was never as noir a place as it is in writer-director Rian Johnson’s promising debut “Brick.” Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds the body of former girlfriend Emily. Flash to two days earlier when she left him a note about a rendezvous. He had hoped to be a rescuer, not a detective. “Brick” is not just another teen movie. One listen to the hard-boiled patois proves it. Yet in being so unlike the typical high school flick, “Brick” captures anew the alienation, the ridiculously earnest intensity of feeling, the insularity of experience that make up the blunder years. Also stars Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Matt O’Leary and Emile de Ravin. (Kennedy)|110 minutes
“Curious George”
ANIMATED FAMILY FILM|***|G|An amiable and amusing animated film that brings the beloved children’s character to the big screen for the first time. While it doesn’t reach the same heights as the Pixar or DreamWorks animated films, it should please both youngsters and their parents. Starring the voices of Will Ferrell, Dick Van Dyke, and Drew Barrymore. (James Ward, Visalia Times-Delta)|87 minutes
“Date Movie”
SPOOF|** 1/2|PG-13|From the makers of “Scary Movie” and “Spy Hard” comes a nonstop spoof on romantic comedies. Don’t expect enlightenment, but it’s fair to expect a good number of crude laughs at the expense of an overworked Alyson Hannigan manages to keep it all sweet, and there are plenty of “I can’t believe they did that” moments. (Michael Booth)|70 minutes
“Don’t Come Knocking”
LIGHT DRAMA|*** 1/2|R|Wim Wenders creates a wonderful bookend for his beloved road-and-regret movie “Paris, Texas.” Here, co-author Sam Shepard stars as a cowboy movie actor who rides off into the sunset to right some wrongs from his wild life. He winds up in Butte, Mont., with an angry former girlfriend and an even angrier son he didn’t know he had. Generous and beautiful, full of the Wenders spirit. (Booth)|105 minutes
“Failure to Launch”
Y-CHROMOSOME ROMANTIC COMEDY|
** 1/2|PG-13|Matthew McConaughey
and Sarah Jessica Parker star in this romantic comedy – directed by “Shanghai Noon’s” Tom Dey – that hopes to wrench the guy demographic away from its Game Boys – girlfriends in tow. Manly yes, but she’ll like it too. Tripp (McConaughey) and friends Demo and Ace are grown men still living comfortably with their folks. During a visit with friends who rediscovered their friskiness once their son was out of the house, Tripp’s parents (Kathy Bates and football great Terry Bradshaw) hire consultant Paula (Parker) to coax their big bird from the too cozy nest they’ve provided him. Zooey Deschanel, Justin Bartha and Bradley Cooper make good friend foils to Tripp and Paula’s main attraction fireworks. (Kennedy)|105 minutes
“Firewall”
THRILLER|** 1/2|PG-13|This is the bank security system that Jack Stanfield built. This is the system that Jack built that cyberrobber Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) plans to steal millions from. This is the wife (Virginia Madsen) and kids Bill will use as leverage to break into the system that Jack built. If “Firewall” feels familiar, its because star Harrison Ford infuses this sometimes tense, more often routine, thriller with his brand of emotion. Security, vulnerability and the American family under siege are themes that might have earned additional thought. But “Firewall,” directed by Richard Loncraine and written by Joe Forte, gives us little reason to bestow deeper meaning on what is basically a pre-owned Ford vehicle. (Kennedy)|105 minutes
“Game 6”
DRAMEDY|*** 1/2|R|Michael Keaton is a talker. His strength as an actor is in roles that put him on the scale between literate and glib. In “Game 6,” he plays a playwright and talks like one, taking pleasure in choosing specific words to evoke exactly what he means. He is also a Boston Red Sox fan, and when the opening night of his new play coincides with the sixth game in the 1986 World Series, he has a lot to talk about. (Ebert)|87 minutes
“The Hills Have Eyes”
HORROR REDUX|** 1/2|R|The Carter family meets misery when it runs into a clan of mutated miners and their spawn with a craving for flesh and revenge on their tormented minds. A-bomb tests and the sins of eminent domain figure heavily in Alexandre Aja’s remake of Wes Craven’s family showdown in the desert. After a season of horror flicks more interested in inflicting maximum mayhem on their characters, “The Hills Have Eyes” seems ambitious. Almost. You don’t have to buy into the “why do they hate us” agonies and the embittered answer to know co-writers Aja and Gregory Levasseur wanted to express something about victims, terror, payback and middle Americans. (Kennedy)|107 minutes
“Ice Age: The Meltdown”
ANIMATED COMEDY|***|PG|The long-awaited sequel to “Ice Age,” which was a box office hit and mixed an appealing array of animation styles. This time, the ice is going away, but don’t expect too many deep references to global warming. Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo reprise their voice roles, joined by Queen Latifah as a love interest for the big woolly mammoth Manny (Romano). (Booth)|90 minutes
“Inside Man”
CAPER THRILLER|*** 1/2|R|Spike Lee’s “Inside Man,” poses, then takes its own delicious time answering this: How could master thief Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) let his intricate bank heist devolve into a hostage situation in which 50 New Yorkers become like cards in a three-card monte game, divided and shuffled from room to room? Denzel Washington gives a jazz-cool turn as hostage negotiator Keith Frazier. Jodie Foster whets her edge as the well-connected Madeline White, called on to retrieve a a valuable by the bank’s founder Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer). There’s lots of Lee woven into this studio joy. Newcomer Russell Gewirtz’s script is a marvel of snap and drama. (Kennedy)|129 minutes
“Lucky Number Slevin”
NEO-NOIR|***|R|First there’s the cast: Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis. And those are just the heavyweight heavies in “Lucky Number Slevin,” directed by Peter McGuigan. Then there’s Jason Smilovic’s agile, dialogue-rich script about a guy who finds himself between two feuding mobsters. A case of mistaken identity (or is it?), has Slevin (Josh Hartnett) set to do some bloodletting just to stay alive. There are so many players in this shell game of a flick, a person can get paranoid. That’s the idea. We can only hope that the one thing fatal about Lucy Liu’s likable femme is that she’s a coroner. (Kennedy)|110 minutes
“Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School”
DANCE ROMANCE|**|R|For the purest pleasure in dance, check out “Madhot Ballroom.” For the rumba remedy to male midlife crises, rent “Shall We Dance” – the Japanese original. As elaborate as writer-director Randall Miller’s “Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School” is, it has few new moves. Robert Carlyle plays Frank Keane, a baker and widower who goes on a mission to find a woman named Lisa. He must tell her that her long-ago made date with Steve (John Goodman) won’t happening. Steve wrecked his car on the way to the rendezvous. It’s his flashbacks that transport the movie to the early 1960s. Frank doesn’t find Lisa, but he does find Marisa Tomei’s Meredith. The film’s a kindhearted affair full of characters in need of repair. But it’s also one dance movie you can sit out. (Kennedy)|103 minutes
“Mrs. Henderson Presents”
PERIOD COMEDY|***|R for nudity, language and adult subject matter| Stephen Frears presents a light version of dark days in London, when the plucky Brits tried to keep their mind off the horrible bombing blitz. Judi Dench plays a rich widow who buys a West End theater to launch a vaudeville revue; Bob Hoskins is the equally stubborn and charming theater manager. They break taboo by showing nude women onstage, tastefully of course; the attraction of this period piece is the charisma of both Dench and Hoskins, two grand lions of British acting. (Booth)|102 minutes
“The Pink Panther”
COMEDY REMAKE|** 1/2|PG|Steve Martin attempts to revive the classic Blake Edwards-Peter Sellers collaboration about the idiot inspector Clouseau, and his unlikely success in solving international crimes. The humor is shallow, but funny enough in places to entertain 8- to 11-year-olds, and some of their parents. (Booth)|92 minutes
“The Shaggy Dog”
COMEDY|** 1/2|PG|Tim Allen was born to play a dog. He has been practicing since before he became a TV star – the growling, the panting, the crotch fixation. Disney’s remake of “The Shaggy Dog” uses Allen to great effect in a comedy about a workaholic dad who has to be bitten by a magical dog and become canine himself to find out the truth about his family and the real villains in a trial he is trying. There are also problems with pacing and tone. Robbins wastes a lot of time setting up this magical dog’s origins, complete with a jackbooted black helicopter dog-nap team, and the film’s frequent trips into the animal testing/torture lab are unpleasant and could creep out younger children. (Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel)|95 minutes
“She’s the Man”
ROMANTIC COMEDY|** 1/2|PG-13|In another telling of the gender-bending Shakespeare play “Twelfth Night,” Amanda Bynes stars as a girl who poses as her brother at an elite private school. She starts to fall in love with her brother’s roommate, who has eyes for another, who in turn has eyes for the girl she thinks is a boy. It’s not a brilliant rendering, but it’s a teen-friendly movie that doesn’t push the boundaries of an R rating. (Booth)|105 minutes
“Slither”
HORROR|**|R|”Slither” slimes into theaters, an old-fashioned creature-feature where the emphasis is on cheese. Or, in this case, Cheez Whiz. So that means it all comes down to the “ick” factor, which is plenty icky. A meteor crashes. Bugs get out. And the first person they invade is local rich guy and cradle-robber Grant Grant. But Grant Grant very slowly – too slowly – infects the rest of the town and hunts every bit of raw meat on the menu (he wipes out the local pet population). He becomes more squidlike by the minute, and yet somehow decides, rationally, not to impregnate his too-young, too-hot wife (Elizabeth Banks) with slug-spawn. (Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel) |97 minutes
“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days”
WARTIME DRAMA|*** 1/2|NOT RATED|The movie conveys what it must have been like to be a young, smart, idealistic dissenter in Nazi Germany, where no dissent was tolerated. This gripping true story challenges you to gauge your own courage and strength of character should you find yourself in similar circumstances. The film pointedly steers away from unnecessary melodrama and sentimentality to deliver a crisp chronology of events told entirely from Sophie’s perspective, with minimal back story. As the brother and sister race to distribute the leaflets, the movie refuses to underline the built-in suspense. (Stephen Holden, The New York Times)|117 minutes
“Take the Lead”
DRAMA|** 1/2|PG-13|Running almost completely on the charm of Antonio Banderas, this latest version of urban dancing competitions follows on the success of the documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom.” Teacher comes to beleaguered school, proposes formal dancing as a way to motivate kids; kids scoff, try it, change their lives. A predictable formula, executed in mediocre spirit. (Booth)|108 minutes
“Thank You for Smoking”
SATIRE|** 1/2|R|Christopher Buckley’s hilarious sendup of American contradictions loses some bite in the translation to film. Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, the world’s smoothest talker, and well he should be, as he’s the chief spokesman for the tobacco industry. The movie promises to explore the mixed morality of doing your job well in defense of the indefensible, but winds up delivering shallower comments on politics and family. The comic pacing and editing are atrocious, damaging otherwise respectable material. (Booth)|92 minutes
“The Three Burials
of Melquiades Estrada”
MYTHIC WESTERN|*** 1/2|R|When Melquiades Estrada is killed by a border patrol agent, his first burial hardly deserves the name. His second is a disgrace. Only friend and fellow cowboy Pete Perkins – Tommy Lee Jones – believes in justice and a proper burial. In his directorial debut, Jones and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga deliver a tale worthy of Greek drama. Pete kidnaps the agent, takes possession of Melquiades’ corpse and sets off into Mexico to bury his friend (Jose César Cedillo). Melquiades’ third interment is the stuff of myths remade for modern woes. “Three Burials” is a stunning visual ballad about loss and a staggeringly soulful meditation on loyalty. That would be enough. That it speaks to one of our nation’s most volatile issues makes it a remarkable achievement. (Kennedy)|121 minutes
“Tsotsi”
DRAMA|***|R |This year’s Academy Award winner for foreign language film tells the story of a young South African street criminal suddenly confronted with moral choices, and his own humanity. Tsotsi is a brutal thug who kills a woman in a carjacking, only to discover a baby in the back seat. In his own violent, single-minded way, he tries to raise the baby while figuring out what to do next. (Booth)|96 minutes
“V for Vendetta”
GRAPHIC NOVEL FABLE|***|R| Cheesy but true: “V for Vendetta” deserves an E for entertaining. Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving are Evey and masked avenger V, the shades-of-gray heroes in this ka-pow, ka-boom tale of fascism and resistance. Although the movie’s based on a graphic novel created during Margaret Thatcher’s stint as British prime minister, the Wachowski brothers have found plenty of resonant material. And while the movie’s set in London in the near future, the “former colonies” make disturbing cameo turns. And the brothers have a copacetic director in James McTeigue (he worked on their “Matrix” trilogy). “V” takes you on a pleasure ride all the while tossing pop-culture kernels of wisdom at you. The one sticking point: the movie’s R rating. (Kennedy)|132 minutes
GIANT SCREEN
“The Human Body”
IMAX: A look at the everyday functions that keep us alive, through May 25|$8, $6 ages 3-12 and 65-plus|Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., 303-322-7009, dmns.org
“Mystic India: An Incredible Journey of Inspiration”
IMAX: The film begins in 1792 and follows an 11-year-old who left his home to begin a journey of spiritual awakening. It’s the true story of the boy’s seven-
year trip covering 8,000 miles.|$8, $6 ages 3-12 and 65-plus|Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., 303-322-7009, dmns.org
“Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France”
IMAX: The true story of two elite cyclists Australian Baden Cooke and French teammate Jimmy Casper as they compete in the legendary race.|$8, $6 ages 3-12 and 65-plus|Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., 303- 322-7009, dmns.org
Wildlife Experience
IWERKS: The museum presents “Dolphins,” on its 45-by-60-foot screen through February 2007.|$4.95-$7.95, free 2 and under|10035 S. Peoria St., 720- 488-3300, wildlifeexperience.org|PARKER
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Boulder Adventure
Film Festival
SA-M|The second annual Boulder Adventure Film Festival and Dirt Days offers a conservation and adventure fair 10 a.m.-
3 p.m. Saturday with educational and gear demonstrations in Central Park in Boulder. The film festival, offering 20 films selected from more than 150 entries, is Sunday and Monday at the Boulder Theater, 2034 14th St. Times vary. Proceeds benefit the Thorne Ecological Institute, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental education.| 303-818-6402, boulderadventurefilm.com| BOULDER
CU International Film Series
-APRIL 23|The annual festival, established in 1941, offers films, screenings, special events and programs. Times vary. Most films are $5, $4 CU-Boulder students with ID.|Muenzinger Auditorium, CU-Boulder campus, 303-492-1531, internationalfilmseries.com|BOULDER
Denver Art Museum Spring 2006 Film Series
TU|The film series offers a collection of American gangster films from the 1930s. This week’s film: “Little Caesar” (1930). The series continues Tuesdays through May 16. Films begin at 7 p.m., box office opens at 4 p.m. $7-$8 per film|Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Ninth Street and Auraria Parkway, 303-820-3456, denverartmuseum.org
The Power of One Film
TH|The Colorado Film School at Lowry is presenting three screenings of films as the second of four segments in The Power of One Program, a year-long series of cultural events designed to connect and inspire the community. The series continues with the second film, is “The Station Agent” (2003) on Thursday, then “Spellbound” (2002) on April 27. Admission for each film is free, and a question-and-answer session follows|Colorado Film School at Lowry, Building 965, Lowry Boulevard and Yosemite Street, 303-739-6617, auroragov.org/thepowerofone|AURORA
