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Here are selected minireviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically.
Some reviews originate at other newspapers that do not award star ratings.
“88 Minutes”
Suspense drama. * R. “88 Minutes” is a sleazy cheeseball movie that depends on a ticking time bomb for what little tension it evokes. That time bomb would be a death threat phoned in to Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino), a forensic psychologist who specializes in nailing serial killers. He’s lecturing to a class when he gets the call: You’ll be dead in 88 minutes. And so the film plays out in real time. (Tom Long, Detroit News) 118 minutes
“21”
Drama ** PG-13. It isn’t about luck. It’s about calculation. Keep that in mind when thinking about this by-the-numbers adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s much richer bestseller about a group of MIT students who put a hurting on the casinos of Vegas. Jim Sturgess (lovely Jude in “Across the Universe”) is Ben Campbell, a numbers savant and MIT undergrad who can’t make the financial numbers work to get into Harvard Med School, without a full-ride scholarship. Kate Bosworth is Jill the just as bright student who recruites him for professor Micky Rosa’s card-counting sojourns to sin city. For all its high- stakes hand signals and mathematical tricks, “21” becomes a lot more compelling when Kevin Spacey (as the groups leader) and Laurence Fishburne, as a casino security expert, face off in what is more chess match than card game. (Kennedy) 118 minutes
“Baby Mama”
Baby comedy. **1/2. PG-13. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler amuse as Kate and Angie, a successfully “green” businesswoman and the urban hick she hires to carry her baby to term. Playing it straight, Sigourney Weaver is a hoot in writer-director Michael McCullers’ gentle, laugh-inducing movie as the head of a surrogacy agency in Philadelphia. Steve Martin should have taken note. Instead, he cures then smokes his role as Barry, Round Earth Organic Market founder and Kate’s boss. McCullers delivers a comedy in which class confusion get teased, not lambasted. “Baby Mama” makes fun of the methods, not the emotions, behind its characters’ desires. The appealing Fey and nutty Poehler (as well as nice-guy support from Greg Kinnear and Romany Malco) make sure “Baby Mama” dramas come with goofy comedy. (Kennedy)99 minutes
“Caramel”
Chick flick. *** PG. This Lebanese beauty salon is filled with neurotic types like Jamale, an aging actress desperate to look younger, and frumps like Rima, in need of a makeover; but, pleasingly, it takes a somewhat more realistic tack in portraying the lives of its workers and patrons. It’s touching and extremely sad and demonstrates how clear-eyed writer and director Labaki actually is on the limitations of beauty shops and happy endings. (Mary F. Pols, Contra Costa Times) 95 minutes
“Counterfeiters”
Holocaust drama. *** Not rated. The film sets a compelling moral dilemma around the story of a counterfeiting ring operated by prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin during World War II. The film is based on the observations of professional printer Adolf Burger, who was incarcerated at Sachsenhausen along with other Jewish typesetting experts, graphic designers and printers who are set to work reproducing the British pound and the U.S. dollar so that the Nazis can flood the Allies’ economies and continue to finance their war effort. (Connie Ogle, McClatchy Newspapers) 98 minutes
“Deception”
Sex & drugs thriller. ** R. Button-down tax expert Jonathan McQuarry doesn’t have much of a life until Wyatt Bose, Hugh Jackman’s suspiciously smooth operator, takes the numbers-crunching Cinderfella under his finely tailored wing. Then Ewan McGregor’s ledger smart, EQ-stunted Jonathan plunges into a world of anonymous sex in which impossibly foxy, powerful women ring and ask, “Are you free tonight?” One of them turns out to be Michelle Williams’ “S” — no first names please — a lovely blond, Jonathan was smitten with in the subway. Handsomely predatory, Jackman proves the best reason to stick with a movie whose title becomes an excuse to veer beyond believable psychological profile. What’s Wyatt’s game? we ask. Because — unlike Jonathan — we’ve known from the start that he’s had one. (Kennedy) 108 minutes
“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”
Documentary. * PG. Droning funnyman Ben Stein monkeys around with evolution with the new documentary, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a cynical attempt to sucker Christian conservatives into thinking they’re losing the “intelligent design” debate because of academic “prejudice.” “Expelled” is a full-on, amply budgeted Michael Moore-styled mockery of evolution, a film that dresses creationist crackpottery in an “intelligent design” leisure suit and tries to make the fact that it’s not given credence in schools a matter of “academic freedom.”(Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 90 minutes
“First Saturday in May”
Documentary. ** Not rated. “The First Saturday in May” is a slick documentary following six thoroughbred trainers as they approach that festival of horseflesh called the Kentucky Derby, with hopes aflame. It’s hardly a muckraking piece but more a celebration of racing at the high end and the extremely prosperous folks who play it.(Stephen Hunter, Washington Post)96 minutes
“Forbidden Kingdom”
Martial arts fantasy. **1/2 PG-13. The good news: Titans Jet Li and Jackie Chan team up for the first time. The less steller news: Director Rob Minkoff’s fanstasy adventure (written by John Fusco) about a Boston kung-fu flick geek named Jason and his journey to a mystical realm is a watered-down brew of West meets East. Affable Michael Angarano feels miscast as Jason, a protagonist whose heroic journey never seems deserved. Chan and Li play Jason’s mentors in the legendary epoch of the Monkey King. Chan also hobbles around as Old Hop, owner of the Chinatown shop where Jason discovers an ancient staff. Fans know of Chan’s muscular slapstick antics. So it’s Li who surprises. The actor charms as both the trickster Monkey King and the Silent Monk charged with freeing him from the stone statue he was encased in by rival the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou). Liu Yifei and Li Bing Bing also star. (Kennedy) 113 minutes
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”
Animated. **1/2 PG-13. Peter Bretter, a big, soft homebody who writes music for TV shows and has for the last five years been the boyfriend of hottie actress Sarah Marshall. Sarah announces she’s breaking up with him. He mopes. He cries. The guy’s a mess. Finally he decides to get away from his woes by vacationing at a posh Hawaiian resort — only to find that Sarah and her new boyfriend, pompous British rock star Aldous Snow, are checked into the same hotel. “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” has a workable if unoriginal setup, but as a story it’s like one of those hotel guests sitting in an inflated inner tube and drifting in lazy circles. (Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers) 90 minutes
“Girls Rock!”
Documentary. *** PG. Teens Misty and Laura, eight-year-olds Palace and Amelia, are the power chords to Shane King and Arne Johnson’s kicking fun documentary about a stint at the Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for girls 8-18, now playing exclusively at Neighborhood Flix. Liz Canning’s clever animated sequences provide a “riot grlll” history about the power of making noise, making music. But the movie’s heart lies with its compelling foursome. They are hugely quotable and endearing for their candor and confusion. “She likes death metal and bunnies” says Laura’s friend back in Oklahoma City. Indeed, the teen, who happens to be Korean and adopted, is a walking, riffing, thrash-dancing embodiment of the notion that the young say contradictory things and wedge many aching truths into those opposites. (Kennedy) 90 minutes
“Harold and Kumar Eascape from Guantanamo Bay”
Comedy. ** 1/2 R. So studious Harold and stoner Kumar get with the spirit of the times in this uneven and too-long but occasionally hilarious sequel. This film bounces between the raunchy and the relevant, the profane and the political like Homer Simpson at a bake sale. As with “White Castle,” much of the humor is about as sophisticated as a college kegger. (Cary Darling, McClatchy Newspapers) 112 minutes
“Holly”
Docu-drama. **1/2 R. This well-meaning drama takes place in Phnom Penh’s notorious red-light district, K11, and was designed to promote awareness of child prostitution. The use of authentic Cambodian locations adds immeasurably to the film’s emotional landscape; the filmmakers deserve credit for capturing the physicality of K11 as a suffocating maze of illicit activity. Yet “Holly” never achieves the dramatic clarity it needs to put its human suffering into perspective. (Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times) 113 minutes
“The Kite Runner”
Literary drama. *** PG-13. The movie adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s much-loved best seller “The Kite Runner” does decent, if sometimes ham-fisted, service to the novel’s troubled characters, surefire themes and evocation of the tragic fate of Afghanistan over the past 20 years. The story breaks down into three basic sections. In 1970s Kabul, privileged Amir (remarkable Afghan child actor Zekiria Ebrahimi) is expert at a game in which kite flyers vie to cut one another’s strings but otherwise is an unassertive wimp. His best friend is the family servant’s son Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, ditto on the remarkable front), who chases down the fallen kites Amir wins and fights for his pal’s honor. This gets Hassan in trouble with some neighborhood bullies, who mete out a terrible punishment that Amir secretly witnesses. (Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News) 122 minutes
“Leatherheads”
Sports romantic comedy. **1/2 PG-13. Slapstick meets screwball in “Leatherheads,” an amiable valentine to an era of breakneck repartee, bathtub booze and anything-goes gridiron warfare starring George Clooney. The setting is 1925 Duluth, Minn., home base of the Bulldogs, a rough-and-ready pro football team in an era when pay was low, glamour was nil and rulebooks were rarely consulted. Then Princeton football star Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford is enticed to join the teetering Bulldogs for a percentage of the gate, promoting him as the sport’s first superstar. Following Rutherford is Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger), a feisty Chicago Tribune reporter. Clooney, who co-wrote the film (along with Denver’s Rick Reilly), is unabashed in his affection for period Americana and old-school filmmaking, and recreates it with impressive technical polish. (Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune) 114 minutes
“My Blueberry Nights”
Romantic road picture. PG-13. If you’re in the mood for love and for this director’s luxuriant self-indulgence, though, it’s a tonic nonetheless — a gorgeously shot road-movie trifle. The first obstacle to surmount is singer Norah Jones in the leading role of Elizabeth, a heartsore young wanderer. She has a lovely, wide-eyed screen presence, but her character’s passivity is only partly intentional. Jude Law comes at the camera head-on, as movie stars are supposed to do. He plays Jeremy, a New York diner proprietor. Elizabeth waitresses her way through the bars and greasy spoons of Middle America. David Strathairn as a mournful alcoholic Memphis cop, Rachel Weisz as his slattern wife (she walks into the movie like a curse laid on your heart), Natalie Portman as a Vegas hell-raiser on a losing streak. Music and nostalgia are what fuel all this filmmaker’s movies, though, even a half-baked translation like this one.(Ty Burr, Boston Globe)100 minutes
“Planet B-boy”
Dancing documentary. *** Not rated. Pay homage to break-dancer Wayne “Frosty Freeze” Frost (who died in early April) with a visit to the Mayan Theatre for Benson Lee’s globe-trotting documentary about five crews headed from Osaka, Seoul, Las Vegas and Paris to compete in the Battle of the Year. Touching interviews, often of a dancer and his befuddled or supportive parent, get at the personal drive involved in the demanding endeavor but also the cultural wrinkles. The breakdancing practiced by these adherents shares a vigorous language, but also expresses dialects. The members of French group Phase T are liquid dancers; 2004 champs Gamblerz, from Seoul, pride themselves on technically forceful routines. Osaka’s Ichigeki is full of showstopping innovators. “Planet B-Boy” makes a celebratory, thoughtful argument that rap wasn’t the only form of hip-hop culture to capture the imagination of the young in other countries. It just captured the market. Consider this is a mild correction. (Kennedy) 95 minutes
“Priceless”
Romantic comedy. **PG-13. Cocktail chemistry and raw calculation initially bring the lovers in “Priceless” together. Whether something more profound will deepen their bond is, of course, a staple of romantic comedy. This French import (with English subtitles) is no exception. Nor is it exceptional. Audrey Tautou is Irène, a lovely piece of arm candy working her wiles at the classier hotels on the French Riviera. Gad Elmaleh plays smitten, dogged hotel employee Jean. Marie-Christine Adam intrigues as Madeleine, the wealthy older woman who rescues Jean by putting him on an equal footing with Irène’s gigolette. Granted, the improbable is the purview of comedy. But instead of waiting for that movie-magical moment when we’re convinced Irène and Jean do belong together, we’re more curious to see how director Pierre Salvadori plans to make us believe this flimsy make-believe. Pulling that off would indeed be priceless. (Kennedy) 104 minutes
“Shine a Light”
Concert movie. *** PG-13. The Rolling Stones. Martin Scorsese. That combo should have made for the concert film to end ’em all. “Shine a Light” isn’t it (not that there’s such a thing, really). But there’s satisfaction to be had in this dazzling dance of cameras and band, shot at New York City’s Beacon theater on the occasion of Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday. While far superior to 1991’s “At the Max,” the film’s no “Gimme Shelter.” But then, 2008 is not 1969. And if you pull back from the whirlwind that is the Stones in their performance zone, this film says somethings about the zeitgeist and rock n’ roll, about the age of professionalism. You don’t keep a band going, and going, without business stamina and smarts. Mick Jagger remains the band’s energizer sex bomb, with a mouth that predates Angelina Jolie’s pout by three decades. Charlie Watts has aged in ways that make quick sense. His bandmates inspire metaphor, jibes, awe. With a voice less agile than his hips, Jagger is still a force. His gyrating hasn’t become parody. It’s humbling. (Kennedy) 122 minutes
“Smart People”
Family dramedy. ** R. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) teaches Victorian literature at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Or rather he goes through the motions. Lawrence is a burnout case, a bearded, potbellied grouch who is alternately bored or irritated by his students and he never got over the death of his wife years earlier. An accident sends him to the ER, where his doc is Sarah Jessica Parker, who was one of his students who had a cruch on him. His daughter (Ellen Page), a tart-tongued high-school senior who embraces academic excellence and political conservatism but seems never to have experienced much of life. New to the household is Lawrence’s adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), an affable slacker looking for a place to crash after the collapse of his latest get-rich-quick scheme. (Robert W. Butler, McClatchy Newspapers)95 minutes
“Street Kings”
Police thriller. ** R. Keanu Reeves’s Tom Ludlow is a gunslinging undercover detective driven but also dulled by grief. When he becomes a suspect in the killing of a good cop (his one-time partner), he plunges into the murk of this volatile yet bland neo-noir about corruption and compromised honor in the LAPD. Watching David Ayer’s police thriller (cowritten by James Ellroy of “L.A. Confidential” fame), one suspects there’s little need for villians with LAPD’s Ad Vice squad, headed by Capt. Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker) roaming the streets. Hugh Laurie plays Internal Affairs Capt. Biggs. Chris Evans also stars. And Cedric the Entertainer makes an amusing cameo in a orange Eldorado. (Kennedy)107 minutes
“Under the Same Moon”
Immigration drama. *** PG-13. “La Misma Luna” is an emotional and entertaining road picture about a little boy who crosses the Mexican border into the U.S. on a quest to find his mom. She works “without papers” and off the books in Los Angeles. It’s a warm drama that humanizes America’s illegal immigration debate even as it sentimentally stacks the deck in favor of the undocumented. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 109 minutes
“The Visitor”
PG-13. Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) as a long-faced Connecticut College economics professor. His wife died, and he’s miserable. Walter is dispatched to speak at a global economics conference in Manhattan, where for years he’s kept a nice, tidy apartment that, unbeknownst to him, is now occupied by a couple — Tarek and Zainab. Tarek plays African drums in the park and in restaurants as part of a band, and in a matter of a few scenes, the professor becomes a student of rhythm. The bond between the two men is as you expect: The white American discovers he has a soul, the Arab guy keeps his temporary home. (Wesley Morris, Boston Globe)113 minutes
“Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?”
Documentary travelogue. *** PG-13. In Morgan Spurlock’s compelling if self-indulgent travelogue investigation, he of the “Super-Size Me” antics embarks on gutsy, goofy sojourn to countries linked in some fashion to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan. The director uses the action film and the video game as conceits for his lone protagonist in search of the world’s most wanted man. In a repeated gesture that gets tired quickly, the expectant father also cuts away to pregnant wife Alexandra Jamieson. Do you really have to be a parent to have an epiphany about the dire antagonisms roiling the globe? Still it’s Spurlock’s engaging time spent talking to folk on the streets, in their homes, in their mosques that suggests a deeply common truth: Deprivation bites. It makes people vulnerable. It humiliates them. It angers. So how do you say “It’s the economy stupid” in Urdu, Arabic, Pashto? (Kennedy) 85 minutes
“The Year My Parents Went on Vacation”
Sentimental drama. Not rated. Twelve-year-old Mauro’s mom and dad have a real problem: They’ve gotten on the bad side of the junta in power at the time. Before going into hiding, they drop off Mauro at his paternal grandfather’s apartment building. One thing they forgot to check, though: Is Grandpa still alive? As it turns out, no. The neighbors don’t quite know what to do about the abandoned kid with the untraceable parents, but after some initial kvetching they rise to the task, and affectionate bonding is spread all around. This is one of those adorable foreign kid/cranky old folks heartwarmers.(Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News) 104 minutes
Docu-musical. **** PG. It’s not a ha-ha gimmick but a delightful tonic to watch the Young@Heart Chorus from Northampton, MA, rip — or stumble — through tunes not by Duke Ellington or Ira Gershwin but taken from the songbooks of James Brown, Sonic Youth, and the Talking Heads. Brit filmmakers Stephen Walker and Sally George follow director Bob Cilman and his chorus — septuagenarians to nonagenarians — as they prepare for a big concert. Highlights (include the return of two singers waylayed by illness. Will they be able to perform Coldplay’s “Fix You” or will motality have its say? In between the rousing songs, there are visits to hospital rooms, blue announcements during rehearsals, tears. Some of those are shed by chorus members. Many more are likely to be your own. (Kennedy) 108 minutes
