Saint John of Las Vegas

Alert, first-time-filmmaker-warning. That phrase should be the sub-header for every debut director's film because audiences should have some clue about the crap-shoot they're in for when they plunk down their fifteen dollars. As is most frequently the case with first appearance directors, writer/director Hue Rhodes makes a painfully mediocre film on his first outing. With a title seemingly unrelated to the material Rhodes compiles a cool-school cast (Steve Buscemi, Romany Malco, Peter Dinklage, and Sarah Silverman) for a bogus story about John (Buscemi), a compulsive-gambler-turned-insurance-investigator. John strikes up an unlikely affair with co-worker cubical neighbor Jill (Silverman) before hitting the road for Vegas with the company's best fraud debunker Virgil (Malco). The smell of betting intoxicates John as he battles constantly with Virgil about his per diem. The two car-sleeping misfits are on a mission to investigate a stripper who got rear-ended in the desert. The humor is sophomoric in this road movie where a midnight confrontation with a group of all-male nudists in the desert is one of many such dispensable plot points.

Rated R. 85 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Youth in Revolt

Director Miguel Arteta adapts C.D. Payne's 1993 novel to predictably comic--if not full-blown--outrageous effect. Michael Cera is well cast as Nick Twisp, the precocious lust-driven teenage son of separated low-life parents played by Steve Buscemi and Jean Smart. Nick hopes to end his virginity when he runs into the similarly nerdy but super-cute Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). Some Ill-conceived advice from Sheeni--become a bad boy--prompts Nick to create a dual identity in order to win over Sheeni. Thanks to a pencil-thin mustache and Euro-chic clothes Nick reinvents himself as François, an alter ego with a penchant for various criminal shenanigans involving cars, drugs, and fire. That Sheeni's parents happen to be religious freaks (played by Emmet Walsh and Mary Kay Place) only adds to the kookiness of the  adult world that Nick navigates like a bull in a china store. Over the course of just a few films, Michael Cera has established himself as one of the most enjoyable young comics of his generation. Cera's scenes with Ray Liotta (as a local cop dating Nick's mom) are priceless. He may not be Holden Caulfield, but in this day and age Nick represents a fresh breeze of youthful rebellion.

Rated R. 90 mins. (B) (Three Stars)

Pirate Radio

Once titled "The Boat That Rocked," Pirate Radio" is a victim of over-editing for a loosey-goose '60s rock 'n' roll period piece set around a pirate radio station on board a ship large enough to have a basketball half-court on deck. Philip Seymour Hoffman coolly plays the Count, an American DJ with a heart of gold who enters into a cold war of sorts with British DJ rival Gavin whose cruel-to-be-kind personality proves less toothy than the Count imagines. Intended as a celebration of a more innocent yet swinging time when the music of The Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, and The Kinks promised a world of endless reverie, "Pirate Radio" is missing enough character reference points--ostensibly left on the cutting room floor--to allow the audience to share in the random festivities of the ship's fun-loving inhabitants. Still, there's some great music and a the movie sustains a groovy vibe that might have you imitating Bill Nighy's British accent as the boat's undemanding owner Quentin.  

Rated R. 116 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

The Men Who Stare at Goats

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" falls into the politically impotent sub-genre of lightweight satire of which "Charlie Wilson's War" and "The Informant" are recent touchstones. Based on Jon Ronson's book about the American military's most arcane practices, the movie focuses on an elite unit of special-ops soldiers trained to use psychic powers. They're most infamous for having developed the ability to kill dogs by staring at them. George Clooney plays mind-over-matter US spy (a.k.a. "Jedi Warrior") Lyn "Skip" Cassady. Skip allows an adventurous young journalist named Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) to tag along with him on a black-ops mission into Iraq. Foamy flashback comic set pieces run parallel to a meandering plot in which Skip and Bob get lost and kidnapped, then lost again. Particularly unfulfilling is a dead-end subplot about the military's New Earth Army led by new age hippie Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). A Viet Nam vet, Django dropped lots of LSD in order to develop the skills of a "warrior monk." Needless to say, these skills aren't what they're cracked up to be. Here is satire with all of the edges rounded off, a movie in love with the idea that the U.S. military spends buckets of money on things like generating 12-inch houseflies to ruin the morale of our "enemies." The filmmakers might imagine that they're dancing on the same floor as "Catch 22" or "Slaughterhouse Five" but they're much closer to a Steve Martin "Pink Panther"-remake.

Rated R. 95 mins. (D+) (One Star)

Untitled

Adam Goldberg embodies Adrian Jacobs, a pretentious avant-garde composer and leader of an experimental musical trio called New Sound Ensemble in Jonathan Parker's send up of Manhattan's art world. Adrian is a kind of ultimate artsy poseur--he has an especially selfish passive aggressive personality--whose cacophonous compositions include John Zorn-inspired touches like popping bubble wrap and rattling chains in tin buckets. His successful artist brother Josh sells his bland style of corporate art through his girlfriend and local gallery owner Madeleine Gray (Mary Shelton). After a performance by Adrian's trio, attended by Josh and Madeleine, she strikes up an affair with Adrian and gets him a well-paying sound instillation commission for a upcoming prestigious art showing at her gallery. The performances are perfectly deadpan and the overall comic tone cohesive in a satire that dares to show multiple sides of the art industry. Egos, etiquette, and envy go a long way in this atypical comedy of manners. In showing the sincerity beneath the absurdity of the experimental art world, Jonathan Parker gives a window of empathy for the brittle characters on display.
Not Rated. 96 mins. (B) (Three Stars)

The Blue Tooth Virgin

So pretentious it stinks from the screen, "The Blue Tooth Virgin" is a stillborn experiment in screenwriting 101. One-man-show Russell Brown (he writes, produces, and directs) records stagy discussions of the screenwriting idiom between bromance buddies Sam (Austin Peck) and David (Bryce Johnson). Sam is an out-of-work entertainment writer--he had a popular TV series called "Cat's Paw Print"-- working on a "character-driven" script that David thinks is complete garbage but can barely bring himself to tell Sam. "The Blue Tooth Virgin" bears all the marks of a navel-gazing attempt at drawing attention to an unrepentant void of mediocrity. Karen Black is squandered in one truly pathetic scene where she plays a New Age therapist to rich artsy-fartsy types like Sam. "The Blue Tooth Virgin" is more of a skeleton of a movie than ghost. It certainly won't haunt you, or anybody else. 

Rated R. 79 mins. (D) (One Star)

Adventures of Power

Writer/director/actor Ari Gold has made a competent student film that would graduate him from any film school with flying colors--that's to say, here is an example of a filmmaker who hasn't yet begun to find his own voice. Gold plays Power, a twentysomething New Mexico dwelling rock 'n' roll nerd who works at a union copper mine with his dad Harlan (Michael McKean). Unable to ever afford a drum kit, Power lives to rock out by air drumming along with Rush songs. An unlikely journey across the border to a Mexican air drumming competition leads the gawky lad to New Jersey where he's taken under the wing of air drumming guru Carlos (Steven Williams). In the company of Carlos's crew, Power trains for a team competition against a slew of air drummers that include Power's hated enemy--country music star Dallas Houston (Adrian Grenier).
Rated PG-13. 88 mins. (D) (One Star)

St. Trinian's

This hot mess of a teen girl comedy comes with the added humiliation of its overqualified stars. Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Stephen Fry, and Russell Brand all pitch in with good natured aplomb that gets buried beneath a script so sloppy you'd think it had been written by the uneducated lasses that overpopulate the film. The story is set in an anarchic girl's boarding school called St. Trinian's, overseen by headmistress Camilla (Rupert Everett), where art dealer Carnaby Fritton (also played by Everett) sends his daughter Annabelle (Talulah Riley) for an education in all things hedonistic, like cheating at field hockey games, playing army with paintball guns, and selling homemade vodka. A juvenile plot unfolds about an effort by Colin Firth's Minister of Education Geoffrey Thwaites's to shut down the school of reprobates in spite of his revised lust for the improbable Camilla, with whom he shared a romantic involvement in their youth. With foreclosure looming over the school, the students hatch an overworked scheme to win a competition quiz show taking place at the National Gallery, where the girls plan to steal Vermeer's "Girl With the Pearl Earring," to then fence through Russell Brand's dubious character. Rowdy 12-year-old British girls might get some modicum of narcissistic pleasure from "St. Trinian's" (loosely based on Ronald Searle's WWII era cartoons), but no one else will.
Rated PG-13. 97 mins. (D) (One Star)

Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchy Footed Mutha

Melvin Van Peebles unwatchable video collage version of his 1982 Broadway disaster "Waltz of the Stork" might work in an art instillation with plastic trash bags lining the walls, but the film fails miserably to live up to Van Peebles's reputation as the man who made the groundbreaking Blaxploitation film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (1971). The 75-year-old Van Peebles plays himself from age 10 when he left Chicago for Mexico, only to end up in Manhattan working at various jobs and falling in love before his "itchy feet" led him into the merchant marines and finally onto Africa. Punctuated with Van Peebles dated "ghetto deadpan" delivery of platitudes, "CEDIFM" is a cinematic embarrassment that wouldn't get a passing grade for a freshman at NYU film school. This is the kind of movie that really does separate the wheat from the chaff among film critics. It isn't just bad, it's gawdawful.
Not Rated. 99 mins. (F) (Zero Stars)

Extract

As prolific as writer/director Mike Judge has been throughout a stellar career which includes such television staples as "Beevis and Butt-Head' and "King of the Hill," it's to his detriment (and ours) that he hasn't done more feature films. "Office Space" (1999) became a cult classic after the fact of its failed theatrical release. "Idiocracy" (2006) did the same in spite of its mistreatment by distributors. With "Extract" Judge crafts a solid comic narrative base for a flavoring-extract company run by sexually frustrated owner Joel Reynold (well played by Jason Bateman). Reynold's staff of barely competent blue-collar workers set off a chain reaction accident that climaxes with a severed testicle for would-be floor-manager Step (Clifton Collins Jr.). Step falls prey to the con-artist attentions of Cindy (Mila Kunis), a sex-kitten opportunist determined to help Step sue the Reynold Extract company right out of business. Joel adds to his headaches when, in a drugged-out state, he takes his barkeep pal Dean's (Ben Affleck) bad advice to hire a gigolo to sleep with his sexually closed-off wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig), so that he [Joel] can then cheat on Suzie with impunity. The tone of the comedy is spot-on but Judge never manages to bring the humor to a boil. There are chuckles to be had and even a few belly laughs but "Extract" can't help but pale to Judd Apatow's work that has set the bar high for this kind of comedy. Nonetheless, you get the sense that if Mike Judge made more pictures, he'd hit his stride alongside the likes of Apatow pretty quick.
(Miramax) Rated R. 90 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

My One and Only

Director Richard Loncraine's modest road comedy premiered at the Berlin Film Festival to a warm reception for its tempered depiction of the husband-hunting Ann Devereaux, a 1953 version of Blanche Dubois appropriately played by Renee Zellweger. While its episodic form abandons supporting characters like so many flies on the windshield of Ann's convertible Cadillac, the movie wisely hones in on talented newcomer Logan Lerman as George, Ann's cynical teenage son. George's slightly older effeminate brother Robbie (Mark Rendell) takes a backseat as well. George gets elevated to man-of-the-family when Ann discovers her wealthy bandleader husband Dan (Kevin Bacon) cheating on her in their well-appointed Manhattan apartment. Ann heists a wad of cash and heads off with her sons to Boston. There she sets matrimonial sights on former military officer Harlan (Chris Noth), after being robbed by an old boyfriend whom she briefly auditions over a doomed dinner. A slapstick mishap with Harlan sends our familial trio on to more comical romantic failings for Ann in Baltimore, New Mexico, and Hollywood. The film errs forgivably by constantly swapping protagonists between Ann and George, but chuckles flourish as both characters gravitate toward their thematic resolutions.
Rated PG-13. 107 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

World's Greatest Dad

Apart from the inane synergism of a moment that decrees that there be ten films with the number nine in their title, the dog days of August finds us with a collective running theme about literary frauds finding happiness, or at least inner peace. Witness John Hindman's pathetic "The Answer Man" and Bobcat Goldthwait's surly "World's Greatest Dad." Robin Williams plays put-upon divorced father/teacher/failed writer Lance Clayton, whose porn-obsessed teenage son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is a student at the high school where Lance teaches poetry. Kyle revels in his self-asphyxiation masturbation habit. Autoeroticism provides a (too) long-delayed inciting incident in which Lance finally gets published, albeit under a misleading pseudonym. Lazy music-video montage sequences try to pass for plot development as the poor audience is inundated with more unlikable characters than there are corrupt politicians. To call "World's Greatest Dad" a cynical and mean-spirited black comedy is to give too much credit to a sad piece of exploitation cinema. This cinematic insult barely manages to spit out its theme: that most people are idiotic leeches merely attempting to leverage a meaningful existence from others' misfortunes.
(Magnolia Pictures) Rated R. 99 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Cold Souls

High on concept, but low on execution writer/director Sophie Barthes' gray comedy of post modern, existential panic never finds its balance before falling off the same kind of narrative wire that "Being John Malkovich" danced effortlessly on. Just as in Spike Jonze's film, where John Malkovich played himself, Paul Giamati incarnates his life as a New York actor. Giamatti is having trouble finding his character's objectives in a stage version of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" when an article in New York magazine introduces him to a company that specializes in putting clients' souls in cold storage, thereby relieving them of the enormous weight that the metaphysical emotional identity provides. David Strathairn plays Dr. Flintstein, the droll gentleman in charge of extracting and storing souls, with a embalmer's bedside manner that momentarily promises a flash of comedy that never arrives. Once being relieved of his soul, Giamati loses his ability to act and returns to Dr. Flintstein, who advises him to try out the soul of a female Russian poet. The new concealed identity doesn't go over too well with Giamati's wife Claire (Emily Watson), and Giamati is sent back to Dr. Flintstein to ask for his old soul back. The problem is that an aspiring actress in Russia has purloined it to help with her acting career. The filmmakers didn't so much work out the film's ending as allow it to occur. You might get a chuckle from the idea of the movie, but you'll never get to laugh. 
(Samuel Goldwyn Films) Rated PG-13, 101 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Funny People

Writer/director Judd Apatow raises the stakes on his already stellar formula for generating laughs with a comedy that is equal parts sincerity and wit. Set in a real-life world of Los Angeles stand-up comics, the story revolves around Adam Sandler, very much playing himself as George Simmons, a hugely successful comedian living it up in his Hollywood Hills mansion. News that he's dying of leukemia inspires George to hire local newbie stand-up comic Ira Wright (perfectly played by Seth Rogen) to write jokes and work as a personal assistant who will guard George's medical secret from the press. An awkward friendship develops between George and Ira as George tries to set the record straight with family members, old friends, and with his former fiancée Laura (played by Leslie Mann). Seth Rogen is an ideal comic foil for Sandler's character, and the film provides a great format for each to express a range of comic levels. "Funny People" is by far Adam Sandler's best movie because Apatow writes comic set-pieces that allow germs of humor to expand between the more obvious laughs that Sandler hits with sharp-shooter accuracy. At two-hours, twenty minutes, "Funny People" runs about fifteen minutes longer than it should. But this is still the funniest movie of the year.  
(Universal) Rated R. 140 mins. (A-)

In the Loop

Meticulously crafted from its BBC television source series, "The Thick of It," "In the Loop" is the funniest and smartest political comedy to come along in ages. With an unusually clever cast, director Armando Iannucci delivers nonstop punch-and-tickle humor from Britain's corridors of power to the D.C. beltway where the rollicking movie hits its stride. Britain's Minister of International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) fumbles with mixed metaphors during a radio interview, and hints that Iraq war plans might be on the Prime Minister's agenda. Simon's dimwitted radio performance sends Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the Prime Minister's Director of Communications, into a spree of hilarious vulgarity spewing recriminations aimed at Simon and anyone within a twenty-five yard proximity. Simon, Malcolm, and newbie political adviser Toby (Chris Addison), head to D.C. to participate in slapdash caucus proceedings administered with a fourth grade level of strategy and execution. "In the Loop" works exceptionally well as a modern day political comedy because it doesn't get bogged down in specifics that might be construed as carrying any kind of agenda or partisan message. The wonks that make British and American politics run are shown as little more than young adult brats, or middle-aged adult brats engaged in an ongoing pissing contest that will eventually be dumped on unsuspecting citizens of every community in the world. It just goes to show that politicians hate each other just as much as their citizenry hates them. Oh, and they hate you too.
Rated PG-13. 105 mins. (A) (Five Stars)

Humpday

Writer/director Lynn Shelton's lo-fidelity indie effort is a disarmingly goofy yet dramatic yarn built around two straight Generation Z buddies who incite the other to have sex together in the interest of entering a local Seattle amateur porn video contest called "Humpday." Mark Duplass plays Ben, a working class guy with a loving domestic wife named Anna (played by Alycia Delmore). Ben's and Anna's cozy home life is disrupted when Ben's bohemian man/boy friend-from-his-past Andrew (played by Joshua Leonard) shows up unannounced at the couple's doorstep in the middle of the night. The pals' friendship of oneupsmanship takes a dodgy turn at a party of young metrosexual hipsters when the duo hatch the idea of making a sex video that is "beyond gay," wherein they will film themselves preparing to, and having sex, in a hotel room. The guys never bother to hash out which one will be doing the poking, and the film's broiling subtext of 21st century American zeitgeist of stupidity via mumblecore's can't-get-started value system comes to a head with a surprising amount of humor and honesty. Alycia Delmore gives a nuanced performance as Anna, but it's the dumb-as-stumps performances from Duplass and Leonard that make "Humpday" a movie that you can laugh at as much as you laugh with it.
Seashel Pictures R. 94 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

Land of the Lost

Will Ferrell is a buzz kill to this innuendo-laced comedy that's unrelated to the television series it's ostensibly based on. Notorious for repeating his same shtick rather than creating characters, Ferrell plays Dr. Rick Marshall, a quantum paleontologist who bumbles into inventing a time-travel device that takes him and his assistant Holly (a squandered Anna Friel), along with slacker Will Stanton (Danny McBride) to a surreal place where lizard-type aliens clash with monkey people represented by Chaka (Jorma Taccone). Doomed from its faulty inception, "Land of the Lost" lives up to its title as a movie with no comic bearing save for Will Ferrell's tired humor that works fine on David Letterman, but not so much on larger screens. This movie doesn't even rate as a guilty pleasure. It's a guilty pain.
Rated PG-13. 96 mins. (D) (One Star)

The Hangover

To its credit, "The Hangover" transfers to the audience the smelly, still inebriated state that the title promises. Director Todd Phillips ("Old School") is nothing if not relentless in his pursuit of a full, mixed sack of masculine stupidity at the hand of drink, drugs, and the dubious charms of Las Vegas. In the interest of their soon-to-be-wedded pal Doug (Justin Bartha), best friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms), let future brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) come along for the ride to Vegas where the circumstances of their bachelor party celebrations spiral out of control. A drunken night of childish carousing leaves the group missing their prime member Doug and sends the absentminded trio on a humor-riddled mission to reconstruct the night's events and locate Doug in time to get him to his wedding on time. A kidnapped tiger belonging to Mike Tyson, brushes with the police and criminals alike, and a missing tooth for Phil are just some of the painful humiliations that our motley group endure on their way to a clearer understanding of their  transgressions. Gratuitous sex, pratfalls, and goofy violence come with the territory in this over-the-top guys' comedy. A word to the wise, stay for the closing credit sequence to see a droll photo collage of outtake events from the lost hours of darkness.    
Rated R. 99 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

Whatever Works

Evidence that Woody Allen's return to making films in America--it's his first since 2004 ("Melinda and Melinda")--comes with the loss of his mind. Adapted from a script Allen wrote 30 years ago, "Whatever Works" is a desperate attempt at comedy that only relaxes its death grip whenever Allen's alter ego Boris Yellnikoff (grossly played by Larry David) is absent from the screen. The movie starts off with a fourth-wall-breaking rant by Boris, doing a bad Woody Allen impersonation, about what a joke life is and how its everyone's duty to "filtch" whatever amount of joy they can from this cruel world. Then Boris, a suicidal retired college professor, has the good fortune to share his downtown Manhattan apartment with Melody (Evan Rachel Wood) a newly arrived runaway (she's 17) from the South whose sublime ignorance provides an empty vessel for Boris to fill with his grumpy ideas and poisonous opinions. At first Boris deflects the randy nymph's advances with a stream of hostility-fuelled barbs, but eventually enters into a doomed marriage with the girl who is roughly a fourth of his age. Boris' and Melody's quaint domestic life is upset when her religious-right mother Marietta (well played by Patricia Clarkson) shows up at the door in several month's advance of her ex-husband (Ed Begley). Old men and young girls sharing romance is a card that Woody Allen has overplayed throughout his career, and it's a trope that has run out of steam. Here's a movie that feels thrown together as if Allen is attempting to purge as many films as he can before he leaves the earthbound world. His legacy is going in an emotionally threadbare direction.
Rated PG-13. 92 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Away We Go

Co-writer Dave Eggers' holier-than-thou, slacker road story of negative wish fulfillment proves toxic source material to director Sam Mendes ("Revolutionary Road"). Even Maya Rudolph's amiable performance as a pregnant domestic partner named Verona barely registers in a movie that comes off as an apogee of mumblecore influence. Burt (John Krasinski) is an obnoxious man-boy with terrible parents who goes on a quest with Verona to find a suitable place to raise their family. Visits to old friends in places like Arizona, Montreal, and Florida play out regrettably as each exponentially worse encounter reflects poorly on Burt's and Verona's judgment of character. The movie almost works as a cautionary tale about global overpopulation by imbecile parents, but even that would be a bridge too far for this pathetic navel rub that comes with the same sense of entitlement that it pretends to skewer. Although, the movie could win a prize for worst poster of the decade.  
Rated R. 97 mins. (D) (One Star)

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Bawdy, quick-witted, and unrelentingly hilarious, "Borat" is possibly the funniest movie ever made. "Da Ali G Show" mastermind Sacha "Baron" Cohen plays the Kazakh character Borat Sagdiyev, which Cohen developed and polished during the run of his cable television show, to impossibly hilarious heights in a movie that combines all facets of postmodern cinematic satire. Cohen melds the pranking of "Jackass," the punking of "Punk’d," the satire of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and the inventiveness of Mel Brooks to create an original brand of comedy that stands alone as a defiant manifesto for compulsive laughs. It’s an uninhibited curiosity shared by Charlie Chaplin’s unforgettable characters that inevitably locates precise nerves of social oppression and hammers away at them indefinitely. The people that refuse to accept the joke unwittingly conspire to conceal a secret that Baron Cohen already knows; ridicule is the most powerful weapon of the oppressed.
Rated R. 84 mins. (A) (Five Stars)

Stranger Than Fiction

This high-concept comedy falls prey to its substitute voice-over gimmick wherein neurotic novelist Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) verbally instructs the life of her protagonist Harold Crick (Will Ferrell). Little does Kay realize that Harold is a real living and breathing human being attempting to escape her mysterious voice as it instructs every movement and inevitability of his life. Harold’s existential crisis worsens because Kay’s writer’s block depends on finding a way to end her novel with his death. Queen Latifah puts a wet blanket on the movie as a drab publishing representative sent to motivate Kay to finish her overdue novel. Chicago Internal Revenue Service agent Harold strikes up a romance with Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal) in the midst of auditing her for unpaid taxes. “Stranger Than Fiction” is a sterile and pedantic comedy that tells much more than it shows.
Rated PG-13. 115 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Breakfast At Tiffany’s

“Breakfast At Tiffany’s” author Truman Capote intended the leading role of Holly Golightly to go to Marilyn Monroe for the film version of his novella, but Audrey Hepburn was destined to claim the role for her most memorable film character. Holly is a chic but immature Manhattanite escort on the prowl for a rich daddy to marry when Fred (George Peppard), a new neighbor, distracts her from her ambitions. Fred is a wannabe writer being kept by an older woman, and as such is a male version of Holly. Although the movie won Oscars for music and song (“Moon River”) by Henry Mancini, “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” has a dark underbelly and unlikable characters made attractive by their eccentric behavior and expensive wardrobes. Blake Edwards directed this overrated classic. 
Rated PG.115 min. (B) (Three Stars)

Made

In his feature film writing/directing debut, Jon Favreau rejoins with "Swingers" co-star Vince Vaughn in a story about two dimwitted aspiring boxers and best friends turned wanna-be mobsters, who go from Los Angeles to New York to become "made men."  Peter Falk plays a quirky old school mob king with a high-stakes cash delivery job for the boys to prove themselves. The going goes from weird to worse when loose-cannon Vaughn starts flaunting his mob street credit around Manhattan before the job is finished. Sean "Puffy" Combs makes a suitable film acting debut as a cool crime syndicate chief. Slick suits, hip urban nightspots, and an over the top performance by Vince Vaughn make this rambunctious farce an enjoyable and unpredictable movie with some obligatory fist fighting. 
Rated R. 95 mins. (B) (Three Stars)

Storytelling

Director Todd Solondz is a white Spike Lee. "Happiness" and "Storytelling" represent a pretentious exploitation of incendiary topics in the interest of aggrandizing the director without ever rising above a certain 'fuck-you' level of social awareness. Solondz is content to smear crap and yell, 'look at all of this bad cultural juju,' without ever suggesting a humane clarity at the bottom of his divisive vision. Director Sam Mendes ("American Beauty") said he found "Happiness" condescending to its characters, and Solondz took enough umbrage at the remark to make a cinematic retort that merely goes further in its foul contempt for human interaction than "Happiness" did. Solondz will likely never make a film half as good as "American Beauty," but that's beside the point. "Storytelling" is not worth the waste of time to watch it.
Rated R. 83 mins. (D) (One Star)

Legally Blonde

Based on all the media-hewn backslapping over Reese Witherspoon's first shot at a leading lady role, you'd think "Legally Blonde" was a modern Billy Wilder comedy with the latest rendition of Marilyn Monroe in front of the camera. Instead this weak and predictable comedy, by debut feature director Robert Luketic, is a poorly lit attempt at dredging humor from a sterile and flat script. While Witherspoon makes an attractive ditzy blonde with enough book-smarts to overcompensate for her character's fashion victim obsessions, her talents are dissipated in a movie that chases its own tail. Following Witherspoon's cruelly good performances in movies like "Freeway" and "Election," "Legally Blonde" is a career misstep for a talented actress capable of creating much more complex characters. 
Rated PG-13. 97 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Young Frankenstein (Classic Film Pick)

Mel Brooks caught comic lightning in a bottle in 1974 with his appropriately black-and-white spoof of James Whale's 1931 classic horror film. Brooks was on a tear with his hugely popular film "Blazing Saddles" when he unleashed the innuendo-laced "Young Frankenstein" on unsuspecting audiences who found themselves with stomach aches from sustained fits of laughter. Gene Wilder brilliantly plays the semi-mad college lecturer Frederick Frankenstein who insists on the proper pronunciation of his name as "Fronkenschteen." As the grandson of the more famous mad scientist, Wilder's zany doctor inherits his family's Transylvanian estate where he travels and is soon inspired to pick up with his grandfather's experiments of creating life from parts of corpses. Frankenstein's comely blonde lab assistant Inga (Teri Garr) distracts the doctor from his soon visiting fiancé Elizabeth (hilariously played by Madeline Kahn), and with the help of the very funny Marty Feldman as Igor (pronounced Eyegor), makes a Frankenstein monster of his very own. Peter Boyle fill's the creature's clunky dancing shoes--yes there's a song-and-dance-sequence, and Cloris Leachman strikes many a funny chord as Frau Blucher, whose name excites horses whenever its mentioned. Brooks used many of the actual props created by Kenneth Strickfaden from Whale's original film that give "Young Frankenstein" an atmosphere of reverent delight beneath its bawdy puns and outrageous physical humor.

Is Anybody There?

As a modest coming-of-age black comedy, director John Crowley's "Is Anybody There?" fills its chosen niche with an appropriately contained performance from Michael Caine as Clarence, a senile retired magician who takes up residence in an English seaside nursing home run by a married couple approaching middle age. The couple's only child Edward (well played by Mill Milner) is a 10-year-old boy processing the ongoing parade of death around him with a fervent interest in ghosts. Edward plants his tape recorder in the rooms of ill patients with the hope of capturing clues to the mysteries of death. Although sworn enemies at first, Clarence becomes a mentor to Edward after the kid saves him from an attempt at suicide. Equal parts sweet and sour, "Is Anybody There?" is a thoughtful little chamber piece with just the right amount of laugh-out-loud humor.
Rated PG-13. 92 mins. (B) (Three Stars)
 

Adventureland

Nostalgia for a time that never was drives writer/director Greg Mottola's ("Superbad") unassuming '80s era coming-of-age romantic comedy. Jesse Eisenberg plays James Brennan, a virginal college graduate who foregoes a summer vacation to Europe because of his parents' financial woes, to work at Pittsburgh's Adventureland amusement park. The only good thing about James' game booth job is the presence of his alluring co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart) with whom James makes his first tentative steps toward developing a romantic relationship. James doesn't know about Em's sexually active bond with the park's roving electrician Ryan Reynolds, that serves as a narrative time bomb. Eisenberg and Stewart make movie magic happen, but the miscasting of Ryan Reynolds as an adulterous playboy puts a severe damper on the film. Like the confused social period of the Reagan era that the story inhabits, "Adventureland" is an awkward comedy that makes you wish it were a lot better.
(Miramax) Rated R. 107 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

Miss March

The writing and directing team of Trevor Moore and Zach Cregger (television's "The Whitest Kids U Know") take a failing grade on their entree into feature film territory. Contrary to the wealth of comic gifts Moore and Cregger exhibit on a regular basis on television, the "Monty Python-inspired" duo hit too few comic high notes with a road trip sex comedy that never finds a groove. Cregger plays the virgin Eugene, whose initiation to love-making with his longtime girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi) is ruined when a party-house stairwell fall puts him in a coma for four years. Eugene's best friend Tucker (Moore) brings Eugene back to the waking world of the eternally horny with the aid of a baseball bat, and the two set off on a journey to the Playboy mansion to locate Cindi, who's been busy doing nude modeling for Playboy magazine. As comic performers Moore and Cregger are a stellar team, but screenwriting is not their strong suit. In something like a Judd Apatow comedy, I have a feeling Cregger and Moore could make an audience laugh its socks right off.
(Fox Searchlight) Rated R. 90 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

The Great Buck Howard

John Malkovich plays an "Amazing Kreskin-styled" mentalist--don't say "magician"--in this tempo-challenged movie from writer/director Sean McGinly. Tom Hanks helped produce the film in which his son Colin plays Troy Gable, a law school dropout who takes a personal assistant job to the Great Buck Howard, whose primary claim to fame comes from having appeared 61 times on the Johnny Carson show, back when that meant something. Buck travels the country performing his dated act in small regional theaters where he finishes every show with his trademark trick of guessing the location of his night's paycheck, which someone in the audience as hidden. Buck plans for his big comeback when he isn't berating those around him for their unprofessional conduct. Emily Blunt sporadically energizes the movie as a go-getter publicist named Valerie, but the script's grinding machinations all but cancel out Blunt's best efforts.Ostensibly about nostalgia for a vaudeville breed of entertainer that was never very good to begin with, "The Great Buck Howard" doesn't know whether to mock or celebrate its tragic protagonist. Perhaps the best favor an audience can do for itself is ignore it altogether.
(Magnolia Pictures) Rated PG-13. 87 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Pecker

Edward Furlong ("Terminator 2: Judgment Day) is Pecker, a young Baltimore photographer with a heart of gold and an eye for the somewhat obscene. Pecker's world expands and implodes when overnight success tears him away from Baltimore and lands him in Manhattan. Christina Ricci gives great facial expressions as Shelly, Pecker's loyal-to-Baltimore working class girlfriend. When Shelley gets off a Greyhound Bus upon returning to Baltimore and kisses the asphalt, it's an American catharsis. Of course there are many other odd treats like seeing former SLA hostage Patty Hearst dancing on a bar in a low-cut slip and getting a crash course in "tea-baggng."

Rated R. 87 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

Sherman's Way

The "fish-out-of-water-coming-of-age" genre loses so much ground in Craig Saavadra's tedious indy comedy that you barely feel like you've watched a movie when it's over. Michael Shulman plays Sherman Black, a rich momma's boy from New York who can't even drive a car when he takes a trip to the West Coast only to discover that his high-maintenance girlfriend is sleeping with another dude. Sherman hitchhikes into the stolen car of ex-Olympic-skier-turned-bum Palmer (James LeGros). The guys fix up Palmer's little red MG with the help of a slacker chef played by Enrico Colantoni. Where a film like last year's buried gem "Humboldt County" elevated the genre to a soaring level of expansiveness, "Sherman's Way" shuts down before the end of the first act. This movie is a waste of celluloid and time.

(Starry Night Entertainment) Not Rated. 97 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail

Tyler Perry continues to preach to the choir with his entertaining albeit stereotype-laced blend of melodrama and comedy. Joshua Hardaway is a DeKalb, Illinois assistant DA (well played by Derek Luke) attempting to rescue an old friend named Candice from a life of prostitution and addiction. Joshua's attorney fiancee Linda (played by Ion Overman) takes a dim view of his humanitarian efforts and sets about pulling some unethical legal strings. The comedy comes to life whenever Tyler's irrepressible lifelong criminal Madea takes over, turning her rage at the social misdemeanors of others into humorous action. As a filmmaker, Tyler Perry is content to recycle his talents and pad his pictures with self-congratulating cameos by the likes of Dr. Phil and the Reverend Al Sharpton. If he ever gets around to widening his world view he might surprise himself and his loyal audience in the bargain.

 

(Lionsgate) Rated PG-13. 103 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

 

Fanboys

Evidence that there should be a 15-year-old limit on the arrested development phenomenon known as "fanboy," the story follows five twenty-something Star Wars-loving buddies (token girl duties supplied by Kristen Bell) on a cross-country journey to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch to get a first look at the next Star Wars movie. The road trip necessarily involves a cultural collision at a gay biker bar, a close encounter with a couple of inept Las Vegas prostitutes, and a near beat-down by an actor playing fanboy hero Harry Knowles. Little boys that play with action figures might get juiced up from cameos by the likes of Carrie Fisher and William Shatner, and the promise of a booby flash, but "Fanboys" is not an enjoyable ride for the rest of humanity.  
Rated PG-13. 90 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

Bad News Bears

How the game is played takes precedence over winning or losing in a remake of Michael Ritchie’s classic baseball comedy from 1976. With only slight adjustments to the original storyline director Richard Linklater regulates the comic tone toward making a fundamental statement about sportsmanship and even about American political conduct with our global rivals. Billy Bob Thornton is enjoyable although not entirely comical as Morris Buttermaker, a former pro baseball player turned rodent exterminator, who takes on a job coaching a team of Little League baseball misfits. Linklater’s “Bad News Bears” doesn’t approach the giddy comedy of Ritchie’s original, but it does inspire an attentive contemplation on the similarities and differences between adults and children in approaching the game of life. 
Rated PG-13. 111 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)

Monster-in-Law

Cardboard cut-out couple Jennifer Lopez and Michael Vartan (“Never Been Kissed”) have their marriage plans challenged by Vartan’s jealous high maintenance mother Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) when she’s left with too much time on her hands after being fired from her job as an established TV news anchor woman. Lopez does a slight twist on her “Maid In Manhattan” role here as Charlie a cater-waiter dilettante who wins the heart of a wealthy doctor (Vartan). The catfight battle between Fonda and Lopez barely reaches a simmer before all is forgiven and the audience is dismissed from their seats. Wanda Sykes (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) steals the movie as Viola’s long-time assistant Ruby who sees through the whole conflict from the beginning to its predictable end.     
Rated PG-13. 95 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

Kings Ransom

Malcolm King (Anthony Anderson – “Barbershop”) is an egotistical and wealthy head of a major ad company who hatches a plan to stage his own kidnapping in order to avoid splitting his net worth with his ex-wife Renee (Kellita Smith). The trouble is that two other factions have also planned to kidnap the much-reviled Malcolm King. This slapdash comedy barely coughs up more than a couple of funny scenes as the story moves in predictable fits and starts before sputtering out of fuel half way through. Regina Hall (“Paid In Full”) gives a standout performance as Malcolm’s dimwitted sexpot assistant and mistress. Jay Mohr is unimpressive as a half-witted malcontent who executes the kidnapping.
Rated PG-13. 95 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)

A Lot Like Love

This grueling, training-wheel romance comedy covers a six year stretch of time in which Generation Y boy toy Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) slowly realizes that he can’t wait for his life plans to gel before committing to his affection for his narcissist girl pal Emily (Amanda Peet). British director Nigel Cole (“Calendar Girls”) toils with newbie screenwriter Colin Patrick Lynch’s script like he’s trying to fit a pound of cheese into a six-ounce container. There can only be one explanation as to why Ashton Kutcher’s character is an online diaper salesman in the movie. If real life romance were this abysmal then there’d be no Valentine’s Day.
Rated PG-13. 107 mins. (D) (One Star)

Beauty Shop

Take one part "Barbershop," one part Queen Latifah, sprinkle in a tablespoon of ‘you-go-girl’ and stir to get the confection of “Beauty Shop.” Gina (Latifah), who made her trash talking debut in “Barbershop 2,” moves to Atlanta and opens up her own salon. Gina hustles to raise her daughter, keep the shop afloat, and treat her customers to a vibe full of glam, girl-power and spunk. Brandishing curling irons and hair dryers, the ladies sling a sassed-up version of the ribald barbershop banter, gabbing about breast implants, Oprah, and the pros and cons of pubic hair. It’s formulaic, and the jokes are hit or miss, but Latifah’s warm, toned-down performance gives “Beauty Shop” real heart.
Rated PG-13. 105 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

The Honeymooners

Lusterless movie makeover of Jackie Gleason’s classic television sitcom envisions two late ‘90s era African-American couples (Cedric The Entertainer and Gabrielle Union, Mike Epps and Regina Hall) as they attempt to purchase a Brooklyn townhouse together in spite of Ralph and Ed’s (Cedric and Epps) money-diverting schemes. Cedric The Entertainer uses an odd blowhard vocal characterization that drains the already dull picture of its singular hope for comedic salvation. The script (credited to four screenwriters) uses a plethora of already-dated urban inside humor that reeks of pandering. As a summer “feel-good” movie, “The Honeymooners” leaves its audiences feeling less than blasé.
Rated PG-13. 90 mins. (C-) (Two Stars)