Now Showing - go here for the local movie schedule

Capsule reviews by Thomas Delapa (T.D.) or Ingrid Vogelfanger (I.V.), as indicated.

Amelie (2001). Amelie is the product of the savory imagination of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, one-half of the directing team behind Delicatessen. His latest is a love letter to Paris, to childhood fantasy and to the expressive language of cinema. But it’s a letter that should be stamped "Contents: Perishable Froufrou." In her page-boy hairdo and elfin grin, actress Audrey Tautou is the movie’s Gaelic delicacy. She’s Amelie, a shy Montmartre waitress. A narrator relates her life story, laced with droll details of the eccentric people around her. Francophiles may be the first to toast the film, if only for its postcard-pretty views of Paris. But Jeunet’s flagrant flaw has always been his baroque superficiality, which becomes more apparent as he moves from loose anecdote into Amelie’s adventure story. Rated R. At Boulder Theater. –TD

The Banger Sisters. Like daughter, like mother? Kate Hudson played a groupie in Almost Famous. Now it’s mom Goldie Hawn’s turn. She’s Suzette, a semi-wilted flowerchild who refuses to act her age. Suzette quits Los Angeles for Phoenix, where she looks up her old "banger sister" Lavinia (Susan Sarandon), who has reinvented herself as an uptight suburban mom. Only Hawn’s bustling energy playing off Sarandon as the prim Vinnie keeps this baby-boomer nostalgia trip from blowing up. It’s a movie of hot flashes, set in a forced story about the need to stay young at heart. Director Bob Dolman includes a magical scene of Hawn and Sarandon letting loose on the dance floor to a Talking Heads song. But it’s still a little embarrassing to watch Hawn strut her bust, as if she were still the go-go Goldie on "Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In." With Geoffrey Rush. Rated R. At FlatIron Crossing and Colony Square. –TD

Bottle Rocket. (1996). Five years before The Royal Tenenbaums, director Wes Anderson made his debut with a wry, charming indie he co-wrote with Owen Wilson. Wilson stars as the eccentric Dignan, a young man whose grandiose plans are only exceeded by his ineptitude. Dignan convinces his best friend (real-life brother Luke Wilson) and another buddy (Robert Musgrave) to take part in a robbery masterminded by a local operator (James Caan) who is learning karate. This droll, delicate gem, shot in Texas, was one of the best films of 1996. At Boulder Theater. –TD

Brown Sugar. Love blooms from the long-time friendship between a hip-hopping ladies man (Taye Diggs) and a magazine editor (Sanaa Lathan). Rated PG-13. At FlatIron Crossing.

Denver International Film Series at IFS. Eight DIFF films will be screened at CU’s International Film Series, Thursday through Sunday. For listings, see Now Showing box.

8 Women. Director Francois Ozon gave himself a near-impossisble task: to make a modern musical, sung in French, and cast with all women, no less. Of course, it helps when you start with the powerhouse quartet of Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart and Fanny Ardant. Campy and theatrical, 8 Women sets a murder mystery to music, with each of the characters allowed to shine with a pop song. The victim is Marcel, found dead upstairs at his snowbound country house where his wife (Deneuve), sister-in-law (Huppert), mother (Danielle Darrieux), daughters and maids prowl. The fur flies as the women feud and snarl, exposing their secrets and lies. Audiences will likely either love this movie or hate it. Huppert is at her scene-stealing best as the catty spinster Augustine. As much as Ozon pays homage to classic musicals, he can’t resist relying on voguish themes (like lesbianism) and an excess of odd, downbeat scenes on the agonies of amour. Rated R. At Denver’s Chez Artiste. –TD

The Fast Runner. A film experience like no other, but does it achieve epic status? Three hours long and collectively made by a Canadian Inuit crew in the harsh Baffin region, Fast Runner painstakingly brings to life an ancient Inuit legend. It’s the story of Amaqjuaq (Pakkak Innukshuk) and his brother Atannarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq) and their long, simmering feud with Oki, a fellow tribesman (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq) out for vengeance after he loses his betrothed to Atanarjuat. Director Zacharias Kunuk sets out to capture and preserve the old Inuit way of life for posterity, much as Robert Flaherty did in his landmark 1922 documentary, Nanook of the North. The performances are marvelously naturalistic, almost as if the camera disappears. As admirable as this ethnographic testament is, it doesn’t quite justify its length. And though Kunuk’s digital-video images are crisp, they leave one wishing for the vivid hues of film. Unrated. At International Film Series. –TD

Igby Goes Down. Do we really need another Culkin in the movies? The short answer is... no. Fraternal kin to Home Alone’s semi-retired Macaulay, Kieran Culkin is the bratty boy hero of a hip, with-it comedy that I could have done without. In this salty satire, all the adults are downright rotten and their kids are all screwed up. Culkin plays Igby, one teen who’s fed up with the phony, corrupt world. Igby’s controlling mother (Susan Sarandon) drove Dad (Bill Pullman) into a mental institution. Igby’s brother (Ryan Phillippe) is a preppie who puts manners over morals. Igby flees home for New York City, where his godfather (Jeff Goldblum) has both a wife in the Hamptons and a trophy mistress (Amanda Peet) on the shelf in SoHo. The tone in writer/director Burr Steers’ debut is so cynical that even H.L. Mencken would flinch. Igby is numb to our ugly world, poor kid, and the blame must go to bad parenting. Igby Goes Down? I prefer Down With Igby. With Claire Danes. Rated R. At Denver’s Mayan and Crossroads Commons. –TD

Insomnia. In 2001, director Chistopher Nolan came out of nowhere with Memento, a mind-bending indie that was a sleeper hit. Fresh with success, Nolan returns with a Hollywood feature that flaunts a cast of three Oscar winners. In the remake of a 1997 Norwegian thriller, Al Pacino and Hilary Swank play cops on the hunt in Alaska for the killer of a teen-age girl. The wild card in the deal is Robin Williams, innocuously competent as a cold-blooded killer. Insomnia is a restless hybrid of the art film and the star vehicle. Your opinion of it may rest on how illuminating you take its main metaphor to be. Pacino is a man haunted by his dark past. An insomniac in the land of the midnight sun, he hides away his guilt from the light of truth. I’ve slept on the symbolism, and I still think it’s an overworked cliche. Rated R. At International Film Series. –TD

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. A stir-fried Bible story of Jonah and the whale, starring a basketful of vegetables from the kiddie video series. Dodging God’s command to go to Nineveh, a turban-wearing asparagus named Jonah hops a pirate ship, spends three days in the belly of a whale and ends up in Nineveh anyway. Instructive Bible stories (this one is about mercy and compassion) are a rare sidedish in kiddie flicks, but this tale is so short in seasoning that I doubt kids will eat it up. Rated G. At Colony Square and Twin Peaks. –TD

The Kid Stays in the Picture. An overrated movie about Mr. Overrated. Breakthrough documentary duo Brett Morgen and Nanette Bernstein (On the Ropes) break down into sycophantic amateurs with this slavish bio-documentary of has-been Hollywood producer Robert Evans. Apparently seduced by Evans’ signature, self-aggrandizing charm, Morgen and Bernstein literally allow Evans to be the film’s sole voice. In solipsistic voice-over (read directly from his autobiography), Evans details with mythological significance such fatuous accomplishments as producing Love Story, loving Ali McGraw, and his namedrops/tragedies (Nicholson getting Evans his mansion back after a coke bust...). Evans gloats over true feats like Chinatown and The Godfather as well, by crudely taking the credit as well as cowardly potshots at Polanski and Coppola. Morgen and Bernstein’s visuals, a flat collage of footage, digitally animated photos and clippings, though stylish give no counterpoint but only support Evans’ unchecked self-promotion. Maybe someone could make an unauthorized sequel. How about, The Objectivity Stays in the Picture? Rated R. At UA Village. –IV

Knockaround Guys. Please see review. Rated R. With Vin Diesel and John Malkovich. Rated R. At FlatIron Crossing, Colony Square, Twin Peaks and UA Village. –TD

Moonlight Mile. You’d think that a drama about the aftermath of a tragic death of a loved one would have a tragic tone. Not so with Mile, which can’t figure out what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it a light tragedy? A dark comedy? If writer/director Brad Silberling can’t decide, how’s the audience supposed to know? Even the title–taken from a Rolling Stones song–is opaque. We do know that a young woman named Diana was a bystander who was shot dead inside a restaurant. Her marriage to Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal) was only weeks away. Instead of readying a wedding for their daughter, Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and JoJo (Susan Sarandon) prepare for her funeral. From the outset, Moonlight keeps us in the dark. For reasons obscure to me, Gyllenhaal has blossomed into a big-time juvenile lead. OK, his Joe is supposed to be in a funk, but does he have to walk around like he’s been hit on the head with a mallet? With the exception of Holly Hunter as the family’s lawyer, the lead performances are rigidly mannered. As the flustered father, Hoffman is so calculating he might as well be a computer. You wish one of these people would stand up and scream, but it never happens. Rated PG-13. At Arapahoe Village. –TD

Mostly Martha. If only this half-baked German import was more about Martha (Martina Gedeck), a lonely, perfectionist Hamburg chef whose personal life is as bland as baby food. Martha gets a jolt when her sister suddenly dies, orphaning young Lina (Maxime Foerste), who comes to live with Martha in her tiny apartment. Another crisis is simmering at the restaurant, when the owner hires Mario (Sergio Castellito), an eccentric Italian chef, to act as Martha’s assistant. If appetizing on their own terms, these two stories go together like pasta and French fries. You’ll enjoy the tasty restaurant scenes, where you can almost smell the delicacies that Martha and Mario conjure up like culinary alchemists. But their romance feels like it came from a can, including Mario’s sensual wooing of Martha with food. Rated PG. At Crossroads Commons and Denver’s Chez Artiste. –TD

My Big Fat Greek Wedding. When Mrs. Tom Hanks (a.k.a., actress Rita Wilson) saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding on Broadway and asked hubby to produce a pet film version, Hanks made one great decision and one bad one. Hanks wisely asked Nia Vardalos, the writer and star of the hit Broadway play, to write the screenplay and star in the film version instead of the Mrs. Unfortunately, Hanks chose to indulge his old "Bosom Buddies" director, Joel Zwick, as director. As a result this romantic comedy, about a sheltered Greek woman who breaks strict family tradition to marry a W.A.S.P. man, is a mixed bag. On one hand Vardalos is hilarious, commanding and truly touching as her beleagured Toula Portakalos. Vardalos’ unconventional looks, intelligence and winning chemistry with leading man John Corbett make a refreshing Julia Roberts departure for the screwball-comedy bride. On the other hand, Zwick’s sappy sit-com style slaps Vardalos’ labor of love into one laborious convention and cutesy frame after another. Over all, the film ends up breaking even. Wedding is a funny, sweet, decent little piece of Baklava, light and easily consumed. You just get the feeling a robust, outrageous wedding feast should have taken place here. Rated PG. At Crossroads Commons and Twin Peaks. – IV

One Hour Photo. This year was the year that funnyman Robin Williams decided to dig deep into his dark side. His dramatic performance as Sy "the Photo Guy" is his best yet. In fact, it’s nearly picture-perfect. In Sy’s sad, limited world, he can reach out to people only vicariously. Over the years he’s taken one family’s photos and secretly made duplicates of them, turning his apartment wall into a creepy mosaic. In other movies, Williams was always playing for audience sympathy. Yet here he’s at his most sympathetic, precisely because he doesn’t try to manipulate us. Writer/director Mark Romanek expertly sets up Sy’s social dysfunction, but he’s less adroit in managing Sy’s change from bystander into aggressor. I flinched during One Hour Photo’s disturbing development, which is fuzzy and off-center. With Connie Nielson and Michael Vartan. Rated R. At Nederland’s Back Door Theater and Denver’s Esquire. –TD

Red Dragon. The producers of Dragon lined up a classy cast of Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson and Harvey Keitel. At the very least, this reheated Hannibal Lector prequel proves that Hollywood eats its young and old alike. Ironically, Thomas Harris’ novel has already been made into a motion picture (1986’s Manhunter). But why would anywone want to remake a film that’s only 15 years old? This ain’t Shakespeare, folks. The new face of evil is a disfigured serial killer nicknamed The Tooth Fairy. His nemesis is FBI profiler Will Graham (Norton), called out of retirement after sending Lector to prison. A slice out of Silence of the Lambs, Graham visits Lector to get advice on how to put the bite on the Tooth Fairy. Directed by Brett Ratner. Rated R. At FlatIron Crossing, Colony Square, Twin Peaks and UA Village. –TD

Reynold Reynolds in Person. The CU graduate and Sundance-award winner will screen and discuss The Last News (2002), Burn (2002), The History of the Future (1996) and other experimental shorts. At 1st Person Cinema, International Film Series. [Monday at 8 p.m., Fine Arts N141]

The Royal Tenenbaums. According to the press notes, director Wes Anderson wrote this film specifically for Gene Hackman. It’s a good thing that Hackman accepted, for without his princely performance, Anderson’s urbane comedy might have been a royal letdown. Narrated in storybook fashion, the film tells of the travails of the Tenenbaum family, who in 20 years and three chapters go from fairy tale to disaster. Anderson has a wry, literate view of the universe, and his living tableaux is set in a nostalgic New York City of the imagination. But this colorful pastiche comes bred with its own dysfunctionalism. Anderson has said that he wanted to pay homage to old New Yorker magazine articles that profiled odd Gotham residents. He could use help from its editors in writing a script that actually progressed from beginning to end. With Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson and Gwyneth Paltrow. Rated R. At Boulder Theater. –TD

The Rules of Attraction. Brett Easton Ellis for Gen Y. (Just think of it as American Pie with cocaine, date rape and suicide–instead of pie). Film adaptations of Ellis novels are historically touch-and-go, and this teen genre foray is no different. A very familiar ensemble of college co-ed stereotypes with very familiar weaved story lines, Attraction simply translates what has become rote territory into Ellis-talk. Screenwriter/director John Avary finds Ellis’ keen insight into jaded amorality with decent precision in his script, but goes off on gimmicky visual tangents directing. This purple visual prose drowns out much of the film’s essential subtlety. The ensemble of young actors are resourceful under the circumstances, and maintain many legitimate moments. Shannyn Sossamon, as the virgin trying to get laid, and Ian Somerholder, as the gay guy trying to get laid, manage particularily well to stretch their limited roles. Rated PG-13. At FlatIron Crossing, Arapahoe Village and Colony Square. –IV

Rushmore (1999). Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is no ordinary teenager. He’s a natural born liar, dreamer and schemer, a kid who re-stages Serpico done with nuns. Sound strange? It is. But that’s Rushmore, a delirious film fantasy that gets inside the head of a diabolical 15-year-old. What’s more, it’s a movie that’s brushed with flickers of brilliance. In Max’s mad antics at his private school, director Wes Anderson lets his imagination run wild. Anderson’s visuals are a pastiche of sketches and gags, all only tenuously linked to reality. Individual scenes are absurdly funny, but the cracks and seams are also apparent. Max is a nut, but one with the vision to create as his masterpiece a version of Apocalypse Now on his school stage. With Bill Murray and Olivia Williams. Rated R. At Boulder Theater. –TD

Secretary. Midway between David Lynch land and soft-core S&M lies this kinky comedy, which handcuffs spry newcomer Maggie Gyllenhaal in a seamy role. Gyllenhaal is Lee Holloway, a young woman who finds liberation and lust behind the closed doors of her equally unbalanced boss, lawyer Edward Gray (James Spader). Spader gives Gyllenhaal a hand, usually in the form of a spanking, which for her is better than a long lunch break. You could think of this warped love story as a metaphor for romantic dependency or for work relationships, but that’s giving director Steven Shainberg too much credit. Running the gamut from perky to sulky, Gyllenhaal is a pleasure to watch, even if the sum total of Secretary is a pain. Rated R. At Denver’s Esquire and Crossroads Commons. –TD

Spirited Away. Can the most successful Japanese film of all time find fame and fortune in America? Not if it’s director Hayao Miyazaki’s anime fairy tale, which is equally astounding, overlong and absurd. Astray in a haunted theme park, young Chihiro loses her parents, who are turned into pigs for their gluttony. To get them back, she must go to work in a bathhouse of the spirits, where she meets the kindly Haku, a boy who’s a dragon in disguise. Miyazaki’s wondrous visuals encompass everything from a giant, hook-nosed witch to a sumo radish and a pack of cute cinder critters who work in the bathhouse boiler room. An hour into this nightmarish fairy tale the story gets spirited away, literally going down the drain during a visit by a grotesque slime monster. Rated PG. At Denver’s Mayan. –TD

Sweet Home Alabama. Romantic comedy is one genre where predictable conventions will always be perfectly acceptable. Sweet Home Alabama throws on these critically-excused freebies like a worn-out hand-me-down, lacking the rare brilliant writers and actors needed to refashion the form and make it fresh once again. Reese Witherspoon plays Melanie, the bride-to-be lead who must choose Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), her high-society N.Y.C. fiancee, or Jake (Josh Lucas), the secret-Alabama-hometown hubby she left in the past. Revealing a big chink in Witherspoon’s gold-plated persona, the singular, self-advancing front she puts on so well in films like Election is perhaps no front, but a real Achilles heel. This pervasive quality makes Melanie’s transformation into a warm Southern gal feel forged next to the overly convincing icy climber she is at first. The film unravels around her hollow center, but shabby writing, subplot holes and ready-made male leads (unequal to even Witherspoon’s range) leave the film in frayed pieces. It’s the grand romantic comedy once again paraded around as a cheap old rag. Rated PG. At FlatIron Crossing, Basemar Twin, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. –IV

The Transporter. A professional getaway driver in France puts the pedal to the metal when the daughter of a Chinese crime lord gets kidnapped by a American-trained mercenary. Now say it in French. Rated PG-13. At FlatIron Crossing, Arapahoe Village, Colony Square and Twin Peaks.

Tuck Everlasting. How do you make a everlasting fairy tale? Just watch director Jay Russell, who takes a would-be family flick about a fountain of youth and turns it into The Brothers Karamozov. Fitted with curls and corset, TV’s Alexis Bledel stars as a prim 1910 youth who yearns for adventure in her family’s backyard forest. She finds it when she happens upon a family of four who are cursed with immortality, courtesy of an enchanted spring gurgling out of an old tree. As father Tuck, William Hurt acts like he’s still suffering from his Altered States hangover. The villain of the tale is Ben Kingsley, who wants desperately wants immortality so he can live long enough to star in Gandhi. With Jonathan Jackson. At Colony Square. –TD

The Tuxedo. Don’t try this on for size: Lined with electronic sensors, a military "smart suit" transforms its wearer into a whirling dervish who can both kick like Jackie Chan and dance like James Brown. And who would inherit the suit but Jackie Chan, playing a New York cabbie who stumbles into a foul plot by a madman to poison the world’s water supply. While Chan is still the king of comic kung fu, the bumbling, semi-romantic role fits him like a cheap suit. Chan at least looks dapper, which is more than can be said for underdressed co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt, playing a chemist who becomes Chan’s sidekick. Hewitt’s skimpy acting ability will make you giggle, even when all she has to do is jiggle. Rated PG-13. At FlatIron Crossing, Colony Square, Crossroads Commons and Twin Peaks. –TD

White Oleander. Please see review. With Renee Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn. At FlatIron Crossing, Basemar Twin and Twin Peaks. –TD

WEEKLY VIDEO PICK