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Now Showing - go here for the local movie schedule Capsule reviews by Thomas Delapa (T.D.) or Ingrid Vogelfanger (I.V.), as indicated. 102 Dalmatians. Basically a repeat of the original remake (oh yes, Disney's down to sequels of remakes of their own films) this film is allotted more adult themes and violence in keeping with the current studio theory of entertain-the-parents-as-much-as-the-kids children's entertainment. Busting way past its G rating, 102 Dalmatians has people falling through glass, being shoved into active ovens, and more abuse towards Cruella's long suffering manservant than should occur in front of the kids. Glenn Close returns as Cruella De Vil, but with obviously more room to turn Cruella as closely into Norma Desmond as possible. She even has Anthony Powell, her dresser for Desmond, make Cruella's outlandish gowns. Close's frightening, violent and adult-humored Cruella definitely comes out the star-it's just the puppies' picture concept that got smaller. My recommendation is to rent the original, animated 101 Dalmatians for the kids. My recommendation for any adult who needs more over-the-top-psychotic roles with Glenn Close is a time out in the corner. With wasted appearances by Gerard Depardieu as a fat sight gag furrier and Eric Idle as a talking parrot. At Arapahoe Village, Twin Peaks 10 and Colony Square 12. -I.V. The 6th Day. In an interview, Arnold Schwarzenegger commented that audiences "like to see me in the future or in the past." So does that mean no one likes you in the present, Arnie? Schwarzenegger may be the definitive, Reagan-era '80s star, and since then he's been marking time in lumbering action vehicles that show how passé he really is. The theme of this sci-fi entry is cloning, and indeed the plot's been cheaply ripped off from his earlier Total Recall and other Arnie-geddon flicks. He plays a helicopter pilot who comes home to his family one night to discover that his cloned self has taken his place. Not only is that discouraging, but Arnie I has to elude a squad of henchmen doing the dirty work of a clone-crazy industrialist. It's enough that we have endure one Arnie trying to act, but here we have two of them, and eventually they team up to fight the bad guys, like some nightmarish episode of the Patty Duke Show. On the seventh day, God rested; after The 6th Day, Arnie should take his cue and take a long, long break from the movies. With Robert Duvall (or his clone). Rated PG-13. At Colony Square, Crossroads Commons 6 and Twin Peaks. -T.D. 8 1/2 Women. Anguished by the death of his wife, a Swiss financier (John Standing) takes his son's advice and turns his home into a harem in Peter Greenaway's latest film to be released in the U.S. At International Film Series. Almost Famous. Once his Jerry Maguire scored at the box-office, all writer/director Cameron Crowe probably had to say to the studios to get his next film financed was, you guessed it, "Show me the money." Not one but two studios kicked in to give Crowe all the dough he needed to make his semi-autobiographical '70s rock odyssey. The first major film of the fall, Almost Famous had the potential to be the definitive memoir of rock 'n' roll in the transitional '70s. At the tender age of 15, Crowe began contributing to Rolling Stone magazine, giving him an opportunity to witness firsthand the life and times of the era's best-and worst-bands. Instead, Crowe's opus is bogged down with adolescent idolizing, mingled with a little sex, some drugs and a scarcity of good old rock 'n' roll. Crowe's lead character is William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a 15-year-old aspiring rock journalist from San Diego. He gets the thrill of his brief lifetime when he's invited to go on tour with Stillwater, an up-and-coming band from Detroit. At two hours but seeming longer, Almost Famous is sort of a rambling, ponderous version of the rock "mockumentary" This is Spinal Tap. With Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson and Francis McDormand. Rated R. At Basemar Cinema Saver. -T.D. Beau Travail. Curiously transferring Herman Melville's Billy Budd from the sea to the French Foreign Legion, French director Clair Denis envisions a manly outpost of routine and endless drills where petty jealousy can easily flare up into violence. At International Film Series. Best In Show. Christopher Guest, late of Waiting for Guffman, turns his comic attentions to American dogophilia in a mock documentary that alternately wows and whimpers. Pet owners, er, guardians, from around the country gather in Philadelphia for the annual Mayflower Dog Show, to compete for the coveted "Best in Show" tag. There are all kinds of canines, from poodles to toys to terriers, and among the kooky humans going to the dogs are a married pair from Florida, an outrageously gay duo from New York, a drawling Southerner with bloodhound and a snippy yuppie couple who both could use a Prozac biscuit. Guest's style is nothing to sit up and howl at, as the film is a spotty hodgepodge of gags and skits, some dog-eared. Fred Willard nearly steals the Show as the dog show's crass announcer, acting as the sorely needed straight man among all the stupid human tricks. With Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy and Parker Posey. Rated PG-13. At Crossroads Commons 6 and Mayan. -T.D. Billy Elliot. Remember Gene Kelly's exuberant "Gotta Dance" number from Singin' in the Rain? That might have been the operating inspiration behind this British import about a boy's stormy struggle to take up dancing in his hardscrabble England coal town. I dare not take such a lofty comparison too far. Director Stephen Daldry's film is as synthetic as they come. Billy (Jamie Bell), age 11, is an untrained dancer with talent. But he has to hide his inclinations from his father and brother, both coal miners left impoverished and angry by a lengthy strike. Dad has insisted that Billy take lessons in the manly art of boxing. Billy is mainly interested in a girls ballet class being taught by the chain-smoking Mrs. Wilkinson (Julie Walters). When Daldry isn't pummeling his audience with a grating rock soundtrack, he's sneaking in sucker-punch dramatic scenes that come out of nowhere. There are two pseudo-stories here, and, like the saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. Along with Billy's "gotta dance" flights are his father's and brother's plights on the coal-mine picket line. Rated R. At Crossroads Commons 6 and Esquire. -T.D. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. The Blair Witch Project was the supernatural sleeper hit of 1999; by contrast, Book of Shadows is a superb antidote for insomnia. Following the yawningly self-conscious Scream conventions, director Joel Berlinger gives us a cast of five young unknowns who return to the scene of the crime one year after the Blair Witch movie became a cult phenomenon. A disreputable local has organized an inaugural tour of the forest, attracting a would-be Wican, a Goth girl and a straight-laced couple who might have wandered out of a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The crux of the "mystery" is what happened during the group's lone night camping in the Black Hills. Were the kids visited by the Blair Witch? They drive to a converted warehouse and review the videotapes that recorded the action. But there are five hours missing from the tapes. Yikes, do you suppose the ghost of Richard Nixon erased the incriminating footage? Good luck figuring out what happened to these clueless dudes, for Berlinger obviously thinks that incoherency (accompanied by a frightful head-banger soundtrack) is just the trick for audience chills. Rated R. At Basemar Cinema Saver. -T.D. Bounce. This Miramax mess features two of the studio's previous Oscar winners, Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow, in a romance that comes off like a twentysomething version of last year's anemic Random Hearts. If you remember that film, it gave us two people who fall in love after their spouses conveniently die in a plane crash. In place of Harrison Ford, insert Affleck, playing an L.A. advertisement executive who bounces back from the bottle and into the arms of Paltrow, suddenly single after her husband takes life's final boarding call. How lucky for Affleck that the dead man's widow is the glammed-down Gwyneth. In this fashion shoot, whoops, film, Paltrow has been made over with proletarian-plain brown hair to make her look like a struggling soccer mom. On the product placement watch, there's also the sight of Diet Coke cans propped prominently in several scenes. The soda has more pop than anything that happens between these two. Rated R. At Crossroads Commons 6, Colony Square 12 and Twin Peaks 10. -T.D. The Broken Hearts Club. In what may be the third phase of the gay film (after the "coming out" and the makeout movies), writer-director Greg Berlanti takes a look at gay life that takes place during the morning after. Suffering a mutual hangover is a group of close, out-of-the-closet gay L.A. males who are grappling with the absence of true love in their lives. From Dennis (Timothy Olyphant), tired of casual sex, to the lonely Patrick and the romantically ruthless Cole, all of them have realized that life is no bed of roses. However Berlanti wants to break the mold of the gay film, he's utterly conventional in his myopic focus on the characters' sexual escapades. Do gay men have real jobs and friends and interests outside of their sexual circles, or do they just sit around watching old Joan Crawford movies and lifting weights? You wouldn't know it from a film like this. With John Mahoney. Rated R. At Denver's Mayan. -T.D. The Cell. Only superficially different from its kin, almost everything about this serial-killer retread is lurid and predictable. The premise hinges around the desperate attempts of a team of scientists, prodded on by the FBI, to discover where a comatose psycho has hidden his latest victim. The woman's only hope lies with a therapist (Jennifer Lopez) who's trained in entering the unconscious minds of coma patients. Together with the killer, she's strapped down in lab and suspended from the ceiling with wires. In the ensuing mind meld her task is to seek out the killer's inner self to get him to tell her where the woman is. While the visuals are undeniably bizarre, they're like a lot of music-video imagery-enigmatic, flashy, but ultimately meaningless. This is no coincidence, since Tarsem (he goes only by last name), the film's director, comes from TV ads and rock videos. In the most revolting of his scenes, Vaughn also enters the killer's mind, only to be disemboweled in gross close-up. With Vince Vaughn. Rated R. At Basemar Cinema Saver. -T.D. Charlie's Angels. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Answer: It depends on whether they're wearing bikinis or tube tops. A $90 million version of the jiggly 1970s TV series, Angels admittedly has a different angle than the typical action picture. Like their predecessors, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, et al., these cheeky chicks are secret agents working for an unseen boss who sends them out on undercover cases. But that's where the similarity ends. In this blur of a post-feminist fantasy, imagine Mighty Morphin Power Rangers played by the Spice Girls. Updated by music-video director "McG," with blaring rock riffs and a cartoon storyline, it has Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu kicking butt and hurling their heavenly bodies through the air. Yet they still make time to talk to their boyfriends on the phone between karate chops. Just when the campy comedy starts to connect, McG sabotages it with over-the-top stunts, explosions and other visual gimmickry. I doubt this director could hold a story together, even one entire scene, without divine help. With Bill Murray. Rated PG-13. At Twin Peaks 10, Colony Square 12 and United Artist Village 4. -T.D. The Contender. Hollywood's sole dramatic candidate for this election season is a nasty, overheated, halfway-hysterical film that pretends to pull the curtain away from Washington's dirty tricks and smoke-filled rooms. If I were voting today, it would contend as the most mendacious movie of the year. It opens during the last months of the term of Pres. Evans (Jeff Bridges), slick, savvy and obviously Clintonesque. His vice president has died in office, and he needs a replacement. He picks Sen. Laine Hanson (Joan Allen), a liberal Democrat who was once a Republican. Her nomination must pass muster with Congressman Runyon (Gary Oldman), a raving right-winger who digs up X-rated photos of her engaged in an orgy. Regardless of any moral indiscretions, there's no question that Hanson is the heroine of this piece. Throughout the McCarthy-like hearings she's the picture of grace under pressure. The same can't be said for Lurie's loutish men. When he's not bowling, Pres. Evans is mainly concerned with ordering sandwiches from the White House kitchen. Buried under Oldman's flat American accent and frizzy hair is Runyon, a conservative so hateful that he would make Jesse Helms seem like Jesse Jackson. With Sam Elliott. Rated R. At Crossroads Commons 6. -T.D. Crouching Tiger. At Denver's Mayan.
Doctor Zhivago (1965). David Lean directed the award-winning adaptation of Boris Pasternak's epic of life during the Russian Revolution. It was shot mainly in Spain (with tons of faux snow) and is beautiful to look at. It's also a typically bloated example of stately 1960 blockbuster filmmaking during the waning days of old Hollywood. Pasternak and Russian history aside, it was Maurice Jarre's "Lara's Theme" that helped sell Zhivago to the masses. Starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. At Nederland Community Center. -T.D. Godzilla 2000. You decide. Which is worse, the Japanese-made Y2K Godzilla or Hollywood's godawful 1998 version, which tanked at the box office? Either way, I think I'd rather watch Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. Prepare for the dopiest dubbed dialogue outside of a Jackie Chan movie when that fire-breathing, mutated sea monster once again gets mad and trashes Tokyo. Godzilla might have met his match when a gigantic meteorite is revealed as a flying saucer equipped with a powerful death ray. Though the special effects are slightly better than in previous sequels, they still look (and sound) like something out of a 1950s Ed Wood movie. And how's this for dramatic dialogue: "Did you see that flying rock go by? It's unbelievable!" But this film isn't all bad. It did turn me on to my idea of a dream job, which would be working as an observer for the little-known Godzilla Prediction Network. Rated PG. At Basemar Cinema Saver. -T.D. House of Mirth. At Denver's Mayan. The Legend of Bagger Vance. Is there a pattern here? Following A River Runs Through It and Quiz Show (not to mention The Natural), director Robert Redford trods similar turf in another study of an idolized young man who falls from grace in his prime. Matt Damon plays Rannulph Junoh, a peach of a Georgia golfer who returns from World War I shellshocked and bitter. He hangs up his clubs and turns to putting away pints. But he's given a second chance in life and on the links when a boy (J. Michael Moncrief) urges him to take part in a challenge match against golf greats Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. Junoh gets help from a magical, mystical caddie (Will Smith) who shows up one night and, using a little reverse psychology, tells him how regain his lost swing. Redford naturally sets up a few doglegs for his hero to overcome, but you can guess what kind of happy ending he's driving at. And in the clubhouse, there's the enticing prospect of his beautiful ex-girlfriend, played by Charlize Theron in swanky vintage outfits that seem to change with every hole. Rated PG. At Colony Square 12 and United Artists Village. -T.D. Little Nicky. I'm not going to criticize Adam Sandler for his annual rehash of a ridiculously adolescent character that must perform some over-the-top task to save either face or a loved one. I'm not going to go where all the other critics are going balking at the continued vulgarity, stupidity and awkward staleness of Sandler's formula. This repeated criticism is as worthless as trying to get teenage girls to understand why N'Sync is not quality music. I will simply do the most useful thing possible and rate it for the fans. On a Sandler Scale where The Waterboy ranks the lowest, a one, Billy Madison, a five, Happy Gilmore, an eight and The Wedding Singer a ten, I give Little Nicky a two. Like The Waterboy, Sandler tries too hard to be a weird character overshadowing his natural style, the source of his most successful performances. Patricia Arquette as his goofy love match is no Drew Barrymore, and Little Nicky's battle between Heaven and Hell isn't half as funny as last year's South Park movie. The cameos by all of Sandler's usual pals, however, are as enjoyable as ever. Reese Witherspoon's appearance as an L.A. babe angel is probably the funniest part of this weaker Sandlerfest. Rated PG-13. At Colony Square 12, Arapahoe Village 4 and Twin Peaks. -I.V.
Men of Honor. Somewhere submerged in this watery biopic is a compelling story about Carl Brashear, the Navy's first black Master Diver. Erratically directed by Geroge Tillman Jr, the film is buoyed by a strong, sincere performance by Cuba Gooding Jr as Brashear, who joined the Navy in the late 1940s and had to fight prejudice and bigotry to get into the career he wanted more than anything else-diving. Less effective is Robert De Niro as Billy Sunday, the hard-drinking, tyrannical Navy instructor who reluctantly trains Brashear at diving school in New Jersey. As a snarling Southerner who smokes a corncob pipes and drinks like a fish, De Niro chews out his swabbies with the same vigor that he chews up the scenery. Too often, Tillman puts all his bets on trumped-up emotional scenes that may have looked good on paper, but sink like a rock when acted out. He also clumsily jumps around in time and place, so much so that not even sonar could have helped me keep track of the story. With Charlize Theron as The Wife. Rated R. At Colony Square 12, Arapahoe Village 4 and Twin Peaks. -T.D. Patlabor. At Denver's Mayan. Pay It Forward. What a difference a year makes. Last fall Kevin Spacey was receiving bouquets for his pungent performance in American Beauty. And at the same time young Haley Joel Osment was seeing dead people, critics were correctly predicting an Oscar nomination was in his future, too. Flash forward to Pay It Forward, which teams Spacey and Osment, along with past Oscar winner Helen Hunt. The movie takes off on the New Agey "random acts of kindness" rubric. What would happen if we all returned favors, not backwards towards the donor, but "forwards" towards three other people? And if those three people did the same thing, you'd soon have a chain letter of first-class altruism. From acorns grow mighty oaks. The acorn in this corny case is Trevor (Osment), who hatches his "pay it forward" idea on a cue from his teacher (Spacey). Trevor lives with his alcoholic mother (Hunt) in Las Vegas. Director Mimi Leder extracts egregiously maudlin performances from her leads. Hunt dresses like Erin Brockovich, revealing a sea of cleavage along with a mess of mascara that makes her look like Tammy Faye on a bad day. Spacey is a shy man who carries on his face a scar that expresses his inner torment. Osment needs neither scar nor mascara as props, for he goes through the film with those sad eyes of his and a face that says "Stay clear, I'm preparing to cry." Rated PG-13. At Crossroads Commons 6. -T.D. Pollock. At Denver's Esquire. Remember the Titans. Denzel Washington stars in a bogus, ridiculous drama that allegedly tells the true story of how a racially integrated high school football team from Virginia found brotherhood, harmony and a championship in 1971. The reigning auteur of idiocy, Jerry Bruckheimer produced this jock-idolizing drivel that flagrantly fumbles the facts. Washington plays a righteous black head coach who takes over the team of a white legend (Will Patton) because of a school-board desegregation mandate. Overcoming racial tensions with his drill-sergeant style, Washington quickly transforms the team into a lean, mean football machine. Blacks and whites on the team embrace each other as equals, and even sing along to Temptations songs together. But outside the gridiron, bigotry rages, which threatens to sack both Washington's coaching career and the team's winning streak. There's nothing to remember about this movie except that it's forgettably fraudulent. Rated PG-13. At Colony Square 12. -T.D. Requiem for a Dream. After his eye-opening indie debut with Pi, director Darren Arnonfsky is serving up another surreal slice of the urban underworld. His heroin-addicted anti-hero is Harry (Jared Leto), a Brooklynite who'll do anything to feed his habit. Arnonfsky is less interested in his characters and their desperate lives than in exploiting their chemically-induced highs and lows in the most flamboyant of cinematic terms. His impressive techniques could fill a textbook, but as humane filmmaker he can barely turn the page. Between hits of heroin, Harry, his girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly) and fellow druggie (Marlon Wayans) scramble for cash on the street. Completing this cast of down-and-outers is Harry's mother (Ellen Burstyn), a lonely widow who gets hooked on diet pills. Requiem is a horror movie, but the mad scientist is none other than Arnonfsky, who subjects his characters-and cast-to one degrading experience after another. Though she could come out of this with an Oscar nomination, Burstyn must want back in the Hollywood limelight in the worst way. The nadir of the film is her writhing and wailing in pain while being administered electric shocks strapped down in a detox ward. Rated R. At Denver's Mayan. -T.D. Rififi. At Denver's Chez Artiste. Rugrats in Paris. I hate to be the prude, again, but as with the first Rugrats movie I am apparently the only reviewer who finds Rugrats' mix of media savvy "for parents humor" and bodily function "for toddlers humor" offensive and disturbing instead of "cutting edge." What is cutting edge about rushing adulthood into children's entertainment and pop culture referencing to appear hip and clever? The well-reviewed opening sequence sends up The Godfather (for the parents), but since its a cartoon for children, the baby finds his hobby horse's head in his bed instead of a real one. The usual booger, excrement, sexual and violent imagery follow under infantile masks (for the kids). Rated G. At Colony Square 12 and Crossroads Commons 6 and Twin Peaks. -I.V. Red Planet. At Colony Square 12 and Crossroads Commons 6. Scary Faces. A locally-made film about tackling Eldorado's most challenging ascent, Jules Verne. Lots of great climbing footage. At Boulder Theater.
Stan Brakhage. The Cloud Chamber (1999) and The Dark Tower (1999) will be among the newer experimental shorts to be screened and discussed by the C.U. film professor. At 1st Person Cinema, International Film Series. Unbreakable. See review. Rated PG-13. Colony Square 12, Twin Peaks 10 and United Artists Village 4. -T.D. What's Cooking. Director Gurinder Chadha's recipe for this multicultural Thanksgiving melange was evidently to add equal parts ethnic stereotypes, along with a dash of dysfunction and a dollop of sex, stir, and hope that the audiences will find the dish appetizing. Four Los Angeles families-black, Vietnamese, Jewish and Latino-gather separately to enjoy their holiday feast, while an undercurrent of anger and generation-gap tension simmers and threatens to boil over at the dinner table. Chadha is at odds how to blend together the blandly melodramatic stories, and fills her plate with side dishes ranging from guns to lesbianism. I can't resist: Despite a palatable cast that includes Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick and Alfre Woodard, this one's an equal-opportunity turkey. Rated PG-13. At Denver's Esquire. -T.D. You Can Count On Me. Today you can count on your fingers the number of meaty lead roles available for women; Laura Linney sinks her teeth into one of them in this quirky, closely-observed debut drama written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. She plays "Sammy" Prescott, a divorced mom raising her boy Rudy (Rory Culkin) in a small town in upstate New York. Out of the blue, her wayward brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) returns home, and immediately upsets her household. Sammy contributes to the confusion by plunging into an affair with her married boss (Matthew Broderick), while keeping another lover on hold. Linney, who could act the slacks off most Hollywood actresses, bares a countless numbers of emotions as she reacts and adds to the chaos swirling around her. Lonergan lends droll dialogue for ammunition, and a subtle, sad theme about how unreliable and irresponsible people can be. The victim here is little Rudy, who's exposed both to his mother's flightiness and his uncle's recklessness. Though you can count on Linney's sensitive performance, the film as whole doesn't hold together. Lonergan is better at creating characters than he is crafting a balanced story. Rated R. At Denver's Chez Artiste. -T.D. A Zed and Two Noughts (1985). Before his controversial breakthrough hit The Cook, the Thief, the Wife and her Lover, Peter Greenaway wrote and directed this playful, highly allusive (and elusive) art film that ostensibly begins with the aftermath of a fatal car accident involving two wives, a swan and a zoo. The surviving husbands-identical twins-embark on a new career photographing decomposing dead things. At International Film Series.
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Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Jim Carrey and director Ron Howard make Christmas come a few weeks early for audiences shopping around for entertainment cheer. Zesty and thoughtful, The Grinch just may steal the hearts of tots and grown-ups alike. Howard and his writers expand the fable by Dr. Seuss, adding a flashback revealing what turned the Grinch into such a grouch. Thankfully they don't trim the spirit of the story, though they do spike it with a few off-colored gags. Much, but not all, of the film is carried on the hairy, green- skinned shoulders of Carrey. Rick Baker's marvelous facial makeup allows Carrey a stocking full of delightful expressions under the layers of latex. The anti-Grinch is little Cindy Lou (Taylor Momsen), Whoville's kindliest kid. What she lacks in acting talent, Momsen makes up for with an adorably angelic face and a curlicue Who hairdo that looks like it would fall down without scaffolding. "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store" is only one of the pleasant messages to be unwrapped in this candy-colored family film. Rated PG. At Colony Square 12, Arapahoe Village and Twin Peaks 10.-T.D.
