Movies

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

Alien vs. Predator (PG-13, 87 mins.) The two heroes duke it out in this high-concept action spectacular directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (“Resident Evil”).


Before Sunset (R, 80 mins.) Nine years after they fell in love in Vienna, now memoirist Ethan Hawke meets Julie Delpy in her Paris hometown while on his book tour. The two are drawn to each other as if to fate itself, and the audience doesn’t breathe until it knows whether broken hearts will be broken again. Richard Linklater’s quietly spectacular real-time film is the best of the year.


The Bourne Supremacy (PG-13, 108 mins.) Evil Russians thwart a covert CIA operation and frame former agent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), who has been living off the grid in India – but end up wishing they hadn’t. This tightly wound thinking-man’s action movie takes us from India to Berlin and Moscow.


Bright Young Things (R, 106 mins.) First our hero, Adam Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore) and his beloved Nina (Ms. Mortimer) are engaged, then they aren’t, then they are, and so on. Meanwhile they attend gay parties, lavish lunches, and take jaunts to the country. Director Stephen Fry’s adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Vile Bodies” removes the ironic gaze on England’s effete jazz-age set, and there’s not much left.


Catwoman (PG-13, 105 mins.) Halle Berry comes back from the dead as a sushi loving, scandalously clad, super-powered femme fatale to avenge her killer, the reptilian CEO of her former employer. “Catwoman” is trash, with bad CGI, dialogue, and sub sitcom sidekicks, but you’ll love that darn cat.


Code 46 (R, 92 mins.) William Geld (Tim Robbins), like every good citizen in director Michael Winterbottom’s gripping film, lives in a city. Those without proper visas inhabit the desolate outskirts. When Geld falls in love with a counterfeiter (Samantha Morton), he makes a bid to escape.


Collateral (R, 127 mins.) Tom Cruise stars as Vincent, a taciturn assassin on an all-night, taxi-transported killing spree in L.A. in this sleek, silly thriller from Michael Mann. “Collateral” is the first major Hollywood movie to be shot in high-definition video and so defines the year in movies in a cool, technological way.


Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut (R, 113 mins.) The eponymous antihero (Jake Gyllenhaal, in what is still his finest performance) negotiates schizophrenia and an apocalyptic rift in the space-time continuum with the help of Drew Barrymore and a demonic bunnyman named Frank. Richard Kelly’s sensational debut cuts deep into the consciousness of a generation that came of age in the suburbs during the Reagan administration.


Garden State (R, 109 mins.) After his mother drowns in the bathtub, Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff), an up-and-coming waiter, returns home to New Jersey, where he runs into old friends, new medications (provided by his psychiatrist father), and falls for Sam (Natalie Portman).


Gozu (unrated, 129 mins.) Takashi Miike ‘slatest plunge into psychosexual yakuza weirdness is plotted, very loosely, as a surrealist odyssey in which Minami (Hideki Stone) must find and kill a family member gone nuts, Ozaki (Sho Aikawa). Unlike in Mr. Miike’s best work (“Vistor Q,” “Ichii”), the visual inventiveness of “Gozu” detaches itself from the content, here banal.


A Home at the End of the World (R, 120 mins.) Bobby is a wide-eyed 9-year-old whose hippie older brother feeds him LSD. Then he’s a twenty-something living in the East Village in the 1980s. This adaptation of a Michael Cunningham novel introduces many baffling loose ends.


I, Robot (PG-13, 114 mins.) After the “suicide” of robot engineer Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), a paranoid anti-hero detective (Will Smith) comes up against a shack full of housecleaner robots gone bad. Rogue robot Sonny and friends provide plenty of corny robo-emoting, wan pop philosophizing, and by-the-books action numbers. Director Alex Proyas’s goth-noir edge has been blunted.


Intimate Strangers (R, 105 mins.) Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) races into an appointment with a psychiatrist to discuss her marital problems. Unfortunately, her appointment isn’t with Dr. Moonier, but with William Faber (Fabrice Luchini), a fussy tax attorney, whose office Anna mistakenly entered. Director Patrice Leconte’s focus on how the deceptions that follow fall apart is a paean to Hitchcock.


It’s Easier for a Camel (unrated, 110 mins.) Frederica Camaresca struggles with guilt over the “endless pit” that “holds me back” – or, in other words, her wealth. The directorial debut of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, who also stars, has no shortage of wistful smoking, sighing, and French film froufrou, but is held together by Ms. Camaresca’s incredible range of facial expressions.


The Life & Times of Allen Ginsberg (unrated, 84 mins.) We all know Ginsberg traveled with a fast crowd, but Jerry Aronson spent two decades following along with camera in tow. Highlights include Ginzburg’s exchange with William F. Buckley, interviews with various famous friends, and his reading of “Kaddish.” But Aronson’s focus remains on Ginsberg’s poetry, which is well served by the film.


The Manchurian Candidate (R, 130 mins.) The communist villains of the original “Manchurian Candidate” are lamely replaced by the management of Manchurian Global, a corporation, in Jonathan Demme’s remake. Although clearly set in post-September 11 America, “Manchurian” never leaves the goofy and all too recognizable land of the movies.


Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (unrated, 135 mins.) Metallica consented to an all-access documentary about the recording of their new album in this engaging cinema-verite portrait by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (“Brother’s Keeper,” “Paradise Lost”), which is more about the quotidian ups and downs of the group – midlife crisis, rehab, gazillionaire angst – than what makes them larger than life.


Nicotina (R, 93 mins.) Lola (Diego Luna) is a young computer geek who prospered in real estate. He’s mad for Andrea (Marta Belaustegui), a gorgeous cellist whom he hopes to woo with stolen diamonds. Hugo Rodriguez’s film is well-made, with a very original score by Fernando Corona that mixes perfectly with Mexican pop standards.


Open Water (R, 79 mins.) Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis) head out on a not-so-carefully monitored scuba-diving expedition in the Bahamas and are left in the middle of the ocean. Soon they are surrounded by sharks. There’s an undeniable charge to this situation, and no special effects were used in filming. But the real sharks won’t scare everyone.


The Princess Diaries 2 (G, 115 mins.) Upon learning of Queen Clarisse’s (Julie Andrews) plans to retire, Mia (Anne Hathaway), now a Princeton graduate and princess of Genovia, begins preparations for ascension – opening an orphanage, and, according to Genovian law, finding a fella. “Diaries” has Disney stamped all over it – from the orphans to the musical interlude showcasing Ms. Andrews’s vocal skills.


Ramones: End of the Century (unrated, 97 mins.) In the mid-1970s, four dorks from Queens joined up, called themselves The Ramones, and reinvented rock as a machine-gun brat attack of pure sonic id. With a look as tight as their hooks – skinny jeans, leather jackets, bowl haircuts – they passed through London trailing the punk revolution in their wake. Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields’s superior rock doc breaks it all down in a focused mix of archival footage and talking-head yadda yadda.


Rosenstrasse (PG-13, 136 mins.) Writer and director Margarethe von Trotta tells the tale of Hannah Weinstein, a New Yorker who goes to Berlin in search of her family’s past. A parallel narrative shows Lena Fischer (Katja Riemann), a German of good family, struggling to free her Jewish spouse from a Nazi prison in Berlin. The Holocaust story is gripping and poignant, but its modern counterpart is tedious and cliched.


The Village (PG-13, 108 mins.) The residents of a vaguely 19th-century, celebrity-packed village have vowed never to venture into the surrounding woodland, as monsters live there. Then one day a slightly psychic blind girl, Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), ventures in. “The Village” is one long bamboozlement, an inept little conjob played on the audience, not for it.


We Don’t Live Here Anymore (R, 104 mins.) Professors Jack (Mark Ruffalo) and Hank (Peter Krause) and their wives Terry (Laura Dern) and Edith (Naomi Watts) cheat on and with each other. The strongest reaction John Curran’s movie engenders is a yawn.


Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (R, 116 mins.) Compelled by his ailing wife to seek work as a “bodyguard,” a deadly ronin (Tadanobu Asano) has aligned himself with Ginzou (Ittoku Kishibe), the local gangster. At times, Takeshi Kitano’s elegant and entertaining exercize in genre classicism seems to be on the verge of shifting into a full-blown samurai musical.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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