2003 Movie Guide

Information on violence, drugs, alcohol, smoking, sex/nudity, and profanity is compiled by the Monitor panel, which is composed of at least three moviegoers.

STAR RATINGS

Film critic David Sterritt	Monitor panel	Meaning
		Excellent
		Good
		Fair
		Poor
		The Worst

Director: John Singleton. With Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Cole Hauser. (110 min.)

A former cop and his ex-con friend agree to help the feds capture a big-time dope dealer in exchange for clearing their own criminal records. The film has enough wild driving to satisfy any "French Connection" fan or "Bullitt" buff, but there's precious little for anyone else to enjoy. 2 foolish + 2 flashy = 4 get it!

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Adrenaline pumping, flashy, the new "Dukes of Hazzard."

Sex/Nudity: 6 innuendos. Violence: 15 scenes, including multiple car crashes. Profanity: 25 profanities. Drugs: At least 5 scenes.

21 Grams (R)

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu. With Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Clea DuVall. (125 min.)

A car crash sets off events affecting two sisters with emotional problems, a former thug who's now a Christian; an ailing professor; and his wife, who wants to have a baby. The title refers to the weight a body supposedly loses when its soul leaves the material world, a notion Iñárritu uses as a metaphor for the enigmas of the human experience.

Unrelentingly bleak, probing, heartbreaking.

Sex/Nudity: 5 instances of nudity, 2 scenes of sex, 2 scenes of innuendo. Violence: 13 instances of violence. Profanity: 54 harsh profanities. Drugs: 16 scenes with smoking, 13 scenes with drinking, 4 scenes with drugs.

28 Days Later (R)

Director: Danny Boyle. With Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson. (113 min.)

An epidemic of medically induced rage has reduced almost everyone in England to zombies gripped by murderous hate, and our heroes are a group of survivors making their way to a military enclave that may offer safety. The story borrows from many sources, including "Night of the Living Dead" and Stephen King's "The Stand," but heartfelt acting and imaginative directing raise it above average.

Gritty, daring, biting, horror classic.

Sex/Nudity: 4 scenes of nudity. Violence: Bloody and graphic throughout, including rapes and mutilation. Profanity: 60 profanities. Drugs: 7 scenes of drinking, smoking.

A Guy Thing (PG-13)

Director: Chris Koch. With Jason Lee, Julia Stiles, Selma Blair, Diana Scarwid. (105 min.)

After his bachelor party, a groom-to-be wakes up in bed with a woman he doesn't know, then finds out she's his fiancée's favorite cousin and a lot more fun than the fiancée herself. The screenplay has a lot of talk about people being "right for each other," but the characters are so shallow and generic it's hard to care who winds up with whom.

Predictable, painfully bad, overacted.

Sex/Nudity: 1 implied sex scene; 7 instances of innuendo. Violence: 9 scenes of gratuitous violence, including a fight. Profanity: 37 expressions. Drugs: 5 scenes of drinking. 1 scene with illegal drugs.

A Man Apart (R)

Director: F. Gary Gray. With Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Timothy Olyphant, Jacqueline Obradors. (109 min.)

Diesel plays a narcotics cop who prospers by relying on the tricks he learned as a streetwise hustler. When criminals murder his wife, his lust for vengeance brings out a side of him as nasty as the bad guys'.

Predictable, exciting, Diesel-icious.

Sex/Nudity: 3 scenes, including innuendo and topless dancers. Violence: 14 scenes, including shootouts. Profanity: 105 harsh profanities. Drugs: 22 scenes with drinking, smoking, drugs.

Acts of Worship (Not rated)

Director: Rosemary Rodriguez. With Ana Reeder, Michael Hyatt, Christopher Kadish, Nestor Rodriguez. (94 min.)

A young woman copes with drug addiction and related problems on unsparing urban streets. Rodriguez makes a promising debut with this unsentimental drama.

Afghan Stories (Not rated)

Director: Taran Davies. With families in New York and Afghanistan. (61 min.)

A visit with Afghan men, women, and children in the wake of Sept. 11, probing views of everything from the Soviet invasion of 1979 to poverty today. The documentary makes up in humane values what it lacks in sociological depth. In English, Pashto, and Turkmen with English subtitles.

Agent Cody Banks (PG)

Director: Harald Zwart. With Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff. (110 min.)

An high-schooler becomes a junior James Bond when the CIA recruits him for an assignment only Hollywood could dream up: dating a pretty girl so he can spy on her dad, a scientist whose schemes could destroy the world. The repetitious script shows interest in nothing beyond action-centered plot gimmicks.

Sex/Nudity: 2 scenes with innuendo. Violence: 12 scenes with violence. Profanity: 10 expressions. Drugs: None noted.

Alex & Emma (PG-13)

Director: Rob Reiner. With Luke Wilson, Kate Hudson, Sophie Marceau. (105 min.)

He's a novelist who must start and finish a new book in one month or face the wrath of loan sharks, and she's a stenographer who begins as his assistant and becomes much more than that. The movie alternates between the author's musty apartment and the 1920s nostalgia-world of the story he's dreaming up. Wilson and Hudson play a gallery of comic characters, and the story is predictable but amusing.

Exhausting sequences of clichés, charming cast, lacks substance.

Sex/Nudity: 3 scenes of innuendo, implied sex. Violence: 2 scenes. Profanity: 1 instance. Drugs: 1 instance of drinking.

Alias Betty (Not rated)

Director: Claude Miller. With Sandrine Kiberlain, Nicole Garcia, Mathilde Seigner, Edouard Baer. (101 min.)

After a novelist's child dies, her neurotic mother kidnaps a child for her to raise. The grief-stricken woman accepts this illegal scheme when she learns her little houseguest may have come from an abusive home. Miller spins an engrossing story, combining drama, social reflection, and high-octane suspense. In French with English subtitles.

All the Real Girls (R)

Director: David Gordon Green. With Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Patricia Clarkson. (108 min.)

This film is about a hesitant love affair of an oversexed young man and an inexperienced young woman in a sleepy Southern town. Green cares more about atmosphere than story, and he never overuses a technique or flaunts his cinematic skills. But, sadly, he never builds much dramatic interest, either.

True-to-life, beautifully filmed, edgy.

Sex/Nudity: 2 sexual scenes. Violence: 3 scenes. Profanity: 29 expressions. Drugs: 18 scenes with tobacco, drinking.

Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (PG-13)

Director: Lee Hirsch. With Miriam Makeba, Abdullah Ibrahim, Hugh Masakela, Thandi Modise. (103 min.)

A look at the role played by popular music in the war against apartheid during 40 years of South Africa's history. There are lots of lively tunes in an excellent cause, but in the end you wish you'd either probed more deeply into historical events or heard more uninterrupted minutes of inspired performing. In English, Xhosa, and Zulu, with English subtitles.

Rousing, toe-tapping, interesting slice of history; could have offered more depth.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 12 scenes of violent historical footage, including shootings. Profanity: 4 profanities. Drugs: 6 scenes of smoking, drinking.

Amen. (Not rated)

Director: Costa-Gavras. With Mathieu Kassovitz, Ulrich Tukur, Ulrich Mühe, Michel Duchaussoy. (130 min.)

A German officer and a Jesuit priest mount a vain effort to alert Pope Pius XII to the Nazi genocide campaign. This ambitious drama contains powerful messages about religious hypocrisy and the moral lassitude that allowed the Holocaust to continue. Regrettably, director Costa-Gavras puts more of his energy into simplistic psychology and movie action than historical depth and philosophical insight.

American Splendor (R)

Directors: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini. With Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, Harvey Pekar. (100 min.)

This movie breaks all the rules, offering a partly fictionalized look at the life of Pekar, a writer of underground comic books who earns most of his living as a file clerk and finds an equally idiosyncratic comics fan, Brabner, to be his wife. Pekar and Brabner are played by Giamatti and Davis, but also appear as themselves in interview sequences. It's emotionally poignant, socially revealing, and wildly entertaining.

Wry humor, ode to an antihero, triumphant.

Sex/Nudity: 2 innuendoes. Violence: 1 slap. Profanity: 20 profanities. Drugs: 2 drinking, smoking scenes.

American Wedding (R)

Director: Jesse Dylan. With Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Eugene Levy, January Jones. (102 min.)

Jim and Michelle get married in the third "American Pie" film, and the whole gang gets involved in planning the shindig. The actors are on autopilot and Adam Herz's screenplay panders to its target audience so relentlessly it verges on incompetence. Even gross-out films ought to maintain some standards!

Sophomoric, crass, zany, playful.

Sex/Nudity: 22 scenes, including sex, nudity. Violence: 4 scenes, including whipping. Drugs: 5 drinking scenes.

An Injury to One (Not rated)

Director: Travis Wilkerson. (53 min.)

This offbeat documentary looks back at the lynching of a mine-workers' labor organizer in Butte, Mont., in 1917. Through archival material, printed words, and songs of the period, Wilkerson probes the tragedy with great intelligence and compassion, linking history to the subsequent development of business practices, environmental problems, and life in that part of America today.

Anger Management (PG-13)

Director: Peter Segal. With Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler, Marisa Tomei, Heather Graham. (100 min.)

A businessman (Sandler) with an anger problem gets sentenced to live-in therapy sessions with an eccentric shrink (Nicholson). The comedy is uneven and sometimes crude, but it's worth seeing for Sandler's minimalist acting and for a few funny scenes. Nicholson also is fine when he isn't overplaying.

Promising start, too slapstick, predictable.

Sex/Nudity: Innuendo throughout; heavy kissing between women. Violence: 15 scenes. Profanity: 23 harsh profanities. Drugs: 14 scenes with drinking and smoking.

Anything Else (R)

Director: Woody Allen. With Allen, Jason Biggs, Stockard Channing, Christina Ricci. (108 min.)

A rising comedy writer (Biggs) has oddball conversations with an older colleague (Allen) while dealing with a girlfriend (Ricci) who's almost as eccentric as both of them put together. This is a quintessential Allen comedy: squirmy relationships, dark Jewish humor, and - as with most of Allen's films since the first years of his career - not nearly as many laughs.

Sex/Nudity: 16 scenes. Violence: 3 scenes. Profanity: 2 profanities. Drugs: 19 drinking, smoking, and drug scenes.

Assassination Tango (R)

Director: Robert Duvall. With Duvall, Luciana Pedraza. (114 min.)

Duvall is terrific as a hit man who learns to tango in Argentina while waiting for the return of a general he's been hired to murder. As usual in the films he writes and directs, Duvall blends a fictional story with authentic background details and performances by cast members who aren't trained actors.

Intelligent, elegant dancing, engaging.

Sex/Nudity: 1 sex scene. Violence: 8 scenes, including shootings. Profanity: 24 harsh profanities. Drugs: 22 scenes with drinking, smoking, drugs.

Bad Boys II (R)

Director: Michael Bay. With Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union. (87 min.)

Miami PD's mismatched partners, family man Marcus (Lawrence) and bachelor Mike (Smith), return to find themselves in the middle of a Russian-Cuban-Haitian drug war and in a contest between Miami's finest and the feds to bring down the combatants. Clever ideas and hilarious moments drown in a flood of violence. By M.K. Terrell

Sex/Nudity: 10 scenes. Violence: 19 scenes, including explosions, shootings. Profanity: 236 profanities. Drugs: 9 scenes of drinking, smoking, and drug use.

Bad Santa (R)

Director: Terry Zwigoff. With Billy Bob Thornton, Lauren Graham, Bernie Mac, Tony Cox. (93 min.)

"Bad Santa," indeed. With all the hype about this film, one may expect a dark, cynical comedy with some sort of commentary on the mass-consumerism of the season. Sadly, moments like that are few. Instead, we get 93 minutes of Billy Bob Thornton drinking and pointlessly cussing in a Santa suit. This movie is as welcome as a lump of coal. By Adam Weiskind

Balseros (Cuban Rafters) (Not rated)

Directors: Carles Bosch, Josep M. Doménech. With Rafael Cano, Miriam Hernández, Guillermo Armas. (120 min.)

Thoughtful, ambitious documentary that travels between Havana and American cities as it traces the lives of several underprivileged Cubans who emigrate to the United States and try to carve out new lives.

The Barbarian Invasions (R)

Director: Denys Arcand. With Rémy Girard, Dorothée Berryman, Stéphane Rousseau, Sophie Lorain. (95 min.)

A dying man tries coming to terms with his condition, his past, and his family. Arcand is today's most prominent French-Canadian filmmaker, with a knack for blending drama and humor. But here his work is a bit too neat and calculated to make the emotions ring really true. In French with English subtitles.

Basic (R)

Director: John McTiernan. With John Travolta, Connie Nielsen, Samuel L. Jackson, Giovanni Ribisi. (98 min.)

A retired military man (Travolta) investigates the murder of a brutal sergeant (Jackson) in a chaotic training situation where too many people had too many motives and opportunities for the crime. Travolta and Jackson have some effective scenes, but James Vanderbilt's screenplay ought to be court-martialed.

Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of innuendo. Violence: 15 scenes, including bloody fights. Profanity: 69 profanities. Drugs: 9 scenes of drinking, smoking.

The Battle of Shaker Heights (PG-13)

Directors: Efram Potelle, Kyle Rankin. With Shia LaBeouf, Elden Henson, Kathleen Quinlan. (88 min.)

If you've been rooting for one of HBO's "Project Greenlight" movies to be a hit, you'll need to put your pompoms away for now. This latest effort by an amateur writer and director starts out promisingly but can't sustain the laughs or character development it needs to be engaging. Teen actor Shia LaBeouf helps distract from the shortcomings with his performance as a war reenactor coping with quirky parents, a bully, and a crush on an older girl. By Kim Campbell

Sex/Nudity: 2 innuendoes. Violence: 5 scenes, mostly fights. Profanity: 9 profanities. Drugs: 3 drinking scenes.

Bend It Like Beckham (PG-13)

Director: Gurinder Chadha. With Parminder K. Nagra, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Keira Knightley. (112 min.)

The heroine is a soccer-loving Indian teen living in London with her traditional family; they believe nice young women shouldn't chase after balls, and their conservatism may prevent her from fashioning her future on her own terms. The film probes territory already explored in pictures like "East Is East," but its look at cultural clashes is always well-meaning and good-humored.

Joyous, innocent, predictable.

Sex/Nudity: 1 mild sex scene. Violence: Mild violence on the soccer field. Profanity: 7 profanities. Drugs: 8 scenes of drinking; 1 with smoking.

Better Luck Tomorrow (R)

Director: Justin Lin. With Parry Shen, Sung Kang, Jason Tobin, Roger Fan. (99 min.)

A small circle of Asian-American friends scramble for good grades, plan for college, and pull off petty crimes. The filmmaking is gimmicky, aimed at young moviegoers with a taste for rowdy teen comedy and music-video aesthetics. What helps Lin's feature debut is his insight into the dark side of living up to "model minority" stereotypes in a materialistic culture.

Contrived, MTV-antics, empty.

Sex/Nudity: 9 scenes. Violence: 11 scenes, including beatings and a dead body. Profanity: 110 profanities. Drugs: 29 scenes of drinking, smoking, and drug use.

Beyond Borders (R)

Director: Martin Campbell. With Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen, Linus Roache. (127 min.)

The movie takes us to Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Chechnya along with Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen in their trials as foreign-aid relief workers. Roused from her comfortable, rich life in London by Owen's emotional appeal for funding, Jolie travels overseas to make a difference. True to Hollywood form, Owen and Jolie fall into a romance despite her husband and son back home, which only increases the tragedy surrounding their lives. By Olivia Kobelt

Predictable, heartwrenching, well-meaning

Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of innuendo. 1 implied sex scene. Violence: 14 scenes, including war scenes. Profanity: 62 strong expressions. Drugs: 12 instances of drinking, smoking.

Big Fish (PG-13)

Director: Tim Burton. With Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Alison Lohman. (110 min.)

A young man (McGregor) tries to understand the life of his estranged, now dying father (Finney) by sifting grains of truth from the mountains of tall tales the old guy was forever telling about himself. Burton spices up the story with touches of his trademarked surrealism, but they're swamped by the trickiness and sentimentality of John August's screenplay, based on Daniel Wallace's novel. What a waste of a fine cast.

Biker Boyz (PG-13)

Director: Reggie Rock Bythewood. With Laurence Fishburne, Larenz Tate, Meagan Good. (111. min.)

Smoke Galloway (Fishburne) is "King of Cali" - the best motorcycle street racer in California - and president of the Black Knights club. His mechanic's 18-year-old son wants the crown for himself and forms a rival biker club. Footage of the races and amazing stunts break up the sometimes tedious stretches. By M.K. Terrell

Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of innuendo. 1 implied sex scene. Violence: 7 scenes. Profanity: 19 strong expressions. Drugs: 9 instances of drinking, smoking.

Blind Spot - Hitler's Secretary (PG)

Directors: André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer. With Traudl Junge. (90 min.)

This documentary presents a long interview with a personal assistant to Adolf Hitler who lived in his bunker during his final days. She candidly admits her failure to recognize the profound evil of a man she found personable and even kind during their daily interactions. Her testimony is a salutary reminder that Hitler was a person - not a supernatural monster - and that the evil he manifested could visit us again if more civilized humans don't remain watchful.

Candid, intimate, sparse, riveting.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: Some descriptions of violence. Profanity: None. Drugs: 3 scenes of smoking.

Blue Car (R)

Director: Karen Moncrieff. With Agnes Bruckner, David Strathairn, Margaret Colin. (87 min.)

A teenage girl writes poetry as a means of coping with her dysfunctional family and then faces a new challenge when her encouraging English teacher starts to cross the line of teacher-pupil propriety. Except for the somewhat superficial climax, Moncrieff's low-key screenwriting and directing mesh marvelously with the first-rate acting.

Nuanced, chilling, transparent.

Sex/Nudity: 1 scene of implied sex; some innuendo. Violence: 4 instances, including statutory rape, self-mutilation. Profanity: 17 profanities. Drugs: 3 drinking scenes.

Boat Trip (R)

Director: Mort Nathan. With Cuba Gooding Jr., Vivica A. Fox, Horatio Sanz, Roselyn Sanchez. (93 min.)

Hoping for sexual adventures on a singles cruise, two woman-crazy guys find themselves on a ship full of gay men instead, plus a bevy of bikini models brought on board by a feeble plot twist. This boatload of clichés is strenuously unfunny.

Sex/Nudity: 23 sex scenes, including innuendo, seminudity. Violence: 6 scenes. Profanity: 56 expressions. Drugs: 13 scenes of drinking, smoking.

Bollywood/Hollywood (PG-13)

Director: Deepa Mehta. With Rahul Khanna, Lisa Ray, Moushumi Chatterjee, Dina Pathak. (103 min.)

1Rahul's traditional Hindu mother lays down the law: Find a nice Indian girl to marry. This is no easy task for him, since they live in Toronto. Rahul hires an escort to pose as his fiancée, but he's taken aback when she becomes a bit too convincing. If this North American transplant of Indian-style filmmaking isn't completely successful, the lovely cast makes it a joyful attempt. By M.K. Terrell

Sex/Nudity: 6 innuendoes. Violence: 4 scenes, including fistfights. Profanity: 15 profanities. Drugs: At least 6 scenes of drinking, smoking.

Bonhoeffer (Not rated)

Director: Martin Doblmeier. With voices of Klaus Maria Brandauer, Adele Schmidt, Richard Mancini. (94 min.)

This well-meaning documentary is about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was executed in a Nazi prison after participating in a conspiracy to kill Hitler. While this account is interesting, what's missing is an exploration of how he reconciled his pacifism with his conviction that assassination is justified in some cases. In English and German with English subtitles.

Insightful, grave but inspiring.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: Discussions about Nazi violence. Profanity: None.

The Bread, My Sweet (Not rated)

Director: Melissa Martin. With Scott Baio, Kristin Minter, Rosemary Prinz, John Amplas. (105 min.)

Baio plays a dealmaker for a Pittsburgh conglomerate that specializes in hostile takeovers, but what he really longs for is making bread in the neighborhood Italian bakery he owns with two brothers. And how can he bring some joy to the aging couple upstairs who've become surrogate parents? Marry their globe-trotting daughter. By M.K. Terrell

Bringing Down the House (PG-13)

Director: Adam Shankman. With Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright. (105 min.)

Likable white lawyer (Martin) meets earthy black exconvict (Latifah) who won't stop pestering him until he helps her clear her name. Parts of this boisterous comedy are in remarkably poor taste - a scene where Martin dudes himself up in ghetto-style gear - and the rest is just not funny.

Slapstick, funny at times, racially tense.

Sex/Nudity: 6 scenes with innuendo, strong at times. Violence: 7 scenes, including fights. Profanity: 7 harsh expressions; 42 mild. Drugs: 13 scenes of drinking, smoking. 1 scene of drugs.

Brother Bear (G)

Directors: Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker. With voices of: Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Clarke Duncan. (85 min.)

This old-fashioned animation tells the story of three native American brothers, one of whom is mysteriously turned into a bear as a path to redemption of his human faults. All the old Disney trademarks are here, except wit and surprise.

Warm, scenic, enthralling storyline.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 8 scenes. Profanity: None. Drugs: None.

Bruce Almighty (PG-13)

Director: Tom Shadyac. With Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston, Morgan Freeman. (94 min.)

Finding himself endowed with divine powers temporarily granted by God, a self-centered local TV reporter gradually learns there are more important things in life than his career woes and petty gripes. The screenplay doesn't ultimately make much sense. Carrey is a unique comic talent, though, and Freeman and Aniston back him up with sensitive performances.

Carrey is allllrighty, divinely funny, sentimental.

Sex/Nudity: 10 scenes, including innuendo. Violence: 7 scenes of violence, mostly slapstick or fighting. Profanity: 12 profanities. Drugs: 4 scenes with drinking.

Bubba Ho-Tep (R)

Director: Don Coscarelli. With Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, Reggie Bannister, Bob Ivy. (92 min.)

It turns out Elvis Presley is alive but not so well, living in a rest home where he and a crazy crony start to suspect that an ancient Egyptian spirit is menacing the place. Davis contributes his usual dignity - not easy when you're playing a character who thinks he's John F. Kennedy dyed black - but it's not enough to save this silly thriller-comedy.

Buffalo Soldiers (R)

Director: Gregor Jordan. With Joaquin Phoenix, Anna Paquin, Ed Harris, Elizabeth McGovern. (98 min.)

The year is 1989, the setting is a US army base in West Germany, and the subject is rampant corruption orchestrated by a young officer and participated in by more soldiers than you'd like to think. The irony and skepticism of this dark comedy-drama are closer to "Catch-22" and "M*A*S*H" than to movies with more reverent views of the military, and at its best it's as refreshing as it is daring. Superbly acted.

Bulletproof Monk (PG-13)

Director: Paul Hunter. With Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott, Jamie King. (103 min.)

In Tibet in 1943, the "Monk Without a Name" becomes the protector of a sacred scroll that will make its reader ruler of the world. Naturally, the Nazis want it. Sixty years later, the monk comes to the US - Nazis still in pursuit - to find a successor. The mix of martial arts, super-hero, and Eastern philosophy doesn't really come together. By M.K. Terrell

Flat, corny, jumpy.

Sex/Nudity: 3 scenes of innuendo. Violence: 20 scenes, including kung-fu battles. Profanity: 11 profanities. Drugs: 3 scenes of drinking, smoking.

Bus 174 (Not rated)

Director: José Padilha. With Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, Luiz Eduardo Soares, Sandro do Nascimento. (122 min.)

A fascinating documentary about the 2000 hijacking of a commuter bus by a homeless man in Rio, exploring aspects of Brazilian life that contributed to the crime. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

Cabin Fever (R)

Director: Eli Roth. With Jordan Ladd, Rider Strong, James DeBello. (94 min.)

1/2 Five college students rent a cabin for a weeklong getaway. Out of the woods comes a man soaked in blood from a flesh-eating virus, which may also have infected the minds of filmmakers. After the friends set the visitor on fire and chase him off, they begin succumbing. There's way too much gross-out gore - this film should be quarantined. By M.K. Terrell

Sex/Nudity: 4 scenes with sex, innuendo. Violence: 22 extremely grisly scenes. Profanity: 138 profanities. Drugs: 14 drinking, smoking, and drug scenes.

Calendar Girls (PG-13)

Director: Nigel Cole. With Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Linda Bassett, John Alderton. (108 min.)

Wanting to juice up their charity fundraising, members of an English ladies' club decide to replace the bucolic views on their annual calendar with photos of themselves coyly photographed in the buff. This actually happened, and the calendar was a great success. The same can't be said for this female "Full Monty" because it follows formulas already overused in British comedies.

Camp (PG-13)

Director: Todd Graff. With Daniel Letterle, Joanna Chilcoat, Robin de Jesus. (114 min.)

At Camp Ovation, teens and preteens put on musicals all summer. Misfits at school, these kids all like musical comedy, and most of the boys are gay. Here they find acceptance and identity. Charmingly performed by a cast of talented newcomers, "Camp" is filmed at the actual Catskills camp where writer-director Graff performed as a child. By M.K. Terrell

Sex/Nudity: 7 scenes, including innuendo. Violence: 3 scenes, including severe beating. Profanity: 42 profanities. Drugs: 8 smoking and drinking scenes.

Capturing the Friedmans (Not rated)

Director: Andrew Jarecki. With Arnold Friedman, Jesse Friedman, Elaine Friedman, David Friedman. (107 min.)

This is a riveting documentary about a seemingly ordinary Long Island family knocked to smithereens when shocking criminal charges are levied against two of them, sparking a series of dramatic, traumatic events. Jarecki was fortunate to have a substantial trove of revealing video at his disposal. A compulsively watchable movie that's also a provocative inquiry into the ability of the criminal-justice system to determine culpability and truth.

Carnage (Not rated)

Director: Delphine Gleize. With Chiara Mastroianni, Jacques Gamblin, Ángela Molina. (130 min.)

After a bull is slain in a Spanish bullring, parts of the deceased creature's carcass are sent for various reasons to various places in Europe, affecting a wide range of characters in an equally wide number of ways. Funny, sad, and tinged with magic realism, this ambitious comedy-drama is as original as it is nimbly directed. In French and Spanish with English subtitles.

Casa de los Babys (R)

Director: John Sayles. With Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daryl Hannah, Susan Lynch, Rita Moreno, Lili Taylor. (95 min.)

At first glance, Casa is about the lives of six American women with little in common apart from their journey to South America to adopt children. Sayles deftly draws their stories together in a film you'll be sorry to see end. By Mary Wiltenburg

Minimal, tender, poorly edited.

Sex/Nudity: 2 innuendoes. Violence: None. Profanity: 15 profanities. Drugs: 10 scenes of drinking, smoking, drug use.

The Cat in the Hat (PG)

Director: Bo Welch. With Mike Myers, Kelly Preston, Alec Baldwin, Dakota Fanning. (71 min.)

Dismal adaptation of Dr. Seuss's classic book, about a magical cat who coaxes two kids into having mischievous fun while their mom's away. Myers plays the title feline as if he were a borscht-belt comedian without a speck of talent, and Welch's frenetic style is more like a Freudian fever dream than a children's amusement. Jaw-droppingly miscalculated.

Irritating, Cat-astrophic, inappropriate for kids.

Sex/Nudity: 4 scenes with innuendo. Violence: 10 scenes of mild violence, mostly played for laughs. Profanity: 1 profanity, and several scenes of vulgarity. Drugs: 2 scenes with alcohol.

Catching Out (Not rated)

Director: Sarah George. With members of the freight-hopping community. (80 min.)

This is a documentary about the dwindling breed of nomads who "catch out" freight cars for long-distance rides that are as free as they are illegal. The wanderers are a very mixed group with a wide range of motivations, and director George - who has logged more than 10,000 miles on the rails herself - chronicles their subculture with skill and sympathy.

Chaos (Dir. Coline Serreau) (Not rated)

Director: Coline Serreau. With Catherine Frot, Vincent Lindon, Rachida Brakni. (109 min.)

Stricken with a guilty conscience after she fails to help the victim of a savage assault, a French woman becomes the unexpected guardian of a young Algerian immigrant, with results that change both their lives in major ways. Excellent acting, a mordant sense of humor, and a smart political sensibility are among its many assets. In French with English subtitles.

Chaos (Dir. Hideo Nakata) (Not rated)

Director: Hideo Nakata. With Masato Hagiwara, Miki Nakatani, Ken Mitsuishi, Jun Kunimura. (104 min.)

A man's wife is kidnapped, leading to a series of twists as bizarre as they are unpredictable. This stylish Japanese thriller is being marketed as a cross between "Vertigo" and "Les Diaboliques," and while it's nowhere near as resonant as those classics, it's eerie enough to please connoisseurs of psychological suspense. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (PG-13)

Director: McG. With Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bernie Mac. (111 min.)

The woman warriors must retrieve two metal rings encoded with secret information about a witness-protection program. Their enemies include a retired member of Charlie's flock who's thrown in her lot with the villains. The spunky cast is the only reason to see this lively but forgettable action farce.

Fun cast, scant plot, flashy.

Sex/Nudity: 13 innuendos. Violence: 16 scenes. Profanity: 1 harsh profanity. Drugs: 4 drinking scenes. 2 with smoking.

Chasing Papi (PG)

Director: Linda Mendoza. With Roselyn Sanchez, Sofia Vergara, Jaci Velasquez. (80 min.)

Good-looking Papi (Verastegui) can't resist acquiring new girlfriends as business takes him around the US. Now he loves three women - each in a different city. When they all decide to visit him in L.A., everyone gets a big surprise. This romp has the innocence and pace of a '30s screwball comedy. By M.K. Terrell

Spicy, sharp dialogue, innocent.

Sex/Nudity: 3 scenes of innuendo. Violence: 5 scenes. Profanity: 6 profanities. Drugs: 6 scenes of drinking, smoking.

Chi-Hwa-Seon (Painted Fire) (Not rated)

Director: Im Kwon-taek. With Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ho-jung, Ahn Sung-ki, Kim Yeo-jin. (117 min.)

This color-drenched Korean drama takes its visual and narrative inspiration from the life and work of a 19th-century Korean painter who captivated art lovers while battling personal demons at a time of great social and cultural change.

Cinemania (Not rated)

Directors: Angela Christlieb, Stephen Kijak. With Jack Angstreich, Harvey Schwartz, Roberta Hill. (83 min.)

What if nothing on earth interested you except going to the movies? The impassioned New Yorkers profiled in this documentary aren't critics, just folks who think the good life means racing from one screen to another as many hours each day as possible. Think of the intricate schedules and split-second travel routes to be plotted out! You may become a cinemaniac yourself after sitting through this beauty.

Circle of Deceit (R)

Director: Volker Schlöndorff. With Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jerzy Skolimowski, Jean Carmet. (108 min.)

A reporter with personal problems has a challenging time in battle-weary Beirut as Palestinians and Christians square off during the early 1980s. This politically charged 1981 drama isn't one of Schlöndorff's greatest films, but its strong moral concerns make it well worth viewing. In German with English subtitles.

City of Ghosts (R)

Director: Matt Dillon. With Dillon, Natascha McElhone, James Caan, Gérard Depardieu. (116 min.)

Dillon makes his directorial debut with this thriller about a con artist dueling with his accomplice in Bangkok, which is photographed as a tangled web of rich exoticism and decadent sleaze. The film has shortcomings, but it's fun to see Caan back.

Sex/Nudity: 2 scenes in brothels; 2 innuendos. Violence: 13 scenes, including brutal beatings and shootouts. Profanity: 36 profanities. Drugs: 20 scenes of drinking, smoking.

City of God (R)

Director: Fernando Meirelles. With Alexandre Rodrigues, Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge. (140 min.)

A young photographer records the terrible events and personalities that surround him in a Rio de Janeiro slum between the late '60s and early '80s, including a psychopath who runs a gang of kids. In Portuguese with English subtitles.

Excessively violent, disturbing, compelling.

Sex/Nudity: 9 instances implied sex. Profanity: 137 harsh expressions. Violence: 44 scenes of very graphic violence, including bullet-ridden bodies. Drugs: 2 scenes of smoking; 15 scenes with illegal drugs, mostly cocaine.

Cold Creek Manor (R)

Director: Mike Figgis. With Sharon Stone, Dennis Quaid, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis. (117 min.)

A family from the big city moves to a rural home and is menaced by a psychopath whose family used to own the place. After two experimental movies in a row, the gifted director of "Leaving Las Vegas" apparently felt he needed another box-office hit. Unfortunately, this isn't it.

Flat script, Stone cold, gripping at times.

Sex/Nudity: 6 scenes, including innuendo, implied sex. Violence: 14 scenes, including murder, fights. Profanity: 29 profanities. Drugs: 8 drinking and smoking scenes.

Confidence (R)

Director: James Foley. With Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman. (98 min.)

A con artist plans his last big scam, motivated by revenge and dogged by mobsters who feel he owes them. The film is as tricky and superficial as its lowlife characters, using visual flimflam to mask its lack of substance. The confidence-game scenes work reasonably well; the rest is awful.

Great twists, flashy, lacks substance.

Sex/Nudity: 6 sex scenes with nudity. Violence: 14 harsh scenes. Drugs: 19 drinking scenes; 18 smoking; 2 with drugs.

Confusion of Genders (Not rated)

Director: Ilan Duran Cohen. With Pascal Greggory, Nathalie Richard, Vincent Martinez, Julie Gayet. (94 min.)

Uncertain where he wants his life to go, a French lawyer does a romantic juggling act involving the attorney he works for, a client, and other male and female acquaintances. Although there's quite a bit of nudity and sex, the potentially sensationalistic story is acted with sincerity and directed with a creative eye. In French with English subtitles.

The Cooler (R)

Director: Wayne Kramer. With William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, Paul Sorvino. (101 min.)

The title character is a guy whose luck is so bad it's contagious, which makes him valuable to a Las Vegas casino that uses him to cool the good fortune of gamblers winning too much at the tables. Look for realism and you'll be disappointed. Look for a contemporary fairy tale, and you'll find this an oddly engaging yarn. Macy is at his inimitable best, with Baldwin and Bello close behind.

The Core (PG-13)

Director: Jon Amiel. With Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci. (136 min.)

It's the end of the world as we know it when a military experiment ends up destabilizing Earth's core. Before long, subpar fire-and-brimstone special effects are raining on postcard scenery like the Colosseum in Rome. The actors tackle their roles with laughable temerity, and the result, though hardly laudable, is better than "Armaggedon." By Stephen Humphries

Core-ny, explosive, good effects.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 14 scenes. Profanity: 3 harsh expressions. Drugs: 11 scenes of smoking, drinking.

Cowboy Bebop (R)

Director: Shinichiro Watanabe. With Koichi Yamadera, Unsho Ishizuka, Megumi Hayashibara. (116 min.)

Bounty hunters from space track down a terrorist with a stolen military bioweapon. Slick animation and a hip soundtrack lend the action a distinctive style. Fans of the TV series will argue over whether the movie surpasses it. But animé fans will enjoy the show regardless. By Tim Rauschenberger

Sex/Nudity: Some innuendo. Violence: 16 scenes, including gunfights and battles Profanity: 13 profanities. Drugs: 13 scenes of smoking, drinking.

Cradle 2 The Grave (R)

Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak. With Jet Li, DMX, Mark Dacascos. (100 min.)

DMX plays the leader of a gang of thieves who enlists the help of a Taiwanese intelligence agent when his daughter is kidnapped. The film plays like a music video with bright colors, pounding music, and dizzying camera moves. If the gore does not make you look away, then the "been there" plot will. By Sasha Brown

Sex/Nudity: 4 instances of innuendo. Violence: 18 scenes, including beatings. Profanity: 73 harsh expressions. Drugs: At least 7 scenes of smoking and drinking.

Cremaster Cycle (Not rated)

Director: Matthew Barney. With Matthew Barney, Ursula Andress, Richard Serra, Norman Mailer. (397 min.)

A major figure in the New York art scene, Barney mixes ancient legends, contemporary myths, dreamlike visions, and his distinctive stylistics in this five-part series of plotless meditations on the human imagination. At its best it's evocative and riveting. Its longest portion, "Cremaster 3," is the weakest.

The Cuckoo (PG-13)

Director: Alexander Rogozhkin. With Viktor Bychkov, Anni-Christina Juuso. (100 min.)

Isolated from their units in the remote countryside during World War II, two soldiers from the rival Soviet and Finnish armies seek refuge with a Lappland peasant woman. The situation hardly provides an original metaphor for the communication failures that plague the human race, but the drama's heart is in the right place. In Russian, Finnish, and Sami with English subtitles.

Sex/Nudity: 5 scenes. Violence: 5 scenes. Profanity: 3 profanities. Drugs: 1 instance.

Daddy Day Care (PG)

Director: Steve Carr. With Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, Anjelica Huston. (93 min.)

Murphy and Garlin start a kiddie-minding business as an alternative to a pretentious preschool they can't afford for their own kids when they lose their jobs. Murphy gives one of his more restrained performances, while the screenplay's message would have seemed progressive 30 years ago: Men can change diapers, and women can be lawyers!

Fun family fare, cute kids, simple.

Sex/Nudity: 1 innuendo. Violence: 9 scenes of slapstick. Profanity: 7 mild expressions. Drugs: 1 scene with smoking.

The Dancer Upstairs (R)

Director: John Malkovich. With Javier Bardem, Laura Morante, Juan Diego. (135 min.)

Bardem plays a Latin American police detective who tracks down a revolutionary zealot while mooning over his daughter's dance teacher. Malkovich's directorial debut is intellectually ambitious, but his meandering style dilutes the story's emotional effectiveness. Bardem delivers a sensitive performance.

Provocative, well-paced, intricate.

Sex/Nudity: 1 nude scene; 3 innuendos. Violence: 22 scenes, some quite gory depicting the aftermath of explosions. Profanity: 14 profanities. Drugs: 7 smoking scenes; 2 scenes with alcohol.

Daredevil (PG-13)

Director: Mark Steven Johnson. With Ben Affleck, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Garner. (96 min.)

Batman, Superman, Spidey, and now Daredevil? Ten minutes into it, you won't need superhuman senses to realize that it's not a great movie. Affleck plays Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer by day, action hero by night. There's plenty of action - the violence is exhausting - but the characters aren't likable, the plot is thin, and the acting is robotic. By Lisa Connors

Violent, mindless, comic-bookish.

Sex/Nudity: 1 instance of innuendo; 1 scene of implied sex. Violence: 20 scenes, including bloody fights. Profanity: 11 expressions. Drugs: 10 scenes of drinking and smoking.

Dark Blue (R)

Director: Ron Shelton. With Kurt Russell, Lolita Davidovich, Scott Speedman, Ving Rhames. (116 min.)

Russell plays a Los Angeles cop who sees bending the rules as an everyday aspect of bringing the bad guys down. This could have been a routine police-corruption drama, but it gains dramatic energy from Russell's passionate acting and from setting the tale at the time when four real-life crooked cops are about to be acquitted in the beating of Rodney King.

Gritty, predictable, rough.

Sex/Nudity: 1 sex scene. 1 scene of partial nudity. Violence: 15 scenes, including murders, beatings, and riots. Profanity: 192 harsh expressions. Drugs: 14 scenes of smoking and drinking.

Darkness Falls (PG-13)

Director: Jonathan Liebesman. With Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Lee Cormie. (76 min.)

The 1850s lynching of an innocent woman has provided a small Maine town with a "tooth fairy" ghost-in-residence who sometimes attacks children the night they lose their last baby tooth. The largely Australian cast sounds American and does a good job of not breaking up while uttering inanities in one idiotic scene after another. By M.K. Terrell

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 25 scenes, including dead bodies. Profanity: 4 harsh expressions. Drugs: 1 scene of drinking.

Deliver Us From Eva (R)

Director: Gary Hardwick. With Gabrielle Union, LL Cool J, Duane Martin. (105 min.)

Eva (Union) has raised her three younger sisters since the untimely death of their parents. Now they're grown up, and Eva continues to mother them by meddling in their relationships. The sisters' husbands and fiancé hire a ladies' man (LL Cool J), to sweep Eva off her feet and out of their lives. Naturally, the plan backfires. What nearly saves the paint-by-numbers plot is a watchable cast. By M.K. Terrell

Brightly cast, energetic, ribald.

Sex/Nudity: 19 instances of innuendo. 1 sex scene. Violence: 3 scenes. Profanity: 68 expressions. Drugs: 10 scenes of drinking.

Demonlover (Not rated)

Director: Olivier Assayas. With Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny. (120 min.)

A nosy businesswoman runs into formidable and inscrutable foes as she traces the connections between a multinational company and a website worthy of "Videodrome" for nastiness and perversity. This ambitious epic takes a finely cynical attitude toward the excesses of our media-saturated age, but it never quite jells into a coherent statement. Or a coherent film. In French and English with English subtitles.

Sex/Nudity: 12 scenes, including seminudity, sex. Violence: 20 scenes, including rape, torture. Profanity: 5 profanities. Drugs: At least 25 drinking and smoking scenes.

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (PG-13)

Director: Sam Weisman. With David Spade, Mary McCormack, Rob Reiner. (99 min.)

Now a 35-year-old failure, a once-famous actor prepares for a big audition by reliving his childhood, moving in with a nice suburban family that turns out to have problems of its own. Four chuckles and a lively final-credits sequence are a mighty poor score for 99 minutes of alleged comedy. Spade will be a former grownup star if he can't find funnier material than this.

Mindless fun, corny, winning performances.

Sex/Nudity: 8 innuendoes. Violence: 5 scenes. Profanity: 71 profanities. Drugs: 5 drinking scenes; 1 with drugs.

Die Mommie Die (R)

Director: Mark Rucker. With Charles Busch, Phillip Baker Hall, Jason Priestley, Natascha Lyonne. (90 min.)

A loving send-up of "women's" films, especially those of the '50s. Washed-up singer Angela Arden decides the way to escape her dysfunctional family is to poison her husband. Much of the campy humor derives from the fact that the leading lady is a man (Busch, who adapted the scenario from his own stage play). Sometimes it actually works. By M.K. Terrell

Dirty Pretty Things (R)

Director: Stephen Frears. With Audrey Tautou, Chiwetel Ejiofor. (107 min.)

An illegal immigrant (Ejiofor), who works as a night clerk and a cabbie to make ends meet, discovers an underground organ-trading operation at a posh London hotel. With help from a maid (Tautou), also an illegal immigrant, he tries to expose the crime ring while avoiding immigration authorities. In this intelligent thriller, Frears offers an unflinchingly gritty view of life as an illegal immigrant, often exploited and clinging to survival. By Stephanie Cook Broadhurst

Probing, realistic, heart wrenching.

Sex/Nudity: 5 scenes. Violence: 8 scenes, including rapes, graphic surgeries, fights. Profanity: 19 profanities. Drugs: 13 scenes of smoking, drinking, and drug use.

Divine Intervention (Not rated)

Director: Elia Suleiman. With Suleiman, Manal Khader, Nayef Fahoum Daher. (92 min.)

This is a film about the adventures of a Palestinian man called E.S., based on the life of writer-director Suleiman, as he copes with his ailing father, woos a girlfriend who lives on the other side of an Israeli checkpoint, and gets through daily life in his neighborhood. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

Slow, severe, political.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 9 scenes, including explosions and gunfire. Profanity: 21 harsh expressions. Drugs: At least 9 scenes with smoking.

Dopamine (R)

Director: Mark Decena. With John Livingston, Sabrina Lloyd, Bruno Campos, Reuben Grundy. (79 min.)

Sure, you and your date have "chemistry," but how many people who say that mean it literally? Rand does: The hopeless antiromantic spends his first date with Sarah prattling about pheromones. While his analysis of attraction carries the couple through a date or two, they start to feel something more like ... well, could it be love? By Mary Wiltenburg

Down With Love (PG-13)

Director: Peyton Reed. With Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor. (96 min.)

The time is 1962. The heroine is an enterprising author (Zellweger) who's penned a feminist book years ahead of its time, but the suave magazine editor she needs for publicity purposes (McGregor) wants to prove she's a romantic at heart. There's promise in the film's idea of reviving the spirit of Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies. Sadly, though, director Reed has no idea how to build the right bubbling rhythms.

Campy, giddy, sappy.

Sex/Nudity: 16 instances of innuendo. Violence: 3 mild scenes. Profanity: None. Drugs: 25 scenes with drinking, smoking.

Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary (Not rated)

Director: Guy Maddin. With Zhang Wei-Qiang, Tara Birtwhistle, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. (75 min.)

Maddin reconfirms his well-established status as one of modern cinema's great fabulists with this dance version of Bram Stoker's novel. The visual style is deliberately archaic and slyly postmodernist, slinky and sensuous from first frame to last.

Dreamcatcher (R)

Director: Lawrence Kasdan. With Morgan Freeman, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore, Donnie Wahlberg. (131 min.)

Four young men with a knack for mind-reading battle aliens in the New England woods. The main characters are compendiums of Gen-X clichés, and most of the cast is too unseasoned to transcend the silly screenplay.

Odd, clichéd, gross.

Sex/Nudity: 4 innuendos. Violence: 25 scenes. Profanity: 52 expressions. Drugs: 6 scenes of drinking.

Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (PG-13)

Director: Troy Miller. With Eric Christian Olsen, Derek Richardson, Mimi Rogers, Eugene Levy. (95 min.)

Positioned somewhere between "Wayne's World" and "Animal House," this good-natured farce gives the backstory of the 1994 hit "Dumb & Dumber," telling how the dopey heroes met as high school students in a "special class."

Sex/Nudity: 7 innuendos. Violence: 5 instances. Profanity: 23 mild instances. Drugs: 1 instance of smoking, 1 of drinking.

Duplex (PG-13)

Director: Danny DeVito. With Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore, Eileen Essel, Harvey Fierstein. (97 min.)

Newlyweds Alex and Nancy can't believe the gem of a townhouse they find. But the sweet little tenant turns out to be such a nuisance that the new owners plot her demise. This is not the tribute to "The Ladykillers" it wants to be. By M.K. Terrell

Dust (R)

Director: Milcho Manchevski. With Joseph Fiennes, Rosemary Murphy, David Wenham. (127 min.)

This hugely ambitious melodrama begins when an African-American burglar in New York gets held at gunpoint by his intended victim, an elderly white woman who uses the opportunity to tell him an apocryphal story of her family's past in Macedonia. Its most impressive aspect is its visual style, patterned to some degree on Sergio Leone westerns.

Dysfunktional Family (R)

Director: George Gallo. With Eddie Griffin, Uncle Buckey, Uncle Curtis. (89 min.)

Like Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy before him, Eddie Griffin has made a film based on his stand-up comedy routine - now if only it were funny. There are some mildly humorous moments, but overall, this film is boring and depressing to boot. By Sasha Brown

Sex/Nudity: 57 scenes, mostly sex talk. A few porn clips. Violence: Scenes of child abuse. Profanity: At least 600 profanities. Drugs: 13 scenes of smoking, drinking, drugs.

El Bola (Not rated)

Director: Achero Mañas. With Juan José Ballesta, Pablo Galán, Alberto Jiménez, Manuel Morón. (88 min.)

The poignant yet unsentimental story of a 12-year-old boy caught between his abusive father and a grown-up friend who'd like to rescue him from his bad family environment but is afraid of legal reprisals. In Spanish with English subtitles.

Elf (PG)

Director: Jon Favreau. With Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Edward Asner. (92 min.)

Buddy was raised at the North Pole by Santa but when he learns he's an adopted human rather than an everyday elf, he heads for Manhattan to meet his dad, a Scrooge-like executive. The cast is perfect, and David Berenbaum has written a smart and funny sugarplum of a screenplay.

Sprightly, festive, good-hearted fun.

Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 4 scenes of violence, including a beating. Profanity: 2 mild profanities. Drugs: 5 scenes with alcohol, 1 scene with smoking.

Elephant (R)

Director: Gus Van Sant. With Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Carrie Finklea. (81 min.)

A seemingly ordinary day at an Oregon high school is shattered when two students unleash a shooting rampage modeled on the Columbine massacre that rocked Colorado in 1999. What causes the horror? Instead of suggesting pat answers, Van Sant makes us squirm, worry, and think about the random violence lurking in American society that won't go away unless we work to understand it.

The Embalmer (Not rated)

Director: Matteo Garrone. With Ernesto Mahieux, Valerio Foglia Manzillo, Elisabetta Rocchetti. (104 min.)

A middle-aged dwarf taxidermist gets a crush on a young man he's taken as an apprentice, with results that grow emotionally complex when the helper falls in love with a feisty woman. Mahieux gives a bravura performance as the title character. In Italian with English subtitles.

Emerald Cowboy (Not rated)

Director: Andrew Molina. With Eishy Hayata, Eve Hayata. (117 min.)

Hayata's real-life exploits inspired this rough-and-tough drama about a Japanese-born businessman who settles in Colombia, where he wheels, deals, and sometimes shoots his way to the top in the ruthlessly competitive world of mining and selling emeralds. The acting is weak, largely because many of the performers seem uncomfortable speaking English. In English and Spanish with English subtitles.

The Event (R)

Director: Thom Fitzgerald. With Olympia Dukakis, Parker Posey, Don McKellar, Sarah Polley. (110 min.)

Euthanasia is the subject of this offbeat drama about a policewoman (Posey) investigating a series of deaths in New York's gay community. The topic is thought-provoking, the flashback-based structure is interesting, and there are surprising twists. But there's also an overdose of sentimentality that badly dilutes the picture's impact.

The Flower of Evil (Not rated)

Director: Claude Chabrol. With Nathalie Baye, Benoît Magimel, Suzanne Flon, Bernard Lecoq. (104 min.)