Movie Guide
(Page 3 of 3)
Director: Nick Cassavetes. With Gena Rowlands, James Garner, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling. (115 min.)
Sterritt ** An aging man reads a lengthy love story to a debilitated old woman, and gradually we realize its profound relevance to their own former lives. Rowlands is superb, as usual, and Garner partners her with the grace of a dancer. Cassavetes's directing style is slow and stilted, indicating yet again that his notion of moviemaking is the opposite of everything his father, the great John Cassavetes, stood for.
Staff ** Nostalgic, contrived, sentimental.
Sex/Nudity: 3 instances. Violence: 2 scenes. Profanity: 13 mild expressions. Drugs: 6 scenes of drinking, 3 of smoking.
Director: Joe Nussbaum. With Mika Boorem, Alexa Vega, Jane Lynch, Scout Taylor-Compton. (97 min.)
Sterritt *Mischief reigns as a pajama party turns into a scavenger hunt, with rewards that seem less than trivial to girls on the verge of high school. Viewers of that age may overlook the contrived situations and the awful acting, which consists mainly of frozen grins. Nobody else will.
Staff ** Juvenile, chaste, segregated.
Sex/Nudity: 1 instance. Violence: 5 scenes. Profanity: 1 mild expression. Drugs: 1 instance of drinking.
Director: Sam Raimi. With Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina, Rosemary Harris. (127 min.)
Sterritt *** Our hero (Maguire) takes on Doctor Octopus, a once-benign scientist (Molina) who's lost control of the artificial tentacles he's invented; while in his secret identity he continues his fitful courtship of would-be girlfriend (Dunst) who doesn't think she can wait for him much longer. The sequel is more exciting than the 2002 original, thanks largely to Molina's excellent acting. Only the strenuously comic scenes fall as flat as one of Spidey's leftover webs.
Staff *** Satisfying, pumped-up, melodramatic.
Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 18 scenes. Profanity: 4 mild expressions. Drugs: 3 instances of drinking, 3 of smoking.
Director: Steven Spielberg. With Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Kumar Pallana. (128 min.)
Sterritt * Hanks plays an eastern European man whose US visit turns sour when a coup topples his nation's government, leaving him a man without a country and forcing him to make his home in the New York airport he's forbidden by law to leave. Hanks's character is sentimentalized, Tucci's lacks all plausibility, and Zeta-Jones's has little to do. A totally false picture of human nature, and of what it's really like to be in a security-conscious airport. A Spielbergian bomb.
Staff *** Fresh, sleek, humanistic.
Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of innuendo. Violence: 2 scenes. Profanity: 10 mild expressions, 8 strong. Drugs: 3 instances of drinking, 2 of smoking.
Director: Doug Liman. With Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles. (119 min.)
Staff *** This 2002 spy movie, rereleased with two new scenes that bookend the film, hinges on an identity crisis. Damon emerges from a coma on a boat in the Mediterranean with no idea who he is or how he got there. He's also perplexed when he discovers that several people are trying to kill him. It sets up a terrific hunt-and-chase thriller propelled by nimble, inventive action sequences. The new scenes aren't essential but they do provide a bridge to the imminent sequel, and the stock bonus features are gracious enough to look at the late Robert Ludlum, author of "Bourne" books. By Stephen Humphries
