Movie Guide

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. With Min Oo, Jenjira Jansuda, Kanokporn Tongaramj. (125 min.)

Sterritt **** Thai filmmaking continues its renaissance with this moody, offbeat drama about a Burmese refugee and two Thai women in a sleepy border town.

Atmosphere reigns supreme, and it's brilliantly evoked. In Thai with subtitles.

Director: John Waters. With Tracey Ullman, Chris Isaak, Selma Blair, Johnny Knoxville. (88 min.)

Sterritt ** A bonk on the head turns a woman into a sex addict, so she joins a support group with other afflicted folks. The humor is more childish than raunchy, but it's interesting to see that becoming a big-time Broadway impresario hasn't led Waters to sell out his affection for gross-out gags.

Director: Forest Whitaker. With Katie Holmes, Michael Keaton, Marc Blucas, Margaret Colin. (105 min.)

Staff *** Freshman Samantha Mackenzie (Holmes), the president's daughter, just wants to be accepted at college. But she keeps ending up in the tabloids, vexing mom and dad during an election year. This storybook tale shares a similar plot to last winter's "Chasing Liberty," but it's more believable and the father-daughter scenes are sometimes touching, with Keaton strict, but surprisingly laid-back, as president. See it with your own daughters. By M.K. Terrell

Director: Joseph Ruben. With Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodard. (91 min.)

Staff ** Telly Paretta (Moore) is a smart and independent freelance editor whose life seems to have no other purpose than to devotedly remember Sam, her 8-year old son, who passed away a little over a year ago. Grief, however, is quickly replaced by angry despair as she learns that even those closest to her deny her child ever existed. Telly's unrelenting search for the truth, although depressingly predictable at times, does deliver a few good jumps and allows Julianne Moore to display her acting prowess once again. By Gabino Villanueva

Director: Andrew Repasky McElhenny. With Melissa Elizabeth Forgione, Sean Timothy Sexton. (81 min.)

Sterritt * Very loose adaptation of the notorious 1928 novel about three lovers obsessed with one another. Bataille was a serious philosopher as well as a sensation-seeking writer, but you'd never guess his provocative ideas from this updated version. Contains explicit sex.

Director: John Duigan. With Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz, Stuart Townsend. (120 min.)

Staff **1/2 A man and two women engage in a sexually hedonistic lifestyle in 1930s Paris until the Nazis begin to threaten Europe. This story of collaboration vs. resistance vs. just plain surviving in wartime is visually ravishing and well-acted. But the cinema has often treated these themes, and with more originality - witness this year's "Bon Voyage." By M.K. Terrell

Director: Jeff Nathanson. With Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Toni Colette, Joan Cusack. (93 min.)

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