Movie Guide
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Sterritt ** Documentary about the mating and chick-raising routines of Emperor Penguins, whose Antarctic habitat makes almost every activity hazardous to their health and even their lives. As a zoological spectacle, the movie is riveting. But the narration tries to make us think of these adorable animals as if they saw the world in human terms, which they obviously don't, and the images have been enhanced by digital effects, as if they wouldn't be impressive enough on their own.
Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: None. Profanity: None. Drugs: None.
Director: Doug Liman. With Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington. (120 min.)
Sterritt * Pitt and Jolie play secret agents who don't know each other's line of work when they get married, then become rivals and eventually partners in the licensed-to-kill game. The movie is a mish-mash of action-adventure clichés.
Staff ** Charmingly cast, surprisingly slow, poorly edited.
Sex/Nudity: 5 scenes with innuendos, 2 sex scenes. Violence: 16 scenes. Profanity: 29 strong profanities. Drugs: 12 scenes with drinking, 3 scenes with smoking.
Director: Maysoon Pachachi. With Adnan Pachachi, Iraqi politicians, voice of Maysoon Pachachi. (88 min.)
Sterritt **** The filmmaker visits her native Iraq with her father, a politician involved in designing the nation's post-Saddam Hussein constitution. She keeps things lively by roaming far and wide with her camera, returning to the statesmanship side of the documentary often enough to let us follow relevant events as they unfold. In English and Arabic with subtitles.
Director: Steven Spielberg. With Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Justin Chatwin. (117 min.)
Sterritt *** Earthlings battle alien invaders who wreak deadly havoc until they're stymied by ... you know what, if you've read H.G. Wells's influential 1898 novel. Spielberg gives the story his full high-tech treatment, building great scariness with help from first-class music and camera work. The picture gets repetitive, though, since its terrors are pretty much the same from start to finish.
Staff **1/2 Believably acted, made for TV, wait for the video.
Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 27 scenes. Profanity: 27 mild expressions. Drugs: 1 instance of drinking.
Director: David Donkin. With Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams, Christopher Walken. (113 min.)
Sterritt ** Wilson and Vaughn play immature Washington lawyers who get their kicks by crashing weddings in search of fun and sex, only to find their nuptial horseplay going sour when they agree to spend a weekend with a politician and his attractive daughters. There are a few good laughs, but not nearly enough clever ideas to keep things hopping for almost two hours.
Staff **1/2 A guilty pleasure, juvenile, nutty.
Sex/Nudity: 24 instances. Violence: 7 scenes. Profanity: 78, ranging in severity. Drugs: 39 scenes.
Director: Mike Binder. With Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Erika Christensen, Keri Russell. (118 min.)
Staff **1/2 A housewife (Allen) enters an alcohol-induced depression after her husband vanishes, presumably with his Swedish secretary. As a result, the four daughters struggle for a place among the pieces of their mother's life, fragments that an ex-baseball player-turned-radio DJ (Costner) tries to repair. The humor, while unique at times, is far too subtle to lift the slow-paced storyline, and character transformations lack believability and a sense of reality. DVD features, though illuminating, are not worth the casual viewer's time. By Chelsea Waugaman.
