Movie Guide
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"Nine Lives," written and directed by Rodrigo García, is something of a stunt: Nine stories about nine women filmed in nine separate unbroken takes. Garcia has gone in for this sort of thing before - his last film, "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her," told five stories. The advantage of this format is that, if an episode isn't working, you can always wait it out until the next one comes along. The uneven "Nine Lives" has an impressive cast, but the best section features the great Mexican actress Elpidio Carrillo as a prison inmate kept from her child. Grade: B-
- Peter Rainer
Director: Niki Caro. With Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson. (126 min.)
Theron plays a battered wife who fights sexual harassment at her job in the iron mines. She has her best role since "Monster," but overall "North Country" is too self-consciously scaled as an anthem for the human spirit. Grade: B-
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 16 scenes of innuendo and sexual harassment. Violence: 8 scenes, including one of rape. Profanity: 76 harsh expressions. Drugs: 11 scenes with smoking. 10 scenes with drinking.
Director: Jane Anderson. With Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern. (99 min.)
Evelyn Ryan rewrote the definition of resilience in the '50s and '60s, supporting ten children and an alcoholic husband by composing jingles and 25-word essays to win hundreds of contests. Moore makes a perfect Evelyn, always upbeat, and Harrelson as her ineffectual husband is borderline tragic. The film veers from tongue-in-cheek documentary to gritty drama to sitcom, but it's true to the spirit of daughter Terry's book and of Evelyn's life - lumpy but filled with expectancy of good, and utterly charming. Grade: B
- M.K.T.
Sex/Nudity: None. Violence: 4 scenes. Profanity: 25 expressions. Drugs: 8 scenes with drinking.
Director: Anand Tucker. With Steve Martin, Claire Danes. (104 min.)
Martin plays a dotcom millionaire who successfully woos Mirabelle (Danes), a salesgirl at Saks. Whether intentionally or not, Martin has given us something truly spooky: A full-fledged portrait of a hollow man. Grade: B - P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 13 frank scenes of innuendo and sex. Violence: None. Profanity: 9 fairly mild expressions. Drugs: 3 scenes with smoking. 11 scenes with drinking.
Director: Marc Forster. With Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts. (99 min.)
If you're the kind of moviegoer who likes puzzling out the plots of insoluble movies, then by all means rush to see "Stay," a great big blurry mess starring Ewan McGregor as a psychiatrist who gets pulled into the dreamscape of his disturbed patient, played by Ryan Gosling. Besides these two, Naomi Watts and Bob Hoskins also make appearances - the cast, if not the movie, is first-rate. The director, Marc Foster, most recently made "Finding Neverland," which could also serve as the title for his new film, except nothing is found and "neverland" is too kind a term for the chaos he flings at us. Grade: C-
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 2 scenes of innuendo. Violence: 10 horror scenes. Profanity: 28 harsh expressions. Drugs: 3 scenes with smoking. 4 scenes with drinking. 1 scene with prescription drugs.
