Mega Movie Guide 2005 (A through D)
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (PG)
Director: Robert Rodriguez. With Cayden Boyd, Kristen Davis. (94 min.)
You'll know who the target audience is when you discover the story's setting is called Planet Drool, and the hero is a schoolboy who joins the title characters to fight the evil Mr. Electric.
Grade:
C
- David Sterritt
Aeon Flux (PG-13)
Director: Karyn Kusama. With Charlize Theron. (95 min.)
In the future, the sexiest people among us will rise up to defend our freedom. They will all wear spandex. Is there more to "Aeon Flux" than that? Not really - not even for true sci-fi fans hoping to see this live-action film live up to last decade's MTV cartoon show of the same title.
Grade:
D
- Matt Bradley
Aliens of the Deep (G)
Directors: James Cameron, Steven Quale. With James Cameron. (47 min.)
Cameron pursues undersea fascinations in this documentary about the astounding things one comes upon in deep-sea exploration, and how such discoveries help pave the way for exploration in other parts of the solar system. A terrific treat for the eyes.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Another Road Home (Not rated)
Director: Danae Elon. With Danae Elon, Musa Obeidallah. (79 min.)
The filmmaker looks for a Palestinian family who lived with her household during her childhood in Israel. Also present is her father, a respected author with strong views on the difference between Israeli security and Zionist goals. It's unlikely there will ever be a more moving portrait of the shared selfhood, usually veiled by politics, common to the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Après-Vous (R)
Director: Pierre Salvadori. With Daniel Auteuil, José Garcia. (110 min.)
After saving a stranger from hanging himself, a restaurateur becomes involved with the unhappy guy's girlfriend. Garcia is great in this French dramatic comedy, and Auteuil remains one of the great European stars. But the pleasant film uses up its ideas long before it uses up its running time.
In French with subtitles. Grade:
B
- D.S.
Are We There Yet? (PG)
Director: Brian Levant. With Ice Cube, Nia Long, Jay Mohr. (95 min.)
You may ask yourself that question as you watch a kid-phobic man take a road trip with the kids of a single mom he wants to woo. Cube is cute and Long is lovely, but the youngsters are too smug to bear.
Grade:
C
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of innuendo.
Violence: 14 scenes of comic violence.
Profanity: 4 mild profanities.
Drugs/Alcohol: 1 scene with alcohol.
The Aristocrats (Not rated)
Director: Paul Provenza. With Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams. (92 min.)
Comedians tell, discuss, and banter about their profession's most notorious dirty joke - and I mean filthy. Monotonous after a while.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Assault on Precinct 13 (R)
Director: Jean-François Richet. With Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne. (109 min.)
Remake of John Carpenter's popular 1976 thriller about a broken-down jailhouse under siege by a gang of bad guys. The cast is impressive, but admirers of the original will miss its crisp, clean style.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Asylum (R)
Director: David Mackenzie. With Ian McKellen, Natasha Richardson. (90 min.)
A psychiatrist's wife falls in love with a demented mental patient. Patrick McGrath's novel provides a solid and suspenseful story, even if it loses much of its bite in Mackenzie's hands.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Bad News Bears (PG-13)
Director: Richard Linklater. With Billy Bob Thornton. (111 min.)
Remake of the 1976 comedy about a burned-out ballplayer who finally grows up while coaching a hopeless kids' baseball team. Thornton is excellent as the coach. Look out for lots of foul language, though.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 7 instances.
Violence: 9 scenes of schoolyard fighting.
Profanity: 125 strong and mild expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: 16 with drinking/smoking.
The Ballad of Jack & Rose (R)
Director: Rebecca Miller. With Daniel Day-Lewis, Beau Bridges, Catherine Keener. (112 min.)
Marvelously acted story about an anarchist, his teenage daughter, and their struggle to keep up a life of happy solitude despite the distractions of his love life and a developer who wants houses to spring up around them. Smart and engrossing.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Batman Begins (PG-13)
Director: Christopher Nolan. With Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson. (141 min.)
How a young man became the Caped Crusader instead of just Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy. Neeson plays a ninja, which shows how desperately the story stretches for angles. But you finally get answers to the Joker's excellent question: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?!"
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 1 instance of innuendo.
Violence: 29 intense scenes.
Profanity: 11 mild profanities.
Drugs/Alcohol: 4 with drinking, 1 with drug dealing.
The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Not rated)
Director: Jacques Audiard. With Romain Duris, Aure Atika. (107 min.)
Inspired by the 1978 thriller "Fingers," this superbly acted thriller focuses on an aspiring concert pianist who intersperses his piano lessons with errands for his mobster friends. As stylish as it is suspenseful.
In French with subtitles. Grade:
A
- D.S.
The Beautiful Country (R)
Director: Hans Petter Moland. With Tim Roth, Nick Nolte. (125 min.)
Decades after the Vietnam War, a young Vietnamese man and his little brother risk their lives on a voyage to Texas, where their American father may live. The subject is compelling but the story is slow.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 9 scenes.
Violence: 9 occurrences.
Profanity: 8 profanities.
Drugs/Alcohol: 16 drinking, smoking, and hard drug use
Because of Winn-Dixie (PG)
Director: Wayne Wang. With Jeff Daniels, Cicely Tyson. (106 min.)
New to a small town where her father is the preacher, a young girl makes new friends including a couple of aging women and a friendly pooch she names after the grocery store where she finds him. Bland, amiable, innocuous.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Bee Season (PG-13)
Directors: Scott McGehee, David Siegel. With Richard Gere, Flora Cross. (104 min.)
Eliza is an 11-year-old spelling prodigy. Her father, Saul, believes she communicates with God according to the precepts of kabbalah, which hold that the alphabet contains the secrets of the universe. As Eliza advances to the national spelling bee championship, her mother becomes unhinged and her brother rebels by joining the Hare Krishnas. "Bee Season," at its core, is about something powerful: The ways in which family members wreak destruction on each other with the best of intentions.
Grade:
B
- Peter Rainer
Sex/Nudity: 3 scenes, including sex.
Violence: None.
Profanity: 4 strong expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: 2 scenes of drinking.
The Best of Youth (Not rated)
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana. With Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni. (366 min.)
The story of two smart and ornery Italian brothers, one of whom becomes a psychiatrist after a detour through radical politics, while the other copes with self-control problems by joining the police. Stretching from the tumultuous 1960s to the start of the 21st century, it uses every moment to the fullest, bringing us so far inside the characters that you feel you know them as well as your family and friends. This is epic filmmaking on a profoundly human scale.
In Italian with subtitles. Grade:
A
- D.S.
Bewitched (PG-13)
Director: Nora Ephron. With Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell. (95 min.)
Launching a new version of the TV sitcom "Bewitched," an actor with more ego than talent inadvertently fills the role of a witch with a real witch who's trying to give up hexes and become a normal person. Always whimsical, occasionally quite funny.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 4 instances of innuendo.
Violence: 1 mild scene.
Profanity: 23 profanities.
Drugs/Alcohol: 3 scenes with drinking, 1 scene with a cigarette.
Breakfast on Pluto (R)
Director: Neil Jordan. With Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson. (135 min.)
Cillian Murphy plays a hyper-feminine transvestite who spends much of the movie traipsing about an increasingly violent landscape in search of his long lost mother. His whirligig encounters, political and sexual, rarely soar.
Grade:
B
- P.R.
Brokeback Mountain (R)
Director: Ang Lee. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger. (134 min.)
Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are cowboys hired to herd sheep on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. In a startling turn, Ennis and Jack lie together for warmth one cold night and then, suddenly, have sex. The movie tracks the next 20 years of the relationship between two men and the devastation it brings their wives and children.
Grade:
A
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 18 scenes including sex and nudity.
Violence: 8 scenes including beating.
Profanity: 80 expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: 20 scenes of smoking, 14 scenes of drinking, 1 scene with drugs.
Broken Flowers (R)
Director: Jim Jarmusch. With Bill Murray, Sharon Stone. (106 min.)
Murray stars as the womanizing Don Johnston, whose name isn't the only thing about him that evokes Don Juan. A letter appears in Don's mailbox, supposedly from a previous conquest, informing him that he has a 19-year-old son. Don embarks on a trip to visit ex-lovers who, he hopes, will lead him to his son and enlighten him about where his life derailed. When the film finally arrives at its ambiguous climax, it provides less closure for the viewer than it does for the protagonist.
Grade:
B
- Marshall Heyman
Brothers (R)
Director: Susanne Bier. With Connie Nielsen, Ulrich Thomsen. (117 min.)
Deeply moving tale of a young mother caught between her husband, a soldier traumatized in Afghanistan, and his brother, a thief recently released from jail. Sensitively written and filmed to perfection, the drama raises crucial questions about humanity's capacity for moral transformation.
In Danish with subtitles. Grade:
A
- D.S.
The Brothers Grimm (PG-13)
Director: Terry Gilliam. With Matt Damon, Heath Ledger. (120 min.)
The literary siblings are portrayed as clever con artists who bilk superstitious peasants by exorcising bogus monsters - until a real threat challenges their courage. Gilliam has rarely been more inventive, energetic, or just plain funny.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Capote (R)
Director: Bennett Miller. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener. (98 min.)
"Capote" wisely centers on the five years in Truman Capote's life, 1959-65, when he composed "In Cold Blood," his landmark "nonfiction novel" about the murder of a rural Kansas family by two drifters. Hoffman does much more than mimic (perfectly) the dainty whine and lizardly savoir faire of the man. His Truman Capote is a fully fleshed-out portrait that lays bare the creepiest recesses of the writer's psyche.
Grade:
A
- P.R.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (PG)
Director: Tim Burton. With Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore. (116 min.)
A youngster wins a rare ticket for a guided tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious candy-making outfit, where zillions of surprises are in store. Depp wittily plays Willy as a sort of zoned-out hippie capitalist, and Burton lets his imagination soar to some of the most outlandish heights it's ever reached. Parents should check it out before showing it to very young viewers.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: mild innuendo.
Violence: 10 instances.
Profanity: None.
Drugs/Alcohol: 1 instance of drinking.
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (PG)
Director: Adam Shankman. With Steve Martin, Eugene Levy. (77 min.)
Off to the lake for one last summer before two kids leave home, the 14 members of the Baker family find themselves drawn into competition with the Murtaugh family, thus renewing a rivalry that goes back to the fathers' high school days. It's good clean fun - despite the fact that it's a sequel to a remake.
Grade:
C+ -
M. K. Terrell
Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of mild innuendo.
Violence: 3 comic scenes.
Profanity: 4 mild profanities.
Drugs/Alcohol: 3 scenes of drinking.
Chicken Little (G)
Director: Mark Dindal. With the voices of Zach Braff, Joan Cusack. (77 min.)
It's finally happened. The Walt Disney Studio, which pioneered hand-drawn animation, has made its first fully animated computer feature, "Chicken Little." Is the sky falling? The visuals are irrepressibly witty and so is the script, which morphs from the classic fable into a spoof on "War of the Worlds." I prefer this version to Spielberg's.
Grade:
A-
- P.R.
The Chorus (PG-13)
Director: Christophe Barratier. With Gérard Jugnot, Marie Bunel. (97 min.)
In the late 1940s, a failed musician grudgingly takes a job at a school for difficult boys and uses his musical gifts to engage and uplift them. Extremely goodhearted, if not exactly original or exciting.
In French with subtitles. Grade:
B
- D.S.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (PG)
Director: Andrew Adamson. With Tilda Swinton, Jim Broadbent. (140 min.)
Adamson, the director of the two "Shrek" films, has done a highly creditable job of visualizing C.S. Lewis's book about four children in the mythical land of Narnia where animals talk. The film works surprisingly well both as a boisterous fantasia and as the Christian fable that Lewis intended. Beneath all the special effects you can detect something recognizably, and cherishably, human.
Grade:
A-
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: None.
Violence: 17 scenes.
Profanity: None.
Drugs/Alcohol: 2 scenes of smoking.
The Chumscrubber (Not rated)
Director: Arie Posen. With Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close. (102 min.)
Suburban teens and their parents grapple with family tensions, antisocial impulses, and each other. At once dreamily surreal, acutely intelligent, and strikingly tough-minded, this pitch-dark dramatic comedy recalls David Lynch and "Donnie Darko" while remaining fresh and original.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Cinderella Man (PG-13)
Director: Ron Howard. With Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger. (144 min.)
Story of Jim Braddock, a 1930s prizefighter who suffered from Depression poverty but captured the American imagination when he overcame injuries to take on the heavyweight title. Howard's rock-solid directing and superb acting by Crowe make this one of the all-time-great boxing films.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 2 scenes with innuendos.
Violence: 13 scenes, including fighting.
Profanity: 71 strong profanities.
Drugs/Alcohol: 9 scenes with drinking, 18 scenes with smoking.
Coach Carter (PG-13)
Director: Thomas Carter. With Samuel L. Jackson, Ashanti, Robert Richard. (136 min.)
Fact-based story of a high-school basketball coach who demands a great deal - some feel far too much - of the hard-boiled kids who play on his team. The movie's moral messages are all on target. Too bad Jackson gives one of his dullest performances ever.
Grade:
C
- D.S.
Constantine (R)
Director: Francis Lawrence. With Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinton. (118 min.)
Reeves plays a James Bond of the supernatural, tracking down demons and helping a woman solve the mystery of her twin sister's suicide. It delivers as much action as fans of the genre could want.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 1 scene of innuendo.
Violence: 34 instances
Profanity: 33 instances.
Drugs/Alcohol: 12; smoking in almost every scene.
The Constant Gardener (R)
Director: Fernando Meirelles. With Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz. (129 min.)
After the murder of his wife, Justin (Fiennes) is compelled to root out her killers across two continents. The movie, based on a book by John Le Carré, is a love story crossed with international intrigue. But when it all comes together, it rises to a pitch of terror and outrage that leaves one shaken.
Grade:
A-
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 7 scenes including sex and nudity.
Violence: 9 instances
Profanity: 29 strong expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: 2 scenes of smoking and 2 scenes of drinking.
Crash (R)
Director: Paul Haggis. With Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle. (113 min.)
Interlocking stories of diverse Los Angeles characters, from cops and crooks to folks caught in between. The writer of "Million Dollar Baby" makes his directing debut with a screenplay that seems contrived, but comes to life via excellent acting and a philosophical argument that bigotry and benevolence are inextricably intertwined.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Dark Water (PG-13)
Director: Walter Salles. With Jennifer Connelly, Tim Roth. (104 min.)
A single mom, dogged by psychological problems and impending divorce, rents the world's worst apartment for herself and her little girl, and on top of this it turns out to be haunted. The themes are somber but the filmmaking is so soggy that you can't help laughing.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Sex/Nudity: 3 instances of innuendo.
Violence: 6 scenes.
Profanity: 10 strong and mild words.
Drugs/Alcohol: 3 smoking scenes.
Dear Wendy (R)
Director: Thomas Vinterburg. With Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman. (105 min.)
"Dear Wendy" is written by Lars von Trier, Denmark's foremost filmmaker. Like von Trier's "Dogville," "Dear Wendy" is set in a depressed community where the local teenage outcasts form a gun club/cult. Tragedy, of course, looms large. The filmmakers have created one weirdly provocative film, which isn't very successful but ought still to be seen.
Grade:
C
- John Anderson
Dear Frankie (PG-13)
Director: Shona Auerbach. With Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone. (102 min.)
After years of pretending her estranged husband is just working far away, a Scottish woman hires a stranger to impersonate him so her deaf son and his "dad" can meet. Well acted, capably directed, not as substantial as it might have been.
Grade:
B
- D.S.
Derailed (R)
Director: Mikhal Håfström. With Jennifer Aniston, Clive Owen. (100 min.)
Owen plays a Chicago ad executive who meets a magnetically friendly commuter on the morning train to work. Though both are married with children, they soon find themselves booking a seedy hotel room. What happens next shall remain a secret, but here's a hint: Retribution awaits.
Grade:
C
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 6 scenes.
Violence: 10 scenes including rape.
Profanity: 86 harsh expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: 8 scenes with smoking. 9 scenes with drinking.
Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist (R)
Director: Paul Schrader. With Stellan Skarsgard, Clara Bellar. (115 min.)
While grappling with his faith, a Roman Catholic priest battles a demon in an East African outpost. The material is right up Schrader's alley, and while his vision of the first "Exorcist" chapter isn't a masterpiece, it's far superior to the Renny Harlin prequel to "The Exorcist" released last year.
Grade:
A
- D.S.
Domino (R)
Director: Tony Scott. With Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke. (127 min.)
The real-life Domino, a bounty hunter who died of an overdose, was the daughter of privilege. Clearly what lured director Tony Scott is the massive contradiction of her life: Born into the glamour of London and Beverly Hills, she ended up a female Rambo. Whatever reality the actual Domino may have possessed has been sliced and diced by Scott's usual barrage of whiplash camera work.
Grade:
C-
- P.R.
Sex/Nudity: 8 scenes including nudity and implied sex
Violence: 20 brutal scenes.
Profanity: 186 harsh expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: 30 scenes with drinking and 28 scenes with smoking.
Don't Move (Not rated)
Director: Sergio Castellitto. With Penélope Cruz. (125 min.)
Cruz transforms her glamorous image remarkably, playing a working-class Italian woman who gets sexually involved with a married physician. The story wants to be a sort of "Last Tango in Paris" redux, but it falls into mere melodrama after a brilliant beginning.
In Italian with subtitles. Grade:
B
-D.S.
Downfall (Not rated)
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel. With Bruno Ganz. (149 min.)
Fictionalized account of Adolf Hitler's last days, depicting his personal downfall. Ganz reminds us why he's one of the world's great screen actors.
In German with subtitles. Grade:
A
- D.S.
Dreamer (PG)
Director: John Gatins. With Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning. (102 min.)
When racehorse Soñador breaks a leg, trainer Ben Crane (Russell) sees a potential brood mare, if he can at least get her well enough to walk. We've seen it all before, but this one is so well made it's a sure crowd pleaser.
Grade:
B
- M.K.T.
Sex/Nudity: None.
Violence: 2 mild scenes.
Profanity: 4 mild expressions.
Drugs/Alcohol: None.
Duma (PG)
Director: Carroll Ballard. With Alex Michaeletos. (100 min.)
Ballard ("The Black Stallion") has such a powerful feeling for the poetry of movement that I would have been content if this movie, set in South Africa, about a runaway boy and his pet cheetah, had simply shown us two hours of the cheetah. "Duma" is ostensibly a children's movie, but adults will want to see it, too.
Grade:
A-
- P.R.
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