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January 29- February 4, 2009
buzz@boulderweekly.com
 Bride Wars
This charmless film concerns two lifelong friends, played by Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, whose competing weddings, mistakenly scheduled for the same day at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, turn bride-to-be against bride-to-be. Half the comedies made in Hollywood are based on the premise of boy-men acting like idiots. Switching the gender and toning down the vulgarity to a PG level offers only change, not improvement. Hathaway in particular deserves better material. Rated PG (suggestive content, language and some rude behavior). At Flatiron and Century. — Michael Phillips
The Burmese Harp (1956)
In July of 1943, Japan’s army is in retreat. A platoon in Burma sings to keep its morale up. Inspiration comes from their self-taught lute player. At war’s end, while they await repatriation at Mudon prison camp, he is sent to convince a Japanese company dug into a mountain that it must surrender. He fails and the British attack and many die. His companions fear he has been killed, but he has survived and disguised himself as a Buddhist priest. En route to join his comrades, he frequently sees dead Japanese soldiers and becomes overwhelmed. He vows to live a life of prayer and burying remains as his friends want him to return with them to Japan. Based on the novel by Natto Wada. In Japanese with subtitles. Not rated. At Boulder Public Library. — Boulder Public Library Film Program
Che
See full screen review on page 29. Rated R.
 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This is a tall tale of a man aging in reverse while bobbing serenely on life’s unpredictable seas. The colorful supporting characters spill their guts to the wonder of nature played by Brad Pitt, as he begins his life a very old man, ages into late-middle age, ripens into... well, Brad Pitt, then embarks on the big fade into childhood, infancy and check-out time. It’s worth seeing because the sights are truly something. As with his earlier Zodiac, director David Fincher applies the right technology in the right way. Rated PG-13 (brief war violence, sexual content, language and smoking). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Defiance
Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber portray two of the four Bielski brothers, Jewish farmers and smugglers who led more than 1,000 Jews to safety in a Belarusian forest during the Holocaust. It’s gripping true-life material, although director Edward Zwick and his writers tart things up with some dubious Hollywood-style mythmaking. Rated R (violence and language). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Doubt
A deft, beautifully built play has made it to the screen with its dramatic juice intact. John Patrick Shanley adapted and directed his stage piece set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, pitting Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius against Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Father Flynn, who’s suspected of an improper student relationship. Rated PG-13 (thematic material). At Century and Mayan. — Michael Phillips
Frost/Nixon
Director Ron Howard’s screen version of the Peter Morgan play allows Michael Sheen and Frank Langella to re-create their stage roles as David Frost and Richard Nixon, respectively. Frost’s people paid Nixon’s people $600,000 for the disgraced former president to sit for a series of television interviews taped in 1977, not quite three years after Nixon resigned. Watching Frost lock rhetorical horns with his subject made for a riveting postmortem on a fall from power. Howard’s film pours old-fashioned theatrical juice into a cinematic bottle and lets the actors drink it up. Rated R (some language). At Flatiron and Century. — Michael Phillips
Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood’s performance as a reclusive Korean War veteran toughing it out in a sketchy Detroit-area neighborhood may well lead to his first Academy Award for acting. But we’ll have to assume he’s winning it for richer assignments en route. After the vet’s young neighbor (Bee Vang) breaks into his garage to steal the car for which this film is named, our hero sets out to teach the boy how to stand up to his venal gangsta cousins. Some of this is affecting and painful in the right way; a lot of it is just cheap. Rated R (language throughout and some violence). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Happy-Go-Lucky
This is accomplished director Mike Leigh’s most buoyantly comic feature, and it’s a marvelous showcase for Sally Hawkins, who stars as the perpetually cheery Poppy, a grade-school teacher in North London. Happy-Go-Lucky is an ode to the power of irrational exuberance, and Leigh keeps the narrative machinery to a minimum. Everything is a bit neat, but a lot of Leigh’s work tends toward a heightened theatrical neatness. When it works, the result is a slice of life that, in terms of honest cinematic storytelling, is more like a slice of cake. Rated R (language). At Starz. — Michael Phillips
Hotel for Dogs
A teen girl (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother (Jake T. Austin) are placed in the dubious foster care of two headbangers (Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon), all the while keeping their Jack Russell terrier a secret from their alleged caregivers. One day they discover a condemned hotel where a few strays have set up shop, and the kids and their newfound human pals get to work rehabbing the joint while avoiding police. This mildly entertaining film is loosely based on a Lois Duncan book that dealt with far less gimmickry. Rated PG (brief mild thematic elements, language and some crude humor). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Michael Phillips
Inkheart
Brendan Fraser plays a single dad able to usher characters out of books and into the real world. Years earlier, his wife disappeared into a fantasy called Inkheart, trading places with a street performer (Paul Bettany). Dad and his daughter are now being stalked in preparation for the arrival of the fearsome “Shadow.” Inkheart was a crowded book to start with, and the film retains most of author Cornelia Funke’s story complications. It’s a mixed bag and a serious load for a movie to carry without audibly grunting. Rated PG (fantasy adventure action, some scary moments and brief language). At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
Last Chance Harvey
There’s not a believable minute in the 92 minutes of Last Chance Harvey, but Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson smooth over most of the problems just by showing up and doing what they do for a living. Hoffman plays a composer who meets the lonely-hearts frump played by the luminous Thompson and invites her to his daughter’s wedding. What saves the film is the occasional humanizing surprise amid the romantic comedy machinery. Rated PG-13 (brief strong language). At Century. — Michael Phillips
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Vincent Price is the lone survivor of a plague that has turned the rest of the human race into vampires. Not rated. At International Film Series.
Let the Right One In
Fragile and anxious, 12-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), also 12, who moves in next door to him. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders. One man is found tied to a tree, another frozen in the lake, a woman bitten in the neck. Blood seems to be the common denominator — and for an introverted boy like Oskar, it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between them, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist weave friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. Rated R. At International Film Series. — Denver Film Society
Milk
The story of Harvey Milk is a tragedy, but not since Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High has Sean Penn played such a serenely happy individual. Penn is superb as the martyred San Francisco city supervisor, America’s first widely acknowledged openly gay elected official. He was killed by Milk’s former colleague, Dan White (Josh Brolin, also excellent), minutes after White’s fatal shooting of Mayor George Moscone in 1978. Rated R (language, some sexual content and brief violence). At Mayan, Century and Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
My Bloody Valentine
Tom Hanniger returns to his hometown for the anniversary of an unsolved Valentine’s Day massacre that left 22 dead. During his visit, he becomes the prime suspect. Rated R. At Century and Twin Peaks.
Notorious
Jamal Woolard stars in this biopic about The Notorious B.I.G., the rapper who was gunned down on Wilshire Boulevard in 1997 when he was just 24. Woolard turns in a performance that goes a long way toward saving a movie that has fallen obsessively in love with its subject. The sheer weight of all the bits and pieces of Biggie’s journey to stardom threatens to drown the film, but then Woolard’s charisma makes you want to stay a little longer. Rated R (pervasive language, some strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, and for drug content). At Century. — Betsy Sharkey
Outlander
See full screen review on 29. Rated R.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Kevin James plays a mall security guard trying to stop a Black Friday robbery scheme. Underneath all the cartoonish mall mayhem and silly slapstick lies a comedy that aspires to be the sort of gentle crowd-pleaser John Hughes used to make, had the filmmakers been more willing to sacrifice some of James’ rolling-and-tumbling time. Rated PG (some violence, mild crude and suggestive humor and language). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Glenn Whipp
Rachel Getting Married
Jonathan Demme’s most bracing narrative feature since The Silence of the Lambs combines a wedding with a tense family reunion, starring Anne Hathaway as a recovering addict returning home for her sister’s nuptials. A triumph of ambience, this is the first Demme film since the 1980s that feels like a party — bittersweet, but a party nonetheless. Rated R (language and brief sexuality). At Starz. — Michael Phillips
The Reader
Kate Winslet stars in the film version of Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 novel about a 15-year-old West German boy who, in 1958, embarks on an affair with a 36-year-old trolley conductor with more on her mind, and in her past, than she admits. The novel was hugely popular as well as controversial worldwide and an Oprah’s Book Club selection besides. However, it needed a different set of interpreters to make any emotional sense of it on screen. Even in the scenes dominated by Winslet, you never quite believe the way anything unfolds. Rated R (some scenes of sexuality and nudity). At Colony Square and Chez Artiste. — Michael Phillips
Revolutionary Road
However sterling the craftsmanship, the film adaptation of Richard Yates’ 1961 novel — an excoriating portrait of a mid-1950s marriage built on sticks, straw and delusion — inflates the meaning and buffs the atmospheric surfaces of the story, rather than digging into its guts. But when stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet unleash their character’s demons, Revolutionary Road loses its tight, controlled sense of composition and air of solemnity and, in human terms, matters. Rated R (language and for some sexual content/nudity). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Esquire. — Michael Phillips
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a ruthlessly effective paean to destiny, leaving nothing to chance. It also has a good shot at winning this year’s Academy Award for best picture, if the pundits have anything to say about it. Every arrow plucked from director Danny Boyle’s quiver takes aim at the same objective: to leave you exhausted but wowed. An 18-year-old (Dev Patel) in the former Bombay, India, is suspected of cheating his way to national fame on the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Rated R (some violence, disturbing images and some language). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square, Esquire and Chez Artiste. — Michael Phillips
Wild Strawberries (1957)
A 73-year-old medical professor makes a one-day journey by car with his daughter-in-law from Stockholm to Lund to receive a jubilee degree at his alma mater. Along the way, he meets people and experiences disturbing dreams and reveries of his past that eventually bring him to a profound serenity. In Swedish with subtitles. (95 min.) Also screened is the Bergman spoof The Dove (De Düve) directed by George Coe and Anthony Lover (1968). In a Swedish-accented fictional language based on English, German, Latin and Swedish. Bergman and his cinematographer Sven Nykvist are reported to have seen it and loved it. Not rated. At Boulder Public Library. — Boulder Public Library Film Program
The Wrestler
This film spends 105 minutes grappling at the edge of camp, cheap laughs and cliches. Yet the way it’s handled by director Darren Aronofsky and especially by Mickey Rourke — who really should get an Oscar for his portrayal of Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a steroid-addled sweetie in tights — it stays honest and keeps on fighting. An aging, down-on-his luck pro grappler, The Ram has heart problems, but The Wrestler does not. It’s sincere, violent, sentimental, predictable and extremely effective. Rated R (violence, sexuality/nudity, language and some drug use). At Century, Colony Square and Mayan. — Michael Phillips
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