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March 26-April 1, 2009
buzz@boulderweekly.com
 Amexicano
A low-key, charming depiction of working-class American life, this rare gem explores the surprising bond between a hard-working illegal immigrant and a blue-collar Italian American from Queens. Wrestling language barriers and racial prejudices, the two grow closer as their worlds expand, while the permanent threat of deportation looms large. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
Ballerina
In the grand tradition of Ballets Russes, feeling as if a Degas painting had come to life, comes filmmaker Bertrand Normand’s portrait of five St. Petersburg ballerinas from the Mariinski Theatre, formerly known as the Kirov. They range in age from promising student graduating to the corps de ballet to soloist to star and to retired star attempting a comeback. Russia’s pre-eminent dancers — superstars such as Nijinsky, Baryshnikov and Pavlova — established the reputation of Russian dancers as the best in the world. The dancers profiled in Ballerina are uniquely individua, tough, insightful and exceptionally talented; onstage they reveal no hint of the sweat, pain and hard work of the rehearsal studio. From Swan Lake to Romeo and Juliet, from the backstage studio to performing on stages around the world, Ballerina captures the sublime beauty of ballet, in all its resplendent glory. Narrated in English. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
The Class
This fantastic film takes place in a working-class, multi-ethnic Parisian middle school, where an unruly world of conflict, frustration and joy comes to life. Francois Begaudeau plays a version of himself; he taught in a Paris middle school and wrote a book about it, and The Class distills that book into a year in the life of a teacher and his combative, highly stimulating students. A documentary approach is the key to the film’s success, with real students playing characters, some based on themselves, some not. In French, with English subtitles. Rated PG-13 (language). At Century and Esquire. — Michael Phillips
Double Suicide (1969)
A paper merchant in 18th-century Japan is desperately in love with a courtesan. He wants to purchase her contract, but is prevented from doing so as he is married and does not have enough money. His wife asks the courtesan to leave him in order to keep the family intact. The lovers make a pact of double suicide (shinju) to escape the rigid rules of society and stay together after death. This film is marked by engrossing artifice and startling, yet beautiful, graphics. Based on the play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu. In Japanese with subtitles. At Boulder Public Library. — BPL Film Program
Duplicity
Last seen together in Closer, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play dueling corporate spies caught up in a cross/double-cross plot that starts coiling around itself like a snake. And, of course, there’s time for a little romance between the two stars. Duplicity is pure artifice, without any moral reckoning or higher intentions. Mainly it’s a classy excuse to hang out with Roberts and Owen and their wardrobes for a couple of hours. Rated PG-13 (language and some sexual content). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Michael Phillips
The Great Buck Howard
This affectionate but flawed comedy stars John Malkovich as a mentalist who once filled venues around the country. Now, Buck is on a sad slide to obscurity, though great effort is expended in making sure he will be the last to know. Into the strong wind of Buck’s denial steps a law-school dropout (Colin Hanks) unsure of what to do with his life. Malkovich always works a lovely little sleight of hand with comedy, but what he needs here are supporting actors with a few more tricks up their sleeves. Rated PG (some language including suggestive remarks, and a drug reference). At Chez Artiste. — Betsey Sharkey
Fuel
Fuel is an insightful portrait of America’s addiction to oil and an uplifting testament to the immediacy of new energy solutions. Director, Josh Tickell, a young activist, shuttles us on a whirlwind journey to track the rising domination of the petrochemical industry from Rockefeller’s strategy to halt Ford’s first ethanol cars to Vice President Cheney’s petrochemical company sponsored energy legislation — and reveals a gamut of available solutions to “repower America” from vertical farms that occupy skyscrapers to algae facilities that turn wastewater into fuel. Tickell and a surprising array of environmentalists, policy makers, and entertainment notables take us through America’s complicated, often ignominious energy past and illuminate a hopeful, achievable future, where decentralized, sustainable living is not only possible, it’s imperative. Not rated. At Starz and Boulder Theater. — Denver Film Society
Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood plays a reclusive Korean War veteran toughing it out in a sketchy Detroit-area neighborhood. 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 Colony Square. — Michael Phillips
He’s Just Not That Into You
The film adaptation of Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s 2004 relationship-advice book is a sprawling, many-threaded series of stories, most of which contradict the book’s advice about moving on when facing a lack of commitment. Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore and Ben Affleck head the cast of this romantic comedy, which has some fun with its bubble-gum tone until a rash of ridiculous happy endings takes all the bite out of the premise. Rated PG-13 (sexual content and brief strong language). At Flatiron. — Tasha Robinson
I Love You, Man
See full screen review on page 45. Rated R. At Flatiron, Century and Colony Square.
Ink
As the light fades and the city goes to sleep, two forces emerge. They are invisible except for the power they exert over us in our sleep. These two groups battle for our souls in our dreams. Through good dreams one force supports our hopes and gives us strength. Through nightmares the other force leads us toward desperation.
In this high-concept visual thriller, part It’s a Wonderful Life and Sin City, John and his daughter Emma are thrust into a fantastical dreamworld battle between good and evil where the most precious elements — love, loss and redemption — are at stake. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
Knowing
See full screen review on page 45. Rataed PG-13. At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks.
The Last House on the Left
Wes Craven’s 1972 original was pure unstable trash. Now comes the blunt, well-acted remake, which Craven co-produced. Part horror flick, part revenge thriller, it proceeds with a grim sense of purpose, its actors portraying characters approximating real people and plausible behavior, amid plausible tension, borne of a terrible situation. Is it pointless? It is, actually. Does that kill it? No, actually. I wouldn’t call it a good time, but I would call it an unexpectedly good genre film. Rated R (sadistic brutal violence including a rape and disturbing images, language, nudity and some drug use). At Flatiron and Century. — Michael Phillips
Of Time and the City
From the original voice of British auteur Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives) comes a visual poem about the director’s life in Liverpool from 1945 to 1973. It is a very personal portrait of Liverpool beyond its Beatles and its football clubs, the home of the writer’s birth, where youth and inspiration weave his own story into the recent history of the city with fascinating found footage and a lyrical soundtrack. The visual poem is played out against a backdrop of densely packed urban living and backbreaking domestic labor. But Davies counterpoints the slums with beautiful, soaring music and lifts us into the world of fantasy and collective emotion which makes the misery of life bearable. For lovers of Davies’ previous work many of his themes from his earlier narrative pieces thread through this film —Catholicism, homosexuality, violence, death, loss, the glory of cinema, outsiderness and childhood. Narrated by Davies. Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
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. — Glenn Whipp
Race to Witch Mountain
Benign yet assaultive PG mayhem — it’s a neat trick if you can pull it off. The Walt Disney Co., determined to remake every live-action feature in its canon, brings us a frenetic update of Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) in which Dwayne Johnson reunites with The Game Plan director Andy Fickman. The premise — alien kids with special powers try to get back home — echoes the original, but this hopped-up remake lays on the X-Files paranoia. The charismatic Johnson helps make it work. Rated PG (sequences of action and violence, frightening and dangerous situations, and some thematic elements). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — 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 Chez Artiste. — Michael Phillips
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire, winner of this year’s Academy Award for best picture and seven other Oscars, is a ruthlessly effective paean to destiny, leaving nothing to chance. 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, Esquire, Colony Square and Chez Artiste. — Michael Phillips
Sunshine Cleaning
Amy Adams and Emily Blunt play sisters who start up an unlicensed crime-scene cleanup business. They’re haunted by the suicide death of their mother; for them the biohazard removal biz is a way of processing their grief, and bringing to survivors the comfort they themselves seek. Certain narrative events are more about dramatic convenience than the mess of real life. But it helps to have actresses as vibrant as Adams and Blunt around. Director Christine Jeffs loosens the plotting as best she can, letting the interactions breathe. Rated R (language, disturbing images, some sexuality and drug use). At Century and Mayan. — Michael Phillips
Taken
Liam Neeson plays a former CIA spook whose clandestine career bled into his home and led to a divorce. After sex traffickers kidnap his daughter in Europe, our hero has 96 hours to save her, and he wastes no time karate-chopping his way through every mime and baguette peddler in France. The movie overheats quickly, but Neeson and the filmmakers manage to make the Charles Bronson-style simplicity work. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language). At Century and Flatiron. — Christopher Borrelli
Two Lovers
Set in the insular world of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Two Lovers is a classic romantic drama, with Joaquin Phoenix giving a raw and vulnerable performance as Leonard, a charismatic but troubled young man who moves back into his childhood home following a recent heartbreak. While recovering under the watchful eye of his parents (Isabella Rossellini and Moni Monoshov), Leonard meets two women in quick succession: Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), a mysterious and beautiful neighbor who is exotic and out-of-place in Leonard’s staid world, and Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), the lovely and caring daughter of a businessman who is buying out his family’s dry-cleaning business. Leonard becomes deeply infatuated by Michelle, who seems poised to fall for him, but is having a self-destructive affair with a married man. At the same time, mounting pressure from his family pushes him towards committing to Sandra. Leonard is forced to make an impossible decision — between the impetuousness of desire and the comfort of love — or risk falling back into the darkness that nearly killed him. Directed and co-written by James Gray (We Own the Night, The Yards). Not rated. At Starz. — Denver Film Society
The Watchmen
A group of forcibly retired masked crimefighters are uneasily reunited to save the world, and to save themselves from the unknown predator targeting them for extinction. Director Zack Snyder’s bloated screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel is marked by slavish fidelity to the source material. But the brutality is pretty numbing in Watchmen, and while the graphic novel poured it on as well, Snyder is a lunkhead when it comes to using that violence for storytelling purposes. Rated R (strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language). At Flatiron, Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Michael Phillips
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 have gotten 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 Starz. — Michael Phillips
Wizards (1977)
The radiation fallout from a past nuclear war has caused the mutation of humans into races of elves, dwarves, fairies and the like when a wizard bent on world domination discovers he can employ the propaganda of Adolf Hitler to achieve his goals. He is opposed by his twin brother, the proverbial white sheep of the family, who tries to use his gifts for good. In his 1977 animated feature, Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic) superimposed animations on archival footage in a technique that may not seem refined to today’s audiences, but still packs an emotional wallop. Rated PG. At International Film Series. — IFS.
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