originally published April 23, 2008

21

(PG-13) Based on the true life-story of card-counting MIT kids who bilked some Las Vegas casinos for millions, 21 is a crowd pleasing slice of instantly forgettable entertainment. 21 isn’t a bad story, but it deals some clichéd cards. A better director and a more challenging script could have turned 21’s true tale into something more significant.

88 MINUTES

(R) Nine years earlier, Dr. Jack Gramm (a distractingly coiffed Al Pacino), a forensic psychiatrist and college professor, gave the damning evidence that sent Jon Forster (Neil McDonough) to death row. On the eve of his execution, one of Jack’s students is murdered using Forster’s exact M.O., and Jack receives a phone call declaring the gruff prof has 88 minutes to live, and must solve the mystery before time runs out. I felt like I was watching a less sexy knockoff of Jade. Still, between Untraceable and 88 Minutes, 2008 has given pay cable a decent double bill for a rainy Sunday spent on the couch.

ALICE'S HOUSE

(NR) This Brazilian import is an excellent working class drama about family, marriage, betrayal and the day-to-day realities of life in a cramped apartment in Sao Paulo. With its strong female leads, this work is reminiscent of early Almodovar. [Cotter]

BABY MAMA

(PG-13) Former Weekend Update anchor team Tina Fey and Amy Poehler reunite in this comedy about a successful businesswoman (Fey) who hires an infantilized woman (Poehler) to be her surrogate. Baby Mama is the feature directing debut of “SNL” writer Michael McCullers (he cowrote both Austin Powers sequels, Undercover Brother and Thunderbirds).

THE BUCKET LIST

(PG-13) If not for the magnetic allure of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, director Rob Reiner might finally have tumbled to the bottom of moviemaking’s own pit of despair. Hampered by its schmaltzy script, The Bucket List is a road movie for the terminally ill.

THE CAMDEN 28

(NR) The Camden 28 chronicles the arrests of the 28 Vietnam War protestors that planned to break into a Camden, New Jersey draft board office and destroy their records. Director Anthony Giacchino relies archival footage and interviews to tell the story of these 28 political dissenters. The Camden 28 won the Jury Prize and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Philadelphia Film Festival and was nominated for the Documentary Screenplay Award given by the Writers Guild of America. Part of the ACC Library’s iFilms series.

THE COUNTERFEITERS

(R) The Counterfeiters, the 2008 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, is a solidly constructed, engaging film that has little new to say about the Holocaust even as it relates the untold tale of history’s largest counterfeiting effort; the Nazi’s Operation Bernhard was supposed to flood the market with pounds and dollars and crash the British and American economies. The Counterfeiters is a commendable film, but in a year in which Athens has already been exposed to so much wonderful foreign cinema, the tense predictability of this Holocaust drama lacks memorability.

DECEPTION

(R) Have you seen the trailer for the latest attempt to recapture the sexy spirit of 1992, when Basic Instinct ushered in the heyday of sex thrillers starring big time actors? The preview for Deception starts out depicting the sexy world sleazy lawyer Wyatt (Hugh Jackman) lures nebbishy accountant Jonathan (Ewan McGregor) into before devolving into a hilariously edited, YouTube-worthy montage of non-sequiturs.

EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED

(PG) Equating scientific acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution with communism, the intelligent design promoting, evolution slandering Expelled castigates many of the world’s top evolutionary biologists for their passionate adherence to a “mere” theory and their dogged resistance to unprovable intelligent design. Fashioned in the image of a Michael Moore documentary (without the acerbic wit), Expelled chronicles Ben Stein’s counterfeitly naïve journey to discover why scientists who believe in intelligent design are being muzzled by the establishment. We need all kinds of perspectives represented in films and literature, but the only intelligence not allowed in the disingenuous Expelled is that of the viewer.

FOOL'S GOLD

(PG-13) Fool’s Gold is as lazy and dumb as its cartoonish main character, treasure salvager Finn (Matthew McConaughey). A dud in every way.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

(PG-13) Jackie Chan and Jet Li’s first on-screen pairing is the only exciting aspect of the listless Forbidden Kingdom. Modern American teen, Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano), gets transported to ancient China when he discovers a magical staff in a pawn shop. The fighting sequences are well-choreographed Crouching Tiger knockoffs at which Li could excel blindfolded, and the 54-year-old Chan retains his comic charm. However, every scene than doesn’t involve fighting is poorly paced and blandly shot. The silly story has potential; this family friendly chopsocky flick would have been a perfect English-language debut for Kung Fu Hustle’s Stephen Chow.

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

(R) Since January, 2008’s best films have all been holdovers from 2007, allowing the juvenilely mature, bust-a-gut hilarious Forgetting Sarah Marshall to waltz right into that vacant top spot. Peter Bretter (writer Jason Segel, who proves as able a leading man as Seth Rogen) has just had his heart broken by his TV star girlfriend, Sarah Marshall. Now Peter must get over Sarah, with her and Aldous constantly humping in his face, with the help of his new friends. Nothing special can be said about Nicholas Stoller’s direction (then again, FSM producer Judd Apatow isn’t exactly Scorsese), but the cast and Segel’s script, balancing lowbrow sex gags with a heartfelt tale of heartbreak and woe, are darn near perfect. I haven’t laughed so collectively hard with a theater full of strangers since Superbad.

A FOUR LETTER WORD

(NR) The four letter word is love in this low-budget gay romantic comedy about a playboy, Luke (cowriter Jesse Archer), attempting monogamy with Stephen (Charlie David), the hot macho man of his dreams. But what happens when Luke finds out Stephen is a hustler? Director/cowriter Casper Andreas’s film won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the Fort Worth Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award for Best Screenplay from L.A. Outfest.

GRANDMA HAS A VIDEO CAMERA

(NR) A new documentary by Brazilian filmmaker Tania Cypriano about the lives of a family of Brazilian immigrants over the last 20 years in the United States. This video diary examines issues of identity, social dynamics within immigrant families and their community, the conditions of transnationality and the conflicts of loyalty to a single country. Tania Cypriano will be in attendance to present and discuss the film.

HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

(R) I wasn’t a huge fan of Harold and Kumar’s antics the first time around, but H&K2’s trailer has raised my hopes for the sequel. Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are arrested on their way to Amsterdam, mistaken for terrorists, escape from Guantanamo, smoke weed with the President, and are reunited with a crazed Neil Patrick Harris played with gusto by Neil Patrick Harris.

HORTON HEARS A WHO!

(G) The 1954 children’s classic about Horton the Elephant (v. Jim Carrey), whose giant ears allow him to communicate with the tiny speck that is the town of Whoville is one of the good doctor’s most beloved tales, right behind Green Eggs and Ham. The laughs in Horton are never cheap or juvenile, yet they are perfectly pitched for little ones’ ears.

LEATHERHEADS

(PG-13) George Clooney’s latest film is like an ugly throwback jersey whose days gone by appeal makes one briefly forget how unfashionable it is right now. Director Clooney momentarily creates a zany Capra-Hawks-Sturges atmosphere; he just doesn’t sustain it. Like 2003’s Down with Love (which also starred Zellweger), Leatherheads is more enamored with its conceit than its conceit is enamoring.

MAD MONEY

(PG-13) Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes rob the Federal Reserve. The leads are game, and interweaving a heist movie with themes of female empowerment gone awry, and the corporate downsizing of white upper-middle class America is intriguing. Too bad the direction stinks.

MEET THE BROWNS

(PG-13) These Browns aren’t worth meeting.

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY

(PG-13) Academy Award nominated screenwriters David Magee and Simon Beaufoy don’t update Winifred Watson’s 1938 bestseller about a hopeless London governess’ glamorous day amongst the high society set; it wouldn’t do to renovate Watson’s work with too much of a modern bent. Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), the tee-totaling daughter of a vicar, finds herself thrust into the morally ambiguous upper class as the social secretary of singer-actress Delysia Lefosse (Amy Adams). An adorably lightheaded Adams and sublime McDormand show off their tremendous talents; the movie would be a stick-in-the-mud without them.

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS

(PG) A not-awful throwback to matinee serials a la Indiana Jones, National Treasure was a feature-length commercial for American historical tourism. What National Treasure was not - a lobotomized counterfeiter of thrills - happens to be everything its follow-up, Book of Secrets, is.

NIM'S ISLAND

(PG) Nim’s Island is a serviceable family friendly adventure film. Imaginative Nim (Abigail Breslin) lives on an isolated island in the South Pacific with her dad (Gerard Butler) and concocts adventures mirroring those of her favorite fictional hero, the world’s greatest adventurer Alex Rover.

PENELOPE

(PG) Penelope isn’t as bad as its trailers make it look. Nonetheless, this modern fairy tale suffers from the overconceptualization of all Tim Burton wannabes.

PROM NIGHT

(PG-13) Sharing little more than a title, a setting, and some dead teens with Jamie Lee Curtis’s popular 1980 slasher flick, the new Prom Night is as dreadful as the worst of the four proms I attended. In order to get a box office friendly PG-13, television director Nelson McCormick, editor Jason Ballantine, and cinematographer Checco Varese artlessly chop up all the kills into bloodless bloodlettings. Relying on a hacked up piece of script by J.S. Cardone, Prom Night is about as fresh as week-old canapés leftover from the big event.

ROLLING THUNDER

(R) 1977 film starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. www.imdb.com/title/tt0076637/ for full description. It's the only film in the whole database tagged with the plot keyword "Stabbed In The Groin".

SAME THING DAILY

(NR) Premiere of a new documentary on flatland biking from Athens filmmaker Dane Beardsley featuring the diverse riding styles of Shintaro Misawa, Leif Vailn, Travis Collier, Jody Temple and more.

SEMI-PRO

(R) Where Blades of Glory was simply an amusing ice skating flick, Semi-Pro steals from the annals of sports films to be the closest we may get to a new Slap Shot.

SMART PEOPLE

(R) Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (a hunched, paunchy Dennis Quaid) hates his colleagues, his students and the world for not realizing how brilliant he thinks he is. His teenage daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page in a solid, post-Oscar nom performance), is a walking robot of Young Republican conformity. His son, James (Ashton Holmes), is angry and fairly purposeless, at least as far the film is concerned. Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker) cannot commit, though she apparently wants to. Every smart person in Smart People is unhappy; that point is reified by the blissful ignorance of Lawrence’s adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church). Too few moments of commercial director Noam Murro’s feature debut possess Chuck’s cheerfulness. The clinical depression of these Smart People is communicable.

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES

(PG) The Spiderwick Chronicles is based on a series of bestselling books by Terry DiTerlizzi and Holly Black about the Grace siblings, twins Jared and Simon (Freddie Highmore) and sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger), who discover a fantastical world existing unseen within our own after they move into the creepy old house that belonged to their great granduncle, Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn).

STEP UP 2 THE STREETS

(PG-13) The limber sequel to 2006’s surprise dance smash, Step Up 2 the Streets is a step down in almost every way.

STREET KINGS

(R) A picture of detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) can be found in the screenwriter’s guide next to the entry for “dirty cop who is relatively cleaner than his dirtiest colleague.” Ludlow sleeps in his clothes, drinks on the job, talks racist trash to suspects, and is an all-around not nice guy. On the streets of writer James Ellroy’s L.A., that makes him a moral beacon shining atop city hall. Street Kings isn’t as morally complex as it pretends to be, and it won’t set the box office on fire. Still, the pulpy, hard-boiled crime film is arresting for the two hours before the credits bail you out.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE

(R) This film won the Best Documentary award at the Tribeca Film Festival. An eye-opening look at U.S. detainee policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo, it lays out its case through interviews and news footage of Rumsfeld, Cheney and the Guantanamo inmates themselves. Powerful stuff. [Cotter]

UNDER THE SAME MOON

(PG-13) With his mother, Rosario working in L.A., and his caretaker grandmother recently deceased, 9-year-old Carlitos (Adrian Alonso, The Mask of Zorro) takes it upon himself to sneak into the U.S. On his travels, Carlitos finds a reluctant protector in middle-aged migrant worker Enrique (Eugenio Derbez). “Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera plays one of the Mexican-American students who assist Carlitos. Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), the feature debut of director Patricia Riggen, received a standing ovation at Sundance.

VANTAGE POINT

(PG-13) In the ever-expanding genre of action movies for old people, Dennis Quaid is like Arnold Schwarzeneggar in his ‘80s heyday. Too bad the slam-bang premise of Quaid’s latest action film for your parents, Vantage Point, gives out short of the climax.

WHEN CLOUDS CLEAR

(R) See Movie Pick.

WILLOW GARDEN AND OTHER SHORT FILMS

(NR) The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, a sextet of independent films to be shown at the Georgia Museum of Art in 2007 and 2008, returns with another screening. Jim Haverkamp, who teaches at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, shared a Festival Prize from the Tupelo Film Festival for the murder ballad-based Willow Garden.

THE WITNESSES

(NR)Six-time Palme d’Or nominee André Téchiné directed and co-wrote this drama about the AIDS epidemic’s first outbreak in France. In Paris circa 1984, a group of friends - gay, straight, and bisexual - come to terms with the uncertainty generated by this new disease. Nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear and four Césars (including Best Director).

Drew Wheeler