originally published April 30, 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) Winner of the Chicago International Film Festival Award for Best International Film, the Havana Film Festival Award for Best First Work, and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Alice’s House is populated by manicurist Alice (Carla Ribas), her philandering, taxi driving husband (Zé Carlos Machado), their three sons, and her mother, who takes care of the apartment despite her failing eyesight. Writer/director Chico Teixeira’s award winning debut feature makes him one to watch in the near future.

BABY MAMA

(PG-13) See Movie Pick.

BOX ELDER

(NR) Four slackers at the University of Missouri get a wakeup call when a professor asks the main character, Scott (writer-director Todd Sklar), what sort of grand heroic moment he needs to start living. Box Elder is a snapshot of college life as it is (piles of trash and lots of beer), not how Hollywood pretends it to be. Filmmaker Sklar and various members of the cast and crew will be in attendance for a Q&A at Ciné.

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 BUSINESS OF BEING BORN

(NR) Executive producer Ricki Lake and director Abby Epstein take a long, hard look at the way American women have babies. A panel discussion - featuring Susan Fisher, local Certified Nurse Midwife and creator of www.alternativebirth.org; Sarahn Henderson, experienced homebirth midwife who serves Atlanta's African-American community; Melanie Garland, lactation professional at Athens Regional and homebirth mom; and Madrona Wienges, local doula and homebirth mom - will follow the 7 p.m. screening on International Midwives Day. All proceeds will benefit a local doula scholarship for a woman of color.

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.

DARIUS GOES WEST: THE ROLL OF HIS LIFE

(NR) 2007. As part of a poverty awareness event to benefit OneAthens, the Young Partners for a Prosperous Athens (YPPA) will hold screenings of two documentaries, Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Fifteen-year-old Clarke Central student Darius Weems, confined to a wheelchair by Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, had never left Athens until some local college students, including director Logan Smalley, took the Clarke Central student on a cross-country trip.

DECEPTION

(R) Sporting a generic, direct-to-video moniker like Deception, Hugh Jackman’s first feature as a producer should at least deliver some whiplash-inducing twists and turns. Instead, this overwrought flick has the most unsatisfyingly straight up climax I’ve ever seen from the “you haven’t been crossed until you’ve been triple-crossed” thriller sub-genre. An accountant, Jonathan McQuarry (a painfully nerdy Ewan McGregor), meets a suave lawyer, Wyatt Bose (Jackman), who takes him to a sleazy underground sex club where Jonathan meets an anonymous blonde (Michelle Williams). Before Jonathan can wrap his number-crunching brain around his newfound luck, the woman disappears, Jonathan’s the prime suspect, Wyatt isn’t actually Wyatt, and $20 million is stolen. Toss in some serious implausibility (the learning curve for scamming must not be that high if the nerdy accountant can perfect his art over a plane flight to Madrid) and a terribly aggressive score, and Deception makes for one unnecessary filmgoing experience.

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.

GIRLS ROCK!

(PG) If you didn’t think girls could rock, think again. At the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, four attendees ranging in age from eight to 18 - adopted Laura (15, vocals), recovering meth addict Misty (17, bass), sweet metalhead Palace (7, vocals), and dog-loving Amelia (8, guitar) - learn to form a band, write songs, plays gigs, and generally behave in ways discouraged by years of gender stereotyping. Girls Rock! is the feature debut of directors Arne Johnson and Shane King.

HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

(R) Due to more selfish stupidity on Kumar’s part (smoking pot on an airplane), the duo end up in Guantanamo from which they promptly escape. Back in the U.S., Harold and Kumar have several politically incorrect and devastatingly unfunny encounters with denizens of the South (African Americans, inbred rednecks, the Klan) and Neil Patrick Harris as “Neil Patrick Harris” while on their way to crash the wedding of Kumar’s ex-girlfriend (Danneel Harris, “One Tree Hill”) and her presidentially connected fiancé. Writing/directing team Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg tackle bigger issues (governmental subversion of the rule of law) than getting to White Castle in this sequel, but the “South Park”-ian task of mixing juvenile humor and politically astute commentary is beyond their meager talent for devising amusing, marijuana-driven scenarios.

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.

IRON MAN

(PG-13) With Spider-Man and X-Men running out of steam (maybe), Marvel Comics is unleashing another big gun. While imprisoned in Afghanistan, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) builds a powerful suit of armor. Upon his return to the U.S., Stark decides to refine his suit and become a superhero. All my doubts about Jon Favreau (Elf) directing a big-time action flick have been erased by the perfect cast (Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes/War Machine) and the kick-ass trailer. It probably won’t be the next Spider-Man, but Iron Man should at least surpass the surprisingly popular but awful Ghost Rider at the box office.

JELLYSCREAM!

(NR) Here’s the synopsis I dug up from YouTube: “A small, rural state park is being terrorized by a mutant, man-eating, bipedal, humanoid jellyfish... and it’s up to a rag-tad [sic] team of local law enforcement officials and a marine biologist to stop it before it reproduces and replaces humans as the dominant species on Earth.” Judging from the trailer, this low-rent homage to the B-movies of the 1950s, directed by Clint Orr, has some charms in its somewhat ploddingly paced, three-minute trailer. But how long can that cheesy euphoria be sustained?

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.

MADE OF HONOR

(PG-13) Patrick Dempsey is Tom, a serial dater who decides his best friend, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), is his soulmate. Too bad she’s now engaged to a Scotsman (Kevin McKidd from “Journeyman”), and Tom is the Maid of Honor. Now Tom must stop the wedding from the inside if he wants Hannah for himself. I think this entertaining romcom looks like the perfect vehicle to launch the former teen idol from television heartthrob to big-time movie star.

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.

MARRIED LIFE

(PG-13) Set in the 1940s, Married Life stars Academy Award winner Chris Cooper as Harry Allen, a middle-aged man who falls in love with a younger woman (Rachel McAdams) and decides to spare his wife (Patricia Clarkson) the humiliation of divorce by poisoning her to death. Wow, director Ira Sachs’s film sounds uplifting. Based on John Bingham’s novel, Five Roundabouts to Heaven, Married Life was cowritten by Oren Moverman, who collaborated with Todd Haynes on I’m Not There. With Pierce Brosnan, who is still recovering from his unceremonious 007 departure.

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.

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL

(PG-13) The Other Boleyn Girl watches like a TV network’s World Premiere Movie Event, yet Showtime’s “The Tudors” easily out-acts, out-sexes and outclasses this boring bodice-ripper based on Philippa Gregory’s bestseller.

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.

SHUTTER

(PG-13) This slice of pitiful PG-13 horror pie tasted just fine to its target audience. The 13 (and unders) in the theater were scared out of their minds by this predictable A-horror remake; however, Shutter caused me to barely shudder.

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) The Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, Taxi to the Dark Side investigates the torture tactics practiced by the U.S. military that led to the death of an innocent Afghani cab driver in 2002. Taxi director Alex Gibney was responsible for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and served as executive producer on No End in Sight, a film that could have easily won the Best Documentary Oscar. Gibney’s film also won the Chicago International Film Festival Award for Best Documentary and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay.

THEY CALL IT MURDER

(NR) 1971. Based on characters created by “Perry Mason” creator Erle Stanley Gardner, “They Call It Murder” is a mystery about small-town District Attorney Doug Selby (Jim Hutton) saddled with a number of unsolved cases including a dead gambler, a suspicious car accident, and an insurance scam. The Special Needs Library present yet another Hollywood classic - calling this TV movie starring Ed Asner, Jessica Walter (“Arrested Development” matriarch, Lucille Bluth), and Leslie Nielsen a Hollywood classic might be pushing the limits of that classification. Featuring a non-intrusive track for visually impaired viewers.

UNDER THE SAME MOON

(PG-13) Under the Same Moon, the film that broke the box office record for biggest opening weekend for a Spanish language film in the U.S., breaks down the controversy over illegal immigration into a simplistic fairy tale. All nine-year-old Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) wants is to come to the U.S. to join his mother Rosario (the gorgeous Kate del Castillo); all Rosario can dream about is being reunited with her son. After his sickly abuela dies, Carlitos takes matters into his own hands, enlisting some college kids (including “Ugly Betty”’s America Ferrera) to smuggle him across the border. Once in the U.S., Carlitos is saved from one bad decision after another by well-meaning fellow immigrants. The film, the feature debut of director Patricia Riggen, really doesn’t come alive until Carlitos meets Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), a gruff illegal immigrant who begrudgingly agrees to help the young boy get to Los Angeles. Writer Ligiah Villalobos’s scenarios are manipulative, contrived, and sappy, but Under the Same Moon emerges from that suffocating melodramatic plastic thanks to the incredibly charming Alonso, who puts a beatific face upon the millions of anonymous illegal immigrants presently living in the U.S.

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.

WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE

(NR) 2005. As part of a poverty awareness event to benefit OneAthens, the Young Partners for a Prosperous Athens (YPPA) will hold screenings of two documentaries, Darius Goes West and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism director Robert Greenwald (he also has the ignominy of directing Xanadu) takes on the world’s most ubiquitous retailer by recounting the personal accounts of everyday Davids struggling against this low price Goliath. Are the savings worth it?

Drew Wheeler