Now Playing

by Inlander Staff


A Lot Like Love -- On the whole it's a bit too precious, and there are characters that just aren't needed (wasn't a deaf, signing brother in Four Weddings and a Funeral enough?), but both Amanda Peet and Ashton Kutcher give winning performances in a story of an on-again off-again boy-girl relationship that stays at the friend level for seven years. They take turns being happy and unhappy, with and without each other, and are just terribly cute together. With the exception of some "drama" near they end, movies don't get much breezier. (ES) Rated PG-13





The Amityville Horror -- In the latest Amityville Horror, you get to see it all. Where chairs rocked and doors slammed unprovoked in the 1979 version, this Amityville reveals all -- blood, guts, bullets, axes, drowning, murder, possession, bugs, creepy kids, ghosts and more evil than a packed clown car. While the story is mostly the same as the original, the scenes that were terrifying in the '79 version hardly cause a blink in this one. These are modern scares -- the kind you forget about within a few minutes of the end credits. (Leah Sottile) Rated: R





Because of Winn-Dixie -- There's a formula at work in this lonely-girl-and-her-dog movie, and it's sho'nuff gonna lead to a reconciliation. Winn-Dixie is predictable and sentimental, underscoring its themes at every juncture. But that doesn't completely invalidate the value of Wayne Wang's movie, which brings back the likes of Eva Marie Saint and Cicely Tyson while emphasizing themes of healing, community and hope. (Michael Bowen) Rated: PG





Crash -- This film strongly suggests that everyone in post 9/11 Los Angeles is angry, and that most of the population is pretty darn racist. Matt Dillon is a bad cop who doesn't realize it; Sandra Bullock is a horrible, wealthy shrew of a woman; Ludacris (in the film's best performance, in a film filled with great performances) is a carjacker. Lots of different stories take place in the rich and poor sections, in homes and on the streets. This is wrenching drama, real adult entertainment, constantly building in tension, with powerful payoffs. It's terrifically co-written and directed by Paul Haggis, who wrote Million Dollar Baby. (ES) Rated: R





Fighter Pilot -- What audience does IMAX have in mind for Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag? As we follow Capt. John Stratton, an F-15 Eagle pilot, battling 125 pilots from six nations in the world's largest air war games, the realization settles in that Fighter Pilot works neither as you-are-there documentary, Air Force recruiting film or Top Gun razzle-dazzle. The preparations for and remote monitoring of the fly boys' loop-de-loops are more engaging than the war games themselves -- and that ain't good. (Michael Bowen) Not Rated.





Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams' popular novel comes to filmic life as Earthling Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) hitches a ride into outer space with his furtively alien pal Ford Prefect (Mos Def) when Earth is detonated to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Wacky aliens prevail as Arthur and Ford hitch their way onto a stolen spacecraft with a bi-polar (two-headed) President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell) and Beeblebrox's cherished postmodern American assistant Trillian (Zooey Deschanel). It all unspools like an effortless compilation of humor from Monty Python, Men in Black, Mars Attacks and Brazil. It's a skeptical satire that fits slapstick physical humor with a biting sense of the importance of creative thought. (Cole Smithey) Rated PG-13,





House of Wax -- Wax is scary. You can't let it reach a boil and it's a bitch to get out of shag carpeting. What's even scarier is people made out of wax (sorry, Madame Tussaud). A hapless crew of college kids (including Elisha Cuthbert and Paris Hilton) has a weird nighttime incident with a voyeuristic trucker. Then, the next day, they wander into a town that surprisingly has no people but one awesome wax museum. You can see where the rest of this is going. Also, Paris Hilton apparently performs some sort of striptease. We'd expect nothing less. Rated: R





The Interpreter -- Nicole Kidman is a UN interpreter who overhears a plot to assassinate a bad guy African leader. Sean Penn is the FBI agent who checks her out, isn't sure if she's telling the truth and eventually must protect her. The biggest problems with the film are that it's dragged out to near-boredom territory, and there seems to be some sort of emotional wall between the two lead actors that neither one can climb over. (ES) Rated PG-13





Kingdom of Heaven -- Ridley Scott's newest epic is not a bad film -- it has scope and visual splendor and good acting and a compelling story. But neither is it very good, due to too many weak spots. The part about the young Balian (Orlando Bloom) rising so quickly from blacksmith to warrior is a stretch; the reasoning behind the Christians-versus-Muslims battle for Jerusalem circa 1200 is muddled; there isn't a lick of soul in the performance by Eva Green as the love interest; and the vultures hovering above a field of dead bodies are awfully reminiscent of the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. (ES) Rated: R





Lewis & amp; Clark -- The IMAX folks have packed a lot into this vivid account of the two adventurers' travels across the American wilderness. Narrator Jeff Bridges does pretty much all the speaking, while actors play out the scenes. And those scenes are played out in breathtakingly beautiful settings. Unrated





Million Dollar Baby -- Clint Eastwood plays the crusty old boxing trainer, Hilary Swank is his enthusiastic young charge and Morgan Freeman is the wise observer. Swank's spunky, trashy Maggie signs up at an old-fashioned gym and must convince Eastwood's Frankie to become her teacher. She's really good, with great desire to match her moves. Eastwood's film traces her comet-like rise, tells of lost people finding each other, and tosses in a risky tonal shift that goes for the emotions of all the characters and every audience member. (ES) Rated PG-13





Mystery of the Nile -- The cinematography is gorgeous, but this isn't one of IMAX's best efforts. Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown are to be commended for successfully completing a previously impossible feat -- running the entire Nile River -- but the whole thing starts to feel like an episode of Survivor. Still, it's pretty to watch and carries a few IMAX moments. Not Rated





Psycho -- Let Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 original erase all shuddering memories of Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche from your mind. Horror has never been more elegantly effective than this -- Hitchcock accomplished more with a few well-placed shadows and a heavy-on-the-E-string score than most directors do with 10 times the budget and swimming pools of fake blood. Janet Leigh is blandly good as damsel-on-the-run Marion Crane; Anthony Perkins completely inhabits the awkward, skinny and Oedipal motelier Norman. Still scary. Still perfect. (SB) Rated: R (Midnight Friday and Saturday at the Garland)





Queen from Outer Space -- Queen from Outer Space (1958) is a steaming cesspool of male adolescent fantasy and painfully outdated gender modalities. A guilty pleasure all the way. Three strapping, all-American male astronauts blast off on the first mission to Venus only to find that the inhabitants are all gorgeous females in high heels and skimpy dresses (women are from Venus, get it?). But before they can score any sweet lovin', our hapless interplanetary Romeos are imprisoned by the Venusians' evil, man-hating queen -- played very, very strangely by Zsa Zsa Gabor -- who then freaks out and begins planning for the destruction of Earth. Horrors! (MC) RATED: ?? (Midnight Saturday at CenterStage)





The Ring 2 -- The Ring 2 follows Rachel (Naomi Watts) and her son, Aidan (David Dorfman), who have recently moved to the Oregon coast in an attempt to leave their nightmarish past behind. But before they get too far, that little black-haired brat, Samara, is back. This time, she wants a new Mommy -- and Rachel's looking like a great pick. Directed by Ringu's Hideo Nakata, this Ring is as much of a scare-fest as the first. If the first Ring made you fear your television, The Ring 2 will make you terrified of your bathtub. (Leah Sottile) Rated: PG-13





Robots -- The makers of Ice Age return with a computer-animated fable about a na & iuml;ve young robot heading for the big city to make it as an inventor, but clashing with a money-hungry industrialist. The story is clich & eacute;-ridden, the sound is headache-inducing and the script desperately wants to be hip. (ES) Rated PG





Sahara -- If the filmmakers were hoping to instill in their audience the same sensations -- blurred vision, deadening thirst and above all, fear of never escaping -- that one might experience while trapped in the desert, they've succeeded. Based on the novel by Clive Cussler, Sahara's incoherent plot includes treasure hunters, sexy doctors, West African despots, plague, quasi-European bad guys and exploding vehicles. (SB) Rated: PG-13





Sin City -- The coolest movie of the year is also the most violent. There's also loads of action, a stunning look, and a perfect adaptation of Frank Miller's twisted graphic novel into an insane film. There are three intertwining stories about the denizens of the title locale, with Bruce Willis as a retiring cop, Benicio Del Toro and Clive Owen as bitter, dangerous enemies, and a whole gaggle of tough hookers. (ES) Rated R





XXX: State of the Union -- Samuel L. Jackson returns as the secret agent man responsible for hiring the new Triple X. And if you're looking to hire a real badass, prison ain't a bad place to do your H.R. search. Ice Cube is the badass in question, and we're told -- in gravelly voiceover -- he's an "Ex-Con. Ex-Navy Seal. And an Expert with Weapons." Exxxcellent. Ice Cube's first assignment: Find and destroy those responsible for trying to start "World War Four" with the good ol' U.S. of A. And while he's at it, maybe wipe that smirk off Willem Dafoe's face. Rated: PG-13





Publication date: 05/12/05