Opening Films

by Inlander Staff & r & BOBBY


Fact and fiction intertwine in writer-director-co-star Emilio Estevez's take on what might have been going on in guests' and workers' lives at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles during the hours preceding the June 1968 assassination of Bobby Kennedy. A superb cast -- Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Sharon Stone, many more -- work in both separate and connecting scenarios, while RFK is seen mostly on TV screens. Expertly presented and very moving. (ES) Rated R





DECK THE HALLS


Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito fight it out to be Mr. Christmas, the dude on the block with the best Christmas decorations. We liked this idea better when it was the middle section of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Rated PG





D & Eacute;J & Agrave; VU


When a curious psychological phenomenon like d & eacute;j & agrave; vu is treated by a sensitive indie director, it comes across as something like Memento -- a nuanced, head-scratching mind-bender. When Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott make it, it's a flimsy pretext for car chases and huge explosions. Apparently the American government has figured out how to "fold space back onto itself." What this has to do with a ferry getting blown to bits in New Orleans is up to Denzel Washington to figure out. Preferably in a very sexy, action-packed kind of way.





THE FOUNTAIN


Director Darren Aronofsky freaked out audiences with the dazzle of Requiem for a Dream a few years ago. Now he's in a more soothing state of mind, but his movie is still way out there. Covering 1,000 years, it's the story of a conquistador serving his queen, a surgeon trying to save his wife, and a futuristic mystic being visited by a strange woman. All of those characters are played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, in different times and places. Challenging, fantastical, and quite a trip. (ES) Rated PG-13





TENACIOUS D IN: THE PICK OF DESTINY


File this under five years too late. There was a point in our history when Jack Black was the funny jerky music snob in High Fidelity while simultaneously being the front man for joke-metal group Tenacious D, whose self-titled album no one actually bought, but everyone -- absolutely everyone -- had a burned copy of. Here they go in search of the Pick of Destiny, which will make them funny -- er, that is, the greatest band in the world. Rated R





FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION


Centered around a ragtag crew of aspiring (and aging -- holy God, are they aging) filmmakers, For Your Consideration is yet another wacky mockumentary from the cutups who brought you Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap), best known for playing a 6-foot hot dog, is convinced to star in a film called Home for Purim (about being Jewish in the '40s Deep South) which, as you might guess, has a hard time getting off the ground. (The Office creator Ricky Gervais makes this suggestion: "All I'm saying is that you should tone down the Jewish-ness, so that everyone can enjoy it.") Rated PG-13 (LB)