Opening Films

by Inlander Staff & r & I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE


Chris Rock co-writes (with the writer of Pootie Tang), directs, and stars in a remake of the thoughtful French film Chloe in the Afternoon, turning it into a coarse, juvenile comedy filled with F- and N-words. It's about a somewhat happily married guy (Rock) who's visited by the ex-girlfriend (Kerry Washington) of an old friend, after which his life is turned into (unfunny) turmoil. (ES) Rated R





DEAD SILENCE


What happens when a ventriloquist loses her voice? I mean, other than not doing ventriloquism anymore... Well, if you're Mary Shaw, you go crazy, kill some people, die, then send your dolls out to do some killing from beyond the grave. From the director of Saw -- and starring Marky Mark's brother, Donny Wahlberg -- this one would seem second-rate all the way. (LB) Rated R





HURRICANE ON THE BAYOU


Documentary producer Greg MacGillivray was in the middle of filming an IMAX documentary about the endangered wetlands of the American bayou when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Broadening his scope to include the people who inhabit the swampy regions of the south, MacGillivray ended up with a much bigger movie than he initially intended. Meryl Streep narrates. At the IMAX. (MD) Not Rated





THE LIVES OF OTHERS


We're stoked about this. A rare tale from the wrong side of the Iron Curtain about the monitoring practices designed to keep anti-Soviet sedition at bay. Focusing on how the surveillance actually led one mild-mannered writer to become a subverter of Europe's westernmost Soviet-controlled enclave, The Lives of Others has a dystopian feel, despite being set in the past. (LB) Rated R





PREMONITION


Sandra Bullock stars as a housewife whose husband dies in a car crash -- except that he shows up, alive and well, the next day. And then dies again. Friends and psychologists dismiss her grieved ravings -- at first. Premonition sounds like that botched thriller from the Zemeckis-Ford-Pfeiffer trio, What Lies Beneath, only with nightmares and psychic foreshadowing thrown in: potentially spooky. Potentially. (MB) Rated PG-13