Also this issue: Daddy Dearest Father and son reunite but don't bond in the calculating How I Killed My Father. -Sam Adams Screen Picks Continuing Repertory Film Showtimes

September 12-18, 2002

movie shorts

New

Barbershop

As The Girl in Barbershop, Philadelphia’s own E-V-E shows again that she plays very well with boys. In her first extended film role (that is, more than the few lines she had in XXX), she holds her own on screen with some very charismatic actors, including Ice Cube, Sean Patrick Thomas, Cedric the Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Michael Ealy and Keith David. The film, directed by Tim Story, has the sort of charm and easy pacing of one of Cube’s Friday films -- the characters, most of whom work in Cube’s Chicago barbershop, share experiences and jokes (with Cedric, unsurprisingly, generating most laughs). The plot is basic, though more strained than it needs to be, with Cube selling the shop (in his family for over 40 years) to gangster David in the morning, then endeavoring to reverse the decision over the rest of the day, and Anderson and his partner Lahmard Tate wrestling, quite literally, with an ATM they’ve stolen, transporting it from place to place in hopes of getting access to its hidden riches. Cube comes to realize the importance of the shop as community gathering place. And everyone learns a useful lesson.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

NOTORIOUS C.H.O.

Margaret Cho takes the stage like an animal bursting from its lair, though at times she doesn’t seem to know what prey she wants to stalk. At times, Notorious cuts almost uncomfortably close to the bone, as when Cho goes into hilariously, if squirmingly, graphic detail about her sexual relationships -- her difficulty in getting off, the not-so-fine points of cunnilingus -- but also goes off on comic tangents that seem too much like isolated “bits,” good for no more than a couple of laughs. To an extent, Cho seems stuck between meat-and-potatoes standup and the confessional one-woman territory she’s tried to stake out for herself, the latter of which is far less forgiving of digressions. It’s a more coherent show than Sandra Bernhard’s, and Cho’s 9/11 joke is a lot funnier, but it suffers from the same dilemma. When you set yourself up as a truth-telling “outlaw,” being funny isn’t enough. --Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

STEALING HARVARD

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Jason Lee needs cash

To send his neice to Harvard.

Tom Green needs to die.

(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA Grant; UA Riverview)