Continuing

(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview)

THE BANGER SISTERS

Goldie Hawn loses her job at the Whiskey a-Go-Go and, finding herself unable to work the street as she once did, decides to head to L.A. to ask one-time best friend and fellow groupie Susan Sarandon for a little stopgap cash. When her car breaks down, she hitches a ride with twitchy, neurotic writer Geoffrey Rush, whom she quickly beds in her expert manner, transforming him suddenly into a happy, generous soul. She has a similar experience with Sarandon, whose currently uptight beige family life (with stiff lawyer husband Robin Thomas and rebellious daughters Erika Christensen and Eva Amurri) needs serious retooling. How heartening to see that a haircut, followed by a night of drinking, dancing and perusing collected photos of rock-stars’ cocks, brings on such miraculous self-recovery! Put another way: as everyone knows, it’s perennially difficult for women over 40 to get much action in Hollywood, and seeing the enormously vibrant and courageous Sarandon and Hawn reduced to these schematic roles only underlines the problem.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

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; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

CITY BY THE SEA

Michael Caton-Jones’ City By the Sea is full of riddles, made more conspicuous because the bulk of what happens on screen is weighted with significance. Not only does Joey Nova (James Franco) stab his drug dealer to death -- sort of by mistake, while in a movie-style junkie-fugue (so he might remain “sympathetic”) -- his own father, Manhattan detective Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro), just happens to catch the case (because the body, dumped into the river, washes up in his jurisdiction). And not only is Vincent divorced from Joey’s mother, Maggie (Patti LuPone), because he abused her in some dim and distant past, but his own father was executed for murder, many years ago. All these horrors in one family might lead to questions concerning genetics and proclivity, codes of masculinity and violence. Indeed, these are the questions raised by the film’s source, a riveting 1997 Esquire article by the late Mike McAlary, called “Mark of a Murderer.” It’s easy to see why the filmmakers considered this a worthy outline, but it’s entirely unclear why writer Ken Hixon revamps the details so the plot becomes increasingly contrived and sensational. All events are arranged to bring about Vincent and Joey’s reconciliation, and all characters fodder to achieve that end. As masculine melodrama, City By the Sea is standard and weak. Struggling to be stoic, potent and aggressive, Vincent and Joey only end up being selfish and violent, unable to see a way out. Though the film implies they both learn hard lessons about generosity and forgiveness, the final image -- a familial unit “at peace” but static, removed from community, and tellingly void of women -- suggests otherwise.--C.F. (Ritz 16; UA Riverview)

THE FOUR FEATHERS

Though Shekhar Kapur’s tale of bloodshed in the Sudan is front-loaded with former colonial subjects -- Kapur is Indian, while stars Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson and Wes Bentley hail from Australia and the U.S. -- it’s a surprisingly non-revisionist take on British imperialism. Beginning, almost literally, on the playing fields of Eton, the film focuses on issues of character rather than politics -- Ledger quits the military as his regiment is about to ship out to Khartoum, then follows on his own to make up for his cowardice. As in his Elizabeth, Kapur is too enamored of royal splendor to mount a serious critique. Though Ledger has a (conveniently English-speaking) native (Amistad’s Djimon Hounsou), the ending still comes down to who fares best against the “Mohommadan fanatics.” It’s a little late for Lawrence of Arabia II, don’t you think? --S.A. (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Ritz 16; UA 69th St.; UA Riverview)

THE GOOD GIRL

Turning 30, Justine (Jennifer Aniston) stands daily at her register at the Retail Rodeo, and her life looks like a prison sentence. As The Good Girl begins, she doesn’t even picture escape anymore. Instead, she’s “good” -- responsible, quiet, resigned until she aches. Other folks in Justine’s small East Texas town find ineffective ways “out.” Her housepainter husband Phil (John C. Reilly) smokes pot with his best friend. Her coworker Cheryl (Zooey Deschanel) dresses “punk” and rolls her eyes at the middle-aged ladies who shuffle through her checkout line. Into Justine’s black hole of a routine walks Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), glowering, self-consciously poetic and self-named for Salinger’s angry young hero. He and Justine are equally needy and inexperienced, in different ways. During lunch breaks, he regales her with the stories he’s writing, all involving doomed teen romance and suicide. Justine can relate “I saw in your eyes that you hate the world. I hate it too,” she tells him. Their evolution from friendship to sexual trysting at the local motel occurs awkwardly and earnestly, both grateful. But Justine soon realizes the relationship itself is doomed. Much like Chuck & Buck, the previous collaboration between screenwriter Mike White and director Miguel Arteta, the film plumbs the depths of human longing and manipulation, with similar legerdemain. And it resists easy resolution. Superficially, the finale looks conventionally “happy.” But here, the family unit is uncertain and the smiles aren’t so comforting.--C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse)

GOODFELLAS

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Look out, Henry Hill!

You'll find out: Ketchup doesn't

go with egg noodles.

(Roxy)

IGBY GOES DOWN

Burr Steers’ first feature is populated by extremely quirky characters, most related by blood. Bad mom Susan Sarandon dies in the first scene, attended by her sons, harried Igby (Kieran Culkin) and supercilious Oliver (Ryan Phillippe). Flashbacks recount how they’ve come to this moment, part liberation, part horror show. Participants in this disaster include increasingly incapacitated dad Bill Pullman, wealthy godfather Jeff Goldblum, his junkie-dancer girlfriend Amanda Peet, her performance-artist caretaker-friend Jared Harris and Igby’s inadvertent girlfriend Claire Danes, who really wants to be sensible but can’t help but be sucked into the eccentric vortex. Though it’s structured as a series of clever dialogue exchanges (the sort of things people don’t say, but wittily literate characters do), striking compositions (shot by Wedigo von Schultzendorff), and dire, occasionally violent vignettes (the things these characters do to one another!), Igby Goes Down doesn’t feel remote, strangely. In part, you may be sucked in by Culkin’s admirable performance, subtle and not too earnest. --C.F. (Bala; Ritz 16; Ritz Five)

Merci pour lE CHOCOLAT

Despite its sweet title, Claude Chabrol’s erstwhile thriller is so dry it sticks going down. Isabelle Huppert, as icily reserved and demanding as she was in The Piano Teacher, plays the third, and first, wife of a concert pianist (Jacques Dutronc). His second wife, by whom he had a son (Rodolphe Pauly), fell asleep at the wheel and drove off a cliff -- indeed, sleeping sickness seems to travel in the family. Chabrol makes no secret about who’s doing the doping, or how -- Huppert offers her rohypnol-laced hot chocolate with almost comical regularity. In fact, there are few secrets at all, just the ineluctable march to the inevitable, and utterly suspenseless, conclusion. Chabrol has spoken of his desire to “abstract” the genre, to reduce it to its essence, but the result is about as exciting as watching someone do calculus.--Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

MOSTLY MARTHA

Martha (Martina Gedeck) lives a precise life. The much-acclaimed chef at a fine Hamburg restaurant, she makes perfect food, maintains a strict routine, and sees a shrink because her boss (Sibylle Canonica) thinks she’s neurotic. (True, she hides in the freezer at work for “time out,” but she is admirably efficient, proud of her control of all “logistics.”) All this changes when her niece Lina (Maxime Foerste) comes to live with her. Suddenly, Martha’s routine is undone: she’s sleeping on the couch (giving Lina her room), cooking an 8-year-old who refuses to eat, and repeatedly late getting her to school. Almost worse: there’s a new chef hired to helped out in her kitchen, an Italian (Sergio Castellitto) who plays “Volare” and dances while working. While the rest of the plot is wholly unsurprising, Gedeck’s convincingly taut performance (food is full of “issues” for her, not just a means to externalize her inner glow and nourish others) and director Sandra Nettelbeck’s preference for crisp, careful compositions help the film avoid both the mushiness of a “food” movie like Chocolat and the sensual-saturation of a Babette’s Feast. --C.F. (Bala; Ritz Five)

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

Toula (Nia Vardalos) is Greek, 30 and unmarried. It’s the last part that is killing her hyper-Hellenic family, who thinks she should quit dabbling at college courses (“She’s got enough education for a woman” says her father) and just settle down and start a family. So when Toula falls in love with Ian, the man of her dreams (Sex in the City’s John Corbett), everything’s just wonderful -- except he isn’t Greek. What follows is essentially Meet the Greek Parents: The large, gregarious family is suspicious of Ian the Protestant and -- gasp -- vegetarian, who tries his best but obviously doesn’t fit in, and Toula becomes increasingly embarrassed by her ethnicity’s eccentricities. Will the couple gain the family’s approval and end up having the wedding? If so, will it be big, fat and Greek? Well, I don’t want to give anything away. Second City alum Vardalos wrote the screenplay, based on her semi-autobiographical one-woman show, so her knowing, frazzled performance and many of the details of her character’s over-attentive family life ring true. Michael Constantine and Lainie Kazan shine as Nia’s restaurant-owning parents; Dad Gus’s fixation on Windex as a panacea is particularly amusing. If director Joel Zwick’s staging is a smidge too hammy and sitcommy to work completely, keep in mind that this 25-year TV vet learned ethnic comedy working with the likes of Chachi, Balki and Mork.--Ryan Godfrey (Cinemagic; UA Grant; UA Main St.; Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

ONE HOUR PHOTO

“These snapshots are their little stands against the flow of time.” For 20 years, Sy (Robin Williams) has been the “photo guy,” working the Phototek counter down at the SavMart, meticulously calibrating the processor so all the colors on all customers’ pictures turn out just right. Day after day, hour after hour, he turns bits of film into memories, to be gazed on, framed, kept. Sy himself lives a life devoid of hues: Timid and lonely, he obsesses over the photos he develops for one perfect-seeming family, the Yorkins (read “your kin”): Nina (Connie Nielsen) and Will (Michael Vartan), and their son Jake (Dylan Smith). Making extra prints of all their pictures, Sy covers his TV room wall with them -- and he imagines himself inside the scenes, posing all-smiles with Jake, mom, and dad. From the start, of Mark Romaneck’s One Hour Photo, you know he’s headed to a bad end, as he appears in a police interrogation room, questioned by the sober Detective Van Der Zee (Eriq La Salle, whose character is named for the Harlem Renaissance photographer). The film, however, complicates its mundane stalker plot by its own attention to composition, which mirrors but also refracts Sy’s. In its attention to both the artifice and meaning of images, One Hour Photo is deftly creepy. It takes you inside Sy’s desperation, modeled on photos and happy family images that photo counters use to promote their services, images that ask, “Don’t you want these memories to be yours?” And worse, “If they’re not yours, what’s wrong with you?” Neatly, ominously, the film composes a bleak vision of Sy’s consumption of and by his culture.--C.F. (UA Grant; Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

SECRETARY

Secretary is about anxiety, depression, the inability to communicate. It also turns into a romance, when Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a depressivewith ahabit of cutting herself, gets a job as a secretary for attorney E. Edward Grey (James Spader). Lee works hard, but still, she makes mistakes, typos that Edward marks with a big red pen. Nervous as she is, Lee finds herself liking his reprimands, and starts making errors on purpose, so he’ll call her into his office. At the same time, he’s noting her tremulous behavior, the cuts on her legs, and, no small thing, her beautiful behind. Finally, Edward confronts. One thing leads to another and then, he spanks her. And Lee, bent over his desk, her face red from hurt and ecstasy, has found the man of her dreams. Adapted by playwright Erin Cressida Wilson from a Mary Gaitskill short story, Steven Shainberg’s first feature juggles several attitudes at once: Lee’s narration establishes not only her self-awareness, but also her insights into those around her. She’s no simple victim, but evolves into a submissive partner in a relationship predicated on desire. That her desire might not be yours makes her difficult, even “freaky.” That she comprehends and articulates her journey -- away from her clueless family, toward a relationship that makes sense of her pain -- makes the film’s focus less Lee’s various abilities than your willingness to go along with her.--C.F. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

SIGNS

Signs doesn’t look much like an alien invasion movie. Rather than presenting climactic battles or fearsome big-eyed creatures, it focuses instead on establishing moods. These include familiar responses within the genre (wonder, dread, anticipation -- experienced by ex-priest Mel Gibson, his two kids and brother Joaquin Phoenix), but they are also remarkable in that, at least initially, they are predicated on not knowing and not seeing exactly what’s going on. Indeed, for about 90 minutes, M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie resists showing much of anything, relying instead on not-so-informative TV news reports and reaction shots to convey the scary business. Sadly, the movie eventually abandons its delicate ambiguity, its attention to such everyday things, to deliver a resolution which can only look contrived and reductive. --C.F. (UA Riverview)

SPACE STATION

Somewhere between the phantasmagorical revolving station of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame and the cramped quarters of a Volkswagen bug (and a major improvement over Mir -- the decrepit Soviet space home that deserved a tabloid headline of “Oy, Vey Is Mir”) the International Space Station is lofty testament to the wonders of worldwide cooperation in the name of science. It also makes for some amazing cinematography. Space Station, the latest IMAX film, gives viewers the typical IMAXian bird’s-eye view of things -- in this case, life aboard a space station -- with a twist. The film, a co-production of IMAX and Lockheed Martin, was shot by astronauts, who not only master the elements of space travel, but do a very fine job taking pictures as well. As astronaut Brian Duffy explained at a press conference, he and his fellow space travelers spent nearly three years not just training for their mission, but they learned the intricacies of filmmaking as well. All in all, Space Station is one small step for man, one giant leap for audiences.--Howard Altman (Tuttleman Imax Theater, Franklin Institute)

SPIRITED AWAY

As impossible as authorship is on any commercial film, it’s trebly so for animation -- who could divine the difference between John Lasseter’s Toy Story 2 and Peter Docter’s Monsters, Inc.? But his singular vision is only one of Hayao Miyazaki’s accomplishments. The most success ful director in Japan, Miyazski pursues his visions with unbridled imagination, and Spirited Away is as pure an expression of that vision as we’ve seen. Melding the child’s-eye view of Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro with the dark, spiritualist overtones of Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away takes Chihiro, its young female protagonist into an enormous bathhouse for wayward spirits, where she’s mystified, occasionally enchanted, and often threatened, most notably by the tyrannical Yubaba, who resembles John Tenniel’s drawings of the Queen of Hearts -- if her head inflated to equal size with the rest of her body. Miyazaki never fails to reimagine each aspect of his world; you can get the greatest joy from the tiniest of details. Chihiro’s adventures take her throughout the towering bathhouse and include run-ins with polluted river gods and ill-tempered, oversized babies, not to mention the dragon spirit (who’s also a cute boy) who volunteers to help rescue her parents who’ve been turned into pigs after stumbling into spirit territory. Chihiro’s escapades don’t always proceed one from the other, but let yourself go and you’ll be swept away as well. --S.A.(Ritz East)

SPY KIDS 2: THE ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS

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 Riverview)

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

Golden girl/good sport Reese Witherspoon has been calling this lackluster romantic comedy a “return” to her own Southern roots (including her sweet home accent). But Andy Tennant’s film only revisits a pile of clichés. She plays a fancy-pants NYC fashion designer, planning to marry up-and-coming Patrick Dempsey, son of snippy, egotistical NYC Mayor Candice Bergen. But before she does, she has to go home to sort out her secret past. First, she is not the daughter of a plantation owner, but of poor folks (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place) and second, she’s still married to childhood sweetheart (Josh Lucas), once a good old boy and now -- to her surprise -- turned cute, thoughtful and successfully entrepreneurial. This last allows her to make the right decision (the one indicated by the film’s title) and not have to live in a double-wide. The performances are pert, the characters stale and the inevitable showdown between suitors (and mothers) quite humdrum. Tellingly, the most enthusiastic audience response came not when Witherspoon and her beau clinch, but when her gay designer mentor from the city (Nathan Lee Graham) exchanges meaningful glances with her gay best friend from the country (Ethan Embry): Perhaps that’s the movie that Tennant should have made.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Baederwood; Cinemagic; Ritz 16; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

SWIMFAN

In an age where all thrillers aim to incorporate the “shocking” plot twist, John Polson’s unimaginative, predictable Swimfan should be comforting with its obvious blend: Fatal Attraction-for-teens plotline, unbearable soundtrack, heavy-handed foreshadowing and actors who don’t need to do much more than look cute. Jesse Bradford is Ben Cronin, the swimmer with the sweet girlfriend and the slightly checkered past. He’s not very smart, but we’re supposed to feel sorry for him anyway when Madison Bell (Erika Christensen) begins making his life miserable after their one tryst. The sex scene occurs in the pool, and may as well be lifted from a Lifetime made-for-TV movie, right down to Madison’s pleas for Ben to tell her he loves her. Guess what? He does. Guess what else? He grows to regret it. Don’t feel sorry for Ben. Feel sorry for Amy (Shiri Appleby), his simple, clueless girlfriend who ends up in the hospital. Feel sorry for Dante (James DeBello), the “weirdo who saves the day,” who isn’t that weird, and doesn’t actually save anyone. Feel sorry for Dan Hedaya, who plays the swimming coach, for having no business being in this movie. Feel sorry for yourself, for expecting an over-the-top gem of a teen romp, and getting a by-the-book non-thriller that wasn’t even bad enough to be funny.--Nancy Armstrong(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA Riverview)

THE TUXEDO

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Hey Jennifer Jugs,

Jackie Chan's stuntwork is real

but your boobs are not.

(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; Bryn Mawr; Narberth; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

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