New Movie Shorts

DOGVILLE

Lars von Trier is indisputably a skilled provocateur, which is good enough for some to think him an artist. But no true artist has as dim and limited an understanding of humanity as Trier, a fact that becomes agonizingly clear during Dogville’s three interminable hours. Nicole Kidman plays Grace, a woman fleeing a dark past who takes refuge in a cozy mountain town, whose residents promptly exploit her in ways thinkable and un- as the price for their silence. Dogville was roasted at Cannes for supposed anti-Americanism, but in fact the film’s abstract Depression-era town, represented only by chalk lines on a blank stage, bears so little resemblance to its purported setting that the blows, if intended as such, hardly strike home: If Trier was aiming at America, he missed. By now, Trier’s love of debasing women on screen can only seem like a sick joke, as with his notion that inside every human being is a sadistic torturer just waiting to get out. Dogville’s proponents call it a "film of ideas," but apart from its Brechtian staging (more novel than original) it doesn’t have any. --Sam Adams (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

ELLA ENCHANTED

Cursed at birth by her hardcore fairy aunt (Vivica A. Fox), Ella (Anne Hathaway) must obey every order she gets. Problem is, she’s a would-be social activist in a kingdom where the bad ruler (Cary Elwes, in a nicely snarky turn reversing his role in Princess Bride) has enslaved the ogres, giants and elves. And so Ella aspires to rebellion. Thwarting her are her stepmother (AbFab’s Joanna Lumley) and selfish stepsister (Lucy Punch); in her corner are an elf who wants to be a lawyer (Steve Coogan) and Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), about to be crowned king. Based on Gail Carson Levine’s book, the movie energetically pursues a finale where Ella can have her cake and eat it too (i.e., her proto-feminist independence and her prince). While Hathaway is surely lovely, she’s also hampered by a plot that’s simultaneously predictable and cluttered, criminal underuse of Parminder K. Nagra as Ella’s best friend, and too much general borrowing from Shrek. --Cindy Fuchs (Bala; UA Riverview)

GIRL NEXT DOOR

Accepted at Georgetown, Matt (Emile Hirsch) idolizes JFK and worries he has nothing to "remember" about high school. Then he meets new neighbor Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert), charming, smart, and a porn star trying to "go straight." After a bout of insulting geek-boy behavior, Hirsch realizes "D" is his true love, and he resolves to extricate her from a contract with her despicable and oddly charismatic producer (Timothy Olyphant, in plaid slacks and sleazy-guy boots). Wholly predictable (as it’s a remake/rip-off of Risky Business), Luke Greenfield’s follow-up to The Animal features splatty physical comedy and adolescent sex jokes, along with Matt’s trip to Vegas’ Adult Video Convention (with buddies Chris Marquette and Paul Dano, taller than he was in L.I.E. ) and an Ecstasy-inspired speech on "moral fiber" (he’s competing for his college scholarship). For all its raunchy allusions and language (and porn stars), the film is essentially conservative, as Matt succeeds in romance and business. --C.F. (UA Grant; UA Riverview)

JOHNSON FAMILY VACATION

Brand-new bride Solange Knowles plays Nikki, the willful adolescent daughter of Cedric the Entertainer, resisting a road-trip vacation to a family reunion in Missouri. While she’s dreading the days in her dad’s SUV with her mom/his estranged wife (Vanessa Williams), her wannabe rapper brother (Bow Wow), and baby sis (Gabby Soleil), she has better reason to worry than she knows: Christopher Erskin’s film proceeds as if by accident, a series of driving mishaps, fart gags, sexual innuendoes and naked Cedric jokes (the "script" is attributed to Todd Jones and Earl Richey Jones). Along the way, they pick up flaky hitchhiker Shannon Elizabeth, whose baby alligator escapes just in time to cause chaos then unity among the Johnsons. By the time they reach the reunion to compete for the family of the year prize (also coveted by Cedric’s smug brother, Steve Harvey), the film has devolved into complete incoherence. Exhibit A: Vanessa Williams singing backup for performing with Cedric and Bow Wow. -- C.F. (AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND

Insightful enough to deny any explanation for its central act of senseless violence, Matthew Ryan Hoge’s sophomoric morality tale is also hypocritical enough to provide one. Leland (a tousled Ryan Gosling) is a quiet, shy boy who inexplicably kills the retarded brother of his friend Becky (Jena Malone). Like many a mediocre film, it uses writers as its vehicles for going after "the truth": Don Cheadle’s prison teacher, also a blocked novelist, and Leland’s absentee dad, a successful author who hasn’t seen his son in 15 years. Hoge evidently thinks casting the baby-faced Malone as a teenage heroin addict is provocative instead of tiresome, a delusion that applies to the movie as a whole, which might be the most offensive 9/11 allegory this side of Jersey Girl. --S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

THE WHOLE TEN YARDS

Even my beloved Amanda Peet can’t redeem this exasperating and slapdash sequel. Not only does it rehash the original film’s basic ideas -- kidnappings, jealousies, murders (accidental and purposeful), sex anxieties -- but it does so sloppily, with slapped-together scenes and pokey pacing. When his wife (Natasha Henstridge) is kidnapped by just-released-from-prison Hungarian gangster Lazlo Gogolak (a painfully over-performing Kevin Pollak, as the father of the character he played in the first film), dentist Oz (Matthew Perry) seeks help from his hit-man buddy (Bruce Willis). Now retired in Mexico with wifey (Peet, ever game and energetic, but without a sliver of logic to work with here), Jimmy is reduced to tending chickens, wearing bunny slippers and fretting over his cilantro reduction. Adding to the tedium: Perry runs into too many doors and, following a hard-drinking night with Jimmy, wonders why his "ass" is sore. --C.F. (AMC Orleans; Ritz 16; Roxy; UA Riverview)

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