New Movie Shorts

BROKEN WINGS

Israel’s Nir Bergman makes a striking if uneven debut with the story of a family coping with the recent loss of its patriarch. Mom (Orly Silbersatz Banai), a hospital midwife still working last-minute night shifts after 20 years, sinks into depression, while older kids Maya (Maya Maron) and Yair (Nitai Gaviratz) act out at school and at home, and youngest son Yoram (Danny Niv) indulges an alarming proclivity for jumping from ever-increasing heights. Bergman has a weakness for soap-opera melodrama not helped by Avi Belleli’s "danger! danger!" score, but Maron’s performance is simply heartbreaking: On the line between child and woman, she pushes for maturity while still seeking comfort she can’t admit she needs. Her unforced grace makes Broken Wings soar. --Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

CONNIE AND CARLA

Borrowing liberally from Some Like It Hot and Victor/ Victoria, Nia Vardalos’ new comedy is as self-absorbed as her first. After they witness a murder in Chicago, Liza-and-Barbra-loving airport bar singers Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) escape to the West Coast, where they don big wigs in order to hide out as drag queens. Cute and troubling as this conceit may be (they are fabulous queens, of course, adored by gay men and all women patrons alike), it leads to Connie’s near-romance with Jeff (David Duchovny, whose usual low-keyness is pleasantly magnified by the excess all around him), homophobic brother of one of their new friends (Stephen Spinella). The film allows some questions concerning traditional gender (the un-macho murderers try too hard to be thuggish) and object choices (though he’s plainly attracted to Connie, Jeff gags when he thinks he’s been kissed by a man; and while he learns the expected tolerance lesson, he’s also rewarded with a "real woman"). But its celebration of "being yourself" is a little strange, given the girls’ incessant lying to their generous and trusting hosts. --Cindy Fuchs (Bala; Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

KILL BILL, VOL. 2

In its first segment, Quentin Tarantino reminds you what a thrilling filmmaker he can be. The Bride (Uma Thurman) and Bill (David Carradine) square off in their first onscreen meeting, captured in widescreen black-and-white against a dusty Texas plain, the language of the Western rewritten to accommodate a dispute between ex-lovers. Unfortunately, QT quickly reminds you what a tiresome dilettante he can be as well, paying "tribute" to dozens of styles without making any of them wholly his own. What animates the best genre films is conviction, but Kill Bill is like a DVD changer on shuffle, its stylistic shifts conveying nothing except the breadth of Tarantino’s video collection. (An affectionately silly Shaw Bros. parody goes on punishingly long, practically demanding that audiences toke up in the bathroom first.) Any 20 minutes of Kill Bill might have developed into a great movie, but the only thing Tarantino was developing was film. --S.A. (Bridge; Ritz 16; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

THE MAYOR OF SUNSET STRIP

Rodney Bingenheimer’s first brush with fame was as Davy Jones’ stand-in on The Monkees, a prophetic beginning for a life lived just outside the glow of the spotlight. Denounced as a "professional groupie," treasured as an invaluable catalyst, Bingenheimer hit his peak during the early years of L.A. punk, booking bands into a succession of short-lived clubs and hosting a radio show that gave bands such as the Ramones their first West Coast airplay. An intimate of notorious puppet master Kim Fowley, Bingenheimer is easily written off as an opportunist; it’s clear he’s taken advantage of more than his share of women. Now, though, the tiny, soft-voiced Bingenheimer seems too sad to dislike, a victim of celebrity as much as its exploiter. Director George Hickenlooper (Hearts of Darkness) does some exploiting of his own; it’s hard to tell if he even finds Bingenheimer interesting, let alone sympathetic, and the contrived reunion with his estranged mother seems unnaturally staged for the camera. The Angry Samoans’ "Get Off the Air" is notably absent from an otherwise fine soundtrack. --S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

THE PUNISHER

For the record, the Punisher is not into vengeance: "Revenge is not a valid emotion," he says while arming himself to wreak utter devastation on the villain who has ripped the piercings out of a nice kid’s lips. "This is punishment." Like the low-grade 1989 adaptation starring Dolph Lundgren, screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh’s first film is based on the Marvel Comics character, a dark, hard-R fantasy in which FBI agent Frank Castle (Thomas Jane, who worked out hard for this movie, demonstrated every time he takes off his shirt) loses his family (some 30 people) when a Tampa, Fla.-based money launderer (John Travolta) orders a hit. Actually, his wife (Laura Harring) orders it, following the FBI’s accidental shooting of her son. Almost dead, Frank is nursed back to life by a black "witch doctor" in Puerto Rico (he’d look like a Magical Negro if he were more visible). He destroys Travolta’s business and personal life (including his "best friend" Will Patton, whose evil is linked visually to his gayness -- not pretty), kills hit men and makes friends with his neighbor and diner waitress (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). Ungainly and grim, the movie is loaded with comic-book heroic cliches, but it doesn’t pretend to be nice. Its violence is hard. --C.F. (Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

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