Your guide to the movies playing Jan. 9-15 1/7/2009 4:59 PM Bride Wars NEW!
The big problem with the romantic comedy "Bride Wars" seems as plain as the opening credits. This movie about "the best day in a girl's life," about two lifelong friends who have planned their "June, at The Plaza" weddings since childhood, was directed by a man. Another man came up with the story. No matter that women pitched in and tried to inject a little estrogen into the proceedings. It's still a patronizing comedy that rolls its boyish eyes at the tizzy these brides work themselves into over their big day. Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play the pals whose lives were changed by a magical visit to New York's Plaza Hotel as children. Liv (Hudson) has grown up into being a pushy litigator used to winning and getting her own way. Emma (Hathaway) has matured into a pushover school teacher who lets everybody else impose their will on her. They get engaged the same day. They visit the Mother of All Wedding Planners (Candice Bergen, who also narrates) together. And that's how things get mixed up and they find themselves not sharing and helping each other make their dreams come true. The title promises farce, wacky catfights and that learning moment when they and we realize "It's not about the wedding. It's about love and the life that follows." The movie breaks those vows. It's a picture that never comes to life before the "death do us part."
Rated PG for suggestive content, language and some rude behavior. 1 hour, 29 minutes.
2 stars out of 5 ¬¬-- Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune
The Unborn NEW!
Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual adviser, Sendak (Gary Oldman), who can make it stop. With Sendak's help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany - a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything that is getting stronger with each possession. With the curse unleashed, her only chance at survival is to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references.
Not reviewed as of press time.
Gran Torino NEW!
Harry Callahan would respect Walt Kowalski. Both men look at life through eyes narrowed in suspicion, both know their way around firearms, and both take no lip from punks. In fact, if Dirty Harry were an auto worker in Detroit rather than a cop in San Francisco, he might have wound up just like Walt, living out his widowed retirement years in a meticulously maintained home, watching the neighborhood decay around him and snarling at the local Asian street gangs, "Get off of my lawn." Walt is the latest character in Clint Eastwood's portrait gallery, a flinty, unapologetically racist Korean War vet who is not afraid to brandish his Army-issue M-1 Garand rifle or Colt .45 when the situation requires it. He enters "Gran Torino" as an antihero, rasping profanities at his thoughtless adult children, his parish priest, his Hmong neighbors and the modern world in general. He's defined by the '72 Ford coupe he helped build and keeps in immaculate repair in his garage. Eastwood's second film this year is a compelling study of anger and violence and the guilt and shame that shadow them. He has sat high in the saddle for decades, but rarely has he ridden so tall as in the driver's seat of "Gran Torino."=
Rated R for language throughout and some violence.
31âÑ2 stars -- Colin Covert, McClatchy-Tribune
Bedtime Stories
In "Bedtime Stories," Adam Sandler plays Skeeter, a hotel maintenance man who gets roped into watching his sister's kids for a week. Skeeter feeds the young'uns junk and sends them to bed early with wildly implausible bedtime stories. The next day, however, Skeeter finds the stories coming true. It rains gumballs. Beautiful damsels require his chivalrous heroics. So, naturally, Skeeter tries to bend the stories to his benefit. Sandler fans probably will find "Stories" lacking the bite of his "grown-up" works, but they won't be surprised that the loser Skeeter has a heart of golden sponge cake.
Rated: PG for some mild rude humor and mild language. 1 hour, 35 minutes.
2 stars -David Frese, McClatchy-Tribune
Marley & Me
"Extraordinary how potent cheap music is," Noel Coward observed, and the same goes for movies. "Marley & Me" is shamelessly manipulative yet undeniably effective. Director David Frankel ("The Devil Wears Prada") adapts John Grogan's sentimental bestseller with no artistic pretensions beyond alternately making you feel like your heart is caving in, then injecting you with a gigantic syringe of good cheer. Those unfamiliar with the book may come to "Marley" anticipating a canine comedy. There's a good deal more to the story, though. "Marley" cleverly uses the life span of a couple's pet to illustrate the passages that mark their relationship. Journalists John (Owen Wilson) and Jenny (Jennifer Aniston) move up the professional ladder, make life-defining tradeoffs between work and personal satisfaction.
Rated PG for thematic material, some suggestive content and language. 1 hour, 50 minutes.
3 stars - Colin Covert, McClatchy-Tribune
Valkyrie
The idea of Tom Cruise wearing an eye patch and a Nazi costume sounds like someone's idea of a bad Halloween party joke. But one of the many surprises of the new thriller "Valkyrie" is that it allows the actor, whose off-screen persona tends to overshadow his on-screen efforts, to disappear a bit inside the kind of old-fashioned theatrical get-up that Laurence Olivier might have exploited to the hilt. Cruise doesn't quite have the gravitas to pull off this very tricky part but he also doesn't try to hog the spotlight. He blends into an excellently cast ensemble, and he modulates his performance to the tense, low-boil rhythms of the storytelling.
Rated PG-13 for mature themes, violence. 120 minutes.
4 stars out of 5 - Christopher Kelly, McClatchy-Tribune
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Nearly three hours worth of director David Fincher's painstaking, soulless filmmaking and Brad Pitt's blank, inexpressive acting, all of it strung by Pitt's barely intelligible, Cajun-accented narration: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" would be laughable if so many people weren't so determined to take it seriously. The film is inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story about a man who is born as an elderly person and then proceeds to age backward. But "Benjamin Button" has nothing to say, beyond the most banal platitudes about the importance of living life to the fullest and not wasting time. And it's weighted down by so much portentousness and self-regard that, by the end, the audience feels flattened like a pancake.
Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual content, smoking, strong language. 167 minutes.
2 stars out of 5 - Christopher Kelly, McClatchy-Tribune
Yes Man
It has been five years since Jim Carrey has appeared in the type of outrageous comedies that made him a superstar. "Yes Man" is Carrey's return to his comedy roots. Too bad the film just taps the surface of those roots. He plays a man with a negative attitude who gets convinced by his friends that he needs to be more positive. He agrees to say yes to every request. That's a thin premise. . If someone asks you to go see "Yes Man," just say "No, man."
Rated PG-13 for language, brief sexual content and nudity. 1 hour, 45 minutes.
C-minus -- Rick Bentley, McClatchy-Tribune
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