I Know Who Killed Me

Tough to know if star Lindsay Lohan’s recent DUI and coke bust will help or hinder this week’s serial killer/torture movie opening of the week. My guess is she will be pointing to herself in the mirror by Monday saying, “I know who killed my career.” A wasted talent. Oops.

Also stars Julia Ormond who has rarely been seen since she spent the entire three hours of “Legends of the Fall” crying. I still loved her. Welcome back.

Rated R for grisly violence including torture and disturbing gory images, and for sexuality, nudity and language – Bill White

Who’s Your Caddy?

When a rap star’s attempt to join a conservative Carolina country club becomes bunkered, he and his entourage take on the club president in a little silly match play. Starring Antwan “Big Boi” Patten, Lil Wayne Andy Milonakis.

Rated PG-13 – BW

No Reservations

Here is a love story that ends, “and they cooked happily ever after.” It’s the story of Kate, a master chef who rules her kitchen like a warden, and Nick, perhaps equally gifted, who comes to work for her and is seen as a rival. Since Kate is played by the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones and Nick by the handsome Aaron Eckhart, is there any doubt they will end up stirring the same pots and sampling the same gravies?

“No Reservations” also has something to do with how a woman “should” behave. Kate’s restaurant is owned by Paula (Patricia Clarkson), who hauls Kate out front to meet her “fans” but wants her to stay in the kitchen when a customer complains. This is contrary to Kate’s nature. She doesn’t want to waste time glad-handing, but if anyone dares to complain about her pate or her definition of “rare,” she storms out of the kitchen, and soon the customer storms out of the restaurant. We’ve heard about male chefs throwing tantrums (I think it’s required), but for Kate to behave in an unladylike manner threatens her job.

There’s a subplot. Kate finds herself caring for round-eyed little Zoe (Abigail Breslin), the orphaned child of her sister. Kate has long since vowed never to marry or have children, so this is an awkward fit. But Zoe gets along fine with Nick, who lets her chop basil in the kitchen and tempts her with spaghetti, and soon she’s playing matchmaker between the two grown-ups. From meeting in the refrigerator room for shouting matches, they progress to thawing the crab legs.

The movie is focused on two kinds of chemistry: of the kitchen, and of the heart. The kitchen works better, with shots of luscious-looking food, arranged like organic still lifes. But chemistry among Nick, Kate and Zoe is curiously lacking, except when we sense some fondness — not really love — between Zoe and her potential new dad.

Kate and Nick are required by the terms of the formula to be drawn irresistibly together despite their professional rivalry. But I didn’t feel the heat. There was no apparent passion; their courtship is so laid-back it seems almost like a theoretical exercise. For that matter, Kate treats little Zoe like more of a scheduling problem than a new adoptive daughter. The actors dutifully perform the rituals of the plot requirements, but don’t involve us (and themselves) in an emotional bond.

The movie is a remake of “Mostly Martha” (2002), a German film very much liked by many, unseen by me. Watching its trailer, I can’t decide anything about the quality of the original film, but I do recognize many of the same scenes, and even similar locations. “No Reservations” doesn’t seem to reinvent it so much as recycle it.

There are some nice things in the film. Zeta-Jones is convincing as a short-tempered chef, if not as a replacement mom and potential lover. Clarkson balances on the tightwire a restaurant owner must walk. Bob Balaban, as Kate’s psychiatrist, has a reserve that’s comically maddening. Aaron Eckhart struggles manfully with an unconvincing character (is he really afraid to run his own kitchen?). We feel Abigail Breslin has the stuff to emerge as a three-dimensional kid, if she weren’t employed so resolutely as a pawn.

But “No Reservations,” directed by the usually superior Scott Hicks (“Shine,” “Hearts in Atlantis,” “Snow Falling on Cedars”), has too many reservations. It goes through the motions, but the characters seem to feel more passion for food than for one another. Rated PG for some sensuality and language. HH – RE

Sunshine

As a permanent winter settles upon the Earth, a spaceship is sent on a desperate mission to drop a nuclear device into the sick sun and “reignite” it. To name the ship “Icarus I” seems like asking for trouble in two ways, considering the fate of the original Icarus and the numeral that ominously leaves room for a sequel. Indeed, the first ship disappears. As “Sunshine” opens, the “Icarus II” with seven astronauts on board is approaching Mercury, protected by a shield that protects it from solar incineration.

The actors (Michelle Yeoh, Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Benedict Wong and Hiroyuki Sanada) are effective by trying not to be too effective; they almost all play professional astronaut/scientists, and not action-movie heroes. The design of the ship itself is convincing; it looks like the inside of a computer used as the bunkhouse at a boys’ camp. The special effects in outer space are convincing and remorseless. The drummed-up suspense at the end is not essential, since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland seem more interested in the metaphysics of the voyage; Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” demonstrated that if you go all the way with the implications of such a situation, it’s more interesting than using plot devices.

So anyway, younger girls won’t like this picture unless they know what happens under an automobile hood. Younger boys won’t like it because the only thing that’s possibly going to blow up real good is the sun. But science fiction fans will like it, and brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there’s a lot going on up there, and we can’t even define precisely what a soliton is. Rated R for violent contend and language.  HHH – RE