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Movie showtimes and reviews April 10-17

By Bill White on April 10, 2008

21: A formula movie “inspired by” a true story about the M.I.T. students who developed a card-counting system that enabled them to win millions at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas.  The excitement is as watered-down as the drinks.  It’s not unwatchable, but you could watch it with your eyeballs tied behind your back and enjoy it just as much. (R) One and a half stars – JE

10,000 B.C.: Roland Emmerich, the director that brought us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow now back in time to when the world was ruled by mystics, gods and mammoths. (PG-13) – BW

ACADEMY AWARDS LIVE ACTION SHORTS: Nominated films are: At Night, Il Supplente, Le Mozzart De Pickpockets, Tanghi Argentini, The Tonto Woman.

ACADEMY AWARDS ANIMATED SHORTS: Nominated films are: I Met the Walrus, Madame Tutli-Putli, Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis, My Love, Peter & The Wolf.

THE BAND’S VISIT: The Alexandria (Egypt) Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrives on the wrong bus in the wrong small Israeli town, and is stranded overnight.  The bandleader (Sasson Gabai) stiffly approaches Dina, the owner of the cafe (Ronit Elkabetz) and what begins is a long, tender night of shared loneliness.  An exquisite film that also functions quietly as a comedy. (PG-13) Four stars – RE

THE BANK JOB: A serviceable B-grade British heist movie, The Bank Job is no better than its generic title.  It front-loads the naughty sex and back-loads the plot twists. (R) Two and a half stars – JE

CARAMEL: Set in a Beirut beauty parlor, Nadine Labaki’s feature debut warmly observes the love lives of women of different ages.  Lebanon’s Oscar entry for best foreign language film of 2007 sports an ensemble cast of non-professionals lead by Labaki, playing the shop’s owner. (PG) Three stars – BS

COLLEGE ROAD TRIP: Raven-Symone plays a high school whiz kid visiting prospective colleges with her overprotective police chief father (Martin Lawrence).  This movie’s jokes and trust-your-offspring sentiments have been heard 1,000 times.  With Donny Osmond. (G) Half star – DJ

DRILLBIT TAYLOR: Three high school freshman nerds hire an Army deserter and a two-bit thief (Owen Wilson) as a bodyguard to protect them from a psychotic senior. About 40 minutes of story in a 102-minute movie. (PG-13) Two stars—DJ

DR. SEUSS’ HORTON HEARS A WHO!: Comedy kings Jim Carrey and Steve Carell deliver a Horton that’s faithful, if not 100 percent, to the spirit of the beloved children’s classic.  Lots of action and slapstick for the kids, plus snarky comments and pop-culture references for their adult keepers.  The all-star cast also includes Carol Burnett, Seth Rogen, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett, with calm narration from Charles Osgood to rein in the often fast and furious proceedings. (G) Three stars – LE

FRENCH THEATER: Check out these films on Fort Lewis: Jumper (PG-13) Fri 7.  Sat 7. Semi-Pro (R) Fri 9:30. Sun 7. College Road Trip (G) Sat 2. Sun 2.

THE HAMMER: Adam Carolla plays a 40-something former amateur boxer who attempts a comeback and an Olympic bid after an unlikely knockout of an up-and-coming pro during a impromptu sparring session. (R) – BW

JUMPER: Hayden Christensen can “jump” anywhere anytime. Samuel L. Jackson wants to kill him. In Giza and New York and London and Paris and Rome and Tokyo and Ann Arbor. (PG-13) One and a half stars – JE

JUNO: Ellen Page in an Oscar-worthy performance as a pregnant 16-year-old who decides to keep the child.  With J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney wonderful as her parents, older and wiser than most parents in teenage comedies.  And Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the would-be adoptive parents, and Michael Cera, shyly winning as Juno’s boyfriend. (PG) Four stars – RE

LEATHERHEADS: George Clooney stars in and directs this slapstick, screwball romantic comedy about the birth of “professional” football in the Midwest in 1925.  John Krasinski is the war-hero star of the Duluth Bulldogs, and Renee Zellweger is the wily Chicago reporter who’s out to write an expose that will cook the Boy Wonder’s goose.  The script is less than effervescent, but as a director and an actor, Clooney’s got it all: smarts, wit, timing, a winning face, a good eye — hell, he’s probably even got great legs. (PG-13) Three stars – JE

MEMENTO: See review page 24.

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY: An entirely charming film based on a 1938 novel by Winifred Watson about a frumpy governess, Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), who becomes the social secretary for nightclub singer Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), who is intent on becoming a star. (PG-13) Three and a half stars – MH

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: See review page 24.

NEVER BACK DOWN: Essentially a remake of The Karate Kid.  Sean Faris is the new kid, humiliated by the local bully (Cam Gigandet) for having a crush on his girlfriend (Amber Heard).  Djimon Hounsou is the stoic African MMA master who teaches the kid to fight. (PG-13) Two and a half stars – BM

NIM’S ISLAND: Nim (Abigail Breslin of “Little Miss Sunshine”) and her marine biologist father, Jack (Gerard Butler), are the only human residents of a remote but idyllic South Pacific island.  Into the plot comes Alex Rover, who’s really Alexandra, a famous author (Jodie Foster) terrified of life.  Directors Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin seamlessly combine adventure, drama, comedy and fantasy as Jack, Nim and Alexandra have to confront their separate but often parallel fears and challenges.  The filmmakers wisely make Nim the center of the story in a way that young audiences will find empowering. (PG) Three stars – NM

O’BROTHER WHERE ART THOU: Part of The Grand Cinema’s First 10 April Film Series.

OLYMPIA FILM SOCIETY: All screenings at the Capital Theater, 206, E. 5th Ave. Olympia. The Ground Truth (R) Fri 6:30. The Duchess (NR) Fri 9. In Bruges (R) Sat 6:30. Sun 2:30 & 7:30. Mon & Wed 6:30. Tue & Thurs 9. Be Kind Rewind (PG-13) Sat 9. Sun 5. Mon & Wed 9. Tue & Thurs 6:30.

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL: It’s Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) versus her sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) and Henry VIII (Eric Bana) in this familiar genre picture about treachery in the House of Tudor.  It’s a historical drama about backstabbing and decapitation in the court of Henry VIII, with ancestors in Shakespeare’s illustrious Henry Histories. (PG-13) Two and a half stars – JE

THE RUINS: A vacation to Mexico turns deadly when a group of friends decide to join another tourist on a remote archaeological dig in the jungle … where something evil awaits. (R) – BW

PROM NIGHT: On my prom, night my date spent the entire evening crying in the bathroom and explaining to anyone who would listen how big a jerk I was.  That was a nightmare.  But nothing like the fright that Donna endures in this week’s teenage horror movie of the week. (PG-13) – BW

RUN, FATBOY, RUN: David Schwimmer, best known for the TV sitcom Friends, makes his feature film directorial debut with this formulaic, unfunny and forgettable romantic comedy starring Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) as a guy who dumped his pregnant wife at the altar and decides five years later than she’s the one for him after all. (PG-13) Two and a half stars – TB

SHINE A LIGHT: Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light may be the most intimate documentary ever made about a live rock and roll concert.  Certainly it has the best coverage of the performances on stage.  Working with cinematographer Robert Richardson, Scorsese deployed a team of nine other cinematographers, all of them Oscar winners or nominees, to essentially blanket a live September 2006 Rolling Stones concert at the smallish Beacon Theater in New York.  The result is startling immediacy, a merging of image and music, edited in step with the performance. (PG-13) Four stars – RE

SHUTTER: Newlyweds discover disturbing images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident.  A decision to investigate further proves deadly.  (PG-13) – BW

SIDEWAYS: Part of The Grand Cinema’s First 10 April Film Series.

TACOMA SISTER CITY INTERNATIONAL FILM & FOOD FESTIVAL: Every Thursday through April 17 at the Blue Mouse theater. Buddy (Norway) Thurs. Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets (Morocco) Thurs, April 17. Doors open 5:45 p.m.

SMART PEOPLE: Dennis Quaid plays a dour lit professor who's indifferent to his students and just about everything else, including his family. A widower, he lives with his Young Republican daughter (Ellen Page, toning down her Juno ever so slightly) and ne'er-do-well brother (Thomas Haden Church), who acts as his chauffeur. Sarah Jessica Parker plays a doctor and former student instrumental in bringing him out of his brittle shell. Reasonably smart and mildly funny, but not brilliant. Two and a half stars. — Jim Emerson

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES: A family moves into a creepy old mansion and discovers it is already inhabited by creatures from the spirit world.  Starring Freddie Hightower as twins, Sarah Bolger as their sister, and Mary-Louise Parker as their mom, plus a supporting cast of gifted actors and impressive effects.  But it should be rated PG-13. (PG) Three and a half stars – RE

STOP-LOSS: Writer-director Kimberly Peirce’s uneven film about a young soldier home from Iraq (Ryan Phillippe) who is forced to rethink his ideas about heroism and patriotism when he is “stop-lossed:” involuntarily assigned to another tour of duty. (R) Two stars – NM

STREET KINGS: Keanu Reeves is a racist cop, a renegade cop, a vigilante cop. He does not play by the rules. He's sort of corrupt, but not completely corrupt, because there are other LAPD detectives who are much ... corrupter. They are REALLY bad -- murderers willing to drop everything to rape their victims' widows and girlfriends just for fun. Reeves follows a twisted trail of corruption that leads all the way to the highest levels of the LAPD, as if you couldn't tell. An anemic attempt to evoke the big, shiny action pictures of the late 1980s and early 1990s. With Forest Whitaker and Hugh Laurie. Rating: One and a half stars. — Jim Emerson

SUPERHERO MOVIE: From the guys that brought you the Scary Movie series comes a new genre to ridicule … the Superhero/comic book films. (PG-13) – BW

TYLER PERRY’S MEET THE BROWNS: The multi-talented writer/director/actor Tyler Perry follows up his popular earlier films (Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion) with another family portrayal and features the return of Madea, the fun loving grandma. (PG-13) – BW

VANTAGE POINT: An edgy, action-packed reprising of an attempted presidential assassination that not only gives us glimpses into an innocent bystander’s recollections, but reveals the viewpoints of the participants — on both sides of the attack.  Starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver. (PG-13) Two and a half stars – BZ