Movie Minis

OPENING

• Big Fish (2003) (PG-13) — Tim Burton dabbles in epic whimsy with this film version of a picaresque novel by Daniel Wallace. Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor play the older and younger embodiments of an Alabama salesman named Edward Bloom. His penchant for tall tales has been a thorn in the side of his own son, Billy Crudup, who returns with his wife to share a deathwatch with the family as his father’s health deteriorates. Flashbacks depict the adventurous, globetrotting episodes that Bloom has embroidered over the years. Ultimately, the son is expected to regret his own skepticism. With Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman as Mrs. Bloom in different time frames. The cast also includes Helena Bonham Carter, William H. Macy and Danny DeVito.

• Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) (PG) — A domestic farce that casts Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt as the parents of a lively brood of 12. The title but not the subject matter of the popular 1950 movie co-starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy has been borrowed. The new film has nothing to do with the remarkable Gilbreth family during the early decades of the 20th century. The setting is contemporary; Mr. Martin plays a basketball coach whose child-rearing responsibilities increase when Miss Hunt gets a job that takes her outside the home.

• Cold Mountain (2003) (R: Graphic violence against the setting of the Civil War; occasional profanity, sexual vulgarity and sexual candor; fleeting nudity and simulations of intercourse) — *1/2. Anthony Minghella, the accomplished adapter of “The English Patient” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” gets stuck in treacherous expository ruts while attempting a faithful transposition of the award-winning novel by Charles Frazier. Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are cast as the Civil War love match Inman and Ada, who begin a tentative courtship in the far western North Carolina town of Cold Mountain shortly before the war and survive long enough to cherish a reunion in the winter before it ends. Inman undertakes a perilous trek home after being injured at Petersburg. Ada is rescued from solitude and genteel ineptitude by a resourceful, blunt farmhand named Ruby, enjoyably portrayed by Renee Zellweger. The vitality that enters with Ruby fails to sustain the grueling romantic odyssey, always hostage to sadistic delaying tactics, especially the recurrent atrocities committed by a Home Guard posse led by psychopaths Ray Winstone and Charlie Hunnam.

• The Fog of War (2003) (PG-13) — A new documentary feature from Errol Morris, who chronicles the life and controversial public career of Robert S. McNamara, the secretary of defense for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

• House of Sand and Fog (2003) (R: Occasional profanity, graphic violence and sexual candor) — **1/2. The principal characters take a mortal beating in this faithfully doleful movie version of a novel by Andre Dubus III. Nevertheless, writer-director Vadim Perelman, a transplanted Russian, has an aptitude for painful intimacy and emotional calamity. The movie’s merciless sorrows are reinforced by compelling performances from Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly and the Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo. Miss Connelly is cast as a despondent, destructive young woman who loses her family home in the San Francisco Bay Area to neglect and possible bureaucratic error. The residence is bought at public auction by aristocratic Iranian immigrants, Sir Ben and Miss Aghdashloo. The psychological costs of dispossession loom very large in this story, and Mr. Kingsley is magnificent as a strong personality who proves unable to avert disaster.

• Paycheck(2003) (PG:13: Intense violence, harsh language). Ben Affleck plays a brilliant scientist on the run in this futuristic tale based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (whose texts have inspired “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall”). Mr. Affleck’s character does work for high-tech businesses and then has his memory erased for security purposes. His latest employer not only zaps his memory but neglects to pay him, leaving him only with an envelope full of seemingly random objects. Uma Thurman co-stars as the woman who helps Mr. Affleck reassemble his past from those objects and save his future when his employer finds out about their task.

• Peter Pan (2003) (PG: Fleeting ominous episodes and comic vulgarity) — **1/2. A fitfully appealing reprise of the James M. Barrie classic from Australian filmmaker P.J. Hogan, entrusted with the novelty of a live-action production that casts an actual adolescent boy as Peter. The choice, Jeremy Sumpter, doesn’t exactly redefine the role, but he’s robust and good-humored. Mr. Hogan wisely returns to Barrie himself for the wittiest lines and situations; he turns to deft computer animators for miraculous enhancements that can rival or surpass the Disney animators of half a century ago. The Disney version was a 50th anniversary “Pan.” This one anticipates the centennial by a year.

• Young Black Stallion (2003) (G) — A belated “prequel” to Carroll Ballard’s superlative 1979 movie version of the Walter Farley children’s classic “The Black Stallion.” Directed in an Imax format by Australian Simon Wincer, the film has a featurette running time of about 50 minutes. It concerns a North African girl called Neera who becomes lost in the desert and is rescued by the sudden appearance of the stallion, who bonds with the child and carries her back to safety. A limited engagement, exclusively at the National Museum of Natural History.

NOW SHOWING

• Bad Santa (2003) (R: Coarse language, sexual situations, alcohol abuse and anger toward children) — *1/2. Billy Bob Thornton plays a soused Santa wreaking mayhem on a series of department stores. The film desperately wants to tweak the mushy Christmas movies released each yuletide, but only manages to drown itself in mean-spirited, one-note mockery. Even the often brilliant Mr. Thornton can’t muster an ounce of humanity for his depraved rent-a-Santa. Reviewed by Christian Toto.

• The Barbarian Invasions (2003) (R: Frequent profanity and sexual candor; a subplot about heroin addiction) — **. The French-Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand gave boudoir farce a literate and sophisticated update in 1986 with “Decline of the American Empire,” which satirized the moral and political complacency of a group of hedonistic, left-wing faculty colleagues from Montreal. “Invasions” revisits this overprivileged bunch about 15 years later, and age is taking a toll. The puckish satyr Remy (Remy Girard), who teaches American Colonial history, has been hospitalized for cancer treatments in a crowded Montreal hospital where pain relief includes heroin injections from the junkie daughter of one of his former mistresses. The entire harem rallies around to dote on the patient, who remains a largely unrepentant fool, sometimes troubled by the thought of having endorsed every left wing “ism” that was available. Mr. Arcand goes soft to a fault himself as departure time nears for Remy. The characters are bilingual, but a considerable amount of dialogue is in French with English subtitles.

• Calendar Girls (2003) (PG-13: Sustained sexual innuendo; occasional profanity and fleeting nudity) — ***. An overextended but genial tribute to a group of Yorkshire club women who turn their annual calendar into a more lucrative fund-raiser for cancer by adding discreetly nude poses to the traditional celebration of homemaking and gardening skills. The plot derives from a real-life caper that made a small town called Rylstone newsworthy in 2000. This fictionalized telling conjures up a similar close-knit community, Knapely, and teams Julie Walters and Helen Mirren as the ringleaders. The movie remains fresh and appealing until the models head off for a promotional jaunt to Los Angeles, an excursion that persuades you the characters should stay as close as possible to Yorkshire.

Story Continues →