Movie Minis

OPENING

• Alien (1979) (R: Occasional profanity and graphic violence, with exceedingly gruesome illustrative details) — ****. An almost 25th anniversary revival engagement of Ridley Scott’s brilliant science-fiction thriller, which began the summer movie season of 1979 and reimposed the idea of extraterrestrial terror in the wake of Steven Spielberg’s benign visionary outlook in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The crew of a space freighter called Nostromo are menaced by a rapacious, elusive organism after responding to a distress call from a storm-tossed planet whose elegantly nightmarish features include a subterranean garden of pods, evidently awaiting unwary prey. Sigourney Weaver became a star as the valiant executive officer Ripley, who faces an unrelenting showdown with annihilation. John Hurt and Ian Holm have the stunning trick roles as colleagues whose bodies surge way out of control. With Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright as the remaining targets of monstrous devouring. Mr. Scott has restored two brief scenes omitted from the original theatrical release.

• Beyond Borders (2003) (R: Occasional profanity, graphic violence and sexual candor; episodes involving death threats to children) — *1/2. A glaring example of the well-meaning monstrosity, which tries to have its cake and eat it while juggling high-minded and gaga attitudes. On the socially virtuous side, the filmmakers desire to salute the efforts of international relief workers. On the commercially exploitable side, they hope to sell a star-crossed illicit romance, mismatching Clive Owen as a dedicated but grandstanding physician with Angelina Jolie as a dishy London socialite who becomes his heartthrob and benefactor. Their paths first cross in London, then recross in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Chechnya, where Mr. Owen seems to be waging a losing battle against lust and expediency. Developed for several years as an Oliver Stone polemic, the movie was slightly downsized when he bailed out, then entrusted to Martin Campbell, the director of “GoldenEye” and “The Mask of Zorro.” Nothing prevents it from becoming a synthetic fiasco.

• Pieces of April (2003) (PG-13) — A domestic comedy-drama with Katie Holmes as a young woman struggling to impress her suburban parents, Patricia Clarkson and Oliver Platt, by preparing Thanksgiving dinner in the Lower East Side apartment she shares with her boyfriend, Derek Luke. Written and directed by Peter Hedges.

• Radio (2003) (PG) — An inspirational fable derived from a Sports Illustrated human-interest story about a high school in Anderson, S.C., that has cherished a retarded man named James Robert Kennedy, nicknamed Radio, for several decades. The movie condenses this long association to a pivotal football season, in which a coach named Harold Jones (Ed Harris) decides to recruit the sports-loving Radio, impersonated by Cuba Gooding Jr., as a kind of honorary manager and cheerleader, with mutually gratifying results. The cast also includes Debra Winger as the coach’s wife and Alfre Woodard as the school’s principal. Directed by Mike Tollin from a screenplay by Mike Rich, who also wrote “The Rookie.”

• Scary Movie 3 (2003) (PG:13: Crude language, sexual situations and drug references)— **. The third chapter of the “Scary Movie” franchise takes comic pot shots at “The Ring,” “Signs” and every other horror cliche deemed ripe for ridicule. Anna Faris, Charlie Sheen and Leslie Nielsen co-star as director David Zucker (“The Naked Gun,” “Airplane”) takes over the series from Keenen Ivory Wayans. Reviewed by Christian Toto.

• Sylvia (2003) (R: Occasional profanity and sexual candor, with fleeting nudity and simulated intercourse; repeated allusions to suicide) — ****. An eloquently apprehensive and painful distillation of the enraptured and then estranged conjugal-poetic union between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, impressively portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig. Screenwriter John Brownlow and director Christine Jeffs are too judicious and magnanimous to pick sides in the lingering academic feuds about who betrayed whom most profoundly. They’re content to remain astute observers of an intense romantic attachment, commencing at Cambridge with a whirlwind courtship in 1956, that sours into a bitter separation within a matter of years, terminated by Miss Plath’s quietly harrowing suicide in London in February of 1963. Miss Paltrow demonstrates a spellbinding command of her character’s passions, resentments and delusions. Mr. Craig brings a marvelous vocal authority to his early scenes as Ted Hughes, along with a persuasive hint of Byronic danger. The character is somewhat sidetracked when he and Sylvia separate, but Jared Harris adds a sympathetic third-party perspective as A. Alvarez, the critic and friend who is loathe to choose sides in the conflict. The episodes set in New England were shot in Miss Jeffs’ native New Zealand. Blythe Danner makes such a powerful impression as Sylvia’s mother Aurelia in two early scenes that it’s a pity she lacks encores. Exclusively at the Cineplex Odeon Outer Circle and Landmark Bethesda Row.

NOW SHOWING

• Casa de los Babys (2003) (R: Adult themes and mature language) — **1/2. Writer-director John Sayles assembles six talented actresses to flesh out his tale of women waiting to adopt children in a poor Latin country. Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden leaves the biggest impact as a stubborn woman willing to buy her way to motherhood. The others (Lili Taylor, Daryl Hannah among them) are given much less to do, emotionally. Mr. Sayles proves more adept at recording cultural observations than he does achieving any narrative flow. Reviewed by Christian Toto.

• Dirty Pretty Things (2003) (R: Occasional profanity, graphic violence and sexual candor; morbid plot elements involving a black market in organ transplants) — ***. This romantic suspense melodrama concerns illegal aliens in Londo0n trying to make a living and normalize their status while eluding immigration agents. With the young Nigerian-English actor Chiwetel Ejiofor as a refugee doctor, Audrey Tatou (of “Amelie”) as a Turkish hotel maid and Sergi Lopez as their loathsome boss.

• Dopamine (2003) (R: Strong language; sexual situations, nudity; brief drug use) — **. Chews on a question that will take more than this little movie to digest: Does love have a higher meaning? Or is it just, literally, a chemical reaction? A pair of wised-up San Franciscoans (John Livingston, Sabrina Lloyd) put their neurotransmitters to the test. Reviewed by Scott Galupo.

• The Fighting Temptations (2003) (PG-13: Occasional profanity, comic vulgarity and sexual allusions) — **. An initially tempting romantic comedy. In childhood Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyonce Knowles were members of a gospel-singing church congregation in a small Georgia town. Mr. Gooding returns to his roots after his mother’s death and a professional disgrace in New York. Miss Knowles has stayed close to home but has drifted from the flock. The movie gets off to a splendid start with a rousing gospel number set in the past. Slowly but irreversibly, gauche miscalculations chip away at plausibility and good will.

• Good Boy! (2003) (PG: Fleeting comic vulgarity) — **. An appealing but exceedingly slight variation on “E.T.,” with Liam Aiken as a dog-walking suburban youngster who acquires a pet of his own and discovers that this stray is a talking emissary from the “dog star” Sirius, allegedly the source of all canines on Earth. Their ruling tyrant, a Great Dane, plans an inspection tour to investigate dire reports that dogs have slacked off by failing to dominate the planet. Young Liam is a reliably pensive and wistful juvenile hero. There are also amusing throwaway stunts with the mutts, but the movie starts to depend too heavily on a facetious babel of talking dog voices.

Story Continues →