Movie Minis

OPENING

• The Da Vinci Code (2006) (PG-13: Disturbing images, violence, some nudity and sexual content). Dan Brown’s megaseller comes to the screen, courtesy of director Ron Howard. “Code” follows a religious scholar (Tom Hanks) who gets embroiled in an ancient mystery involving the Catholic Church and a certain great painter. Reviewed by Christian Toto.

• The Lost City (2006)(R) — Andy Garcia attempts to evoke Havana during the late 1950s, on the eve of the Castro revolution, while portraying a prominent showman whose livelihood is at risk — the owner of a fashionable nightclub called El Tropico. The source material is a novel by the Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante. The cast also includes Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Tomas Milian and Ines Sastre. Exclusively at the Landmark E Street Cinema.

• Over the Hedge (2006) (PG: Slapstick violence and coarse humor). Woodland creatures wake from their winter sleep to find the forest wiped out by a new housing development. This animated comedy features the vocal talents of Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Garry Shandling and Steve Carell, among others.

• See No Evil (2006) (R) — The stalking vehicle for a new horror franchise, revolving around professional wrestling behemoth Kane as a “reclusive psychopath” called Jacob Goodnight, who boasts a steel-plated skull and razor-sharp fingernails. He’s aroused from hiding in an abandoned hotel by a collection of petty criminals on a community service project. Directed by Gregory Dark from a script by Dan Madigan.

• Sir! No, Sir! (2006) (No MPAA rating: Adult subject matter) — A nostalgic-tendentious documentary feature about anti-war activists from the Vietnam War years, compiled by David Zeiger, whose subjects include the venerable Jane Fonda. Exclusively at the Landmark E Street Cinema.

NOW SHOWING

• Akeelah and the Bee (2006) (PG: Some mild language) — ***. A young South Central girl (Keke Palmer) catches the National Spelling Bee championships on ESPN and is hooked. She studies hard and sets her sights on winning the next year’s competition. Angela Bassett plays the girl’s mother and Laurence Fishburne is a helpful professor. “Akeelah” is predictable, mushy in spots and hardly cutting-edge. None of that matters when Mr. Fishburne is counseling young Akeelah. Their tender scenes, and the film’s oversized heart, make it a warm and winning film for young and old. Reviewed by Christian Toto.

• American Dreamz (2006) (PG-13: Disturbing themes, sexual situations and adult language) — **1/2. Hugh Grant is the Simon Cowell-esque host of the country’s most popular television show. President Staton (Dennis Quaid) hopes to boost his poll numbers by appearing on the program, while a terrorist group sees the singing show as a platform for its next murderous act. Writer-director Paul Weitz of “About a Boy” fame wrings some laughs out of touchy material but too much of the satire only skims the surface. Reviewed by Christian Toto.

• Army of Shadows (1969) (No MPAA rating: Adult subject matter, with episodes of incisive graphic violence in a wartime setting) — ***1/2. The very belated American release of one of the last films directed by France’s Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-73). A member of the French Resistance during World War II, Mr. Melville earnestly adapted Joseph Kessel’s 1943 novel about the exploits of Resistance operatives struggling to survive in 1942 and ‘43. He concentrates on the sheer grind and psychological costs of sustaining a clandestine existence shadowed by death. The violent interludes are brilliantly sudden and shocking, but the ominous atmosphere is the movie’s most haunting element. With Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Mann and Christian Barbier. In French with English subtitles. Exclusively at the American Film Institute Silver Theatre and Landmark E Street Cinema.

• Art School Confidential (2006) (R: Male frontal nudity, violence, language) — **. A dark comedy that returns director Terry Zwigoff to a familiar subject — contempt. An art-school freshman (Max Minghella), a darkly handsome, brooding naif who aspires to become the greatest artist of the 21st century, arrives on the dilapidated campus to find it beset by competitive students, pretentious faculty and a serial killer. The film contains some very funny set pieces but gleams with disdain for all concerned, including the audience, which makes it curiously watchable in spite of some clumsy plot lines. With John Malkovich as an appallingly pretentious professor and wasted turns by Angelica Huston as an aging faculty vamp and Steve Buscemi as the proprietor of an off-campus coffee shop. Reviewed by Adam Mazmanian.

• Brick (2006) (R) — *** — An homage to film noir that won a special jury prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Writer-director Rian Johnson attempts to interweave the conventions of vintage private eye movies with a suburban high school setting in Southern California. The film has the raw feel of a first effort but is suffused with love of both filmmaking and the incredible variety of American personality. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is cast as the teenage sleuth, who encounters various sinister types while searching for a missing girlfriend. Reviewed by Kelly Jane Torrance.

• Crazy Like a Fox (2001) (PG-13: Fleeting profanity and comic vulgarity) — ***. One of the more creditable and diverting first features to emerge from a Washington-based filmmaker. Writer-director Richard Squires shot this comic valentine to a stubborn Virginia landowner called Nat Banks (Roger Rees) near Middleburg in 2001. Mortgaged to the hilt but proudly averse to selling his patrimony, Nat relents when a wealthy young couple offers a substantial price. But they turn into absentee landlords harboring a development scheme, so Nat tries to recoup, becoming a squatter and nuisance. The material is stronger in the first half, when Mr. Squires recognizes the incorrigible side of Nat and the need for him to face facts. The last half prefers to embrace Nat without reservation, but the partiality doesn’t wreck much of the humorous characterization or the loving response to the countryside. Exclusively at the AMC Loews Georgetown and Regal Countryside in Sterling.

• Down in the Valley (2006) (No MPAA rating: Adult subject matter, involving sexual episodes with a teenage heroine) — A romantic suspense melodrama about a restless teenager, Evan Rachel Wood, who begins consorting with a stranger, Edward Norton, who affects cowboy mannerisms but could be a menace. Exclusively at the Landmark E Street Cinema. Not reviewed.

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