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JANE HORWITZ - FAMILY FILMGOER |
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``Flushed Away'' (PG, 1 hr., 27 min.) ``Babel'' (R, 2 hrs., 23 min.) (LIMITED RELEASE) A deeply involving drama, in which characters from vastly different backgrounds and in different parts of the world experience simultaneous, linked crises, ``Babel'' tries -- and mostly succeeds, despite its unnecessary length and plot threads of unequal dramatic tension -- to embody John Donne's exhortation that ``no man is an island.'' There is much in ``Babel'' to expand the worldview of high-schoolers 17 and older, to offer college kids major late-night fodder about geopolitics, poverty and ethics. The film earns its R rating with full-frontal nudity, explicit sexuality and briefly explicit scenes of a young boy masturbating (he is clothed, his actions strongly implied). In a separate scene, he spies on his sister as she undresses, but we see little. It also portrays shootings and police beatings, shows someone smoking opium or hashish, and contains strong profanity. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga, their title harking back to the Old Testament tale of estranged peoples, tell their story in a fragmented way that keeps looping back, peeling away degrees of separation: Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett play a rich California couple touring Morocco. Two little boys herding goats on a hillside aim their rifle casually down at the tour bus and shoot. The wife is badly hurt and, as help is slow to arrive, gets primitive care in a village. Then: the boys with the rifle are hunted by the brutal Moroccan police; the couple's housekeeper (Adriana Barraza) in California, desperate to get to her son's wedding, takes their two small children with her to Mexico on a trip that goes dangerously awry. In Tokyo, a deaf teen (Rinko Kikuchi), conflicted by grief over her mother's death and a longing to experience sex, clashes with her dad (Koji Yakusho), and he has a tie to the Morocco incident. ``Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' (R, 1 hr., 29 min.) Where to start? Lewd, raucous, sexually explicit, misogynistic, scatological, profane, whacked-out, yet undeniably hilarious, this comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen (the inventive Brit famous for his pseudo-hip-hopper title character on HBO's ``Da Ali G Show'') sits so far out there that The Family Filmgoer must dub it inappropriate for anyone under 17. (We forgot to add near-frontal nudity, jokes about rape and other graphic sexual language among the NC-17-ish material.) Cohen's Borat character is an ignorant, exuberant, sex-obsessed TV personality from Kazakhstan -- a child-man with a suitcase full of live chickens. His travels in America are recorded cinema-verite style. The people he encounters apparently think he is real -- even the New York subway riders he tries to kiss hello. Many college kids and older audiences will fail to see humor in aspects of the film including its undiluted spoof of Third World-style anti-Semitism (an event in Borat's hometown called ``the Running of the Jew,'' in which a Jewish effigy is chased; the belief that Jews caused the 9/11 terror attacks), and, obviously, its portrayal of Kazakhstan. Cohen brews his irony strong. BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME -- 7 AND OLDER: ``Flushed Away'' PG (NEW) (Enormously witty computer-animated fable mimics clay-mation style of ``Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'' (G, 2005) to tell the tale of a pampered pet mouse from London named Roddy (voice of Hugh Jackman) who gets flushed down the loo by a sewer rat (Shane Richie) who wants to take his place; Roddy discovers an ingenious mini-London in the sewers, built from flotsam and jetsam by rodents and roaches; he befriends a feisty mouse named Rita (Kate Winslet) and they take on a cabal of amphibians and rats, led by the evil Toad (Ian McKellen), who plan to destroy the underground city. Surprisingly gentle, clever toilet humor (chocolate candy bar, partly in its wrapper, floating by; oozy brown slugs who scream when frightened and occasionally sing); under-7's could be unsettled by chase scenes on sewer rapids and a tsunami-like flood; semi-crude insults such as ``dipstick'' and ``get stuffed''; Roddy eats maggots, thinking they're rice.) -- 10 AND OLDER: ``Facing the Giants'' PG (Evangelical Christian family drama with flat acting, a sermonizing script and a message that blends religion, school sports and patriotism; sincere film will please its target audience; a sad Georgia high-school football coach (Alex Kendrick, who also directed and co-wrote film with his brother, Stephen); his team always loses, his car is a clunker, and his wife (Shannen Fields) can't get pregnant; only a religious rebirth for him and his team -- including an impromptu revival on the school athletic field -- can turn his life and the team's around. Themes involving in vitro fertilization, adoption; grueling football practice scenes.) ``Flicka'' PG (Absorbing, fiercely emotional, occasionally oversentimental adaptation of Mary O'Hara's 1941 novel, ``My Friend Flicka,'' this time with a female teen protagonist; 16-year-old Katy (Alison Lohman) captures and trains a wild mustang filly on her parents' struggling Wyoming ranch, against her father's (Tim McGraw) wishes; she rebels angrily when her dad sells Flicka. PLOT GIVEAWAY ALERT: Intense, though nongraphic, scenes show Flicka nearly killed by a mountain lion; horse's injury and distress are intense; Katy becomes ill in sympathy. Mild sexual innuendo (joke about gelding a man); a teen kiss; hints that 20-ish ranch hands are sweet on Katy, but they don't act on it; she is thrown, kicked by the wild Flicka; perilous rodeo stunts; mild profanity; toilet humor.) -- PG-13s: ``Driving Lessons'' (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) (Pleasantly eccentric British coming-of-age tale about a miserable 17-year-old (Rupert Grint, who is Ron Weasley in the ``Harry Potter'' films); his ultrareligious mother (Laura Linney) rules his life narrowly and browbeats his minister father (Nicholas Farrell), even as she carries on an adulterous affair herself; a new part-time job as helper to an idiosyncratic, occasionally drunk, retired actress (the great Julie Walters) opens up worlds for the boy; they read plays aloud; she teaches him to have fun; he keeps her company. Profanity; implied overnight tryst between teen hero and a girl; teen drinking; shoplifting; toilet humor. High-schoolers into vivid characters.) ``Catch a Fire'' (Strongly sympathetic dramatization of real-life South African anti-apartheid freedom fighter (imprisoned along with Nelson Mandela) Patrick Chamusso (wonderful Derek Luke); under apartheid in 1980, he is arrested, though innocent, and tortured on suspicion of sabotage; radicalized by the experience, he leaves his wife (Bonnie Mbuli) and trains with the African National Congress' (ANC) military wing to be a saboteur, though film implies he avoids harming people; Tim Robbins gives complex portrayal of white policeman who hunts him down. Brutal arrests, gun battles, beatings, strongly implied torture, camera cut away just before graphic injuries or death; extramarital affair, out-of-wedlock child; muted bedroom scene; dimly lit back-view nudity; rare profanity; toilet humor. High-schoolers into social issues.) ``Marie Antoinette'' (Director Sofia Coppola lends a modern edge to an arresting, lavish, yet intimate un-epic; a convincing 18th-century portrait (despite rock songs commenting on the action) of the teen queen (Kirsten Dunst), a sweet, clueless Austrian royal sent to marry the future Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) of France, an immature dullard; their marriage goes unconsummated for years, causing gossip at Versailles; she compensates with lavish parties and a lover (Jamie Dornan). Semiexplicit (for a PG-13) sexual situations, including her strongly implied deflowering; occasional crude, sexually tinged language; references to prostitution; brief back view, other hints of nudity; queen puffs on a pipe; ruling couple's fall during the Revolution is touched on, but no beheadings mar the decor.) ``The Prestige'' (Invitingly atmospheric and intriguing, but rather pretentiously convoluted tale of two brilliant English magicians and their obsessive rivalry -- a spiral of spectacular stolen tricks, betrayals, fatal accidents, unethical experiments, revenge and prison; Hugh Jackman as a suave aristocrat, Christian Bale as his blue-collar nemesis, Michael Caine as their boss in a London magic act, circa 1900; a tragic mishap sets the younger magicians on a collision course. Stylized rather than graphic depictions of drownings, crushed birds, a hand bloodied by a gunshot, other gunplay, implied hacking off of fingers, a hanging suicide, an execution; mild sexual innuendo; out-of-wedlock pregnancy; infidelity; smoking, drinking. Teens' agile young minds can unravel the plot.) ``The Grudge 2'' (Wildly disjointed, sorry sequel to 2004 film (also PG-13 -- a remake of R-rated 2003 Japanese thriller) about vengeful spirits of a murdered mother and child who cause anyone venturing near the Tokyo house where their husband/father killed them to commit violent acts against their own loved ones; story bounces jerkily between Tokyo and Chicago; Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Beals as two haunted by the spirits in each city. Violent finale shows graphic neck-snapping, implied murder of child; otherwise, the long-haired spirits loom up, grab people in tired, unscary ways; character scalded, bashed with frying pan; unconsummated teen sexual tryst; nonsexual shower scenes; smoking. Not for middle-schoolers.) -- R's: ``Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan`` (NEW) (Brilliant, subversive British comic Sacha Baron Cohen (famed as pseudo hip-hopper, Ali G) as another of his characters, supposed Kazakh TV personality Borat, on a tour of America; shot as cinema verite, with ordinary people often unaware that the crude, sex-obsessed, viciously anti-Semitic, but friendly, Borat is not real. Tone is lewd, sexually explicit, misogynistic, bigoted, scatological, profane, often uncomfortable. Near-frontal nudity; jokes about rape; graphic sexual language in NC-17 range; likely to offend people from Kazakhstan, too. No under-17s -- more for college kids into raucous, whacked-out humor.) ``Babel'' (NEW; LIMITED RELEASE) (Deeply involving drama (though long, with some plot threads less compelling than others) peels away degrees of separation between nationalities, world's richest and poorest in tale of linked crises: a well-off California woman (Cate Blanchett) traveling in Morocco with her husband (Brad Pitt) is accidentally shot and badly hurt by two boys playing with a rifle; the boys are pursued by brutal police; in California, the couple's housekeeper (Adriana Barraza) takes their little children on a trip into Mexico that goes dangerously awry; in Tokyo, a deaf teen (Rinko Kikuchi) grieves for her mother by acting out sexually; her father (Koji Yakusho) has a tie to the shooting in Morocco. Frontal nudity; explicit sexuality; briefly explicit scene of a young boy masturbating (he is clothed, his actions strongly implied); in another scene, he spies on his sister as she undresses -- nothing shown; shootings; beatings; drug use; profanity. Thoughtful teens 17 and up.) ``Saw III" (NEW) (Third installment in gruesome but cleverly conceived horror series about a moralistic serial killer, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), who likes to trap victims in puzzle-like death machines that will kill them if they don't solve the puzzle or, very often, kill someone else, in order to get free; well-written sequel has the killer dying of a brain tumor and directing his worshipful assistant (Shawnee Smith) to complete a new round of killings; the protagonists are a depressed doctor (Bahar Soomekh) and a man (Angus Macfadyen) obsessed with vengeance against a drunk driver who killed his child. Bone-crushing, skin-dissolving, limb-chopping, skull-piercing violence; graphic brain operation; frontal nudity; strong profanity; pig carcasses put through grinder; character self-mutilates. 17 and older.) ``Running with Scissors" (Gloriously acted, if too-precious adaptation of writer Augusten Burroughs' memoir, focusing mostly on his early teen years (as played by Joseph Cross) when his manic mother (wondrously nuanced Annette Bening) hands him over to a charlatan psychiatrist (Brian Cox) and the doctor's odd, depressive family (Jill Clayburgh as his near-catatonic wife, Evan Rachel Wood and Gwyneth Paltrow as his daughters, Joseph Fiennes as a psychotic stepson). Searing profanity; crude, explicit sexual slang; understated bedroom scenes, including one that takes place immediately after the precocious 14-year-old Augusten (who has announced he is gay) has had a strongly implied sexual initiation with a 35-year-old man -- basically a molestation; abuse of psychotropic drugs; chain-smoking; drinking. OK for college kids.) ``Death of a President" (LIMITED RELEASE) (Chilling but balanced, unhysterical what-if drama may offend some with its use of real footage of President George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney, intercut with fictional scenes and characters; PBS-style pseudo-documentary imagines what would happen if the president were assassinated -- how a "revised" Patriot Act might affect the investigation, whether Muslims and others would be unfairly arrested, etc.; rowdy anti-Bush protesters unflatteringly portrayed. Violent images; profanity. Older high-schoolers intrigued by politics, history, civil rights issues.) ``Flags of Our Fathers" (Beautifully rendered World War II saga (based on the book by James Bradley with Ron Powers), directed with grace and gall by Clint Eastwood, with ultrabloody battle scenes, quiet musings on heroism; film examines complex story behind famous 1945 flag-raising photo from battle of Iwo Jima; edgy, clear-eyed, cynical portrayal of promotional trip on which three men from the photo (Ryan Phillippe, Adam Beach and Jesse Bradford) who survive the battle are trotted out to sell War Bonds; American Indian in the trio (Beach as Ira Hayes) is treated with racist condescension. Searingly graphic, gut-spilling battle scenes (as in "Saving Private Ryan," R, 1998); profanity; ethnic slurs; drinking, smoking. 16 and older with a feel for history and strong stomachs.)
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