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JANE HORWITZ - FAMILY FILMGOER |
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``The Nativity Story'' (PG, 1 hr., 42 min.) ``Turistas'' (R, 1 hr., 29 min.) If Americans aren't feeling paranoid enough in relation to the rest of the world these days, ``Turistas'' ought to make them even more leery of international travel, especially if it is off the beaten path. A skillful, smart (but also violent and gory) thriller more for audiences 16 and older, ``Turistas'' pits Western naivete and self-centeredness against Third World poverty and resentment. This nightmare travel saga feels eerily possible, like an urban myth proved real. A group of young, free-spirited American, British and Australian tourists (Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew chief among them) are stranded in the Brazilian jungle after a bus crash. They party on a beach, unaware that a local doctor (Miguel Lunardi) and his gang plan to drug and abduct them, then harvest their organs for sale. The film depicts graphic surgery, gunplay, stabbings, head-bashings, strong profanity, toplessness, sexual innuendo, nonexplicit sexual situations, drug abuse, drinking and smoking. ``Bobby'' (R, 1 hr., 51 min.) High-schoolers fascinated by the upheavals of the 1960s can get a vivid sense of it all from this vividly acted, engrossing film -- its moments of truth far more plentiful than its occasional contrivances or cliches. ``Bobby'' takes place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in June 1968 on the day of the California primary. Just after midnight June 5 at the hotel, Robert F. Kennedy declared victory. He was shot soon after he left the podium and died June 6. Writer/director Emilio Estevez has invented a host of characters to embody the times, among them a busboy (Freddy Rodriguez), a cook (Laurence Fishburne) a young woman (Lindsay Lohan) marrying a pal (Elijah Wood) to keep him out of Vietnam, two campaign workers (Shia LeBeouf and Brian Geraghty) who drop LSD with a hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher), a hairdresser (Sharon Stone) whose husband (William H. Macy) runs the hotel, and a retired doorman (Anthony Hopkins) and his chess buddy (Harry Belafonte). Robert Kennedy appears only in news clips. The shooting unfolds from the onlookers' point of view. The characters we've met are splattered with his blood or their own. The film also contains profanity, racial slurs, sexual innuendo, muted sexual situations, brief nudity, drinking and smoking. ``Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny'' (R, 1 hr., 33 min.) Even those not familiar with the real-life band of the title, Tenacious D (fronted by Jack Black and Kyle Gass, who star in the film), may find big chuckles in this good-natured rocker/slacker comedy, if they like their humor silly, smart and subversive. It will attract high-school aficionados of low comedy and hard rock, but ``Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny'' is not, technically, for teens under 17, with its lewd and profane content. The movie tells (sort of) how Black and Gass met in Los Angeles in the 1990s -- two guitar-playin' dudes seeking greatness -- while adding a fantasy (which droops, mid-film) about their quest to acquire (i.e. steal) the guitar ``Pick of Destiny.'' The movie contains steaming profanity, explicit sexual language, the depiction (covered by briefs) of an erect penis, a guitar designed to look like a woman's splayed legs, semi-nudity, much drug use, gunfire, the image of a man's head exploding, a father (Meat Loaf) taking a belt to his son, gross toilet humor and beer drinking. BEYOND THE RATINGS GAME -- 6 AND OLDER: ``The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause'' G (Bright colors and slapstick may divert kids from tacky sets, poorly molded elf ears and a charmless, pseudo-sentimental script in this lame, derivative sequel (to ``The Santa Clause,'' PG, 1994, which wasn't bad, and ``The Santa Clause 2,'' G, 2002, which was); Scott (Tim Allen), the regular guy who took up the Santa mantle in 1994, is in his busy pre-Christmas season; as his wife (Elizabeth Mitchell) is very pregnant, he brings her parents (Alan Arkin and Ann-Margret) up for a visit, hiding from them the fact that he is Santa and they are at the North Pole; nasty Jack Frost (Martin Short -- droll, but unable to save the film) plots to make their visit so bad that Scott/Santa quits. Under-6s may be scared when Jack Frost freezes people, or Mrs. Santa goes (gently) into labor; one flatulent reindeer.) -- 7 AND OLDER: ``Happy Feet'' PG (Computer-animated fable spends its first two acts as a glorious, funny, poignant penguin pop musical celebrating diversity; act three morphs into a grim screed about human encroachment on the birds' Antarctic habitat; despite a happy ending, it feels like two films; Mumble (voice of Elijah Wood), a fledgling Emperor penguin, doesn't have the singing voice, or ``heartsong,'' crucial to finding a mate; instead, he's driven since birth to tap dance (his steps reflect ``motion-captured'' moves by tap king Savion Glover) and his colony rejects him; he finds comical friends among an Adelie colony (led by Robin Williams as Ramon) of Latino penguins; sad about losing the lovely, silver-throated Gloria (Brittany Murphy) at his home colony, he goes off to learn why the penguins' fish supply is shrinking and finds humans. Scary bits include looming ships, huge fishing nets and debris; extra-scary scenes show leopard seals, killer whales, birds of prey bursting out of water or swooping down at Mumble; a penguin nearly asphyxiates as a plastic six-pack holder tightens on his neck. Intense for many kids under 7, some under 8.) ``Flushed Away'' PG (Deliciously witty computer-animated fable mimics clay-mation style of ``Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit'' (G, 2005); many jokes only adults and/or Anglophiles will get, but enough character comedy and action for kids; Roddy (voice of Hugh Jackman), a pampered London pet mouse, gets flushed down the loo by a conniving sewer rat (Shane Richie) and finds a mini-London below, built by rodents and bugs from debris; he and a girl mouse (Kate Winslet) take on an evil cabal of rats and amphibians (Ian McKellen as ringleader, Toad). Mild toilet humor (a chocolate bar, partly in a wrapper, floats by; oozy brown slugs that shriek and sing); under-7s could be unnerved by chase scenes on sewer rapids and a tsunami-like flood; insults such as ``dipstick'' and ``get stuffed''; Roddy eats maggots that look like rice.) -- 10 AND OLDER: ``The Nativity Story'' PG (NEW) (Reverent, understated telling (based on gospels of Matthew and Luke) of the story of Mary, Joseph and the birth of Jesus; fine actors, authentic-looking settings, and a fervent but non-proselytizing tone that will move believers, but not put off non-Christians. In a scene depicting the Massacre of the Innocents, a soldier draws his sword and a parent weeps over a dead child -- nothing graphic shown; pained talk among Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes), her family and intended husband, Joseph (Oscar Isaac), about her pregnancy -- they cannot believe her claims of virginity and divine intervention at first; crowd threatens to stone Mary; dead prisoners shown bound to trees or crucified; a snake startles Mary's donkey as they cross the river and she falls in. Kids will need good attention spans, as film is rather stately, quiet.) ``The Cave of the Yellow Dog'' (A little Mongolian nomad girl finds a puppy but her father, worried it might have links to the wolves who have been killing his sheep, doesn't want her to keep it; (PLOT GIVEAWAY: ending is happy); visually ravishing, touching family saga, (filmed with charming, stoic non-actors) rich in cultural details -- talk of their belief in reincarnation; making cheese; taking down the elaborate family tent, or yurt. Strong, not overly graphic scenes show: bloodied sheep killed by wolves; skinning sheep; burial of a dead dog (not the girl's pup); vultures stalking a toddler, his worried emotional at finding him in time; adults smoking. In Mongolian with English subtitles.) ``Deck the Halls'' PG (Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick waste time and electricity as New England neighbors who feud over the new guy's (DeVito) glitzy Christmas lights in this crass, throwaway comedy. Mild, but occasionally naughty sexual innuendo: not-quite-naked cheesecake poster, a boy spying on pretty teenage twins, a verbal joke hinting that a man's privates are peeking out of his briefs, homophobic humor, references to sheriff being a cross-dresser (bra and thong visible at edges of his uniform), teen girls doing a mildly sexy dance routine and their fathers, not recognizing them, cheering as though they were strippers; gross gags (camel spit); rare mild profanity; irreverent use of holy water; a sleigh falls into a pond; a speed skating pileup.) -- PG-13s: ``Deja Vu'' (Denzel Washington rules the screen as an ATF agent investigating the bombing of a crowded New Orleans ferry in a tightly wound thriller that blends suspense, humanism, faith and physics; he focuses on one apparent victim (Paula Patton) among the dead, observing her life before the bombing via a new time-bending surveillance technology. Ferry explosion is harrowing, people hurled overboard, some on fire -- no injuries or deaths graphically shown; point-blank shootings; car chases, crashes; emergency-room defibrillation; drowning; sexual innuendo, some of it semi-crude (joke alludes to gay sex in prison); implied nudity; rare profanity; drug reference. Violence, domestic terror themes too intense for some middle-schoolers.) ``The Fountain'' (Writer/director Darren Aronofsky's visually stunning but confused, often treacly experiment -- a meditation on death and loss that alternates between 16th century, modern times and 26th century in saga of a driven scientist (Hugh Jackman) searching for a cure for brain tumors, while his wife (Rachel Weisz) suffers from the disease; 16th-century scenes -- part of a book she writes -- show him as a Spanish conquistador, sent by his queen (Weisz) to find a Mayan temple hiding the Tree of Life; 26th-century scenes show him as a Buddha-like figure traveling in space. Sword fights, stabbings -- none too graphic; heretics strung up, dropped into a pit; understated surgery, death bed scenes; bathtub scene ends with subtly implied start of sexual situation; rare profanity.) ``Copying Beethoven'' (Thrilling tale imagines a collaboration between Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris) near the end of his life -- slovenly, filled with music but almost totally deaf -- and a gifted (fictional) young female composer (Diane Kruger) who ignores his crudeness and verbal abuse, copies his new scores for the printer and, in a glorious sequence, crouches among orchestra players to help him keep the beat while conducting his new Ninth Symphony; a vivid take on the gift and pain of genius, film posits a difficult man with a good heart. Rude humor, including the composer exposing his backside; profanity; sexual innuendo; sexual language; drinking; rats. Arts-aware high-schoolers.) ``Casino Royale'' (Daniel Craig is an arresting, rough-edged James Bond, newly licensed to kill and capable of mistakes, in crackerjack spy thriller; film departs from Bond traditions (gadgetry, sly repartee) and uses telling bits of realpolitik (guerrilla fighters in Africa), and is also long and violent; villain is a banker (Mads Mikkelsen) to terrorists; Bond plots to bankrupt him in a high-stakes poker game; a gorgeous money minder (Eva Green) from Bond's boss, M (Judi Dench), tags along. Bone-snapping fights, gunplay, a drowning, a poisoning, animal pit fight; sour note is a prolonged torture scene in which it is strongly implied that a captive, naked Bond (seated, seen from the side) is battered on his privates; steamy, nongraphic love scenes; scantily clad women; drinking. Iffy for middle-schoolers.) -- R's: ``Turistas'' (NEW) (Savvy thriller exploits American paranoia in tale of young Western tourists (chiefly Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew) stranded in jungles of Brazil after a bus mishap, partying on the beach till they pass out, waking up to find they've been drugged and set up by a village doctor (Miguel Lunardi) who wants to harvest their kidneys; slyly contrived as a Third World/First World issue. Graphic, gory surgery depicted; gunplay, stabbings, head-bashings; strong profanity; toplessness; sexual innuendo; nonexplicit sexual situations; drug use, drinking, smoking. 16 and up.) ``Bobby'' (Vividly acted, engrossing, more often poignant than contrived saga by Emilio Estevez entwines changing lives of fictional characters in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel on the day Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who had just won California's Democratic primary, was assassinated there; featuring: William H. Macy as a hotel manager, Sharon Stone as his hairdresser wife, Lindsay Lohan as a young woman marrying a pal (Elijah Wood) to keep him out of Vietnam, Freddy Rodriguez as a busboy, Laurence Fishburne as a cook, Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte as retirees, many others. Shooting re-enacted from onlookers' point of view -- some splattered with Kennedy's or their own blood; two characters use LSD; racial slurs; profanity; sexual innuendo; implied sexual situations; brief nudity; drinking, smoking. High-schoolers fascinated by 1960s.) ``Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny'' (Good-natured, funny, musically rich rocker/slacker comedy offers mythic account of how Jack Black and Kyle Gass met and melded guitars in early 1990s to become the band Tenacious D; middle section about their vision quest to acquire (i.e. steal) the guitar ``Pick of Destiny'' gets old fast. Steaming profanity; explicit sexual language; sexual content includes depiction of an erect penis inside briefs; guitar designed to look like a woman's splayed legs; semi-nudity; drug use; gunfire; image of a man's head exploding; a dad (Meat Loaf) taking a belt to his son; gross toilet humor; beer drinking. 16 and older -- hopefully not younger.) ``Candy'' (NEW, LIMITED RELEASE) (Intensely acted, but turgid Australian drama about horrors of addiction (based on Luke Davies' novel) embodied in young lovers (Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish) whose artsy lives disintegrate as they get into heroin. Graphic drug use; sexual situations with semi-nudity; strong profanity; crude sexual slang; characters engage in prostitution, shoplifting to pay for drugs; stillborn infant graphically shown, cradled; psychological breakdown; implied overdose/suicide; parental anguish; drinking, smoking. 17 or older.) ``Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' (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 caught unaware that the crude, sex-obsessed, viciously anti-Semitic, but puppyish Borat is not real. Tone is sexually explicit, misogynistic, bigoted, crude, profane, squirm-inducing. Near-frontal nudity; jokes about rape; very graphic sexual language; likely to offend actual Kazakhs with its portrayal. No under-17s -- more for college kids into rude, whacked-out humor.)
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