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Be Kind Rewind / **1/2 (PG-13)
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"Be Kind, Rewind" (PG-13. /// minutes). After every tape in a VHS rental store is inadvertently erased, Jack Black and Mos Def don't want the store owner (Danny Glover) to find out. So they set to work to "re-enact" them in low-tech home movies. I felt positive and genial while watching it, but I didn't break out in paroxysms of laughter. Written and directed by the usually more brilliant Michel Gondry.
Rating: Two and a half stars
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Charlie Bartlett / **1/2 (R)
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Charlie Bartlett -- A teen comedy about a kid's fantasies of popularity -- brought about by illegally selling prescription drugs to his fellow students. is based on successful teen comedy formulas of the '70s, '80s, and '90s, like "My Bodyguard," "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Breakfast Club" and "Say Anything..." The romance between Charlie and Susan (which even has a Cat Stevens song for a theme) is basically "Harold and Maude" with a gorgeous teenage girl instead of feisty septuagenarian Ruth Gordon. Like many of John Hughes' high school movies it presents a fantasy about kids from different social circles -- nerds, jocks, punks, cheerleaders, drama clubbers -- coming together for a larger cause. Rated R, 97 minutes (Jim Emerson)
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The Signal / *** (R)
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"The Signal" -- A horror-comedy in three parts, about an outbreak of anti-social behavior that causes "one out of every two people" to impulsively murder the other one out of every two people. "The Signal" explores the common ground between visceral horror and sketch comedy, and finds plenty of it. (Running time: 101 minutes) Three stars.
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The Spiderwick Chronicles / ***1/2 (PG)
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Paramount and Nickelodeon presents a film directed by Mark Waters and written by Karey Kirkpatrick, David Barenbaum and John Sayles, based on the books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. Photographed by Caleb Deschanel. Running time: 96 minutes. Classified PG (for scary creature action and violence, peril and some thematic elements).
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Diary of the Dead / *** (R)
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By Jim Emerson, Editor
When young filmmakers gather to shoot cinema-verite video documentaries, watch out: Something really bad is going to happen. In “The Blair Witch Project,” it was ... well, we don’t really know what it was, but it sure freaked out Heather.
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Le Doulos / ***1/2 (Not rated)
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"Le Doulos" (Unrated, 108 minutes). Great-looking 1963 Parisian film noir by a French master of the genre, Jean-Pierre Melville. Stars Jean- Paul Belmondo, Michel Piccoli and others in a twisted plot of criminal double-crossing, revenge, and mistaken revenge. The title translates as "the finger man," and also refers to the hats the characters wear, in a film rich with atmosphere. Rating: Three and a half stars
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Jumper / *1/2 (PG-13)
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"Jumper" -- Hayden Christensen can "jump" anywhere anytime. Samuel L. Jackson wants to kill him. In Giza and New York and London and Paris and Rome and Tokyo and Ann Arbor. There are no rules. There is no plot. A series of random events occur. Sometimes they're so silly they make you laugh. Most of the time you'd rather be anywhere else. Rated PG-14, 88 minutes. 1.5 stars
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Great Movie: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
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By Roger Ebert
The staircase should be billed along with the stars in Robert Aldrich's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962). On a claustrophobic set, it dominates many shots, separating the upstairs captivity of the paraplegic Blanche from the downstairs lair of her deranged sister Jane. Although the two sisters live in a "mansion" that allegedly once belonged to Valentino, it is jammed between nosy neighbors and seems to consist only of a living room, a kitchen, a hallway and a bedroom for each sister. In this hothouse a lifelong rivalry turns vicious, in one of Hollywood's best gothic grotesqueries.
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