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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 2005)
october 7.2005 FILM ’ jUSt OUt 4g REVIEWS Corpse Bride image created by former Microsoft pro grammers, it could once again find a huge following. Opens Oct. 10 at Holly wood Theatre. B —YPB On the run from an arranged marriage, Victor accidentally weds the reanimated corpse of a jilted bride, but he soon finds that life with the dead might be simpler than romance among the living. Tim Bur ton’s stop-motion animated film is enjoy able, and the vocals by Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and others are per fect. But comparisons to The Nightmare Before Christmas are inevitable, and Corpse Bride just isn’t as good. It is, however, a great deal more entertaining than most live- action films, and appropriate for all ages. B —Andy Mangels Oliver Twist Elizabethtown Just in time for Halloween, the ghost of Ed Wood seems to have possessed Cameron Crowe, the writer and director of this shock ingly inept black comedy about a suicidal cipher (bland babe Orlando Bloom) who travels from Oregon to Kentucky after los Jodie Foster hits long stretches of turbulence in Flightplan. ing his job as a shoe designer and losing his father to a heart attack, until a “vivacious” in for this absurd but rousing thriller about a Locke, is subtler than his prior adaptations stewardess (Kirsten Dunst) comes along and grieving widow’s frantic encounters with possi (Crash, Naked Lunch) but equally skewed and rocks his world. (Junebug and Garden State han ble terrorists and bitchy stewardesses. First-class disconcerting. Is all-around good guy Tom dled similar subject matter much, much better.) performances by Foster and Peter Sarsgaard Stall (Viggo Mortensen) an unimpeachable Crowe, on a losing streak since 200l’s Vanilla can’t quite overcome a screenplay that hits small-business owner and family man—really Sky, substitutes a relentless soundtrack for char long stretches of turbulence. B- as heroic as he seems, or is there something acter development and hopes nobody will —SB to suspicions about what may be his pitch- notice. Opens Oct. 14. F+ black past? And is violence really so far —Jim Radosta removed from even the most apparently idyl Ganges: River to Heaven lic human scenarios? The film is a challeng Award-winning filmmaker Gayle Ferraro ing and disquieting meditation on how hon Everything Is Illuminated (Anonymously Yours) directed this wonderful est (or hypocritical) we are about the less Actor Liev Schreiber (The Manchurian Cam documentary about rhe final journey of devot pleasant, instinctually aggressive parts of didate) wrote and directed this flawed but high ed Hindus to the sacred river in India. After human nature. A ly engaging adaptation of Jonathan Safran watching this film, one wonders if the natural Christopher McQuain Foer’s celebrated 2002 novel. Elijah W<xxl, for force, polluted from years of overuse, will be merly known as Frodo, plays a btxikish Ameri strong enough to survive the beliefs of a can Jew who teams up with a blind tour guide nation and the adoration of generations to A League of Ordinary and a rambunctious translator to search come. The young and the strong purify them Gentlemen Ukraine for the woman who saved his grand selves in the polluted waves, and the old and father from the Nazis. To avoid getting tangled infirm wait for their death, too weak for that If you are a passionate bowler or ever up in Foer’s folk tales and historical digressions, ritual. In time, the Ganges carries their soul, wanted to know anything about professional Schreiber leaves out some of the novel’s most released from the bondage of reincarnation, to bonding, you will love this documentary. colorful scenes. But the onscreen footage is heaven. Each part of this film sheds new light Imagine this: For 35 years, pro bowling was a handled so well that you can’t help but forgive on India’s evolving society and its unchanging television highlight every Saturday afternoon the dodgy script. A- veneration of the Ganges. Opens Oct. 10 at on CBS. Average Americans could identify —Stephen Blair Hollywood Theatre. A with these sports heroes because a lot of the —Yvonne P. Behrens viewers were bowlers themselves. But people eventually lost interest in the sport’s middle Flightplan brow image, and the Professional Bowlers A History of Violence Has lesbian icon Jodie Foster lost her Association lost fans to the National Football daughter at 30,000 feet, or is she totally League and NASCAR. However, pro bowling The latest from David Cronenberg, from a might be ready for a comeback: With a new honkin’ crazy? Find out when you strap yourself graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Director Roman Polanski and screen writer Ronald Harwood’s follow-up to The Pianist is a lushly photographed, well-acted, sometimes dutiful rendition of Charles Dickens’ famous story of the mistreated, innocent titular orphan searching for his place in the sinister world of Victorian England. Polanski’s version may be a touch too reverential— it tiptoes to the point of enervation at times, and it lacks the particular charm and energy of David Lean’s fine film from 1948—but it is a faithful, thoughtful and rather pretty adaptation of a perennially resonant piece of literature. B —CM Two for the Money Based on a true story of fame and fortune, this entertaining film takes us into the dan gerous world of sports betting. Former college football player Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey) has the ability to predict the outcome of games and becomes the most suc cessful handicapping guru in sports betting. Al Pacino is absolutely brilliant as Walter, who hires Lang for his huge sports consulting company and grooms him as his frontman. When Walter’s manipulation of his protégé crosses the line, each one tries to win the upper hand. B —YPB Waiting... Some insight regarding the indignities of waiting tables, a token lesbian subplot and the re-emergence of Freaks and Geeks star John Francis Daley cannot redeem this sophomoric independent comedy—set at an Applebee’s- like chain restaurant with a twentysomething wait staff composed of horny boys and ambiva lent girls—from its ultimate dumbness. Waiting... does, however, raise the question of whether straight guys are as fed up with being depicted as moronic jerks and losers as we gay men are with equivalently shallow cultural' stereotypes of us. 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