Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Kimberly Chun, David Fear, Dina Gachman, Susan Gerhard, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Laurie Koh, Patrick Macias, and Chuck Stephens. The film intern is Melissa McCartney. See Rep Clock and Movie Clock for theater information.

Opening

Against the Ropes Ever since she was a girl, Jackie Kallen (Meg Ryan) wanted to have a ringside seat in the boys' club of professional boxing. She gets her chance when a piggish fight promoter (Tony Shalhoub) humiliates her into becoming a manager, and her first find (Omar Epps) turns out to be a diamond in the rough. It's easy to see why Ryan, who helped nurture the movie for years, saw Kallen's tough-cookie true story as an opportunity to expand her horizons, but what's funny is how much of the old Ryan persona still comes through – she even makes flinty seem cuddly here. One wonders why she didn't solicit a more experienced director than her costar Charles S. Dutton to helm her pet project, however, as the first-time feature filmmaker's insistence on cliché combinations (there's even a slow Rudy clap!) and slapping on the most willfully cheesy score ever reduces the Cinderella boxing story to nothing but the NutraSweet science. (1:51) (Fear)

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday) stars in this comedy about a New York City teen who reluctantly moves to the suburbs with her family. (1:30)

Crying Ladies The lives and loves of professional keeners are explored in this Filipino movie. (1:50)

Eurotrip Kind of like Road Trip, except in Europe. (1:32)

Kitchen Stories See Movie Clock. (1:35) Smith Rafael.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery Early on in Charles Atlas's tribute to the enfant terrible of London's '80s art world and drag scene, a family member holds up a school picture of the young Australian lad radiating a wide-grinned innocence. Cut to the boy years later dressed in a latex bodysuit and in blackface, and you've pretty much captured the essence of the late Leigh Bowery, a one-man fashion disaster-cum-shock artist who somehow managed to make his clubland-meets-Cabaret Voltaire vogue designs both whimsical and absolutely terrifying. That a documentary about a figure so devoted to breaking down all types of barriers – from sexuality and haute couture to simple good taste – should tell his story in the tame verite path of talking-head interviews almost seems more perverse than Bowery's anything-goes attitude. But when Atlas simply lets Bowery's legacy do the talking through the plentiful photo shoots and performance footage left behind after the innovator's AIDS-related demise in the '90s, the result feels legendary indeed. (1:22) Roxie. (Fear)

*Osama See "What's in a Name?" (1:22)

Welcome to Mooseport The President of the United States (Gene Hackman) retires to a small town, where he runs afoul of the local hardware store owner (Ray Romano) when he runs for mayor and starts romancing the local veterinarian (Maura Tierney). (1:50)

Ongoing

Along Came Polly It seems that romantic bliss will forever elude a neurotic insurance risk assessor (Ben Stiller) – especially when he catches his wife cheating on their honeymoon. A chance meeting with a free-spirited old friend (Jennifer Aniston) could change that unlucky-in-love curse, if the gent can control his penchant for social embarrassment and his irritable bowel syndrome. Stiller sleepwalks amiably through his now-signature schmiel routine, and Aniston confirms she'll be a great comedian one day with the right material, but the most striking thing about this easy paycheck is how numbingly familiar it feels. You can pick off the past comic home runs – the reprised Farrelly brothers comedy of heartbreak and humiliation, the ghosts of sitcoms past, Philip Seymour Hoffman channeling Jack Black's anima, Alec Baldwin condensing director John Hamburg's hilarious first film, Safe Men, into one wedding speech – but it's hard to find this jalopy of spare parts particularly funny. (1:30) (Fear)

The Barbarian Invasions Remy (Remy Girard) is terminally ill; an irascible personality, divorce, and endless flings suggest he's the sort who might die alone. However, his ex-wife Louise (Dorothee Berryman) dutifully guilt-trips their son Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) into returning to Montreal from London for the sake of a father he's scarcely on speaking terms with. Dad views son as a crass capitalist; son views unrepentant "sensual socialist" dad as, well, an asshole – which he is, among other things. Their gradual reconciliation is foregrounded in the cluttered canvas of Denys Arcand's new film, a belated sequel to 1987's Decline of the American Empire that replaces that film's sexual politics seriocomedy with a thematically sprawling meditation on post-9/11 life. A collapsing Canadian health care system, aging baby boomers queasily entering late middle age, callous and/or lost younger generations, threats to the social order both external (e.g., terrorism) and internal (drug addiction) – these are just a few of the myriad issues Arcand touches on here. He balances them all cleverly, even building up to a close many viewers will find genuinely tear-jerking. This film is winning prizes all over. I found it just as glib, misanthropic, and sentimentally manipulative at times as it is undeniably skillful overall. (2:03) (Harvey)

Barbershop 2: Back in Business Calvin's barbershop is back, and once again this cornerstone of the neighborhood is in trouble. What made the original Barbershop so unique was its quirky and loving look at urban culture as seen through the eyes of a group of coworkers and friends. Calvin (Ice Cube) and his crew of comedic employees (Eve and Cedric the Entertainer most notably) ripped on each other while arguing about politics and love, and it was magic. In the sequel the focus is still on the community, but it's hard to say if Barbershop 2 goes too far – or holds too much back. Often the characters fall short of regaining the banter and relationships that worked so well before. The film guarantees a ton of laughs, but in developing tighter story lines and working with a bigger budget, something got lost. Barbershop 2 lives up, but it hardly surpasses. (1:40) (Melissa McCartney)

*The Battle of Algiers Not many movies can boast a continual presence on many greatest-film-ever lists and the dubious "privilege" of being name-dropped by Pentagon officials as a tool for understanding terrorism some 39 years after its release, but Gillo Pontecorvo's masterpiece is not your typical Saturday afternoon matinee. It's truly revolutionary in every sense of the word, from the you-are-there newsreel aesthetic (it's hard to register that you're watching a work of fiction even after several viewings) to its cast of real-life Algerian Liberation Front members dramatizing their guerrilla struggle against French colonialists. History won't be weighing in on any current imperialistic parallels viewers might recognize in Pontecorvo's ticking agitprop time bomb for several generations, but if there's a lesson to be drawn from this classic, it's that the fight for hearts and minds by any other name still comes with a price: the humanity of both oppressors and resistance alike. (2:03) Castro. (Fear)

Big Fish Parenthood can turn almost anybody into a softy, which is good news for the human spirit overall but occasionally very bad news for the artistic one. The fact that he recently had a child with Helena Bonham Carter (who plays several heavily disguised roles here, to no great effect) is the only explanation I can hazard as to why Tim Burton has suddenly started – suck in your breath now – imitating Steven Spielberg's worst instincts. The bedside vigil of semi-estranged son Will (Billy Crudup) over Southern braggart dad Edward Bloom (Albert Finney, better than this crap deserves) is the spur for reprise of the latter's favorite "autobiographical" tall tales, which are like old Twilight Zone episodes with a sugar glaze. This crossbreeding of Forrest Gump and What Dreams May Come is Disney-esque pseudo-folklore whose grasp on "childlike wonder" and maudlin "family is the most important thing!" values feel factory-issued. Never mind that Edward has been a crappy, egomaniacal, hot-air-blowing father – reconciliation here is grimly, cloyingly inevitable. (2:00) (Harvey)

The Butterfly Effect Long have the world's stoners pondered the questions raised in The Butterfly Effect: namely, (a) if you could go back and replay one scene in your life, what would be the consequences for you, your loved ones, and the universe at large, and (b) wouldn't that be trippy? And in a sense, who better than Ashton Kutcher, the small screen's patron saint of smoke-filled rec rooms, to grapple with those questions writ large as Evan Treborn, a troubled college student prone to journaling, nosebleeds, and traveling back in time via memory to avert personal tragedy? There's some sick, sick shit going on here, including child porn and extreme acts of cruelty toward animals and babies. But having to sit through Kutcher's exaggerated attempts at dramatic interpretation for the length of a feature film surpasses even those outrages. It's fun watching Evan and his friends go through extreme makeovers with every new scenario, but as the thrill of hurtling down memory lane wears off, The Butterfly Effect may raise a topical question for restless filmgoers: namely, how would my life had been different if I hadn't gone to the movie theater today? (1:53) (Rapoport)

Calendar Girls In a small English town, weekly meetings of the Women's Institute give the local ladies a chance to meet and socialize. Mostly they celebrate the virtues of pressing flowers and making jam – and it all seems fairly staid and harmless. However, when John (John Alderton) passes away from leukemia, his widow, Annie (Julie Walters), and her close friend Chris (Helen Mirren) decide to try and raise money for a memorial at the local hospital. Chris gets the idea that they should do a very tasteful nude calendar – so, inspired by John's idea that women (like flowers) in the final stages of their lives are the most glorious, Chris and Annie convince a number of other W.I. members to join them. As it turns out, the calendar of beautiful mature women baring it all for charity becomes an international sensation. Enjoyable, feisty, and incredibly funny, Calendar Girls – based on a true tale – is a film about women, friendship, and how easy it can be to defy expectations. (1:48) (Cindy Emch)

Catch That Kid Though marketed like another Spy Kids, Catch That Kid is missing the ultracool gadgets, outlandish villains, and zippy pace that made that series fun. This is Ocean's 11 Years Old – in other words, your average bank-heist flick dumbed down to a boringly digestible degree. Kristen Stewart plays Maddy, a daredevil rock climber whose parents disapprove of her hobby. That's understandable because Dad took a nasty digger on Mt. Everest and now requires emergency surgery. Maddy rashly decides she must rob a bank to pay for his operation and recruits the help of her two dorky sidekicks/admirers. Conveniently, Mom (Jennifer Beals) designed the bank's flimsy security system and the children easily sneak in. The whole thing is slow and run-of-the-mill but harmless enough. Stewart can actually act, which she proved as Patricia Clarkson's tomboy daughter in The Safety of Objects. Let's hope she spies her way back to the art house. (1:34) (Koh)

*City of God City of God is a Rio de Janeiro housing project, but rather than simply present it as a setting, director Fernando Meirelles views it as a character – perhaps the dominant one – in the film. In one vivid segment a single fixed point of view witnesses the deterioration of an apartment as it's passed down from one drug dealer to another. The stronger and younger the kingpin, the trashier his kingdom. But static points of view aren't Meirelles's specialty. Working with codirector Kátia Lund, he's stylistically giddy in the face of much adolescent and preadolescent violence, running circles around the surface linearity of the plot's chapter structure and uncorking an array of techniques: God's-eye aerial shots that suggest the almighty has a finger on the fast-forward button, freeze-frame character intros that revive blaxploitation swank, and camera movements that follow the paths of ricocheting bullets or circle around the violence with the speed of a meth-addled figure skater. (2:10) (Huston)

*Cold Mountain A more reliable literary adapter than Merchant Ivory (at least of late), Anthony Minghella, director of The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, brings admirable cinematic sweep, intelligence, and detail to Charles Frazier's hugely popular historical novel. Jude Law is astutely cast as Inman, the young laborer turned Confederate soldier who makes a long, dangerous trek back to his rural North Carolina town during the waning days of the Civil War. Egging him onward through various hardships and bounty-hunter perils is the promise of a reunion with Ada (Nicole Kidman), pampered, Charleston-bred daughter of a minister (Donald Sutherland) whose premature death leaves her alone and helpless amid wartime deprivation. The original, tentative romance between principals is flash-backed between scenes from their variously harrowing present: traveling on foot, he's nearly killed several times over; she almost starves to death before spunky hillbilly Ruby (Renée Zellwegger, dynamic if borderline cartoonish) shows up to commandeer cultivation of the late minister's neglected farmland. Starting with a memorably horrific depiction of the era's savage yet impersonal warfare (dramatizing the July 1864 siege of Petersburg, Va.), Cold Mountain is never less than engaging, with passages by turns lyrical, ironic, brutal, and tender. Still, it's not quite as moving as one would like – and actually becomes least so when Ada and Inman are finally reunited in the last act. (2:35) (Harvey)

*The Company The climactic moment of Robert Altman's The Company takes place 20 minutes into the film, as a pair of dancers perform a soulful, romantic duet on an outdoor stage and the weather turns bad. It's a gorgeously theatrical moment – and a lucky break for one of the dancers, an upcoming member of the company named Ry (Neve Campbell), who was understudying the part when the scheduled soloist sustained an injury. And in another movie altogether – let's say 2000's Center Stage – this windswept scene would have been a shoo-in for grand finale. Instead, we're in Chicago, watching real members (except for Campbell) of a slightly fictionalized Joffrey Ballet, in a film where a surprising, successful performance is, in the shorter term, one good night for one dancer in a season of ups and downs. When director Robert Altman set out to make the film, he clearly believed the real-life dramas of the company's days and nights would be enough to sustain a one-and-a-half-hour movie. But the question remains, will people be transfixed by a series of quiet offstage spectacles, stay to the end waiting for the point to kick in, or leave the theater early in disgust to have irate discussions in the car about the nature of art? (1:52) (Rapoport)

The Cooler William H. Macy is a sadder-sack Bogart, and Maria Bello an updated Gloria Grahame, in this slick indie gloss on retro-Hollywood "B" conventions. He's a former gambler so pathetically ill-starred that he's employed as a "cooler" at a fading-out Vegas casino – a man whose luck is so bad he can be counted on to end winning streaks simply by passing the tables. She's a much younger cocktail waitress with (what else?) a "past." When they fall in love, love redeems them – and their luck, which unfortunately earns the wrath of a casino boss (Alec Baldwin) who can't endure such status quo shifts in the face of his own imminent corporate-management phaseout. The acting is very good, of course – how could Macy disappoint in yet another "lovable loser" role? – and director and coscenarist (with Frank Hannah) Wayne Kramer's story is crafty and flavorful enough in an MGM-circa-1955 way. But even then the story wasn't very fresh or especially interesting, save as a showcase for actors who deserved better. Which they still do. The final reel springs some decent surprises, yet the scent of reheated genre formula is still the strongest smell to emerge from The Cooler. (1:41) (Harvey)

The Dreamers Romantic, atmospheric, nostalgic, offhandedly stunning, and extremely silly, the first minutes of The Dreamers are a not-quite-straight dose of Bernardo Bertolucci. His unmatched directorial flair for shadows that dart from the corner of the screen functions as a flirty counterpoint to the severe blocks of black in Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor, watched by a rapt crowd at Henri Langlois's famed Cinémathèque Française. The audience includes American in Paris Matthew (Michael Pitt), who is about to meet cute twins Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green). It's extraordinary that Bertolucci – the masterful stylist whose filmic flesh caresses famously sent Pauline Kael reeling – hasn't indulged a movie-length ménage à trois so thoroughly before. The Dreamers' turning point occurs when conservative Matthew faints after a shake-it-like-a-Polaroid-picture moment of exposure. Reawakened, he finally enters the twins' childish playland only to discover a sheltered, decaying realm he only half comprehends. The resulting psychological and political insights verge on trite. (2:01) (Huston)

50 First Dates Adam Sandler should thank his lucky stars for Drew Barrymore. After a string of loser films (Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Anger Management) he's finally back on top with Barrymore by his side. The duo don't quite recapture the magic of The Wedding Singer, but thanks to Barrymore's quirky charm and endless charisma, they manage a hilarious romantic comedy, which, oddly enough, isn't a chick flick. While the ludicrous premise is a bit hard to swallow – Barrymore's character loses her memory every night – Sandler makes it work and thankfully doesn't push the gross-out humor too far. The supporting characters, played by Lord of the Rings' Sean Astin and Sandler fave Rob Schneider, steal most scenes they appear in. Sandler is at his best when matched with Barrymore and would do well to remember that. (1:36) (McCartney)

*The Fog of War: 11 Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Faced with the unspeakable, say, the killing of 100,000 civilians in one night of firebombing in Japan, an artist could be excused for choosing not to speak. You certainly can't blame Errol Morris for offering up Philip Glass's assertive soundtrack as a fig leaf for Robert McNamara as he stands naked in a survey of a half century of horrific war footage he had some part in creating. Morris's primary challenge in The Fog of War, a documentary about the frightening fallibility, the terrible inevitability of the American war machine, is that he doesn't just have images of chemical warfare, missiles dropping, nations destroyed. He also has a speaker, a practiced one, to explain and reflect and second-guess – to, in essence, misdirect. Which may be why Morris gives this former secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson so much room to speak, even when he's evading; it's Glass who gives us the real interpretation. Glass's take comes through loud and clear in wind and strings: be afraid, be very afraid. (1:46) (Gerhard)

Girl with a Pearl Earring Lost in Translation It girl Scarlett Johansson plays another passive protagonist in Peter Webber's debut film, an accomplished yet oddly distanced translation of Tracy Chevalier's acclaimed novel. She's forced to work as a servant in the household of master painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) when her own family's fortunes take a downturn in 1665 Delft, Holland. Uneducated yet naturally inquisitive, she gains the attention of the master as model and apprentice – both roles scandalous for a lower-class girl of the era. Girl with a Pearl Earring is nothing if not artful: domestic strife, moral hypocrisy, and class consciousness are neatly interwoven with an artistic inspiration that would eventually loom large in art history. It's handsomely done in aesthetic terms, polished in performance terms. Yet for all its intelligence and skill, Girl just kinda sits there, emotionally, and becomes more schematic than moving. (1:39) (Harvey)

*Gloomy Sunday Though steeped in melodrama, Nick Barkow's novel of overlapping love affairs amid war-torn 1930s Budapest translates stunningly to the big screen. Director Rolf Schübel recaptures all the magic of an old-school drama as his charismatic actors bring the romantic script to life. Very much in love, Laszlo (Joachim Krol) and Ilona (Erika Maroszán) run a restaurant and hire Andras (Stefano Dionisi) to play piano. Andras is quickly pulled in by Ilona's charms, and the three develop an understanding relationship, rather than suffering one man to live without her affection. The film takes its name from the stirring yet depressing song Andras writes for Ilona (in real life, the so-called suicide song, made popular by Billie Holliday, was written in 1935 by Hungarians Rezsö Seress and Laszlo Javor). A return to real movie making, where all the elements blend in a harmony seldom seen in Hollywood these days, Gloomy Sunday cleverly deals with threats to perfect love: the "other man," manipulation, war, and even death. (1:54) Balboa. (McCartney)

The Gospel of John (3:00)

House of Sand and Fog Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly) is a recovering addict whose husband left a few months ago and who ekes out a living cleaning other people's houses. She's depressed. Hence she's not very quick to catch a serious bureaucratic error: nonpayment of an (erroneously charged) business tax ends up getting her evicted from her own home, which has been put up for public auction. The house is sold to Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), a former colonel in the Iranian air force who sees it as the lucky fiscal break he's desperately sought since fleeing his native country. As mutual obstinacy, legal snafus, and some very poor tactical decisions heat up resentment on both sides, Kathy and Massoud head toward a tragic showdown. Commercial director Vadim Perelman's debut feature shaves and/or downplays some of the more extreme melodrama in Andre Dubus III's original literary potboiler. But House takes itself awfully seriously, to diminishing results – the last reel goes over the top, with Sir Ben chewing scenery beyond duty's call. (2:06) Balboa. (Harvey)

In America It's tough to put a magical sheen on living in a drug-addled tenement, but writer and director Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) gives it a shot with In America, a modern Irish immigration story based on his own experience. Attempting to escape the memory of their lost son, Johnny (Paddy Considine) and Sarah (Samantha Morton) move to New York City with their two young girls. Dirt poor but determined, wannabe actor Johnny struggles almost inhumanely to make his family's life bearable, but he can't connect to them given his refusal to grieve. Sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger give amazingly natural performances as the daughters who take the ghetto in stride, expressing genuine delight at the flock of pigeons hogging their new digs. Still, Sheridan's gritty New York is too tangible for the ethereal touch to work beyond the eyes of the sisters, and the film's reliance on cosmic intervention at key moments actually injects predictability into an otherwise engaging story. (1:43) (Koh)

Japanese Story Marooned in the Australian outback, an imperious businessman (Gotaro Tsunashima) and a resentful guide (Toni Collette) are forced into intimacy. But just when the desert turns into an Eden, a fall awaits them. Gossip maestro Michael Musto recently decreed that "quirky romances with a rarefied Japanese twist" have replaced Douglas Sirk tributes as the current cinematic trend; the implicit Western bias of that statement applies to Sue Brooks's Japanese Story as much as to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, though Brooks's fumbling sincerity differs from Coppola's stylish entitlement. These days the lead actors of award-minded dramas are stronger than the films themselves, and Collette's raw, multifaceted performance here is an Oscar calling card complete with the required vanity-free naked moments. (1:45) Smith Rafael. (Huston)

The Last Samurai After James Clavell's Shogun and Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves, noble savage clichés just aren't what they used to be. Yet here's Tom Cruise as Captain Nathan Algren, a Civil War veteran who travels to Meiji-era Japan to become a player in the samurai rebellion, a conflict that pits the ancient ways against a rapidly modernizing world. Falling under the influence of his captor, outlaw Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Algren discovers an "intriguing people" whose devotion to "honor" and "loyalty" inspires him to strap on armor that makes him look about as dramatic as an ice hockey player. To be fair, there's some decent action scenes, but they're not enough to compensate for the film's deadly dramatic failings. The big problem with The Last Samurai is director and co-screenwriter Edward Zwick (Glory) and producer Cruise have constructed a warped Akira Kurosawa fantasy without a single plot twist or surprise that isn't glaringly obvious from frame one. (2:24) (Macias)

*The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King The quest to deliver "The Greatest Fantasy Trilogy Ever Made" has been completed. The hype is right. The Return of the King is the best of the three, but only in part. And it all depends on which part you're talking about. In the first act, we're still mucking about with various monarchs, noble families, and peasants as the film unfolds. Our main characters, hobbits Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin), are still on their dangerous trek to the volcanic Mount Doom. Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and plucky halfling Pippin (Billy Boyd) have arrived at the kingdom of Gondor – ground zero for the long-awaited War of the Ring – where the tone of Return becomes quiet and hushed. Heroically, director Peter Jackson decides to slow down and take a breath himself. From here on out, Jackson assumes a total mastery of the material, and even the deviations from Tolkien's text start to look like improvements. The long, arduous journey to the credits may not have been perfect, and perilously few of those character subplots ever pay out, but for a hearty share of its 3-hour-and-18-minute running time, there can be no doubt that King rules. (3:21) (Macias)

Lost in Translation Halfway through Lost in Translation, it's clear director Sofia Coppola misplaced something other than language somewhere in the air between LAX and Narita. She obviously lost the plot (what glassine, paper-thin bits of it existed, by all accounts) and decided instead to just leave the camera running on her assembled beautiful or amusing characters-slash-objets – a preppily lush Scarlett Johansson, the sleek playground of Tokyo's Park Hyatt, and a resigned Bill Murray – hoping they'd provide the in-flight impromptu entertainment. Maybe in a perfectly art-directed world, they would suffice to fill the pretty vacant spaces of this barely outlined tale. But that's assuming we're as easily amused by Lost in Translation's 105 minutes of good-looking images and vacuous chitchat as we are by sound bites about celebrity cribs. That's assuming we've never glimpsed the sci-fi Tokyo skyline, tried our hand at karaoke, or followed Murray as he navigated a real, meaty part. Instead, Coppola succumbs to the same mistake made by pop stars who get lazy, believe their own hype, and decide everyone can relate to songs about their distorted experiences. (1:45) Four Star. (Chun)

*The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra Driving to a remote southern California cottage should have resulted in a pleasant weekend of locating astral rock fragments for meteor specialist Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire) and perky homemaking for the little woman, Betty (Fay Masterson). But no. Crazed rival scientist Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) is also seeking the mysterious radioactive element "atmospherium" in the arid hills. Worse, he plans on using it to revive an evil entity in a local cave – and (take a guess) to rule the world. Giving the nod to everything from 1953's Robot Monster through 1964's Creeping Terror, writer-director-star Blamire parodies the worst of atomic age sci-fi drive-in horror with deadpan aplomb. It takes true trash-cinema devotion to satirize the clunky B&W visuals, banal dialogue, cheesy FX, library-music hysteria, logic gaps, and pseudoscientific silliness of such high psychotronia quite so accurately – and complete with one-beat-tardy editorial rhythms. Sure, Cadavra is just one big snarky in-joke. But if you're not hep to the in, baby, you are so outsville. (1:29) (Harvey)

*Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World Peter Weir's first film since The Truman Show bears little resemblance to any other action behemoth in recent memory. For the most part, that is a very good thing. Welding together chunks from the lengthy historical fiction series by Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World isn't so much episodic in the usual brief-pauses-between-escalating-climaxes sense as it is picaresque in, well, a 19th-century sense. Like O'Brian, Weir is more interested in the workings and the character of HMS Surprise and its crew (led by Russell Crowe's authoritatively low-key Captain Jack Aubrey) than in battles per se. Which is not to say the face-offs against "old Boney's" (Napoleon Bonaparte's) frigates aren't highly visceral, nor are the surgeries performed by resident doctor-naturalist Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) lacking in gruesome impact. But the movie bears Weir's trademark spectral qualities: the images are spectacular yet fallible, obscured by darkness and the elements; an offhand, lyric humanism makes this probably the least macho film of its type ever made. (2:08) (Harvey)

Miracle Miracle dramatizes the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team's victory over the previously unbeatable USSR ice jockeys; any modest pleasures derived from the stock underdog true story come from recognizing the familiar signposts along its well-worn path – the Ditka-esque coach (Kurt Russell) whose methods are eccentric but effective, the tortuous training montages, the kids who need to prove they've got what it takes, the inspirational speeches, and finally the against-the-odds climactic game that plays like tryouts for Valhalla. Director Gavin O'Connor (Tumbleweeds) has a knack for capturing the era's Northeastern blue-collar landscape, giving the story a concrete sense of place and time. But the movie's insistence on treating the event as if it were myth ludicrously pushes the proceedings into the stratosphere, starting with the sucking-in-the-'70s credit sequence and building toward the idea that this match was the only salve for a beleaguered nation. (2:25) (Fear)

*Monster As de-glamming makeovers go, Charlize Theron's dumpification in this dramatization of the late Aileen Wuornos's 1989-90 serial killing spree sure kicks the bejesus out of Nicole Kidman's Oscar-winning nose cap last year. You can believe it when characters here identify her as indigent and/or crazy by just a glance. Without going into much tortured-childhood backgrounding (a few discreet, disturbing flashbacks under the opening credits suffice), this first feature by writer-director Patty Jenkins effectively conveys the accumulated psychological and physical damage that perhaps inevitably turned Wuornos into a menace. The film charts a span when her life got both better and a whole lot worse: A committed if awkward relationship with a younger woman (Christina Ricci, just so-so) gets her off the streets, determined to improve her circumstances. Without means, education, or any (legal) work experience, however, that goal proves near impossible. And once she crosses a line – killing a brutal roadside-pickup prostitution client in self-defense – financial desperation, suppressed rage, and a faint grip on reality push her to cross it again and again. While the murders are handled bluntly enough, Monster is more depressing than scary or lurid. Its principal aim is as a cautionary character study: used or abandoned by family, institutional help and society in general, Wuornos embodied how extreme human need can warp into "monstrous" toxicity. A worthy movie, driven by a very strong lead performance. (1:51) (Harvey)

*My Architect Told from the vantage of a son who barely got to know his famous father before his death, bankrupt and unidentified in a men's room at New York City's Penn Station, newcomer Nathaniel Kahn's My Architect is a kind of exploded view of a family melodrama. Kahn, we learn, was Louis's third child, the son of the mysterious architect's second mistress, and officially unacknowledged by Louis's wife at his father's funeral. But what comes into focus over the course of the film isn't just the elder Kahn's unconventional sense of domestic relations but also his equally self-centered devotion to the aesthetic ideals of his work (at the expense of commissions and wealth). Nathaniel's filmmaking doesn't begin to pretend to equal the mastery of Louis's architecture, and indeed there are some fabulously irritating aspects to My Architect. But there's no denying the respect and maturity Kahn the younger displays in the way he photographs his father's buildings: he really gets what it means to stand at some crucial vantage point in one of those astonishing creations, watching light murmur through those mysterious angles and cut-ins. (1:46) Smith Rafael. (Stephens)

Mystic River After a poorly executed prologue – and before the plot goes to hell in the last reel – this adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel plays ideally to Clint Eastwood's strengths as a levelheaded, respectful director of both talented actors and meat-and-potatoes drama. A childhood incident in which 11-year-old Dave was kidnapped by pedophiles before the eyes of playmates Jimmy and Sean still hangs over their adult lives. All remained in their original rough, Boston neighborhood, though the three have maintained an awkward distance from each other ever since. That ends when the daughter of corner store owner Jimmy (Sean Penn) is murdered after a night of barhopping – a night when Dave (Tim Robbins) comes home at 3 a.m. to wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) bloodied by what he claims at first is an altercation with a mugger. Guess who's the homicide detective assigned to the case? Sean (Kevin Bacon), of course, alongside his partner, Whitey (Laurence Fishburne). Underplaying the material's potentially clichéd tough-guy milieu and pulp-thriller aspects, Eastwood and scenarist Brian Helgeland orchestrate an engrossing drama. Just the kind of starry, serious, conventional project sure to be remembered at awards time, Mystic River is nonetheless seriously compromised – in my book at least – by a last act that throws away the credible resolution we've been led toward, instead springing a left-field one wildly dependent on coincidence and contrivance. (2:20) (Harvey)

The Perfect Score The SAT may be hard to take and harder to steal, but you wouldn't really know it from The Perfect Score, a film about six kids who aren't afraid to draw outside the bubble (or break into an office building to get copies of the test). The alleged message here, explicated at great length, with diagrams, is that standardized testing is sexist, racist, blind to a young person's individual potential, and generally bunk. These are important points, and I for one am grateful to director Brian Robbins (Ready to Rumble, Varsity Blues) for raising them. But The Perfect Score, packed to the gills with high jinks, stoner gags, and shots of Scarlett Johansson's cleavage, doesn't seem that interested in inciting a rage against the machine. Plus which, it's just dumb. The jokes may provoke incredulous laughter, but that doesn't make them funny. The script in general is likely to wear on the nerves of anyone past tweenhood, the film's only hope of a demographic. And Johansson stands out from her colleagues mostly because of her saucy outfits but also because she can act. It almost makes you wonder if standards are good for something after all. (1:33) (Rapoport)

Peter Pan (1:45)

*The Same River Twice Documentarian Robb Moss shot Riverdogs, a chronicle of his 35-day Grand Canyon rafting trip with 17 (mostly nekkid) best friends, in 1978. A quarter century later he contrasts that footage with the present-day lives of his now middle-aged former fellow travelers, who've nearly all settled into more conventional lifestyles: kids, home ownership, marriage, divorce, health woes. Yet a spark of lingering counterculturalism remains for many; no less than two have earned stints as progressive mayors. The Same River Twice has the built-in fascination of watching real people evolve on camera. If modern life casts a rather wistful shadow on the idyllic views of freespirited youth au naturel amid nature, this is nonetheless one movie that suggests '60s-bred ideals aren't quite dead yet. The only disappointment here is that Moss doesn't seize the opportunity to comment on or analyze the phenomenon of '70s communal lifestyles in general; he's content simply providing a before-and-after snapshot. (1:18) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Secret Things (1:55)

Something's Gotta Give An aging Casanova (Jack Nicholson) locks horns with the uptight playwright mother (Diane Keaton) of his younger girlfriend when the two are forced to share the scribe's Hampton household. Neither can stand the other, but guess who surprisingly falls for each other, go their separate ways, were meant to be together, etc.? The notion that two treasures of American acting get to make sexagenarians sexy and trade barbed ripostes seems like a dream come true. Unless, of course, the duo's dialogue seems cribbed from The View, the film is shot like a Pottery Barn catalogue, and the indiscreet smarm of the bourgeoisie is somehow supposed to pass for knowledgeable carnality ... then, well, any potential dissipates posthaste. Writer-director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want) seems convinced that cutesy charm and reel-life charisma can substitute for real wit or Mars-versus-Venus insight; the only thing that ends up "giving" is one's tolerance for saccharine (cocooned in smug self-love) trying to masquerade as romantic comedy. (2:03) Four Star. (Fear)

The Station Agent Along with Pieces of April, this was part of Patricia Clarkson's one-two punch at the Sundance Film Festival; actually, Clarkson was in four films there, but the other two weren't award winners. In The Station Agent she plays a divorcée grieving her son's death, and the movie's strongest scenes involve her cold-shoulder response when people misguidedly reach out to offer comfort. Tom McCarthy's film is choreographed so that a triad of misfits – two loners (Clarkson and Peter Dinklage) and one extrovert (Bobby Cannavale) – meet up on the train tracks of small-town life, only to break apart again. Dinklage's dwarf protagonist alternately faces and escapes a patronizing world, but it's his rejection by Clarkson's character that truly stings. If all this sounds depressing, rest assured The Station Agent doesn't forget to add moments of hope and whimsy; they just aren't as interesting as its dark side. (1:28) (Huston)

*Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion Many people unfortunately think of the Free Tibet movement as little more than a cause perfect for good celebrity P.R., but if this documentary proves nothing else, it's that Tibet is in serious need of progressive international aid. Following the history of the country as an occupied territory, filmmaker Tom Peosay's look at the atrocities and injustices perpetrated on the Tibetan people – even owning a picture of their Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will get you arrested – has a tendency to flip between a picturesque travelogue (Martin Sheen's narration seems lifted from a Discovery Channel special at times) and a catalogue of horrors. But neither the tonal inconsistencies nor the A-list movie star readings of victim testimonies make the occupier's sins any less painful, and with talking-head footage ranging from an in-denial Chinese diplomat to the Dalai Lama himself, it's an invaluable first step toward understanding Tibet's tragedy. (1:40) Balboa. (Fear)

Touching the Void Mountaineering documentaries generally suffer from the fact that you aren't there, while dramatized ones are either physically unconvincing or have jaw-dropping stunts but wooden characters. Hitherto a notable nonfiction director (One Day in September), Kevin Macdonald chose to realize this adaptation of Joe Simpson's classic 1988 bum-adventure memoir as a mix of documentary and reenactment, which brings its own problems but overall works pretty well. Simpson and his hiking partner Simon Yates alternate telling the tale in talking-head style while two actors (Brendan Mackey and Nicholas Aaron) register varying degrees of panic, exhaustion, and horror high in the Alps (standing in for the Andes). Touching the Void defines the subgenre of "armchair near death-experience travel;" the story is an incredible triumph over impossible odds. But as a viewer who actually enjoys grueling, steep hikes but draws the line when falling equals death, I couldn't help thinking, "These dumb suckers were sooooooo lucky!" from the opening titles to the final credit crawl. (1:46) (Harvey)

*The Triplets of Belleville Perhaps the first major animated export from France since René Laloux's sci-fi epics Fantastic Planet (1973) and Light Years (1988), comic book artist Sylvain Chomet's feature debut is a uniquely vinegary comedy that's like a grown-up 101 Dalmatians. A champion Tour de France bicyclist is kidnapped by bad guys and taken to America for ill purposes. His abduction spurs cross-Atlantic pursuit by grandmother Mme Souza and their corpulent, waddling dog Bruno. Their principal helpers are the titular trio, 1930s music-hall stars since fallen into decrepit eccentricity. Dialogue-free Triplets is funny, inventive, and endlessly referential. The only minus is an overpoweringly dour comic tilt that may strike some viewers as a tad too dyspeptic and cranky for full enjoyment. Like Ralph Bakshi's cartoon features of yore – albeit in a much less racy vein – Triplets is dazzling at times yet so misanthropic you might leave the theater feeling a tad soiled. (1:20) (Harvey)

*21 Grams 21 Grams is a good movie hobbled most by its certainty of greatness; its entire construction, nonstop emotional urgency, and near complete lack of humor signal as much throughout. It's better than most "prestige" efforts – certainly the concurrent Sean Penn vehicle Mystic River, which similarly orchestrates several personal tragedies into contrived sentimental-existential narrative symphonies – due to the makers having one foot in art-house cred and another in starry Hollywood uplift. Amores perros director Alejandro González Iñárritu and scenarist Guillermo Arriaga should be congratulated for making a film that was first conceived for Mexico City seem not at all awkward in the English-language U.S. milieu; what's more, there's a grittiness of tenor and texture that's brave for a commercial film. 21 Grams is so frequently so good on a scene-by-scene basis that one wishes only it hadn't gotten some very big ideas. It's bleak, inventive, and heartfelt to degrees that feel right until they don't. (2:18) (Harvey)

*The Weather Underground Sam Green and Bill Siegel's new documentary explores '60s revolutionaries the Weathermen, one of the warring factions in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that emerged from campus cocoons advocating urban guerrilla warfare. The typical Weatherman was white, 25, had done three years at Ann Arbor or Columbia, and had a passion for getting down that existed in a direct relationship to his or her parents' financial assets. It was a great story – rich kids, anguished parents, terrorism, and life on the run – and the media covered it like a rug. The Weather Underground gives those who wrote the original story a chance to look back and try it again, confined only by various versions of the original. Green and Siegel (the researcher behind Hoop Dreams) approached a number of ex-members and scored one-on-one conversations with most of the group's former leaders. Ironically, the filmmakers had nothing to do with what's most important about The Weather Underground: the timing of its release. "When I started it," Green told me, "no one was thinking about this stuff. Now, well, I wish it wasn't so, but the world has changed a lot. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have raised many issues, and a lot of the questions that people talked about back then are relevant today." (1:32) Balboa. (J.H. Tompkins)

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) should have entered a sweepstakes to win a decent script and some personality for his characters. As far as I can tell, writer Victor Levin spent time trapped inside a Hallmark store pilfering romantic wisdom (to use the term loosely) from Valentine's Day cards; then, after collecting all the lines about love Shoebox had to offer, he divided them among the bland cast. As small-town girl Rosalee, Kate Bosworth (Blue Crush) is cute; she grins constantly and is sweeter than you can stand. Topher Grace holds his own as Rosalee's hilarious, bitterly sarcastic, and romantically overlooked best friend. But Josh Duhamel, the "Tad" of the title, is supposedly a hugely successful, lecherous Hollywood jerk. Considering he can't even act interested in the other characters – or act like he's awake for that matter – it's hard to buy him as a famous thespian. Not everything about this film is bad; it's just that nothing stands out as overwhelmingly good. (1:36) (McCartney)

You Got Served I can't say for certain what caused the breakup of hip-hoppers B2K; my theory is that after seeing their own dismal performances in You Got Served, they realized a collective lack of talent necessitated a fade from the public eye. If history – and J.Lo – has taught us anything, it's that a (quasi-) talented singer does not an actor make. Perhaps if choreographers Wade J. Robson and Shane Sparks could lend their substantial talents to the script or spend as much time coaching line readings as break dancing, this film would fare better: while the dance sequences are phenomenal, and luckily frequent, the rest of the movie is thoroughly cringe-worthy. You Got Served will find an audience with those fans of hip-hop and dance who enjoy the setting and are less interested in substance. My advice? Scrap the nondancing scenes and convert the rest into an extended music video. In other words: everyone involved should stick with what they know. (1:33) (McCartney)

The Young Black Stallion North Africa is the real star of this new Disney Imax film directed by Simon Wincer (Free Willy), who fills the screen with amber images of rolling sand dunes, craggy mountains, and Arabian horses. The story (a prequel to the 1979 film) follows the adventures of Neera (Biana G. Tamimi) and a young, wild stallion as they struggle through the desert and form an unshakable bond. To save her family, she comes up with a plan to enter the horse in the village race. The plot feels hokey, even for a children's movie, yet the beauty of the landscape makes up for it. Despite a few glaring oddities (such as the fact that the two lead children, supposedly raised in North Africa, are the only characters with American accents), the scenery is breathtaking, and the film's short length ensures the pace doesn't drag. (1:00) Metreon Imax. (Emch)

Rep Picks

The Fourth World War See 8 Days a Week. (1:14) Victoria Theatre.