Film Capsules Capsule reviews ... (2024)

the other network (NR) -- See review on Page 47.

First Runs & Revivals

{sstar}ABOUT SCHMIDT (R, 125 minutes) -- After retirement and the death of his wife, insurance executive Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) embarks on a trip across country. His destination: Denver, where his estranged daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis), is about to marry Randall (Dermot Mulroney), a waterbed salesman who promises Jeannie a life of mediocrity. Although the movie (by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor) moves as slowly and flatly as its Midwestern setting, there are powerful rumblings at work beneath the surface. And Nicholson produces the most understated but powerful performance of his career. Contains obscenity and nudity. Area theaters.

{sstar}ADAPTATION (R, 112 minutes) -- From the team (director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman) that gave you "Being John Malkovich" comes a playfully brilliant seriocomedy about the creative process. Ostensibly about the plight of a Hollywood screenwriter (Nicolas Cage) trying to adapt Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," it's really a sort of fun-undrum that's full of stories within stories, ideas within ideas, questions within questions and metaphors within metaphors. And its near-farcical goose chase of a story, full of thrashing 'gators and plot twists, is almost intentionally tacky -- to prove that only the crassest of plots will make a movie hit. It's a chase-your-own-tail punch line that works beautifully, if cynically. Chris Cooper is sensational as an orchid hunter who figures in the story. Contains sexual material, nudity, obscenity, drug use and some violence. Area theaters.

ANALYZE THAT (R, 95 minutes) -- The best thing about "Analyze That" is the title. Beyond that, there's nothing positive to say about this dull sequel to the funny, charming comedy of 1999 that starred Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal as a mobster and his psychiatrist. Shrink Ben Sobel (Crystal) is grieving because he just lost his father, when his cell phone rings. Turns out it's his old pal Paul Vitti (De Niro), the mobster who came to him for all that therapy and gangster action in the last movie. Now he's faking insanity so that the doc will get him out of prison. Without much of a narrative, the movie simply follows the central element -- the would-be wacky relationship -- and that goes nowhere. Contains sexual content, violence and obscenity. University Mall Theatres.

{sstar}ANTWONE FISHER (PG-13, 113 minutes) -- Denzel Washington's directorial debut is an assured character drama that goes straight for the tear ducts. It pits naval psychiatrist Jerome Davenport (Washington) against patient Antwone Fisher (Derek Luke), an angry sailor haunted by an abusive past. And even though the film aims unequivocally for that "Beautiful Mind" category of filmmaking, in which difficult human complexities meet stand-up-and-cheer solutions, it's very affecting. As Antwone, newcomer Luke aches with vulnerability. But Washington is both rainmaker and marquee prince. Even as his character defers to Antwone, he's quietly in charge. Contains violence, obscenity and emotionally distressing material. Area theaters.

BIKER BOYZ (PG-13, 111 minutes) -- Take note: The film about the conflict between a hotshot young motorcyclist (Derek Luke) and his far more senior rival in drag racing (Laurence Fishburne) is called "Biker Boyz" -- not "Biker Girlz" or "Biker Men" -- for a reason, and it's not just the fact that its central character, Kid (Luke), is an 18-year-old guy. "Biker Boyz" is a movie designed to appeal almost exclusively to, as the anthropologists say, juvenile males. It's loud, it's rude, it practically reeks of unwashed socks and the scratch-and-sniff cologne ads in Maxim magazine. And, despite a quasi-oedipal plot line and a half-hearted attempt at the theme of attaining maturity, the film is less concerned with growing up than with rasing hell. Contains dangerous cycling, fistfights, vulgar language and sexually suggestive scenes. Area theaters.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (R, 125 minutes) -- In this stream-of-consciousness riff, documentarian-provocateur Michael Moore takes us from disturbing footage of the Columbine massacre to the attacks on the World Trade Center, stopping off at the home of NRA President Charlton Heston, James Nichols's farm (brother of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols) and several Canadian homes (to "prove" Canadians aren't paranoid). The movie raises many good points and observations. But Moore provides a rather rambling discourse of causality, which includes racism, white flight and Africanized bees, among many things. And he takes predictable aim (with not especially enlightening solutions or answers) at the NRA, the media and a right-wing conspiracy of racists, gun nuts and corporate profitmakers. Contains scenes of disturbing gun violence and some obscenity. Muvico Egyptian Theatres, Foxchase and Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle.

{sstar}CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (PG-13, 140 minutes) -- Steven Spielberg's charming, diverting story is based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a teenager who cashed more than $2 million in fraudulent checks. And under assumed names, he passed himself off as a doctor, a lawyer, a professor and, in the boldest of schemes, an airline pilot. The movie makes this a modern Peter Pan story, in which Frank wins the day through playful mischief, much to the chagrin of FBI Special Agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), a veritable Captain Hook who's determined to arrest him. This all takes place in an age of innocence, the 1960s, when you could con your way into a Pan Am jet just because you were wearing the uniform. Contains sexual material, some violence and some obscenity. Area theaters.

{sstar}CHICAGO (PG-13, 107 minutes) -- Not since "Cabaret" has there been a movie musical this stirring, intelligent and exciting. The choreography, by director Rob Marshall and Cynthia Onrubia, is inspired. And screenwriter Bill Condon ingeniously reimagines the musical as a film noir set of dreams in the mind of central character, Roxie Hart. Renee Zellweger's terrific as Roxie, the starlet who'll stop at nothing to be the talk of the town. Catherine Zeta-Jones is assured and sexy as Velma Kelly, Roxie's rival performer. Richard Gere, a musician and veritable hoofer, more than completes the marquee package as oily lawyer Billy Flynn. Maybe no movie could ever hold a candle to the great musicals of the past, the ones starring Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers and Donald O'Connor. But "Chicago" sure lights the wick. Contains sexual content, obscenity and violence. Area theaters.

{sstar}CITY OF GOD (R, 130 minutes) -- Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, co-director Katia Lund and screenwriter Braulio Mantovani have created an extraordinary film about Cidade de Deus (City of God), where drug-dealing teenagers kill one another with mesmerizing abandon. Left alone by the police and completely ignored by Brazilian society, the City of God lives by its own rules, trading on marijuana, cocaine, murder and bloody legend. Meirelles and Lund spent months casting, training and rehearsing mostly amateur teenagers who came from Cidade de Deus and other slums. The result: amazingly authentic, fluid performances, particularly from Leandro Firmino da Hora as a chilling teen gangster named Li'l Ze. Contains disturbing violence, drug content, obscene language, nudity and sexual scenes. In Portuguese with subtitles. Landmark Bethesda Row and Cineplex Odeon Outer Circle.

{sstar}CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (R, 113 minutes) -- In his autobiography, Chuck Barris oversaw such hit TV shows as "The Dating Game" while also performing dangerous missions for the CIA. He claims to have killed 33 people. Scriptwriter Charlie ("Adaptation") Kaufman and debuting director George Clooney take him at his word. The movie's a darkly enjoyable roller coaster ride that takes audiences from Barris's humble beginnings as a geeky tour guide at NBC to game show maestro and apparent hit man. And it's made all the more enjoyable by Sam Rockwell, who gives Barris a subtle edginess, and Drew Barrymore, who makes a wonderfully suited co-passenger as Barris's girlfriend. Contains strong language, sexual content and violence. Area theaters.

DARKNESS FALLS (PG-13, 85 minutes) -- In this ham-fisted horror film, a kindly old lady mistakenly hanged 150 years ago in the town of Darkness Falls comes back as an evil Tooth Fairy. (She used to give kids change when they lost their baby teeth.) Her latest quarry is Kyle Walsh (Chaney Klay), who has been seeing nasty glimpses of the flying killer witch since childhood. It's a loud scareflick that relies entirely on cheap boo! effects to convey its atmosphere. Director Jonathan Liebesman and the three credited "writers" all deserve the symbolic equivalent of a noose for their unimaginative handling of sustained menace. Contains some obscene language, overall intensity and obnoxiously loud sound effects. Area theaters.

DELIVER US FROM EVA (R, 105 minutes) -- This hip-hop version of "The Taming of the Shrew" is about the super-nasty Eva (Gabrielle Union), who lords over her three sisters (Essence Atkins, Robinne Lee and Meagan Good) and their men (Mel Jackson, Dartanyan Edmonds and Duane Martin). When the guys recruit ladies man Ray (LL Cool J) to seduce Eva and keep her out of everyone's life, the plan backfires. They fall in love. Of course. Writer-director Gary ("The Brothers") Hardwick clearly wants to make this more than another romantic comedy, but that desire evaporates in the face of loopy storytelling (including a nutty kidnapping plot), one-dimensional archetypes, too much predictability and not enough humor. Contains obscene language and sexual situations. Area theaters.

{sstar}DIE ANOTHER DAY (PG-13, 132 minutes) -- It's James Bond as usual, which means good if numbingly repetitive entertainment. Director Lee Tamahori and writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade follow all the rules: the opening action scene; the girl-saturated title sequence (featuring a Madonna song); exotic locales (Cuba, Iceland,etc.); the girls (the marquee babe being Halle Berry); the gadgets; and Bond's usual meetings with M (Dame Judi Dench) and Q (John Cleese, the freshest breath of air in the whole movie). Tamahori adds some witty tributes to old Bond flicks (including Berry's swimsuit meant to evoke Ursula Andress's bikini in 1962's "Dr. No") but essentially, this is a repeat episode. Contains action violence and sexual content. University Mall Theatres.

{sstar}DIVINE INTERVENTION (Unrated, 92 minutes) -- Palestinian director Elia Suleiman's film tartly interweaves humanism and ironic detachment, romantic longing and cynical bitterness, surrealistic flights of fancy and revolutionary agitprop as it satirizes life in some of the world's most politically surreal nerve centers, including Nazareth and a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. In this land, where two deeply religious, warring cultures watch each other with locked-and-loaded intensity, nothing is too strange, too cruel, too sad, too unjust or too funny. And no matter what your political sensibilities, you can't deny this movie's striking originality. Contains sudden explosions and an off-screen beating. In English, Hebrew and Arabic with subtitles. Visions Cinema/Bistro/Lounge.

{sstar}DONNIE DARKO (R, 122 minutes) -- Detached, disaffected Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is hostile toward his parents (Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osborne) and is always in trouble. He also believes that a six-foot-plus rabbit is ordering him to perform evil deeds. His only allies are a new student named Gretchen (Jena Malone) with a shadowy home life, a couple of sensitive teachers (Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle) and a mysterious former schoolteacher, nicknamed Grandma Death (Joan M. Blair), who has written a book about time travel. Is this science-fiction noir? A twisted coming of age story? Or a liberal vision of the Reagan era, in that this 1988-set story observes the scarier side of suburbia, book-burning parents and me-first consumption? The movie, written and directed by Richard Kelly, flutters, like a mischievous butterfly, above the despairing hands of easy description. And that's what's so good about it. Contains drug use, obscenity and some violence. Visions Cinema/Bistro/Lounge.

{sstar}FAR FROM HEAVEN (PG-13, 107 minutes) -- In Todd Haynes's tribute to the 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk, Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) and her husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid), seem like the perfect couple. But when Frank confesses to doubts about his sexual orientation, Cathy's life becomes an overwhelming crisis. And when she reaches out for emotional support to Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), her African American gardener, she incurs problems with her tightknit Connecticut community. Moore's performance is terrific as Cathy, a normal woman caught unwittingly at the forefront of a dawning social consciousness. Contains mature thematic elements, sexual content, brief violence and obscenity. Cineplex Odeon Inner Circle and Foxchase.

{sstar}FINAL DESTINATION 2 (R, 100 minutes) -- Kimberley (A.J. Cook) has a premonition of a horrifying chain-reaction freeway crash just as she's about to leave the entrance ramp. She saves the day with a stalled SUV. But Death comes back to claim the people she saved, just as it did in the original "Final" movie. Everyone bands together in an effort to cheat Death, which nonetheless comes up with ingenious, intricately staged methods of execution. Some deaths are a bit mundane, tending to provoke titters and discomforted laughs, but the others achieve their intended, scary effect. Contains strong violence/gruesome accidents, language, drug content and brief nudity. Area theaters.

-- Richard Harrington

FRIDA (R, 118 minutes) -- The real Frida Kahlo remains a truly fascinating artist, self-empowerment icon and feminist leading light, despite the attempts of "Frida" the movie to reduce her rich, tragic and courageous life into biopic banality. In the title role, Salma Hayek remains as dedicated to her role and this movie as she is ordinary. She's a pint-size talent riding a legend, a mouse with one eyebrow atop a woolly mammoth. Director Julie Taymor's often-inspired touches -- stop motion, color tinting, black-and-white sequences and even skeletons -- suggest an intelligent desperation. She's doing her attention-getting best to save the movie from conventional doom. As Frida's tempestuous husband Diego Rivera, Alfred Molina steals the movie. Contains nudity, obscenity, violence and emotionally intense material. Landmark Bethesda Row and Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle.

{sstar}GANGS OF NEW YORK (R, 165 minutes) -- In Martin Scorsese's brilliantly realized vision of a Civil War-era Lower Manhattan populated by murderers, whor*s and thieves, Daniel Day Lewis stands out as Bill "the Butcher" Cutting, a villain so villainous he makes "LOTR's" Saruman look like Ghandi. Squaring off against the mustachioed meat-cutter is Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio), the now-grown son of a man killed by Bill in a turf war between Bill's gang of native-born Americans and a rabble of reviled Irish immigrants. The tale of a son's revenge deferred is as old as Greek mythology, but Scorsese's vision brings it to dizzying life in a blur of fact and fiction, blood, sweat and tears. Contains obscenity, nudity, implied sexuality and intense and pervasive violence. Area theaters.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

A GUY THING (PG-13, 101 minutes) -- On the eve of his wedding to Karen (Selma Blair), an obviously unsuited spouse, Paul Morse (Jason Lee) wakes up next to a dancer (Julia Stiles) from his bachelor party. What happened? For a romantic comedy, this has a good lineup: Lee and Stiles as the star-crossed lovers, and scriptwriter Greg Glienna, who also wrote "Meet the Parents." But evidently, Glienna and director Chris Koch (the genius who helmed "Snow Day") decide, early on, it's not enough to rely on characters and intriguing situation comedy. Forget about wit, that's for the Brits. It's just too darned subtle and would force the 13- through 19-year-old set to concentrate too hard and, like, fidget. Contains obscenity, crude humor, sexual content and drug references. Muvico Egyptian Theatres.

{sstar}HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS (PG, 161 minutes) -- Something evil's lurking in the bowels of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) attends. And in this second installment in the Potter series, the young wizard and pals Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) try to find it. This movie, which marks the late Richard Harris's last appearance as headmaster Dumbledore, isn't as charming as the original. It's darker and narratively more long-winded. And the special effects seem to be competing with the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Also, many of the movie's memorable elements and characters (including Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman and Julie Walters) are rendered into near-cameo players. But nothing from J.K. Rowling's book is left to wither away. And that should please the vast reading audience that'll watch the movie. Contains some emotionally intense moments. Annapolis Mall, Hoyts Potomac Yard Cinema and University Mall Theatres.

{sstar}THE HOURS (PG-13, 114 minutes) -- The death of the haunted, brilliant British author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) starts a fatalistic ripple. Decades later, two women (Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep) will feel the sad, anxious rhythms of Woolf's life and death. The movie, based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is deeply moving, but not merely for three stories of agony, bravery and inspiration. With its deft intercutting of place and time, the film creates a powerful sense of mysticism and fate. And the performances are top-notch. You don't just love the movie for its structure but for the haunted people in it, making each other miserable, but forcing each other to face who they are. Contains mature thematic elements, some disturbing images and some obscenity. Area theaters.

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (PG-13, 112 minutes) -- It's not as lame as it sounds, but this film about a magazine columnist (Kate Hudson) who tries to sabotage a relationship with a guy (Matthew McConaughey) just so she can write about it isn't as clever as it could be, either. The wacky misunderstandings are straight out of the romantic comedy rule book, and the targets of some of the jokes (Kathie Lee Gifford and Celine Dion, to name a couple of the supposedly "girlie" things that drive men insane) are, let's face it, sitting ducks. Still, the stars have a nice, unforced chemistry and even I, professional curmudgeon, have to admit I lost track of how many times I laughed. Contains sexual humor and situations, a single punch in the eye and repeated use of a vulgarity for excrement. Area theaters.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

{sstar}IGBY GOES DOWN (R, 98 minutes) -- Wickedly funny, jarringly transgressive, obdurately unpigeonholeable and startlingly moving, "Igby Goes Down" lodges itself in your brain like a sticktight seed. You may not like its tale of adolescent anomie -- snotty teenagers are not, after all, everyone's cup of tea -- but you'll find the lingering aftereffects of its strange, tragicomic tale and the indelible antihero (Kieran Culkin) it introduces you to hard to shake. Little is more shocking -- or more funny -- than watching Igby Slocumb, a Holden Caulfield-esque 17-year-old recidivist high-school dropout, defy his uptight, old-money mother (Susan Sarandon), while conducting a self-destructive, but ultimately hopeful, search for happiness. Contains obscenity, sex with minors, adultery, battery, drug use and all manner of irresponsible behavior. Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

{sstar}IKIRU (Unrated, 143 minutes) -- In Akira Kurosawa's 1952 classic, Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), an office worker who has spent 30 years in a Dickensian bureaucracy in Tokyo, learns he has stomach cancer. He decides to try and find some meaning in his life. Kurosawa stays powerfully on course. This is a thorough movie that never strays from the driving main plot: the changing Watanabe. And its message may prompt you to reassess your balance of work and life, and maybe put in for a little vacation time. Contains scenes of drunkenness. In black-and-white. In Japanese with subtitles. At the American Film Institute theater though Sunday.

{sstar}JACKASS THE MOVIE (R, 90 minutes) -- Sophom*oric doesn't even begin to describe the stunts imagined by Johnny Knoxville and his reprobate crew of stuntmen-frat boy delinquents; most of them are too vile, violent or just plain dangerous for MTV, the home of "Jackass." The movie begins and ends with a warning not to try any of these stunts at home, but only the stupidest fan will disregard the genuine pain and suffering captured on camera, albeit with endlessly gleeful guffaws. In a nonstop parade of bits that range from 10 seconds to several long minutes, this wrecking crew visits damage to themselves (too-close encounters with alligators, sharks, electric shockers) and to innocent property (down for the count: a rental car rigged for a crash derby, a miniature golf course, several small grocery and variety stores and the home of mad skateboarder Bam Margera, who mercilessly tortures parents who are far too understanding). Scatological pranks abound, and our relationship with Japan may never be the same after the boys visit briefly, and in the case of Chris "Party Boy" Pontius, as nakedly as possible. There are fat bits, old folks bits, two one-sided boxing matches with Butterbean (he sends Knoxville to the hospital) and a tougher-than-nails female kickboxer (who whacks Ryan Dunn until he's Undunn). There are also lots of out-of-control vehicles, from skateboards and snowboards to a giant-sized shopping cart and runaway golf carts. It's stupid, anarchic and, I hate to admit, terribly funny, though you're likely to blow your lunch almost as often as folks do on screen. Contains dangerous, sometimes extremely rude stunts, language and nudity. Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

-- Richard Harrington

JUST MARRIED (PG-13, 90 minutes) -- This romantic comedy, starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy, is impressively awful. Kutcher is Tom Leezak, a twentysomething kid with a radio DJ job who marries Sarah McNerney (Murphy), much to the chagrin of her hoity-toity WASP family. The movie is about their disastrous honeymoon in Europe, which includes being stuck with a ridiculously small rental car, blowing the electrical system in their hotel and having a supreme battle in Venice over Tom's rival for Sarah's heart, an arrogant jock (Christian Kane) with family connections. Groan. Contains sexual content, some crude humor and a brief drug reference. Muvico Egyptian Theatres and Annapolis Mall.

KANGAROO JACK (PG, 84 minutes) -- In this a front-end collision of a family comedy, two goofy pals -- Charlie (Jerry O'Connell) and Louis (Anthony Anderson) -- are sent to Australia to give a mysterious package to a hit man. But the package, containing $50,000, is lost when a kangaroo makes off with Louis's jacket, which contains the money. There are two distinctive features to the movie: the mind-numbingly banal plot as one chases another who chases another, and all the offensive material. The film, produced by Jerry "Mr. Subtle" Bruckheimer, includes camels with flatulence (yes, camels in Australia), jokes about testicl*s shrinking and sexually provocative material that's completely inappropriate for a PG-rated movie. Avoid this like the plague. Contains obscenity, crude humor, violence and salacious sexual material. Area theaters.

{sstar}THE LION KING (G, 96 minutes) -- Most moviegoers have already seen "The Lion King" at least once, making Disney's leonine feature the most successful animated film of all time and the 10th most successful movie of any kind. So what makes seeing it on an IMAX screen any different? The pre-show announcement that the large-format presentation may cause "dizziness or motion sickness," for one thing. It seems like a no-brainer that increasing the size of any image until it's 75 feet wide and five stories high will give it added impact -- but that's doubly true when the image is, say, a Rockettes-style chorus line of high-kicking zebras. It's not simply that bigger is, well, bigger. "The Lion King" is well-suited to the large-format screen. The vastness and interconnectedness of the landscape underscores the film's central theme, which, you'll recall, involves "The Ciiiircle of Liiiife." This is a movie in which where is as important as who -- and IMAX is great at conveying wheres. When you see the film on a screen the size of an office building, it's hard to miss the details, and despite its Serengeti-scale vistas, "The Lion King's" small details are carefully rendered. Contains fratricide, predation and warthog flatulence. Maryland Science Center.

-- Nicole Arthur

{sstar}THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (PG-13, 179 minutes) -- Peter Jackson's second installment of the "Rings" trilogy doesn't just eclipse the first film. Its production design, CGI (computer-generated imagery), storytelling (with, of course, all appropriate credit to J.R.R. Tolkien) and performances form a constellation of delights. In addition to the fine cast, including Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli the Dwarf (John Rhys-Davies), there are trees that talk, rise and walk with lofty majesty; an extraordinary critter-cum-satyr of a hobbit (Andy Serkis) called Gollum; and a rousing, medieval-styled battle with a castle, siege weapons and a seemingly endless outpouring of Uruk-hais. And in the nether-center of this all, you can feel not just the power and sureness of Jackson's direction, but his boyish wonder. Contains battle carnage and some scary images. Area theaters.

{sstar}LOVE LIZA (R, 93 minutes) -- You can feel Philip Seymour Hoffman's deep-diving commitment to "Love Liza," a small film about sustained depression. He's Wilson Joel, a quiet Web site designer whose wife has just committed suicide. The tragedy is knotted in question marks. Why did she do it? What did Wilson do? What does he know about it? Scripted by Hoffman's brother Gordy and directed by first-timer Todd Louiso, this is a nicely handled affair, a film about human darkness but etched with a light (yet unsentimental) touch. And Hoffman's a charming sufferer, a big goof. Contains drug use, language and brief nudity. Cineplex Odeon Inner Circle.

{sstar}MAX (R, 108 minutes) -- Noah Taylor may not look all that much like der Fuhrer in screenwriter-turned director Menno Meyjes's disturbing speculative fiction about the young Hitler and his transition from frustrated artist to murderous dictator, but he really inhabits the part. Depressive, brooding, bitter and resentful of the success of such "depraved" painters as George Grosz, Hitler is befriended by a Jewish art dealer named Max (John Cusack), a man who engages him in an ongoing discussion of art, the avant-garde and the power of ideas. Yet it isn't until the poisonous ideas spread by Max's young protege blow up in Max's face that the frightening power of politics as an art form are horrifyingly, tragically felt. Contains obscenity, anti-Semitic speechifying and physical brutality. Cinema Arts Theatre and Cineplex Odeon Inner Circle.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

{sstar}MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING (PG, 95 minutes) -- Clearly, comedian-filmmaker Nia Vardalos (full name: Antonia Eugenia Vardalos) not only grew up Greek, she took notes. In this amusing comedy, she celebrates and has fun with the Greek culture. She's Toula Portokalos, an unmarried woman forced (by her parents) to find a man. But when she does meet Mr. Right (John Corbett), well, he's not Greek. Imagine the calamity. The movie draws much material from Vardalos's one-woman show and has a little bit of everything: savvy narration, laugh-out-loud sight gags and such wry observations as this one, from Toula's mother, "The man is the head [of the household], but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head anywhere she wants." Contains some obscenity and a mild sexual situation. Area theaters.

NATIONAL SECURITY (PG-13, 90 minutes) -- Martin Lawrence is all there is to this dismal odd-couple comedy. And that's about two or three points out of a possible 10. As a security guard turned cop with attitude problems, he's funny at times, but lazily so. His lack of fire isn't surprising, considering the awful buddy picture he chose for his latest vehicle. And vehicle it is, a retread of all those buddies-in-the-cop-car pictures of the 1980s, not even slightly dusted off. There's so much driving and crashing in this movie, you'll swear you smell exhaust fumes. As his unwilling partner, a toilet-brush-haired cop named Hank, Steve Zahn is hopelessly ineffective. And as the villain, Eric Roberts's only distinguishing feature is his bleached hair. Contains violence, profanity, some sensuality and endless gun firing and car crashes. Area theaters.

{sstar}THE PIANIST (R, 148 minutes) -- Roman Polanki's wrenching drama, winner of last year's Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, follows the strange destiny of Wladyslaw Szpilman (a pitch-perfect Adrien Brody), a young pianist from Warsaw who miraculously survives the Nazi invasion of his hometown. But survival is cruel: He hides in buildings while the Nazis destroy his people. The movie, a sonata of human suffering and tragedy, takes assured and firm grasp of your senses. Polanski, himself a survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, has created a near-masterpiece. Cinematographer Pawel Edelman's darkly powerful images and production designer Allan Starski's stunning re-creations of a shattered Europe are unforgettable. Contains disturbing violence and emotionally affecting material. Some German with subtitles. Area theaters.

{sstar}PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (R, 95 minutes) -- Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, who made the inspired "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia," makes another gem. It's a movie of extraordinary subtlety, power and even hokey romanticism. And Adam Sandler proves he can act in grown-up films. Barry Egan (Sandler) is a loner with emotional problems. He had a traumatic past with taunting sisters. And he's just plain odd. But his soul is unequivocally pure. When he meets fellow-oddbird Lena (Emily Watson), it's obvious he's met his soul mate. But he has to get rid of his demons, and a gang of bad guys who are targeting his bank account. Is Barry ready for romantic prime time? Thanks to Anderson's assured picture, a symphony of cinematic textures, that disarmingly simple question becomes incredibly compelling. Contains sexual situations, violence and obscenity. Arlington Cinema 'N' Drafthouse.

{sstar}QUAI DES ORFEVRES (Unrated, 102 minutes) -- This noirish, backstage whodunit, made in 1947 by Henri-Georges Clouzot, follows the tortured lives of Jenny (Suzy Delair) and Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier, father of Bertrand), a bickering twosome in postwar Paris who find themselves under the suspicious eye of Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet) when a dirty old financier is killed. Clouzot, the dark-mooded genius who made the murder-thriller par excellence "Diabolique" ("Les Diaboliques") and "The Wages of Fear" ("Le Salaire de la Peur"), is more interested in this world of music halls and holding cells, the quirkiness of his characters and their screwballish battles, than solving the murder. And that makes for a deliriously nutty movie. Contains a mild murder scene. In black-and-white. In French with subtitles. At the American Film Institute theater at the Kennedy Center through Sunday.

{sstar}THE QUIET AMERICAN (R) -- In this adaptation of the Graham Greene novel, Michael Caine is Thomas Fowler, a British journalist caught in colonial Indochina in the 1950s. It's a strange world, where communists, French, Americans and a tyrannical leader named General The (Quang Hai) are vying for power. The main story, though, is about Fowler's attempts to stop his young girlfriend Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) from falling for Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) a bumbling American aid worker given to baseball caps and goofy sincerity. Caine's imperial world weariness gives the movie a vital potency. Without the actor, "The Quiet American" would be a respectable foreign-hellhole drama, something along the lines of "The Year of Living Dangerously." But thanks to his subtly nuanced performance, there's a deeper dimension to everything. He's snappily ironic at times, sometimes amazingly delicate, always engaging. Contains wartime violence, gruesome injuries, some obscenity and sexual situations. Area theaters.

RABBIT-PROOF FENCE (PG, 95 minutes) -- Phillip Noyce's film, based on the historical ill-treatment of indigenous Australians in the 1930s, has a powerful moral tone. But its dramatic delivery isn't quite as effective. Three girls of mixed heritage, 14-year-old Molly Craig (Everlyn Sampi) and her younger cousins, Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) and Gracie (Laura Monaghan), come to the attention of Mr. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), a government racial inspector whose job is to train them as domestics for white society. After they're abducted and taken to a training camp 1,500 miles away, Molly plots her escape with her cousins, using a continental-wide fence as a guiding post to find their way home. The movie, based on a book by Molly's daughter, Doris Pilkington, makes Branagh's character too one-dimensional. And our desire to see Molly's return isn't as compelling as it ought to be. Contains emotionally intense material. Landmark Bethesda Row and Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle.

{sstar}THE RECRUIT (PG-13, 115 minutes) -- This is throwaway Hollywood stuff but it's still fun, particularly for the stud-versus-silverback battles of will between Colin Farrell and Al Pacino, who play CIA greenhorn and recruiter, respectively. Directed by Roger Donaldson, this seems like a reprise of "No Way Out." Once again, a talented greenhorn joins a powerful institution falls in love with a woman who may or may not be trouble. There's talk of a mole. And there's a powerful master of ceremonies (Pacino) who knows everything and who may or may not be a good guy. Still, you could do worse than sit and enjoy this. I know you could. I've seen those movies. Contains violence, sexuality and obscenity. Area theaters.

{sstar}RUSSIAN ARK (Unrated, 97 minutes) -- The first feature-length movie ever to contain its entire story in one, uninterrupted shot (87 minutes in duration), this film pays tribute to Russia's great state museum, the Hermitage, and by extension the nation, its cultural treasures and history. With breathtakingly detailed choreography, Russian director Alexander Sokurov leads you through 33 rooms of the museum (Peter the Great's former Winter Palace) and several centuries of artistic and cultural magnificence. During this unblinking inner journey, we meet all manner of characters, both historic and modern. "Ark" is more than a showcase nod to Russian history, or an elaborate technical exercise. It's an extraordinary dramatic experience, a blissful waltz through time. Contains nothing objectionable. Landmark Bethesda Row and Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle.

SHANGHAI KNIGHTS (PG-13, 107 minutes) -- This insipid sequel to "Shanghai Noon" brings back Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson as, respectively, Chon Wang and Roy O'Bannon. The odd couple heads to England in the late 1890s, where Chon's sister, Lin (Fann Wong), is hunting for their father's killer. All three get caught up in a ridiculous plot in which the dastardly Rathbone (Aiden Gillen) plans to deep-six the royals for his own power-driven ends. Wilson has his surfer-dude moments of humor, but he's doing his best with creatively dead material. Chan, whose age seems to have made him less willing to go stunt-crazy, performs tamer showcase fighting sequences that are more slapstick than stirring. But there is one nice piece of choreography, a fight scene that's an inspired parody of the umbrella-twirling song and dance number in "Singin' in the Rain." It's too bad his imagination and delicacy were wasted in this movie. Contains cartoonish violence and sexual shenanigans. Area theaters.

STAR WARS: EPISODE II -- ATTACK OF THE CLONES (PG, 142 minutes) -- Ten years after the events of "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his Padawan apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), are assigned to protect Senator Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) from assassins. Obi-Wan uncovers a bigger picture that includes a bounty hunter named Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison), who someone is using as the model body for a cloned army, and the rogue Jedi Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), who's amassing a coalition of separatists against the Republic. In the tortured syntax of Yoda: Great movie not is "Attack of the Clones." And as the budding Darth Vader, Christensen is resoundingly disappointing. George Lucas's prequel is surprisingly dismal. And the romance between Anakin and Padme is a frigid zero. And when you've seen one scene of mass-generated clones marching in symmetrical fashion, you've seen them all. Contains sustained sci-fi action and violence. Johnson IMAX Theater at the National Museum of Natural History.

{sstar}TALK TO HER (R, 113 minutes) -- In Pedro Almodovar's deeply touching film, male nurse Benigno (Javier Camara) takes obsessive (or romantically devoted) care of Alicia (Leonor Watling), a ballet dancer rendered comatose. By talking to her, he believes their souls communicate and that he may just coax her out of the darkness. Almodovar, long thought of as art cinema's impish prince, has evolved into something more mature. The movie has many of the Almodovarian twists and turns, in which the comedic, the tragic and the poetic are hand in hand. But this time around, things are profoundly humanistic and sincere. And Camara's performance is sublime. Contains sexual scenes, nudity and obscenity. In Spanish with subtitles. Landmark Bethesda Row, Cineplex Odeon Shirlington and Cineplex Odeon Dupont Circle.

{sstar}25TH HOUR (R, 135 minutes) -- In Spike Lee's movie, drug dealer Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) is having his last night out before he goes into the slammer for seven years. So he spends quality time with significant people, including his Irish firefighter father (Brian Cox), longtime buddies (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) and his girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson). The movie's uneven but wildly pleasurable -- the usual undisciplined, overextended Spike symphony. The performances are strong. Norton is intense, edgy and appealingly intelligent. Hoffman is a theatrical pleasure as he affects those Mamet-style mannerisms, pauses and unexpected inflections. Contains obscenity, violence and implied violence to animals. Muvico Egyptian, Cineplex Odeon Shirlington and Loews Georgetown.

{sstar}THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE (PG, 79 minutes) -- In this movie version of the children's TV series, the Thornberrys, a family who travels the globe to film and observe wildlife, have a run-in with dastardly poachers. And Eliza (voiced by Lacey Chabert), Nigel's 12-year-old daughter who can secretly speak with wild animals, must save some captured cheetahs. Of course, she's assisted by her chimp friend Darwin (Tom Kane), who, for reasons that escape me, speaks very posh English. The film's slight, but pleasant enough. Its ecological, pro-wildlife sentiments are certainly welcome. And Tim Curry's veddy veddy British accent as wildlife documentarian and family patriarch Nigel Thornberry, is amusing. Contains some dramatic peril. Annapolis Harbour.

Repertory

AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM -- At the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater: "Space Station 3D," daily at 11:05, 1:05 and 3:05 and 5:45. "To Fly!," daily at 10:25 and 5:05. "Straight Up: Helicopters in Action," daily at 12:10, 2:10 and 4:10. At the Albert Einstein Planetarium: "Infinity Express," daily at 10:30, 11, 11:30, 12:30, 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30, 3, 3:30, 4, 4:30 and 5; "The Stars Tonight," daily at noon. Seventh and Independence SW. 202-357-1686.

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE -- "Quai des Orfevres," Friday at 6:30, Saturday at 4:30 and 9, Sunday at 3:30 and 8. "Ikiru," Friday at 8:30, Saturday at 2 and 6:30, Sunday at 1 and 5:30. AFI Theater at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. 202-833-2348.

CHARLES THEATRE -- "The Wild Bunch," Saturday at noon. 1711 N. Charles St., Baltimore. 410-727-3456.

CINEMA ART BETHESDA -- "A Song for Martin," Sunday at 10. Landmark Bethesda Row Theatre, 7235 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda. 301-365-3697.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS -- "Cool Hand Luke," Tuesday at 7. "The Outer Limits: The Mice" and "Wild Seed," Thursday at 6:30. Free, but reservations required. Mary Pickford Theater, 101 Independence Ave. SE 202-707-5677.

MARYLAND SCIENCE CENTER -- "The Lion King," Friday at 11, 2, 5:55 and 7:50; Saturday-Sunday at 10, 2 and 5:55; Monday-Wednesday at 11, 2 and 5:55; Thursday at 11 and 2. "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure," Friday at 1, 3:55 and 4:55; Saturday-Sunday at noon, 1, 3:55, 4:55 and 7:50; Monday-Tuesday at 1, 3:55 and 4:55; Wednesday at 1; Thursday at 1, 3:55 and 4:55. "Space Station (3D)," Saturday at 8:50. 601 Light St., Baltimore. 410-685-5225.

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY -- "Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West," daily at 11:10, 2, and 3:50; "T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous (3D)," daily at 12:05, 1:05, 2:55, and 4:45; "Galapagos (3D)," daily at 10:20; "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones," Friday-Saturday at 6 and 8:15. Samuel C. Johnson Theater, Tenth and Constitution NW. 202-633-7400.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART -- "Edouard Vuillard," Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at 11:30, and Tuesday-Thursday at 2. "Inganni" and "Anamorphosis," Friday-Sunday at 12:30. "Ceux de Chez Nous" and "Faisons un reve," Saturday at 2:30. "Champs-Elysees," Sunday at 4. "Impressionism" and "Gare Saint-Lazare," Wednesday-Thursday at 12:30. East Building, Fourth and Constitution NW. 202-737-4215.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART -- "Liberia: America's Stepchild," Sunday at 7. Ripley Center, Level 3. 1100 Jefferson Dr. SW. 202-357-4600 (TDD: 202-357-4814).

PSYCHOTRONIC FILM SOCIETY -- "Ichi the Killer," Tuesday at 8. Dr. Dremo's Taphouse, 2001 Clarendon Blvd., Arlington. 202-736-1732 or 202-707-2540.

VISIONS CINEMA/BISTRO/LOUNGE -- "Donnie Darko," Friday-Saturday at midnight. 1927 Florida Ave. NW. 202-667-0090.

WEINBERG CENTER -- "Breakfast at Tiffany's," Friday at 7:30. 20 West Patrick St., Frederick. 301-228-2828.

New on Video

These movies arrive on video store shelves this week.

{sstar}BROWN SUGAR

(PG-13, 2002, 109 MINUTES, FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES)

As the star-crossed friends (and inevitable lovers), Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan (as well as a healthy round of comely co-stars, including Nicole Ari Parker) provide the allure in this savvy, buppie romance. He's record company executive Dre; she's Sidney, a music journalist. They grew up in the same neighborhood, grooving on the same hip-hop songs and, without realizing it, each other. So when Dre tells Sidney he's engaged to Reese (Parker), that ought to be fine. But it isn't, of course. This is a fashion runway of a movie, a catwalk flick in which the secret ingredients are good genes and designers. Contains obscenity and sexual situations.

-- Desson Howe

{sstar}DIAMOND MEN

(UNRATED, 2001, 100 MINUTES, PANORAMA ENTERTAINMENT)

Any doubts that we improve with age are put to rest by Robert Forster in "Diamond Men." After watching his subtle, touching performance, you'll think that being over 50 is just about the coolest thing in the world. In filmmaker Dan M. Cohen's inspired tribute to his own father, Forster plays Eddie Miller, a traveling diamond salesman who, after suffering a heart attack, must train his replacement (Donnie Wahlberg), a co*cky novice whose only road experience is maintaining pretzel supplies in vending machines. Initially a familiar story about an odd couple, the picture grows more textured as these two get used to each other. A great little film, dignified by two appealing performances, "Diamond Men" is a gem. Contains sexual situations, nudity and obscenity.

-- D.H.

{sstar}8 WOMEN

(R, 2002, 113 MINUTES, USA FILMS)

Cross the theatrical mystery of "Ten Little Indians" with the psychodrama of "The Women," add campy musical numbers and ironic self-awareness out the wazoo, then put it in French and you might have something approximating the giddy, caustic bite of "8 Women." Set in a snowed-in country house in the 1950s, the postmodern whodunit by Francois Ozon opens with the discovery of a dead (male) body and a houseful of eight female suspects. Quick! Nobody leave the room. Trust me: With stars like Catherine Denueve, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Isabelle Huppert and Virginie Ledoyen acting guilty as sin, no one will. In French with subtitles. Contains frank sexual dialogue and slapstick violence.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

{sstar}THE FAST RUNNER

(UNRATED, 2001, 172 MINUTES, LOT 47 FILMS)

Based on the collected narrative of eight elders of the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic, this three-hour epic (which won the Camera d'Or at Cannes last year) has been chipped from the frigid ice of ages past, ignited by the spirit of Joseph Campbell and fanned into a roaring fire by Inuit writer Paul Apak Angilirq. In a nomadic Inuit community in prehistoric time, a blood feud (over a woman) springs up between Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq) and Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq). It's riveting from beginning to end; and you'll hardly notice it's three hours long. By passing along the invaluable oral history of his forebears, Apak -- who died of cancer in 1998 -- has not only joined them in immortality, he has linked them to all of us. In Inuktitut with subtitles. Contains sexual scenes, nudity, violence and occasional obscene language.

-- D.H.

FULL FRONTAL

(R, 2002, 111 MINUTES, MIRAMAX FILMS)

Steven Soderbergh's hipster low-budget film, starring Julia Roberts, is about nothing but itself. A collection of vignettes, or interlocking subplots about callow, tacky or eccentric people in the entertainment business in LaLa Land, it doesn't reveal anything that wasn't tilled over ad nauseam by such films as "The Player," "Magnolia" and Mike Figgis's "Timecode." Although some of the pieces are amusing, particularly the subplot about a third-rate stage actor (Nicky Katt) who's portraying Hitler in a play, this is just home movies for Soderbergh and his famous friends, including Roberts, Brad Pitt and Catherine Keener. Soderbergh has all the stars he can summon, but no story. Contains obscenity and sexual content.

-- D.H.

{sstar}MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

(PG, 2002, 95 MINUTES, IFC FILMS)

Clearly, comedian-filmmaker Nia Vardalos (full name: Antonia Eugenia Vardalos) not only grew up Greek, she took notes. In this amusing comedy, she celebrates and has fun with the Greek culture. She's Toula Portokalos, an unmarried woman forced (by her parents) to find a man. But when she does meet Mr. Right (John Corbett), well, he's not Greek. Imagine the calamity. The movie draws much material from Vardalos's one-woman show and has a little bit of everything: savvy narration, laugh-out-loud sight gags and such wry observations as this one, from Toula's mother, "The man is the head [of the household], but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head anywhere she wants." Contains some obscenity and a mild sexual situation.

-- D.H.

POSSESSION

(PG-13, 2002, 102 MINUTES, USA FILMS)

What should have been a deep examination of the transcendence of love and art and poetry turns into another shallow film about how repressed the British are in "Possession," director and co-screenwriter Neil LaBute's adaptation of A.S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning 1990 novel. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as British academic Maud Bailey, who with hunky, brooding American academic Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) tries to solve the 150-year-old mystery of whether (fictional) Victorian poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte ever had a fling. They did, and the viewer watches it unfold as Bailey and Michell solve the silly puzzle and do their own mating dance. The film falls apart early on under the weight of all the annoying stereotyping, stilted dialogue and Nancy Drew-style plotting. Contains noisy kissing and some mostly clothed lovemaking.

-- Eric Brace

SWEPT AWAY

(R, 2002, 90 MINUTES, SONY SCREEN GEMS)

In this remake of Lina Wertmuller's 1974 "Swept Away . . . by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August," which was a sweet little movie starring Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, Madonna plays a haughty rich woman named Amber, who's on a pleasure cruise off the coast of Italy. When she finds herself stuck on a deserted island with the grungy shipmate (Adriano Giannini, son of Giancarlo) she has been insulting, it's time for a change of power. Now he's the top dog and she's the one begging for favors. It's fun to stargaze but at no point should anyone mistake this for anything other than an extended beach video. Contains nudity, sexual situations, obscenity and a human daring to slap Madonna.

-- D.H.