“Barbershop
2: Back in Business”
M-G-M
Rated PG-13
“Barbershop 2?” Shhhhh! Don’t
tell Jesse Jackson.
“Catch that
Kid”
20th Century Fox
Rated PG
(Not reviewed)
So that kids can learn how cool stealing is, three
youngsters plan a bank heist to pay for an operation
for one of their fathers. This girl normally liked
to rock climb against her father’s wishes,
but now feels bad.
The real news is the film’s director, Bart
Freundlich, who usually produces mopey independent
films about family turmoil like “World Traveler” and “The
Myth of Fingerprints.” It sounds like a father
is still involved, but the lead character doesn’t
hate him quite as much as Freundlich’s characters
usually do.
“City of God”
Miramax Films
Rated R
Opening at the Madstone (again)
4 reels (out of four)
I didn’t
expect such sweet Oscar justice. A year after Fernando
Meirelles’s kinetic masterpiece “City
of God,” Brazil’s entry for the Best
Foreign Film Oscar, wasn’t nominated due to
idiotic, apparently blind members on the foreign
film-nominating committee, I can finally quit bitching.
Fortunately, the film came out in the U.S. in January
2003 and was eligible this year for nominations in
all the other categories— and it got some impressive
mentions.
While predictably snubbed for Best Picture, the film
was honored in the important categories of Best Director,
Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and
Best Editing. Here’s to it winning something.
Miramax is re-releasing the film in theaters because
of the nominations, so go see it on 35-mm (I’ll
be seeing it for the fourth time).
Meirelles paints a dramatic
tale of the rise of young druglords in the projects
of Rio de Janeiro with a rich, Scorsese-level cinematic
vocabulary to create memorable scene after memorable
scene. My full review from March is available here.
“Miracle”
Walt Disney Pictures
Rated PG
(Review to come next week)
Do you believe in miracles? Kurt Russell plays Herb
Brooks, coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team,
which may or may not have pulled off a surprise victory
in Lake Placid at the Winter Olympics. (I don’t
want to give anything away.) Relive the event that
made everyone who was alive excited about hockey
for a few hours.
“The Revolution
Will Not Be Televised”
Vitagraph Films
Not rated
(Not reviewed)
Documentarians Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain
were making a documentary about Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez in 2002 when rich businessmen and officers
in the army engaged in a coup that, after a brief
takeover, failed. The resulting film, “The
Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” became a
fly-on-the-wall look at a president under fire.
Were U.S. and oil interests against Chavez’s
populist views? The filmmakers think so, but some
people who don’t like Chavez say that the film’s
a big joke. You’ll have to decide for yourself.
“The Triplets
of Belleville”
4 reels (out of four)
(See review)
jeremy@red-mag.com
