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 | Blood and Breasts, Served Early and Often [b]Zombie Strippers[/b] has been billed as the mainstream debut of Jenna Jameson, whose past credits include [b]I Love Lesbians 10[/b] and [b]Dirty Bob’s Xcellent[/b], but the difference between her latest work and the hardcore pornography that made her famous is not nearly as pronounced as one might expect. While [b]Strippers[/b] is rated R -- a compelling testament to the notion that sex in films is far more offensive to America’s Motion Pictures Association than even the most explicit violence -- it is, in almost every other respect, as narratively unsophisticated as the bulk of Jameson’s past productions.More |  | The Search for a Killer in the Muslim World [b]Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?[/b] finds documentarian Morgan Spurlock training his cameras not on the artery-clogging cuisine served at McDonald’s, as he did somewhat memorably in 2004’s [b]Super-Size Me[/b], but on the Middle Easterners he encountered during a seven-month quest to find the world’s most elusive terrorist.More |  | Legendary Coupling Produces Goofy Adventure Fans who have long awaited the pairing of legendary martial artists Jackie Chan and Jet Li may be slightly disappointed to learn that [b]The Forbidden Kingdom[/b] focuses on the story of a Boston teenager (Michael Angarano) magically transported to ancient China and charged with saving the mythical Monkey King from the clutches of an evil warlord.More |  | Return to the Ring Yields a Knockout [b]The Hammer[/b] might sound like a movie only diehard Adam Carolla fans, however many there may be, could appreciate. The onetime "Man Show" host is in almost every scene, and his performance is as integral to the story’s appeal as any leading man’s could be.More |  | A Bitter Tomorrow Storming through the windswept countryside en route to the latest in a series of short-lived, dead-end jobs -- this time, in a return engagement as a salesman at the local carpet factory -- Glenn (Sam Rockwell) is a bundle of frayed nerves and dangerously unstable energy. Having given up his hard-drinking habits for the fleeting serenity of life as a born-again Christian, he is never more than a single setback from coming undone, whether that setback comes in the form a fight with his estranged wife Annie (Kate Beckinsale) or something more calamitous.More |  | Nothing New Under the California Sun Based on a 20-year old story conceived originally by John Hughes and doctored by longtime Judd Apatow collaborators Seth Rogen and Kristofor Brown, [b]Drillbit Taylor[/b] has exactly one thing working in its favor -- the goofy charm of star Owen Wilson, who invests a kind of wide-eyed earnestness in every role, no matter how silly or underwritten. Here, his affable persona is on full display, and while some critics have claimed to detect a hint of melancholy in the performance (a result of Wilson’s well-publicized bout with depression), he carries the film as far as it has any right to go.More |  | Cruel Intentions It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to subject themselves to the harrowing brutality of [b]Funny Games[/b], but give German-born filmmaker Michael Haneke his due -- his movie is shockingly effective in its depiction of a well-to-do family paralyzed by a terrifying home invasion. What he hoped to accomplish is anyone’s guess: [b]Funny Games[/b] is a scene-for-scene U.S. remake of Haneke’s own decade-old film set in Austria. Nothing is lost in translation, even if Haneke’s occasional "Beavis and Butt-head" references now seem dated, and perhaps that is some sort of perverse achievement. Ten years later, abject cruelty still resonates.More |  | Eyes Wide Shut [b]Sleepwalking[/b] is oppressively grim, a torturous account of blue-collar misfits leading lives of penniless desperation and wandering aimlessly through the Northern California countryside in search of a way out. They are wounded, bearing the unmistakable scars of physical and psychological abuse, but Zac Stanford’s downbeat screenplay offers them little in the way of hope. The world is cruel and unforgiving, and happy endings have no place in it.More |  | A Life of Quiet Desperation Revealed Gus Van Sant has made his mark as a mainstream filmmaker with the crossover success of [b]Good Will Hunting[/b] and, rather astonishingly, the shallow melodrama [b]Finding Forrester[/b], but lately he has returned to his independent roots with a series of moody, minimalist experiments. In 2003’s [b]Elephant[/b], he offered a chilling recreation of a Columbine-style massacre, offering little explanation for his gunmen’s motives save for some sociopathic sense of restless misanthropy. Two years later, he contemplated the suicide of Kurt Cobain in [b]Last Days[/b], the tale of a fictional singer who reduces his life to a drug-induced fog beforeMore |  | Revisiting the Slums of Brazil [b]City of God[/b] may not have been perfect, but try telling that to its cultish followers, who have voted it the 16th best film of all time on the Internet Movie Database. Six years and one acclaimed television spinoff later, director Paulo Morelli has returned Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha), best friends first introduced in the 1997 novel by Paulo Lins, to the screen for another harrowing tour through the gang-infested slums of Brazil.More |
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