PENELOPE [PG]

After sitting on a shelf for nearly two years, distributor Summit Entertainment, finally unveils this modern-day fairy tale about a girl named Penelope (duh), played by Christina Ricci (Black Snake Moan), who was born with the face of a pig. After living her life in the shadows, she becomes an unlikely celebrity when the public finally sees her face. Does this long lurking-about have something to do with being a dog (or more appropriately, a pig in a frilly frock), or instead a matter of the producers not knowing how to market such a prickly porcine picture? A little of both, it would seem.

Essentially a gender-flipped remake of Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (with the whimsy noticeably forced), director Mark Palansky (former assistant to Michael Bay, but we can at least forgive him that) takes a pretty pedestrian approach to “Everybody Loves Raymond” writer Leslie Caveny’s first produced script. The story is choppy and predictable, and for all of its talk of loving the person within, there are not a lot of characters to love. Only one – a blueblood twit (played by Simon Woods of Pride & Prejudice) who shuns Penelope is a bad guy; the rest are just not written enough for us to care that deeply. It’s pretty easy to see the potential in each, though – “SCTV” alum Catherine O’Hara as the overprotective mother, Atonement angst-boy James McAvoy as the good-hearted gent (and the first who doesn’t self-defenestrate in order to get away from Penelope) and character actor Peter Dinklage (Death At A Funeral) as a grudge-bearing photographer. The problem is that they are all too one-note (though O’Hara rises above the too-shallow material), and any change that comes about in any of them seems push-button and artificial (like Ricci’s narration). Producer and Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon’s character, who doesn’t show up until nearly an hour in, seems like an afterthought to give the movie some marquee value and buoy overseas sales. There is still some warmth and good feeling here, even if it is just a suggestion of a better cinematic celebration of humanity. Rent Mask or The Truman Show instead, and let this little piggy cry wee!-wee!-wee! all the way to home video. –Robert Newton

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL [PG-13]

As Mel Brooks once said, “It’s good to be the King.” As history has revealed, though, it was not good to be a Boleyn.

Actor/director Justin Chadwick’s The Other Boleyn Girl, based on Phillipa Gregory’s book, is a historical drama that somethings very well. It’s nicely acted with Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana in the lead roles. It’s beautifully photographed as to resemble Vermeer’s paintings, and tells the tale of one of history’s most Machiavellian females – but we already know how poorly it turns out for Anne. Yet despite all the pomp, glory and drama, this new version of the story is a bit on the dull side, especially compared with the 1969 film of the same story, Anne Of 1000 Days (with Geneviève Bujold in the title role).

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TRIUMPH OF THE WILLS
Talking with Will Ferrell and Will Arnett of Semi-Pro
By Robert Newton

There is an episode from the tenth season of Mike Judge’s “King of the Hill” in which Texas ‘tweener Bobby Hill learns he has a knack for making people laugh. In order to prevent the boy from cutting up so much in school, his folks enroll him in a clowning class at a local community college. The pretentious instructor proceeds to take all the fun out of what should otherwise be a delightful pursuit. Watching the kid bomb at his graduation performance is painful, and the episode serves as an all-too-familiar reminder to many comedians that staying grounded is key in staying funny.

Will Ferrell has never taken a course like that, and thank goodness.
The former “SNL” superstar spent all of February on the road, promoting his new basketball comedy Semi-Pro on his FunnyOrDie.com Comedy Tour (with Nick Swardson, Demetri Martin and Zach Galifianakis), stopping at key colleges (and Radio City Music Hall) and selling out every one. The movie is set in the ‘70s, and is about a self-styled one-hit wonder named Jackie Moon (Ferrell), who invests the riches earned from his single “Love Me Sexy” and buys the Flint (Michigan) Tropics, a fictional basketball team in the very real American Basketball Association (ABA). Jackie is also a player coach, and his crazy schemes to put butts in seats amp up when he learns that the NBA is going to absorb the ABA – but only four teams. Thus, the quest for fourth place begins.

While Ferrell, co-star Will Arnett (the doofus magician Gob Bluth on “Arrested Development”) and company were at Boston College for their show at the Conte Forum, a dozen or so college writers assembled – many having their first interview with someone like Ferrell. I, however, who will be 40 on my next birthday, felt like the narc at the NORML rally, the one of these things on “Sesame Street” that is not like the other. I sit back and thaw out from the freezing rain outside and let the kids run the show, quietly hoping that the whole thing doesn’t turn into that Chris Farley sketch where the best he could come up with for questions when interviewing an historic personage was a knob-waxing, “Do you remember that time in that movie when you…?”

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STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING [PG-13]

He’s an older writer feeling the press of mortality and an urgency about finishing his fifth, and final, novel. He is set in his ways, unwilling to compromise, and too principled, or too tired, to find his way in a changing world. His name is Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella).

She’s a grad student looking to write her master’s thesis on his work. She shares his passion for literature and, more essentially, his appreciation for all but forgotten writers. Her name, suitably enough, is Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose).

They, together, revitalize a hoary genre, a subclass of the May/December romance that pits a fading writer against a sharp, but undeveloped young talent of the opposite sex. In movies, we’ve seen this sort of thing done dramatically (Pieces of April) and comically (Husbands and Wives); in the novels, we’ve seen even Don Delillo address the genre, in Mao II.

What director Andrew Wagner does with Starting Out in the Evening is acknowledge that this sort of story is really more of a male fantasy – literally, and, in this case, literarily, a story that men tell themselves – and combine that with other, more substantive elements of manhood: what it means to be a father, to be a husband, and to be an older man. Not a Lothario, mind you: a man.

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THERE WILL BE BLOOD [R]

In 1898 to 1902 in Texas, prospector Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) scratches the soil and digs deep holes looking to find his fortune in whatever form there is. Sure enough, he finds it – oil; but as he begins to harvest it, an accident kills one of his workers, leaving behind a baby boy. Daniel brings up the orphan H.G. (Dillon Freasier), as his own, as he buys up ranches where oil may be found – including the Sunday family ranch, where the young Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) is exciting the faithful and the fearful with his fiery ministry, demanding Daniel be part of it. Daniel is more intent on his ruthless campaign to drive out his competition, whomever it may be. Before long, Daniel is a rich oil man, proud and set in his ways, when a man, played by Kevin J. O’Connor, shows up claiming to be his half brother. As Daniel’s wealth grows, so does his isolation from all around him, even his son, and so also grows his vile temper, while his grip on sanity grows weak.

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BE KIND REWIND [PG-13]
Much in the same way that the 1999 love letter to geekery Galaxy Quest simultaneously jibed and saluted the most devout of fans among us, so too does The Science Of Sleep director Michel Gondry in his light-and-sweet genre-busting comedy. It stars Jack Black (Margot At The Wedding) and Mos Def (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) as two friends who, after inadvertently erasing their store’s entire rental library of videocassettes, endeavor to replace them all with home-made “Sweded” versions before their boss, played by Danny Glover (Honeydripper) returns to give them the big what-for. The unconventional Gondry may tell his story in random fits and starts, but does so with the hand of a true availabilist, making use of every part of the dingy Passaic, New Jersey neighborhood and turning it into a character itself. It is true to the spirit of the film and a gentle homage not only to the millions of regular folks who are every Hollywood studio’s reason to be, but is also a quiet lament of the loss of community once afforded by the neighborhood klatches of local culture lost to the so-called progress brought by gentrification. Gondry, who pulled off the nigh-impossible feat of making a naked Patricia Arquette completely unappealing by covering her with hair in his 2001 trip, Human Nature, also shows a deep respect for the nature of old-fashioned storytelling and its power to make myth. The remakes of movies like 2001, Ghostbusters and Rush Hour 2 are hilarious, and Gondry again showcases his inventiveness by making them look charmingly roughshod and genuine, using a lot of old-school in-camera optical tricks (and to considerable comic effect). Black tempers his usual angry edge, and Mos Def sports an affable air, a levelheaded Stan to Black’s bumbling Ollie. Of course, the movie is so nuanced and difficult to market that audiences will not embrace it until its spring DVD and Blu-Ray release, which is fittingly ironic, considering the movie exists in an unspecified netherwhen before the little silver platters fully exerted their power to drive the all-important video market. –Robert Newton

STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING (2007; PG-13)
Tues Feb 26, Thurs Feb 28, Sat Mar 1- 7:30PM; Sun Mar 2- 1, 3:10PM.
Frank Langella has earned some of the best notices of his career as an aging novelist struggling to recapture his creative fire, while baffled and bemused by the sudden appearance of a forward young graduate student who’s chosen him as the subject of her master’s thesis - and perhaps more. “Refreshingly subtle…. It’s not what you expect, and it’s not something you’ve seen before” –Newsweek. 111 min.

JOURNEY FROM THE FALL (2007; R)
Tues Mar 4, Thurs Mar 6, Sat Mar 8- 7:30PM; Sun Mar 9- 1, 3:40PM.
When Saigon falls in 1975, a South Vietnamese family endures hell and high water to reach freedom in California. “Sweeping camerawork, gorgeous yet forbidding natural vistas, and enough shocking tragedies, brazen escapes and crowd-pleasing acts of defiance to feed several action-adventure pictures” –NY Times. 135 min. English and subtitles.

BLAME IT ON FIDEL (France 2007; NR)
Tues Mar 11, Thurs Mar 13, Sat Mar 15 - 7:30PM; Sun Mar 16 - 1, 3PM.
Young Nina Kervel delivers a remarkably mature and knowing performance as the curious 9-year-old daughter of leftist activists in Paris in 1970, obliged to sort out many questions of life and politics on her own while her parents commit all their energies to the cause of Salvador Allende. “A wrenching, funny
and wise little picture, with a diva-like junior star at its center” –Salon.com. 99 min. Subtitles.

NANKING (2007; R)
Tues Mar 18, Thurs Mar 20 - 7:30PM; Sat Mar 22- 9PM; Sun Mar 23- 1, 2:50PM.
A distinguished cast including Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway gives voice to the journals of westerners acting bravely to save as many helpless lives as they could, when they were caught amid the chaos of Japan’s attack on one of China’s great cities in 1937. “Crafts an impossible-but-true hymn to the
power of the individual conscience” –Salon.com. 88 min. English & subtitles.

PERSEPOLIS (France 2007; PG-13)
Tues Apr 1, Thurs Apr 3, Sat Apr 5- 7:30PM; Sun Apr 6- 1, 2:55PM.
Marjane Satrapi teams with co-director Vincent Paronnaud to animate her rueful memoir of a free-thinking adolescent coming of age during the Khomeini Revolution in Iran. “Not to be missed… in a year that has given us such marvelous animated movies as Ratatouille and Paprika, this vibrant, sly and moving personal odyssey takes pride of place” –Newsweek. Academy Award Nominee, Best Animated Film of 2007. 95 min. Subtitles.

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (Romania 2007; NR)
Tues Apr 8, Thurs Apr 10, Sat Apr 12- 7:30PM; Sun Apr 13- 9PM.
Amid the wreckage of Nicolae Ceausescu’s corrupt and crumbling Romanian Communist dictatorship in 1987, two college roommates go through a tensely illicit scheme to obtain an illegal abortion for one of them. Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes Festival Grand Prize Winner has earned overwhelming critical acclaim. “No lover of greatness in filmmaking will want to look away from one of the very best movies of 2007″ –Entertainment Weekly. 113 min. Subtitles.

OUTSOURCED (2007; PG-13)
Tues Apr 15, Thurs Apr 17, Sat Apr 19- 7:30PM; Sun Apr 20- 1, 3PM.
A young Seattle executive (Josh Hamilton) caught in a corporate downsizing gets both a cultural and a romantic education when he must supervise the transfer of the customer service department to India. John Jeffcoat’s clever satire of globalism triumphant is “a sweetly acted and neatly executed social comedy” –Boston Globe. 103 min.

ARRANGED (2007; NR)
Tues Apr 22, Thurs Apr 24, Sat Apr 26 - 7:30PM; Sun Apr 29 - 1, 2:50PM.
Despite the fact that they come from antagonistic cultures, young Brooklyn schoolteachers Rochel and Nasira are friends with a lot in common - chiefly a parental mandate to find a husband without further ado! “A lovely little gem of a film, beautifully shot and perfectly cast… I can’t remember the last time
I screened a similarly low-budget film that pulled all the pieces together so well” –Filmcritic.com. 89 min.

CARAMEL (Lebanon 2007; PG)
Tues Apr 29, Thurs May 1, Sat May 3 - 7:30PM; Sun May 4 - 1, 2:55PM.
Likeable characters, universal situations, and an invitingly luxuriant atmosphere spark this highly enjoyable ensemble comedy about the regulars at a Beirut beauty salon. “The penetrating musical score, the snappy and confident pacing, and the emergence of [director Nadine] Labaki as an international talent to watch all combine to make the film a satisfying confection” –Premiere. 95 min. Subtitles.

STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME (2007; NR)
Tues May 6, Thurs May 8, Sat May 10 - 7:30PM; Sun May 11 - 1, 2:50PM.
When a Dutch Jewish married couple and the husband’s girlfriend are all deported to the dreaded Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1943, an ordinary romantic triangle continues under the most extraordinary and forbidding circumstances any love story could imagine. “If Michele Ohayon’s absorbing documentary didn’t provide the proof, you’d never believe the story she tells” –NY Daily News. 94 min. English & subtitles.

DIRECTIONS TO CINEMA 320 (950 Main St., Worcester):
Take Route 290 to the Route 9/Framingham-Ware exit in downtown Worcester. Turn left off exit ramp if coming from the south, turn right off ramp if coming from the north. Follow the signs for Route 9 West (Highland Street) through Lincoln Square. Stay on Highland about a mile. Turn left onto Park Avenue at Elm Park. Proceed about 1.2 miles up Park Avenue to Downing Street (Peppercorn’s
Restaurant). Turn left onto Downing. Go through one stop sign. Cinema 320 parking permitted in Clark Downing Street lot on left. Cinema 320 is in the building directly across Downing Street. Use main campus entrance in middle of building and follow theater signs.

Cinema 320 is located on the third floor of the Jefferson Academic Center, at the corner of Main and Downing streets. The auditorium is elevator-accessible via the Geography Library entrance on Main Street, until 5 minutes before showtime.

HOLDEN ONTO A HERO
Talking with Charlie Bartlett director Jon Poll
By Robert Newton

“What attracted me to the movie after reading a hundred scripts,” says editor-turned-producer-turned-director Jon Poll, “is that the humor in it is so truth-based; what I love about it is that this odd bird makes choices that are not all perfect, but all come from a place of sincere honesty.”

In Charlie Bartlett, the 40-Year-Old Virgin producer’s first turn calling the shots as director, teen rebel Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) realizes that there is money in selling his behavioral medications to his classmates. Beyond the immediate reward of quick cash, he discovers that he genuinely enjoys helping people, setting up shop in a school bathroom and hearing the woes of the school’s troubled teens.

“We live in a world of a lot of cynical, clever, smart filmmaking – of films that are ‘Tarantinoesque,’ if you will,” he explains, “and here we come with this character not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. Ultimately, people relate to that kind of character and situation. It’s not a bold choice, but it’s a different one in today’s climate.”

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VANTAGE POINT [PG-13]

Vantage Point is a new movie from TV director Pete Travis that, for the first hour, replays the same incident again and again, but each time from a different point of view. The incident, an attempt to assassinate the President of the U.S. attending a global summit in a sun-drenched Spanish city, is not what it first appears. The half dozen or so characters each offer a different perspective on the event, filling in more and more details in a collage-like fashion.

The movie starts out strong and will have you hooked as you try to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure out what exactly did happen. What each of the principals think they saw was not actually what happened. Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox play the President’s top security guards, each with their own personal agendas. Forest Whitaker plays an American tourist with a video camera who is there to see the President, capturing the event, “Cloverfield”-style, on his high-def video camera. Sigourney Weaver plays the cable network news producer who is covering the event from a mobile van and Willam Hurt is the President…or is he? Meanwhile, the group of terrorists behind the plot work seamlessly behind-the-scenes is such clever ways that you will marvel at their ingenuity while being appalled by their actions.

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Just when you thought you’d seen the last new Star Wars movie in theaters, along comes this week’s announcement from LucasFilm that come August 15, fans all over North America can check out the feature-length CGI feature, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

“I felt there were a lot more Star Wars stories left to tell,” said George Lucas, executive producer of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. “I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward.”

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