Opening Films

by Inlander Staff


Barbershop 2: Back in Business -- It's back to the south side of Chicago where Calvin (Ice Cube) and the gang (Cedric the Entertainer, Sean Patrick Thomas, Eve) are still cutting hair and cracking wise. Enter some big bad developers who want to open a franchise -- "Nappy Cuts" -- across the street, and Queen Latifah as the sassy (could she be anything else??) stylist next door. Rated: PG-13





Book of Mormon: The Journey -- We had a lot of trouble even finding anything on the Web about this movie. But finally we tracked it down on the Internet Movie Database and were amused by one viewer's recent summary: "Pain! Pain! When will it end?" The same viewer went on to point out that "Gary Rogers directs, writes and produces for the first time, and boy does it show!" We'd like to offer some positive comments from other viewers to give you a balanced view, but quite frankly, we couldn't find any! So folks -- Mormon or not -- enter at your own risk! Rated: PG-13





* Catch That Kid -- It's a sorrow to report that with the fairly godawful Catch That Kid, director Bart (Mr. Julianne Moore) Freundlich is just as tonally incomprehensible a director of kiddie-techno diversions as he is of his own inconsequential child-of-privilege maundering, like The Myth of Fingerprints and World Traveler. A ridiculously slack attempt at kinetic heist thrills for the younger set, Kid lacks the giddy invention and simple glee of Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids franchise. With her hair pulled back, star Kristen Stewart has a handsome, androgynous severity: could you imagine Willem Dafoe as a young teenage girl? (RP) Rated: PG





**** City of God -- An adaptation of the novel by Paulo Lins, which is a fictionalization of the author's youth in the favelas (slums) outside of Rio de Janeiro. Indelibly fun to watch --and recently recognized with Oscar nominations -- City of God is a self-mythologizing portrait of the allure and despair of juvenile crime in a milieu that offers no other escape. It's dizzying, dazzling and never flinches from the harshness of what its many characters go through. It's the kind of art that genuinely confronts the question, what is the value of human life? And why are we so reckless with the fate of the youth of the world? (RP) Rated: R





** Miracle -- Here we go again -- another underdog sports movie, this time a true story, about the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team, made up of college players, and their spirited bid for victory over the Russian machine of a team that might as well be professional. The film is well made, and there's a solid performance by Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, a man who was convinced he was right about everything, especially his relentless and sometimes brutal coaching of the team. But it goes on too long, is padded with unnecessary side stories, and hey, most people know how it ends. (ES) Rated: PG





Publication date: 02/05/04