CAST: Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Bernie Mac, John Ritter, Lauren Graham, Brett Kelly, Lauren Tom
SYNOPSIS: Willie (Thornton) is a thief using a Santa disguise and a dwarf accomplice named Marcus (Cox), dressed as an elf, to gain after-hours access to shopping mall safes. A lonely child who thinks Willie really is Santa invites him home, where his addled grandmother (Cloris Leachman) doesn't even notice the mayhem around her.
WHAT WE SAID: "Don't expect warm fuzzies or snowball fights or some last-minute redemption of a grinch," wrote Times film critic Steve Persall, who gave it an A-. "Bad Santa is a chronically cruel comedy without a shred of decency or sensitivity. And it all rides on the scrawny, tattooed shoulders of Thornton, whose magnificently scuzzy performance will never be forgotten."
MPAA RATING: R; harsh profanity, crude humor, sexual situations, alcohol abuse, violence. An unrated version, Bad-der Santa, also has been released.
RUNNING TIME: 93 min.
Secret Window
DIRECTOR: David Koepp
CAST: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton, Charles S. Dutton, Len Cariou
SYNOPSIS: Depp plays author Mort Rainey, a disheveled recluse in an upstate New York cabin since he caught his wife Amy (Bello) in bed with another man (Hutton). One day there's a knock on the door from a sinister hick named John Shooter (Turturro), claiming that Mort stole his idea for a short story about a man who murders his wife.
WHAT WE SAID: "Secret Window isn't a particularly good movie. What it is, however, is another chance to see how effortlessly Depp can transform hack material into something approaching art," wrote Persall, who said Depp elevated the film to a B-. "It's always nice to see America's best actor at work."
MPAA RATING: PG-13; profanity, mild violence, brief sexual situations.
RUNNING TIME: 99 min.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
DIRECTOR: Larry Blamire
CAST: Fay Masterson, Andrew Parks, Susan McConnell, Brian Howe, Jennifer Blaire, Larry Blamire, Dan Conroy, Robert Deveau, Darren Reed
SYNOPSIS: A spoof of cheesy 1950s science fiction movies with a dedicated scientist battling aliens, a mutant, an evil scientist and, of course, the power-mad Skeleton who wants to rule the world.
WHAT WE SAID: The Times did not review this movie.
MPAA RATING: PG; mild profanity.
RUNNING TIME: 90 min.
CLASSICS ON DVD
A Woman Is a Woman (Une Femme Est une Femme)
DIRECTOR: Jean-Luc Godard
CAST: Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy
SYNOPSIS: A stripper decides she wants to have a child, but she can't get her boyfriend to go along with the idea. So she pursues his best friend in this 1961 film, considered a classic of French new wave cinema.
MPAA RATING: Not rated
RUNNING TIME: 84 min.
Mamma Roma
DIRECTOR: Pier Paolo Pasolini
CAST: Anna Magnani, Etori Garofalo
SYNOPSIS: This 1962 film stars Anna Magnani as a middle-aged prostitute who tries to abandon her past to build a respectable life for her 16-year-old son in postwar Italy. Although originally banned in Italy for obscenity, today it is considered a classic, both for the director's neorealistic style and Magnani's powerful performance. Black and white, Italian with English subtitles.
