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By Times Staff Writer
Published April 14, 2005

BAD EDUCATION

DIRECTOR: Pedro Almodovar.

CAST: Gael Garcia Bernal, Francisco Boira, Javier Camara, Alberto Ferreiro, Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Lluis Homar, Francisco Maestre, Fele Martinez, Petra Martinez, Leonor Watling.

SYNOPSIS: Catholic schoolboys are molested by a priest, then grow into gay men whose paths again cross with the priest. Shown with English subtitles.

WHAT WE SAID: Times film critic Steve Persall gave the film a B+. "Although the molester-priest angle is, as they used to say, ripped from the headlines, Almodovar isn't here to shriek about blasphemy or betraying trust. It's simply a provocative means of propelling a story. There are no answers, nor accusations, and Bad Education is a better film for that," he wrote.

MPAA RATING: NC-17; explicit sexual content.

RUNNING TIME: 109 min.

DIRECTOR: Terry George.

CAST: Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Desmond Dube, Fana Mokoena.

SYNOPSIS: Genocide prompts a hotel manager (Cheadle) to make his grounds safe for refugees. Based on a true story. Cheadle was nominated for a best actor Academy Award, and Okonedo was nominated for supporting actress.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the film a B, writing that the director didn't do enough to make the atrocities clear for Westerners without an awareness of the Rwandan conflict. "You can't tell insurgents from oppressors without a score card, or at least a military uniform. Complicating matters is George's timidity in dramatizing the grisly era," Persall wrote. "A sense of goodness, of conscience, in Hotel Rwanda makes complaining about the film sound cynical. But it's the difference between lighting a candle in reverence and actually having it illuminate something."

MPAA RATING: PG-13; violence, profanity, disturbing images, mature themes.

RUNNING TIME: 110 min.

DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh.

CAST: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Elliott Gould, Carl Reiner, Vincent Cassel, Bernie Mac.

SYNOPSIS: The gang from Ocean's Eleven reunites for another caper.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the film a B-, a bit better than the C+ he gave 2001's Ocean's Eleven. "Soderbergh's sequel doesn't correct the problems of its predecessor, but it tries something even more impressive: reshaping the larceny motif into a completely different vibe, one steeped in a European cinema that stylized American film noir," Persall wrote. "Soderbergh concentrates the caper in exotic locales such as Amsterdam, Rome and Paris, creating a movie to suit the surroundings. Las Vegas was slick and gaudy; Ocean's Twelve is often gritty, jittery and vague, like a gentle lapping of the French New Wave."

MPAA RATING: PG-13; profanity.

RUNNING TIME: 125 min.

DIRECTOR: E. Elias Merhige.

CAST: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Harry Lennix, Carrie-Anne Moss.

SYNOPSIS: FBI agents (Eckhart, Moss) track a serial killer (Kingsley) who is bumping off other serial killers.

WHAT WE SAID: The Times did not review this film.

MPAA RATING: R; violent content, language and some nudity.

RUNNING TIME: 100 min.

DIRECTOR: Nicole Kassell

CAST: Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Mos Def, Benjamin Bratt, David Alan Grier, Eve.

SYNOPSIS: Bacon plays a paroled pedophile named Walter unsuccessfully trying to adjust to society. Sedgwick co-stars as the lumberyard worker who may be his salvation.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the film an A-. "The notion of making a movie with any degree of sympathy for a child molester is automatically a turnoff. Then along comes Nicole Kassell's stunning debut, The Woodsman, featuring the best performance of Kevin Bacon's esteemed career, to make viewers consider the scant possibility of redemption," he wrote. "Kassell succeeds in creating a morality play from an immoral perspective, never doubting that Walter deserves punishment from outside or, more damaging, from within. We don't cheer when Walter commits a worthwhile act, because it's an impulsive response to his own dark side. Instead, we're just relieved that the monster has a human face. In the best, almost impossible cases like this, the crime fades, but the guilt never does."

MPAA RATING: R; harsh profanity, adult sexual situations, adult nudity, violence, mature themes of child molestation.

RUNNING TIME: 87 min.

[Last modified April 13, 2005, 10:29:10]