Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Video / DVD

New releases

A look at what's headed to the shelves

By Times Staff
Published November 10, 2005

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

DIRECTOR: Tim Burton

CAST: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Missi Pyle, James Fox, Annasophia Robb, Deep Roy, Christopher Lee

SYNOPSIS: Burton's version of Roald Dahl's fantasy, starring Depp as gently eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.

WHAT WE SAID: St. Petersburg Times film critic Steve Persall gave the movie a C+. "How does such a can't-miss project miss by such a wide margin? We have Roald Dahl's classic book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, an imaginative filmmaker like Tim Burton, and the incomparable Johnny Depp immersing himself into another odd role, this time as Willy Wonka, the candy man with a dark nougat center," he wrote. "With those wonderful ingredients, the lack of magic in Burton's movie is the most puzzling thing about his entirely bizarre career. This film can truly be compared to cotton candy: spun from sugar and hot air into an impressive mound of prettiness, yet with such a flimsy consistency that it could compress into practically nothing."

MPAA RATING: PG; mild peril for children

RUNNING TIME: 120 min.

DIRECTOR: Rob Zombie

CAST: Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Sheri Moon Zombie, William Forsythe, Leslie Easterbrook, Ken Foree, Geoffrey Lewis, Priscilla Barnes

SYNOPSIS: Rob Zombie's gut-wrenching tribute to the sadism cinema of the 1970s, with a band of lunatics on a killing rampage.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the movie an A-. "Hands down (or chopped off), the best horror movie in decades is Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, a ruthlessly violent, viciously entertaining blood feast. Not since Leatherface first swung his chain saw has anyone spewed such a delirious obscenity against human nature onto the screen," he wrote. "If there's such a thing as a vile classic, this is it."

MPAA RATING: R; pervasive sadistic violence, harsh profanity, nudity, sexual situations

RUNNING TIME: 101 min.

DIRECTOR: Joe Roth

CAST: Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, Cheech Marin, Jake Busey, M. Emmet Walsh, Tom Poston, Caroline Rhea

SYNOPSIS: A Chicago couple (Allen, Curtis) decide to skip holiday festivities, disappointing nosy neighbors (including Aykroyd).

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the movie a C. "It's a TV movie wandering onto theater screens to spread a little cheer to mall shoppers whose feet need a break," he wrote. "Sometimes Joe Roth's movie is funny; often it isn't. Always, it's played with sitcom predictability by Tim Allen, who doesn't know any other way, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who used to know better."

MPAA RATING: PG; brief profanity, mild sexual situations

RUNNING TIME: 97 min.

DIRECTOR: Sally Potter

CAST: Joan Allen, Simon Abkarian, Sam Neill, Stephanie Leonidas

SYNOPSIS: Infidelity and iambic pentameter collide in Potter's ambitiously flat melodrama.

WHAT WE SAID: Persall gave the film a C. "Potter's film would be just another infidelity drama, except she employs iambic pentameter - part Shakespeare, part Dr. Seuss - throughout her contemporary screenplay, turning each emotional exchange into rhyming couplets. Literature buffs may be able to cope with the distraction, while others spend more time trying to catch the rhymes than paying much attention to what is being said," he wrote. "Yes is an interesting experiment, but only for a while."

MPAA RATING: R; language and some sexual content

RUNNING TIME: 100 min.

DIRECTOR: Pierre Salvadori

CAST: Daniel Auteuil, Jose Garcia, Sandrine Kiberlain, Marilyne Canto, Michele Moretti, Garance Clavel, Fabio Zenoni, Ange Ruze, Andree Tainsy

SYNOPSIS: After saving a man from suicide, a Parisian maitre d' (Auteuil) falls in love with the depressed guy's girlfriend. Shown with English subtitles.

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

MPAA RATING: R; language

RUNNING TIME: 110 min.

DIRECTOR: Kerry Asmussen

CAST: Margaret Cho

SYNOPSIS: Concert recorded live in May during Cho's The Assassin Tour.

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

MPAA RATING: Not rated.

RUNNING TIME: 90 min.

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 15:24:33]