Archive for December, 2006

RATING: (WILD APPLAUSE) The Painted Veil: Drama. Starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. Directed by John Curran. (PG-13. 120 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) Love and passion have important roles to play in...

RATING: (EMPTY CHAIR) The Tiger and the Snow: Comedy-drama. Starring Roberto Benigni, Jean Reno, Nicoletta Braschi. Written and directed by Benigni. In Italian, English and Arabic with subtitles. (Not rated. 115 minutes. At the Opera Plaza.)

RATING: (ALERT VIEWER) Unconscious: Comedy. Directed by Joaquin Oristrell. With Leonor Watling, Luis Tosar, Nuria Prims. (Not rated. 108 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) Lurking deep inside "Unconscious" there...

Here are our critic's choices of movies to see this weekend: Le Petit Lieutenant: Nathalie Baye gives one of the best performances of the year, as a police commandant and recovering alcoholic investigating a series of sordid murders in Paris. The...

Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett star in a misanthropic game of cat and mouse from which no one emerges unscathed, including saps like us who think we’re watching a film about other people.

Try as it might to be refined and provocative, Tom Tykwer's “Perfume” never rises above the pedestrian creepiness of its conceit.

In Black Christmas a sorority house is terrorized by a killer who makes frightening telephone calls before murdering the sorority sisters during the Christmas break.

When you hear the premise of IBlack ChristmasI, it actually sounds kind of fun: a sorority house is visited by a mysterious serial killer on Christmas Eve, and the police are unable to help because of the snowstorm. There is something oddly enticing about watching a group of ditzy girls-gone-wild being plucked off one by one. Tis the season to enjoy some bloodshed with your eggnog, right? Not in this case.

CGI Action Adventure. After the defeat of their old arch nemesis, The Shredder, the Turtles have grown apart as a family. Struggling to keep them together, their rat sensei, Master Splinter, becomes worried when strange things begin to brew in New York City. Tech-industrialist Max Winters is amassing an army of ancient monsters to apparently take over the world. And only one super-ninja fighting team can stop them those heroes in a half shell Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael! With the help of old allies April ONeil and Casey Jones, the Turtles are in for the fight of their lives as they once again must face the mysterious Foot Clan, who have put their own ninja skills behind Winters endeavors. Making this new incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles truly cutting-edge, the film will be created entirely with state-of-the-art CG animation, giving them a completely new look for the 21st century.

In the world of high-stakes poker, Huck Cheever Eric Bana is a blastera player who goes all out, all the time. But in his personal relationships, Huck plays it tight, expertly avoiding emotional commitments and long-term expectations. When Huck sets out to win the main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker and the affections of Billie Offer Drew Barrymore, a young singer from Bakersfield there is one significant obstacle in his path: his anger toward his father, L.C. Cheever Robert Duvall, the poker legend who abandoned Hucks mother years ago. As these two rivals progress toward a final showdown at the poker table, Huck learns that to win in the games of life and poker, he must try to play cards the way he has been living his life and live his life the way he has been playing cards.