Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL Fuck Picks By MATT SOERGEL Morris News Service TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY (3 stars): Will Ferrell’s a dim racing star in a comedy that pokes much fun at America’s NASCAR- loving population. Sloppy and not as funny as Anchorman, but still plenty of the absurdist humor that goes with the territory when you allow Ferrell to run all over it in his big white bun hugger undies. PG-13. THE DESCENT (4 stars): Nasty, pitiless and seriously scary. Six women make a literal and sym bolic descent into darkness when they venture into an Appalachian cave where all manner of horrors await. This raw, low-budget British chiller provides double shots of what horror fans crave, served straight-up, one after the others. A serious R. THE NIGHT LISTENER (3 stars): Robin Williams is a radio host who strikes up a phone friendship with a young listener, though things are not as they seem. It’s an eerie, short (82 min utes) mystery without the pumped-up scenes of a typi cal thriller; instead, think of it as a moody thriller for the art-house set. R. THE ANT BULLY (3 stars): There are many imaginative visual jokes packed into this fine, excit ing children’s story about a boy shrunk down to the size of an ant. Rousing adventure and narrow escapes await him. Lessons are learned, too - though they aren’t crammed down our throats. PG. SCOOP (3 stars): Woody Allen’s remaining fans should enjoy his latest, a breezy comedy set in London, where student journalist Scarlett Johansson goes investigating a charming rich guy (Hugh Jackman) who may just be a serial killer. Allen is a bum bling magician who poses as her dad. PG-13 MONSTER HOUSE (3 stars): Three kids check out the malignant and haunted house across the road in this computer-animated story. Children with chills on their mind should love it, though it’s so scary it could send others ducking under their seats. PG. CLERKS II (3 stars): The aging guys from Kevin Smith’s 1994 indie smash are back, still engaging in ear-blisteringly raunchy con versation and hilarious pop culture commentating. It’s more sentimental than the original, with an honest-to goodness romance (thanks to radiant Rosario Dawson). But the good news for fans: It’s still plenty juvenile. R. LADY IN THE WATER (2 stars): M. Night Shyamalan’s newest is one of the nuttiest movies you’ll ever see, though it’s funnier and more watchable than you might think ~ even as the story, about a strange woman from a parallel world, spins way out of control. Has a couple of horror jolts, but it’s chiefly a mystical and earnest fairy tale. PG-13. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST (2 stars) There’s one scene, featur ing Johnny Depp as a giant shish kebab, that’s a zesty chunk of comic genius. The rest of the movie? You do get your money’s worth of motley pirates, sea monsters and duels, but it’s overdone - way too long, too frantic, too dark and nowhere near as charming or funny as that wonderful first one. PG-13. CLICK 3 stars: You’ll get plenty of everything Adam Sandler is known for, but you’ll also find a heartwarm ing lesson about priorities. (Erin Trauth, The Times- Union) PG-13. J9| ■ ogj w ;^.»4 ®ltP> m v JUb^HL^^SobP rT J WiJJr jJP jflHHßfe.. mB BKu 75 \ .v' !Mlßriißiiri r TW | rw r M' •l < %«uat k -“ »i#-*- - ► Paramount Pictures In World Trade Center, Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone tells the true story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen - John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno - who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape. World Trade Center: A small story, writ large By MATT SOERGEL Morris News Service Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center takes a huge, disastrous event, finds a small story there, then tells it beautifully. It captures the distant whomp of the first plane hitting the North Tower on such a beautiful early fall day, all blue skies, until those clouds of destruction rose from the spot. Then it follows two police officers pinned in the rub ble, buried to their necks, and it follows their families at home, waiting to hear what became of them on Sept. 11, 2001. A great scene: A young son watches the TY burn ing with frustration at his home in the suburbs. He knows his father is some where in that wreckage, but is he dead? Is he alive? He fumes - how can these peo ple just wait? How can they not act? “Mom,” he pleads. “Let’s just go get him.” World Trade Center tells the true story of two Port Authority police officers, Sgt. John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Officer Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), who raced to the World Trade Center, then volunteered to go in, to Reel Releases Films paint colorful lives of artists By STEVEN UHLES Morris News Service Painting often happens in a vacuum. It’s a solitary pursuit, an intimate, some times secluded act. Not really riveting cinema. Filmmakers, though, are fascinated by painters and their cloistered, creative lives. Perhaps it’s because, working in a visual medi um, they see painters as a kindred spirit. Perhaps it’s because the creative act continues to fascinate. Perhaps it’s because they think the cult of familiarity might sell tickets. Whatever the reason, scores of famous artists, from Andy Warhol (I Shot Andy Warhol) to Toulouse-Latrec (Moulin Rouge) have been immor talized on the silver screen. Here are a few favorites: POLLOCK (2000) As complicated as one of Jackson Pollock’s paint-splashed canvases, this film stars and was directed by Ed Harris. It focuses on the turmoil in the Expressionist’s life. It succeeds because it man ages to make the creative process, the act of applying paint to canvas, visually At A Glance - ' ------ ' - - World Trade Center 3 1/2 out of 4 stars Who’s it for? It’s strong storytelling for wide audi ences. Credits: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello. Directed by Oliver Stone. Running time: 2 hours, 9 minutes. Family guide: PG-13. Intense and emotional con tent, some disturbing imag es, profanity. help evacuate the thousands inside. The film shows the confusion in small anec dotes and telling details. There’s no larger perspec tive there, because they only knew what they could see with their own eyes. Then, with some superla tive special effects, the first tower tumbles around them, though all they see is a huge ferocious black cloud of debris racing toward them. They’re trapped, stuck in a ruined elevator shaft in the concourse that ran between the two towers. Choked in dust, buried under rubble, each can hear but not see the other. A patch of light shines interesting. A strong, stir ring film. ARTEMISIA (1997) Critics have claimed that this film , which documents the early life and work of Artemisia Gentileschi , plays fast and loose with the truth, but the fact remains that it introduced audiences to a fascinating, if forgot ten, figure. In her life, Gentileschi, who worked during the 16th and 17th centuries, was the first female painter to gar ner widespread acclaim. It’s a fascinating, if factually M.C.L. Screen Your Patio At A Very Affordable Price! FREE ESTIMATES • We Build Fences TOO! If You Call With This Ad - ; We’ll Paint Your Floor FREE ; . (-3 Color Choices #^7B-228-1767! mfr 00035626^ LIFESTYLE through the wreckage from 20 feet above, as that long day turns into night, then day again. They pass the time with all the things that might go through your mind in a sit uation such as that: family, things you didn’t do or say but should have, the theme song from an old TV show, a vision of Jesus coming to offer comfort. As rubble falls around them and hours crawl by, McLoughlin and Jimeno go from resolve to pure scream ing - no, wailing - panic to resignation. Then back again, several times. It’s agonizing, but there’s little relief when Stone gives us long, pained interludes with the officers’ waiting wives (Maria Bellow and Maggie Gyllenhaal), their children and their extended families. This is where the film could have slipped up in easy sentiment, but it deals more satisfyingly in the rawness and the frus tration of such a horrible, helpless time. I prefer the unvarnished, documentary-like horror of United 93, the year’s other 9/11 film, over Stone’s more conventional World Trade Center. But there’s no denying the craft involved in this flawed, effort. LUST FOR LIFE (1956) Wracked by poverty and severe psychological prob lems, Vincent Van Gogh wasn’t recognized for his work until after his death. This film, which stars the chisel-chinned Kirk Douglas as the troubled painter, might be a bit too Hollywood beautiful. Still, Mr. Douglas is a master at inhabiting eccentrics, and the film carefully considers both Van Gogh the tortured soul and the supremely tal ented artist. film, and the scrupulous sensitivity as well. It’s so sensitive, in fact, that you’d never know it was an Oliver Stone film unless you saw the credits; the provoca teur is nowhere in sight, and sometimes you suspect some of his fiery flair, if applied judiciously, might have made it even more effective. But the story is so compel ling, one could just as eas ily argue that such a thing wasn’t necessary. Stone and screenwriter Andrea Berloff do expand the film’s viewpoint on a couple of telling occasions. Once, it travels around the world showing anguished TV viewers aghast at the hor ror that befell America. And it stops briefly in an office complex in Connecticut, where a guy in a shirt and tie (Michael Shannon) watches the attack with this co-workers. “I don’t know if you guys know it yet,” he says, “but this country’s at war.” So he walks out of the office, goes to church to pray, gets a haircut, puts on his old U.S. Marine Corps uniform and heads to New York City. There’s work to be done there, as World Trade Center makes clear. SOUTHERN PINES RETIREMENT VILLA Is Now Accepting Residents Located In Hawkinsville Hwy 341 Adjacent to Hospital 478-783-3445 ... Apartment Homes & Perry’s Best Kept Secret , c //?)? e/otr e/0 1 0/ut QfeneA ♦ Beautiful 2 & 3 BR Apartment Homes ♦ Sparkling pool ♦ One Large 61 inch Screen TV! 1701 Macon Rd. • Perry, GA 31069 478-988-0917 SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2006 Web Watch By RICH RAY Morris News Service Back to school What are the latest, greatest gadgets for stu- • dents this year? CNET’s annual Back to School Guide is a great place to find out. Browse by cat egory (laptops, MP3 play ers, cell phones, etc.) or price range. College stu dents will want to check out the Tech Checklist to help prepare for campus life. Other top resources include Software for Kids Under 13, Downloads for High School Students and Cool for School: PDAs for Students, www.backtos chool.cnet.com Cancer and nutrition The aim here is to pro vide those living with cancer, as well as their family and friends, with unbiased information on nutrition and cancer. Find current, comprehensive and scientific informa tion that’s presented in a useful, easy to under stand way. Disregard pny mentions of subscription costs because the site is now free. Categories include Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Nutrition Related Clinical Trials and Conventional Treatments, to name a few. Health-care providers can also benefit from the research and info here, web .cancernutritioninfo. com Human Clock If you want to see the current time revealed in a rather unusual way, then take a gander here. Every minute of every day, HumanClock.com dis plays some sort of photo graph of the current time. Depending on the time of day, you can find images from around the globe ranging from Arizona to Italy. Two clock for mats are presented here. The digital clock features more than 11,000 imag es, whereas the analog clock is more of a “human clock.” Take a minute to visit the site and see what I mean. www.humanclock.com Law and order Those interested in law enforcement will want to pay a visit to Real Police, which features police related news, stories, jobs, gear, forums, resources and more. Police offi cers answer questions in the Ask a Cop section. Click to Legal Research for information on top ics such as background checks and identity theft. Go to Resources for links to sites about everything from firearms and police training to surveillance and security. 5C I mm id j_ v 2