Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PRIDE (PG) A new year means a slew of new inspirational sports flicks. In Pride. 2007's first piece of reality- based sports memorabilia, Jim Ellis (Terrence Howard) starts a swim team for the troubled teens of Philadelphia that floats to the top of the national pool. I'd see the mesmerizing Howard act in anything, and Bernie Mac's sup port can be golden. But four credited screenwriters is not a good sign. With Kimberiy Elise and Diana Ross' son, Evan. Opens Friday (Carmike) THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (PG-13) Devoted father and salesman Chris Gardner (Will Smith) finds him self homeless due to bad investments and stupid decisions But with pluck, moxie and a little luck, he lands on his feet after the greedy rich men of Dean Witter graciously offer Chris a job after he makes them oodles of money during an unpaid internship. The problem with the well-made Happyness is. if you're not careful, you’ll swallow the shit it's shoveling. (Georgia Square 5) REIGN OVER ME (R) Adam Sandler looks again for critical success in the new film from Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger). Sandler is Charlie Fineman, who lost his family in 9/11; Don Cheadle is Charlie’s college roommate, Alan Johnson, a successful dentist, who randomly runs into his despeiately disconnected old friend on a New York street corner. The two rekindle a friendship they both badly need With Jada Pinkett Smith and Liv Tyler. Opens Friday (Call Theaters) RENO 911!: MIAMI (R) I am pleased to announce Reno 91U: Miami is Police Academy for a new millennium, and every thousand years, we need a new Police Academy. Plus, Paul Rudd's hideous Scarface impersonation is almost as good as Michael Winslows mouth effects. Sketch comedy is always hit-or-miss, but these cops are sharpshooters. Starts Friday (Highway 17 Theatres) < SHOOTER (R) Shooter owns some of the spring’s hottest buzz. Directed by Training Days Antoine Fuqua. Shooter stars Mark Wahlberg as exiled marksman Bob Lee Swagger, who is framed for the attempted assassination of the president. Expect lots of double crosses, explosions and costar Danny Glover seen through crosshairs. Opens Friday (Carmike) SCREAMING QUEENS: THE RIOTS AT COMPTON’S CAFETERIA (NR) 2005. Screaming Queens documents the 1966 struggle of gay street hus tlers and transgender women against police harassment in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. At Compton’s, a cup of coffee tossed at a police officer spar'.ed the modern militant movement for transgender rights. Sponsored by the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center. Shows Wednesday. 3/28 (UGA SLC150) STOMP THE YARD (PG-13) Stomp the Yard isn’t half-bad. It follows DJ (Columbus Short) from underground street dancing in L A. to the beautiful campuses of the Atlanta University Center. A good c!d competition movie but the choreography's fly and the sur rounding melodrama not out of step. (Georgia Square 5) STRANGER INSIDE (NR) 2001 Some mother-daughter reunions are harder than others, but one that takes place within the confines of a cor rectional facility might take the cake for toughest. As Treasure and Brownie, Yolonda Ross and Davenia McFadden give this realistic look into a women's prison its grit. Stranger Inside re ceived numerous accolades from film festivals, gay and straight, across the nation Followed by a discussion led by Dr Chris Cuomo Part of Women's History Month Shows Tuesday, 3/27 (UGA SLC 248) TMNT (PG) The PG rating doused any hopes this cool-looking CGI adventure would be a return to the Turtles' Eastman & Laird origins, and word is writer-director Kevin Munroe simply forgets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ///ever existed. Featuring the voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Smith. Patrick Stewart and Laurence Fishburne Opens Friday (Carmike) THE ULTIMATE GIFT (PG) No one should have to pay to watch something you should get gratis on PAX. A trust fund baby (Drew Fuller) inherits 12 Herculean tasks, or “gifts" from his wealthy grandfather (James Garner). Luckily for Jason, these "gifts" enable him to discover whether or nof money will truly make him happy. With Abigail Breslin. Ends Thursday (Carmike) WILD HOGS (PG-13) Wild Hogs is more premise than movie. Four middle-aged suburban eunuchs played by John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy try to regain their masculinity by hitting the open road on their bikes. Warning. Most of the jokes are less funny than they may appear After the movie, you'll be picking sexual innuendoes—hetero and homo—out of your teeth like so many bugs. Travolta slathers on his enchanting old musk, but mustering up any sympathy for this not-so-wild bunch of grown men was impos sible. This flick's just coasting on the fumes of its stars’ fading charms (Beechwood, Carmike) ZODIAC (R) Talented filmmaker David Fincher finally releases his sixth feature, an overdue, overlong thriller about the Zodiac, a serial killer who threatened San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s. Zodiac pursues the parallel investigations of political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) and the police, led by Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo). A refreshing take on the serial killer thriller (Beechwood); Ends Thursday (Carmike) Drew Wheeler > Gudfcs rte&W .Ta &\e : So Ute* 1 'MWpk aociy’s'." hp £ U D«A&lev\ct'; WlktSide W W»M Saudi's a ftpacto-Sine «f(-Wf j bf ofcV Ityoie. bof tfXTfc Tte SfapMs i WAke if More < jpg |UWlWxf . Wops »V A V\ey l Con v* jtf 1 jV&erj 1 taj ,¥+e* Wy »«*«?! au*. ll C»oiA SpwAH*r\eji+a> fVt 9**rs, o»\ a W nt**r fywr ort #)WtU 10% rf if UIpaA- So rSM Vyte MOrimf, ooc Htro awl kis « UjwtKc'rVBoAdr Poll sttaafUtss-Cwf'W 10 poHOfWItef MM? wssssagsa u,ff A tulsmd ir-»»»»* suk. Well ,;Vs pit ft or scenes {a 4U* RUkr d[e!i cp l ° j »4 ^o$4)v jvjf 0/\t Vt\t d-Utr -jilt 0f Afi thlirt lisi/iy J a \t(er <\ w*s preff/ 7/«4 t y ou ] y«AU,/ , .*^W. lA/UfJe UuF* , yM\ I we Mi lifce He*\ ^ ^ Cl3 vlt^ct 0A$cftt^ i4 h> fAVAcll 0/1 popCOfA, »5 AAAOyhtj. Tkt »5 *H»e ttore c*A oaIj k'H yov /Vt Atvtrstto <a kitlir Ifnvt an easier o^f Hi-kf. fleas14o;f J ^w c rmje, kIo 4» W yu kill /^t| J\Ut lmm mmm lll£ Wmm FLAWED ROCK I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE (R) What happened to Chris Rock? Arguably (but I'm not willing to argue this point for very long) the greatest stand-up comic of his generation, Rock strung together a series of riotously funny, socially bril liant, caustically acerbic HBO specials, "Bring the Pain" and "Bigger and Blacker," in the '90s. His rants on race, sex, relationships and politics were groundbreaking even in our post-Richard Pryor world, and Rock ably filled the void left by Eddie Murphy s ascent into the box office stratosphere. (Can you even imagine the massively egotistical Murphy doing stand up now? "Delirious" seems like it's millennia, not a quarter of a century, old.) Then, like Murphy, Rock found superstardom or at least a fraction of it. A slew of support ing parts in the painfully funny (Dogma, Nurse Betty), the painfully overextended (Lethal Weapon 4), and the just plain painful (Sgt Bilko, Beverly Hilb Ninja, Doctor Dolittle) followed. Now Rock's a star, able to focus on honing his greatest gift—a razor-sharp understanding of the affairs between men and women, whites and blacks, rich and poor—but he's done nothing of the sort. His last HBO special, "Never Scared," was tired and spottily humorous at best, pos sibly because he was spending too much time writing and starring in Down to Earth, the Weitz Brothers' ill-conceived remake of the Warren Beatty vehicle Heaven Can Wait (itself a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan), and writing, directing and starring in Head of State, quite possibly the most disappointing political comedy I've ever had the misfortune to anticipate. Rock's trade mark trenchancy (his rant on the unfeasibility of a black vice-president was a highlight of "Bigger and Blacker") was replaced by easy, juvenile jokes more appropriate (and funnier) in Friday. The closest he came to true political satire c.i the level of Bulworth (an underrated Beatty gem) or Wag the Dog (David Mamet, Barry Levinson, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro,and Willie Nelson at their finest) was the mass exodus of white Californians rushing out to vote when they heard Rock's Mays Gilliam was winning the presidential election. Now back to my opening query. What did hap pen to Chris Rock? He's an obviously talented comedian and a decidedly smart man with an eye for life's little details as sharp as Jerry Seinfeld's and as edgy as Richard Pryor's. The fault with Rock may lie less within himself and mere with the medium he has chosen. Where did Seinfeld get his groove back? He got it on television. Why? He's not a very good actor, and neither is Rock. His eyes give him away throughout his new feature, / Think I Love My Wife. No matter what emotion he is meant to be conveying to hardworking wife Brenda (Gina Torres, Serenity), his eyes betray a mirthful, mischievous, "I'm just acting" gleam much like Seinfeld's ever-present smirk. Murphy is a movie star—has been ever since the massively popular and entertaining Beverly Hilb Cop—and an actor (petulant reac tion or not, Murphy deserved this year's Academy Award). The same accusation can be made of Pryor, a one-of-a-kind comedic virtuoso. Rock may be a better stand-up comic than Murphy and rank just behind Pryor, but he will never be an actor nor a writer nor a director. He's tried again and again and displays little improvement in I Think I Love My Wfe. Considering the small- screen success of "Everybody Hates Chris" and his first two HBO specials, Rock should rethink his present career path. Rock's big screen failings provide all the necessary reasons to tut-tut his decision to remake French filmmaker Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon, the last of his Six Moral Tales, as a misogynistic, Woody Allenesque drama of comedic proportions. In J Think I Love My Wife, Rock plays Richard Cooper, an investment banker bored with his wife. When the gorgeous, sexy, literally smoking Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington, The Last King of Scotland) begins dropping by Richard's office for daily lunches ; he starts a sexless affair that will force him to choose what he really wants from his life, the exciting un predictability of a Nikki or the safety of Brenda. Rock the writer shows a smidgen of maturity with I Think I Love My Wife, but he stiU relies on pitiful racial commentary that pales next to his stand-up. Unlike his idol, Allen, who elevated lewish jokes to a socially skewering art form. Rock conjures up musty depictions of African- Americans as incapable of monogamy. As a direc tor, he shows a visual restraint missing from his first effort. Still, unlike Kevin Smith, a notorious underdirector who lets his juvenilely mature, ear- burningly profane, brilliantly pop cultural, blis teringly funny words do the talking, Rock fails to develop a script that can make up for the lack of an interesting visual dimension. (The Spike Lee- inspired floating breakdown appears out-of-place in Rock's drab film.) He spends far too much time on dated pop zingers about Prince and Michael Jackson; repetition of an unfunny gag regarding elevator profanity; and a horridly cliched Viagra mishap. So excited to have an R-rating, Rock over-deploys the f-bombs. His distastefully foul- mouthed characters need to wash their mouths out with soap. Maybe then they could deal with their marital issues like adults and start having sex again. Rock may think he loves his wife, but I know I don't like his Him. Drew Wheeler Chris Rock, Kerry Washington and Gina Torres NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS MARCH 21,2007 • FLAGPOLE.COM 15