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the grown Michael’s guilt with quiet
intensity, a quality that describes the
film itself. Between The Readers covers
is an unfamiliar, compassionate look
at someone responsible for one of the
worlds darkest hours.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE
SHOW (R) Interactive midnight
screening of the 1975 cult classic.
Sex, rock and roll, transvestism and
murder all come together in this campy
romp—the longest running release in
film history.
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (R) If
Charles Dickens had set any of his
littlest-orphan-makes-good epics
in the slums of Mumbai and on the
uncomfortable future-chic stage of the
Indian TV show “Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire?,' Slumdog Millionaire,
winner of the Golden Globe for Best
Drama, would be a near perfect adapta
tion of that unwritten classic from
one of literature’s most popular mack
daddies. Given the circumstances.
Oscar winners director Danny Boyle
and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The
Full Monty\ have merely adapted
Indian author Vikas Swarup's Q&A
into an uncommon feel-good movie
that accomplishes its uplifting objective
without resorting to clingy cliches that
leave the emotions sugar-sticky from
their manipulative fumblings.
SUNSHINE CLEANING (R) Whether
or not you enjoy Sunshine Cleaning
will depend on your threshold for
precious. Sundance-approved indie
films. Maid Rose Lorkowski (Amy
Adams) needs some quick cash so she
can send her unique son, Oscar (the
expectedly cute Jason Spevack), to
private school, where all his authority-
related issues will magically disappear.
Rose teams up with her screw-up
sister. Nora (Emily Blunt), to start a
biohazard removal and crime scene
cleanup service. Everything goes
swimmingly for a while. The sweet,
one-armed owner of a cleaning supply
store, Winston (Clifton Collins, Jr„ who
transcends his natural Willem Dafoe-
ness to be genuinely winning and
only slightly creepy), teaches Rose the
ropes of the biz. But the house of cards
comes fluttering down in unsurprising
fashion after Nora fulfills her role as
familial destroyer. Yet nothing fulfills
its role more than Sunshine Cleaning.
It contains every marking of an indie
dramedy. Quirky family with issues?
Check. Crotchety, sweet grandfather
(preferably played by Alan Arkin)?
Check. An overwhelming sense of wait
ing for the other shoe to drop? Check.
Steve Zahn? Check. Still, Adams and
Blunt are so talented, attractive, funny
and charming that none of the rest
really matters.
TWILIGHT (PG-13) Fortunately,
Twilight isn’t the unmitigated disaster
I anticipated. Thanks to a writer and
director who took the Romeo and Juliet
courtship of a vampire and a human
seriously, the film rises above giggle-
inducing dialogue, groan-inducing
vampire super-speed and strength, and
a simplistic makeup-and-snarl depic
tion of its central monsters.
THE UNFORESEEN (NR) 2007.
Director Laura Dunn's documentary
peers into the ever developing com
munities surrounding Austin, TX.
A West Texas farm boy transforms
4,000 acres of Hill Country into one of
the Lone Star States fastest growing
and selling subdivisions. But when
a local swimming hole is threatened,
the surrounding community fights
back. Executive produced by two-time
Oscar-nominee Terence Malick and
Oscar-winner Robert Redford. Winner
of the Truer than Fiction Award from the
Independent Spirit Awards.
THE UNINVITED (PG-13) The ghost
of Anna Rydell's (Lemony Snickefs
Emily Browning) dead mother warns
her that her father’s new girlfriend,
Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), isn’t what
she seems to be. I won't hold The
Uninviteds being a remake of A Tale
of Two Sisters against it considering
the connection is pretty tenuous. The
British Guard brothers (Thomas and
Charles) make their feature directing
debut with this PG-13 horror flick. With
David Strathairn and Arielle Kebbel
(The Grudge 2).
WATCHMEN (R) Watchmen is not the
greatest comic book movie of all time,
yet considering the height of its twin
measuring sticks (its own source mate
rial and The Dark Knight), such expec
tations may have been too great to
begin with. A vicious hard R-rating and
a deep philosophical cynicism practi
cally ensure its failure as a box office
juggernaut and award contender. Yet
Snyder has pulled off the impossible.
Watchmen—a perfect capstone for the
present superhero renaissance—has
been brought to ambitious, artistic,
flawed and extremely watchable life.
WENDY AND LUCY (R) Wendy
(Michelle Williams) is a quiet, cool
kid on a meagerly funded cross
continental trek from Fort Wayne. IN
to, hopefully, Alaska. There, she is
told in an early scene by the leader of
a band of face-tattooed, gutter-punk
railway gypsies, she can find work in
the fisheries, presumably to finance
her further off-the-grid adventures. Her
counted-on mode of transportation is
her 1988 Honda Accord, and her only
companion is her dog, Lucy. When
the Accord breaks down in a small,
depressed town near Portland, Wendy
is confronted with the reality of what it
means to live on the edge: the frighten
ing ease with which one can fall off.
A series of painfully ordinary events
leads to a desperate, believable crisis
and, finally, to the necessity of making
a wrenching decision.
Drew Wheeler
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