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break into your home and slice you
open to retrieve the Unions property. I
sensed the genesis ot a searing sci-fi
satire, a la Paul Verhoeven’s triptych
of Robocop, Total Recall anti Starship
Troopers, but the smart story is wasted
on a dumb plot that devolves into one
big chase in the final act after Remy
can't pay for his new heart. Repo!
The Genetic Opera has its flaws (Paul
Sorvino?!). but it also had Anthony
Stewart Head (Television’s Rupert
Giles) belting out tunes. That's one
more plus than I can come up with for
Repo Men.
SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG-13)
Holmes (the never disappointing
Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Watson
(a game Jude Law) must stop evil
Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from
taking over the world through some
sinister, supernatural means. A crimi
nal love interest (Rachel McAdams)
exists for the great private dick, but
the real affection is the bromantic
bond between Holmes and Watson.
Sparks fly between Downey and Law.
they make a great couple. Watching a
Guy Ritchie movie (he of the laddish
gangster Brit-flicks Lock, Stock and
Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) is
like sitting for someone else's amusing,
exhausting three-to-seven-year-old.
You’re pleasantly worn out from all the
running and jumping, yet you're ready
for some peace and quiet when the kid
goes home. The same goes for Ritchie's
Sherlock Holmes.
SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE (R)
If a filmmaker with a real talent for *
creating raunchy romantic comedies
had made She's Out ol My League, this
movie could have been something. It
could have been a contender, under
the guiding hand of Judd Apatow or
the Farrelly Brothers. Instead, British
comic Jim Field Smith makes an
underwhelming directorial debut with a
script from the Sex Drive duo of Sean
Anders and John Morris, (also respon
sible for Hot Tub Time Machine.)
SHUTTER ISLAND (R) In 1954, U S.
Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo
DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck
Aule (Mark Ruffalo), are summoned to
a remote island in Boston Harbor that
houses some of the nation's most dan
gerous, unstable prisoners, or patients,
as head psychiatrist, Dr. Cawley (Ben
Kingsley), prefers. A patient. Rxhel
Solando (Emily Mortimer), has mys
teriously escaped, and the marshals
have been tasked with finding her and
returning her, a job at which Teddy
excels. However, Teddy and Chuck
soon realize something is amiss on
Shutter Island.
WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO
(PG-13) Tyler Perry sequelizes his best
feature film to date. In the Bahamas,
four couples—Terry and Diane (Perry
and Sharon Leal), Patricia and Gavin
(Janet Jackson and Malik Yoba),
Angela and Marcus (Tasha Smith and
Michael Jai White), and Sharon and
new hubby Troy (Jill Scott and Lamman
Rucker)—reunite for their annual
vacation. But complications arise when
Sheila's ex. Mike (Richard T. Jones),
crashes the party intending to rekindle
their relationship. Hopefully, Married...
Too is better than the similar sounding,
dramatically different Couplers Retreat.
THE WOLFMAN (R) A man, Lawrence
Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), attempting
to escape his domineering father's
shadow, is drawn back into his orbit
after the mysterious, violent death
of his brother. Lawrence discovers
his father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony
Hopkins), is keeping a dark, furry
secret that unleashes monthly mayhem
upon the small English country village
of Blackmoor. After a soporific first
act, Lawrence is bitten by the beast
and becomes the newest victim of
the curse, unleashing a tremendously
exciting second act, highlighted by a
Victorian-era sanitarium and a moonlit
rampage through London's streets.
Give The Wolfman a good half hour to
get going; once the moon is full, the
beast is satisfyingly unleashed.
YOUTH IN-REVOLT (R) Youth in
Revolt is the film for which Michael
Cera fans have been waiting You get
two, count 'em, two Cera for the price
of one. When pining virgin Nick Twisp
travels to a trailer park for vacation,
he meets Sheeni Saunders (Portia
Doubleday), with whom the teen falls
immediately in love. In a misguided
effort to woo Sheeni. Nick creates a
bad boy persona, Francois Dillinger,
complete with tiny mustache and cloth
ing from J.C. Penney's Tom Ridley/
Purple Noon line. Chuck & Buck
director Miguel Arteta’s film comes
straight from the theater of the twee
Everything in this comedy is slight,
even the laughs. I think nearly every
word uttered by Cera is genius, yet I
only sporadically chuckled through
out. This indie spirited update ot the
losin’ it* teen romps of the 80s (check
out the Better Off Dead-ish animated
sequences) never breaks a sweat. With
a little perspiration, it might have been
hilariously memorable instead of for-
gettably diverting.
Drew Wheeler
WORDS AND RULES
POLICE, ADJECTIVE (NR) The excellent new
film from Corneliu Poromboiu, the Romanian
director of the grimly funny 2006 comedy
12:08 East of Bucharest, is grimmer and less
funny than its predecessor, but it comes from
a similar place. Poromboiu's black humor
h3s become even more deadpan with Police,
Adjective, his second feature; it's the comedy
of frustration, absurdity and torpor.
Irina Saulescu and Dragos Bucur
The story is lean and straightforward: a
young police detective in the small Romanian
city of Vaslui is assigned to a surveillance
detail on three high school students, under
pressure to arrest one of them for distribution
of hashish. As he follows the teenagers, by
turns as a group and individually, the detec
tive, Cristi (Dragos Bucur), becomes convinced
that the suspect, who has been "squealed" on
by one of his friends, hasn't done anything
harmful enough to merit the punishment
that awaits him should Cristi make his arrest.
The resulting crisis of duty and conscience is
thoroughly worked over in the film's climactic
scene, a 20-minute meeting between Cristi,
his partner and their boss that formally echoes
an equivalent scene in 12:08 East of Bucharest
but takes a far more rigorous approach.
The philosophical question
posed in the earlier film—
"Was there or was there not a
revolution in our town?"—was
addressed in a thoroughly dis
organized manner in that film's
penultimate scene, a three-way
conversation on a hilariously
amateurish call-in television
show. The question the boss
asks Cristi at the end of Police,
Adjective, on which the resolu
tion of the story rests, must be
answered through a rigidly dia
lectical process that is entirely
dependent upon Cristi looking
up a serjes of definitions in a
dictionary.
The film's title is an indica
tion of its unlikely focus on
grammar and word usage, which is the source
of most of its humor as well as its thorniest
conundrums. Cristi's insistence on treating
language as a web of perplexing riddles is
a reflection of the film's true subject the
incompatibility of a nuanced, flexible, individ
ual system of values with the letter of the law.
Dava Marr
3-3625 or
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Registration Kick Off
Saturday, April 10
9am-1pm • The Classic Center
The following week, registration
continues at individual facilities during
regular hours of operation.
Non-ACC residents may register beginning
Wed. April 14 during regular hours of operation.
bring the following to the Camp Registration:
• Child's Birth Certificate
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• Photo ID
• ACC Leisure Services Scholarship Card
(If applicable)
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