BY LEAH ROZEN
CRITIC'S CHOICE
COMEDY
To score with students and teach 'em about literature at the same time, high school English teachers might consider organizing a class field trip to see this delightful movie. Not that there's anything pedantic about Stranger Than Fiction. A conceptual comedy, it's about Harold Crick (Ferrell), a timorous IRS tax auditor who wakes up one day to find his life is being narrated in a voice only he can hear, as if he were a character in a novel. Which, it turns out, he is. Popular author Karen Eiffel (Thompson) is writing about Harold, unaware that he's a real person. Worse, she's planning to kill him off.
Fiction ably spins its premise in engaging ways, including an amusing dissection of literary structure. ("Don't do anything that moves the plot forward," advises a fiction expert, expertly played by Hoffman, whom Harold consults. Harold complies by lolling on his couch for 24 hours.) Rookie screenwriter Zach Helm and director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) have made a film that's dizzyingly smart but also compassionate. A talented cast breathes warm life into characters who too easily could be, well, literary conceits. Ferrell is appealingly dorkish, Thompson is wryly sour, and Gyllenhaal is winsome, playing a baker whom Harold romances. (PG-13)
Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard, Abbie Cornish
COMEDY
Some soufflés fail to rise, no matter how superior the ingredients or how thoroughly you beat the eggs. That's the case with this clichéd comedy, based on a novel by Peter Mayle, about a hard-charging, obnoxious London trader (Crowe) who learns to slow down and smell the lavender upon inheriting a run-down villa and vineyard in Provence. Directed by Ridley Scott (with whom Crowe collaborated on 2000's Gladiator), A Good Year plays like a movie where everyone involved had a better time making it—the food! the wine! the scenic locations!—than you are having sitting there watching it. There's nothing wrong with Year, just nothing particularly fresh or special. Crowe, attempting to make like Cary Grant, is only fair at serving up savoir faire. Finney, as a lovable uncle, brings welcome gusto to his scenes. (PG-13)
Christian Bale, Freddy Rodriguez, Eva Longoria
DRAMA
Christian Bale is already famous for intense performances (check out The Machinist). But in his new movie, Harsh Times, he's nothing less than a red-hot, streaking rocket as Jim Davis, an amoral Gulf War veteran who hopes to land a job serving with the Los Angeles Police Department. Unfortunately, the LAPD rightly suspects Jim may be a little psycho and rejects his application, sending him right off the deep end. With his best buddy (Rodriguez) in tow, he plunges into a frenzied couple days of drugging, robbery and other unsavory activities, leaving mayhem and destruction in his path. This guy is out of control and seriously scary. As the pal's girlfriend (Longoria), an attorney, tells Jim, "My worst nightmare is you with a badge."
If only the other characters in Times were as riveting. The drama, written and directed by David Ayer (who wrote Training Day), is full of sensationalistic thrills that add up to a big "So what?" Still, Bale is feverishly fierce—and Longoria and Rodriguez work to pump up anemic roles. (R)
Ashley Judd, Jeffrey Donovan
DRAMA
Sometimes there's a single line in a movie that floors you, reaching to the heart of the story but without resorting to pulling out the yellow highlighter. It comes a third of the way into Come Early Morning, an unpretentious, solid little film about a 30-plus woman (Judd) in the rural South who finds herself waking up too many mornings with hangovers and only a hazy idea of who the stranger next to her might be. She is finally, for a change, dating a nice guy (Donovan), who, as they fall into bed, asks her, "When was the last time you kissed someone sober?" Click. Her journey toward sobriety, and self-knowledge, isn't an easy one, but it's realistic, hard-fought and moving, and Judd gives a gutsy, heartfelt performance. (R)
She starred in 1997's Chasing Amy and recently played Jennifer Aniston's best friend in The Break-Up, but for Joey Lauren Adams, waiting for a meaty role to come along became "demeaning to the soul." Last year she moved to Oxford, Miss., to "try writing something for myself with a strong female lead," says Adams, 38, who came back with the script for Come Early Morning. "I was asking to be in the room during editing, pick locations and consult on wardrobe. My agent said, 'That's what a director does.'" So she decided to hand the part to Ashley Judd and make her directorial debut. A bonus: "You don't have to diet to direct."
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus A textbook example of arthouse gone awry, this highly stylized movie applies an annoying what-if approach to the story of photographer Diane Arbus (Nicole Kidman)—fictionalizing a life that had real drama aplenty. (R)
Copying Beethoven Like Fur, this film tells the story of a made-up character (played by Diane Kruger) who encounters a famous figure (Ed Harris as Ludwig van Beethoven). In this case it halfway works: Harris is splendid—as is the music. (PG-13)
THE DA VINCI CODE ($29.96) A bestselling thriller turns into a tedious slog onscreen. Tom Hanks stars. Extras: No audio commentary, but making-of shorts and a cool guide to secret symbols embedded in the film. (PG-13)
Movie:
Extras:
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
