Chinese School - Capsule reviews of this week's new films

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Capsule reviews of this week's new films

(AP)
Updated: 2007-02-02 08:35



Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

"Because I Said So" - Everything about this movie screams out generic
chick flick - and we mean scream, literally - from the forgettable title
to the excruciatingly corny ending. In between, director Michael Lehmann
runs through a veritable checklist of cliches. (Is it possible this man
made the deliciously vicious "Heathers" nearly 20 years ago?) There are
the unbelievable characters who say and do contrived, sitcommy things.
The montages of shopping and furniture rearranging. The caffeinated score
to punctuate all those wacky moments ( Diane Keaton discovering online
porn). The gaggle of women graphically discussing their sexual hijinks.
And of course, the repeated cutaways to a cute dog reacting to all this
shrill nonsense. Keaton plays the overly meddlesome, highly emotional
mother of three daughters who worries that her youngest ( Mandy Moore)
will stay single the rest of her life. Naturally she crafts an Internet
ad and secretly arranges the girl's dates. Gabriel Macht and Tom Everett
Scott play the would-be suitors who are so vastly opposite, it's obvious
whom we're meant to root for from the start. PG-13 for sexual content
including dialogue, some mature thematic material and partial nudity. 111
min. One star out of four.

Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic

"Factory Girl" - Sienna Miller remains an actress in search of a movie
worthy of her talent. She appears in nearly every scene as Edie Sedgwick,
the old-money socialite who became Andy Warhol's doomed muse. She can be
dazzling, vulnerable, childlike, narcissistic, but always riveting to
watch. (And, as you'd imagine, the leggy fashionista wears Sedgwick's
signature mod style fabulously.) But while she gives a raw, vibrant
performance, the one we've long suspected was in her, she's consistently
hampered by the film's clunky script. Director George Hickenlooper falls
into the same unfortunate trap so many do in trying to tell the story of
a famous person's life: He hits the best-known moments, recreating them
with all the convincing detail of a giant game of dress-up, but provides
little insight. "Factory Girl" also feels frustratingly truncated: It's
the rare film that glosses through a ton of material but isn't long
enough or substantive enough. Guy Pearce is sufficiently creepy as Warhol
but we don't come away understanding him much better; Hayden Christensen
does a bad, breathy Bob Dylan impression. R for pervasive drug use,
strong sexual content, nudity and language. 91 min. Two stars out of four.

Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic












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