MINI MOVIE REVIEWS

OLYMPIAN STAFF, NEWS SERVICES

Originally published Friday, March 15, 2002

Editor's note: Information and showtimes for Shelton Cinemas was not available this week.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

* * * * (PG-13)

- Stars: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris.

- Synopsis: Russell Crowe delivers a virtuoso performance as the tormented, brilliant mathematician John Forbes Nash.

BIG FAT LIAR

* 1/2 (PG)

- Stars: Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti and Amanda Bynes.

- Synopsis: A small, thin comedy about a high-school student who gets revenge when his homework is stolen by a movie producer and transformed into a movie.

CADDYSHACK

* * * (R)

- Stars: Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight and Bill Murray.

- Synopsis: An exclusive golf club has to deal with a brash new member.

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE

* * * (R)

- Stars: Fernando Tielve, Eduardo Noriega and Marisa Paredes.

- Synopsis: Gothic horror and humor blend in this story about a bookish lad sent to an isolated desert orphanage where he encounters a lonely, ravaged ghost. In Spanish with English subtitles.

DOWNTOWN 81

* * * (not rated)

- Stars: Jean Michel Basquiat, Deborah Harry and Kid Creole.

- Synopsis: This movie depicts a destitute day in the life of artist -- and Andy Warhol fave -- Jean Michel Basquiat as he wanders the streets of New York trying to sell a painting so he can reclaim the apartment from which he's been evicted. Suitable for mature audiences.

DRAGONFLY

* * (PG-13)

- Stars: Kevin Costner, Kathy Bates, Susanna Thompson.

- Synopsis: Part "Sixth Sense," part haunted-house thriller and part new-age inspirational, "Dragonfly" takes about 85 minutes to get to a satisfying punch line but without coherence or momentum.

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS

* 1/2 (R)

- Stars: Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon.

- Synopsis: A young man gives up sex for Lent -- and then meets the woman of his dreams. Great setup, but weak writing keeps it from being nearly as funny as it should be.

GHOSTBUSTERS

* * * * (PG)

- Stars: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis and Annie Potts.

- Synopsis: Three unemployed parapsychology professors set up shop as a ghost removal service.

GOSFORD PARK

* * * * (R)

- Stars: Alan Bates, Clive Owen, Emily Watson, Helen Mirren, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Jeremy Northam and Ryan Phillipe.

- Synopsis: A British period piece full of eccentric characters who provide an endless list of suspects when one of them is murdered during a country-house weekend gathering in 1932.

HARRISON'S FLOWERS

* * (R)

- Stars: Andie MacDowell, David Strathairn and Adrien Brody.

- Synopsis: When a Newsweek journalist disappears in war-torn Yugoslavia, his wife travels to Europe to find him.

I AM SAM

* * * 1/2 (PG-13)

- Stars: Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Penn.

- Synopsis: A heartfelt drama about a mentally disabled father who fights to maintain custody of his precocious little girl.

ICE AGE

* * * 1/2 (PG)

- Stars: Animated, with the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary.

- Synopsis: Three prehistoric animals embark on a quest to return a human infant to his tribe in this fresh, funny and richly imagined animated comic adventure.

JOHN Q

* * 1/2 (PG-13)

- Stars: Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall and Ray Liotta.

- Synopsis: Denzel Washington plays a frustrated, but under-insured father who takes over a hospital after they refuse to give his dying son a heart transplant.

LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

* * * * (PG-13)

- Stars: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen.

- Synopsis: Peter Jackson's vivid and imaginative retelling of the first part of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy trilogy about a young Hobbit who tries to save Middle Earth by destroying an all-powerful ring of evil.

RESIDENT EVIL

No stars (R)

- Stars: Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez.

- Synopsis: Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, "Resident Evil" is so bad it can't even steal effectively from far better movies.

RETURN TO NEVERLAND

* 1/2 (G)

- Synopsis: Uninspired sequel to Disney's 1953 classic "Peter Pan." The animation looks 50 years old, which would have been OK had a Golden Age story accompanied it. Instead, we get rehashed characters and situations.

THE ROOKIE

(G)

- Star rating: Not yet reviewed.

- Stars: Dennis Quaid, J.D. Evermore, Rachel Griffiths, Jay Hernandez and Brian Cox.

- Synopsis: A Texas baseball coach makes the major league after agreeing to try out if his high school team made the playoffs.

SHOWTIME

* * (PG-13)

- Stars: Eddie Murphy, Robert De Niro and Rene Russo.

- Synopsis: Two mismatched cops are teamed to have their work filmed for a reality TV series in this weak comedy that gets its minimal laughs from the chemistry between the stars. But the film misses the boat in satirizing its subject.

THE TIME MACHINE

* * * (PG-13)

- Stars: Guy Pearce, Orlando Jones, Samantha Mumba, Jeremy Irons and Sienna Guillory.

- Synopsis: A modestly engaging time travel adventure, with filmmaker Simon Wells substituting romance, action and stunning visual effects for the more science-oriented logic and socio-political concerns of his real-life great-grandfather, H.G. Wells.

WE WERE SOLDIERS

* * * (R)

- Stars: Mel Gibson, Sam Elliott

- Synopsis: A bloody true-life story of Americans' first major confrontation in North Vietnam, a 1965 battle that saw 400 Americans heroically hold out against 2,000 Vietnamese for three days.

WIDE BLUE ROAD

* * * (not rated)

- Stars: Yves Montand, Alida Valli, Francisco Rabal, Peters Carsten and Federica Ranchi.

- Synopsis: This story, about a village fisher who uses dynamite to increase his catch, combines human drama and politics. In Italian with English subtitles.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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