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Listings for Friday, November 14, through Thursday, November 20, 2008
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JCVD
That's Jean-Claude Van Damme to you. In this witty French feature, the Muscles From Brussels gets the comeback role of all time--as himself, a washed-up action hero whose early-90s stardom in blockbusters like Timecop and Universal Soldier has deteriorated into a life cranking out crummy straight-to-video martial arts flicks. On the street people badger him for autographs, making awkward remarks about his fading career; in a child-custody hearing his young daughter confesses that her classmates mock her whenever his movies come on TV. When he blunders into a holdup at a post office, the hostages look to him for heroic action and the bad guys try to exploit his fame in their negotiations with the police, who've set up a command post in the video store across the street. Written and directed by Mabrouk El Mechri, this functions perfectly well as a Van Damme vehicle, but it's also a funny and poignant look at a man trapped by his own ridiculous reputation. In English and subtitled French. R, 96 min. -- J.R. Jones
This movie is currently playing at:
Pipers Alley
Let the Right One In
Like George A. Romero's horror classic Martin (1977), this Swedish shocker mixes vampire mythology with adolescent melancholy, and just as the earlier film was rooted in reality by its run-down Pittsburgh locations, this one draws heavily on its working-class setting, a drab suburb of Stockholm. Twelve-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is bullied mercilessly at school and longs for a friend; one finally arrives in the person of Eli (Lina Leandersson), a pallid girl with a rumbling stomach who moves in next door. The boy begins to realize something is up when he slashes his palm to seal their friendship with a blood oath and she dives onto the floor to slurp up his drippings. The Scandinavian moodiness of the first half gives way to a series of jolting set pieces in the second, and as you might expect, the bullies get theirs in spectacular fashion. Tomas Alfredson directed a script by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who adapted his own successful novel. In Swedish with subtitles. R, 115 min. -- J.R. Jones
This movie is currently playing at:
Landmark's Century Centre
| River East 21
Slumdog Millionaire
Could there be a bigger crowd-pleaser than a movie that combines rags-to-riches Bollywood melodrama with the TV phenomenon Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Scripted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty), this effervescent love story centers on a poor young man (Dev Patel) who's competing on the Hindu version of the much-franchised quiz show. Each question triggers a flashback to his grim past on the streets of Mumbai, where he was torn between his survival-oriented brother and a defenseless girl, and these recollections lead to epiphanies that bring the young contestant ever closer to a multimillion-dollar jackpot--to the chagrin of the show's silky host (Anil Kapoor). The movie brushes against some of India's worst social ills, but it's essentially a fairy tale. Danny Boyle (Millions) and Loveleen Tandan directed; with Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto, and Irfan Khan. 120 min. -- J.R. Jones
This movie is currently playing at:
Century 12 and CineArts 6
| Landmark's Century Centre
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