Leading Ladies: August 2005

In limited release

• The New York Times's Jeannette Catsoulis says Undiscovered, "though filled with romantic contrivances and overlong musical numbers... is curiously lifeless. Bland actors portray single-cell characters in a plot scarcely more diverting than [star Ashlee] Simpson's reality vehicle, The Ashlee Simpson Show."
• The Baxter, about a hapless, unlucky-in-love guy, is a "wry, low-key comedy, crafted by members of the sketch-comedy group The State [and] swims defiantly against the stream of contemporary comedy, eschewing bodily-function jokes and obvious gags in favor of laughs so sly and self-effacing you could almost overlook them," says TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh.
• El Crimen Perfecto, a dark, frenetic comedy about an ambitious department store salesclerk and ladies' man, is "a joyride that leaves you feeling drunk and dizzy and swearing that you haven't touched a drop," says Salon's Stephanie Zacharek.
• The New York Times's Manohla Dargis says of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance , part one of Korean director Chan-wook Park's trilogy about illegal trafficking in human organs, "There is so much talent on display in [the movie], it is a drag that the film never rises to the level of its director's obvious ability."
• "Unfortunately, while director Steve Boyum is a successful stuntman and off-road biker, his skills do not extend to the relatively passive arena of filmmaking. Somehow, he even makes much of the action static," the New York Daily News's Elizabeth Weitzman says of Supercross, a drama about two brothers pursuing careers as motocross champions.
• USA Today's Claudia Puig says, "Amazingly, amidst the smutty silliness, there are some laughs," in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, the sequel to Rob Schneider's 1999 Deuce comedy.
• L.A. Weekly's Ella Taylor calls Pretty Persuasion, a drama about a smart, devious, fame-hungry Beverly Hills teen (Evan Rachel Wood), "a very funny film about a creepy, excruciatingly lonely world."
• "Nothing wrecks the mood of a high-toned British period piece about erotic obsession quicker than an unintentional laugh. In which case, prepare for Asylum to be derailed by snorts in all the wrong places," says Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum.
• Grizzly Man, famed director Werner Herzog's documentary about a grizzly bear expert and conservationist, has "beauty and passion often lacking in any type of film, that makes you want to grab its maker and head off to the nearest bar to discuss man's domination of nature and how Disney's cute critters reflect our profound alienation from the natural order," says the New York Times's Manohla Dargis.
• Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum says Cannes favorite Broken Flowers, the Jim Jarmusch/Bill Murray pairing about a womanizer who finds out he has a secret 19-year-old son, is "a movie of uncommon sweetness and delight."
• Saint Ralph, a Canadian drama about a teen boy who thinks he has to spark a miracle to save his comatose mother, is "the kind of well-acted, genuine heartwarmer that some people complain Hollywood doesn't bother making anymore," says USA Today's Claudia Puig.
• The Los Angeles Times's Carina Chocano says the family drama Junebug is "a deceptively simple, deeply resonant story about the inherent loneliness of family, the odds against assimilation and the enormous distances that can divide two people."
• USA Today's Puig says of My Date with Drew, a low-budget documentary about a man who tried to wrangle a date with Drew Barrymore, "By the end of the movie, all we want is for Barrymore to give (the filmmaker) the time of day."
• 2046, a 2004 Cannes favorite and the follow-up to Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, is "an intoxicatingly beautiful, maddeningly elliptical and utterly enthralling meditation on the fleeting pleasures and haunting aftermath of doomed romance," says TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh.

next : First Weekenders Club