Robin Givens plays an unhappy, self-centered housewife who gets her husband to move out without giving him a reason, then slaps a restraining order on him and slowly drives him mad. Usually there are two sides to every failed marriage, yet the wife here is so detestable one wonders whether writer-director Reggie Gaskins (who costars as the couple’s lawyer friend) is working off some sort of grudge. The lack of perspective makes this 2005 drama depressing and not especially edifying. With Sean Blakemore. 106 min. (JR) Read more
As Joel and Ethan Coen demonstrated with their fraudulent based on a true story caption in Fargo, the supposed veracity of a movie’s plot can obscure the truth more than reveal it. The same caption appears in this thriller adapted from an Armistead Maupin novel, in which a radio personality (Robin Williams) who’s recently broken up with his male lover becomes obsessed with a young fan (Rory Culkin) who’s been calling him but who may be the invention of a blind woman (Toni Collette) claiming to be his mother. It’s a relief to see Williams underplaying for a change and letting us fill in the blanks, but the movie’s suggestiveness gives way to a certain thinness and lassitude. Patrick Stettner directed; with Joe Morton, Bobby Cannavale, and Sandra Oh. R, 82 min. (JR) Read more
Adapted by Tony Grisoni from a novel by Brian Aldiss, this arty UK mockumentary charts the musical career of incestuous twins (played by Harry and Luke Treadaway) born conjoined at the chest in a remote corner of England and recruited by a promoter in 1974 as lead singer and lead guitarist for a band called the Bang Bang. Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost in La Mancha) are too preoccupied with hip cleverness to have much else on their minds, and the music is so-so. Among the phony talking heads are Aldiss and director Ken Russell. R, 93 min. (JR) Read more
