Baby Mama

**1/2 stars

Former SNL news anchor Tina Fey plays Kate Holbrook, a successful 37-year-old Philadelphia businesswoman who decides that it’s time to have a baby. Because a T-shaped uterus makes Kate’s chances of conceiving a million-in-one shot, she decides to hire trailer park ditz Angie (Amy Poehler) to be her surrogate. Since the best thing in first-time director Michael McCullers’ hit-and-miss baby fever comedy is the charming odd-couple friendship between Kate and Angie, it’s too bad that a slew of uninteresting subplots dilutes their female bonding mojo. Terrific supporting turns by Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin and Romany Malco will keep you giggling, but this should have been a whole lot better — and funnier — than it is. (Milan Paurich)

Deception

** stars

As a kinky high roller, Hugh Jackman provides the only juice in this muddled, pretentious erotic thriller about a wonkish corporate accountant (Ewan McGregor with a laughably bad American accent) who gets mixed up in an elite Manhattan sex club. Beautifully photographed by the estimable Dante Spinotti, first-time director Marcel Langenegger’s film looks great, but squanders a first-rate cast (including Brokeback Mountain Oscar nominee Michelle Williams and the always welcome Charlotte Rampling) on hokey, derivative material that wouldn’t pass muster on Cinemax After Dark. The movie’s titillating tagline, “Are you free tonight?”, is the most provocative thing here. The rest is heavy-breathing, soft-core confusion. (Milan Paurich)

88 Minutes

*1/2 stars

This long-on-the-shelf Al Pacino stinker (it was released on DVD early last year in some foreign markets) can’t seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be a sleazy, torture-porn flick or the kind of tough urban crime melodrama Pacino used to excel in. The schizophrenic end result isn’t likely to satisfy fans of either genre. Pacino plays celebrity forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jack Gramm whose testimony helped convict a serial killer nine years earlier. On the same day that “Seattle Slayer” Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) is scheduled to be executed, Gramm receives a phone call informing him that he has 88 minutes to live. The fact that a recent murder shares Forster’s MO has the feds (led by the always amusing William Forsythe) wondering if the perp is a copycat psycho, or Gramm himself. Forster, who has a lot of time on his hands for someone on death row, seems to be calling all the shots behind bars. Hmmm. Can you say “Hannibal Lecter”? (Milan Paurich)

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

**** stars

Cristo Puiu’s Cannes-awarded The Death of Mr. Lazarescu follows the Heart of Darkness journey of one 62-year-old man in a Bucharest suburb. After being whisked away by a team of paramedics, the ailing Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu in a bravura performance) spends the remainder of the night — which stretches into morning — being carted from one impersonal, unaccommodating hospital to the next. Since Lazarescu’s given name is Dante, it’s no wonder he seems to have entered the nine circles of Hell. Unfolding in what seems like real time, Mr. Lazarescu is grueling, even painful to watch. But it’s that bone-chilling verisimilitude which makes it so riveting and ultimately unforgettable. What’s most terrifying about Lazarescu’s fate is that we know things aren’t really all that better, or appreciably more humane, at a typical US public hospital. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is that increasingly rare work of cinematic art that could very well alter your perception of the world, or at least your place in it. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 11. (Milan Paurich)

Expelled — No Intelligence Allowed

*** stars

If you can forgive that this will be big with the home-schooler/armed polygamist compound demographic it’s well done (whether you agree or not) agit-prop from the right — having Ben Stein as the genial Michael Moore/Al Gore spokesperson is a good move, all the Ronald Reagan iconography a little less so — on behalf of the “Intelligent Design” scientific proposal. It starts out lamenting that monolithic orthodox science (which is compared constantly to the Berlin Wall and the late USSR), the peer-review process and other “watchdogs” brutally censor, blacklist and persecute any researcher or academic who expresses the least bit of doubt over Darwinism and the godless, chance-driven universe implied by evolutionary theory. Some alleged heretics in the Darwin-dominated science community here appear in shadow, like Witness Protection alum. ID is claimed to be different from Bible-thumping Creationism, and the statement is made that even some secular humanists and agnostics in the field of scientific inquiry favor it. But, after a while, you realize that the film’s arguments are largely a skirmish in bigger culture wars, between celebrity atheists like best-selling God-hater Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), and those like Stein and director Nathan Frankowski, who favor moral order and Judeo-Christian ethics. Demonizing Darwin/Dawkins, they point to Nazi terror and American eugenics programs as a byproduct of The Origin of the Species, and they even get a money shot of Darth Dawkins seeming to favor Intelligent Design in a debate (one wonders how the unedited interview went, though). A nice media-barrage clipfest of old movies and pop-culture snippets bring some humor to the overarching victim-mentality tone. And a closing Ferris Bueller reference from Stein. (Charles Cassady Jr.)

The First Saturday in May

*** stars

Three years ago, brothers Brad and John Hennegan set out to make a documentary about six horses seeking to qualify for the Kentucky Derby. They didn’t necessarily pick horses they thought had a chance to qualify. They just wanted to see what the training and preparation was like as the horses, the owners, the jockeys and the trainers all got ready for the race, which takes place, as the film’s title suggests, every year on the first Saturday in May and features the top 20 horses in the country. The film provides an excellent behind-the-scenes look at the world of horse racing and ultimately transcends itself. Like Spellbound, the documentary that followed kids studying to compete in the annual Spelling Bee contest, The First Saturday in May succeeds because it’s more than just a movie about horse racing; it’s a movie about people with hopes and dreams and what happens when some see their dreams realized and others don’t. (Jeff Niesel)

Flawless

**1/2 stars

If it weren’t for another fine performance by Michael Caine, Flawless would be your typical, by-the-numbers heist movie. Director Michael Radford (The Merchant of Venice, Il Postino) does a fine job with this period piece, set in 1960s London. He’s got the swinging jazz soundtrack, the extravagant fashions and the stringent class structure down pat. But something about it just seems rote. The miscasting of Demi Moore as the film’s central character doesn’t help matters. Moore plays Laura Quinn (Moore), a former executive at the London Diamond Corporation, who was passed over one too many times for a promotion. Hobbs (Caine), the friendly nighttime janitor, approaches with her a modest proposal. He has a plan for how he can steal a thermos full of diamonds. They’re able to pull of the heist. Only problem is, Hobbs steals more than just a thermos-full of diamonds. The execs at the corporation are shocked and hire an investigator who immediately targets Laura (she starts acting nervous once she realizes the scope of the crime). While Caine is terrific at showing Hobbs’ nuances (he’s not as simple-minded as he appears), Moore doesn’t really make Laura into a compelling character. (Jeff Niesel)

The Forbidden Kingdom

*** stars

Jet Li and Jackie Chan together for the first time, playing support for little known American actor Michael Angarano? I have to admit, I was a bit dubious. But when all is said and done, The Forbidden Kingdom turned out to be a highly enjoyable martial arts fantasy. Jason (Angarano) is a serious fan of Hong Kong action films, most of which he buys on DVD from elderly pawn shop owner Old Hop (Jackie Chan). It turns out Hop has more than just movies in his store, though. In a back room he has a magic staff belonging to The Monkey King (Jet Li). When a group of teenage thugs straight from central casting learn Jason is friends with Old Hop, they force him to help rob the old man. The robbery goes bad and Hop is shot, but not before entrusting Jason with returning the staff to its rightful owner. The staff magically transports Jason to a world where all his cinematic fantasies are real. Think The Last Action Hero with kung fu and wirework. In this alternate universe, Jason finds allies in alleged immortal Lu Yan (Jackie Chan reprising his drunken master routine), a stoic, nameless monk (Jet Li, also doing double duty), and Sparrow (Yifei Liu), a young girl seeking vengeance for the death of her parents. Opposing our heroes are Ni Chang (Bingbing Li), who uses a whip and her long white hair as weapons, and genre veteran Collin Chou as mean-spirited immortal Jade Warlord. Everyone is well cast, but Chan stands out the most in the sort of comic hero role he excels at. The screenplay by John Fusco isn’t going to win any awards for originality, but it shows an obvious love for the genre and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Director Rob Minkoff handles the plot and character portions of the film well, and for the action scenes Woo-ping Yuen (whose martial arts film resume stretches back to the ’60s) does his usual top-notch job with the fight choreography. The Forbidden Kingdom is no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it isn’t trying to be, either. It’s just a fun movie with plenty of cool action scenes and a few laughs, and there’s nothing wrong with that. (Bob Ignizio)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

**1/2 stars

In an attempt to obey the title’s directive, LA musician Peter (Jason Segel, who also wrote the screenplay) winds up vacationing at the same Hawaiian beach resort where ex-girlfriend Sarah (Kristen Bell) is enjoying a romantic getaway with her new boy toy, severely addled British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). No matter how hard he tries, Peter can’t stop bumping into the lovey-dovey duo. Not even the hotel’s unflaggingly attentive and supportive staff can snap hangdog Peter out of his terminal funk. Seemingly cobbled together from random, raunchy remnants of previous Judd Apatow hits (The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up), this might have worked better if it had been retitled (and reconceptualized) as

Forgetting Sarah Silverman. Former Veronica Mars star Bell simply doesn’t cut it as a comedienne, or someone particularly worthy of any dude’s obsession. And since the entire film revolves around Peter’s pathological inability to move on after getting dumped, there’s a hollowness at the core of what already feels like an overly familiar plot. Perhaps if the divinely spikey Silverman had played the former inamorata — and quite frankly, she would have made a more plausible match for Segel than white bread shiksa Bell — Forgetting Sarah Marshall could have bravely ventured into uncharted (and funnier) comic waters. For the record, Segel’s flaccid schlong gets more screen time than Apatow perennials Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd. (Milan Paurich)

Funny Face

*** stars

(US, 1957) Stanley Donen’s well-remembered Paramount musical is a fluffy, pastel-colored confection that mocks in equal measure the consumer-crazed realms of high fashion and the “Beat Generation” movement that rejected such values. At a glossy NYC fashion mag called Quality, domineering editrix Maggie (Kay Thompson) seeks the next big sensation, an ultimate model to be dubbed the “Quality Woman,” and laments the bimbo element among models being shot by her ace photographer

Dick Avery (Fred Astaire, playing a very loose takeoff on real-live Richard Avedon). Dig the 1950s mindset: One of the girls (played by Avedon icon Dovima) is demonstrably stupid because she reads science fiction. In an East Village bookstore borrowed as a fashion-shoot backdrop, Avery discovers sequestered shopgirl Jo (Audrey Hepburn), a bespectacled intellectual, immersed in philosophical literature. Dick talks Jo into modeling for him, making her offbeat looks a success, and they fly to Paris for a spree of fashion shoots, romance, comedy, on-location musical numbers derived from Gershwin tunes, and silly caricatures of Parisian life. Their love affair seems more a protective father-daughter thing than real passion, and you’re supposed to find Astaire’s soft-shoe dance routines comfortable and reassuring, Hepburn’s jerky, jazzy modernistic choreography just a lot of pretentious lurching. Much as it’s all featherweight, cute and a valentine to Audrey’s loveliness, you get the feeling that for all their smirking, the filmmakers are far more at home in Maggie’s shallow Garment-District materialism than the coffeehouses of Greenwich Village and the Left Bank. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 7. (Charles Cassady Jr.)

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

**1/2 stars

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay continues pretty much without missing a beat the 21st-century Cheech ’n’ Chong antics embodied in Kumar Patel (Kal Penn), a weed-centered Indo-American med-school dropout, and Harold Lee (John Cho), his hardworking but hard-toking Korean-American roommate, who have a strange tendency to run across Doogie Howser M.D. actor Neil Patrick Harris (playing himself) in extreme, usually drug-related circumstances. Dudes are jetting to Amsterdam for Harold’s romantic rendezvous when Kumar’s smuggled, high-tech bong is mistaken for a bomb. A fanatical Homeland Security bureaucrat decides the two are Al Qaida and North Korea planning another terror attack and obsessively pursues them like some Bush-brained version of Javert in Les Miserables. Harold and Kumar do indeed manage to escape from Guantanamo and go on a fugitive odyssey through the American South, where stereotypes like inbred rednecks, Threatening Black Males, the KKK and Neil Patrick Harris are both upheld and exploded. Culmination is a Dubya ex machina encounter with none other than President Bush himself, who proves to be the dope we all think he is, yet somehow no dope. Oh, but he does like his dope. Cute, but nothing Seth McFarlane’s American Dad doesn’t do regularly. (Charles Cassady Jr.)

Horton Hears a Who!

**1/2 stars

With its vivid hues and richly textured palette, this Dr. Seuss adaptation is the most visually striking Blue Sky Studios’ production to date. Where directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino’s CGI-animated feature trips up is by diluting the Seussian magic with a whole lot of extraneous clutter (mostly slapsticky action/violence and punning pop culture referencing). And casting instantly recognizable celebrity voices like Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell and Carol Burnett basically contradicts the book’s message that “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” In the dog-eat-dog, increasingly big-bucks world of contemporary animation, “small” is always trumped by star-fucking. Still, enough of the original Seuss wit and wisdom remains to make “Horton” relatively harmless for tykes and reasonably painless for any grown-ups who might be tagging along. (Milan Paurich)

Iron Man

***1/2 stars

Stan Lee’s most damaged Marvel superhero finally makes it to the big screen in the most auspicious franchise inauguration in recent memory. The filmmakers’ most inspired decision was hiring a combustible live-wire like Robert Downey Jr. to play billionaire arms merchant Tony Stark. Downey brings such an impishness and joie de vivre to this comics geek party that you can’t imagine anyone else in the role. With his amusingly skewed line readings and always-on-the-make flirtatiousness, Downey is the funniest superhero on record. And Jon Favreau’s robustly entertaining movie delivers more bang for the buck than any comic book action flick since Spider-Man 2. (Milan Paurich)

Leatherheads

***1/2 stars

Even though it’s an imitation of an imitation, George Clooney’s affectionate pastiche of Coen Brothers’ Preston Sturges homages like The Hudsucker Proxy and O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the most robustly entertaining studio release of 2008 so far. By favoring character and plot over irony and buff quotation marks, Clooney brings an emotional lucidity and richness to the material that the Coens could only dream about. Set against the backdrop of the early days of professional football, Leatherheads is neither as thematically ambitious or creatively daring as Clooney’s previous stints behind the camera (2002’s underappreciated Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and the Oscar-nominated Good Night and Good Luck). It does, however, share the same great taste in material and overriding directorial intelligence. This is simply Clooney and pals (Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski among them) goofing off and having a nostalgic bash. The miracle is that the audience winds up having as much fun as the nice people throwing the party. (Milan Paurich)

The Life Before Her Eyes

** stars

Based on the same-named Laura Kasischke novel, this disappointing sophomore effort from Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog) is beautifully photographed and nicely acted, but so decorous and willfully opaque that it seems more like a pretentious Chanel No. 5 ad. Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri play best friends whose high school is the setting for a Columbine-type tragedy in which only one of them survives. As the adult version of Wood’s character, Uma Thurman seems to be sleepwalking through the entire film. Although the reason behind her weirdly somnambulant performance becomes clear at the end (at least I think it does), it can’t salvage the preceding 90 minutes of deliberate — and frequently maddening —obfuscation. (Milan Paurich)

Made of Honor

** stars

Gray’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey plays roguish man-about-town Tom Bailey who doesn’t realize he truly loves BFF Hannah (the likable Michelle Monaghan from Gone Baby Gone) until she’s ready to walk down the aisle with another dude (Daniel Craig wannabe Kevin McKidd). When Hannah impulsively asks Tom to be her maid of honor, he agrees while secretly vowing to do whatever it takes to steal the bride. For a romantic comedy like this to work, we need to root for Tom and Hannah to ’fess up to their mutual attraction and exchange vows (or at least finally get it on) before the closing credits. That never happens here. Tom is an unrepentant cad and Hannah comes across as hopelessly dense for putting up with his misogynistic boorishness. Another off-putting feature is a preponderance of smutty humor — crude jokes about dildos, blow jobs and Ben-Wa balls, all tonally inappropriate for a movie that, with a few minor alterations, could have starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson 40-plus years ago. (Milan Paurich)

Nim’s Island

** stars

Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster aren’t about to win Academy Award nominations for this second-rate kids’ adventure story. Breslin stars as a young girl who lives on an island with her widowed marine biologist father. When he gets lost at sea, she reaches out to Alex Rover (Jodie Foster), her favorite adventure story writer whose email to her father she intercepts. Rover, a shut-in who never leaves her house, has to then try to muster up the gumption to get to the remote island where the poor girl is all alone, waiting for the return of her father from an expedition that has wrecked his sailboat. While Breslin brings a certain charm to her role, Foster is miscast as the neurotic writer who can’t live up to the fearlessness of the characters she’s created. (Jeff Niesel)

Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037

*** stars

A documentary feature about the construction of a musical instrument? Sounds rather unexciting, or at least the stuff of scratchy 16mm classroom one-reelers of yesteryear. But by the end of Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, you’re glad they got it on film anyway. The august Steinway piano factory of Astoria, Queens continues to assemble top-class pianos at the rate of some 2,000 instruments a year. Sounds impressive, but other companies, more interested in cheaply automated mass production, toss them off the line at 100 per day. Whereas once piano factories were plentiful, many have gone out of business (moment of silence here for Cleveland’s own Dreher Piano Co., 1853-1953). Steinway remains a hold-out whose name stands for painstaking craftsmanship. Builders in the arcane art pass instructions down from master to apprentice to put together concert-hall Steinways. No matter what’s being manufactured, this is a dying craft in our made-in-China plastic-injection-molded era of soulless corporatization, and having cameras follow every step in the year-long process Steinway uses is akin to eavesdropping on Antonio Stradavari’s workshop. Priceless. Opens Friday at the Cedar-Lee Theatre. (Charles Cassady Jr.)

Prom Night

* 1/2 stars

More proof the Recession is here, a loose remake of the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis-starring Halloween rip-off of the same title that was the talk of marijuana-laced school locker rooms (which is why I defy anyone to remember any plot detail at all), from a generation ago, when your daddy’s factory first shut down. This shares with its dimwit forebear only the murder-at-a-prom premise and a youth-targeting awareness that lemming-packs of horror fans and dumb teens — same difference — will embrace this stuff like underage drinking. Three years ago our high-school heroine Donna (Brittany Snow) saw her whole family slain by an insane Charlie Manson-lookalike teacher romantically obsessed with her (they’ll take anyone as a teacher nowadays; bet bin Laden is hiding out in a faculty lounge). Now, as Donna sets out with her Gossip Girl friends for the high-school prom at a vast downtown hotel, her old stalker breaks loose and goes on a monomaniacal homicide spree, targeting her again. One-dimensional cohorts, hotel staff and cops become collateral damage; these characters do seem to conveniently forget about room phones and police radios at crucial moments. No good-natured cameoing by Curtis (or even Leslie Nielsen) but no disco music either, a small mercy. The next remake of Reagan-era slasher dreck (Terror Train, probably) will be here shortly. (Charles Cassady Jr.)

Redbelt

***1/2 stars

Jiu-jitsu instructor Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lives his life by a code of honor. He could easily make a lot of money fighting professionally, but refuses to do so because he believes “competition weakens the fighter.” But is it really worth holding on to that belief when his wife Sondra (Alice Braga) has to take money from her own successful business just to keep Mike’s studio from going under? Things go from bad to worse when skittish attorney Laura Black (Emily Mortimer) accidentally shoots out the window of Mike’s studio with a gun belonging to one of the top students, police officer Joe Collins (Max Martini). How the accident is dealt with sets in motion a series of events that test Mike’s code and, ultimately, forces him to compete. Redbelt isn’t a martial arts film, at least not in the sense most people think of the term. There are a few fight scenes, but this isn’t about Mike beating up the “bad guys.” Nor is Redbelt a by-the-numbers sports film concerned with whether or not Mike wins his big match. Instead, it is the sort of serious, intelligent drama aimed at adults that has become all too rare these days. It’s about real people with complicated lives who just happen to be involved in the world of professional martial arts fighting. That world is depicted by writer/director David Mamet with his usual authenticity, and as part of that authenticity it’s the philosophy behind Jiu-jitsu that is stressed over fighting techniques. Ejiofor excels as Mike, making the audience really care about his character even though you sometimes wonder if he isn’t too principled for his own good. Mamet gives both Braga and Mortimer far more to do with their supporting roles than most “lead” actresses are given in Hollywood films these days, and both women more than rise to the occasion. Tim Allen also turns in a nice performance playing against type as a movie star Mike saves from getting beaten up in a bar fight. Mamet’s screenplay takes a number of surprising but believable twists that keep the story compelling without detracting from its central themes, and as a director his visual style is distinctive without being showy. It all adds up to the best movie I’ve seen so far this year. Opens Friday areawide. (Bob Ignizio)

Smiley Face

***1/2 stars

(US/Germany, 2007) As an underemployed actress and full-time pothead, Anna Faris (Scary Movie, Lost in Translation) gave one of the great female performances of 2007 in Greg Araki’s Smiley Face. Too bad nobody saw it. Jane, Araki’s comfortably numb heroine, circumnavigates the sun-glazed purgatory of present-day Los Angeles, but might as well be a stoned Alice in search of that elusive looking glass. After eating her anal-retentive roomie’s (a very funny Danny Masterson) stash of pot brownies, Jane embarks on a series of misadventures in a hare-brained scheme to replace the chocolate munchies. The characters Jane encounters along the way — especially The Office’s John Krasinski playing a prissy, high-strung yuppie who could be mistaken for Dwight Schrute’s even more clueless twin brother — are pricelessly, sometimes uproariously funny, and Araki doesn’t miss a beat in first-time feature writer Dylan Haggerty’s witty, insouciant screenplay. If nothing else, Smiley Face is the only stoner comedy I can think of whose deus ex machina is a first-edition copy of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 7:20 p.m. Saturday, May 10. (Milan Paurich)

Speed Racer

**** stars

The cinematic equivalent of Pop Rocks, the Wachowski Brothers’ riff on the ’60s Japanese animated cult favorite could make your head explode from all of its sugary goodness. The Wachowskis combine the breathless kineticism and heart-pounding action of the Bourne movies, the unironic family values mandate of the best Disney flicks and the gravity (and elasticity) defying, anarchic zaniness of classic Looney Tunes into one “You-ain’t-seen-nothin’-yet!” package. Starring Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox and nonpareil chimp thespians Kenzie and Willie as the irrepressible Chim-Chim, this is the grooviest head trip that $120-million can buy. It’s also the Wachowskis’ greatest achievement to date, and the film that consolidates their Matrix-ian rep as visionary, and supremely visual, auteurs of the first magnitude. Reviewed in this issue. (Milan Paurich)

Stop-Loss

**1/2 stars

Staff Sgt. Brandon King (nicely played by Ryan Phillippe) has just returned from active duty in Iraq and is awarded a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for heroism. When he discovers that his discharge papers have been rescinded, a pissed-off Brandon freaks out and goes AWOL. Deciding to take his grievance all the way to the nation’s capital, Brandon and the fiancée of a fellow soldier (Australian actress Abbie Cornish in the sort of role that the Urban Cowboy/Officer and a Gentleman-era Debra Winger would have owned) embark upon a quasi road trip to DC, visiting former comrades — or their grieving families — along the way. Not surprisingly, Brandon learns that he’s not the only one from his platoon suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. With its plethora of potentially rich characters and storylines — not to mention an embarrassment of first-rate actors, including Ciaran Hinds, Channing Tatum, Tim Olyphant and the brilliant Joseph Gordon-Levitt — this might have worked better as an HBO series. At just under two hours, it feels both weirdly truncated and even a tad insubstantial. The powerful ending will still make you cry, though. (Milan Paurich)

Street Kings

*** stars

David Ayer (Training Day, Harsh Times) aims for authenticity in this film about a corrupt cop (Keanu Reeves) who comes head-to-head with his boss (Forest Whitaker) when he starts uncovering some of the department’s dirty deals. Given that Ayer has a military background and recruited ex-LAPD to provide some training, the film really does live up to its billing as a true-to-life cop caper. In the end, though, it’s Whitaker’s film as he steals every scene he’s in. (Jeff Niesel)

Stuff and Dough (Romania, 2001) A guy from the provinces drives to Bucharest to deliver a bag of “stuff” in Cristi Puiu’s feature film. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 7 p.m. Thursday, May 8 and 9:40 p.m. Friday, May 9.

Then She Found Me

**1/2 stars

Helen Hunt stars as April, a school teacher who’s hit with a whammy of bad news when her mother dies and her husband wants a divorce. To add to the drama, she discovers her birth mother wasn’t really her birth mother and an obnoxious TV talk show host (Bette Midler) claims to be her real mother. This combination of events sends April spiraling and she has to do some soul searching to decide how to handle it all. Coming off as a Lifetime channel movie, the film, which Hunt also directed, is a chick flick and then some, bound to appeal mostly to middle-aged women. Reviewed in this issue. (Jeff Niesel)

12:08 East of Bucharest (Romania, 2006) This comedy takes place a few days before Christmas in a provincial Romanian town. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 10.

Brilliant but cash-strapped MIT student Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, the McCartney manqué from Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe) is easy prey for the crafty machinations of his scheming math professor, Mickey Rosa (a deliciously serpentine Kevin Spacey). Rosa has been stealthily assembling a dream team of whiz kids, teaching them how to count cards at blackjack and flying them to Vegas for weekend “field trips.” With a little help from friends like the sultry vixen Jill (Kate Bosworth), Rosa coerces Ben into joining his corps of wonkish connivers. Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton) works overtime to make all of the gambling lingo and casino arcana accessible to anyone who doesn’t know the difference between Baccarat and Texas Hold ’Em. Greed may not be good, but it’s certainly fun to watch. As trashy, flashy and flagrantly seductive as Sin City itself, this is the kind of decadent guilty pleasure that only Hollywood knows how to do right. (Milan Paurich)

Under the Same Moon

*** stars

Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) is a lovely, affecting story about a young Mexican woman, Rosario (Kate del Castillo), who works illegally in Los Angeles, and the efforts of Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), the 9-year-old son she left behind in Mexico, to join her after his grandmother dies. The narrative gracefully alternates between Rosario’s life in LA and Carlitos’ in Mexico. Rosario’s life is typical of many undocumented workers: riding the bus before dawn, cleaning houses for demanding wealthy wives, sewing dresses for extra money, and staying one step ahead of immigration officials. Carlitos is well cared for by his loving grandmother (Angelina Peláez), but painfully misses his mother, whom he hasn’t seen in four years. This is a very sentimental story that is certain to raise a tear or three, but Riggen balances the sweetness with a wry, knowing perspective on the mechanics of border crossing and the lives and attitudes of undocumented workers. The movie won’t change anyone’s attitude about immigration; but for all but the most rabid protectionists, there is much to appreciate in this touching, humane and well-made film. (Pamela Zoslov)

The Visitor

***1/2 stars

When widowed Connecticut College economics professor Walter Vale (character actor supreme Richard Jenkins) discovers two immigrants (Haaz Sleiman and Danai Gurira) squatting in his little-used Manhattan apartment, he decides to let them stay. The second film by writer-director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) in which three strangers form a makeshift family unit fueled by mutual loneliness, The Visitor manages to be sociologically astute about the whole hot-button topic of illegal immigration without ever descending into cloying bathos or specious message-mongering. A humanist who appreciates the cosmic absurdity of the human condition, McCarthy is also a wonderful director of actors. Jenkins — best known as the dead undertaker dad on HBO’s Six Feet Under — gives a brilliantly layered, infinitely moving performance that deserves to be remembered at awards time. (Milan Paurich)

The Way I Spent the End of the World

**1/2 stars

(Romania/France, 2006) It may help you connect with this Romanian teen-angst-behind-the-Iron-Curtain tale if you note during its late-’80s time frame John Hughes was in his glory in capitalist pig-dog USA, cranking out dramedy after dramedy about quirky high schoolers. And darned if this flick’s leading lady Doroteea Petre doesn’t look like she’d sit right between Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club. She plays Eva, a smart, pretty, competent and reserved girl in a family outside Bucharest. Eva’s folks encourage her courtship by boy-next-door suitor Alex, since he’s the son of a policeman, and that’s an important connection to the State during the totalitarian Ceausescu regime. But during some romantic horseplay at school Alex accidentally breaks a bust of Nicolai Ceausescu. Eva gets blamed for the vandalism and refuses to defend herself. Transferred to a “technical school” for delinquents and children of dissidents, Eva befriends would-be defector Andrei, while Alex pines for her outside and the Communist dictatorship enters its terminal phase (hence the title). Eve remains sphinxlike to the end. Does she really have feelings for Alex? For Andrei? For Ceausescu? Is she a pro-active heroine in a struggle for freedom, or just going passively with her quavering family’s wishes and the flow of momentous events? She doesn’t have to jabber unctuously at the camera a la Ferris Bueller, but some illumination would have been nice. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 8:50 p.m. Thursday, May 8 and 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 9. (Charles Cassady Jr.)

What Happens in Vegas

**1/2 stars

The romantic comedy glut that began in April with Forgetting Sarah Marshall shows no signs of abating. This Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz rom-com trifle at least gets points for being a lot easier to sit through than the excruciating Made of Honor. Kutcher plays underachieving manchild Jack who meets recently dumped commodities broker Joy (Diaz) on vacation in Vegas. During a long night of drunken partying, the two impulsively decide to tie the knot at a 24-hour wedding chapel. Realizing the error of their ways the next morning, Jack and Joy decide to file annulment papers after returning home. But when Jack wins a $3-million slot machine payoff using Joy’s quarter, the newlyweds are ordered to remain together for six months of “hard marriage” by a clearly unamused judge (Dennis Miller). Utterly predictable but directed with a pleasingly light touch by Tom Vaughn (Starter for 10), the film features some amusing supporting turns from Robb Corddry and Lake Bell as the not-so-happily-married couple’s best friends. Opens Friday areawide. (Milan Paurich)

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

*** stars

Oscar-nominated director Morgan Spurlock started making his latest feature two years ago when he got the news his wife was pregnant. While he re-considered his need to travel to dangerous, terrorist-infested countries as he searched for one of the most wanted bad guys in the world, he decided he needed to complete his mission, if only to make the world safer for his child. Spurlock doesn’t find Bin Laden, but he does conduct a series of interviews (with both random passersby and political and religious leaders) that expose the reasons behind radical movements. While not groundbreaking, the film shows just how fearless Spurlock can be when he wants to get a question answered. (Jeff Niesel)

Young at Heart

*** 1/2 stars

This film’s subject is Young at Heart, a Northampton, Massachusetts chorus composed of senior citizens, average age 81, who are known for their enthusiastic performances of songs by the Clash, Sonic Youth, Coldplay, Radiohead, the Ramones, David Bowie, Talking Heads, James Brown and other artists far afield from the music of their youth. The chorus evolved from a group of seniors performing vaudeville tunes at a senior meal center in 1982. Branching out with Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy,” the group eventually grew into a phenomenon. The group is enormously popular in its hometown, where its concerts sell out, and has even toured Europe. The singers are uncommonly dedicated, rarely missing a rehearsal even while suffering massive health problems. The film is moving without being too sentimental. Inevitably in a group of old people, there will be health issues, and during the course of the filming two members die. Their friends grieve abundantly and soldier on, performing in tribute to their fallen comrades. Their energy and endurance carry a potent message, nowhere more evident than when the chorus performs at a local prison, where the inmates are visibly moved, some to tears, by the elders’ triumphant rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” (Pamela Zoslov)