Prior to the release of Mike Myers' new comedy, some Hindu groups organized a boycott, claiming the movie insults their religion. But why narrow it down? The movie is insulting to everyone with eyes. In fact, it's hardly even a movie. It's so slackly directed (by Marco Schnabel) and indifferently written (by Myers and Graham Gordy), it doesn't even look like a finished production. What was Paramount thinking when it allowed the release of this abominable collection of grimly unfunny gross-out gags?

Myers, whose over-the-top sketch comedy style hasn't worn well over the years, trots out an unappetizing character called Guru Pitka, a silly, banality-spouting spiritual leader somewhat in the mode of the Beatles' Maharishi. There's plenty of comedy fodder there, but the movie doesn't begin to explore it, opting instead for an endless stream of dick jokes, poop jokes, piss jokes and a climax featuring copulating elephants.

Pitka, a Canadian whose missionary parents left him at an Indian ashram, was groomed as a disciple by a cross-eyed guru (Ben Kingsley), whose name, Guru Tugginmypudha, gives you an idea of the movie's side-splitting hilarity. Now grown, Pitka runs a popular LA ashram and touts himself as an expert on love. The pretty owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs (Jessica Alba) enlists him to help reunite its star player, Roanoke (Romany Malco), with his estranged wife (Meagan Good), now hooked up with Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake), a daffy Québécois renowned for his enormous package. Pitka must "cure" Roanoke so the Leafs can break their losing streak and win the Stanley Cup. This will help Pitka earn a spot on Oprah and surpass his countryman Deepak Chopra on the bestseller list.

Hinduism and hockey is an intriguingly odd combo, but the movie seems too bored with itself to pay any attention to the story. All that's left are the jokes and sight gags, of which nearly all are ridiculously stupid. Myers has actually said this movie was inspired by the death of George Harrison, who would surely have been appalled. — Pamela Zoslov

The Love Guru: Now showing areawide

Blind Mountain

With its noirish plot twists and unusually graphic depiction of sexuality, Li Yang's smashing 2003 debut feature, Blind Shaft, marked the Chinese-born director as someone to watch. Li's follow-up effort, Blind Mountain, which premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, isn't as striking or boldly original, but still manages to get the job done. Set in the Qinlind Mountains of Northern China during the early '90s, the movie deals with a theme — young women who are sold off as brides against their will — that still resonates in many parts of the world. Bai Xuemi (Huang Lu) travels to the Shaanxi Province with two colleagues on her first job right out of college (she thinks she's working for a herbal medicine company). After drinking a seemingly innocent cup of tea proffered by local farmers, Bai wakes up to discover that she's been sold for 7,000 yen. Bai's "owners" plan to make her their wastrel bachelor son's (Yang Youan) new wife. Locked inside a small room with barred windows and stripped of her ID papers, Bai immediately begins plotting her escape. When the situation begins to look increasingly hopeless — some of the other bought-and-paid-for brides in the tiny rural community try convincing her to accept things as they are — she attempts suicide by cutting her wrists.

Some of the film's most eye-opening scenes are set at a local hospital where a cynical lady doctor demands payment before treating Bai. So much for the glories of socialized medicine. Bai eventually manages to break free of her captors, getting as far away as a neighboring city. But her no-account husband and some neighbors soon catch up with Bai, forcibly returning her to the village. The crooked local cops are of no use; like that emergency room doctor, they all demand payment before doing their job. The turning point in the movie occurs after Bai discovers that she's pregnant. Li's ending is shocking both for its abruptness and stubborn refusal to provide the audience with any type of closure. If Blind Shaft felt strangely exotic in the annals of Chinese cinema with its Western emphasis on genre, sex and violence, Blind Mountain is more familiar arthouse fare. At times, you'd swear you were watching an early Zhang Yimou film, albeit one minus Zhang muse Gong Li — who would have made a killer Bai Xuemi - and Zhang's painterly eye and flair with colors. — Milan Paurich

Blind Mountain: 5:15 p.m. Thursday, June 26 and 7 p.m. Friday, June 27 at Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7450.

Mongol

Proof that larger budgets don't mean better films is Mongol, Sergei Bodrov's satisfying epic about the young Genghis Khan, Kazakhstan's entry in this year's Academy Awards. Filmed under harsh conditions in China and Kazakhstan on a budget of only $20 million, the film recalls an earlier era that relied on solid storytelling rather than CGI for effects. Legends abound, but not much is actually known about Genghis Khan ("universal ruler"), the 13th-century warrior who united Mongolian tribes and invaded East and Central Asia, becoming emperor of the vast Mongol empire. His legacy is mixed; in some parts of the world he is considered a genocidal warlord, while in China and Mongolia, he is revered as a hero and praised for his fairness and religious tolerance. Bodrov found inspiration in an old Chinese poem about Genghis Khan for the thoughtful script he co-wrote with Arif Aliyev, which dramatizes the early years of Khan, born Temudgin in 1162.

As a child, Temudgin is taken by his father to select a future bride from a tribe the father has offended; he instead chooses from another tribe the strong-minded Borte (Khulan Chuluun), who becomes his devoted lifelong helpmate. After Temudgin's father is poisoned by a rival tribe, Temudgin (Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano) is subjected to starvation, slavery and his wife's kidnapping. He forms a brotherly alliance with Mongol chieftain Jamukha (Honglei Sun), who later becomes his enemy, a rivalry culminating in a climactic battle. The film, the first of a planned trilogy, brings to mind '70s counterculture Westerns like Little Big Man (think of it as an "Eastern"), without the satiric humor but with an emphasis on character and moral struggle instead of traditional heroics. The stark, muted landscapes are breathtaking, and the sword-battle scenes are majestically staged. — Pamela Zoslov

Mongol: Opens Friday at the Cedar Lee Theater, 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 440-564-2034, clevelandcinemas.com.

Shotgun Stories

Boy Hayes (Douglas Ligon) lives in a decrepit old van down by the river. Kid (Barlow Jacobs) has set up a pup tent in the backyard of eldest Hayes brother, Son (Michael Shannon). When Son's wife (Glenda Pannell) storms off and moves back in with her mother — she's pissed because Son lost $200 gambling — Kid moves inside the house. Before long, Boy joins his siblings and the Hayes brothers are all living under the same roof again. Believe it or not, Son is the responsible "adult" in the family. If that sounds vaguely like an outline for a new Will Farrell comedy, it's not. Written and directed by first-timer Jeff Nichols, Shotgun Stories is anything but a raucous redneck farce. Nichols' remarkably assured debut combines the bone-chilling inexorability of Greek tragedy with the unadorned brilliance of early Terrence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven) to galvanizing effect. Co-produced by David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls), Shotgun Stories is as artfully crafted as any Green movie to date, but without the preening self-consciousness. It's also infinitely more accessible.

The story pivots on the death of Son, Kid and Boy's father. An abusive drunk when he was married to their mother, Mr. Hayes eventually cleaned up his act and remarried, siring four more sons with his churchgoing second wife. Even after changing his ways, the old man never paid his first-born children any mind. In fact, it was his rejection of them - and his denial of any type of paternal love - that makes the black-sheep kin crash the funeral. After harsh words are exchanged, a gauntlet is thrown down to which neither set of brothers can escape. The sins of the father have finally come home to roost. "You raised us to hate those boys and now it's come to this," Son says to his mother (Natalie Canerday) when their internecine feud has reached the point of no return. Son's words — half-despairing, half-accusatory — are applicable to any situation where righteousness trumps reason. Nichols has made one of the most salient Iraq critiques to date without ever leaving a desolate little strip of Southern Arkansas. — MP

Shotgun Stories: 7:10 p.m. Thursday, June 26 and 9:35 p.m. Saturday, June 28 at
Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7450.