Movies Review

Connie and Carla Starring Toni Collette, David Duchovny, Stephen Spinella, Alec Mapa, Nia Vardalos. Directed by Michael Lembeck. (PG13, 98 minutes). Actress and writer Nia Vardalos, who became an overnight sensation with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, returns to the big screen with this gender-bending comedy. Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) are best friends who've shared the same dream ever since they were teenagers -- making a name for themselves in the musical theater. However, after years of treading water on Chicago's dinner theater circuit and playing bottom-of-the-barrel nightclubs, the two are facing middle age with minimal career success. One evening after a performance, Connie and Carla have the misfortune of witnessing the murder of nightclub owner Frank (Michael Roberds) by low-level Mafiosi; the gals are seen by the shooters, and they hit the road in fear for their lives. Connie and Carla end up in Los Angeles, where they struggle to create new identities for themselves.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 Starring Sonny Chiba, Michael Madsen, Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Liu Chia-hui, Michael Jai White, Chiaki Kuriyama. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. (R, 137 minutes). Quentin Tarantino's sprawling homage to action films of both the East and the West reaches its conclusion in this continuation of 2003's ultra-violent Kill Bill Vol. 1. Having dispatched several of her arch-enemies in the first film, The Bride (Uma Thurman) continues in Kill Bill Vol. 2 on her deadly pursuit of her former partners in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, who, in a furious assault, attempted to murder her and her unborn child on her wedding day. As The Bride faces off against allies-turned-nemeses Budd (Michael Madsen) and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), she flashes back to the day of her deadly wedding, and we learn of how she was recruited to join the DiVAS, her training under unforgiving martial arts master Pai Mei (Liu Chia-hui), and her relationship with Squad leader Bill (David Carradine), which changed from love to violent hatred.

The Alamo Starring Jason Patric, Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Patrick Wilson, Emilio Echevarria. Directed by John Lee Hancock. (PG13, 137 minutes). This oppressively solemn historical-action film marches in the line of such earlier Disney-financed looks at apocalyptic moments as "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon." In re-enacting, with a heavy heart and a heavy hand, the actual events surrounding the storied 1836 battle fought by Texas against the Mexican forces of General Santa Anna, the movie is both elegiac and trivial. This is an accomplishment of sorts, generally the sort that no one plans. The director, John Lee Hancock, strains so mightily to bring a human aspect to the material that the movie limps as if it has a pulled muscle. The film can't support the burden of delivering a drama with a mammoth running time, a climactic catastrophe that nearly every American knows, and no women with major speaking roles. ‹ Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Starring Jim Carrey, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kate Winslet. Directed by Michel Gondry. (R, 108 minutes). Michel Gondry's film, an angular and intelligent romantic comedy, isn't entirely consistent. Even as you laugh, it's a movie you admire more than love. Mr. Gondry, displaying an impressively quicksilver, scrambling technique, is working with a much better script than he had for "Human Nature," his previous collaboration with the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation"). Kate Winslet is Clem, the brash, loquacious bookstore employee who meets Joel (Jim Carrey) as he wanders the streets alone on Valentine's Day. The two of them fall in love under a glum, flannel cloud cover that could use some eternal sunshine. After they break up, Joel's ego is bruised when he finds out that Clem has had all memories of him erased from her mind. Devastated, he goes for the same treatment. Mr. Kaufman has conjured the film equivalent of a Philip K. Dick Hallmark card.

¹ All movie images and graphics from the NY Times web site at:
http://movies.nytimes.com/pages/movies/index.html