Broken Lizard's Club Dread -- If you liked Super Troopers, you'll like Club Dread. It's from the same sketch comedy troupe, Broken Lizard, and it's set in a Costa Rican swingers club, which means ample opportunity for sightings of naughty bits. If that's not enough to convince you, there's also a psycho killer on the loose and as anyone who's seen Scary Movie can attest, psycho killers are freakin' hilarious. Rated: R
**** City of God -- An adaptation of the novel by Paulo Lins, which is a fictionalization of the author's youth in the favelas (slums) outside of Rio de Janeiro. Indelibly fun to watch --and recently recognized with Oscar nominations -- City of God is a self-mythologizing portrait of the allure and despair of juvenile crime in a milieu that offers no other escape. It's dizzying, dazzling and never flinches from the harshness of what its many characters go through. It's the kind of art that genuinely confronts the question, what is the value of human life? And why are we so reckless with the fate of the youth of the world? Showing at the Met Cinema. (RP) Rated: R
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights -- "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Who writes dialogue like this?? Who names a character "Baby" for an entire movie? Furthermore, who thinks it would be a good idea to dig up Patrick Swayze and put him in a sequel 17 years later? Hollywood, that's who. And now they're bringing us Dirty Dancing: Hollywood Nights, starring smokin' Diego Luna (Y Tu Mama Tambien) as the Cuban dance partner to -- you guessed it -- a wealthy American girl (Romola Garai). Rumor has it the title roles were originally intended for Ricky Martin and Natalie Portman, and there is indeed a cameo by Swayze. Rated: PG-13
** The Passion of the Christ -- A loud, thudding lockstep depiction of torture and murder with little about philosophy, goodness or celebration, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is a protracted representation of the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life. Not for the faint of heart and especially not for children or even teenagers, Gibson's dark vision focuses on Christ (Jim Caviezel) having his flesh rent into tatters, shredding into gobs of viscera. In short, Gibson's Gospel is one of brutality and suffering. (RP) Rated: R
Twisted -- Whaddya do if you're a cop and someone keeps coming along and killing all your one-night stands? You hunt that rat bastard serial killer down, sister! Ashley Judd plays the cop-with-a-vengeance; Morgan Freeman (do they have to be in every movie together?) plays her suspicious boss. Andy Garcia plays her equally suspicious cop partner. Rated: R
Publication date: 02/26/04
