PLANET SICK-BOY MOVIE CAPSULES

This critical darling from Brazil has already won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and has nabbed Oscar nominations for Best Actress (Fernanda Montenegro) and Best Foreign Film, but I’m not sure what the big deal is. Did you see Gloria? Yeah, me neither. But from what I understand Central Station is quite similar.

It’s about a former schoolteacher who works at the local bus station, writing and sending letters to those that don’t know how. After one of her customers gets hit by a bus, the women reluctantly decides to take care of her young son.

The film isn’t anything to write home about, and neither is Montenegro’s performance. It does boast the same look and feel of last year’s foreign fav Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink), but that’s not nearly enough. In Portuguese with English subtitles. (2:00 – for some violence, mild language and adult situations)

Chow Yun-Fat (The Replacement Killers) stars as Nick Chen, a successful and popular cop in New York’s Chinatown. His department is compromised of other Asians, so Chen doesn’t exactly warm up to the new transfer, the ultra-white Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg, Boogie Nights). Together, they try to stop a powerful group of youngsters, called the Fuks – I’m not making that up, either.

While it’s just your basic "shoot ‘em up" police flick, The Corruptor is slightly enhanced by James Foley’s (Fear) direction, which includes lot of muzzle-to-the-skull style gunplay. Plus, it’s refreshing to see Chow as an established force and not just in this country temporarily to help the NYPD solve one crime (like Jackie Chan in Rush Hour). In just his second American film, Chow’s English has gotten a lot better since The Replacement Killers and, at this point, he has surpassed both Stallone and Kirk Douglas in terms of intelligible speech. (1:49 – for extreme violence, nudity, adult language, prostitution and the like)

Woody Allen’s scathing look at the upper echelon of smarmy sophisticates in New York City. Kenneth Branagh (in the role Woody would have played twenty years ago) stars as a bumbling divorcee who occasionally stumbles into the celebrity world via his job as a writer. His ex (Judy Davis) starts out as a neurotic house frau, but eventually even she gets her fifteen minutes of fame as a local television news correspondent…that interviews celebrities. Yes, girls - Leo does have a small part. He plays an out-of-control movie star that beats his girlfriend and trashes his posh hotel suite (ala Johnny Depp). There are tons of subplots and a great supporting cast. (1:51 –

for lots of adult language, lots of sexual innuendo, nudity, girlfriend beating and a provocative banana eating scene)

This capable adaptation of the Jonathan Harr best seller finds John Travolta as a ambulance-chasing civil action lawyer that thinks he hits paydirt when he decides to represent eight families in a Boston suburb that believe their children developed leukemia from the town’s drinking water. In the book, Travolta’s character is a real bastard but in the movie, he gets all sensitive and caring and stuff about sixty minutes into the film. But forget about Travolta – the picture is kept afloat by Steven Zaillian’s brilliant direction and an spectacular supporting cast (especially Robert Duvall as council for one of the co-defendants). Zaillian, who also adapted the screenplay, could have tried to pack more of the book onto the screen, but instead deftly concentrates on the important thing – the portrayal of attorneys as savage warriors that will do anything to further their own interests. "Sweet land of liberty…" (2:00 –

for language and some mild adult situations)

I'm not a fan of the whole Japanimation thing, and to me, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (opens Friday, June 13, at the Little) is just a tired mix of Speed Racer, Pokémon, and the crap my Nintendo games try to sell me when there isn't any action happening. The movie is set in Alba City, Mars, in the year 2071, and focuses on a story about bioterrorism (so long, escapism!) and a rag-tag bunch of bounty hunters who, apparently, pool their plunder together to buy Ramen noodles.

I was given a tape of Bebop, and I tried really hard to get through it, but just couldn't do it. Here's the question you have to ask yourself about the Bebop flick: If it was a live-action film with the same story, would it be remotely interesting? I don't think so. But for fans of the show, the answer to that question won't matter one bit.