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Silicon Valley Movie Times
Movie times in San Jose, Campbell, Fremont, Los Gatos, Palo Alto and other Silicon Valley cities.
Santa Cruz County Movie Times
Movie times in Santa Cruz, Aptos, Capitola, Scotts Valley, Watsonville and other Central Coast cities.
Sonoma County / Napa County / Marin County Movie Times
Movie times in Santa Rosa, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sonoma, Sebastopol, and other North Bay cities.
Elegy
Philip Roth's novel gets lost in the shuffle of film adaptation
Mirrors
Horror-movie director Alexandre Aja stays one step ahead of his fans
The Rocker
Pete Best Syndrome strikes second-chance drummer Rainn Wilson
Transsiberian
A mystery train races across Russia in Brad Anderson's new film
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen warms up in new romantic comedy
Tropic Thunder
Ben Stiller sends up Hollywood egos
Frozen River
A hardscrabble mom turns to smuggling
American Teen
It's not easy surviving to graduation in new documentary
Pineapple Express
Stoner humor keeps Apatow-Rogen fans high
Man on Wire
The true story behind the greatest real-life stunt of them all
The Naked Spur
The Stanford Theatre revives one of Jimmy Stewart's most troubling Westerns
My Winnipeg
Guy Maddin explores the quirky side of Canada
Baghead
Mumblecore comes of age
Ripple Effect
A fashion designer and really bad driver finds redemption in forgiveness
Swing Vote
Kevin Costner plays election-day snafu for laughs
Ping Pong Playa (PG-13; 96 min.) Cute but terminally forced comedy about would-be playa Christopher Wang (Jimmy Tsai) who would love to be a.k.a.'d "C-Dub" and "The Orient Express." He is hoops-obsessed, but he only has enough game to beat elementary schoolchildren ("Access denied!" he shouts, blocking a kindergartner). Chris is forced to take over the family business, training kids at ping-pong, where he brings his showboating NBA ways to make champs of some shy, nerdy kids. Some will be entranced by the idea of a member of a model minority trying to break the mold (by wearing a T-shirt that reads "I Speak English," for instance). Too bad this seriously undergagged comedy repeats itself like a 90-year-old granddad. When the film turns completely into the Bad News Panda Bears, it starts to show an unpardonable sign of padding: two training montages within the same 10 minutes. Plus:, Jessica Yu and screenwriter/star Jimmy Tsai visit Camera 3 in San Jose following the 4 and 6:40pm shows on Sep 7. (Opens Sep 5 at selected theaters.) (RvB)
Bottle Shock (PG-13; 110 min.) Helicopter shots of Napa, Glen Ellen and parts of Sonoma County are the highlights of this fictionalized comedy about the 1976 French blind tasting that established California wine as an international force. The feuding father-and-son team of Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) and his hippiesh son Bo (Chris Pine in a Kurt Cobain wig) punch the hell out of each other in a makeshift boxing ring. Freddy Rodriguez of Six Feet Under is the best chum who is learning to become a winemaker on his own. Meanwhile, an intern from UC-Davis named Sam (Rachael Taylor) causes romantic confusion. To the film's credit, there are some knowing references to the coming money storm that would all but drive the funk out of wine country—a montage in which a group of shade-tree vintners are startled to realize that someone would pay them for tastings. A huge improvement over Randall Miller's last film, Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, it still serves up a relentless snarl of cliches—it's amazing that Miller spared himself and us the line "We will sell no wine before its time." The restaging of a famous scene from It Happened One Night epitomizes the general shamelessness. (The scene is a further irritant if you remember how easy it was to hitchhike in Northern California in the mid-1970s.) Alan Rickman, as the British wine merchant who starts the kerfluffle, does a great deal with his air of sarcastic melancholy, and he gives this film a boost whenever he appears. (Opens Aug 15 at Camera 7 in Campbell.) (RvB)
I.O.U.S.A. (PG; 85 min.) The subject is the national debt, the watering of the currency and the lack of a clear plan to make the dollar sound again. Features Patrick Creadon's live closed-circuit discussion with Warren Buffett, Bill Novelli of AARP, Pete Peterson of the Blackstone and others after the show. (Plays Aug 21 at 7:30 at numerous South Bay theaters, including the Eastridge Mall 15, Milpitas Great Mall 20, and the Oakridge 20; www.fathomevents.com.) (RvB)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (PG-13; 117 min.) The pants don't make much of a showing in this new sequel to the 2005 film, but no matter. They're nothing more than a gimmick to draw us into the lives of our four lovable characters, played by Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively and Amber Tamblyn. Spending another summer apart, the girls have begun to argue, withhold secrets from one another and generally grow apart. Music-video maker Sanaa Hamri copies the successful formula of the first, including lots of fantasy (especially the cartoonish boyfriend characters), slapstick, heavy-handed plot twists, beautiful vacation spots and ridiculously happy endings. Yet even with only a fourth of the running time apiece, each girl still clocks in with her own potent, involving little short film. With Blythe Danner, Rachel Nichols, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Kyle MacLachlan. From Ann Brashares' novel. (Plays valleywide.) (JMA)
The Wackness (R; 110 min.) Written and directed by Jonathan Levine, The Wackness invests a great deal of energy re-creating the summer of 1994 in New York City; when anyone listens to "Ready to Die" by the Notorious B.I.G., they point out, "It's brand new! It just came out!" But after all this window dressing, it's a banal coming-of-age story. A sensitive, insecure drug dealer (Josh Peck) has somehow turned his glamorous job into a daily drudgery (i.e., no cars, guns or girls). He divides his time between the elusive girl of his dreams (Olivia Thirlby) and his dope-smoking shrink (Ben Kingsley, in yet another show-offy performance), and saves money for his parents' back rent. By the end of August, everyone learns a valuable lesson. It's definitely wack. (Opens July 25 at Camera 7 in Campbell and Century 16 in Mountain View.) (JMA)
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
We can't believe they bothered one more time
Brideshead Revisited
Once was enough
Tell No One
The French deliver a paranoid thriller in the Hitchcock groove
The Edge of Heaven
Fatih Akin tells a multifaceted story of reconciliation
Hancock
Will Smith's superhero falls hard only to fly again
Gonzo
A new documentary traces the incandescent life and works of Hunter S. Thompson
WALL-E
New Pixar feature is a blast-off
Savage Grace
Jullianne Moore's mother from hell makes Joan Crawford look like June Cleaver
Encounters at the End of the World
Werner Herzog explores the ice floes of Antarctica in a quirky new documentary
Brick Lane
Life isn't easy when you're Bangladeshi in east London
Niles Film Museum The Pride of the Clan (1917) with Mary Pickford as the heiress to the leadership of a Scots clan. Co-billed with Miss Fatty's Seaside Lovers (1915) with Fatty Arbuckle as an obese mothball factory heiress who draws particularly disenchanting suitors. Also: Frozen Hearts (1923) with Stan Laurel as a Russian peasant who becomes a soldier. Frederick Hodges at the piano. (Plays Sep 6 at 7:30pm in Fremont at the Edison Theater, 37417 Niles Blvd; www.nilesfilmmuseum.org.) (RvB)
