Movies opening this week

Half Nelson (Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie, dir. Ryan Fleck)
Maybe it was just the deafening hype and acclaim for this movie, which is a favorite of the festival circuit so I've been hearing for months about how great it is, but I came away feeling disappointed. There are some very good performances here from Gosling and Epps, and the movie mostly sidesteps the cliches of inspirational inner-city teacher movies. But it still felt flat to me, a sort of meandering character study that didn't go much of anywhere. And the sometimes overly pointed political content was at odds with generally non-judgmental portraits of the main characters. I can't really put my finger on anything specifically wrong with this film, but I can't exactly point to anything spectacularly right about it, either. Opened limited Aug. 11; in Las Vegas this week

School for Scoundrels (Jon Heder, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacinda Barrett, dir. Todd Phillips)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I am convinced that Jon Heder's career will be over in no more than two years, and this movie only reinforces the notion that he can do little except play Napoleon Dynamite over and over again. A friend of mine said that he's not even an actor, which is probably sort of accurate. He was likely playing a variation on himself as Napoleon, and continues to play that same variation in every other movie he's in. Given that, though, it's probably smart that he's cramming in as many shitty Hollywood movies as possible while producers are still willing to cast (and pay) him. At least then he'll have some money to fall back on when the roles dry up. Billy Bob Thornton, on the other hand, has no excuse for being in this movie and recycling his character from Bad Santa and Bad News Bears. He's a great actor with incredible range, and this movie is way, way beneath him. Wide release

The Science of Sleep (Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, dir. Michel Gondry)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I had high standards for this film and I think it pretty well met them. It's not a classic like Eternal Sunshine, and is more about creating emotional impressions than conveying specific ideas, but it's still very effective at that, and demonstrates just how much of Eternal Sunshine's success was thanks to Gondry and not just the widely praised Charlie Kaufman screenplay. Gondry has been really good at portraying the sweetness and insanity of romance, a subject I hope he continues to pursue in future movies, since his films have been such a nice counterpoint to idealized Hollywood rom-coms. Opened limited Sept. 22; in Las Vegas this week