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Hall Pass

by M. Faust
The Farrelly Brothers—Peter and Bobby to their mom—hit it big in the 1990s with a series of raunchy comedies that you with never want to see with your own mom, Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary foremost among them. Their work has always had a strong sentimental side as well, though the two aspects don’t always work well together. After a decade of weirdly misconceived movies (Stuck on You, Shallow Hal, remakes of The Heartbreak Kid and Fever Pitch), they have their first shot at a box office success with this comedy about two 40ish guys (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudekis) who are given a week’s vacation form their marriages. What the film’s trailer doesn’t show you is that the wives (Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate) have a hidden agenda in this: Tired of the husbands’ perpetual ogling of other women and fantasizing about what studs they would be if they were single, they give them the week’s freedom in the same way you let a house cat clawing at the door out on to the porch—in no time at all it’s so terrified of the world outside that it’s begging to come back in.

Casino Jack

by George Sax
It’s not hard to see why Kevin Spacey wanted to star in a movie about the notorious Washington lobbyist, dealmaker, and felon Jack Abramoff. Over about a decade, chiefly during the George W. Bush administration, Abramoff became an avatar of outsize greed and outrageous self dealing. He operated in a public-private, mutual benefit alliance of lobbyists, private business interests, and public office holders. Abramoff’s tentacles of access and influence reached into the Bush White House, the president’s eventual claim to be unfamiliar with his operation notwithstanding.

Entre Nos

by M. Faust
At the end of Entre Nos, screening at the Market Arcade on March 3 as part of the International Women’s Film Festival, titles tell us that the story we have just seen was based on incidents in the life of co-writer/director Paola Mendoza’s mother, and that the three characters in the movie have gone on to live successful and fulfilling lives. It’s worth knowing that before you watch the movie, which as it unfolds seems to be pulling you into a bottomless pit of misery.



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