The following, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, are by Rick Groen, Liam Lacey and Stephen Cole. Full reviews appeared on the dates indicated.
The Assassination
of Richard Nixon **½
Sean Penn stars in this thinly fictionalized version of the life of Sam Byck (changed in the movie to Bicke), who attempted to hijack an airplane to fly into the White House in 1974. Told through a series of tapes sent to composer Leonard Bernstein, the movie follows Bicke's personal crises -- his divorce from his wife (Naomi Watts), an unsuccessful job and business venture with a partner (Don Cheadle). Director and co-writer Niels Mueller attempts to cast Sam as a combination of Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman and Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, but the story just doesn't support the weight of his ambitions. Penn can be a great actor but here, his performance turns into an exercise of dominating you with his misery -- the choked vocal delivery, the puppet-like movements and the wounded stare. The attempt to sell failure and delusion as heroism is a sales pitch that's easy to resist. 14A (Feb. 4.) -- L.L.
The Aviator ***
Think of it as Citizen Pain. Director Martin Scorsese is working with a merely ordinary script here in an account of the life of Howard Hughes, aeronautics pioneer, dashing womanizer and anxiety-ridden eccentric. Scorsese's ever-moving camera and gorgeous set designs give his depiction of old Hollywood the giddy intensity of a fever dream. Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes captures the combination of little-boy terrors and adult grandiosity, and there's a deft turn from Cate Blanchett as Hughes's one-time lover, Katharine Hepburn. But after one of the great plane crashes in screen history, there's a serious drop in momentum when the film stops to obsess over Hughes's obsessions. The ending, long before the period of Hughes's complete decline, attempts to extract some notes of triumph out of the chaotic life. 14A (Dec. 17) -- L.L.
Childstar **½
Triple-threat actor, writer and director Don McKellar has had a central place in Canadian film in the past 15 years and there's a poetic logic that he should create this satire of the bête noire of American film culture from a Canadian perspective. While the result is more intelligent than previous attempts ( Hollywood North, Paint Cans), it's just not quite there: McKellar plays an aspiring avant-garde Toronto filmmaker who's working as the chauffeur for a messed-up 12-year-old child actor (Mark Rendall). The American movie that's being shot -- a kids' thriller called First Son -- is utterly plausible, but most of the humour swings from dry to broad without real satiric bite. As well, McKellar's character shows little movement: He starts out as acerbic and morally compromised and ends up the same way. 14A (Jan. 28) -- L.L.
The Chorus (Les Choristes) ***
If you like your sentimentality served up with heaps of je ne sais quoi, then Les Choristes is definitely le flick for you. This is a formula film with French panache. The formula: It's the old inspirational teacher saga. The panache: Actor Gérard Jugnot, who does for this movie with his subtle charm what Samuel Jackson did for Coach Carter with his sheer charisma. This isn't a performance, it's an article of faith, and his grace is amazing. PG (Jan. 28) -- R.G.
Hide and Seek **
From the base-model script to the assembly-line atmosphere, everything about this forgettable thriller is generic except its star. Robert De Niro used to be, and perhaps still is, one of the great actors of his generation. But not lately. Here, taking the title to heart, De Niro seems to shrink his once-magnetic self to near-invisibility. Apparently, having proved that comedy isn't his bag, he's now giving anonymity a whirl. 14A (Jan. 28) -- R.G.
In the Realms of the Unreal ***
In his anonymous life, Henry Darger and his work were invisible. Only after his death did one become an artist and the other art. Jessica Yu's documentary does a good job dusting off the neglected-genius cliché to rediscover its sheen of poignancy. Certainly, she's found an extreme case in Darger, so much so that her film falls squarely into a tradition that extends from Grey Gardens through Crumb to American Splendor -- the tale of the talented misfit, of the isolated individual, not rugged but merely reclusive, not outlaw but just outcast. PG (Jan. 28) -- R.G.
The Merchant of Venice ****
In a brilliant opening montage, before a word of text is spoken, director Michael Radford puts his dark stamp all over The Merchant of Venice. What follows is a lean, stripped-down, fiercely intelligent and unapologetically cinematic take on Shakespeare's play, an adaptation designed at each turn to diminish the mechanics of the comedy and to explore the depths of the pathos. Radford keeps the focus squarely on Shylock (a superb Al Pacino), poignantly enough to convince any lingering doubters that this is not an anti-Semitic play but a play about anti-Semitism -- or, at least, about the extremism bred by extremists of every stripe. The message hasn't dated. PG (Jan. 21) -- R.G.
Racing Stripes **
An equine version of Babe that's roughly as predictable as the attraction of flies to dung, Racing Stripes is a movie about a zebra who grows up on a Kentucky horse farm and believes, in spite of his stubby legs and black-and-white striations, that he's destined for glory on the track. When "Stripe" enters the family of a grieving widower (Bruce Greenwood) and his adolescent daughter (Hayden Panettiere), his impact is so inspirational the movie might be called Zeebiscuit. At the same time, the script peppers its narrative with poop jokes and talking animals -- a grumpy Shetland pony (Dustin Hoffman), a wise nanny goat (Whoopi Goldberg), a pelican on the run from the mob (Joe Pantoliano) -- not to mention enough dated pop-culture riffs to keep followers of Saturday-morning cartoons feeling as if they've never left the home sofa. G (Jan. 14) -- L.L.
Tarnation ***½
Jonathan Caouette's life makes for an astonishing multimedia diary collected from hundreds of Super-8 home movies, countless phone messages and thousands and thousands of childhood photos -- all accompanied by a scrolled family history that is as harrowing to read as a ransom note. A purposefully chaotic style tells how the filmmaker grew up in a series of foster homes after his mother, a beautiful Texas model, threw herself off the roof of her parents' house. Renee LeBlanc's story is something out of Tennessee Williams -- a fragile beauty destroyed by promiscuity, rape and uncaring doctors. Inevitably, Jonathan attracted similar demons. This scrapbook has the look and feel of a fantastic, overabundant garden. 14A (Jan. 21) -- S.C.
Liam Lacey