'13 Ghosts'


Horror. Starring Tony Shalhoub, F. Murray Abraham. Directed by Steve Beck. (R. 90 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

"13 Ghosts" is oddly comforting in its inconsistent acting and bad monster makeup. A B-grade horror picture seems to be a B-grade horror picture no matter how many studio bucks and digital effects you throw at it.

Which probably would be a relief to the late shlockmeister William Castle, who made "13 Ghosts" first in 1960. Though the remake isn't particularly scary,

the premise is just silly enough and the set design just striking enough to keep it afloat.

The star is a rather extraordinary haunted house, a modern marvel of glass walls, spinning floors and burnished metal doodads. It's not actually a house at all but a soul-sucking hell machine -- great architecture often requires trade-offs.

A widower (Tony Shalhoub from "Spy Kids" and TV's "Wings") and his kids inherit the place from a crazy uncle (F. Murray Abraham). They're soon trapped there with 12 angry ghosts, the souls of whom were plucked by the uncle. A family member is supposed to complete the baker's dozen.

Each ghost has a shtick -- the Torso, the Hammer -- but their makeup jobs lend them all a gray, clumpy look, as if there have been no advancements in makeup since "Night of the Living Dead." Only a computer-assisted maniac, vicious in a boxy muzzle, produces any real chills.

How the characters fare against the monsters isn't the issue with a movie like this anyway; it's how the actors react to a silly story line. Abraham, digging in with Vincent Price gusto, and Matthew Lillard, grimacing maniacally as a psychic, embrace the spirit of the picture best. Shalhoub just looks hangdog and too serious.

As Shalhoub's children, Shannon Elizabeth ("American Pie") and young Alec Roberts make a curious sibling pair. She looks too old to be the kid's sister or Shalhoub's daughter. But a quick shot of her shirt being shredded in the chest region lets us know why she's around.

Advisory: This film contains violence, gore, nudity.

-- Carla Meyer



Romance. Starring Julie Blake and Charles Tingwell. Directed by Paul Cox. (Not rated. 105 minutes. At the Embarcadero.)

"Innocence" is remarkable in several big ways that make it possible to overlook the nagging little ways in which it doesn't succeed.

Fifty years ago, Andreas and Claire were beautiful young people having one of those love affairs that poetry and movies were made for. Director Paul Cox shows this affair in wordless flashbacks -- a bicycle ride here, some clothes coming off there, a radiant smile, a bottle of wine. The romance does seem like something that would haunt the memory.

Now she's almost 70, and he's a bit older. Andreas (Charles Tingwell) writes to Claire (Julia Blake), and they meet for lunch having not seen each other for 50 years. He's a widower; she's married to a man who ignores her. So Andreas and Claire start an affair.

An awareness of time and death hangs over all great romances. This awareness is yet more pronounced when the lovers are at this stage of life. Through montages that convey the characters' consciousness, we feel the lovers' bittersweet urgency.

As played by Tingwell, Andreas is a romantic, in love with love, just as Claire's husband, John (Terry Norris), is a man who has been more comfortable living on the surface of his feelings. Only Claire seems to understand the everyday realness and hugeness of this affair. Blake, lovely to behold, is extraordinary.

The bad news is that Cox, having presented a compelling situation, spins his wheels, drops the energy and starts indulging in sentiment, finally arriving at the easiest exit. But "Innocence" has bought so much audience good will in its first 70 minutes that the ending is more a missed opportunity than a fatal misdirection.

Advisory: This film contains nudity.

-- Mick LaSalle



Crime comedy. Starring Minnie Driver and Mary McCormack. Directed by Mel Smith. (R. 86 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Two law-abiding pals (Minnie Driver and Mary McCormack) stumble onto a bank heist and suddenly want to be criminals. That's as believable as "High Heels and Low Lifes" gets.

Driver plays a British nurse and McCormack a struggling American actress living in London. Listening to a cell-phone scanner belonging to Driver's ex- beau, they hear about a bank job in progress and decide to sweat the crooks for a share of the loot.

But the women aren't dealing with guys who will roll over, and each new demand increases the likelihood the pair will be killed. Yet they persist in their scheme, even after an innocent man gets shot. Why?

Actually, writers Kim Fuller and Georgia Pritchett try to establish their motivation, but it's just too sad and unbelievable. The characters convince themselves that since they are both single and relatively poor, they should give crime a try -- a dispiriting notion for a couple of beautiful women in their early 30s.

If one ignores reason, "High Heels" hums along well enough as a crime caper,

and McCormack and Driver are winning comic actresses. McCormack ("Private Parts"), especially, shines here as her character adopts a tough-guy East End accent and weighs how many F-words and "slags" are appropriate for a telephone threat.

Like the designer suits Driver wears despite her character's meager earnings, "High Heels and Low Lifes" isn't about reality; it's playing dress- up.

Advisory: This film contains raw language, violence.

-- Carla Meyer



Romantic comedy. Starring Lance Bass, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Joey Fatone. Directed by Eric Bross. (PG. 95 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

So it's boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy -- but wait, we don't want to give anything away.

"On the Line" is formulaic romantic comedy starring Lance Bass, of the pop group 'N Sync, as Kevin, a shy advertising man who meets a woman on the L train in Chicago. She likes him, but he fails to ask for her name or phone number. And so the next 95 minutes of screen time are taken up with him trying to find her.

Bass is entirely believable as a retiring young fellow. The role might not call for much range, but Bass's essence is pleasant, and for a movie like this,

that's 90 percent of the game. Joey Fatone, also of 'N Sync, plays his flatulent friend. His role doesn't call for much range, either.

The real charmer is newcomer Emmanuelle Chriqui, a Canadian actress of French Moroccan descent, whose looks and intelligence make young Kevin's obsession understandable.

The movie has some clumsy dialogue and awkward turns, but the picture is brisk and likable. Plus, there's Al Green. During the closing credits, he appears in a street-party setting, singing, "Let's Stay Together." It's the best part of movie.

-- Mick LaSalle



Black comedy. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal. With Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze. Written and directed by Richard Kelly. (R. At Bay Area theaters. 113 minutes.)

If this movie ever figured out what it wanted to be when it grows up, it would be a terrific one. It starts out as a suburban satire, with a right-on, quizzical performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager who seems to know more than he lets on. It turns into a psychological drama with an amazing twist -- a jet engine plunges into the boy's bedroom. Then it takes a wild leap into the unknown with a sci-fi foray into "worm holes" in the universe, and time travel that doubles back on itself.

Donnie Darko (Gyllenhaal) is in therapy and probably overmedicated, but with Katharine Ross ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid") as his shrink, you can't be too sure. Anyway, Donnie has an imaginary friend named Frank who looks like a rabbit and communicates with him from the other side of a watery plane.

The movie, set during final month of the Dukakis-Bush campaign of 1988, is filled with established performers like Ross in supporting roles. Drew Barrymore is a cool English teacher, and Patrick Swayze an uncool TV motivational huckster. Mary McDonnell ("Dances With Wolves") is Donnie's mother, who delivers the movie's best line. "How does it feel to have a wacko for a son?" Donnie asks. "It feels wonderful," she replies.

Another touching character is a crazy old lady who keeps going back to her mailbox looking for a letter that never arrives.

"Donnie Darko" was written and directed by Richard Kelly, who impressed Barrymore enough to get her to produce it, and for the first hour, you can see why she went for it. The movie's got a wry point of view, even though it deals with the hallucinations of a paranoid schizophrenic. His conviction that the world is coming to an end appears to have merit.

Writer-director Kelly has said that the film, shown at Sundance, needs to be seen several times. Good luck.

Advisory: Contains profanity.

-- Bob Graham



Documentary. Starring Carole Baldwin and narrated by Kenneth Branagh. Directed by Al Giddings and David Clark. (Not rated. 45 minutes. At the Metreon.)

"Galapagos" is the latest 3-D IMAX picture, and seeing it comes with a sense of privilege. It's a visit to a place most of us will never visit, and it shows us things none of us could see unless we were willing to take big risks and endure hardship.

Of all the 3-D IMAX films out there, "Galapagos" is probably the least upstaged by its filmic process. Shot as a regular movie, it would still have been a decent documentary. Shot as an IMAX movie, it's touched by a magic wand.

It follows marine biologist Carole Baldwin as she explores caves, dives under water and boards a submersible in order to travel 3,000 feet to the ocean floor.

Baldwin has the courage of a tiger. We see her in her wet suit, lying low while a swarm of hammerhead sharks swim by. In the submersible -- which she describes as yet more dangerous -- she discovers life forms that no human has ever seen. One undersea creature looks like billowing pink tissue paper. It's extraordinary.

"Galapagos" is a visit to another world within our own, far away from human concerns. Just the sight of the iguanas -- armies of them -- blending into the rocks on a hot morning makes this a film worth seeing.

-- Mick LaSalle



Drama. Starring Lee Kang-Sheng. Directed by Tsai Ming-Liang. (Not rated. 115 minutes. In Mandarin with English subtitles. At the Lumiere.)

In Taiwan, a mother, father and grown son share an apartment but rarely speak. The father eats alone, the mother has a lover, and the son is so disconnected, he might as well be their tenant.

Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang -- who explored similar territory in the "Vive L'Amour" and "The Hole" -- uses loneliness and alienation as the primary emotional colors on a surprisingly expressive canvas.

Using no music, scant dialogue and not much action, Tsai views this broken family from three angles and employs the metaphor of a roof leak to represent the secrets that threaten their silence.

The son (Lee Kang-Sheng) finds work playing a corpse in a movie, but after floating face down in a polluted river he comes down with a paralyzing shoulder and neck pain that won't go away. The parents search for a cure, and the father and son share a devastating surprise.

Tsai is so adept at pacing and mood, and so good at capturing a sense of yearning, that his film draws us in despite its unusually long takes and sparse cutting.

Advisory: This film contains nudity and sexual situations.

-- Edward Guthmann