The Messenger Directed by Oren Moverman By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are an Army Casualty Notification Detail, tasked with informing the N.O.K. (next of kin) when their loved ones have been killed in action. It’s a soul-destroying assignment and, as explained by the older man (Harrelson) to his younger colleague (Foster), it’s not one that can be made easier by staged shows of understanding. But it’s a necessary function in a time of webcams and cable news shows. They race to get to the N.O.K. before they hear the news from anybody else. Foster has been on the edge of stardom for a decade and may be best recognized recently as Angel in “X-Men: The Last

There’s something about the title “The Cove” that makes me think of a teen horror movie. But “The Cove” is a horror movie of an entirely different kind – a documentary about routine dolphin slaughters in Taiji, a small coastal town in Japan, and the degree of cover up and misinformation that keeps the practice from becoming common knowledge. This is a tough movie to watch, with brutal and graphic footage, but that’s also a large part of why the film exists – to capture on video what the local industry has tried to keep hidden.This is a message movie, made to get the word out. It’s the kind of movie that demands that a reviewer actually divulge the content. This is unusual for me and if yo

Funny People Directed by Judd Apatow & The Hurt Locker Directed by Kathryn Bigelow By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly At first sight, these two movies seem to have little in common, but watching them back-to-back while trying to catch up with the summer’s offerings reveals interesting similarities. “Funny People” is the latest from the Judd Apatow machine (‘The 40 Year SuperKnocked Dewey Zohan Step Talladega Express’ or something like that) while “The Hurt Locker” is from Kathryn Bigelow, a dudette who makes movies for dudes (“K-19: The Widowmaker” & “Point Break”). While I’m on the topic of “Point Break” does anybody know what the dudest of dudes Keanu Reeves was doing in town last week?

Audiences at the Century Downtown Plaza 7 theater were required to leave the building tonight when a fire alarm went off at approximately 9pm. Among the affected were the lucky (until that moment) viewers of a word of mouth screening of the upcoming release “State of Play” – including many members of the local media for whom it doubled as a press screening (myself included). After audiences vacated the theater, the alarm was silenced and the (now diminished) crowd returned. However, there appeared to be a problem with the system as the strobe lights remained on and the alarm sounded again (with little to no response from the now jaded audience). Despite the presence of the fire department