Movie Reviews: The City of Your Final Destination, Oceans, Five Easy Pieces

NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS The great boundary-crosser of Iranian cinema, Bahman Ghobadi purposefully steps over the line with No One Knows About Persian Cats — a quasi-documentary, highly-unofficial panorama of Teheran's tenacious underground music scene and a movie that has accrued additional urgency since its first public screening at Cannes last May. Ghobadi's co-writer, journalist Roxana Saberi was freed from Evin prison on the eve of Persian Cats's premiere; his assistant director, Mehdi Pourmusa, is confined there, arrested last month along with filmmaker Jafar Panahi. The movie's protagonists, indie rockers Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan Koshanejad, have since left Iran, as has Ghobadi. Shaghaghi and Koshanejad play themselves as recently imprisoned performers speeding around Teheran on the back of a motorbike in a frantic attempt to secure travel documents and recruit a rhythm section for a gig in London. The movie tours what Ghobadi calls a "hidden world of rebel musicians," as well as bootleg DVD and fake passport hustlers, with visits to assorted crash pads and basement music clubs. Persian Cats is likable but undistinguished filmmaking, and the performers are a mixed bag of metal bands, traditional ensembles, rap artists and buskers. None seem nearly as political as the former Czechoslovakia's legendary Plastic People of the Universe; the closest thing here to a rock & roll manifesto is the acid trance assertion, offered in English, that "dreaming is my reality." Of course given that everything the movie shows — including two women singing a folk song — is illegal, bravado is a given. (J. Hoberman) (Landmark, Playhouse, Sunset 5, Town Center)

GO  OCEANS An almost miraculously photographed showcase of some of the seven seas' least seen and most incredible specimens, Disney's Oceans (a follow-up to last year's Earth) lets its subjects speak for themselves. Timed to coincide with Earth Day, the film's preservationist agenda is mostly implicit in its wonder at these strangest of nature's people: The blanket octopus, mantis shrimp and a host of protoplasmic jellyfish and bargelike whales turn their crazy-colored eyes and corrugated bellies to the camera, and the message is received. The script is not quite as eloquent: Not even Pierce Brosnan's hushed intonation can redeem space-filling non sequiturs like, "Merely knowing these creatures exist isn't enough to tell the stories of their lives." Taking us from the reefs of Australia and South Africa's shark-infested coves to Alaska's orca feeding grounds, Oceans is a jaw-dropper as a visual travelogue — even its anthropomorphic indulgences (an ocean floor is turned into a rough neighborhood, complete with trespassers and shy weirdos) are winning. Though there is a brief foray into pollution and destructive fishing, Oceans ends with hope: Humans can't be all bad — after all, we made high-definition cameras and learned to breathe underwater not to kill but to get closer to our fellow creatures. (Michelle Orange) (Citywide)

PAPER MAN An artist-in-crisis piece run through a drab but quirk-conscious indie processor, Paper Man is everything a film like Lost in Translation fought not to be. Even its moments of dark mirth and the few grace notes between its stars wind up falsified by writer/directors Kieran and Michele Mulroney's played-out tricks and plainly sentimental overtures. Deposited during the off-season at his Sag Harbor home by his surgeon wife (Lisa Kudrow), failing writer Richard (Jeff Daniels) is tasked with finishing that stubborn second novel. Joining him is a nay-saying superhero named Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds), an imaginary friend who is more crutch than muse. "Have a productive week," is Kudrow's deadly refrain: Richard is in the throes of a terrifying block, and will conjure a jinx if there's not one handy. Enter Abby (Emma Stone), a local teen who accepts Richard's bogus offer of a babysitting gig; bonding, soup making and rejuvenative storytelling sessions ensue. Stone is radiantly endearing as the smart kid stuck in a shit town with shit dudes; trailed by her own personal Duckie (Kieran Culkin), she makes a host of narrative contrivances feel more natural than they should. The exorcism of Captain Excellent and reckoning of Richard's marriage are even more uninspired by comparison. (Michelle Orange) (Landmark)