HAPPINESS RUNS Born and raised on a polygamous commune in the wilderness, embittered teen hippie Victor (Mark L. Young) has realized that the nonconformist ideals of his elders — like his parents (odd-duck pairing Andie MacDowell and Mark Boone Junior) and a seductive hypnotist guru (Rutger Hauer) — have produced a litter of burnt-out, oversexed, downright oppressed kids without the ability to see their looming self-destruction. Loosely based on writer-director Adam Sherman's similar cult upbringing and disillusionment, the film builds on a fascinating cautionary tale, but doesn't develop its characters past whatever movie-of-the-week crisis each suffers from. We get that everyone's folks are too busy getting high or laid, but without a deepening of those parent-child dynamics, we're left with a tacky Lord of the Flies scenario, seemingly filmed by Larry Clark like a trippy '60s surf movie. Victor doesn't have the scratch to move away, and he's also distracted by his constantly naked, childhood love, Becky (Hanna Hall, the youngest sis from The Virgin Suicides), who has returned to care for her ailing dad and fuck every boy just to feel anything. (Aaron Hillis) (Sunset 5)
JUST WRIGHT Another movie, not as awful as this one, might one day find better use for the easygoing vibe between Queen Latifah and Common, the stars of Just Wright, a romantic comedy (for the ladies) with basketball and cameoing NBA players in it (for the fellas). That absolutely no chemistry exists between them as love interests is the first of the many flaws in a film that also demands we believe the New Jersey Nets could become Eastern Conference champions. Earthy, virtuous physical therapist and hoops fanatic Leslie Wright (Latifah) shares her house with her hyperfemme, gold-digging childhood friend, Morgan (Paula Patton). The p.t. meets Net Scott McNight (Common) and develops a crush — but Rules-playing Morgan gets the All-Star's marriage proposal. A midpoint ligament injury allows thick girls to triumph over thin ones: Leslie and Scott share cocoa bread, a quick kiss and, eventually, a bed. Writer Michael Elliot distinguishes himself by putting words into Latifah's mouth that she probably hasn't uttered since Living Single went off the air: "I'm a Jersey girl. I gotta represent!" Though no pheromones could ever be secreted in a love triangle this square, watching Leslie and Scott's relationship shift from platonic to romantic is as weird and wrong as watching siblings kiss each other on the mouth. (Melissa Anderson) (Citywide)
LETTERS TO JULIET Blonde, pillow-topped and spineless, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has a secure fact-checking job and is engaged to Victor (Gael García Bernal), a hunky restaurateur of indeterminate exotic origin, who dangles hot, fresh fettuccine into her mouth in a totally nonthreatening, not-at-all–9½ Weeks-ish way. But Sophie's not satisfied: She really wants to write, an ambition that sets the eyes of both boyfriend and boss aglaze. When Victor seems more interested in spending their Italian vacation hunting truffles than digging her, Sophie drifts off and ends up in Verona at the mythic home of Shakespeare's Juliet, where a cadre of volunteer secretaries answers letters left behind by lovelorns. Soon, Sophie's tagging along as English widow Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) visits a roundelay of Italian geezers to find the farmhand she loved and left back in the '50s. Enter Claire's no-fun lawyer grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan), whose interest in Sophie's writing makes up for his post-schoolboy prissiness. Juliet's core messages — date boys who are cool with you having a career and don't settle; NYC wine snobs are selfish, but guys who grow grapes and/or do pro bono legal work will love you forever — are inoffensive, but they're hardly the stuff of swooning fantasia. And fantasy Juliet clearly intends to be — too many plane tickets are booked last-minute without mention of the cost of the trip. Gary Winick's flat direction does the material no favors: If Egan and Seyfried have any chemistry, it's framed out of their awkwardly staged climactic kisses. (Karina Longworth) (Citywide)
A NIGHTMARE IN LAS CRUCES On February 10, 1990, in Los Cruces, New Mexico, two armed men robbed a bowling alley and then put bullets in the heads of the seven people they'd stumbled upon in the building, including two sisters, aged 6 and 2. For 20 years the culprits have been at large, and director Charlie Minn made this documentary, in part, to keep the story alive while cataloguing the lives lost, ruined or deeply crippled by the massacre. From the start, however, as the viewer listens to the entire 911 call made after the gunmen fled, and as graphic crime-scene photos fill the screen, a sense of dread sets in that what's about to unfold is exploitation tricked up in moral outrage. As the film unfolds, it proves to be just that. To Minn's credit, he sheds light on a shady businessman's shady family, one of whom may have been the true target of the bloody rampage (police officials interviewed agree that the half-ass robbery was a front for the attack), and the teary testimonials by grieving widows and mothers are genuinely wrenching. But Minn, a mediocre interviewer, tips his hand by not only repeatedly showing bloody crime scene photos and videos but in staging reunions of survivors who haven't seen each other in more than a decade so his camera can capture tears. He also includes self-aggrandizing news footage of himself being interviewed about making the film. The cause? Noble. The crusader? Not so much. (Ernest Hardy) (Beverly Center)
