Atlantic City Weekly

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There is true sorrow behind the scenes of the film Waitress, but

After the Wedding This Danish drama was Oscar nominated for best foreign language film. Mads Mikkelsen, who played the villain LeChiffre in Casino Royale, stars as a man who comes home to Denmark for a wedding and finds out that several secrets will be revealed during that homecoming.

Black Book Paul Verhoven makes juicy movies, full of sex and violence (Robo Cop, Basic Instinct, Showgirls). Even his art house movies are a balancing act between vivid storytelling and exploitation. Verhoven returned to his native Netherlands to make Black Book, an exciting drama about the German occupation of the Netherlands and the Dutch resistance fighters. When her family is slaughtered in an ambush, Jewish singer Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) takes the name of Ellis and joins the resistance. Her good looks make her the perfect choice to infiltrate the Nazi headquarters as the lover of the German commander Muntze (Sebastian Koch, star of The Lives of Others). In a world where trust is a dangerous emotion, death and betrayal darken a landscape already destroyed by war. The performances are wonderful, especially van Houten, Koch and Waldemar Kobus as Gunter, a particularly vile Nazi officer. ***

Dinosaurs 3D: Giants of Patagonia is an example of what the IMAX 3D format does to perfection. It is the perfect blend of scholarly information and totally cool dinosaurs brought to vivid life. As an added bonus, Donald Sutherland does the narration. ***

Disturbia This teenage version of Hitchcock's Rear Window starts out great with an interesting story about a trouble teen (Shia LaBeouf) whose grief over the horrible death of his father had made him so angry, he punches his insensitive Spanish teacher and is placed in house arrest for the summer. From his room, he spies on his neighbors and begins to suspect one of them (David Morse) is a serial killer. The real emotions, suspense and few good jolts of terror are eventually sabotaged by a ridiculous, overwrought finale. **

Fracture is a decent little thriller that is reasonably clever and benefits tremendously from the participation of Sir Anthony Hopkins. I don't want to oversell this film's good side - there are at least a dozen episodes of Columbo with better plot twists - but still, rising star and recent Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling, as ambitious prosecutor Willy Beachem, is a good foil for Hopkins' devilish killer Ted Crawford. David Strathairn as Willy's uncompromising boss is another plus. The screenplay by Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers has several effective zingers and the story is plausible throughout, and that's not to be sneezed at these days. Director Gregory Hoblit's experience as a producer-director on L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue has been well utilized. **½

Hot Fuzz The Shaun of the Dead gang is back with another genre spoof. Writer-director Edgar Wright, actor-writer Simon Pegg and actor Nick Frost do their take on a Joel Silver/Michael Bay-style bombastic cop flick. While it takes a long time to get to the funny bits, when the genteel gentry in a British village reveal their dark side, the film becomes flat-out hilarious. Minus 20 minutes of flab, this flick would be in tip-top comedy shape. However, even out of shape, it delivers enough laughs at the finish to qualify as a successful spoof. **½

Shrek the Third The first movie was hilarious, the second enjoyable, but Shrek the Third is an example of take-the-money-and-run blandness. The movie is not horrible, but it's so darn generic, without any of the wit that appealed to adult audiences in the previous films. About the only funny element is Donkey's fire-breathing, flying youngsters from his romantic relationship with the dragon. They are adorable. Young children will enjoy the silliness, but Shrek the Third settles for kid movie status when the previous two flicks entertained us all. Adults: **; Kids: ***

Spider-Man 3 is a rollercoaster that spends too much time in the flat portions of the ride and not enough climbing to the heights. That said, there is an exquisite moment when a parasitic life form turns on Spider-Man's ego and director Sam Raimi has Peter Parker strutting down the street like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He continues this delightful sequence by having him turn into full tilt lounge lizard mode. It is an obvious homage to the Buddy Love character from Jerry Lewis' Jekyll and Hyde comedy classic The Absent Minded Professor. There are plenty of CCI battles, the best being his engaging battle with his ex-pal Harry (James Franco) as the Green Goblin. There is also an intriguing continuation of the romantic triangle between Peter, Harry and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) that seemed to be heading into a menage a trois, a bold direction for a kid-friendly, cartoon-based film. Alas, that more adult direction is abandoned in favor of the big action finale and a noble sacrifice. Spider-Man 3 is all over the place - dull and conventional one minute, brilliantly inventive the next. It is those inventive moments that make the film an enjoyable, if inconsistent, entry in the superhero genre. **½

28 Weeks Later A sequel to the amazing zombies-on-crack British horror flick 28 Days Later provides all the requisite gore but none of the sly humor. There are a few effective jolts and a bit of "Ugly American" sermonizing, but the story is weak and the character development is nil. **

- LH first the good news. This comedy-drama about a waitress who makes both luscious pies, and pie-in-the-sky plans for her future, is a heavenly slice of life.

Keri Russell has plated the first Oscar nomination of the year as the pie-obsessed waitress whose pastry creations have a sensual component. Her pies, whether real or feverishly imagined in her daydreams, express her emotional state.

Waitress combines the sensuality of such foreign language, food-as-love flicks as Like Water For Chocolate and Chocolat with Scorsese's diner classic about female empowerment, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. If that sounds like a jarring combination, it is. Yet, somehow, writer, director and actor Adrienne Shelly has assembled these seemingly incongruous elements and blended them into a delightful cinematic dessert.

We first meet Jenna (Russell) in the bathroom of the Pie Diner with her waitress buddies Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (director Shelly), waiting for the results of a pregnancy test. Jenna is pregnant, which will make it much harder to run away from her self-centered, control freak of a husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto). Jenna's home life is so bad, both her friends agree that despite their own troubles, they would not change places with her.