then have a very spicy meal, the resulting nightmare would be very much like
the films Alan Rudolph has been churning out recently. For most of the past 10
years, this talented director has been stuck in a self-imitative hell of long,
improvisatory scenes and nonsense plots, but with “The Secret Life of Dentists,
” he pulls himself out of a death spiral, with the estimable help of
screenwriter Craig Lucas.

Lucas himself has a laudable filmography. In the early ’90s, with his
personal and professional partner Norman Rene, he made a handful of
penetrating films dealing with delicate human emotions, including “Prelude to
a Kiss” and “Longtime Companion.” With “The Secret life of Dentists,” a
melancholy, well-observed film about a middle-class marriage collapsing under
the stress of numbing routine, both Rudolph and Lucas find a subject worthy of
their incisive humanity.

Based on a short story (“The Age of Grief”) by Jane Smiley, the film is
about a married couple in their late 30s, David (Campbell Scott) and Dana
(Hope Davis), who have three little daughters and share a dental practice.
David, a contained, methodical type, is content with his lot, while Dana is
restless. She sings with an amateur opera company and longs for something
transcendent. Her longing and emotional distance gradually convince David that
she is having an affair.

Denis Leary plays a cranky dental patient who becomes an imaginary alter
ego for David as he ruminates about his wife’s alleged infidelity. Lucas’
script captures the intimacy of marriage and the ways in which married couple
can easily fall into a pattern of irritation and recrimination. The film
presents a realistic and artful treatment of a subject not often dealt with in
cinema — and rarely with honesty. Davis and Scott respond with heartfelt,
edgy performances.

.

This film contains sexual situations and strong language.

– Mick LaSalle

Comedy. Starring Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges.
Directed and written by Larry Charles. (PG-13. 107 minutes. At the Embarcadero,

Act One/Act Two in Berkeley, Aquarius in Palo Alto and Camera in San Jose.)

.

Few are the celebrities who enjoy their fame as little as Bob Dylan. Forty
years in the public eye have given the master songwriter a wariness that
verges on hostility. Take a look into those wounded, suspicious eyes and you
don’t find a mirror to his soul — just a bitter warning to keep your distance.

That’s why Dylan, an occasional actor (“Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”),
was cast as Jack Fate, the crusty, inscrutable troubadour in “Masked and
Anonymous.” A messy, ambitious comedy from “Seinfeld” writer Larry Charles,
“Masked” spins out an apocalyptic yarn in which Jack, rock legend and son of a
dying dictator, is sprung from jail to perform at a benefit concert.

Dylan plays himself in “Masked and Anonymous,” which is fine in the musical
numbers — they’re easily the best thing in the movie — but disastrous in the
dialogue scenes. Void of inflection, Dylan doesn’t act, but stands and looks
uneasy in whatever space the camera is pointing. The deadness in his eyes
stops the movie cold.

The dialogue is made of riddles, scrambled poetry and apocalyptic mumbo-
jumbo. “All of us are in some way trying to kill time,” Jack muses. “When
all’s said and done, time ends up killing us.”

Charles gathered an impressive supporting cast, most of whom work below
their level. John Goodman is Uncle Sweetheart, the blustering yahoo who used
to manage Jack; Jessica Lange is a sleazy, lacquered concert promoter; and
Jeff Bridges is the snoopy reporter who hounds Jack.

There’s barely a speaking part that isn’t played by a familiar name:
Penelope Cruz as Bridges’ girlfriend, Angela Bassett as a hooker, Val Kilmer
as a snake handler, Sean Penn and Christian Slater as roadies, plus Mickey
Rourke, Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi and Cheech Marin.

Then there’s Ed Harris, playing a white minstrel in blackface. Why? I don’t
know. It’s best to not think about it.

.

This movie contains some raw language.

– Edward Guthmann

Drama. Starring Mounim Kbab, Mustapha Hansali, Hicham Moussoune, Abdelhak
Zhayra, Said Taghmaoui, Amal Ayouch and Mohamed Majd. Directed by Nabil Ayouch. Written by Nabil Ayouch and Nathalie Saugeon. Arabic and French with English
subtitles. (Not rated. 90 minutes. At the Roxie.)

.

Director Nabil Ayouch takes a subject that could be thoroughly depressing
(the life of street kids in Morocco’s port city of Casablanca) and — through
a simple story line, dramatic acting and National Geographic-like shots of the
city’s rough and pristine edges — creates cinematic magic.

This isn’t to say that “Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets” is some sort of
saccharine fable that sanitizes the extremes of homelessness. In fact, those
extremes are on display: the drug use, the violence, the hustling for money,
the despair and dishevelment. But Ayouch does a remarkable thing: He centers
the film on three indelible characters who, in trying to honor a dead friend,
reveal more about the world than a thousand Disney films ever could.

Kwita (Mounim Kbab), Omar (Mustapha Hansali) and Boubker (Hicham Moussoune)
are distraught that gang members have killed Ali Zaoua (Abdelhak Zhayra), and
they vow to bury him “like a prince.” Kwita is the boy who masterminds the
idea, but his resolve doesn’t always match his courage, so it’s Omar who works
his way into Ali’s old house, where Ali’s mother (Amal Ayouch) works as a
prostitute. Just finished with a customer, she says that Ali lied when he
claimed she’d wanted “to sell his eyes” for profit. More truths are revealed,
which help explain Ali’s obsession with becoming a sailor and living on an
island far from Casablanca.

Before the trio’s quest is over, Kwita meets a girl he falls for (“meets”
is being kind — he steals her wallet) and visits a cemetery where his lack of
religious training (“I went to a mosque once”) is criticized; Omar briefly
returns to his former gang, which instigated Ali’s murder; and Boubker — the
smallest and most vulnerable of the three — threatens to kill himself but
recovers his sense of self and helps an old fisherman (Mohamed Majd) on his
boat. (The scene where Boubker tries to buy nails in a hardware store is
priceless.)

These kids, who smoke cigarettes, sniff glue and sleep on a lonely pier,
all have dreams for a better life. Their friend’s cruel death lets them —
perhaps for the first time in their lives — try to effect a major, positive
change. Like Mira Nair’s “Salaam Bombay” (another drama that deals with
children on the street), “Ali Zaoua” succeeds on a profound level. Ayoub, a
Moroccan director whose movie has won awards at more than 40 international
film festivals, uses bits of animation to bolster a story that will bring
tears and smiles to new audiences in the United States.

.

This film contains strong language and scenes of sex and violence that are
not suitable for children.

– Jonathan Curiel

Comedy. Starring Cecilia Roth, Carlos Alvarez Novoa, Kuno Becker. Directed and
written by Antonio Serrano. (R. In Spanish with English subtitles. 113 minutes. At the Opera Plaza).

.

Lucia, a writer of children’s books, dips in and out of fiction in her own
life, the line blurring so often that it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s
fantasy in “Lucia, Lucia.” It’s even harder to care.

Mexican filmmaker Antonio Serrano applies the fantasy device so haphazardly
as to render it irritating instead of surprising. He fills the movie with
anticlimaxes: People revealed to be crooks are revealed to be crooks again,
and flagging story lines stretch forever. The tone is also random, shifting
from farce to telenovela camp to serious thriller.

This mess still has moments because of fine performances by Almodovar
veteran Cecilia Roth (“All About My Mother”) as the writer and Carlos Alvarez
Novoa as a widowed neighbor and political exile who fought against Franco. The
older man and a young neighbor (Kuno Becker) befriend Lucia when her husband
is kidnapped.

Or has he been kidnapped? “Lucia, Lucia” creates a secret life for the
missing husband, a civil servant with a surprising stash of cash. This might
all be a function of Lucia’s desire for excitement. Negotiating with the
kidnappers certainly has invigorated her. To see Roth — possessed of pop-out
eyes, a raspy scream and an endlessly watchable face — invigorated is really
something.

But some rather undramatic reality/fantasy transformations stunt character
and actress. Whereas the real woman lives in a small, drab apartment, the
fantasy woman lives in a small, tastefully decorated apartment. Way to dream.

“Lucia, Lucia” gives the lie to the hopeful idea that all movies coming out
of Mexico are original and vibrant, though it sometimes echoes the artful
immediacy of films like “Amores Perros” and “Y Tu Mama Tambien.” A perfectly
composed shot of Roth sitting on a hay bale seems to exist only to highlight
the actress’ red hair, and a road trip involving Lucia and her two pals evokes
the “Y Tu Mama” road trip. Except one guy is 70 and looks like Don Quixote.

The film’s only mystery lies in Lucia’s sudden friendship with these two
guys, a threesome so fishy it might be imagined. The young stud seems almost
too available to Lucia. Their romantic sparring carries no sparks, especially
when he tells her he likes the wrinkles around her eyes. Her response is to
kiss him passionately — and that’s in the part of the film that’s supposed to
be reality.

Ross has greater chemistry with the wonderful Alvarez Novoa, whose kind
eyes and slumped shoulders signal enduring hope after a lifetime of taking
hits. Yet their characters remain platonic. Pairing the mid-40s Roth with an
older man wasn’t the sexy choice, but it would have been the wise one.

.

This film contains nudity, strong sexuality, violence.

– Carla Meyer