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Comedy-Drama. Starring Peter Riegert, Eli Wallach and Isabella Rossellini.
Directed by Peter Riegert. (R. 93 minutes. At the Embarcadero Center Cinema.).

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Like its protagonist, “King of the Corner” floats along, malaise-like,
drifting from one mild adventure to the next, getting off a few sardonic jokes.
It’s all pleasant but fairly unimportant, and then — POW — comes the
great scene, almost out of nowhere. With that, the whole enterprise suddenly
wakes up, thanks mainly to some lovely and impressive acting from Peter
Riegert, who also directed the movie and co-wrote the script.

The film is a study of a middle-class man living a vaguely unsatisfying
existence as a suburban husband and father. Right off, Leo (Riegert) is our
focus, but the movie takes its time making the case for him as someone worthy
of our attention. A market researcher, Leo spends his working life conducting
focus groups about things like instant stew, but there are worse jobs. He has
a teenage daughter who is rebellious, but not terrible. His house is not bad.
His wife seems OK. Leo is living a bland existence, neither happy nor
miserable, just edging toward sadness. The dramatic possibilities are hard to
discern and the screenwriters seemed to have had some difficulties discerning
them as well.

Based on “Bad Jews and Other Stories” by Gerald Shapiro, who wrote the
screenplay with Riegert, the movie retains the episodic structure of a story
cycle. It meanders. It’s hit and miss. Some of the dialogue feels like filler,
particularly in the scenes in which Leo visits his father, Solomon (Eli
Wallach). In one episode, Leo runs into the object of his adolescent fantasies
(Beverly D’Angelo), and the script requires that he behave in a bizarre and
improbable way. The portrait of Leo comes in bits and pieces, without all the
pieces fitting together.

What carries the movie is Riegert. He has an appealing, ironic style, but
he’s not locked into it. He’s emotionally present and subtle. At one point,
Leo’s wife (Isabella Rossellini) hints that she knows that Leo has cheated on
her. Riegert’s reaction is a curious one: His face becomes an impassive mask
that, at the same time, neither hides nor tries to hide a thing. A case could
be made that “King of the Corner” compensates for its lack of narrative
urgency with memorable acting moments of this nature. That might not be the
right case to make, but it’s one worth considering.

The movie’s one great scene, its reason for being, is the semi-comic but
heartfelt one in which Leo delivers an impromptu funeral oration. The scene’s
only weakness, a minor one, is that Riegert the director is too generous with
his co-stars and keeps cutting to reaction shots from them. He should have
been more selfish and hogged the focus. He deserved it.

– Advisory: Strong language and sexual situations.

– Mick LaSalle

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‘The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D’

Family adventure. Starring Cayden Boyd, David Arquette, Kristin Davis,
Taylor Lautner and Taylor Dooley. Directed by Robert Rodriguez. (PG. 94
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.).

Movie studios initially glommed on to 3-D in the 1950s to try to lure
people away from their TVs. Now DVDs have become stiffer competition than
television ever was, prompting “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-
D” to tout the retro gimmick in its title. But even in three dimensions, this
is one awfully flat movie.

Putting cardboard glasses on creates anticipation before any adventure
unfolds. You’re thrilled when objects are hurled into the audience, like a
gooey wad of chocolate that comes so close you can practically take a bite.

Unfortunately, entertainment this alone does not make, as Yoda might put
it. “Sharkboy” relies almost entirely on 3-D for its kicks. The novelty,
however, quickly wears thin with the thinnest of stories to project.

A lonely 10-year-old, Max (Cayden Boyd), has fantastical dreams in which
he joins forces with Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner), so-named because sharks are
raising him, and his red-hot sidekick, Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley in a hot pink
fright wig), to reach the Land of Milk and Cookies.

Max is the strongest champion of the power of dreams since Sigmund Freud,
but it doesn’t require a super shrink to diagnose why the lad prefers fantasy
to reality. His classmates make fun of his flights of fancy, and his parents
(David Arquette and Kristin Davis) fight constantly. Of course Max would be on
a quest to find comfort in something, even milk and cookies. (The curse of the
successful TV series star has struck Davis — you can’t watch her in the act
of mothering without thinking how nice it is that Charlotte finally was able
to conceive.)

It’s sad to see director Robert Rodriguez — who shot to fame with the
strikingly original “El Mariachi,” made on a shoestring budget — squander
his talent on such silliness. He brought spark and creativity to “Spy Kids,”
his first adventure in family entertainment. But the more special effects he’s
availed himself of, the less appeal his work has.

“Sharkboy” is his biggest flameout yet. It’s sure to bore even the little
ones, who see more excitement on the Saturday morning cartoons. The film
starts with the assertion that “Everything that is or was started with a dream.
” In case we miss the point, it’s made again and again, like a recurring
nightmare. The fantasy scenes are retreads from other, better movies. If the
notion of Sharkboy’s being lost at sea sounds fishy, it’s because it was
lifted from “Finding Nemo.”

The child actors seem at a loss to know how to deliver lines such as
“Darkness is destroying Planet Drool.” They shouldn’t feel bad — even Meryl
Streep would find it tough spitting that out.

Parental pride may have clouded Rodriguez’s judgment. “Sharkboy” is based
on the concepts of his 7-year-old son, Racer Max. The boy should have been
advised to keep his dreams within the family instead of flinging them at
audiences in 3-D.

– Ruthe Stein

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‘McLibel’

Documentary. Directed by Franny Armstrong. (Not rated. 85 minutes. At the
Lumiere.).

Long before Morgan Spurlock lost his lunch in a McDonald’s parking lot
while making the documentary “Super Size Me,” Dave Morris and Helen Steel knew
that the fast-food chain didn’t offer the healthiest of cuisines.

In 1986, the two friends were so repulsed by McDonald’s that they and a
handful of other activists in London began handing out a leaflet condemning
the company. It wasn’t just the food that upset them; they also claimed
McDonald’s mistreats workers, harms the environment and is cruel to animals.

Little attention might have been paid to the activists’ modest campaign
had McDonald’s not decided to sue them, alleging libel. Under pressure, three
of the activists apologized to McDonald’s, but Morris and Steel refused. Their
trial ended up being the longest in English history and helped fuel a global
grassroots movement against fast-food giants.

A stirring and sometimes funny film, “McLibel” documents Morris and
Steel’s herculean struggle in much the same unassuming way that Morris, a
former postal worker, and Steel, a former gardener, go about their business.
Free of the fiery tempers and righteous zeal of many activists, Morris and
Steel remain quietly impassioned and sympathetic throughout their legal battle.
Britain’s strict libel laws made their fight especially daunting — Morris
and Steel had no jury, were not provided with legal counsel and had to defend
themselves.

“McLibel” is strengthened by dramatic re-enactments of court testimony as
well as incisive interviews, notably with Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food
Nation,” and a former Ronald McDonald actor who jokingly likens himself to
“the guy in the Third Reich who was the propaganda minister.”

There’s even a happy ending for Morris and Steel. Their story is a
powerful reminder that the average citizen can sometimes throw an Egg McMuffin
in the face of big business.

– John McMurtrie

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‘The Power of Nightmares’

Documentary. Directed and written by Adam Curtis. (Not rated. 180 minutes.
At the Roxie.).

Analyzing the U.S. government’s “war on terror,” as well as the roots of
Muslim fundamentalism, academic-turned filmmaker Adam Curtis shows that
ideologues on both sides have used false claims and fear tactics to convince
the world their side is right. At the same time, Curtis digs out an eerie
connection: Both camps can trace their origins to late 1940s America, where a
future Islamic radical, Sayyed Qutb, and a University of Chicago political
science professor, Leo Strauss, proffered theories that would change the world
we know today.

Strauss believed politicians had to use myths (even if untrue) to unite
Americans around a cause or belief — that the United States after World War
II had lost its collective identity to a liberalism that let people revel in
too much individuality, Curtis says. The neoconservatives who adopted Strauss’
views (such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle) rose to top levels of U.S.
government, where they influenced Ronald Reagan to take an extreme position
with the Soviets, then convinced George W. Bush to do the same with Muslim
fundamentalists. If these neoconservatives encounter evidence that disproves
their conclusions, they reinterpret the evidence or reshape it — as was the
case with al Qaeda, a group that before Sept. 11 had no real international
network to speak of, or even a name, until U.S. authorities projected both
onto the shoulders of Osama bin Laden, Curtis says, using interviews with
experts to support his points.

Like Strauss, Qutb was shaken by the America of the late 1940s, but Qutb
believed that Americans were preoccupied with materialism and the superficial.
Upon returning to his native Egypt, Qutb saw traces of this outlook in Egypt,
where U.S. television shows were big hits. For the next 15 years, Qutb adopted
an increasingly more violent view of American influence in Egypt — a belief
that led to his death sentence by Egyptian authorities in 1966. Still, Qutb’s
views were adopted with even more fervor by Ayman Zawahiri, who would become
bin Laden’s main lieutenant. In another eerie coincidence dug out by Curtis,
Zawahiri’s acolytes and Washington’s neoconservatives both targeted Henry
Kissinger because of his efforts to negotiate peaceful settlements among
previously warring countries.

Originally aired on BBC Television as a three-part series in 2004, “The
Power of Nightmares” would warrant an Oscar if the academy gave awards for a
documentary collection that explains current events in a provocative,
enlightening and (yes) entertaining way. Unlike Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit
9/11,” “The Power of Nightmares” goes deeper than one man (though, like
Moore’s film, it combines serious points with clips that are full of dark
humor). Curtis once taught politics at Oxford University. “The Power of
Nightmares” is like a brilliant piece in the Atlantic Monthly that’s
(thankfully) come to cinematic life.

– Advisory: Occasional harsh language, and video clips of shooting and
terrorist acts.

– Jonathan Curiel

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‘The Tunnel’

Drama. Directed by Roland Suso Richter. Written by Johannes W. Betz.
Starring HeinoFerch, Nicolette Krebitz, Sebastian Koch, Alexandra Maria Lara and Felix
Eitner. (In German with English subtitles. Not rated. 157 minutes. At the
Castro Theatre.).

Based on a true story from the late 1950s, this thrilling drama looks at
the extraordinary lengths taken by a group of West Berliners to dig a tunnel
under the city’s barbed-wire border with East Berlin. Director Roland Suso
Richter revisits a period of Cold War history that has so many twists and
turns, it seems like fiction — except there really was a former East German
swim star who led the tunnelers after rejecting everything that Communist
Germany had to offer.

That star, Hasso Herschel (called Harry Melchior in the film), is played
admirably by Heino Ferch, the veteran German actor with the Bruce Willis face
who was most recently in “Downfall” with Bruno Ganz. Ferch projects all the
right touches onto Melchior: Anger, sorrow, revenge and sweetness. Though it’s
difficult to know how closely “The Tunnel” adheres to real events, it just so
happens that Melchior gets involved with a woman tunneler who wants to bring
back her East Berlin boyfriend. Their romance is one of several subplots that
keep Richter’s film enthralling for its two-plus hours.

The biggest question, of course, is whether the diggers reach East Berlin
(and bring back awaiting loved ones) without getting caved in by dirt or found
out by East German police. It’s not giving much away to say that Melchior’s
band encounters several surprises, including an NBC-TV film crew that wants to
film the dig for a network show. Even in the 1950s, American producers were
sowing the seeds for the reality shows that would dominate U.S. airwaves four
decades later.

– Advisory: One sex scene.

– Jonathan Curiel

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‘15′

Written and directed by Royston Tan. In Hokkien and Mandarin with English
subtitles. (Not Rated. 97 minutes. At the Galaxy.).

There’s a real risk you run as a filmmaker when you set out to make a
film about the empty lives of directionless youths, and that is if you’re not
careful, you’re film will be empty and directionless.

Only a special filmmaker can lend heft and insight to nihilism — Luis
Bunuel (”Los Olvidados”), Francois Truffaut (”The 400 Blows”) and Hector
Babenco (”Pixote”) spring immediately to mind — but in the new,
controversial film from Singapore, filmmaker Royston Tan seems more interested
in directing a 97-minute music video than a story with weight and depth.

Think Larry Clark’s “Kids” with a Singapore setting. Tan follows five
kids, each aged 15, through days of tattooing, body piercing, playing loud
music, brawling in street fights and contemplating suicide. Tan’s use of
actual housing project kids in the film instead of actors lends credibility,
but the sad fact is they can’t act convincingly, even if it is their own
stories they are telling.

“15″ has won some accolades at festivals and stirred quite a bit of
interest in its native land, where the government-controlled film industry
rarely allows such a depressing depiction of its problems. The Straits Times
of Singapore gave it four stars (possibly giving credit for the film’s courage
and novelty value), and it did good business at the local box-office, albeit
censored with seven minutes of cuts.

Tan, 28, is known for his music videos in Asia, and there’s no doubt he
has a colorful eye and a willingness to try anything. In fact, it feels like
everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown into “15″ — jump cuts, fast-
forwarding, slow motion, intertitles, animated sequences — but the
technical frenzy obscures rather than heightens the characters’ journeys.

Yes, there’s much to look at, but this is a shallow film that wears out
its welcome fairly quickly.

– Advisory: This film contains strong violence, language, body
mutilation, nudity and drug use.

– G. Allen Johnson

This big-screen episode of the ABC Saturday morning series “Recess” is a
Disney joint, meaning it’s an affair for all your children — biological,
adopted or inner. It’s fun, it’s kind of somber and it succeeds in making you
think about how you might be squandering middle age.

It’s the brainchild of Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere, dads of the far
more comprehensively tart and grotesque “Rugrats.” The story — in which
mischievous young TJ and his camp-bound schoolmates fight to foil Dr. Philliam
Benedict’s goofy astrophysics plan to eliminate recess, then summer vacation –

ought to pack a visceral kick for amusement-seeking third-graders.

But what about that side plot starring hunchback Principal Prickles (voiced
with heartbreaking exhaustion by Dabney Coleman), the one where he reflects
fondly on a free-love yesteryear where he and Benedict (James Woods) were
Third Street teachers, with kaleidoscope eyes?

The period nuances, of course, are meant for Mom and Dad — or Gramps and
Granny. “School’s Out” doesn’t fish for satire, though. The film is thin on
laughs, but it’s redolent of something funnier and altogether more unusual in
the kid-flick climate: unmitigated sincerity. Visually, the film is a chortle
factory. The whole thing, with its crisp, geometrically askew cast, looks like
“School House Rocks” or Robert Smigel’s “TV Funhouse.”

And for anyone who demands that his animated escapades close with “far out,” generation-bridging kitsch, there’s Robert Goulet, golden-throating his way
through a version of “Green Tambourine.” — Wesley Morris

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‘RATCATCHER’

Drama. Starring William Eadie and Leanne Mullen. Directed by Lynne Ramsay.
(Not rated. 105 minutes. In English with English subtitles. At Bay Area
theaters.)

“Ratcatcher” is about a very miserable childhood in Glasgow, which is
something like miserable childhoods elsewhere, only here the people talk funny.

Indeed, the accents are so thick in this picture that it’s subtitled — and
those subtitles are indispensable.

William Eadie, a 12-year-old with a soulful face, plays James, a boy with
bad luck. One day, he is a horsing around by a canal, with a playmate, when
the friend accidentally drowns. “Ratcatcher” starts off depressing; then it
moves on to despairing and ends up seeming like a conspiracy to make viewers
suicidal.

Yet writer-director Lynne Ramsay has an artistic purity that’s as
penetrating as her young protagonist’s gaze. Her tableaus — for example, a
shot of two kids sitting on a couch — sneak into the unconscious and work on
the emotions, for reasons that are impossible to explain. There is something
ineffably deep and true in Ramsay’s understanding of this Glasgow world, which
comes through powerfully in her compositions.

Poverty emerges in “Ratcatcher” as not merely mirthless but
also grotesque and even disfiguring. The adults look beaten, while the kids
look fresh but puzzled, like calves who hear the screams from the
slaughterhouse.

Unfortunately, “Ratcatcher” is better contemplated than experienced. The
piling on of horrors becomes too unrelenting: James’ girlfriend (Leanne
Mullen) is gang-raped. Daddy is beaten up by toughs. Mommy is slapped by Daddy.

And when it’s not awful, it’s dull.

Still, Ramsay has something, and with a better story — perhaps someone
else’s — she just might be magical. — Mick LaSalle

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Advisory: This film contains rough language, nudity and violence.