Friday, November 29, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Opening this week

EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS

Hanukkah humbug! Adam Sandler provides multiple voices (and co-writes and produces) this animated tale of a party animal who hates the the holidays -- and resolves that nobody else in his hometown will enjoy them either. Also in the vocal cast: Sandler's former "Saturday Night Live" buddies Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and Jon Lovitz. (71 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual humor, drinking, brief drug use.

EXTREME OPS

When a medal-winning downhill skier and two extreme snowboarders hit the Austrian slopes to shoot a commercial for a high-tech digital video, they accidentally capture footage of terrorists hiding in the mountains, prompting a desperate attempt to trigger an avalanche -- and save the world -- in this action tale featuring Devon Sawa, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Rupert Graves and Rufus Sewell. (126 min.) PG-13; violence/peril, profanity, nudity.

THE MAN FROM ELYSIAN FIELDS

A world-weary escort service proprietor (Mick Jagger) strikes a Faustian bargain with a critically acclaimed but commercially impoverished novelist (Andy Garcia), assigning him to the wife (Olivia Williams) of a literary legend (the late James Coburn) in this drama co-starring Julianna Margulies and Anjelica Huston. (105 min.) R; profanity, sexual content.

ROGER DODGER

When his 16-year-old nephew (Jesse Eisenberg) unexpectedly arrives from Ohio, a smooth-talking advertising executive forever on the prowl (Campbell Scott) takes him under his wing -- and out on the town -- for some unexpected lessons in lust. Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Berkley and Isabella Rossellini play some of the women in their lives in an acclaimed romantic comedy that marks writer-director Dylan Kidd's feature debut. (104 min.) R; sexual content and profanity.

SOLARIS

George Clooney and writer-director Steven Soderbergh continue the collaboration that began with "Out of Sight" and "Ocean's Eleven" in a dreamy, futuristic tale of a psychologist (George Clooney), still mourning the suicide of his wife (Natascha McElhone), summoned to investigate the unexplained behavior of a small group of scientists (led by "Saving Private Ryan's" Jeremy Davies and "Far From Heaven's" Viola Davis) aboard a space station orbiting the title planet. (98 min.) PG-13; sexual situations, nudity, profanity, mature themes.

THEY

After witnessing a traumatic event, a graduate psychology student (Laura Regan) realizes that everything that scared her as a child could be real -- and might be coming back to get her -- in this tale of night terrors directed by Robert Harmon, who also helmed the made-in-Nevada chiller "The Hitcher." (90 min.) PG-13; terror/violence, sexual content, profanity.

TREASURE PLANET

Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure classic, "Treasure Island," gets an otherworldly spin in an animated adaptation that shifts the action to a fantasy universe where young Jim Hawkins (voiced by "Third Rock From the Sun's" Joseph Gordon-Levitt) becomes cabin boy on a space galleon where a charismatic cyborg named John Silver (Brian Murray) hatches piratical plans. Emma Thompson, David Hyde Pierce, Martin Short, Laurie Metcalf and Patrick McGoohan round out the stellar vocal cast. (90 min.) PG; adventure action and peril.

By CAROL CLING