Cadillac Records
Screenings
Cadillac Records is a music portrait of the musicians, such as Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, and Etta James, who gravitated to postwar Chicago, and the Chess Records label, which recorded and promoted so much of their work. Although writer/director Martin s movie plays loose with many of the historical facts, her aim is dead-on in terms of nailing the spirit of the thing. Cadillac Records bobs and weaves, strides and duckwalks, samples and smiles on the sounds that made urban Chicago such a blues melting pot. It's best to not get too hung up on the purity of every single ingredient that goes into the pot, because that will only get in the way of the dish's overall taste, and Cadillac Records has flavor galore. The actors cast as the bluesmen and -women are spectacular again, not so much for their physical mimicry but for their spiritual inhabitation of the historical figures.


Yes Man
Screenings
Yes Man opens with Carl (Carrey), a bank loan officer, in a funk, avoiding his friends, brooding at his job, and spending every evening slumped on his sofa watching DVDs. Not exactly depressed, Carl just greets the world with either a sigh or a wince. Then an old acquaintance, Nick (Higgins), the embodiment of the word gusto, pushes Carl to attend a self-help seminar led by motivational guru Terrence Bundley (Stamp). Terrence's message, much like his beige yet shiny leisure suit, is banal yet will glint through the consciousness of every I d prefer not to Bartelby sitting in the audience. The life-changing mantra? Say yes to every opportunity that presents itself. This plot gimmick veers suspiciously close to the 1997 Carrey vehicle Liar Liar, in which his character compulsively tells the truth, even though supernatural intervention is the cause. In contrast, Yes Man believes in free will, with Carl at first struggling to agree to requests small and large, whether it be friends getting him to pick up the bar tab or a homeless person asking for a ride. But soon he s showered with rewards, including a pretty new girlfriend played by actor/singer Deschanel, who s wide-eyed and good-hearted but without a lot of range a fair description of the film itself. A repeated motif has Carl learning a random skill (Korean lessons? Sure!), which a few scenes later turns out to be precisely what he needs to solve a problem (a surly Korean saleswoman) and make everyone happy. As the good results roll in and Carl starts uttering yes without hesitation, Yes Man becomes less a story and more a collection of set-pieces. True, the scenes are often amusing, and a good dose of ad-libbing keeps the tone appealingly wobbly. Although Deschanel proves to be generally engaging her art-rock band performance is a hoot she sometimes seems to just go blank, while Stamp, voice booming and eyes narrowing, wrings what he can out of his two scenes. Carrey does his usual job here, but it s not enough. The New Zealander Darby, from The Flight of the Conchords, whisks the film out from underneath Carrey s nose with his consistently funny turn as Carl s nerdy, needy boss, Norman. Nevertheless, Yes Man proves utterly formulaic. Is there a feel-good gathering of everyone Carl has helped? Is there a trumped-up romantic crisis? Is there a mad crosstown dash? You guess the answers.


Valkyrie
Screenings
Opens Thursday, Dec. 25.