The Science of Sleep True to the duality of its title, Michel Gondry's fantastically imagined film is poised at the dreamy intersection between the rigidly ruling physical laws of our waking lives and that nighttime realm where emotion has its revenge on logic. Gael García Bernal's artist character, Stephane, returns to the Paris of his childhood, sleeping among the toys of his youth. Across the hall lives Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), much more of an adult. His infatuation with her takes the form of handcrafted gifts and programs enacted in the TV studio inside his head. (The latter is a kind of Pee-Wee's Playhouse with blue screens and cardboard cameras seemingly assembled by a seven-year-old out of the family recycling bin.) Reality and unreality are painstakingly stitched together in Gondry's wondrously handmade universe (virtually a children's pop-up book on the big screen), even if the cruel truth—that love can go unrequited—threatens to slice them apart again. (R)BRIAN MILLER Varsity
Shortbus The sex is real in John Cameron Mitchell's experiment in hardcore moviemaking; only the setting—an animated N.Y.C. cityscape, benignly watched over by a fluorescent Statue of Liberty—is fake. To an extent, that describes the movie: a sexually daring, dramatically timid roundelay that employs unsimulated twosomes, threesomes, and even solos for skin flute in the service of subplots reminiscent of late-night cable soap. Mitchell convenes a sexually frustrated sex therapist (Sook-Yin Lee), an auto-fellating ex-hustler (Paul Dawson), a morose dominatrix (Lindsay Beamish), and other pleasure-seeking New Yorkers at an orgiastic Brooklyn lounge called Shortbus. The attempt to convey character through sexual activity is admirable, but watching the group through sex goggles alone eventually filters out almost everything else that's interesting about them. Yet there's something refreshingly frisky and celebratory about Mitchell's film that offsets its flaws. Shortbus' messianic sex-positive cheer seems more startling than its straight-up intercourse. Be sure to stand for "The Star-Spangled Banner." (NR)JIM RIDLEY Egyptian
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Like Anchorman, with which the latest Adam McKay-Will Ferrell collaboration shares its essential plot of a celebrity humiliated and redeemed, TNTBORB offers just enough story to justify this being labeled narrative. But the tale of Ricky (Ferrell), an abandoned kid who grows up to be a famous NASCAR driver despite being offered useless fortune-cookie advice by his stoner-speedster dad, is just the watered-down glue that keeps the movie from playing like a series of sketches. There are two kinds of scenes in TNTBORB: The short ones that advance the storyline; and the prolonged sequences in which Ferrell and/or John C. Reilly (as Ricky's best friend) and/or Sacha Baron Cohen (as Ricky's French fancyboy rival) make shit up and crack one another up and stop cameras and start all over again. There's no difference between the movies and the end-credit outtakes in these movies. (PG-13)ROBERT WILONSKY Admiral Twin
The U.S. vs. John Lennon This generic VH-1 rock-doc is snazzy, mawkish, and practically Pavlovian in recycling all requisite late '60s images. Yet it's not only poignant, but even topical. In 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were recruited them to appear at a "John Sinclair Freedom Rally." Two days later, Sinclair—serving a 10-year sentence for passing two joints to a narc—was freed, pending appeal. Follow-up plans were made for a magical mystery tour to culminate at the 1972 Republican Convention. Next, John and Yoko played a benefit for the families of prisoners shot during the Attica uprising. A memo from Senator Strom Thurmond to Attorney General John Mitchell suggested Lennon be deported; a month later, the INS refused to renew his visa. Lennon eventually prevailed, but he was neutralized for the duration of the presidential campaign. The film establishes its protagonist as the most quick-witted of public figures. You needn't be half as sharp to grasp the parallels made to Bush's America. (PG-13)J. HOBERMAN Crest
