Skipped Parts

Skipped for good reason if this inane and flaky period farce from Tamra Davis is any indication. Southern spitfire Lydia Callahan (Jennifer Jason Leigh with a Mae West trill and a Marilyn Monroe dye job) and her out-of-wedlock 14-year-old, Sam (Bug Hall), take up exile in Wyoming to spare her dad, Casper (Lee Ermey), embarrassment when he runs for senator back home in North Carolina. Sam finds their new neighbors to be backward in most ways but not all: his classmate Maurey Pierce (Mischa Barton) casually enlists him in her quest for sexual knowledge, the finer points of which Lydia demonstates by means of a tortilla. This occasionally amusing, mostly distasteful farce combines perversity and sentimentality, calling on parts of films like Fried Green Tomatoes, Crazy in Alabama, and American Pie (and not the better ones). What's more, Sam fancies himself a writer of "literature," which means a lot of overwritten voiceover narrative and glimpses of books much more interesting than this movie. Screens tonight at 7:10 and 9:20 p.m. and tomorrow at 12:10, 2:15, and 4:30 p.m.

-- Peter Keough

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Film Festival Feature Films

Shadow of the Vampire | Songcatcher | Venus Beauty Institute | What's Cooking? | The Broken Hearts Club | Envy | Goya in Bordeaux | Human Resources | Skipped Parts | Amargosa | Henry Hill | Relative Values | The Rising Place | The Contender | Pitch People | Roof to Roof | Four Dogs Playing Poker | Reckless Indifference | Requiem for a Dream | Shadow Magic | About Adam | Charming Billy | Enemies of Laughter | Into the Arms of Strangers | Running on the Sun | A Trial in Prague | Harry, He's Here to Help | A Man is Mostly Water | Seven Girlfriends

Also, Boston Film Festival short films