The Busch-Reisinger Museum presents an exhibition of sculpture by artists who were ambivalent toward the media. “Dependent Objects” presents the works of German artists beginning in the 1960’s including works by Franz Erhard Walther, Hans Haacke, Charlotte Posenenske and Gerhard Richter. Through Jan 2. The Busch-Reisinger at the Fogg Museum. (JSG)

VISUALS | To Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty

The Winthrop collection has traveled around the world and is back at the Fogg in the exhibit “To Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop.” The exhibition features painting and sculpture by such artists as Blake, Degas, Gericault, Ingret, Monet, Pissaro and Renoir. Fogg Museum. (JSG)

Films

Alfie

Alfie presents a glimpse of the dizzyingly fast-paced social life of a serial womanizer. Jude Law has the clothes, the car, and the looks to get any girl—and he does, with an endless string of paramours ranging wildly from an aging cosmetics empress (Susan Sarandon) to a flighty, semi-psychotic teenager. But the car is borrowed, the suits were on sale, and beneath Law’s charming smirk is a calculating mind. Alfie has no warmth or romanticism, despite his British charm. The movie captures his gradual comprehension of that emptiness surprisingly well. His self-discovery is aided by the stylistic device of Alfie’s narration directly to the audience; in his self-absorption, Alfie considers his life to be the constant focus of a camera. But his ostentatious posing for the camera also reveals Alfie as childish and even innocent—he doesn’t think his actions affect anyone. Jude Law’s acting, on the other hand, has just the right touch of joviality and supreme confidence with which Alfie begins the movie. The film is utterly realistic in demonstrating that understanding mistakes is not always enough to rectify them. (MAB)

Around the Bend

The redemption of a long-estranged parent is hardly a novel plot in contemporary cinema; it has congealed to the point where every hug, tear and clumsy montage seem carefully choreographed. Refreshingly, Around the Bend, reveals an organic push and pull that approaches the mostly shapeless narrative of real relationships that is only reinforced by the subtle performances of screen legends Christopher Walken and Sir Michael Caine. (WBP)

The Forgotten

The Forgotten has the makings of an intelligent paranoid thriller, but I found nothing spectacular or terrifying in it, only government agents scrambling to hide a conspiracy and scrambled plot lines trying to hide a lack of creativity, despite the guarantee a seemingly competent cast should offer. Julianne Moore’s Telly Paretta is a likeable everywoman. Her therapist (Gary Sinise), is appropriately authoritar ian, while her husband (ER’s Anthony Edwards) appears to be phoning in his support from another planet. They are too hampered by the product they’ve been asked to deliver to hope to redeem it. (ABS)

Friday Night Lights

The clichéd line is never uttered, but without listening very carefully, you can hear its echo throughout Friday Night Lights: “In Odessa, football is a way of life.” And, as is quickly shown, the only way of life for residents of this small Texas town, where state champions become legends and those who fall short become mere pariahs rejected even within their own families. Though American society worships successful professional athletes, the cult following earned by 17-year old high school seniors is for the most part less widespread. Director and co-writer Peter Berg rightly devotes more time to te Panthers’ trials in their daily lives—how they survive in the face of such intense scrutiny—than their gridiron exploits to underscore that this isn’t just a game but a profession. (TJM)

The Grudge