**1/2

Written and directed by James L. Brooks

Starring Adam Sandler, Tea Leoni, Paz Vega

There’s something reassuringly old-fashioned about James L. Brooks’ comedy-drama Spanglish, his first big-screen effort since 1997’s Oscar-winning As Good As It Gets. The writer-director-producer-sometimes actor hails from the world of television (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, “The Simpsons”, etc.), so he’s adept at writing clever jokes and flawed but accessible characters. And unlike so many hard-hearted, technically driven filmmakers working today, he seems to have a genuinely warm, optimistic view of life. Spanglish is Brooks at his most minor (when you’ve made three undeniable classics –Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets – it must be tough to top yourself), but at least you won’t hate yourself in the morning for having seen it.

Flor (Talk to Her’s Paz Vega, who could pass for Penelope Cruz’s sister) slips across the U.S.-Mexico border with her bilingual daughter and strolls right into what appears to be a dream job: working (at an enviable salary) as a domestic for a well-to-do but distant Beverly Hills couple, the Claskys. John (an immensely appealing Adam Sandler) is a highly respected chef, while his wife, Deborah (an immensely unappealing Tea Leoni), is a recently unemployed, fitness-obsessed mom who seems either bursting with energy or emotionally imbalanced, depending on your point of view. When the Claskys rent a home in Malibu for the summer, they invite Flor (did I mention she’s drop-dead gorgeous?) and her bright, sociable daughter, Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), to move in with them (along with the Claskys’ son, daughter Bernice and Deb’s boozing but wise mother, Evelyn, wonderfully played by Cloris Leachman). Since Deborah is so emotionally (and physically) absent, it’s only a matter of time before John starts to fall for Flor (would he feel he same if she looked like Real Women Have Curves’ Lupe Ontiveros?). And with the attention Deb lavishes on Cristina, would it be possible for Bernice to feel any more invisible? (Come to think of it, her son is invisible!) Ah, the joys and heartaches of cultural assimilation!

The overlong Spanglish is sweet and undemanding, with good performances (it’s not Leoni’s fault her character is such a neurotic mess) and witty one-liners that showcase Brooks’ ear for clever turns of phrase (“Your low self-esteem is just good common sense,” Evelyn tells the irritating Deb in one scene). This time around, however, he hasn’t fashioned particularly believable characters (the Claskys don’t begin to approximate a real family, even by the one-dimensional standards of TV), nor has he bothered to develop the movie’s real story: the damaged relationship between Deborah and her ugly-duckling daughter, Bernice (Sarah Steele). And somehow the entire enterprise smacks of an endorsement of illegal aliens. Could there be some Jewish, liberal guilt going on here? (playing citywide)

BOMB

Directed by David Moreton

Written by Morton, Dennis Hensley

Starring David Sutcliffe, Antonio Sabato, Jr., Sonia Braga

In David Moreton’s (Edge of Seventeen) dumb, dramatically unconvincing Testosterone (co-authored with gossipy Movieline scribe Dennis Hensley and based on James Robert Baker’s novel), Dean, a good-looking, successful graphic artist (handsome David Sutcliffe, from the WB’s “Gilmore Girls”), falls hard for gorgeous Argentine layabout Pablo (Antonio Sabato, Jr.), whom Dean describes as “the one-night stand who never left.” Ten months into their passionate love affair, Pablo makes a run for cigarettes one night and never returns (a joke so old it’s covered with cobwebs). Being the obsessive type, Dean decides to chase after his hunky true love. All Pablo’s hostile mother (a stylish-looking Sonia Braga) will tell him is that “he’s gone back to where he belongs” – Buenos Aires, to be exact. So off Dean goes to Buenos Aires (is he desperate or what?), a move that irritates Senora Alesandro to no end, since hers is a wealthy, influential family intent on keeping up appearances, which means having her son settle down with a woman in a marriage of convenience.

After having the door slammed in his face by Ms. Alesandro and being chased off by the police, Dean finds help in the form of a local brother and sister: pretty Sofia (Celina Font), who runs the café across the street from the Alesandros (convenient, eh?), and her good-looking brother, Marcos (Leonardo Brzezicki). Each, of course, has an agenda for getting involved in all this amateur sleuthing, as we will see as the absurdly plotted story creeps into its third (awful) and fourth (laughable) acts. (In one ridiculous scene, vengeful Dean goes shopping for lethal weapons, telling the clerk, “I’m just a fag with a gun who needs a chainsaw.”) The climax finds Dean kidnapping Pablo from his own wedding reception, machete in hand (when this guy says he wants Pablo to give him head, he isn’t kidding).

Aside from the pleasures of watching several attractive actors run through their paces (Sabato bears it all, which you already know if you’ve read Billy Masters’ “Filth” column and a clever opening-title sequence (rendered in colorful comic-book style), Testosterone is a silly, stupid drama (is everyone in Buenos Aires bisexual?) that makes Alexander look like high art. (Landmark’s Ken Cinema, Dec. 17-23)

**1/2

Written and directed by Kim Jee-woon

Starring Yeom Jeong-a, Im Soo-jung, Moon Geun-young

In terms of pure technique, Korean writer-director Kim Jee-woon’s A Tale of Two Sisters (supposedly based on a “local Korean legend”) is a knockout. It’s his script – sketchy, full of holes and downright confusing – that bogs down what could have been a first-rate psychological horror film.

When close-knit sisters Su-Mi (Im Soo-jung) and Su-Yeon (Moon Geun-young) return home from a (mental?) hospital stay, it’s not exactly to open arms: morose Dad (Kim Kab-su) is polite but distant, while his new wife, Eun-joo (Yeom Jeong-a), is a controlling shrew clearly unhappy she has to share her husband. Immediately, weird things begin happening: Su-Mi and Su-Yeon hear strange noises at night; a bloodied girl appears to be hiding under the sink; a dinner guest nearly chokes to death (a disturbing, electrifying scene). Su-Yeon is tortured by bad dreams, including one where a stringy-haired woman stands over her in bed, blood running down her legs (you don’t have to be a woman to figure that one out). “This damn house won’t leave me the hell alone!” screams the tranquilizer-popping Eun-joo – a sentiment any one of the four characters might have expressed.

Jee-woon skillfully wrings every possible ounce of creepiness out of his modern-day ghost story (which allegedly will be remade by DreamWorks, a la Ju-On: The Grudge). Each blink, every cock of the head, each step a character takes (Jee-woon seems to have a thing for feet), is so artfully captured (by cinematographer Lee Mogae), I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the film had been exhaustively storyboarded. But while a certain amount of clichés are to be expected in a haunted house genre film – the flickering lights, trails of blood and abundant shrieking are all here – A Tale of Two Sisters has one too many to go around. (The film’s “twist” is also easy to figure out.) What is real and what is imagined? Don’t ask me: I couldn’t follow the damn thing half the time. But it sure looks good. (Landmark’s Ken Cinema, Dec. 17-23)

Kyle Counts is the film critic for the Gay & Lesbian Times