Jersey Girl

• BADGLEY MISCHKA by Badgley Mischka
• Eau De Parfum Spray
• Set
• For Women
• Body Lotion

Director Bernardo Bertolucci explores one girl's personal journey into womanhood in this romantic adventure starring Liv Tyler and Jeremy Irons.Critics were decidedly mixed about this 1996 drama from Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, and the movie enjoyed only a brief theatrical release. Now it's best known for its early appearance by Liv Tyler as a 19-year-old beauty named Lucy who summers at a villa in Tuscany with a variety of artistic types who immediately respond to her inspirational innocence. An amateur poet who has decided it's time to lose her virginity, Lucy has come to Italy after the death of her mother, who visited this artist's refuge 20 years earlier. Several young Italian men find Lucy quite heavenly (she is, after all, Liv Tyler), and she's not immune to their ! attentions, but she'd rather spend time with a playwright (Jeremy Irons) who is dying of AIDS and therefore has something other than sex on his mind. The movie's plot is about as substantial as Tyler's character (she's sexy, all right, but hardly an intellectual muse), but Stealing Beauty creates a serene mood that's so soothing you'll want to book a flight to Tuscany immediately, just to soak up the setting's idyllic atmosphere. If you're in the right frame of mind, this movie is like a balm for the soul, and Tyler and Bertolucci can share the credit for making this two-hour vacation so charmingly relaxing. --Jeff ShannonForbidden love and impossible dreams intertwine when the handsome working-class Holt brothers are drawn to the beautiful and wealthy Abbott sisters. Sparks fly, passion flare, and family loyalties are suddenly torn and tested against a small town backdrop of social boundaries and dark secrets. Starring Liv Tyler and an all-star cast includin! g Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly, "Invent! ing the Abbotts" re-invents the trials and triumphs of coming of age in a time of innocence that was anything but.A showcase for bright young stars, Inventing the Abbotts aspires to be the kind of 1950s melodrama--like Splendor in the Grass--that was perfected by directors like Elia Kazan and Douglas Sirk. Calling on the strength of his earlier Circle of Friends, Irish director Pat O'Connor brings many of that film's admirable qualities to this similar ensemble piece (set in late-'50s Illinois), but it's held together by looser and weaker threads. And yet this tale of class division and forbidden love is sensitively written and beautifully filmed, highlighted by two young lovers at the center of an interfamilial conflict.

"Alice is the good daughter, Eleanor's the bad one, and I'm the one that just sorta gets off the hook." That's how rich girl Pam Abbott (Liv Tyler) describes herself and her older siblings (Joanna Going and Jennifer Connelly, respectively),! whose father made his fortune in manufacturing. Working-class neighbor Jacey Holt (Billy Crudup) has "invented" Mr. Abbott as a villain whose wealth came at the Holts' expense and destroyed the reputation of Jacey's widowed mom (Kathy Baker in a fine but underwritten role). Jacey retaliates by callously bedding each Abbott sister in sequence, but his destructive behavior is countered by younger brother Doug (Joaquin Phoenix), whose love for Pam is sweetly genuine. Memorable scenes abound, and the film's period design is impeccable, but sluggish pacing and filigrees of plot make Inventing the Abbotts a faint echo of its '50s predecessors. The fine cast makes it worthwhile, however, and Michael Keaton's (uncredited) narration adds another layer of retrospective charm. --Jeff Shannon Inspired by true events, this heart pounding, nail-biting frightener mercilessly explores our most universal fears, where simply opening the door to a stranger leads to a grueling n! ight of terror one could never imagine. Liv Tyler and Scott Sp! eedman s tar in this relentless suspense thriller that will keep you up at night and make you never want to answer the door again!A lean, briskly paced and exceptionally creepy thriller, The Strangers earns its scares the old-fashioned way: through atmosphere, sound design, and a simple yet undeniably upsetting central premise that allows for maximum tension throughout its running time. Attractive young lovers Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are already having a bad day--she's turned down his marriage proposal--before a knock on the door in the middle of the night announces a full-fledged siege on their remote vacation home by a trio of masked assailants. The film's first third delivers the most consistent shivers as the visitors make their presence and intentions known to Tyler; the second half grows more frantic and bloody before a gruesome finale that may leave viewers either rattled to their core or bothered by its empty nihilism. Speedman is fine as the downtrodden male lead! (who's seen tucking into a carton of ice cream after being rejected), but it's Tyler who impresses the most by shouldering the lion's share of the terror. First-time writer/director Bryan Bertino impresses by forsaking the current passion for over-the-top violence (save for the finale) in favor of more traditional means of generating fear, and if his project borrows heavily from other films, most notably the French chiller Them (which shares its "inspired by a true story" origin) and Michael Haneke's Funny Games, at least he's taking from the best. The sound design is among the many technical standouts, and the unsettling score by tomandandy (The Hills Have Eyes) pleasantly evokes Ennio Morricone's fuzztone-heavy work for Dario Argento in the early '70s. On a completely unrelated note, LP fanatics should appreciate how both the film's heroes and villains share an affinity for folk and country music on vinyl. --Paul GaitaHollywood favorites Ben ! Affleck (DAREDEVIL, PAYCHECK, THE SUM OF ALL FEARS) and Liv Ty! ler (LOR D OF THE RINGS trilogy, ARMAGEDDON) shine in this heartwarming all-star comedy about a guy who thinks he's lost it all only to discover he's got everything he needs! Ollie (Affleck) is a smooth and successful big-city publicist who has the life he's always wanted -- until things take an unexpected turn and he finds himself an unemployed single father back living with his dad in the suburbs. But just when he thinks his life has hit rock bottom, a sexy, no-nonsense video store clerk (Tyler) enters his life and shows Ollie that sometimes you have to forget who you thought you were and acknowledge what really makes you happy. Also starring Jason Biggs (AMERICAN PIE) -- director Kevin Smith (JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK) has delivered another hit critics are calling one of the year's funniest!Jersey Girl stars Ben Affleck as a workaholic music executive who loses his wife (Jennifer Lopez) in childbirth and has to raise his newborn daughter with the help of his crotchety ! New Jersey dad (George Carlin). The movie unspools as if writer-director Kevin Smith, normally a highly self-aware filmmaker (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma), set out to put a fresh spin on every cliché he could imagine (parent forced to choose between child and career; parent rushing to attend school performance; etc.)--then forgot to put in the spin. The scenes that aren't lifeless are implausible (Liv Tyler plays the fantasy girl of every awkward boy's dreams). The only real feeling comes from the strong soundtrack. However, Raquel Castro, as the daughter, is an uncanny double for Lopez; when the light plays across Castro's cheekbones just so, you'd swear the casting director simply shrunk Lopez for convenience. --Bret Fetzer