Best Picture:
Traffic
(Runners-up: Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon; The House of Mirth)
Best Actor:
Tom Hanks
(Cast Away) (Runners-up: Benicio Del Toro-Traffic; Javier Bardem
-Before Night Falls)
Best Actress:
Laura
Linney (You Can Count On Me)
(Runners-up: Gillian Anderson-The House of Mirth; Bjork-Dancer In The
Dark)
Best Supporting Actor:
Benicio Del
Toro (Traffic) (Runners-up: Willem
Dafoe-Shadow Of A Vampire; Fred Willard-Best In Show)
Best Supporting Actress:
Marcia Gay
Harden (Pollock) (Runners-up: Frances
McDormand-Almost Famous; Ellen Burstyn-Requiem For A
Dream)
Best Director:
Steven Soderbergh
(Traffic and Erin Brockovich)
(Runners-up: Ang Lee-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Terence
Davies-The House of Mirth)
Top 10 Lists of the Reviewers of
the New York Times for 2000
A. O. Scott:
Yi Yi (A One and A Two); Traffic; Chicken Run; Before Night Falls;
Beautiful People; Not One Less; Time Code; Chuck and Buck; You Can
Count On Me; and Jesus' Son.
Stephen
Holden: The Decalogue; Yi Yi (A One and
A Two); Traffic; Humanite´; Beau Travail; Nurse Betty; The Color
of Paradise; Human Resources; You Can Count On Me; and Cast
Away.
Elvis
Mitchell: Hamlet, George Washington,
Calle 54, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Praise; Black and White;
Before Night Falls, Ratcatcher; Requiem For A Dream; The
Yards
My own 2000 Top 10
List is based on the movies I saw and
reviewed during that year. Some were actually released in 1999. In
order, my favorite films that I saw in 2000 were:
The Emperor and the Assassin; The
Insider; Beautiful People; All About My Mother; Sweet and Lowdown;
Boys Don't Cry; Cradle Will Rock; Buena Vista Social Club; Titus; and
Gladiator
Roy's 2001 Reviews
Index of Films
Reviewed
Here are my reactions to
and comments about films I viewed during 2001, available
either on video or at theaters.
"In
The Bedroom"-This film does what so many
American films do not. It portrays real people with real feelings and
expressions. Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson ("The Full Monty") are
Ruth and Matt Fowler of Camden, Maine. They are the parents of a
young college age lad named Frank (Nick Stahl) who is having an
affair with Natalie Strout (Marisa Tomei), a young mother of two boys
who is on the verge of divorce. William Mapother is Richard Strout,
Natalie's estranged husband, who is angry at the loss of his wife,
the loss of access to his sons, and at the idea that his wife is
sleeping with young Frank Fowler. What follows is a tale of a violent
act that leads to significant consequences. But what is most telling
about this film are, first of all, the magnificent performances by
Spacek and Wilkinson as the ultimately pained and distressed parents.
As marvelously directed by a newcomer, Todd Field (seen in the past
as an actor in small secondary roles in films such as "Eyes Wide
Shut" in which he plays Nick Nightingale, the piano player), Spacek
and Wilkinson portray their feelings far more through moods and
expressions than with words. Just watching Spacek sitting on a couch
smoking a cigarette provides torrents of emotions about what is going
on in her mind. She is one of the best American actresses and
deserves accolades. Wilkinson, a British actor using a perfect
American accent, gets to do more than Spacek, but nevertheless
completely wraps the viewer up in the magic of the events on the
screen. The pacing is slow and deliberate and incredibly tantalizing.
I could barely take my eyes away from the screen for fear of missing
a nuance. Although I wasn't totally satisfied with the casting of
Marisa Tomei, her performance made me forget for the moment that she
once won an Oscar for an incredibly silly role in a silly movie
called "My Cousin Vinny." This "indie" is what making films for
adults should be about. One only wishes Hollywood felt the same way.
Theater ****
(12/29/01)
"A
Beautiful Mind"-Russell Crowe gives an
astonishing performance in this Ron Howard-directed film as John
Forbes Nash, Jr., who comes to Princeton as a graduate student in the
mid-1940s and immediately demonstrates that he is equal parts
mathematically brilliant, socially inept, and somewhat disturbed. But
in the middle of his social difficulties he finally hits on an
ingenious mathematical theory that makes his graduate career at
Princeton a success despite not having attended classes, and he moves
on to the world of a defense lab in the early cold war period. Nash,
despite his lack of finesse with women, is fortunate enough to have
as a student a young beautiful woman named Alicia (played by Jennifer
Connelly, an actress whose talent seems to grow with every
performance) who falls for him and ultimately becomes his wife. But
there are serious troubles ahead as Nash begins to be obsessed with
spies and Russian plots. Ed Harris appears as William Parcher, a
defense department employee, who appears to be at the center of the
government's efforts to stop a Russian nuclear attack on America. But
Nash's problems have only begun and this film is about his monumental
success in overcoming these difficulties and becoming one of the
great mathematicians in America, the ultimate winner of a Nobel Prize
in 1994. This is a true story, although it's obvious that there have
been embellishments. One can research Nash to learn the nature of his
difficulties, but I won't mention them here for fear of ruining the
enjoyment of the film. I do want to mention a notable performance by
an intelligent young British actor, Paul Bettany (Chaucer in "A
Knight's Tale"), as Nash's Princeton roommate Charles. Theater ****
(12/25/01)
"The
Golden Bowl"-Ismail Merchant (producer),
James Ivory (director), and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala have made
many outstanding costume period dramas about British life either in
England, the continent, or India ("The Remains of the Day," "Howard's
End," "A Room With A View," and "Heat and Dust"), but the magic seems
to be fading. It seemed to start to go downhill with "Jefferson In
Paris" and then more recently in a Merchant-directed film "Cotton
Mary." "The Golden Bowl," based on the Henry James novel, would seem
to be a perfect subject for them and an intelligent audience and at
one time it might have been. But the genre seems to have become
stilted and passé. The cast appears in gorgeous sets and
costumes, befitting a period piece (it begins in 1903). Kate
Beckinsale (in one of her best performances) is Maggie Verver, the
daughter of an American billionaire, Adam Verver (Nick Nolte). Maggie
marries a charming but poverty-stricken Italian prince (Amerigo,
played by Jeremy Northam), only to have her father marry her friend
Charlotte Stant (Uma Thurman), without knowing that Charlotte has
already had a relationship with Amerigo and continues to be obsessed
with him. With Anjelica Huston and James Fox in support, the tale
only seems to plod along. Maggie becomes suspicious of Charlotte and
Amerigo and Charlotte acts incredibly guilty while her husband is
obsessed with collecting art for a museum to be built in a
coal-mining city in America. But in reality, little has gone on
between Charlotte and Amerigo who realizes, after a single passionate
encounter with Charlotte, that he continues to love Maggie and their
small son dearly. If this story is about revenge which Maggie
ultimately gets on Charlotte by having her shipped back to the boring
United States to live with her wealthy husband as he builds his
museum, it's almost lost on the viewer. Nolte is far too laid-back in
playing a powerful billionaire although he ultimately gets what he
wants, returning to the US with his wife to build his museum and
protecting his daughter from her "mother-in-law." I have no doubt
that there is a great deal more depth in the James novel. It's just
not obvious in this film. DVD ***
(12/22/01)
"Moulin
Rouge"-A musical of spectacularly bright
colors (lots of red), sounds, and images with religious overtones?
Can this be the same Moulin Rouge that was occupied by José
Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec in 1952? I think not. Instead, we have a
fantasy of two innovative Aussies, Baz Luhrmann (director and writer)
and Craig Pearce (writer). Luhrmann, who created the wonderful
Australian film "Strictly Ballroom," and had done little since except
"Romeo and Juliet," and Pearce have brought us a rather bizarre tale
of a young visionary named Christian who believes in the magic of
love ("all you need is love"). Christian comes to Paris around 1900
to write, only to find himself shanghaied into a zany theatrical
group of actors headed by John Leguizamo as Toulouse-Lautrec, who are
attempting to put together a play (appropriately titled "Spectacular,
Spectacular") for Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent), the red-headed,
red-bearded and rather loud owner of the Moulin Rouge. The latter is
a nightclub with a corps of dancer-courtesans led by the simply
gorgeous Satine (Nicole Kidman). While Christian is preaching love,
and himself falls for Satine, Zidler is attempting to get financing
from The Duke (Richard Roxburgh), an evil man who also wants Satine
and who represents money, wealth and everything
non-spiritual.
Not a bad plot. But what ultimately
undermines this film is EXCESS. For example, Christian is a poet who
sings late-20th Century songs to represent his turn-of-the-century
poetic talents (Elton John's "Your Song," The Beatles, Whitney
Houston, and even a little of "The Sound of Music"--using this type
of music is, of course, a humorous twist). Some of the performances,
sung by the actors themselves, aren't bad, but the singing is
overdone just like everything else. A single song is rarely enough.
Instead, it has to be parts of many songs. The dancing is potentially
wonderful. For example, there is a sensuous tango that would have
been outstanding done by the two leading dancers with minimal
support. But instead the two leads are almost lost behind legions of
other dancers, something that also ruins the can-can sequence. The
first half of the film is almost mind-numbing with action and
imagery, and only minimally relaxes in the second half. And the
action is never simple. There always seem to be dozens of people
around, even a few hanging outside the window from the roof, and the
dialogue sounds more like harangues than conversation. Most of the
successful musicals in movie history have been relatively simple and
elegant (think of the films of Astaire and Rogers, or "Singin' In The
Rain). This film is overblown and hysterical (not in the humorous
sense) and never simple and elegant. The actors do not have a chance
to standout because of the activity going on around them. Rather,
they appear as pieces on an astoundingly animated gameboard. DVD
**1/2
(12/21/01)
"The
Score"-I've never been a big fan of
Robert DeNiro, although I recognize that he has real talent when he
wants to apply it. But in this film, he looks disinterested in his
part, as if he were simply going through the motions. If an unknown
had read the part the way DeNiro does, I guarantee he would never
have been cast in this movie. It's a "heist" film, something "new"
under the Hollywood sun!! A predictable script. DeNiro is Nick, a
jazz club owner in Montreal who also happens to be a high tech
burglar. But he usually pulls his jobs away from home. This time he's
tempted by an associate and fence, Max (Marlon Brando), to join an
outside smart aleck named Jack (Edward Norton) in breaking into the
Montreal Custom House and stealing a priceless French gold sceptre.
The actual scenes of the heist are reasonably interesting and
suspenseful, but the logistical details required for success in this
"score" are so complex, strenuous, and time-consuming, that it is
painfully obvious it would be tempted only by complete idiots. And
talking of cliches, the film has the usual doublecross twists at the
end. Yet, when the film ended, I felt nothing but a yawn. It's a
serviceable film, nothing more. Nice shots of Montreal. Angela
Bassett is wasted as Nick's flight attendant girlfriend. Brando is
always fun to see, and Edward Norton is amusing when playing Brian,
the slightly retarded janitor character Jack creates to work at the
Custom House while he surveys the security system. DVD ***
(12/21/01)
"Hedwig
and the Angry Inch"-This is the story of
a young boy from East Berlin who grows up, meets an American soldier
who convinces him to have a sex-change operation in order to marry
him and leave Germany, and who comes to the US, is abandoned and
turns to rock and roll. The sex-change operation was only partially
successful, leading to the Angry Inch, also the name of Hedwig's rock
band. Just a basic down-home plot with sexual identification issues
(Hedwig's male lover in the band is actually actress Miriam Shor).
John Cameron Mitchell wrote, directed, and stars in this rather
strangely mainstream exotica (even Blockbuster is renting it) which
originated as an off-Broadway play. And he tells am amusing tale of
his adventures discovering and teaching a young rock singer named
Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt), only to have Tommy steal his music and
become a star. Hedwig tells his/her story from the vantage point of
stages in a series of Red Lobster type restaurants called
Bilgewater's. The scenes of Bilgewater customers trying to eat their
mundane meals while Hedwig rocks and struts, singing of his life and
sex-change operation, are really funny. The music is surprisingly
good, written mostly by co-star Stephen Trask, one of the band
members. While the film is better at the start than it is at its
rather murky end, it's an amusing and original film and definitely
worth a look. John Cameron Mitchell is definitely someone to watch.
Comic actress Andrea Martin is notable as Hedwig's agent. DVD ***1/2
(12/15/01)
"Pearl
Harbor"-This three-hour film gets off to
an excruciatingly bad start with a hokey story about two Tennessee
kids, Rafe and Daniel, who grow up to be army pilots just before the
US enters World War II. The embarrassing script tells of Rafe (Ben
Affleck) falling in love with beautiful nurse Evelyn (Kate
Beckinsale) almost immediately after she passes him in a vision test
despite his apparent inability to read the letters on the chart. Rafe
and Daniel (Josh Hartnett) are surrounded by, of course, a group of
pilots on the make. And would you be surprised to know that Evelyn is
surrounded by a bevy of other beautiful nurses? The glitzy
high-contrast photography early in the film exaggerates the silliness
of the story as well as the imagery. Rafe volunteers for the RAF and
goes off to England to fight with the British against the Luftwaffe
and appears to have been killed when his plane crashes into the
Atlantic. So, of course, a romantic triangle is bound to occur, as
Daniel, thinking Rafe has died, falls for Evelyn. But we all know
that Ben Affleck's character couldn't possibly have died this early
in the film. In the meantime, the pilots and the nurses have been
shipped off to join the US naval fleet at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii.
Having survived this early portion of the
film, the viewer is now treated to an incredibly vivid recreation of
the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but only
after struggling to read absolutely awful and almost unreadable
subtitles used during the scenes of the Japanese military planning of
the attack. The portion of the film re-creating the attack is
awesome. The scenes of lovely sunfilled Hawaii suddenly invaded by
low-flying Japanese planes are stunning. The visuals of the actual
bombing of the American ships and air bases are breathtaking and
horrifying. The use of genuine ships in the actual Pearl Harbor of
today, supplemented by astounding computer graphics (including a
touch of "Star Wars"), is enough to make one feel just a little of
what it might have been like to have been there on that terrible
morning. The scenes of severely injured soldiers and sailors arriving
at an unprepared hospital while nurses and doctors panic are enough
to demonstrate the apparent lack of preparedness of the American
military. FDR (Jon Voight), however, is there to inspire America and,
back at the plot, Rafe and Daniel wind up joining Col. Jimmy
Doolittle (Alec Baldwin) in the almost-suicidal mission to bomb Tokyo
to revenge Pearl Harbor and inspire the American cause.
The cast seems completely secondary to the
battle scenes. No one truly stands out, although Jon Voight is good
as FDR and Alec Baldwin is charming as the daring Doolittle. Affleck,
Hartnett, and Beckinsale are pretty faces aimed at humanizing the war
story. But the war story is human enough and doesn't need the glitzy
look of the stars. Of note in the cast is Cuba Gooding, Jr., as Dorie
Miller, a heroic cook on the "Arizona," and Dan Aykroyd as a decoder
who warns of a potential attack but who is, of course, ignored. The
DVD contains a detailed account of the making of the film, and is
certainly worth a look. DVD ***1/2
(12/8/01)
"Shrek"-While
most people think animated films are for children, the filmmakers
want adults to pay their way in too and so they often include adult
humor and innuendos in their kids' films. This funny animated film is
no exception. What we really have is a wonderful cast of Mike Myers,
Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow putting on a puppet show.
The puppets in this case are incredibly effective animated characters
telling the story of a big green ogre named Shrek (Myers) with a
Scottish accent, who wants to protect his turf in the woods and likes
a solitary life. But the local evil Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) has
decided to kick out all of the fairytale characters and place them in
Shrek's backyard. In order to rid himself of these unwanted guests,
Shrek and his jive-talking "friend" Donkey (Murphy) set off to free
Princess Fiona (Diaz) from a lava surrounded castle which also
happens to be guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, and bring her back
to marry Farquaad. As you might expect, complications, including
romance, get in the way. Other than a series of jokes about bodily
functions such as flatulence, clearly in poor taste and aimed at
children, the humor is enough to make you laugh. Murphy is excellent
as the Donkey character. Myers is a perfect ogre with charm even he
doesn't realize he has. This is something to see especially now that
it is available on DVD which is loaded with extras about the making
of the film. DVD ***1/2
(12/2/01)
"Planet
of the Apes"-More than 30 years since
the original version, Charlton Heston once again appears
(uncredited), but this time as an elderly ape who knows the secret
behind the real story of the apes and the humans. And he tells his
son Thade (Tim Roth), the vicious military leader of the apes, the
secret of the humans' history of technology. And what does he show
him? A gun. The irony drips. As for the basic plot, Leo (Mark
Wahlberg) is an astronaut aboard a ship loaded with apes, including
the delightful chimp Pericles, who are to be used in space
experiments. When Pericles disappears into a space warp of some sort,
Leo follows behind and, after entering the warp and experiencing time
travel into the future (noticeable only if you read the readouts on
his ship's panels) finds himself on a planet where the apes are in
charge and the humans are used as slaves. Wahlberg is virtually
expressionless in this film which is regrettable because it
undermines any sense of concern the viewer might have. But
nevertheless Leo is befriended by Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), an ape
human-rights advocate, and leads an escape from the ape stronghold.
Leo and his friends battle the apes, seemingly continuously. Leo
ultimately discovers the secret of the apes when he finds the ruins
of a spaceship which has crashed years in the past. The costumes and
makeup are well done. But the film lacks a coherent story. It seems
to be simply going through the motions with an occasional
unsuccessful effort at intrigue or sci-fi originality. The ending is
extremely facile, almost laughable, and undoubtedly aimed at a
sequel. In the cast, Paul Giamatti is wonderfully funny in this film
as Limbo, an orangutan dealer in human slaves who winds up with the
humans. Others of note are Michael Clarke Duncan as an ape general;
David Warner as an ape senator and Ari's father; and Estella Warren
as Daena, a beautiful blonde human, who demonstrates no acting
abilities whatsoever. In fact, the DVD contains a film of her
audition. Tim Burton, the director, was obviously so impressed with
Ms. Warren's past synchronized swimming talents, that he couldn't
resist hiring her and putting in as brief a costume as possible under
the circumstances. DVD **
(12/1/01)
"Vatel"-This
sumptiously photographed and decorated (i.e., set and art decoration
as well as costumes) film tells the little-known but apparently true
tale of Francois Vatel (Gérard Depardieu), the steward to the
Prince de Condé (Julian Glover), a military prince suffering
great debts who wants to get into the good graces of Louis XIV
(Julian Sand) in order to improve his economic and professional
situation as a possible war with Holland approaches. De Condé
invites the king and his royal entourage to his palace for a weekend
of incredible displays and pleasures, all arranged by Vatel. Vatel is
shown as an amazingly effective leader who arranges large meals and
shows, with fireworks, music, and all, seemingly with little or no
effort. This is in contrast to the royal characters who are shown,
not surprisingly, as selfish, venal boors. It's obvious that Vatel is
repulsed by the king and his followers, but has no choice due to his
misplaced loyalty to de Condé. Adding to the plot is an
intrigue involving the Marquis de Lauzun (Tim Roth), an advisor to
the king, who happens to be very interested in one of the Queen's
ladies in waiting, Anne de Montausier (Uma Thurman). But Mlle. de
Montausier is also desired by the king and desirous of Vatel. The
performances are all as one might expect with such a talented cast.
Strangely, although all the characters are French, the film is loaded
with British actors speaking in English accents. Other than Thurman,
an American, the only non-English actor is Depardieu, an actual
Frenchman, who must speak English with a French accent. This is
somewhat off-putting, but not enough to undermine Depardieu's subtle
performance. Thurman is lovely and once again demonstrates her
outstanding acting talents, and Roth is perfect as a somewhat sleazy
royal, a part it seems to me he has played before. Also of note is
Timothy Spall ("Topsy-Turvy"), as Gourville, an aide to the Prince.
DVD ***1/2
(11/23/01)
"The
Yards"-Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) is a
24-year-old just out of prison returning to his single mother (Ellen
Burstyn) and hoping to get his life straightened out. But immediately
he gets tossed into the whirlwind of the corrupt subway repair
business centered around his uncle Frank (James Caan) and the
boyfriend of his cousin Erica (Charlize Theron). The job of the
boyfriend, Willie (Joaquin Phoenix), is to do Frank's dirtywork in
making sure that a minority company's repair jobs look bad.
Apparently Leo had been the fall guy for the misdeeds of Willie and
others in the past, leading to his prison sentence. Once again, Leo
finds himself accused of a crime committed by another: a railyard
murder. And Leo has the ability to make the entire corrupt business
and governmental world around the yards collapse by coming forward.
There's a decent premise here but the stars get in the way. With the
exception of Burstyn, I felt like I was watching Wahlberg, Caan,
Theron, Phoenix, as well as Faye Dunaway as Leo's aunt, rather than
characters in the film. This is one of those films with a glitzy cast
that just leaves one relatively cold at the end. It's a film that can
be watched for a couple of hours of very basic entertainment, but for
anything more, forget it. DVD ***
(11/21/01)
"Songcatcher"-There
was a time when it was thought that all the mountain people in the
Appalachian Mountains were dirty and ignorant with little or no
culture, and then their culture, going back to the Scots and Irish
who came to America in the 18th Century, was discovered in the form
of their music early in the 20th Century. This is a nice tale of a
musicologist, Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), who has been passed
over for a professorship at the university at which she teaches. She
quits and comes to live with her sister, a schoolteacher, in the
mountains of western North Carolina in what appears to be around
1910. And almost immediately she discovers the wonderful songs of the
mountains and the banjo and fiddle playing. Aided by the young
Deladis Slocumb (Emily Rossum), Dr. Penleric listens to the music of
Viney Butler (Pat Carroll), Rose Gentry (the singer Iris DeMent), and
others. But there's more than songcatching to be done. There are
battles of love and life to be fought with and against men like Tom
Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn) and others. And there's even some lesbianism
that raises the ire of the community, as well as cheating in the
mountains and arson. Janet McTeer ("Tumbleweeds") is a wonderful
actress but her portrayal of the intelligent and serious Dr. Penleric
was just a little too stiff. The character needed to loosen up just a
little earlier in the film than she actually did. Aidan Quinn is at
his best as the mountainman who has been to and knows the "outland."
And Emily Rossum is a delight as the young Deladis, full of talent
and wide-eyed young beauty. DVD ****
(11/20/01)
"Amores
Perros"-How does one take this movie? If
symbolically, it is about how "love's a bitch," what the title
approximates. But maybe it should be called "Life's a Bitch," or
maybe even "A movie can be a bitch." Nothing new there. Don't we
already know that? If taken literally, it shows three separate but
minimally connecting stories about people, their dogs, and either
their mistreatment of their dogs or of their fellow humans. These
three tales literally collide at a street corner when two Mexican
youths (with nothing better to do with their time than raise money by
fighting Cofi, the black Rottweiler belonging to one of the two,
against other dogs, usually to the death), being chased in their auto
just after Cofi has been shot during a fight and one of the boys has
stabbed the shooter, crash horribly into a car being driven by a
beautiful and famous model who is accompanied by her dog. The third
main character, El Chivo, a wino and former guerrilla, who is at the
corner waiting to assassinate a businessman, and who is accompanied
by his band of pet dogs, rescues the injured Cofi from the now
smashed car of the two youths. There is a great deal of angst in this
film, mostly on the part of the viewer. The most absurd story of the
three is that of the seriously injured model whose rich boyfriend
buys her an apartment with rotten floors which break under their
feet. Does this stop the model from allowing her dog to run around,
ultimately running down the hole and being trapped with rats? Of
course not. These two seemingly capable people, i.e., the model and
her boyfriend, never think to cover the hole. And even later, when
the dog is rescued, the holes (there are more now which occurred
during the rescue) remain so that either the dog can return to the
rats or the rats can rise to the apartment. Life's a
bitch.
The production values of this Mexican film
are excellent. Beautifully filmed. Well-acted. And there are all
types of assurances that the dogs have not been mistreated in making
the film. In fact, on the DVD, there is a small film showing that the
dogs are all professionals and literally had their own
air-conditioned trailer while the film was being made. But the movie
portrays the most vicious dogfighting and dog-killing ever seen in a
movie. I could find nothing in the way of redeeming social value
other than the ultra-obvious attempt, as described on the DVD, to
show how life can be miserable for rich or poor, ugly or beautiful.
But life can also be miserable for the poor viewer. And I had to take
breaks from this film, more than 2 1/2 hours long, in order to catch
my breath. I went back each time out of morbid curiosity. Spanish
with English subtitles. DVD ***
(11/20/01)
"Bride
of the Wind"-In the mid-1960s, the
humorist Tom Lehrer did a song called "Alma," noting that "all modern
women are jealous" about the woman who had just died after having
been married to three of the great creative men of the 20th Century,
Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel. This film tells her
story. Alma (Sarah Wynter) was a lovely young woman in Vienna at the
turn-of-the-century when she met and married Mahler (Jonathan Pryce),
the leading classical composer of his age. After Mahler died, she
continued a relationship with Gropius (Simon Verhoeven), the great
architect, started a new one with Oscar Kokoscha (Vincent Perez), the
expressionist painter (and one man she never married, although she
had a daughter with him), and finally winding up with Franz Werfel
(Gregor Seberg), the novelist. This film is lush, made entirely in
Vienna and directed by Bruce Beresford ("Driving Miss Daisy"). It
does a fine job of telling Alma's tale, although it never really
catches fire. Sarah Wynter, an Australian, is hauntingly lovely as
the beautiful Alma. Jonathan Pryce is musically distracted as Mahler.
Vincent Perez lends an air of dynamism to the film as the artist
Kokoschka. Certainly one of the great real-life romantic tales and
worth a watch. DVD ***1/2
(11/18/01)
"The
Closet"-François Pignon (Daniel
Auteuil) is a drag. He's boring, his wife has left him, and his son
has no interest in him. And now he discovers that he's about to be
fired from a company he's worked for, as an accountant, for 20 years.
Fortunately, when considering suicide, Pignon meets his gay neighbor
Belone (Michel Aumont) who suggests that the company won't fire him
if they think he's gay. When this ploy works in a politically correct
age (and Pignon works for a condom manufacturer), Félix
Santini (Gérard Depardieu), a homophobic personnel director,
is urged by a co-worker (Thierry Lhermitte) to play up to Pignon to
avoid losing his own job. That this, of course, leads to very funny
complications is obvious. What isn't obvious is how well Director and
Screenwriter Francis Veber tells his story. All of the characters are
interesting and charming, even a couple of homophobic oafs who beat
up Pignon, thinking that he's been ogling teen boys when in fact he's
simply waiting to see his son at his school. While many directors and
screenwriters might have taken this film in an embarrassing
direction, Veber's version is well-acted fun with a tremendous cast
of the leading French stars, including especially Auteuil, usually
seen in more serious roles. Also of note in the cast are
Michèle Laroque as Mlle Bertrand, Pignon's boss who initially
dislikes him and then discovers his true "virtues," and Jean
Rochefort as Kopel, the company director. In French with English
subtitles. Known as "Le Placard" in French. DVD ****
(11/17/01)
"Calle
54"-This marvelous concert film is
Fernando Trueba's homage to Latin Jazz. Each performer is introduced
via a brief showing of the artist in his or her natural habitat, and
then they play. And do they play! Each performer gives a spectacular
performance, exquisitely recorded and filmed in bright and unique
colors: Paquito D'Rivera, Eliane Elias, Gato Barbieri, Michel Camilo,
Chico O'Farrill, Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, the late
Tito Puente, and many others. In the midst of most of the
performances is a Steinway Piano. What a lucky piano. If you like
jazz, especially Latin, you will absolutely love this film. If you
like music and aren't familiar with Latin Jazz, try it. You can't
help but be blown away by these extremely talented people. DVD ****
(11/16/01)
"Legally
Blonde"-Reese Witherspoon ("Election"
and "Pleasantville") is delightfully hysterical as Elle Woods, a
ditzy blonde sorority girl from Bel Air who loves to shop and is
seemingly on the path to domestic bliss with Warner Huntington (Matt
Davis), a rich boy from the east. But just when Elle thinks she's
going to become engaged to Warner, he announces that it's time for
them to split so that he can return east, go to Harvard Law School,
and become a Senator with a "Jackie, not a Marilyn," as his wife. But
Elle is an ambitious young woman and somehow gets herself admitted to
Harvard Law School to chase Warner. What happens at Harvard is
downright fun. Elle discovers that despite her "valley girl" persona,
she's got integrity and smarts. The vision of a character like Elle,
in her hot pink outfits, at Harvard Law School is humorous enough,
but Reese Witherspoon, a young actress of seemingly boundless talent,
plays it to the hilt, supported by a delightful cast including Luke
Wilson (as a lawyer booster of Elle's and a potential substitute for
Warner), Selma Blair (as Elle's rival turned friend, Vivian), Victor
Garber (as a professor and criminal defense lawyer who gives Elle a
big boost and then almost causes her to quit), Jennifer Coolidge (as
a beauty shop friend taught the "famous bend and snap"), and Ali
Larter (as a murder defendant and sorority sister of Elle's who gives
her her first big legal break). Silly, sort of mindless, but you
can't help but have a big smile throughout this film. DVD ***1/2
(11/9/01)
"With
A Friend Like Harry"-Imagine yourself
driving with your spouse and three young children to your country
home for a vacation. You stop at a rest stop and go to the bathroom
and there you run into an individual with a rather strange demeanor
who reminds you that this person knew you 20 years earlier at school.
You barely remember this person, but the individual, while standing
in the bathroom, starts asking about things you did, like writing,
when you were a teenager at school. You finally get away from this
rather strange interlude, are back in your car with your family, and
you suddenly see the stranger driving up in the parking lot and ask
to come along to your vacation house, accompanied by a friend, for a
visit for "old-times sake." And you know that in order to come to
your vacation house, these two people are going very far out of their
way from their stated intended destination. Would you act sheepishly
and say okay, "just follow me?" Or are you more likely to give
excuses and get away from this person as fast as possible? Well, I
suspect most people would take the latter course. But not Michel
(Laurent Lucas). He and his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigner)
inexplicably agree to invite along Harry (Sergi Lopez), Michel's
strange and distant classmate, and his rather innocent and bubbly
girlfriend Plum (Sophie Guillemin) and things go downhill from there.
Even when Harry and Plum hang around, something that would
undoubtedly annoy most people, Michel and Claire act like they are
old friends, inviting them to dinner and to do things with them and
their children. But Harry has his own motivations and it soon becomes
clear that he is obsessed with Michel and plans to make significant
changes in his life, whether he likes it or not. Well filmed and
somewhat suspenseful, I found the basic premise so unlikely, however,
that it undermined the later events which were fairly predictable.
While the end is somewhat of a twist, the film as a whole simply
doesn't hold up and can't be recommended. This film is in French with
English subtitles although the DVD has a dubbed version. DVD **1/2
(11/2/01)
"The
Life and Times of Hank Greenberg"-The
great Detroit Tigers' slugger, Hank Greenberg, was a Jew born in the
Bronx. He wound up as a hero for Detroiters because he doubted Lou
Gehrig would be gone from the Yankees anytime soon (this was in the
early 1930s). Centered around Greenberg's ethnicity as a Jew in major
league baseball and its effect on him, baseball, and his fans, this
wonderful little documentary provides a great deal of insight into
the mind of America in the years just prior to World War II.
Greenberg did not change his name to hide his ethnicity. Although not
religious, he was obviously conscious of and proud of his heritage
and he was also a very big man who would occasionally confront those
who slurred and slandered him simply because of his ethnic background
(including entering the opposing team's locker room). But most of the
time he simply responded by hitting homers and driving in runs (183
in 1937). Later, when Greenberg played for the Pirates in 1947, the
same year that Jackie Robinson entered baseball, Greenberg had the
opportunity to provide some moral support for Robinson who later
called him a "hero." Told via many older interviews, as well as a few
recent ones, we hear the views of fans, mostly Jewish, about the
pride that Greenberg instilled. Those fans and friends include the
late actor Walter Matthau, Professor Alan Dershowitz, and current US
Senator from Michigan Carl Levin. This documentary is loaded with
excellent motion picture footage of Greenberg and his teammates,
including Charlie Gehringer, Rudy York, and Harry Eisenstat, another
Jew who was a pitcher for the Tigers. For a look at both a good piece
of baseball history and a commentary on American intolerance prior to
World War II, this approximately 90-minute documentary is highly
recommended. DVD ****
(10/20/01)
"Bridget
Jones's Diary"-I believe this film had a
chance to be a first-rate British comedy. The story, based loosely on
Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," is about a chubby but attractive
young British woman who fears being a spinster and seems to always be
falling all over herself, figuratively if not literally, and who
finds herself caught between two men who dislike each other
intensely, one a little slimey (Hugh Grant as the "Wickham"
character) and the other a little too stiff and straight (Colin Firth
playing, of course, the Mr. Darcy character). The film has an
excellent British cast, including Jim Broadbent ("Topsy-Turvy") and
Gemma Jones ("The Duchess of Duke Street") as Bridget's parents,
Shirley Henderson ("Topsy-Turvy") as her friend Jude, Hugh Grant as
her boss and lover Daniel Cleaver, and the inimitable and handsome
Colin Firth as Mark Darcy (yes, THE Mr. Darcy of the last incarnation
of "Pride and Prejudice" on "Masterpiece Theater") who finally is
recognized by Bridget as a proper romantic interest. But for some
reason the whole thing falls relatively flat and part of the blame
has to go to the star, Renee Zellweger, who, despite a halfway decent
British accent, is simply not British enough (she's from Texas) and
not funny enough in a British sort of way to make this movie into
something special. I believe a British actress (and I can think of a
perfect one) could have ignited this film. Instead, we get a
half-baked romantic comedy with embarrassing scenes in which Bridget
is either incapable of intelligent thought or is placed in
embarrassing situations such as wearing a Playboy bunny outfit while
everyone else is dressed appropriately for an afternoon outdoor
party. The ultimate blame has to go to Director Sharon Maguire for
casting Zellweger in a totally inappropriate part. In an interview on
the DVD, Renee Zellweger herself expresses surprise about the casting
choice and I believe the British public was also up-in-arms about it.
How right they were. DVD ***
(10/13/01)
"Blow"-I
had trepidations before watching this "true story" about the drug
business, but I was "blown" away by the extremely interesting tale of
George Jung (Johnny Depp), a self-starting drug dealer who goes from
a small-time purveyor of marijuana in the Manhattan Beach, CA, of the
1960s, to the top of the cocaine importing business in the 1970s,
down to a final blow as a long-term inmate in federal prison where
the real-life George apparently still remains until 2015. George is a
man bent on self-destruction. As excellently portrayed by Johnny
Depp, George is a miserable kid in Massachusetts with a miserable
mother (Rachel Griffiths) who gets as far away as possible from home,
only to marry the same kind of woman as his mother (his wife Mirtha
is played by Penelope Cruz), miserable women who both ultimately turn
him in to the police. Comparable to "Traffic" in its portrayal of the
drug business, as well as its tremendous growth in the US in the
1970s, "Blow" is one incredible portrayal of a true loser. George
can't do anything but sell drugs and he repeats mistake after
mistake, only to lose his real love, his daughter Kristina. Early in
the story, George meets a young woman in Manhattan Beach named
Barbara (Franka Potente-"Run Lola Run") and falls in love. There is a
scene in which George and Barbara are having dinner with George's
mother and father (Ray Liotta). I thought it quite amusing that these
two American women are portrayed by a German (Potente) and an
Australian (Griffiths-"Hilary and Jackie" and "Muriel's Wedding").
Casting is always fascinating. Others of note in the cast are Paul
Reubens (yes, "PeeWee Herman") as Derek Foreal, an early partner of
George's who finally screws him figuratively; and Jordi Molla as
Diego, another of George's partners and an obvious "fatal" mistake of
the type George can't ever seem to resist. DVD ****
(10/6/01)
"A
Knight's Tale"-This simplistic fluff is
what one might call a "cute" movie. Heath Ledger stars as William
Thatcher, a medieval peasant boy who dreams of changing his stars and
takes the opportunity to fraudulently turn himself into a knight so
that he can participate in jousting. There isn't much more to this
film, except a fairly unexciting romance with a young woman named
Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon) who always seems to be sitting in the
royal box but who never is clearly identified. Frankly, a young
blacksmith named Kate (Laura Fraser) seems more attractive and likely
for William, but nothing develops between them. Instead she simply
makes his armor, using a new technology of course, and joins his
merry band of supporters which includes, believe it or not, Geoffrey
Chaucer (humorously played by Paul Bettany) who is first seen walking
naked down a country road and then turns himself into William's PR
man. The creators of this film had the humorous idea that fans of
jousting tournaments in the middle ages would have had the same kind
of rooting habits as those of modern-day sports fans. And so, a crowd
at a joust early in the film is heard and seen to not only be
chanting to Queen's "We will, we will, rock you," but also to be
doing, believe it or not, the "wave." DVD **1/2
(10/6/01)
"The
Luzhin Defence"-John Turturro seems to
make a specialty of playing unusual characters, and his Alexandre
Luzhin certainly fits the bill. Based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov,
the film concerns Luzhin, a chess savant who seems incapable of
normal socialization or discourse. He arrives at a magnificent
Italian water resort in the 1930s to play in the chess world
championship, but is discombobulated, distracted and and somewhat
disheveled. Also present is Natalia Katkov (Emily Watson), a young
beautiful socialite, whose mother desires that she go after a young
handsome count, but Natalia is taken with Alexandre and has other
ideas. Played against flashbacks to Alexandre's childhood in which
his obviously unhappy parents help push him into an inward world of
chess, Luzhin is a brilliant chess player but seemingly totally lost
as an individual. Natalia hopes to do something about that. But
lurking in the background is the very sinister Valentinov (Stuart
Wilson), a man who took the young Alexandre to make him into chess
champion and then dropped him unmercifully when he decided that
Alexandre was not good enough. Valentinov is now back to secretly
champion the side of Alexandre's prime opponent, Turati (Fabio
Sartor). Valentinov is not satisfied with merely supporting Turati,
he must maliciously help him along. Unfortunately, Valentinov's
motivations are not explained. The cast is excellent. Turturro
totally becomes the confused Luzhin. Emily Watson is quite wonderful
in portraying Natalia's determination to ignore her mother's wishes
and to join with Alexandre. Geraldine James ("The Jewel In The
Crown") and Peter Blythe ("Rumpole of the Bailey") are notable as
Natalia's parents. DVD ***1/2
(9/29/01)
"Spy
Kids"-Every once in a while I like to
check out a "family" picture to see what is being made for kids. This
one turns out to be a rather silly film about a pair of retired spies
(Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) with two kids (Alexa Vega and
Daryl Sabara) who all find themselves back in the "spy" business
fighting off a band of evil characters seemingly headed by the
seemingly diabolical Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) who has a knack for
turning humans into cartoon-like creatures. Oh, there's the usual
about stealing an artificial brain and installing it (and its clones)
in an army of dangerous robotic children. There are the usual boat
chases, hand-to-hand combat, and special effects. I realize that this
is all intended as fun, but I still try to imagine someone with the
talents of the director Robert Rodriguez ("El Mariachi" and "From
Dusk To Dawn"), who is only 33, actually attempting to make something
intelligent for children rather than this commercial banality. Rather
than stars, this film deserves yawns. DVD **1/2
(9/28/01)
"Malena"-From
Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of "Cinema Paradiso," this
coming-of-age movie has some charms but ultimately seems flat
relative to the virtues of the director's earlier classic. Monica
Bellucci, a gorgeous Italian model, plays the delectable Malena
Scordia, the wife of a war hero who becomes an apparent war widow in
a seaside Sicilian town. Malena turns on every man and boy and turns
off every woman as she walks through town wiggling her bottom in
tight skirts looking as if she knows that every man is watching. And
she is talked about by virtually everyone and followed by local boys,
especially young Renato Amoroso (well done by Giuseppe Sulfaro) who
ultimately becomes obsessed and protective of this beautiful woman.
He dreams of growing up and having her. But the loss of her husband
and the refusal of the local women to allow her to be hired makes
Malena desperate for work and she falls into the oldest profession,
soon prostituting herself for the Nazi officers who have taken over
despite the empty promises of Il Duce to keep them out. Young Renato
grows in the role of Malena's self-appointed overseer and protector,
ultimately providing Malena's chance to restore her reputation after
being beaten and shorn by the local women following the liberation of
the town by the Allies. The film is beautifully photographed in a
lovely Italian setting, but unsuccessfully tries to change from a
sexually prurient look at Malena and the local males' obsession with
her, into a more serious consideration of Malena's growing
misfortunes. Worth a look, but don't expect "Cinema Paradiso." DVD
***1/2
(9/22/01)
"The
Tailor of Panama"-I once tried to read
this book (by John Le Carre) and never finished it. I did finish the
movie and I now know why I didn't finish the book. Following the
Panama Canal's transfer from the US to Panama, the British send into
Panama a completely corrupt agent named Andy Osmond (Pierce
Brosnan-totally miscast) who immediately plots to corrupt someone
else for his advantage. That poor soul is Harry Pendel (Geoffrey
Rush), a British tailor who serves the wealthy and less-wealthy
alike, is happily married (Jamie Leigh Curtis) with two children, and
who has the weakness of not having been completely honest about his
past in England. Osmond proceeds to convince Pendel to provide him
with information or misinformation (doesn't seem to matter to Osmond)
that he can use to create interest in an invasion of Panama, and poor
Harry's life (and those of some of his friends go downhill from
there). The plot is contrived and the ending weak and banal. So weak
and banal, in fact, that the DVD presents a somewhat different and
even weaker alternative ending. Brosnan is wrong for this part
because he's too well known in hero parts (James Bond!). The
producers should have found an actor less good-looking and capable of
being completely sleazy. Geoffrey Rush is, as always, excellent as
Harry Pendel. Jamie Leigh Curtis looks lost. Here was a chance for
some interesting and innovative casting. Catherine McCormack gets to
play a well-dressed embassy official who spends more time in bed with
Osmond than in the embassy doing her job. Brendan Gleeson ("The
General") is noteworthy as Mickie Abraxas, a former idealist turned
wino. Also of note is Harold Pinter as the ghostly "Uncle Benny." DVD
**1/2
(9/15/01)
"3000
Miles To Graceland"-Whew, watching this
piece of trash is like stepping into a sewer. Kevin Costner (he is
awful!) and Kurt Russell constitute the heart of a gang of Elvis
lookalikes who rob a Las Vegas casino of millions of dollars during
Elvis week. And they do it with the help of, among others, Christian
Slater, David Arquette and Howie Long. Oh, in the background, while
the robbery is going on there is the expected floor show with an
Elvis impersonator and a bevy of beautiful showgirls. But this isn't
funny. No, not in the least. Because the robbers, in a vicious
display of semi-automatic rifles, mow down dozens of guards, police
and bystanders. And that's just the start of the film. We are then, I
gather, supposed to feel something for the murderous thieves who go
off and get involved in the usual cliched shenanigans of films of
this genre. Who's got the money? Who's doublecrossing whom? Who's
going to die next? And to top it off, there's a rotten little kid in
the middle of this whose mother, played by Courtney Cox, is chasing
after Russell's character despite knowing that he is responsible for
the deaths of many people. And the violence doesn't end with the
robbery. No, it goes on and on and on. Virtually everyone Kevin
Costner's psychotic character meets comes to a violent end. And at
the end, would you believe the filmmakers have one of the thieves and
his girlfriend (I think you can guess who) sitting on a big yacht on
a lovely body of water enjoying the scenery and the money! Yucch!
Excuse me. Are they kidding? This film gets one star for production
values, and that's it. DVD *
(9/8/01)
"The
Body"-What would happen to the Catholic
Church if the remains of Jesus Christ were discovered in Jerusalem?
Well, that's the premise of this mildly entertaining film. Olivia
Williams ("Rushmore") is Sharon Goldban, an Israeli archaeologist
with a British accent, who discovers a body in a dig in the middle of
Jerusalem and finds that all of the indications point to it being the
body of Jesus. The Vatican sends in Father Matt Gutierrez (Antonio
Banderas) to investigate and attempt to cover-up should it be the
real Jesus, but Father Gutierrez is not about to be manipulated, even
by his own church, and his faith is truly tested. The film has some
silly holes. For example, Sharon Goldban is seen working the dig
virtually alone, but the dig is clearly so large that it had to have
required dozens of other workers. Considering the importance of the
dig, there is virtually no security and even a young boy is able to
enter and steal things. Of course, the site is of major political
importance to virtually everyone, including the Palestinians who are
threatened by this potential find and its likely distraction of
attention away from their interests. And this results in the usual
intrigue and violence. The premise is interesting and the film is
worth watching, especially for its scenery. However, the script is
ultimately lacking dramatic impact. There is a hint of attraction
between the beautiful archaelogist, a young widow, and the handsome
priest, but certainly this was not a theme that could be followed too
successfully. Of note in the cast is Derek Jacobi as Father Lavelle,
a priest/archaeologist, whose faith is fatally destroyed by the find
in the dig, and John Wood as Cardinal Pesci, who is more interested
in protecting the Church than in finding the truth. DVD ***
(9/7/01)
"Memento"-If
you like doing or creating puzzles, this should be the movie for you.
If you don't like them, well, this should still be the movie for you.
The ultimate film noir, made in sun-laden and typically almost barren
southern California, "Memento" is without a doubt one of the most
original films I've ever seen. The basic premise is that Leonard
Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance claims processor, has lost
his wife and his short-term memory to a rapist-murderer and is bent
on finding and killing his wife's killer. In the process, he deals
regularly with two people who may or may not be friend or foe, Teddy
(Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), and manages to tell
everyone about a man named Sammy Jankis, a man whose wife had filed
an insurance claim for a similar condition. Leonard's "condition,"
which causes him to lose all memory of events, conversations, and
people within moments, requires him to take photos, make cryptic
notes, and place tattoos on his body in order to remind himself of
what is going on around him and provide him with the "facts." But
this film does not tell its story in the usual manner. The opening
scene gives a hint of what is to come. Shelby is seen killing someone
but the entire scene is time-backwards from end to beginning, and so
is the film. Each scene (in color) is followed by a scene of the
events that came immediately before it, beginning with the end of the
previous scene, and these scenes are intermingled with scenes in
black and white that explain much (it's not initially clear just when
the black and white scenes are taking place). In this way, the story
is told from end to beginning and it is painfully apparent within a
short time that the viewer is being forced to follow the story much
as Leonard is experiencing it, by having no memory of what came
before. All of the actors are outstanding and perfect in their parts.
Pearce ("L.A. Confidential") once again surprises in a first-rate
noir role. Carrie-Anne Moss ("Chocolat" and "The Matrix") is showing
her talents outside of sci-fi and is starting to have a very
promising career. And Joe Pantoliano ("The Sopranos") is wonderfully
jolly as the mysterious Teddy. Just who and what is he?
My friend and fellow reviewer on this
website, Dave F., advised me that one must see this film twice to
understand it. I initially scoffed at this notion. Why would I not
understand the film the first time? But Dave was absolutely correct.
I watched it again the afternoon after first seeing it and was
astounded to see holes filled and little hints that I hadn't noticed
the first time, including one very revealing subliminal scene.
"Memento" is directed by Christopher Nolan from a short story by his
brother. The DVD contains a revealing interview by the NY Times'
movie critic Elvis Mitchell of Nolan. This is one for the ages. See
it twice! DVD ****1/2
(9/3/01-9/4/01)
"Enemy
At The Gates"-World War II films were
once a dime a dozen, but then faded away. In recent years, however,
the WWII flick has returned with a vengeance with such films as
"Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan," and this one from Director
Jean-Jacques Annaud ("Seven Years in Tibet"). Director Annaud reports
that he got the idea for this film from a short article he read about
a Russian war hero at the siege at Stalingrad, a sharpshooter named
Vassili Zaitsev. Jude Law portrays Vassili as a country boy who knows
how to shoot but who almost accidentally finds himself turned into a
war-hero by Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), a PR officer of the Red Army.
Vassili is so good that he is charged with mowing down the German
army officers who wander around the battle scene oblivious to the
danger that lurks. But the German army realizes that the Russians are
inspired by this hero and send in an ace sniper of their own, a
brilliant marksman named Major Konig (Ed Harris) to catch and destroy
the Russian hero. There is enough graphic violence in this film to
make it very clear that Stalingrad was one of the worst battles in
human history, but the story centers around the standoff between
Vassili and Konig. Ed Harris is wonderfully cool as Konig, and Law is
at his best as the young, nervous, but skilled Russian sniper. There
couldn't be such a story, of course, without a little love interest
and that's provided by Rachel Weisz as Tania, a smart young woman
whose parents have been taken away and killed by the Nazis and who as
a result, despite her language talents, wants to fight as a soldier.
Despite some stilted dialogue and the corniness of a fairly muted
love triangle (with Danilov, Vassili, and Tania), "Enemy At The
Gates" is rather good at portraying the battle between Russians and
Germans at Stalingrad and the individual battle between Vassili and
Konig. Others of note in the cast are Bob Hoskins as Nikita
Khruschev, Stalin's right-hand man at Stalingrad, and Ron Perlman as
Koulikov, brought in to advise Vassili but who suffers the ultimate
fate by not truly understanding how dangerous a character Konig
really is. DVD ***1/2
(9/1/01)
"The
Dish"-Back in July 1969, we watched our
TVs with amazement as Neil Armstrong took that "one small step for
man" on the moon. A breathtaking experience it truly was, but most of
us who saw those pictures had no idea that they came through loud and
pretty clear thanks to a satellite dish located in a sheep meadow in
Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. "The Dish" is a sweet, funny, and
inspiring film based on that true story. It is about the crew of the
Parkes satellite dish and the people of Parkes. Sam Neill is Cliff
Burton, head of the station, who, along with Mitch (Kevin
Harrington), the incredibly shy Glenn (Tom Long), and the American Al
(Patrick Warburton), take the dish through two crises, one caused by
electricity and the other by wind, to guarantee that the world got to
see Armstrong on the moon. The humor is subtle and Australian, and
two of the best performances in the film are those of Roy Billing
(Mayor Bob Mcintyre) and Genevieve Mooy as his wife, May. These two
pro charmers literally steal the film. It's not a great drama, but
certainly there is enough to tell a darn good story about a small
town on the other side of the planet which played a pretty
significant role in making sure that we all got to see a very
important moment in human history. DVD ***1/2
(8/31/01)
"In
The Mood For Love"-Starting with an
interesting and unique premise, this film finds Mr. Chow (Tony Leung)
and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) renting next-door apartments in 1962
Hong Kong and moving in simultaneously. Mr. Chow's wife and Mrs.
Chan's husband are usually away and unseen. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan
are pleasantly courteous to each other until they realize that their
spouses are having an affair. It becomes painfully obvious that the
two are attracted to each other, but are too caught up in wondering
how their spouses started their affair and in their need for
propriety. There is certainly tension in wondering whether Mr. Chow
and Mrs. Chan will ever become romantically involved, but this film
unfortunately drops the ball. About three quarters of the way
through, the story simply grinds to a halt. A disappointing ending to
a very promising start. Video ***
(8/18/01)
"The
Mexican"-Jerry (Brad Pitt) and Samantha
(Julia Roberts) have a romantic fight because Jerry has been ordered
by his gangster bosses to Mexico to find and bring back a famous
pistol, and he has to do it because he's messed up other assignments
and his life is at stake. Jerry goes off to Mexico to find the gun
and Samantha heads for Las Vegas to get away. Jerry rents a beat-up
pickup truck and finds himself in very unpleasant-looking Mexican
circumstances, while Samantha finds herself in the middle of a
gunfight between two thugs, with Leroy (James Gandolfini) the
apparent winner. Leroy is, of course, trying to get Jerry to turn the
valuable pistol over to him. This film, with an absolutely wretched
script and an obsession with bathroom scenes, alternates between
Jerry's silly adventures in Mexico and Samantha and Leroy's bizarre
travels in America. Jerry can't hold on to anything and can't stay
out of trouble. And Leroy turns out to be a gay killer with a heart.
Give me a break!! James Gandolfini's performance stands out only in
contrast to his well-known "Tony Soprano" role, but Brad Pitt and
Julia Roberts are hopeless in this pitiable film. It tries
desperately to be funny and scary and is neither. And an attempt at a
Rashomon-like portrayal of the history of the gun is embarrassing. I
recommend staying away from this tripe at all costs. DVD *1/2
(8/17/01)
"Chocolat"-The
luminous Juliet Binoche is Vianne, a woman who arrives in a small and
extremely provincial French town, accompanied by her young daughter,
both dressed in red cloaks. While the town is under the almost total
control of the ultra-religious, self-righteous Comte de Reynaud
(Alfred Molina), the town mayor, and Lent has arrived, Vianne is
intent upon opening a chocolaterie, a store filled with what appear
to be magical Mayan chocolates. Although she and her daughter arrive
carrying relatively small suitcases, Vianne somehow produces all the
accoutrements for a beautiful business filled with Mayan sculptures
and images. In fact, the magical nature of this woman appears to be a
primary element of the early portions of the film, but by the second
half Vianne seems to have lost whatever "powers" she had and has
become human, brought down by the insufferable Comte and the
prejudices that plague the town. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom ("The
Cider House Rules"), "Chocolat" questions the Church and the Comte de
Reynauds of the world for imposing their limited view of the joy of
life on others who may not agree. The local priest (Hugh O'Conor) is
portrayed as a simpering tool of the Comte. Others, such as Caroline
Clairmont (Carrie-Anne Moss, doing very well for once in a non sci-fi
role), follow the Comte out of fear and thus reduce their chances to
enjoy the life that is around them. But not surprisingly there are
plenty of others who will ultimately fight the prejudices and inspire
a rejuvenation of this town. They are led by Armande (Judi Dench),
Vianne's wonderfully independent landlady and Caroline's mother;
Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin--who is the wife of director Hallstrom)
who, in rebelling against her abusive husband Serge (Peter Stormare),
also rebels against the Comte's abusive town leadership; and Johnny
Depp as Roux, a handsome river gypsy, who inspires the Comte's
ultimate downfall while falling for the beautiful Vianne. Also of
note is Victoire Thivisol ("Ponette") as Anouk, Vianne's young
daughter. The ending of this film is somewhat predictable but the
trip getting there is delightful. DVD ****
(8/10/01)
"Before
Night Falls"-In contrast to "Pollock,"
this real-life story of another artist (this time Cuban writer/poet
Reinaldo Arenas) creates genuine drama around the miserable
circumstances of the takeover of his country by the Castro regime.
Javier Bardem is excellent as Arenas, a gay writer living under a
regime which has ultimate distrust of free expression and hatred of
things gay. Arenas finds himself becoming an outcast and ultimately
spends a nightmarish prison sentence in El Morro, the Cuban prison at
the entrance of Havana harbor. Finally able to leave Cuba in 1980 via
Mariel, as a result of the Cuban government's attempt to rid itself
of "undesirables," Arenas moves to New York City where he is shown
making interesting observations about the differences between the
Communist and Capitalist systems during an interview. Unfortunately,
soon thereafter he develops AIDS.
With mostly Spanish-speaking actors,
including Bardem, who is a native of Spain, it was surprising that
the director, Julian Schnabel, chose to have most of the dialogue in
English. The accents make it difficult to understand everything that
is being said. And what an irony that Arenas is shown speaking
English in Cuba and Spanish in NY. Yes, that makes a lot of sense.
There are many fine performances with one cameo by Sean Penn, and a
dual appearance by Johnny Depp as, first, a prison queen who can
smuggle materials out of prison in his body cavities, and then as
Lieutenant Victor who makes Arenas' departure from prison very
uncomfortable. Olivier Martinez is also touching as Arenas' last
friend in New York City. Schnabel, a New York artist turned director,
also directed "Basquiat," that tale of another struggling artist who
ultimately succumbs to tragedy. DVD ***1/2
(8/4/01)
"Pollock"-What's
your image of a great painter? In my imagination, great painters are
also intellects who can discuss the world of arts and letters. But if
the image of Jackson Pollock, one of the great painters of the 20th
Century, as portrayed in this film is accurate, then there is the
likelihood that there are artists who express themselves almost
totally by their work. Ed Harris, who also directed this film, is
very powerful as an extremely disturbed, alcoholic, Pollock whose
primary source of communication is his work as well as occasional
moments of rage. The opening scene of the film is certainly a
portent, showing Pollock during the height of his success
autographing a copy of the Life Magazine article that practically
guaranteed his success in the commercial art world. Pollock is shown
methodically signing and then becoming expressionless or at the very
most pained by his experience. And this is one of the unfortunate
flaws of the film because rather than tell a real dramatic story, it
seems more a retelling of various distressing episodes in Pollock's
rather short life, climaxing in the alcoholic car crash that ended it
all in the Hamptons on Long Island in 1956. Marcia Gay Harden is
excellent as Lee Krasner, the intellectual New Yorker who worships
Pollock's talent and marries him, only to be thrown over for a
younger and more beautiful woman (Jennifer Connelly) when Pollock is
at his artistic prime. I read that Harden worked long and hard to
develop her New York accent for this film. In the early scenes, the
accent was far from accurate, but Harden adjusted well and the
weakness in the accent disappears. Others in this film of note are
Jeffrey Tambor as the critic Clement Greenberg who did not fear
Pollock's rath; Bud Cort as Howard Putzel who gave Pollock an early
boost in the art world; and Amy Madigan (Harris' real-life wife) as
Peggy Guggenheim, the wealthy artworld sponsor who also didn't
hesitate to become physically involved with the object of her
support. Val Kilmer has a short role as the artist Willem DeKooning,
but Kilmer makes him look more goofy than serious. While the story of
Jackson Pollock is worth knowing, simply because of Pollock's
importance in the world of the arts, I can't strongly recommend this
film because of its lack of a strong coherent dramatic script. DVD
***1/2
(7/27/01)
"The
Gift"-Directed by Sam Raimi, a man whose
career is filled with supernatural stories, comic book type
characters (he's currently doing "Spiderman") and films about "evil,"
"darkness" and "the dead," has gone a little further off the deep end
with this interesting but ultimately disappointing film (based on a
script written in part by Billy Bob Thornton) about a psychic in a
southern American location (it was filmed in Georgia) who gets in the
middle of an awful lot of strange events and strange people.
Effectively played as an otherwise normal and intelligent woman by
Cate Blanchett, the psychic, Annie Wilson, has lost her husband to a
horrible work accident and is left with three boys who miss their
father, is being threatened by Donnie Barksdale, the violent husband
(Keanu Reeves) of one of her customers (Hilary Swank), is trying to
help a seriously disturbed automotive mechanic (intensely portrayed
by Giovanni Ribisi) who has suicidal and murderous tendencies, and
then finds herself in the middle of a grisly murder discovered as the
result of her psychic abilities. A normal person would have cracked
up, but Annie Wilson remains strong and intent, despite dreams of
floating bodies, murderous attempts on her life, dripping blood, and
dead people in her bathtub. Reeves is particularly effective, for
once, as a violent redneck who thinks Annie is a witch. Greg Kinnear
does a pleasant job as Wayne Collins, an advisor at the school of
Annie's son, whose fiance, Jessica King (Katie Holmes), meets a
distinctly unpleasant end. If you like supernatural films, it's not
too bad, but otherwise it's silly stuff and over-the-top. DVD ***
(7/21/01)
"The
Pledge"-Sean Penn gets off to a good
start as a director in the early portions of this film about a
just-retired policeman who is obsessed with finding the killer of a
little girl. Jack Nicholson is initially effective as Detective Jerry
Black, a Nevada detective who, on his last case, has made a promise
to the parents that he will find the killer and he is determined to
carry out that pledge even after the apparent killer has been caught
and commits suicide. Early on the film is very well paced and acted,
but the story ultimately goes sour for a variety of reasons. The film
contains some effective brief appearances by such as Benicio Del Toro
(as a disturbed Indian), Aaron Eckhart (as the cop who has taken over
Detective Black's assignments and not surprisingly is not as
instinctive and adept as Black), Helen Mirren (as a doctor who is
consulted by the stranger and stranger Nicholson character), and
Robin Wright Penn (as the mother of a little girl who befriends Black
and unknowingly endangers her child). The script is based on a book
by Friedrich Dürenmatt, but the ending, intended to be ironic,
is simply annoying and unsatisfactory. DVD ***
(7/20/01)
"Thirteen
Days"-This is a thriller in the true
sense of the term as the events depicted seem fairly close to the
reality of the Cuban Missile crisis that almost led to a nuclear war
in October 1962. I was 17 at the time and was just starting my second
year of college. I distinctly remember baseball events of that
October, including the Giants beating the Dodgers in a playoff, the
launch of one of the original seven astronauts from Cape Canaveral
just as the Giants' dastardly victory was being completed, and of my
early sophomore year of college, and yet strangely I have only a
limited memory of these frightening events. I can only imagine that
it was the result of general public denial of the real danger. Kevin
Costner stars as Kenny O'Donnell, special assistant to JFK, with one
of the worst fake Boston accents I have ever heard. Costner amazes in
his mediocre acting talents. But that bad acting can be ignored in
the face of the tensions that arise when the Kennedy White House
learns of the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Bruce
Greenwood and Steven Culp are quite effective as JFK and RFK (neither
with quite the accent that the real brothers had, in strange contrast
to the absurd accent presented by Costner) as they battled the forces
of the military mind. This film makes the Kennedys look like saints
dedicated to saving mankind while their advisors, McGeorge Bundy
(Frank Wood), Dean Acheson (Len Cariou), Gen. Maxwell Taylor (Bill
Smitrovich), and Gen. Curtis LeMay (a wonderful performance by Kevin
Conway), look like militaristic maniacs dedicated to getting us into
a war regardless of the possible dire consquences to mankind. The
drama centers around Costner (who it should be noted is one of the
producers) and his family. One would have no idea that JFK had a
family, although Jackie makes a brief insignificant appearance at the
beginning of the film and then disappears as if non-existent. Bobby
Kennedy's large family is nowhere to be seen. One clever sequence has
a real "Kennedy" in the form of Christopher Lawford (looking a lot
like his father), son of Pat Kennedy Lawford, as Commander William
Ecker, a reconnaisance pilot who follows O'Donnell's instructions and
claims not to have been shot at by the Soviets. In contrast to the
many fictional films about the dangers of nuclear war, this one is
really frightening, especially for someone such as I who lived
through it. Recommended for anyone who thinks that the world can
solve its problems militarily. DVD ***1/2
(7/14/01)
"Unbreakable"-I'll
say one thing for this film: it is certainly an original idea. Bruce
Willis is David Dunn, a man who survives a horrible train accident
without a scratch and gradually begins to realize that there is
something unique about the fact that he is virtually never ill or
injured. On the other hand, he is faced with Elijah Price (Samuel L.
Jackson) who suffers from a bone disorder that renders his bones
extremely brittle and often broken. Price, an expert on comic-book
art, eggs Dunn on to the idea that there is something very special
about himself. The movie then plods slowly but surely towards the
ultimate and only slightly surprising conclusion. In the meantime,
Dunn is faced with marital problems (his semi-estranged wife is
played by Robin Wright Penn) and a young son who believes a little
too vehemently that his father is special. The director, M. Night
Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense") has established his interest in stories
dealing with the occult and extra-human senses. He obviously has some
talent. It's a shame that he can't direct his talents towards more
interesting and serious subjects. DVD ***
(7/13/01)
"Cast
Away"-Imagine an extended episode of the
TV series "Survivor" in which there is no one to vote off the island
and, in fact, little or no way to get off the island. Well, that
about sums up this film which is also the most extensive
product-placement motion picture ever seen. Tom Hanks is Chuck
Noland, an executive for Federal Express, who finds himself on an
uninhabited Pacific island after surviving the crash of one of his
company's planes. He has left behind his girlfriend Kelly (Helen
Hunt), and manages to survive a very extended stay on this island
without going mad, partly due to a photo he has of Kelly in a
pocket-watch and partly by inventing a "friend" in the form of a
volleyball named Wilson. The heart of the film is, not surprisingly,
Hanks' stay on the island from washing up on the shore after the
crash to finally making an effort to leave via a raft he has built.
The scenery is lovely, although some of the features on the DVD
reveal that even many of those scenes were not real and were in fact
digitally recreated by computer and in the studio. Some of the film
was shot in Fiji, so obviously some of the scenery is real, but the
film is fairly depressing as one is forced to imagine what it would
be like to be in the situation of Hanks' character. Years ago,
filmmakers would invent fictional products for their films. But in
today's highly commercialized world, the filmmakers had no hesitation
to use a real company and to present images of that company
throughout the film. Hanks flies on FedEx planes, instructs FedEx
employees in Moscow (at the beginning of the film), and ultimately
finds seemingly dozens of FedEx packages on the beach after the
crash. I'm not quite sure why Federal Express wanted to be associated
with such a depressing situation, but so it is. Helen Hunt, with a
relatively small role, is miscast as usual. She's not my idea of a
love interest left behind. I could think of a lot more appealing
actresses for that role. DVD ***
(6/30/01)
"You
Can Count On Me"-From the deft and witty
script by Kenneth Lonergan (also director and actor) to the
mesmerizing performances of Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo as a
brother and sister who were orphaned during childhood, this is one of
the best films I've seen in a long time. And there's a lot going on
despite the seemingly simple tale. Samantha (Sammy) Prescott (Laura
Linney) is a young single-mother living in a town in the Catskills in
upstate New York, trying to balance the needs of her young son Rudy
(Rory Culkin) with the uptight and irritating demands of her new boss
Brian (Matthew Broderick) at the local bank at which she works.
Suddenly, she is faced with the return of her brother Terry (Mark
Ruffalo), a young drifter whose life has been rather aimless since
the tragic deaths of their parents in a car accident. Terry takes a
liking to his 8-year old nephew Rudy but being somewhat emotionally
retarded, takes him into inappropriate situations, including a visit
to the boy's rather hostile father. This wonderfully photographed
film (made near Phoenicia, NY, in the upper Catskills) deals with a
whole range of issues, including aimlessness, loneliness, parenting,
marital morality, and sibling love/rivalry and the script is loaded
with humor to balance the pathos. Laura Linney is beautiful and
incredibly talented and certainly deserved the Oscar nomination she
received. Mark Ruffalo is a delightful surprise. Initially, his
character seems down and depressing, but he displays a wonderful
virtuosity that allows Terry to bloom. Kenneth Lonergan has a nice
role as a laid-back priest providing consolation to Sammy as she
deals with her brother. This is one that should not be missed. DVD
****
(6/29/01)
"Proof
of Life"-Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe
chose to have a very public affair during the making of this film and
it obviously attracted too much attention away from the production.
As I recall, this film got little fanfare when in the theaters. And
so, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that it is a
first-rate adventure film about the "K & R" (that's "kidnap and
ransom") business by director Taylor Hackford ("An Officer and a
Gentleman"). Although filmed primarily in Ecuador, the location is a
fictional South American country located in the Andes. David Morse is
Peter Bowman, an engineer who is employed by an oil company to build
a dam that will help it win support for the oil pipeline it wishes to
build. Bowman is kidnapped for ransom by mountain rebels just as the
oil company is going out of business, leaving no kidnap insurance.
Russell Crowe is Terry Thorne, a "K and R" specialist who is brought
in initially under the mistaken belief that the oil company has
insurance, but one look at Mrs. Bowman (Meg Ryan) is sufficient to
make Thorne return from England to help out on his own. With the aid
of Pamela Reed as Bowman's sister, and David Caruso as Dino, another
"K and R" specialist, Thorne proceeds professionally to attempt to
extricate Bowman from the Andes mountains where he is being kept
rather crudely by the terrorists. Crowe and Ryan work well together,
creating an emotional tension that ironically does not go anywhere
near what was apparently going on off the set. Ryan is particularly
appealing as the distressed wife, Alice, who can't help but be
fascinated by this courageous man who desires to free her husband.
The film is extremely well paced and suspenseful as well as
beautifully photographed in the Andes. The acting is crisp and
professional; and the climax is a rather thrilling military-style
operation into the mountains. I enjoyed this film thoroughly. DVD
***1/2
(6/23/01)
"State
and Main"-An old familiar movie cliche
with a twist: a movie crew suddenly arrives in a small New England
town, virtually takes over, and upsets the apple cart. But the twist
is that the writer and director of this film is David Mamet who
always adds an intelligent perspective, this time about truth and
purity, and a sharp script of special Mamet-dialogue. William H. Macy
is Walt Price, the director of the film within the film, "The Old
Mill." Unfortunately, the town the movie people have chosen for the
film no longer has an "old mill," as it burned down in 1960, and the
movie personnel go on a search for an alternative to save the big
"old mill" scene. Philip Seymour Hoffman, wonderful as usual, is
Joseph Turner White, the screenwriter of "The Old Mill" who seems
lost without his missing typewriter until he meets Ann Black (Rebecca
Pidgeon) who almost immediately realizes that she no longer wishes to
be engaged to the stuffy and righteous town lawyer/politico Doug
McKenzie (Clark Gregg) because of the allure of the shy Mr. White.
Mr. McKenzie sees opportunity for local greed in the filming of "The
Old Mill" in this small Vermont town. The stars of "The Old Mill" are
Alec Baldwin as Bob Barrenger, who favors young girls, and Sarah
Jessica Parker as Claire Wellesley, who only needs a few hundred
thousand dollars more than the 3 million she is already being paid to
do a topless scene. Barrenger almost undoes the making of the film by
having an auto accident with the underaged Carla Taylor (Julia
Stiles) as a passenger, thus giving McKenzie the opportunity to
threaten Barrenger and the film's production. White is the unwitting
witness to the accident who has to decide whether he must tell the
truth and possibly ruin his film career. This film is witty and
fast-moving. The dialogue short and sharp as usual in a Mamet film.
Others of note are Charles Durning as the mayor and Patti Lupone as
his demanding wife; David Paymer as the cynical producer; and Ricky
Jay as Carla's father who seems unaware that his daughter is not as
innocent as she seems. DVD ***1/2
(6/22/01)
"Shadow
of the Vampire"-Was F.W. Murnau's 1921
German film "Nosferatu" about the real thing? Was Max Schreck, who
played Count Orlock in that film, a real vampire? Willem Dafoe is
brilliant as well as brilliantly made-up to play Schreck as a
mysterious and frightening character able to pull a bat out of the
air and suck its blood. John Malkovich does one of his better jobs as
Murnau, the obsessed and drugged director who has found Schreck to
play his vampire, and who cares little about what havoc he wreaks on
the set of the film, so long as he can finish his production. In one
scene Murnau is lying in bed after injecting himself with laudanum.
On the walls of the room are various strange designs, one of which is
clearly a swastika. It could only have been placed there as symbolic
of the mental state of this obsessed and evil character. "Shadow of
the Vampire" is also the story of the making of an early motion
picture, with the camera operator turning a crank on the camera while
the action is in motion. It all seems a little bit too easy,
especially considering the poor lighting of several scenes, but
ultimately this is secondary to the overall theme. This film is best
taken with a good bit of humor. Dafoe's transformation into Schreck
is astounding and is worth the price of the picture. DVD ***1/2
(6/16/01)
"O
Brother, Where Art Thou?"-One of the
first things that is noticeable about this very funny film is the
photography by Roger Deakins and digital image experts that makes
Mississippi in the 1930's look dry and dusty and a little ancient.
But ultimately the script and the music take the cake. George
Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson are wonderful,
individually and collectively, as Ulysses Everett McGill, Pete, and
Delmar, three fugitives from a chain gang who are seemingly headed
for McGill's home to seek buried treasure. But McGill is obsessed
with hair pomade and this appears to be his likely downfall as the
police have dogs expert in pomade sniffing. Very loosely based on
Homer's Odyssey, the three meet up with a multitude of unusual
characters, including a blind railway-handcar prophet, three Sirens,
and Cyclops in the form of Big Dan Teague (John Goodman), a vicious
racist thief. Written and directed by the brilliant and original Coen
Brothers (Ethan and Joel), I found this humorous commentary on the
superstitious Southern culture, combined with delightful basic
American bluegrass music as both background and essential plot
element, to be a very pleasant and surprising delight. Others of note
in the cast are Holly Hunter as Ulysses' wife Penny (Penelope, get
it?); Michael Badalucco as an hysterical (in more ways than one)
George "Babyface" Nelson; Chris Thomas King as Tommy Johnson (and
looking a lot like Robert Johnson); and Charles Durning as a
white-haired oafish Mississippi governor. The DVD contains an
excellent short feature with Roger Deakins about the digital imaging
and the likely digital future of motion picture photography. Highly
recommended. DVD ****
(6/15/01)
"Yi
Yi (A One and A Two)"-If you'll look
above, you'll see that Stephen Holden and A.O. Scott of the New York
Times rated this Taiwanese film as one of the best of the year 2000,
and they were right. My only criticism of this film is that it is a
bit long, running about 2 hours and 45 minutes. It is the tale of a
family in Taipei going through some woes and reevaluations. The
father of the family, N.J. Jian (Nianzhen Wu), is a little morose.
He's having business problems and is annoyed with his business
partners who aren't listening to his advice on the hiring of a
computer software expert from Japan (Issey Ogata); his brother-in-law
A-Di (Hsi-Sheng Chen) owes him money and is having problems deciding
between his pregnant wife and his old girlfriend; his wife Min-Min
(Elaine Jin) is having a crisis because her mother (who lives with
the Jians) has just gone into a coma and Min-Min can't decide what
her own life is about; his daughter Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), a high
school student, is learning about the dangers of friendship,
especially with boys; and his 8-year old son Yang-Yang (Jonathan
Chang) is also rather morose, in part due to his father's mood and in
part due to his mistreatment at the hands of older girls and his
nasty schoolteacher. But what really throws N.J. for a loop is his
chance meeting with his love of 30 years earlier, Sherry (Su-Yun Ko),
at a hotel during A-Di's wedding early in the film. N.J. discovers
that Sherry is living in America and married to an American but that
she is still smarting from having been abandoned by N.J. so many
years earlier.
This is what quality cinema is about: human
needs, desires, foibles, and experiences. The acting is perfect. The
characters are wonderfully modern and the film gives a truly
realistic feeling of daily life in Taipei. The script, written by
Director Edward Yang, is masterful as is the directing. Yang cleverly
employs the use of distant shots, often having the characters' voices
heard over scenes of scenery or sets, and yet also allowing the
viewer the intimacy of the people and the family situation. Needless
to say, this film is highly recommended, but only to those who value
a truly human film which does not need the car crashes, violence,
sex, and special effects which Hollywood so often relies on. DVD ****
(6/9/01)
"Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon"-I have no doubt
that this rather beautiful and intriguing film is more exciting and
spectacular on a regular movie theater screen than it is on a TV
screen, but it still has an impact on a TV screen of sufficient size.
Beautifully filmed by cinematographer Peter Pau and directed and
produced by Ang Lee ("The Ice Storm," "Eat Drink Man Woman," and
"Sense and Sensibility"), "Crouching Tiger" tells the story of
Chinese warrior Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) and his fellow warrior and
love, Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh). The story, which is certainly not the
strongest feature of the film, concerns the theft of Li Mu Bai's
special sword, which he has given to Sir Te as a gift, by the
renegade daughter of Governor Yu. This young lady, Jen (Zhang Ziyi),
has secretly been learning the martial arts from her servant, an
outlaw named Jade Fox, and has also learned and adopted her
hostilities. What follows is not especially deep, but what is
memorable about this film are the incredible balletic martial arts
scenes in which the participants literally fly at, around, and over
each other, leaping over buildings, walking on walls, and eventually,
standing on branches of bamboo trees while engaging in some of the
most spectacular kung fu battles ever seen. Director Ang Lee has also
provided another special touch in the form of a wonderful score,
highlighted by the cello music of Yo Yo Ma. As for the cast, I was
particularly taken with the performance of Michelle Yeoh ("Tomorrow
Never Dies"), who is lovely and soft-spoken in this film (when not
engaging in kung fu battles), but who comes across so incredibly
differently in an interview feature on the DVD. Zhang Ziyi is also
spectacularly energetic as the cute young and rather hostile Jen who
ultimately is tamed by Lo (Chen Chang), a bandit she meets in the
desert, and by Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien. If for no other reason, this
film should be seen for its beauty and its unique special effects,
obviously from the imagination of Ang Lee. I also highly recommend,
if being viewed on DVD, that the language be set to Mandarin with
English subtitles in order to capture the real flavor of the sound of
the beautiful Chinese language. DVD ****
(6/6/01)
"The
House of Mirth"-Based on the novel by
Edith Wharton, this film tells the sad tale of Lily Bart (Gillian
Anderson), a New York City socialite shortly after the
turn-of-the-century. Lily is beautiful and needs a husband but is
tragically in love with Lawrence Selden (Eric Stoltz), a man who
doesn't meet her financial needs. Hoping to find a husband with
money, Lily proceeds to do almost everything wrong in her life, from
creating large gambling debts to refusing to take help from caring
friends. Worse, Lily uses little in the way of common sense and finds
herself terribly mistreated by her Socialite "friends," becoming a
debtor as well as an outcast in Society. Sumptuously filmed (in
Glasgow, Scotland, primarily), "The House of Mirth" certainly has its
flaws, especially in the script where the motivations of characters
are not always clear. But the acting is outstanding, starting with
the rather surprising Gillian Anderson who here goes far beyond her
expressionless performances in TV's "The X Files." The supporting
cast includes excellent performances by Laura Linney (in a nasty role
for a change), Dan Aykroyd (as a man who takes advantage of Lily
financially and hopes for other advantages), Elizabeth McGovern as a
good friend and advisor, Terry Kinney and Anthony LaPaglia. Although
at the outset it appeared to be a Jane Austen-type tale set in
America, by the end it was clearly Edith Wharton. DVD ***1/2
(6/2/01)
"Requiem
for a Dream"-From the director (Darren
Aronofsky) of the rather strange and esoteric black and white film
"Pi," comes this rather different and yet similar, but far more
colorful, modern view of the disastrous effects of many forms of
addiction. In this American "Trainspotting," Ellen Burstyn is simply
fabulous as Sara Goldfarb, an aging widow in Coney Island, whose son
Harry (Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and his
friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) enter the drug trade in their
neighborhood only to find themselves dragged further and further down
in the morass. But what makes this film different is that rather than
displaying in detail the use of the drugs in standard time, Aronofsky
presents the images as high-tech movie short-cut visuals that tell
you exactly what is happening without belaboring the point. He then
displays the affects of the drugs via the various images of the
person's behavior (from slow to extremely hyper). This is quite
stunning and effective. The most telling character is Mrs. Goldfarb
who, sad and alone, becomes obsessed with her appearance after
receiving a call indicating she might appear on television. She then,
with the encouragement of a doctor, enters into an addiction to diet
pills (uppers) that drastically converts her into an almost
psychotic-appearing hag. A depressing theme, but the performances of
everyone in the cast and the originality and intelligence of the
director make this an extremely worthwhile film. DVD ****
(5/28/01)
"Best
in Show"-Christopher Guest,
screenwriter/actor/director with his own unique sense of humor
("Spinal Tap" and "Waiting For Guffman"), has here created a world of
wacky dog show participants that presents both the subtle and harsh
"realities" of the dog show world. The film is loaded with situations
that cannot help but make one laugh and Guest is smart enough not to
overdo most of the humorous situations. Guest himself is wonderful as
Harlan Pepper, a southern Bloodhound owner, who likes to dress like
his dog, certainly resembles him, and can tell a mean fly-fishing
tale. Catherine O'Hara is Cookie Fleck, a woman with a raunchy past,
who somehow wound up happily with ultra-nerd Gerry Fleck (played
amusingly by co-screenwriter Eugene Levy, buck teeth and all), and
the owner of a Norwich Terrier destined for the "best in show' arena.
Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins are a pair of "Queens" who
obsess over their very competitive Shi-Tzu. And Jane Lynch and
Jennifer Coolidge are a contrasty Lesbian couple whose previously
successful French Poodle seems destined for further success at the
Mayflower Dog Show. On the other hand, Guest goes a little overboard
in his portrayal of an ultimate yuppie couple, mutual braces and all,
played with enthusiasm by Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock, and his
portrait of a tasteless and obnoxious dog show announcer played
unremittingly by Fred Willard who seems to make a career out of such
roles. This is a funny movie although I can't say it left me rolling
on the floor. But its intelligent humor far exceeds that of many of
the tasteless movie comedies of this modern era. DVD ***1/2
(5/17/01)
"All
The Pretty Horses"-Based on the novel by
Cormac McCarthy, this pretty film is about a young Texan, John Grady
Cole, who has just lost the family ranch due to the death of his
grandfather and decides to take off on horseback with a friend to
Mexico for some adventure. Matt Damon is Cole and Henry Thomas is his
pal, Lacey Rawlins. It is 1949. When they start off for Mexico, it is
palpably clear, according to movie cliches, that there will be
romance, danger and probably a prison stay in the foreign country
they seek out. And, sure enough, there are no surprises. Cole and
Rawlins meet up with a teenager, Jimmy Blevins, who reeks trouble.
But they allow him to stick around anyway. And, sure enough, he
brings lots of trouble. Blevins is played wonderfully realistically
by Lucas Black, with one of the thickest southern accents around. The
film follows its natural path, with Cole falling for the daughter of
a rich Mexican ranch owner, Rocha (Ruben Blades), for whom Cole and
Rawlins are working. Alejandra (Penelope Cruz) is beautiful and wild
and nothing but trouble for Damon. He knows it and he takes the
chance anyway. And, sure enough, she brings trouble. Slow-moving,
though watchable, this film is so predictable that it hurts. Matt
Damon renders the young Mr. Cole as a perfect young man, almost
painfully caring and good. Henry Thomas is notable in the role of the
sidekick who ultimately gets frustrated and leaves, but not after
almost being killed in a Mexican prison. The film contains an
interesting and excellent short appearance by Bruce Dern as a kindly
and caring Texas judge. DVD ***
(5/12/01)
"Sunshine"-This
three-hour film tells the tale of a Hungarian Jewish family, the
Sonnenscheins, from their shtetl roots in the 19th century through
family growth and angst to the middle of the 20th century.
Concentrating on three generations, "Sunshine" tells the tale of a
family assimilating to a great degree due to the anti-semitism that
was profound in Europe. With the three generations of Sonneschein
males played by Ralph Fiennes, the first, Ignatz, becomes a judge but
is forced to change his name to a more Christian-sounding appellation
in order to reach a higher level in the Hungarian judiciary. Thus,
Sonnenschein becomes Sors (pronounced "Shorsh"). Ignatz's son, Adam
Sors, becomes a great fencing champion, but only after converting to
Catholicism in order to join an Officer's Club which allows great
fencers the best opportunities. Each male family member seems to be a
clone of the previous generation, falling into the same traps and
making the same self-deprecating mistakes. Ivan, the final family
member (literally and figuratively), witnesses his father's ignoble
death in a Nazi concentration camp, standing helplessly in a crowd of
thousands while a handful of Nazis commits atrocities, and then makes
the same mistakes as his father and grandfather by succumbing to the
Communist regime and joining its police force and participating in
its brutalities. There is also love and romance. Actor Fiennes seems
to be succumbing to a role stereotype in which he plays the cool,
rather unfeeling, lover who falls into the wrong relationships.
Ignatz marries his "sister" (actually cousin), Valerie, played in a
luminous way by the wonderful Jennifer Ehle (and later, as an older
woman, by Ehle's real mother, the great Rosemary Harris). Adam falls
for Hannah (Molly Parker) who is engaged to another, and when he
finally gets her as his wife, winds up in an affair with his rather
annoying and pushy sister-in-law, Greta (Rachel Weisz). Finally,
following the poor romance patterns of the family males, Communist
Ivan falls for a beautiful married police officer, Carole Kovacs
(Deborah Kara Unger), a relationship that can only fail. Other
performances of note are William Hurt as Andor Knorr, an anti-fascist
destroyed in part by Ivan's police activities; James Frain as the
younger Gustave Sonnenschein; and John Neville as the elder Gustave.
This film tells a tale worth telling, but it runs too long. I felt
that it started losing its impact in the third hour and that it
should have been reduced by at least a half hour. Still, it's worth
viewing for a stark view of the anti-semitism of Europe and its
impact on a single family through the middle of the recently-ended
century. DVD ***1/2
(5/11/01)
"Quills"-What
is sanity and what is madness? In this rather picaresque tale of the
Charenton insane asylum in France in the very early 19th century, we
meet the Marquis de Sade (brilliantly played by Geoffrey Rush), an
inmate who has lived through the harshness of the French Revolution
and who is driven to write his bawdy and angry tales no matter how
difficult the task may be. There is also the beautiful Madeleine
(Kate Winslet) who is driven by basic human desires to help the
Marquis get his works published. There is the young Abbe Coulmier
(Joaquin Phoenix) who possesses basic humanity and thus treats the
inmates with care and concern. And finally there enters, at the
behest of the "sane" Napoleon, the evil Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael
Caine), who reports that he is there merely to administer. Michael
Caine, as usual, is wonderful in his cool portrayal of a cruel madman
who cares little or nothing for the inmates or the asylum, and who
ultimately destroys most of what is in his path. The script by Doug
Wright is often brilliant and funny, although ultimately the film
goes a little over the top at the end. Others of note in the cast are
Billie Whitelaw as Madeleine's blind mother, Madame LeClerc; and
Amelia Warner as Simone, Dr. Royer-Collard's young but scheming wife.
As in any story about the Marquis de Sade there are some very rough
moments, but overall a very successful film about the true meaning of
madness. DVD ****
(5/5/01)
"Hamlet"-I
must be a purist. Somehow a truncated version of Shakespeare's
"Hamlet" done in New York City around the Denmark Corporation just
doesn't do it for me. Oh, the play is easier to understand in this
format, and the cinematography is outstanding, but watching Ethan
Hawke as the "sweet prince" when one has seen Olivier, is like
watching Marv Throneberry play first base when one has seen Gil
Hodges. Sam Shepard is a little too alive for the ghost and Kyle
MacLachlan as Claudius kept reminding me of his performance in "Blue
Velvet." I kept expecting Bill Murray, as Polonius, to crack a joke,
but I must admit that he did a fine death scene after being shot
through a mirror by Hamlet. And Julia Stiles was perfectly
forgettable as the doomed Ophelia. I was impressed only by Diane
Venora as Gertrude, Hamlet's ill-advised mother, who created an
atmosphere of sincerity in the part, possibly because she her roots
on the Broadway stage. If you like the "Classic Comics" version of
serious works of art, check this film out. Otherwise, I'd stay away.
DVD ** 1/2
(4/21/01)
"Billy
Elliot"-What are the usual ingredients
of an outstanding film? A story containing elements of humanity,
compassion, struggle, desire and creativity? Well, they're all here
in this delightful little film about a young boy in a northern
England mining town who discovers that he has an interest in and
ability for dancing. What makes it particularly poignant is that the
boy is living in the midst of the worst mining strike in British
history which has put both his father and brother out of work. And
the misery is worsened by the recent death of his mother. Jamie Bell
is a revelation as "Billy," who has the good fortune to be taken
under the wings of the local ballet instructor, Mrs. Wilkinson. Julie
Walters ("Educating Rita") as Mrs. Wilkinson is delightfully pushy, a
cigarette hanging from her lips, as she encourages the young dancer.
But in this town Billy has to deal with the prejudices of the local
macho mentality. Gary Lewis and Jamie Draven do a fine job as Billy's
father and brother, respectively. Lewis, as Billy's father, in
particular shows wonderful depth in portraying a striking miner who
grows from outrage that his son would be interested in an artistic
endeavor rather than manly sports to full and complete support and
who then has to struggle with the never-before-considered possibility
of crossing the picket line to support his son's endeavors. Jamie
Bell's performance is one that will be hard to forget as it is loaded
with charm and pizzazz, especially in the wonderful dancing scenes
through the streets. DVD ****
(4/20/01)
"Nurse
Betty"-Neil LaBute, who has in the past
explored the sinister aspects of male/female relationships ("In The
Company of Men"), this time directs a humorous film about love and
violence in a world of questionable reality. Betty Sizemore
(Renée Zellweger) is a simple waitress in Kansas obsessed with
a soap opera and its characters, who soon finds herself minus one
husband and on her way to California to seek out the prime "doctor"
(Greg Kinnear) on the soap who she now believes is real and was meant
for her. Following close behind are her husband's killers (played
wonderfully by Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) who believe she has
something that they must have. Zellweger is delightful as the deluded
Betty who turns soap-opera viewing into a reality of her own. Freeman
is perfectly suave as a warm-hearted killer obsessed with Betty. And
Chris Rock is deliciously hysterical and sarcastic as Freeman's more
serious and goal-oriented partner. The cast is loaded with good
performers, including Aaron Eckhart as Del Sizemore, Betty's sleazy
husband; Tia Texada as Rosa, a California woman who finds herself
hosting the bizarre and obsessed Betty who has magically transformed
herself into a nurse (soap-opera style); Crispin Glover as Roy, the
simple-minded but goal-directed fellow from back home who finds Betty
in the nick of time; and Allison Janney as the soap-opera producer
who doesn't quite know what to make of Betty. This film could have
been botched and embarrassing to watch, but LaBute's original and
talented flare, plus the talents of the cast, especially Zellweger
and Freeman, makes it a genuinely enjoyable experience. DVD ***1/2
(4/13/01)
"The
Legend of Bagger Vance"-Directed by
Robert Redford, and containing the usual gorgeous vistas (this time
mostly of golf courses) associated with Redford's more recent films,
"Bagger Vance" is nothing to take seriously. Matt Damon is Rannulph
Junuh, a local Savannah golf hero who has suffered the trauma of WW
I, and who, due to an obvious post-traumatic stress disorder, has
abandoned the love he had for Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron), a
wealthy local beauty. When the depression hits and Adele is faced
with serious economic problems after her father has built a beautiful
new golf course and then committed suicide when no one comes to use
it, Adele decides to have a glamorous match between two golf greats,
Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, to bring fame and fortune to the
course. The powers-that-be in Savannah insist on a local golf star
being part of the game and bring Junuh back from his misery. Junuh
has lost his swing but suddenly there appears Will Smith as Bagger
Vance, the calm, cool and collected caddie who will inspire Junuh to
regain his earlier prowess. The story is narrated by Jack Lemmon as
Hardy Greaves who, as a boy, played a major role in Junuh's efforts
in this match. The ending is not surprising. Nothing really stands
out in this film other than the beautiful vistas. There is no depth
to the story or the acting, but it's still worthwhile as a way to
pass a couple of hours. DVD **1/2
(4/7/01)
"Red
Planet"-Hollywood has run out of new
sci-fi ideas about travel to the planets. This picture about a
journey to Mars in 2025 to "save the earth," has every cliche in the
book times two. With a crew led by Carrie-Anne Moss, and including
Val Kilmer, Terence Stamp, Benjamin Bratt, and Tom Sizemore,
everything goes wrong as soon as the ship hits the Martian atmosphere
and it is all downhill, literally and figuratively, from that point.
A robot from the ship built to look like a wild animal becomes,
shockingly, a wild animal. There are, of course, sinister bugs there
to devour at least some of the crew. The commander, Kate Bowman
(Moss), in the midst of the effects of a severe radiation assault on
the ship, launches the crew towards Mars' surface and then
miraculously, of course, saves the mother ship from imminent demise.
She is told she has seconds and somehow makes it after minutes. The
only survivor of the trip to the surface faces an impossible task of
returning to ship just in time to accompany Bowman home to earth.
Will he make it? Of course, defying all scientific possibility and
logic.The most interesting member of the cast is Moss, who appeared
in "The Matrix," and who seems destined for a career in sci-fi films.
I wonder why. She is attractive and has a strong voice that would
seem to cry out for at least an attempt at a more serious role. In
any case, "Red Planet" is a cliche-laden bust and cannot be
recommended even for sci-fi nuts. DVD *1/2
(3/31/01)
"Cotton
Mary"-The team of Ismail Merchant and
James Ivory has often produced lush and wonderful films about the
British culture ("Howard's End" and "A Room With A View," for
example). This time, however, their efforts to deal with the effects
of the Anglo-Indian colonial relationship falls flat on its face. A
good cast accomplishes little. It is 1954 on the Malabar Coast of
India. Mahdur Jaffrey plays Cotton Mary, a hospital nurse who desires
more than anything to be part of an English household and she gets
her chance when Lily Macintosh (Greta Scacchi) gives birth to a baby
girl but is unable to breast feed her. Mary steps in and does
everything to make sure the child is well and to make sure that Lily
becomes reliant on her, so much so that Lily eventually invites her
to leave the hospital and join her household to care for the child.
Mary is portrayed as obsessed with proving that she is not "just" an
Indian but is actually "Anglo-Indian," and she will stop at nothing
to prove to her fellow Indians how important she is by living in the
Macintosh household. On the other hand, Greta Scacchi's character has
little chance to develop, other than as an incredibly naive and
manipulated individual who allows Mary to talk her into firing an
Indian servant who has clearly been as devoted and loyal to the
Macintosh household as Mary is self-serving. The part of Abraham, the
loyal servant who is wronged, is played beautifully and with subtlety
by Prayag Raj. When Lily decides to find him and rehire him, but
fails later in the film after learning the truth of Mary's false
accusations, I actually felt sorrow for the fact that Abraham would
not be found and rehired. "Cotton Mary" also stars James Wilby as
Lily's husband, John, a reporter who is often away leaving Lily to
increase her depression and sorrow, and Mahdur Jaffrey's lovely
daughter Sakina Jaffrey, who plays her niece, Rosie, who eventually
starts an affair with John and finally gives away Cotton Mary's
secrets. The theme is clear but the movie is muddy. A good theme that
just didn't come to fruition in the form of a sharp and intelligent
production. DVD ***
(3/28/01)
"Remember
The Titans"-This is the story of the
integration of a high school (T.C. Williams) in Alexandria, VA, and
its football team and the difficulties encountered by the parties.
Denzel Washington is Herman Boone, the black coach who is made head
coach replacing the white coach, Will Patton as Bill Yoast, known to
his overly enthusiastic 11 year old daughter Sheryl as "Coach." The
film portrays Alexandria as a sleepy southern town which is just
experiencing integration and the problems that go with it. Boone asks
Yoast to stay on as assistant coach and leads all of the players on a
soul-searching two week camp in Gettysburg, PA. Some undergo a
magical transformation from hate to love. Others don't. This is a
button-pusher film. It makes you choke up and even cry occasionally,
in watching these young football players go from hatred to teamwork
and even affection. It's hard to imagine that it really happened like
this, but it's fun to watch. In fact, I had been living in Alexandria
for three years at the time of the "true" events of this film, the
fall of 1971. When I arrived in the fall of 1968, it was my
understanding that Alexandria had recently desegregated. I have no
recall whatsoever of any such integration problems being in the news
during the time portrayed in the film. The film gives the impression
that the success of the T.C. Williams football team "brought the town
together." I remember hearing of T.C. Williams but have absolutely no
recall of its football team. Alexandria, in fact, was at that time a
fairly large town directly across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.
Although it certainly had some features of a southern town, a large
portion of the population included people like me from other places
who were there to work for the U.S. government. I'd say it was a
reasonably cosmopolitan place for that time, and hardly the town
portrayed in the film. That said, the film, from Disney, has its
virtues. Denzel Washington gives his typical strong performance as a
tough individual who knows exactly who he is and what he wants. Will
Patton does an interesting turn as the coach who suffers being
demoted and has to resist the racism of some of his friends and
colleagues. Ryan Hurst is very good as Gerry Bertier, an All-American
player who experiences true growth and then a horrible debilitating
injury. DVD ***1/2
(3/25/01)
"Dancer
In The Dark"-I have to be honest. I only
really saw about half of this film. I fast-forwarded through the rest
simply to see what ultimately happened. In fact, I'd say this film
was one of the most bizarrely anti-movies I've ever seen. The
Icelandic singer "Bjork" plays a factory worker from Czechoslovakia
with a young son in the state of Washington in the distant past.
Selma, Bjork's character, is going blind from a genetic disease and
she is saving money so that her son can have an operation and be
saved from blindness. Selma is also enamored of movie musicals and is
rehearsing for "The Sound of Music." In the meantime, she is
befriended by a strange group of fellow travelers, one of whom is a
neighbor cop who is going broke and covets the money Selma is saving
for her son's operation. What happens after this is almost
unspeakable. I hated this movie. I hated the singing and dancing,
which was almost purposely unpleasant, sort of like a scene in the
movie theater during which Bjork and Catherine Deneuve (as her friend
and supporter) talk during a musical and annoy another viewer. I
hated the theme. While I found Bjork mildly appealing as an actress,
she has little or no talent for singing and listening to her is
painful. The rest of the cast was off. Catherine Deneuve playing a
factory worker in Washington made no sense. Bjork's character is
supposed to be from Czechoslovakia and yet sounded nothing like a
Czech. Why get an Icelandic singer/actress to play a Czech with an
Icelandic accent? The combination of American and foreign characters
seemed completely off and out of place and time. While some have seen
virtue in this film, I saw only distress. I highly recommend that it
be missed. DVD *
(3/24/01)
"Wonder
Boys"-Professor Grady Tripp's (Michael
Douglas) life is at a lowpoint. His wife has left him and he's
distracted by pot. His married lover, the Chancellor of the
University, Sara Gaskell (Frances McDormand) is pregnant with his
child. A once successful novelist, his latest book is obsessive and
overlong, and his life is occupied by his gay and confused literary
agent and editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.), a beautiful
young student who lives in his house (Katie Holmes), and a morose but
talented writing student named James Leer (Tobey Maguire) who has
shot the dog of the Chancellor's husband (Richard Thomas) and has
stolen the latter's prized Marilyn Monroe jacket. Confusing? It sure
seems so when one contemplates the description. But this rather
interesting situation, centered around a special university
celebration of writing, ultimately seems to slowly and gradually fit
together. Tripp is a man on a journey towards self-discovery, as are
many of the other characters, and one of the pleasures of the film is
the pace at which he and the others achieve it. Despite having a few
unlikely situations (the handling of the dog, for example, and
Tripp's almost total failure to deal with a dog bite), the film takes
us down a road to understanding of the characters and their
potential. I was particularly taken with Michael Douglas'
performance, one of his best. Frances McDormand as always is
outstanding as the frustrated and uncertain lover. At first, Tobey
Maguire plays his usual stone-faced role, but ultimately he is given
a chance by Director Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") to show some
expression and charm. Robert Downey, Jr., provides his usual insight
into an interesting and intriguing character. Definitely a unique
experience for a recent American film, a genre usually loaded with
commercialism. This film is certainly not in that category. The film
also contains some excellent work of singer Bob Dylan, including an
original song "Things Have Changed." There is a wonderfully humorous
video of Dylan doing the song on the DVD. DVD ****
(3/17/01)
"Almost
Famous"-It is 1973 and we are about to
relive Director Cameron Crowe's real life fantasy experience of
touring with a rock group and writing for "Rolling Stone" magazine.
Starring young Patrick Fugit as William Miller, the Crowe alter ego,
this rather delightful film takes us into the world of a mid-level
rock group traveling the country by bus surrounded by "band-aids"
(aka groupies despite the denials in the film) and fellow travelers.
Miller is a precocious 15-year-old with a mature deep voice and an
uncanny writing ability who somehow convinces his uptight
professorial mother to allow him to go off on his own. The mother
(Frances McDormand) is portrayed as cynical and yet amazingly liberal
in permitting her son an unsupervised trip with "Stillwater," the
rock group of four young men led by Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup).
Hammond is talented, immature, uncertain about himself, and charming,
and he allows young Miller his opportunity to see the rock world from
the inside despite knowing that Miller is a writer/rock critic and
ultimately "the enemy." Along the way, Miller meets and falls for
"Band Aid" Penny Lane, wonderfully done by Kate Hudson (Goldie Hawn's
lookalike daughter who appears to have a great deal of talent and a
wonderful future in films). The film has some other excellent
performances, including Philip Seymour Hoffman as rock critic Lester
Bangs, Fairuza Balk as Sapphire, another of the "Band-Aids," Zooey
Deschanel as William's sister Anita who becomes an airline stewardess
in rebellion against her mother, and Jason Lee as Jeff Bebe,
Hammond's competition for control of "Stillwater." The original music
performed by the group is somewhat forgettable but the film has a
background of 1973 era songs that are familiar and fun. Having lived
through this era, I had a sense that despite Director Crowe's
efforts, it seemed more 1990's than 1970's, but apart from that, the
film has an upbeat feel that ultimately is worth the trip. Notably
humorous is a scene on a private plane during a thunderstorm during
which the passengers think they will die and make ultimately
regrettable confessions (which reminded me of a similar scene from
the TV show "Seinfeld.") DVD ****
(3/16/01)
"The
Contender"-There are several different
ways of looking at this film. One is as an example of our current
political culture in which a candidate or nominee's personal and sex
life becomes an open target. Another is as an example of the double
standard, and how women are treated somewhat differently than men in
the process. And another might be as an indication of just how
refreshing the political world might be if we had some principled
people who stood up for what they believe (assuming they believe
anything). Jeff Bridges is President Jackson Evans, a Democrat, who
must appoint a new vice-president after the death of the elected
vice-president. Rather than choose the obvious example, a male
governor who has made an apparently heroic rescue attempt (William
Petersen), President Evans chooses Sen. Laine Hanson (Joan Allen), an
attractive and tough woman who grew up as a Republican but switched
to the Democratic Party. Gary Oldman is wonderfully wicked as
right-wing Cong. Shelly Runyon, the head of the committee that will
evaluate Sen. Hanson's nomination and he proceeds to bring up, as
slyly as possible, as much dirt as possible about Sen. Hanson's
private life, even back to her college days. There is a great deal
going on in this film, and some of it turns into an extremely
interesting surprise. Joan Allen is outstanding as Sen. Hanson, who
must refuse to wither under an incredible assault on her character.
Jeff Bridges is fine as the president, although some of his movements
reminded me of his old "Starman" role. Christian Slater does a nice
turn as a young congressman who initially sides with Runyon, but
ultimately knows the difference between right and wrong. There are
elements of the film that are a little fantastic, such as Runyon's
wife turning on him and the ultimate finale of the president's speech
to Congress, but alas they make the viewer, especially the liberal or
progressive viewer, feel great. If that's what you are, I recommend
this film highly. DVD ****
(3/9/01)
"Hollow
Man"-Director Paul Verhoeven, who has
made a career of directing fairly mediocre science fiction films
("Starship Troopers" and "Total Recall") and titillating films
ranging from the good to the absurd ("Basic Instinct" and
"Showgirls") has here combined both themes in a film laden with
thriller cliches. Kevin Bacon is Sebastian Caine, in charge of a
group of Defense Department scientists working to discover means of
making people invisible and then returning them to normal form. Caine
and his cohorts (including Elizabeth Shue and Josh Brolin), working
in a highly protected below-ground environment, ultimately decide to
experiment using Caine as a guinea pig. But unlike the gorilla which
they manage to return, they can't do it with Caine who has developed
some kinky ideas about just what he can do as an "invisible man."
What begins as a fairly intriguing science fiction flick with plenty
of incredible special effects, turns into a tale of an invisible
monster wreaking havoc on friend and stranger alike. The ending is
equivalent to a remake of "Alien" except that the characters are
stuck in a below-ground compound rather than in a spaceship and the
enemy is their invisible "friend" rather than an alien monster. There
is even the ultimate horror cliche of the last grasp of the monster
after it is thought he is already dead. If the creators of this film
had had as much imagination about the plot as they had with the
special effects, they might have produced something special. The DVD
is loaded with interesting short documentaries about the making of
the film and the special effects. DVD **1/2
(2/17/01)
"Woman
On Top"-This is a pleasantly surprising
little romantic comedy starring Penelope Cruz in the role of Isabella
Oliveira, a lovely young chef from Bahia, Brazil who has a serious
problem with motion sickness. As a result, she makes certain demands
on her husband Tominho (Murilo Benicio), an owner of a local
restaurant at which Isabella is the chef. As a result of those
demands, Tominho makes a mistake and drives Isabella away. Off she
goes to San Francisco to seek a new life and new career where she
teams up with Monica Jones (Harold Perrineau, Jr.) a wonderfully
charming transvestite and old friend from Bahia, and the two quickly
become TV stars at the behest of a young producer, Cliff Floyd (Mark
Feuerstein) who is smitten with Isabella. In many ways, this film is
cliche-ridden but ultimately entertaining because of a couple of
significant differences, including the relatively unknown cast and
the lovely Brazilian settings and music which dominates the
soundtrack. Don't expect depth. Just light charm, but it's worth it
to see an old-fashioned romance told in a somewhat different way. DVD
***1/2
(2/16/01)
"8
1/2 Women"-If you've ever seen a Peter
Greenaway film ("The Draughtsman's Contract," "The Cook, The Thief,
His Wife, and Her Lover," "Prospero's Books," and "Pillow Book,"
among his most well-known), you have a pretty good idea that setting
out to watch a new Greenaway film can be a dazzlingly puzzling and
bizarre experience. This film is little different. Philip Emmenthal
(John Standing), inspired by his son Storey (Matthew Delamere),
ultimately decides to drop his status as a poor grieving (wealthy)
widower who owns Pachinko parlors in Japan and become a hedonist par
excellence. The two manage to find a bevy of mistresses for the
Emmenthal mansion in Switzerland, ranging from Asian (Vivian Wu), a
former nun (Toni Collette), a woman obsessed with horses (Amanda
Plummer), and the ultimate, Palmira, played by a rather ravishingly
sexy Polly Walker, who appears to love the elder Emmenthal and is
worshiped by the younger, but the latter's feelings remain
unrequited. All ultimately falls apart in this eccentric film about
male sexual fantasies. Greenaway can never tell a story in a
straightforward way and this film too is loaded with bizarre scenes
like none one has ever seen before. It is difficult to discern a
theme of any depth and, unfortunately, at the end of this unusual
journey, as in many Greenaway films, one can only sum up with a
gigantic "ho-hum." DVD **1/2
(2/16/01)
"Dr.
T and The Women"-This may be the film
that ultimately proves that Director Robert Altman is mostly surface,
and little substance. It is about a Dallas gynecologist named
Sullivan Travis (Richard Gere) who caters to wealthy Texas women who
seem to have difficulty staying away from his office. The film is
loaded with scenes such as the opening classic Altman-type scene at
Dr. T's office, in which patients and nurses are shown entering the
office and otherwise talking and moving around with the camera
following their every alternative move. By the end of this scene, one
has more a sense of Grand Central Terminal than of any doctor's
office one has ever been to. But it is also a hint of the chaos that
is about to enter Dr. T's life. He soon finds that his wife (Farrah
Fawcett) is mentally disturbed, his daughter Dee Dee (Kate Hudson) is
likely about to marry the wrong person, and that the woman who enters
his life after his wife is hospitalized is not quite what she
appeared to him to be. That latter is Bree (Helen Hunt), an assistant
golf pro just off the pro circuit, and so much seemingly
down-to-earth in contrast to the women normally surrounding Dr. T,
that he is carried away. This theme of upper class and Texas-tacky
glitz versus earthiness could have been better developed, but
ultimately the film ends with a somewhat Oz-like fantasy that really
avoids the issues. Gere is admirably low-key in this role, Hudson is
very promising as young Dee Dee Travis, and Tara Reid is interesting
and amusing as Dee Dee's sister Connie. Others notable in the film
are Shelley Long as Dr. T's swooning chief nurse and assistant, Laura
Dern as one of the Dr. T family relatives who oozes Southern "charm,"
and Liv Tyler as the intended maid of honor for Dee Dee's wedding.
DVD ***
(2/9/01)
"Up
At The Villa"-Based on a story by
Somerset Maugham, this film takes place in approximately the same
time and place as "Tea With Mussolini" and is about as deep. Kristin
Scott Thomas stars as Mary Panton, a young and beautiful pre-WW II
British widow without significant resources who is relying on the
kindness of friends and staying alone at a beautiful villa near
Florence. Wooed by the older, wealthy and clearly boring Sir Edgar
Swift (James Fox), Mary contemplates a dull marriage with him while
flirting with other younger and more dangerous men, including Rowley
Flint (Sean Penn), unhappily married and available for fun and
adventure, and a young Viennese who is illegally within Italy, Karl
Richter (Jeremy Davies). Mary makes a fatal mistake with Richter and
requires Rowley's help to extricate herself from potential serious
legal problems. These main characters are surrounded by idle British
and Americans, including Anne Bancroft (Prince San Ferdinando) and
Derek Jacobi (with the unlikely name of Lucky Leadbetter and far too
much makeup). The film has a Masterpiece Theater quality about it, is
worth watching, but is ultimately forgettable. Sean Penn, teamed with
talented and sensitive British actors, such as Thomas and Jacobi,
seems unusually stiff and stilted in his delivery. He seems to be
trying much too hard to seem sophisticated when his usual sassy charm
would have been preferable. DVD ***
(2/3/01)
"Saving
Grace"-Brenda Blethyn ("Secrets and
Lies" and "Little Voice") stars as Grace Trevethyn, a woman living in
a beautiful estate home in Cornwall, who suddenly finds herself,
after the suicide of her husband, destitute and desperate for ways to
make money so that she can save her home. And with a bit of
agricultural skills and her handy Scottish gardener, Matthew (Craig
Ferguson, who also co-wrote the screenplay), she embarks on a highly
questionable and unorthodox means of making money for someone of her
background. Pure fluff and silliness, but Blethyn is always fun to
watch, and Ferguson is delightful as the gardener who is devoting
more attention to the plants in Grace's greenhouse than to his
pregnant wife Nicky (Valerie Edmond). So typical for even a light
British film, the performances are all good and charming, especially
Martin Clunes as the local doctor, and Tchéky Karyo as
Jacques, the ultra-charming Frenchman to whom Grace goes for her
ill-gotten gains. The photography is excellent, especially as it
takes place in a lovely sea-side portion of Cornwall. DVD ***1/2
(1/20/01)
"Traffic"-This
is a brilliant film, beautifully directed and photographed by Steven
Soderbergh, in multiple hues and muted natural colors (blue for the
official scenes of the conservative world; yellow for the world of
the drug cartels of Mexico; and more natural muted colors for the
world of the American drug lords in San Diego). "Traffic" contains an
important element of movie magic, it makes you forget, most of the
time, that you are watching actors. The story proceeds seemingly
along three separate lines, but ultimately they all interact. Michael
Douglas is Judge Robert Wakefield, appointed to be the U.S. Drug
Czar, who faces a severe problem with his own daughter, Caroline
(Erika Christensen). Catherine Zeta-Jones is Helena Ayala, a wealthy
pregnant San Diego wife whose world is suddenly disrupted by the
arrest of her husband, Carlos, a vicious drug lord. Providing some
humor in this part of the story are Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman as
Montel Gordon and Ray Castro, DEA agents who are protecting the prime
witness against Ayala, Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer, cousin of George
Clooney). But the most impressive part of the story involves the
Mexican drug cartels in Tijuana and Juarez, and centers around a
fabulous and memorable performance by Benicio Del Toro as Javier
Rodriguez Rodriguez, a decent Mexican police officer who is caught
between the cartels and the corruption of Mexican government
officials. Del Toro, who is wonderful to look at, simply becomes his
character and his expressions are deep feeling and priceless. Others
of note in the film are Dennis Quaid as Arnie Metzger, a sleazy
adviser to Mrs. Ayala, and Amy Irving as Mrs. Wakefield.
The theme of this film, the virtual
hopelessness of the "war on drugs," is reflected especially in two
scenes. In one, Douglas as Wakefield, who has just found his daughter
in the clutches of an extremely severe drug habit, breaks down during
a White House speech and declares that the "war on drugs" is
ultimately a "war" on members of "our own families." In another
scene, Miguel Ferrer as Eduardo Ruiz ridicules Don Cheadle as DEA
agent Montel Gordon, asserting the utter hopelessness and ultimate
pointlessness of destroying one drug dealer while so many others will
manage to keep the drugs flowing. The brilliance of this film,
however, has one flaw. And that is that while beautifully and
imaginatively done, it is not an original conception. It is based on
a British TV series called "Traffik" which was shown here on PBS, and
had virtually the same plot except that it was located in a European
setting. Theater ****1/2
(1/13/01)
"The
Cell"-As this film had been listed by
Roger Ebert as one of his ten best films of 2000, I was curious and
rented it on DVD. Well, what Ebert saw in this film is totally beyond
me. It is a revolting and sickening story of a monstrous serial
killer of women whose mind is entered by a well-meaning therapist
played by Jennifer Lopez via surreal sci-fi techniques. Vincent
D'Onofrio is totally wasted as the killer. Vince Vaughn is weak as an
FBI agent hoping to find the killer's latest victim before she dies a
horrible death and who also winds up doing a little mind-hopping.
This film, which is laden with special effects, is undoubtedly a
"Matrix"-wannabe, but it doesn't come close. If you enjoy watching
real nightmarish and gruesome horror, as well as how Hollywood types
envision the mind of a psychotic killer, this film is for you. I
suspect that it's not for most people. A must-miss as far as I'm
concerned. DVD *1/2
(1/7/01)
"Mifune"-This
is certainly a wacky view of life in Denmark. Kresten (Anders
Berthelsen) is a seemingly happy businessman in Copenhagen who has
just married the boss's daughter. But his father's death forces him
to return to a dilapidated farm where the only living occupant is his
retarded brother, Rud, who is entertained by Kresten's impersonation
of the Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune as a samurai. Finding himself in
a difficult situation, and destined to be involved in a quickie
divorce situation, Kresten hires a housekeeper (Iben Hjele of "High
Fidelity") who was a prostitute in her former life. And they find
love, but only after a great deal of shenanigans, much of which could
have been avoided if they had simply talked to each other. Almost all
the characterizations are of weird individuals. And yet the film has
an odd charm. Video ***
(1/6/01)
