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December 31, 2002
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
Andre Heller, Othmar Schmiderer, Austria / Germany, 2002
Rating: 3.8
The equivalent of a cinematic deathbed confession, Blind Spot:
Hitler's Secretary is a no-frills interview with then 81-year-old
Traudl Junge. Junge passed away the day the film debuted at the 2002
Berlin Film Festival, and Blind Spot grants us a fascinating
window into a woman desperately trying to reconcile how she could have
worked for one of the most despised men in history, yet fondly remember
him as a soft-spoken father figure. Even Junge, who in her early
twenties worked as Adolf Hitler’s personal secretary from 1942 until
Berlin fell in late April 1945, seems to have gained little insight into
the enigmatic man, who could be so polite and gentle in person and yet
order the deaths of millions as a matter of national policy. For Junge,
the position was merely a job (she was never a member of the Nazi party
and, by all accounts, was utterly apolitical), and her true ambition in
life was to be a dancer. Such desires went out the window during the
war, however, and the young woman found herself in the Fuhrerbunker,
recalling with chilling clarity an officer noting “That was a direct
hit” as Hitler’s fatal suicide shot sounded. Blind Spot uses no
archival footage or photos to decorate its narrative; there's just Junge,
speaking to the person behind the camera. Most fascinating is Junge
watching the initial interview footage at a later date and mouthing the
words she’s speaking, amending certain observations and attempting to
put other comments in a more focused light. Blind Spot’s most
emotionally compelling moment comes when Junge attempts to explain her
indifference to Hitler and the Nazi crimes as youthful naiveté. But then
she mentions Sophie Scholl, a girl near her age, who opposed the Nazis
and was executed in 1943, and it’s obvious Junge wishes she had seen
more clearly the atrocities being committed in the name of National
Socialism.
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December 30, 2002
Antwone Fisher
Denzel Washington, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.5
Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington's directorial debut is neither a
disappointment nor a breakthrough. In bringing the true story of Antwone Fisher
(based on the real life Fisher's own screenplay) to the big screen, Washington
presents a sturdy, if unimaginatively executed, narrative that tracks a young
seaman with serious rage issues as he attempts to come to terms with his
troubled past. To say that Fisher was born behind the proverbial eight ball is
an understatement. Fisher's father was killed shortly before his birth -- which
ultimately took place in an Ohio correctional facility. Sent to an orphanage,
young Antwone eventually wound up in a less than charitable foster home, forced to
endure mental, physical and sexual abuses. Newcomer Derek Luke displays artfully
subtle craftsmanship in the lead role, bringing a sensitivity and guileless
sincerity to Fisher. This role could easily be played over-the-top, but the
decision to keep Fisher's conflicted nature low-key and simmering elevates the
film above the realm of melodramatic potboilers. A scene in which Fisher tracks
down his birth mother is powerful for what isn't said (thanks in no small part
to the consistently impressive Viola Davis), rather than falling into the
too-easy trap of overly emotional histrionics. The climactic journey Fisher
takes back to his hometown of Cleveland, in order to put his childhood demons to
rest, gives the film a much needed push after the first half's pedestrian
doctor-patient visits. A subplot involving the troubled marriage of Fisher's
Naval psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Davenport (Washington), subtracts more than adds
to the primary story. Antwone Fisher also lacks any real surprises, and
thus ultimately feels dramatically flat. But it boasts an emotional honesty all
too rarely seen at cineplexes these days.
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December 30, 2002
The Hot Chick
Tom Brady, USA, 2002
Rating: 1.3
Imagine you're a big Hollywood studio executive, and a producer walks in with
the following pitch: Thanks to a pair of magical earrings, Rob Schneider
switches bodies with a snobby teen cheerleader and spends the majority of the
movie acting effeminate and exchanging beauty secrets with fellow cheerleaders.
That's the premise of The Hot Chick, a film so sub-par that it actually
makes one pine for Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. Tom Brady (not the New
England Patriots quarterback and most recent Super Bowl MVP -- though his
involvement would certainly add to the pitiably low amusement factor) moves
beyond merely penning Schneider's material (last year's The Animal) and
does a by-the-numbers job in the director's chair, monotonously placing
Schneider in one awkward "female" situation after another. At least the mother
of all body switching flicks, 1976's Freaky Friday, benefited from the
far more appealing Jodie Foster in the lead. The Hot Chick is rude, crude
and socially unacceptable. Jessica (Rachel McAdams), stuck with Schneider's
consciousness inside her, immediately takes up stripping, while Jessica's
girlfriends, dealing with Rob Schneider's hirsute physique demand he drop his
shorts for them after easily buying into the fact that their best friend has
indeed undergone a serious makeover. As if to counterbalance such lowbrow sight
gags, the film tries to impart a positive message as well, offering the sage
insight that "To thy own self be true" is the key to happiness. The Hot Chick
proves that studio heads will, given the right muscle (Adam Sandler served as
Executive Producer and has a small role), greenlight just about anything -- even
a Dud-on-Arrival such as this one.
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December 30, 2002
Lovely and Amazing
Nicole Holofcener, USA, 2001
Rating: 3.8
Writer-director Nicole Holofcener's 1996 feature film debut Walking and
Talking focused on loneliness and the complex and complicated bonds between
two female friends. Lovely and Amazing, her follow-up (interrupted by her
helming of several episodes of HBO's wildly popular Sex and the City)
drills down even deeper into the female psyche, this time concentrating on the
loving but strained dynamics between a mother (the great Brenda Blethyn) and her
three daughters. Catherine Keener (who also starred in Walking and Talking)
portrays Michelle, the oldest daughter, an unemployed wannabe artist struggling
to keep her marriage intact while raising a young daughter. Elizabeth (Emily
Mortimer) is a frustrated actress, yet to find the right person to share her ups
and downs with, while the youngest, adopted eight-year-old Annie (standout Raven
Goodwin), pines to shed her black skin for that of her white mother and
siblings. Sticking with the same unflinchingly naturalistic tone of Walking
and Talking, Lovely and Amazing allows the audience to slip into the
lives of its characters, observe them making both wise and unwise choices, and
then step out without ever truly seeing any resolution to their various
problems. Holofcener knows exactly what she wants, however, and her confidence
in not browbeating her viewers with dramatic confrontations and life-altering
incidents adds undeniable veracity to the proceedings. This is life: more a
series of bumps in the road than violent collisions. While it might not be
everyone's cup of tea, Lovely and Amazing is nonetheless an engaging, if
intentionally downbeat, little gem of a film.
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December 30, 2002
Unfaithful
Adrian Lyne, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
Though director Adrian Lyne may find it classier to cite Claude Chabrol's
well-regarded 1969 film La Femme Infidele (The Unfaithful Wife) as the
inspiration for Unfaithful, the true stimulus behind this soft-core tale
of sex and murder appears to have come from checking out old episodes of Zalman
King's Red Shoe Diaries. At least those guilty-pleasure sleaze-fests
didn't pretend to be anything deeper or more respectable than they were. By
contrast, Unfaithful adopts a somber, "important" tone out of all
proportion to its tawdry plot. Simply put, Lyne, who's had success with
similarly titillating marital crisis efforts (Fatal Attraction,
Indecent Proposal), hits rock bottom here. The main problem stems from the
fact that seemingly happily married Connie Sumner (Diane Lane, crying an awful
lot) lives the upper middle class suburban dream: Doting husband (a steady
Richard Gere), adorable son (Malcolm in the Middle's Erik Per Sullivan) various
fund-raising activities to help her feel fulfilled. Despite all this, one
ridiculously overblown (pun intended) windy day in New York's Soho district,
Connie encounters -- and soon begins a torrid affair with -- a hunky book dealer
(Olivier Martinez). Naturally, Connie's husband grows suspicious, and ultimately
confronts Martinez with the requisite crime of passion taking place. With Connie
and her husband sharing in the culpability of the affair gone wrong, and
inexplicably finding their union strengthened because of it, the film's larger
message seems to be that it's all right for a woman to have a fling, even if
it leads to murder, as long as the status quo of her world isn't disrupted too
greatly by the minor indiscretion. Unfaithful is morally bankrupt and
should have ditched the self-serious tone altogether given its inane plot.
Better instead if Lyne had consulted Zalman King for a few shamelessly
appropriate pointers on lust and how best to get away with manslaughter.
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November 30, 2002
Pumpkin
Tony R. Abrams, Adam Larson Broder, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
There's something telling about the fact that two directors worked on Pumpkin.
That the film wants to be scathing satire, yet still possess a heart of gold,
reflects the inherent (negative) tension at play throughout the movie. In its
tale of a sorority girl (Christina Ricci) who falls in love with a Special
Olympics (called Challenged Games here) athlete (Hank Harris, as the titular
character, easily giving the best performance in the film), Pumpkin hopes
to have it both ways. It aims to skewer hypocritical behavior while offering a
genuine love story between two people from completely different backgrounds.
Ricci does fine work, but is bogged down by scenes that introduce her character
to the ugliness of the world (apparently for the first time, given her trite,
privileged background) through images of dead birds, crawling rats, and
maggot-infested garbage cans, yet then has her cluelessly attempting to set
Pumpkin up with an overweight friend in an attempt to deflect her feelings for
the young man. If Pumpkin had stuck to one course -- either vicious
send-up of contradictory social attitudes toward the handicapped or heartwarming
tale of a young girl's redemption via exposure to a previously foreign world, it
might have held together far better than it does in this overlong, hodgepodge
train wreck of a tale.
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November 30, 2002
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Callie Khouri, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.5
For a film professing to be about the mysteries of, and strength derived from,
sisterhood, there's very little of it to be found in this adaptation of the
best-selling Rebecca Wells novels Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
and Little Altars Everywhere. Callie Khouri, who won an Oscar for her
Thelma & Louise screenplay in 1991, assembles a powerhouse cast for her
feature film debut. Unfortunately, the tale of an estranged mother (Ellen
Burstyn) and daughter (Sandra Bullock) reconciliation in South Louisiana (said
daughter having been "kidnapped" back home by mom's fellow Ya-Ya sisters, a
closer-than-blood sorority of kindred spirits) traffics more in pat melodrama
than in any rich insights into the deep bonds of a group of women forged 60
years earlier. The trio of Mother Vivi's fellow Ya-Yas -- Necie (Shirley
Knight), Caro (Maggie Smith) and Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan) -- is ripe for
exploration, especially given the many ups and downs the women have shared. But
despite innumerable flashbacks (with a strong Ashley Judd as the young, reckless
Vivi), the film stays mired in a modern soap opera, following a predictable
course toward a too-easy hug-and-make-up conclusion.
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November 30, 2002
Scooby-Doo
Raja Gosnell, USA, 2002
Rating: 1.7
The popular Hanna-Barbera canine gets a live-action makeover in this muddled
feature that can't decide whether to revel in hipster retro irony (for grown-up
fans of the 1970s cartoon) or play it straight to appeal to a whole new
generation of cartoon-loving kids. Thus, Scooby-Doo is stuck in the
middle, neither self-aware nor just plain fun. Director Raja Gosnell (Big
Momma's House, Home Alone 3) manages a workmanlike effort, and
Matthew Lillard's Shaggy is genuinely inspired at points, but the obvious drug
references (Shaggy's love interest is named Mary Jane, for example) prove
incompatible with the inherent silliness of the plot (concerning a haunted theme
park the Mystery Inc. gang is commissioned to investigate). The performances run
from the sturdy (Linda Cardellini proves far sexier than one would expect as
Velma) to the just plain terrible (Freddie Prinze, Jr., doing a disservice to
the depth of the cartoon Fred, Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy-wannabe Daphne).
Rowan Atkinson does what he can as Mondavarious, the man who runs Spooky Island,
but the plot is cardboard-thin and the CGI horrible. Rather than render Scooby-Doo
as a realistic looking Great Dane, the film offers up a CGI version of the
cartoon Scooby that might have worked had the entire movie been created on the
computer, a la Toy Story. The end result is one big mess.
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November 30, 2002
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
Craig McCracken, Jeong Chang-Yul, Kim Jong-Ho, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
Craig McCracken's Cartoon Network hit hits the big screen with less than
Powerpuff-inspired results. Those expecting the film to follow the
tried-and-true Powerpuff Girls formula, resulting in essentially an extra long
episode, will be sorely disappointed: the film serves as an origin story (which
stretches on far too long, whereas the TV series dispenses with the pertinent
facts in the opening minute). Worse, it's a vehicle for ho-hum moralizing on the
blessing and curse of great power. In a nutshell: Professor Utonium (voice of
Tom Kane) accidentally
spills Chemical X into a formula of sugar, spice and (the always hard to track
down) everything nice, thus creating a trio of super-powered little girls:
prudent Blossom (voice of Cathy Cavadini), optimistic Bubbles (voice of Tara
Strong) and headstrong Buttercup (voice of Elizabeth Daily). After causing much
trouble in Townsville, the girls eventually learn to use their powers for good,
taking on Professor Utonium's ex-lab assistant, a Chemical X-exposed monkey
named Mojo Jojo (voice of Roger L. Jackson). All of the exposition drags the
film down, and it's obvious such excessive background shading was driven by some
preconceived notion subsequent features would follow. Sadly, the running time
exposes the fundamental vacuity of the plot and there's simply not enough
Powerpuff spunk to merit a recommendation. Stick with collected episodes on DVD
instead.
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November 11, 2002
Bowling for Columbine
Michael Moore, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.0
Liberal bomb-thrower Michael Moore (Roger & Me) raises some interesting
questions in Bowling for Columbine, and manages to generate a good
number of laughs in the process. And he's certainly passionate about the issue
of gun violence in America. But passion and a camera crew aren't substitutes for
substance, and it's on that score that Columbine is sorely lacking. By
turns engrossing and frustrating, the film flits from subject to subject at
random, and fails to tie them into any coherent points: Militia members,
Oklahoma City bombing suspect James Nichols and NRA president Charlton Heston
come in for their share of give-'em-enough-rope embarrassment, but no dots are
connected. (Moore's grating, passive-aggressive interview technique actually has
the unintended effect of making us feel sorry for an ambushed Heston, who slowly
totters away from the interview, incredibly leaving Moore and crew alone on the
actor's estate). Elsewhere, he spends a lot of time asking why America boasts
such a ridiculously high gun homicide rate compared to Canada, with no easy
answers. But tellingly, even though he concedes that the availability of guns
isn't necessarily the problem (they're easy to come by in Canada as well), he
spends a lot of time badgering K-Mart to stop selling ammunition, as if such an
act would really have prevented the tragedy at Columbine High School (about
which scapegoat Marilyn Manson proves surprisingly level-headed and astute).
Moore's efforts here, with two Columbine survivors, and elsewhere on behalf of a
six-year-old gun victim, smack of opportunistic carpetbagging. At the end of the
day, this overlong, directionless documentary ignores its own caveat: despite
going to great pains to establish that we live in a media-perpetuated culture of
fear (a very real root cause of gun violence, to be sure), Moore essentially
spends a couple of hours trying to make us upset and afraid.
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October 23, 2002
Knockaround Guys
Brian Koppelman, David Levien, USA, 2001
Rating: 2.2
The plot of Knockaround concerns the son of a Mafia wise guy frustrated
that he's never risen in the mob's ranks. Ironically, the film itself -- a
direct descendent of mobster classics like The Godfather and
GoodFellas -- is a mediocre effort that certainly will never be mentioned in
the same breath as its older, more highly respected forebears. Surely, that's
not what Brian Koppelman and David Levien intentioned when they shot the film back in
1999, only to have it shelved, awaiting a direct-to-video destiny until Vin
Diesel went and became a major box office player. As a result of his fame more
than his role, Diesel gets second billing, since the film's primary focus is Matty (Barry Pepper), son of mid-level New York mob boss Benny "Chains" (Dennis
Hopper). Matty's resentful that he's considered too soft for hardcore mafia
activities. Failing in an attempt find legitimate work, Matty convinces his
father to let him handle the transfer of a half-million in cash from Washington
State to Brooklyn. Dad agrees, and Matty arranges for the woefully unreliable
Johnny Marbles (Seth Green) to fly to Spokane and pick up the loot.
Unfortunately, Marbles loses the money during a pit stop in Montana, and the
cash winds up in the hands of a morally questionable sheriff (Tom Noonan) who
wants to keep it. Predictably, Matty and his crew of junior mobsters are forced
to go to the small town and attempt to recover the money before the big boys
back east take notice. The resolution is pedestrian and flat, while
Knockaround Guys on the whole is obvious, uninteresting, and poorly paced --
a lasting contribution to the not-so hallowed halls of mediocrity.
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October 12, 2002
Igby Goes Down
Burr Steers, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.8
If J.D. Salinger's iconic Holden Caulfield grew up, got married and had a
family, it might resemble the dysfunctional, WASP-y brood that inhabits the
darkly cynical Igby Goes Down. Down, the work of first time
writer/director Burr Steers, draws on its creator's own eccentric upper crust
upbringing to tell the story of Igby Slocumb (fantastically realized by Kieran
Culkin), an angry, disaffected 17-year-old rebelling against the privilege and
wealth he's had the misfortune to be born into. Igby's schizophrenic father
(an under-utilized Bill Pullman) has been locked away in a mental hospital,
while his self-absorbed, emotionally detached mother (an icy Susan Sarandon) is
dying of breast cancer. Throw in a status-conscious, collegiate big brother
(Ryan Phillippe), and it's obvious which bitter well Igby's many issues spring
from. Like his spiritual forefather Caulfield's flight from a Pennsylvania prep
school, Igby escapes the stifling
Georgetown socialite scene -- and the Midwestern military school his mother has jettisoned
him off to -- to explore the highs and lows of New York City. Hanging out at one
of his godfather's (Jeff Goldblum) many rental properties, he enjoys the company
of a junkie choreographer (Amanda Peet) and begins a doomed-from-the-start
relationship with aimless Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), whose radical
difference from Igby in age and social class hinder any chance of
happily-ever-after romantic bliss. The conceit of Igby "going down," i.e., following his father
in a slow descent from sanity, proves the film's strongest element. Indeed, some
of the most affecting scenes involve Kieran's younger brother Rory as a
10-year-old Igby, who has the misfortune of watching his father go mad.
Unfortunately, Steers veers astray from his lead, when the film should have
stuck with his vantage point throughout. And it's this lack of focus on Igby
that ultimately drains energy from the film, taking what could have been a
fascinating character study and turning it into an unnecessarily panoramic twirl
through the visual equivalent of a Hamptons cocktail party.
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October 07, 2002
Murder by Numbers
Barbet Schroeder, 2002
Rating: 3.5
By virtue of its title, this capable if unsurprising thriller sets itself up for
some obvious and well-deserved barbs. And, yes, it does hew all-too-faithfully
to the kind of well-worn Hollywood formula for which terms like "cookie-cutter"
were coined. Sandra Bullock, straining at the edges of her comfortable screen
persona and only mildly succeeding, plays Cassie Mayweather, a homicide
detective known as "the hyena" to her male colleagues because of her tough
exterior. Cassie comes loaded with designer cop-drama baggage: questionable
behavior (including seducing her partner, a straight-arrow Ben Chaplin), murky,
sepia-toned memories and a tendency to relate to the victims of her
investigations. Oh, and a strong antipathy for smug, successful golden boys,
from a wooden D.A. she once dated, to high school cad Richard Haywood (Ryan
Gosling). The popular Haywood and brainy, sullen Justin (an attention-grabbing
Michael Pitt) have committed the murder Cassie's currently investigating (it's
the boys' methodical thrill-kill planning, rather than the script, to which the
title refers), but she can't seem to prove it, especially after the drug-dealing
high school janitor the boys frame for the crime winds up dead, allegedly by his
own hand. Pieces fall comfortingly into place like tumblers in a well-oiled
lock, and darned if Cassie doesn't end up confronting her troubled past in the
process. (Bullock's tidy line to Pitt at the end about dealing with one's past
-- meant for herself as much as for him, don't you see! -- is the film's
one true groaner moment.) Still, despite its reliance on trite standbys (does
the world need another crusty police captain who doesn't listen to our spunky
heroine until the end of the film?), Murder by Numbers paints inside its
lines with competence and charm, and never aspires beyond its station. A perfect
popcorn flick rental.
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October 02, 2002
Life as a House
Irvin Winkler, USA, 2001
Rating: 3.0
Before one can rebuild oneself, he must first come to an acceptance of just who
and what he is. Right out of the gate, this jerky, schizophrenic tearjerker
stumbles over that obstacle, as it can never quite make up its mind what kind of
film it aspires to be. At times, Life as a House is content with its
easily-defined status as a populist family drama. But at others, due mainly to
its jumpy editing, rushed pacing and self-consciously "edgy" subplots (involving
teen prostitution and largely pointless explorations of May-December sexuality),
Irvin Winkler's fluttery film seems to aspire to a quirky social commentary on
the order of American Beauty. There are some similarities: George (an
always-able Kevin Kline) is fired from his job, and like Kevin Spacey's Lester
Burnham, George comes face to face with his mortality: he's got cancer, and less
than six months to live. But what Winkler and screenwriter Mark Andrus (As
Good as It Gets, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) critically
fail to realize is that Life as a House is too clunky and too obvious in
its symbolism to be effective. George more or less commandeers his sullen
teenage son Sam (a pouty, screechy-voiced Hayden Christenson -- what did Lucas
see in him, anyway?) to help tear down his dilapidated old house (i.e., the
past) and build a snazzy new one (the future, anyone?). Mary Steenburgen and the
beautiful and talented Jena Malone are largely wasted, and Kristen Scott Thomas
tries valiantly to invest her one-note role as George's ex-wife (falling in love
all over again, natch) with some depth. Life as a House is a likable
popcorn flick, but its heavy-handed attempts to become something more are more
distracting than helpful. Still, one wishes it had succeeded.
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Kevin Forest Moreau
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September 25, 2002
The Salton Sea
D.J. Caruso, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
Southern California speed freak subculture gets the star treatment in this
revenge noir from first-time director D.J. Caruso. Val Kilmer plays Danny
Parker, a crystal meth-addicted former trumpet player who spends his time
getting high and turning fellow users, or "tweakers," over to a pair of corrupt
cops, Garcetti (Anthony LaPaglia) and Tanner (Doug Hutchison). The standard
final big score/setup, involving noseless crank dealer Pooh Bear (Vincent
D'Onofrio, having way too much fun), includes a few interesting twists and
turns, but the script wimps out in a big way regarding the fulfillment of
Danny's too-obvious death wish. Ultimately, however, Salton Sea is
hobbled by its unnecessary and irresponsible glorification of its characters'
terrible addictions. Caruso attempts to present Sea as mere
entertainment, with the back-door justification that it simply depicts the
reality of addiction. This is a cop-out: No matter how creatively it's shot,
there's nothing cool about addiction, and no amount of hyper-kinetically framed
scenes can erase its obvious miseries. Perhaps even worse, we're treated to an
attempt to see just how many idiosyncrasies can be piled onto these characters,
which further trivializes their plight. And the existence of a (relatively)
happy ending undermines what should have been a sad commentary on the hopeless
world of drug addicts, instead of a drama that glorifies and glances over their
pain. In the end, Salton Sea is mainlined darkness without a soul.
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September 25, 2002
Barbershop
Tim Story, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.8
Barbershop is an enjoyably lighthearted comedy that takes an unnecessary
and decidedly under-committed stab at drama. Rapper/actor Ice Cube (Friday,
Anaconda) plays Calvin, two years into running the barbershop he
inherited from his deceased father. The shop is in imminent jeopardy of
foreclosure if Calvin doesn't come up with enough money to cover the property
taxes, so -- feeling backed into a financial corner and burdened by the
obligation to follow in his old man's footsteps -- he impulsively sells the
business to local loanshark Lester (an appropriately villainous David Keith).
Lester means no good for the longtime south side Chicago meeting place; he plans
to turn it into a "Gentleman's Club." Naturally, Calvin has a change of heart
and tries to return Lester's money to him, but there's a catch: Lester wants
double what he paid by the end of the day. It doesn't take Miss Cleo to predict
that things will probably work out fine for Calvin and his friends in the end,
but the plot isn't really the point of Barbershop, which is more
concerned with the establishment's contribution to the community, serving as a
central meeting place of sorts for the neighborhood denizens. Employees and
customers trade verbal barbs continuously, with Eddie (Cedric the Entertainer),
an old-old school, particularly opinionated barber who's not afraid to take
sacred cows of the black community (Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, et al.) to task,
getting most of the best lines. The rest of the cast comports itself equally
well, including Sean Patrick Thomas, a college-educated know-it-all, Michael
Ealy as a two-time convicted felon with the proverbial heart of gold, Troy
Garity as the token white guy out to prove his "blackness," and rapper Eve as a
single woman just looking for the right man -- and the culprit who keeps
drinking her apple juice. While it doesn't break new ground, either in its
social commentary or comedic insights, Barbershop is still a reasonably
well-constructed, appealing place to kill an hour or two.
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September 22, 2002
Trapped
Luis Mandoki, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.6
Journeyman Hollywood director Luis Mandoki adds to a resume full of solid, if
unremarkable, mainstream fare (Angel Eyes, When A Man Loves A Woman)
with Trapped, a workmanlike kidnap thriller that suffers, much like the
kidnapping it documents, from poor planning. Kevin Bacon, exuding a likable
blend of smarm and menace, plays kidnapper Joe Hickey, who with the help of
soft-spoken accomplice Marvin (an effective Pruitt Taylor Vince), spirits young
Abby Jennings (Dakota Fanning) away, practically under the nose of affluent
designer Karen (Charlize Theron). Joe then glues himself to Karen's side, even
as his wife Cheryl (Courtney Love) intrudes upon the serenity of Karen's
husband, rising star Dr. Will Jennings (Stuart Townsend), at a medical
conference, as part of a seemingly well-executed scheme. Complications ensue,
naturally, but these early scenes critically lack a sense of tension. Early on,
there are clues that there's more to this kidnapping than meets the eye, that
Trapped may be a smarter thriller than it is. But Joe's ultimate motive --
revenge -- proves a disappointing trope that calls into serious question Joe's
previous kidnappings: Were they just practice for this, the supposed main event?
To make matters worse, Joe's plan is full of more holes than Charlie Brown's
Halloween ghost costume: He doesn't account for Abby's asthmatic condition, and
the instability of his collaborators renders his successful kidnapping track
record doubtful at best. The cast does the best it can with what it's given,
which is considerable: Bacon and the precocious Fanning (I am Sam) are
excellent, Townsend and Theron are utterly believable as the desperate parents,
and Love comports herself nicely as Joe's abused, hesitant partner. But solid
acting and a few well-placed thrills aren't enough to overcome the frustration
we feel at Trapped's inability to transcend its genre constraints and
clumsy plotting.
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Kevin Forest Moreau
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September 22, 2002
Possession
Neil Labute, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.4
Neil Labute (In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors)
takes his first crack at directing material not of his creation, and the results
aren't half-bad. Adapted from A.S. Byatt's acclaimed 1990 Booker Prize winner
for the big screen, Labute's tale of parallel modern and Victorian era romances,
framed by a literary-sleuthing device, works primarily on the strength of a
strong cast and the director's clever juxtaposition between the two periods.
Labute regular Aaron Eckhart plays Roland Michell, who, in the course of
literary research, unearths a letter that casts doubt on the faithful-husband
image of famed 19th-century poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam): It appears
to Michell that Ash had indulged in an affair with lesser-known poet Christabel
LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle). To prove his theory, Michell joins forces with British
LaMotte expert (and distant relation to the woman) Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow).
Naturally, Roland and Maud grow closer as they discover the truth of Ash's
relationship with LaMotte. The parallels between the two relationships provide
Possession with its strongest element, contrasting the expected reserve
of the Victorian romance with the difficulties of love in faster paced, less
intimately communicative modern day. A lame subplot involving rival scholars on
the hunt to uncover the same truth about Ash -- including an embarrassing
grave-robbing sequence -- undermines Possession's overall effectiveness,
but it's still an enjoyable tale painted against the oft-stodgy backdrop of
academia.
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September 22, 2002
Frailty
Bill Paxton, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.3
Frailty takes the classic "let me tell you a story" framing device --
done ad nauseam in countless horror films -- and makes it work, primarily on the
strength of its ideas regarding Biblical justice of an Old-Testament-God
severity and the near God-like power a parent wields over his obedient children.
The film opens with Fenton Meeks (Matthew McConaughey) arriving at FBI
headquarters in Dallas on a dark and stormy night, eager to relate the tale of
how his brother is the so-called God's Hands killer, responsible for a string of
recent slayings. Agent Doyle (Powers Boothe), the man in charge of the case,
proves an eager listener, and Fenton recounts his tale in flashback: He and his
brother Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) are awakened one night by their widower father
(director Paxton -- whose extensive other acting credits include A Simple
Plan and Apollo 13), and told that he's been visited by God. The
Almighty has apparently told the senior Meeks that the Apocalypse is near, and
that Satan has set demons loose in the world disguised as ordinary people. It's
up to father and sons to seek out these demons, expose their true natures and
destroy them. Thus the boys, are drawn into dad's murderous mission, with the
older Fenton showing a greater reluctance than his more devout younger brother.
Paxton's direction is solid, and the photography -- by veteran DP Bill Butler (Deliverance,
Jaws, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) -- appropriately dark
and moody. The screenplay, by first timer Brent Hanley, falls into the trap of
trying too hard to outwit the audience by throwing in a poorly telegraphed
"gotcha" ending. This regrettably undermines the emotional depth of the film's
central theme: the ruin misguided parents can bring upon their too-dutiful
children. Frailty is creepy, and enjoys its share of genuine jolts. But
the trappings were there for it to be so much more.
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September 22, 2002
Hollywood Ending
Woody Allen, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.2
A literal take on the old saying that "love is blind," Hollywood Ending
stars veteran director Woody Allen as Val Waxman, a down-and-out filmmaker who,
despite a pair of Oscars to his credit, finds that no one wants to work with
him; he's considered too eccentric and unmanageable to trust with a big budget
film. In Val's favor is ex-wife Ellie (a strong Tea Leoni), who convinces her
current fiancée, studio head Hal (Treat Williams), to let Val direct The City
Never Sleeps, a noir drama set in 1940s New York. While Val wants the job, he's
daunted by emotional tension stemming from the fact that Ellie left him for his
new employer. Compounding matters is the fact that the weekend before the big
shoot is set to begin, Val loses his sight, a malady that experts quickly
diagnose as psychosomatic. Val's blindness leads to a requisite series of
amusing sight gags (pun intended): Val falling off of raised sets; Val
frustrated by his inability to effectively communicate with his non-English
speaking cinematographer; Val unable to appreciate an up-and-coming actress's (Tiffani-Amber
Thiessen) ample talents as she tries to seduce him in her dressing room. To his
credit, Allen declines to go for the easy, obvious message (that Hollywood films
have gotten so lame a blind person could direct them), opting instead for a more
tender lesson regarding love: Val never saw the beauty in Ellie when they were
married. With a trite title like Hollywood Ending, it's obvious that Val
will win the girl in the end: What's not so apparent is whether Waxman (and
Allen himself) will end up making a bad motion picture in the process. Ending's
pacing proves terminally slow in the film's early going, and many of the
one-liners fall flat, but Allen still knows how to wring genuine humor out of
total chaos.
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September 22, 2002
The Count of Monte Cristo
Kevin Reynolds, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.5
Director Kevin Reynolds, now completely liberated from his indentured servitude
to Kevin Costner (Waterworld, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves),
takes a crack at Alexandre Dumas the Elder's famous tale of betrayal and
revenge. The Count of Monte Cristo recounts the story of poor Edmond
Dantes (James Caviezel), a seaman with the misfortune of carrying in his
possession a letter from the exiled Napoleon, which gets him mistakenly viewed
as a treasonous agent by his so-called friend Fernand (a snarkily effective Guy
Pearce). Dantes is sent off to D'If prison, the place innocent men who know too
much are sequestered, and Fernand marries Dantes' fiancée, the fair Mercedes (Dagmara
Dominczyk). Dantes makes the most of his time in jail, learning swordfighting
and courtly manners from fellow incarcerated innocent Abbe Faria (an eager
Richard Harris), who generously lets Dantes in on the location of a hidden
treasure so that he might properly exact revenge on the vile Fernand. Dantes
subsequently makes his escape and Reynolds faithfully follows the well-known
plot to its obvious conclusion. The director's lack of deviations actually
proves the film's weakest point. After all, Monte Cristo has been adapted
so many times over the past century that it becomes an exercise in redundancy to
offer a to-the-letter take yet again, especially if nothing new or insightful is
added. As a workmanlike, Classics Illustrated-worthy effort, this Count
succeeds, but one might as well see a far better version (try Claude Autant-Lara's
1961 adaptation, with Louis Jourdan as Dantes), especially if it's just a rehash
of the already too-familiar particulars.
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September 20, 2002
Kissing Jessica Stein
Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, 2002, USA
Rating: 3.0
Kissing Jessica Stein possesses a certain undeniable charm, even if it
doesn't offer any real insights into the serpentine world of singles on the
prowl in New York City. Based on Lipschtick, an off-Broadway play created by the
two female leads, Stein is the story of the titular Jessica (Jennifer
Westfeldt), who's nearing thirty and feeling pressure from her mother (a great
Tovah Feldshuh) to meet the right man and settle down (especially in light of
her younger brother's impending marriage). Jessica tries her best to make
meaningful connections with the opposite sex, but can't seem to meet the right
person, until she comes across a personal ad quoting her favorite poet (Rilke,
for those keeping score). The hitch? The ad is placed by the sexually
adventurous Helen Cooper (Heather Juergensen). Seemingly straight Jessica,
feeling a connection to Helen's ad she hasn't felt in any of her actual
encounters with men, reluctantly takes a chance on a meeting, and the film goes
through the tried-and-true "will this work?" motions so
endemic to romantic comedy. The chemistry between Westfeldt and Juergensen
proves Stein's greatest asset as the film unspools its big questions:
Will Jessica take Helen to her brother's wedding, thus letting the cat (that
she's found Mr. Right may very well be a Ms.) out of the bag? Will Jessica's
former college sweetheart (and current boss) rediscover the passion he once had
for her? Will Jessica and Helen stay together, or is just a fleeting fling?
Fortunately, Stein avoids a clichéd
"breakup-but-get-back-together-by-the-closing-credits" resolution. The
resolution it does offer, however, doesn't sufficiently justify the development
of the characters, especially considering what they've gone through -- a first
time same sex relationship for both. Kissing Jessica Stein is light,
safe, and won't challenge any sexual stereotypes. As a breezy comedy about lust
in the Big City, however, it succeeds just fine.
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September 15, 2002
Changing Lanes
Roger Michell, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
As a morality play examining the extremes of good and evil in all of us, Roger
Michell's Changing Lanes sports unquestionable potential. The characters
-- up-and-coming lawyer Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) and down-and-out recovering
alcoholic Doyle Gibson (Samuel L. Jackson) -- have a minor fender bender along
New York's FDR Drive on Good Friday. Which turns out to be a not so great day,
as both men are rushing to vitally important engagements. Banek has to reach a
hearing so he can deliver a file that will secure his firm control of a $100
million charity fund, while Gibson needs to be in divorce court (coincidentally,
both are heading to the same general location) to tell his wife he's just
secured a house for her and his two boys, thus preventing her from leaving him
and moving to Portland, Oregon. Changing Lanes turns on this chance
encounter, wherein Gibson's vehicle is incapacitated and Banek, rather than give
the man a lift, abandons him with the not-very-Good-Samaritan phrase: "Better
luck next time." Unfortunately for the hotshot attorney, the file he needs to
present to the judge to garner all those ill-gotten millions for his company
gets left behind with Gibson, and the rest of the film traces the two mens'
actions as they attempt to punish the other via increasingly violent and
vindictive means. If Changing Lanes were nothing more than an existential
riff on the dark nature lurking within everyday people, it might have worked.
Regrettably, Michell frames it as a taut, urban drama. Furthermore, the script
-- by Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin (The Player) -- isn't based in any
plausible reality. Gibson and Banek play out their Spy vs Spy match in bustling
New York City as if it's one big ethical playground devoid of real people
leading actual lives. The supporting cast, meanwhile, is mainly employed to
philosophize on abstract notions of greed, fate, and goodness. For such a
realistically shot film, moving the cast about like chess pieces in a match
between Nietzsche and Camus comes across as obvious and forced. A real waste of
an intriguing idea and a solid cast.
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September 9, 2002
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Joel Zwick, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.5
There's a wonderfully staged scene in Woody Allen's Annie Hall where
Allen's character visits ladylove Hall's family for dinner and the screen
splits, contrasting the buttoned-up WASP aspects of the Hall household on one
side with Allen's remembrances of his loud Brooklyn Jewish heritage on the
other. My Big Fat Greek Wedding takes this one-note set piece and extends
it over a ninety-minute period, reinforcing the point that no joke should
overstay its welcome. In the case of Greek Wedding, we get brash,
full-blooded food lovers of Mediterranean origin contrasted with reserved,
snobbish, card-carrying country club members of Northern European stock. The
results are neither original nor insightful. Based on the one woman show
starring Nia Vardalos, Greek Wedding features Vardalos as Toula, a
30-year-old unmarried woman doomed to a life of old-maid waitressing at Dancing
Zorba's, her father's tackily named Greek restaurant. Enter tall, handsome and
unaffected schoolteacher Ian Miller (John Corbett of Northern Exposure
and Sex and the City fame), and it's love at first sight for Toula; the
two begin dating, fall in love and eventually get engaged. Toula's father has a
difficult time accepting that his daughter has fallen for a non-Greek, and thus
the Hellenizing of Ian commences, complete with a baptism in a child's wading
pool at an Orthodox church. The film is light and sweet, with little tension to
be found. The actual Greek wedding of the title proves the least important
aspect of the story; It's all about Ian and Toula's zany courtship, wherein
Greeks and WASPs learn to love one another despite their
two-dimensionally-shaded differences. It's a plot that might have worked in the
first half of the last century, when waves of immigrants were coming into the
country and there was a genuine sense of cultural identity in one's
neighborhood. But Chicago in the present day is certainly more ethnically
homogenous than Greek Wedding makes it out to be. If you're in the mood for a
good old-fashioned clichéd tale of saccharine sweet romance, you could do a lot
worse.
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September 2, 2002
Pauline and Paulette
Lieven Debrauwer, Netherlands/France/Belgium, 2001
Rating: 2.5
Lieven Debrauwer's first feature film is a light Belgian soufflé centering on a
group of sisters whose lives are turned upside down when the death of oldest
sister Martha (Julienne De Bruyn), leaves the care of mentally retarded Pauline
(Dora van der Groen) to the remaining two siblings, neither of whom wants to be
bothered with their likeable, but high-maintenance, relation. Neither sister
will see a dime of Martha's fortune unless one of them takes Pauline in, saving
her from life in an institution. Pauline, whose inner sweetness transcends the
difficulty of her care and feeding, favors the unattached, opera-singing
Paulette (Ann Petersen) over Cecile (Rosemarie Bergmans), newly entered into a
relationship, and the film ends much the way one would expect, especially given
the film's title and too-familiar, seemingly pre-ordained structure. There are
few surprises to be found in this warm-hearted yet sad little comedy, but fine
performances and solid camerawork make it a moderately watchable first effort
nonetheless.
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September 2, 2002
Birthday Girl
Jez Butterworth, UK/Australia, 2001
Rating: 2.7
Mild-mannered milquetoast John (Ben Chaplin), a timid British bank employee all
too accepting of the predictable, passionless rut his life has become, sends off
for a Russian mail order bride, rationalizing that his long hours and rural home
make meeting women difficult. Enter Nadia, a striking young woman whom Jon is
chagrined to discover knows no English, despite her online profile (he orders
her from a website cheekily called From Russia With Love). John wants to send
her back, but falters after she tearfully initiates sex. Soon, he's more or less
settled into an awkward domesticity despite the troubling fact of her sudden
inability to speak a language in which they'd presumably communicated online.
But since Nadia looks like (and is played by) Nicole Kidman, he understandably
swallows his doubts. Unfortunately, not much that happens afterward is as easily
understandable. John doesn't put up too much of a fuss when two more Russians,
Nadia's friend Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his new pal Alexei (a genuinely
unsettling Vincent Cassel), suddenly appear looking for a place to crash (on
Nadia's birthday, hence the otherwise completely inconsequential title).
Needless to say, things are not what they seem, one thing leads to another, and
soon John is a fugitive from justice (although he all-too-easily saunters his
way across the countryside for the rest of the film). Once the truth about Nadia
and her cohorts is made clear, none of the three principals (John, Nadia and
Alexei) behaves in a remotely plausible or consistent fashion, leading to an
ending both inanely predictable and appallingly anticlimactic. Chaplin, Cassel
and especially Kidman give fine performances; along with Moulin Rouge and
The Others, Birthday Girl lays to rest any doubts as to her
talent. But like a birthday cake, ultimately Birthday Girl proves a
forgettable confection.
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August 31, 2002
The Kid Stays in the Picture
Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.5
This adaptation of legendary Hollywood producer (and former Paramount studio
head) Robert Evans' audiobook memoir of his near half-century in the trenches of
Tinseltown, covers the key True Hollywood Story bullet-points of Evans'
life: his discovery, in the Beverly Hills Hotel swimming pool, by actress Norma
Shearer; Evans' eventual move behind the camera (complete with an epiphany that
he'd rather be a first-rate producer than a second-rate actor); his subsequent
triumphs (Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, Godfather,
Chinatown); and a couple of disasters (The Cotton Club, and the 1983
murder of would-be investor Roy Radin, leading to a scandalous trial in which a
tangentially involved Evans was called to testify, to the obvious detriment of
his reputation). But Point-A-to-Point-B timeline aside, Picture turns on
Evans' ability to regale us with his incredible life story (as with the
audiobook, Evans himself narrates), and he certainly doesn't disappoint. Evans
refreshingly lays everything on the line, whether discussing the love of his
life, Ali McGraw, and her decision to run off with Steve McQueen after appearing
with the actor in The Getaway, or the cocaine addiction that nearly
ruined his health and career. The film's major drawbacks are a lack of archival
footage to draw from (still images constitute the majority of the visuals, and,
while cleverly displayed, are too stilted and artificial-looking) and an obvious
lack of objectivity (Evans is the writer and narrator, after all). But for those
interested in Hollywood's history during the last fifty years, The Kid Stays
in the Picture offers an absorbing look into the mind and manias of one of
the industry's most colorful and daring personalities.
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August 31, 2002
The Cat's Meow
Peter Bogdanovich, UK/Germany, 2001
Rating: 2.5
In November 1924, film producer Thomas Ince fell ill on a yacht belonging to
newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and was taken ashore, where he died
shortly thereafter. Referred to as "The Whisper Told Most Often" in Hollywood
gossip circles, the death of Ince (hammily handled by Cary Elwes in the film)
was rumored to have been brought about by everything from Alexander the
Great-worthy indigestion, to an accidental shooting resulting from a lover's
triangle involving Hearst (Edward Herrmann), starlet -- and Hearst mistress --
Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst), and Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard). Director
Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon) chooses to explore
the more dramatic lover's-triangle option, and assembles a fine cast to help him
fabricate the events that took place on Hearst's yacht during the ill-fated
voyage (highlighted by Joanna Lumley's portrayal of best-selling author Elinor
Glyn). Regrettably, Bogdanovich and screenwriter Steven Peros fail to infuse the
material with anything revelatory. The Cat's Meow is a poorly paced,
blandly-framed, by-the-numbers affair, with Hearst stomping around the boat, gun
in pocket, determined to catch Marion and Chaplin in flagrante delicto
while the rest of the guests drink, cajole and get high. Since no one will ever
really know what happened, Bogdanovich could have gone hog-wild, making his tale
far more entertaining and outrageous than it is. As it stands, one can almost
sense the reverence he had for the subject matter and its Jazz Age Who's Who
list of big shots, celebs and hangers-on. In the process, Bogdanovich recasts
"The Whisper Told Most Often" as a stale, rote piece of second-hand gossip, and
where's the fun in that?
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August 30, 2002
What Time is it There?
Tsai Ming-Liang, Taiwan/France, 2001
Rating: 4.3
Themes of time, distance and loneliness are artfully explored in What Time is
it There?, Malaysian-born, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang's fifth -- and
most mature -- feature film since 1992. Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng plays Hsiao
Kang, a watch seller on the streets of Taipei, whose father has just passed away
and who, along with his more outwardly grief-stricken mother, is having
difficulty coming to terms with the loss. When a restless young woman,
Shiang-Chyi (Chen Shiang-Chyi), on her way to Paris, buys Hsiao Kang's personal
watch, he forms a unique bond with her, and sets about changing all of the
timepieces and clocks he comes across to Parisian time. Hsiao Kang's obsession is
as much about feeling connected to someone, even a total stranger, as it is a
reaffirmation that he, not the timekeeping devices that he depends on for his
livelihood, is in control. Shiang-Chyi, meanwhile, discovers Paris to be just as
isolated and lonely as Taipei, her quest for companionship unfulfilled, save for her seemingly trivial material connection to Hsiao Kang.
The grim, minimalist tone is wisely tempered by a mordant wit that keeps the
film from becoming too downbeat, while the acting is superbly understated and
appropriately naturalistic. Tsai
infuses his study of alienation with a spare, poetic beauty, aided in no small
part by gifted cinematographer Benoît Delhomme (Artemisia, The Scent
of Green Papaya, The Winslow Boy), whose spacious shots of Taipei and
Paris expertly accentuate the film's central conceit: how people can be utterly
alone in the world, no matter how bustling or crowded their physical locations.
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August 24, 2002
We Were Soldiers
Randall Wallace, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
War is hell. Making a movie about war, however, is far simpler. If you're
screenwriter turned director Randall Wallace, adapting We Were Soldiers Once...and Young
by now retired Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and reporter Joe Galloway for the big
screen is a mere matter of money, logistics and hubris. In November 1965, then
Lt. Col. Moore led the First Battalion, Seventh Cavalry (indeed, the same outfit
Custer marshaled to its doom at Little Big Horn) to Landing Zone X-Ray in
Vietnam's Ia Drang Valley, a North Vietnamese-controlled region appropriately
nicknamed "The Valley of Death." In what would turn out to be one of the first
significant engagements of the war, Moore's men, outnumbered more than 4-to-1,
valiantly held their own against the numerically superior opponent (thanks in no
small part to some excellent air support) and ultimately drove the enemy back.
Employing Wallace's ham-fisted, artless direction and Gibson's overly stoic
performance as Moore, We Were Soldiers manages athletically staged battle
sequences more gory than stirring, more exhausting than invigorating, like a
camp for war games played on a football field rather than across actual terrain.
Tired clichés abound, from the dying grunt's behest to "tell my wife I love her"
to Gibson's obligatory "leave no man behind" guarantee. We Were Soldiers
is all manufactured earnestness, with the dutiful wives waiting back home for
their respective husbands to return, or for that little white envelope to arrive
explaining his fate; and all surface, with the individual depth of the
characters lost in two-dimensional coatings of grim bravado and overzealous
posturing. The men of the 7th Cavalry, and those who fought and died against
them, deserved far better than this obvious, leaden and bloated travesty.
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August 24, 2002
Last Orders
Fred Schepisi, Germany/UK, 2001
Rating: 3.0
Last Orders, adapted from Graham Swift's 1996 Booker Prize-winning novel
by director Fred Schepisi, follows the journey of a band of lifelong friends to
cast the ashes of one of their cohorts into the sea, per the deceased's last
request. From the London pub in which the group congregates to the day long road
trip to the sea, Schepisi uses location and conversation to liberally cut
between past and present, as the buddies recall the good and bad times they
shared with recently-departed Jack (Michael Caine as the older, JJ Feild the
younger). The closer-than-others-suspect relationship between Jack's closest
friend, Ray (Bob Hoskins) and Jack's wife, Amy (Helen Mirren), proves the
highlight of the film, as the two veteran actors convey the obvious affection
felt between their characters (who had a brief affair years earlier) and the
strained decorum and respect for the dead by which they keep their true feelings
in check. The performances (including those of veteran English actors Tom
Courtenay, David Hemmings and Ray Winstone) are top drawer, and the pacing
appropriately spacious and leisurely. The film's main drawback comes in the
telegraphing of events, where characters in the present make obvious hints at
past secrets that are then reenacted faithfully as too-staged set pieces.
Indeed, the flashback sequences stand as the film's weakest link, and are too
brightly lit, as if not one of the past-70-year-old friends' mnemonic faculties
has faded with time. Adding a bit of ambiguity, of lost scraps of information
and possibly inaccurate claims, would have added greater depth, achieving the
weightier examination of time and mortality that the film clearly strives to
achieve. Regrettably, there's a nagging facileness to Last Orders that
undermines the final effect.
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August 18, 2002
Tadpole
Gary Winick, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.0
Will the tadpole learn to swim and hopefully make his own way in the world?
That's the key question director Gary Winick asks in this breezy, promising, but
underdeveloped serio-comedy of sexual manners set in Manhattan's Upper East Side
over a Thanksgiving weekend. 15-year-old Oliver Grubman (a young, but not that
young looking, Aaron Stanford) comes home from prep school to his history
professor father Stanley (John Ritter) and attractive stepmother Eve (Sigourney
Weaver). Oliver falls hard for his stepmother, and spends a great deal of time
working up the courage (not to mention finding the right opportunity) to
announce his true feelings to her. In the interim, he manages to bed Eve's
forty-something best friend Diane (a wonderful Bebe Neuwirth), and nearly charm
the pants off a group of similarly aged ladies with his keen, Voltaire-inspired
insights and fluent French phrasings. The digital video photography is
appropriately intimate and the dialogue accomplished, yet Tadpole is
undermined by two fundamental drawbacks: 1) Aaron Stanford is a fine actor, but,
for true veracity, the role should have gone to an actual 15-year-old, and 2)
the character of Eve is never fully explored to justify either her stepson's
infatuation or her own emotions regarding the boy's advances. Ultimately,
Tadpole winds up stunted by a lack of commitment to the seriousness of its
ideas regarding desire, self-discovery and the fragility/resiliency of the human
heart.
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August 18, 2002
Storytelling
Todd Solondz, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.5
Storytelling, a sub-90-minute exploration of the duality of perception
and truth, has its moments but ultimately feels unfinished and poorly focused,
partly due to the fact that only two ("Fiction," and "Non-Fiction") of three
stories originally intended for the film made the final cut. (The excised
"Autobiography," involving James Van Der Beek, of Dawson's Creek fame, as
a conflicted high school jock who engages in anal sex was purportedly removed
due to inferior quality, a shocked studio reaction, or both.) The too-brief
opening "Fiction" involves a lily-white college student, Vi (Selma Blair), who
has a one-night stand with her black creative writing teacher, the cruel,
controlling, Mr. Scott (Robert Wisdom). When censors balked at the graphic
nature of the sex scene, Solondz placed an obnoxious red block over the
characters, yet left in the most shocking element: What Scott demands Vi say
while having his way with her. Feeling violated by the incident, Vi writes an
emotionally charged story relating the encounter and, upon reading it in class,
she's accused of wallowing in racist stereotypes by her fellow students and
given only slight praise from Mr. Scott for an improvement in the quality of her
"fiction." Solondz's attempt at probing the thorny issue of race relations
barely registers, settling for shock value over actual enlightenment. The longer
"Non-Fiction" follows budding documentarian Toby Oxman (Paul Giamatti) as he
records the life of an upper-middle-class suburbanite family, choosing the
eldest son and disaffected high school senior, Scooby (Mark Webber), as his main
subject. When Toby eventually screens the finished film for an audience, the
dysfunctional reality of the family -- their poor communication and lack of
emotional depth -- is treated as high comedy rather than the sad tragedy it truly
is. Solondz's perverse fascination with the banality, hypocrisy and the
emotional isolation of suburban life was explored far more effectively in his
prior films, Happiness (1998) and Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995).
In comparison, Storytelling does nothing to further our understanding of,
or horror at, his preferred milieu.
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August 18, 2002
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Stacy Peralta, USA, 2001
Rating: 3.3
A documentary chronicling the lives of disenfranchised sidewalk surfers riding
the asphalt waves in mid-'70s Los Angeles, Dogtown and Z-Boys is an
involving, if overly self-important, look at the evolution of radical
skateboarding, from its roots as a way for low-rent neighborhood surfing
fanatics to take their waterborne moves onto dry land, to the form's latter-day
X-Games popularity. A casual, near ego-less Sean Penn narrates the exploits of
some adventurous teenagers known as the Z-Boys, whose groundbreaking use of
drained swimming pools introduced vertical aerodynamics to the then-moribund
world of skateboarding. The stars who cashed in and maximized the commercial
potential of their abilities (namely Tony Alva and the film's director,
Peralta), are poignantly contrasted with the fate of the most naturally gifted
member of the gang, Jay Adams, who got burned by the spotlight and eventually
wound up serving time in prison for a drug offense. The fact that Dogtown
was put together by those who lived it considerably weakens the overall
objectivity of the film, and this lack of impartiality dampens the harder edge
the story might have had regarding the breaking of the Z-Boys once the big name
skateboard manufacturing sponsors entered the picture. The issue of the outfit
losing its collective innocence is briefly touched upon, but isn't explored as
deeply as it might have been in the hands of an actual outsider.
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August 18, 2002
Super Troopers
Jay Chandrasekhar, USA, 2001
Rating: 2.0
The five-man comedy troupe Broken Lizard offers up this offbeat take on a group
of Vermont State Troopers in competition with the local police force for
recognition and additional funding by the penny-pinching Governor. One of the
outfits has to go, and thus the two sides play an ongoing game of one-upmanship,
highlighted by fisticuffs at crime scenes and attempts to swipe key evidence
from the other's impound. The real opportunity comes with exploring the boredom
of law enforcement in a less than challenging environment, where the occasional
speeder proves the weekly highlight. Yet rather than exploit the lengths to
which the troopers will go to shake the monotony of their jobs, Super
Troopers goes for the old Us against Them routine, like a rural Police
Academy sequel with fewer belly laughs. The characterizations are likeable
and refreshingly underplayed by the Broken Lizard ensemble, and it's
disappointing that a clichéd plot was inserted into what might otherwise have
been a left-field take on isolated cops and the theme of how the normal rules
don't apply in a location devoid of the expected trappings that require so many
regulations. In the end it's the Broken Lizard team versus the non-Broken Lizard
squad, with little mystery as to who will win out in the end, and that's a real
shame given the inherent potential of the source material.
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August 11, 2002
Blood Work
Clint Eastwood, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.4
Adapted for the screen by Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential) from the
novel by Michael Connelly, Blood Work sports an undeniably intriguing
premise: A retired FBI agent with a bum ticker receives a heart transplant and
is subsequently contacted by the sister of the woman whose organ he received,
asked to investigate her seemingly random and senseless murder. As directed by
Clint Eastwood (who also stars), Blood Work becomes a casually paced,
by-the-numbers police procedural that badly squanders its promising potential.
Eastwood plays the ex-detective, Terry McCaleb, as a careworn, septuagenarian
Dirty Harry, now living on a houseboat and doing his best to do nothing at all.
Into his life appears Graciela Rivers (Wanda De Jesus), sister of the woman to
whom Terry owes his life, and despite adamant protestations from his doctor (Anjelica
Huston in an underwritten, wasted roll) to stay retired, McCaleb's back in the
game. Which is exactly what the killer wants. Thus begins a cat and mouse game,
complete with tried-and-true crime drama clichés, such as the rival cops (Paul
Rodriguez and Dylan Walsh) who think McCaleb's butting his nose in where it
doesn't belong, to the comic relief sidekick (Jeff Daniels) and the inevitable
romance with the woman he's trying to help. Blood Work's most blatant
misstep, however, is the ridiculously obvious-from-the-outset identity of the
killer, which, when revealed, isn't even dramatically handled. Eastwood tips his
hand way too early, providing the audience with more than enough neon signposts
to whodunit, and it's exasperating to sit through the next hour and a half
watching allegedly bloodhound-savvy investigator McCaleb stumble over obvious
clues without the slightest hint of recognition. Perhaps if Blood Work
had simply given away the psychopath's identity straight up, then at least a
feeling of suspense would have been generated as the audience cringed at the
sight of McCaleb and others opening themselves up to the killer's discretion.
The performances are decent, the production competent, and there's something
refreshing about Eastwood not trying to act younger than his age. But Blood
Work still falls woefully short of maximizing its considerable potential.
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July 21, 2002
Eight Legged Freaks
Ellory Elkayem, USA, 2002
Rating: 1.5
The missing hyphen in the title is the least of
horror spoof wannabe Eight Legged Freaks' myriad problems. Directed by
Ellory Elkayem, Freaks takes a dying Arizona town called Prosperity
(irony duly noted), inserts a canister of radioactive sludge into the water
supply, and then sits back and ploddingly follows a gazillion oversized mutant
spiders as the nasty critters attack the town's folksy inhabitants. The intent
here is to take the knowing-wink approach of post-modern parodies like Scream
and apply it to the classic 1950s monster B-movie. Problem is, an excellent
little film called Tremors did the same thing back in 1989, and the
makers of that deserved cult classic understood what the Freaks team
completely misses: If you're going to do a send-up, you've got to play it
straight. Never once should your characters realize they're making light of, or
paying homage to, the particular genre in question. Freaks is too
self-knowing in its insights to create a palatable sense of terror; poor
dialogue and horrendous pacing only serve to compound matters. (Though, to the
effects team's credit, the spiders look pretty cool.) The cast is fairly
competent, led by David Arquette as the town's prodigal son, back from a decade
long exile and determined to get the local mine up and running. Kari Wuhrer
capably handles the role of the local sheriff (and Arquette's obvious love
interest), while Scarlett Johansson fulfills the obligatory
rebellious-yet-good-natured-daughter duties with workmanlike proficiency. Coming
to a video rental outlet near you in about three months.
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July 14, 2002
Reign of Fire
Rob Bowman, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.7
Set during the present day, a sleeping dragon is awakened within the
bowels of London, and all hell breaks loose. Flash-forward twenty years, and
the human race has been nearly wiped out by a swarm of the fire-breathing,
no-longer-mythical creatures. Rob Bowman (X-Files) keeps the action at
full throttle for most of Reign of Fire, aided in no small part by
excellent set designs and convincing computer generated flying reptiles. Matthew
McConaughey and Christian Bale portray pumped up heroes whose ultimate quest has
them tracking the biggest dragon of them all to the heart of downtown London.
Reign of Fire's main limitation is that it doesn't dare big enough; James
Cameron proved with 1986's Aliens that a B-picture could rise above its
built-in limitations and offer a thrill ride with genuine character development
and a truly memorable ending. Reign of Fire's climax is
fairly pedestrian and too straightforward (especially when compared to the far
more dramatic and tactically involving battle that occurs in the middle of the
movie). There's also never any sense that a
larger world exists outside of the U.K. The feeling of isolation and lack of
epic depth knock Reign of Fire down a few critical notches, but for sheer
entertainment value, it more than adequately does its job.
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June 30, 2002
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
Peter Care, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.7
Based on the novel by late author Chris Fuhrman, The
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys follows the rebellious exploits of a group of
Southern-reared Catholic schoolboys growing up in the 1970s. Francis (a
too-pensive-for-his-own-good Emile Hirsch) and daring, conflicted Tim
(impressively handled by Kieran Culkin), along with two other cohorts, spend
their days goofing off and creating comics casting themselves as overly-muscled
superheroes (garishly brought to life by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's
production studio) who battle motorcycle-riding, sadistic nun Pegleg, based on
one of the boys' teachers; the strict, passionately devout Sister Assumpta
(Jodie Foster, working with a woefully undeveloped, clichéd near-caricature).
Jena Malone plays Francis' love interest, Margie Flynn, a girl with a dark
family secret. Margie's situation artificially inflates a story that could have
worked just fine, given less plot and more emphasis on the humorous (and
subsequently tragic) trouble the disaffected, bored altar boys get themselves
into. But ultimately, the focus is lost as director Care jumps from the bond
between Francis and Tim, to the superheroic world Francis imagines in his mind,
to Margie's dysfunctional home life. All while leaving Sister Assumpta and
Father Casey (a genial, chain-smoking Vincent D'Onofrio) -- seemingly the only
other person running the school the students attend -- with very little to do, save
scold the troubled lads and pray for the safety of their everlasting souls.
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June 23, 2002
The Bourne Identity
Doug Liman, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.8
Bourne Identity director Doug Liman (Swingers,
Go) had a key choice to make with the fundamental structure of this film.
Should he have the audience know as much as his amnesiac lead, Jason Bourne, as
he struggles to discover the truth about his identity after being pulled from
the water by Mediterranean fishermen with two bullet holes in his back, thus
building a sense of mystery? Or should he allow the audience to know more than
Bourne, thus (presumably) ratcheting up the suspense quotient as moviegoers
watch an unwitting Bourne move from one dangerous predicament to the next? Liman
goes for the latter, more convoluted suspense model, which means the lead better
find himself in some pretty hairy situations and not too easily outwit those
working against him. Sadly, Bourne (Matt Damon, working with an average script)
overcomes his foes with relative ease, thus rendering any great suspense
impotent and making the film not so much a thrilling joyride as a plodding,
by-the-numbers affair saddled with a drawn-out conclusion. The late Robert
Ludlum's book, on which the film is loosely based, managed to draw out the
discovery of Bourne's true identity, thus allowing the reader to pick up scraps
of information along with the character. A 1988 made-for-TV movie, starring
Richard Chamberlain in the lead, managed to do the same. Liman plays his hand
way too early, leaving very little guesswork for Bourne or the audience, and the
end result is a paranoid thriller with very little paranoia to it. John
Frankenheimer's 1962 Cold War classic The Manchurian Candidate and 2000's
Memento are two examples of how a character picking up the pieces of a
murky past can be done right. The Bourne Identity looks good, and boasts
some solid performances, but it simply never convinces us that Bourne has little
more to worry about than figuring out why he has an apartment in Paris and a
Swiss bank account with a whole lot of currency, a slew of passports and a gun
in it. Providing Liman and Damon go on to complete Ludlum's trilogy (The
Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum), hopefully they'll allow a
little more mystery to creep into the proceedings.
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June 2, 2002
Undercover Brother
Malcolm D. Lee, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.5
Undercover Brother is to '70s blaxploitation
urban heroes as Austin Powers is to swinging '60s British spies. The
similarities are so obvious that it's little surprise Michael McCullers, one of
the Powers franchises' screenwriters, was brought in to help flesh things out.
In a nutshell, Undercover Brother (a solid Eddie Griffin), is recruited by the
covert organization B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. to stop the international
conglomerate The Man from mind controlling black people through the ingredients
in fried chicken. While there are a few humorous bits -- the highlight being
Undercover Brother and two thugs playing spectator to the shamelessly erotic
catfight between White She Devil (Denise Richards) and Sistah Girl (Aunjanue
Ellis) -- the film ultimately lacks teeth. The movie laudably preaches racial
tolerance, but rather than challenging stereotypical ideas whites harbor about
blacks (and vice versa), Undercover Brother chickens out with a preachy,
overly-simplified "all are one" message that comes off as uninspired and flat.
If the film was merely a second rate Austin Powers knockoff, and set its
goals at an appropriately lower level, it may have proven an entertainingly
vapid, sub-90-minute ride. Unfortunately, the hammer of racial harmony falls far
too often to ignore the bigger Message director Malcolm D. Lee (cousin to the
more renowned Spike) and Three Kings screenwriter John Ridley (creator of
the Internet cartoon on which the film is based) attempt to force through.
Brother's slapstick milieu is the wrong format for such proselytizing, and
its ham-fisted delivery just makes things worse. The acting is reasonably
strong, especially Saturday Night Live mainstay Chris Kattan as Mr. Feather, a
conflicted arch-enemy who can't shake the funk in his own soul. As 1988's I'm
Gonna Git You Sucka! proved, the best satire is one that's not afraid to
cast razor-sharp barbs (such as Antonio Fargas' ridiculously overdone Flyguy
strutting around in platform shoes containing mini fish tanks) in order to get a
laugh. Undercover Brother plays it safe and thus manages a mildly
amusing, but hardly enduring examination of a culture and people it can't decide
if it wants to skewer or hug.
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May 27, 2002
Insomnia
Christopher Nolan, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.0
In Insomnia, his follow-up to 2001's surprise
indie hit Memento, director Christopher Nolan tackles a 1997 Norwegian
film of the same name, transplanting its basic structure from the upper reaches
of Norway to outer Alaska. Al Pacino plays detective Will Dormer, under fire for
corruption from his Los Angeles home base, who, at the behest of an old friend
and the local sheriff, is sent away to help solve the murder of a young female.
While tracking the murderer, Dormer accidentally kills his partner, Hap (Martin
Donovan), and unwisely covers it up. Nolan does a good job of examining the
moral ambiguity of both Dormer and the one person who understands him best,
mystery novel writer (and certifiable maniac) Walter Finch (an appropriately
creepy Robin Williams). Finch witnesses Dormer's shooting and uses this
information to cut a quid pro quo deal with the beleaguered detective, feeling
that his murder of the teenaged girl was accidental as well. Dormer's inability
to adjust to the sunlit nights and titular condition that results from it are
nicely handled as he strives to blot out any light from penetrating his room
and, jointly, escape his deeply troubled conscience. Unfortunately, a movie so
keen on suspense reveals its hand far too early to sustain the tension required
to keep an audience's attention through its obvious and belabored climax.
Earnest young cop Ellie Burr (an utterly wasted Hilary Swank) ventures into
danger, with a sleep-deprived Dormer arriving for the last minute rescue, and
there's never a moment that seems surprising or fresh. The lone transcendent
scene comes late in the film, when Dormer admits planting evidence to nab a
bad guy back in L.A. to Maura Tierney (underused as the sympathetic woman running
the lodge where Dormer stays). Nolan frames his shots well and does a good job
creating the disorienting day for night of Alaska, but fails to wring anything
riveting or revelatory from his intriguing but ultimately unfulfilling Hollywood
thriller that wasn't already explored in the original film.
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May 20, 2002
About A Boy
Chris and Paul Weitz, USA/UK, 2002
Rating: 3.5
About A Boy, the third big screen adaptation
of a Nick Hornby novel (after 1997's Fever Pitch and 2000's High
Fidelity), introduces us to Will Freeman (Hugh Grant, all but typecast now
as the likable scoundrel with a hidden heart of gold), a dedicated bachelor and
self-centered egoist who, despite John Donne's famous observation to the
contrary, firmly believes that every man is, indeed, an island. Freeman doesn't
have to work (beneficiary of steady royalties from a Christmas jingle his late
father penned), and micro-manages his existence around dating, shopping and
television, the perfect model of layabout indifference. Cue 12-year-old social
outcast Marcus (the talented Nicholas Hoult) and his near-suicidal mother Fiona
(a strong Toni Collette), who enter Will's charmed, if shallow, life in a
roundabout fashion when Will joins a single parent's support group in hopes of
meeting new conquests. True to form, Will winds up forming a bond with
precocious young Marcus. The performances are uniformly strong and the direction
by the Weitz brothers (of American Pie fame) is solid, if a little too
heavy-handed in the interior monologue voiceover department. Will's actions
clearly convey his feelings, be they sarcastic or sincere, yet having Hugh Grant
reiterate them immediately afterward for the audience proves a bit much. In its
argument as to what constitutes a family these days, About A Boy
refreshingly avoids the easy out of a clichéd ending (Will adopting Marcus, or
marrying his mother, etc.). And thus the moral of the story -- that everyone needs
the company of others to stay sane -- ultimately endears rather than grates.
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April 24, 2002
Kandahar
Mohsen Makhmalbaf, France/Iran, 2001
Rating: 3.0
Set in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, Kandahar follows
the quest of Nafas (Niloufar Pazira) to illegally reenter the country three days
before her sister -- whose legs were blown off by a landmine years earlier -- can
carry out an intended suicide during the last eclipse of the 20th century.
During her arduous trek through the war-torn wastes, Nafas encounters four
distinct guides, each representing a different atrocity plaguing modern day
Afghanistan: a defeated Afghan refugee; a fatherless young boy expelled from an
Islamic religious school; an African-American militant turned healer; and a
one-handed thief who claims to be the victim of a landmine accident. These
encounters turn out to be the most structurally sound elements of an otherwise
disjointed and unsatisfying narrative. The story is based on journalist Pazira's
own unsuccessful attempt to reach a friend in Afghanistan after the Taliban took
power. But the film is considerably less successful as a fictional odyssey
through a harsh and hostile environment than it is as an exploration of modern
war-ravaged Afghanistan. Substituting Iranian for Afghanistan desertscapes,
director of photography Ebrahim Ghafouri captures stunning and indelible images,
the most impressive coming when a group of legless men race on crutches to
retrieve parachuting artificial legs dropped from a Red Cross helicopter. But
director Makhmalbaf's lack of closure regarding the plot is frustrating -- we
never learn whether Nafas ever reaches Kandahar and saves her sister. If the
entire point is -- contrived from information gleaned via the closing frame -- that
all of Afghanistan has been under an eclipse since the Taliban arrived, fine.
But it needs clearer delineation to have the necessary punch so that audiences
don't have to be left guessing as to what the ultimate point of the movie is,
other than one of oppressed futility. The film
runs a scant 85 minutes, so this was obviously an intentional decision, perhaps
meant to reflect the ambiguity of international press regarding the conditions
within Afghanistan (pre-September 11th). Yet Kandahar isn't a documentary, it's
a feature film by one of Iran's foremost directors, and as such one would have
hoped that the staging and acting were up to Makhmalbaf's usual standards.
Sadly, the murky conclusion hampers an otherwise fascinating and utterly
disquieting look at a place alien to many Westerners who up until recently
couldn't have cared less about its people or politics.
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April 18, 2002
Monsoon Wedding
Mira Nair, India/USA, 2001
Rating: 3.0
Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah) is marrying off his
only daughter, Aiditi (Vasundhara Das), to a young Hindi engineering student
from Houston. Set in modern day Delhi, this (mostly) light-hearted look at the
stress-filled preparations leading up to the big ceremony works best when it
sticks to Lalit's frustrations over money and the care and feeding of a
veritable army of visiting relations. English, Hindi, and Punjabi are sprinkled
liberally throughout, with many characters using the various dialects
interchangeably as they gossip, argue and discuss the future of an India coming
to grips with a world undergoing rapid cultural and technological change. Vijay
Raaz steals the show as Dubey, Lalit's wedding planner and the secret admirer of
serving girl Alice (Tilotama Shome). But the film is undermined by cheap plot
contrivances, the most glaring of which is the dramatically well-played, but
too forced "dark family secret" that emerges right before the wedding, and a
canned ending that's too pat to resonate beyond the moment. Once the credits
roll it's as if the characters no longer exist, and Nair clearly intentioned a
deeper connection. True family crises can't be wrapped up so neatly beneath a
wedding tent, as if enough laughter and dance will wash away the bombshell
dropped hours earlier. It's a cheap way out and severely weakens an otherwise
solidly entertaining and quite handsomely mounted film.
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April 8, 2002
National Lampoon's Van Wilder
Walter Becker, USA, 2002
Rating: 1.5
Van Wilder (an affable Ryan Reynolds) is a
seventh-year über-senior who's become all things to all undergrads at Calvin
Coolidge College. Unfortunately, mega-moneyed Van Sr. (a dignity-intact Tim
Matheson) decides to cut off his son's tuition, feeling the time is way overdue
for Van the Man to venture out into the real world. To stay in school, Van
becomes a party liaison for eager fraternities willing to pay top dollar to
guarantee a good time. Enter Gwen (sparkly-eyed Tara Reid), a determined
journalist for the school paper who's been ordered by her editor to dig up the
dirt on the legendary Wilder. Incredibly, the weakest part of the film is the
earnestly blossoming romance between Wilder and Gwen. What works best are the
scatologically inspired gags (a laxative-spiked protein shake) and excessively
gross gross-out humor (take a horny dog, a batch of fresh éclairs and... never mind).
The film would have been better served playing to its lowbrow strengths
throughout, instead of trying to force true love into a movie that isn't likely
to become the date flick of choice for discriminating couples.
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March 17, 2002
Resident Evil
Paul W.S. Anderson, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
Director Paul Anderson appears intent on cornering the market when it comes to
computer game-based adaptations. The success of 1995's Mortal Kombat
(contrasted with the not-so-stunning box office for 1997's non-byte born Event Horizon) appears to have persuaded Anderson to take another stab at
the Quake-influenced world of low-plot/maximum-violence filmmaking. Resident
Evil stars Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez as two members of a
commando team charged with infiltrating the Hive, an underground research
facility controlled by the ubiquitous (and unimaginatively named) Umbrella
Corporation. A biological experiment has gone horribly wrong and the Hive's Red
Queen supercomputer -- in a classic ultra-self-defense-mechanism move -- has killed
off all the employees, who subsequently rise from the dead, extremely ravenous.
Fans of George Romero's zombie films will appreciate the small band of the
living fighting off the plodding-but-determined undead, and it's to Anderson's
credit that the film is utterly unpretentious in its goals (save for gratuitous
Lewis Carroll references, including the Red Queen and naming Milla's character
Alice). Evil understands its B-grade cheese-factor status and doesn't
deviate from the stock characterizations and gruesome deaths its target audience
expects. There's no anti-corporate message here, just relentless action. While
Anderson lacks the mastery of suspense evident in more highly evolved brethren
(such as James Cameron's Aliens), it still manages a workmanlike effort,
and for that alone merits prime matinee-price consideration.
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March 10, 2002
The Devil's Backbone
Guillermo Del Toro, Mexico/Spain, 2001
Rating: 2.8
Spanish director Guillermo Del Toro's intriguing supernatural yarn of duplicity
and sin, set within a boy's orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, sports
enormous potential. Themes of ghosts, isolation, unrequited love and greed are
ripe for deep exploration. Sadly, Del Toro oversimplifies matters by neatly
tying up all of his loose ends, and reducing what could have been a fascinating
study of a Catholic-tinctured haunting into a pedestrian revenge tale. The
acting is solid (despite the flat two-dimensionality of the characters) and the
film is visually accomplished, with the image of an unexploded bomb protruding
from the center of the orphanage courtyard serving as a marvelous symbol of the
uncertainty and horror of all warfare. But too much plot undermines any
psychological understanding of the effects abandonment and betrayals have on
children. Devil's Backbone is a finely crafted work, yet ultimately just
another study in barbarism winning out over a more complicated, thoughtful
solution.
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March 2, 2002
Iris
Richard Eyre, USA/UK, 2001
Rating: 2.8
The life of renowned Anglo-Irish philosopher/novelist Iris Murdoch and her
unique, eccentric relationship with husband John Bayley receive an irritatingly
fragmented once-over in this adaptation of two reminisces by Bayley (Elegy
For Iris and Iris: A Memoir). Given the density of his source
material, director Eyre chooses a disconcertingly awkward approach, electing to intercut
the old Iris (a wonderful Judi Dench) and John (played to doddering,
professorial perfection by Jim Broadbent) with the young couple in courtship (an
energetically free-spirited Kate Winslet and reserved-to-a-fault Hugh
Bonneville). This rapid cross-cutting across some forty-odd years stunts any
sense of change or growth (other than the obvious superficial advance in years),
thus robbing the proceedings of the necessary dramatic tension. A more linear
narrative would have imparted a far weightier emotional impact, allowing us to
witness young Iris' rise to critical fame (supported by the
ever-faithful/near-sycophantic John), and, crucially, her harrowing mental decline due to
Alzheimer's. As it is, there are two separate couples to follow, neither
receiving the adequate screen time they so rightfully deserve.
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February 23, 2002
The Queen of the Damned
Michael Rymer, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
Sketchily drawn from the second and third novels of author Anne Rice's wildly
popular series The Vampire Chronicles, The Queen of the Damned attempts to cram a
dauntingly broad storyline into its too short running time. The task proves
beyond the ability of director Rymer, who manages some interesting action
sequences (think Matrix with fangs), but fails egregiously in adequately
pacing the film. Rice's mythology is far too elaborate to be properly addressed in the
space allotted by the movie. While visually arresting, the film is simply too choppy
and awkwardly structured. Prime example: the true climax arrives on a Death
Valley concert stage two-thirds of the way through, and the good versus evil
vampire showdown that follows is turgid by comparison. The actors do what they
can with a serviceable script, with Aaliyah (as the titular Queen Akasha) and
Stuart Townsend (as the vampire Lestat) exuding a natural chemistry.
Ultimately, Queen would have worked far better as a television
mini-series, allowing the characters (both mortal and immortal) the necessary
screen time to properly explore the hows and whys of their respective actions.
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February 12, 2002
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Christophe Gans, France, 2001
Rating: 2.5
An Asian martial arts fight-fest masquerading as a French period film.
Brotherhood of the Wolf strives to cram every genre known to modern cinema
(from historical costume drama to Matrix-style action sequences!) into its
overlong two-and-a-half hours. Perhaps cutting back on the excessive stop-motion
photography would have shaved an hour off its running time, producing a tight,
generally appealing whodunit. As it is, the fight choreography is decent (but
not groundbreaking), the acting serviceable (save for the emotionally committed
work of appealing ingénue Emilie Dequenne), and wardrobe appropriately garish. As
for the creature (the "Beast of Gevaudan," which legend whispers stalked hapless
peasants during the mid-18th century), well, the old adage "less is more"
applies here, the better to ratchet up the suspense and scare with shadows
rather than bloodily rent tendons. Brotherhood is fun, but so illogical
and haphazardly paced that the end result leaves little to hold onto. Save the
lesson that attempting to satisfy all moviegoers with a little bit of everything
runs the risk of missing the intended mark entirely.
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January 12, 2002
Gosford Park
Robert Altman, USA, 2001
Rating: 3.9
Excise the murder mystery and there's a really great
story here about how people treat one another, regardless of class or station.
There's also a nice contrast between British reserve and American directness.
Yet, Hollywood needed a hook, and that's where the classic "well-dressed dinner
guests gathered around a body, wondering who could have done it" device comes
in. To Altman's credit, he wisely spends as little time as possible on the
actual murder and gives the inspectors who show up hardly any screen time. Good
thing, since the real treat here comes in keeping track of all the uniformly
wonderful performances, bedroom shenanigans, betrayals, alliances and nasty
infighting. As a class warfare piece, it pales next to Renoir's classic Rules of the Game. But
Gosford Park manages to make its points
without overstating them, and while a tad overlong, it holds together nicely at
the end.
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January 6, 2002
The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson, USA, 2001
Rating: 3.5
A deliberately over the top examination of a dysfunctional New York family blessed with three child prodigies, all of
whom have had their struggles upon reaching adulthood, The Royal Tenenbaums
is an undeniably enjoyable, albeit uneven ride. There's a definite sense
that director Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson (who also plays the role of
lifelong family friend Eli Cash in the movie) wrestled with how serious
(or not) the film should be. The end result of this thematic tug of war offers
scenes of outright hilarity, such as when Margot Tenebaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) recounts how she lost
a finger, contrasted with a incredibly bloody suicide attempt by brother Richie
(Luke Wilson) that comes out of
the blue and alters the entire tempo of the movie. Gene Hackman's performance as
outcast family patriarch Royal is an absolute joy to watch. Hackman alone is
worth the price of admission, elevating The Royal Tenenbaums from a well
made but wildly unfocused character study to a joyride through the inner
workings of a true scoundrel's mind.
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January 4, 2002
A Beautiful Mind
Ron Howard, USA, 2001
Rating: 2.7
The complex story of Nobel Prize winner John Forbes
Nash Jr., a deeply troubled paranoid schizophrenic, is reduced here to a
thinking man's Forrest Gump. Director Ron Howard's broadly painted (and
frustratingly dumbed-down) biopic of Nash's life fails to adequately explain the
brilliance of the mathematician's work or to critically, honestly explore the
demons that possessed him. Howard's great revelation: Love is the answer. The
idea that "all you need is love" is an insult to those suffering from the
disease of schizophrenia. Russell Crowe does what he can with a poorly written
lead, but is ultimately reduced to cheap physical interpretations of the
character, rather than internalizing the mercurial, fragile mind of Nash. This
is not so much a serious film as it is a slick, Hollywood stab at Oscar-worthy,
troubled-soul material, certain to get the Academy members salivating come
voting time. Very disappointing.
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