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December 27, 2003
House of Sand and Fog
Vadim Perelman, USA, 2003
Rating: 3.8
Warning: Anyone already suffering from seasonal depression should steer
clear of this heavy, disturbing film (let's just say that its unbilled
star is Suicide). Vadim Perelman's debut, an adaptation of the
Oprah-endorsed Andre Dubus III best-seller, tells the rather
straightforward story of the test of wills that develops when two parties
stake a claim to the same house. In House of Sand and Fog, the
parties involved, and the path they've taken to the depicted point in
time, couldn't be more different. In one corner is Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer
Connelly), a recovering addict who loses her Northern California beach
house through no fault of her own; the house is seized after Nicolo finds
herself wrongly accused of failing to pay business taxes. In the other
corner stands Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley, in stoic, Oscar-winning
mode), a former Iranian Colonel who swoops in and purchases the house once
it's put up for auction. Complicating matters is a deeply flawed deputy
sheriff (Ron Eldard) who falls for Kathy and takes it upon himself to
rectify the situation, with disastrous results. The film's final third,
where everything comes to a head and the fate of the house is ultimately
decided, is an incredible, intense depiction of a modern-day Greek
tragedy. The conclusion will strike many viewers as rather implausible,
but there's no denying the heartbreaking pathos of the key figures,
especially Kingsley, whose performance as the proud, exiled Behrani is one
of the year's best. Also worth noting is Shohreh Aghashloo's silently
powerful performance as Behrani's shell of a wife.
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Eric Grossman
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December 24, 2003
Morvern Callar
Lynne Ramsay, UK / Canada, 2002
Rating: 4.0
Based on Alan Warner's novel, Morvern Callar centers on a young
Scottish woman who wakes up one morning to find her boyfriend dead, a
terse suicide note on his computer screen and a disc containing his
recently finished novel. Morvern (Samantha Morton) spends the rest of the
film working out her feelings for the deceased, from grief to bewilderment
to a renewed sense of purpose to get on with her life (despite only being
in her early twenties). Without even bothering to read the novel, she
erases her boyfriend's name, replaces it with her own and sends it out to
a list of prospective publishers in the U.K. She then empties the
boyfriend's bank account, disposes of his body (without alerting anyone),
and goes on holiday to Spain with her friend Lanna (Kathleen McDermott).
Director Lynne Ramsay confidently reveals Morvern's directionless nature,
be it wandering around Glasgow in the dead of night or traipsing about
sun-drenched Spanish beaches, without inserting a shred of formal plot
into the proceedings. It's that confidence in lead Morton -- one of the
best young actors working -- and a willingness to simply let the camera
follow her in a realistic, almost willy-nilly manner, that prove the
film's true strength. Even when contrivances arise (the book Morvern sends
out is accepted for publication and she's offered a hundred thousand
pounds to publish it), Morvern Callar never feels forced. It's a
fascinating study in aimlessness, a portrait of a young woman not seeking
herself, per se, but rather desiring to find a better world to inhabit.
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Laurence Station
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December 18, 2003
Something's Gotta Give
Nancy Meyers, USA, 2003
Rating: 3.0
Talk about method acting as a lifestyle choice. In Nancy Meyers'
feather-light Something's Gotta Give, Jack Nicholson plays Harry
Sanborn, a wealthy, 63-year-old smooth operator who limits his female
options to women under 30. As the film begins, Harry's sights are set on
Marin Barry (Amanda Peet). But before he can close the deal, Harry has a
heart attack at Marin's mother's Hamptons retreat. Forbidden by his doctor
(amiably played by Keanu Reeves, who's reduced here to little more than a
romantic foil plot device) to travel, Harry hunkers down and discovers
himself drawn to someone closer to his own age bracket: Marin's mother,
Erica (Diane Keaton), a successful but creatively (and sexually)
frustrated playwright. Despite the limitations of the too-obvious,
semaphore-telegraphed script, Nicholson and Keaton are magical together,
playing off of his shark-smelling-blood, sensitive-yet-manly playboy
archetype and her coiled-tight, neurotic control freak persona. Like
Meyers' previous entry, What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give
breezily skates along the surface and resolves itself with too-easy, "Only
in the movies" contrivances. One has to give Meyers credit for putting two
legendary talents together, however. Fans of either -- or both -- will
certainly enjoy seeing them make cinematic gold out of tired, leaden
romantic-comedy material.
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December 18, 2003
Stuck on You
Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, USA, 2003
Rating: 2.7
Leave it to the Farrelly brothers to tackle the subject of conjoined twins
and cast two actors bearing little resemblance to each other (Matt Damon
and Greg Kinnear). Stuck on You follows Bob (Damon) and Walt
(Kinnear) Tenor as the twins leave the burger joint Bob runs on Martha's
Vineyard to pursue
Walt's dream of becoming a movie star in Hollywood. Cher (playing herself)
attempts to exploit the duo to get out of a TV show she's contractually
bound to by selecting Walt as her leading man. The studio doesn't budge,
however, and attempts to film around Bob (who's attached by a nine-inch
stretch of skin to Walt's side) fail miserably. Walt's condition soon
becomes obvious, and the brothers hit the talk show circuit and soak up
the obligatory fifteen minutes of fame. Tensions arise, however, as Bob
gets homesick while Walt remains determined to cash in on his celebrity:
Soon, the separation the duo's long put off suddenly becomes a viable, if
risky, option. Fortunately, the decision to separate (Bob has most of the
duo's liver, thus limiting Walt's chances of survival) is underplayed, and
actually provokes one of the film's few laugh-out-loud moments.
Unfortunately, the separated Bob and Walt are little fun to be around,
each obviously missing the other after 32 years together. Stuck on You
lacks the edgy, "anything goes" energy of There's Something About Mary,
and the Farrelly brothers did a better job of entertaining and informing
on the topic of judging people based on character rather than physical
appearance with Shallow Hal. And, since Walt and Bob are never
fully developed (there's no family history or relevant flashback
sequences), it's difficult to form an emotional attachment. Ultimately,
the only ones stuck on Bob and Walt are each other.
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December 18, 2003
Spider
David Cronenberg, Canada / UK, 2002
Rating: 2.7
The danger of using an unreliable narrator is that the reader or audience
must discern what is reality and what is not from the perspective of the
lead voice or character, which is too often maddeningly opaque when it
comes to specific details. Having no counterpoint to what we're told is
like watching but one of the confessions from Kurosawa's Rashomon:
You learn what has happened, but are convinced there is more to the story
than meets the eye. David Cronenberg's Spider employs this device,
as does the book upon which it's based (both written by Patrick McGrath).
The story concerns a man (Ralph Fiennes) returning to his boyhood home
after spending time in a mental institution. Staying at a halfway house
until he's well enough to venture out on his own, we quickly discern that
Fiennes' character, Spider (so nicknamed by his mother), is having great
difficulty piecing together dark events from his childhood. Via Spider's
memories (well staged by Cronenberg, having the adult Spider stand off to
side watching as the various scenes involving young Spider unfold), we
witness his parents' troubled marriage and glean that his father may have
been having an affair. Of course, having Miranda Richardson play both
Spider's mother and Yvonne, a local tart Spider imagines his father
carousing with, further muddies the picture. Ultimately, despite the
peerless cast and strong visual imprint, Spider leaves only a
marginal impression, primarily because we never get a clear idea of what
it was, exactly, Spider experienced in his youth that damaged him so
deeply. Did he accidentally kill his mother? Did his father do her in?
It's in situations like these that a more reliable counterpoint would
definitely come in handy.
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Laurence Station
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December 16, 2003
All the Real Girls
David Gordon Green, USA, 2003
Rating: 3.0
All the Real Girls, writer-director David Gordon Green's follow-up
to his well-received 2000 debut George Washington, inhabits that
earlier film's same small-town, North Carolina environment. It also
exhibits the same loose plot structure, deliberate pacing and poetically
graceful cinematography (courtesy of Tim Orr) -- all hallmarks that
further stamp Green as an auteur rather than industry hack. Paul
Schneider, who had a less central role in Washington, gets to play
lead here as a small town lothario (also named Paul) who's bedded all the
available girls in town. When his best friend's virginal little sister
Noel (Zooey Deschanel) returns from boarding school, the expected
complications ensue. But Paul, despite having ample opportunity to do so,
doesn't take Noel's virginity. Instead, he struggles with entering the
first adult relationship of his life. Noel, eager to see what all the fuss
is about, winds up having sex with someone else, and Paul is left to sort
out just how deep his attachment to her has become. As opposed to the more
abstract George Washington, here Green's vague, exposition-optional
style works against him: All the Real Girls is a character-driven
drama that fails to adequately flesh out its principals, thus leaving us
with little to hold onto save its genuine performances and artfully
executed visual set pieces.
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Laurence Station
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December 16, 2003
Finding Nemo
Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, USA, 2003
Rating: 3.9
With Finding Nemo, Pixar continues its examination of how other
creatures -- toys, monsters, etc., -- view the human world. This time
we're given a fish-eye perspective, as we follow an overprotective clown
fish, Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks), who goes on a long journey from the
Great Barrier Reef to Sydney, Australia, in hopes of tracking down his
son, Nemo (voice of Alexander Gould). Marlin’s concern for Nemo’s safety,
aside from the obvious father-son relationship, stems from an (off-screen)
shark attack that occurred shortly before Nemo was born in which Nemo’s
mother and a few hundred unhatched siblings were killed. Nemo does
a good job of cutting back and forth between Marlin's quest and Nemo's
attempts to escape from a fish tank in a dentist's office. The patented
Pixar animation is astounding, and the voice characterizations prove
well-matched to their fish counterparts; Ellen DeGeneres stands out as a
daft Regal Blue Tang named Dory. The inevitable reunion of father and son
proves less spectacular than one might have hoped for, and the message of
a parent trusting his or her children to go off on their own is jarringly
unsubtle, even for an animated film. But Nemo still succeeds in
entertaining without relying too heavily on digitized "wow" moments, and
ultimately proves a sleeker, more efficient creation than the convoluted
Monsters, Inc.
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Laurence Station
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December 06, 2003
Winged Migration
Jacques Perrin, France / Germany / Italy / Spain / Switzerland, 2001
Rating: 2.8
The idea of following a variety of birds as they migrate for winter, of being
side by side or behind the flocks as they soar, swoop, and travel across the
sky, is an incredibly promising one. Jacques Perrin and his team trained groups
of birds to ignore the cameras hovering near them and set about, over a
three-year period, to document the migratory patterns, trials and travails of
their subjects. Winged Migration contains many beautiful shots, and the
Herculean effort that went into creating it is breathtaking. The film's
narrative and structural problems, however, detract greatly from its
effectiveness. The score is bland and New Age-y; intermittent narration and
factoid subtitles seem disconnected from a larger script. And considering the
birds were trained, it might have been more dramatically effective to follow a
single group of, say, geese, instead of jumping between several flocks of birds
throughout. Winged Migration's goal is unquestionably noble, but the end
result never quite takes off.
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November 13, 2003
Willard
Glen Morgan, USA, 2003
Rating: 2.0
The 2003 version of Willard provokes a few baffling, unanswered questions
from the outset: Why a remake of the 1971 film, itself just barely a
moderately profitable cult classic based on Stephen Gilber's equally obscure Ratman's
Notebooks? Is it some warped shot-for-shot remake like Gus Van Sant's
equally questionable rehashing of Alfred Hitchcock's imitable Psycho?
Perhaps Willard was a dream project for one of its stars? Try this: Maybe
a no-name director (Glen Morgan) and cinematographer (Robert McLachlan) were
determined to make names for themselves by attaching their modest talents to (at
least tangentially) recognizable source material? Alas, Willard is none
of the above. It's an uninspired remake straight from the Tim Burton school of
schlocky tracking camera shots, a sad and uninvolving tale of a man whose only
friend is a rat, and who possesses the unique ability to command swarms of
rodents on command -- a talent he utilizes to take revenge on those who have
wronged him. The real reason Willard exists is because it pairs two of
the great over-acting mavens of late 20th century cinema: Crispin Glover in the
lead and "It sure has been a long time since Full Metal Jacket" R. Lee Ermey as Willard's cruel,
destined-to-be-swarmed-by-hungry-rats boss. Watching this duo go at it almost
makes Willard a semi-bearable exercise: A case study in How Not to Be
Subtle with Either Dialogue or Mannerisms. Even then, it's still a stinker. Rent
the original, or better yet, save time and put on "Ben," Michael Jackson's
stirring ode (growing creepier as the years roll by) to a man's love for his pet
rat.
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September 16, 2003
Le Divorce
James Ivory, USA, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2003
Rating: 1.5
In your local community college's Introduction to Film 101, a course that the
famous producer-director team of Merchant-Ivory could teach with its collective
eyes closed, you would probably learn that for any film to be enjoyable, you'll
need a coherent plot and characters worth caring about. (A photogenic and/or
interesting location or background would be good, too.) In Le Divorce,
Merchant-Ivory (director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) have churned out one of the least impressive films of
their storied career by largely forgetting about those pesky plot and character
parts (although in using Paris as the film's setting, they did nail the location
bit). Le Divorce makes great waste of its impressive, international cast
by staging scene after scene with little flow or feeling. Kate Hudson (playing
the ditzy Californian role that her mom, Goldie Hawn, made famous) and Naomi
Watts (adopting a shaky American accent that has made no one famous) handle the
central roles, as a pair of sisters who find themselves in the City of Lights
for wholly different reasons. Watts's Roxie is the permanent transplant, married
to a stereotypically useless Frenchman (played with sufficient insouciance by
Melvil Poupaud) and struggling to raise a young daughter. Hudson's Isabel comes
to Paris to visit her sis, but all hell breaks loose soon thereafter when
Roxie's husband leaves her for the dreaded another woman, while Isabel,
for murky reasons, becomes the mistress of Roxie's ex's uncle. Got that? Don't
bother, as you'll likely find yourself wondering if Merchant-Ivory even read
Diane Johnson's bestselling novel before agreeing to make this unwatchable mess.
Actually, there are several bearable scenes, thanks to sweeping views of Paris
and Matthew Modine's shockingly awful performance as the scorned husband of the
aforementioned another woman. About halfway through Le Divorce,
you'll likely find yourself pining for another movie.
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Eric Grossman
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May 11, 2003
Real Women Have Curves
Patricia Cardoso, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.8
Real Women Have Curves tackles a slew of family and women's issues, from
dealing with one's self-image to the tricky dynamic of mother-daughter
relationships. America Ferrera plays Ana, a hardworking student and recent high
school grad who's smart and determined enough to want more from her life than
working in an East L.A. dress-making sweatshop, as her mother does. When she's
awarded a scholarship to Columbia University, Ana's dream of making a better
life for herself appears to have come true. The only problem is, Ana's family
doesn't want her to go, fearful that if she travels cross-country to New York
she'll somehow be inalterably rending the fabric of her tightly knit Latino
clan. Real Women Have Curves features a strong cast and sharp
photography, but it's ultimately undone by a script that plays it ultra-safe
when it comes to looking beneath the surface of things. The interaction between
Ana and her mother (Lupe Ontiveros) is more a series of sitcom barbs than a
serious exploration of the resentment some mothers feel at seeing their
daughters avoid starting a family as soon as possible in favor of having a
career first. Ana is so optimistic and resolute throughout that when she finally
does make it to college there's no sense of achievement, as if she had to
overcome difficult emotional and psychological obstacles to get there. She
simply departs. Her mother sulks. It's more television pilot than challenging
piece of filmmaking, a real shame given the talent of the participants involved.
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Laurence Station
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May 11, 2003
Two Weeks Notice
Marc Lawrence, 2002
Rating: 3.5
Grading romantic comedies requires a curve: Since the unspoken point of the
whole exercise is to bring together the film's leads inconsistencies in plot or
structure are judged more leniently than they would otherwise be. Two Weeks
Notice is a perfect example. Sandra Bullock, who also serves as producer,
plays Lucy Kelson, a crusading attorney dedicated to environmental causes and
arresting the more socially catastrophic effects of modern progress. Kelson
becomes chief counsel for roguish developer George Wade (Hugh Grant), an affably
charming executive living a life of indolent prosperity, in return for George's
promise to spare a neighborhood community center from his company's wrecking
ball. But of course, complications ensue, as Wade's genial, rich-guy demeanor
clashes with Lucy's uptight proficiency. When he summons her away from her best
friend's wedding to ask her opinion on his wardrobe, Lucy quits, proffering the
titular two weeks' notice. We know that this separation will eventually bring
them together, but as is all too often the case with romantic comedies, we're
given scant reason to believe that this union should actually occur. But just as
superhero or fantasy films require a suspension of disbelief, so do romantic
comedies insist upon a leap of faith. This is made possible here due to the
easygoing chemistry of the two leads: The perfect inevitability of the
compatibility of their screen personas eases any doubts a real human being would
have about their prospects for a long-term relationship. Writer/director Marc
Lawrence, who also helped pen Bullock's Miss Congeniality and Forces
of Nature, shows a workmanlike adeptness for the form in his directorial
debut. Despite a few missteps (Alicia Witt proves far too nice in the role of
Lucy's competitor for Wade's affection), Two Weeks Notice does its job
ably and with a certain lightweight charm that should have no trouble eliciting
the required sighs of contentment from female viewers that are the genre's only
measurable yardstick for success.
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Kevin Forest Moreau
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May 05, 2003
The Believer
Henry Bean, USA, 2001
Rating: 3.0
The Believer is a modest independent film inspired by the true story of
Daniel Burros, an anti-Semite and one time member of both the Neo-Nazi Party and
the Ku Klux Klan, who killed himself in 1965 when the New York Times reported
that he was actually Jewish. Bean's film follows budding skinhead Danny Balint
(Ryan Gosling) as he attempts to come to terms with his rage and reconcile his
conflicted heritage. Gosling gives a fantastic performance, which essentially
carries a shoddily constructed film. We never get a clear indication of what
transformed a bright Jewish student into a heritage-denying racist; what we do
get is a too-easy rationale involving a weak father figure and natural
inclination to challenge accepted wisdom, which undermines Danny's
believability. Where does all the (mostly self-) hate come from? Failing this,
we'd settle at least for a mentor/father figure: In the flawed yet potent
American History X, Stacy Keach's Cameron profoundly influences young
Derek's (Edward Norton) development as a racist thug, which when added to
Derek's personal family misfortunes helped ground that film in some semblance of
reality. The Believer offers no such grounding: Danny has no Cameron
directing him, and his articulate, seemingly autodidactic arguments about the
"disease" of the Jews sound more like propaganda posturing than deeply ingrained
beliefs. The closest he gets to hate-mongering guidance is a pair of
one-dimensional clichés with the regrettable names of Lina Moebius and Curtiz
Zampf (Theresa Russell and Billy Zane, respectively), an unfortunate imagining,
on the filmmaker's part, of what pseudo-intellectual right wing wannabe fascists
are presumably supposed to be like. The Believer is worth seeing for Ryan
Gosling's exceptional performance alone: The rest is too unbelievable to bother
with.
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May 04, 2003
Bloody Sunday
Paul Greengrass, Ireland/UK, 2002
Rating: 3.8
On January 30, 1972, 13 people were killed and scores wounded in the town of
Derry, Northern Ireland. The incident took place during a civil rights march
that was prohibited by the British-controlled government, and triggered decades
of warfare between British troops and the Irish Republican Army. Director Paul
Greengrass (The Theory of Flight) looks at the events of what has come to
be known as Bloody Sunday with the immediacy of a war correspondent covering the
action on foot; the fictionalized action is presented in a shaky, urgent and
often chaotic mode. The closest Bloody Sunday comes to a protagonist is
Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt), a parliamentary representative who organizes the
march and struggles to keep it peaceful. Unfortunately, local youths, hooligans
and members of the IRA react violently to the heavily-armed British presence,
triggering a chain of events that leads to civilians being shot dead in the
streets. Greengrass avoids indicting any particular group for the bloodshed,
though the British are clearly portrayed in the least sympathetic light. The
main problem with Bloody Sunday is Greengrass' ambiguously unfocused
narrative approach. Rather than follow the path a particular Irish youth takes
in becoming an IRA fighter, we follow the ineffectual Cooper, who's merely a
politician fighting a losing, pacifistic battle. Bloody Sunday is an
undeniably powerful film, but one wishes the filmmakers had been bolder in
taking a stand on who was to blame for the carnage and revealing more about the
chain of events that conspire to create an IRA terrorist.
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May 04, 2003
Darkness Falls
Jonathan Liebesman, USA, 2003
Rating: 1.2
Why in the world any place, even a sleepy old New England town, would call
itself Darkness Falls is highly questionable. Thus, right off the bat we're hit
with a credulity-stretching plot contrivance that proves to be the smoothest
move made by the rookies helming this one-note wannabe horror project. The film
centers on a legend passed down through the generations, about an old woman who
was wrongly hanged when some children turned up missing (later to be found --
oops!), but not before placing a curse on Darkness Falls. Seems the crone did
more than just place a curse on the town, though; she's an all-out avenging
revenant whose preferred method of attack is swooping down on her victims,
yanking them high in the air, ripping them to shreds and then dropping them back
to earth. While the ghost's killing method might seem clear enough, nothing else
makes much sense. For instance, the old woman fears light but, rather than
eliminating the source of her weakness, she chooses instead to pummel her
non-light emitting victims. That this ghostly hag can interact with material
objects, yet avoids taking out the source of her pain from a safe distance is
one of the many glaring holes in this ploddingly directed, poorly acted and
written train wreck. Avoid it at all costs.
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Laurence Station
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May 04, 2003
The Crime of Padre Amaro
Carlos Carrera, Mexico/Argentina/France/Spain/USA, 2002
Rating: 2.9
Want to generate instant, hot-button controversial buzz for your film? Mix the
following ingredients: Catholicism; Mexico; and morally corrupt priests. Shake
well before serving. Carlos Carrera concocts quite the contentious beverage with
The Crime of Padre Amaro, but what he leaves out of this melodramatic brew is a
deeper examination of corruption in the Roman Catholic church.
Y Tu Mamá También's Gael
García Bernal, the Mexican It-boy of the moment, is savvily cast as the titular
clergyman who strays from his vows and has an affair with a beautiful young girl
(Ana Claudia Talancon). Opting for obvious, soap-operatic elements -- an affair,
unexpected pregnancy, drug dealers giving money to the church -- Carrera
bypasses an opportunity to do something truly shocking and controversial:
Question the moral resolve and ultimate infallibility of the Roman Catholic
priesthood in Mexico. The gifted Bernal certainly can't be faulted for making
the most of a shallow, two-dimensional role, and Sancho Gracia does notable work
as Father Benito, a priest who's strayed too far from the righteous path. Fans
of Bernal and over-the-top Spanish soap operas will get the most out of this one
-- and apparently already have, as it's become the highest-grossing native-born
film in Mexico's history. Now there's a real crime for you.
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Laurence Station
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April 27, 2003
Standing in the Shadows of Motown
Paul Justman, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.8
Standing in the Shadows of Motown gives props to the Funk Brothers, the
studio musicians behind Motown's string of hits during the classic Detroit
period (1959-1972). As the Brothers prove, one of the shrewdest moves label
founder Berry Gordy made was to assemble the best players he could find (which
primarily involved those musicians with jazz backgrounds) and allow them to
define the unmistakable Motown sound. Justman, whose documentary is based on the
Allan Slutsky book of the same name, uses talking-head interviews, staged
reenactments and, naturally, performances by the surviving Funk Brothers to
convey the importance and magnitude of the outfit's contribution to the history
of popular music. You're guaranteed to never hear another Motown single from the
Funk Brothers' period without connecting the infectious sound to the talented
performers backing such legends as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and the Supremes.
Tellingly, the live concert meant to pay tribute to the Funk Brothers features
well-known artists of today (Joan Osborne, Meshell Ndegeocello) fronting the
band. And, yet again, despite being the main subject in their own movie, the
Brothers get pushed to the background. Regardless, it's a fantastic mix of
history lesson and heartfelt tribute to a group of players whose impact on
modern music cannot be overstated.
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April 25, 2003
Children Underground
Edet Belzberg, Romania/USA, 2001
Rating: 4.0
In her debut effort, documentarian Edet Belzberg examines the fallout of
Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's disastrous policy of outlawing
contraceptives, thus encouraging his people to have more children in an effort
to bolster the country's workforce. Concentrating on five homeless/runaway
children living in and around Bucharest's Victory Plaza subway terminal,
Belzberg reveals the difficulties faced by these youths but also the sense of
liberation they feel escaping from their dysfunctional homes or bleak
orphanages. Sixteen-year-old Cristina shaves her head and downplays her
femininity in an effort to not only protect herself but to show her toughness
against potential adversaries. When asked if she believes in love, Cristina says
no, she believes in God, because "he's bigger." This kind of only-the-strong
mentality dominates the world of these street urchins, where a definite pecking
order exists and the cruelty meted out by the stronger, usually older children
painfully mirrors the conditions from which they're all seeking to escape.
Belzberg doesn't attempt to sugarcoat her subjects' behavior, from huffing paint
to cutting themselves when upset -- the circumstances and miseries suffered by
the children serve as a scathingly clear indictment of Ceausescu and his corrupt regime. Despite
being toppled from power and executed in 1989, the dictator's sad legacy lives
on, a fact that Children Underground ensures the world won't soon forget.
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April 19, 2003
Roger Dodger
Dylan Kidd, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.4
You've got to finish. That's the mantra the titular lead of writer/director
Dylan Kidd's first feature film repeatedly emphasizes to his 16-year old nephew
regarding the Manhattan dating game. Regrettably, Roger Dodger fails to
finish, but it does provide an entertaining excursion through New York's
nightlife before its unsatisfying conclusion. Campbell Scott (Singles,
The Spanish Prisoner) comfortably inhabits the title role, bringing a
loquacious charm to the quick-witted, razor-tongued Roger, while Jesse Eisenberg
more than holds his own as Nick, Roger's sexually curious nephew up from Ohio on
the pretense of scouting colleges. For the brainy but romantically inexperienced
Nick, a night on the town with his successful uncle promises to be just the sort
of coming-of-age adventure he needs before entering the more socially advanced
world of college. What Kidd gets right is showing how lonely the outwardly
affable, wry Roger truly is, and how shallow and empty the one-night stand
dating game can be. What undermines the film are references to Roger's dead
mother, his strained relationship with his older sister (Nick's mom) and
distance from his father. Kidd introduces deeper pathos to Roger's behavior (his
preference for older women, clinginess to his boss -- a sharp, refreshing
Isabella Rossellini -- and utter disgust with the singles scene), but by the end
of the film, doesn't follow through. The film fails to reconcile Roger's
problems (e.g., a cathartic conversation with his sister or father), or to wrap
up by showing us a Roger who continues to persist in his vicious cycle of
self-created misery, trapped alone every night in his bed. Kidd would have been
better off jettisoning the subtext altogether and merely focusing on what works
(Roger's wild night out with his nephew) rather than closing with a half-hearted
stab at closure that comes up short at the end, when the game's on the line and
you've got to finish.
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April 19, 2003
Femme Fatale
Brian De Palma, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.0
For those hoping Brian De Palma would move away from pedestrian, big-budget fare
like Mission to Mars and Mission: Impossible and return to the
trashy, shamelessly voyeuristic sleaze of the films that made his name (Dressed
to Kill, Body Double), good news: Femme Fatale wallows in
every De Palma cliché imaginable. Lesbian action? Check. Gratuitous scenes of
women dressing and undressing? Check. Obligatory man with camera/telescopic
device watching women? Check. Vaguely noirish, byzantine, Hitchcockian plot?
Triple check. Femme Fatale is the sort of movie unimaginative film school
students might hand in when assigned the task of scripting the ultimate De Palma
film. Genetically flawless Rebecca Romijn-Stamos plays Laure Ash, a thief
working the Cannes film festival circuit who literally steals a
diamond-encrusted top off of a sexy model (Rie Rasmussen) while groping her in a
bathroom stall. After betraying her two accomplices, Laure takes refuge in
Paris, where a photographer (Antonio Banderas) takes snapshots of her and a
mysterious female counterpart. And then the plot goes way off the deep end, with
De Palma seemingly making up contrivances as he goes along in an effort to keep
the audience guessing. De Palma's "What really happened" angle is hardly
inspiring, but Romijn-Stamos proves more than capable of carrying on in the fine
tradition of the De Palma blonde, a trashier equivalent to Hitchcock's famed
stable of beauties. That aspect alone merits Femme Fatale a mild
recommendation. Just take the batteries out of your thinking cap before sliding
this one into your DVD player.
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April 19, 2003
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Sam Jones, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.5
Sam Jones is a photographer by trade, and it shows. I Am Trying To Break Your
Heart, the director's first stab at a feature length film -- tracking the
making of and drama surrounding the release of Wilco's acclaimed
Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot -- certainly looks gorgeous. This is a good thing, since
Jones' narrative chops leave something to be desired. The fly-on-the-wall
approach is sincere and nakedly front-and-center throughout, with little in the
way of context for non-Wilco fans or those not overly familiar with the band's
music or the album's backstory. So newcomers won't get nearly as much out of
such footage as the diehards will, but I Am Trying does effectively show
the creative process at work, tracking Foxtrot's songs as they evolve
from workspace jamming to studio mixing and final mastering. Lacking any
cohesive narrative structure, Jones lucks out with the now told-to-death drama
that unfolds: Reprise Records rejects YHF as unlistenable, the band
subsequently buys back the record from the label and ultimately triumphs when
it's eventually released on Nonesuch to overwhelming critical acclaim. It's
refreshing to see the band's lack of tired rock-star trappings: No groupies or
wild parties, just a hardworking, blue collar approach to songcraft. As cinema,
however, D.A. Pennebaker's 1967 slice of Bob Dylan cinéma vérité, Don't Look
Back, did a much more effective job with subject and setting. For serious
Wilco fans, this is a slam-dunk 5.0 Holy Grail of insight into the making of
what's been hailed as the band's masterpiece. Non-fans will have much less to
relate to. But any music fan should enjoy seeing the blood, sweat and toil that
goes into making the end product we all buy.
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April 19, 2003
Code Unknown
Michael Haneke, France, 2000
Rating: 3.8
"Have you ever made somebody happy?" That's the key question Michael Haneke
struggles to answer in Code Unknown, an intensely moral film that
examines selfishness in an unsettling and intentionally fragmentary manner.
Taking one incident on a Paris street corner and then tracking the lives of
three people directly and indirectly involved, Haneke challenges his characters
with the self-examination of their own selflessness. Juliette Binoche plays an
actress dissatisfied with her photo-journalist husband; Luminita Gheorghiu is a
Romanian reduced to begging on the street in an effort to support her family;
and Ona Lu Yenke teaches deaf children how to communicate, and yet has trouble
understanding her own fractured African family. The notion of personal
satisfaction over global harmony drives the plot, via the choices the characters
make and obstacles they are forced to overcome, and is at the crux of Haneke's
dilemma. Though, from the very outset, it's clear on which side the extremely
humanist director falls: Intolerance of others is damaging to everyone. The film
and its moral are a bit heavy-handed in execution, but the dramatic editing --
cutting away from one scene to jump to another in the middle of dialogue, for
instance -- and uniformly strong performances help elevate Code Unknown
to the status of a message movie that doesn't probe its deeper intentions
without selflessly giving solid entertainment in return.
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March 13, 2003
Tears of the Sun
Antoine Fuqua, USA, 2003
Rating: 1.5
How does America deal with the legacy of artificial colonial boundaries that cut
across ancient, contentious intertribal lines in Africa? Easy: Send in Navy SEAL
Bruce Willis and his elite team to give hope to the hopeless, inspire the
downtrodden and elevate the spirits of needy, presumably leaderless Africans
everywhere. Tears of the Sun is a self-important, self-congratulatory,
tediously paced (though gorgeously shot, thanks to exotic Hawaiian locations)
non-action action movie that capitalizes on the image of America (strong but
tender; tough but caring) as Big Brother to the world. It's a fantasy, presuming
a few good Americans (other nationalities need not apply) can hoist the world on
their sturdy shoulders and avenge ethic atrocities. And, oh yeah, finish their
designated mission: Lead a Doctors Without Borders aide worker (Monica Bellucci,
muddied but still beautiful) and her staff and patients to safety in a Central
African country that has imploded into fractious civil war. The enemies are
faceless drones, existing solely to get mowed down and trade shots with Willis'
crew near the very end. The film's absolute wince-inducing moment comes when the
lone black solider amongst Willis' men says the team needs to save the
beleaguered Nigerians because they're "his people" and Willis agrees: He has to
follow through for "our sins"! Horrible, horrible, horrible. Why couldn't
Clemenza have been given this
assignment?
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March 09, 2003
The Ring
Gore Verbinski, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.3
The premise is undeniably intriguing: A video tape that, once seen, dooms the
viewer to die in exactly seven days. Of course, there's an escape clause: Make a
copy of the tape and pass it on to someone else before your seven days are
spent, and you're off the hook. (Not that there are any convenient instructions
explaining this loophole, of course.) It's an anti-chain letter of sorts. There's
really no upside (other than saving one's neck) and the downside is as grim as
it gets. Gore Verbinski (The Mexican) directs this remake of Ringu,
the wildly popular 1998 Japanese original, and follows the same basic template:
Young, attractive reporter (Naomi Watts) investigates the tape's origins,
attempting to figure out where it came from and whether it's an elaborate hoax.
After her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) watches the tape -- as she herself has
done -- her interest in escaping the video's death sentence ratchets up the
tension quotient considerably. On par with Ringu, The Ring manages
some genuinely creepy moments, despite lackluster pacing in spots. The source of
the tape's malice has been altered from the original, and its justification
proves a little more coherent to this Western viewer's sensibility, shedding
more light on the significance of the seven day waiting period and depth of evil
at work behind the killer tape. Those stout of heart are encouraged to watch
this one with the lights off.
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March 09, 2003
The Banger Sisters
Bob Dolman, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.9
Leaving the past behind versus living in it full time serves as the primary
conflict of The Banger Sisters, a lightweight comedy that gets a little
too self-consciously serious for its own good. Goldie Hawn is Suzette, an aging
groupie who loses her job at L.A.'s famed nightclub Whiskey A Go-Go and heads
down to Phoenix to hit up old friend and former party girl, current mother of two
and all around respectable citizen Lavinia (Susan Sarandon), for some cash.
On the way she picks up miserable Harry Plumber (the great Geoffrey Rush), a man
suffering from writer's block, not to mention from the fact that he hasn't had
sex in ten years. Free spirit Suzette handles the getting laid part and,
naturally, becomes Harry's muse in the process. The film's main focus, however,
is on Lavinia's attempts to conceal her groupie past, and Suzette wondering if
she's wasted her life as a plaything for traveling rock stars. It's easy to
imagine Suzette and Lavinia as the girls from Almost Famous (Goldie
Hawn-Kate Hudson mother-daughter connection duly noted), all grown up and
traveling decidedly different paths further along the road. Director Dolman,
meanwhile, fouls up a perfectly fun comedy by getting overly sentimental toward
the end; there's simply not enough depth to the characters to merit deeper
examinations of identity and aging gracefully. But it's the three top-notch
leads that merit Banger Sisters enough clout for a mild recommendation.
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March 05, 2003
All or Nothing
Mike Leigh, UK/France, 2002
Rating: 3.1
Serving up yet another slice of British working class miserablism,
writer/director Mike Leigh verges dangerously close to self-parody with this
unflinchingly realistic examination of several families in a cheerless London
housing tenement. Using an overwhelming pile-it-on approach of various miseries
(obesity, depression, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancy) to go along with the "just
getting by" financial hardships of his ensemble, Leigh minimizes, rather than
emphasizes, his characters' travails. Where Leigh's
1996 masterpiece Secrets & Lies possessed a narrower, more concentrated
focus, All or Nothing attempts to tackle no less than every conceivable
malady of the lower classes and winds up firing wide of its mark on all fronts.
On the upside, Leigh regular Timothy Spall (as the meek, fatalistically
philosophical cab driver Phil) and Lesley Manville (as the long-suffering mother
of his two children) accord themselves quite nicely. Both actors manage to rise
above Leigh's draconian restrictions on joy and happiness and, by film's end,
find a tiny pocket of grace in their bleak reality.
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March 03, 2003
Old School
Todd Phillips, USA, 2003
Rating: 2.2
A lightweight Animal House crossed with a Pre-Middle-Aged Back to
School, Todd Phillips' Old School is as derivative as it is safe. The
plot is obvious (30ish man moves into house next to college; restless buddies
decide to start fraternity), the conclusion predictable (will the frat avoid
being shut down by the vindictive dean, or will the fraternal brothers pass a series of "school spirit"
tests and persevere?), and the humor pedestrian (Will Ferrell running around
naked is about as daring as it gets). Luke Wilson is likable enough as the
everyman Mitch, and Ferrell and Vince Vaughn handle their respective parts
fairly well (physical and verbal comedy, respectively). But there's no sense of
tangible threat here (as opposed to Animal House), and the picture
suffers from a lack of flat-out funny moments (Sam Kinison's Vietnam War
"lecture" in Back to School). Old School doesn't even bother to
offer an original comedic thought, or pursue a different take on collegiate life
or the onset of mid-life crisis. Which ultimately leaves the film with very
little to recommend it. Appealing leads are not enough to save this third-rate
retread.
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February 23, 2003
The Rules of Attraction
Roger Avary, USA, 2002
Rating: 2.0
Novelist Bret Easton Ellis despises the characters he writes about. There's a
venomous quality to his fiction, a condemnation of the people whose lives he
explores, be they burnout L.A. teens in Less Than Zero or psychotic Wall
Street financier Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. In The Rules of
Attraction, Ellis shows us the world of Patrick's younger brother Sean,
dealing drugs at Camden College, a toney New England institution of higher
learning; Easton's bitter assault on apathetic rich kids screwing each others'
brains out, doing copious amounts of drugs and partying nonstop is presented
without a shred of interest in such fundamentals as character development or
believable dialogue or situations. Ellis has an ax to grind, literary
conventions be damned. All of which poses a conundrum for any filmmaker
interested in adapting the book for film. Roger Avary's solution is to impress
the audience with clever photography (backwards tracking shots; snowflakes that
strike cheeks and turn to tears; really, really tight close-ups of faces
straining during sex), and the end result is a handsomely shot, obscenely
excessive exercise in film school tomfoolery, one with absolutely nothing
important to say about rich, jaded, good looking college students. James Van Der
Beek plays the predatory Sean, Shannyn Sossamon is the virginal Lauren and Ian
Somerhalder is Paul, a restless homosexual with a predilection for straight men.
Do we learn anything about any of these characters during the near two-hour
running time? No. Do we care about them, whether they live or die, find
happiness or drop off the end of the earth? No. As a result, what's supposed to
be a shocking and arresting look at real college life proves anything but:
Van Wilder
offered a deeper examination of the typical collegian's mentality. That would
appear to be an impossible statement to make but, alas, Attraction, in
neither adding nor subtracting from its source material, proves the exception to
the rule.
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February 16, 2003
The Cockettes
Billy Weber, David Weissman, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.7
The Cockettes, a late '60s/early '70s San Francisco-based group of transvestite
performers, receive the documentary treatment in this entertaining film, which
utilizes a wealth of archival footage and talking-head interviews to paint a
vivid picture of the outfit during its heyday. Led by the charismatic Hibiscus,
the Cockettes begin as a freewheeling song-and-dance variety company, soon
gaining enough notoriety to take their show to New York. Hibiscus, fearing that
the group is becoming too commercial, drops out; the remaining Cockettes bomb in
New York, but regret nothing about their misguided shot at the big time -- or at
least off-Broadway. Unsurprisingly, many of the members die of drug overdoes or
succumb to AIDS in later years, but the refreshing aspect of the film is how
unrepentant the surviving players are about the excesses and addictions that
defined their lifestyle. This is one counterculture movie that manages --
through anecdotes and imagery -- to faithfully depict the spirit of the times.
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February 16, 2003
Mad Love
Vicente Aranda, Italy/Spain/Portugal, 2001 (2002 domestic U.S. release)
Rating: 3.5
Mad Love -- a curious change by U.S. distributors from the more accurate
Spanish title Juana la Loca (Juana the Mad) -- details the doomed marriage of
Juana of Castile (newcomer Pilar López de Ayala, in a strong performance),
daughter of Catholic monarchs Isabella (Susi Sánchez) and Ferdinand, and
Archduke Philip of Flanders (hunky Daniele Liotti). The purely political union
shows initial promise, as Philip awakens heretofore undiscovered passions in his
young bride. Shortly, however, Philip is spending less time with his wife and
enjoying the company of Juana's ladies-in-waiting. The situation is exacerbated
when Isabella dies and Juana becomes Queen of Spain. In Castile, Philip falls
under the spell of Aixa (Manuela Arcuri), a Moorish exotic dancer/temptress,
which only inflames Juana's jealousies to the point that she begins neglecting
her duties as Queen. While the film doesn't delve very far beneath the surface
of its historical personages, the late 15th/early 16th century details look
right and, despite our foreknowledge of the less than cheery outcome awaiting
the two lovers, Mad Love creates an impressive amount of soap-operatic
tension. Juana is treated compassionately here, portrayed more as a betrayed
wife than a raving lunatic, and she remains faithfully devoted to her cheating
husband until the very end. The decision to offer a Moorish prostitute -- in
league with the devil, no less -- as a scapegoat is both silly and patently
offensive, if understandable; after all, redeeming Juana's battered reputation
is clearly on the filmmakers' agenda, and thus someone else must by necessity
take the blame for her downfall. Such self-serving narrative devices undermine
the film's credibility, however, further reducing its overall effectiveness.
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February 04, 2003
Narc
Joe Carnahan, USA, 2002
Rating: 3.2
Joe Carnahan moves from the Tarantino-inspired frenzy of Blood, Guts, Bullets
and Octane, his 1998 feature debut, to the realm of the gritty police drama.
Narc follows recovering drug-abusing cop Nick Tellis (Jason Patric,
recalling a role similar to the one he played in 1991's Rush), who's been
suspended from active duty after recklessly killing an unborn child during a
drug bust. Tellis is offered a chance to return to police work, if he'll assists
loose canon Lt. Henry Oak (Ray Liotta, in fine, shit-kicking form) in solving
the murder of an undercover cop. Tellis and Oak go through the standard
procedure of shaking down inner-city Detroit scum, all the while piecing
together clues that they hope will lead them to the killer(s) and murder weapon.
Tellis soon starts to suspect that Oak might know more about the murder than
he's telling, leading to an inevitable showdown wherein secrets are revealed and
surprising truths uncovered. Figuring out what actually happened to the slain
narc ultimately proves less important, however, than the issues of honor and
redemption with which both men are clearly wrestling. Despite a strong buildup,
Carnahan's payoff is too tidy, and the final big surprise only causes one to
question why so involved a cover-up was needed in the first place. Also,
Carnahan blows what early on seems a chance to explore the stresses felt by
law-enforcement spouses in a fresh and fascinating way. Ultimately, Narc
is tough, well acted and urgently edited, but it never quite adds up to the sum
of its initially intriguing parts.
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January 18, 2003
Time Out
Laurent Cantet, France, 2001 (2002 domestic U.S. release)
Rating: 4.3
Human Resources, Laurent Cantet's 1999 debut, dealt with interlocking
themes of labor relations and family ties. For his follow up, Cantet treads
familiar ground, focusing on modern society's emphasis on one's place in the
workforce, although this time shifting the perspective from blue collar to
white. Vincent (accomplished French stage actor Aurelien Recoing), a middle-aged
family man stuck in middle-management limbo, has been fired from his job for
lacking "company spirit." His apathy carries over into the façade he invents for
his family's benefit: they believe he's still going to work everyday, when in
reality he drives around aimlessly in hopes that something better will turn up
before the financial strain becomes too much. Vincent rebels against his mundane
existence by refusing to find gainful employment, but ends up moving his 9-5
grind from behind a desk to behind the wheel of his car. Very little has actually
changed, save that Vincent is no longer getting paid for doing little of
importance. Cantet patiently builds his narrative around Vincent's increasingly
desperate and implausible lies, until the weight of his double life threatens to
destroy his marriage and family. Recoing carries the picture marvelously, subtly
revealing a man who's bought into his own fantasy world until he can no longer
distinguish between what's real and what's not. His performance helps make
Time Out a masterful study in middle-class desperation, both
claustrophobically constrictive and benumbingly blissful -- often within the
same manic space and moment.
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