Film Reviews
Film listings are updated on Fridays.
[Recommended]
[New Releases]
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Compiled by Marjorie Baumgarten (M.B.); with reviews by
Louis Black (L.B.), Hollis Chacona (H.C.), Steve Davis (S.D.), Robert Faires (R.F.), Alison Macor (A.M.), Joey O'Bryan (J.O.), Marc Savlov (M.S.).
RATINGS
5 stars As perfect as a movie can be
4 stars Slightly flawed, but excellent nonetheless
3 stars Has its good points, and its bad points
2 stars Mediocre, but with one or two bright spots
1 stars Poor, without any saving graces
0 stars La Bomba
D: Danny Boyle; with Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald.
(R, 94 min.)
Two young men are hurtling down a street as Iggy Pop's incantatory ode to survival, "Lust for Life," blasts through the theatre's speakers. Concurrently, a voiceover, with a thick Scottish accent, sardonically disembowels society's empty exhortation to "choose life." Trainspotting is a modern-day movie about the experiences of some unrepentant Scottish junkies, yet in its opening moments, Trainspotting spiritually resembles nothing so much as the Beatles' careening burst of adrenaline-charged "devil-may-care" in their introductory movies, A Hard Day's Night and Help! Hardly cute and cuddly moptops, these Trainspotting rogues are, nevertheless, driven by similarly simplistic formulas. In the movies, the Beatles race along trying to stay one step ahead of crazed fans and other pursuers; action for the Trainspotting crew is solely motivated by the need to fix and score. Instead of the social-realism approach taken by most movies dealing with drug subcultures, Trainspotting observes its subjects with a mordant eye - an inclusive perspective that permits humor, exhilaration, wit, and hyperbole to mingle with stark realism and dingy morality. Some have (falsely) interpreted this stance as a dangerous glorification of heroin, but Trainspotting really remains neutral on the subject. Heroin, with its pitfalls and pleasures, is merely a fact of life, and so are the subcultures and lifestyles it generates. The movie does not ignore the drug's harrows, but neither does it deny heroin's intractable lure and efficacy. In fact, the movie's most pathologically violent and twisted character is an alcoholic who never touches heroin. Trainspotting plainly includes various heroin-related tragedies such as AIDS, crib death, and personal betrayal, but it also resorts frequently to humor and exaggeration in order to drive home other points. (The most obvious example of this is the scene in which a character swims into the most disgusting toilet/cesspool of feces in order to retrieve a couple of heroin suppositories he unwittingly excreted, thereby showing in an astonishingly vivid, surreal, and unforgettable manner the literal depths to which one can sink in the quest to score.) The same Scottish team (director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, screenwriter John Hodge, and actor Ewan McGregor) responsible for 1994's surprise low-budget hit Shallow Grave reunite here for Trainspotting despite serious wooing and many lucrative proposals from Hollywood financiers. Also retained for this sophomore effort are many of the same crew members who worked on Shallow Grave. Additionally, Irvine Walsh, the author of the novel on which Trainspotting is based, appears as a drug dealer toward the end of the movie. At times, the Scottish accents seem difficult for Americans to penetrate, and the characters' dexterous use of slang and subculture references do not make things any easier. Yet the ear, if permitted, adapts quickly to the foreign cadences, and though some of the specifics and nuances may pass unclarified, isn't that the way of all subculture lingo? The on-target performances, along with the unceasing barrage of popular music and daring narrative gambles, combine to make Trainspotting one of the grand movie rushes of 1996.
(8/2/96)
4.0
stars (M.B.)
Village
D: Andrew Davis; with Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Kevin Dunn, Brian Cox, Joanna Cassidy, Chelcie Ross.
(PG-13, 107 min.)
Presumably still smarting from the disastrous critical and commercial failure of his ill-conceived, would-be comedy Steal Big, Steal Little, director Andrew Davis predictably hot-footed it back to the action genre which has earned him his greatest successes, the wildly overrated Under Siege and The Fugitive. With this latest film Chain Reaction, Davis has little more on his creative mind than scoring another hit and has left nothing to chance by shamelessly copying the formula that inexplicably made The Fugitive a smash with both audiences and reviewers alike. This time, it's Keanu Reeves (instead of Harrison Ford) who's been framed for murder and is on the run. The former Speed star unconvincingly plays a role obviously tailored to suit his particular talents: that of a long-haired, motorcycle-riding student machinist who finds himself caught up in a government conspiracy after his lab is leveled by a massive explosion and his boss, a noted scientist, turns up dead. He is accompanied by a former colleague (Weisz), a pretty, wide-eyed scientist with a British accent who has also been set up, and is pursued by a couple of shadowy characters - mysterious, cigar-smoking Morgan Freeman and fast-talking Fred Ward (who stands in for Tommy Lee Jones as the fed hot on our hero's trail). To call the story line implausible would be an understatement, but believability is really the least of the problems with J.F. Lawton and Michael Bortman's unnecessarily talky script, which is teeming with ridiculous expository dialogue (the first five minutes seem more like a random Mr. Wizard episode than a high-voltage thriller) and predictable plot twists and unpredictable plot holes. Davis' flat, lethargic direction helps matters little, as Chain Reaction lumbers gracelessly from event to event without any sense of momentum, finesse, or imagination, and it seems every new scene must kick off with a high-angle establishing shot, whether we've already been introduced to the location or not (it may seem like a minor quibble, but trust me, you'll tire of it quickly). There are a few nice special effects, and Jerry Goldsmith's score works overtime to make the rather bland proceedings a bit more exciting, but, ultimately, any movie in which even Morgan Freeman manages to give a lackluster performance can only be considered a seriously botched job.
(8/2/96)
.5
stars (J.O.)
Great Hills, Highland, Lake Creek, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
D: Frid Boughedir; with Selim Boughedir, Rabia Ben Abdallah, Mohammed Driss, Helene Catzaras, Mustapha Adouani, Carolyn Chelby.
(Not Rated, 98 min.)
Film critic-turned-filmmaker Frid Boughedir goes home to Tunisia to tell the story of 13-year-old Noura (played by the director's nephew Selim), a boy suspended in the limbo that exists between boyhood and the adult world of men. With Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces, director and screenwriter Boughedir chooses a familiar coming-of-age narrative for his first feature film and personalizes it through a depiction of the culture of Tunis - the city in which the neighborhood of Halfaouine is located - that both celebrates and questions issues of family and gender. Small for his age, Noura is able to accompany his mother Djamila (Ben Abdallah) to the Turkish baths, which are segregated by sex for adults. Using his privileged position as a way to ingratiate himself with the neighborhood's older boys, Noura exploits the trust of his mother and visits the baths in order to report back in detail about the women's bodies. Noura's interest in women stems in part from his desire to be accepted by the older boys. Feeling babied by his mother and his female relatives who have arrived in Halfaouine to celebrate the impending circumcision of his younger brother, Noura seeks friendship with Salih (Driss), the kind-hearted women's shoemaker-cum-poet who has a weakness for women and alcohol. Interestingly enough, as the main character of this story, Noura has very few lines of dialogue. Instead, we learn about his thoughts and desires by watching his face, which still retains a sense of childish openness. Boughedir's acting works well to elicit tenderness. The continual presence of adults who do not understand or even notice Noura's lonely struggle toward manhood enhances this effect. And yet some of the film's narrative moves slowly, dragging out the climactic moments in order to introduce subplots involving political subversives and the hypocritical behavior of many of the male figures in the film, such as Noura's overbearing father Si Azzouz (Adouani). While these scenes are meant to provide context and tension within the film's narrative, they do not prove as engaging as when Noura is the focus of the action. White subtitles, at times indecipherable against a white background, complicate the viewing process. Additionally, the actual circumcision of Noura's brother is somewhat graphic and may offend delicate sensibilities. As a coming-of-age film, Halfaouine works because of the characterization of Noura by Selim Boughedir, but the film does not succeed equally on a larger scale.
(8/2/96)
2.5
stars (A.M.)
Hogg
D: John Payson; with Jerry O'Connell, Megan Ward, Robert Vaughn, Don Ho, Shiek Mahmud Bey, Jim Sterling.
(PG-13, 80 min.)
That the advertisements for Joe's Apartment proudly proclaim it to be "MTV's First Movie" might seem tip-off enough to anyone who's charted the rise of that now all-powerful music network. However, Payson's original 1992 short film, upon which this expanded feature is based, was indeed a marvelous creation, loaded with dark wit, ingenious editing, and East Village charm. Unfortunately, this new version fails to hold up to its predecessor. Payson's film follows the day-to-day rut of Joe (O'Connell), a young slob fresh off the bus from Iowa, who lands a rent-controlled apartment in New York City's grim and grimy Lower East Side. The catch? Joe's new digs come complete with an all-dancing, all-singing infestation of cockroaches who are determined to help Joe out as he acclimates himself to life in the Big Apple. The roaches love Joe because he's a slob, and Joe manages to tolerate the presence of his 50,000 housemates through sheer will power and occasional oblivion (not that avoidance of the clamoring insect crowds is easy - they tend to break into elaborate, Busby Berkeley-esque chorus numbers at a moment's notice). While out searching for a job one day, Joe spies Lily (Ward), the beautiful and idealistic daughter of a New York senator (played by Robert Vaughn), who just happens to be scheming alongside Joe's corrupt landlord (played by Don Ho). It's not long before love is in the air (along with countless buzzing cucarachas), although Joe - amiable oaf that he is - isn't quite sure of how to woo the upper-class Lily. Add to this a number of odd subplots involving Joe's performance-artist pal Walter (Jim Turner) and Vaughn's relatively unexplored penchant for women's undergarments, and you have a very original but woefully uneven debut. With a goofy "what next?" grin permanently plastered across his face, O'Connell is fine as the transplanted Iowan, though you get the feeling that both he and Ward still feel themselves bound by the restraints of an MTV short. Much of the editing here comes from the video school: rapid cutaways and montages, crazily skewed angles, and a pulsing soundtrack. It's not the sort of style that holds up well for 80 minutes, but Payson, admittedly, seems to be doing his best. It's not enough, though, when the roaches (led by the voices of Billy West and House Party director Reginald Hudlin) steal the show every time. Their Greek chorus bits may seem straight out of Babe, but the use of animatronic puppet and live-action cockroaches is wonderfully clever. It's just too bad the rest of Payson's film wasn't as entertaining.
(8/2/96)
2.0
stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Highland, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Movies 12, Roundrock
D: Danny DeVito; with DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Mara Wilson, Embeth Davidtz, Pam Ferris, Paul Reubens, Tracey Walter. (PG, 97 min.)
Not reviewed at press time. DeVito directs himself and his wife Rhea Perlman (in their first feature collaboration) in this modern fairy tale in which they play deadbeat parents to a precocious girl. The deeply stupid Mom and Pop Wormwood are too wrapped up in the petty details of their lives to notice that their daughter Matilda is a budding genius in love with knowledge and learning. Matilda, eventually, learns to turn the tables on all the grown-ups - a fitting conclusion for this story adapted from a classic Roald Dahl children's book. ()
(M.B.)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Roundrock, Westgate
D: Steve Barron; with Martin Landau, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Rob Schneider, Udo Kier, Bebe Neuwirth, Genevieve Bujold, the voice of David Doyle.
(G, 96 min.)
In The Adventures of Pinocchio, director Steve Barron (Coneheads, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) assumes a daunting task in retelling the classic story of the wooden puppet and his kindly "father" Geppetto that was brilliantly brought to the screen first as an animated feature by Walt Disney in 1940. However, Barron makes good use of Nineties technology in adapting the tale to include live action and animatronics by, among others, Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the special effects team behind Babe. Based on the tale by Italian writer Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio tells the story of Geppetto (Landau), a lonely woodcutter and puppet maker whose sole family consists of the elaborate wooden puppets he lovingly carves. Burdened by an unrequited love for his late brother's wife Leona (played by French actress Bujold, in her first American film in years), Geppetto immerses himself in the world of his puppets. When a log with magical powers lands in his wheelbarrow, Geppetto carves his own little boy puppet and christens him Pinocchio. What happens next literally brings new life to Geppetto and the town in which he lives. Pinocchio and Geppetto's encounters with the despicable showman Lorenzini (Kier, last seen in Barb Wire) provide the film's most suspenseful and enjoyable moments, while Pinocchio's attempts to fit in with "real" boys emphasize the film's theme about the difficulties of being an outsider. Landau (Ed Wood) is perfectly cast as the slightly befuddled but truly well-intentioned puppet maker. Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Man of the House, television's Home Improvement) provides the voice of Pinocchio and appears as the puppet-come-to-life at the end of the film. But the true star of the film is the special effects-generated puppet, whose antics and actions are even more impressive for the way in which they create a three-dimensional, endearing character. Nearly as impressive are the film's lavishly detailed sets, particularly in the scenes featuring Lorenzini's elaborate puppet show and the mysterious Terra Magica amusement park. Other, less significant aspects such as a pesky woodpecker make it an enjoyable experience, particularly for the audience of children with whom I viewed the film; they seemed truly entranced by the spectacle of Pinocchio. Unlike its Disney predecessor, though, the film's score is not memorable, and a few clunky attempts at modernizing the characters' dialogue fall flat. However, The Adventures of Pinocchio thoughtfully updates a children's classic with modern effects wizardry whose appeal may even transcend the tale's targeted younger audience.
(7/26/96)
3.0
stars (A.M.)
Highland, Lakeline, Movies 12, Westgate
D: Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro; with Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus.
(R, 117 min.)
From Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, the distinctive French wunderkinder responsible for 1991's dazzling genre-bender Delicatessen, comes this similarly eye-popping effort, The City of Lost Children - a film at least equal to its predecessor in terms of sheer style, imagination, and invention, even if it doesn't hold together as well structurally. The movie follows the adventures of a brave nine-year-old girl who teams up with a gentle, simpleminded strongman in order to rescue her younger brother, who has been kidnapped, along with a handful of other kids, by a sad, rapidly aging old man named Krank, who uses his scientific genius to project himself into the world of the children's dreams in a vain attempt to liven up his dreadfully bleak existence on his secluded island fortress. The City of Lost Children fancies itself a fairy tale - albeit a dark and scary Brothers Grimm-styled one - and, were it not for a few isolated moments of icky violence and questionable sexual overtones, it would make a fine children's picture. However, in its current form, we have a movie charming enough to capture the simple magic of Mlis' A Trip to the Moon, yet high-tech enough to feature special-effects wizardry worthy of anything in Jurassic Park; sophisticated enough to grasp Terry Gilliam's jovial sense of cynicism, but wide-eyed enough to evoke a child's innocuous way of looking at things (even though it's still gleefully hip enough to swipe a sight gag from Stephen Sayadian's sexed-up "remake" of The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari). In short, we have a movie jam-packed with enough strange characters and wild mythologies for at least three films; ironically, therein lies both the picture's greatest strength and its most grating weakness. While it's undeniably wonderful to be presented with such a full palette, the sensory overload that inevitably occurs as the film progresses can't help but distance one from both the characters and the (admittedly marvelous) world they inhabit. With The City of Lost Children, Jeunet and Caro have thrown in a little bit of everything and, while the approach often works (as in the absolutely ingenious, brilliantly realized sequence in which a single teardrop falling through space triggers a whole chain of events), it also results in some decidedly messy storytelling. Nevertheless, with its fine performances, gorgeous sets, incredible special effects, imaginative story line, beautiful score (by frequent David Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti), and knockout cinematography, The City of Lost Children is very much worth seeing. If, occasionally, the picture seems a little cluttered, perhaps that's the price you must pay for a film as rich and enjoyable as this one.
(3/1/96)
3.5
stars (J.O.)
Dobie
D: John Schlesinger; with Kate Beckinsale, Eileen Atkins, Sheila Burrell, Joanna Lumley, Rufus Sewell, Stephen Fry, Freddie Jones, Ian McKellen, Miriam Margolyes, Ivan Kaye.
(PG, 92 min.)
With charm and plucky resolve not unlike that possessed by Cold Comfort Farm's main character Flora Poste (Beckinsale, who played Hero in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing), the latest project of director John Schlesinger (The Falcon and the Snowman, Midnight Cowboy) grows on its viewer, wearing down any hesitations that may keep him or her from embracing the unique ensemble that is the Starkadder family. Schlesinger, with screenwriter Malcolm Bradbury, brings to the screen Stella Gibbons' popular 1932 English novel, which is, among other things, a satire of various literary genres. Cold Comfort Farm is also about a young woman, orphaned after her father's death, who chooses to live with her "country cousins" instead of remaining in the social throes of 1930s London with her friend Mrs. Smiling (Lumley, Patsy on the BBC's Absolutely Fabulous). Intent on becoming a writer "like Jane Austen," Flora believes that a little bit of rural living will give her the experiences and time she needs to write her first novel. However, she finds herself caught up in the slightly gloomy and definitely eccentric goings-on at the Starkadder home, a rundown estate called Cold Comfort Farm. Constantly referring to Flora as "Robert Poste's child" is only one of the humorous idiosyncrasies adopted by these characters. And what characters they are! There's cousin Judith (Atkins), whose shrine to her libertine son Seth (Sewell) speaks volumes about her mothering; her husband Amos (McKellen), a self-ordained preacher convinced that the entire world will burn in hell; their oldest son Ruben (Kaye), whose inheritance of the farm is threatened by Flora's arrival; and a host of other relatives badly in need of baths. Most notable is Cold Comfort's reclusive matriarch, Ada Doom (Burrell), whose presence opens the film and introduces another of the farm's unexplained mysteries, concerning something nasty in the woodshed. Together the cast, the director, and the screenwriter work to make the characters off-centered but realistic, with plenty of room for warmth. All of the performances are noteworthy, from Beckinsale's Flora - whose single-mindedness likens her to both a Jane Austen heroine and an English Energizer Bunny - to smaller roles such as Stephen Fry's bombastic writer Mybug, whose pursuit of Flora knows no limits. By the end of the film, Flora's visit has reinvented not only the Starkadder family and its beloved Cold Comfort Farm but also her own resolve to write. With its wonderful story and engaging heroine, Cold Comfort Farm offers a thoroughly enchanting summer respite.
(6/14/96)
3.5
stars (A.M.)
Village
D: Fridrik Thor Fridriksson; with Masatoshi Nagase, Lili Taylor, Fisher Stevens, Gisli Halldorsson, Laura Hughes, Seijun Suzuki.
(Not Rated, 82 min.)
What's the difference between the volcanic islands of Iceland and Japan? Everything and nothing, as the Japanese traveler Hirata (Nagase) discovers in this odd but pleasing road movie. Hirata's yuppie vacation plans for a golf excursion to Hawaii are scuttled when his aged grandfather beseeches him to travel to the remote spot in Iceland where Hirata's parents died and there perform ceremonial rituals that will put their spirits to rest. Obligatorily, Hirata departs Japan for Iceland and things immediately start getting weird. For starters, the screen image switches from the squarish 1:66 aspect ratio seen in the opening Japanese segments to a sudden 2:35 widescreen image upon its arrival in Iceland. It's somehow appropriate for this movie in which the great, barren, frozen expanses become a virtual character. A bus from the airport takes Hirata to a strange warm-water natural pool in the midst of the icecaps. Next, a cabdriver recites odd Icelandic information (like how sheep outnumber people), but Hirata ditches the cabbie when he disappears during a pit stop and is inexplicably found in the middle of some strange baptismal ceremony. Some others Hirata encounters include the self-described "funeral collector (Hughes) who travels for pleasure from service to service," the bickering American couple (Taylor and Stevens) who earn a permanent spot in the Hitchhikers from Hell Hall of Fame, the remote cowboy bar where the patrons eat ram's testicles and drink a potent liquor called Black Death, and the ghostly apparition whose screech can make ice mountains crumble. Cold fever, indeed. It's as though Hirata is stuck in some kind of bizarre, cross-cultural hallucination. But this shouldn't be unfamiliar turf for Masatoshi Nagase, the actor who plays Hirata. He is, probably, best remembered on these shores as the actor in the Japanese segment of Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train. Furthermore, Cold Fever is produced and co-written by Jim Stark, who has produced several of Jarmusch's offbeat road movies (Down by Law, Mystery Train, and Night on Earth) as well as several other major American indie films (Gregg Araki's The Living End and Doom Generation and Alex Rockwell's In the Soup). Director Fridriksson is one of Iceland's most original filmmakers, whose films Children of Nature and Movie Days have received many awards and much acclaim. Cold Fever is thoroughly quirky and unusual, and one-hundred-percent experiential. You've got to sweat it out in order to get to the other side.
(7/26/96)
3.0
stars (M.B.)
Dobie
D: Edward Zwick; with Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Moriarty, Matt Damon, Regina Taylor, Scott Glenn, Seth Gilliam.
(R, 125 min.)
Courage Under Fire, director Edward Zwick's (Legends of the Fall, Glory) latest feature (an Austin-based production), begins with a CNN soundbite in which a war correspondent shakily describes the fighting that's taking place in the Persian Gulf: "Clearly I've never been there but [this] feels like the center of hell." It has been said that war is hell, and Courage Under Fire does an admirable job of trying to capture that hell as well as the often painful process of soldiers trying to make sense of their experiences upon their return from the war. Denzel Washington stars as Lt. Colonel Nathaniel Serling, a commander of an armored tank battalion who mistakenly fires on his own men amidst the confusion of a night attack in Al Bathra. Reassigned to a desk job in Washington while "the incident" is investigated by the military, Serling receives for review the case of Captain Karen Walden (Ryan), a Medevac pilot whose efforts during a rescue mission resulted in her death. When the powers that be in Washington decide to award Captain Walden posthumously with the Medal of Honor for her "courage under fire," Serling must interview the men in Walden's unit in order to determine her ability to function under pressure. In what become the most powerful scenes of the film, each of the surviving men in Walden's unit is questioned and asked to reconstruct the events that led to Walden's death. Fact and fiction become blurred as Ilario (Damon), Monfriez (Phillips), and the dying Altameyer (Gilliam) tell their stories. Inspired in part by Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, in which four characters describe the same crime, screenwriter Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland's Opus) uses the soldiers' conflicted accounts to construct a portrait of the deceased captain. Serling finds himself facing his own demons about the war as he works to get at the truth behind the events leading up to Walden's death. When Zwick's story veers away from the soldiers and toward Serling's struggles, the film relies heavily on clichd moments and ponderous silences. In particular, Serling's relationship with Washington Post correspondent Tony Gartner (Glenn) borders on parody when the two meet clandestinely in Washington in a scene straight out of All the President's Men. But the heart of the film concerns the character of Captain Walden and her abilities to command her men, an issue that is complicated (but not necessarily explored) in the film by the fact that she is a woman. Serling's investigation of Captain Walden's honor in Courage Under Fire reminds me of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, another film about the power of words and memory. In that film the newspaper editor of a small western town notes that "when the legend becomes fact, print the legend." While the account of Walden's heroics doesn't necessarily move from legend to fact, it does push the bounds of truth and raise interesting questions about the function of truth for the survivors of war.
(7/12/96)
3.0
stars (A.M.)
Arbor, Highland, Lake Creek, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
D: Charles Russell; with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vanessa Williams, James Caan, James Coburn, Robert Pastorelli.
(R, 107 min.)
Eraser is pretty much what you'd expect from the new Arnold Schwarzengger vehicle: gargantuan explosions, not-so-witty witticisms, deafening gunfire, first-rate special effects work, and, last but most certainly not least, those charmingly incomprehensible line readings. However, despite having all the tried-and-true elements set firmly in place, Ah-nold's latest doesn't quite measure up to the action star's finest work, even if it should prove to be a mildly pleasing diversion for fans. The problems begin with Schwarzenegger himself, who does little more than walk through his seemingly tailor-made role of John Kruger, an elite agent working for the FBI's Witness Protection Program. He finds himself up to his neck in bad guys when he stumbles upon a top-secret government conspiracy while protecting a beautiful witness (Williams) who is in possession of an incriminating computer disk detailing the illegal sale of high-tech weapons technology, specifically the incredibly lethal "Rail Gun," a weapon that can see through walls and shoot bullets at something close to the speed of light. Inconsistencies abound (Schwarzenegger's character is referred to in the closing credits and the theatrical trailers as "Eraser," although he's never addressed as such in the finished film) and several fine performers (Roma Maffia, Danny Nucci, and, most criminally, James Cromwell) are wasted in useless subplots, but the real problem with Eraser is that it simply runs out of steam about halfway through, having already offered up its most spectacular set-pieces - a show-stopping mid-air duel with a 747 and an outrageous confrontation with a roomful of hungry alligators - long before the picture has reached its climax. On the other hand, Pastorelli gives a dynamite comic performance as the former mob thug who plays an integral role in helping Schwarzenegger wipe out the bad guys, while singer-turned-actress Williams makes a surprisingly credible heroine and Caan sleazes it nicely as the thoroughly despicable villain. No doubt about it, Eraser has its moments (did I mention the nifty scene with 100 flying drill bits?), but the third act is a real letdown, and there's no escaping the ring of familiarity - the fact that we've seen Schwarzenegger do all this before, and in films superior to this passable but workmanlike effort.
(6/28/96)
2.5
stars (J.O.)
Lincoln
D: Joel Coen; with William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Harve Presnell, John Carroll Lynch, Kristin Rudrud. (R, 95 min.)
Bouncing back from the commercial and (occasionally) critical failure of The Hudsucker Proxy, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen return to their Blood Simple roots with this bizarre, dialect-strewn tale of a kidnapping gone wrong that's apparently based on a true story despite its "any similarity to persons living or dead" disclaimer at the end. Macy is Jerry Lundegaard, a Minneapolis car salesman who hires a pair of none-too-bright goons (Buscemi and Stormare) to kidnap his young wife (Rudrud) so he can scam the ransom money to cover an unspecified debt. This being a Coen Brothers film, things go awry nearly from the get-go when the thugs manage to kill a state trooper and two innocent bystanders shortly after the kidnapping. This brings them to the attention of local police chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand), who quickly senses the broader scheme going on and inexorably begins to follow it back to poor, ever-nervous Jerry, a man so warped by fear and anxiety he seems about to explode every time a door slams. Filled with the Coens' trademark graveyard wit and unique camera angles (it occasionally seems as though every other scene is a long shot, taking in not only the icy, barren Minnesota/North Dakota plains, but also the petty crimes of its inhabitants), Fargo rockets along without a dull moment; it's by far their most tightly constructed picture since Raising Arizona. The performances, as well, are seamless, from McDormand's quaint, folksy Marge to Buscemi's and Swedish actor Stormare's vicious killers, to Presnell's take as the victim's wealthy, insufferable father. Some may complain that this is just another Coen Brothers' dialect-fest, but it's not just that, it's an immersion into the characters' world in toto, from the "Oh geezes" and the "Oh, yaahs" to the dark and flinty core beneath. (3/22/96)
4.0 stars (M.S.)
Discount, Dobie
D: Kevin Hooks; with Laurence Fishburne, Stephen Baldwin, Will Patton, Robert John Burke, Salma Hayak, RuPaul.
(R, 107 min.)
Where's Charlie Sheen? Hey, forgive me, but if it looks like a Charlie Sheen movie, sounds like a Charlie Sheen movie, and just plain feels like a Charlie Sheen movie, then dammit, where the hell is he? Probably off shooting The Arrival II, so instead of Sheen, we get the younger Baldwin brother and the brilliant Fishburne, who, actually, isn't all that brilliant here. The pair are convicts, chained together while working on an Atlanta road crew. When a fellow con gets ahold of a gun and kills most of the law officers in the area, they make a break for it and "fled." (That this new, grammatically unorthodox use of the past tense in place of the present will soon be S.O.P. is inevitable. Sheen, however, cannot be blamed.) With a lethally overzealous FBI agent (Burke) on their tail as well as the Atlanta detective Matthew Gibson (Patton) who originally put Luke Dodge (Baldwin) away, they make their way over hill, over dale, to the house of Cora (Hayak). Having recently been dumped by her police-officer husband, she apparently has no qualms about letting a pair of prison escapees hang out and try on hubby's clothes, but hey, maybe she's lonely. Meanwhile, back at the station house, Gibson is grumbling to his boss about how he thinks Dodge may have been set up. As it turns out, he's right. As a lusty computer hacker (!), Dodge accidentally, unknowingly, stole $25 million from the Cuban mafia, as well as some very touchy-feely financial records that they'd like to keep out of the hands of everybody. Soon, the body count begins to mount. It's all just a little much, really, and Hooks' over-the-top direction doesn't really help. Neither does Hooks' glaringly obvious penchant for ripping off better action films: One scene is lifted in its entirety from Dario Argento's Opera, while another cops the bullet-riddled choreography of John Woo's hyperkinetic shoot-'em-ups. (Everybody steals from Woo, sure, but do they have to make it so obvious?) Even Patton, excellent as the smooth Atlanta cop on the convict's trail, can't save this mediocre descent into kiss-kiss-bang-bang clichs and one-note gags. Hayak, likewise, has precious little to do but look good and show off her much-improved command of the English language, which, unfortunately, now will include the incorrect usage of the word "fled."
(7/19/96)
1.5
stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Highland, Lake Creek, Northcross, Riverside
D: Peter Jackson; with Michael J. Fox, Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, Jeffery Combs, Jake Busey.
(R, 120 min.)
One hundred percent weird. Yes, innovative New Zealand director Peter Jackson - whose unpredictable career has included everything from the gleefully perverse Muppet satire Meet The Feebles to the passionate "true crime" fantasy Heavenly Creatures - has made the unlikely leap into mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, and the result, while far from perfect, thankfully finds his bizarre sensibilities left pretty much intact and proves, once again, that he is a filmmaker of tremendous energy and imagination, if not restraint. The complicated plot line casts Michael J. Fox as Frank Bannister, a young man who, following a peculiar automobile accident, has gained the ability to communicate with the dead. He's parlayed this unique talent into a small business by teaming up with a rowdy trio of renegade spirits who stage counterfeit hauntings that Bannister, while posing as a low-tech ghostbuster, then "solves" for large sums of money. Of course, the town is also experiencing a rash of curious deaths, which very well might be the work of the Grim Reaper himself. But what connection, if any, does Bannister have to these deaths? And what part does that mysterious, introverted middle-aged woman (Dee Wallace Stone), who is imprisoned at home by her maniacal, controlling, shotgun-toting mother, play in the mystery? And, oh yeah, did I forget to mention the obviously disturbed, possibly psychotic FBI agent (Jeffery Combs) hot on Bannister's trail? Or how about the demented serial killer (Jake Busey) who... ah, forget it. There's no way the whole of the movie's plot is going fit comfortably within the confines of a neat, tidy synopsis without giving away some major surprises, so I'm not even going to try. The screenplay, authored by Jackson with his fellow Heavenly Creatures scribe Frances Walsh (both of whom were Oscar-nominated for that very same script), is practically exploding with wild ideas, knowingly campy dialogue, and offbeat characterizations, but switches gears so fast and so frequently that the audience is left struggling to catch up as this twisted tale twists and turns its way unmercifully towards a literally out-of-this-world finale. (Yet, given the wealth of material that appeared in the movie's previews but was absent from the finished assembly, one can only speculate how well the original cut held together.) Even so, The Frighteners is still an enormously refreshing change of pace from the paint-by-numbers approach taken by so many of this summer's would-be blockbusters because it doesn't give you all the answers up front, and, even better, is more than willing to take chances (I guarantee you won't see another film this year in which a spectral cowboy takes time out during a hectic action sequence to vigorously hump a nearby skeleton). Throw in loads of cool special effects, Jackson's typically go-for-broke direction, a nice change-of-pace turn from Fox, and an incredible, scene-stealing performance from Re-Animator cult fave Jeffery Combs (who manages to turn peering around corners into something of a fine art), and you have a thoroughly preposterous movie that's as outrageously entertaining as it is relentlessly chaotic. (7/19/96)
3.0
stars (J.O.)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Riverside, Westgate
D: Bronwen Hughes; with Michelle Trachtenberg, Rosie O'Donnell, Vanessa Lee Chester, Gregory Smith, Eartha Kitt.
(PG, 110 min.)
Harriet the Spy is a clever movie that mixes a Sixties pop spy tempo and decidedly retro film speed manipulation with updated cultural and ideological icons and an aggressively Nineties soundtrack by Jamshied Sharif. It's an interesting, but ultimately disappointing, approach. The very cleverness of the movie, with its odd camera angles and stylized, fast-motion sequences, is distracting - extravagant dressing on a window with an already interesting view. The essential story, based on Louise Fitzhugh's 1964 children's classic, is still dear and engaging. Twelve-year-old Harriet was born with a vocation. She will be a writer. And her mentor and nanny of those 12 years advises her that to become a writer she must record everything that interests her. Harriet develops a spy route, watching, often surreptitiously, everyone around her and recording her findings in a "private" journal. But Harriet's observations are subjectively candid and include sometimes funny, often uncomplimentary portraits of her classmates, including her best friends, Sport and Janie. When the book falls into the hands of her archenemy and its contents read aloud to her classmates, Harriet is ostracized and tormented. Even Sport and Janie, wounded by Harriet's words, defect. In desperate retaliation, Harriet compounds her errors, using her considerable creativity to up the ante. But rather than a sense of satisfaction or triumph, Harriet feels an ache akin to "having a splinter in your finger, except it's right over your stomach." It is a lesson that, like nearly every painful, discomfiting aspect of growing up, is timeless. It's about friends and unkindness and making amends. It's about privacy and perception and human differences. It's a simple lesson that doesn't require a lot of pyrotechnics in the telling. The cast is terrific. Watching Michelle Trachtenberg's pale, thin, quivering, intense performance, we are transported to the sixth grade. And the colorful neighbors are a time warp unto themselves with little need of contemporizing. Why mess with gratuitous camera movement when the lens could be focused on Eartha Kitt's cotton-candy pink hair? Nickolodeon was a partner in this production and you have to wonder if they felt compelled to liven things up for the younger crowd or to make their first big screen venture more "cinematic." To me, all that frenetic action is like a series of overly long drum solos in the middle of an otherwise singable song.
(7/12/96)
2.0
stars (H.C.)
Arbor, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Westgate
D: Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise; with the voices of Tom Hulce, Demi Moore, Tony Jay, Kevin Kline, Jason Alexander, Charles Kimbrough, Mary Wickes, Paul Kandel, Heidi Mollenhauer.
(G, 95 min.)
Paradoxically, The Hunchback of Notre Dame may illustrate both the best and worst of what we've come to associate with the Disney product over the years. The glory and the goop known as Disney are equally represented in their new, fully animated rendition of another classic of Western civilization. On the face of things, the movie is amazing, another Disney coup of cartooning magic. The pageantry and hurly-burly of the class-conscious 15th century is well re-created by the Disney animation teams. The majesty and playfulness of Notre Dame's Gothic architecture provide a feast for the eyes, a sight no less amazing when carved in celluloid than in stone. And were this a live-action retelling of Hunchback, the movie would be trumpeting its dazzling manipulation of "a cast of thousands." The numerous crowd scenes are, indeed, technical dazzlers. Yet, these visual innovations are not the things that our littlest connoisseurs of animation generally notice and appreciate. In pleasing that audience, Hunchback fails to deliver. More suitable as an early-adolescent cheaters' guide to great literature, the story is bound to pass over the heads of its younger viewers; concepts like church "sanctuary" and feudal social structure are necessary to understand it. Then too, we have the familiar Disney family distortion of the absent mother and the tyrannical guardian - always a discomfort to the youngest and most vulnerable viewers. As for the current political correctness of "hunchbacks" and the narrative accuracy of a cute and cuddly Quasimodo, the debates will probably continue until the Disney machine provides us with newer examples, just as these issues supplant the debates about the appropriateness of Pocahontas as a native babe. Some children are certain to be frightened by the dark machinations of the story line (as some howling at the screening I attended seemed to bear out). The musical score by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz leaves little impression on the memory and is not likely to have the kids replaying the songs ad nauseam. And though "cute and cuddly" may seem a questionable approach for depicting the character of Quasimodo, credit must be given to the animators for managing to do just that. Quasimodo is, indeed, adorable, as are the wise-cracking gargoyles and the spunky Esmerelda, who bears a remarkable likeness to Demi Moore, the actress who speaks her lines. In fact, much credit for whatever effectiveness the movie does have should be directed toward the actors whose vocalizations bring the characters to life. As Quasimodo, Tom Hulce helps us hear the universal anguish of a boy suffering his identity as an "outsider"; Kevin Kline brings irony, wit, and an unapologetic hamminess to his role of Phoebus, the warrior who decides to disobey his commander's orders. The Hunchback of Notre Dame ultimately misses its target, as it's more likely to find acceptance with an older-than-average Disney crowd. As for the Southern Baptist interpretation of the movie... well, that's a whole other story.
(6/21/96)
2.0
stars (M.B.)
Great Hills, Highland, Lake Creek, Lakehills
D: Roland Emmerich; with Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, Harvey Fierstein, Harry Connick, Jr., James Duval, Brent Spiner.
(PG-13, 145 min.)
I thought the tagline for ID4 - "Don't Make Plans for August" - was pretty catchy until I saw the film and realized that something more along the tongue-in-cheek lines of "An Irwin Allen Production" might have been more on target. Never mind that Hollywood's famed master of disaster is no longer with us; ID4 bears so many of the Allen trademarks, it might as well be his swan song. It's the Earthquake of the Nineties, and like that film, director Emmerich (Stargate, Universal Soldier) has crafted a gasping, bloated roller-coaster ride that veers from scenes of truly awesome destruction to stretches of numbingly bad melodrama and back again. And, like Earthquake (or The Towering Inferno, for that matter), this conspiracy buffs' take on Close Encounters is a sure-fire summer blockbuster, in Sensurround or otherwise. Never mind that once you get past the admittedly breathtaking shots of our national landmarks being turned into kindling, the rest of the film is a tired and empty two hours of feel-good patriotism and oddly cast characters: This curiously unaffecting film has already reset the box-office high-water mark for the next 10 years. Plotwise, it's simple: Malevolent aliens in spacecrafts nine miles wide attack and destroy all of Earth's major cities, nearly bringing mankind to its knees before the American president (Pullman), a fighter pilot and soon-to-be family man Steven Hiller (Smith), and a nerdy genius/cable-TV ace David (Goldblum) concoct a harebrained scheme to save the world ("My God! That's so crazy it just might work!"). With an ensemble cast of truly brilliant players all the way from Connick, Jr., (actually it's just his Memphis Belle character updated a bit) to Gregg Araki regular Duval, you'd think Emmerich would have gotten a little more acting bang for his buck, but then judging from the dialogue with which the cast had to work, it's nice just to see Goldblum keep a straight face as Hirsch, as his crotchety Jewish father, leads Jew and gentile alike in a touching rendition of the Sh'ma. Oy, gevalt, indeed.
(7/12/96)
2.5
stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Lakeline, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
D: Paul M. Glaser; with Shaquille O'Neal, Francis Capra, Ally Walker, Marshall Manesh, James Acheson, Fawn Reed, John Costelloe.
(PG, 103 min.)
"He's tall. That doesn't mean he's interesting," says a character in Kazaam who, nevertheless, is definitely interested in the big genie played by basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal. That may be all you need to know about this new Touchstone (an arm of Disney) picture - the latest in a growing line of movies from that studio in which popular sports figures have found new homes in Hollywood. (It seems, also, that these sports stars come to the table with ample product-placement bucks from their various corporate endorsements.) My grumpiness may have something to do with the knowledge that these same folks will soon require me to sit through another Mighty Ducks sequel... but, really, things are getting out of hand. Sure, many sports figures have successfully transferred their celebrity from the playing field to the silver screen, but, currently, Hollywood seems to be suffering from a rampant case of mistaking "tall" for "interesting." That said, O'Neal is really not half-bad in his feature film debut as the genie Kazaam. Yet when surrounded by an "all-bad" movie, "not half-bad" is hardly good enough. The story, centering on 12-year-old Max (Capra) and his troubles at home and with the bullies at school, is murky and unpleasant. Max doesn't want his single mom (Walker) to remarry and goes off to find his biological father (Acheson), who split when Max was two. Dad turns out to be a heel who doesn't even recognize Max (something which seemed to audibly disturb several kids in the audience). Fortunately, the school bullies chases Max into an abandoned building where their jostling unleashes a genie trapped in a boombox, so Max now has some ancient magic working to smooth out the rough edges in his life. Of course, Kazaam is no ordinary genie; he's a rapping genie, thus much of his dialogue is delivered in rhyme, although the music portions are distractingly dubbed due to lip-synching blips. And when you get right down to it, it's the shoddy workmanship that passes for finished product that annoys me most about Kazaam. It's full of special effects that are big on smoke and noise, but short on logic and payoff. Scenes are sloppily edited, as if to imply that lower standards can acceptably be palmed off on kiddie audiences. O'Neal handles light comedy decently enough to expect that we'll see more pictures from him in the future, and love interest Fawn Reed as Asia Moon is a real discovery for me and I look forward to seeing more of her. Otherwise, I have to draw the line at Kazaam.
(7/19/96)
0
stars (M.B.)
Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Roundrock, Westgate
D: Peter Farrelly and Robert Farrelly; with Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, Bill Murray, Chris Elliott, Richard Tyson, Rob Moran, Lin Shaye, Zen Gesser, William Jordan.
(PG-13, 113 min.)
From the writer/directors of the Jim Carrey vehicle Dumb and Dumber comes this new entry into the arena of stunningly ridiculous filmmaking that's not only dumber, but also far more entertaining than the duo's previous outing. While D&D's pairing of Carrey and Jeff Daniels provided scattershot comedy at best, Kingpin's teaming of Harrelson and Quaid works surprisingly well, aided by an above-average script that makes the most of an wonderfully ludicrous situation: Roy Munson (Harrelson) is a washed-up pro bowler-cum-balding-loser who lost his game hand, his dreams, and most of his hair circa 1979 thanks to a conniving rival - the thoroughly unctuous Ernie "Big Ern" McCracken (Murray). These days, Roy divides his time between hawking bowling supplies to regional lanes that neither want nor need them, and dodging his scrawny, emphysemic landlady (Shaye, in a role that injects new relevance into that old Dead Kennedys song "Let's Lynch the Landlord"). While hanging out at the local lanes one night, he meets a young Amish man, Ishmael (Quaid, sublimely goofy in flowing golden locks), who seems to have all the hallmarks of a natural-born bowling pro. Spying his chance for a comeback and one final bid at his dream of tenpins immortality-by-proxy, Roy wheedles the nave Amish man into accompanying him to Reno, Nevada, where the two will take the national bowling championships by storm (theoretically). Along they way, they hook up with the gorgeous and streetwise Claudia (Angel), who's fleeing her abusive bowler boyfriend, and once in The Biggest Little City in the Country, the unlikely trio meet up once again with the infamous "Big Ern" McCracken (who, like Roy, is similarly follicle-challenged) in a pro-bowling ber-match. Ridiculous? In the extreme, which is what keeps Kingpin from sinking into the mire that has trapped so many other seemingly "outrageous" comedies of late. The script by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan is packed with surreal, stupid gags that thankfully work far more often than not: Among the best are some spontaneous, clever throwaways, one of which - a brief homage to The Graduate - may have you running for the restrooms laughing (and gagging) all the way, and another which brilliantly parodies that Seventies-era environmental television ad featuring the "Sorrowful Native American by the Roadside" (whether or not this will even register depends entirely on your age). Quaid and Harrelson play off each other here like old pros - they're no Martin and Lewis, sure, but there's definitely more than the typical Carreyesque mugging-for-the-camera going on. For one thing, Kingpin's story is remarkably well-written (comedically, that is - this isn't For Whom the Bell Tolls, you realize). Gags flow from each other in a ceaseless barrage, and the Farrelly Brothers' direction is more than competent. On top of that, the whole film is buoyed by a remarkably well-chosen soundtrack that features everyone from Jonathan Richman (onscreen, no less) to The English Beat and Freedy Johnston. Kingpin is no classic, but I've got to admit that after sitting though a number of the film's less-than-inspiring previews over the last few weeks, I wasn't exactly expecting the second coming of Laurel and Hardy. That it isn't, of course, but it is head-and-shoulders above any number of American comedies I've seen in the last year, and for me, that's saying quite a bit. I may even go bowling this weekend.
(7/26/96)
3.0
stars (M.S.)
Great Hills, Lakeline, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
D: John Sayles; with Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pea, Joe Morton, Miriam Colon, Clifton James, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Canada, Matthew McConaughey, Frances McDormand, Eddie Robinson.
(R, 134 min.)
A border is a curious place. It exists to separate things - countries, peoples, cultures - to keep what's on one side from what's on the other. But as anyone who's been to a border knows, it doesn't really keep much apart. The same wind blows on both sides. It crosses and crosses back again, and so do many things: language, families, music, customs. A border is there and not there, too; so what does it mean? In his latest film, writer-director Sayles heads to the Rio Grande to explore the question and just generally squeeze all the metaphorical juice he can out of the idea of borders. He creates a fictitious Texas border town called Frontera and fills it with divisions: U.S./Mexico, military/civilian, corruption/honesty, black/white, parent/child, legend/truth.... In every case, he finds two sides at odds, with what seems a clear line separating them. But instead of just drawing out the dramatic tension of opposing forces, Sayles takes pains to show that these "borders" are porous, too. Just because we say they exist doesn't mean things won't cross them and change the constitution of the other side. Sayles hits this idea in each of the half-dozen narrative streams rolling through the film - it's one of his most sprawling efforts to date - but it's clearest in his central story line, which explores the border between past and present, what it separates and what it can't. Sam Deeds (Cooper), the current sheriff of Frontera, lives in the shadow of his father, a sheriff universally revered in their town. When new evidence suggests his dad may have been involved in the murder of his brutal predecessor, Sam must begin an investigation and open a past he's tried to leave behind. But history cannot be set apart; it lives in us and old feelings continue to flow in it, as Sam discovers when he finds himself rekindling a romance with his high school sweetheart (Pea). Sayles makes time a fluid thing, segueing from present scenes to past scenes with smooth pans of the camera, across a room, across a landscape. It's a simple device, but it's so ideally suited to what Sayles is saying about time and relationships and lives, that there is a seamlessness to them that can't be marked off by artificial lines or edits. It also speaks to Sayles' style as a storyteller, to his sense of place, culture, character, and experience being woven seamlessly into a story. Here, as in all his work, what happens is driven by people, and the music they hear, the food they eat, the land they walk through is inescapably tied to it. The range of characters here is daringly broad, but Sayles is able to touch on the humanity of each (with considerable help from a gifted and eminently watchable cast), and the details of the region - the heat, the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape, and especially the pride of the residents - are vivid and true. Sayles' panorama of the border reveals that its truths lie not so much in what it keeps apart but what it brings together.
(6/28/96)
4.0
stars (R.F.)
Lake Creek, Village
D: Brian De Palma; with Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Vanessa Redgrave, Henry Czerny, Ving Rhames, Jean Reno, Emilio Estevez. (PG-13, 108 min.)
The television series Mission: Impossible was heady, trippy stuff in the late Sixties - brilliant disguises and calculated deceits, all to a signature musical theme that urgently evoked intrigue. Its characters relied on their wits to pull off intricately planned stratagems: They were, of sorts, the antithesis of James Bond, who traded on his muscle and sex appeal to accomplish the same. The much-hyped film version of the series faithfully reproduces much of its TV precursor, down to the lit fuse. But while high-tech wizardry - not to mention state-of-the-art special effects - distinguish it from its original source, there's a certain pizzazz lacking here. You go away from this movie concluding that the television series was infinitely better. Maybe it's because Mission Impossible is something of a vanity production. Fit and trim, the ever-capable Cruise (he also co-produced the film) looks like he pumped iron between takes, drawing as much attention as possible to his biceps in the interest of audience demographics. (If anything, Cruise is shrewd.) Maybe Mission: Impossible falls short because it has no real style. You'd never know that Brian De Palma directed this movie. Where's the operatic, over-the-top setpiece that - for better or worse - exhilaratingly defines his work? With the exception of the occasional use of camera angles taken from the school of German Expressionism, this movie is strictly business. And maybe Mission: Impossible doesn't make much of an impression because, on the big screen, its narrative improbabilities, which may have been palatable on the small screen years ago, seem magnified. A host of top-gun screenwriters (Steven Zaillian, Robert Towne, David Koepp) tinkered with the script about a botched mission and the crosses and double-crosses that ensue, but the result isn't satisfactory; vague memories of better story lines on the television program come to mind. Until its white-knuckle finale atop a speeding bullet train traversing from London to Paris, Mission: Impossible seems languid and enervated, although a computer hacking scene over midway through comes close to finding the right momentum. Whatever the reason for its disappointments, Mission: Impossible is a mission gone awry, prompting you to hope that reruns of its television incarnation will pop up on cable soon.
(5/24/96)
2.5
stars (S.D.)
Lakeline
D: Harold Ramis; with Michael Keaton, Andie MacDowell, Harris Yulin, Richard Masur, Eugene Levy, Zack Duhame, Katie Schlossberg.
(PG-13, 127 min.)
When overworked building contractor Doug Kinney (Keaton) remarks during an argument with his wife Laura (MacDowell), "Call an exorcist," as a means of blaming his nasty behavior on demon possession, he could be uttering a cry for help for this new feature by Harold Ramis (Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation) about genetics and human behavior. Swamped by a demanding job and longing to spend time with his wife and two children, Doug is intrigued when he meets Dr. Leeds (Yulin) of the Gemini Institute, a genetic research laboratory. The doctor specializes in cloning and recently has succeeded in copying himself. Believing a clone to be the answer to his scheduling problems, Doug agrees to undergo the two-hour procedure. I'm no brain surgeon, but two hours to produce a genetically engineered clone? This kind of detail should be a minor point, however, in a film that's steeped in comedy. Or so I thought. Even the occasional funny line and slapstick routine aren't humorous enough to redeem Ramis' film. The stupid antics and sophomoric jokes that make Ramis' other films so likable fail in Multiplicity because Keaton's crazy character works alone without the support of other nutty characters (not counting his clones). Granted, the visual effects using split-screen photography by Oscar-winning Boss Film Studios are impressive, as is Keaton's energetic performance as Doug and the three genetically engineered clones named Two, Three, and Four. However, these elements fail to rescue Multiplicity from its moronic plot devices, orchestrated by husband-and-wife writing team Chris Miller (National Lampoon's Animal House) and Mary Hale. Despite my better judgment, each movie with Andie MacDowell makes me think that she'll have improved her acting skills. Unfortunately, Multiplicity proves me wrong once again. Other dependable acting talents such as Richard Masur offer no solace, either, as the film spends most of its time on Keaton's performance as Doug Numbers One through Four, with each clone representing an aspect of the original Doug's personality. Tried-and-true Keaton fans may find Multiplicity enjoyable, but other potential viewers may want to send in their clones.
(7/19/96)
1.5
stars (A.M.)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Lincoln, Movies 12, Riverside
D: Tom Shadyac; with Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle, John Ales.
(PG-13, 95 min.)
Shadyac's updating of the 1963 Jerry Lewis classic may be a bit more schizophrenic than anyone involved bargained for, bringing together a kinder, gentler Murphy with the misogynistic comic of the Raw years. College professor Sherman Klump (Murphy) is a man with more than enough problems: His research in genetic weight control is about to lose its funding, the dean hates him, he hasn't had a date in what may be forever, and he's large enough to provide stand-up comics with enough fat jokes for days. When a beautiful new teacher by the name of Carla Purty (Pinkett) arrives on campus, the painfully shy, woefully discombobulated Klump is smitten, and when she accepts his timid offer of a date, he's ecstatic. But the night turns out less than perfect when the comic at a local club ends up using Klump's massive girth as the butt of a thousand stinging jokes. Desperate, Klump turns to his research for a cure and ingests his untested formula for weight reduction, la Jekyll and Hyde. Not only does the elixir work in the slim department, but it also gives him the confidence of a born womanizer and the nasty, rapier wit of one of Russell Simmons' more energetic performers. Thus Klump's obnoxious alter-ego, "Buddy Love," is born. But once the genie is out of the bottle, Klump has a much harder time getting him back in than he expected. Touted as Murphy's big comeback vehicle, The Nutty Professor screeches from one gag to the next (unfortunately, a good 40 percent of the humor here is derived from a stunningly irritating series of fart joke overkill), though it's Murphy's take on the timid wallflower Klump that really shines. This gargantuan prof with a heart of gold is trapped inside 350 pounds of insecurity, and Murphy plays him wonderfully, with a sweet tenderness you'd hardly expect from a comedian better known as Axel Foley of the Beverly Hills Cop series. Klump is, far and away, Murphy's best role since Coming to America (and like that film, Murphy plays multiple characters here, including his entire family in several scenes), but once he switches over into the abrasive Buddy Love mode, it's nearly impossible to tell if it's Love who's really so horrible, or if Murphy and company are poking sly fun at the comic's outrageous past roles and private life. Shadyac brings the crazed flair he first sported as director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective to the fore once more, cramming in gobs of juvenile humor in plenty of scenes and even an oddly Disney-esque opening bit involving thousands of escaping guinea pigs. But it's still very much a hit-or-miss proposition. Arguably better than the last five Eddie Murphy films taken together, The Nutty Professor still seems to be playing down to its audience much of the time, though you'd never know it to hear the gales of laughter erupting at the screening I attended. But then I suppose I grew out of fart jokes after Blazing Saddles came out.
(6/28/96)
2.5
stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Highland, Lakeline, Movies 12, Riverside, Westgate
D: Jon Turtletaub; with John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Forest Whitaker, Robert Duvall.
(PG, 126 min.)
As popular entertainment goes, Phenomenon is a "no-brainer." It tells the story of what happens when George Malley (Travolta) - an average Northern Californian guy who fixes cars for a living, putters in his garden, goofs around with his loyal small-town pals (Whitaker and Duvall), and unrequitedly romances a stand-offish artisan (Sedgwick) - is touched on his 37th birthday by an inexplicable white light that just as inexplicably causes him to become an instant genius. It's one of those things you just have to take on faith - though that's something of a stretch in the "show me" medium of movies. Phenomenon flails about in a search for direction: inspirational drama, romance, social study, government intrigue... nothing fits or is explored very deeply. Same thing with George. Now that he's gifted with such facile intelligence, his life has become an emotional mess. He spooks a lot of the townies, he can't sleep at night, and he still can't win the girl of his dreams. Though he tries to use his intelligence for good (examples: he learns the Portuguese language in 20 minutes and thus saves a boy dying from botulism, he invents all manner of solar energy devices, he tries to share his thirst and enthusiasm for knowledge with the incredulous locals), the movie emphasizes the heavy burdens that come with George's new mental prowess. The combination of the genius' social ostracism with heavy dollops of mystical reasoning has caused many to compare Phenomenon with last year's truly strange Powder. A better comparison would be that old 1968 chestnut Charly that won Cliff Robertson an Academy Award for his role as a feeble-brained human lab rat whom scientists infuse with miraculous intelligence potion. Anyone remembering how dismally that affair turned out will be able to detect the handwriting on Phenomenon's walls, down to the medical mumbo-jumbo that's used to make sense of the nonsense that has gone before. Phenomenon's closing medical rationalizations are even less credible than its original "white light" theory. Director Jon Turtletaub is becoming something of an expert on how to sucker huge audiences with preposterous but carefree film diversions. His recent box office successes include the fairy-tale romance While You Were Sleeping; the fish-out-of-water comedy about a Jamaican bobsled team, Cool Runnings; and the witlessly silly kids' action comedy Three Ninjas that makes the average Mighty Morphin Power Rangers escapade look as though it were directed by Akira Kurosawa. Up until now, the recent Travolta revival could be chalked up to luck, happenstance, and Quentin Tarantino's knowing exactly how to use him in Pulp Fiction. With Phenomenon, Travolta's on his own and forced to carry his own weight and the Travolta we witness here has more in common with the vacuous Vinnie Barbarino and the circumstantially victimized Boy in the Plastic Bubble than any of his infinitely cooler and savvier characterizations. And though he's clearly working hard to deliver, the picture's only phenomenon resides in the title.
(7/12/96)
1.5
stars (M.B.)
Arbor, Highland, Lakehills, Lakeline, Movies 12, Northcross, Roundrock
D: Ren Clment; with Alain Delon, Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet, Bill Kearns, Erno Crisa, Frank Latimore, Ave Ninchi, Viviane Chantel.
(PG-13, 119 min.)
Clment's 1960 French thriller is an excruciating exercise in restraint; Purple Noon positively seethes with barely controlled passions, murder, intrigue, debauch. It takes a masterwork like this to shine the harsh fluorescent light of mediocrity on so many suspense films of late, in which the only suspense at hand is, indeed, that burning question, "When will it be over?" Set against the pristine backdrop of Mongibello, on the Italian coast, the film presents viewers with unmitigated evil and pure id cloaked in the guise of sweet youth. The irresistibly gorgeous Delon plays Tom Ripley, an American sent to Italy by a wealthy industrialist who hopes Ripley can lure back his wayward son, Phillippe (Ronet). In exchange for his return of the offspring, Tom is promised the much-needed sum of $5,000. Once there, Tom and Phillippe strike up a friendship, with the hedonistic runaway introducing Tom to the pleasures of the good life amidst the crystal white beaches and strikingly beautiful women who populate the area. Wine, women, and song flow like water, and it soon becomes apparent to Tom that his charge has no intention of returning to America. Desperate for cash and increasingly bewitched by the luxuries that surround him, Tom lashes out, murdering Phillippe and assuming his identity, clothes, voice and all, while Phillippe's father and friends grow increasingly apprehensive. Like fellow Frenchman Henri Clouzot, Clment is a genius at ratcheting up the dark anticipation, increment by increment. And like some horrid spider's web, you never really notice until it's all there, complete, and then, of course, it's far too late. Juxtaposing Tom's mad desires with the beauty of the Italian countryside, Clment reaches peaks of distress few films have since matched. While today's audiences may at first find Purple Noon a tad slow-moving compared to the ricochet pace of most modern thrillers, the film, like insanity, builds at its own languid pace, relentlessly, until it reaches its creepy, wonderful denouement, and leaves you gasping for breath, shocked and elated.
(7/26/96)
4.0
stars (M.S.)
Village
D: Michael Bay; with Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, Michael Biehn, William Forsythe.
(R, 140 min.)
The epitome of summer movie machismo, thus far. From the production team of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Bad Boys) comes this archly invigorating exercise in explosions and tough-guy heroics, the kind of film you either love or hate, with very little middle ground in between. I've never been much of a fan of the production team, or director Bay's brand of theatrical bombast, but The Rock is a step above their usual fare, taking itself about as seriously as a Sennett pie-fight, and nearly as entertaining. This may be the capstone to Simpson's career; he passed away last year, and, as such, it's an above-average end note, full of the sort of mindless, high-gloss fun and games Simpson was known for, both at work and play. Harris is the noble villain here, a renegade U.S. general who takes 81 tourists prisoner on Alcatraz and aims a battery of nerve-gas rockets at the San Francisco Bay Area in a misguided attempt to call attention to some vague injustice. Cage is the FBI "chemical super freak" called in to bring him down, and Connery plays a British expatriate criminal enlisted from within the bowels of the penal system to break back into "The Rock," having been the only man to ever escape from the island fortress in the first place. It's a race against time with the fate of the entire San Francisco population hanging in the balance, and a remarkably swift two-and-a-half-hours in the bargain. Director Bay has streamlined his action-movie chops since Bad Boys - The Rock moves along at roughly the same speed as a Six Flags roller coaster, barely pausing to set up the initial story line and then refusing to even pause for breath, cramming in enough stylized angles, breakneck editing, and nail-eradicating excitement to give Jan de Bont a run for his money. All three leads are excellent, with Cage topping them all as the queasy, self-deprecating FBI agent forced, against his will and better judgment, into his first combat situation. The Rock is the Guy Movie to end all Guy Movies, a ridiculously overblown summer testosterone blowout right down to the Wagnerian strains of the soundtrack and its stunningly high body count. It's also a hell of a lot of fun.
(6/7/96)
3.5
stars (M.S.)
Great Hills, Lakeline, Movies 12
D: Bernardo Bertolucci; with Liv Tyler, Sinead Cusack, Jeremy Irons, Jean Marais, Donal McCann, D.W. Moffett, Stefania Sandrelli, Rachel Weisz.
(R, 119 min.)
Bertolucci returns to his native Italian soil for the first time in 15 years, and the result is a gorgeous albeit fairly insubstantial homecoming. Set in a villa nestled amongst the rolling hills of Tuscany, Stealing Beauty begins with the arrival of 19-year-old Lucy Harmon (Tyler), an American who has traveled to Italy on the pretense of having her portrait sculpted by an old family friend, Ian Grayson (McCann). Her real reasons are more complex, however; it is in this same villa that she was conceived, and though her mother, a poet, has died and she never knew her father, Lucy feels she may be able to regain a bit of her lost past, and perhaps even discover the identity of her father. A virgin, she also hopes to find true love, or at least the beginnings of womanhood amongst the colorful cast of characters that populate the villa during the summer months. Among them, the wry artist Ian and his wife Diana (Cusack); the dying playwright Alex (Irons), who finds a final spark of life in the presence of this exuberant young girl; the senile antique dealer Monsieur Guillaume (Marais); and a smarmy entertainment lawyer and his mistress (Moffett, Weisz). With memories of her first kiss lingering in her head, Lucy seeks out a trio of young men whom she first met at the villa while visiting four years ago. One of them, she knows, will be her first lover, but which one is anyone's guess. Amidst the olive groves and vineyards, Lucy will find all she needs to know, and more. The problem with Bertolucci's lushly romantic film is that it's hard to care one way or the other about Lucy's situation. Like Shakespeare's (and Kenneth Branagh's) aptly titled Much Ado About Nothing, there's really not much of a plot here, just a series of interesting characters set down against an achingly beautiful backdrop with precious little to do but flirt and bask in the Tuscan sun. The only seriously arresting object in the film is Liv Tyler, whose appearance is nearly enough in itself to warrant repeated viewings of what might have otherwise been the flimsiest of films. Tyler is one of those rare individuals who seems made for the camera. The moment she's onscreen, the camera can't take its eye off of her, and for good reason: Her face, her presence, everything about her is stunningly photogenic, though you get the feeling she's not even aware of the camera half the time. And then, of course, she's a beautifully naturalistic actress, mouthing even the most inanely romantic dialogue without a hint of unease. Even the brilliant Irons is overshadowed by this wonderful new actress. In the future, it will be interesting to see if Tyler can sustain such an unprepossessing aura once out of the Italian hills and Bertolucci's golden camerawork. I suspect she can, and will, and again, that's reason enough to catch Stealing Beauty: It's the birth of a superstar.
(7/12/96)
2.5
stars (M.S.)
Arbor
D: Stanley Tong; with Jackie Chan, Michelle Khan, Yuen Wah, Ken Tsang, Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, Bill Tung.
(R, 90 min.)
As surrealistic as it might seem, the most enjoyable action film currently playing in American theatres is a four-year-old, atrociously dubbed, modestly budgeted (by our budget-breaking standards anyway) Hong Kong import starring a nearly all-Asian cast. Supercop - Jackie Chan's second foray into the American market after scoring a modest hit with the lovably goofy Rumble in the Bronx - is non-stop fun that delivers more purely enjoyable laughs and thrills than our own overproduced, cynical action products can seem to manage. Like most of Chan's vehicles, the plot is simple but hardly high-concept: Jackie plays a daredevil Hong Kong "supercop" who teams up with an equally tough Chinese police captain in order to infiltrate and smash an especially nasty drug cartel working the whole of Asia. It's a mission that sends our heroes kung-fu fighting through the streets of Mainland China, then into a blazing gun battle along the Thai/Cambodian border, and finally, to Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur district, where the stage is set for a breathtaking final chase that piles on one jaw-dropping bit of stuntwork after another. Chan, as usual, plays it for laughs and looks like he's having a grand time, and then there's gorgeous co-star Michelle Khan (perhaps better known to Hong Kong film buffs as Michelle Yeoh, a former Miss Malaysia and star of such swell Free City actioners as The Heroic Trio and Wing Chun). Khan actually manages to steal Jackie's thunder in several sequences, occasionally outdoing him in terms of both martial arts prowess and crazed stuntwork. Of course, Chan doesn't look like he minds being upstaged, and, appropriately, the script plays up the duo's he-man vs. liberated-woman rivalry with unexpected charm. With this in mind, Supercop is unquestionably a buddy movie, something that's not being made entirely clear on the few television ads I've seen, but Chan and Khan do make quite a dynamic duo, and I seriously doubt there are many moviegoers who won't enjoy seeing them in action together. Much like the domestic version of Rumble in the Bronx, this new version of Supercop (on its home turf it's known as Police Story III: Supercop, and few will probably realize they're actually watching the third installment of an extemely popular film series) has been slightly retooled for popular consumption. Much of the movie's cultural specificity has been trimmed, although throwaway comic references to both Chairman Mao and Hong Kong's 1997 reunification with China remain intact. Also, the movie is totally, and badly, re-dubbed in English (although it's nice to note that both Chan and Khan dubbed their own parts). These are, however, minor annoyances when compared with the travesty of the new music score which features not only an inferior, somewhat wrongheaded electronic accompaniment, but then overloads the relatively lighthearted proceedings with lots of glaringly inappropriate gangsta rap, presumably for no other reason than to try and sell a few soundtracks. Luckily, these missteps don't really do much serious damage to the entertainment value of this exciting picture, although it's not for a lack of trying.
(7/26/96)
3.0
stars (J.O.)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Riverside, Westgate
D: Joel Schumacher; with Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Spacey, Brenda Fricker, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Ashley Judd, Patrick McGoohan, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Tonea Stewart, Chris Cooper.
(R, 145 min.)
They sound so very Ecclesiastical... those words, A Time to Kill. To everything there is a season, and to the justifiable homicide defense A Time to Kill is the equivalent of Christmas in July. A Time to Kill, the newest legal thriller based on a John Grisham novel, takes a legal issue soaked in lots of difficult gray matter, tosses in some pointed racial factors that make it clear that American justice is not color blind, and then buttresses the events with the kind of star turns that charge ahead with swoopingly emotional, if not always legal, logic. The movie tells the story of Jake Brigance (McConaughey), a young white lawyer in a small Mississippi town, who chooses to defend Carl Lee Hailey (Jackson), a black mill worker who shot and killed (on the courthouse steps, no less) the two drunken white rednecks who raped, brutalized, and left his ten-year-old daughter for dead. Furthermore, Carl Lee forewarns Jake of his intentions to kill the men, thus implicating his defense attorney in, at least, the failure to thwart the deed. Surely, one need not be an aggrieved parent in order to understand the selfless vengeance prompting such a crime of passion. But issues of understanding and culpability are wrapped up with larger issues of politics and race, and black and white divisions quickly overshadow the field of gray. To its credit, A Time to Kill allows the debate to snake through the entire movie, engagingly pitting characters and speeches against each other, creating a dramatic forum for ethical debate uncommon in most commercial American films. Still, the debate hardly ever rises above shallow sloganeering and arch rivalries. By the time of Jake's closing arguments, the movie "plays the race card" by subsuming all the "iffier" matters of jurisprudence to his direct and sole appeal to the jurors' racial biases. Director Schumacher (Batman Forever, The Client, St. Elmo's Fire) is becoming a master tactician of this form of sleek entertainment that lulls us into believing that we've witnessed more than we really have. By now, the backstory about the making of A Time to Kill has reached the publicity-overkill stage - how McConaughey was picked from the obscurity of Dazed and Confused and Boys on the Side to win the plum lead role, and so on. And even though he receives third billing to secondary player Bullock and the ever-scorching Jackson, McConaughey is clearly possessed of star greatness. Schumacher does all he can to amplify McConaughey's star "arrival" by shooting the actor from dynamic angles and with plentiful close-ups. One wishes, however, that Schumacher had paid as much attention to the subtleties of the story. Although A Time to Kill also can boast of its wonderful cast of supporting players (stand-outs include Platt as Jake's comic-relief sidekick, Stewart as Carl Lee's long-suffering wife, and Fricker as Jake's long-suffering secretary), it's McConaughey's commanding performance (or the way scenes between him and the equally camera-friendly Bullock practically eat through the screen) that will make this movie one for the history books.
(7/26/96)
3.0
stars (M.B.)
Arbor, Highland, Lakehills, Lakeline, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock
D: Jan De Bont; with Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Lois Smith, Alan Ruck, Philip Hoffman.
(PG-13, 116 min.)
In a word, wow. The first of the 1996 summer blockbusters finally arrives (after some of the best-edited theatrical trailers I've ever seen) and - surprise! - it's a keeper, a tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of 24 hours of really, really inclement weather in the Oklahoma heartland. Paxton is Bill Harding, a daredevil storm chaser who's hung up his foul weather gear in favor of a more stable job as a television weatherman. Along with his new fiance Melissa (Gertz), a marriage therapist, he arrives in the company of his former comrades-in-rain one day to finalize his divorce papers with ex-wife Jo Harding (Hunt). Before he can get her all-important signature on the proper forms, however, he finds himself sucked back into his former life as the largest storm system in the last 12 years mounts on the horizon and a series of increasingly deadly tornadoes begins to touch down around them. Paxton, whose idea for a unique storm-tracking device is about to undergo its maiden voyage by his old crew, can't help but go along for the ride, and before the day is through, he'll have to re-evaluate his recent marital decisions and avoid having his skull crushed by plenty of airborne cows, farm implements, and whatnot. Again, wow. Produced by the same folks who brought us Jurassic Park, Twister has much of the same white-knuckle, edge-of-the-seat feel to it. Paxton and Hunt (both terrific) are the tornadic equivalent of that film's Sam Neill and Laura Dern, with the brazen, cocksure Hunt even occasionally costumed and lit similarly to Dern. With Speed's De Bont helming the director's chair, however, Twister moves at twice the rate, slowing down only for necessary exposition and an odd little subplot involving Elwes' rival team of storm trackers that never seems to go anywhere. And while Paxton and Hunt do indeed manage to generate some real electricity (Hunt's manic role as the thoroughly obsessed Jo is disturbingly realistic), the real stars of this huge movie are the twisters themselves, courtesy of George Lucas' ever-brilliant Industrial Light & Magic. Tremendously convincing, these computer-generated tornadoes are as terrifying screen monsters as I've seen since, well, since Jurassic Park. The audio technology used in creating their deadly roar is certainly a shoo-in for an Oscar, as well. I've never heard a louder, more aurally nightmarish movie in my life (and I highly suggest you make every effort to catch Twister in a theatre equipped with Dolby Digital Stereo Sound - that's half the fun), bristling as it does with a titanic wall of unnatural, bizarre tornadic tones. And I'm not even going to get into all the amazing stunts that litter the film like so many bad hairpieces at a TV weatherman convention - suffice to say, anything that could conceivably be sucked upwards by a tornado, is. A summer juggernaut of a film in all the right ways, Twister is one of those movies that leaves you gasping for breath, incredulous and exhilarated all at once. Sort of like Winnie the Pooh's Blustery Day meets Mr. Toad's Wild Ride with Dorothy's house spiraling just above. Only louder.
(5/10/96)
4.0
stars (M.S.)
Lakeline
D: Todd Solondz; with Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton, Jr., Matthew Faber, Eric Mabius, Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell, Daria Kalinina.
(R, 97 min.)
Anyone who has suffered the indignity of junior high school will undoubtedly remember the experience as the wonder years: You wonder how you ever managed to live through the agony of it all. For Dawn Wiener - a seventh-grader whose last name provides endless fodder for peer cruelty - the rite of adolescence is a horrible one, albeit one in which she brings much of the pain onto herself. Her bespectacled eyes always squinting and her lips perpetually pursed, Dawn defiantly fends off classmates' taunts and gibes with a geeky glare that's scary, to say the least. She's vulnerable, but at that age, shedding your teenage armor to expose the real person underneath is never advised, particularly in the hallways and cafeterias of the public school system. As Dawn, Matarazzo isn't afraid to evoke the horrors of puberty with a straightforward charmlessness: She's gawky, unhappy, and confused, while her tingling of sexual desire downright gives you the shivers. If anything, it's a brave, brave performance that never tries to sentimentalize Dawn's predicament, even when she must submit to the daily torments of life at Ben Franklin Junior High School: "Why do you hate me?" she asks without a trace of pity in her voice, a question to which the persecutor replies, "Because you're ugly." To varying degrees, films like Heathers, Carrie, and Sixteen Candles have portrayed the casual, unthinking cruelty of youth, especially to its own kind. (To alter a line from Mildred Pierce, it's the young who eat the young.) And while Welcome to the Dollhouse perhaps best depicts that human ugliness, it's extremely funny, even in its most awful moments. It's a nervous laughter, perhaps informed by the knowledge that, as dreadful as junior high school may seem at the time, you can survive the experience and live to chuckle about it later... even though a laugh or two may stick in the craw. Writer/director Solondz has achieved quite an accomplishment in Welcome to the Dollhouse: a movie that will make you perversely nostalgic for the seventh grade, a film that will make you eternally grateful that adolescence happens only once in a lifetime.
(6/28/96)
4.0
stars (S.D.)
Dobie
D: Benjamin Ross; with Hugh O'Conor, Antony Sher, Ruth Sheen, Roger Lloyd Pack, Charlotte Coleman, Paul Stacey, Frank Mills.
(Not Rated, 99 min.)
Loosely based on the real-life misadventures of Great Britain's notorious Graham Young, Benjamin Ross' feature debut is a clever, wry, and thoroughly creepy take on both Sixties life in suburban England and the strange story of England's youngest chemical assassin. Ross begins his film in 1961 when Graham (O'Conor, who played the young Christy Brown in My Left Foot, in a brilliant bit of casting) is already well along the toxic path. Using antimony, he experiments on his family: father Fred (Pack), sister Winnie (Four Weddings and a Funeral's Coleman), and stepmother Molly (Sheen). It's the last who bears the brunt of Graham's menacing experiments, though she, like the others, is at a loss to explain the hideous ailments, and refers to her stepson as her "little Louis Pasteur," even as he slips her a tonic laced with the exquisitely deadly heavy metal Thallium. It's not long before suspicions are raised and the police lead Graham off to a high-security mental hospital. Once inside, Graham meets Dr. Zeigler (Sher), a crusading psychiatrist who struggles to cure this bizarre patient. Whether or not he's ever actually cured is up for debate but, before long, Graham finds himself once more on the outside. After a brief stint staying with his now-married sister (she kicks him out after finding him alone with the baby, though we know he's done nothing untoward), Graham lands a job at a photographic laboratory where he once again meets up with an old childhood friend: Thallium. Ross' film is only partly based on reality and is quite probably all the better for it. While the real Young was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler, O'Conor plays Graham as a wide-eyed innocent, utterly unable to fathom the severity of his crimes. In his eyes, large and watery though they may be, his "experiments" are just that: lab tests with control groups, guinea pigs, and suitable chemicals. This makes for a strident, almost hysterical comic tension that runs through the film; you're never entirely sure if you ought to be giggling or gagging, and that qualified indecision only makes the tension that much more palpable. Ross keeps his direction deft and light, and the film whips along through the mordant avenues of Graham's life like the almond-tinged scent of arsenic on a summer's breeze (ah-choo!). In the end, The Young Poisoner's Handbook is what you make of it, at once bittersweet, hilarious, and thoroughly nasty.
(4/19/96)
4.0
stars (M.S.)
Dobie
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