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Film reviews are updated on Fridays. This section compiled by Marjorie Baumgarten (M.B.); with reviews by Hollis Chacona (H.C.), Steve Davis (S.D.), Robert Faires (R.F.), Marc Savlov (M.S.), Russell Smith (R.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 |
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Alamo Drafthouse, Austin Convention Center, Dobie, Paramount, Texas Union
D: Sarah Jacobson; with Linda Gerstein, Greg Cruikshank, Beth Ramona Allen, Andrew David DeAngelo, Chris Enright, Marny Snyder, Brandon Stepp, Jello Biafra. (Not Rated, 98 min.)
Rough-hewn and drenched in DIY aesthetics, Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore is a girl's coming-of-age story that's fresh and unlike most other coming-of-age stories we've seen on the screen so far. Which is not to say that Mary Jane's fictional situation is in itself unique -- merely the film's honest, onscreen portrayal of a girl's first experience with sex. Expectations and reality egregiously collide in the film's opening sequence during which Mary Jane (Gerstein) unceremoniously loses her virginity to an insensitive and callow young stud. Framed in a high overhead shot, we witness Mary Jane's discomfort and dismay as she lies pinned under the thrusting stallion, who has so thoughtfully spread out a blanket in the local cemetery to serve as the bed for his date's deflowering. But in an instant, we see that Mary Jane's not a "lie-back-and-take-it" kind of gal. She calls a halt to the proceedings and has her date drive her back to the party, where she ruminates about the mysteries of sex and why she seems to be the only person not privy to its celebrated delights. The party is an after-hours thing at the place where she works -- a seedy, alternative movie theatre which provides the setting for a large portion of the film. Mary Jane is a smart, suburban high-schooler who commutes into the city to work amid the coolness of this theatre and its distinctive, post-punk personnel. One by one, her friends and fellow employees share with her their own shabby "first time" stories. Male or female, their sexual initiations all seem marked by disappointments in which the actuality hardly ever lives up to all its advance billing. Amusing, evocative, sweet, and engaging, these stories strip the glossy veneer off the silver screen's saccharinization of sex. Jacobson's film presents kids talking just as you suspect they do in real life, while it uncovers forthright, new ways to portray a girl's first-time sexual experiences that do not involve soft-focus, bittersweet memories or fond recollections of youth spent. Armed with these tips from her friends -- particularly a funny and instructive rap by punk gal Ericka (Allen) about the hip pleasures of masturbation -- Mary Jane is on the road to sexual delight, only this time she is in the driver's seat. Gerstein's natural and unruffled performance as Mary Jane is an essential part of the film's charm. There's a degree to which it feels as though we're always witnessing real conversations here. This is especially good since there is very little plot to the film and what there is, is awfully contrived; Mary Jane consists mostly of conversations and static camerawork. But the unabashed nature of the dialogue and the novelty of the no-frills, all-grrrls perspective busts more than a few cinematic cherries. (3/20/98)
Dobie
D: Samo Hung; with Jackie Chan, Richard Norton, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, Miki Lee. (PG-13, 106 min.)
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Gateway, Highland, Lakeline, Tinseltown, Westgate
D: Mike Nichols; with John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Adrian Lester, Maura Tierney, Kathy Bates. (R, 143 min.)
Not reviewed at press time. All eyes are riveted on this new Mike Nichols film, which was adapted by Elaine May from the bestselling novel about Clinton's first presidential campaign. It's sure to earn a prominent chapter in the eternal "life imitates art" saga, a saga that certainly has done no harm by Wag the Dog. Is it politics? Is it entertainment? Odds are, the spin on this movie will be in constant motion, moving in response to the whims of the movie-going electorate and op-ed pundits. From the trailers, it appears as though Travolta's Clinton is spot-on, as are the characterizations of some of the other key "fictional" figures. This one should be a real cultural phenomenon. ()
Barton Creek, Great Hills, Lakeline, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: John McNaughton; with Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Theresa Russell, Denise Richards, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Carrie Snodgress, Robert Wagner, Bill Murray. (R, 108 min.)
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Great Hills, Highland, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: Alan Rickman; with Phyllida Law, Emma Thompson, Gary Hollywood, Arlene Cockburn, Sheila Reid, Sandra Voe, Douglas Murphy, Sean Biggerstaff. (R, 110 min.)
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Village
D: Alan Rudolph; with Nick Nolte, Julie Christie, Lara Flynn Boyle, Jonny Lee Miller. (R, 113 min.)
Afterglow is an adult love story tinged with large measures of comedy and sadness. It's also illuminated with superb performances by Nick Nolte and sight-for-sore-eyes Julie Christie, whose work was recognized this week with an Oscar nomination. The film finds writer-director Alan Rudolph returning to the smart romantic stylings that characterized such earlier films as Choose Me in 1984 and his debut feature Welcome to L.A. in 1976. As with those films, Afterglow interlaces the romantic meanderings of a cluster of people, following them as coincidence and choice govern the paths of their lives. Lucky "Fix-It" Mann (Nolte) and Phyllis (Christie) have been married for 24 years and even though the embers of their love still provide a comforting emotional warmth, a hurt they inflicted on each other years ago still casts a pall on their relationship. Lucky, a mobile handyman, has his wife's tacit approval to work on the personal plumbing of his female employers as well as that of their clogged sinks. Phyllis, a former B movie star, is haunted by a long-ago infidelity that had dire consequences on her marriage. Running in a narrative parallel to this story is the marriage of yuppie couple Jeffrey (Miller) and Marianne (Boyle). Corporate achiever Jeffrey is a cold-hearted and self-absorbed jerk who refuses to sleep with his silly and desperate wife. She, in turn, hires Lucky Mann to build a nursery in their sterile, ultra-moderne apartment. It's no surprise that, before long, the drilling commences. But then a comic twist has both Jeffrey and Marianne following their spouses to a hotel bar where they then meet and go off together. The film continues to play off the pain of the elder couple and the vacuousness of the younger in a way that's intriguingly neither wholly drama nor comedy. Sumptuously shot by Toyomichi Kurita, Afterglow is endlessly fascinating. Nolte is well-cast as the randy yet deeply sensitive older man, while Christie has a field day measuring out her rueful and sarcastic dialogue. Detracting from the goings-on are the one-dimensional performances of Boyle and Miller. As a couple, these two seem more likely to drown in the fierce emotional currents of the Manns' marriage. Miller especially shows none of the spark that made his Trainspotting appearance so electrifying and Boyle is reduced to airhead comic responses. The film itself tends to wander as it pokes around uneasily for its tone. Yet this is also, undeniably, the source of much of the film's charm. Afterglow bathes the screen with a warm amber light. (2/13/98)
Gateway, Westgate
D: Robert Duvall; with Duvall, Farrah Fawcett, Todd Allen, John Beasley, June Carter Cash, Walton Goggins, Billy Joe Shaver, Billy Bob Thornton, Miranda Richardson. (PG-13, 133 min.)
The movies haven't portrayed the evangelical preacher in a very flattering light, suffice to say. Invariably, this man of the cloth is depicted as a hymn-singing, prayer-spouting charlatan who hypocritically breaks the commandments with a singular regularity. That's one reason that The Apostle is an astonishing work: It defies the stereotype. Its protagonist, Sonny Dewey, is not some gross exaggeration, but rather a flesh-and-blood human being with flaws, two critical ones being a wandering eye and a homicidal jealousy. After committing a very serious infraction against the laws of man and God, Sonny flees Texas for the wilderness of Louisiana, like some Biblical prophet. Changing his identity, in a quest to both lose and find himself, he christens himself "The Apostle" and seeks to start his own church, one that is based on a fundamental faith divorced from material trappings and other distractions. In the course of this journey, Sonny achieves a degree of redemption when he finally comes face-to-face with his past sins. The story scripted by Duvall in The Apostle is, in many ways, reminiscent of the work of Horton Foote, which is not surprising, given that Foote wrote Tender Mercies, the film for which Duvall deservedly won an Oscar. The themes are simple, the dialogue is sparse, the characters are everyday folk. And there is something so American about it all, from the roof-rattling tent revivals to the junked cars in front yards to the quiet desperation that people endure in their lives from day to day. In his capacity as screenwriter and director, Duvall is careful to avoid sentimentality and easy answers, which gives The Apostle a vibrant ring of truth. (This integrity may not become apparent until after the film is over; it's an observation that gradually sinks in, after replaying the movie in your head.) In the film's most moving scene, Sonny compassionately converts a man threatening to raze the church he's worked so hard to build, as the rest of the congregation looks on. It is a scene in sharp contrast to an earlier one in which Sonny resorts to physical violence in protecting his tabernacle against the same man, who's played by good ol' boy du jour Thornton. In many ways, The Apostle is the tale of Sonny's conversion as well, from a wrathful creature of the Old Testament to a man shaped by New Testament ideals. Of course, then there is Duvall, the consummate actor. Whether strutting like a bantam rooster for the Lord, fervently calling himself a "genuine Holy Ghost, Jesus-filled preaching machine," or humbly acknowledging the folly of his actions, Duvall inhabits the character of Sonny, completely disappearing into the man's skin. In interacting with other members of the film's fine cast (including the immensely watchable Richardson as a fleeting love interest), he creates a rapport that only enhances their performances. Duvall is a true original, who -- along with Hackman, Newman, and others -- proves that older is sometimes better. His The Apostle is a genuine labor of love that both literally and figuratively graces the movie screen. Say amen to that. (2/6/98)
Arbor, Highland, Lakehills, Lakeline, Tinseltown
D: James L. Brooks; with Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Skeet Ulrich, Shirley Knight. (PG-13, 138 min.)
The title, As Good as It Gets, looms like an omen, telegraphing, correctly as it turns out, the impression that this movie would've, could've, should've been better. Make no mistake, As Good as It Gets' winning combo of big laughs and big emotions practically ensures that it will be crowned the feel-good hit of the holiday season. And not undeservedly… there's a lot to like here, primarily the performance of Jack Nicholson, whose work in this film is the finest he's done in years. Yet in between all the laughs and tears, it becomes painfully obvious that there's not a whole lot of story here to prop up the constant emotional yanking. The movie plays best as a series of scenes -- some of them very good -- that fail to coalesce into a solid storyline. Character motivation is for the most part absent, and, occasionally, shot coherence is so sketchy as to become mildly confusing and engender the awareness of something missing. That a cute dog and a sick kid are the two biggest devices for advancing the plot also gives a fair indication of this movie's over-dependence on formula. Producer, director, and co-screenwriter James L. Brooks usually has a better grip on how to temper all these wild swings of emotion, having been involved in creating such innovative television shows as Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Tracey Ullman Show, and The Simpsons, and directing Broadcast News and the multiple Oscar-winner Terms of Endearment. But As Good as It Gets lurches to and fro in a way that won't impede its quips and zingers but will confound anyone looking for the dramatic arc. The vicious one-liners that spew relentlessly from the mouth of Melvin Udall (Nicholson) may be the real glue that holds these scenes together. Melvin is a successful author completing his 62nd romance novel who also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He lives alone in a New York City apartment, and has a pathological fear of germs and stepping on sidewalk cracks. He also unloads venomous verbal shots at anyone who comes within his radar. He is an equal opportunity insulter -- his remarks can be homophobic, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic… whatever the occasion requires. Exactly how and why such abusiveness should be a symptom of OCD is extremely murky (as is the narrative consistency of his many other symptoms), but the movie's task is to lead Melvin into becoming a better man. Despite himself, he befriends the dog of a neighbor -- a gay artist (Kinnear) who is senselessly beaten by intruders -- and gradually befriends the neighbor. He also manages to develop a shaky rapport with the only waitress (Hunt) who will serve him at the restaurant where he eats daily. Kinnear is steadily proving that he may yet have the soul of a decent actor, but the fabulous Helen Hunt is woefully ordinary here. One wonders if Brooks went through his Rolodex, and when his Broadcast News gal Holly Hunter wasn't available, just moved on to the next name in queue. There's also the unmentionable Hollywood folderol about men successfully romancing women several decades their junior. Not only does this waitress bestow her gratuities on this man old enough to be her father, but he's a guy who also comes with a whole laundry list of pathologies and bile. In fact, it may be this bile that makes As Good as It Gets so darn irresistible. Melvin, because he's not well and also has an amusing way with a phrase, can utter the unspeakable. He's not speaking for us, of course; it's his illness talking. And laughter, as we all know, is the best medicine. (12/26/97)
Great Hills, Highland, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: Joel Coen; with Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Jon Polito, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Thewlis, Flea, Torsten Voges. (R, 117 min.)
The Coen Brothers -- Joel and Ethan -- go for broke in The Big Lebowski, and we the viewers are the winners. With The Big Lebowski they take their now-familiar brand of absurdist mystery/crime/thriller -- writ visually large -- and turn the whole melange into a fresh new affair. It's paved with delightfully irregular and unanticipated bits of business that stimulate the viewer to stay fully alert, while renewing our faith in the sheer joy of watching movies. In its wonderful title sequence, The Big Lebowski quite literally announces itself as a tumbling tumbleweed of a movie, a go-with-the-flow yarn that intends to drift toward cohesion. And who better to star in a tall tale such as this than a go-with-the-flow character like the Dude (Bridges)? The Dude is a lazy, crumpled leftover from the Sixties whose laid-back daily routine has been pared down to the essentials: weed, White Russians, and bowling with his pals Walter (Goodman), a hotheaded and hazily militaristic vet full of half-baked ideas and an ability to bring any discussion back to'Nam, and Donny (Buscemi), a dim but good-hearted schlub who always lags a beat or two behind any conversation. A case of mistaken identity causes some nasty goons to break into the Dude's ramshackle apartment, rough him up, and soil his rug. All the Dude wants now is his rug ("because it really tied the room together"), so at Walter's urging he follows the trail of the rug-pissers and thereby becomes embroiled in an intersecting mix of kidnapping, pornography, German nihilists, sultry women, gumshoes, missing money, and missing toes. It's almost enough to interfere with league bowling. But, oh, the characters the Dude meets along the way…. The film is populated with rich, colorful figures: David Huddleston as the Big Lebowski, a wealthy, pompous, wheelchair-bound corporate achiever; Philip Seymour Hoffman as his toady assistant; Julianne Moore as the idiosyncratically mannered artist Maude; Ben Gazzara as the porn entrepreneur Jackie Treehorn; and Sam Elliott as the Stranger, the cowpoke whose inexplicably omniscient voiceover narrates the Dude's story. Then there are all the secondary characters, any of whom could be excised from the story and never hurt the narrative flow. We are the ones who would be deprived of never having known them -- characters like Jesus, John Turturro's heart-arresting turn as the flamboyant Latin pederast bowler; David Thewlis' perversely twittering art-world friend of Maude's; and Smokey, the pacifist bowler played by Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Also punctuating The Big Lebowski are a couple of visually wild and elaborate fantasy/dream sequences, one of them a Busby Berkeley bowling/porn phantasmagoria more outsized and ambitious than anything the Coen Brothers have tried in the past. More like Raising Arizona with its crazy kidnapping plot than straight-ahead narratives like Fargo, The Big Lebowski is also very site specific. It is an L.A. movie, calling to mind the worlds of Raymond Chandler and The Big Sleep. All the film's details -- cinematography, costumes, music -- are note perfect. Some viewers have criticized the movie for being too much of a shaggy dog story, lacking a cohesive point or purpose. Yet to look for the point is to miss it entirely. Coen-heads hop aboard for the ride. (3/6/98)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Lincoln, Tinseltown
D: Peter Hewitt, with John Goodman, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie, Flora Newbigin, Tom Felton, Mark Williams, Bradley Pierce. (PG, 87 min.)
Beginning in 1952, and spanning three decades, author Mary Norton wrote a series of children's books based on a family of tiny people who reside beneath the floorboards of an old country house "borrowing" the odd needle or matchbox in order to fashion ingenious and useful miniature furnishings. Filled with that peculiarly British blend of silliness and stolidity, the books are engaging, hilarious tales of the Clock family -- Pod, Homily, and Arietta -- whose well-being depends upon the dreaded creatures who live and tower above them. It's a foolhardy pastime, comparing movies to books, and hardly fair when you're dealing with memories of beloved childhood favorites. Still, one can hardly look the other way when a classic book is given what I've come to think of as the dreaded Home Alone treatment. Which is to say, the film makes the assumption that it can't possibly be entertaining unless somebody is constantly slimed with disgusting goo or burnt to a hair-curling crisp or speared in the rear with a sharp object. Oh, the film doesn't totally forsake its namesake, but therein lies the rub. For the film captures just enough of the whimsical nuances of Norton's books to tantalize -- and disappoint. It whispers at imagination, hints at charm, and flirts -- briefly and carelessly -- with character development. All for naught. Arietta remains the focus of the story, a restless teenage borrower whose dreams of the great world beyond the floorboards lure her out into the open, touching off a great escapade. But her brush with the enormous world of the human "beans" and first encounter with a teenage boy borrower, both intrinsically momentous and magical occasions, are lost in the tumult of slapstick villainy. John Goodman too often fills the screen, his Ocious P. Potter a big, slow-witted buffoon of a bad guy, his exaggerated eyebrow motion and multiple double-takes a paltry substitute for acting. And brilliant British comic Hugh Laurie is shamelessly wasted as an officious bobbie who quite undeservedly saves the day. (If the writers had stuck to the book, he could have done a hilarious bit responding to a hysterical housekeeper's description of "dressed up mice," but no such luck here.) Hewitt opts instead for style over story. The Borrowers is a sumptuous and incongruous jumble of varying time period elements but the effect is more distracting than intriguing. The stylish set design and brooding, sepia-toned lighting play at odds with the cartoon quality of the picture and the prevailing murkiness obscures (literally and figuratively) the action and the characters and dampens the spirits. No intoxicating ray of sunshine, no glimpse of a world full of adventure and enchantment beckons Arietta or the audience. The few scattered sparks of magic in The Borrowers simply cannot give light to all this dreariness. (2/13/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Highland, Tinseltown
D: Darin Scott; with Bokeem Woodbine, Cynda Williams, Clifton Powell, Tony Todd, Basil Wallace, Joseph Lindsey, Snoop Doggy Dogg, LL Cool J, Jeffrey Combs. (R, 99 min.)
This boy'n' the hood drama about an ex-con caught up in a maelstrom of deceit, double-crosses, and murder as he attempts to go straight can't negotiate the many twists and turns in its near-byzantine plot: It ends up crashing, a rumpled mess that can't be identified. The protagonist narrator of Caught Up promises a wild, funny story that's nevertheless the truth, but what you ultimately get is a tale that is simply half-baked, to be polite. After serving most of his adult life behind bars for dealing crack and being the unwitting accomplice in a bank robbery, Daryl Allen (Woodbine) is determined not to become a repeat offender. But, as his penchant for bad luck would have it, he keeps running into people working overtime to lead him astray. This is particularly true when it comes to his Tarot-reading girlfriend (Williams), whose psychic ability no doubt led her to find her a patsy when she needed one. Of course, their chance meeting in a diner smells like a set-up (although it's never really made clear if it is or not) and before you know it, there's stuff about stolen diamonds, unlawful activities in rented limousines, a lisping L.A. freak, Uzi-toting Rastafarian avengers, and -- in what has got to be the most bizarre cameo turn in recent movie memory -- a psychotic masked man spouting Shakespeare (or is it the Bible?) who drops his pants to reveal a missing manhood. (It should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen the Re-Animator series or The Frighteners that the certainly certifiable Jeffrey Combs plays this latter role.) None of these seemingly random events gels at all; it's as if director-screenwriter Scott has Scotch-taped the whole thing together. The film is stilted in the way many of the scenes are staged, and the acting is for the most part awful, especially Williams -- so very promising in One False Move -- who is very, very awful as the movie's poor excuse for a femme fatale. Only Woodbine comes close to portraying a flesh-and-blood character; at least you feel a little sympathy for his down-on-his-luck parolee. He's about the only thing in which to get caught up in Caught Up, and that's saying very little. (3/6/98)
Highland
D: Marshall Herskovitz; Catherine McCormack, Rufus Sewell, Oliver Platt, Moira Kelly, Fred Ward, Jacqueline Bisset. (R, 115 min.)
When Dangerous Beauty grows up, it wants to be a Merchant/Ivory film. Too bad puberty is still such a long way off. Based on Margaret Rosenthal's biography of 16th-century Venetian courtesan and poetess Veronica Franco, director Herskovitz (thirtysomething) dives deep into Venice's fabled, watery past and comes up with a gilded trunkload of hoary romance novel clichés, disastrous casting choices, a coolly calculating score (by George Fenton), and a sullied thematic logic that's more than simply annoying, it's insulting to boot. McCormack plays Franco, who is tutored by her mother (Bisset) in the ways of the courtesan as a means of providing family support. Due to the questionable nature of the family's means and her lower station in life, she's unable to marry the man she loves -- the handsome senator Marco Venier (Sewell, of Dark City) -- and instead spends her time as a sort of kept woman of the Venetian elite. Certainly, at that time, the only way for a woman to learn of the world, to read books, and to grow intellectually and artistically according to her inclination was as a courtesan. (Your average scullery maid was forbidden to even learn how to write her name.) Once installed in the palaces of the wealthy, Franco quickly becomes everyone's favorite party girl. More than that, though -- she's learning the secrets of kings, generals, and bishops, becoming fluent in various languages and the secret machinations of the 16th-century power structure. Mankind's innate fear of strong, intelligent women and their sexuality becomes her undoing as first her one true love -- for whom she would abandon her financially rewarding lifestyle -- goes off to war. Following that, the Plague descends; then the Inquisition arrives in town to burn assorted witches and heretics, of which she is considered one. McCormack is lovely to look at; her face has a ruddy carnality that plays well to the camera, but her Franco is far too broadly drawn. Her passion for lovemaking is frequently, crudely demonstrated, as when she deep-throats a banana or leers suggestively; she's a caricature, a cartoon, Disney gone blue. Sewell is much better suited to the role of impetuous, lovable rogue (scamp, maverick, scalawag, all of the above) Venier, but Jeannine Dominy's woefully scatty script plays him the fool (and in quick succession Franco, and then us). And what in the world is Fred Ward doing here as Marco's wealthy, handicapped father? Rarely do you come across a more ludicrous casting choice. Worse, Herskovitz constantly badgers us with emotional signposts and overwhelming, obvious pathos. Cry here, laugh here, sob here, and so on. Visually, cinematographer Bojan Bazelli keeps everything in a golden haze; Dangerous Beauty resembles nothing so much as a Penthouse photo spread. Perhaps not coincidentally, I kept expecting romance novel posterboy Fabio to appear, but no such luck. "I can't believe it's not butter!" Believe it pal -- it's cheese. 100% Grade-A American. (3/6/98)
Arbor, Barton Creek
D: Alex Proyas; with Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, William Hurt. (R, 100 min.)
You really have to feel for Alex Proyas. This guy wears bad luck like the grimy trenchcoats of his protagonists, only his zipper's stuck and he can't seem to shake the damn thing off. It's been four years since his stunning debut with The Crow, and by all accounts Proyas has spent much of the intervening time trying to come to grips with the tragic on-set death of that film's star, Brandon Lee. Proyas, who cut his teeth in the advertising and video world of MTV, has a remarkable visual aesthetic; it's no great leap to say he's right up there with Jacques Tourneur or Ridley Scott in terms of his eye for sordid detail (his only real contemporary rival is City of Lost Children's Jean-Pierre Jeunet). And Dark City, like its predecessor, is a stunningly visual smorgasbord of tenebrous eye-candy, all creeping shadows and urban malaise. Proyas' ability to make a twilight cityscape look menacing is like no one else's. But apart from the sensory input he throws at you, Dark City is a curiously unengaging experience. It's like the CD-ROM games Myst or Riven blown up to huge cinematic proportions while the critical ideas driving the play are left behind. For all its dark splendor, nothing much happens to make you squirm or gasp or weep, as in The Crow. It flatlines before it ever begins. The story seems ripped from one of Kafka's lesser nightmares: Everyman John Murdoch (Sewell) wakes up in a bathtub with blood seeping from his forehead. Suffering from amnesia, he doesn't know who or where he is, or what's going on (in this manner he functions as the viewer's surrogate throughout the film), but he soon runs into the mysterious Dr. Schreber (Sutherland), a paranoid, possibly dangerous physician newly graduated from the Peter Lorre School of Tics and Twitches. Schreber informs him that the city's inhabitants are the victims of some ongoing cosmic experiment being conducted by a race of black-clad, fedora-topped aliens called "The Strangers," who hope to unlock the secrets of humanity by mixing and matching people's memories. The city, it seems, is entirely a construct of these film noir bad guys, who have the ability to alter reality at will (a power Murdoch himself has picked up as well). Proyas also throws in the only American actress to ever adequately survive a Dario Argento film -- Jennifer Connelly -- as Murdoch's estranged wife, and William Hurt (suitably vague) as a Forties-style gumshoe out to solve a series of citywide serial killings. Actually, the whole film has a post-WWII feel to it, thanks in part to George Liddle's spectacular production design and Dariusz Wolski's gorgeous cinematography, but the actual time period is anyone's guess. So is much of the plot, though Proyas, who also penned the script, does his best to make things adhere to some internal logic I never quite figured out. Dark City looks like a million bucks (or rather, a million bucks gone to compost), but at its dark heart it's a tedious, bewildering affair, lovely to look at but with all the substance of a dissipating dream. (2/27/98)
Gateway, Highland, Riverside, Tinseltown, Westgate
D: Peter Cattaneo; with Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, Hugo Speer, Paul Barber, Steve Huison. (R, 90 min.)
Bountiful laughs and a subtle dose of consciousness-raising coexist easily in Peter Cattaneo's comedy about laid-off English steelworkers whose financial desperation leads them to form a Chippendales-knockoff strip act. The title translates roughly to "full frontal nudity," which is the hook these out-of-shape, rhythmically impaired males hope will inspire the womenfolk of Sheffield to show up for "Hot Steel"‘s one-night-only gig. The ringleader of the group is Gaz (Carlyle, who played the hell-raising Begbie in Trainspotting), a divorced dad looking for a quick score to pay off his delinquent child support. The way he figures it, if a bunch of arse-wiggling "poofs" can drive women into frothing ecstasy and earn 10,000 pounds in a single night, why not a virile crew of steel-driving roughnecks straight outta the mills? As it turns out, the men of Hot Steel are far from cocky about how they'll look strutting around in red silk g-strings. Pudding-bellied Dave (Addy) is insecure about his weight and afraid his recent impotency will drive his wife to another man. Horse (Barber) lacks the anatomical bounty his nickname suggests and resorts in desperation to a mail-order enlargement device. Lomper (Huison) and Guy (Speer) both have the muscular definition of Gumbys -- though Guy at least fills out his bikini pouch impressively. As showtime nears, their performance anxiety grows geometrically, with some threatening to bail on their comrades and all recognizing for the first time how women must feel about having their bodies casually critiqued by men. Granted, this all sounds pretty broad, but the actual effect is far more tender and affecting than you'd expect. Once you've bought into the improbable premise, the particulars of the story -- the ridiculous early practices (a videotape of Flashdance serves as a technical reference), their children's embarrassment, the community's amusement and titillation -- all develop quite plausibly. This film bears some resemblance in setting and structure to the recent Brassed Off!, but any social-protest content in Cattaneo's movie is strictly implicit. He's much more interested in illuminating individual personality quirks than the pressing economic issues of the day. These modest ambitions, along with a generally predictable story, will keep the The Full Monty from ever attaining the critical regard of other English social comedies like I'm All Right, Jack, or even My Beautiful Laundrette. But by all means, see this movie anyway, because it's a rare comedy indeed that generates such a steady flow of hilarious scenes (including one in which the lads start unconsciously twitching and undulating to Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" as they're standing in line to collect their dole) from such simple, sweet-natured premises. The Full Monty is feel-good comedy with none of the pejorative hints of innocuous blandness that term so often implies. (9/12/97)
Alamo Drafthouse
D: Gus Van Sant; with Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Stellan Skarsgard, Minnie Driver. (R, 126 min.)
Will Hunting (Damon) is a "Southie" -- a twentysomething kid from the rough-and-tumble neighborhoods of South Boston. By day he works construction with his best friend Chuckie (Affleck) and by night he works as a janitor, mopping the hallowed halls of M.I.T. When he's not doing that he's out drinking down at the local pub or engaging in the sort of street-tough shenanigans that gave Alex in A Clockwork Orange such a bad name. And when he's not doing all that, he's anonymously solving some of the toughest mathematical equations that M.I.T. professor Lambeau (Skarsgard) can pitch to his students. Will is a misplaced genius, "an Einstein," the kind of mental gymnast who comes along maybe once in a generation, if that, and when he gets nailed by the cops and stands facing some hard time, Professor Lambeau tracks down this wunderkind and packs him off to his old psychologist pal Sean McGuire (Williams), himself an ex-Southie from those same mean streets. It's here that Will opens up about his battered childhood, his mental prowess, and his seeming lack of ambition, and also where a steady war of wills begins to simmer, Southie vs. Southie. Co-written by real-life pals Affleck and Damon, Good Will Hunting is the sort of coming-of-age story that all too often bogs down in cheap, sentimental claptrap and budding-wisdom brouhahas, but Van Sant and a very, very solid cast keep the film from breaking up, at least until the final reel or so. Will's romantic interest, the pre-med Skylar (Driver) at first seems to be such a stock deus ex machina that you grit your teeth, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but Van Sant never lets it happen; she's not Will Hunting's clever, witty salvation, at least not in the classic, screen sense. That comes from William's McGuire, a crotchety, angry, seething psych professor who's trapped in the painful aftermath caused by his wife's death from cancer and his refusal to rejoin the living. He's Will's mirror image, and he knows it. It's the key to both their salvations. I've been wondering recently just who the hell Matt Damon is and why he adorns the covers of so many magazines when he's done so little film work thus far, but I have to admit, he shines in the role of Will. Will is 30% cocky bravado, 30% violent thug, and 40% bewildered mastermind, and Damon plays up a storm as he ricochets off Williams (in one of his best "serious" turns yet) and pals around with Affleck with the sort of ease you feel they share in real life. Things stumble a bit in the third act as emotional speeches flow like cheap red wine and Good Will Hunting threatens to spill over the dams of pathos, but it's never so much that Van Sant loses sight of the film's original intentions. Part character study, part redemptive drama, and all cheesy heart, it's Boston-baked melodrama, a little too gooey at times, but still pretty delicious. (12/26/97)
Arbor, Highland, Lake Creek, Northcross, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: Jonathan Darby; with Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnathon Schaech, Nina Foch, Hal Holbrook, Debi Mazar, David Thornton. (PG-13, 95 min.)
Another in the growing genre of dysfunctional-family-member films, this new entry gives us Lange as Bad Mom Martha Baring, Paltrow as her new daughter-in-law Helen, and That Thing You Do's Schaech as Jackson Baring, the man in the muddle. Actually, they're all in a bit of a muddle, as Darby splashes bad vibes and evil deeds across his palette like so much turpentine, smearing what might have been an otherwise quick-witted thriller. Alas, the only wit even remotely quick comes from Nina Foch, as Jackson's aged mother-in-law, whose role as keeper of the closeted skeletons is kept to the bare minimum. The film opens with Jackson returning to his ancestral Kentucky manse -- the cheerily-named Kilronan -- with girlfriend Helen in tow for the traditional meeting of the mom. All goes well at first, and Martha is the soul of Southern gentility, forever dangling a scotch in one hand and a Virginia Slims in the other. When the couple return to New York only to find some months later that Helen has become pregnant thanks to a faulty diaphragm, it's back to Kilronan to fix up the old homestead (it's a former horse farm, and there's talk of selling it), get married, and have the baby (presumably under the watchful eye of Holbrook's grizzled doctor). Back on Martha's home turf, it soon becomes apparent to Helen that her mother-in-law has not taken much of a shine to her. Martha has developed an annoying habit of putting her daughter-in-law in dangerous situations, "forbidding" her to do certain things, and outright lying. Jackson, apparently, is oblivious, and by the time he exits the picture to watch one of his trotters race in a neighboring village, the stage is set for nasty shenanigans of all types. From start to finish, there is absolutely nothing in this film that comes as a surprise -- Darby and co-screenwriter Michael Cristofer (Breaking Up) telegraph every available bit of plot seemingly hours before it's necessary, resulting in a tawdry, boring mish-mash of genre clichés and arched eyebrows. Though Lange may have seemed the perfect choice in the pitch meeting, onscreen she's far too hammy. Her portrait of this sociopathic, narcissistic mommy is so broad it feels like a Hirschfield caricature done in Krylon; it's too much, from her overbearing, bordering-on-comical Southern accent to her sly glances askance. Paltrow, for her part, doesn't bring much to the table either, basing her entire character on a series of pouts and grimaces. And Schaech? Regardless of his ability as an actor, his character is so dense, so blind to what's going on around him, that it's all you can do not to run up to the screen and slap him silly. His performance is an exercise in the fine art of ignoring the obvious. I won't even go into the film's leaden ending here; suffice to say it's not nearly as interesting as what has come before, which wasn't very interesting to begin with. (3/6/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Highland, Lakeline, Tinseltown
D: Todd Holland; with Richard Dreyfuss, Jenna Elfman, Natasha Lyonne, Gregory Smith, Lily Tomlin, Stephen Root, Doris Belack, Carl Michael Lindner, Elaine Stritch, Tom Poston, Zakes Mokae, David Ogden Stiers. (PG-13, 94 min.)
By the time James Krippendorf's overbearing mother-in-law calls him a "Neolithic twit" and orders him out of her house, our sympathies are with her 100%. The one-joke comedy of Krippendorf's Tribe wears out its welcome quickly and then coasts on the hammy talents of its esteemed acting crew to drive its one meager joke into the ground and halfway to China. Then add the dubious charms of white actors camping it up in blackface pretending to be primitive jungle tribesmen of New Guinea and you have a comedy that belongs more rightfully to cinema's Stone Age than the present. The premise is this: Anthropologist James Krippendorf (Dreyfuss) has been in a deep two-year-long funk following the unexplained death of his wife and anthropological colleague. He's supported his three kids and slumbered through the last two years on the fat of a research grant earmarked for the study of an "undiscovered" tribe he claims to have discovered with his wife. Now the time has come to present the findings of his bogus research and he opts to continue the charade. But his bluff is called by his nemesis Ruth Allen (Tomlin), the doyenne of the anthropology department, who wants him to produce film footage of his new-found tribe. Thus Krippendorf's one lie turns into a whopper as he enlists his children to dress up in native garb and fabricate primitive rituals on a crude jungle set erected in their backyard. Adding fuel to the fire is Veronica Micelli (Elfman), a young and ambitious member of the anthropology department who hooks him up with the lucrative television contract that turns Krippendorf and his tribe into cherished pop culture icons. He even manages to ply protégé Veronica with liquor one night and get her to go native in front of his camera and in his bed. Eventually, she too is in on the ruse. As scientists go, these two bring much the same credibility to the field of anthropology as Bob Newhart brought to the practice of psychology. And all their grabbing of the prominent penis sheaths make Krippendorf's Tribe a curiously awkward choice for PG-13 family entertainment. Given the silliness surrounding him, Dreyfuss is remarkably subdued; Elfman is fortunate to have a blossoming television career with Dharma and Greg to fall back on; and Lily Tomlin and the rest of the supporting actors provide little in the way of comic relief. Director Todd Holland, whose career in recent years has been associated with The Larry Sanders Show brings little of that program's ironic tone and wit to this predictable farce. Krippendorf's Tribe is one society you don't want to join. (2/27/98)
Gateway, Tinseltown, Westgate
D: Curtis Hanson; with Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito. (R, 138 min.)
Kudos to director Curtis Hanson and co-screenwriter Brian Helgeland for whipping James Ellroy's seminal novel of 1950s Los Angeles police corruption and noir sexuality into recognizable shape for this distinguished film adaptation. Ellroy's original manuscript fell under the heading of "epic." With over 100 distinct characters and nearly that many plot twists, it was long considered unfilmable and it languished in development hell for years, nevertheless remaining one of the hottest unproduced properties around. Now it's here, finally, and well worth the wait. Spacey plays a smooth-talking LAPD detective named Vincennes, who moonlights as technical adviser on a high-rated TV cop show; as such, he's looked up to by the regular Joes on the beat, although some police officers resent his penchant for working celebrity busts alongside Sid Hudgens (DeVito), the smarmy editor of Hush-Hush magazine, a seamy Hollywood scandal sheet. Together with the straitlaced, rising LAPD star Ed Exley (Pearce) and the violent, emotionally confused detective Bud White (Crowe), Vincennes falls prey to a series of internal police scandals revolving around a recent massacre at the aptly named Night Owl Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard. As the body count mounts and the internal affairs intrigue spirals out of control, this trio of good cops/bad cops furiously works to cover its collective ass before the perilous house of cards that is the 1950s LAPD collapses atop them. You come away from the film with the distinct feeling that it should have been shot in high-contrast black-and-white; echoes of classic film noir crop up in almost every scene, but cinematographer Dante Spinotti's (Heat, Last of the Mohicans) lush colors and steamy atmosphere more than make up for that. Like the best dirty cop procedurals of the past, L.A. Confidential chugs along like an approaching thunderstorm, ratcheting up the dirty dealings and hazy suspense at an alarming rate until the final, hideous confrontation. Just when it seems things can't possibly get any worse for the fallen angels in blue, things do, and the film jacks itself up to another brutal level. Full of period locations, costumes, and one very clever Lana Turner gag, it's easy to see why Ellroy is so pleased with the film. It's tough enough adapting run-of-the-mill Michael Crichton books to the screen -- with a sprawling tome like Ellroy's, results such as Hanson's are downright miracles. (9/19/97)
Dobie, Gateway, Highland, Tinseltown, Westgate
D: Alain Berliner; with Georges du Fresne, Michèle Laroque, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Hélène Vincent, Julien Riviere. (R, 90 min.)
There's nothing like a little childhood gender confusion to blow the lid off suburbia's Teflon tranquillity. Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink), a Belgian import by first-time filmmaker Alain Berliner (not to be confused with the American documentary filmmaker Alan Berliner) is a warm, startling, funny, and realistic study of what happens when a seven-year-old boy is convinced, beyond all reason and outward evidence to the contrary, that he is really a girl. His certitude is astonishing in one so little, and his gender conviction is so strong that his belief can't be laughed away as the result of a "phase" or an "active imagination." Yet the crux of Ma Vie en Rose is not a study of transgendered children per se, despite the fact that such sensational subject matter would seem to be surefire material for attention-grabbing moviemaking. We're never even quite certain about the long-term psychological ramifications of young Ludovic's (du Fresne) obsession: Is he transgendered, a transvestite, gay, or straight? Such determinations are not the movie's concern. What Ma Vie en Rose is interested in is what it means to be a "difficult" child, a child who whose difference always sets him apart, and what it means to be the parents of such a child. Ludovic's parents, Hanna (Laroque) and Pierre (Ecoffey), are amazingly tolerant of their seven-year-old's irresistible desire to dress in skirts, even though they try to reason with him to behave otherwise. But when Ludovic starts spinning elaborate and fantastic stories about how he really is a girl and how he wants to marry his playmate Jerome when he grows up, his actions begin to generate more serious adult concern. It doesn't help matters that Jerome's father is also Pierre's boss, thus after the two boys are discovered in the midst of a mock wedding ceremony, all hell starts to break loose. Ludovic and his family become the neighborhood outcasts, Ludovic is drummed out of school, and Pierre loses his job. Despite these dire and downbeat consequences, Ma Vie en Rose manages to maintain a remarkably spunky and upbeat attitude, probably in large measure because it stays focused on the child's point of view throughout. And Ludovic, himself, is never in doubt even though he watches as everyone else around him becomes unhinged. The film also has candy-colored flights of sheer fancy as we witness Ludovic's fantasies about a Barbie-like doll named Pam, who floats over the community and serves as his guiding light. The naturalism of the performances also largely contributes to the success of the movie, particularly in the case of young Georges du Fresne (the best French-speaking child actor this side of Ponette's Victoire Thivisol). Part social realism, part human comedy, part family drama, and part storybook fantasy, Ma Vie en Rose is an original, thought-provoking, and entertaining piece of work. (2/27/98)
Arbor
D: Randall Wallace; with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gabriel Byrne, Gerard Depardieu, Anne Parillaud, Judith Godreche, Hugh Laurie, Peter Skarsgaard. (PG-13, 132 min.)
This new chronicle of the adventures of the king's musketeers, as directed by Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace, suffers from a severe case of over-earnestness and star-power overkill. It's agleam with sumptuous scenes of Versailles revelry but with hardly any of Dumas' dank wit and ear for epic tragedy. Wallace, instead, places things somewhere between the bravura silliness of Richard Lester's 1974 The Three Musketeers and an Actors Studio self-help group: There's so much unintentional mugging in this film I feared for my wallet. DiCaprio, as the tyrannical boy-king Louis XIV, is at the heart of the problem. Certainly he has the boy part down pat, and his haughtiness is unquestionable, but there's something about his flat, American tones which leave his portrayal of King Fop lying in the dust. Likewise his Phillipe, the king's twin and the titular man in the mask, whom he plays with a wide-eyed bluster more appropriate to a pre-Titanic Jack Dawson. Clearly he's not the man for the job here (and who is? my vote goes to Crispin Glover, if only to add the much needed -- and intentional -- oddball quotient the film sorely deserves). As for the musketeers themselves, what must have seemed a casting coup of mammoth proportions doesn't play nearly as well onscreen as it does in the mind's eye. Irons is suitably pious as Aramis, who spends his days praying in his room and advising the King in matters of state while simultaneously plotting against him. The same goes for Byrne as the conflicted D'Artagnan, now Captain of the King's musketeer regiments and thus sworn in allegiance to DiCaprio's power-mad teddy boy. Malkovich, however, is coming out of left field as Athos, who is spurred to treason when Louis sends off his son Raoul (Skarsgaard, doing an impeccable Malkovich, Jr. impersonation) to die in order to make time with the boy's lady love, Christine (Godreche). Of course, Malkovich always seems to be playing left of center, but here his clipped, monotone Midwestern accents trip him up, and his paternal stoicism is cartoonish. Depardieu, as the lusty, aging Porthos seems to be the only one having any fun with his role; when not bedding the scullery maids or finishing off yet another flagon of ale, he's grousing about the unfairness of growing old and dreaming of past glories, a grizzled lech with a faltering rapier. The film itself is a jumble of period images that swirl by with little meaning or resonance, a series of ornate parties, treacheries, and rescues. It lacks the inherent impact of Dumas' tale, and its emotional core seems tacked on and unfinished. It's all swash and no buckle. (3/13/98)
Barton Creek, Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: Gary Oldman; with Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Laila Morse, Charlie Creed-Miles. (R, 128 min.)
As our culture spirals ever-inward toward full convergence with the realm of daytime talk shows and Abuse Movies-of-the-Week, our capacity for shock diminishes in kind. So it's noteworthy when a movie like Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth has the power to pierce the hard rind that's formed over our collective senses of revulsion, outrage, and empathy. Dedicated to the memory of his father, this brutal cinema vérité depiction of a prodigiously screwed-up English family emphasizes the semantic inadequacy of such words as "dysfunctional" and "codependency." Autobiographical or not, the violent pathologies consuming this South London working-class clan will seem all too believable to anyone who's ever known such people, or who simply reads the morning paper. Father Ray (Winstone) is a binge-drinking, coke-snorting, topless bar-crawling hulk who rules his brood by fist and decree. The most frequent targets of his rage are his pregnant wife Val (Burke) and her teenaged dope-fiend brother, Billy (Creed-Miles). However, as in almost all such cases, a whole social network is required to facilitate, justify, or pointedly ignore this behavior, thus ensuring its continuation. Buddies of a similar stripe commiserate with the abuser. In-laws ineffectually complain. Neighbors just try to stay the hell out of the way. Even the abused parties have their own tortured rationales for staying in harm's way. Where Oldman really excels is in placing his harrowing material in contexts that illuminate and, to some degree, explain it. Ambient lighting, hand-held cameras, and omnidirectional mikes mirror the crude immediacy associated with John Cassavetes' films (Husbands is an especially clear reference point). Lo-fi music booms constantly in the background and characters talk over each other in barely comprehensible slurring riffs that feature the f-word as noun, verb, and adjective -- often in the same sentences. (Fair warning: American audiences are likely to find a good half of the heavily accented dialogue so indecipherable that subtitles would be well in order.) The characters' immersion in this world of mindless, ultimately numbing sensory stimulation goes a long way toward helping us understand their emotional debilitation. The simplest, highest tribute is due to the performances of Burke, Winstone, and Morse (who plays Val's mother): We know these people and can vouch for the authenticity of every miserable, muddleheaded word and deed. The only reservation I have in recommending this film is the ultimate question of what value there is in this kind of naked, unmediated portrayal of such wretched situations. What Oldman has done is to open a window onto scenes we know are taking place everywhere, all the time. Why -- and if -- we choose to look is a personal call for every viewer. (3/13/98)
Village
D: Gillian Armstrong; with Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Richard Roxburgh, Clive Russell. (R, 131 min.)
People in glass churches shouldn't amount to great movie subjects, but all bets are off when it comes to Oscar and Lucinda. An eccentric, idiosyncratic story about glass, love, gambling, and Christian faith, Oscar and Lucinda is a high-wire kind of a movie -- you wait for its fragile glass structure to shatter or inevitably cloud up, but the film's roof beams keep poking upward toward loftier heights and fill the theatre with the intoxicating rush of ethereal air. Based on Peter Carey's 1988 Booker prize-winning novel (England's top literary award), Oscar and Lucinda was adapted for the screen by Laura Jones (Angel at My Table, Portrait of a Lady). In many ways, this period film about a couple of society's square pegs is familiar turf for director Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, Little Women), whose works are always populated with strong, self-confident female characters and the men who love them. Yet the visual and emotional delicacy of Oscar and Lucinda is also tempered by a strong comic and earthy streak. Set in Australia during the Victorian era, the film recounts the romance of Oscar and Lucinda, a pair of odd birds whose fate becomes forever entwined by a deck of cards and a transparent glass church. Their story begins with their childhood, introduced by an offscreen narrator (Oscar and Lucinda's future great-grandson) whose recitation has the richness of oral lore that has been passed down through the generations. Oscar (Fiennes) is the shy, awkward son of a severe preacher father. At a young age he asks God for a sign and leaves his father's stern influence, though his gangly body and deep-seated guilt make him a strange character well into his adulthood. While studying at Oxford for the ministry, Oscar discovers his knack for betting on horses. He's a steady winner who gives his earnings to the poor but when he recognizes that he has become obsessed by gambling, he flips a coin and decides to escape his temptation in the Australian outback. While traveling there, he meets Lucinda (Blanchett), an heiress of a Sydney glass works whose feminist mother raised her to become a "proud square peg." Lucinda also harbors a weakness for wagering on cards, and thus a love begins. Yet as they grow closer, Oscar becomes convinced that Lucinda is really in love with the Reverend Dennis Hasset (Hinds), a glass connoisseur who has been exiled to a remote settlement in order to squelch festering rumors of improprieties with Lucinda. Then, faster than you can say Fitzcarraldo, Oscar hatches a bet as to whether or not he can deliver a glass cathedral to Reverend Hasset in the outback. It's all a mad gamble, full of folly, fervor, and inspiration. It is a tale like none other, a romance all their own, a saga for their progeny. Fiennes has not been this mesmerizing in a role since Schindler's List and newcomer Blanchett's luminescence recalls nothing so much as Judy Davis' stunning international debut in My Brilliant Career. Keeping with the spirit of its lead characters, Oscar and Lucinda is a movie best met with a gambler's faith: You may not be certain what it means in the end, but its magnificent payoff is nevertheless a sure thing. (2/20/98)
Arbor
D: Michael Sajbel; with Michael Biehn, Brock Pierce, Jennifer Blanc, Chris Owens, Clarence Felder, Jennifer O'Neill, Franklin Graham. (PG, 101 min.)
Not reviewed at press time. Produced by World Wide Pictures, the motion picture arm of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, The Ride promises inspirational entertainment. When a legendary rodeo star hits rock bottom after a run-in with the law, he must choose between going to jail or teaching a young Christian boy how to ride a bull. Although this rodeo jockey grapples with giving up drinking and gambling, apparently in the end he is allowed to hang on to the bull. (2/27/98)
Lakeline
D: Barry Levinson; with Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Peter Coyote, Liev Schreiber. (PG-13, 118 min.)
Speaking as a movie-consumer's advocate -- though not necessarily as a book critic -- I suggest at least a cursory skim through Michael Crichton's source novel before going to see Sphere. This will inoculate you against an otherwise likely sense of annoyance at getting roped into a classic bait-and-switch con. In other words, don't trust the impression created by Sphere's intriguing trailers that it has much to do with the awe and terror of direct contact with an advanced alien intelligence. Without totally blowing the surprise element of this movie (which in any event I'm urging all but the staunchest Crichtonheads to skip), I have to tell you that what Levinson and company have cooked up here bears as much resemblance to, say, Roger Corman's schlocky Galaxy of Terror as the blend of The Abyss and Contact you've been led to expect. The characters are a mixed bag of scientists sent to probe what is apparently the 300-year-old wreckage of an alien spacecraft resting a quarter-mile deep on the Pacific Ocean floor. At every step in their early quest we're plied with images and music that promise an encounter with physical and psychological immensity; big stuff to wrap our eyes and minds around. But all is not as it seems. For one thing, the investigation quickly strikes a brick wall -- or, rather, a big slithery-surfaced gold orb the explorers find in the ship's cargo hold. Right about here, Levinson's skillfully accumulated head of dramatic tension begins to leak away with an almost audible hiss. The scientists start bickering (Hoffman and Stone's characters have had an ugly romantic crash-and-burn in their past, and Jackson and Schreiber are lifelong rivals). Inexplicable disasters soon begin to occur, possibly connected in some mysterious way to all the bad emotional karma in the air. And that, costly trappings aside, is your movie. Basically, what Sphere delivers is a mediocre Outer Limits TV script resting atop a massive, needlessly complex superstructure of overplotting, high-dollar f/x and banal head games. With screenplays this poor (and the fault lies not only with Crichton but the three other writers who adapted his novel), I'm inclined to cut slack for actors who are left with an unreasonable share of heavy lifting to do. So it'll be here, although both Jackson and Hoffman ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting Stone pour this much passion and energy into her inanely written role while they basically skulk in the scenery's dark corners hoping nobody will notice them. Sorry, guys, you're busted. As for you, Barry -- and anyone else in Hollywood who persists in believing Michael Crichton's literary oeuvre is suitable fodder for classy sci-fi adventure films: Wake up and smell the cheese. For every Jurassic Park blockbuster there'll be three ponderous duds like Sphere or Congo, and you can take that to the bank. (2/20/98)
Gateway, Tinseltown
D: Atom Egoyan; with Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood, Tom McCamus, Gabrielle Rose, Arsinée Khanjian, Alberta Watson, Maury Chaykin, Brooke Johnson, Earl Pastko. (R, 110 min.)
In the course of life, horrible, tragic events sometimes occur. We all know this to be a fact of life, yet this knowledge doesn't make our acceptance of the truth any easier to bear. Human beings seek reasons and culprits and causes in order to make sense of our tragedies and restore reason to those who have entered the land of the unthinkable. Few people understand this better than attorney Mitchell Stephens (impeccably played by Ian Holm), who arrives in a small rural community in British Columbia that has just experienced a gut-wrenching disaster in which 14 children perish and many others become injured when their schoolbus inexplicably crashes into a frozen lake. Promising compensation and retribution to the grief-stricken parents if they allow him to represent them in a class-action suit, one might easily mistake Stephens for little more than a well-oiled opportunist, yet he understands their agony all too well. He struggles to make his peace with another kind of bereavement, a living death, in which his daughter has been lost to drug addiction. The Sweet Hereafter fashions a rich, haunting tale from this anguish, a tale whose exquisite illumination transcends the mournful details of its storyline. Adapted by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan from the acclaimed novel by Russell Banks, the film represents a career breakthrough for the director. Up until now, Egoyan has enjoyed a reputation as a top-flight arthouse writer-director whose singularity of vision in such films as Exotica, Speaking Parts, and The Adjuster has also fostered a sense of his works as being somewhat remote and hermetic. With The Sweet Hereafter, Egoyan, for the first time, adapts someone else's source material and even though he brings much to the story that is clearly his own (which results in a decidedly "Egoyan film"), it's still a story that manages to touch a more universal nerve. As Mitchell Stephens goes from home to home, we, along with him, gradually piece together a patchwork of understanding from the details of ordinary lives. Egoyan layers the story of the Pied Piper into the film, a resonant analogy that was not in the book. He also discovers beautifully cinematic storytelling devices such as the way the story of the disaster is told by means of a fractured temporal structure and also the brilliantly unsettling carwash sequence that opens the movie. The performances are all subtle jewels as well; each actor carves out a fresh and unique character. I can think of no other movie that has dared to analyze grief and its aftermath with such naked honesty and precision, a film whose here and now so totally rebukes the notion of a sweet hereafter. With a clarity of purpose and vision, Egoyan casts his line as though he were an ice fisherman determined to plumb the unyielding surface fissures to find some life that bites back from the underside of the cold, impenetrable Canadian frost. (1/9/98)
Village
D: James Cameron; with Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Danny Nucci, David Warner, Bill Paxton. (PG-13, 197 min.)
Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic, if you haven't heard yet. The costliest film ever made is also one of the best, unlike the second costliest, Kevin Costner's ill-fated Waterworld (and just what is it with aquatic overexpenditures these days, anyway?). Reams have already been written on James Cameron's wild cost overruns, so I'll spare you that and say right off that every penny spent is up there on the screen. Like the doomed vessel from which it takes its tale, Cameron's film is a behemoth, svelte, streamlined, and not the least bit ponderous, even with its lengthy three-hour-and-fifteen-minute running time (the film is practically as long as the sinking of the Titanic itself). DiCaprio is charmingly rakish in the role of lower-class scoundrel-cum-artist Jack Dawson, who wins his way onboard the HMS Titanic during a card game moments before the ship sets sail on its maiden and funeral voyage from England to New York City. Once onboard, he meets Rose DeWitt Bukater (Winslet), a 17-year-old first-class passenger, who is engaged to the wealthy, utterly pompous Cal Hockley (Zane). In short order, Rose and Jack fall in love, he sketches her in the altogether, and Cal, predictably, grits his teeth and scowls meaningfully. Just over halfway into the film, the oceanliner grazes the fatal iceberg that will, 80 minutes later, send it plunging into the icy depths. It's a matter of historical record that 1,500 passengers perished that night due, in no small part, to the fact that there were less than half the necessary lifeboats on board. Cameron, who is inarguably the greatest living action director working today, milks this for all it's worth and does a splendid job, cutting between Rose and Jack's ill-timed romance and the fate of the ship in general. His crosscutting between those two stories and several other, minor subplots is the stuff film courses are made of. At his core though, Cameron, for all his Terminators and True Lies, is a savagely sentimental romantic, and it's this interplay between the lovestruck steerage lad and the first-class dream girl that fires everything else about the film, including the modern-day wraparound that features Cameron favorite Bill Paxton as a salvage engineer intent on plundering the Titanic's silted corpse. I've always had trouble getting past DiCaprio's spirited self -- he seems unable to fully vanish into any role other than that of himself, though he comes very, very close under Cameron's iron thumb. Winslet, on the other hand, is so perfectly cast that it's as though she's a brand new face, and not the Hollywood superstar she's currently becoming. The two of them play wonderfully off of each other, as do the host of lesser players (notably David Warner as Cal's conniving valet and Bernard Hill as the ship's captain), resulting in a monster of a film in which, for once, the astonishing special effects are overshadowed by the characters onscreen. Just barely, though. Cameron's dialogue has never been as good as his direction, which makes for a few stilted clunkers along the way, but the unstoppable flurry of Action! Romance! Etcetera! sweeps them away like so much driftwood. It's obvious this is Cameron's bid for historical relevance, and though it may fall short of the Lawrence of Arabia mark he was aiming for, it's still by far and away a grand, gorgeous, breathtaking spectacle. (12/19/97)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Lakeline, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: Robert Benton; with Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, James Garner, Stockard Channing, Reese Witherspoon, Giancarlo Esposito, Liev Schreiber, Margo Martindale, John Spencer, M. Emmet Walsh. (R, 96 min.)
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Barton Creek, Gateway, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Tinseltown
D: Stuart Baird; with Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey, Jr., Irene Jacob, Kate Nelligan. (PG-13, 136 min.)
Even hardcore sequelphobes have to admit it's a pretty cool idea: a The Fugitive-redux manhunt movie focusing on U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, Jones' stoically relentless flatfoot character from the original 1993 megahit. But somewhere between concept and execution, director Baird (a career bench-warmer whose previous résumé is heavy on film and sound editing) has managed to lose much of the gusto, nerve-shredding tension, and robust character development that set The Fugitive apart from the rest of the action/suspense pack. Ironically, the problem may lie in Baird and screenwriter John Pogue's over-eagerness to give us what they think we want. Whereas The Fugitive was in essence a two-man play in which Gerard and Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) often appeared to share an almost psychic link, U.S. Marshals is all Jones' show. His quarry this time is Mark Sheridan (Snipes), an accused murderer of mysterious background and character whose internal life is as obscure as the contents of the sealed briefcases and boxes he's always lugging around. Unlike Kimble, whose innocence and decency are known from the beginning in The Fugitive, Sheridan is a total cipher to both Gerard and the audience until deep into this two-hours-plus film. Ergo, we can't be expected to give a rat's ass what happens to him -- and don't. More wasted acting talent (so to speak) is represented by 12-Step poster boy Downey, who plays an intelligence agent assigned to Gerard's team because Sheridan's victims were fellow DSS operatives. To an even greater extent than Snipes, he's basically furniture until the last 20 minutes or so. A further millstone that Jones and company must carry is Pogue's script which, like The Jackal and Mission Impossible, seems to drastically overestimate the mass action-movie audience's level of interest in computers, electronic surveillance devices, and other high-tech gewgaws. (Translation: Too much gazing into screens and not enough running, shooting, and leaping from high places.) What's truly amazing is that, even when forced to carry the entire movie on his back, Jones almost pulls it off. Like Robert Mitchum, Steve McQueen, the Eighties-era Rutger Hauer, Sean Connery, and a disparate handful of other thinking man's tough-guy stars throughout history, you almost don't need to provide him with a script. His ability to effortlessly convey masculine strength, humor, complexity, and a just-palpable dark side makes his mere presence in a movie sufficient reason to watch it. Stuart, say "Thank you, Mr. Jones. Thank you very, very much." Now climb down off that director's dolly and get your dilettante butt back into the cutting room. For my part, I'll leave you readers with a steeply hedged check-it-out recommendation for U.S. Marshals and two crucial words: Blockbuster Video. (3/6/98)
Great Hills, Lakeline, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Tinseltown, Westgate
D: Barry Levinson; Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Willie Nelson, Andrea Martin, Kirsten Dunst, Woody Harrelson, William H. Macy, Craig T. Nelson, Pops Staples. (R, 105 min.)
Sharp scripting, note-perfect performances, and nimble direction and technical execution combine to make Wag the Dog one of the wittiest and most mordant political satires to come along in quite some time. This quickly shot, relatively small-budget (considering the fact that it features two of the world's top movie actors) film is a cynic's delight, a trenchant and timely social comedy that frequently recalls the best of Dr. Strangelove. It takes as its premise the modern-day bastardization of politics, show business, and the media, which have all merged into one indistinguishable generator of news events and photo ops. Wag the Dog's unholy alliance begins when the United States president, 11 days before he's up for re-election, is accused of making improper advances to a young Firefly girl during her tour the White House. In no time flat, his opponent hits the airwaves with political ads that trumpet the song, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." A fretful presidential assistant, Winifred Ames (Heche), calls professional political fixer Conrad Brean (De Niro) to a summit deep in the bowels of the Washington power center, whereupon Mr. Fixit decides that what the situation requires is the distraction of a good-old-fashioned war effort. Not a real war necessarily, just the appearance of one. Off to California go the odd couple of the prim and uptight Ames and the detached and rumpled Brean to enlist the help of top Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Hoffman), a vain Tinseltown caricature who's thrilled to have his talents appreciated at last. Things escalate from there as Motss calls in his arsenal of image wranglers who include a songwriter played by Willie Nelson to pen a "spontaneous" We Are the World"-type anthem, the advertising Fad King (Leary), and a whole studio full of computer-generated video effects that are capable of fabricating a war in Albania from the reality of a girl holding a Tostitos bag in Burbank. Everyone involved in this production is in peak form. Hoffman and De Niro both turn in some of their best work in ages, once again playing off Motss' vanity and need for recognition against Brean's shadow-skulking self-effacement, all the while each of them appreciating the other as consummate professionals. Heche holds her own in the presence of such notable company, and Harrelson is utterly hilarious as an eleventh-hour loose cannon. A plotline that involves a suspicious government agent played by William H. Macy sputters without much focus but events move along at a rapid enough clip that the duff moments barely have time to register. The script was adapted from Larry Beinhart's novel American Hero by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet. As a cautionary tale, Wag the Dog may find itself somewhat in the position of preaching to the converted, but the pews will radiate with the sounds of laughter. (1/9/98)
Arbor, Dobie
D: Frank Coraci; with Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Steve Buscemi, Allen Covert, Angela Featherstone, Matthew Glave, Billy Idol, Christine Taylor. (PG-13, 96 min.)
I can't help but think that retro-Eighties nostalgia trips like this one would be a lot more effective had we all not been rehashing the whole Eighties music thing since January 1, 1990. I was sick of the Eighties then, and by now I've gotten to the point where the very mention of the Thompson Twins or Kajagoogoo causes me to swerve my car into oncoming traffic. The Wedding Singer does little to alleviate this overkill situation, though it is a harmless and occasionally hilarious pop comedy good for a few bargain yuks. It's 1986, and Sandler plays Robby Hart, a failed rock & roller whose current career as a wedding singer isn't exactly what his fiancée (Featherstone) had in mind when she said yes. In a brilliant show of bad taste and even bigger, badder hair, she leaves him standing at the altar, which sends him into a vicious emotional tailspin that he then takes out on his bride and groom clients. Luckily, he quickly falls for Julia (Barrymore), a plucky, naïve wedding caterer who, unfortunately, is also about to marry the wrong person. As Glenn, her betrothed, Matthew Glave is a two-timing Wall Street slimeball, the kind of reptile that was an icon of Eighties materialism. Will Robby rescue Julia from her marital doom? Will the two of them finally act on their mutually lovestruck impulses before it's too late? If you have to ask, I'm demoting you to the remedial film class right now. Coraci and company pile on the Eighties touches as though this were some sort of Biblical epic and Boy George wrote the Ten Commandments. Everything from Dallas jokes to rubber bracelets, Michael Jackson gloves, and the Buggles make indiscriminate appearances. It's all a bit desperate, and by the time Billy Idol (he's alive?) appears in the film's final minutes, you're practically screaming for Nirvana to swoop down from the heavens and smite the whole mess with one big Sub-Poppy chord. Okay, it's not that painful, but really, there's only so much pastel pink and purple set design a guy can stand. Sandler is actually at the top of his game here; he plays Robby as a genuinely nice guy (with Fee Waybill's hair) who truly enjoys the fun-lite he brings to his wedded clients. He gets off on the whole idea of marriage and commitment, and he makes full use of that puppy-dog face and atonal snivel. He and Julia are a pair of naïfs lost in a world run by Gordon Gekko and his ilk. At times it borders on the abyss of perpetually cute, but a nicely contrived endgame á la The Graduate manages to cinch things up. Like the cinematic equivalent of cotton candy, it might make you yak, but it tastes pretty good going down. (2/13/98)
Barton Creek, Great Hills, Highland, Lakeline, Riverside, Roundrock, Tinseltown
D: Terry Jones; with Jones, Steve Coogan, Eric Idle, Anthony Sher, Nicol Williamson, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Bernard Hill, Michael Palin, Nigel Planer, Richard James. (PG, 87 min.)
Where did this come from and why haven't we heard about it? More to the point, why haven't all the children of the land been put on full alert? Far and away the best cinematic telling of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 classic, this is that rara avis, the kids film that will be loved equally by adults. I'm not suggesting that anyone over the age of 13 is going to bust a nut on this, but for kids under and adults over, this is the crème de la crème of fanciful, enchantingly surreal filmmaking. And of course, it's also the most complete reunion of the Monty Python troupe in some time, featuring four of the original six cast members (Graham Chapman is, sadly, dead, and Terry Gilliam has gone wonderfully, brilliantly mad and was, one assumes, far too busy to participate). The story of Mole (Coogan), Rat (Idle), Toad (Jones), and Badger (Williamson) and their tussles with the greedy, Thatcheresque Weasels (led by an engagingly nasty Sher) should be familiar to most of us. For those of the Richard Scarey persuasion, the tale involves the attempts of meek Mole and idealistic Rat to convince their friend (and landlord) Mr. Toad to stop wasting all his money on automobiles and other frivolities and pay more attention to the larcenous Weasels, who seek to usurp his manor -- Toad Hall -- steal his land, and bring the countryside to ruin. These days, the story plays as an anti-Tory refrain, although when Grahame first penned it (as in so much 20th-century British literature) Communism was the implied metaphorical menace. But, really, that's all beside the point of this film which seeks, first and foremost, to revel in the wild, wacky, and veddy British tradition of the absurd. To that effect, it succeeds wonderfully. Jones, as Toad, sports a greenish pallor and a garishly rotund waistline; he looks like one of those old turn-of-the-century political cartoons espousing the dangers of gluttony. Indeed, the story hinges on his voracious appetite for the newfangled motorcars (Disney's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride has nothing on this version). Epicurean Idle, the sweet Coogan, and even Williamson as Badger (I'll always think of him as Excalibur's Merlin, though) all give it their best, and the film is chock-a-block with inspired, silly tunes and antic running-about. It's also full of subtle moral lessons, but why tell the kids when they'll probably pick it up subconsciously anyway? Absolutely charming all the way through, its cheeky sense of inspired lunacy is downright contagious: I received a traffic ticket on my drive home and I blame it entirely on Mr. Toad. (3/6/98)
Dobie
D: Iain Softley; with Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alison Elliott, Charlotte Rampling, Elizabeth McGovern, Michael Gambon. (R, 103 min.)
The Wings of the Dove is yet another in a long line of recent films that seem as though they should carry the Merchant/Ivory banner, but don't. Is this the inevitable backlash against Joel Schumacher and Batmans I-V? I like to think so, but I suppose it doesn't matter. Any film without a gun in the first act is a rarity along the lines of tasty government cheese; we should be thankful. Adapted from Henry James' 1902 novel, The Wings of the Dove is one of those stories that gets tagged with the annoying label of "timeless." Nonsense -- the only reason James is being brought to the screen so frantically of late (Washington Square, et al.) is that the national supply of Jane Austen is running thin, and we have to have something without Bruce Willis up there. James' tale follows the apparently doomed love of Kate Croy (Bonham Carter), society matron-to-be, and ne'er-do-well journalist Merton Densher (Roache). It's turn-of-the-century London, and proper young ladies don't go about consorting with such lesser creatures as writers. Though Kate will have none of it, her stern and exceedingly wealthy Aunt Maude will have none of it either, and expressly forbids the nascent relationship to go a single step further. Never underestimate the wiliness of young girls in love. At a society ball hosted by her aunt, Kate meets American heiress Millie Theale (Elliott), who has encamped in London while waiting to die from some dreadful and unnamed illness. In Millie, Kate sees everything she desires to be: wealthy, yes, but also spontaneous, loving, and ribald. When the beautifully peaked Millie takes a shine to Merton, Kate and her beau hatch a plan that, essentially, allows the dying American to fall in love with Merton -- and possibly vice versa -- in the hopes of securing a place in her sizable will and therefore breaking free of the constraints of Aunt Maude. It seems a perfectly horrible plan at first glance, but Millie give intimations that she knows what's going on all along. She just wants one last true love before the grave, and to hell with how it comes about. Director Softley is a master stylist; from the popcorn techno-thrills of Hackers to his freshmen take on the Beatles in Backbeat, he's among the best when it comes to creating whole worlds out of thin celluloid, and The Wings of the Dove is no different. Achingly gorgeous in almost all respects, the film soars in its period depiction of turn-of-the-century London (and later in Venice, as well), from costuming to cinematography on down. Carter, Roache, and especially Elliott give their all, and though the feisty, feminist Kate may seem a purely modern creation, it's James' all the way. Condensing a 500-page novel into a two-hour span tends to result in some things being left out, and occasionally Softley's film feels rushed. There are questions left hanging that never quite get resolved to anyone's satisfaction, but the director -- and cast -- almost manage to override them with the sheer beauty on the screen (not to mention a particularly un-Jamesian nude scene toward the end. It's not quite Howards End, but then neither is it Clueless, and for that I'm thankful. (11/21/97)
Dobie, Gateway, Highland, Village, Westgate
THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980) D: John Landis; with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Cab Calloway, John Candy, Henry Gibson, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown. The original... and what the fuss was all about. (R, 130 min.) @Alamo Drafthouse; Thu (3/26).
DON'T LOOK BACK (1957) D: D.A. Pennebaker; with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan, Albert Grossman, Allen Ginsberg. A true classic of cinéma vérité filmmaking, this documentary of 23-year-old Bob Dylan's 1965 British tour is a historic treasure. The portrait of the new pop culture phenomenon known as Dylan grows only more revealing as the years go by, capturing the "voice of his generation" as he cuts the British Isles down to size. (NR, 96 min.) @ Dobie; Fri-Thu.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) D: Jim Sharman; with Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien. Austin Rocky Horror fans have been dressing up and doing the "Time Warp" thing live for 21 years straight. Well, more or less straight. For more on the long-running, interactive movie/stage/camp experience, see the Austin group's website at http://www.kdi.com/~riffraff/queerios. Or just take an uncharted, live-action plunge into the fans' midnight Transylvanian high jinks. (R, 95 min.) @ Wells Branch Discount Cinema; midnight, Fri-Sat.
HUNGRY EYE/THIRSTY EAR CINEMA:
An Evening of Dada Film with "Symphonie Diagonale" by Viking Eggeling, "Rhythmus 21" by Hans Richter, "Entr'acte" by Rene Clair, "Ghosts Before Breakfast" by Hans Richter, "Return to Reason" by Man Ray, and "Ballet Mechanique" by Fernand Leger. Live music accompaniment by the Caligaris. Call 481-0493 or 474-9574 for more info. (NR) @Ritz Lounge; Mon, 8:30 & 10:30pm.
KENNETH ANGER SCREENING:
Kenneth Anger once more returns to Austin and will be present at a screening of "Rabbit's Moon," "Kustom Kar Kommandos," "Invocation of My Demon Brother" (with soundtrack by Mick Jagger), and "Lucifer Rising" (with soundtrack by Bobby Beausoleil). See this week's "Short Cuts" column for other Anger happenings over the weekend, or call 481-0493. @Dobie; Sun, 7:30pm.
