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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 |
D: Michael Haneke; with Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Mühe, Frank Giering, Arno Frisch, Stefan Clapczynski, Doris Kunstmann, Cristoph Bantzer. (Not Rated, 103 min.)
"Fiction is real," offers one of the the young psychotics in Austrian moralist Haneke's visceral meditation on violence and the media. "What you see in the movies is what you see literally." That's the guiding principle behind Haneke's film, and though the argument is fatally flawed, the director nonetheless makes an astonishingly disturbing case that rivals that of Rémy Belvaux's Man Bites Dog in terms of the issues it raises and the frisson it engenders. Lothar and Mühe play upper-middle-class mother and father Anna and Georg, who, with their young son Georgie (Clapczynski), are on their way to their lakeside home for a summer vacation. On the way, Anna and George play a game of "name that composer" as their car passes through the idyllic Austrian scenery. Not long after the family arrives, and while Georg and son are putting the boat on the lake, a stocky young man -- Peter (Giering) -- knocks on the door and claims to be a friend of the neighbors. Could he perhaps borrow some eggs? Anna happily agrees, though when Peter clumsily drops not one but two handfuls of eggs and still demands more, she becomes disconcerted. Enter Peter's friend Paul (Frisch), who appears at the door and begins verbally tormenting Anna. Flustered and unable to make this disturbing duo in white tennis shorts and gloves leave, Anna is relieved to see Georg arrive from the lake. And just as suddenly as things began, they escalate, with Georg overpowered, and the family suddenly in jeopardy from a ravingly calm pair of madmen intent on playing out their "funny games." Haneke, intent on exploring the nature of media violence, pulls zero punches with his story. Although much of the violence is committed off-screen, the horriffic aftershocks are as unnerving as anything Oliver Stone or Wes Craven have shown us. As Peter and Paul, Giering and Frisch are utterly cold, utterly alien killers, devoid of normal personality, acting as a sort of universal template for random violence. Engaging their victims in brief conversational gambits, they offer up transparently false rationales for their behavior, as when Paul excuses Peter's actions by referring to him as "a spoiled child tormented by ennui and world weariness, weighed down by the void of existence." It's all so much psychobabble, and Haneke, knowing this, has Paul turn and wink at the camera. What, then, is Haneke's point? Funny Games is a firestarter for post-screening arguments, alight with ghastly images and actions, and essayed by a spot-on cast and storyline that flows seamlessly from one nightmarish incident to the next. It's an uncomfortable, distressing, and altogether provocative take on the global culture of media violence that not only draws the hapless viewer in, but also forces them into the role of fait accompli, like it or not. Take notes, you will be discussing this one later. (9/18/98)
Village
D: Carl Franklin; with Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger, William Hurt, Nicky Katt, Tom Everett Scott. (R, 121 min.)
Not reviewed at press time. This screen adaptation of Anna Quindlen's bestseller tells the story of a Manhattan magazine journalist whose father asks her to return home to care for her mother who has been diagnosed with cancer. This drama about family reconciliation marks a change of pace for director Franklin, whose crime thriller One False Move and genre study Devil in a Blue Dress seem worlds away from One True Thing's family entanglements. (9/18/98)
Barton Creek, Great Hills, Lakeline, Lincoln, Riverside, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Brett Ratner; with Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Tzi Ma, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Rolston. (PG-13, 105 min.)
Not reviewed at press time. This action-comedy pairs kinetic wonder Jackie Chan with funny guy Chris Tucker, here playing a rogue LAPD officer who keeps tabs on Chan's Hong Kong police detective, who has come to America to solve a kidnapping and avert an international crisis. (9/18/98)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Quentin Lee and Justin Lee; with Radmar Jao, Jeanne Chin, Clint Jung, Lela Lee, John Cho. (Not Rated, 87 min.)
Not reviewed at press time. This Asian-American dark comedy of pop culture features a frigid wife, an acerbic waitress, and a werewolf disguised as a payroll clerk, while referencing the best of America's recent crop of independent filmmakers. (9/18/98)
Dobie
D: Lance Mungia; with Jeffrey Falcon, Justin McQuire, Stephane Gauger. (PG-13, 91 min.)
The whole Road Warrior/Death Race 2000 post-apocalyptic hero genre is stone-cold dead, and no amount of clammy-lipped CPR from Kevin Costner is going to bring it back. But with the feral genius of a comics-steeped mind, ballyhooed young director Lance Mungia has managed to wring some fresh excitment out of it anyway, crafting a wild, indescribable fantasy romp that doesn't so much revitalize a tired story tradition as detonate a stick of dynamite up its keister. The action takes place in an alternate universe in which the USA, soundly whipped in a nuclear war with the Russians, has devolved into a ragtag tribal confederation ruled over by "King" Elvis Presley. When The E passes on, a host of guitar-slinging adventurers immediately sets out for the remote desert capital of "Lost Vegas" to vie for possession of the throne. One of these is "Buddy" (Jeffrey Falcon, who also shares the screenwriting credit with Mungia), a rock & roll badass who talks and squints like Eastwood, dresses like Buddy Holly, and packs a two-foot samurai sword. Along the way, he and an orphan kid sidekick do battle with a freaky, deaky assortment of villains, including cannibals, Red Army soldiers, homicidal bowlers -- and even Death himself, incarnated as a sort of Guns N' Roses/Skid Row Eighties metalhead. This entire demented package is wrapped in layers of intense, hyperreal colors (as a budget concession, Mungia shot his movie with expired 35mm film) and drop-dead brilliant camerawork by Kristian Bernier, whose Death Valley location shots and action sequences push beyond technical mastery into a realm of what I can only describe as ecstatic conjury. Bernier's talents blend with the choreographic skills of Falcon -- a bona fide kung fu master -- to create a spectacle of pure kinetic grace that would be as impressive to highbrow dance mavens as the obvious chopsocky/action crowd. Now, you may be wondering how a film that can get me gibbering on about "ecstatic conjury" manages only a three-star bottom line. That's because, true to the modern comic-book sensibilities that suffuse it, Six String Samurai is as empty-headed as it is visually overwhelming. Full appreciation of this movie ultimately depends upon your ability to not only tolerate certain cheesy clichés of dialogue, sight gag, and characterization but also to gather them to your bosom in a loving, semi-ironic embrace. Me, I tend to gravitate toward the view that clichés are clichés, regardless of context. And I get extra cranky when certain über-clichés involving Elvis, Vegas, mysterioso surf music soundtracks, etc. come into play. If movie criticism were like jury duty, these prejudices would probably be enough to get me scratched from the panel, so take that factor into account. In any event, as a pure display of indie film moxie, raw moviemaking prowess, and cortex-blistering energy, I'm still plenty impressed by what Mungia and company have accomplished here. Not many artists could conceive a blend of Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, and Lone Wolf and Cub (among countless other influences) and come so close to making it all hang together. So go see their movie. Dig the remarkable feat they've pulled off at this early stage in their careers. But more importantly, imagine what they'll be capable of when their ideas start catching up with their sheer nerve. (9/18/98)
Dobie
D: Richard Martin; with Kevin Zegers, Gregory Harrison, Cynthia Stevenson, Nora Dunn, Perry Anzilotti, Robert Constanzo, Shayn Solberg. (G, 92 min.)
This second installment in what looks to be an ongoing series is about as "family entertainment" as you can get. Granted, sometimes that's a good thing, but when the directors and producers start equating "family" with "mediocrity," that's where things tend to go wrong. And despite its good intentions and noble aspirations, Air Bud: Golden Receiver falls somewhere between the After-School Special zone and that hellish gray area specially reserved for overzealous kid'n'pooch buddy films. Still, things could have been much worse. Zegers reprises his role as Josh Framm, who as the film opens is just entering the eighth grade alongside his buddy Tom (Solberg). His mother has begun dating once more after the death of his test-pilot father, and in an interesting bit that puts you in mind of Shallow Grave as performed by the cast of A Family Affair, a bumbling trio of prospective dates/boyfriends parades in front of the aghast youngster. Life is rough, until one day mom's new beau -- Dr. Sullivan, the new town vet (Harrison) -- offers Josh a football as a sort of peace offering. Anyone who's even vaguely familiar with the original Air Bud knows that this is the wrong piece of athletic equipment for Josh, but Buddy, that ambidextrous golden retriever (played this time out by four identical dogs; the original Buddy has since passed on), takes to the game in much the same way as he did to basketball earlier in Josh's life. That is to say, he's a born footballer, though whether this is a subtle dig at Babe's pigskin is left entirely up to the viewer. In short order, Josh joins the junior high football team, a sort of Bad News Bears for the gridiron, and along with Buddy, takes the team from last place forward. Josh also learns the value of trusting the new man in his mother's life and so on, but director Martin (helmer of many Highlander episodes) is working from a bit of a pulpit, allowing for none of the subtlety that should flow seamlessly from the work. Instead, he plays the comedic elements broadly, with the likes of SNL alum Dunn and Anzilotti as a pair of Boris and Natasha-esque Russkie no-goodniks out to capture Buddy and force him to perform in their traveling circus. Hijinks and madcap capers abound, but lest we ever forget there's a lesson to be learned here (or two, or three), Martin frequently cuts back to the bewildered Josh trying to keep things aboveboard. It's certainly not the worst of the family-oriented filmmaking out there these days -- Zegers is a terrific young newcomer when given the right material -- but it's also nowhere near the best. A decent way to settle the little ones down on a Saturday afternoon, sure, but so is Ritalin. (8/21/98)
Barton Creek, Lake Creek, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Michael Bay; with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Peter Stormare, Keith Davis, Steve Buscemi, Owen Wilson, Ken Campbell. (PG-13, 150 min.)
It's big, it's stupid, it's pretty kick-ass. That's about all you need to know about Summer '98's loudest testosterone-fest, the second in a death-from-above double header that started off last month with the weak Deep Impact. As helmed by "bigger is better" wunderkind Bay, Armageddon ups the ante from that previous film by replacing Robert Duvall's hero-named-Tanner with Willis' hero-named-Stamper, gigantifying the incoming asteroid and wiping out more cities, faster, louder, wilder (particularly nice is the End of Paris, and, presumably, Euro-Disney). Bay wastes no time in getting to the action, leaving the planet just 18 measly days between discovery and impact (Deep Impact had near as many months). Alerted to the problem after a few "Volkswagen-sized" particles redecorate Times Square (in a nice comic touch, one of the asteroid's first victims turns out to be a street-corner Godzilla vendor), NASA director Dan Truman (a slimmed-down Thornton) hires the world's best deep-core oil drillers -- headed by crusty Harry Stamper (Willis) -- to rendezvous with the asteroid just shy of the moon, sink a supernuke in it, and blow it off course. Willis, who one of these days is going to get an Academy Award for Best Squint, is ideal for the role, though I had the feeling he was borrowing heavily from the Ed Harris character in James Cameron's The Abyss. (His whole team, in fact, seems recycled from that film, which in turn was recycled from World War II G.I. epics like The Fighting Seabees.) It should go without saying that supporting characters like Buscemi, Wilson, and Campbell are there for the ricocheting of one-liners, and that Liv Tyler's lips are the most emotionally expressive thing in the film. This is of little consequence in the summer blockbuster wars, in which storylines are lost and forgotten amidst the charred rubble of whatever metropolis "gets it" next and the quality of the effects is more important than the quality of the acting. Bearing that in mind, Armageddon has very impressive effects (not the least of which is making Steve Buscemi into a believable ladykiller). Bay hammers the linear narrative home with the indefatigable strength of John Henry pounding steel, never stopping for breath, and never allowing the audience time to ponder the various incongruities that pop up. His golden-lighted, amber-waves-of-grain patriotism (and there is much of it, usually in slow motion, always accompanied by elegiac music) begins to grate about 10 minutes into the film, but if you look at it as a bizarre comic element it's that much easier to stomach. No one in his or her right mind is going to take this juggernaut explode-o-thon seriously, of course, but as far as popcorn-grubbing eye candy with deafening sound and plenty of cheeseball Aerosmith tuneage (and progeny), it's great fun. And what other film this summer opens with Charlton Heston as the Voice of God intoning global doom? Not a one. (7/3/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Highland, Lakeline, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Jeremiah Chechik; with Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, Jim Broadbent, Fiona Shaw, Eddie Izzard, Eileen Atkins, Shaun Ryder. (PG, 91 min.)
It's been some time since I had a chance to catch the old BBC television show upon which this updating is based. Last weekend, then, found me sprawled in my living room, caught up in waves of nostalgia for the impeccably surreal vision of British agents John Steed and Emma Peel as portrayed by Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg on the recently released VHS compilations. To a one, the old programs were as I remembered them, breathlessly chilling in a backhanded sort of way, full of dry British wit and spare Sixties pop art set design. Macnee's trusty bowler and bumbershoot and Rigg's arch good humor and sexy karate expertise hold up surprisingly well 30 years later. At least, that is, on tape. This new film version, sad to say, is a hollow shell of the original series that so charmed U.S. television audiences in the mid Sixties, lacking nearly all of the cultural resonance and utterly devoid of the sense of kicky thrills. And it's not director Chechik's fault, either. Both he and screenwriter Don MacPherson have tendered not a lovingly bastardized update as expected, but an almost note-perfect resurrection, and that, I think, is why this film version fails so desperately. It's not The Avengers that has changed, it's everything else. True to the series, Fiennes' Steed is a gentleman out of place and time, a stiff-upper-lip Brit working for the mysterious British agency known only as The Ministry, headed by Broadbent's eccentric Mother and Shaw's equally oddball Father. When the weather over the Isles goes haywire thanks to Connery's bombastic and thoroughly deranged meteorologist character, August de Wynter, Steed is paired with the leggy Thurman as Dr. Emma Peel, a weather/jujitsu/fashion expert with a penchant for clingy fabrics and leather catsuits. Together, the two are sent out to save the world, such as it is. Everything is in place here, right down to the duo's highly stylized Brit-quip dialogue and frequent spots of tea, but outside the theatre it's 1998 and Steed and Emma no longer nurture the fatal attraction they once engendered in us. This may be different in London, which is altogether as swinging these days as it was then, if not more so. Chechik offers the occasional nod to the present via some colorful casting, but it's a case of far too little too late. Still, it's a gas to see the former human pharmacopoeia and Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder playing a toadying henchman to Brit cross-dressing comic Eddie Izzard's icy killer. (Ryder, by the way, gets all the best lines, which is to say none, while Izzard finishes a close second with his single utterance, a vapid "Oh, fuck.") Fiennes and Thurman, sadly, have all the chemistry of a damp croissant, and even Chechik's noble aspirations toward the bizarre (and there are many) fall resoundingly flat. And it certainly isn't helping matters that warhorse Connery appears to have been taking lessons from the specter of Vincent Price. The Avengers is out of place in our current cinema of excess; even Mrs. Peel's laudably skintight catsuit is played far too seriously. As for me, it's back to the old tapes, which unlike this new version, still seem to fit and feel just right. (8/21/98)
Discount, Lakeline, Showplace, Westgate 3
D: Pupi Avati; with Diego Abatantuono, Ines Sastre, Dario Cantarelli, Cinia Mascoli, Valeria D'Obici, Mario Erpichini. (PG, 100 min.)
I suspect that if, like the characters in The Best Man, you plan your wedding to take place on the last day of the century, you deserve everything you get. The timing is bound to layer the marriage with extra significance and external baggage. In this Italian import, the bride Francesca (Sastre) is scheduled to be married on the last day of the 19th century. But as the film opens, we find her on her wedding day simmering with doubt. Her betrothed Edgardo (Cantarelli) is an older man, a wealthy and desirable bachelor. Yet, this particular morning Edgardo no longer seems quite so desirable and Francesca is itching to get out. Her horrified parents will hear none of it: Marriages are business arrangements and it's too late to back out of this deal. But then, on the way to the altar, Francesca falls in love -- with the groom's best man. In a time of arranged marriages, is it possible that the concept of marriage-for-love will be ushered in with the 20th century? Although she's been raised not to believe in love, she ironically discovers its reality on the day of her wedding. Part of this film's charm derives from our uncertainty about Francesca. Is she an independent thinker liable to be branded a madwoman like her eccentric Aunt Pepina (Mascoli) or is she a starry-eyed romantic with a tenuous grasp on reality -- a character in the mold of the lovesick Adele H? The Best Man allows us to entertain both opinions. It's in keeping with the way the movie works as a whole. It provides some pointed social commentary, homing in on a variety of petit-bourgeois wedding guests and their petty fin-de-siècle concerns. It's a wonderful panoply of characters who provide the chorus to the story's main event. Their constant dialogue and comments, I'm confident, would be even more pointed and provocative were one able to understand them in their native Italian. The wedding guests form a lively and entertaining background as they flit about the festivities as all wedding guests do -- gossiping and flirting and backstabbing and tippling. At its best, the film reminds us of other estate gatherings that have been presented as bourgeois microcosms in such films as Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, and virtually anything by Luis Buñuel. Beautifully photographed by Pasquale Rachini, The Best Man has a sustained amber glow about it, as if to signify a time caught between the Gilded Age and the Incandescent Era. Some of the finer points of The Best Man seem lost in translation and nuance, but more than enough seeps through. It's worth your while to RSVP to this affair. (9/11/98)
Arbor
D: Tommy O'Haver; with Sean P. Hayes, Brad Rowe, Richard Ganoung, Meredith Scott Lynn, Paul Bartel. (R, 92 min.)
The central question in Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss is a familiar one in these confusing, ambisexual times: Is he or isn't he? The premise here is simple: Billy (Hayes), a lonely, unemployed photographer with a history of finding Mr. Wrong, falls hard for Gabriel (Rowe), an enigmatic waiter with strikingly good looks, and then agonizes because he's unsure of whether the object of his affection can reciprocate the feeling. It's a premise that makes for some keen romantic, sexual, and comic tension that's achingly funny for anyone -- gay or straight -- who has had to endure the possibility of unrequited love. (Or lust, for that matter.) While the issue of Gabriel's sexual identity in Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss provides the film's narrative hook, there's more than meets the eye here … literally. It's The Mirror Has Two Faces thing -- you know, that stuff about beauty being more than skin deep. Billy is a great guy, immensely likable and relatively good-looking, but in the face department, he's no match for the impossibly handsome Gabriel, whose features lie somewhere between Brad Pitt and Rob Lowe. And so Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, in its own subtle and unassuming way, takes on the culture of desire, in which surface is paramount to depth. But as in Streisand's film, the message is ultimately a mixed one. In view of the last scene, it's hard to decide whether Billy is falling into the same old trap again, or whether he's being rewarded for having survived an extreme case of lovesickness. That aside, Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss is a fairly entertaining movie, smartly directed by O'Haver, who uses drag-queen numbers and black-and-white dream sequences to comment intermittently on Billy's emotional turmoil, and energetically acted by a cast that strikes the proper balance between funny and serious. All in all, it's a pretty good smooch. (9/11/98)
Dobie
D: Stephen Norrington; with Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N'Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Kier, Arly Jover, Traci Lords. (R, 120 min.)
It's so nice to see Udo Kier back in fangs. Trash cinema aficionados will remember Kier as the star of Paul Morrissey's Andy Warhol's Dracula way back when, and although the actor isn't on the prowl for "wirgins" this time out, it's still a vast relief to know that someone knows how to hiss properly these days. Based on Marv Wolfman's Marvel comic of the same name, Snipes plays Blade, a half-human, half-vampire "daywalker" with a Corleone-esque vendetta against the hidden vampiric forces of the world who caused his genetically bifurcated lot when they savaged his pregnant mother as he was dozing in utero. Consequently, Blade is able to move about in direct sunlight, and has paired himself with silversmith/weapons manufacturer Abraham Whistler (Kristofferson, as a ham on wry) in his battle against the undead. Specifically, Blade is out to get the renegade bloodsucker Deacon Frost, a young upstart originally "turned" by Kier's Dragonetti who now feels it's time for fresh blood to take over the vampiric. In Blade's world, the cities are practically owned by the children of the night, who maintain fierce, proprietary ties within the business and political arenas of the living. "They're our food!" cries Frost at one point, and he has a point. Why the undead would prefer to remain in the shadows when they could just as easily, it seems, rule the world is one of the film's more mysterious aspects, but such minor quibbles are quashed in a hail of silver bullets, lavishly staged set-pieces of gore, and Blade's much-admired Bushido pig-sticker. In the midst of this little war, Blade rescues bitten hematologist Karen (Wright) and a grudging respect blossoms between the two: she tries to cure him, while he tries to keep her alive. That takes a firm back seat to the ultra-mayhem onscreen, some of which is mightily impressive for a film adapted from something Stan Lee once had his hands on. (As publisher of Marvel Comics, Lee's cinematic track record has remained cursed up 'til now.) Cinematically, Blade falls somewhere between Judge Dredd and The Crow, though it's really closer to Tank Girl in terms of devotion to its source material. Not quite the blaxploitation of Blacula (though early scenes of Wright's tussle with a charred, animated corpse do recall that earlier film, especially in the blue-gray palette and dull lighting), Blade instead opts for what might be called a more millennial approach to vampirism. Blade's city seems awfully quiet, pale, washed-out. Speeded-up footage tracks the sunup/sundown progress of the dead amongst the living, while roiling cloud banks flare overhead. In its own small way, Blade is quite a success: Snipes is well-cast, and the script is thankfully free of tough-guy quippery. Interview With the Vampire it's not, but marginally thrilling nonetheless, and besides, any film that features a house party in which the ceiling-mounted fire extinguishers expel freshets of crimson goo in place of H2O gets my vote. (8/21/98)
Barton Creek, Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Trey Parker; with Parker, Matt Stone, Dian Bachar, Ian Hardin, Jon Hegel, Jason McHugh, Toddy Walters. (Not Rated, 97 min.)
Before there was South Park, Baseketball, or Orgazmo, there was this Rocky Mountain freakout from the fevered imaginations of Parker and Stone, a rousingly lowbrow retelling of the legend of Colorado cannibal Alferd Packer and his bizarre culinary gifts. Shot in and around the duo's Denver home base (in 1996), Cannibal! is rife with the same kind of elbow-in-the-groin humor that has made Cartman and his wee pals household names, with Parker not only directing and writing, but also acting the role of the little carnivore nobody loved. Heartwarmingly low-budget, Parker does wonders with the Colorado scenery and the acting chops of a cast of mostly unknown locals. In fact, if you took the gore out, you'd almost have Oklahoma Part Deux! (But then, if you took the gore out -- and there's a lot of it -- what would be the point?) Beginning with a grizzled Packer safely tucked away in his Denver jail cell, the film relates the tragic tale from Packer's point of view. As he sees it, the whole unfortunate series of events stemmed from the theft of his beloved horse LeAnne by a trio of larcenous trappers. Packer has been nominated by default to lead a group of miners from Utah to Colorado in search of gold. After the loss of LeAnne, Packer mistakenly leads the group into the Rockies' frozen wastes and, one by one, they succumb to the inclement weather patterns (as well as each other). Along the way, they meet up with a bizarrely Asian group of kung-fu Ute Indians, a giant Cyclops with a seriously nasty ocular-drainage impairment, and the aforementioned trappers. As if the sheer outrageousness of Parker's tale weren't enough for you, the film is peppered with a genuinely warped series of musical numbers that make Rodgers and Hammerstein sound like, ah, Stephen Sondheim. Showstoppers like "A Shpadoinkle Day," "Hang the Bastard!," and "Let's Build a Snowman" crop up when you least expect it, bringing the incessant stream of body parts and their corresponding fluids to a sudden, thankful halt. And surprising as it may seem, the songs aren't half-bad. Why the film has more or less been shelved until Parker gained fame elsewhere is anyone's guess, but Cannibal! is a gooey, hilarious winner nonetheless. Budgetary constraints aside, the film flows evenly from beginning to end, with Packer's bookended, jailhouse explanation serving as the framing device. Both Parker, and to a lesser degree Stone, are excellent, with Parker playing Packer as a befuddled, horse-lovin' naïf and Stone mastering the art of annoyance well before South Park hit the scene. It's a ridiculous, over-the-top carnival of gore, sophomorically sly humor, and cheese-whiz choreography that manages -- above all odds -- to be cheerily invigorating as well. Here's hoping for an Ed Gein-inspired sequel to show up soon. (8/28/98)
Dobie
D: Randa Haines; with Vanessa L. Williams, Chayanne, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Plowright. (PG, 127 min.)
Original working title: Shut Up and Dance. Given the already minimal nature of the plot and dialogue in this low-budget dance-and-romance trifle, the filmmakers might have done well to heed that titular advice and just scrap everything but the high-voltage dance sequences that are its sole rationale. Now granted, perfunctory storytelling is an accepted feature of the dance-movie tradition. Anybody remember any of the subplots or characters' names from An American in Paris? But even by the humbler standards of Flashdance and Dirty Dancing, the plotting and character development of Dance With Me are egregiously thin. In essence, all that really goes on here is that a good-looking young Cuban guy (Puerto Rican singing star Chayanne) comes to Houston to work for a man who may or may not be his father (Kristofferson) and ends up falling hard for a love-shy American dancer (Williams) who's training for a big international competition in Vegas. Haines, a talented director (Children of a Lesser God, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway) struggles valiantly to flesh out the wireframe-thin script by dancer-turned-screenwriter Daryl Matthews. The major settings of Kristofferson's down-in-the-heels dance academy and the urban Cuban émigré neighborhoods are accurately observed and quite real-seeming. Contrary to what the misleadingly bombastic trailers suggest, Dance With Me's primary asset is not glitzy settings and pumped-up sexuality but rather its funky, down-to-earth locales, quirky innocence, and unpretentious, low-key acting. Chayanne, one of those nouveau hunks who uses sweet, dorky charm to add ingratiating counterpoint to his mannequin-like good looks, is a surprisingly adroit actor with obvious American crossover potential. Williams, never more than a utility-grade performer, is passable in a role that doesn't ask her to do much more than work up a sweat on the dance floor and smolder into the camera with eyes as big and unnervingly bright as those Keaner Kids posters from the Sixties. But again, let's acknowledge the importance of genre context. There's hardly a speck of real story here, yet for true aficionados of Latin-Caribbean dance, Haines makes this overlong film well worth seeing with a series of explosive, brilliantly shot dance sequences that take place in varied settings ranging from residential backyards to palatial ballrooms in Las Vegas. More a savory dessert than a nourishing meal, Dance With Me still offers an energizing burst of sweetness that delights the palate before fading quickly away. (8/21/98)
Barton Creek, Highland, Lakeline, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Tim McCanlies, with Breckin Meyer, Peter Facinelli, Ethan Embry, Eddie Mills, Patricia Wettig, Eddie Jones, Alexandra Holden, Wayne Tippit. (PG, 97 min.)
There are so many captivating characters, so many funny moments, and so much sweet affection in this movie, its ending comes as a sorrowful leave-taking. You're tempted to wave goodbye to it (if you have a hankie to wave, so much the better) and linger in your seat long after the lights have come up. John, Keller, Squirrel, and Terrell Lee are four fast friends who are fixin' to graduate and make good on their childhood pact to get the heck out of Dancer, Texas, thereby decreasing their hometown's population by five percent. Their plans are to head out to L.A., believing that their small-town woes will disappear once they're west of the Rockies. Most of the townspeople know better, of course -- some hold their counsel, some relate long and (hilariously) tragic tales about the fate of similar odysseys, and still others make book on how many, if any, of the four will actually leave. And, indeed, as the film progresses, it looks as if the skeptical bookie will prosper. Faced with imminent departure, each boy struggles with the childhood vow, and just who will take that westbound bus is uncertain. The hours that unfold between graduation and the estimated time of departure tell a loving and funny tale of small-town life distilled into the creak of a porch swing or the dust from a speeding car on a lonely highway, a tale of opportunities that beckon and ties that bind. Writer/director Tim McCanlies proves that rural wit is not an oxymoron. A wonderful script is matched by a terrific cast. Meyer (Keller) and Mills (John) are particular standouts. Keller is eager to leave and angry at his friends' defection, but he is Dancer's Everyman, a restless native son who is (and makes us) acutely aware of why they would choose to stay. Mills is simply big, big star material. Though John is the quietest of the four boys, Mills' slight frame and scrubbed face emit something powerful and pure, with a connection to that vast land that goes far beyond his years. His John is an anathema to L.A., a young man you'd like to meet. Patricia Wettig (thirtysomething) has a scene-stealing turn as Terrell Lee's mama. She captures a quality peculiar to rich Texas women: the ability to be icily brittle and sashay down the street at the same time. The film is filled with such performances -- fond and funny and never condescending. Shot entirely in the Fort Davis area, Dancer, Texas is a gorgeous picture that makes wonderful use of the West Texas landscape. We can breathe the air, squint at the sun, and feel dwarfed by the towering buttes and endless sky. And, sitting in traffic on I-35, I feel like getting the heck out of Austin and heading straight for Dancer, Texas, where the deer and the antelope and a bunch of warm and witty characters roam. (5/1/98)
Village
D: Alan Cohn; with Tom Everett Scott, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Poppy Montgomery, Lochlyn Munro, Randy Pearlstein, Corey Page. (R, 96 min.)
Well, ah, it's got a good soundtrack. But then, with both ex-Devo madman Mark Mothersbaugh and the Dust Brothers on board, how could it not? That's about all there is to say about this black-cotton-candy mouthful of a film; it vanishes after one bite and leaves an unpalatable goo coating your psyche, which, thankfully, evaporates about three steps out of the theatre. Nominally based on the old collegiate myth that a roommate who suffers the suicide of another roomie scores a free 4.0 ride that semester, Dead Man on Campus has as great a schizophrenic personality disorder as that of its muddled characters. Dark comedy or dork comedy? No one can tell and MTV helmer Cohn seems unable to cough up any single line of direction. In the end, it's just bad comedy, really. Scott and Gosselaar play Josh and Cooper, new frosh roommates at the prestigious Daleman College. Scholarship student Josh arrives prepared to work his fingers to the bone in pursuit of a medical degree, but quickly finds his plans -- and grades -- scuttled by party animal Cooper, who introduces the newbie to the joys of all-night partying and general malfeasance, dude. Woe comes to they who enter the fuckup zone so early in the term, and by mid-semester it appears as though both boys will boomerang back out the way they came in. Unless they can find a roommate so depressed that he'll kill himself and thus guarantee the pair that coveted 4.0. From here, Dead Man on Campus ushers in a series of mentally unbalanced roomies-to-be; the hyperkinetic party-demon Cliff (Munro), paranoid android Buckley (Pearlstein), and the Goth pretender Matt (Page), none of whom seem able or willing to make that final leap. Try as it might, Cohn's film just isn't all that funny. Dozens of throwaway gags elicit laughter that collapses in your throat mere inches away from exiting as a full-born guffaw. There are a few -- precious few, really -- chuckles here, and most of those come from Scott, who despite his inability to nail a decent script to save his life (near-misses like American Werewolf in Paris and That Thing You Do! don't quite count) plays a mean straight man to Gosselaar's heinous party animus. Scott is such a likable actor -- tall, lean, vaguely perplexed -- that it's hard not to grin at his zany, madcap predicaments … but not that hard. Playing like one of those old National Lampoon parodies (the magazine, not the Chevy Chase merchandising arm), Dead Man on Campus lacks the crucial spitefulness of its convictions. A dark comedy caught in a white-light washout, it's neither mean enough to be funny, nor funny enough to mean much. (8/21/98)
Gateway, Lakeline, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Betty Thomas; with Eddie Murphy, Ossie Davis, Oliver Platt, Kristen Wilson, Raven-Symoné, Kyla Pratt, Richard Schiff, Peter Boyle, Jeffrey Tambor. (PG-13, 85 min.)
Charm offensive or offensive charm? It's getting harder to make the call as Hollywood continues its strategy -- exemplified by movies like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, Billy Madison, Half-Baked, and the recent output of the Farrelly Brothers (Kingpin, Dumb & Dumber) -- of compensating for the dearth of good comedy writing with sheer dorky affability. Bristling with enough fart jokes, crass sexual innuendo, and low-grade profanity to make Rex Harrison (star of the original 1967 Dolittle) blanch, this PG-13 remake epitomizes the trend perfectly. With a middle-school class clown's lowbrow cunning, Dr. Dolittle's creators have zeroed right in on the key element of successful audience ingratiation, the benign and endearing lead character. Murphy, who owes his durable appeal to his flair for playing it both naughty and nice, fits the bill perfectly. His Dr. John Dolittle is a classical comic straight-man, a genial, unflappable traditional family guy à la Hugh Beaumont, who suppressed in childhood the only exceptional trait he ever had: the ability to talk with animals. When a knock on the head suddenly restores this long-lost ability, Dolittle's veneer of Cleaverish sangfroid shatters wide open. Suddenly, the air rings with the din of kvetching pigeons, drawling hound dogs, street-punk rats, and wisecracking guinea pigs (voiced hilariously by the likes of Chris Rock, Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, John Leguizamo, and Gary Shandling). To Dolittle's horror, the ability to walk with, talk with, grunt and squeak and squawk with these lower life forms draws him inexorably into their world and away from his carefully cultivated life as an upwardly mobile surgeon. Dolittle's humor, as I've noted, is hardly Wildean, even by comparison with the fairly lackluster '67 original, and will probably have no appeal at all to fans of the sweetly whimsical children's stories by Hugh Lofting. And yet, given that plentiful witnesses saw me sniggering my way through the preview screening, the critical high-horse stance is not an option. With an irresistible blend of disarming silliness, adorable critters, inspired gags (including allusions to movies like The Exorcist and Sling Blade), and the sheer personal appeal of Murphy and Symoné (as Dolittle's maladjusted younger daughter), there's no denying Dr. Dolittle's bullseye connection with the lowest common denominator. Hedged praise? Absolutely. One wishes -- fervently -- for a dose of the intelligent, genuinely witty kid-targeted comedy writing delivered by Terry Gilliam in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or Ron Clements and Ted Elliott in Aladdin. But at the risk of serving as an enabler for Hollywood's dysfunctional tendencies, I have to say that, given a choice between the puerile but essentially innocent whimsy of Dr. Dolittle and the dimwitted nastiness of, say, Dirty Work, parents should be grateful for the Eddie Murphys and Jim Carreys of the world for at least providing a kinder, gentler option. (6/26/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Highland, Lakeline, Riverside, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Andy Tennant; with Drew Barrymore, Anjelica Huston, Dougray Scott, Jeanne Moreau, Jeroen Krabbé, Patrick Godfrey, Megan Dodds, Melanie Lynskey, Timothy West, Judy Parfitt, Richard O'Brien. (PG-13, 121 min.)
Legends of the screen, Barrymore and Huston, together for the first time… no, not the great Johns -- Barrymore and Huston -- not even Lionel Barrymore or Walter Huston. We're talking Drew and Anjelica, descendants of Hollywood legends, majesty in their own right. How appropriate it is that these two tackle another legend: the story of Cinderella. And not only do they revisit the centuries-old tale, their approach is nothing less than a re-animation of the story which turns the passive servant girl into a proactive heroine: She becomes a lowly charwoman who takes care of business instead of waiting for Prince Charming to supply the happy ending. And wonder of all wonders, the shoe fits -- not perfectly, mind you, there are some ungainly bunions and calluses that chafe against the glass slipper, but the fit is sufficiently graceful and reinvigorating to attract a new audience to keep company with it during this fresh stroll around the old stomping grounds. The tale is set in the 16th century and if there were any doubt as to the film's targeting of the same adolescent crowd that made William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet such a galloping success, just check out the diaphanous wings attached to the gown our Cinderella wears to the big ball and see if they don't remind you at all of the costume worn by Juliet to her big ball. In Ever After, Cinderella is cast as a French maiden by the name of Danielle (Barrymore), and we're introduced to her through a lagniappe of a wraparound story that stars Jeanne Moreau as the several-generations-removed descendant of Danielle, who has called the Grimm Brothers to her castle to set their storymaking straight. Realism supplants magic in this new version; gone are the pumpkins that turn into coaches and the mice that bippety-boppety-boo into coachmen. Indeed, the role of the fairy godmother is played here by Leonardo da Vinci (Godfrey) who, in a bit of a stretch, plays an enlightened third-party protagonist who uses logic instead of magic to help bring these two star-crossed kids together. Danielle, though circumstances have made her a servant in her own home, is a self-possessed lass -- articulate, well-read, and independent in thought and action. Her stepmother (played with delicious hauteur by Huston) is depicted less as an evil archetype than a venal woman of her times. The two stepsisters as well are played with delightful verve by Dodds and Lynskey (best known as Kate Winslet's sister in crime in Heavenly Creatures), and other charming characterizations are rendered by West and Parfitt as the king and queen and O'Brien as Danielle's scoundrelly suitor. Barrymore seems at heart too much of a "modern gal" to pull off the role of a 16th-century maiden with genuine believability, yet the whole of the piece also suffers frequent historical lapses. Still, the playful and well-meaning spirit of the film carries it through its shakier moments of awkward narration and inscrutably busy camerawork. Despite the unfortunately enfeebling, desaturated, excessively romantic, and downright cheesy look of its trailers, Ever After turns out to be a potent and imaginative retelling that proves Cinderella's timelessness defies carbon-dating. (7/31/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Highland, Lake Creek, Northcross, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Mark Christopher; with Mike Myers, Ryan Phillipe, Salma Hayek, Sela Ward, Breckin Meyer, Sherry Strinfield, Neve Campbell, Ellen Albertini Dow, Heather Matarazzo. (R, 92 min.)
Disco may suck but it's certainly not dead, as evidenced by the recent spate of Seventies revival films. From Boogie Nights to The Last Days of Disco, everything old is new again, much to the chagrin of those of us who found the decade lacking the first time around. With this loose bio-pic of Manhattan's famed Studio 54, debuting director Christopher seeks to rub our Nineties noses in that famed culture of hedonistic excess -- ostensibly as a warning, one assumes -- but the morality tale onscreen is such a vapid take on the real thing that it's akin to watching a 90-minute slide show chronicling someone else's vacation: If you were there, you'll never forget; if you weren't, you'll never know. Actually, as far as 54 goes, the mantra is: "If you remember it, you probably weren't there." That's a fair assumption judging from all the drugs and sex and more drugs on the screen, and Christopher doesn't flinch from the epicurean overload that made the club the party nexus during its troubled eight-year span. Phillipe plays Jersey boy Shane O'Shea, who longs for the exciting nightlife of the Big Bad Apple from his blue-collar home across the river. Tall, bland, and handsome, he gains entrance into the club after being spotted by owner Steve Rubell (Myers) while queuing outside the velvet rope one night. Once inside, he's hooked on the club's druggy, anything-goes atmosphere and returns the next night only to be hired as a busboy by the leering Rubell. From here on in, Shane ascends the narcissistic ladder, slowly working his way into Rubell's confidence and gaining a toehold on the slippery slope of 15-minute celebrity. He's woefully uncultured, though, and virtually lost amidst the staggering cognoscenti; when someone hails the arrival of Truman Capote one night, Shane's reaction is a puzzled, "Truman who?" He's a naïf in sheep's clothing and the club slowly begins to eat him alive, body and soul, despite some (very) occasional moral support from new friends Hayek and Meyer as married 54 employees, Anita and Greg (she's an aspiring disco diva, he's an aspiring drug dealer). It's Myers, though, who resonates the most (the rest of the cast could have been played by anyone, really, and perhaps should have been). From the moment he hits the screen, Myers nails Rubell's creepy manic giggle and desperate need for affection and never once lets up. It's a career-defining role, and Myers clearly has far more up his sleeve than the archly comedic talents he's displayed so far. Still, 54 as a whole is grossly lacking in character -- there's little of the pent-up madness the club engendered, and Christopher too often descends into vague condescension. We already know the horrors that killed off this wildly creative crowd (although the film ends before AIDS begins), but Christopher keeps coming back to beat us over the head with the "bad, wrong, bad, wrong" hammer again and again. It's a noble effort, but aficionados and the mildly interested are recommended to seek out VH-1's excellent Studio 54 documentary in lieu of this shallow morality play. (8/28/98)
Barton Creek, Highland, Riverside, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Sandra Goldbacher; with Minnie Driver, Tom Wilkinson, Harriet Walter, Florence Hoath, Bruce Myers, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. (R, 124 min.)
This starring role is something of a change of pace for Minnie Driver, the British actress who of late has become best known for always playing the "best-guy's gal" in such American movies as Sleepers, Grosse Pointe Blank, and Good Will Hunting. Here she returns to Britain to play the title role of "the governess" in writer-director Sandra Goldbacher's first feature film. The film is an atmospheric work, a period piece set in the 1840s during the dawn of the Age of Photography with a dense and moody visual style that befits its Brönte-esque subject matter. Driver plays an independent-minded young woman named Rosina, who is the eldest daughter in a family of Sephardic Jews in London. The film's opening scenes of the cloistered, almost subterranean lifestyle of the city's sizable Jewish population are fascinating to observe. Living within the heart of one of the world's greatest cities, the Jewish community walks a fine line between urban assimilation and a sequestered but vibrant religious and cultural identity. Rosina's family is plunged into sudden financial debt when her father is murdered and his estate is discovered to have been eaten away by a secret gambling habit. The situation prompts Rosina to seek employment in order to support her family. Securing a job as a governess for the Cavendish family, who live on a remote Scottish island, Rosina uses the best of her play-acting skills to don a new identity as Mary Blackchurch (of swarthy Italian descent). It is a world completely alien to her -- from the rough-hewn landscape to the icy reserve of the Cavendish household. Her young charge Clementina (Hoath) is a little brat, the lady of the house (Walter) is a frustrated spouse, the older son (Rhys Meyers) is a disgraced university student who becomes immediately smitten with Mary, and patriarch Charles Cavendish (Wilkinson) is a man exclusively absorbed in his scientific studies in which he seeks to discover a chemical fixative that will commit photographic images to paper. Mary becomes intrigued by his experiments and the man himself and in time she not only becomes the one to accidentally discover the salt-water fixative process that furthers his work but also engages in an illicit sexual liaison with her employer. In many ways, The Governess is standard-issue bodice-ripper, although to its credit the resolution of the story's central untenable situation is uncommon and its intriguing coda sets up Rosina/Mary as a proto-feminist heroine who has reclaimed her Jewish identity. The themes established in The Governess resound throughout: the conscious assumption of identities, the gap between "fixed" images and reality, and the search for a fixative that will secure the elusive qualities of art and love. At times, The Governess slips into too modern a tone and language to be completely believable, and Driver's facial expression conveys more inscrutability than emotional range, making sequences dally along with little gained knowledge or narrative advancement. Yet, the film remains in the mind like a snapshot, immutably fixed and evocative. (8/28/98)
Arbor
D: Steve Miner; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Arkin, Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodi Lynn O'Keefe, Janet Leigh, Josh Hartnett, LL Cool J, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (R, 83 min.)
Has it really been 20 years already? It seems like only yesterday good-girl babysitter Laurie Strode battled it out with her inhuman, Captain Kirk-bemasked, butcher knife-wielding sibling Michael Myers and revolutionized the face of the American horror film. I remember driving through an overcast Albany one afternoon in '78 and pestering my dad to swing by the Loew's and take in a matinee -- I was 12 and the suggestion carried little fatherly imperative that day, but I more than made up for it by spending much of the Eighties mooning over freshly minted scream queen Curtis in her post-Halloween roles (The Fog creeps me out to this day). And now, the final chapter, one hopes, of yet another sagging franchise. As if Halloweens 3-5 never existed (hardly a stretch), H20 catches up to a damaged version of its protagonist 20 years to the day after the events of the first film. (We know this is so because a subtitle proclaims that it's "October 31, 1998," quickly followed by "Halloween." Duh.) Strode (Curtis) is now Keri Tate, a "functioning alcoholic" and principal of a smallish private high school sequestered outside a small Southern California town. She's also the mother of 17-year-old Josh (Hartnett), who, in the fine tradition of teenagers everywhere, resents mom's asphyxiative apron strings. Guys, like girls, just wanna have fun, and when the opportunity arises to ditch the school camping trip and hang out with a trio of equally horny friends, Josh takes the bait and stays behind while mom hallucinates her evil brother at every available juncture, this despite the marginally reassuring presence of her romance-inclined counselor (Arkin). Michael, of course, is back in town, and without Donald Pleasence's Dr. Loomis around to keep him on a leash, suburbia's favorite bogeyman makes a beeline to the school and begins slicing, dicing, and julienning assorted victims as he moves toward Laurie and her son. Film geeks will chuckle over Curtis' real-life mom Janet Leigh in a cameo as Laurie/Keri's busybody secretary (if you're a real geek, you'll recognize her car and that snatch of Bernard Herrmann straight off), but H20, like the original, isn't a particularly humorous affair. For one thing, Laurie's character arc has bottomed out, resulting in a powerful heroine coming off as a paranoid lush. In the real world, I suppose, that's how things might have turned out, but the Laurie Strode of Halloween's 1 and 2 never struck me as a quitter. Miner strives to imbue the film with the requisite autumnal haze of the original but then gives up midway through and instead resorts to the standard stalk 'n' slash formulas. It's heartening to see a beloved character revived like this (at one point during the screening I attended, audience members actually stood up and cheered), but H20 -- for all its good, gory intentions -- is barely a shadow of the original. There's no frisson, no sense of the impossible here, though whether that's due to Miner and company or simply the passage of time is up for debate. It's a fitting enough capstone for one of horror cinema's more memorable series, I suppose, but when it ended I wanted, more than anything else, to go peruse the original. (8/7/98)
Alamo Drafthouse, Gateway, Highland, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: S.R. Bindler. (PG, 97 min.)
As engrossing as documentaries about manifestly "big" subjects (Triumph of the Will, A Brief History of Time) can be, I've always found even more delight in the ones about picayune-seeming phenomena and pursuits that gain an improbable aura of significance from the passion people pour into them. A classic example is Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, with The Endless Summer, Pumping Iron, and Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey also popping quickly to mind. So, if surfing, bodybuilding, or mole rats can commandeer souls and spawn whole new schools of philosophy, why not a publicity stunt staged by a small-town car dealer? That's the premise of S.R. Bindler's marvelous little film, Hands on a Hard Body, winner of numerous festival awards including the audience award from the 1997 Austin Heart of Film Festival, that's just now seeing theatrical release. (The movie launches its world theatrical premiere in Austin this Friday.) Hands documents the 1995 edition of a yearly contest in which Jack Long Nissan of Longview, Texas gives a new hard body pickup to whomever can keep his or her hands on it the longest. Apart from short breaks at one- and six-hour intervals, contestants stand in place for up to four days at a time, often lapsing into hallucinations, laughing jags, and other erratic behavior around the 50-hour mark. Now, as a small-town native who's had his fill of specious, smirking "tributes" to down-home culture, I found this premise depressing as hell: a bunch of poor rubes suffering in 100-degree heat for a modest set of wheels that Michael Dell or Jim Bob Moffett could cover with glovebox change. Yet the wonder of Bindler's film is the way this random ensemble's foibles, quirks, and artless declamations work to ingratiate the contestants with the audience, not set them up as a geek show for urban hipsters' delectation. Interspersing live action at the contest with staged interviews held beforehand, Bindler and crew let the people who are the story tell the story. And a roomful of Hollywood screenwriters stoked on espresso and ginkgo biloba couldn't have dreamed up this cast. Former champ Benny, a self-styled Dalai Lama of hardbodyology, reels off malaprop-laden -- though often surprisingly insightful -- commentary. ("It's absurd, very absurd… it's a human drama thang." "I'm gonna just wait out the night and see what transgresses.") Ethereal Jesus freak Norma grooves blissfully to her stack of gospel tapes. Mellow J.D. sucks down unfiltered cigarettes and beams like a shitkicker Buddha. Gap-toothed Janice seethes with righteous fury at unpunished rule violations. Further obviating any doubt that we're meant to laugh with, not at, these people is the filmmakers' direct involvement in the drama. Speaking with obvious empathy to contestants, cracking up at their jokes, underscoring their powers of endurance with frequent shots of the sun and moon crossing the sky, Bindler's affection and respect for his subjects is unimpeachable. As with Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, the documentarian's receptive spirit makes us collaborators in -- not just observers of -- the peculiar quest we're seeing. We've been blessed with an amazing run of great documentaries over the past couple of years, and Hands on a Hard Body ranks with the very best. The cost-cutting measures endemic to DIY filmmaking are clearly reflected in bare-basics production techniques and the rather dodgy look created by blowing up an original Hi-8 video print. Yet a nigh-miraculous blend of high spirits, poignancy, gentle satire, and unpretentious insight into the nature of human aspiration make this one of the most impressive films you're likely to see this year. (7/10/98)
Dobie
D: Kevin Sullivan; with Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Pagan. (R, 125 min.)
Blessed is the romantic comedy that doesn't take the all-too-predictable cravings of the human heart as a license to kludge together a random handful of market-tested clichés and wait for the checks to start rolling in. So a big shout-out to producer Deborah Schindler (Waiting to Exhale) and rookie director Kevin Sullivan for making this movie so much better than it really needed to be. Even with Stella's success all but assured by its source material (a bestselling novel by Terry McMillan, who also wrote Waiting to Exhale), a truly gorgeous pair of lead actors, and a sumptuous tropical setting, the filmmakers go to obvious pains to add a bit of nutritive value to their sweet, frothy confection. Not so much in the area of originality; what we have here is a pretty conventional May-August love story in which an emotionally tapped-out 40ish businesswoman (Bassett) gets her vital juices flowing again via a deliciously inappropriate taste of young beefcake (Diggs) she meets during a Jamaican holiday. What really elevates this movie to the status of a future Lifetime Network classic is the care screenwriters McMillan and Ron Bass have taken to flesh out not only the lead characters but also supporting figures such as Bassett's lifelong sidekick (Goldberg, mugging and ad-libbing her way through one of the bawdy, wisecracking roles on which she owns a virtual patent) and her protective 11-year-old son (Pagan). Though most of the characters are genre archetypes, the addition of interesting backstory and a few charming throwaway scenes add satisfying depth to their relationships. Diggs, a stage actor playing his first major film role, demonstrates major heartthrob potential. As 20-year-old Winston, he's every straight woman's guilt-free fantasy fling: open-hearted, intelligent, well-bred, honorable and -- oh yeah -- built like a stack of glistening black granite. His repertoire of advanced love-man moves should be compiled into an instructional video for sexually frustrated high-school guys. And his appeal is likely to extend to male African-American viewers, who'll appreciate seeing one of their peers portrayed as something other than a promiscuous dog whose every waking move is dictated by General Johnson. But for all of Diggs' precocious charm, it's Bassett -- again demonstrating a knack for characterizations that are both glamorous and rich with Everywoman appeal -- who's the clear centerpiece here. With qualities of beauty and strength that seem to inspire rather than distance her female fans, she's by now obliterated any suspicion that her Oscar-nominated role in What's Love Got to Do With It was a flash in the pan. (And as an icon of middle-aged feminine mojo, she's also a gratifying answer to all these priapic old goats cavorting around in Bulworth, A Perfect Murder, Lolita, and Six Days ,Seven Nights, not to mention the inevitable Bill 'n'Monica pics that should be cropping up any day now.) The date movie of the summer has been a little late in coming this year, but it's here at last. And it is indeed a groove. (8/14/98)
Great Hills, Highland, Lake Creek, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Tsui Hark; with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Paul Sorvino, Michael Wong. (R, 90 min.)
Maybe those of us who are always whining about the need for more originality in the action movie genre should pay a little more heed to the old be-careful-what-you-wish-for principle. Director Tsui Hark, who still hasn't quite come down off the stylistic bender of his '96 avant garde swordsman opus, The Blade, certainly can't be accused of cranking out another boilerplate Hong Kong actioner here. But although Knock Off's outrageous bounty of visual creativity sets it well apart from most movies dominated by dialogue like "WOOMPH!," "HWUULP!," and "AAAAGH!," that fact doesn't constitute a must-see endorsement. Put another way, I'm not sure that viewers looking for another Double Team-style adrenaline O.D. will respond favorably to an action mise-en-scene in which ultra-closeups of walls, ceilings, and concrete pilings often seem to receive equal billing with Van Damme's smashmouth kickboxing moves. Sure, it's dazzling to watch the UT-schooled Hark pull out all the stops with stop-motion photography, manic pans and zooms, dim ambient lighting, and calculatedly jumpy edits. Inevitably, though, frustration sets in as it becomes all but impossible to tell who's kicking whose asses -- or indeed what specific blurrily photographed body parts are being kicked. It's kind of like watching an enthusiastic eight-year-old play with the zoom and focus buttons on the family videocam. Plot? Well, it's another of those insanely labyrinthine deals in which scruffy Russian mafiosi (God, I miss the KGB and the whole darned world communist conspiracy!) battle the CIA and various moles, local hoods, and counter-counterspies for control of deadly weapons technology. Andro 6 poster boy Jean-Claude, now seemingly resigned to his fate as a well-compensated also-ran in the hybrid martial arts/shoot-'em-up genre, brings his usual mush-mouthed charm and array of mannequin-like expressions to his role as a humble leisure-wear merchant caught up in the fray. As-yet-undeceased Saturday Night Live alum Schneider is borderline amusing in the obligatory raffish sidekick role. In essence, the whole Knock Off experience can be summed up neatly in four words: loud, stupid, blurry, frenetic. (And, maybe, fun as well, if the preceding adjectives pique your interest.) As I've noted, Hark pulls off the whole operation with an admirable degree of energy, invention, and technical envelope-pushing, all of which surpass the meager standards of Double Team. He also earns additional groundbreaker points for making what I believe to be the first action movie based in the seamy netherworld of fake designer fashion. Still, regrettably, the simple equation holds true that Dumb Van Damme Flick -- Dennis Rodman + Artsy Camera Tricks = Dumb, Artsy Van Damme Flick. Compelling appeal to your entertainment budget? You make the call, folks. (9/11/98)
Gateway, Highland, Lake Creek, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Troy Beyer; with Beyer, Paget Brewster, Randi Ingerman, Joseph C. Phillips. (R, 82 min.)
The next time someone suggests, "Let's talk about sex," politely decline. It was someone's bright marketing idea to put the word "sex" in this movie's title, but honestly, if that's what draws you in to this insipid, amateurish thing, then you deserve everything you get. Beyer, who wrote the script for B.A.P.S., graduates to writing, directing, and starring in Let's Talk About Sex. It's amazing that Beyer ever managed to get her script made, so clichéd, clunky, and underdeveloped is it that one would think that some process of natural selection would curb this misconceived baby before it crawled forth from the crib. Beyer plays the movie's central character, Jazz, an advice columnist who is trying to land a job as the hostess of a new TV show called Girltalk, a program that will speak the truth about women's sex lives. To make her audition tape, she enlists the help of her two roommates, Michelle (Brewster) and Lena (Ingerman). All three of the women are familiar stereotypes: Jazz, the unfulfilled professional who has trouble committing herself to the good man who loves her; Michelle, who has intimacy problems and dates men half her age; and Lena, whose stunning good looks are no protection against self-esteem issues that manifest themselves by repeatedly getting involved with the wrong men. The audition tape is a documentary-style, gal-in-the-street montage of women delivering one-liners and quips about sex and dating in the Nineties, discussing their likes and dislikes, their fantasies and their fetishes. The comments on the tape hardly veer from the familiar and, for the first time in my life, made me wish that Henry Jaglom (who, in films like Babyfever, did this kind of interview thing with so much more grace) was in charge of the show. When the film isn't doing this documentary thing (with a frenetic patchwork hand-held, scattered camerawork), it's mucking around in some of the worst-scripted melodrama witnessed in some time. It's bad enough when one character contrivedly asks, "What's going on in that head of yours?" But the reply is a pure howler: "I'm tired and I'm angry and I'm so tired of being angry. When does the pain go away?" Perhaps actresses with more experience and range could have brought some reality to these characters but really, what can be done about a sequence that requires all three leads to wordlessly roam their apartment cleaning and crying? Let's Talk About Sex is one conversation that we can do without. (9/11/98)
Great Hills
D: Richard Donner; with Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, Jet Li. (R, 125 min.)
To hell with Riggs and Murtaugh -- I'm getting too old for this shit. Gibson and Glover are back as those lovable LAPD screw-ups in this, director Donner's homage to cinematic white noise. Not only is the franchise growing hoary, by now it's become downright laughable, leaving Lethal Weapon 4 feeling more like a bad Fox sitcom than anything else. By now you know the standard-issue story: Detective Martin Riggs (Gibson), the hair-trigger, practical-joke-loving wild man is paired with longtime partner Roger Murtaugh (Glover), the doting family man, as meanwhile the city collapses around them and the forces of evil raise their pointy little heads. What's new? Not much: Riggs' Internal Affairs girlfriend Lorna (Russo, somehow still managing to draw life from her vaguely one-note character) is pregnant, as is Murtaugh's daughter (by rookie detective Lee Butters (Rock, wildly firing off comic rounds like a blind sniper with his hair on fire). Much confusion and homophobic jokes on the home front ensue in that department, but the real crux of the alleged plot centers on a gang of Chinese baddies who are smuggling slave labor into the L.A. basin. Led by the steely-eyed Jet Li, they're cookie-cutter parodies of the Yellow Menace at best, and Tex Avery-esque buffoons at worst. Murtaugh, ever the big-hearted putz, offers his home to a Chinese family he rescues, while his partner scrambles about blowing things up (as usual) and miscounting to three every time the aging duo prepare to make their move. The film isn't as bad as it is incomprehensible, a staccato series of action-piece setups and knock-downs that skitters from scene to scene with all the twitchy hilarity of a fibrillating speed freak. Alright, it is that bad. In the 12 years since the first film's release, the series has become increasingly more annoying, and this is the point at which it finally reaches critical mass. Gibson's much-admired glutes can't save him now, and Glover looks perpetually wearied, not so much running after the bad guys as wheezing like a rusty locomotive. Of course, Joe Pesci is back as the Human Whine Leo Getz, but the less said about that particular crime against nature the better. Not since Joel Schumacher turned the once-promising Batman franchise into a personal masturbation fantasy has a once-proud series devolved so awfully. Donner, I think, needs to stop hanging around the ghost of Don Simpson. The whole mess plays like a surreal Brady Bunch or Family Affair episode on dodgy drugs. Interminable, annoying, and just plain boring, Lethal Weapon should've bowed out at sequel number two. No, three. No -- ah, to hell with Riggs and Murtaugh -- I'm getting too old for this shit. (7/17/98)
Gateway, Highland, Tinseltown North
D: Robert Guédiguian; with Ariane Ascaride, Gérard Meylan, Pascale Roberts, Jacques Boudet, Frédérique Bonnal, Jena-Pierre Darroussin, Laëtitia Pesenti. (Not Rated, 102 min.)
Marius and Jeannette are not your average movie twosome. They are 40ish lovers whose faces are appealing though not gorgeous, whose bodies have been touched by middle-age spread and the slings of life's arrows, whose dispositions are individualistic and not looking to get hitched, and whose emotional histories are freighted with a lifetime of baggage. Come to think of it, they are your average twosome. It's just that, on average, these are not the kinds of romantic couples we generally find on the screen. This may partly explain the element responsible for making this French film such a sleeper hit in its homeland and why it's the first of director Guédiguian's seven films to be released on these shores. If this were filmed in Hollywood, the introduction of these characters would be staged as one of those "meet cute" situations that follow the standard footprints down life's bumpy though primrose path. But it's not. We're in Marseilles and the characters meet when Jeannette (Ascaride) steals some paint cans from the soon-to-be dismantled cement factory that Marius (Meylan) patrols as a security guard. Jeannette insults him and calls him a fascist, but nevertheless, Marius shows up at her door the next day with paint cans in hand ready to help her do her walls. OK, so it is kind of cute. But the thing is, Jeannette's walls really need the paint and Marius got to thinking about how the paint cans were really only going to the scrap heap anyway. From this beginning, a tentative love affair grows between this feisty single mother of two children (her first husband abandoned her, and the second was killed while on the way to the store for cigarettes by falling scaffolding) and this quiet working man who got his job by faking a limp. This is the Marseilles of vast unemployment, of crumbling factories and urban decay, yet in its own way a sun-dappled South of France town for lovers. Our first hint of this duality is in the film's opening shot as the camera pans the natural scenery with picture-postcard prettiness and continues its glide through the working-class neighborhood loomed over by the dilapidated and barren cement factory. The characters in Marius and Jeannette are its strongest selling point, however. There is a reality to them that transcends the parameters of the enclosed narrative. Jeannette's apartment shares a common courtyard with several neighbors and these characters, too, become part of the story. There's Caroline (Roberts), who sometimes tells stories of her days in the concentration camps and sometimes has companionable sex with her old friend and neighbor Justin (Boudet), a retired teacher who helps the neighborhood children with tough questions of religion and politics. The daily bickering between spouses Monique (Bonnal), a left-leaning activist and Dédé (Darroussin), who voted for the reactionary National Front, provide amusement for the whole courtyard and grist for the marriage. Jeannette's daughter wants to go to Paris to become a journalist, and her black-skinned son (by her second husband) has decided to observe Ramadan. Ascaride (who is married to director Guédiguian and has appeared in most of his pictures) won a French César for her work in this film, another indication of the resonance of these characters. Guédiguian has filmed all his movies in the streets of Marseilles and his familiarity and devotion to the locale serve him well. If the movie's concluding tagline that dedicates it to "the thousands of unknown workers" seems a little heavy-handed, it's only because that would have been evident without underscoring it so markedly. In Marius and Jeannette we find the familiar; it is a world that demands both bread and roses. (9/4/98)
Arbor
D: Martin Campbell; with Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stuart Wilson, Matt Letscher, Maury Chaykin, Tony Amendola, Pedro Armendariz, L.Q. Jones. (PG, 138 min.)
Theoretically, if you take into account some of Einstein's more esoteric theorems (parallel universes and all that), the tale of Zorro has already been filmed several thousand times over. Or maybe it just seems that way. First commited to pulp paper in 1919 by Johnston McCulley, the roguish character paved the way for Bruce Wayne and his ilk before dropping out of sight for a while in the mid-Seventies (1981's George Hamilton vehicle -- Zorro, the Gay Blade -- is notable only as a cultural comic anomaly, I believe). Regardless of what has come before, however, Campbell's new offering is a pleasantly vicarious slice of summertime falderol, innocuous in its presentation and often genuinely fun. It has the sexy, histrionic vibe of those old Republic serials updated for the Nineties, and would make a terrific double bill with Disney's vastly underrated The Rocketeer. Both films gaze back longingly to the daze of classic Hollywood heroics, and even Errol Flynn would have to admit that Banderas cuts a dashing figure as the revamped Zorro. Campbell, who directed the immensely entertaining Goldeneye, has an eye for outrageous action scenes and cliffhanger plotting; his directorial style has as much panache as the larger-than-life characters he works with, and his riotous sense of story serves him well. The Mask of Zorro begins with the fall of Zorro/Don Diego de la Vega (Hopkins, looking remarkably trim and fit and decidedly removed from Hannibal Lecter mode), as the evil Don Rafael Montero (Wilson) discovers his true identity, murders his beloved wife Esperanza (Julietta Rosen), takes the nobleman's infant daughter Elena (Zeta-Jones) as his own, and tosses the avenging swordsman in the dungeon. Twenty years later, de la Vega makes his escape, hooks up with vendetta-happy peasant Alejandro Murietta (Banderas), whose brother was murdered by one of Montero's henchmen, and embarks on the resurrection of Zorro, the people's hero, by patiently teaching the headstrong Murietta everything he knows about fighting, fencing, and, of course, females. Zorro, after all, is nothing if not romantic. As befits its serial pedigree, this new chapter in the Book of Zorro is rife with inspired, edge-of-your-seat plotting, betrayals, treachery, love, lust, masterfully staged swordplay, and many, many shots of the masked avenger rearing up on his trusty mount, silhouetted against the crimson Alta, California sky where the story is set. God knows it's hokum of the purest stripe, but Campbell, Hopkins, Banderas, and especially the alarmingly vivacious Zeta-Jones pull it off in spades. A popcorn movie of the highest order, it's full of garish, silly fun, extreme heat escapism, and nary a Bruce Willis in sight. (7/17/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Highland, Lake Creek, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: F. Gary Gray; with Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, Ron Rifkin, John Spencer, J.T. Walsh, Regina Taylor. (R, 141 min.)
Another solid, cerebral actioner by Gray (Set It Off) that makes the most of black-male-rage icon Jackson and an equally impressive (if a bit chilly) Spacey alongside the late, great Walsh and 12 Monkeys' Morse. Jackson plays Chicago P.D. hostage negotiator Danny Roman, who lands squarely in a world of hurt when he's framed both for the murder of his partner and embezzlement from the C.P.D.'s retirement coffers. Roman and the audience know that it's a setup from the get-go because his partner clued him in to the embezzlement investigation just preceding his untimely demise. When internal affairs, headed by Walsh's slimy Inspector Niebaum, takes an undue interest in the negotiator soon after the killing, Roman realizes he's being framed by the very men he's worked with, side by side, for years. He storms the offices of internal affairs, taking Niebaum, his secretary, Rifkin's Commander Frost, and a street-level thug hostage while a roomful of stunned cops looks on. That Roman could traipse through a roomful of pistol-packing police while he's waiting for arraignment is one of several head-scratchers to be found here, but Jackson's performance raises what might otherwise have been just another cops 'n' robbers film to much greater heights. Ensconced in the 20th-floor I.A. offices, Roman begins to interrogate the bullish Niebaum (whom his partner implicated in the embezzling scam) and then calls in his own hostage negotiator to deal with the situation. Chris Sabian (Spacey) is the man, and though he works outside of Roman's territory, the two have a passing awareness of each other. Like Roman, Sabian is supposed to be the best negotiator on his team, and though he enters the fray unaware and essentially uncaring about the stakes Roman is playing for, the pair begin to gel as their negotiation styles collide. Roman, the hotshot daredevil liar, and Sabian, the earnest family man, are tacitly acting on the basis of two decidedly different styles, but both of them make their livings with -- and implicitly are defined by -- their abilities in the fine art of bullshitting. So who's kidding who ends up being the real mystery here. Gray keeps things interesting between the tense volleys of negotiation with glimpses and snippets of the corrupt cops' ongoing war of attrition against Roman. You never quite know who are the good cops and who are the bad until the final reel, though glimmers of the truth bleed out around the edges of Gray's film. Like Jackson, Spacey is a commanding screen presence; it's hard to imagine a more perfectly cast foil for motor-mouthed Danny Roman. Spacey's cool, laconic delivery is a mirror image of Jackson's hyper-charged mouth -- paired together it's like watching two sides of the same coin. The Negotiator falls short of greatness by a country mile; it's too chatty for its own good sometimes. But it's still a solid shoot-'em-up. And it's always nice to see Samuel L. Jackson work that mad mouth mojo. (8/7/98)
Gateway, Lake Creek, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Brad Anderson; with Hope Davis, Alan Gelfant, Victor Argo, Jon Benjamin, Cara Buono, Phil Hoffman, Roger Rees, Holland Taylor, Callie Thorne, Jose Zuniga, Robert Klein. (R, 107 min.)
When Harvey Weinstein of Miramax distribution fame bought Brad Anderson's new, low-budget romantic comedy Next Stop, Wonderland for the overinflated sum of $6 million, he was quoted as saying that the company wasn't just buying a movie, it was "going into the Brad Anderson business." Well, no one's ever called Mr. Weinstein stupid. Next Stop, Wonderland may well be the most charming film of its type since Sleepless in Seattle. The story, about two would-be lovers who would be so right together if only they could meet instead of crossing paths anonymously, is gracefully told and acted. The premise works despite its inbred hokiness due to Anderson's sure direction and the lovely central performances of Hope Davis and Alan Gelfant. We've all seen enough of these meet-cute modern romances to last a few lifetimes, so when one of them sticks with you longer than an afternoon quickie, you can tell that it's already a few notches above the standard romantic fare. As the film opens, Davis' Erin is being dumped by her extremely PC boyfriend (Hoffman) so that he can go off and save some Indian sacred ground. Erin, a night-shift medical worker, is left to deal with her sense of being alone without being lonely. Her interfering mother places a personal ad for Erin, describing her as being, among other inaccurate things, "frisky." The film's funniest sequence revolves around her series of meetings with the ad's respondents. For his part, Gelfant's Alan is also shown going about his daily routine as a volunteer at the aquarium and as an older-than-average student who is trying to make a break from their family trade of plumbing. Rich in Boston landmarks, Next Stop, Wonderland is also steeped in Brazilian bossa nova music, an unexpected but thematically appropriate choice. Davis, who starred in The Daytrippers, is an unforgettable actress. Her ability to convey the character's intelligence and detachment are critical to this movie's success. But the supporting performances are marvelous as well, from the earnest foolishness of Hoffman to the amusing hauteur of Taylor, the quiet stolidness of Gelfant to the blustery pomposity of Klein. Anderson shows the skill of an expert games player as he moves his characters over the Boston landscape with the sinewy skill of a choreographer. His first film, Darien Gap, explored the intersecting lives of a bunch of twentysomethings, and though Anderson's follow-up Wonderland is more of a fine-tuned affair, you still get the sense that the director's romantic comedies are a lifelong work in progress. There may be no ignoring the "Brad Anderson business" a few more years down the line. (8/28/98)
Arbor
D: Don Roos; with Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Galecki, Ivan Sergei. (R, 103 min.)
A nasty, offensive, and thoroughly enjoyable romp through the dark, embittered land of Bad Girl, U.S.A., Don Roos' directorial debut (he wrote Boys on the Side and Single White Female, as well as the script for The Opposite of Sex) is the anti-indie -- a post-PC broadside that manages to skewer everyone from gays to straights, the living to the dead, and never makes you laugh as hard as when it's being downright creepy. Ricci -- as a sort of post-pubescent Wednesday Addams whirlwind -- is 16-year-old Dedee Truitt, who flees her Louisiana home after the death of her abusive stepfather and promptly arrives on the palatial doorstep of her half-brother Bill (Donovan), an Indiana schoolteacher who has recently lost his longtime companion to AIDS. While Dedee is the antithesis of Christian charity (her ongoing narration warns viewers from the get-go that she "doesn't have a heart of gold" and she "isn't going to grow one" either), Bill is positively saint-like in his quiet, stoic generosity. Alongside his new, none-too-bright lover Matt (Sergei), he welcomes this virtual relative into his beautiful home and then by degrees comes to regret his hospitality. In quick succession, Dedee seduces Matt, gets herself pregnant by him, and lightens Bill of 10 grand on the way out of town to Los Angeles. None of this comes as a surprise to Lucia (Kudrow), Bill's ex-lover's semi-frigid sister, who spots Dedee for the predator she is right off the bat. Torn between his love for Matt and his impotent anger towards his conniving step-sister, Bill mopes, pines, and finally throws up his hands in dismay until -- presto! -- things get worse. Matt's queeny ex-flame Jason (Galecki, tackily pulling out all the stops), an ex-student of Bill's, threatens to frame him for scholastic sodomy (and then does) if he doesn't produce the missing Matt posthaste. Then it's off to the City of Angels for more mayhem, a few car chases, and some improbable sex courtesy of Lyle Lovett's Sheriff Tippett. As promised by the film's tagline ("You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be offended"), The Opposite of Sex has a little something to annoy everyone. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Roos' film is immensely entertaining. It's not just the glib emotional attitudes that are bandied about so frequently, but some great acting chops from Ricci (who somehow manages to make the scurrilous Dedee at least vaguely sympathetic) and Kudrow, whose emotionally denuded Lucia not only gets the film's best lines but also has the most complex character. It's a far cry from her usual featherhead-blonde roles, and she brings it to alarming, bitter life. Still, The Opposite of Sex is above all else a comedy. Black -- no sugar, no cream -- to be sure, and refreshingly free of PC pabulum. Even some third-act deus ex machina scrambling can't homogenize the film's darkly cynical punch. Tough as nails and twice as hilarious, it's a remedy for summer treacle. (7/3/98)
Village
D: Nancy Meyers; with Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Lindsay Lohan, Lisa Ann Walter, Simon Kunz, Elaine Hendrix, Ronnie Stevens. (PG, 128 min.)
In the sunny, innocent years that preceded the scourge of adolescence, my good humor could be bought with an ice cream cone or a round of miniature golf, or, especially, a Saturday matinee. I think of them, fondly, as the Hayley Mills years. When I saw the first The Parent Trap, starring my idol, it never seemed even the tiniest bit odd that two thinking, caring parents would separate their twins at birth, each lovingly raising one without giving the slightest hint (or seeming thought) about the other's existence. At 8, I found the movie hilariously funny and heart-wrenchingly romantic and not at all dastardly or preposterous. So it was with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation that I (now a middle-aged mother and devoid of nearly all innocence) looked forward to this remake. Could it possibly measure up to the original? Lohan (Hallie/Annie) is spunky and cute as a button and her British accent puts Mills' attempt at hip California lingo to shame, but could she possibly replace those wide blue eyes, those Vaselined lips, that silly blonde bob? Unfortunately, my 11-year-old daughter and would-have-been movie companion was (ironically) off at summer camp and unable to attend the screening with me. My dependable, immediate litmus test would not be available. And, truth be told, though missed, she was not needed. The audience was filled with vocal, delighted children. Apparently, the story of two look-alikes who meet at summer camp, develop an immediate mutual animosity only to discover they are twin sisters, then scheme to switch identities in order to play Cupid for their divorced parents, stands the test of time. Though updated to include a successful working mother, a not-for-the-squeamish ear-piercing scene, and some pretty obvious product placement, The Parent Trap manages to work in a fair amount of classic material from the original. (The stick-clacking mountain-lion-prevention trick is every bit as funny today as it was 37 years ago.) Director Meyers and co-writer husband Charles Shyer (Private Benjamin, Father of the Bride) show the 1961 classic (and its baby-boomer audience) its due respect through a number of sly references to the original, and silly, sly, and fun Sixties references pop up throughout the movie, but it is plenty Nineties enough for the 12-and-under crowd. Quaid and Richardson glow as the likable, lovely to look at parents, Hendrix glints as the hard-as-her-long-red-nails gold digger who threatens the girls' family reunification plan, and Walter and Kunz shine as the grounded housekeeper and goofy butler. Lohan, well, she's no Hayley Mills, but The Parent Trap is still a big triple dipper of a cone. Vanilla and sweet, it's an overly generous helping that, if it doesn't make you sick, will put you in a good humor all day long. (7/31/98)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Northcross, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Darren Aronofsky; with Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman, Pamela Hart, Stephen Pearlman, Samia Shoaib, Ajay Naidu. (R, 85 min.)
Brilliant, surreal, and emotionally draining, this first feature from American Film Institute grad Aronofsky recalls such low-budget sci-fi epics as Tetsuo: The Iron Man and more traditional paranoiac suspense films (Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder in particular, but also Polanski's Rosemary's Baby) and yet manages to be a wholly original animal. Gullette plays Max Cohen, a twentysomething theoretical mathematics genius, who spends his days cloistered away in his New York City Chinatown apartment searching for a connection between the numerical construct p (the division of a circle's circumference by its diameter, i.e., 3.14 ad infinitum) and the stock market. Convinced that there is a deliberate correlation between the patterns inherent in mathematics and the patterns found in all other aspects of life, Max delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, barricading himself inside his tiny apartment amidst a humming warren of computer equipment and intelligence (nicknamed Euclid). A chance meeting with a Hasidic math whiz named Lenny Meyer (Shenkman) puts him in touch with a bizarre Jewish religious underground cult that seeks to reveal the true name of God via mathematical computations, while on the other end of Max's dwindling social circle, shady representatives of a monomaniacal Wall Street consortium persistently hound Max to share his discoveries or face unspoken consequences. All of this is played out against Max's frequent bouts of hallucinatory, crippling migraines, and against the better judgment of his former mentor, the aged Sol (Margolis), who realizes that caution is the better part of wisdom. The mathematics background in Pi (p) is essentially a construct for Aronofsky to explore the limits of creativity and, finally, breakdown. Pi (p) asks big questions of its audience, but can also be viewed as a simple (if non-simplistic) suspense film, replete with dizzying chases, heated battles, and shady underworld figures. Director of photography Matthew Libatique invests the film with a heady, disorienting black-and-white palette; as in Max's figures, there is precious little gray to be found here, and the cinematography reflects the stark ideas and shaky desperation behind Max's quest. Gullette plays Max as a closeted cipher; he's the physical manifestation of too much time spent breaking reality down into algorithmic patterns. Gangly, pale, and with a high, receding forehead, he'd be creepy enough without all the mystical, revelatory goings-on, but amid the steadily mounting chaos around him, he imparts a kind of feverish, terrifying intensity -- he practically sweats barely contained anxiety. That's a good description of Aronofsky's film as well: the cinematic equivalent of a full-bore panic attack, sweaty palms, rapid heartbeat, and all. (7/31/98)
Great Hills
D: John Dahl; with Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Turturro, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, John Malkovich, Martin Landau, Michael Rispoli. (R, 120 min.)
Though it deals us a pleasantly engaging look at New York's underground world of high-stakes poker games, Rounders is hardly the straight flush we've been anticipating ever since director John Dahl electrified the screen with his neo-noir thrillers Red Rock West and The Last Seduction. Rounders provides a total immersion into the world of professional poker hustlers -- or rounders -- and the experience is fascinating and drenched in atmospheric allure. And through some combination of the screenplay (by David Levien and Brian Koppelman) and the actors, wonderful characters manage to emerge on the screen. But the narrative, ultimately, does little to develop these characters beyond the traits that are singled out upon their introduction and the storyline follows through in a fairly predictable fashion, offering little in the way of surprise or discovery. Mike (Damon) is a master card player who has traded his chips for some law books and a shot at the straight life, complete with law-student girlfriend Jo (Mol) and a chance at a clerkship. But then his old friend Worm (Norton) gets released from Riker's and draws Mike back into the game. Irresponsible and carrying a few debts from back before he went to prison, Worm is everything Jo fears. Mike gets sucked back in and Jo walks and the rest of the film deals with Mike and Worm's cagey two-step of old loyalties and new tests of friendship. Throughout, Mike's voiceover narrates the story, providing a wealth of information about the milieu but astonishingly little about himself or his thinking. For someone who is so drawn to the game and claims to come to life while at the table, the film gives us little sense of the thrill or the rush he experiences. That is the heart of what's missing here: the buzz that unites these games and players, the seductive lure that excites as it also placates. The dramatic throughline is murky as well. Is this a story about friendship? A young man's maturation? A love story? A subculture study? A tribute to professionalism? Rounders touches on all these themes but fails to follow any of them through to their logical conclusions. Undeniably good are the performances, however. Damon continues his ascent into durable leading-man status; Norton is scuzzily colorful in what can only be described as the Sean Penn bad-boy role; Turturro is rock-solid as Mike's steadying influence Joey Knish; Martin Landau delivers a crisp turn as Mike's law-school mentor; and John Malkovich lets his colors fly as the seedy, heavily-accented, Russian-mafia card sharp, Teddy KGB. Rounders has little trouble maintaining our interest, it's just that the stakes are disappointingly meager. (9/11/98)
Great Hills, Lakehills, Lakeline, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Steven Spielberg; with Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, Ted Danson, Dennis Farina. (R, 168 min.)
Weeks before its release, Saving Private Ryan had already been tagged as "the best film about war ever made." This from critics and veterans alike, and though I fall (thankfully) into the former category, the film is inarguably one of the most realistic depictions of what it must be like to engage in modern warfare. For once, believe the hype. It certainly doesn't hurt matters that Saving Private Ryan is helmed by icon/director Spielberg and many of his longtime collaborators, including director of photography Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List, Amistad), and is populated by a brilliant ensemble cast headed by that other Hollywood icon, Tom Hanks. In Robert Rodat's script, Capt. John Miller (Hanks) is ordered to lead his squad of eight men through the madness of Omaha Beach and D-Day, then go behind German lines to rescue Pvt. James Ryan, the only surviving brother among four soldiers, and thereby scuttle a potential public-relations snafu on the home front. Miller and his men don't give a rat's ass for this unseen, unknown private they've been ordered to find, but they know -- or at least Miller knows -- that finishing the mission brings them all one step closer to home and hearth. Rounding out Miller's squad are some of the best character actors working today, including Sizemore's square-shooting Sgt. Horvarth, Burns' wisecracking Brooklyn dogface Pvt. Reiben, Diesel as the requisite Italian-American Pvt. Carpazo, Ribisi's medic Wade, newcomer Pepper as the squad's devoutly religious sharpshooter, Goldberg as the Nazi-baiting Jew, and Davies as the conscripted, unsure Cpl. Upham. Rodat and the actors steer clear of the most obvious clichés in squadron demographics, and instead, let their audience come to know them on their own terms. One by one, the men are introduced by mannerism and dialogue, very slowly emerging as fully developed characters who, by the end of the film, you feel as though you've known maybe your whole dreaming life, if not your waking. All these acting chops merge with Spielberg's brilliant recreation of the final countdown to V-E Day. Beginning with the Allied forces landing at Omaha Beach (which goes on for an unprecedented half hour), Spielberg proves again and again just why he's one of the most respected filmmakers alive. Never has there been such unmitigated carnage outside of combat documentaries: Awash in blood and strewn with staggering, limbless men jetting arterial gore, the Omaha sequence is a prolonged, relentless nightmare of death, agony, and stark, naked terror. And yet it's a gorgeous, achingly affecting and artistically rendered sequence as well, a ballet of bodies, an adagio of organs. Spielberg paints everything in desaturated, khaki tones; dirt clods hang suspended, jittering in the frigid air while bullets impact and bodies sag and fall like sad, untethered marionettes. On top of this epic, disturbing realism, of course, is Saving Private Ryan's genuine sense of loss and humanity; it's perhaps the most humanistic war film since J'Accuse or All Quiet on the Western Front. A bitter, bloody masterpiece with adrenalized emotions and hyper-realized images, this is perhaps as close to battle as any sane human being should ever hope to tread. (7/24/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Lakeline, Lincoln, Northcross, Riverside, Round Rock, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Mark Steven Johnson; with Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello, Ashley Judd, Oliver Platt, David Strathairn, Jan Hooks, Jim Carrey. (PG, 110 min.)
In everyone's life, there is a memorable mother, a luminous beauty who smells good and smiles brilliantly and knows exactly when to tease and when to be sympathetically grave. She is almost always somebody else's mother, but she is so full of warmth and kindness and of such a generous nature she has plenty of mothering to share. So it is with Joe's mother, Rebecca, whose shining eyes and fragrant glow fill in all the empty spaces in Simon Birch's cold and rocky life. Born no bigger than a baby bird, Simon (Smith) wasn't supposed to make it through the night. The fact that he survived against all odds can't overcome his parents' aversion to having such an oddity for a child. To his big, gruff, rock-quarrying father and his reclusive, nervous mother, Simon is too strange and insignificant to warrant much parenting. Instead, he receives attention because of his diminutive size, which the hardier inhabitants of his New England town find freakish and unsettling. His best friend Joe (Mazzello) is himself an oddity because of his mother's scandalous combination of indiscretion (a dalliance resulting in pregnancy) and discretion (her resolute refusal to name the father). The circumstances of their births forge a tensile bond between the two boys and give them both a sense of undiscovered destiny. Simon fervently believes that God shaped him for a specific, heroic purpose. Joe is convinced that the secret to his future lies in learning his father's identity. Their bond and their beliefs are tested after a Little League game, during which Simon, in a totally uncharacteristic display of power, hits a foul ball that strikes and kills Rebecca. Lessons in love, death, acceptance, understanding, faith, friendship, and fate abound in this little movie -- a tall order for any undertaking. Only masterful performances keep this frankly sentimental film from foundering in a sea of syrup. Judd brings Rebecca vividly and memorably to life during her short time onscreen, imbuing her presence with a purity and joy and freedom that permeate the picture and define the relationships between its characters. Mere casual acquaintances, we feel her loss keenly. Mazzello and Smith have incredibly fragile scenes together and they play them earnestly and unerringly, with the off-handed intimacy peculiar to childhood friendship. As Rebecca's suitor, Ben, Platt possesses a rare, unmannered charm most visible in the tiniest, quietest moments of the film. The tragedy in Simon Birch is coupled with insouciant silliness and rosy nostalgia and it unabashedly grasps at our heartstrings. But the sincerity of its players, the level gaze of its camera, and a genuine affection for its story (suggested by John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany) keep this film afloat. Warm and sweet and wholesome, Simon Birch is as sustaining as mother's milk. (9/11/98)
Barton Creek, Gateway, Tinseltown North
D: Peter Howitt; with Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Douglas McFerran, Zara Turner. (PG-13, 105 min.)
Don't let the title fool you. Sliding Doors has nothing in common with the obstreperous aluminum patio portals in soulless suburban houses. Quite the contrary. This lovely little British movie is filled with the mystery of those noiseless, invisible thresholds around us -- the blind luck of love, the random strike of tragedy, the slippery digressions of deceit. In a finely realized and multi-layered first film, writer-director Peter Howitt treats us to a clever and urbane exploration of the monumental repercussions of tiny twists of fate. Helen (Paltrow) has just been fired from her PR job, and on her way home, dual scenarios are played out. In the first, Helen bumps into a little girl on the steps of the subway and misses her train, delaying her homecoming and affording her philandering lover a narrow escape. In the second scenario (after the footage literally rewinds and begins again), the little girl is whisked out of the way and Helen slips through the closing doors of the train, thereby encountering the charming, jocular commuter James (Hannah), and interrupting Jerry's midmorning tryst. From that pivotal moment of missing or catching the train, the film follows two parallel, but very different, narratives. (Helen #2 cuts and bleaches her hair in a post-betrayal metamorphosis, and so that we'll know just which Helen we're seeing.) The brunette Helen labors on in her relationship, suspicious (Jerry is not the cleverest of Casanovas) and weary (she cannot find another PR position and must take two menial jobs to support them both). She grows paler and more remote in each scene while the blonde Helen, freed by her anger and courted by James, grows more vibrant and joyful (she is, after all, having more fun). But, we find out as the stories unfold, even parallels do not follow straight tracks. The wonderful script is matched by an engaging cast. Paltrow's chameleon beauty dazzles as the dual Helens, wanly aloof one moment and coltishly exuberant the next. Lynch manages to make dirty dog Jerry as endearing as he is exasperating -- a contrite and sweet-faced basset hound who gets into the garbage again and again even though he really does know better. More winning still is Hannah's performance. In a movie literally filled with wonderful surprises, his James is an unexpected gift -- the kind you stumble upon when the fates are smiling. Poorly wrapped and easy to overlook, he's Sliding Doors' reminder of all the hidden treasures out there. If you don't have one yet, you simply haven't happened upon the right door. Yet. (4/24/98)
Village
D: Tamara Jenkins; with Natasha Lyonne, Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Corrigan, David Krumholtz, Eli Marienthal, Carl Reiner, Rita Moreno. (R, 101 min.)
It's 1976 and Viv Abramowitz (Lyonne) has all the typical problems of a 15-year-old female adolescent. On top of that, there's her flaky family life which consists of being the only female in a household of two brothers and a divorced father and living the life of "divorce nomads" who move from one crummy apartment with an elegant name to another (usually in the middle of the night). They're like the "Jewish Joads," says her dad Murray (Arkin), who always makes sure that their address remains within (but just barely) the Beverly Hills zip code because, "Furniture is temporary; education is forever." And if things weren't difficult enough, Viv has suddenly become "stacked like her mother" and she not only has to deal with her own ambivalence about these mutant lumps on her chest but also with brothers who like to gape at them and an overbearing father (who could pass for her grandfather) who takes her out shopping for a brassiere in the film's hilarious opening scene. Her next-door neighbor Eliot (Corrigan), a sweet-natured pot dealer who dresses in Charles Manson T-shirts, is also smitten with Viv and her breasts. Slums of Beverly Hills is a very funny and well-acted comedy about the slings and arrows of outrageous adolescence. Few films have come this close to accurately depicting the particular mortifications of female adolescence while also maintaining a fulsomely comic tone. If Slums seems a bit reminiscent of Maria Maggenti's buoyant teen-girl comedy of a few years back, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, it should come as little surprise that Maggenti and writer-director Tamara Jenkins were NYU classmates. According to Jenkins, her film is semi-autobiographical, although the script was incubated at the prestigious Sundance Director's Lab. Oftentimes, however, the excellence of the script and several performances outshine the film's camerawork and pacing. Lyonne (who also served as the central narrator of Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You) delivers a memorable performance here, as do Arkin, Corrigan, and Krumholtz, although Marisa Tomei's embodiment of the troublesome, pill-popping cousin who comes to live with the Abramowitzes is more caricature than character. Moreover, Tomei's performance is given little directorial assist from such scenes as the overly long and badly staged interlude that has her and roommate Viv dancing funky with her vibrator. Technically, Slums stumbles in many places, although the script's wisdom and humor and Lyonne's unifying authenticity make its shakier qualities seem like mere potholes on the back alleys of Rodeo Drive. And it's no doubt a more realistic depiction of Beverly Hills womanhood than Pretty Woman or 90210. (8/28/98)
Arbor, Barton Creek, Highland, Tinseltown North
D: Joe Dante; with Kirsten Dunst, Gregory Smith, Jay Mohr, Phil Hartman, Kevin Dunn, Ann Magnuson, Denis Leary, Dick Miller, and the voices of Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Michael McKean. (PG-13, 108 min.)
It would be easy to reduce Small Soldiers to the story's lowest common denominators and call it Toy Story meets Gremlins, but this is a Joe Dante film, and nothing's ever that simple when it comes to Dante. One of the genre's leading fantasists, Dante's warped sense of humor -- gleaned, I think, working under the tutelage of Roger Corman way back on Hollywood Boulevard and Piranha way back when -- is coupled with his ongoing fascination with the diminutive (see the aforementioned Piranha, Gremlins, or Innerspace) and his genuinely unique sense of aesthetics. Unfortunately, Small Soldiers never quite rises to the level of Dante's previous work and the result makes the film feel like a transparent, though enthusiastically directed, marketing ploy: Coming soon to a Toys 'R Us near you. Smith plays Alan Abernathy, a young teen with a troubled past who one day signs for a shipment of military action figures -- the Commando Elite -- while taking care of his father's toy store. Although liberal dad (Dunn) is averse to G.I. Joes and the like, Alan feels he can sell the product while his father is out of town and make some quick cash for the financially strapped toy outlet. What he doesn't know is that the toys have been accidentally fitted-out with state-of-the-art military computer chips that give them the ability to think and act for themselves. Along with the Commando Elite arrive the hideous Gorgonites, a Todd McFarlane-esque gaggle of plastic toy mutants who are the Commandos' sworn enemies. When the rival toys begin fighting in earnest (actually the Gorgonites are programmed to "hide and lose," so it's the Commandos who are doing most of the fighting), they wreck the toy store, the neighborhood, and proceed from there. Meanwhile, Alan falls for the lovely girl-next-door, Christy (Dunst), and has to work up the nerve to straighten out not only his life but the future of the flesh-and-blood world as well. With Tommy Lee Jones and Frank Langella providing the voices of the opposing toy leaders (Major Chip Hazard and Archer, respectively) and the relatively stellar casting, you'd think Small Soldiers would be a far more rollicking ride than it really is. Too much of what goes on here seems rushed and poorly planned; the backstory involving the creation of these out-of-control Lilliputians is glossed over in a matter of minutes and even Alan's budding romance is in the end a simplistic script device. As in almost all of Dante's films, regulars Miller and Jackie Joseph (Audrey in the original Little Shop of Horrors) make appearances, but even that feels tacked on. And like Gremlins, I think, the escalating levels of violence in Small Soldiers will distress some parents who may be expecting Toy Story 2. Stan Winston's miniature and CGI effects are wonderful, but they can't conceal an obviously weak script in what is unfortunately a footnote to Dante's better work. (7/10/98)
Lake Creek, Tinseltown South
D: Chris Eyre; with Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal, Cody Lightning, Simon Baker. (PG-13, 88 min.)
This feature debut from Eyre is also being billed as the first film written, directed, and co-produced by American Indians, but hanging it on the indigenous hook does Smoke Signals a disservice. At once poignant and slyly humorous, Eyre's film touches on the universal themes of loss, betrayal, redemption, and father/son relationships in ways that echo not only inside the reservation but outside as well. Beach plays Victor Joseph, a Couer d'Alene Indian in Idaho whose father Arnold (Farmer) quit reservation life and headed out in his prized yellow pickup truck 10 years back, when Victor was a young boy. Years before his departure, a tremendous fire swept through the house of Victor's friend Thomas Builds-the-Fire when an all-night Fourth of July party left most of the reservation -- including Arnold -- falling down drunk and unaware of the impending tragedy. Arnold saved young Thomas, but the boy's parents died, and since then Thomas has become the reservation outcast of sorts, grinning, bespectacled, socially inept, but with a mystical gift for telling wildly improbable stories to anyone who will listen. Flash forward to the present: News of Arnold's death arrives, and a stoic, handsome Victor decides to drive to his father's final home, in Arizona, to collect his truck and whatever else might await him there. The only problem? Not enough money for the journey. It's here that Thomas steps in, offering Victor his piggy bank in exchange for the chance to travel with him. Arnold did, after all, save the young Thomas, and Victor hesitantly agrees. What follows, then, is less road trip than voyage of discovery, that takes the unlikely partnership from the scrubby, hardscrabble reservation to the final resting place of their only real male authority figure, and beyond. Eyre's film, which has a screenplay by Sherman Alexie and is based on stories from his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, isn't nearly as wearyingly downbeat as a capsule description might make it sound. Smoke Signals is alight with oddball nuances and wry observations: the reservation's radio station, KREZ, uses a broken-down van at the deserted crossroads to gauge the (nonexistent) traffic conditions, and Victor's mother Arlene (Cardinal) is a master in the fine art of flatbread-making. Subtle, lyrically haunting touches like these evoke a palpable sense of loss and the sub-poverty level of Native American life, but also unite the tribe -- broken by alcohol and abuse though they may be -- in long-held beliefs and rituals. It's Victor who teaches his inanely happy friend to "act like a real Indian," and Thomas who forces Victor to confront the ghosts of his past no matter how terrible they may seem. The cast is uniformly excellent in their roles, and Eyre's persistent use of long, trailing shots reinforces the story's elegiac tone. Simple and elegant, Smoke Signals is a delicious, heady debut that lingers long after the tale is told. (7/17/98)
Arbor
D: Brian De Palma; with Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, John Heard, Carla Gugino, Stan Shaw, Michael Rispoli, David Anthony Higgins, Kevin Dunn. (R, 99 min.)
Snake Eyes is a gamble, a chancy proposition. Confined to a single setting -- a sprawling Atlantic City sports arena/casino -- and intricately plotted, it requires a good degree of concentration and a healthy suspension of disbelief to succeed. Question its logic too much, and the whole thing unravels. Snake Eyes comes up a winner, however, largely due to De Palma's bravura direction, which falls on a near-perfectly modulated point on the spectrum of his work: It's halfway between the dispassionate gleam of Mission Impossible and the empty flamboyance of Body Double. From the very beginning, David Koepp's cagey script runs at full throttle, reaching the film's pivotal scene in the first 15 minutes or so, in which a controversial Secretary of Defense is assassinated during a boxing match. De Palma provides the frenetic energy to propel the storyline to this point and the effect is dizzying, both literally and figuratively. His kinetic camera tracks, pans, and swoops with such an ominous purpose that your brain can't possibly make sense of it all, converging in a noisy, eye-filling climax: It's sensory overload that ends in a bang. A seemingly endless number of questions jump from synapse to synapse at high speed during this time: Why does the sexy woman with flaming red hair flee from her seat just minutes before the assassination? What's the scraggly-looking guy yelling at the pugilists during the fight? What's the bespectacled woman with the platinum blond wig saying to the Secretary mere seconds before he's hit by a bullet? From that point of impact, Snake Eyes becomes a reconstructive thriller in which the chaos is explained, clarified, and elaborated upon, much like another De Palma film, Blow Out, in which a movie sound technician pieces together the clues to (yet again) another high-ranking official's death that smells of conspiracy. Where Blow Out is informed by aural clues, however, the clues in Snake Eyes are visual in nature. Surveillance cameras, tracking sensors, and videotape devices play a significant role here in the quest for uncovering the truth. (In many De Palma films, technology's ability to reveal and elucidate is both a blessing and a curse.) As the corrupt, rogue policeman investigating the murder, Cage -- the guy was born to act in a De Palma movie -- acts as the audience's guide along the narrative's convoluted path and, to a less successful extent, as the movie's moral conscience. He's best when shaking down a drug dealer for cash in order to place a bet on the match or bellowing, "I am the King!" with the mock bluster of a man who's too sure of himself; he's not as watchable when confronting the conflict between being a good cop or a bad cop. But even though Cage and the movie begin to sag near the film's middle, Snake Eyes picks up the pace again in a disorienting finale that takes place during the onslaught of a hurricane that, despite its incongruities and confusion, is oddly satisfying. After it has ended, you may want to view it all over again, just to see if you can beat the odds and pick up on what you missed the first time around. (8/7/98)
Gateway, Highland, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Riverside, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: David Mamet; with Campbell Scott, Rebecca Pidgeon, Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara, Ricky Jay, Felicity Huffman. (PG, 112 min.)
Writer-director David Mamet is up to his old tricks again. In fact, if the title were not already taken, he might have named this film House of Games. As it is, he named this new film The Spanish Prisoner, a term described as the moniker for "the oldest con in the world." Mamet seems intent here on creating a labyrinthine Hitchcockian thriller, along the lines of The Man Who Knew Too Much or North by Northwest. Campbell Scott makes an excellent Jimmy Stewart-style Everyman -- seemingly a patsy ripe for duping. But the key word here is "seeming," as the film takes great pains to point out on numerous occasions. Mamet sets up the situation in a way that encourages the viewers to consider all the angles. Good guy, bad guy; is she or isn't she? We're invited to mull every possibility, as though the mental game of trying to uncover the magician's sleight of hand is the real endgame and the fluffy rabbit is mere window dressing. And to a certain degree that's true. However, The Spanish Prisoner seems an almost purely theoretical exercise, with Mamet as the con man whose sole goal is to make us believe anything he wants. It feels rather manipulative and makes us feel a bit too conscious of the trickery at hand, especially given all the film's explicit warnings that things are rarely what they seem, and conversely, that things are usually exactly what they seem to be. And with Campbell Scott practically walking through this whole thing with a "kick me" sign on his back, he's the perfect foil for all this push me/pull me action. Add to this structural artifice the calculated clip of Mamet's unique dialogue blocking, and the result is a work that never lets us escape the knowledge that it is a work of pure fabrication. The Spanish Prisoner is populated with constructs rather than a sense of flesh-and-blood characters. We never fear for any of these characters or worry whether the crop duster is going to mow them down. Nevertheless, taken for what it is, The Spanish Prisoner is actually quite a lot of fun. The performances are all solid, and the cat-and-mouse storyline is always a diverting amusement. (And who ever suspected that David Mamet had a script in him that could pass PG muster?) But for such a lot of supposedly smart people, these characters do an awful lot of dumb things. (5/1/98)
Village
D: Peter and Bobby Farrelly; with Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Chris Elliott, Lin Shaye, Lee Evans, Jeffrey Tambor, W. Earl Brown, Markie Post, Keith David, Jonathan Richman, Brett Favre. (R, 119 min.)
When Peter and Bobby Farrelly titled their first film Dumb & Dumber it's as if they issued themselves a comic challenge: Always aim for the next level -- downward. However, this shouldn't be misunderstood as meaning that their new film There's Something About Mary isn't funny, frequently side-splittingly so. These fraternal filmmakers are specialists in lowbrow bodily-functions humor as well as defiant assailants of any subject matter that's marked "Fragile: Politically Correct." Where they branch out in There's Something About Mary is in their creation of sustained comic sequences, an advance over the strung-together assemblage of gags that propel the momentum of both Dumb & Dumber and Kingpin. The film's much described early sequence in which nerdy Ted (Stiller) never makes it to the prom with dream girl Mary (Diaz) because of an excruciatingly catastrophic accident with his pants zipper, is destined to become a classic bit of film comedy. In its antic craziness as more and more characters barge into the scene, Mary is reminiscent of the crazed, hellzapoppin' style of the Marx Brothers. More and more characters pop into the scene, the jokes fly ("Is it the frank or the beans?" Mary's solicitous dad keeps asking), and the audience winces hysterically with laughter. And then, when you think it's all gone just as far as it's able, the sequence layers on a sight gag so audacious that you suddenly understand that you're completely at the film's mercy. Though this sequence is the instant classic, a few others nearly equal its antic mischief and sublime buildup. And, really, they're much better left undescribed. At about two hours in length, however, Mary consists of more jokes than sustained sequences. A surprisingly large number of the laughs work, although, understandably, a good number of them also fall flat. You can bet that whenever the story slows down to advance the plot concerning its paper-thin characters, the film takes a noticeable dip. As the Mary at the center of it all, Diaz certainly exudes that irresistible "something" expressed in the title. In films such as My Best Friend's Wedding and A Life Less Ordinary, Diaz has shown herself to be a good comic sport who is game for just about anything. Here, it's no stretch to understand why, at the end of the movie, some half-dozen suitors have converged in her living room to throw themselves at her feet. Stiller is a deadpan hoot, although Dillon's scuzzball private dick is a bit too extreme for the circumstances. Able support work is provided by numerous players, among them Chris Elliott (who, regrettably has little more to do than be the butt of a skin-ailment joke); Lin Shaye (a Farrelly regular in her assigned role of wizened sexpot), and Lee Evans (the physical comedian who was so good in Funny Bones and Mouse Hunt and here milks his character's crutches for every joke they're worth). Special note must be made of cult musician Jonathan Richman, the minimalist romantic troubadour who is used here with snare-drum sidekick Tommy Larkins as roving minstrels who pop up (à la Cat Ballou) in various scenes to provide running ironic commentaries -- in verse. And speaking of songs, stick around for the closing credits during which the entire cast vamps to "Build me Up, Buttercup." The Farrellys won't be winning any good taste awards in the near future (their next film, reportedly, centers around Siamese twins), but, my oh my, they are modern kingpins of comedy. (7/17/98)
Great Hills, Highland, Lakehills, Lakeline, Northcross, Tinseltown North, Tinseltown South
D: Gregory Nava; with Larenz Tate, Halle Berry, Lela Rochon, Vivica Fox, Paul Mazursky, Little Richard. (R, 115 min.)
This isn't exactly the most unique story in rock & roll history. A naïve young black singer hooks up with a parasitic white manager who snakes him out of most of the profits from his chartbusting singles. Then, after the singer's rapid decline and untimely drug-related death, figures from his past converge like hyenas to scavenge the bleaching bones of his estate. But even though Gregory Nava's embellished biopic about Fifties hitmaker Frankie Lymon offers no new perspectives on the pop music biz's already well-exposed dark underside, it's still a revelation in terms of Nava's capabilities as a filmmaker. Based on Nava's past work (El Norte, Mi Familia, Selena), I've always pegged him as an overrated screenwriter-director whose stilted, earnest-unto-death writing undercuts the power of his impressive -- if derivative -- command of film's visual language. But from the opening blast of orange-and-chartreuse credits and turbocharged doo-wop music to the closing close-up of Little Richard's devilish, mascaraed mug, there's no trace here of the tedious, myth-mongering Nava of yore. The obvious explanation is that, for the first time in any of his major features, Nava has turned the writing chores over to someone else -- in this case, talented first-timer Tina Andrews. As a result, the dialogue and pacing have a new snap and suppleness and the movie takes flight like a balloon that's jettisoned a few hundred pounds of damp sandbags. Plenty of credit is due to the actors too. Tate (love jones, Menace II Society) is close to Academy Award territory with his portrayal of Lymon, a white-hot young orb of ball lightning who's utterly lost in any context where he has to confront the basic emptiness behind his angelic face and electric stage persona. Rochon (Waiting to Exhale), Berry (Losing Isaiah), and Fox (Soul Food) are equally delightful as the wildly diverse trio of ex-wives battling it out in court for $4 million in unpaid royalties that Lymon's manager (Mazursky) owes the estate. They're especially wonderful in the down-and-dirty personal confrontations that occur late in the court battle, veering abruptly from amusingly specious female bonding moments to full-pitched verbal catfighting. But most of the credit for this movie's ability to sustain energy and interest despite its marginally interesting subject matter has to go to Nava. Ditching the noble sepia-tone kitsch of Mi Familia for vibrant, solarized colors, relentlessly imaginative shotmaking and a giddy narrative surge that he gracefully integrates into a flashback-driven story, he often generates a level of rock & roll vibrancy that one associates more with young bucks like Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) than fiftyish veterans. Why Do Fools Fall in Love probably won't be remembered as the best film Nava ever made. The story's a bit too commonplace for that. But with its intriguing hints of untapped creative energy it may well be something just as important in the long haul: a turning point. (8/28/98)
Riverside
D: Neil LaBute; with Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski, Jason Patric, Ben Stiller. (R, 100 min.)
Although Neil LaBute's audacious debut film, In the Company of Men, is a tough act to follow, the writer-director's sophomore effort, Your Friends & Neighbors, finds LaBute's audacity hardy and intact, even if it now seems a little more predictable and mannered. LaBute's subject matter still finds its punch from the banal cruelty of which human relationships are capable. Only now, in this follow-up film, LaBute has focused his lens on the bedroom instead of the boardroom. His constellation of characters here has doubled, from three to six, and now includes women among society's perpetrators of contemptuous immorality. LaBute's narrative structure and visual strategies are rigorously crafted, bespeaking an almost mathematical calculation that, in compellingly contradictory ways, both enhances the dramatic experience while undermining its very authenticity. What's never in doubt, however, is the authenticity of the dialogue: LaBute writes conversations as though eavesdropping were his full-time occupation. The language is cutting, foul-mouthed, and raw; words are the ammunition of articulate savages. In this, his language is given an able assist from a uniformly brilliant crop of actors. Yet the people he depicts are our "friends and neighbors," our recognizable and ordinary selves rather than the distanced corporate villains of In the Company of Men who make a conscious pact to "go out and hurt someone." This time out, LaBute's characters really hurt the ones they love, or the ones they bed -- occasionally one and the same. The story is set in some unnamed urban center and, likewise, all six characters remain nameless throughout the course of the film, although the credits list their names as a curious sing-song mix-and-match of sameness: Mary, Terri, Cheri, Barry, Cary, and Jerry. Jerry (Stiller) is an over-analytical drama professor with a penchant for Restoration comedy and a physical appearance that I think more than a little resembles that of LaBute. Jerry's domestic partner Terri (Keener, the indie film actress par excellence) is a cold, practical sort who just wishes Jerry would shut up while they are making love. Jerry prompts the movie's roundelay when he propositions the wife of his best friend Barry (Eckhart, who poured on the flab for this role as the cuckolded husband following his role as In the Company of Men's well-toned predator). Sex between Jerry and his wife Mary (Brenneman) has become unsatisfying; Jerry readily admits to the guys that the best sex he ever had was with himself. To even the score with Jerry, Terri takes Cheri (Kinski) as a lover, but the film's showiest role belongs to Patric's Cary, a cynically amoral cad who admits to the vilest of behaviors and indeed, is seen prior to the film's opening credits practicing sexual sincerity into a tape recorder while masturbating. Your Friends & Neighbors is nothing if not neatly structured: the compositions, the repetitive set-pieces, the camera movements, and character balance. And though it's a pleasure to watch, the payoff is mostly cosmetic. Perhaps because In the Company of Men was such a total triumph of form, means, and content, everything else LaBute does will seem diminished by comparison. He has certainly carved out an identity for himself as our smartest scenarist of the dark side of human nature. Whether many of us will want to look is another question entirely. (8/21/98)
Dobie
HAROLD AND MAUDE (1972) D: Hal Ashby; with Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon. This comic cult classic about the relationship between a suicidal 20-year-old man and a colorful 79-year-old woman is like religion for some. The music is by Cat Stevens. (PG, 90 min.) @Alamo Drafthouse; Thu, midnight.
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 22 years straight. Well, more or less straight. So if you've been searching for the way home to Transylvania or are merely curious about perusing a weekend excursion, this show is your winning ticket. In the meantime, you can check out the Austin group's Web site:http://www.kdi.com/~riffraff/queerios.
(R, 95 min.) @ Wells Branch Discount Cinema;
midnight, Fri-Sat.
AUSTIN FILM SOCIETY "Decadence & Melodrama: A Rainer Werner Fassbinder Retrospective":
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1969)
D: R.W. Fassbinder; with Peer Raben, Harry Baer, Hanna Schygulla, Irm Hermann, Kurt Raab, Ingrid Caven, Ulli Lommel. Cinéma vérité meets Grand Guignol in Fassbinder's painstaking portrait of an average working man who one day inexplicably clobbers to death his family and neighbors. Ultimately, the reasons why Herr R. runs amok is something like the reason why the chicken crosses the road. (NR, 88 min.) @Alamo Drafthouse; Tue, 7 & 9:30pm; free admission.
CINEMATEXAS INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM, VIDEO, & NEW MEDIA FESTIVAL:
CinemaTexas presents its third annual festival devoted to the art of short films from around the world. The festival continues throughout the weekend with special programs of competition films, surveys of Mexican and Cuban national cinemas, a presentation by Richard Linklater of his favorite short films, and a collection of shorts made by the jury panelists. Call 471-6497 or see http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~cinematx for more info. @Texas Union, Alamo Drafthouse, and Ritz Lounge; Wed (9/16)-Sun (9/20).
IMAX THEATRE (San Antonio):
Everest (1998) D: Greg MacGillivray, David Breashears, Stephen Judson; narrated by Liam Neeson. This new Imax film showcases the splendors of Mt. Everest and was filmed during the fateful 1996 expedition when several mountain climbers died. (NR, 44 min.) All seating is assigned and may be purchased in advance. Other daily shows include Alamo: The Price of Freedom, Whales, and conventional 35mm theatrical screenings each evening. For more info and reservations, call 800/354-4629.@Imax Theatre in San Antonio; Fri-Thu.
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