BURNT BY THE SUN
D: Nikita Mikhalkov; with Mikhalkov, Nadia Mikhalkov, Oleg Menchikov, Ingeborga Dapkounaite, Andre Oumansky, Viatcheslav Tikhonov.Set against the backdrop of the Russian countryside under Stalin’s rule, this Oscar-winner for best foreign film is a brilliant, Chekhovian meditation on trust, love, and the intrusive horrors that period of time brought to otherwise normal families. It’s 1936 and retired military hero Serguei Kotov (director Mikhalkov) is enjoying the warm, restless summer with his extended family at their dacha just outside Moscow. Into this postcard-perfect picture of lazy familial bliss steps an outsider: Mitia (Menchikov), a long-lost family friend and, unbeknownst to Kotov, the former lover of his young wife Maroussia (Dapkounaite), who appears in disguise at first, taunting the household with rude and lusty exhortations about their various vices. Once the charade is revealed, though, Mitia is welcomed with open arms, although the purpose for his sudden and entirely unexpected return remains unknown. As Kotov’s relationship with his wife begins to show some strain, he stumbles across the truth of Maroussia’s former relationship with Mitia, which naturally sets off a series of emotional fireworks between all three. Meanwhile, the visitor has become increasingly and unpleasantly close to Kotov’s six-year-old daughter. Family members – not the least of whom is Kotov himself – are beginning to suspect that there is more to Mitia than they suspect. Mikhalov’s film moves in and out of so many different emotional levels so fluidly, that when the worst finally comes, you barely notice it, as though it had been there all along. Mikhalkov’s portrait of a Russian family circa the mid-Thirties is obviously heartfelt and touching in its pleasant ordinariness. Everyday actions take on a shimmering golden glow here; family baths, dinners, and verbal sparring flow so naturally through this film that it’s almost as if someone had taken a home movie of your old-country grandparents. Add to this heady brew Mikhalkov’s surreal (and occasionally mystifying) use of film symbolism, and you have one of the most interesting, and engrossing, Russian films in years, one that runs the gamut from love to hate to fear and back again, all of it presided over by the omniscient shadow of Joseph Stalin.
4.0 stars (M.S.)
Village
New Review
AMATEUR
D: Hal Hartley; with Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan, Elina Lowensohn, Damian Young.A Hal Hartley film is an acquired taste. A viewer can slip in and out of appreciation for Hartley’s work, but it takes a true Hartley-ite to champion all of his films without pause. With Amateur, Hartley has once again proven that he’s cornered the market on independent film etiquette: making the film’s narrative just left of center, casting actors with whom you’ve worked previously, having them deliver dialogue with deadpan slyness. It’s comforting that the same actors keep appearing in Hartley’s films over the years. A sense of camaraderie emanates from his films, adding to the ever-present feeling that we’re watching a film, a feeling encouraged by Hartley’s dialogue and staging. French mini-legend Huppert plays Isabelle, a former nun and self-proclaimed nymphomaniac who has yet to experience the big bang. When she befriends the battered Thomas (Donovan), an amnesia victim, she thinks that she may have found her purpose in life. Through her association with Thomas, she meets pornographic star Sofia (Lowensohn), Thomas’ estranged wife, and Edward (Young), a business associate of the couple’s. The McGuffin in Amateur involves some floppy discs and foreign arms smugglers, but the real action occurs among the characters as they try to stake out their small claim to life in the Big Apple. Isabelle, Thomas, Sofia, and Edward maintain a slightly zombified air even when they’re in hot pursuit of each other; again, Hartley’s low-key approach to directing suffuses his actors’ performances. Amateur’s pacing lulls us into a false sense of smirkiness, but two shooting incidents that happen toward the end of the film snap us to attention. As with other Hartley films, the dialogue establishes the ambiance and offers memorable moments, such as when Sofia proclaims her break with the pornographic film business and declares, “I’m going to be a mover and a shaker.” Such bold statements are truly ironic in a Hal Hartley film. These characters couldn’t generate enough focused energy to move and shake their ways out of the proverbial paper bag, and that is part of their appeal. Lowensohn and Donovan have hit their acting strides in Amateur, but for me the true star is Young as Edward. After being tortured by two henchmen looking for the elusive floppy discs, Edward roams through the rest of the film in an electrified daze, a cross between Frankenstein and Renfield. While Hartley’s past films have dealt with human interaction in a smaller setting, his latest film takes to the streets of New York where his characters have, in a sense, grown up. But while they’re living on their own, they’re still amateurs at life. Amateur offers the inimitable Hartley style with a harder edge than his earlier films, and while the thriller elements of Amateur prove entertaining on a bigger scale, this entertainment may not endure for viewers not completely committed to Amateur’s characters and Hartley’s slow-motion storytelling.
3.0 stars (A.M.)
Village
THE GLASS SHIELD
D: Charles Burnett; with Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, Ice Cube, Elliott Gould, Richard Anderson, Don Harvey, Michael Ironside, M. Emmet Walsh, Roy Bush, Bernie Casey.The movie starts off with bright, full-frame cartoon images: car chases, slam-bang action, heroic arrests. A dialogue bubble declares that these actions have earned a gold shield for the peace officer involved. Cut to a live-action shot of J.J. Johnson (Boatman), who has just graduated from the police academy. It’s clear that the cartoon images are his long-held dream of life as a cop: good guys catching bad guys. J.J. enthusiastically embraces his new assignment as the first black cop in an all-white sheriff’s station. He is not embraced with equal enthusiasm by his new colleagues. Racism certainly has something to do with J.J.’s cool reception, but his lockout stems more from the group’s tight-knit history and its treatment of everyone outside its circle as an outsider. Also blackballed is Deputy Deborah Fields (Petty), who is not only the first female in this squad but the only Jew as well. (Problem: It’s not like we can check her circumcision or anything, but Tank Girl as a believable Jew is a tough sell. Moreover, has anyone ever heard of a uniformed Jewish female cop?) Anyway, this station is riddled with deep-rooted corruption and it all comes to a head for J.J. when an innocent black man (quite effectively played by Ice Cube) is framed for the murder of the wife of a prominent white citizen (Gould, in a role that has more than a passing resemblance to Boston’s Charles Stuart fiasco from a few years back). Subplots begin arising from every direction, which, while helping to round out the character of J.J., can also lead to confusion and a surplus of details. That gold shield from the cartoon panels at the film’s beginning has now acquired a transparency for J.J. through which he can vividly see the guts of the beast. Hounded by his fellow police officers and misunderstood by his family and community who have never understood his desire to enter law enforcement, J.J. is stuck in the position of figuring out for himself the difference between right and wrong. The Glass Shield is an ambitious and challenging work, qualities which have become synonymous with Charles Burnett’s film output (The Killing Floor, To Sleep With Anger). While this current police drama has a harder edge to it than his more folkloric and imaginative previous work, The Glass Shield still retains Burnett’s sensitivity to the inner workings of the black American family and community. His is a singular talent and though The Glass Shield gets bogged down in some of its narrative byways, the journey, nonetheless, is rich and rewarding.
3.0 stars (M.B.)
Highland, Riverside
MAMMA ROMA
D: Pier Paolo Pasolini; with Anna Magnani, Ettore Garofolo, Franco Citti, Silvana Corsini, Luisa Orioli, Paolo Volponi, Luciano Gonini.Pasolini’s 1962 film has finally (!) made it stateside, and it’s about time. Well-known on the continent as one of the eccentric director’s early masterpieces, Mamma Roma has been curiously overlooked in America. No more, I suspect. Pasolini’s document of an aging prostitute’s love for her teenage son and her misguided attempts to control him is a punchy, gorgeous masterpiece, filled to bursting with the director’s trademark dialogue, early neo-realism, and enough beautiful cinematography (by Tonino Delli Colli, of Once Upon a Time in the West, Seven Beauties, and Polanski’s recent Death and the Maiden) to bring most any lover of films to his or her knees. Magnani is the titular Mamma Ro’, who celebrates the marriage of her pimp by shuttling off to the countryside to pick up her semi-estranged son Ettore (Garofolo, looking for all the world like a cross between Leonardo DiCaprio and a young Quentin Tarantino) and begin her life anew. It’s a Pasolini film, so naturally things fall apart almost instantly: Ettore begins hanging out with the local bad girl, his friends try to talk him into petty theft (and succeed, with disastrous results), and Mamma herself finds that just because a pimp is married doesn’t automatically mean he’s gone. Tragedy is the beat here, and Colli’s shots of the desolate Rome landscape (it’s all weathered ruins interspersed with ghastly Sixties architecture) help keep the overbearing use of Vivaldi at bay. Magnani’s Mamma Ro’ is a marvel to behold; although on-set tensions were reportedly hot between the director and his leading lady, Magnani is perfect as the loud, abrasive, vulgar, and thoroughly alive Mamma Ro’. It’s a sumptuous role, one that requires intense knowledge of both physical acting (the character, like the film, never stops moving: She’s always walking, dancing, shouting, like some primordial element let loose in modern-day Rome) and the subtlety of a nuanced performance, and Magnani pulls it off terrifically. Garofolo and a cast of mostly non-professional actors make up the rest of the film’s winningly realistic performances and add tremendously to Pasolini’s depiction of 1962 Rome as a place of seedy honor, a place where even a lifelong whore can attempt to set her life in order one last time.
4.0 stars (M.S.)
Hogg
POCAHONTAS
D: Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg; with the voices of Irene Bedard, Judy Kuhn, Mel Gibson, David Ogden Stiers, Russell Means, Linda Hunt.Here is a movie that knows its target audience. Pocahontas’ arrow, tipped with tender romance and feathered with spirited folklore, hits the bulls-eye dead on. If you can get past the frenzied hype of a Central Park happening and a liberal license with historical accuracy (and I challenge you to show me a 7-year old who can’t), this latest Disney effort rivals the animated features from the fabled studio’s heyday. Like the best Disney cartoons, Pocahontas is both resplendent and restrained. The rousing action sequences are brief but compelling counterpoints to the beautiful simplicity of the piece. The animation is wonderful. The human characters, especially, are skillfully drawn, full of subtle nuance and graceful movement. Pocahontas is lovely and while the animators have succumbed to the modern day heroine’s seeming requisite – impossible Barbie doll physiology – they have also imbued her with a spirit so innocent and a bearing so noble that it precludes a too-lascivious allure. The characters are nicely vocalized, the studio scoring a magnificent coup with Russell Means’ portrayal of Pocahontas’ father, Chief Powhatan. He and Irene Bednard bring to life the warm relationship of a father and daughter whose mutual love and respect gives them strength and compassion and a great capacity for listening to, and learning from, one another. Mel Gibson (John Smith), as it turns out, can carry a tune, and what tunes he gets to carry! Composer Allen Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) is back, and his music lifts the movie to lofty heights. Unlike so many film composers of late, Menken knows when to keep quiet and when to let loose his powerful score. That power soars through its centerpiece (and no doubt Oscar-bound) song, “Colors of the Wind,” performed by Judy Kuhn. In that splendid musical sequence, Pocahontas takes Captain Smith on a whirlwind tour of her land, introducing him to her people’s way of living in harmony with nature. As she sings, she becomes part of the wind, a pastel image at once ethereal and earthbound. And, at the final refrain of the song, a soft, reedy chorus rose up around me – a theatreful of equally ethereal voices. Voices of little girls who, on this Saturday morning, were rapt passengers on a magical voyage painted with all the colors of the wind.
3.5 stars (H.C.)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock
A TASTE OF KILLING AND ROMANCE
D: Veronica Chan; with Andy Lau Tak-wah, Anitia Yuen Wing-yee, Waise Lee Chi-hung.This decent, if wholly unremarkable, melodramatic action picture marks the feature debut of director Veronica Chan, who attempts here to revive the Eighties brand of “Heroic Bloodshed” gunplay epics with disappointingly scattershot, and occasionally tired, results. The plot follows two killers-for-hire, played by pop icon Andy Lau (Savior of the Soul) and overexposed cutie-pie Anita Yuen (She Is a Man, He Is a Woman), who, not unlike the title assassin in John Woo’s The Killer, have a strict code of ethics, and rub out only “bad guys” who are supposedly above the law. The pair eventually meet and fall in love, but are then hired to take each other out, which sends our lovelorn killers on the run. A gang of heavily armed mobsters and one determined cop (essayed by Bullet in the Head’s Waise Lee) follow in hot pursuit. For my money, a plot like this screams out for at least a touch of knowing humor to accommodate the ludicrous goings-on, but A Taste of Killing and Romance is played far too straightly, occasionally bringing about some unintentional laughter. To make matters worse, stars Lau and Yuen, while both attractive and capable performers, just aren’t at their best when playing such stone-faced “serious” roles, and as a result, their performances seem uncharacteristically stiff and heavy-handed. Despite these faults, the film does manage to entertain, thanks to director Chan’s sense of style and a few key scenes of jolting violence – some of which were trimmed down for the picture’s Mandarin language videocassette release. All in all, it’s not necessarily bad, but not exactly anything special either. Great title, though….
2.0 stars (J.O.)
Hogg
First Run
BATMAN FOREVER
D: Joel Schumacher; with Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Nicole Kidman, Chris O’Donnell, Michael Gough, Drew Barrymore.Batman forever… and ever… and – yawn – ever. This third installment in what, previously, was a deliciously gothic take on the Dark Knight drags on interminably, filled to bursting with all kinds of spectacular, violet-hued explosions, pithily cumbersome one-liners, and enough ham-handed psychotherapeutic explanations for Batman’s noblesse oblige – from Nicole Kidman, no less – to choke Freud for days. Director Schumacher, taking the reins this time from Tim Burton, who instead fills in as producer, is, of course, an old hand at cinematic bombast, having churned out such previous exercises in aesthetically void sound and fury as Flatliners and The Lost Boys. Batman Forever is no exception to his personal rule of film as cultural static: There’s so much and so little going on here simultaneously that you’re not sure whether to squirm or doze. Finally, MTV has been topped. Kilmer, who replaces the genuinely interesting Michael Keaton as the caped crusader, has little of the manic, psychologically warped gleam that his predecessor brought to the role. Instead, he plays it for cheap laughs, spouting a veritable fusillade of wry tidbits that sound as though they were culled directly from some aborted Bruce Willis vehicle. Screenwriters Lee and Janet Batchler forsake the more adult-oriented aspects of the first two films (not to mention the story itself, if you’re in the mood to quibble about trivialities), and instead head directly into territory staked out by the campy Batman television show of the mid-Sixties: All that’s missing is the cartoony “Pow!” after every well-connected punch. Jones and Carrey – as Two-Face and the Riddler, respectively – are the film’s saving graces, as villains are wont to be in this sort of adolescent exercise. Carrey positively thrives in this sort of role; he’s inherited the same twisted, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink comic glee that older members of the audience will recall from Robin Williams’ glory days. His Riddler is a whirlwind of absurd posturings and fevered, maniacal obsessions; Frank Gorshin’s TV portrayal seems pre-Cambrian by comparison. Jones does his best to keep up (no mean feat under all those layers of shoddy latex scar tissue), but it’s Carrey’s show all the way. When he’s off the screen, the film bogs down in Kilmer’s bland surfer-boy good looks, Kidman’s preposterous (and marginally offensive) sexual high jinks, or O’Donnell’s “Origin of Robin, the Boy Wonder” subplottings. Holy story line gone awry, Batdude! Even the most inspired use of the word “bifurcated” I’ve ever heard in a motion picture can’t save this molten chunk of pop-culture cheese-whiz from sinking under its own ridiculous weight. Batman forever? Does that mean Jon Lovitz as Egghead next time around? Sandra Bullock as Batgirl? Better stop before I give Joel Silver any ideas.
2.0 stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Highland, Lake Creek, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
CONGO
D: Frank Marshall; with Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney, Tim Curry, Ernie Hudson, Joe Don Baker.Congo has everything – civil war, exploding airplanes, deranged hippos, rumbling volcanoes, murderous gorillas – and that’s its trouble: It suffocates you with one faux thrill after another. Jawdroppingly bad, this adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1980 novel about a talking ape named Amy and a fabled lost city deep in the jungles of central Africa is as sophisticated in execution as a Jungle Jim movie. The clich�s abound (I kept waiting for someone to mutter, “The natives are getting restless”), while the multi-million-dollar special effects look cheesy (the molten lava at the film’s end gurgles across the screen like runny pizza sauce). Had Congo employed the breakneck pace of action-adventure films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, its shortcomings might have seemed less obvious. But with Spielberg prot�g� Marshall behind the camera, you’re painfully aware of every ridiculous moment. (Didn’t Steven teach you anything, Frank?) Equal fault must lie with fallen-from-grace screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck), whose script either uses a sledgehammer to communicate exposition or spits out critical explanations with the clarity of static. The actors in this misfire resort to affecting strange accents to compensate for the absence of dimension in their characters: Hudson finds creative solace in talking like Thurston Howell III, and – in the role of a Romanian treasure hunter looking for the riches of King Solomon’s mines – Curry does Bela Lugosi with a mouth full of marbles. Most embarrassingly, Linney is called upon to be the film’s �ber-gal, a telecommunications genius with a Ph.D., a former CIA operative who can handle any kind of firearm, and a chic dresser who always looks fresh on safari in her crisp Banana Republic ensembles. Only Amy, the precocious gorilla who communicates through sign language, comes off looking good in Congo, probably because she has the least amount of dialogue. By the time she’s saved her teacher Walsh from killer apes and survived a cataclysmic eruption – all in the film’s last 15 minutes – it’s no small wonder that she’s ready to find a home in the mist with her new simian family. Like the audience of Congo, she’s had enough of this monkey business.
0 stars (S.D.)
Arbor, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM
Producer: Jean Bach and Matthew Seig; writers: Bach, Seig, and Susan Peehl; editor: Peehl; narrator: Quincy Jones.This hour-long documentary is the story of a photograph: a fascinating story about a fortuitous moment frozen in time, a moment that innocently bares the bedrock of an era, a transitory moment that can now become a fertile doorway. Fifty-seven New York City jazz musicians gathered for this photograph, which was shot one summer morning in 1958 on the steps of a brownstone on 126th Street. The movie tells the story of how such an unprecedented number of jazz notables assembled on this particular day at 10am (an ungodly hour for any working musician) to record this image. The movie also uses this photograph as a stimulus for anecdotal reminiscences by the surviving musicians. These contemporary interviews cover the individuals’ memories of the event, as well as their free-ranging thoughts about the styles, habits, contributions, and innovations of their friends and fellow musicians. It’s like one big, tasty jazz alphabet soup or, as Stephen Holden put it in a New York Times review, the photograph is “akin to a jazz version of Proust’s madeleine.” From these interviews with people such as Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Marian McPartland, Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, club owner Bud Freeman, and others, insights are offered about things as various as the differences between the styles of Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, the talent and breakthroughs of Mary Lou Williams, the genius and intrinsic morality of Thelonious Monk, the not-forgotten brilliance of Red Allen and Rex Stewart, the prediction that in 100 years Pee Wee Russell’s clarinet style will be better remembered than Benny Goodman’s, and succinct comments such as Bud Freeman’s remark about Count Basie, “Everything he did swung.” The photograph was, originally, the idea of then Esquire art-staff member Robert Benton (later to become a writer and film director) for a January 1959 issue celebrating jazz. Freelance art director Art Kane was hired, and an open invitation was extended to jazz musicians throughout New York to assemble at this certain time and place. Everyone was surprised by the big turnout, and the gathering grew into a nearly unmanageable event that took the inexperienced and awed young Kane at least a couple of hours to shoot decently. Other images of the event were captured by Milt and Mona Hinton, who brought an 8mm camera with them that morning. These images are also used to amplify other angles on that frozen moment in time. Outside footage is also used to provide examples of individual music styles and history. Constant samples of music riffs embed the storytelling in an ever-changing background of jazz sounds. The copystand camerawork that animates the still images is about as fluid and expressive as I’ve ever seen. Curiously, A Great Day in Harlem lists no single individual as director, seeming to favor recognition of the collaborative efforts of the core production group spearheaded by self-confessed “jazz groupie” Jean Bach. Sometimes, the movie’s freewheeling narration feels scattered as it jumps from one topic and personality to another. Though a more associative order might benefit the film, its randomness does not impede its understandability and, in a sense, it’s true to jazz’s improvisatory nature. Within the constraints of its one-hour running time, this movie packs numerous lifetimes of tidbits. A Great Day in Harlem is the story of a shot that ought to be heard around the world.
4.0 stars (M.B.)
Village
Still Playing
BRAVEHEART
D: Mel Gibson; with Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan, Catherine McCormack, Angus McFadyen, Brenden Gleeson.In the late 13th century, there was a historical person named William Wallace. Then there is this splendid, rousing adventure by Mel Gibson, a deliberate heroic myth-making tale that combines history with fantasy. Gibson, who starred, produced, and directed, audaciously presents this as a classic adventure, without apology. Although it presents complex political relationships, these are mostly entanglements designed to complicate and enhance the plot rather than pose real ideological or historical relationships. Gibson plays fast and free with history, but Braveheart is a film of romance, of legend, of possibility, and of freedom. Deftly, Gibson directs this epic along; with most of the story racing to reach the screen, the almost three-hour film rarely drags until just before the end, and even then, redeems itself. This is a movie of warfare, of smoke, of blood, and of fire. Although Gibson occasionally overuses slow motion, the whole film is beautiful (shot by Legends of the Fall cinematographer John Toll), and the battle scenes are splendid. Outside of celebrating violence, freedom, liberty, and the rights of the people against the uncaring nobles – all as extremely broad and nonspecific concepts – Braveheart offers no real vision. But it is a most thrilling epic; the scope is grand and the acting ideal for the film.
4.0 stars (L.B.)
Arbor, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Lincoln, Movies 12, Riverside, Roundrock
THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
D: Clint Eastwood; with Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Annie Corley, Victor Slezak, Jim Haynie.Of all people, who would have thought Clint Eastwood would be the one to breathe fresh life into the stagnant genre of women’s film melodrama? Clearly, Bridges is a movie Eastwood very much wanted to make; not only does he co-star, he also directs and co-produces. Eastwood has always been one to flex his screen persona, so it’s not that unusual that he chose to play the role of the sensitive photographer and lover, Robert Kincaid. His real stroke of genius, though, was casting Meryl Streep as Francesca Johnson, the story’s Italian-born Iowa housewife. It’s one of Streep’s truly great performances. Bridges is punctuated by more awkward scenes of Francesca’s grown children discovering the existence of her long-ago affair. But, for the most part, Richard LaGravenese’s script strips the best-selling novel of its purple prose, while retaining the drama at the heart of the story. Bridges is another example of Eastwood’s remarkable economy of style as both a director and an actor. It is neither his best work nor his worst, though it is a fascinating exploration.
3.5 stars (M.B.)
Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lakehills, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Roundrock
CASPER
D: Brad Silberling; Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, Cathy Moriarty, Eric Idle, Malachi Pearson as the voice of Casper.At its best, which is when it’s exploiting both its eye-popping special effects and delicious production design (the interior of the haunted mansion is truly awe-inspiring), Casper proves itself to be passable, if mindless, kiddie fare. At its worst, Casper continually resorts to desperate star cameos to get a rise out of the audience, lame and phony heart-tugging to get them emotionally involved (and there is more of this nonsense than you might expect), and ridiculous, coincidental plotting to make sure this thing runs at least 90 minutes. Casper is a movie that’s constantly busy… but never really going anywhere. The cast is appealing, but let’s cut to the chase, shall we? The only real reason anyone is going to see Casper is for its special effects sequences, which, thankfully, are both spectacular and frequent, though lacking a jaw-dropping sense of wonder.
2.0 stars (J.O.)
Great Hills, Highland, Lake Creek, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
CRIMSON TIDE
D: Tony Scott; with Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen, James Gandolfini, Matt Craven, Jason Robards.Submarines hold a near-mythic place in the pantheon of Great American Male Film Fantasies, and this juggernaut of a movie plays right into these childlike fantasies. Scott’s film posits a sudden takeover by rebel Russian soldiers of various strategic nuclear arsenals and the West’s alarm over such an occurrence. Sent in to “give the rebels pause” are Captain Ramsey (Hackman) and Executive Officer Hunter (Washington). Once on board the sub, the two men find themselves not only in close quarters but also in constant conflict, as the complex, Harvard- and Annapolis-educated Hunter and the crusty, combat-hungry Ramsey engage in their own verbal and psychological war while the real thing waits just around the corner. Scott is a master of slick action films, and Crimson Tide is beautiful to look at. The central conflict between Hackman and Washington, though, quickly becomes bogged down in unintentional war movie clich�s as the two act and react to each other (especially in Hackman’s overwrought, bombastic performance) like a pair of noisy schoolchildren. Their conflict has all the subtlety of a torpedo. Go see it, get the adrenaline rush; it’s noisy and fun, but that’s all it is.
3.0 stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Highland, Lake Creek, Movies 12, Roundrock, Westgate
DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE
D: John McTiernan; with Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, Colleen Camp.Continuing the unlikely adventures of beleaguered NYPD cop John McClane (Willis), this third installment unfortunately forsakes much of the occasionally clever, somewhat wry dialogue and situations of its predecessors in favor of a more generic action-adventure approach that piles on stunt after stunt, explosion atop explosion, and leaves you with nothing so much as a headache and the notion that the Die Hard franchise is indeed dead. McTiernan is an old hand at actioners and, like the pro he is, keeps the film rushing along from fiery stunt to stunt. But after an hour or so you find yourself wishing for fewer big bangs and more pithy extemporizing from Willis, one of the few humanistic – albeit contrived – aspects from the series’ previous outings. Thankfully, Irons keeps the film from sinking too far into dismal self-mockery with a bravura, nicely twisted performance.
2.0 stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Lincoln, Movies 12, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate
THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN
D: Christopher Monger; with Hugh Grant, Colm Meany, Tara Fitzgerald, Ian McNeice, Kenneth Griffith.Perhaps it is because in a country as small as Wales, with such tiny villages where so many share the same surname and where nearly everyone knows everything about one another, local events are reduced to a nearly microscopic level. That trait, combined with a fierce patriotism for a country which has struggled to maintain its own cultural identity, requires that the inhabitants of the village Ffynnon Garw make a mountain out of a hill. Which, of course, is the subject of The Englishman Who Went up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, a gentle comedy based on a true story passed down to the film’s director and writer by his grandfather. Rich in lush Welsh landscape and eccentric characters, Monger’s Englishman provides a look, both sweet and sly, at a place most people only know of through Dylan Thomas or Richard Burton. Hugh Grant shines as the reluctant hero. The picture’s deadpan humor and quiet romance is marred by a too-loud, overly dramatic score and some serious pacing problems, but nearly redeems itself with a hilarious ending.
2.0 stars (H.C.)
Great Hills
FARINELLI
D: Gerard Corbiau; with St�fan Dionisi, Enrico Lo Verso, Jeroen Krabbe, Caroline Cellier, Omero Antonutti, Renaud Du Peloux de Saint Romain.The grand, operatic gestures in Farinelli are apropos, considering its subject matter: It tells the story of Carlo Broschi, an 18th-century castrato called Farinelli, a performer with the beautiful voice of a soprano and the tortured heart of a man who can’t help but believe his gift, one deviated from nature’s course, is both a blessing and a curse. Sumptuous to look at, this recent Oscar nominee for best foreign film has contemporary resonance – as countless women swoon over the charismatic but emasculated title character, you can’t help but see parallels between this historical figure and modern-day, pop culture icons such as… Michael Jackson, perhaps? Scriptwriter Andree Corbiau has structured the film’s larger-than-life screenplay in Freudian terms in which fraternal love and guilt are inextricably intertwined. As Farinelli, Dionisi emphasizes his character’s grande-dame tendencies. It’s a performance, however, that’s little more than adequate, trading more on superficialities than any true emotion. Despite its aspirations, however, Farinelli doesn’t always soar with the beauty and feeling of its castrato’s arias. But there’s no question that it hits a couple of high notes.
3.0 stars (S.D.)
Village
FORGET PARIS
D: Billy Crystal; with Crystal, Debra Winger, Joe Mantegna, Cynthia Stevenson, Richard Masur, Julie Kavner, William Hickey, Robert Constanzo, John Spencer, Cathy Moriarty.Forget Paris is not a total bust: It does have a few very funny scenes and gags. Billy Crystal can be a genuinely funny guy. But why does he insist on having all the marbles? Not simply a star, Crystal is now his own producer and writer, as well as his own leading man. Crystal’s self-inflation factor is exactly what is wrong with Forget Paris: too much Crystal and not enough substance. The movie recounts the bumpy path of romance traveled by Mickey (Crystal) and Ellen (Winger) told in continuing segments by a slow-gathering ensemble of old friends of the couple. The better we get to know Mickey and Ellen, the less appealing the two steadily become. Neither is there any “chemistry” or believable passion in the pairing of Crystal and Winger. This is only made more painful by the awareness that all the other assembled couples are infinitely more interesting than Mickey and Ellen. Only William Hickey emerges unscathed in his on-target portrayal of a just-this-side-of-senile father-in-law. Ever wonder what happens after the ellipses in When Harry Met Sally…? Forget Paris provides the answer in the form of When Mickey Met Ellen….
1.5 stars (M.B.)
Great Hills, Highland, Westgate
FRIDAY
D: F. Gary Gray; with Ice Cube, Chris Tucker, Nia Long, Anna Maria Horsford, Regina King, Bernie Mac, John Witherspoon.Friday is a refreshingly lighthearted look at day-to-day life in the inner city. It suffers from a few problems in the scripting and directing departments, but entertains nonetheless, thanks mainly to the easygoing style of its talented cast. Rich in lowbrow laughs, Friday’s most obvious strength is its energetic cast, led by rap superstar Ice Cube and stand-up comedian Chris Tucker. The downside? Well, F. Gary Gray’s direction is painfully flat, and curiously – especially for a popular music video director like Gray – lacking any interesting visual style. Another drawback is the scattershot script by Ice Cube and fellow rap star D.J. Pooh, which runs out of ideas about halfway through and sets up a bizarre finale. Despite its faults, Friday is lively entertainment, full of personable actors and cheerfully served up with nary a trace of cynicism.
2.5 stars (J.O)
Highland
FUNNY BONES
D: Peter Chelsom; with Oliver Platt, Lee Evans, George Carl, Freddie Davies, Leslie Caron, Jerry Lewis, Richard Griffiths, Oliver Reed, Ruta Lee, Harold Nicholas.Funny Bones is a wonderfully eccentric movie, one whose narrative advancement occurs more through epiphanies than events. Unfolding in what seems, at first, quite a random fashion, the viewer must trust that the movie will, ultimately, come together and deliver a payoff. Funny Bones rewards that trust handsomely. In its odd mixture of comic and serious tones, as well as its strong sense of place, Funny Bones resembles Chelsom’s last film, Hear My Song. The movie also functions at a level beyond the pure narrative; it provides a sort of ongoing meta-commentary on such thorny issues as mortality and the essential nature of comedy. Despite this dark center, Funny Bones is side-splittingly hilarious, with wonderful performances by the likes of a near-perfect Jerry Lewis, English variety artists George Carl and Freddie Davies, newcomer Lee Evans, trouper Leslie Caron, and lead man Oliver Platt. Oddities are the stuff of this universe. The most significant contribution of Funny Bones may be the way it celebrates the act of dancing on the edge, the way a true artist needs to push the borders and venture into the dangerous beyond. Lovingly recapturing the visual texture of the past while embracing the artistic challenges of the future, Funny Bones is a rare contemporary delight.
4.0 stars (M.B.)
Village
A LITTLE PRINCESS
D: Alfonso Cuaron; with Eleanor Bron, Liam Cunningham, Liesel Matthews, Vanessa Lee Chester, Rusty Schwimmer, Errol Sitahal, Heather DeLoach.Director Alfonso Cuaron, in his first American movie, has fashioned a world so real and so engaging that you can feel it and smell it and taste it as surely as if you were there. Based on the Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden) novel, A Little Princess tells the tale of 10-year-old Sarah, who moves from India to Miss Minchin’s School for Girls in America when her widowed father is called to fight in World War I. At first, Sarah’s loneliness and aversion to her new prim and stuffy surroundings is buffered by Miss Minchin’s desire to please the affluent Captain Crewe and by her own affinity for the magic of make-believe. She shares the lore of her beloved India with her fellow students and with the serving girl, Becky, who quickly become an avid audience for tales romantic. But when Captain Crewe is reported killed in action, Sarah becomes a penniless orphan and is exiled to the attic with Becky to earn her keep. Now it is Becky and the other girls who must keep the magic of hope alive for Sarah. From the exquisite costumes to the remarkable set design to the superb performances, this fairy tale comes to life in a way that makes you despair when it ends.
4.0 stars (H.C.)
Great Hills
MAD LOVE
D: Antonia Bird; with Drew Barrymore, Chris O’Donnell, Amy Sakasitz, T.J. Lowther, Joan Allen, Jude Ciccolella, Kevin Dunn.While watching Mad Love, the warning “Kids, don’t try this at home” kept running through my head. Although Barrymore and O’Donnell perform well as high school seniors Casey and Matt in director Bird’s (Priest) tale of young love and manic depression/schizophrenia, these weighty issues aren’t treated with respect. In turn, the viewer is pandered to, just as these high school students are in the film. Yes, humor helps when tough issues are tackled on screen, but the film’s presentation of Casey’s clinical depression and her relationship with Matt echoes many after-school specials in that problems are solved, people are cured, and love really does conquer all, although in this case, sex may be the operative term. Mad Love presents a sensitive subject (here, manic depression) in a slick, relatively tidy package in which too much material is crammed into too little screen time. The last third of Mad Love hints at what this film could have been if treated as less of a music video for the Seattle scene and more of a film about a young woman struggling to live a regular life as a teenager and cope with mental illness. Even though Barrymore and O’Donnell are both in their mid-twenties and a little hard to believe as high school seniors, their romantic chemistry does have its moments.
2.0 stars (A.M.)
Movies 12
MY FAMILY, MI FAMILIA
D: Gregory Nava; with Jimmy Smits, Esai Morales, Eduardo Lopez Rojas, Jenny Gago, Elpidia Carrillo, Constance Marie, Edward James Olmos.Gregory Nava’s (El Norte) most recent film spans 50 years in the life of the Sanchez family, a Mexican-American clan whose roots in the United States date back to the 1920s in Los Angeles. The film’s epic proportions occasionally diminish into blips in the family’s history as the action takes place in various decades. These 20-year shifts are problematic in terms of developing any real connections with characters. Scenes that attempt to depict the problematic integration of American culture with the Sanchez’s Mexican heritage groan under the burden of representing years of stereotypes. My Family, Mi Familia’s cast represents some powerhouse acting talents, yet the film loses steam because of weak dialogue and underdeveloped characters. My Family, Mi Familia seems to speed through the important developments in this family’s history. While the current state of Hollywood cinema calls out for a strong epic film about Mexican-American life (or any non-Caucasian life, for that matter), Nava’s film does not fill that void.
2.5 stars (A.M.)
Highland
THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH
D: John Sayles; with Jeni Courtney, Eileen Colgan, Mick Lally, Richard Sheridan, John Lynch, Gerard Rooney, Susan Lynch, Cillian Byrne.As The Secret of Roan Inish unfolds, we are led back in time to ancient days when wind and land and sea and beasts and folk lived with an unbroken bond among them, when seals and humans shared the island Roan Inish and tales of selkies – seals who could take the form of humans – were more than legend. Sayles’ new film is a swirl of mystery and enchantment, of romance between men and mystical creatures, of a baby abducted by animals, of his sister who resolves to win him back and in so doing restore her family’s place on Roan Inish. It’s a tale of old ties that we’ve set aside but which are still important and for which we still yearn, and Sayles tells it in a remarkable way, in a swirl of history, nature, and folklore that speaks to all ages. He doesn’t so much “capture” the rhythm and spirit of Irish coastal life as ride alongside them, matching their pace and rising and falling with them, like a seal through the tide. The atmosphere of this world is thick and pungent; it washes over us in the lyrical language, in the lovely performances, in the sounds of Uillean pipes and penny whistles on Mason Daring’s Celtic score, in the crisp cinematography of Haskell Wexler. Roan Inish conjures magic, but does so without relying on technical wizardry. Instead, it creates wonder in the unexpected.
4.0 stars (R.F.)
Dobie
SHALLOW GRAVE
D: Danny Boyle; with Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor, Keith Allen, Ken Stott, Colin McRedie.From its opening titles, you know you’re in for something different, something wild. First-time director Boyle scores impressively with this Scottish tale of greed, murder, and the quest for a perfect flatmate that echoes everything from Alan Parker’s The Commitments to The Treasure of Sierra Madre, and never feels anything but wholly original. Boyle keeps the proceedings quick and humorous, despite the gravity of the story. It’s as much a comedy about the modern foibles of roommates as it is a psychological suspense drama, and his camerawork is top-shelf, heightening both the panicky tension that rises as the film moves forward and the desperate comic air the film maintains throughout. For their parts, all three leads are mini-masterpieces of audacious, thoroughly believable acting. Shallow Grave is a bracing, beautifully filmed black comedy-cum-horror show that grabs hold of you in the first few minutes and then refuses to let you go until the bitter, shocking end. Brilliant.
4.0 stars (M.S.)
Dobie
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
D: Jon Turtletaub; with Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, Glynis Johns, Micole Mercurio.From the man who brought us the bizarre Disney hit Cool Runnings and – ouch! – 3 Ninjas, comes this love story: lite, a frothy bit of fluff that goes down as easily as cotton candy and almost as nutritiously. It’s charming, in its own little way, but really, this film has as much substance as a Cirrus cloud, despite fine turns from Boyle as the family patriarch and Warden as Godfather Saul. Bullock, as always, is so goonily charming, it’s all you can do not to leap up and try to hug her. In essence, While You Were Sleeping is a swell date movie: romantic, sweet without being cloying, and light on its feet. But that’s all it is.
2.5 stars (M.S.)
Arbor, Highland, Movies 12, Westgate
Previews
This article appears in June 23 • 1995 and June 23 • 1995 (Cover).