31 January 2001

When Luxembourg wants to make a movie, what’s a country to do? What if the director of Nosferatu, frustrated by his inability to secure the rights to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, contracted with a real vampire for his production? Since we are treated to scene after scene with handcranked cameras on tripods filming individual cuts, but are shown assembled scenes of the developed film complete with cutaways, pick up shots, and changes of angle, a realistic re-creation of moviemaking in 1921 cannot be expected. And casting John Malkovich as the director F. W. Murnau is like casting Jack Nicholson in The Shining—someone is bound to slip into madness before it is all over. Did I like it? Willem Defoe, unrecognizable under the prosthetics as the vampire Count Orlok playing the unknown actor Max Schreck in the role of Count Orlok, is worth the admission despite his broad chin. There is the hint of a theme through his performance that intrigued me, his vampire is very occasionally seen as fascinated by modernity. What a difference hair color makes, I did not recognize Catherine McCormack (Dangerous Beauty) either!

92 minutes

27 January 2001

What was Stephen Hunter’s problem with this movie? (Hunter is the reviewer for the Style section of The Washington Post. He is so wrong about Kevin Pollak’s presence in the movie.) Was there not enough guns in it for him or something? If Sandra Bullock can have her While You Were Sleeping, why then Jennifer Lopez may have this bit of romantic fluff. There was trouble in some quarters when the Puerto Rican Lopez played the Selena of Mexican ethnicity. Which Italian will be willing to speak up about her casting this time? Mary (Lopez) is a self-described control freak who plans mega-weddings but has been out of the dating scene for a while. When her desire to salvage a Gucci shoe from a manhole cover overrides any instinct for self-preservation in the face of a runaway dumpster, Steve (Matthew McConaughey) steps in to rescue her and her shoe. Aw, he’s a pediatrician. But he’s unavailable and she must muster all her professionality to complete the preparations for the mega-wedding of all mega-weddings for Fran (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, who seems to have appended a name since her credit in Miss Congeniality). Did I like it? Yes. Although I suspect Selena and Out of Sight will remain her quintessential performances, Jennifer Lopez acquits herself as the generally level-headed object of affection, even if there is nothing remotely Italian about her performance. (Her character is not just of Italian ethnicity, but born in Italy and raised there for several years.) She wears a number of very nice, I suspect very expensive, sweaters.

103 minutes

26 January 2001

Ahem. I was making up the deficit I noted earlier in commenting on O Brother, Where Art Thou? I would probably recognize more of these young actresses (I mean, actors who happen to be women) if I watched more programming on the WB. I almost wish I had paid more attention to Joseph Campbell when he was on PBS because, looking back on it, the character arc played by Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On offers so much more than anything in this film: debut, setback, trial, journey, self-discovery, triumph; there must be some terms that explain why it satisfied and this otherwise seemingly-similar movie about cheerleaders seems weak. Though I must say it was a hoot to see who was willing to play the incarcerated mother of one of the cheerleaders. Imagine the pitch: it’ll be Reservoir Dogs with cheerleaders, and just to make sure no one misses that, we’ll show Reservoir Dogs on-screen. I didn’t quite catch where it is supposed to be taking place, but the local police force is accredited, they have the seal on their cruisers. Did I like it? It sure was over quickly, wasn’t it? Who would have guessed a distributor would try a movie shorter than Double Take? The screenplay cheats a few too many times with characterizations, so it’s easy on the eyes but grates on the brain.

82 minutes

24 January 2001

What got critics all excited over this disgusting movie? The novelty of seeing Joaquin Phoenix playing the good guy? Or the prospect of male frontal nudity? The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is housed in the Charenton asylum for the criminally insane while the laundry maid (Kate Winslet) smuggles his depraved prose to a clandestine publisher. The Emperor Napoleon is upset at the result (Justine) and orders the Doctor Antoine Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) to assist the Abbé de Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix) in getting the most famous inmate under control. I think most of the names might be real, but the goings-on depicted as occurring in the France of 1794 I suspect are largely fictional. Is there any writing so dangerous that the state may suppress it? That is the basic question posed, while making sure we notice that the agent of censorship scandalously marries a girl too young (and unwilling) to understand his nocturnal desires. She later procures the racy novel, learns from it, and runs off with the architect. The Abbé is a century or two too early with his ideas for rehabilitation and ends up imagining a libidinous encounter with a corpse. The Marquis, whose wife finds it more convenient to keep him inside the asylum, ends his days writing in excrement. Did I like it? No. The toplessness of Kate Winslet, charmingly fleshy as she is, is getting a little routine what with Holy Smoke and Titanic.

124 minutes

19 January 2001

New York City, 1905. Let me think. The laws had changed about 55 years earlier to make prostitution actually illegal. The police force was marginally becoming more professional. Some of the streets might even have been paved. It was a lot easier to obtain toxic substances. The Balkans were on the brink of war. I thought I was just showing off, thinking about what I knew of the city and the world at that time, but it turns out that one or more of them is useful to know in foreshadowing the end of this film. It is not a happy ending. Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson), orphaned and with a small income, is living with her aunt, and she is thousands of dollars in debt for playing cards for money. She is getting old enough that the talk is that she should marry soon. But to whom? The attorney she likes very much (Eric Stoltz) but whose means are modest? The generous man (Dan Aykroyd) who expects repayment one way or the other even if he is already married? The business man (Anthony LaPaglia) who looks to marry up? Forced by budget to concentrate on costumes and interiors, this film must hang on the carefully chosen words of its central character and of those who surround her, who do not necessarily wish her well. Her position is precarious indeed. Did I like it? This is a tough one. This is not a movie to be enjoyed. But Gillian Anderson brings the integrity of Dana Scully to her performance of the woman who is too practical and too principled to thrive in her social circle. Just one thing bugged me—the husband George of the scheming Bertha (Laura Linney) sure seemed like he was one of the Kids in the Hall.

141 minutes

This release from Miramax has all the usual offenses: ogling, masturbation, peeping.... What was the point of making it in Sicily again instead of here and calling it Porky’s IV or whatever? It’s also almost like Ally McBeal in the frequency and intensity of its erotic fantasies. Naturally, because it is made by men, this is all considered a good thing. Barely a moment is wasted on the discomfort of Malèna (Monica Bellucci) walking through Castelcuto, Sicily under the stares of the citizens— sexually appraising ones from the men and the boys, condemnatory ones from the women. (In a world at war, this film curiously finds almost no place for girls.) Il Duce has just declared war on France and Great Britain (so the subtitle probably had the action start in 1940) and a young boy (Giuseppe Sulfaro) has taken a slightly more protective outlook on Malèna’s fortunes. As the years go by, he is the one joining the older boys (who never seem to get old enough to be inducted) in the ogling and masturbating and spends his evenings peering through a hole in the shutters at Malèna’s house. (For that matter, in a world at war, where is she getting the high heeled shoes—which give her no trouble on the cobblestones?) The news comes that Malèna’s husband has died in battle in Africa, there are scandals with the dentist and the attorney, and it becomes harder to get the necessities for survival. She turns to prostitution with the German troops, and as Allied bombers and troops arrive in liberation, the town’s women savagely beat the widow and she must leave hurriedly. But there’s more! It was all a horrible misunderstanding! Did I like it? Perhaps I was a bit harsh on foreign productions when commenting on Thirteen Days, I am assuming a judicious removal of modern applicances has recreated the Sicily of 60 years ago. Bellucci is pretty and proportionate, Ennio Morricone is a top-notch talent, but I sense no apology for a brutal society that can barely stand someone from the wrong village. No.

93 minutes

18 January 2001

The trailer was very funny, and I had seen almost everything else at the AMC Potomac Mills 15 (by choosing this, I passed up the opportunity for Dracula 2000 which disappeared the next day). Like The Mod Squad, however, most of the trailer comes from scenes very early in the movie, as there is a complicated plot of false identities and betrayals and double crosses. Orlando Jones, that fellow from the Seven Up commercials for whom semantics are a challenge, plays Daryl Chase, a successful investment banker whose life starts to go wrong one morning when he encounters a street hustler (Eddie Griffin). That one scene in the trailer where the two enter a toilet stall to exchange clothes is curiously missing. Did I like it? It’s quick and funny. Try not to think too much about who’s taking care of the baby.

87 minutes

17 January 2001

Number One at the box office! Eh, it’s always the ones that appeal to girls that surprise, isn’t it? Titanic. The Craft. Sara (Julia Stiles) has just had her mother die—there are flashbacks within flashbacks!—and must now live with her father, the destitute jazz trumpeter with the shabby apartment. It’s the first day of senior year (I guess) and Sara stands out in a mostly black high school. (How small-town can she be if she arrived on the commuter railroad?) A chance encounter with Chenille (Kerry Washington) who is willing to give someone different a chance leads to the dance club and to meeting her brother Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas). Will Sara embrace hip-hop? Will Derek persuade Sara to revive her interest in ballet? Will Derek live long enough to see that acceptance letter from Georgetown University? Did I like it? I was prepared not to. But they didn’t put Julia Stiles on the cover of the Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair for nothing. There’s even a police car if you wait long enough! So, it had its moments even if it was set and filmed in Chicago.

113 minutes

15 January 2001

Who would have guessed I was a sucker for movies with Claire Forlani? What hath Mallrats wrought? I have to take the word of the VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever for some of these: The Rock (check, she played the daughter of Sean Connery’s character); Basquiat (huh? I remember Benicio Del Toro and Dennis Hopper...); Meet Joe Black (check, the doctor who had the sexual intimacy with Death); Mystery Men (another blank, no, wait, was she the waitress in the diner?); Boys and Girls (check, by now I knew what I was up to). She usually seems smarter than the characters she plays. Anyway, this would-be thriller about an exquisitely brilliant programmer devoted to open source seduced by the allure and money of the world’s coolest software house and discovering to his horror (City Paper describes his facial expression as one of stoned indifference and I cannot improve on that) that something is not right has the misfortune of having Ryan Phillippe at its center. It tries hard, there is the expansive residence of the software mogul (I understand from the Los Angeles Times that it’s mostly matte paintings because the residences of real moguls are too subdued), there is the music informing you that this scene is suspenseful, there’s Rachael Leigh Cook as the programmer heavy on the eyeliner... Here’s a misstep in the screenplay: human information should be free, like Shakespeare or aspirin, a character is made to say. Hmm, works of authorship are just free information? Aspirin just grows on trees and it is self-evidently safe and effective? There is a turn in the character that Forlani plays so she’s not just the dull girlfriend with no life on her own—I think she’s supposed to be a painter. Plus she drives a Citroën 2CV, the really fancy kind with the two-tone paint. Did I like it? No. The contrivances pile up pretty heavily by the end, and only the dullest will miss how everything is explained laboriously.

109 minutes

13 January 2001

Apparently I was out of the country at the time. Plus I was all of 2 years old. So I have no personal recollections to compare with this film, which anyway seeks to illuminate the inner turmoil of the Kennedy administration when it was discovered that the Soviet Union was establishing missile bases in Cuba. I continue to be amazed at the nonchalant way that the American movie making industry treats production design. A foreign film depicting another time, like the German production of Aimée & Jaguar, deliberately concentrates on the dialogue and personal interactions of the characters and offers only, say, a single street with a few cars, or pretends that a bank or school building is a railroad station (without showing a single passenger car, departure board, or even an employee of the railroad). Yet, to depict the world of 1962, a film like this will routinely find, build, or otherwise illustrate the automobiles, telephones, military aircraft, naval vessels, missiles, uniforms, newspapers, cameras, televisions, clothing, none of which (except maybe the B-52) are still in use. I think the screenplay might take a few liberties, press secretary Pierre Salinger is depicted asking if he is out of the loop. Did I like it? Sure. It has the same appeal as Apollo 13 had—men confronted by stress find the fortitude to endure and prevail. Steven Culp as Robert Kennedy is particularly evocative facially. Kevin Costner is not nearly so annoying as he is otherwise.

146 minutes

12 January 2001

A very funny movie lampooning the Hollywood crowd and small towns, although nominally the small town emerges the winner. A harried director (William H. Macy) and his production designer have hurriedly left New Hampshire and hope to start production on a film in a small town in Vermont. The problems for the production only start there. The male lead has a serious jones for young girls. The female lead has decided she doesn’t want to do a scene topless. The screenwriter (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has lost his typewriter. The assistant director is experiencing his wife’s giving birth over one of the many wireless telephones in use. Say! How many of these actors were in Boogie Nights, anyway? (The cook at the diner is another alumnus of that film.) Anyway, the screenwriter, under pressure to rewrite the script and in search of a replacement manual typewriter, meets the proprietor of a bookstore which also stocks typewriters. The film takes an emotional wrong turn when the proprietor (Rebecca Pidgeon) dumps her fiancée in an afternoon because she has met the screenwriter. Pidgeon’s is the one name for whom I went huh? when it was spoken in the trailer and it took me about an hour after the movie to figure out what was bugging me. She looks like Martha Quinn! (A historical note to my younger readers, Martha Quinn was a VJ on MTV in the early days and might now be working advertising Noxcema as if she was still 18.) The screenplay, meanwhile, makes its middle-of-the-movie turn when the male lead crashes a car into the town’s one street light (at State Street and Main Street) and the waitress at the diner (Julia Stiles) is inside. Did I like it? Sure. This movie keeps the laughs coming into the end credits just like the Naked Gun movies. It’s not quite as focused on the actual movie making like Living in Oblivion but it doesn’t have the non-stop cursing, either.

108 minutes

11 January 2001

I can see why critics and audiences are excited by this movie— there’s adventure, there’s romance, there’s action, there’s mystery, there’s sex (watch that hand, bandit!), there’s people walking in air— and there’s always a fight around the next corner! So why wasn’t there a more positive reaction to Charlie’s Angels? I do not mean this facetiously, Charlie’s Angels was lame, but the impulses behind the production were very similar. The fight choreographers of the two movies, for example, were brothers. Nevertheless, my particular late-night American audience seemed to giggle and snicker whenever the people started flying. Did I like it? It’s a satisfying cinematic experience. The fight scenes have a certain vigor to them that is appealing.

120 minutes

09 January 2001

The brothers Coen have no particular track record with me. The Big Lebowski, when I eventually rented it, elicited pretty much a big shrug. Fargo was a one-joke movie as far as I could tell, plus there was that wood chipper. But George Clooney, who floundered so badly in that Batman movie (Batman & Robin), has redeemed himself a little with The Peacemaker and Out of Sight. This latest production is supposed to be based on the Odyssey, but it’s been a while, so I could grasp only the basics: a one-eyed brute, some Sirens, a wife looking to marry another. And I only noticed one of the cinematic references: the staging of the Ku Klux Klan rally is treated to evoke the guard of the Wicked Witch of the West. George Clooney is Ulysses Everett McGill who, as the movie begins, has just managed to persuade two fellow conflicts to escape with him from a chain gang in the Mississippi of 1937. Their goal is some treasure, loot from a bank robbery as it is described, that will be buried when a dam is closed 4 days’ hence. Dumb people (using the word moron might be particularly suitable for the period) are a reliable source of humor, and our three protagonists do not disappoint. Did I like it? It wasn’t terrible. This is one of those movies where I go, eh, not enough women in the cast. Holly Hunter as the wife is hidden away under a hat and behind a baby. And, no, that is not Jeri Ryan as one of the Sirens, she is supposed to be in Dracula 2000 instead.

108 minutes

07 January 2001

I have recently been reading about the struggle of the three main monotheistic faiths with modernity, so I was in the mood for a light hearted look at the struggle from the perspective of one small village in France. Although I am not perfect myself (my comments on Vertical Limit below needed a little clarification) still it is startling to read critics describing this movie as set in the 50’s or as lacking modern mechanical contrivances. Miramax Films being such an ally of the Church (what with the release of Priest and The House of Yes a few years ago) there is no need to mention the particular faith of the one church in town. The priest therein, however, quite specifically describes the current season of Lent as being in the year of our Lord 1959. Now, 1959 was a happening year. Pan American Airways introduced regularly scheduled service across the Atlantic Ocean using the new Boeing 707 that year, for example. And the new chocolatier in town, Vianne (Juliette Binoche), pointedly calculates the span of years since the war. As for modern mechanical contrivances, there is a typewriter in the office of the secretary to the Mayor (not especially modern, but still), a motor scooter (actually depicted in use), and a gleaming Renault Dauphine (the car that devastated the manufacturer’s reputation in the United States for a long time) parked up the hill in the background of one scene. In retrospect, the town is even stranger than the (general) lack of automobiles would suggest, since besides the church, the office of the Mayor, and the tavern, there don’t seem to be any other establishments. Vianne is depicted all of one time accepting supplies a little furtively from two people with a cart, that is to say, there is not a market in town. Where does the chocolate and chili pepper come from? Johnny Depp as an Irish drifter with a boat is an ethnic conflict that does not quite work for me, although he and his dialect coach worked at the accent, that is clear. Did I like it? Eh, it was Ok. A little heavy handed in its message (the screenplay has the priest sermonize that we must tolerate the different, an Enlightenment ideal not shared by most of the world) and lacking any specifically French atmosphere other than the one car everyone else seems to have missed, it must rely on a reliable cast (Binoche, Judi Dench, Lena Olin, Alfred Molina) and composer (Rachel Portman).

121 minutes

06 January 2001

City Paper’s critic wrote that Catherine Zeta-Jones uses her Welsh accent for the first time in an American movie, and I thought—I am there. But whatever accent she has comes out only in one scene and despite the movie’s length there are three plots and a lot of characters so it’s hard for any of the actors to make an impression. Something is wrong with the sun, too. South of the California-Mexico border, it turns very yellow, while somewhere north of the border states, it shines a very cold blue. The almost monochrome aspect to the scenes in Mexico, particularly, make it difficult to tell who is who. Squint a little and wonder, is that Benjamin Bratt? (It is.) Maybe director Soderbergh is pushing the cinematography to make a thematic point (who can really be trusted?) but it gets tiresome. Only San Diego gets a normal sun. The film might as well have a subtitle THIS IS A SPEECH for each time a character starts up with some insightful observation. Did I like it? No. The color coded cinematography is much more oppressive than in Out of Sight where the lighting and costuming were a relatively understated way of distingiushing the four locations.

148 minutes

04 January 2001

I cannot remember so nihilistic a film as this since Fair Game with Cindy Crawford and William Baldwin in which everyone who mattered other than the two protagonists died—mostly violent deaths at that. Let me spoil it by saying that only two survive this one, too, and the deaths are no less violent or gruesome that none involve a gun. This is a movie that brings home the fact that we, as movie-goers, no longer have any chance of trusting our eyes. Those helicopter blades coming dangerously close to the terrified climber— a quarter scale model filmed against green screen and superimposed digitally? Who knows? I am old enough to remember the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie and I cannot find the scene entertaining. Then the screenplay forgets that climber! Her jacket is actually ripped by the blade tip— I will rely on the engineers in my audience to calculate the speed of that helicopter part— and no one makes the slightest reference to her experience! It is very true that Monique (Izabella Scorupco) manages to keep her lips glossy throughout. (This is what happens when I don’t take notes, it is entirely possible that Scorupco’s character and her cosmetics survive—you see how much of an impression that made.) And it is also nice to see that actors from one series of Star Trek or another are still finding employment. Not that I am saying anything about one of the cameos in Dude, Where’s My Car? but Alexander Siddig (Doctor Bashir from Star Trek Deep Space Nine) plays one of the Pakistani guides who joins the rescue mission. Did I like it? No. After all the meticulous effort described in an article in cinefex, the whole film still looks fake. It seems even the long shots of mountain ranges need not be actual cinematography, most of them are miniatures!

135 minutes