28 May 2001

Startup.com

Kaleil Isaza Tuzman is quitting his job at Goldman Sachs to become the CEO of an Internet startup, and his roommate is there to film it all. Tuzman and his pal since childhood, Tom Herman (and someone identified only by the subtitle Third Co-Founder as he quickly sought a buy-out), are looking to help people and make tons of money. This documentary follows Kaleil and Tom as they build the company, look for money, add employees, hammer out the details of the web site, go online... and crash. The NASDAQ took a plunge, the money got nervous, Herman was unwilling to give up his weekends with his daughter (while at least one of Tuzman’s girlfriends complains that he doesn’t call for days when with one call she could be good for weeks), termination letters are written, and the company must fold. Did I like it? There is something very satisfying about seeing the big-talking (I refuse to lose!) fellow get his comeuppance—not that I know anyone like that.

106 minutes.

With a Friend Like Harry… [Harry un ami qui vous veut du bien]

Every problem has a solution, is Harry's philosophy—if only life were so simple. Michel (Laurent Lucas) and Claire (Mathilde Seigner) are a couple with three whiny daughters on their way to their summer house in a car without air conditioning. (Given the trouble they will have with that car, the product placement crew don’t let us see it clearly, I think it’s a Renault.) They stop at a gas station plaza to cool off. Anyone who has seen The Vanishing is already apprehensive. In the bathroom, Michel is scrutinized by an otherwise genial-looking fellow (Sergi Lopez) who claims to be a buddy from high school. Harry is traveling to the Matterhorn with his fiancée Plum (Sophie Guillemin) [the credits say Prune!] but he is very eager to spend some time with Michel. Improbably, as it comes out over dinner that evening at the dilapidated house that the couple are fixing up themselves, Harry harbors fond memories of Michel’s poetry and fiction writing, something which, with the pressures of a job, his wife, his daughters, his parents, and the second house, Michel doesn’t do anymore. Did I like it? Well, it is not too much of a spoiler to say that Harry’s solutions—except for the first—all involve murder. And as funny as it is to see just how meddlesome Michel’s parents are (the color pink and dental instruments are involved) and as gratifying it might be to have such parents gone, still the brutality of Harry’s problem-solving is breathtaking. But if it’s only those who really deserve it… then yes. The humor of the embarrassment of a stranger, especially a rich stranger, examining your life, is exquisitely drawn. I seem to have seen Seigner last November, in Venus Beauty Institute, and she delivers in the role of the wife who has no glamor left in her life. There is a serene, blissful ending, so, The Vanishing it’s not.

116 minutes.

27 May 2001

A Knight’s Tale

A knight sits incoveniently dead brook-side one joust short of winning the round. One of his squires, William (Heath Ledger), whose father filled his head with ideas about moving the stars, proposes to substitute himself for the dead knight. As they approach the playing field, the crowd is pounding their fists to Queen’s We Will Rock You. It’s intended to be source music, so where are the electric guitars, anyway? William takes a liking to the knight’s life, takes a shine to the first pretty girl (Shannyn Sossamon) he sees, and takes his invented geneaology to Paris and beyond in a Europe where everyone speaks English and everything is so close together no one ever needs lodging. Why not? Did I like it? Yes. The scenery (the Czech Republic) is lush. All the women (even the Irish armorer who inexplicably joins the posse of Sir Ulrich) are pretty. William’s entourage are goofballs (the writer, Geoff Chaucer, has a gambling problem). And villainy arrives in the form of Count Adhemar (Rufus Sewell) who has his sights on the princess Jocelyn as well. I did not notice how long it was until it was over, and a movie’s not over until the rating.

132 minutes.

25 May 2001

Angel Eyes

You wouldn’t think there would be a problem getting me to see a movie with Jennifer Lopez. Oh, wait, I did manage to resist The Cell. The trailers promised that Lopez played a tough police officer in Chicago who encounters a mysterious stranger (Jim Caviezel). I had just recently finished a book, Armed & Dangerous: Memoirs of a Chicago Policewoman, so I was ready to compare the film’s depiction of the profession [to the memoir]. Did Warner Bros. think audiences would be less interested if they knew this was a kitchen-sink drama of a film about two lonely, tormented individuals trying to find love in a cruel world? Did I like it? Well, I certainly regretted every moment that Lopez was not on-screen, even if her hair was distressed and her wardrobe much more down-market than in The Wedding Planner. But her interest in a civilian as author Gina Gallo would put it has a touch of inauthenticity. This one is for the Lopez-besotted and those who didn’t get enough of Caviezel’s eyes in Frequency.

104 minutes.

18 May 2001

Shrek

An ogre with a Scottish accent (Mike Myers), frustrated that his solitude in the swamp has been disturbed by the evicted fairy tale characters of the adjoining principality, finds himself charged with the quest to rescue the princess (Cameron Diaz) from the dragon. Accompanying him is a talking donkey (Eddie Murphy) who was nevertheless willing to keep quiet if it meant freedom (and the old lady who tried to turn him in for money landed in gaol). Did I like it? The modern songs are a little jarring in the otherwise effective atmosphere set by the animation and the voices. Perhaps I have been reading too much legal writing, but I saw the loophole in the curse that the princess is subject to that the screenplay would fly through at the end way in advance. But it is plenty funny.

89 minutes.

13 May 2001

The Center of the World

It figures that this would be the movie to pull me back into movie theaters, doesn’t it? When I saw the trailer, it seemed like a Pretty Woman for the end of the decade, except with more flesh. How much flesh? Not as much as one would think with all the attention to this unrated release. It’s already a little stale, even if it was shot on digital video (the long list of credits belies the intimacy of the handheld camera in the hotel room with the two protagonists), with such talk as our IPO went through the roof. Did I like it? To the extent that it is more plausible than Pretty Woman, it’s less pleasant to watch, but Molly Parker shows what can be done with makeup and apparel in on-camera lessons in beautification.

87 minutes.