31 August 2001

Do you mean to say that Julia Stiles did two Shakespeare-goes-to-high-school flicks in one year (10 Things I Hate About You being the first)? Or that Save the Last Dance was not her first interracial romance? Its release postponed for fear of inflaming the situation after the shootings at Columbine, it squeaks into theaters from Lions Gate Films but retains a copyright notice from Miramax. Desi (Stiles) is the dean’s daughter in attendance at a coeducational high school with dormitories in South Carolina. Sometimes I do wish that critics watched the movie instead of reading the press kit. Odin (Mekhi Phifer) is not the school’s only black student, just the only one on the basketball team. As our story begins, the coach (Martin Sheen) hands out an MVP award to O who promptly names Michael Casio (Andrew Keegan) as equally deserving of the award. Hugo (Josh Hartnett), the coach’s son with a preternatural sense of being overlooked, seeks to undermine the relationship which has been secretly developing between O and Desi. As his schemes progress, an unscrupulous pawn shop dealer allows a gun to enter their circle, and there will be such killing as will surprise only those who can’t—or won’t—read in the first place. Did I like it? Without the humor and relish Kenneth Branagh brought to the role of Iago, this transplantation quickly and grimly proceeds from scene to scene without concern for cohesion (the pining of Roger (Elden Henson) for Desi is forgotten) or plausibility.

95 minutes.

Mother can be such a pill sometimes. Oh, wait, there must be more to this personal story of abandonment, reunion, rebellion, and reconciliation than that. Writer-director Éva Gardos has fictionalized her life in this account of a baby left behind when her mother (Nastassja Kinski as Margit), father (Tony Goldwyn as Peter), and older sister take the chance to escape Hungary in 1950 using the services of a smuggler who refuses to traffic in babies. The grandmother is suspicious of a second smuggler who plans to give the baby a pill for the border crossing, and so little Suzanne is sent to live with a childless couple in the countryside. Meanwhile, husband and wife struggle to enter the middle class (oh, like I believe this—they have a very nice Oldsmobile instead of a Chevrolet or Hudson) and write a lot of letters to politicians around the world seeking the release of their daughter. When the American Red Cross finally arranges the release of Suzanne, it is 5 years later, and grandmother is just leaving prison, and she tricks Suzanne into going to the airport. Homesick for the only family she has known, Suzanne has difficulty accepting her parents and finds a ready outlet for frustrating their wishes in the randy neighborhood boys. When Margit arranges an ill-advised visit from the locksmith to lock Suzanne in her room, the contents of the closet lead to a critical confrontation that eventually finds Suzanne returning to Hungary in 1965 only to discover that—no! life under Communism is degrading and miserable and life with mother isn’t so horrible by comparison. Did I like it? The stylization of the scenes from 1950 in a black and white that nevertheless betrays a stagy artificiality detracts from what is supposed to be the wrenching drama of a family forced by circumstance to leave its most helpless member behind. I found the departure of Suzanne from Hungary in specifically 1955 a little too convenient to avoid the uprising of 1956 which otherwise goes unmentioned entirely. And there is unintended humor that Suzanne, visiting Budapest in 1965, is able to find all the examples she needs to decide that life in America is better in a single city block.

108 minutes.

21 August 2001

What am I doing here? I don’t even like Jackie Chan movies anymore! (All that fighting got tiresome.) The short answer is that I was too late for The Others and I didn’t want to actually spend money on Rat Race. A counterfeiting ring that uses intaglio printing plates stolen from the U.S. Mint—choke, sputter, gasp, well, it just went downhill from there. Did I like it? Eh. It has its amusing moments.

90 minutes.

18 August 2001

Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (writer-director Kevin Smith) discover from Brodie (Jason Lee) and Holden (Ben Affleck) that Banky (Jason Lee) optioned the movie rights to Bluntman & Chronic, a comic book based on their lives, to Miramax and cut them out of the action. Upon discovering that the imminent production of this movie (the calculation of the number of days left taxes the mathematical abilities of the two stoners) has allowed chatters on the Internet to bad-mouth them on the basis of the flawed characterizations, they resolve to head to Hollywood and halt production of the movie. Did I like it? I was in tears, I was laughing so hard. My only regret now is not having seen Good Will Hunting to get the full effect of the scene where our blunt-dealing pal and his hetero lifemate (or is he?) find themselves extras on the set where the sequel, Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season, is being filmed under the disinterested direction of Gus Van Sant counting his money in the corner of the set. Add J&SBSB to the list of movies filmed at the Vasquez Rocks. Be sure to stay until the rating, or you won’t know why Alanis Morrissette is credited.

108 minutes.

15 August 2001

A small film that escaped the Loews Cineplex booking circle. A buddy film that nevertheless starts with them fighting (a boxing match in a Las Vegas hotel ballroom) and features a scuffle about every 10 minutes or so. Bobby (Jon Favreau) is the sincere one, not ashamed of his 5-5-1 record, proud that he is a mason and not a framer, and wanting to do the right thing by his girlfriend, the stripper (Famke Janssen) tempted by prostitution, and her daughter. Inexplicably, he is loyal to the sociopath, Ricky (Vince Vaughn), who cannot tell the truth to save his life. When Bobby gets an opportunity to serve the local Los Angeles gangster Max (Peter Falk) but insists that Ricky be employed on the mission to New York, nothing really successful can come of it. Or can it? Did I like it? I never saw Swingers so some portion of the appeal of Favreau and Vaughn together is lost on me. Vaughn is playing much the same genial, goofy fellow who doesn’t know when to stop he played in Clay Pigeons, though, and he can be very funny. But any sane person would have left him the first time he got ugly, so the buddy aspect is weak. (He gets ugly with the gangster boss, the flight attendant, the bell boy, the gangster they’re meeting, the girls they take to the hotel room, the drug connection....) For some reason, Max is pointedly identified as Jewish. Bizarrely, the production ends with a boast that the movie is made entirely in the United States. A jab at Canada?

94 minutes.

10 August 2001

If Jessica (Natasha Lyonne) is so smart, why is she so vague on when the classic science-fiction love story, The Terminator, was released? Or is she thinking of its sequel? The one that repeated the action and dialogue of its predecessor? (To be fair, the character would have been very young at the time of the theatrical release of either. And the subtlety, if that is what it is, in referring to one of the most successful sequels-which-actually-repeat-the-first-movie escaped me until I started writing this commentary.) The first American Pie built its success on a red-tag trailer campaign promising sexual situations and received positive critical reaction for the attitude of its female performers. Less a sequel than a re-imagining (aping another release from last month) this second American Pie (a trademark of Don McLean, the credits remind) reunites every character and then some (the two guys admiring the portrait of Stifler’s mom? they’re in there) and providing them with the same motivations, the same goals, and pretty much the same success rate. A viewer really feels how little Mena Suvari felt like contributing, her character is quickly packed off overseas. Did I like it? My screening was disturbed by someone who let his telephone ring. (And I’m no T-1000.) No. The repetition is wearisome. Shannon Elizabeth’s accent sounds just that much more forced and Alyson Hannigan’s movements are just that much more jumpy. Whatever it was that made me laugh in the first one (like Say my name...! ) was gone. They don’t even credit Brad Fiedel’s music.

104 minutes.

04 August 2001

Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) have just graduated from high school when Enid learns that she must take a remedial class in art in summer school. This is not good, because Becky was prepared to implement their life-long plan (at least the one they’ve had since the seventh grade) to get an apartment together. Then a prank on a lonely jazz and blues collector who placed a personal ad (Steve Buscemi) makes life complicated when Enid becomes intrigued with him. An 18-year old high school graduate and a man entering his forties with no romantic skills? No agenda there from the documentarian who made Crumb. Did I like it? Yes. A movie where the piano in the soundtrack score does not bother me must be doing something right. Enid’s complete inability to keep a job at a Pacific Theatres multiplex is priceless.

111 minutes.