Movies : January 2003

13 January 2003

25th Hour

Marty Brogan (Edward Norton) has been sentenced and, in the last day before reporting to prison, seeks to wrap up the outstanding threads of relationships with friends and family and maybe, just maybe, figure out who set him up for the bust that located drugs in his fold-out sofa. There’s father (Brian Cox), pals Francis (Barry Pepper) and Jacob (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson). Jacob’s student Mary (Anna Paquin, remaining charisma-free as she ages) trails the guys to a nightclub. Monty has one more favor he needs done. Anyone unfamiliar with the Upper West Side of Manhattan may very well be confused by the end. Overly long and not every character is interesting. The tirade Monty gets to speak is so out of character it seems like a leftover obligation from having been done in previous directorial efforts from Spike Lee.

134 minutes.

12 January 2003

The Hours

Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) matter-of-factly walks away from her house in the suburbs and into the river. Was that necessary? Earlier, though, she had begun work on a novel one day, which novel Laura (Julianne Moore) is reading in 1951 as she struggles one day with the perfect façade of her life with the suburban home, the big car, the doting husband, and the clinging son, while in a more contemporary time, Clarissa (Meryl Streep) spends her day preparing a party she’s putting on for a poet (Richard Harris) she once loved, now moping in a small, delapidated apartment many stories up as he distintegrates with AIDS. Like the fate of that desperate, screaming child (or of the poet, for that matter) can’t be figured out well ahead of time. Kidman’s nose prosthetic and Streep’s hand fluttering aside, and a kiss between Laura and her neighbor (Toni Collette), there was plenty of solid acting to attract an audience of mature couples at my screening. But I did have sympathy for Woolf’s husband, stuck in those English suburbs for the rest of his life with a crazy wife.

115 minutes.

05 January 2003

Chicago

Somewhat confusingly at first, the screenplay of this musical works its way to the central drama: wan, easily duped Roxie (Renée Zellweger) dreams of a career on the stage in Chicago of the 20’s and takes as her model the life of famous performer Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones, reveling in being tall, sturdy, and brunette). When Roxie follows Velma’s footsteps into murder and latches on to Velma’s lawyer Billy (Richard Gere) the battle is on for the hearts of newspaper readers and radio listeners city-wide. As musicals go, it’s fairly captivating.

103 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 12-Sep-2004