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Film Clips
Reviews by Ian Caruth, James DiGiovanna, Linsay Hernon and Jennifer Nichols
CAST AWAY. Tom Hanks delivers Oscar-worthy work in Robert Zemeckis' latest; the editing and script, unfortunately, do not. Hanks stars as Chuck Noland, a regimented and relentless FedEx supervisor who survives a plane crash and washes onto a deserted island in the South Pacific. There he spends the next four years surviving on a crab and coconut diet, creating modern-day cave paintings, and sharing his candid thoughts with his only companion: Wilson, a volleyball. The film has a hokey book-ended format, many of the vital scenes are either abbreviated or altogether absent, and the script occasionally proves juvenile. However, it is Hanks' captivating presence and his grippingly realistic portrayal that keep this film afloat. --Hernon
CHARLIE'S ANGELS. Like crack cocaine for the soul, Charlie's Angels delivers shameful, addictive, and no doubt tremendously harmful fun. This movie has more explosions, more butt shots and more explosions that feature butt shots than any film since Triumph of the Will. In case you missed the 1970s, Charlie's Angels is based on the TV series that gave the world the terms "jiggle" and "T&A." Three hot young women prance about in low-cut, skintight outfights fighting crime and making what the French call "love." Still, you may ask, is this a good movie? Well, if "good" means "not evil," then, no, this is not a good movie. Rather, it's bad, in exactly the same way that cheap sex, cigarettes and chocolate ice cream are bad. I think you know what I'm talking about. --DiGiovanna
CHOCOLAT. Lasse Hallström directs this simple fable of the chocolate-peddling gypsy Vianne (Juliette Binoche), who spends her life liberalizing the lives of conservative villagers in the French countryside. Daughter in tow, she sets up chocolate shops and single-handedly unlocks the hidden desires of the religious townsfolk with the magic of the cocoa seed. Once her cautious, god-fearing neighbors get a taste of her homemade chocolate confections, the people begin to come alive and abandon their assumption that Vianne is the devil incarnate. Remembering that this is told in the confines of a fairy tale, the tints of magical realism and the fight against mediocrity are charming, if not mouth-wateringly sweet. Lena Olin, Alfred Molina, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp provide caricatures of fear and love that play out as nicely as the indulgent delights cooked up in the Mayan kitchen. --Nichols
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Variety magazine used to refer to martial arts movies as "chop socky flicks." Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon would, then, be a really big chop socky flick. It's got all the cheesy, goofball stuff you'd expect from the Taiwanese kung-fu movies of the '70s, but with an enormous budget to back it up. Chow Yun Fat stars as a master of the Wudan school of martial arts. The big bonus to being a Wudan master is that you can fly, which is the kind of thing that looks great on a big screen, especially if the characters are flying over misty Chinese landscapes while fighting with ancient, magical swords. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is big-time fun, but don't go expecting to see Citizen Kane. This is more like a Saturday-morning cartoon raised to the level of Wagnerian opera, with all the amusement and stupidity that are found so abundantly in both of those art forms. --DiGiovanna
FINDING FORRESTER. An unlikely friendship builds between a Pulitzer Prize-winning Boo Radley of the Bronx and an inner-city punk feigning stupidity in Gus Van Sant's latest drama. Shaggy-haired Sean Connery plays the reclusive William Forrester, whose monotonous routine of window washing and voyeurism is stirred up when he becomes an unsuspecting mentor to a closeted brainiac remarkably played by newcomer Robert Brown. Together the two journey past their fears, insecurities and enemies toward their dreams and true capabilities. It's an inspirational film, despite the recycled premise and two superfluous endings, one of which presents an unnecessary surprise cameo. --Hernon
THE GIFT. The validity of fortune telling is put on trial when the town's tramp turns up dead in this chilling thriller co-written by Billy Bob Thornton. Cate Blanchett stars as a clairvoyant single mother from the South whose tarot card readings and violent nightmares help a cynical cop capture the murderer of a promiscuous girl scout (Katie Holmes). The psychic Southern belle leads a colorful cast of characters--including a temperamental mechanic with daddy issues (Giovanni Ribisi), a scruffy-looking wife beater (Keanu Reeves), a battered woman in stiletto heels (Hilary Swank) and a preppie principal with repressed anger (Greg Kinnear)--through a terrifying tale with each flashing premonition. --Hernon
HEAD OVER HEELS. Have you noticed anyone coming out of a movie theater lately with a hollowed, blank look in their eye, as though their very soul has witnessed the mouth of Hell and died screaming? They were probably leaving this film. Generically titled, generically directed, and acted by young people so generically pretty they could be advance advertisements for human cloning, Head Over Heels is bland and typical to an extent that its singularly stupefying badness is almost unbelievable. Featuring two of the longest, most explicitly photographed poop-related scenes in recent history (!), Head over Heels tells the story of beautiful art restorer Amanda who falls in love with a handsome fashion executive badly in need of some carminative medication. The executive (Freddie Prinze Jr.) may be a murderer; should Amanda break up with him? This second film from director Mark Waters is so soul-deadeningly awful that his first, 1997's underrated black comedy The House of Yes, seems in comparison like an untoppable Citizen Kane-like career high mark. If this is the kind of product that Hollywood is turning out, is there anything we civilians can do to speed up the writers' strike? --Caruth
MALENA. A slight but warm Italian coming-of-age story, Malena centers on Amoroso Renata (Giuseppe Sulfaro), a 13-year-old boy infatuated with Malena (the pneumatic Monica Belluci), the 27-year-old daughter of his Latin teacher. Under her spell, juvenescent Renata becomes an enthusiastic masturbator and skilled stalker, but also develops sincere -- if unrequited -- love for the remote woman whom townspeople dismiss as a "piece of ass" (the movie's great for learning dirty Italian words) or a prostitute. No element of the film is particularly weak, but the storyline and acting are never quite as compelling as Lajos Koltai's cinematography; the sun-dappled streets and coasts of Sicily are simply gorgeous, radiating warmth and romance as well as any tourism pamphlet. Maybe it's not exactly memorable, but Malena's still lots of fun for fans of beautiful stuff. --Caruth
MEET THE PARENTS. In 1773 Oliver Goldsmith published his most famous play, She Stoops to Conquer. In it, a series of misunderstandings leads to an endless run of slapstick jokes and double entendres. Essentially, Goldsmith had invented the basic formula for Three's Company. In the year 2000, to celebrate the 227th anniversary of She Stoops to Conquer's first public performance, Universal/Dreamworks remade a cult comedy classic from 1992 called Meet The Parents. Creatively re-titling it Meet The Parents and updating it for the new millennium by casting stars Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller in place of the unknowns in the original, Meet The Parents is essentially a drawn-out farce of the sort pioneered by Goldsmith. Only, you know, dumbed down for Americans. If you can pass this quiz, you should pass on the movie: Early in the film, DeNiro notes that a precariously balanced and clearly fragile urn contains the ashes of his precious mother. Does that urn fall over and break later in the film? If you answered "yes," you're probably too sophisticated for this movie. Nonetheless, DeNiro and Stiller turn in great performances and manage to get a few real laughs out of this tired material, so it might still be worth seeing if you need something to do while your methadone is kicking in. --DiGiovanna
PLANET KRULIK 2001. A collection of short documentaries from Washington, D.C. director Jeff Krulik, PK2001 is an intermittently funny but ultimately unsatisfying peek at low-budget guerilla documentary. Composed of seven shorts, including the cult favorite Heavy Metal Parking Lot, in which the director interviews intoxicated, underage Judas Priest fans before a 1986 concert, Krulik's work is full of good ideas hampered by lazy execution. One short (Obsessed with Jews), where Krulik interviews an accountant who has collected over 9,000 trading cards, autographs, and other memorabilia related to Jewish people, starts off particularly promisingly but quickly degrades before ending too soon. It's representative of Krulik's larger problem: Maybe Errol Morris could have made an engaging documentary on these subjects (especially the aforementioned accountant and the aging creators of bizarre '70s spy-chimpanzee TV series Lancelot Link), but Krulik's reach exceeds his grasp. Stay home and rent Morris' masterly 1997 Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control instead. --Caruth
THE PLEDGE. Here's a weird one. The third film from director Sean Penn presents Jack Nicholson as a police detective on the verge of retirement who dedicates himself to finding a murderer of children. Sound clichÉd? It's not; the film focuses on the erosive psychological effects of obsession instead of the rather more prurient aspects of the crimes, making for an interesting character study where one would expect a hoary old determined-cop thriller. Some unnecessarily tricky camera work early on is taxing, as is the film's glacial pace. But as would be expected from Penn, this is an actor's movie: Nicholson gives a great, understated performance, courageously refusing every opportunity to chew scenery, while Robin Wright Penn, Aaron Eckhart, and the ubiquitous and endlessly compelling Benicio Del Toro all shine in supporting roles. Though it's a little long for a film that can only occasionally be described as "taut," the strong performances and unusual treatment of a familiar subject make The Pledge worth a look. --Caruth
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Who doesn't love musical theater? Only mean people, I'm guessing. Thus, in order to prove that you're not a mean person you should rush out and see O Brother Where Art Thou?, the first great musical of the 21st century. O Brother retells the story of Homer's Odyssey, only from the perspective of two guys who have never read the book. George Clooney stars as Ulysses Everett McGill (see, he's Ulysses), an escaped convict who travels across Depression-era Mississippi to get home to his wife Penny (get it?) who's being wooed by a suitor (see, like in the Odyssey). When the Coens aren't referencing The Odyssey they're exploring the culture of the old South or alluding to such classic films as Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels. Actually, they're usually doing all three at once, which makes the fact that they can do it in the midst of a musical number all the more amazing. And what's even more amazing is that most of the people who've seen O Brother don't even realize that they've seen a musical. Which is good, because, as I've found out, most people claim to hate musicals. Because most people are mean. Q.E.D. --DiGiovanna
SAVE THE LAST DANCE. This teeny-bopping MTV production transfers Dirty Dancing from a family resort to the gangsters' ghetto for some contemporary high school hip hop. Julia Stiles stars as a sheltered suburbanite who moves to the big bad city after her mother dies in a car accident, and now faces gun-toting thugs, hard-talking teens and her deadbeat dad's freezer full of TV dinners. The straight-laced prima donna puts her ballerina dreams on hold and gets an in-your-face look at the inner city's culture, dance and "slamming" lingo. This film is too formulaic, meandering slowly through the typical initiation scenes of a stranger in a strange place. However, it does offer satisfactory entertainment through its charming performances and upbeat soundtrack. --Hernon
SNATCH. Guy Ritchie, who for the next two to five years will be known primarily as Mr. Madonna, reminds me of one of those shred-metal guitarists of the late 1980s. During any of their interchangeable, technically flawless solos, they'd pull out all the stops in their quest to amaze and delight an audience, trying any trick, no matter how tasteless, any style, no matter how passÉ, and ripping off licks from anybody who was any good. Ritchie does basically the same thing in film, throwing in a little Spike Lee lick, a little of David Fincher, etc., all over a rhythm bed that's all Tarantino in its meandering chronology and street-level eloquence. Basically, Ritchie's remade his first film, the highly entertaining Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. And, like that film, Snatch is fast-paced, flashy and funny, full of the highfalutin banter, colorfully named gangsters and quick and artful violence of the post-Tarantino crime genre. Snatch is loads of fun, but don't go expecting to see anything really new. Instead, think of Ritchie's film like a new Van Halen album: You've heard all these tricks before, but they're still pretty bitchin', aren't they? --Caruth
SUGAR AND SPICE. Mena Suvari, who made quite the splash in 1998's American Beauty, has fallen so far that she's actually appearing in a film with Sean Young. Sugar and Spice has a charming plot idea: a group of cheerleaders decide to become bank robbers. Sadly, there's only one scene in which cheerleading routines are used for criminal ends. The rest of the movie is just a lot of lame jokes and PG-13 cheerleader porn. Not that I'm knocking lame jokes and cheerleader porn, but to really get the best effect out of that schtick you need an R rating and a direct-to-video release. As it stands Sugar and Spice can only be recommended for die-hard fans of bare midriffs, bad dialogue and bland plotting. --DiGiovanna
THIRTEEN DAYS. The United States is on the brink of a nuclear war until cool-as-a-cucumber Kevin Costner walks in to help quell the Cuban Missile Crisis. The actor plays a special assistant to President Kennedy who sees the nation through 13 days of exhilarating negotiations with Russia, diplomatic quarantines, astringent rules of engagement and death-defying surveillance missions. A talented cast presents all aspects of the predicament with intricate intellect and intensity, despite Costner's strained New England accent, the limited wardrobe of bland blue suits, and the director's incomprehensible use of grainy footage and scenes randomly depicted in a blue/gray wash. --Hernon
TRAFFIC. Today's war on drugs is taken to the front lines with a Magnolia storytelling style and a Three Kings look. From the straight-shooting American police officer (Don Cheadle) to the no-holds-barred drug-busting Mexican cop (Benicio del Toro), and from the chic country-club wife of a drug-smuggling thug to the law-enforcing anti-drug czar (Michael Douglas) and his crack-smoking daughter, writer Stephen Gaghan candidly presents all sides to this never-ending battle. --Hernon
WHAT WOMEN WANT. After a drunken rampage of cross-dressing, a Frank Sinatra serenade, and a near-fatal electric shock, one pompous womanizer can hear just what it is that women want. Mel Gibson plays the chauvinistic advertising executive and estranged father who cunningly uses his phenomenal power of hearing women's intimate thoughts to sabotage the fledgling career of Darcy Maguire (Helen Hunt), to revitalize the rocky relationship with his teenage daughter, and to become the ultimate sex god of Chicago. Even though this film has a high reading on the cheese-o-meter, the talented cast, including Alan Alda, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei, delivers perfect comedic timing and captivating charm that would entice even Howard Stern to learn what women truly want. --Hernon
WORMWOOD. When an independent film uses the Picasso (mis)quote "Good taste is the enemy of creativity" as a tagline, you know to dread what follows. That dread is warranted; in Wormwood, as in lots of amateurish, hysterically self-righteous "art," bad taste stands as a lazy shorthand for artistic innovation. The first film from local Larry Foster, Wormwood is a bitter, ham-fisted diatribe against Hollywood, rooted in the director's own disappointed Hollywood dreams and filtered through an ersatz Italian horror-surrealist presentation, sort of like if Dario Argento suffered a massive head wound. Less a cohesive narrative than a catalogue of gross-out images, Wormwood features a movie producer dressed as Adolf Hitler forcing his sister to masturbate using a gun barrel, a man being fellated while reciting Hamlet's soliloquy, an extreme close-up of a talking human anus, and the line "OK, OK, I was being gang-raped," delivered by porn star Porsche Lynn, who's slumming here. Shot entirely on digital video, so it even looks crappy, Wormwood is a perfect example of the dark side of late-'90s ultra-low budget film; just because anybody can make a movie, doesn't mean that they should. --Caruth
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