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Film Clips
Reviews by Ian Caruth, James DiGiovanna, Linsay Hernon and Jennifer Nichols
15 MINUTES. Cops, criminals and on-camera commentators go to the extremes to achieve fame and fortune in John Herzfeld's action-packed thriller. Robert DeNiro is typecast as the gun-toting, foul-mouthed New York City cop who teams up with a young arson investigator (Edward Burns) to catch a serial killer and his Hollywood-obsessed sidekick who films the murders. Seamless transitions between the home movies and the authentic footage capture the gruesome gore with impressive skill and energy. Though the script frays toward the end with a ridiculous macho man drawn from the Old West and an unconvincing legal dance reminiscent of the Johnny Cochran days, there is a poignant social commentary on media's greed and viewers' gullibility, told through surprise cameos and aggressive performances. --Hernon
102 DALMATIANS. Disney unleashes Cruella DeVil again in this sequel to the 1996 live-action remake of the 1961 animated classic. Glenn Close stars as an obsessed Dalmatian dognapper in London who has become the ultimate dog lover after undergoing years of Dr. Pavlov's sadistic brainwashing. However, with every chime of the mighty Big Ben, the changed woman regresses back to her old villainous ways. So with the help of a maniacal fashion guru (Gerard Depardieu), she ravenously searches the town for 102 spotted pups in a dog-eat-dog world. This movie includes all the basic elements of a kids' flick, like the cuddly creatures and Close's outlandish persona, yet someone still needs to throw it a bone and give this film some imagination. --Hernon
3000 MILES TO GRACELAND. Elvis made lots of crappy movies, but he at least had a dastardly manager on whom to blame his comically misguided career choices. Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner better find a Colonel Parker-esque agent/scapegoat for the mirthless 3000 Miles, unless they want to end up like the King, sitting around at home waiting for a career movement. The two stars play ex-cons and partners in crime who love Elvis but grow less and less keen on each other, until at last they must exchange gunfire and pithy taunts in a grimy industrial park. Edited like a commercial and plotted like one of Roger Corman's fever dreams, 3000 Miles blithely offers up all the affectations of every road movie ever made, with none of the fun. Take into account an almost creepy--for the post-'90s--lack of self-awareness, and the movie becomes the answer to the riddle it didn't know it posed; it's a throwback, an Elvis film, just as stupid and incoherent as he used to make 'em. Have some respect--it's time to let this one die. --Ian Caruth
ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. Matt Damon and Henry Thomas saddle up and ride through the majestic desert in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's most popular novel. To celebrate the end of World War II, the two brazen buckaroos cross the Rio Grande to find work with steeds and stallions on a Mexican ranch. Their rodeo days quickly end, however, when the two fall into a Mexican prison, where they are reunited with an uncaring delinquent they met during their travels. Debts, deceit and death develop at an excruciatingly slow pace set by director Billy Bob Thornton, who nevertheless somehow manages to provide a mildly mysteriously atmosphere. --Hernon
BEST IN SHOW. Funnier than watching Strom Thurmond deny his racist past, Best in Show is the long-awaited follow-up to the most hilarious film of the '90s, Waiting For Guffman. The Guffman cast and crew reassemble here to present a mockumentary about a dog show (Best in Show's working title was Dogumentary). Director Christopher Guest, perhaps best known for playing mentally deficient guitarist (or is that redundant?) Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap, puts together one of the tightest comedies ever made. Every scene has laughs, and no scene is merely a setup for a later gag. Guest also stars as Harlan Pepper, Southern dog fancier and fishing shop owner. His dead-on performance is matched by Eugene Levy as nerdy suburbanite Gerry Fleck; Catherine O'Hara (the greatest living comedienne) as his wife and erstwhile slattern Cookie Fleck; Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock as a grating yuppie couple; Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins as a gay couple whose love for each other is matched only by their love for Shih Tzus; and scene stealer Fred Willard as the local anchorman who's been horribly misassigned as an announcer at the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. And hey, sorry about that guitarist gag. --DiGiovanna
BOUNCE. An innocent game of airline ticket switcheroo turns deadly in Don Roos' second feature film. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Abby, a struggling Realtor in mourning over her recently deceased husband. She gets a helping hand and a touch of flirting to boot from Buddy, a flashy Los Angeles advertising executive (Ben Affleck). But the lonely widow doesn't know that prince charming gave his seat on the fatal flight to her late husband. This deep, dark secret opens up a wormy can of deceit, alcoholism, grief, family values and even a mushy and expedient court trial. Affleck and Paltrow deliver touching performances with captivating chemistry, but they are muddled down when Roos, the acclaimed writer/director of The Opposite of Sex, tries to tackle too many substantial subjects at once, creating an inefficient mess. --Hernon
CARMAN: THE CHAMPION. All of the fundamental elements are included: the action, the romance, the moral dilemmas, and even the heart-pumping soundtrack. Yet Lee Stanley's latest film still lacks the punch needed to make this one a knockout. Orlando Leone Jr. is a former cruiserweight boxing champion who now is a preacher by day and a hotel security guard by night. However, his ultimate dream is to fulfill that of his late father, which is to create a youth center for troubled inner-city kids. The family dream might come true when the son is bribed into fighting an egotistical hothead, but life, love and laurels hang in the balance. This film got an extremely limited release and barely any publicity, which is unfortunate since it is worth seeing, especially compared to the other big-screen bombs released recently. --Hernon
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
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
DOWN TO EARTH. The old saying "third time's a charm" certainly does not hold true as this remake of Heaven Can Wait, itself a remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, knocks into theaters instead of on death's door. From Robert Montgomery portraying a heavyweight prizefighter in the 1941 original to Warren Beatty as a forceful football player in the 1978 remake, we now somehow find ourselves stuck with the nasal loudmouth Chris Rock playing none other than a wannabe comedian. The basics of the story remain the same in this exhausted version: Man dies before his time; man gets a second chance at life; and man comes back in the body of a miserly millionaire whose wife and lover plot to kill him. Throw in endless racial jokes, cheesy and overripe philosophical wit and a lead actor who cannot act, and you're left with Down to Earth, a movie that should be laid to rest. --Hernon
DRACULA 2000. Vampires have always been the most latently sexual of mythic and horrible monsters, so a vampire entry in the newly revived teensploitation sex 'n' horror genre was probably inevitable. Dracula 2000 is that bloodless entry, an unnecessary millennial recontextualization of--or is it a sequel to?--Bram Stoker's basic story. A sure contender for both the worst title and worst soundtrack of the year, Dracula 2000 opens with a crew of naïve young thieves stealing a sealed coffin from Carfax Antiques, a metaphor for the feckless plundering of various old vampire stories that director Patrick Lussier perpetrates through the rest of the film. The film plays up the sexual aspect of the vampires, portraying them as well-dressed young hotties more interested in having freaky sex than feeding their bloodthirst. But close-ups of claret lips and concupiscent curls can only carry a film so far, and while the visual effects and sexualized feeding scenes may titillate, the film ultimately lacks bite. The myths are true; Dracula sucks. --Caruth
FAMILY MAN. Has anyone noticed that Nicolas Cage has gotten a sort of stoned-out, glazed look to him of late? I think it happened right after he decided that making small, but well-made, films was beneath him, and that he wanted to be a Big Star. I can only hope that Family Man will turn out to be the enormous bomb that it deserves to be, and Nic will head back to what he used to do best, i.e. acting. Unfortunately, first he'll have to suffer through this perverse and unnecessary remake of It's A Wonderful Life. Here's the zany twist: Instead of being a small-town guy who had dreams of big-city success, he's a big-city guy who doesn't realize that deep in his heart he has dreams of small-town family life. Of course, an angel (Don Cheadle, who's also working way beneath himself here) comes along and shows him what his life would have been like if he had just married his high school sweetheart (Tea Leone, who is working right at her level). Since this is already being marketed as a "Christmas classic" (read: rehashed, focus-grouped piece of mindless dog doo) I wonder if anyone can guess if Cage's character will prefer the family values world of the suburbs to his million dollar apartment and endless string of gorgeous bimbos. Wouldn't it be cool if in the end he decided he preferred cheap sex and expensive clothes to a loving wife and hyper-cute kids? Sadly, that's the kind of Christmas present that the movie-going public is not likely to receive. --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
HANNIBAL. This is sort of like one of those classic Disney films of the '30s and '40s, where magical fairies dance about in glittering landscapes, eating the flesh of their still-living victims. You know, like Snow White and The Seven Horrible, Cannibalistic Dwarves, or Kill, Bambi, Kill! Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal, an irascible scamp who loves classical music, fine art and evil. Gary Oldman plays his rival, the cute little horribly deformed man who wants only to gambol about and feed Hannibal to the three little pigs. Well, more like two dozen flesh-eating hogs. Julianne Moore plays Clarice Starling, who's kind of like the Good Woodsman who comes to help out when Red Riding Hood is captured by the evil wolf who wants to force her to eat her own brains. Or it could be that the Disney films they showed me in the vicious torture gardens where I was raised were slightly different than those released to the world at large. Anyway, Hannibal shares with those films a glacially slow pace that is only slightly enlivened by the adorable scenes of cute, fluffy, hugable murders and mutilations. --DiGiovanna
THE MEXICAN. Gore Verbinski, the director of Mouse Hunt, leads you on another wild goose chase, but instead of a furry rodent and an obsessed exterminator you are stuck with a cheap-looking gun and boring group therapy sessions. Brad Pitt stars as a bumbling bagman who travels through Mexico in his blue El Camino contending with conspiring henchmen, loyal townspeople and a mangy mutt in order to retrieve a legendary pistol, thus achieving redemption from the Mafia. Meanwhile, girlfriend Samantha (Julia Roberts), a selfish self-help groupie with Vegas dreams, is kidnapped by a closeted criminal (James Gandolfini) who also wants his hands on the sacred firearm, but swaps more relationship tips with his hostage than useful facts for his unlawful pursuit. This never-ending story slowly meanders from dull plot twist to tiresome therapy session in an asinine premise that incorporates half-witted themes of cars, toilets and traffic lights. The only smart thing done for this film was hiring an A-list cast, including Gene Hackman in a cameo role, but acting in this pitiful project was not a smart thing to do on their part. --Hernon
MONKEYBONE. Director Henry Selick combines stop motion with live action to produce a Tim Burton wannabe world of carnival rides and alien farm animals where those in limbo must face their subconscious fears. After a car accident leaves him in a coma, coy cartoonist Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser) gets trapped in this low-grade land of nightmares where he spends the next one and a half hours preventing Monkeybone, his annoying animated creation with a limitless libido, from obtaining the dreaded "nightmare juice." Whoopi Goldberg, the minister of death with a combustible head, and her grim reaper minions dressed in shredded toilet paper aid the animator by sending him back to the real world in the body of an athletic organ donor. Also to the rescue is Bridget Fonda, the devoted girlfriend, who conveniently works at a sleep institute. However, nothing really could save this weak Beetlejuice imitation, not even Chris Kattan's Olympic-caliber dismounts. --Hernon
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
RUGRATS IN PARIS: THE MOVIE. Several slobbering, troublemaking toddlers wreak havoc in Paris in another reckless Rugrats animated adventure. Chuckie is a joyless juvenile whose single dad is sent to repair his robotic raptor invention in the City of Lights, where he meets the cunning Coco, a theme park manager in designer clothing who feigns love only for a piddling promotion. The scraggly-haired tykes aren't fooled, however, and fight to stop the heartless shrew and find the saddened son the perfect mom. All this between toilet humor and constant snacking. Debbie Reynolds, John Lithgow and Susan Sarandon supply some of the characters' voices in this surprisingly enjoyable and fast-paced film with an energetic soundtrack and entertaining parodies of several classic films. --Hernon
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
SEE SPOT RUN. A sophomore director, John Whitesell, and a half dozen screenwriters turn in a wasted team effort with this film's tediously drawn-out establishing sequence followed by a cliché-riddled series of dimwitted misadventures involving asinine characters, only to conclude with an extremely predictable ending. In other words: See spot run. See audience leave. Adam Sandler wannabe David Arquette stars as a militaristic mail carrier gone postal down canine alley while armed with a squirt gun and a slingshot full of meatballs. The dogophobic loser is obsessed with an anal-retentive aerobics queen, and offers to play daddy to her son. Meanwhile, a prestigious police pooch with an honorable track record in the narcotics division and an IQ greater than the cast and crew combined evades a drug-dealing mob boss and his henchman. And wouldn't you know that these two typical plotlines collide for a doggone disaster involving a helium-filled cellophane suit, an old school dance-off, and a musclebound FBI agent with detachment issues, all of which need to be thrown a bone. --Hernon
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 shtick 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
SWEET NOVEMBER. Tearjerker movies are a neat encapsulation of America's attitude toward Hollywood, and celebrity in general; i.e. it's fun to watch the lives of people who are far more beautiful and wealthy than me, but it's far more enjoyable if one of them has a terminal disease. In this remake of a long-forgotten 1968 film, Charlize Theron stars as Sara, a life-affirming sexual libertine who takes a new lover each month, helping her charges find self-confidence, a renewed capacity for love and wonder, etc. World-renowned Dogstar bassist Keanu Reeves plays Nelson, a workaholic advertising executive/asshole and Sara's skeptical November appointment. Can they resist falling in love? The appeal of the film isn't its kitchen-sink approach to drama--cute kids, interfamilial tension and fatal illness all complicate Sara and Nelson's relationship--but the surprisingly graceful handling of all the involved elements. Unexpectedly strong performances by the leads and supple direction by Pat O'Connor turn what could have been a painfully manipulative film into a sweetly manipulative one, leaving no heartstring untugged but earning all the emotions it draws. Mainstream Hollywood tearjerkers don't get much better than Sweet November. --Caruth
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
UNBREAKABLE. Director M. Night Shyamalan takes the basic elements of his Sixth Sense and gives them a little more life. Again, Bruce Willis stars as a man experiencing distance from his wife. Again, his life is changed by a near-death experience. Again, he learns to reconnect by forming a bond with a young boy. Again, there's a surprise ending. This time, however, instead of the supernatural the focus is on superpowers. Samuel L. Jackson plays a comic-book fan who is convinced that Willis has superhuman abilities, and must use them to fight crime. Willis, not having read the complete run of Green Lantern comics, is a bit skeptical, but events start to convince him that Jackson may be right. What works here is the relationship between Willis's character and his son, who really wants to believe in the superpower thing. Shyamalan hasn't yet outgrown his reliance on pointlessly arty camera techniques, and the film occasionally moves from the genuinely affecting to the mildly sappy, but on the whole it works better, and is deeper and less simple, than Sixth Sense. Of course, ghosts are acceptable adult entertainment, and superheroes are not, so I imagine that Unbreakable won't garner quite the kudos and cash of its predecessor, but, even though it's not perfect, it does represent an improvement in Shyamalan's work, and has me looking forward to its two proposed sequels. --DiGiovanna
VERTICAL LIMIT. Once, I dreamed I saw a film about mountain climbing in which no great storm appeared, no strong-headed man forced the climbers to continue through the storm, and no brave but irreverent group of wacky misfits and concerned heroes went to rescue the storm-trapped climbers. In this film, no one uttered ridiculous dialogue like "Up there, you're not dying, you're already dead." No one revealed his dark nature while trapped in the snowstorm. No one faced a test of courage that redeemed him for an error in his past. In short, this film of which I dreamed was not a montage of standard scenes and stock characters. This film was original, surprising, oddly real in its emotional content, oddly compelling in its naturalness. Of course, this film was only a dream. --DiGiovanna
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
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