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 THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The latest comedy from the Coen brothers
never really comes together as a whole; but the texture of it,
as it spills across the screen, is funny, strange and wonderful.
Jeff Bridges plays a type-B personality called the Dude, a chronically
unemployed pot smoker dedicated to nothing except his bowling
buddies, and bowling itself. A case of mistaken identity leads
the Dude into some uncool, high-stress situations: kidnapping,
gunplay, robbery, and the like. All this seems like an excuse
to introduce a palette of oddball characters from the California
spectrum. The Coen brothers have a great time concocting visual
subplots and dream sequences that reference everything from Busby
Berkeley musicals to spaghetti westerns to detective films, but
they give their most loving attention to the bowling sequences.
Who knew bowling was such a photogenic sport? --Richter
DANGEROUS BEAUTY. This is why we love Hollywood! Dangerous
Beauty mixes the crass and melodramatic with the lofty and
noble, extruding trashy entertainment that's wildly enjoyable,
even if it does leave you feeling used and guilty. Catherine McCormack
plays Veronica Franco, a courtesan plying her wares in a strange
version of 16th century Venice where everybody speaks English
and appears in soft focus. Oh well, whatever--she's a plucky one,
and her plain speaking, bawdy intelligence eventually charms most
of the Venetian ruling class, including hunky Marco Venier (Rufus
Sewell), who risks it all to be her boyfriend. Dangerous Beauty
transplants progressive '90s sexual politics to the repressive
16th century, where uneducated wives were kept safely inside but
courtesans read whatever they liked and had the run of the place.
Veronica's pleas for independence, sexual equality, and erotic
freedom resonate across the centuries, making her far more spicy
than any 20th century spice girl. --Richter
FIRE. This wonderful movie deals with such a touchy subject
matter that the director, Deepa Mehta, was threatened by male
audience members after it was screened in India. Indian women
have received it much more enthusiastically. The film tells the
tale of two unhappy wives living in an extended middle-class family
in New Delhi. One is newly wed to a philandering boor; the other
is stuck in a sexless, arranged marriage. They're suffocated by
the weight of their traditional roles and by the nagging concept
of purity, until they find liberation through their erotic affair
with one another. --Richter
HUSH. Jessica Lange does an over-the-top crazy lady in
the most predictable film since The Ten Commandments. In
what is one of the oddest decisions a director has ever made,
most of the action in this film occurred 20 years prior to its
start, and instead of showing it in flashbacks, it's all told
in dialogue. It's as close to radio as a movie can get. On top
of that, instead of following the normal thriller formula of tossing
in plot twists, maguffins and false scares, everything is precisely
what it seems to be and the story--what little there is of it--just
heads straight to its obvious conclusion. After what would normally
have been the scene right before the murdering mother goes psycho,
I turned to my movie companion and said, "Wouldn't it be
funny if it ended right here?" And then it did. It ended
right there. And nobody got hurt. --DiGiovanna
KUNDUN. The most annoying thing about the Tibet vogue that
has swept Hollywood is that the actors and trendies who have hopped
on this bandwagon are under the impression that Lhasa was some
kind of delightful Shangri-La prior to the coming of the Chinese.
In fact, it was run by a brutally oppressive and corrupt theocratic
regime. Somehow, director Scorcese had the courage to at least
hint at the atrocious state of affairs in Tibet under monastic
rule. Further, his cast is made up exclusively of Tibetan, Chinese
and Indian actors, despite what I'm sure was an overwhelming urge
to call up Keanu Reeves to play the role of the Dalai Lama. The
Himalayan landscapes (mimed by Moroccan mountains) are hard to
shoot poorly, and Scorcese makes good use of Tibetan sand painting
as a transitional device. Oddly, in spite of his dedication to
authenticity in every other area, he largely eschews the rich
musical tradition of Tibet in favor of a limp soundtrack by experimentalist-turned-new-age-shlockmeister
Philip Glass. All of Glass' noodling drones turn the atmosphere
to overly reverential mush, and the film often takes on the emotionally
manipulative mode of a television movie of the week. Nonetheless,
it's beautiful to look at and takes enough risks to make the viewer
wish that other films would be this daring, and that this one
had been a little more so. --DiGiovanna
MR. NICE GUY. In a stunning departure from his previous
films, Jackie Chan plays a martial artist who must fight vicious
criminals. He is aided in this pursuit by Gabrielle Fitzpatrick,
who mysteriously drops out of the film about halfway through and
is never seen again. But Mr. Nice Guy isn't about consistency
of plot, character and setting, but rather about Chan doing things
that could get him seriously injured. As usual, after the story
ends the audience is treated to the outtakes wherein Chan actually
is injured. There's nothing funnier than seeing a guy get his
butt stuck in a garbage can--and then not be able to get it
out!!! I think this is the first time that Chan has had to
speak in English throughout a film, and he does an admirable job
of acting like he knows what he's saying. Maybe he could give
Ethan Hawke a lesson. --DiGiovanna
OSCAR & LUCINDA. I used to think movies like this were
over my head, but now I realize they're just ineptly conceived
and flatly directed. Unless you've read the Peter Carey novel,
you'll have no idea what Oscar & Lucinda is supposed
to mean or why you should care--picturesque cinematography and
Oscar-nominated costumes notwithstanding. Made in Australia and
set in the late 19th century, this loooong drama follows the lives
of Ralph Fiennes, a timid, sickly religious student with a bad
gambling habit; and Cate Blanchett, an eccentric heiress who's
obsessed with glass and also gambles. They're too repressed or
otherwise quirky to act on their love for each other, so Fiennes
runs off to the jungle so he can deliver a glass church to a man
Blanchett used to like. The whole experience is very PBS; Fiennes,
with blowzy orange hair and a red-cheeked, womanly face, is even
the spitting image of Lady Elaine Fairchild from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.
At any moment I thought some twirpy volunteer might break in and
ask for a pledge, and let me tell you, it would have been a welcome
relief. --Woodruff
THE SWEET HEREAFTER. Kurt Vonnegut once described the literature
of a race of beings who were not bounded by time. Their books
were essentially read all at once, and contained a series of unordered
sentences that, when taken as a whole, produced a still image
of ideas, emotions, and histories. Atom Egoyan has directed films
that work in much the same way, weaving their stories back and
forth across time until the mystery of the characters' actions
and reactions becomes clear in the light of devastating, defining
or punctative events. In Sweet Hereafter, Ian Holm stars
as a lawyer out to use a small-town tragedy for personal gain,
and his overly mannered performance is the film's weakest link.
Otherwise, all the actors, many from Egoyan's usual troupe, play
their parts with a stiff naturalism that perfectly complements
the horrific central event that practically disanimates an entire
community. Two stories of the worst possibilities in father-daughter
relations further accentuate the bland unpleasantness of quotidian
existence, and as each thread of the tale is slowly unwound, a
final image of pointless hope and senseless loss is formed. Definitely
one of the bleakest, most despairing, and best films of last year.
--DiGiovanna
TWILIGHT. This film noir project seems to have been started
in 1955, when characters had names like Gloria Lamar and L.A.
was full of dangerous broads who would kill to keep their reputations
clean. Suddenly, the cast and crew fell asleep à la Rip
Van Winkle, and woke up 40 years later, skin sagging and hair
graying, but knowing that they must finish what they started.
The only modification made to the script in response to this time
warp is the scene where Paul Newman and James Garner discuss their
prostate glands. Reese Witherspoon, sporting newly enhanced breasts,
and Liev Schrieber, also with new breasts, are brought in as fresh
blood to nourish the aging cast and crew. Schrieber bleeds real
good, too. Real good. --DiGiovanna
U.S. MARSHALS. In Hollywood, if a sequel only brings back
half of the original's stars, it's called a "spin off."
If it brings back half the original's stars and none of its suspense,
it's called U.S. Marshals. Tommy Lee Jones stars as the
same squinty, no-bullshit character he played in The Fugitive.
But because Harrison Ford was busy working on a movie about a
president armed only with a bullwhip who commandeers a spacecraft
in order to save an Amish community from IRA assassins, now Wesley
Snipes is the dude on the run. As for poor Jones, he tries hard,
but needs more to work with than the jumble of suitcase trades,
gun switches and likable- good- guys- who- look- like- Judge- Reinhold- so- you- know- they're- dead- meat
that the film supplies. As a result, U.S. Marshals maintains
the peculiar distinction of being impossible to follow yet completely
predictable. --Woodruff
WILD THINGS. Denise Richards makes her sophomore appearance
here, and she is a marvel of modern science. Luckily, she didn't
have the star power to demand a "no nude scenes" clause
in her contract like box-office draw/no-talent Neve Campbell,
so you can really get a good look at all the scalpel marks on
her surgically enhanced body. There's also some plain-old lesbian
sex between Richards and Campbell, shots of Theresa Russell's
butt, and, I think, a plot. It has something to do with a teacher
being framed for rape so that he can sue someone and split the
proceeds with everyone who's in on the scam, which turns out to
be just about everyone in southern Florida. Since there's no suspense
or tension, the task of keeping the audience interested is handed
over to the barely-legal sex and Bill Murray's comic-relief role
as a sleazy lawyer in a phony neck-brace. Murray steals the show,
but he's only in a few scenes; and unless you think Kevin Bacon's
(admittedly impressive) penis is worth the $7.50 admission, this
might not be your best movie value. --DiGiovanna
Special Screenings
LESBIAN LOOKS. The Lesbian Looks Film and Video Series
concludes Friday, March 27 with the award-winning documentary
Out At Work (Kelly Anderson and Tami Gold, 1996). Out
At Work tells the story of Cheryl Summerville, who in 1991
was fired from her job as a cook for "failing to demonstrate
normal heterosexual values." Out At Work chronicles
the stories of three gay workers over the course of five years:
Summerville, Detroit auto worker Ron Woods, and New York Public
Library clerk Nat Keitt. The film will be followed by a panel
discussion of workplace issues at the UA, moderated by the main
library's Assistant Dean for Facilitation, Shelley Phipps. The
free screening begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Modern Languages Building
auditorium, on the UA mall.
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