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 BULWORTH. Warren Beatty's hilarious and intelligent new
film successfully resurrects the political comedy. The fast-moving
plot follows Senator Jay Bulworth through the final weekend of
his campaign to win the democratic primary for California. Having
hired someone to kill him so that his daughter can collect a large
life insurance policy, Bulworth is suddenly liberated from his
need to win and begins saying what's on his mind. The script is
full of extremely funny and politically astute commentary by the
increasingly demented Bulworth, and it doesn't lose steam throughout
its 107 minutes. Everything about this movie seems to run contrary
to the current style of filmmaking: There's a plot which unfolds
and deepens; the hip-hop soundtrack is fresh and adds mood, rather
than emphasizing what is already obvious; there's a rhythm to
the pacing that keeps things moving without pandering to an imaginary
attention-deficit disordered audience; the comedy is cerebral
and profanity is used only in service of the larger theme. And
instead of giant reptiles, the villains are insurance companies.
Just like in real life.
--DiGiovanna
DEEP IMPACT. With a massive comet coming to destroy the
Earth, everyone tries to mend their childhood traumas by producing
the most maudlin speeches ever heard. What happened to the good
old days when the end of the world meant marauding gangs of leather-clad
bikers and violence in the street? In Deep Impact it seems
like everyone is too bored to go out looting and rioting, so they
just hang out watching the skies and waiting for the special effects.
After 90 minutes of watching these whiny losers, you'll be rooting
for the comet. --DiGiovanna
DIRTY WORK. Norm Macdonald has the sort of face and attitude
that's funny even if he just stands there doing nothing. Unfortunately,
in Dirty Work Macdonald runs around spewing stillborn half-jokes
and pulling unimaginative revenge schemes on stereotypical villains.
Big dogs hump big dogs, skunks hump little dogs, Macdonald gets
ass-raped in jail, the highly obnoxious Artie Lange (Mad TV)
and highly dead Chris Farley try to squeeze laughs out of their
corpulence, Gary Coleman and Adam Sandler appear for so-over-the-top-they're-under-the-bottom
cameos, Chevy Chase and Don Rickles do what they always do, tiredly--and
none of it is funny. Then again, if you willingly go to a movie
directed by Bob Saget (of America's Stupidest Home Videos
fame), you have no one to blame but yourself. --Woodruff
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Hunter S. Thompson's semi-journalistic
novel of panic, drugs, and despair makes the leap to the big screen
in this good-intentioned adaptation by director Terry Gilliam.
Gilliam struggles to translate Thompson's stream-of-consciousness,
hallucinogen-addled prose into a series of coherent scenes with
some success. Special effects are nicely used to simulate acid
trips, and a loopy sense of time sends Duke (Johnny Depp) and
Dr. Gonzo (Benecio Del Toro) sliding along the already surreal
streets and casinos of old-time Vegas. Depp is pretty annoying
as the cigarette chomping Raoul Duke, and Benecio Del Toro steals
the show with his dark, menacing portrayal of a drug-crazed hippie
fiend. A rampant, insider's sense of nostalgia for the sixties
makes the story a little hard to "get" for those of
us who don't share in the longing for the Summer of Love, but
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is still an entertaining
ride that serves to remind us all that it's fun to watch people
on drugs. --Richter
GODZILLA. In the original pictures, Godzilla was like an
overgrown child throwing a tantrum, and I don't know about you,
but that's why I loved him. In the new Godzilla, he exists
on a purely biological level, motivated only to eat and to breed.
With neither political themes nor anthropomorphism to sustain
him, the sole reason to root for Godzilla is to see him destroy
things while protecting his territory. Even then, this over-marketed,
under-scripted special-effects vehicle doesn't deliver enough;
in fact, director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin eliminate
the big lizard from the movie's entire second act! Instead, we're
introduced to Godzilla's spawn, several dozen man-sized babies
who move, cast shadows, and produce visual puns exactly, and I
do mean exactly, like Steven Spielberg's velociraptors. Yes, this
is the Jurassic Park 3 you didn't know was coming. Sure,
Godzilla turns up again, but his revival can't save the movie
any more than that last-minute blue, singing alien could save
The Fifth Element. As for the actors, Godzilla stars
Matthew Broderick and Maria Pitillo in a wimpy love story that
has no business being in a Godzilla picture. Fortunately, Jean
Reno was thrown in to liven up the mix. He's the movie's one saving
grace: a sleepy-eyed action hero who cusses in French. --Woodruff
HOPE FLOATS. After Birdee Pruitt's (Sandra Bullock) husband
leaves her for her best friend on national TV, Birdee goes into
a deep depression. She spends most of the day sleeping, waking
only to have whiny fits. This goes on for 90 minutes while her
childhood sweetheart (played by muscled man-flesh love-god Harry
Connick Jr.) makes long speeches about the American dream and
tries to get Birdee to quit pouting and have sex with him. This
incredibly slow and largely plotless film was supposed to be Bullock's
"reward" for agreeing to make Speed II, but why
anyone would think this maudlin tripe would make an amusing movie
is beyond me. If watching moss grow while embarrassingly trite
dialogue plays in the background is your idea of fun, don't miss
Hope Floats. --DiGiovanna
THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. With genuine nostalgia edged with
spite, filmmaker Whit Stillman (Barcelona, Metropolitan)
chronicles the night life and loves of a group of budding Yuppies
in the early 1980s. Chloe Sevigny plays Alice, a straight-talking
innocent looking for fun. Kate Beckinsale is Charlotte, her conniving
roommate. Together they charm half a dozen young men at a Studio
54-like nightclub in New York, without ever actually having a
very good time. Whit Stillman's characters are funny, non-stop
talkers who recite clever dialogue and seem to be interchangeable.
They're entertaining, but they don't seem very authentic. They
all keep saying how much "fun" the nightclub is, but
it doesn't actually look like very much fun. The most notable
thing about it is that characters can sit around talking all night,
and they never have to shout over the music, and no one ever says
what? Perhaps the amazing thing about The Last Days
of Disco is that it does manage to evoke the spirit of the
time, and to portray a group dynamic among friends, despite all
the talking. --Richter
MULAN. Disney storytelling is catching up to the 21st century,
slowly but surely, by reaching ever farther into the past (about
the 5th century, in this case). Mulan recounts the mythical
Chinese tale of a daughter who disguises herself as a boy in order
to take her aged and ailing father's place in the emperor's army.
The crisis is that the Huns have crossed the Great Wall of China,
with plans of deposing the emperor; and in the Disney version,
a band of ragamuffin peasants, lead by a handsome young captain
(singing voice provided by Donny Osmond) and the heroine Fa-Mulan,
are China's last hope. Say what you will about the Disney empire,
the animation here is so arresting at times--from the magic of
watercolor strokes on the film's opening credits, to the breathtaking
vistas of torches bursting into flame all along the Great Wall,
and the Hun army descending a snowy cornice--you
may be inclined to forgive all sins, such as the corny contemporary
soundtrack, and the regrettably undignified ending. Eddie Murphy
is a kick as the demoted spirit-dragon Mushu; and The Single
Guy's Ming-Na Wen offers some much-needed spine to the first
Disney character we know of to suggest the girl worth fighting
for might be "a girl who always speaks her mind." This
is the summer action flick for the wee ones. --Wadsworth
A PERFECT MURDER. Gwyneth Paltrow plays the impossibly
beautiful young wife of evil, aged investment banker Michael Douglas
in this remake of Dial M For Murder. When Douglas realizes
Paltrow is having an affair with a young artist (played by smoky-hot
Viggo Mortensen), he hatches an elaborate plot for revenge. The
suspense film is one of the more difficult genres to pull off,
but director Andrew Davis, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and
composer James Newton Howard synergistically combine to drop all
the elements into place. Wolski, best known for inventing the
neo-gothic style of cinematography seen in The Crow and
Dark City, uses a much more subtle approach here, courageously
shooting empty rooms and static scenes to create a threatening
atmosphere and keep the viewer off-balance. The film is also notable
for the Arabic-speaking police detective who's portrayed as smart,
efficient and sympathetic, a rare departure from the normally
stereotyped representation of Muslim peoples in Hollywood movies.
The only flaws in this nerve-wracking outing are Michael Douglas'
exaggerated performance and a slight loss of momentum in the final
confrontation. Still, this is precision filmmaking that will leave
you reaching for the nitroglycerin tablets. --DiGiovanna
POST COITUM. Ah, no one makes love stories like the French!
Director Brigitte Roüan also stars in this sexy, bittersweet
story about the love affair between an older woman and a younger
man. Borris Terral plays the extremely hunky Emilio, an idealistic
youth who begins a passionate affair with the married Diane. Emilio
is a shameless romantic, shining all his charm on his successful
lover, who promptly jeopardizes her family and her job to better
fling herself into the affair. But just when Diane starts to really
like Emilio, he dumps her with no explanation. The grieving scenes
begin to become a bit elaborate, but Roüan has a light touch
that helps keep things from getting too heavy-handed. Ever notice
how much hotter the love scenes are when a woman is directing?
--Richter
SHOOTING FISH. A cute caper comedy from Britain, Shooting
Fish piles on the winks and smiles and skimps on anything
you might actually feel in your gut. Dan Futterman and Stuart
Townsend play twentysomething orphans who keep pulling off quick
scams so they can save up to buy a mansion. Kate Beckinsale's
pixie hair and perfect teeth star as the guys' perky love interest.
Will Kate fall for the fast-talking, ever-smirking playboy, or
the shy, socially awkward technical wizard? The movie hardly pauses
for an answer, whisking our protagonists off for still more mini-adventures.
For all its mobility, though, Shooting Fish never really
catches you off guard, and gets about as sexy as a science fair.
It would make a nice double feature with Cold Comfort Farm.
Emphasis on the word "nice."
--Woodruff
SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS. For our summer enjoyment,
Six Days, Seven Nights allows us to relive the dimmer aspects
of African Queen, and with pirates. Anne Heche plays a
fashionable magazine editor stranded on an island with a daddy-esque
Harrison Ford. She's a feisty talker; he's a tough man of action.
They hate each other, then they love each other, and it's all
shot in a lush vacation-porno setting. Anne Heche is adorable,
and you can see through most of her shirts. Harrison Ford is a
charming piece of aging beefcake, though if you remember what
he looked like in the Star Wars era, it's hard not to feel
like we're missing something. This is puréed entertainment,
easily digestible. --Richter
THE TRUMAN SHOW. Though it has an exciting premise and
Peter Weir directs the film beautifully, it's a little annoying
how much praise has been heaped upon The Truman Show. Does
the story really have anything to say about mass-media and invasion
of privacy that hasn't been exposed by countless Orwellian knock-offs
and the media itself? Not really. What the picture needs is an
extra twist, something juicy, to push it over the edge. You'd
think Jim Carrey could supply it, but he's toned himself down
here, because (in a twisted bit of casting) he's supposed to play
a non-actor in a world full of actors. His escape from the sunnily
phony Norman Rockwell bubble created by Ed Harris' "Christof"--a
scary portrait of what can happen when you give an artist too
much power--remains fun, but more for the details of the deception
than for Carrey's performance. The Truman Show is well
worth a look, but as far as I'm concerned Albert Brooks' Real
Life retains the kingship in this media-overboard genre.
--Woodruff
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