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 CHINESE BOX. Wayne Wang, who directed Smoke, has
managed to make an almost entirely unintelligible movie about...it's
hard to say, exactly. It's kind of about the transfer of Hong
Kong to the Chinese, and it's sort of about a journalist, John
(Jeremy Irons), who rather conveniently comes down with a bad
case of incurable leukemia that has him scheduled to die at the
same moment the British are scheduled to pull out. John is an
odd fellow, an antihero from the old school--macho, self-obsessed,
frequently drunk. As soon as he's diagnosed with cancer, he runs
out and begins to stalk a young girl (the adorable Maggie Cheung)
with a video camera. Then he goes back to his apartment, where
he and his buddy Jim (Ruben Blades), another middle-aged ex-patriot,
obsessively ruminate over her image. Despite his fixation with
the girl, John is hopelessly in love with Vivian (Gong Li). But
Vivian loves Chang (Michael Hui), who refuses to marry her, because
she was once a prostitute. Watching these two blowsy, middle-aged
actors compete for the favors of Gong Li, indisputably one of
the most beautiful women in the world, is like watching two bulldogs
fight over an orchid. The melodrama heats up even more as John,
increasingly fascinated and repelled by Vivian's disreputable
past, takes a tour of Hong Kong's seedier sex dives. It's not
long before the whole thing degenerates into a pretentious version
of Showgirls, only more misogynistic. Sharing the blame
for this travesty are co-writers Jean-Claude Carriere, Larry Gross
and the ever-annoying Paul Theroux. --Richter
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
DOCTOR DOLITTLE. The Eddie Murphy version of the classic
story spends almost all its screen time on the frustrating issue
of whether or not others believe in Murphy's ability to talk to
the animals. At home, Murphy has problems with his wife (the ever-glaring
Kristen Wilson) and children, from whom he is alienated; at work,
Murphy struggles to overcome his own medical cynicism (as exemplified
by his greedy partner Oliver Platt, who wants to sell off their
practice). Everybody thinks he's going crazy, so Murphy spends
time in a mental hospital, and then goes into denial about his
powers. What this means is that the animals, including a dog voiced
by Norm MacDonald and a tiger voiced by Albert Brooks, seem to
exist solely to help Murphy overcome his problems. Their wisecracks
are somewhat cute, but there's little magic surrounding the animal
world. Mostly, we're supposed to laugh at how much their comments
(stuff like "Hey baby, whassup?") mirror those of humans
in stereotypical situations. Not much fun in my book. --Woodruff
GONE WITH THE WIND. While it may seem confusing at first
why a film that doesn't star John Travolta is in re-release, it
all makes perfect sense when you consider the long-movie madness
that's afflicted Hollywood in recent years. (Anybody wish they
had the three-and-a-half hours they wasted at Titanic back?)
So it was only a matter of time until the four-hour, 1939 Gone
with the Wind was recycled. It's a brand-new Technicolor print,
but you can thank Ted Turner for less-than-spectacular results.
Just in case you're very young or have been living with Nell your
whole life, this epic film follows the Civil War-era adventures
of feisty southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) and the
fall of her family's aristocratic empire. But, not to worry: Bourgeois
bliss is restored as Scarlett discovers the economic advantages
of a well-researched marriage. The man who tries hardest to tame
this unruly entrepreneur is the fabulously dressed Rhett Butler
(Clark Gable) and his arsenal of pomade--though he's more successful
at trimming his mustache and killing children. A note to parents:
The film's "G" rating is not reflective of its horrendously
stereotyped black characters; narrative support of drunken marital
rape (which sure puts a skip back into Miss Scarlett's step);
and Gable's creepy capped teeth. At the very least, we can take
comfort in the fact that Hollywood is ecologically minded. My
only hope is that a director's cut of Travolta's full-length exercise
video, Perfect, is similarly pulled out of the recycling
bin sometime soon. --Higgins
HAV PLENTY. Christopher Scott Cherot wrote, directed, and
stars in this exceedingly inconsequential romantic comedy. Based
on a "true story," the film follows Lee Plenty (Cherot)
during a New Year's Eve weekend he spent in Washington, D.C.,
with a high-society female friend named Havilland (Hav Plenty--get
it?). We watch as Plenty, a struggling book writer, resists the
advances of Hav's friend and sister, all the while holding out
for Hav, who's too self-absorbed to realize she loves him back.
The picture has the dry staginess and spotty performances of a
low-budget first feature, with absolutely nothing resembling good
comic rhythm; but the characters slowly grow on you, and their
specific situation becomes amusing--if not actually romantic--for
its smartly detailed observation. Great movie-within-a-movie ending.
--Woodruff
HIGH ART. "High melodrama" would be a more apt
description of this ambitious but annoying soap opera by first-time
director Lisa Cholodenko. Radha Mitchell plays Syd, a twenty-something
Manhattanite stuck in a boring heterosexual relationship. When
her ceiling starts to leak she goes to meet the Bohemian upstairs
neighbor, Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy), a heroine-snorting lesbian.
Syd seems to have no choice but to fall for Lucy, given the boringness
of her job and the one-dimensionality of her boyfriend. It's a
walk on the wild side, but a predictable one. Cholodenko has a
good eye and the cinematography is appropriately lush, but rather
than being beautiful, it just makes it all seem pretentious. --Richter
I WENT DOWN. Male-identified films, especially those grouped
within the buddy genre, often go out of their way to direct audience
attention away from queer interpretations of male-male relationships.
In some ways that holds true for this Irish production--we get
the mandatory female love interest; a three-second sex scene;
and plenty of discussions about female hardware. The much more
interesting and consequential narrative, however, involves the
burgeoning Odd Couple-esque relationship between a doe-eyed
ex-con named Git (Felix) and his bumbling partner (Oscar). They
are brought together because both are working off debts of sorts
to a mob boss, and initially their personality differences result
in animosity and frustration. Many references to Git's titanic
manhood later, the two decide to put their girls on the side and
move to the United States. It's a formula we've all seen before:
After many obstacles, the couple couples and rides off into the
sunset. The satisfying and self-referential ending of I Went
Down is welcome, too, because the weak comedic elements (madcap
antics, pratfalls) that occur throughout the film become increasingly
tedious and annoying. --Higgins
THE OPPOSITE OF SEX. Forget about wholesome sincerity in
writer/director Don Roos' tale of unrequited love among gays and
schoolteachers. Sarcastic self-cancellation rules, as the story's
narrator, Christina Ricci, sourly criticizes all the storytelling
conventions that come with the depressing territory. The result
is a funny, energetic movie with a severe case of multiple-personality
disorder. The travails of the spurned Martin Donovan form a fast-moving
but not terribly compelling plot that provides Roos plenty of
material for the bitchy Ricci (a manipulative catalyst throughout
the story) to verbally trample. The movie's inability to keep
its heart in one place might become annoying if it weren't for
Roos' great lines of dialogue, most of which he gives to Lisa
Kudrow, playing Donovan's cynical best friend. Kudrow's gift for
sharp comic delivery ensures that the picture remains the opposite
of dull throughout. --Woodruff
OUT OF SIGHT. In the hierarchy of adaptations based on
Elmore Leonard books, this one ranks up there with Get Shorty.
The direction (by Steven Soderbergh, of Sex, Lies and Videotape
fame) expresses the Leonard style perfectly, nudging humor out
of naturalistic dialogue and displaying a whimsically carefree
attitude about matters of life and death without letting all the
steam out of the story. George Clooney, as a bank robber, and
Jennifer Lopez, as his police pursuer, make an extremely good-looking
couple; and their two verbal tennis matches (one in a car's trunk,
the other in a hotel) are the film's sexual-spark-filled highlights.
The smoothly developing romantic mood begins in sunny Miami and
ends in snowy nighttime Detroit, so even if you see Out of Sight
during the middle of the day you might walk out expecting a cool,
dark sky. A standout supporting cast includes Albert Brooks, Catherine
Keener, Ving Rhames, Get Shorty alumnus Dennis Farina,
and a couple of uncredited surprises. --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 X-FILES. Help! I can't get that whistling theme music
out of my head! That's just one of many reasons to avoid the movie
version of The X-Files. On TV, the X-Files successfully
exploited the conspiratorial secrets and creepy things lurking
in the dark shadows, but the bright light of big-movie translation
reveals them as rather cheap. Although the film delivers more
special effects and a broader geographic scope, all the promised
Big Answers turn out to be big nonsense, and the relationship
between agents Mulder and Scully remains teasingly chaste (not
to mention stiff). Plus, the plot takes too many asinine steps,
from Mulder's easy discovery of a bomb in a building tastelessly
similar to the one destroyed in Oklahoma, to his quick recovery
from a point-blank gunshot wound to the head. The truth may be
out there, but these aren't the sorts of truths about which The
X-Files is supposed to leave you wondering. --Woodruff
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