Filler

Filler Film Clips

Emma. What would Jane Austen think of the movie adaptations of her novels? How would she conduct herself at a Hollywood opening? Surely she would be appalled at the sudden excess of Jane Austen movies, as she was appalled at the excess of almost anything else. But the glut of 19th-century literary adaptations continues with a new version of Emma, Austen's most lighthearted novel. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as a young woman with the unfortunate habit of meddling in other people's affairs. The plot is the same as in Clueless, except the women in Emma wear nightgowns and the guys ride horses. Emma is not as good as Sense and Sensibility, but if you like to see meek girls find husbands, it's a perfectly solid movie, and Paltrow has such a beautiful smile that it's a delight to watch her even when she's not quite in stride.

Escape From L.A. John Carpenter comes back for another round in this fun, campy reprise of his 15-year-old Escape From New York. It is again the not-so-distant future, and the entire city of Los Angeles has been turned into a prison camp for criminals, degenerates and smokers. Only one man, with one eye, Snake Plisskin (Kurt Russell) can retrieve the doomsday device from deep within the city. Schlockier and more self-conscious than the first Escape movie, Escape From L.A. lacks the bleakness of Carpenter's earlier version but makes up for it with silly special effects and a priceless surfing moment. This movie makes L.A. look like more fun than you ever imagined.

HEAVY. A thoughtful, achingly sad film about an overweight pizza cook who falls in love with a teenage girl, played by supermodel Liv Tyler. Sparse dialogue, dull, cluttered sets and a pathologically shy hero help this movie live up to its name. Livening up the melancholy mood are great performances by Shelley Winters, Debbie Harry and Pruitt Taylor Vince, who is amazing as the pizza cook Victor.

KANSAS CITY. In the last 25 years, Robert Altman has made some of the best movies in America and some of the worst. Kansas City finds Altman at the dip in the graph. This story of a politician's wife who is kidnapped by a manicurist during the height of the jazz era lacks all nuance, cohesion and sense. The plot is forced and arbitrary, and the characters never spring to life. Altman seems to be trying to make two movies at once: An adventure crime flick and a moving character study, but ends up not really doing either. Jennifer Jason Leigh's career is much like Altman's: When she's in form, she's terrific, but when she's not, she's horrible. As Blondie the manicurist, Leigh twists and ticks through a self-conscious, mannered performance that's painful to watch. The only good parts of this movie are when the jazz musicians come in, but they can't save it.

Kingpin. Funny, energetic and totally offensive, Kingpin is a surprisingly engaging film about bowling, of all things. But enough of reviewers, what do the fans say? "It exceeded all my expectations for a bowling movie," reports one viewer after a recent screening. "One of the top-five bowling movies of all time," chimes in another. "A motion picture extravaganza like no other. Two hooks up!" exclaims yet a third enthusiastic citizen. But not all reports are rosy. "It has too much character development and not enough cheap laughs," one disappointed fellow responds. And a confused audience member asks: "Which Jane Austen novel is this based on?"

JACK. Francis Coppola, director of Apocalypse Now and Captain Eo, brings us a "heartwarming" comedy about a 10 year-old boy who has a disease that makes him look like Robin Williams. Jack's parents have kept him home because they're afraid the other kids will taunt him for being different; but Jack is lonely, and after considerable prodding they consent to send him to school. At first the other children do tease him, but eventually they come to love him. The intersection between the idealization of childhood as an unfallen, perfectly natural state and the sexuality of an adult male body in this movie is completely bizarre. Robin Williams is supposed to be ten, but he reads Penthouse, makes passes at his teacher and tongue kisses his best friend's mom, all while teaching his friends and family about the spontaneous beauty of childlike behavior. It's interesting, but kind of disturbing, too.

Lone Star. Director John Sayles delivers an offbeat, thoughtful examination of border life and love in this winding tale of one lawman searching for his roots. Chris Cooper plays a divorced Texas sheriff trying to sort out fact from legend, particularly in regard to his father, who may or may not have been a bad kind of a guy. His search leads him across the big, dusty state and into a half-dozen different recollections of a puzzling past. Though the characters have an annoying propensity for explaining their motivations in gruesome psychological detail, and though Sayles (as always) can't resist an opportunity to preach the liberal cause; and though the production values of this movie are so shoddy that nearly 20 annoying minutes of it are out of sync, Lone Star still somehow manages to be an engaging, surprising film.

A Time to Kill. An overblown but entertaining courtroom drama, based on a John Grisham novel, about racial strife in the deep South. Samuel L. Jackson plays a humble working man driven to take the law into his own hands when a pair of good ol' boys rape his young daughter; Matthew McConaughey plays the white-bread attorney who decides to defend him. (Chris Cooper is also in this movie, in a strange reprise of his role in Lone Star.) Somewhere in there is Sandra Bullock, playing an eager young law student who both helps and distracts the white guy from his lawyerin'. Yes, morality is laid out on a nice flat grid, but the fact that there even is a moral battle here gives this movie a heavy, heavy dose of tension and drama, despite the fact that its view of the South and the people in it are so stereotyped they're practically cartoons. If only director Joel Schumacher (of Batman Forever fame) would leave out the swelling music, this movie might have some real power.

Tin Cup. This tissue-weight romantic comedy about love, ambition and golfing is sweet, enjoyable and forgettable. Golf fans will probably like it more than the population-at-large, and golf fans on dates will probably like it most of all. Rene Russo is funny, charismatic and gorgeous as a ditzy psychotherapist; Kevin Costner manages to come off as a suitable love interest for her, despite the fact that his character is a slacker and an alcoholic. (Maybe because he looks more like a movie star than a loser, alcoholic golf pro.) Together they take the high stakes, tension-filled world of pro-golfing by storm!

Trainspotting. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, this hip, streetwise movie meanders through the underworld of Scottish drug culture with a cold, steely eye. A group of disillusioned blokes sneer, shoot-up and slug their way through the stupefying sludge of middle-class life, hoping drugs or crime or a combination of the two will help them transcend the boredom and humility of being young, without ambition and Scottish. The funny, fast-talking characters don't have enough direction in their lives to allow this movie to have a plot, but who needs a plot when you have such a great script?

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