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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE SUM OF ALL FEARS / ***1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 01 Jun 2002 17:20:55 GMT

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS / ***1/2 (PG-13)

May 31, 2002

Jack Ryan:    Ben Affleck
Bill Cabot:    Morgan Freeman
President Fowler:    James Cromwell
John Clark:    Liev Schreiber
Richard Dressler:    Alan Bates
Defense Sec. Becker:    Philip Baker Hall

Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Written
by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne. Based on the novel by Tom Clancy. Running
time: 119 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violence, disaster images and brief
strong language). Opening today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

Oh, for the innocent days when a movie like "The Sum of All Fears" could be
enjoyed as a "thriller." In these dark times, it is not a thriller but a
confirmer, confirming our fears that the world is headed for disaster. The
film is about the detonation of a nuclear device in an American city. No
less an authority than Warren Buffet recently gave a speech in which he
flatly stated that such an event was "inevitable." Movies like "Black
Sunday" could exorcise our fears, but this one works instead to give them
form.

To be sure, Tom Clancy's horrifying vision has been footnoted with the
obligatory Hollywood happy ending, in which world war is averted and an
attractive young couple pledge love while sitting on a blanket in the
sunshine on the White House lawn. We can walk out smiling, unless we
remember that much of Baltimore is radioactive rubble. Human nature is a
wonderful thing. The reason the ending is happy is because we in the
audience assume we'll be the two on the blanket, not the countless who've
been vaporized.

The movie is based on another of Clancy's fearfully factual stories about
Jack Ryan, the CIA agent, this time a good deal younger than Harrison Ford's
Ryan in "A Clear and Present Danger" and played by Ben Affleck. It follows
the ancient convention in which the hero goes everywhere important and
personally performs most of the crucial actions, but it feels less contrived
because Clancy has expertise about warfare and national security issues; the
plot is a device to get us from one packet of information to another.

The story: In 1973, an Israeli airplane carrying a nuclear bomb crashes in
Syria. Many years later, the unexploded bomb is dug up, goes on the black
market, and is sold to a right-wing fanatic who has a theory: "Hitler was
stupid. He fought America and Russia, instead of letting them fight one
another." The fanatic's plan is to start a nuclear exchange between the
superpowers, after which Aryan fascists would pick up the pieces.

The use of the neo-Nazis is politically correct: Best to invent villains who
won't offend any audiences. This movie can play in Syria, Saudi Arabia and
Iraq without getting walkouts. It's more likely that if a bomb ever does go
off in a big city, the perpetrators will be True Believers whose certainty
about the next world gives them, they think, the right to kill us in this
one.

In the film, Ryan becomes a sort of unofficial protege of Bill Cabot (Morgan
Freeman), a high-level CIA official and good guy who maintains a "back
channel" into the Kremlin to avoid just such misunderstandings as occur.
Ryan and Cabot fly to Moscow when a new president assumes power, and the new
Soviet leader (Ciaran Hinds) is shown as a reasonable man who must take
unreasonable actions (like invading Chechnya) to placate the militarists in
his government.

America is being run by President Fowler (tall, Lincolnesque James
Cromwell), who is surrounded by advisors cast with some of the most
convincing character actors in the movies: Philip Baker Hall, Alan Bates,
Bruce McGill, etc. Crucial scenes take place aboard Air Force One after
Baltimore has been bombed, and we see the president and his cabinet not in
cool analytical discussions but all shouting at once. Somehow I am reassured
by the notion that our leaders might be really upset at such a time; anyone
who can be dispassionate about nuclear war is probably able to countenance
one.

There are some frightening special effects in the movie, which I will not
describe, because their unexpected appearance has such an effect. There are
also several parallel story lines, including one involving a particularly
skilled dirty tricks specialist named John Clark (Liev Schreiber) who I am
glad to have on our side. There are also the usual frustrations in which the
man with the truth can't get through because of bureaucracy.

Against these strengths are some weaknesses. I think Jack Ryan's one-man
actions in post-bomb Baltimore are unlikely and way too well-timed. I doubt
he would find evildoers still hanging around the scene of their crime. I am
not sure all of the threads--identifying the plutonium, finding the shipping
manifest and invoice, tracking down the guy who dug up the bomb--could take
place with such gratifying precision. And I smile wearily at the necessity
of supplying Jack with a girlfriend (Bridget Moynahan), who exists only so
that she can (1) be impatient when he is called away from dates on official
business; (2) disbelieve his alibis; (3) be heroic; (4) be worried about
him; (5) be smudged with blood and dirt, and (6) populate the happy ending.
We are so aware of the character's function that we can hardly believe her
as a person.

These details are not fatal to the film. Director Phil Alden Robinson and
his writers, Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne, do a spellbinding job of
cranking up the tension, they create a portrait of convincing realism, and
then they add the other stuff because, well, if anybody ever makes a movie
like this without the obligatory Hollywood softeners, audiences might flee
the theater in despair. My own fear is that in the post-apocalyptic future,
"The Sum of All Fears" will be seen as touchingly optimistic.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] STAR WARS -- EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES / ** (PG)
Date: 01 Jun 2002 17:21:08 GMT

STAR WARS -- EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES / ** (PG)

May 10, 2002

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Ewan McGregor
Senator Padme Amidala: Natalie Portman
Anakin Skywalker: Hayden Christensen

Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by George Lucas. Produced by
Rick McGallum. Written by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales. Photographed by
David Tattersall. Edited by Ben Burtt. Music by John Williams. Running time:
142 minutes. Classified PG (for sustained sequences of sci-fi
action/violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

It is not what's there on the screen that disappoints me, but what's not
there. It is easy to hail the imaginative computer images that George Lucas
brings to "Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones." To marvel at his
strange new aliens and towering cities and sights such as thousands of
clones all marching in perfect ranks into a huge spaceship. To see the
beginnings of the dark side in young Anakin Skywalker. All of those
experiences are there to be cheered by fans of the "Star Wars" series, and
for them this movie will affirm their faith.

But what about the agnostic viewer? The hopeful ticket buyer walking in not
as a cultist, but as a moviegoer hoping for a great experience? Is this
"Star Wars" critic-proof and scoff-resistant? Yes, probably, at the box
office. But as someone who admired the freshness and energy of the earlier
films, I was amazed, at the end of "Episode II," to realize that I had not
heard one line of quotable, memorable dialogue. And the images, however
magnificently conceived, did not have the impact they deserved. I'll get to
them in a moment.

The first hour of "Episode II" contains a sensational chase through the
skyscraper canyons of a city, and assorted briefer shots of space ships and
planets. But most of that first hour consists of dialogue, as the characters
establish plot points, update viewers on what has happened since "Episode
I," and debate the political crisis facing the Republic. They talk and talk
and talk. And their talk is in a flat utilitarian style: They seem more like
lawyers than the heroes of a romantic fantasy.

In the classic movie adventures that inspired "Star Wars," dialogue was
often colorful, energetic, witty and memorable. The dialogue in "Episode II"
exists primarily to advance the plot, provide necessary information, and
give a little screen time to continuing characters who are back for a new
episode. The only characters in this stretch of the film who have inimitable
personal styles are the beloved Yoda and the hated Jar-Jar Binks, whose
idiosyncrasies turned off audiences for "Phantom Menace." Yes, Jar-Jar's
accent may be odd and his mannerisms irritating, but at least he's a unique
individual and not a bland cipher. The other characters--Obi-Wan Kenobi,
Padme Amidala, Anakin Skywalker--seem so strangely stiff and formal in their
speech that an unwary viewer might be excused for thinking they were the
clones, soon to be exposed.

Too much of the rest of the film is given over to a romance between Padme
and Anakin in which they're incapable of uttering anything other than the
most basic and weary romantic cliches, while regarding each other as if love
was something to be endured rather than cherished. There is not a romantic
word they exchange that has not long since been reduced to cliche.

No, wait: Anakin tells Padme at one point: "I don't like the sand. It's
coarse and rough and irritating--not like you. You're soft and smooth." I
hadn't heard that before.

When it comes to the computer-generated images, I feel that I cannot
entirely trust the screening experience I had. I could see that in
conception many of these sequences were thrilling and inventive. I liked the
planet of rain, and the vast coliseum in which the heroes battle strange
alien beasts, and the towering Senate chamber, and the secret factory where
clones were being manufactured.

But I felt like I had to lean with my eyes toward the screen in order to see
what I was being shown. The images didn't pop out and smack me with delight,
the way they did in earlier films. There was a certain fuzziness, an
indistinctness that seemed to undermine their potential power.

Later I went on the Web to look at the trailers for the movie, and was
startled to see how much brighter, crisper and more colorful they seemed on
my computer screen than in the theater. Although I know that video images
are routinely timed to be brighter than movie images, I suspect another
reason for this. "Episode II" was shot entirely on digital video. It is
being projected in digital video on 19 screens, but on some 3,000 others,
audiences will see it as I did, transferred to film.

How it looks in digital projection I cannot say, although I hope to get a
chance to see it that way. I know Lucas believes it looks better than film,
but then he has cast his lot with digital. My guess is that the film version
of "Episode II" might jump more sharply from the screen in a small multiplex
theater. But I saw it on the largest screen in Chicago, and my suspicion is,
the density and saturation of the image were not adequate to imprint the
image there in a forceful way.

Digital images contain less information than 35mm film images, and the more
you test their limits, the more you see that. Two weeks ago I saw "Patton"
shown in 70mm Dimension 150, and it was the most astonishing projection I
had ever seen--absolute detail on a giant screen, which was 6,000 times
larger than a frame of the 70mm film. That's what large-format film can do,
but it's a standard Hollywood has abandoned (except for IMAX), and we are
being asked to forget how good screen images can look--to accept the
compromises. I am sure I will hear from countless fans who assure me that
"Episode II" looks terrific, but it does not. At least, what I saw did not.
It may look great in digital projection on multiplex-size screens, and I'm
sure it will look great on DVD, but on a big screen it lacks the authority
it needs.

I have to see the film again to do it justice. I'm sure I will greatly enjoy
its visionary sequences on DVD; I like stuff like that. The dialogue is
another matter. Perhaps because a movie like this opens everywhere in the
world on the same day, the dialogue has to be dumbed down for easier dubbing
or subtitling. Wit, poetry and imagination are specific to the languages
where they originate, and although translators can work wonders, sometimes
you get the words but not the music. So it's safer to avoid the music.

But in a film with a built-in audience, why not go for the high notes? Why
not allow the dialogue to be inventive, stylish and expressive?

There is a certain lifelessness in some of the acting, perhaps because the
actors were often filmed in front of blue screens so their environments
could be added later by computer. Actors speak more slowly than they
might--flatly, factually, formally, as if reciting. Sometimes that reflects
the ponderous load of the mythology they represent. At other times it simply
shows that what they have to say is banal. "Episode II-- Attack of the
Clones" is a technological exercise that lacks juice and delight. The title
is more appropriate than it should be.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BAD COMPANY / ** (PG-13)
Date: 07 Jun 2002 18:10:55 GMT

BAD COMPANY / ** (PG-13)

June 7, 2002

Gaylord Oakes: Anthony Hopkins
Jake Hayes: Chris Rock
Dragan Adjanic: Matthew Marsh
Seale: Gabriel Macht
Julie: Kerry Washington
Jarma: Adoni Maropis
Nicole: Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Joel Schumacher. Written by
Jason Richman, Michael Browning, Gary Goodman and David Himmelstein. Running
time: 111 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violent action,
some sensuality and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Hard on the heels of "The Sum of All Fears," here's Jerry Bruckheimer's "Bad
Company," another movie about an American city threatened by the explosion
of a stolen nuclear device. This one is an action comedy. There may come a
day when the smiles fade. To be sure, the movie was made before 9/11 (and
its original autumn 2001 release was delayed for obvious reasons), but even
before 9/11 it was clear that nuclear terrorism was a real possibility.
While "The Sum of all Fears" deals in a quasi-serious way with the subject
(up until the astonishingly inappropriate ending), "Bad Company" is more
light-hearted. Ho, ho.

The nuclear device is really only the McGuffin. It could be anything, as
long as bad guys want it and good guys fight to keep them from it. The
movie's a collision between three durable genres: Misfit Partners, Fish Out
of Water and Mistaken Identity. After an opening scene in which the Chris
Rock character is killed, we learn that he had a twin brother named Jake
Hayes; the babies were separated at birth and never knew about each other.
The first was adopted by a rich family, went to Ivy League schools, and
joined the CIA. Jake is a ticket scalper and chess hustler who's in love
with a nursing student (Kerry Washington).

One problem with the movie, directed by Joel Schumacher, is that it jams too
many prefabricated story elements into the running time. Consider the
training sequence, in which Rock has nine days to perfect the mannerisms and
absorb the knowledge of his dead brother. Odd that most of the coaching
sessions have him learning to recognize fine vintages of wine and evaluate
ancient cognacs; is he going to be dining with the terrorists? Meanwhile,
he's apparently expected to learn to speak Czech from a dictionary tossed
onto his bunk.

His minder at the CIA is Gaylord Oakes (Anthony Hopkins), a spookily calm
veteran operative whose plan is to substitute this twin for the other in a
sting operation designed to buy a stolen nuclear device. When another
would-be buyer enters the picture, the film descends into a series of chase
scenes, which are well enough done, but too many and too long.

Hopkins plays his character right down the middle, hard-edged and serious.
Rock has some effective scenes played straight, but at other times he goes
into a nonstop comic monologue that is funny, yes, but unlikely; when he's
being shot at, how can he think of all those one-liners? The movie's
strategy is to make every sequence stand on its own, with no thought to the
overall tone of the film, so that we go from the deadly serious to something
approaching parody.

Of the plot I can say nothing, except that it exists entirely at the whim of
the stunts, special effects, chases and action. The two competing teams of
would-be evil bomb buyers function entirely to supply an endless number of
guys who fire machineguns a lot but hardly ever hit anything. The motive for
blowing up New York is scarcely discussed. And could I believe my eyes? Here
in 2002--another Red Digital Readout counting down to zero, just when I
thought that was one cliche that had finally outlived its viability.

As for the girls, well, Kerry Washington is sweet and believable as Rock's
girlfriend, but a Bruckheimer movie is not the place to look for meaningful
female performances. No doubt there was a nice payday, but meanwhile
Washington's fine performance in "Lift," the shoplifting film from Sundance
2001, goes unreleased. Even more thankless is the role by Garcelle
Beauvais-Nilon as a CNN correspondent who was the girlfriend of the first
twin, and spots this one because he kisses differently. She disappears
entirely from the film after an ironically appropriate slide down a laundry
chute. (By the way: During the shoot-out in that hotel, how come not a
single guest or employee is ever seen?)

I won't tell you I didn't enjoy parts of "Bad Company," because I did. But
the enjoyment came at moments well-separated by autopilot action scenes and
stunt sequences that outlived their interest. As for the theme of a nuclear
device that might destroy New York, I have a feeling that after this
generation of pre-9/11 movies plays out, we won't be seeing it much anymore.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 07 Jun 2002 18:11:12 GMT

DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD / *1/2 (PG-13)

June 7, 2002

Sidda: Sandra Bullock
Vivi: Ellen Burstyn
Teensy: Fionnula Flanagan
Shep: James Garner
Younger Vivi: Ashley Judd
Necie: Shirley Knight
Caro: Maggie Smith
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Callie Khouri. Written by
Khouri and Mark Andrus, based on the novels Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya
Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells. Running time: 116
minutes. Rated PG-13 (for mature thematic elements, language and brief
sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" has a title suggesting that the
movie will be cute and about colorful, irrepressible, eccentric originals.
Heavens deliver us. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood is rubber-stamped from the same
mold that has produced an inexhaustible supply of fictional Southern belles
who drink too much, talk too much, think about themselves too much, try too
hard to be the most unforgettable character you've ever met, and are, in
general, insufferable. There must be a reason these stories are never set in
Minnesota. Maybe it's because if you have to deal with the winter, it makes
you too realistic to become such a silly goose.

There is not a character in the movie with a shred of plausibility, not an
event that is believable, not a confrontation that is not staged, not a
moment that is not false. For their sins, the sisterhood should be forced to
spend the rest of their lives locked in a Winnebago camper. The only
character in the movie who is bearable is the heroine as a young woman,
played by Ashley Judd, who suggests that there was a time before the story's
main events when this creature was palatable.

The heroine is Vivi, played by Ellen Burstyn in her 60s, Judd in her 30s
and, as a child, by a moppet whose name I knoweth not. Yes, this is one of
those movies that whisks around in time, as childhood vows echo down through
the years before we whiplash back to the revelations of ancient secrets. If
life were as simple as this movie, we would all have time to get in shape
and learn Chinese.

As the film opens, four little girls gather around a campfire in the woods
and create the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, exchanging drops of their blood, no doubt
while sheriff's deputies and hounds are searching for them. Flash forward to
the present. Vivi's daughter Sidda (Sandra Bullock) is a famous New York
playwright, who tells an interviewer from Time magazine that she had a
difficult childhood, mostly because of her mother. Whisk down to Louisiana,
where Vivi reads the article and writes the daughter forever out of her
life--less of a banishment than you might think, since they have not seen
each other for seven years and Vivi doesn't even know of the existence of
Sidda's Scottish fiance, Connor (Angus MacFadyen).

Connor seems cut from the same mold as Shep Walker (James Garner), Vivi's
husband. Both men stand around sheepishly while portraying superfluous
males. No doubt their women notice them occasionally and are reminded that
they exist and are a handy supply of sperm. Shep's role for decades has
apparently been to beam approvingly as his wife gets drunk, pops pills and
stars in her own mind. Both men are illustrations of the impatience this
genre has for men as a gender; they have the presence of souvenirs left on
the mantel after a forgotten vacation.

Anyway, we meet the other adult survivors of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: Teensy
(Fionnula Flanagan), Necie (Shirley Knight) and Caro (Maggie Smith). Why do
they all have names like pet animals? Perhaps because real names, like
Martha, Florence or Esther, would be an unseemly burden for such
featherweights. Summoned by Vivi so that she can complain about Sidda,
Teensy, Necie and Caro fly north and kidnap Sidda, bringing her back to
Louisiana so that they can show her that if she really knew the secrets of
her mother's past, she would forgive her all shortcomings, real and
imagined. Since the central great mystery of Vivi's past is how she has
evaded rehab for so long, this quest is as pointless as the rest of the
film.

Why do gifted actresses appear in such slop? Possibly because good roles for
women are rare, for those over 60 precious. Possibly, too, because for all
the other shortcomings of the film, no expense has been spared by the hair,
makeup and wardrobe departments, so that all of the women look just terrific
all of the time, and when Vivi is distraught and emotional, she looks even
more terrific. It's the kind of movie where the actresses must love watching
the dailies as long as they don't listen to the dialogue.

The movie marks the directorial debut of Callie Khouri, author of "Thelma
and Louise." She seems uncertain what the film is about, where it is going,
what it hopes to prove apart from the most crashingly obvious cliches of
light women's fiction. So inattentive is the screenplay that it goes to the
trouble of providing Vivi with three other children in addition to Sidda,
only to never mention them again. A fellow critic, Victoria Alexander,
speculates that the secret in Vivi's past may have been that she drowned the
kids, but that's too much to hope for.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA / ***1/2 (PG)
Date: 07 Jun 2002 18:11:19 GMT

LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA / ***1/2 (PG)

June 7, 2002

Bhuvan: Aamir Khan
Gauri: Gracy Singh
Elizabeth Russell: Rachel ShelleyCapt. Russell: Paul Blackthorne
Yashodamai: Suhasini Mulay
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Ashutosh Gowariker.
Written by Gowariker, Kumar Dave, Sanjay Dayma and K.P. Saxena. Running
time: 225 minutes. In Hindi, Bhojpuri and English. Rated PG.(for language
and some violence). Opening today at the Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Lagaan" is an enormously entertaining movie, like nothing we've ever seen
before, and yet completely familiar. Set in India in 1893, it combines
sports with political intrigue, romance with evil scheming, musical numbers
with low comedy and high drama, and is therefore soundly in the tradition of
the entertainments produced by the Bombay film industry, "Bollywood," which
is the world's largest.

I have seen only five or six Bollywood movies, one of them in Hyderabad,
India, in 1999, where I climbed to the highest balcony and shivered in
arctic air conditioning while watching a movie that was well over three
hours long and included something for everyone. The most charming aspect of
most Bollywood movies is their cheerful willingness to break into song and
dance at the slightest pretext; the film I saw was about a romance between a
rich boy and a poor girl, whose poverty did not prevent her from producing
back-up dancers whenever she needed them.

"Lagaan" is said to be the most ambitious, expensive and successful
Bollywood film ever made, and has been a box-office hit all over the world.
Starring Aamir Khan, who is one of the top Indian heartthrobs, it was made
with an eye to overseas audiences: If "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" could
break out of the martial-arts ghetto and gross $150 million, then why not a
Bollywood movie for non-Indians? It has succeeded in jumping its genre; it
won an Academy Award nomination this year as best foreign film, and has been
rolling up amazing per-screen averages in North American theaters.

All of which evades the possibility that most readers of this review have
never seen a Bollywood movie and don't want to start now. That will be their
loss. This film is like nothing they've seen before, with its startling
landscapes, architecture and locations, its exuberant colors, its sudden and
joyous musical numbers right in the middle of dramatic scenes, and its
melodramatic acting (teeth gnash, tears well, lips tremble, bosoms heave,
fists clench). At the same time, it's a memory of the films we all grew up
on, with clearly defined villains and heroes, a romantic triangle, and even
a comic character who saves the day. "Lagaan" is a well-crafted, hugely
entertaining epic that has the spice of a foreign culture.

The story takes place at the height of the Raj, England's government of
occupation in India. In a remote province, the local British commander is
Capt. Russell (Paul Blackthorne), a lip-curling rotter with a racist streak,
who insults the local maharajah to his face and thinks nothing of whipping a
Hindu upstart. Even his fellow officers think he's over the top. He
administers "lagaan," which is the annual tax the farmers must pay to their
maharajah, and he to the British. It is a time of drought and hunger, and
the farmers cannot pay.

Enter Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a leader among his people, who confronts Russell
and finds his weak point: The captain is obsessed by cricket, and believes
it's a game that can never be mastered by Indians. Bhuvan says it is much
like an ancient Indian game, and that Indians could excel at it. Russell
makes Bhuvan a bet: The Brits and a village team will play a cricket match.
If the Indians win, there will be no lagaan for three years. If the Brits
win, lagaan will be tripled. The villagers think Bhuvan is insane, since a
triple tax would destroy them, but he points out that since they cannot pay
the current tax, they have nothing to lose.

Bhuvan assembles and starts to coach a local team. Elizabeth Russell (Rachel
Shelley), the evil captain's sister, believes her brother's deal is unfair,
and secretly sneaks out to the village to provide pointers on cricket. Her
closeness to Bhuvan disturbs Gauri (Gracy Singh), a local woman who has
believed since childhood that she and Bhuvan are fated to marry. There's
another coil of the plot with the two-faced Lakha (Yashpal Sharma), who
wants Gauri for himself, and acts as a spy for Russell because he feels that
if Bhuvan loses face, he'll have a better chance with her.

We meet the members of the village team, an oddly assorted group that
includes a low-caste fortune-teller named Guran (Rajesh Vivek), whose
crippled arm allows him to throw a wicked curve ball. There also is Deva
(Pradeep Rawat), whose service in the British army has fueled his contempt
for his former masters. As training proceeds in the village and the British
sneer from their regimental headquarters, the action is punctuated by much
music.

The British hold dances, at which single young women who have come out from
home hope to find an eligible young officer. (Elizabeth, dreaming about
Bhuvan, is not much interested in the candidate selected for her.) And in
the village music wells up spontaneously, most memorably when storm clouds
promise an end to the long drought. In keeping with Bollywood tradition, the
singing voices in these sequences are always dubbed (the voice-over artists
are stars in their own right), as the camera plunges into joyous
choreography with dancers, singers and swirls of beautifully colored saris.
Such dance sequences would be too contrived and illogical for sensible
modern Hollywood, but we feel like we're getting away with something as we
enjoy them.

"Lagaan" somehow succeeds in being suspenseful at the same time it's
frivolous and obvious. The final cricket match (which we can follow even if
we don't understand the game) is in the time-honored tradition of all sports
movies, and yet the underlying issues are serious. And there is the
intriguing question of whether the hero will end up with his childhood
sweetheart, or cross color lines with the Victorian woman (this is hard to
predict, since both women are seen in entirely positive terms).

As a backdrop to the action, there is India itself. It is a long time since
I praised a movie for its landscapes; I recall "Dr. Zhivago" (1965) or
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), and indeed like David Lean, director Ashutosh
Gowariker is not shy about lingering on ancient forts and palaces, vast
plains, and the birthday-cake architecture of the British Raj, so out of
place and yet so serenely confident.

Watching the film, we feel familiarity with the characters and the
show-down, but the setting and the production style is fresh and exciting.
Bollywood has always struck a bargain with its audience members, many of
them poor: You get your money's worth. Leaving the film, I did not feel
unsatisfied or vaguely short-changed, as after many Hollywood films, but
satisfied: I had seen a movie.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CHELSEA WALLS / *** (R)
Date: 07 Jun 2002 18:11:05 GMT

CHELSEA WALLS / *** (R)

June 7, 2002

Bud: Kris Kristofferson
Terry: Robert Sean Leonard
Mary: Natasha Richardson
Grace: Uma Thurman
Audrey: Rosario Dawson
Frank: Vincent D'Onofrio
Ross: Steve Zahn
Greta: Tuesday Weld
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Ethan Hawke. Written by Nicole
Burdette, based on her play. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (for
language). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

A rest stop for rare individuals.

--Motto of the Chelsea Hotel

'Chelsea Walls" is the movie for you, if you have a beaten-up copy of the
Compass paperback edition of Kerouac's On the Road and on page 124 you
underlined the words, "The one thing that we yearn for in our living days,
that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the
remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced only in the
womb and can only be reproduced (through we hate to admit it) in death." If
you underlined the next five words ("But who wants to die?"), you are too
realistic for this movie.

Lacking the paperback, you qualify for the movie if you have ever made a
pilgrimage to the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street in New York and given a
thought to Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur C. Clarke, R. Crumb, Brendan
Behan, Gregory Corso, Bob Dylan, or Sid and Nancy, who lived (and in some
cases died) there. You also qualify if you have ever visited the Beat
Bookshop in Boulder, Colo., if you have ever yearned to point the wheel west
and keep driving until you reach the Pacific Coast Highway, or if you have
never written the words "somebody named Lawrence Ferlinghetti."

If you are by now thoroughly bewildered by this review, you will be equally
bewildered by "Chelsea Walls" and had better stay away from it. Ethan
Hawke's movie evokes the innocent spirit of the Beat Generation 50 years
after the fact, and celebrates characters who think it is noble to live in
extravagant poverty while creating Art and leading untidy sex lives. These
people smoke a lot, drink a lot, abuse many substances, and spend either no
time at all or way too much time managing their wardrobes. They live in the
Chelsea Hotel because it is cheap and provides a stage for their
psychodramas.

Countless stories have been set in the Chelsea. Andy Warhol's "Chelsea
Girls" (1967) was filmed there. Plays have between written about it,
including one by Nicole Burdette that inspired this screenplay.
Photographers and painters have recorded its seasons. It is our American
Left Bank, located at one convenient address. That Hawke would have wanted
to direct a movie about it is not surprising; he and his wife, Uma Thurman,
who could relax with easy-money stardom, have a way of sneaking off for
dodgy avant-garde projects. They starred in Richard Linklater's "Tape"
(2001) about three people in a motel room, and now here is the epic version
of the same idea, portraying colorful denizens of the Chelsea in full bloom.

We meet Bud (Kris Kristofferson), a boozy author who uses a typewriter
instead of a computer, perhaps because you can't short it out by spilling a
bottle on it. He has a wife named Greta (Tuesday Weld) and a mistress named
Mary (Natasha Richardson), and is perhaps able to find room for both of them
in his life because neither one can stand to be around him all that long. He
tells them both they are his inspiration. When he's not with the Muse he
loves, he loves the Muse he's with.

Val (Mark Webber) is so young he looks embryonic. He buys lock, stock and
barrel into the mythology of bohemia, and lives with Audrey (Rosario
Dawson). They are both poets. I do not know how good Audrey's poems are
because Dawson reads them in closeup--just her face filling the screen--and
I could not focus on the words. I have seen a lot of closeups in my life but
never one so simply, guilelessly erotic. Have more beautiful lips ever been
photographed?

Frank (Vincent D'Onofrio) is a painter who thinks he can talk Grace
(Thurman) into being his lover. She is not sure. She prefers a vague, absent
lover, never seen, and seems to know she has made the wrong choice but takes
a perverse pride in sticking with it. Ross (Steve Zahn) is a singer whose
brain seems alarmingly fried. Little Jimmy Scott is Skinny Bones, a
down-and-out jazzman. Robert Sean Leonard is Terry, who wants to be a folk
singer. The corridors are also occupied by the lame and the brain-damaged;
every elevator trip includes a harangue by the house philosopher.

Has time passed these people by? Very likely. Greatness resides in ability,
not geography, and it is futile to believe that if Thomas Wolfe wrote Look
Homeward, Angel in Room 831, anyone occupying that room is sure to be
equally inspired. What the movie's characters are seeking is not
inspiration, anyway, but an audience. They stay in the Chelsea because they
are surrounded by others who understand the statements they are making with
their lives. In a society where the average college freshman has already
targeted his entry-level position in the economy, it's a little lonely to
embrace unemployment and the aura of genius. To actors with a romantic edge,
however, it's very attractive: No wonder Matt Dillon sounds so effortlessly
convincing on the audiobook of On the Road.

Hawke shot the film for $100,000 on digital video, in the tradition of
Warhol's fuzzy 16mm photography. Warhol used a split screen, so that while
one of his superstars was doing nothing on the left screen, we could watch
another of his superstars doing nothing on the right screen. Hawke, working
with Burdette's material, has made a movie that by contrast is
action-packed. The characters enjoy playing hooky from life and posing as
the inheritors of bohemia. Hawke's cinematographer, Richard Rutkowski, and
his editor, Adriana Pacheco, weave a mosaic out of the images, avoiding the
temptation of a simple realistic look: The film is patterned with color,
superimposition, strange exposures, poetic transitions, grainy color
palettes.

Movies like this do not grab you by the throat. You have to be receptive.
The first time I saw "Chelsea Walls," in a stuffy room late at night at
Cannes 2001, I found it slow and pointless. This time, I saw it earlier in
the day, fueled by coffee, and I understood that the movie is not about what
the characters do, but about what they are. It may be a waste of time to
spend your life drinking, fornicating, posing as a genius and living off
your friends, but if you've got the money, honey, take off the time.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE LADY AND THE DUKE / *** (PG-13)
Date: 07 Jun 2002 18:11:27 GMT

THE LADY AND THE DUKE / *** (PG-13)

June 7, 2002

The Lady, Grace Elliott: Lucy Russell
Duke of Orleans: Jean-Claude Dreyfus
Dumouriez: Francois Marthouret
Champcenetz: Leonard Cobiant
Nanon: Caroline Morin
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Eric Rohmer. Written by
Rohmer, based on the memoir Journal of My Life During the French Revolution
by Grace Elliott. In French with English subtitles. Running time: 129
minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some violent images). Opening today at the Music
Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

In the Paris of the mob, during the French Revolution, a patrician British
lady supports the monarchy and defies the citizens' committees that rule the
streets. She does this not in the kind of lame-brained action story we might
fear, but with her intelligence and personality--outwitting the louts who
come to search her bedroom, even as a wanted man cowers between her
mattresses.

Eric Rohmer's "The Lady and the Duke" is an elegant story about an elegant
woman, told in an elegant visual style. It moves too slowly for those with
impaired attention spans, but is fascinating in its style and mannerisms.
Like all of the films in the long career of Rohmer, it centers on men and
women talking about differences of moral opinion.

At 81, Rohmer has lost none of his zest and enthusiasm. The director, who
runs up five flights of stairs to his office every morning, has devised a
daring visual style in which the actors and foreground action are seen
against artificial tableaux of Paris circa 1792. These are not "painted
backdrops," but meticulously constructed perspective drawings, which are
digitally combined with the action in a way that is both artificial and
intriguing.

His story is about a real woman, Grace Elliott (Lucy Russell), who told her
story in a forgotten autobiography Rohmer found 10 years ago. She was a
woman uninhibited in her behavior and conservative in her politics, at
onetime the lover of the Prince of Wales (later King George IV), then of
Phillipe, the Duke of Orleans (father of the future king Louis Phillipe).
Leaving England for France and living in a Paris townhouse paid for by the
Duke (who remains her close friend even after their ardor has cooled), she
refuses to leave France as the storm clouds of revolution gather, and
survives those dangerous days even while making little secret of her
monarchist loyalties.

She is stubbornly a woman of principle. She dislikes the man she hides
between her mattresses, but faces down an unruly citizens' search committee
after every single member crowds into her bedroom to gawk at a fine lady in
her nightgown. After she gets away with it, her exhilaration is clear: She
likes living on the edge, and later falsely obtains a pass allowing her to
take another endangered aristocrat out of the city to her country house.

Her conversations with the Duke of Orleans (attentive, courtly Jean-Claude
Dreyfus) suggest why he and other men found her fascinating. She defends his
cousin the king even while the Duke is mealy-mouthed in explaining why it
might benefit the nation for a few aristocrats to die; by siding with the
mob, he hopes to save himself, and she is devastated when he breaks his
promise to her and votes in favor of the king's execution.

Now consider the scene where Grace Elliott and a maid stand on a hillside
outside Paris and use a spyglass to observe the execution of the king and
his family, while distant cheering floats toward them on the wind.
Everything they survey is a painted perspective drawing--the roads, streams,
hills, trees and the distant city. It doesn't look real, but it has a kind
of heightened presence, and Rohmer's method allows the shot to exist at all.
Other kinds of special effects could not compress so much information into
seeable form.

Rohmer's movies are always about moral choices. His characters debate them,
try to bargain with them, look for loopholes. But there is always clearly a
correct way. Rohmer, one of the fathers of the New Wave, is Catholic in
religion and conservative in politics, and here his heroine believes
strongly in the divine right of kings and the need to risk your life, if
necessary, for what you believe in.

Lucy Russell, a British actress speaking proper French we imagine her
character learned as a child, plays Grace Elliott as a woman of great
confidence and verve. As a woman she must sit at home and wait for news;
events are decided by men and reported to women. We sense her imagination
placing her in the middle of the action, and we are struck by how much more
clearly she sees the real issues than does the muddled Duke.

"The Lady and the Duke" is the kind of movie one imagines could have been
made in 1792. It centers its action in personal, everyday experience--an
observant woman watches from the center of the maelstrom--and has time and
attention for the conversational styles of an age when evenings were not
spent stultified in front of the television. Watching it, we wonder if
people did not live more keenly then. Certainly Grace Elliott was seldom
bored.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA / ***1/2 (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:47 GMT

LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA / ***1/2 (PG)

June 7, 2002

Bhuvan: Aamir Khan
Gauri: Gracy Singh
Elizabeth Russell: Rachel ShelleyCapt. Russell: Paul Blackthorne
Yashodamai: Suhasini Mulay
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Ashutosh Gowariker.
Written by Gowariker, Kumar Dave, Sanjay Dayma and K.P. Saxena. Running
time: 225 minutes. In Hindi, Bhojpuri and English. Rated PG.(for language
and some violence). Opening today at the Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Lagaan" is an enormously entertaining movie, like nothing we've ever seen
before, and yet completely familiar. Set in India in 1893, it combines
sports with political intrigue, romance with evil scheming, musical numbers
with low comedy and high drama, and is therefore soundly in the tradition of
the entertainments produced by the Bombay film industry, "Bollywood," which
is the world's largest.

I have seen only five or six Bollywood movies, one of them in Hyderabad,
India, in 1999, where I climbed to the highest balcony and shivered in
arctic air conditioning while watching a movie that was well over three
hours long and included something for everyone. The most charming aspect of
most Bollywood movies is their cheerful willingness to break into song and
dance at the slightest pretext; the film I saw was about a romance between a
rich boy and a poor girl, whose poverty did not prevent her from producing
back-up dancers whenever she needed them.

"Lagaan" is said to be the most ambitious, expensive and successful
Bollywood film ever made, and has been a box-office hit all over the world.
Starring Aamir Khan, who is one of the top Indian heartthrobs, it was made
with an eye to overseas audiences: If "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" could
break out of the martial-arts ghetto and gross $150 million, then why not a
Bollywood movie for non-Indians? It has succeeded in jumping its genre; it
won an Academy Award nomination this year as best foreign film, and has been
rolling up amazing per-screen averages in North American theaters.

All of which evades the possibility that most readers of this review have
never seen a Bollywood movie and don't want to start now. That will be their
loss. This film is like nothing they've seen before, with its startling
landscapes, architecture and locations, its exuberant colors, its sudden and
joyous musical numbers right in the middle of dramatic scenes, and its
melodramatic acting (teeth gnash, tears well, lips tremble, bosoms heave,
fists clench). At the same time, it's a memory of the films we all grew up
on, with clearly defined villains and heroes, a romantic triangle, and even
a comic character who saves the day. "Lagaan" is a well-crafted, hugely
entertaining epic that has the spice of a foreign culture.

The story takes place at the height of the Raj, England's government of
occupation in India. In a remote province, the local British commander is
Capt. Russell (Paul Blackthorne), a lip-curling rotter with a racist streak,
who insults the local maharajah to his face and thinks nothing of whipping a
Hindu upstart. Even his fellow officers think he's over the top. He
administers "lagaan," which is the annual tax the farmers must pay to their
maharajah, and he to the British. It is a time of drought and hunger, and
the farmers cannot pay.

Enter Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a leader among his people, who confronts Russell
and finds his weak point: The captain is obsessed by cricket, and believes
it's a game that can never be mastered by Indians. Bhuvan says it is much
like an ancient Indian game, and that Indians could excel at it. Russell
makes Bhuvan a bet: The Brits and a village team will play a cricket match.
If the Indians win, there will be no lagaan for three years. If the Brits
win, lagaan will be tripled. The villagers think Bhuvan is insane, since a
triple tax would destroy them, but he points out that since they cannot pay
the current tax, they have nothing to lose.

Bhuvan assembles and starts to coach a local team. Elizabeth Russell (Rachel
Shelley), the evil captain's sister, believes her brother's deal is unfair,
and secretly sneaks out to the village to provide pointers on cricket. Her
closeness to Bhuvan disturbs Gauri (Gracy Singh), a local woman who has
believed since childhood that she and Bhuvan are fated to marry. There's
another coil of the plot with the two-faced Lakha (Yashpal Sharma), who
wants Gauri for himself, and acts as a spy for Russell because he feels that
if Bhuvan loses face, he'll have a better chance with her.

We meet the members of the village team, an oddly assorted group that
includes a low-caste fortune-teller named Guran (Rajesh Vivek), whose
crippled arm allows him to throw a wicked curve ball. There also is Deva
(Pradeep Rawat), whose service in the British army has fueled his contempt
for his former masters. As training proceeds in the village and the British
sneer from their regimental headquarters, the action is punctuated by much
music.

The British hold dances, at which single young women who have come out from
home hope to find an eligible young officer. (Elizabeth, dreaming about
Bhuvan, is not much interested in the candidate selected for her.) And in
the village music wells up spontaneously, most memorably when storm clouds
promise an end to the long drought. In keeping with Bollywood tradition, the
singing voices in these sequences are always dubbed (the voice-over artists
are stars in their own right), as the camera plunges into joyous
choreography with dancers, singers and swirls of beautifully colored saris.
Such dance sequences would be too contrived and illogical for sensible
modern Hollywood, but we feel like we're getting away with something as we
enjoy them.

"Lagaan" somehow succeeds in being suspenseful at the same time it's
frivolous and obvious. The final cricket match (which we can follow even if
we don't understand the game) is in the time-honored tradition of all sports
movies, and yet the underlying issues are serious. And there is the
intriguing question of whether the hero will end up with his childhood
sweetheart, or cross color lines with the Victorian woman (this is hard to
predict, since both women are seen in entirely positive terms).

As a backdrop to the action, there is India itself. It is a long time since
I praised a movie for its landscapes; I recall "Dr. Zhivago" (1965) or
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), and indeed like David Lean, director Ashutosh
Gowariker is not shy about lingering on ancient forts and palaces, vast
plains, and the birthday-cake architecture of the British Raj, so out of
place and yet so serenely confident.

Watching the film, we feel familiarity with the characters and the
show-down, but the setting and the production style is fresh and exciting.
Bollywood has always struck a bargain with its audience members, many of
them poor: You get your money's worth. Leaving the film, I did not feel
unsatisfied or vaguely short-changed, as after many Hollywood films, but
satisfied: I had seen a movie.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BAD COMPANY / ** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:40 GMT

BAD COMPANY / ** (PG-13)

June 7, 2002

Gaylord Oakes: Anthony Hopkins
Jake Hayes: Chris Rock
Dragan Adjanic: Matthew Marsh
Seale: Gabriel Macht
Julie: Kerry Washington
Jarma: Adoni Maropis
Nicole: Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Joel Schumacher. Written by
Jason Richman, Michael Browning, Gary Goodman and David Himmelstein. Running
time: 111 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violent action,
some sensuality and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Hard on the heels of "The Sum of All Fears," here's Jerry Bruckheimer's "Bad
Company," another movie about an American city threatened by the explosion
of a stolen nuclear device. This one is an action comedy. There may come a
day when the smiles fade. To be sure, the movie was made before 9/11 (and
its original autumn 2001 release was delayed for obvious reasons), but even
before 9/11 it was clear that nuclear terrorism was a real possibility.
While "The Sum of all Fears" deals in a quasi-serious way with the subject
(up until the astonishingly inappropriate ending), "Bad Company" is more
light-hearted. Ho, ho.

The nuclear device is really only the McGuffin. It could be anything, as
long as bad guys want it and good guys fight to keep them from it. The
movie's a collision between three durable genres: Misfit Partners, Fish Out
of Water and Mistaken Identity. After an opening scene in which the Chris
Rock character is killed, we learn that he had a twin brother named Jake
Hayes; the babies were separated at birth and never knew about each other.
The first was adopted by a rich family, went to Ivy League schools, and
joined the CIA. Jake is a ticket scalper and chess hustler who's in love
with a nursing student (Kerry Washington).

One problem with the movie, directed by Joel Schumacher, is that it jams too
many prefabricated story elements into the running time. Consider the
training sequence, in which Rock has nine days to perfect the mannerisms and
absorb the knowledge of his dead brother. Odd that most of the coaching
sessions have him learning to recognize fine vintages of wine and evaluate
ancient cognacs; is he going to be dining with the terrorists? Meanwhile,
he's apparently expected to learn to speak Czech from a dictionary tossed
onto his bunk.

His minder at the CIA is Gaylord Oakes (Anthony Hopkins), a spookily calm
veteran operative whose plan is to substitute this twin for the other in a
sting operation designed to buy a stolen nuclear device. When another
would-be buyer enters the picture, the film descends into a series of chase
scenes, which are well enough done, but too many and too long.

Hopkins plays his character right down the middle, hard-edged and serious.
Rock has some effective scenes played straight, but at other times he goes
into a nonstop comic monologue that is funny, yes, but unlikely; when he's
being shot at, how can he think of all those one-liners? The movie's
strategy is to make every sequence stand on its own, with no thought to the
overall tone of the film, so that we go from the deadly serious to something
approaching parody.

Of the plot I can say nothing, except that it exists entirely at the whim of
the stunts, special effects, chases and action. The two competing teams of
would-be evil bomb buyers function entirely to supply an endless number of
guys who fire machineguns a lot but hardly ever hit anything. The motive for
blowing up New York is scarcely discussed. And could I believe my eyes? Here
in 2002--another Red Digital Readout counting down to zero, just when I
thought that was one cliche that had finally outlived its viability.

As for the girls, well, Kerry Washington is sweet and believable as Rock's
girlfriend, but a Bruckheimer movie is not the place to look for meaningful
female performances. No doubt there was a nice payday, but meanwhile
Washington's fine performance in "Lift," the shoplifting film from Sundance
2001, goes unreleased. Even more thankless is the role by Garcelle
Beauvais-Nilon as a CNN correspondent who was the girlfriend of the first
twin, and spots this one because he kisses differently. She disappears
entirely from the film after an ironically appropriate slide down a laundry
chute. (By the way: During the shoot-out in that hotel, how come not a
single guest or employee is ever seen?)

I won't tell you I didn't enjoy parts of "Bad Company," because I did. But
the enjoyment came at moments well-separated by autopilot action scenes and
stunt sequences that outlived their interest. As for the theme of a nuclear
device that might destroy New York, I have a feeling that after this
generation of pre-9/11 movies plays out, we won't be seeing it much anymore.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE LADY AND THE DUKE / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:49 GMT

THE LADY AND THE DUKE / *** (PG-13)

June 7, 2002

The Lady, Grace Elliott: Lucy Russell
Duke of Orleans: Jean-Claude Dreyfus
Dumouriez: Francois Marthouret
Champcenetz: Leonard Cobiant
Nanon: Caroline Morin
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Eric Rohmer. Written by
Rohmer, based on the memoir Journal of My Life During the French Revolution
by Grace Elliott. In French with English subtitles. Running time: 129
minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some violent images). Opening today at the Music
Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

In the Paris of the mob, during the French Revolution, a patrician British
lady supports the monarchy and defies the citizens' committees that rule the
streets. She does this not in the kind of lame-brained action story we might
fear, but with her intelligence and personality--outwitting the louts who
come to search her bedroom, even as a wanted man cowers between her
mattresses.

Eric Rohmer's "The Lady and the Duke" is an elegant story about an elegant
woman, told in an elegant visual style. It moves too slowly for those with
impaired attention spans, but is fascinating in its style and mannerisms.
Like all of the films in the long career of Rohmer, it centers on men and
women talking about differences of moral opinion.

At 81, Rohmer has lost none of his zest and enthusiasm. The director, who
runs up five flights of stairs to his office every morning, has devised a
daring visual style in which the actors and foreground action are seen
against artificial tableaux of Paris circa 1792. These are not "painted
backdrops," but meticulously constructed perspective drawings, which are
digitally combined with the action in a way that is both artificial and
intriguing.

His story is about a real woman, Grace Elliott (Lucy Russell), who told her
story in a forgotten autobiography Rohmer found 10 years ago. She was a
woman uninhibited in her behavior and conservative in her politics, at
onetime the lover of the Prince of Wales (later King George IV), then of
Phillipe, the Duke of Orleans (father of the future king Louis Phillipe).
Leaving England for France and living in a Paris townhouse paid for by the
Duke (who remains her close friend even after their ardor has cooled), she
refuses to leave France as the storm clouds of revolution gather, and
survives those dangerous days even while making little secret of her
monarchist loyalties.

She is stubbornly a woman of principle. She dislikes the man she hides
between her mattresses, but faces down an unruly citizens' search committee
after every single member crowds into her bedroom to gawk at a fine lady in
her nightgown. After she gets away with it, her exhilaration is clear: She
likes living on the edge, and later falsely obtains a pass allowing her to
take another endangered aristocrat out of the city to her country house.

Her conversations with the Duke of Orleans (attentive, courtly Jean-Claude
Dreyfus) suggest why he and other men found her fascinating. She defends his
cousin the king even while the Duke is mealy-mouthed in explaining why it
might benefit the nation for a few aristocrats to die; by siding with the
mob, he hopes to save himself, and she is devastated when he breaks his
promise to her and votes in favor of the king's execution.

Now consider the scene where Grace Elliott and a maid stand on a hillside
outside Paris and use a spyglass to observe the execution of the king and
his family, while distant cheering floats toward them on the wind.
Everything they survey is a painted perspective drawing--the roads, streams,
hills, trees and the distant city. It doesn't look real, but it has a kind
of heightened presence, and Rohmer's method allows the shot to exist at all.
Other kinds of special effects could not compress so much information into
seeable form.

Rohmer's movies are always about moral choices. His characters debate them,
try to bargain with them, look for loopholes. But there is always clearly a
correct way. Rohmer, one of the fathers of the New Wave, is Catholic in
religion and conservative in politics, and here his heroine believes
strongly in the divine right of kings and the need to risk your life, if
necessary, for what you believe in.

Lucy Russell, a British actress speaking proper French we imagine her
character learned as a child, plays Grace Elliott as a woman of great
confidence and verve. As a woman she must sit at home and wait for news;
events are decided by men and reported to women. We sense her imagination
placing her in the middle of the action, and we are struck by how much more
clearly she sees the real issues than does the muddled Duke.

"The Lady and the Duke" is the kind of movie one imagines could have been
made in 1792. It centers its action in personal, everyday experience--an
observant woman watches from the center of the maelstrom--and has time and
attention for the conversational styles of an age when evenings were not
spent stultified in front of the television. Watching it, we wonder if
people did not live more keenly then. Certainly Grace Elliott was seldom
bored.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]


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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CHELSEA WALLS / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:43 GMT

CHELSEA WALLS / *** (R)

June 7, 2002

Bud: Kris Kristofferson
Terry: Robert Sean Leonard
Mary: Natasha Richardson
Grace: Uma Thurman
Audrey: Rosario Dawson
Frank: Vincent D'Onofrio
Ross: Steve Zahn
Greta: Tuesday Weld
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Ethan Hawke. Written by Nicole
Burdette, based on her play. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated R (for
language). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

A rest stop for rare individuals.

--Motto of the Chelsea Hotel

'Chelsea Walls" is the movie for you, if you have a beaten-up copy of the
Compass paperback edition of Kerouac's On the Road and on page 124 you
underlined the words, "The one thing that we yearn for in our living days,
that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the
remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced only in the
womb and can only be reproduced (through we hate to admit it) in death." If
you underlined the next five words ("But who wants to die?"), you are too
realistic for this movie.

Lacking the paperback, you qualify for the movie if you have ever made a
pilgrimage to the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street in New York and given a
thought to Dylan Thomas, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur C. Clarke, R. Crumb, Brendan
Behan, Gregory Corso, Bob Dylan, or Sid and Nancy, who lived (and in some
cases died) there. You also qualify if you have ever visited the Beat
Bookshop in Boulder, Colo., if you have ever yearned to point the wheel west
and keep driving until you reach the Pacific Coast Highway, or if you have
never written the words "somebody named Lawrence Ferlinghetti."

If you are by now thoroughly bewildered by this review, you will be equally
bewildered by "Chelsea Walls" and had better stay away from it. Ethan
Hawke's movie evokes the innocent spirit of the Beat Generation 50 years
after the fact, and celebrates characters who think it is noble to live in
extravagant poverty while creating Art and leading untidy sex lives. These
people smoke a lot, drink a lot, abuse many substances, and spend either no
time at all or way too much time managing their wardrobes. They live in the
Chelsea Hotel because it is cheap and provides a stage for their
psychodramas.

Countless stories have been set in the Chelsea. Andy Warhol's "Chelsea
Girls" (1967) was filmed there. Plays have between written about it,
including one by Nicole Burdette that inspired this screenplay.
Photographers and painters have recorded its seasons. It is our American
Left Bank, located at one convenient address. That Hawke would have wanted
to direct a movie about it is not surprising; he and his wife, Uma Thurman,
who could relax with easy-money stardom, have a way of sneaking off for
dodgy avant-garde projects. They starred in Richard Linklater's "Tape"
(2001) about three people in a motel room, and now here is the epic version
of the same idea, portraying colorful denizens of the Chelsea in full bloom.

We meet Bud (Kris Kristofferson), a boozy author who uses a typewriter
instead of a computer, perhaps because you can't short it out by spilling a
bottle on it. He has a wife named Greta (Tuesday Weld) and a mistress named
Mary (Natasha Richardson), and is perhaps able to find room for both of them
in his life because neither one can stand to be around him all that long. He
tells them both they are his inspiration. When he's not with the Muse he
loves, he loves the Muse he's with.

Val (Mark Webber) is so young he looks embryonic. He buys lock, stock and
barrel into the mythology of bohemia, and lives with Audrey (Rosario
Dawson). They are both poets. I do not know how good Audrey's poems are
because Dawson reads them in closeup--just her face filling the screen--and
I could not focus on the words. I have seen a lot of closeups in my life but
never one so simply, guilelessly erotic. Have more beautiful lips ever been
photographed?

Frank (Vincent D'Onofrio) is a painter who thinks he can talk Grace
(Thurman) into being his lover. She is not sure. She prefers a vague, absent
lover, never seen, and seems to know she has made the wrong choice but takes
a perverse pride in sticking with it. Ross (Steve Zahn) is a singer whose
brain seems alarmingly fried. Little Jimmy Scott is Skinny Bones, a
down-and-out jazzman. Robert Sean Leonard is Terry, who wants to be a folk
singer. The corridors are also occupied by the lame and the brain-damaged;
every elevator trip includes a harangue by the house philosopher.

Has time passed these people by? Very likely. Greatness resides in ability,
not geography, and it is futile to believe that if Thomas Wolfe wrote Look
Homeward, Angel in Room 831, anyone occupying that room is sure to be
equally inspired. What the movie's characters are seeking is not
inspiration, anyway, but an audience. They stay in the Chelsea because they
are surrounded by others who understand the statements they are making with
their lives. In a society where the average college freshman has already
targeted his entry-level position in the economy, it's a little lonely to
embrace unemployment and the aura of genius. To actors with a romantic edge,
however, it's very attractive: No wonder Matt Dillon sounds so effortlessly
convincing on the audiobook of On the Road.

Hawke shot the film for $100,000 on digital video, in the tradition of
Warhol's fuzzy 16mm photography. Warhol used a split screen, so that while
one of his superstars was doing nothing on the left screen, we could watch
another of his superstars doing nothing on the right screen. Hawke, working
with Burdette's material, has made a movie that by contrast is
action-packed. The characters enjoy playing hooky from life and posing as
the inheritors of bohemia. Hawke's cinematographer, Richard Rutkowski, and
his editor, Adriana Pacheco, weave a mosaic out of the images, avoiding the
temptation of a simple realistic look: The film is patterned with color,
superimposition, strange exposures, poetic transitions, grainy color
palettes.

Movies like this do not grab you by the throat. You have to be receptive.
The first time I saw "Chelsea Walls," in a stuffy room late at night at
Cannes 2001, I found it slow and pointless. This time, I saw it earlier in
the day, fueled by coffee, and I understood that the movie is not about what
the characters do, but about what they are. It may be a waste of time to
spend your life drinking, fornicating, posing as a genius and living off
your friends, but if you've got the money, honey, take off the time.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE SUM OF ALL FEARS / ***1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:53 GMT

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS / ***1/2 (PG-13)

May 31, 2002

Jack Ryan:    Ben Affleck
Bill Cabot:    Morgan Freeman
President Fowler:    James Cromwell
John Clark:    Liev Schreiber
Richard Dressler:    Alan Bates
Defense Sec. Becker:    Philip Baker Hall

Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Written
by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne. Based on the novel by Tom Clancy. Running
time: 119 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violence, disaster images and brief
strong language). Opening today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

Oh, for the innocent days when a movie like "The Sum of All Fears" could be
enjoyed as a "thriller." In these dark times, it is not a thriller but a
confirmer, confirming our fears that the world is headed for disaster. The
film is about the detonation of a nuclear device in an American city. No
less an authority than Warren Buffet recently gave a speech in which he
flatly stated that such an event was "inevitable." Movies like "Black
Sunday" could exorcise our fears, but this one works instead to give them
form.

To be sure, Tom Clancy's horrifying vision has been footnoted with the
obligatory Hollywood happy ending, in which world war is averted and an
attractive young couple pledge love while sitting on a blanket in the
sunshine on the White House lawn. We can walk out smiling, unless we
remember that much of Baltimore is radioactive rubble. Human nature is a
wonderful thing. The reason the ending is happy is because we in the
audience assume we'll be the two on the blanket, not the countless who've
been vaporized.

The movie is based on another of Clancy's fearfully factual stories about
Jack Ryan, the CIA agent, this time a good deal younger than Harrison Ford's
Ryan in "A Clear and Present Danger" and played by Ben Affleck. It follows
the ancient convention in which the hero goes everywhere important and
personally performs most of the crucial actions, but it feels less contrived
because Clancy has expertise about warfare and national security issues; the
plot is a device to get us from one packet of information to another.

The story: In 1973, an Israeli airplane carrying a nuclear bomb crashes in
Syria. Many years later, the unexploded bomb is dug up, goes on the black
market, and is sold to a right-wing fanatic who has a theory: "Hitler was
stupid. He fought America and Russia, instead of letting them fight one
another." The fanatic's plan is to start a nuclear exchange between the
superpowers, after which Aryan fascists would pick up the pieces.

The use of the neo-Nazis is politically correct: Best to invent villains who
won't offend any audiences. This movie can play in Syria, Saudi Arabia and
Iraq without getting walkouts. It's more likely that if a bomb ever does go
off in a big city, the perpetrators will be True Believers whose certainty
about the next world gives them, they think, the right to kill us in this
one.

In the film, Ryan becomes a sort of unofficial protege of Bill Cabot (Morgan
Freeman), a high-level CIA official and good guy who maintains a "back
channel" into the Kremlin to avoid just such misunderstandings as occur.
Ryan and Cabot fly to Moscow when a new president assumes power, and the new
Soviet leader (Ciaran Hinds) is shown as a reasonable man who must take
unreasonable actions (like invading Chechnya) to placate the militarists in
his government.

America is being run by President Fowler (tall, Lincolnesque James
Cromwell), who is surrounded by advisors cast with some of the most
convincing character actors in the movies: Philip Baker Hall, Alan Bates,
Bruce McGill, etc. Crucial scenes take place aboard Air Force One after
Baltimore has been bombed, and we see the president and his cabinet not in
cool analytical discussions but all shouting at once. Somehow I am reassured
by the notion that our leaders might be really upset at such a time; anyone
who can be dispassionate about nuclear war is probably able to countenance
one.

There are some frightening special effects in the movie, which I will not
describe, because their unexpected appearance has such an effect. There are
also several parallel story lines, including one involving a particularly
skilled dirty tricks specialist named John Clark (Liev Schreiber) who I am
glad to have on our side. There are also the usual frustrations in which the
man with the truth can't get through because of bureaucracy.

Against these strengths are some weaknesses. I think Jack Ryan's one-man
actions in post-bomb Baltimore are unlikely and way too well-timed. I doubt
he would find evildoers still hanging around the scene of their crime. I am
not sure all of the threads--identifying the plutonium, finding the shipping
manifest and invoice, tracking down the guy who dug up the bomb--could take
place with such gratifying precision. And I smile wearily at the necessity
of supplying Jack with a girlfriend (Bridget Moynahan), who exists only so
that she can (1) be impatient when he is called away from dates on official
business; (2) disbelieve his alibis; (3) be heroic; (4) be worried about
him; (5) be smudged with blood and dirt, and (6) populate the happy ending.
We are so aware of the character's function that we can hardly believe her
as a person.

These details are not fatal to the film. Director Phil Alden Robinson and
his writers, Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne, do a spellbinding job of
cranking up the tension, they create a portrait of convincing realism, and
then they add the other stuff because, well, if anybody ever makes a movie
like this without the obligatory Hollywood softeners, audiences might flee
the theater in despair. My own fear is that in the post-apocalyptic future,
"The Sum of All Fears" will be seen as touchingly optimistic.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BARTLEBY / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:56 GMT

BARTLEBY / **1/2 (PG-13)

May 24, 2002

The Boss: David Paymer
Bartleby: Crispin Glover
Vivian: Glenne Headly
Rocky: Joe Piscopo
Ernie: Maury Chaykin
Frank Waxman: Seymour Cassel
Book Publisher: Carrie Snodgress
Mayor: Dick Martin
Outrider Pictures presents a film directed by Jonathan Parker. Written by
Parker and Catherine DiNapoli. Based on the story "Bartleby the Scrivener"
by Herman Melville. Running time: 82 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual
content).

BY ROGER EBERT

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Thoreau

The life work of the employees in the Public Record Office can be easily
described: They take enormous quantities of printed documents they have no
interest in, and they file them. They are surrounded by the monument to
their labor: lots of file cabinets. No wonder they go mad. Vivian distracts
herself by flirting. Rocky pretends he has the inside line on everything.
For Ernie, changing the toner cartridge in a Xerox machine is an invitation
to disaster. Their boss patiently oversees their cheerless existence trying
not to contemplate the devastating meaningless of the office.

One day a new employee is hired. His name is Bartleby. The Boss asks him to
do something. "I would prefer not to," Bartleby says. That becomes his reply
to every request. He would prefer not to. He would prefer not to work, not
to file, not to obey, not to respond, NOT to. What he prefers to do is stand
in the center of the office with his neck cocked at an odd angle, staring at
the ceiling.

The Boss is checkmated. Bartleby is not doing bad work; he isn't working at
all. His refusal to work subverts the entire work ethic of the organization.
Everyone in the office--Vivian, Rocky, Ernie and the Boss himself--would
prefer not to work. But that way madness lies. Our civilization is founded
on its ability to get people to do things they would prefer not to do.

"Bartleby," is set in the present day in a vast monolithic office building
that crouches atop a hill like an Acropolis dedicated to bureaucracy. It is
based on "Bartleby the Scrivener," a famous story published in 1856 by
Herman Melville, who not only wrote Moby Dick but labored for many empty
years as a clerk in a customs house. Although the story is nearly 150 years
old, it is correct to observe, as A.O. Scott does in the New York Times,
that Melville anticipated Kafka--and Dilbert. This kind of office work
exists outside time.

David Paymer plays The Boss, a sad-eyed man who has a private office of his
own, its prestige undermined by the fact that his window directly overlooks
a Dumpster. Glenne Headly is Vivian, who flirts because if a man shows
interest in her, that may be evidence that she exists. Joe Piscopo is Rocky,
who dresses flamboyantly to imply he is not as colorless as his job. Maury
Chaykin is the hopeless nebbish Ernie, who elevates strategic incompetence
to an art form.

And Crispin Glover is Bartleby. The teen star of the '80s appears here like
a ghost, pale and immobile, arrested by some private grief or fear. When he
says, "I would prefer not to," it doesn't sound like insubordination,
rebellion or resistance, but like a flat statement of fact--a fact so
overwhelming it brings all possible alternatives to a dead halt.

The film has been directed by Jonathan Parker; he adapted the Melville story
with Catherine DiNapoli. It's his first work, and a promising one. I admire
it and yet cannot recommend it, because it overstays its natural running
time. The Melville short story was short because it needed to be short--to
make its point and then stop dead without compromise or consideration.
"Bartleby" is short for a feature film, at 82 minutes, but might have been
more successful at 50 or 60 minutes. Too bad there seems to be an
unbreakable rule against features that short, or short subjects that long.
In a perfect world, "Bartleby" would establish the office and its workers,
introduce Bartleby, develop response to the work, and stop. Side stories,
such as Vivian's attraction to the city manager (Seymour Cassel), would not
be necessary.

And yet there is a kind of uncompromising, implacable simplicity to
"Bartleby" that inspires admiration. In a world where most movies are about
exciting people doing thrilling things, here is a film about as job that is
living death, and a man who prefers not to do it. My friend McHugh worked
his way through college at Acme Pest Control of Bloomington, Ind. One day
while he was crawling under a house with a spray gun, a housewife invited
him into the kitchen for a lemonade. As he drank it, while covered in
cobwebs and mud, she told her son, "Study your lessons hard, Jimmy, or
you'll end up like him." Or like Bartleby.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:45 GMT

DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD / *1/2 (PG-13)

June 7, 2002

Sidda: Sandra Bullock
Vivi: Ellen Burstyn
Teensy: Fionnula Flanagan
Shep: James Garner
Younger Vivi: Ashley Judd
Necie: Shirley Knight
Caro: Maggie Smith
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Callie Khouri. Written by
Khouri and Mark Andrus, based on the novels Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya
Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells. Running time: 116
minutes. Rated PG-13 (for mature thematic elements, language and brief
sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" has a title suggesting that the
movie will be cute and about colorful, irrepressible, eccentric originals.
Heavens deliver us. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood is rubber-stamped from the same
mold that has produced an inexhaustible supply of fictional Southern belles
who drink too much, talk too much, think about themselves too much, try too
hard to be the most unforgettable character you've ever met, and are, in
general, insufferable. There must be a reason these stories are never set in
Minnesota. Maybe it's because if you have to deal with the winter, it makes
you too realistic to become such a silly goose.

There is not a character in the movie with a shred of plausibility, not an
event that is believable, not a confrontation that is not staged, not a
moment that is not false. For their sins, the sisterhood should be forced to
spend the rest of their lives locked in a Winnebago camper. The only
character in the movie who is bearable is the heroine as a young woman,
played by Ashley Judd, who suggests that there was a time before the story's
main events when this creature was palatable.

The heroine is Vivi, played by Ellen Burstyn in her 60s, Judd in her 30s
and, as a child, by a moppet whose name I knoweth not. Yes, this is one of
those movies that whisks around in time, as childhood vows echo down through
the years before we whiplash back to the revelations of ancient secrets. If
life were as simple as this movie, we would all have time to get in shape
and learn Chinese.

As the film opens, four little girls gather around a campfire in the woods
and create the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, exchanging drops of their blood, no doubt
while sheriff's deputies and hounds are searching for them. Flash forward to
the present. Vivi's daughter Sidda (Sandra Bullock) is a famous New York
playwright, who tells an interviewer from Time magazine that she had a
difficult childhood, mostly because of her mother. Whisk down to Louisiana,
where Vivi reads the article and writes the daughter forever out of her
life--less of a banishment than you might think, since they have not seen
each other for seven years and Vivi doesn't even know of the existence of
Sidda's Scottish fiance, Connor (Angus MacFadyen).

Connor seems cut from the same mold as Shep Walker (James Garner), Vivi's
husband. Both men stand around sheepishly while portraying superfluous
males. No doubt their women notice them occasionally and are reminded that
they exist and are a handy supply of sperm. Shep's role for decades has
apparently been to beam approvingly as his wife gets drunk, pops pills and
stars in her own mind. Both men are illustrations of the impatience this
genre has for men as a gender; they have the presence of souvenirs left on
the mantel after a forgotten vacation.

Anyway, we meet the other adult survivors of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: Teensy
(Fionnula Flanagan), Necie (Shirley Knight) and Caro (Maggie Smith). Why do
they all have names like pet animals? Perhaps because real names, like
Martha, Florence or Esther, would be an unseemly burden for such
featherweights. Summoned by Vivi so that she can complain about Sidda,
Teensy, Necie and Caro fly north and kidnap Sidda, bringing her back to
Louisiana so that they can show her that if she really knew the secrets of
her mother's past, she would forgive her all shortcomings, real and
imagined. Since the central great mystery of Vivi's past is how she has
evaded rehab for so long, this quest is as pointless as the rest of the
film.

Why do gifted actresses appear in such slop? Possibly because good roles for
women are rare, for those over 60 precious. Possibly, too, because for all
the other shortcomings of the film, no expense has been spared by the hair,
makeup and wardrobe departments, so that all of the women look just terrific
all of the time, and when Vivi is distraught and emotional, she looks even
more terrific. It's the kind of movie where the actresses must love watching
the dailies as long as they don't listen to the dialogue.

The movie marks the directorial debut of Callie Khouri, author of "Thelma
and Louise." She seems uncertain what the film is about, where it is going,
what it hopes to prove apart from the most crashingly obvious cliches of
light women's fiction. So inattentive is the screenplay that it goes to the
trouble of providing Vivi with three other children in addition to Sidda,
only to never mention them again. A fellow critic, Victoria Alexander,
speculates that the secret in Vivi's past may have been that she drowned the
kids, but that's too much to hope for.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LATE MARRIAGE / *** (Not rated)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:51 GMT

LATE MARRIAGE / *** (Not rated)

May 31, 2002

Zaza: Lior Loui Ashkenazi
Judith: Ronit Elkabetz
Yasha (father): Moni Moshonov
Lily (mother): Lili Kosashvili
Ilana: Aya Steinovits Laor
Transfax Film Productions presents a film written and directed by Dover
Kosashvili. In Hebrew and Georgian with English subtitles. Running time: 100
minutes. No MPAA rating. Opening today at the Music Box Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

When children are grown they must be set free to lead their own lives.
Otherwise it's no longer a parent guiding a child, but one adult insisting
on authority over another. Wise parents step back before they cross this
line. Wise children rebel against parents who do not. "Late Marriage" is
about parents who insist on running the life of their 31-year-old son, and a
son who lets them. The characters deserve their misery.

The film is set in Israel, within a community of Jewish immigrants from the
former Soviet republic of Georgia. Zaza at 31 has still not filled his
obligation to marry and produce children. His parents have marched a parade
of potential wives past him, without success. His secret is that he's in
love with Judith, a divorcee from Morocco, four years older, with a
daughter. His parents would never approve of Zaza marrying such a woman.

As the movie opens, Zaza and his family descend on the home of Ilana, a
sulky 17-year-old who has been proposed as a prospective bride. There may be
a difference in age and education, but at least she is single, childless,
and arguably a virgin. In a scene of excruciating social comedy, the two
families arrange themselves in the living room and discuss Zaza and Ilana as
if they were this week's Tupperware specials. Then Ilana is produced and the
would-be couple dispatched to her bedroom "to get to know one another."

"Is that a dress or a nightgown?" Zaza (Lior Loui Ashkenazi) asks her when
they are alone. "What do you think?" asks Ilana (Aya Steinovits Laor). She
shows him her portfolio and confides her desire to be a dress designer. She
seems to be designing for the hostesses in an Havana hooker bar, circa 1959.
"I want a rich man," she tells him. Obviously he will not do, but they fall
on her bed and neck for a while until summoned back to the family council.

Zaza's parents find out about Judith (Ronit Elkabetz), the divorcee. They
stake out her house and eventually break in upon the romantic couple,
calling Judith a whore and demanding that the relationship end. Does Zaza
stand up to his mother, Lily (Lili Kosashvili, the director's own mother)?
No, he doesn't, and Judith sees this, and wisely drops him because there is
no future for her.

The contest between arranged marriages and romantic love is being waged in
novels and movies all over those parts of the world where parents select the
spouses of their children. Art is on the side of romance, tradition on the
side of the parents. Sometimes, as in Mira Nair's wonderful "Monsoon
Wedding," set in Delhi, there is a happy medium when the arranged couple
falls in love. But look at Rohinton Mistry's new novel, Family Matters,
about a man who spends a lifetime of misery after having a widow foisted on
him by a family that disapproves of the Christian woman from Goa he truly
loves.

The most important sequence in "Late Marriage" is a refreshingly frank sex
scene involving Zaza and Judith. We don't often see sex like this on the
screen. The scene is not about passion, performance or technique, but about
(listen carefully) familiarity and affection. They know each other's bodies.
They have a long history of lovemaking, and you can see how little movements
and gestures are part of a shared physical history. Watching this scene, we
realize that most sex scenes in the movies play like auditions.

"Late Marriage" is not a one-level film, and one of its most revealing
moments shows the strong-minded mother expressing respect for the equally
iron-willed Judith. These women understand one another, and the mother even
realistically discusses the chances that her Zaza will defy her and choose
the divorcee. The mother would, if forced to, actually accept that--but Zaza
is too frightened of her to intuit that there is a crack in his mother's
heart of stone.

I know couples whose marriages were arranged and who are blissful. I know
couples who married for love and are miserable. I am not saying one way is
right and another wrong. The message of "Late Marriage," I think, is that
when a marriage is decided by the parents crushing the will of the child, it
is wrong for the child and unfair to the new spouse. I have more thoughts on
this subject, but have just remembered this is not the advice column, so I
will close with the best all-purpose advice I have heard on this subject:
Never marry anyone you could not sit next to during a three-day bus trip.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ENOUGH / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:49:59 GMT

ENOUGH / *1/2 (PG-13)

May 24, 2002

Slim: Jennifer Lopez
Mitch: Billy Campbell
Ginny: Juliette Lewis
Gracie: Tessa Allen
Joe: Dan Futterman
Robbie: Noah Wyle
Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Apted. Written by
Nicholas Kazan. Running time: 115 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense scenes
of domestic violence, some sensuality and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Enough" is a nasty item masquerading as a feminist revenge picture. It's a
step or two above "I Spit On Your Grave," but uses the same structure, in
which a man victimizes a woman for the first half of the film, and then the
woman turns the tables in an extended sequence of graphic violence. It's
surprising to see a director like Michael Apted and an actress like Jennifer
Lopez associated with such tacky material.

It is possible to imagine this story being told in a good film, but that
would involve a different screenplay. Nicholas Kazan's script makes the evil
husband (Billy Campbell) such an unlikely caricature of hard-breathing
sadistic testosterone that he cannot possibly be a real human being. Of
course there are men who beat their wives and torture them with cruel mind
games, but do they satirize themselves as the heavy in a B movie? The
husband's swings of personality and mood are so sudden, and his motivation
makes so little sense, that he has no existence beyond the stereotyped Evil
Rich White Male. The fact that he preys on a poor Latino waitress is just
one more cynical cliche.

The story: Jennifer Lopez plays Slim, a waitress in a diner where she shares
obligatory sisterhood and bonding with Ginny (Juliette Lewis), another
waitress. A male customer tries to get her to go on a date, and almost
succeeds before another customer named Mitch (Campbell) blows the whistle
and reveals the first man was only trying to win a bet. In the movie's
headlong rush of events, Slim and Mitch are soon married, buy a big house,
have a cute child, and then Slim discovers Mitch is having affairs, and he
growls at her: "I am, and always will be, a person who gets what he wants."
He starts slapping her around.

Although their child is now 3 or 4, this is a Mitch she has not seen before
in their marriage. Where did this Mitch come from? How did he restrain
himself from pounding and strangling her during all of the early years? Why
did she think herself happy until now? The answer, of course, is that Mitch
turns on a dime when the screenplay requires him to. He even starts talking
differently.

The plot (spoiler warning) now involves Slim's attempts to hide herself and
the child from Mitch. She flees to Michigan and hooks up with a
battered-wife group, but Mitch, like the hero of a mad slasher movie, is
always able to track her down. Along the way, Slim appeals for help to the
father (Fred Ward) who has never acknowledged her, and the father's dialogue
is so hilariously over the top in its cruelty that the scene abandons all
hope of working seriously and simply functions as haywire dramaturgy.

Slim gets discouraging advice from a lawyer ("There is nothing you can do.
He will win."). And then she gets training in self-defense from a martial
arts instructor. Both of these characters are African-American, following
the movie's simplistic moral color-coding. The day when the evil husband is
black and the self-defense instructor is white will not arrive in our
lifetimes.

The last act of the movie consists of Slim outsmarting her husband with a
series of clever ploys in which she stage-manages an escape route, sets a
booby trap for his SUV, and then lures him into a confrontation where she
beats the Shinola out of him, at length, with much blood, lots of stunt
work, breakaway furniture, etc. The movie in time-honored horror movie
tradition doesn't allow Mitch to really be dead the first time. There is a
plot twist showing that Slim can't really kill him--she's the heroine, after
all--and then he lurches back into action like the slasher in many an
exploitation movie, and is destroyed more or less by accident. During this
action scene, Slim finds time for plenty of dialogue explaining that any
court will find she was acting in self-defense.

All of this would be bad enough without the performance of Tessa Allen as
Gracie, the young daughter. She has one of those squeaky itsy-bitsy piped-up
voices that combines with babyish dialogue to make her more or less
insufferable; after the ninth or 10th scream of "Mommy! Mommy!" we hope that
she will be shipped off to an excellent day care center for the rest of the
story.

Jennifer Lopez is one of my favorite actresses, but not here, where the
dialogue requires her to be passionate and overwrought in a way that is
simply not believable, maybe because no one could take this cartoon of a
story seriously. No doubt she saw "Enough" as an opportunity to play a heavy
dramatic role, but there is nothing more dangerous than a heavy role in a
lightweight screenplay, and this material is such a melodramatic soap opera
that the slick production values seem like a waste of effort.

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Subject: [MV] INSOMNIA / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:10 GMT

INSOMNIA / ***1/2 (R)

May 24, 2002

Will Dormer: Al Pacino
Walter Finch: Robin Williams
Ellie Burr: Hilary Swank
Hap Eckhart: Martin Donovan
Rachel Clement: Maura Tierney
Randy Stetz: Jonathan Jackson
Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by
Hillary Seitz, based on a screenplay by Nikolaj Frobenius and Erik
Skjoldbjaerg. Running time: 118 minutes. Rated R (for language, some
violence and brief nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

He looks exhausted when he gets off the plane. Troubles are preying on him.
An investigation by internal affairs in Los Angeles may end his police
career. And now here he is in--where the hell is this?--Nightmute, Alaska,
land of the midnight sun, investigating a brutal murder. The fuels driving
Detective Will Dormer are fear and exhaustion. They get worse.

Al Pacino plays the veteran cop, looking like a man who has lost all hope.
His partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) is younger, more resilient and may
be prepared to tell the internal affairs investigators what they want to
know--information that would bring the older man down. They have been sent
up north to help with a local investigation, flying into Nightmute in a
two-engine prop plane that skims low over jagged ice ridges. They'll be
assisting a local cop named Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), who is still fresh
with the newness of her job.

"Insomnia," the first film directed by Christopher Nolan since his famous
"Memento" (2001), is a remake of a Norwegian film of the same name, made in
1998 by Erik Skjoldbjaerg. That was a strong, atmospheric, dread-heavy film,
and so is this one. Unlike most remakes, the Nolan "Insomnia" is not a pale
retread, but a re-examination of the material, like a new production of a
good play. Stellan Skarsgard, who starred in the earlier film, took an
existential approach to the character; he seemed weighed down by the moral
morass he was trapped in. Pacino takes a more physical approach: How much
longer can he carry this burden?

The story involves an unexpected development a third of the way through, and
then the introduction of a character we do not really expect to meet, not
like this. The development is the same in both movies; the character is much
more important in this new version, adding a dimension I found fascinating.
Spoilers will occur in the next paragraph, so be warned.

The pivotal event in both films, filmed much alike, is a shoot-out in a
thick fog during a stakeout. The Pacino character sets a trap for the
killer, but the suspect slips away in the fog, and then Pacino, seeing an
indistinct figure loom before him, shoots and kills Hap, his partner from
L.A. It is easy enough to pin the murder on the escaping killer, except that
one person knows for sure who did it: the escaping killer himself.

In the Norwegian film, the local female detective begins to develop a
circumstantial case against the veteran cop. In a nice development in the
rewrite (credited to original authors Nikolaj Frobenius and Skjoldbjaerg,
working with Hillary Seitz), the killer introduces himself into the case as
sort of Pacino's self-appointed silent partner.

The face of the killer, the first time we see it, comes as a shock, because
by now we may have forgotten Robin Williams was even in the film. He plays
Walter Finch, who does not really consider himself a murderer, although his
killing was cruel and brutal. These things happen. Everyone should be
forgiven one lapse. Right, detective? Pacino, sleepless in a land where the
sun mercilessly never sets, is trapped: If he arrests Finch, he exposes
himself and his own cover-up. And the local detective seems to suspect
something.

Unusual, for a thriller to hinge on issues of morality and guilt, and
Nolan's remake doesn't avoid the obligatory Hollywood requirement that all
thrillers must end in a shoot-out. There is also a scene involving a chase
across floating logs, and a scene where a character is trapped underwater.
These are thrown in as--what? Sops for the cinematically impaired, I
suppose. Only a studio executive could explain why we need perfunctory
action, just for action's sake, in a film where the psychological suspense
is so high.

Pacino and Williams are very good together. Their scenes work because
Pacino's character, in regarding Williams, is forced to look at a mirror of
his own self-deception. The two faces are a study in contrasts. Pacino is
lined, weary, dark circles under his eyes, his jaw slack with fatigue.
Williams has the smooth, open face of a true believer, a man convinced of
his own case. In this film and "One-Hour Photo," which played at Sundance
2002 and will be released later in the year, Williams reminds us that he is
a considerable dramatic talent--and that while, over the years, he has
chosen to appear in some comedic turkeys ("Death to Smoochy" leaps to mind),
his serious films are almost always good ones.

Why Nolan took on this remake is easy to understand. "Memento" was one of a
kind; the thought of another film based on a similar enigma is exhausting.
"Insomnia" is a film with a lot of room for the director, who establishes a
distinctive far-north location, a world where the complexities of the big
city are smoothed out into clear choices. The fact that it is always
daylight is important: The dilemma of this cop is that he feels people are
always looking at him, and he has nowhere to hide, not even in his
nightmares.

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Subject: [MV] SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON / *** (G)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:13 GMT

SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON / *** (G)

May 24, 2002

Featuring the voices of:
Narrator: Matt Damon
The Colonel: James Cromwell
Little Creek: Daniel Studi
DreamWorks Pictures presents a film directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook.
Written by John Fusco. Running time: 82 minutes. Rated G.

BY ROGER EBERT

The animals do not speak in "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," and I think
that's important to the film's success. It elevates the story from a
children's fantasy to one wider audiences can enjoy, because although the
stallion's adventures are admittedly pumped-up melodrama, the hero is
nevertheless a horse and not a human with four legs. There is a whole level
of cuteness that the movie avoids, and a kind of narrative strength it gains
in the process.

The latest animated release from DreamWorks tells the story of Spirit, a
wild mustang stallion, who runs free on the great Western plains before he
ventures into the domain of man and is captured by U.S. Cavalry troops. They
think they can tame him. They are wrong, although the gruff-voiced colonel
(voice of James Cromwell) makes the stallion into a personal obsession.

Spirit does not want to be broken, shod or inducted into the Army, and his
salvation comes through Little Creek (voice of Daniel Studi), an Indian
brave who helps him escape and rides him to freedom. The pursuit by the
cavalry is one of several sequences in the film where animation frees chase
scenes to run wild, as Spirit and his would-be captors careen down canyons
and through towering rock walls, dock under obstacles and end up in a river.

Watching the film, I was reminded of Jack London's classic novel White Fang,
so unfairly categorized as a children's story even though the book (and the
excellent 1991 film) used the dog as a character in a parable for adults.
White Fang and Spirit represent hold-outs against the taming of the
frontier; invaders want to possess them, but they do not see themselves as
property.

All of which philosophy will no doubt come as news to the cheering kids I
saw the movie with, who enjoyed it, I'm sure, on its most basic level, as a
big, bold, colorful adventure about a wide-eyed horse with a stubborn
streak. That Spirit does not talk (except for some minimal thoughts that we
overhear on voice-over) doesn't mean he doesn't communicate, and the
animators pay great attention to body language and facial expressions in
scenes where Spirit is frightened of a blacksmith, in love with a mare, and
the partner of the Indian brave (whom he accepts after a lengthy battle of
the wills).

There is also a scene of perfect wordless communication between Spirit and a
small Indian child who fearlessly approaches the stallion at a time when he
feels little but alarm about humans. The two creatures, one giant, one tiny,
tentatively reach out to each other, and the child's absolute trust is
somehow communicated to the horse. I remembered the great scene in "The
Black Stallion" (1979) where the boy and the horse edge together from the
far sides of the wide screen.

In the absence of much dialogue, the songs by rocker Bryan Adams fill in
some of the narrative gaps, and although some of them simply comment on the
action (a practice I find annoying), they are in the spirit of the story.
The film is short at 82 minutes, but surprisingly moving, and has a couple
of really thrilling sequences, one involving a train wreck and the other a
daring leap across a chasm. Uncluttered by comic supporting characters and
cute sidekicks, "Spirit" is more pure and direct than most of the stories we
see in animation--a fable I suspect younger viewers will strongly identify
with.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE MYSTIC MASSEUR / *** (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:19 GMT

THE MYSTIC MASSEUR / *** (PG)

May 17, 2002

Ganesh: Aasif Mandvi
Ramlogan: Om Puri
Mr. Stewart: James Fox
Beharry: Sanjeev Bhaskar
Leela: Ayesha Dharker
THINKFilm presents a film directed by Ismail Merchant. Written by Caryl
Phillips, based on the novel by V.S. Naipaul. Running time: 117 minutes.
Rated PG.(for mild language). Opening today at Landmark Century and Evanston
CineArts.

BY ROGER EBERT

The West Indies were a footnote to the British Empire, and the Indian
community of Trinidad was a footnote to the footnote. After slavery was
abolished and the Caribbean still needed cheap labor, thousands of Indians
were brought from one corner of the Empire to another to supply it. They
formed an insular community, treasuring traditional Hindu customs, importing
their dress styles and recipes, recreating India far from home on an island
where it seemed irrelevant to white colonial rulers and the black majority.

The great man produced by these exiles was V.S. Naipaul, the 2001 Nobel
laureate for literature, whose father was a newspaperman with a great
respect for books and ideas. A House for Mr. Biswas (1961) is Naipaul's
novel about his father and his own childhood, and one of the best books of
the century. But Naipaul's career began in 1957 with The Mystic Masseur, a
novel casting a fond but dubious light on the Indian community of Trinidad.
It is now the first of Naipaul's novels to be filmed, directed by Ismail
Merchant, himself an Indian, usually the producing partner for director
James Ivory.

"The Mystic Masseur" is a wry, affectionate delight, a human comedy about a
man who thinks he has had greatness thrust upon him when in fact he has
merely thrust himself in the general direction of greatness. It tells the
story of Ganesh, a schoolteacher with an exaggerated awe for books, who is
inspired by a dotty Englishman to write some of his own. Abandoning the city
for a rural backwater, he begins to compose short philosophical tomes,
which, published by the local printer on a foot-powered flat-bed press, give
him a not quite deserved reputation for profundity.

If Ganesh allowed his success to go to his head, he would be insufferable.
Instead, he is played by Aasif Mandvi as a man so sincere he really does
believe in his mission. Does he have the power to cure with his touch, and
advise troubled people on their lives? Many think he does, and soon he has
become married to the pretty daughter of a canny businessman, who runs taxis
from the city to bring believers to Ganesh's rural retreat.

There is rich humor in the love-hate relationship many Indians have with
their customs, which they leaven with a decided streak of practicality. In
no area is this more true than marriage, as you can see in Mira Nair's
wonderful comedy "Monsoon Wedding." The events leading up to Ganesh's
marriage to the beautiful Leela (Ayesha Dharker) are hilarious, as the
ambitious businessman Ramlogan positions his daughter to capture the rising
young star.

Played by the great Indian actor Om Puri with lip-smacking satisfaction,
Ramlogan makes sure Ganesh appreciates Leela's dark-eyed charm, and then
demonstrates her learning by producing a large wooden sign she has lettered,
with a bright red punctuation mark after every word. "Leela know a lot of
punctuation marks," he boasts proudly, and soon she has Ganesh within her
parentheses. The wedding brings a showdown between the two men; custom
dictates that the father-in-law must toss bills onto a plate as long as the
new husband is still eating his kedgeree, and Ganesh, angered that Ramlogan
has stiffed him with the wedding bill, dines slowly.

The humor in "The Mystic Masseur" is generated by Ganesh's good-hearted
willingness to believe in his ideas and destiny, both of which are slight.
Like a thrift shop Gandhi, he sits on his veranda writing pamphlets and
advising supplicants on health, wealth and marriage. Leela meanwhile quietly
takes charge, managing the family business, as Ganesh becomes the best-known
Indian on Trinidad. Eventually he forms a Hindu Association, collects some
political power, and is elected to parliament, which is the beginning of his
end. Transplanted from his rural base to the capital, he finds his party
outnumbered by Afro-Caribbeans and condescended to by the British governors;
he has traded his stature for a meaningless title, and is correctly seen by
other Indians as a stooge.

The masseur's public career has lasted only from 1943 to 1954. The mistake
would be to assign too much significance to Ganesh. His lack of significance
is the whole point. He rises to visibility as a home-grown guru, is co-opted
by the British colonial government, and by the end of the film is a
nonentity shipped safely out of sight to Oxford on a cultural exchange.
Critics of the film have criticized Ganesh for being a pointless man leading
a marginal life; they don't sense the anger and hurt seething just below the
genial surface of the novel. The young Trinidadian Indian studying at
Oxford, who meets Ganesh at the train station in the opening scene, surely
represents Naipaul, observing the wreck of a man who loomed large in his
childhood.

Movies are rarely about inconsequential characters. They favor characters
who are sensational winners or losers. But Ganesh, one senses, is precisely
the character Naipaul needed to express his feelings about being an Indian
in Trinidad. He has written elsewhere about the peculiarity of being raised
in an Indian community thousands of miles from "home," attempting to reflect
a land none of its members had ever seen. The Empire created generations of
such displaced communities, not least the British exiles in India, sipping
Earl Grey, reading the Times and saluting "God Save the Queen" in blissful
oblivion to the world around them.

Ganesh gets about as far as he could get, given the world he was born into,
and he is such an innocent that many of his illusions persist. Shown around
the Bodleian Library in Oxford by his young guide, the retired statesman
looks at the walls of books, and says, "Boy, this the center of the world!
Everything begin here, everything lead back to this place." Naipaul's whole
career would be about his struggle with that theory.

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Subject: [MV] THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST / *** (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:15 GMT

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST / *** (PG)

May 24, 2002

Algernon Moncrieff: Rupert     Everett
Jack Worthing: Colin Firth
Cecily Cardew: Reese     Witherspoon
Lady Bracknell: Judi Dench
Gwendolen Fairfax: Frances     O'Connor
Rev. Chasuble: Tom Wilkinson
Miss Prism: Anna Massey
Lane: Edward Fox
Miramax Films presents a film written and directed by Oliver Parker. Based
on the play by Oscar Wilde. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG.(for mild
sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

Be careful what you ask for; you might get it. Two weeks ago I deplored the
lack of wit in "Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones," which has not
one line of quotable dialogue. Now here is "The Importance of Being
Earnest," so thick with wit it plays like a reading from Bartlett's Familiar
Quotations. I will demonstrate. I have here the complete text of the Oscar
Wilde play, which I have downloaded from the Web. I will hit "Page Down" 20
times and quote the first complete line from the top of the screen:

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does.
That's his.

Now the question is, does this sort of thing appeal to you? Try these:

Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is
the use of them?

To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose
both looks like carelessness.

It appeals to me. I yearn for a world in which every drawing room is a
stage, and we but players on it. But does anyone these days know what a
drawing room is? The Universal Studios theme park has decided to abolish its
characters dressed like the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy, because "a
majority of people no longer recognize them." I despair. How can people
recognize wit who begin with only a half-measure of it?

Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a comedy constructed out
of thin air. It is not really about anything. There are two romances at the
center, but no one much cares whether the lovers find happiness together.
Their purpose is to make elegant farce out of mistaken identities, the class
system, mannerisms, egos, rivalries, sexual warfare and verbal playfulness.

Oliver Parker's film begins with music that is a little too modern for the
period, circa 1895, following the current fashion in anachronistic movie
scores. It waltzes us into the story of two men who are neither one named
Ernest and who both at various times claim to be. Jack Worthing (Colin
Firth) calls himself Jack in the country and Ernest in town. In the country,
he is the guardian of the charming Miss Cecily Cardew (Reese Witherspoon),
who is the granddaughter of the elderly millionaire who adopted Jack after
finding him as an infant in a handbag he was handed in error at the
cloakroom in Victoria Station. When Jack grows bored with the country, he
cites an imaginary younger brother named Ernest who lives in London and must
be rescued from scrapes with the law.

This imaginary person makes perfect sense to Jack's friend Algernon
Moncrieff (Rupert Everett), who lives in town but has a fictitious friend
named Bunbury who lives in the country and whose ill health provides
Algernon an excuse to get out of town. I have gone into such detail about
these names and alternate identities because the entire play is constructed
out of such silliness, and to explain all of it would require--well, the
play.

In town Jack is much besotted by Gwendolen Fairfax (Frances O'Connor),
daughter of the formidable Lady Bracknell (Judi Dench), Algernon's aunt, who
is willing to consider Jack as a suitor for the girl but nonplussed to learn
that he has no people--none at all--and was indeed left in a bag at the
station. Thus her remark about his carelessness in losing both parents.

Algernon in the meantime insinuates himself into the country estate where
young Cecily is being educated under the watchful eye of Miss Prism (Anna
Massey), the governess; eventually all of the characters gather at the Manor
House, Woolton, where there's some confusion since Algernon has taken the
name Ernest for his visit and proposed to Cecily, so that when Cecily meets
Gwendolen, they both believe they are engaged to Ernest although Cecily of
course doesn't know that in town Gwendolen knows Jack as Ernest.

But now I have been lured into the plot again. The important thing about
"The Importance" is that all depends on the style of the actors, and Oliver
Parker's film is well cast. Reese Witherspoon, using an English accent that
sounds convincing to me, is charming as Jack's tender ward, who of course
falls for Algernon. She is a silly, flighty girl, just right for Algernon,
for whom romance seems valuable primarily as a topic of conversation.
Frances O'Connor is older and more sensuous as Gwendolen, and gently
encourages the shy Jack to argue his case ("Mr. Worthing, what have you got
to say to me?"). Judi Dench keeps a stern eye on the would-be lovers, and a
strong hand on the tiller.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is above all an exercise in wit. There is
nothing to be learned from it, no moral, no message. It adopts what one
suspects was Wilde's approach to sex--more fun to talk about than to do. As
Algernon observes, romance dies when a proposal is accepted: "The very
essence of romance is uncertainty." Wilde takes this as his guide. When the
play's uncertainties have all been exhausted, the play ends. The last line
("I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital importance of
being earnest") takes on an interesting spin if we know that "earnest" was a
vernacular term for "gay" in 1895. Thus the closing line may subvert the
entire play, although not to the surprise of anyone who has been paying
attention.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE SALTON SEA / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:21 GMT

THE SALTON SEA / *** (R)

May 17, 2002

Danny/Tom: Val Kilmer
Pooh-Bear: Vincent D'Onofrio
Kujo: Adam Goldberg
Quincy: Luis Guzman
Morgan: Doug Hutchison
Garcetti: Anthony LaPaglia
Bobby: Glenn Plummer
Jimmy the Finn: Peter Sarsgaard
Colette: Deborah Kara Unger
Castle Rock Entertainment presents a film directed by D.J. Caruso. Written
by Tony Gayton. Running time: 103 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence,
drug use, language and some sexuality). Opening today at Pipers Alley and
Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Salton Sea" is a lowlife black comedy drawing inspiration from
"Memento," "Pulp Fiction" and those trendy British thrillers about drug
lads. It contains one element of startling originality: its bad guy,
nicknamed Pooh-Bear and played by Vincent D'Onofrio in a great weird
demented giggle of a performance; imagine a Batman villain cycled through
the hallucinations of "Requiem for a Dream."

The movie opens with what looks like a crash at the intersection of film and
noir: Val Kilmer sits on the floor and plays a trumpet, surrounded by cash,
photos and flames. He narrates the film, and makes a laundry list of
biblical figures (Judas, the Prodigal Son) he can be compared with. As we
learn about the murder of his wife and the destruction of his life, I was
also reminded of Job.

Kilmer plays Danny Parker, also known as Tom Van Allen; his double identity
spans a life in which he is both a jazz musician and a meth middleman, doing
speed himself, inhabiting the dangerous world of speed freaks ("tweakers")
and acting as an undercover agent for the cops. His life is so arduous we
wonder, not for the first time, why people go to such extraordinary efforts
to get and use the drugs that make them so unhappy. He doesn't use to get
high, but to get from low back to bearable.

The plot involves the usual assortment of lowlifes, scum, killers,
bodyguards, dealers, pathetic women, two-timing cops and strung-out addicts,
all employing Tarantinian dialogue about the flotsam of consumer society
(you'd be surprised to learn what you might find under Bob Hope on eBay).
Towering over them, like a bloated float in a nightmarish Thanksgiving Day
parade, is Pooh-Bear, a drug dealer who lives in a fortified retreat in the
desert and brags about the guy who shorted him $11 and got his head clamped
in a vise while his brains were removed with a handsaw.

D'Onofrio is a gifted actor and his character performances have ranged from
Orson Welles to Abbie Hoffman to the twisted killer with the bizarre murder
devices in "The Cell." Nothing he has done quite approaches Pooh-Bear, an
overweight good ol' boy who uses his folksy accent to explain novel ways of
punishing the disloyal, such as having their genitals eaten off by a rabid
badger. He comes by his nickname because cocaine abuse has destroyed his
nose, and he wears a little plastic job that makes him look like Pooh.

"The Salton Sea" is two movies fighting inside one screenplay. Val Kilmer's
movie is about memory and revenge, and tenderness for the abused woman
(Deborah Kara Unger) who lives across the hall in his fleabag hotel. Kilmer
plays a fairly standard middleman between dealers who might kill him and
cops who might betray him. But he sometimes visits a world that is
essentially the second movie, a nightmarish comedy. Director D.J. Caruso and
writer Tony Gayton ("Murder by Numbers") introduce scenes with images so
weird they're funny to begin with, and then funnier when they're explained.
Consider Pooh-Bear's hobby of restaging the Kennedy assassination with pet
pigeons in model cars. Note the little details like the pink pillbox hat.
Then listen to his driver/bodyguard ask what "JFK" stands for.

On the basis of this film, meth addiction is such a debilitating illness
that it's a wonder its victims have the energy for the strange things the
screenplay puts them up to. We meet, for example, a dealer named Bobby
(Glenn Plummer) whose girlfriend's writhing legs extend frantically from
beneath the mattress he sits on, while he toys with a compressed-air spear
gun. Bobby looks like a man who has earned that good night's sleep.

"The Salton Sea" is all pieces and no coherent whole. Maybe life on meth is
like that. The plot does finally explain itself, like a dislocated shoulder
popping back into place, but then the plot is off the shelf; only the
characters and details set the movie aside from its stablemates. I liked it
because it was so endlessly, grotesquely, inventive: Watching it, I pictured
Tarantino throwing a stick into a swamp, and the movie swimming out through
the muck, retrieving it, and bringing it back with its tail wagging.

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Subject: [MV] THE PIANO TEACHER / ***1/2 (Not rated)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:46 GMT

THE PIANO TEACHER / ***1/2 (Not rated)

April 26, 2002

Erika Kohut: Isabelle Huppert
The Mother: Annie Girardot
Walter Klemmer: Benoit Magimel
Mrs. Schober: Susanne Lothar
Dr. Blonskij: Udo Samel
Anna Schober: Anna Sigalevitch
Mme Blonskij: Cornelia Kondgen
Baritone: Thomas Weinhappel
Kino International presents a film written and directed by Michael Haneke.
Based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek. Running time: 130 minutes. No MPAA
rating (intended for adults). In French with English subtitles. Opening
today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

There is a self-assurance in Isabelle Huppert that defies all explanation. I
interviewed her in 1977, asking her how she got her start in the movies. She
knocked on the door of a Paris studio, she said, and announced, "I am here."
Was she kidding? I peered at her. I thought not.

In Michael Haneke's "The Piano Teacher," which won three awards at Cannes
2001 (best actress, actor and film), she plays a bold woman with a secret
wound. She is Erika Kohut, 40ish, a respected instructor at a conservatory
of music in Vienna. Demanding, severe, distant, unsmiling, she leads a
secret life of self-mutilation. That she sleeps in the same bed with her
domineering mother is no doubt a clue--but to what?

Erika is fascinated with the sexual weaknesses and tastes of men. There is a
scene where she visits a porn shop in Vienna, creating an uncomfortable
tension by her very presence. The male clients are presumably there to
indulge their fantasies about women, but faced with a real one, they look
away, disturbed or ashamed. If she were obviously a prostitute, they could
handle that, but she's apparently there to indulge her own tastes, and that
takes all the fun out of it, for them. She returns their furtive glances
with a shriveling gaze.

She has a handsome young student named Walter (Benoit Magimel). She notices
him in a particular way. They have a clash of wills. He makes it clear he is
interested in her. Not long after, in one of the school's restrooms, they
have a sexual encounter--all the more electrifying because while she shocks
him with her brazen behavior, she refuses to actually have sex with him. She
wants the upper hand.

What games does she want to play? A detailed and subtle plan of revenge
against her mother is involved, and Walter, who is not really into
sadomasochism, allows himself to be enlisted out of curiosity, or perhaps
because he hopes she will yield to him at the end of the scenario. Does it
work out that way? Some audience members will dislike the ending, but with a
film like this any conventional ending would be a cop-out.

Most sexual relationships in the movies have a limited number of possible
outcomes, but this one is a mystery. Another mystery is, what's wrong with
Erika? She is not simply an adventuress, a sexual experimenter, a
risk-taker. Some buried pathology is at work. Walter's idle thoughts about
an experienced older woman have turned into nightmares about experiences he
doesn't even want to know about.

Huppert often plays repressed, closed-off, sexually alert women. At 47, she
looks curiously as she did at 22; she is thin, with fine, freckled skin that
does not seem to weather, and seems destined to be one of those women who
was never really young and then never really ages. Many of her roles involve
women it is not safe to scorn. Magimel won his best actor award for standing
up to her force. He doesn't play the standard movie character we'd expect in
this role (the immature twentysomething boy who flowers under the tutelage
of an older woman). Instead, he's a capable, confident young man who thinks
he has met hidden wildness and then finds it is madness.

The movie seems even more highly charged because it is wrapped in an elegant
package. These are smart people. They talk about music as if they understand
it, they duel with their minds as well as their bodies, and Haneke
photographs them in two kinds of spaces: Sometimes they're in elegant,
formal conservatory settings, and at other times in frankly vulgar places
where quick release can be snatched from strangers. There is an old saying:
Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it. "The Piano Teacher"
has a more ominous lesson: Be especially careful with someone who has asked
for you.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:23 GMT

DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS / *** (PG-13)

May 10, 2002

Featuring Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Bob Biniak, Paul Constantineau, Shogo Kubo,
Jim Muir, Peggy Oki, Stacy Peralta.Sony Pictures Classics presents a
documentary directed by Stacy Peralta. Written by Peralta and Craig Stecyk.
Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language and some drug
references). Opening today at Landmark Century and Evanston CineArts.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Dogtown and Z-Boys," a documentary about how the humble skateboard became
the launch pad for aerial gymnastics, answers a question I have long been
curious about: How and why was the first skateboarder inspired to go aerial,
to break contact with any surface and do acrobatics in mid-air? Consider
that the pioneer was doing this for the very first time over a vertical drop
of perhaps 15 feet to a concrete surface. It's not the sort of thing you try
out of idle curiosity.

The movie answers this and other questions in its history of a sport that
grew out of idle time and boundless energy in the oceanfront neighborhood
between Santa Monica and Venice in California. Today the area contains
expensive condos and trendy restaurants, but circa 1975, it was the last
remaining "beachfront slum" in the Los Angeles area. Druggies and hippies
lived in cheap rentals and supported themselves by working in hot dog
stands, tattoo parlors, head shops and saloons.

Surfing was the definitive lifestyle, the Beach Boys supplied the soundtrack
and tough surfer gangs staked out waves as their turf. In the afternoon,
after the waves died down, they turned to skateboards, which at first were
used as a variation of roller skates. But the members of the Zephyr Team, we
learn, devised a new style of skateboarding, defying gravity, adding
acrobatics, devising stunts. When a drought struck the area and thousands of
swimming pools were drained, they invented vertical skateboarding on the
walls of the empty pools. Sometimes they'd glide so close to the edge that
only one of their four wheels still had a purchase on the lip. One day a
Z-Boy went airborne, and a new style was born--a style reflected today in
Olympic ski acrobatics.

I am not sure whether the members of the Zephyr Team were solely responsible
for all significant advances in the sport, or whether they only think they
were. "Dogtown and Z-Boys" is directed by Stacy Peralta, an original and
gifted team member, still a legend in the sport. Like many of the other
Z-Boys (and one Z-girl), he marketed himself, his name, his image, his
products, and became a successful businessman and filmmaker while still
surfing concrete. His film describes the evolution of skateboarding almost
entirely in terms of the experience of himself and his friends. It's like
the vet who thinks World War II centered around his platoon.

The Southern California lifestyle in general, and surfing and skateboarding
in particular, are insular and narcissistic. People who live indoors have
ideas. People who live outdoors have style. Here is an entire movie about
looking cool while not wiping out. Call it a metaphor for life. There comes
a point when sensible viewers will tire of being told how astonishing and
unique each and every Z-Boy was, while looking at repetitive still photos
and home footage of skateboarders, but the film has an infectious enthusiasm
and we're touched by the film's conviction that all life centered on that
place, that time and that sport.

One question goes unanswered: Was anyone ever killed? Maimed? Crippled?
There is a brief shot of someone on crutches, and a few shots showing
skateboarders falling off their boards, but since aerial gymnastics high
over hard surfaces are clearly dangerous and the Z-Boys wear little or no
protective gear, what's the story? That most of them survived is made clear
by info over the end credits, revealing that although one Zephyr Team member
is in prison and another was "last seen in Mexico," the others all seem to
have married, produced an average of two children, and found success in
business. To the amazement no doubt of their parents.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Subject: [MV] ABOUT A BOY / ***1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:17 GMT

ABOUT A BOY / ***1/2 (PG-13)

May 17, 2002

Will: Hugh Grant
Marcus: Nicholas Hoult
Rachel: Rachel Weisz
Fiona: Toni Collette
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz.
Written by Peter Hedges, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. Based on the book by
Nick Hornby. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for brief strong
language and some thematic elements).

BY ROGER EBERT

Hugh Grant, who has a good line in charm, has never been more charming than
in "About a Boy." Or perhaps that's not quite what he is. Charming in the
Grant stylebook refers to something he does as a conscious act, and what is
remarkable here is that Grant is--well, likable. Yes, the cad has developed
a heart. There are times, toward the end of the film, where he speaks
sincerely and we can actually believe him.

In "About a Boy," he plays Will, a 38-year-old bachelor who has never had a
job, or a relationship that has lasted longer than two months. He is content
with this lifestyle. "I was the star of the Will Show," he explains. "It was
not an ensemble drama." His purpose in life is to date pretty girls. When
they ask him what he does, he smiles that self-deprecating Hugh Grant smile
and confesses that, well, he does--nothing. Not a single blessed thing. In
1958 his late father wrote a hit song titled "Santa's Super Sleigh," and he
lives rather handsomely off the royalties. His London flat looks like a
showroom for Toys for Big Boys.

Will is the creation of Nick Hornby, who wrote the original novel. This is
the same Hornby who wrote High Fidelity, which was made into the wonderful
John Cusack movie. Hornby depicts a certain kind of immature but latently
sincere man who loves Women as a less demanding alternative to loving a
woman. Will's error, or perhaps it is his salvation, is that he starts
dating single mothers, thinking they will be less demanding and easier to
dump than single girls.

The strategy is flawed: Single mothers invariably have children, and what
Will discovers is that while he would make a lousy husband, he might make a
wonderful father. Of course it takes a child to teach an adult how to be a
parent, and that is how Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) comes into Will's life. Will
is dating a single mom named Suzie, who he meets at a support group named
Single Parents, Alone Together (SPAT). He shamelessly claims that his wife
abandoned him and their 2-year-old son, "Ned."

Suzie has a friend named Fiona (Toni Collette), whose son, Marcus, comes
along one day to the park. We've already met Marcus, who is round-faced and
sad-eyed and has the kind of bangs that get him teased in the school
playground. His mother suffers from depression, and this has made Marcus
mature and solemn beyond his years. When Fiona tries to overdose one day,
Will finds himself involved in a trip to the emergency room and other events
during which Marcus decides that Will belongs in his life whether Will
realizes it or not.

The heart of the movie involves the relationship between Will and
Marcus--who begins by shadowing Will, finds out there is no "Ned," and ends
by coming over on a regular basis to watch TV. Will has had nothing but
trouble with his fictional child, and now finds that a real child is an
unwieldy addition to the bachelor life. Nor is Fiona a dating possibility.
Marcus tried fixing them up, but they're obviously not intended for each
another--not Will with his cool bachelor aura and Fiona with her Goodwill
hippie look and her "health bread," which is so inedible that little Marcus
barely has the strength to tear a bite from the loaf. (There is an
unfortunate incident in the park when Marcus attempts to throw the loaf into
a pond to feed the ducks, and kills one.)

Will finds to his horror that authentic emotions are forming. He likes
Marcus. He doesn't admit this for a long time, but he's a good enough bloke
to buy Marcus a pair of trendy sneakers, and to advise Fiona that since
Marcus is already mocked at school, it is a bad idea, by definition, for him
to sing "Killing Me Softly" at a school assembly. Meanwhile, Will starts
dating Rachel (Rachel Weisz), who turns out to be a much nicer woman than he
deserves (she also has a son much nastier than she deserves).

This plot outline, as it stands, could supply the materials for a film of
complacent stupidity--a formula sitcom with one of the Culkin offspring
blinking cutely. It is much more than that; it's one of the year's most
entertaining films, not only because Grant is so good but because young
Nicholas Hoult has a kind of appeal that cannot be faked. He isn't a
conventionally cute movie child, seems old beyond his years, can never be
caught in an inauthentic moment, and helps us understand why Will likes
him--he likes Marcus because Marcus is so clearly in need of being liked,
and so deserving of it.

The movie has been directed by the Weitz brothers, Paul and Chris, who
directed "American Pie"--which was better than its countless imitators--and
now give us a comedy of confidence and grace. They deserve some of the
credit for this flowering of Grant's star appeal. There is a scene where
Grant does a double-take when he learns that he has been dumped (usually it
is the other way around). The way he handles it--the way he handles the role
in general--shows how hard it is to do light romantic comedy, and how easily
it comes to him. We have all the action heroes and Method script-chewers we
need right now, but the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh
Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Subject: [MV] GOOD HOUSEKEEPING / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:25 GMT

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING / *** (R)

May 10, 2002

Don: Bob Jay Mills
Donatella: Petra Westen
Marion: Tacey Adams
Joe: Al Schuermann
Chuck: Zia
Don Jr.: Andrew Eichner
Mike: Jerry O'Conner
Barry: Scooter Stephan
Universal Focus presents a film written and directed by Frank Novak. Running
time: 90 minutes. Rated R (for pervasive language, domestic violence and
drug content). Opening today at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

BY ROGER EBERT

I watch the guests on "Jerry Springer" with the fascination of an ambulance
driver at Demo Derby. Where do these people come from? Their dialogue may be
"suggested" but their lives are all too evidently real, and they have
tumbled right through the safety net of taste and self-respect and gone
spiraling down, down into the pit of amoral vulgarity. Now comes "Good
Housekeeping," a film about how the people on Springer live when they're not
on camera.

No, it's not a documentary. It was written and directed by Frank Novak,
otherwise a trendy Los Angeles furniture manufacturer, who regards his white
trash characters with deadpan neutrality. How is the audience expected to
react? Consider this dialogue:

Don: "Maybe if we cut her in half we could get her in there."

Chuck: "We can't cut her in half!"

Don: "So what are you? Mr. Politically Correct?"

Don and Chuck are brothers. Don (Bob Jay Mills) uneasily shares his house
with his wife Donatella (Petra Westen), while Chuck (credited only as Zia)
sleeps with his girlfriend Tiffany (Maeve Kerrigan) in Don's car.

Things are not good between Don and Donatella, and he uses 2x4s and
plasterboard to build a wall that cuts the house in two ("She got way more
square feet than I got," he tells the cops during one of their frequent
visits). Realizing he has forgotten something, Don cuts a crawl hole in the
wall so that Don Jr. (Andrew Eichner) can commute between parents. Soon
Donatella's new lesbian lover Marion (Tacey Adams) is poking her head
through the hole to discuss the "parameters" Don is setting for his son.

Donatella is a forklift operator. Don is self-employed as a trader of action
figures, with a specialty in Pinhead and other Hellraiser characters. When
Chuck tries to sell him a Sad-Eye Doll, he responds like a pro: "Couldn't
you Swap-Meet it? I'm not gonna put that on my table and drag down my other
merch." Don Jr. has less respect for action figures and occasionally saws
off their heads.

Terrible things happen to the many cars in this extended family, both by
accident and on purpose. One of the funniest sequences shows a big blond
family friend, desperately hung-over, methodically crunching into every
other car in the driveway before she runs over the mailbox. Don lives in
fear of Donatella running him down, and at one point discusses his defense
with a gun-show trader (Al Schuermann), who scoffs, "You would use a .38 to
defend yourself?" He comes back with real protection against vehicular
manslaughter: a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.

Marion, the well-mannered lesbian lover, is the source of many of the film's
biggest laughs because of the incongruity of her crush on Donatella. She
watches Donatella smoke, eat, talk and blow her nose all at the same time,
and her only reaction is to eat all the more politely, in the hope of
setting an example. Marion is an accountant at the factory where Donatella
works; she dresses in chic business suits, has smart horn-rim glasses and a
stylish haircut, and plunges into Springerland with an arsenal of liberal
cliches. At one point, after a nasty domestic disturbance, she tries to make
peace by inviting Don out to brunch. "There's no way the cops can make you
go to brunch," Don's beer-bellied buddies reassure him.

It is perhaps a warning signal of incipient alcoholism when the family car
has a Breathalyzer permanently attached to the dashboard. Yet Don is not
without standards, and warns his brother against making love in the car
because "I drive Mom to church in it." Family life follows a familiar
pattern. Most evenings end with a fight in the yard, and Novak and his
cinematographer, Alex Vendler, are skilled at getting convincing,
spontaneous performances out of their unknown actors; many scenes, including
the free-for-alls, play with the authenticity of a documentary.

Just as mainstream filmmakers are fascinated by the rich and famous, so
independent filmmakers are drawn to society's hairy underbelly. "Good
Housekeeping" plunges far beneath Todd Solondz's territory and enters the
suburbs of John Waters' universe in its fascination for people who live
without benefit of education, taste, standards, hygiene and shame. Indeed,
all they have enough of are cigarettes, used cars, controlled substances and
four-letter words. The movie is, however, very funny as you peek at it
through the fingers in front of your eyes.

Note: "Good Housekeeping" has had its ups and downs. It won the grand jury
prize at Slamdance 2000, was the only U.S. film chosen for Critic's Week at
Cannes that year, and was picked up for distribution by the Shooting
Gallery--which, alas, went out of business, leaving the film orphaned. "Good
Housekeeping" has its U.S. premiere today through Thursday at the Gene
Siskel Film Center.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] UNFAITHFUL / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:37 GMT

UNFAITHFUL / *** (R)

May 10, 2002

Connie Sumner: Diane Lane
Edward Sumner: Richard Gere
Paul Martel: Olivier Martinez
Charlie Sumner: Erik Per Sullivan
Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Adrian Lyne. Written by
Alvin Sargent and William Broyles Jr, based on a script by Claude Chabrol.
Running time: 123 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality, partial nudity, language
and a scene of violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

The heart has its reasons, said the French philosopher Pascal, quoted by the
American philosopher Woody Allen. It is a useful insight when no other
reasons seem apparent. Connie Sumner's heart and other organs have their
reasons for straying outside a happy marriage in "Unfaithful,'' but the
movie doesn't say what they are. This is not necessarily a bad thing,
sparing us tortured Freudian explanations and labored plot points. It is
almost always more interesting to observe behavior than to listen to
reasons.

Connie (Diane Lane) and her husband, Edward (Richard Gere), live with their
9-year-old son, Charlie (Erik Per Sullivan), in one of those Westchester
County houses that has a room for every mood. They are happy together, or at
least the movie supplies us with no reasons why they are unhappy. One windy
day she drives into New York City, is literally blown down on top of a rare
book dealer named Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez), and is invited upstairs
for Band-Aids and a cup of tea. He occupies a large flat filled with shelves
of books and art objects.

Martel is your average Calvin Klein model as a bibliophile. He has the
Spanish looks, the French accent, the permanent three-day beard, and the
strength to suspend a woman indefinitely in any position while making love.
He is also cool in his seduction methods. Instead of making a crude pass, he
asks her to accept a book as a gift from him, and directs her down an aisle
to the last book on the end of the second shelf from the top, where he tells
her what page to turn to, and then joins her in reciting the words there: Be
happy for this moment, for this moment is your life.

Does it occur to Connie that Martel planted that book for just such an
occasion as this? No, because she likes to be treated in such a way, and
soon she's on the phone with a transparent ruse to get up to his apartment
again, where Martel overcomes her temporary stall in bed by commanding her:
Hit me! That breaks the logjam, and soon they're involved in a passionate
affair that involves arduous sex in his apartment and quick sex in
restrooms, movie theaters and corridors. (The movie they go to see is Tati's
"Monsieur Hulot's Holiday,'' which, despite its stature on my list of The
Great Movies, fails to compete with furtive experiments that would no doubt
have Hulot puffing furiously at his pipe.) Edward senses that something is
wrong. There are clues, but mostly he picks up on her mood, and eventually
hires a man to shadow her.

Discovering where Martel lives, he visits there one day, and what happens
then I will not reveal. What does not happen then, I am happy to reveal, is
that the movie doesn't turn into a standard thriller in which death stalks
Westchester County and the wife and husband fear murder by each other, or by
Martel.

That's what's intriguing about the film: Instead of pumping up the plot with
recycled manufactured thrills, it's content to contemplate two reasonably
sane adults who get themselves into an almost insoluble dilemma.

"Unfaithful" contains, as all movies involving suburban families are
required to contain, a scene where the parents sit proudly in the audience
while their child performs bravely in a school play. But there are no
detectives lurking in the shadows to arrest them, and no killers skulking in
the parking lot with knives or tire-irons. No, the meaning of the scene is
simply, movingly, that these two people in desperate trouble are
nevertheless able to smile at their son on the stage.

The movie was directed by Adrian Lyne, best known for higher-voltage films
like "Fatal Attraction" and "Indecent Proposal.'' This film is based on "La
Femme Infidele" (1969) by Claude Chabrol, which itself is an update of
Madame Bovary. Lyne's film is juicier and more passionate than Chabrol's,
but both share the fairly daring idea of showing a plot that is entirely
about illicit passion and its consequences in a happy marriage. Although
cops turn up from time to time in "Unfaithful," this is not a crime story,
but a marital tragedy. Richard Gere and Diane Lane are well-suited to the
roles, exuding a kind of serene materialism that seems happily settled in
suburbia. It is all the more shocking when Lane revisits Martel's apartment
because there is no suggestion that she is unhappy with Gere, starved for
sex, or especially impulsive. She goes back up there because--well, because
she wants to. He's quite a guy. On one visit he shows her The Joy of Cooking
in Braille. And then his fingers brush hers as if he's reading The Joy of
Sex on her skin.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HOLLYWOOD ENDING / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:41 GMT

HOLLYWOOD ENDING / **1/2 (PG-13)

May 3, 2002

Val Waxman: Woody Allen
Ellie: Tea Leoni
Ed: George Hamilton
Lori: Debra Messing
Al Hack: Mark Rydell
Hal: Treat Williams
DreamWorks presents a film written and directed by Woody Allen. Running
time: 114 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some drug references and sexual
material).

BY ROGER EBERT

Val Waxman is a movie director going through a slow period in his career.
Maybe it's more like a slow decade. He left his last movie project,
explaining, "I quit over a big thing." What was that? "They fired me." Then
he gets a big break, Galaxie Studios has just green-lighted "The City that
Never Sleeps," and his ex-wife has convinced the studio head that Val,
despite his laundry list of psychosomatic anxieties and neurotic tics, is
the right guy to direct it.

Woody Allen's new comedy "Hollywood Ending" quickly adds a complication to
this setup: Waxman goes blind. It may all be in his mind, but he can't see a
thing. For his ever-smiling agent Al Hack (Mark Rydell), this is
insufficient cause to leave the project. Al says he will glide through the
picture at Waxman's elbow, and no one will ever notice. When the studio
demurs at the agent being on the set, Al and Val recruit another seeing-eye
man: The business student (Barney Cheng) who has been hired as the
translator for the Chinese cinematographer. The translator says he'll blend
right in: "I will practice casual banter."

Further complications: Waxman's ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni) is now engaged to
Hal (Treat Williams), the head of Galaxie Studios. Waxman casts his current
squeeze, Lori (Debra Messing), for a supporting role in the movie, but while
Lori is away at a spa getting in shape, co-star Sharon (Tiffani Thiessen)
moves on Waxman. In his dressing room, she removes her robe while explaining
that she is eager to perform sexual favors for all of her directors (Waxman,
who cannot see her abundant cleavage, helpfully suggests she advertise this
willingness in the Directors' Guild magazine).

What is Val Waxman's movie about? We have no idea. Neither does Waxman, who
agrees with every suggestion so he won't have to make any decisions. He's
not only blind but apparently has ears that don't work in stereo, since he
can't tell where people are standing by the sound of their voices, and
spends much of his time gazing into space. No one notices this, maybe
because directors are such gods on movies that they can get away with
anything.

The situation is funny and Allen of course populates it with zingy
one-liners, orchestrated with much waving of the hands (he's a virtuoso of
body language). But somehow the movie doesn't get over the top. It uses the
blindness gimmick in fairly obvious ways, and doesn't bring it to another
level--to build on the blindness instead of just depending on it. When
Waxman confesses his handicap to the wrong woman--a celebrity
journalist--because he thinks he's sitting next to someone he can trust,
that's very funny. But too often he's just seen with a vacant stare, trying
to bluff his way through conversations.

Why not use the realities of a movie set to suggest predicaments for the
secretly blind? Would Val always need to take his translator into the honey
wagon with him? Could there be tragic misunderstandings in the catering
line? Would he wander unknowingly into a shot? How about the cinematographer
offering him a choice of lenses, and he chooses the lens cap? David Mamet's
"State and Main" does a better job of twisting the realities of a movie into
the materials of comedy.

Because Allen is a great verbal wit and because he's effortlessly
ingratiating, I had a good time at the movie even while not really buying
it. I enjoyed Tea Leoni's sunny disposition, although she spends too much
time being the peacemaker between the two men in her life and not enough
time playing a character who is funny in herself. George Hamilton, as a
tanned studio flunky, suggests a familiar Hollywood type, the guy who is
drawing a big salary for being on the set without anybody being quite sure
what he's there for (he carries a golf club to give himself an identity--the
guy who carries the golf club). And Mark Rydell smiles and smiles and
smiles, as an agent who reasons that anything he has 10 percent of must be
an unqualified good thing. As Waxman's seeing eyes, Barney Cheng adds a nice
element: Not only is Waxman blind, but he is being given an inexact
description of the world through the translator's English, which is always
slightly off-track.

I liked the movie without loving it. It's not great Woody Allen, like "Sweet
and Lowdown" or "Bullets Over Broadway," but it's smart and sly, and the
blindness is an audacious idea. It also has moments when you can hear Allen
editorializing in the dialogue. My favorite is this exchange:

"He has made some very financially successful American films."

"That should tell you everything you need to know about him."

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Subject: [MV] BARAN / ***1/2 (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:39 GMT

BARAN / ***1/2 (PG)

May 3, 2002

Lateef: Hossein Abedini
Rahmat/Baran: Zahra Bahrami
Memar: Mohammad Reza Naji
Bric-a-brac trader: Hossein Mahjoub
Soltan: Abbas Rahimi
Najaf: Gholam Ali Bakhsi
Miramax Films presents a film written and directed by Majid Majidi. Running
time: 99 minutes. In Farsi and Dari with English subtitles. Rated PG.(for
language and brief violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

What are they like, over there in Iran? Are they all glowering fanatics,
stewing in resentment of America? What's your mental image? When a land is
distant, unknown and labeled as an enemy, it's easy to think in simple
terms. No doubt Iranians are as quick to think evil about us as we are to
think evil about them. The intriguing thing about an Iranian movie like
"Baran" is that it gives human faces to these strangers. It could be a
useful learning tool for those who have not traveled widely, who never see
foreign films, who reduce whole nations to labels.

The movie is a romantic fable about a construction worker. His name is
Lateef (Hossein Abedini), and he labors on a building site not far from the
border with Afghanistan. All of the labor here is manual, including hauling
50-pound bags of cement up a series of ramps. Lateef doesn't actually work
very hard, since he is Iranian and most of the labor is being done by
underpaid refugees from Afghanistan. Lateef is the tea boy, bringing hot
cups to the workers and drinking more than his own share.

We learn at the beginning of the movie that millions of Afghanis have poured
into Iran as refugees. Since it is illegal to hire them, they work secretly
for low wages, like undocumented Mexicans in America. Many are fleeing the
Taliban for the comparatively greater freedom and prosperity of Iran, a
distinction that may seem small to us, but not to them. (The title cards
carrying this information were already in place when the film debuted at the
2001 Montreal and Toronto festivals, and were not added post-9/11.)

One day there is an accident on the site. A man named Najaf injures his leg,
and that is a catastrophe, because he has five children to feed in the
squatters' camp where his family lives. Najaf sends his son Rahmat (Zahra
Bahrami) to take his place, but the son is small, slight and young, and
staggers under the burden of the concrete sacks. So Memar, the construction
boss, who pays low wages but is not unkind, gives Rahmat the job of tea boy
and reassigns Lateef to real work.

Lateef is lazy, immature, resentful. He trashes the kitchen in revenge, and
makes things hard for Rahmat. Yet at the same time he finds something
intriguing about the new tea boy, and eventually Lateef discovers the
secret: The boy is a girl. So desperate for money was Rahmat's family that
in a society where women are strictly forbidden from mixing with men on a
job like this, a deception was planned. In keeping the secret, Lateef begins
his journey to manhood and tolerance.

The outlines of "Baran," as they emerge, seem as much like an ancient fable
as a modern story. Middle Eastern society, so insistent on the division
between men and women, has a literature filled with stories about men and
women in disguise, passing through each other's worlds. The vast gulf
between Lateef and Rahmat is dramatized by the way they essentially fall in
love without exchanging a single word. Meanwhile, watching conditions on the
work site and seeing raids by government agents looking for illegal workers,
we get an idea of Iran's ground-level economy.

My description perhaps makes the film sound grim and gray, covered with a
silt of concrete dust. Not at all. It is the latest work by Majid Majidi,
whose "The Children of Heaven" (1997) was a heartwarming fable about a
brother and sister who lose a pair of shoes and try to hide this calamity
from their parents. The director uses natural colors and painterly
compositions to make even the most spartan locations look beautiful, and as
Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com observes: "Majidi uses sunlight, a
completely free resource if you can time your filmmaking around it, as a
dazzling special effect."

What happens between Rahmat and Lateef I will leave you to discover. There
are many surprises along the way, one of the best involving a man Lateef
meets during a long journey--an itinerant shoemaker, who has thoughtful
observations about life. "Baran" is the latest in a flowering of good films
from Iran, and gives voice to the moderates there. It shows people existing
and growing in the cracks of their society's inflexible walls.

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Subject: [MV] SPIDER-MAN / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:44 GMT

SPIDER-MAN / **1/2 (PG-13)

May 3, 2002

Spider-Man/Peter Parker: Tobey     Maguire
Green Goblin/ Norman Osborn: Willem Dafoe
Mary Jane: Kirsten Dunst
Harry Osborn: James Franco
Ben Parker: Cliff Robertson
May Parker: Rosemary Harris

Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Sam Raimi. Written by David
Koepp. Based on the Marvel comic by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Running time:
121 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for stylized violence and action).

BY ROGER EBERT

Imagine "Superman" with a Clark Kent more charismatic than the Man of Steel,
and you'll understand how "Spider-Man" goes wrong. Tobey Maguire is
pitch-perfect as the socially retarded Peter Parker, but when he becomes
Spider-Man, the film turns to action sequences that zip along like
perfunctory cartoons. Not even during Spidey's first experimental outings do
we feel that flesh and blood are contending with gravity. Spidey soars too
quickly through the skies of Manhattan; he's as convincing as Mighty Mouse.

The appeal of the best sequences in the Superman and Batman movies is that
they lend weight and importance to comic-book images. Within the ground
rules set by each movie, they even have plausibility. As a reader of the
Spider-Man comics, I admired the vertiginous frames showing Spidey dangling
from terrifying heights. He had the powers of a spider and the instincts of
a human being, but the movie is split between a plausible Peter Parker and
an inconsequential superhero.

Consider a sequence early in the film, after Peter Parker is bitten by a
mutant spider and discovers his new powers. His hand is sticky. He doesn't
need glasses anymore. He was scrawny yesterday, but today he's got muscles.
The movie shows him becoming aware of these facts, but insufficiently amazed
(or frightened) by them. He learns how to spin and toss webbing, and finds
that he can make enormous leaps. And then there's a scene where he's like a
kid with a new toy, jumping from one rooftop to another, making giant leaps,
whooping with joy.

Remember the first time you saw the characters defy gravity in "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? They transcended gravity, but they didn't dismiss it:
They seemed to possess weight, dimension and presence. Spider-Man as he
leaps across the rooftops is landing too lightly, rebounding too much like a
bouncing ball. He looks like a video game figure, not like a person having
an amazing experience.

The other super-being in the movie is the Green Goblin, who surfs the skies
in jet-shoes. He, too, looks like a drawing being moved quickly around a
frame, instead of like a character who has mastered a daring form of
locomotion. He's handicapped, too, by his face, which looks like a high-tech
action figure with a mouth that doesn't move. I understand why it's immobile
(we're looking at a mask), but I'm not persuaded; the movie could simply
ordain that the Green Goblin's exterior shell has a face that's mobile, and
the character would become more interesting. (True, Spider-Man has no mouth,
and Peter Parker barely opens his--the words slip out through a reluctant
slit.)

The film tells Spidey's origin story--who Peter Parker is, who Aunt May
(Rosemary Harris) and Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) are, how Peter's an
outcast at school, how he burns with unrequited love for Mary Jane Watson
(Kirsten Dunst), how he peddles photos of Spider-Man to cigar-chomping
editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons).

Peter Parker was crucial in the evolution of Marvel comics because he was
fallible and had recognizable human traits. He was a nerd, a loner, socially
inept, insecure, a poor kid being raised by relatives. Maguire gets all of
that just right, and I enjoyed the way Dunst is able to modulate her
gradually increasing interest in this loser who begins to seem attractive to
her. I also liked the complexity of the villain, who in his Dr. Jekyll
manifestation is brilliant tycoon Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) and in his
Mr. Hyde persona is a cackling psychopath. Osborn's son Harry (James Franco)
is a rich kid, embarrassed by his dad's wealth, who is Peter's best and only
friend, and Norman is affectionate toward Peter even while their alter-egos
are deadly enemies. That works, and there's an effective scene where Osborn
has a conversation with his invisible dark side.

The origin story is well told, and the characters will not disappoint anyone
who values the original comic books. It's in the action scenes that things
fall apart. Consider the scene where Spider-Man is given a cruel choice
between saving Mary Jane or a cable car full of school kids. He tries to
save both, so that everyone dangles from webbing that seems about to pull
loose. The visuals here could have given an impression of the enormous
weights and tensions involved, but instead the scene seems more like a
bloodless storyboard of the idea. In other CGI scenes, Spidey swoops from
great heights to street level and soars back up among the skyscrapers again
with such dizzying speed that it seems less like a stunt than like a
fast-forward version of a stunt.

I have one question about the Peter Parker character: Does the movie go too
far with his extreme social paralysis? Peter tells Mary Jane he just wants
to be friends. "Only a friend?" she repeats. "That's all I have to give," he
says. How so? Impotent? Spidey-sense has skewed his sexual instincts? Afraid
his hands will get stuck?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] NINE QUEENS / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:30 GMT

NINE QUEENS / *** (R)

May 10, 2002

Marcos: Ricardo Darin
Juan: Gaston Pauls
Valeria: Leticia Bredice
Gandolfo: Ignasi Abadal
Aunt: Pochi Ducasse
Federico: Tomas Fonzi
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film written and directed by Fabian
Bielinsky. In Spanish with English subtitles. Running time: 115 minutes.
Rated R (for language). Opening today at the Music Box Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

Fabian Bielinsky's "Nine Queens" is a con within a con within a con. There
comes a time when we think we've gotten to the bottom, and then the floor
gets pulled out again and we fall another level. Since nothing is as it
seems (it doesn't even seem as it seems), watching the film is like
observing a chess game in which all of the pieces are in plain view but one
player has figured out a way to cheat. "David Mamet might kill for a script
as good," Todd McCarthy writes in Variety. True, although Mamet might also
reasonably claim to have inspired it; the set-up owes something to his
"House of Games," although familiarity with that film will not help you
figure out this one.

The film starts with a seemingly chance meeting. Indeed, almost everything
in the film is "seemingly." A young would-be con man named Juan (Gaston
Pauls) is doing the $20 bill switch with a naive cashier--the switch I have
never been able to figure out, where you end up with $39 while seemingly
doing the cashier a favor. Juan succeeds. The cashier goes off duty. Juan is
greedy and tries the same trick on her replacement. The first cashier comes
back with the manager, screaming that she was robbed. At this point Marcos
(Ricardo Darin), a stranger in the store, flashes his gun, identifies
himself as a cop, arrests the thief and hauls him off.

Of course Marcos is only seemingly a cop. He lectures Juan on the dangers of
excessive greed and buys him breakfast, and then the two of them seemingly
happen upon an opportunity to pull a big swindle involving the "nine
queens," a rare sheet of stamps. This happens when Valeria (Leticia
Bredice), seemingly Marcos' sister, berates him because one of his old
criminal associates tried to con a client in the hotel where she seemingly
works. The old con seemingly had a heart attack, and now the field is
seemingly open for Marcos and Juan to bilk the seemingly rich and drunk
Gandolfo (Ignasi Abadal).

Now before you think I've given away the game with all those "seeminglys,"
let me point out that they may only seemingly be seeminglys. They may in
fact be as they seem. Or seemingly otherwise. As Juan and Marcos try to work
out their scheme, which involves counterfeit stamps, we wonder if in fact
the whole game may be a pigeon drop with Juan as the pigeon. But, no, the
fake stamps are stolen, seemingly by complete strangers, requiring Marcos
and Juan to try to con the owner of the real nine queens out of stamps they
can sell Gandolfo. (Since they have no plans to really pay for these stamps,
their profit would be the same in either case.)

And on and on, around and around, in an elegant and sly deadpan comedy. A
plot, however clever, is only the clockwork; what matters is what kind of
time a movie tells. "Nine Queens" is blessed with a gallery of well-drawn
character roles, including the alcoholic mark and his two bodyguards; the
avaricious widow who owns the "nine queens" and her much younger
bleached-blond boyfriend, and Valeria the sister, who opposes Marcos' seamy
friends and life of crime but might be willing to sleep with Gandolfo if she
can share in the spoils.

Juan meanwhile falls for Valeria himself, and then there are perfectly timed
hiccups in the plot where the characters (and we) apparently see through a
deception, only to find that deeper reality explains everything--maybe. The
story plays out in modern-day Buenos Aires, a city that looks sometimes
Latin, sometimes American, sometimes Spanish, sometimes German, sometimes
modern, sometimes ancient. Is it possible the city itself is pulling a con
on its inhabitants, and that some underlying reality will deceive everyone?
The ultimate joke of course would be if the Argentine economy collapsed, so
that everyone's gains, ill-gotten or not, would evaporate. But that is
surely too much to hope for.

Note:"Nine Queens" is like a South American version of "Stolen Summer," the
movie that won the contest sponsored by HBO, Miramax, and Matt Damon and Ben
Affleck. According to Variety, some 350 screenplays were submitted in an
Argentine competition, Bielinsky's won, and he was given funds to film. It's
illuminating that in both cases such competitions yielded more literate and
interesting screenplays than the studios are usually able to find through
their own best efforts.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] JASON X / 1/2* (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:48 GMT

JASON X / 1/2* (R)

April 26, 2002

Jason Voorhees: Kane Hodder
Rowan: Lexa Doig
Kay-Em 14: Lisa Ryder
Tsunaron: Chuck Campbell
Professor Lowe: Jonathan Potts
Sergeant Brodski: Peter Mensah
New Line Cinema presents a film directed by Jim Isaac. Written by Todd
Farmer. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for strong horror violence,
language and some sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

This sucks on so many levels.
--Dialogue from "Jason X"

Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the
levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects,
originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought. Only its title
works. And I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the name "Jason X" is
Copyrighted (c)2002, World Wrestling Federation, and that Jason's real name
is Dwayne Johnson. No, wait, that was last week's movie.

"Jason X" is technically "Friday the 13th, Part 10." It takes place
centuries in the future, when Earth is a wasteland and a spaceship from
Earth II has returned to the Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility and
discovered two cryogenically frozen bodies, one of them holding a machete
and wearing a hockey mask.

The other body belongs to Rowan (Lexa Doig), a researcher who is thawed out
and told it is now the year 2455: "That's 455 years in the future!" Assuming
that the opening scenes take place now, you do the math and come up with 453
years in the future. The missing two years are easily explained: I learn
from the Classic Horror Reviews Web site that the movie was originally
scheduled to be released on Halloween 2000, and was then bumped to March
2001, summer 2001 and Halloween 2001 before finally opening on the 16th
anniversary of Chernobyl, another famous meltdown.

The movie is a low-rent retread of the "Alien" pictures, with a monster
attacking a spaceship crew; one of the characters, Dallas, is even named in
homage to the earlier series. The movie's premise: Jason, who has a "unique
ability to regenerate lost and damaged tissue," comes back to life and goes
on a rampage, killing the ship's plentiful supply of sex-crazed students and
staff members. Once you know that the ship contains many dark corners and
that the crew members wander off alone as stupidly as the campers as Camp
Crystal Lake did summer after summer, you know as much about the plot as the
writers do.

With "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones" opening in mid-May,
there's been a lot of talk lately about how good computer-generated special
effects have become. On the basis of the effects in "Jason X" and the (much
more entertaining) "Scorpion King," we could also chat about how bad they
are getting. Perhaps audiences do not require realistic illusions, but
simply the illusion of realistic illusions. Shabby special effects can have
their own charm.

Consider a scene where the space ship is about to dock with Solaris, a
gigantic mother ship, or a city in space, or whatever. Various controls go
haywire because Jason has thrown people through them, and the ship fails to
find its landing slot and instead crashes into Solaris, slicing off the top
of a geodesic dome and crunching the sides of skyscrapers (why Solaris has a
city-style skyline in outer space I do not presume to ask). This sequence is
hilariously unconvincing. But never mind. Consider this optimistic dialogue
by Professor Lowe (Jonathan Potts), the greedy top scientist who wants to
cash in on Jason: "Everyone OK? We just over-shot it. We'll turn around."
Uh, huh. We're waiting for the reaction from Solaris Air Traffic Control,
when a dull thud echoes through the ship, and the characters realize Solaris
has just exploded. Fine, but how could they hear it? Students of "Alien"
will know that in space, no one can hear you blow up.

The characters follow the usual rules from Camp Crystal Lake, which require
the crew members to split up, go down dark corridors by themselves, and call
out each other's names with the sickening certainty that they will not
reply. Characters are skewered on giant screws, cut in half, punctured by
swords, get their heads torn off, and worse. A veteran pilot remains calm:
"You weren't alive during the Microsoft conflict. We were beating each other
with our own severed limbs."

There is one good effects shot, in which a scientist's face is held in
super-cooled liquid until it freezes and then smashed into smithereens
against a wall. There is also an interesting transformation, as the on-board
regenerator restores Jason and even supplies him with superhero armor and a
new face to replace his hockey mask and ratty Army surplus duds. I left the
movie knowing one thing for sure: There will be a "Jason XI"--or, given the
IQ level of the series, "Jason X, Part 2."

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Subject: [MV] STAR WARS -- EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES / ** (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:32 GMT

STAR WARS -- EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES / ** (PG)

May 10, 2002

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Ewan McGregor
Senator Padme Amidala: Natalie Portman
Anakin Skywalker: Hayden Christensen

Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by George Lucas. Produced by
Rick McGallum. Written by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales. Photographed by
David Tattersall. Edited by Ben Burtt. Music by John Williams. Running time:
142 minutes. Classified PG (for sustained sequences of sci-fi
action/violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

It is not what's there on the screen that disappoints me, but what's not
there. It is easy to hail the imaginative computer images that George Lucas
brings to "Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones." To marvel at his
strange new aliens and towering cities and sights such as thousands of
clones all marching in perfect ranks into a huge spaceship. To see the
beginnings of the dark side in young Anakin Skywalker. All of those
experiences are there to be cheered by fans of the "Star Wars" series, and
for them this movie will affirm their faith.

But what about the agnostic viewer? The hopeful ticket buyer walking in not
as a cultist, but as a moviegoer hoping for a great experience? Is this
"Star Wars" critic-proof and scoff-resistant? Yes, probably, at the box
office. But as someone who admired the freshness and energy of the earlier
films, I was amazed, at the end of "Episode II," to realize that I had not
heard one line of quotable, memorable dialogue. And the images, however
magnificently conceived, did not have the impact they deserved. I'll get to
them in a moment.

The first hour of "Episode II" contains a sensational chase through the
skyscraper canyons of a city, and assorted briefer shots of space ships and
planets. But most of that first hour consists of dialogue, as the characters
establish plot points, update viewers on what has happened since "Episode
I," and debate the political crisis facing the Republic. They talk and talk
and talk. And their talk is in a flat utilitarian style: They seem more like
lawyers than the heroes of a romantic fantasy.

In the classic movie adventures that inspired "Star Wars," dialogue was
often colorful, energetic, witty and memorable. The dialogue in "Episode II"
exists primarily to advance the plot, provide necessary information, and
give a little screen time to continuing characters who are back for a new
episode. The only characters in this stretch of the film who have inimitable
personal styles are the beloved Yoda and the hated Jar-Jar Binks, whose
idiosyncrasies turned off audiences for "Phantom Menace." Yes, Jar-Jar's
accent may be odd and his mannerisms irritating, but at least he's a unique
individual and not a bland cipher. The other characters--Obi-Wan Kenobi,
Padme Amidala, Anakin Skywalker--seem so strangely stiff and formal in their
speech that an unwary viewer might be excused for thinking they were the
clones, soon to be exposed.

Too much of the rest of the film is given over to a romance between Padme
and Anakin in which they're incapable of uttering anything other than the
most basic and weary romantic cliches, while regarding each other as if love
was something to be endured rather than cherished. There is not a romantic
word they exchange that has not long since been reduced to cliche.

No, wait: Anakin tells Padme at one point: "I don't like the sand. It's
coarse and rough and irritating--not like you. You're soft and smooth." I
hadn't heard that before.

When it comes to the computer-generated images, I feel that I cannot
entirely trust the screening experience I had. I could see that in
conception many of these sequences were thrilling and inventive. I liked the
planet of rain, and the vast coliseum in which the heroes battle strange
alien beasts, and the towering Senate chamber, and the secret factory where
clones were being manufactured.

But I felt like I had to lean with my eyes toward the screen in order to see
what I was being shown. The images didn't pop out and smack me with delight,
the way they did in earlier films. There was a certain fuzziness, an
indistinctness that seemed to undermine their potential power.

Later I went on the Web to look at the trailers for the movie, and was
startled to see how much brighter, crisper and more colorful they seemed on
my computer screen than in the theater. Although I know that video images
are routinely timed to be brighter than movie images, I suspect another
reason for this. "Episode II" was shot entirely on digital video. It is
being projected in digital video on 19 screens, but on some 3,000 others,
audiences will see it as I did, transferred to film.

How it looks in digital projection I cannot say, although I hope to get a
chance to see it that way. I know Lucas believes it looks better than film,
but then he has cast his lot with digital. My guess is that the film version
of "Episode II" might jump more sharply from the screen in a small multiplex
theater. But I saw it on the largest screen in Chicago, and my suspicion is,
the density and saturation of the image were not adequate to imprint the
image there in a forceful way.

Digital images contain less information than 35mm film images, and the more
you test their limits, the more you see that. Two weeks ago I saw "Patton"
shown in 70mm Dimension 150, and it was the most astonishing projection I
had ever seen--absolute detail on a giant screen, which was 6,000 times
larger than a frame of the 70mm film. That's what large-format film can do,
but it's a standard Hollywood has abandoned (except for IMAX), and we are
being asked to forget how good screen images can look--to accept the
compromises. I am sure I will hear from countless fans who assure me that
"Episode II" looks terrific, but it does not. At least, what I saw did not.
It may look great in digital projection on multiplex-size screens, and I'm
sure it will look great on DVD, but on a big screen it lacks the authority
it needs.

I have to see the film again to do it justice. I'm sure I will greatly enjoy
its visionary sequences on DVD; I like stuff like that. The dialogue is
another matter. Perhaps because a movie like this opens everywhere in the
world on the same day, the dialogue has to be dumbed down for easier dubbing
or subtitling. Wit, poetry and imagination are specific to the languages
where they originate, and although translators can work wonders, sometimes
you get the words but not the music. So it's safer to avoid the music.

But in a film with a built-in audience, why not go for the high notes? Why
not allow the dialogue to be inventive, stylish and expressive?

There is a certain lifelessness in some of the acting, perhaps because the
actors were often filmed in front of blue screens so their environments
could be added later by computer. Actors speak more slowly than they
might--flatly, factually, formally, as if reciting. Sometimes that reflects
the ponderous load of the mythology they represent. At other times it simply
shows that what they have to say is banal. "Episode II-- Attack of the
Clones" is a technological exercise that lacks juice and delight. The title
is more appropriate than it should be.

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Subject: [MV] THE NEW GUY / ** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:35 GMT

THE NEW GUY / ** (PG-13)

May 10, 2002

Dizzy/Gil: DJ Qualls
Bear Harrison: Lyle Lovett
Luther: Eddie Griffin
Danielle: Eliza Dushku
Nora: Zooey Deschanel
Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios presents a film directed by Ed Decter.
Written by David Kendall. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sexual
content, language, vulgarity, crude humor and mild drug references). Opening
today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

DJ Qualls stars in "The New Guy" as a high school misfit who switches
schools and gets a fresh start. At Rocky Creek, he was the target of cruel
jokes almost daily (sample: being tied to a chair while wearing false
breasts), but now, at Eastland High and with a new haircut, he is seen as a
cool hero. The point is, he explains with relief, "today nobody stuffed me
in my locker or singed off my ass hairs."

The movie made from this material is quirkier than I would have expected,
considering that the building blocks have been scavenged from the trash heap
of earlier teenage comedies. Much of the credit goes to Qualls (from "Road
Trip"), who not only plays the son of Lyle Lovett in this movie but looks
biologically descended from him, no mean feat. He has a goofy grin and an
offhand way with dialogue that make him much more likable than your usual
teenage comedy hero.

Known at one school by his nickname Dizzy and at the other by his first name
Gil, D/G does not approach the dating game with high expectations. Here's
how he asks a popular girl out on a date: "Maybe sometime if you would like
to drink coffee near me, I would pay."

There is a school scandal at Rocky Creek when a librarian does something
painful and embarrassing I cannot describe here to that part of his anatomy
I cannot name, and he ends up in prison. (His condition or crime--I am not
sure--is described as Tourette's syndrome, which is either a misdiagnosis, a
mispronunciation, or an example of Tourette's in action.)

Yes, prison. The movie begins with a direct-to-camera narration by Luther
(Eddie Griffin), who is in prison for undisclosed reasons and is the
narrator of this film for reasons even more deeply concealed. Perhaps my
attention strayed, but I was unable to discern any connection between Luther
and the other characters, and was baffled by how Dizzy/Gil was in prison
whenever he needed to get advice from Luther, and then out again whenever it
was necessary for him to rejoin the story in progress. Perhaps a subplot, or
even a whole movie, is missing from the middle.

In any event, Dizzy/Gil is seen as a neat guy at the new school, especially
after he unfurls a giant American flag at football practice and stands in
front of it dressed as George C. Scott in "Patton" and delivers a speech so
rousing that the team wins for the first time in five years. He also steals
a horse and rides around on it more than is necessary.

The movie has all the shots you would expect in a movie of this sort:
cheerleaders, football heroics, pratfalls. Some of them are cruel, as when a
bully stuffs a midget in a trash can and rolls it downhill. Others are
predictably vulgar, as when Dizzy snatches a surveillance camera from the
wall and (aided by its extension cord of infinite length) uses it to send a
live broadcast into every classroom of a hated teacher struggling with a
particularly difficult bowel movement. Sometimes even verbal humor is
attempted, as when a high school counselor (Illeana Douglas) tells our hero
he is in denial, and helpfully explains, "Denial is not just a river in
Egypt.''

I don't know why this movie was made or who it was made for. It is however
not assembly-line fodder, and seems occasionally to be the work of inmates
who have escaped from the Hollywood High School Movie Asylum. It makes
little sense, fails as often as it succeeds, and yet is not hateful and is
sometimes quite cheerfully original. And DJ Qualls is a kid you can't help
but like--a statement I do not believe I have ever before made about the
hero of a teenage vulgarian movie.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT / * (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:50 GMT

LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT / * (PG-13)

April 26, 2002

Lanie Kerrigan: Angelina Jolie
Deborah Connors: Stockard     Channing
Pete: Edward Burns
Andrea: Melissa Errico
Prophet Jack: Tony Shalhoub
Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Stephen Herek. Written
John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG-13
(for sexual content, brief violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Someone once said, live every day as if it will be your last.

Not just someone once said that. Everyone once said it, over and over again,
although "Life or Something Like It" thinks it's a fresh insight. This is an
ungainly movie, ill-fitting, with its elbows sticking out where the knees
should be. To quote another ancient proverb, A camel is a horse designed by
a committee. "Life or Something Like It" is the movie designed by the camel.

The movie stars Angelina Jolie as Lanie Kerrigan, a bubbly blond Seattle TV
reporter whose ignorance of TV is equaled only by the movie's. I don't know
how the filmmakers got their start, but they obviously didn't come up
through television. Even a viewer knows more than this.

Example: Sexy Pete the cameraman (Edward Burns) wants to play a trick on
Lanie, so he fiddles with her microphone during a stand-up report from the
street, and her voice comes out like Mickey Mouse's squeak--like when you
talk with helium in your mouth. Everybody laughs at her. Except, see, your
voice comes out of your body, and when it goes through the air, it sounds
like your voice to the people standing around. When it goes into the
microphone, it kind of stays inside there, and is recorded on videotape,
which is not simultaneously played back live to a street crowd.

Lanie dreams of going to New York to work on "AM USA," the network show. She
gets her big invitation after attracting "national attention" by covering a
strike and leading the workers in singing "Can't Get No Satisfaction" while
she dances in front of them, during a tiny lapse in journalistic
objectivity. Meanwhile, she is afraid she will die, because a mad street
person named Prophet Jack has predicted the Seattle team will win, there
will be a hailstorm tomorrow morning, and Lanie will die next Thursday. They
win, it hails, Lanie believes she will die.

This leads to a romantic crisis. She is engaged to Cal Cooper (Christian
Kane), a pitcher with the Seattle Mariners. He's in the field, he looks
lovingly at her, she smiles encouragingly, the pitch is thrown, the opposing
team batter hits a home run, and she jumps up and applauds. If he sees that,
she may not last until Thursday.

Meanwhile, she apparently hates Pete the sexy cameraman, although when Cal
is out of town and she thinks she's going to die, they make love, and then
we find out, belatedly, they've made love before. The screenplay keeps
doubling back to add overlooked info.

Cal comes back to town and she wants a heart-to-heart, but instead he takes
her to the ballpark, where the friendly groundskeeper (who hangs around all
night in every baseball movie for just such an opportunity) turns on the
lights so Cal can throw her a few pitches. Is she moved by this loving
gesture? Nope: "Your cure for my emotional crisis is batting practice?" This
is the only turning-on-the-lights-in-the-empty-ballpark scene in history
that ends unhappily.

Lanie and Pete the sexy cameraman become lovers, until Pete whipsaws
overnight into an insulted, wounded man who is hurt because she wants to go
to New York instead of stay in Seattle with him and his young son. This
about-face exists only so they can break up so they can get back together
again later. It also inspires a scene in the station's equipment room, where
Jolie tests the theoretical limits of hysterical overacting.

Lanie's "AM USA" debut involves interviewing the network's biggest star, a
Barbara Walters-type (Stockard Channing), on the star's 25th anniversary. So
earth-shaking is this interview, the "AM USA" anchor breathlessly announces,
"We welcome our viewers on the West Coast for this special live edition!"
It's 7 a.m. in New York. That makes it 4 a.m. on the West Coast. If you
lived in Seattle, would you set your alarm to 4 a.m. to see Barbara Walters
plugging her network special?

Lanie begins the interview, pauses, and is silent for 30 seconds while
deeply thinking. She finally asks, "Was it worth everything?"

What?

"Giving up marriage and children for a career?"

Tears roll down Channing's cheeks. Pandemonium. Great interview. Network
president wants to hire Lanie on the spot. Has never before heard anyone
asked, "Was it worth it?" The question of whether a woman can have both a
career and a family is controversial in "Life or Something Like It"--even
when posed by Ms. Jolie, who successfully combines tomb-raiding with Billy
Bob Thornton.

I want to close with the mystery of Lanie's father, who is always found
stationed in an easy chair in his living room, where he receives visits from
his daughters, who feel guilty because since Mom died they have not been
able to communicate with Dad, who, apparently as a result, just sits there
waiting for his daughters to come back and feel guilty some more. Eventually
there's an uptick in his mood, and he admits he has always been proud of
Lanie and will "call in sick" so he can watch Lanie on "AM USA." Until then
I thought he was sick. Maybe he's just tired because he's on the night
shift, which is why he would be at work at 4 a.m.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE CAT'S MEOW / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:52 GMT

THE CAT'S MEOW / *** (PG-13)

April 26, 2002

Marion Davies: Kirsten Dunst
William Randolph Hearst: Edward     Herrmann
Thomas Ince: Cary Elwes
Charlie Chaplin: Eddie Izzard
Louella Parsons: Jennifer Tilly
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Written by
Steven Peros. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sexuality, a scene
of violence and brief drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

William Randolph Hearst did, or did not, get away with murder on board his
private yacht Oneida on Nov. 15, 1924. If he did, there is no question he
was powerful enough to cover it up. Hearst was the carnivorous media tycoon
of the age, proprietor of newspapers, magazines, radio stations, wire
services, movie production companies, a private castle, and his mistress,
Marion Davies, an actress of great but perhaps not exclusive charms. He was
above the law not so much because of clout or bribery but because of awe;
the law enforcement officials of the day were so keenly aware of their
inferior social status that they lacked the nerve to approach him. The
silent movies of the time are filled with scenes in which cops arrest a
millionaire, discover who he is, respectfully tip their hats to him, and
apologize.

On that day in 1924, the Hollywood producer Thomas Ince possibly died, or
was murdered, on board the Oneida. Or perhaps not. According to one story,
he was shot dead by Hearst through an unfortunate misunderstanding; Hearst
mistook him for Charlie Chaplin, and thought Chaplin was having an affair
with Davies. Other theories say Hearst accidentally stuck Ince with a hat
pin, precipitating a heart attack. Or that Ince drank some bad rotgut. There
is even the possibility that Ince died at home. There was no autopsy, so the
official cause of death was never determined. No guests on the yacht were
ever questioned; indeed, no one can agree about who was on the yacht during
its cruise.

In Hollywood at the time, whispers about Ince's death and Hearst's
involvement were easily heard, and the story told in Peter Bogdanovich's
"The Cat's Meow" is, the film tells us, "the whisper heard most often."
Bogdanovich is not much interested in the scandal as a scandal. He uses it
more as a prism through which to view Hollywood in the 1920s, when the new
medium had generated such wealth and power that its giants, like Chaplin,
were gods in a way no later stars could ever be. Hearst (Edward Herrmann)
liked to act the beneficent host, and on the Oneida for that cruise were the
studio head Ince (Cary Elwes), the stars Davies (Kirsten Dunst) and Chaplin
(Eddie Izzard), the British wit Elinor Glyn (Joanna Lumley), and an
ambitious young gossip columnist named Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly).
There were also various stuffed shirts and their wives, and a tame society
doctor.

In this company Hearst is an insecure loner, an innocent barely the equal of
the life of sin he has chosen for himself. He has the Oneida bugged with
hidden microphones, and scarcely has time to join his guests because he
needs to hurry away and eavesdrop on what they say about him in his absence.
Davies knows about the microphones and knows all about Willie; she was a
loyal mistress who loved her man and stood by him to the end. Whether she
did have an affair with Chaplin is often speculated. According to this
scenario, she may have, and Willie finds one of her brooches in Chaplin's
stateroom (after tearing it apart in a scene mirroring Charles Foster Kane's
famous destruction of Susan's bedroom in Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane").

Bogdanovich has an exact way of conveying the forced and metronomic gaiety
on the yacht, where guests are theoretically limited to one drink before
dinner, Davies has to order the band to play the Charleston to cover awkward
silences, every guest has a personal agenda, and at night, as guests creep
from one stateroom to another and deck planks creak, they seem to be living
in an English country house mystery--"Gosford Yacht."

Apart from its theory about the mistaken death of Ince and its cover-up, the
movie's most intriguing theory is that Parsons witnessed it, which might
explain her lifetime contract with the Hearst papers. In the exquisite
wording of a veiled blackmail threat, she tells the tycoon: "We're at the
point in our careers where we both need real security." Since she was making
peanuts and he was one of the richest men in the world, one can only admire
the nuance of "our careers."

The film is darkly atmospheric, with Herrmann quietly suggesting the sadness
and obsession beneath Hearst's forced avuncular chortles. Dunst is as good,
in her way, as Dorothy Comingore in "Citizen Kane" in showing a woman who is
more loyal and affectionate than her lover deserves. Lumley's zingers as
Glyn cut right through the hypocritical grease. Tilly, we suspect, has the
right angle on Parsons' chutzpah.

There is a detail easy to miss toward the end of the film that suggests as
well as anything what power Hearst had. After the society doctor ascertains
that Ince, still alive, has a bullet in his brain, Hearst orders the yacht
to moor at San Diego, and then dispatches the dying producer by private
ambulance--not to a local hospital, but to his home in Los Angeles! Hearst
is on the phone to the future widow, suggesting a cover story, long before
the pathetic victim arrives home.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WORLD TRAVELER / ** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:54 GMT

WORLD TRAVELER / ** (R)

April 26, 2002

Cal: Billy Crudup
Dulcie: Julianne Moore
Carl: Cleavant Derricks
Richard: David Keith
Jack: James LeGros
ThinkFilm presents a film written and directed by Bart Freundlich. Running
time: 104 minutes. Rated R (for language and some sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

Cal drags a woman out of a bar to look at the stars and listen to his rants
about the universe. She pulls loose and asks, "Do you get away with this
crap because you look like that?" Later in the film two kids will ask him if
he's a movie star. He's good-looking, in a morose, tormented way, but it's
more than that; Cal is charismatic, and strangers are fascinated by his aura
of doom and emptiness.

There is another new movie, "About a Boy," with a hero who complains that
he's a "blank." The dialogue is needed in "World Traveler." Although others
are fascinated by Cal's loneliness, with his drinking, his lack of a plan,
his superficial charm, he is a blank. Early in the film he walks out on his
marriage, on the third birthday of his son. Taking the family station wagon,
he drives west across the United States and into the emptiness of his soul.

Cal is played by Billy Crudup, one of the best actors in the movies, but
there needs to be something there for an actor to play, and Cal is like a
moony poet who embraces angst as its own reward. Throwing back Jack Daniels
in the saloons of the night, he doesn't have a complaint so much as
celebrate one. When we discover that his own father walked out on Cal and
his mother, that reads like a motivation but doesn't play like one. It seems
too neat--the Creative Writing explanation for his misery.

The film, written and directed by Bart Freundlich, is a road picture, with
Cal meeting and leaving a series of other lonely souls without ever
achieving closure. It's as if he glimpses them through the windows of his
passing car. There's a young hitchhiker who implies an offer of sex, which
he doesn't accept. A construction worker named Carl (Cleavant Derricks) who
wants friendship and thinks Cal offers it, but is mistaken. A high school
classmate (James LeGros, bitingly effective) who provides us with evidence
that Cal has been an emotional hit-and-run artist for a long time. Finally
there is Dulcie (Julianne Moore), who is drunk and passed out in a bar.

Cal throws her over his shoulder and hauls her back to his motel room, to
save her from arrest. She involves him in her own madness. Both sense
they're acting out interior dramas from obscure emotional needs, and there
is a slo-mo scene on a carnival ride that plays like a parody of a good
time. Nelson Algren advised, "Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are
greater than your own," and Cal would be wise to heed him.

There are moments of sudden truth in the film; Freundlich, who also made
"The Myth of Fingerprints" (1997), about an almost heroically depressed
family at Thanksgiving, can create and write characters, even if he doesn't
always know where to take them.

The construction buddy Carl and his wife (Mary McCormack) spring into focus
with a few lines of dialogue. Cal persuades Carl, a recovering alcoholic, to
get drunk with him, and help him pick up two women in a bar. The next day
Carl says his wife is angry at him, and brings her to life with one line of
dialogue: "She's mad about the drinking--and the objectification of women."
Later, drunk again, Cal meets Carl's wife, who says, "In all the years I've
been married to Carl, I've never heard him talk about anyone the way he
talks about you." She loves Carl, we see, so much she is moved that he has
found a friend. But then Cal tries to make a pass, and the wife looks cold
and level at him: "You're not his friend."

Cal isn't anybody's friend. Near the end of his journey, in the Western
mountains, he meets his father (David Keith). The role is thankless, but
Keith does everything possible, and more, to keep the father from being as
much a cipher as the son. One senses in "World Traveler" and in his earlier
film that Freundlich bears a grievous but obscure complaint against fathers,
and circles it obsessively, without making contact.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:50:56 GMT

BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

Father: Jose Dumont
Tonio: Rodrigo Santoro
Mother: Rita Assemany
Pacu: Ravi Ramos Lacerda
Salustiano: Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos
Miramax Films presents a film directed by Walter Salles. Written by Salles,
Karim Ainouz and Sergio Machado. Based on the book Broken April by Ismail
Kadare. Running time: 91 minutes. In Portuguese with English subtitles.
Rated PG-13 (for some violence and a scene of sexuality). Opening today at
Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

'B ehind the Sun" describes a blood feud elevated to the dignity of tragedy.
It takes place in a rural area of Brazil, but it could be set instead in the
Middle East, in Bosnia, in India, in Africa, in any of those places where
people kill each other because of who their parents were. Religion, which is
often cited as a justification for these killings, is just a smoke screen
for tribalism. The killings spring out of a universal human tendency to
dislike anyone who is not like we are.

The movie takes place in 1910. Two families live on either side of a cane
field. The Ferreiras are richer, live in a sprawling villa, have an extended
family. The Breves family is poorer, humble, hard-working. Since time
immemorial there has been a feud between these two families, springing from
some long-forgotten disagreement over land. Over time a set of ground rules
has grown up: First a Ferreira man (or a Breves man) kills a Breves (or a
Ferreira) man, and then the tables are turned.

If it only amounted to that, all the Breves and Ferreiras would be dead, or
one side would have won. Certain customs somewhat slow the pace of the
killing. When someone has been killed, his blood-stained shirt is left out
in the sun to dry, and there is a truce until the red has turned yellow.
Despite the predictable timetable that would seem to operate, the next
victim is somehow always unprepared, as we see when a young Breves stalks
his quarry one night after a shirt has turned yellow.

We meet Pacu, "the Kid" (Ravi Ramos Lacerda), youngest son of the Breves
family, who knows that since his adored older brother Tonio (Rodrigo
Santoro) has killed a Ferreira, it is only a matter of time until the blood
fades and Tonio is killed. While the ominous waiting period continues, a
troupe of itinerant circus performers passes through, and the Kid meets the
ringmaster and his sultry fire-eating star. They give him a picture book
about the sea, which, wouldn't you know, encourages him to dream about a
world different from the one he knows.

The circus itself offers an alternative vision, not that the cheerless sugar
cane feud doesn't make anything look preferable. Tonio meets the
fire-breather and is thunderstruck by love, and there is the possibility
that, yes, he might run away with the circus. More than this I dare not
reveal, except to hint that the age-old fate of the two families must play
out under the implacable sun.

"Behind the Sun" is a good-looking movie, directed by Walter Salles, who was
much praised for his 1999 Oscar-nominated "Central Station," also about a
young boy whose life is scarred by the cruelty of his elders. It has some of
the simplicity and starkness of classical tragedy, but what made me
impatient was its fascination with the macho bloodlust of the two families.
Since neither family has evolved to the point where it can see the futility
of killing and the pointlessness of their deadly ritual, it was hard for me
to keep from feeling they were getting what they deserved.

Sure, I hoped Tonio would get the girl and the Kid would see the ocean, but
these are limited people and we can care about them only if we buy into
their endless cycle of revenge and reprisal. After a certain point, no one
is right and no one is wrong, both sides have boundless grievances, and it's
the audience that wants to run away with the circus.

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Subject: [MV] ENIGMA / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:01 GMT

ENIGMA / *** (R)

April 19, 2002

Tom Jericho: Dougray Scott
Hester Wallace: Kate Winslet
Wigram: Jeremy Northam
Claire Romilly: Saffron Burrows
"Puck" Pukowski: Nikolaj Coster Waldau
Logie: Tom Hollander
Admiral Trowbridge: Corin Redgrave
Cave: Matthew MacFadyen
Manhattan Pictures International presents a film directed by Michael Apted.
Written by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by Robert Harris. Running time:
117 minutes. Rated R (for a sex scene and language). Opening today at
Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

World War II may have been won by our side because of what British
code-breakers accomplished at a countryside retreat named Bletchley Park.

There they broke, and broke again, the German code named "Enigma," which was
thought to be unbreakable, and was used by the Nazis to direct their
submarine convoys in the North Atlantic. Enigma was decoded with the help of
a machine, and the British had captured one, but the machine alone was not
enough. My notes, scribbled in the dark, indicate the machine had 4,000
million trillion different positions--a whole lot, anyway--and the
mathematicians and cryptologists at Bletchley used educated guesses and
primitive early computers to try to penetrate a message to the point where
it could be tested on Enigma.

For those who get their history from the movies, "Enigma" will be puzzling,
since "U-571" (2000) indicates Americans captured an Enigma machine from a
German submarine in 1944. That sub is on display here at the Museum of
Science and Industry, but no Enigma machine was involved. An Enigma machine
was obtained, not by Americans but by the British ship HMS Bulldog, when it
captured U-110 on May 9, 1941.

Purists about historical accuracy in films will nevertheless notice that
"Enigma" is not blameless; it makes no mention of Alan Turing, the genius of
British code-breaking and a key theoretician of computers, who was as
responsible as anyone for breaking the Enigma code. Turing was a homosexual,
eventually hounded into suicide by British laws, and is replaced here by a
fictional and resolutely heterosexual hero named Tom Jericho (Dougray
Scott). And just as well, since the hounds of full disclosure who dogged "A
Beautiful Mind" would no doubt be asking why "Enigma" contained no details
about Turing's sex life. The movie, directed by the superb Michael Apted, is
based on a literate, absorbing thriller by Robert Harris, who portrays
Bletchley as a hothouse of intrigue in which Britain's most brilliant
mathematicians worked against the clock to break German codes and warn North
Atlantic convoys. As the film opens, the Germans have changed their code
again, making it even more fiendishly difficult to break (from my notes:
"150 million million million ways of doing it," but alas I did not note what
"it" was). Tom Jericho, sent home from Bletchley after a nervous breakdown,
has been summoned back to the enclave because even if he is a wreck, maybe
his brilliance can be of help.

Why did Jericho have a breakdown? Not because of a mathematical stalemate,
but because he was overthrown by Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), the
beautiful Bletchley colleague he loved, who disappeared mysteriously without
saying goodbye. Back on the job, he grows chummy with Claire's former
roommate Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), who may have clues about Claire even
though she doesn't realize it. Then, in a subtle, oblique way, Tom and
Hester begin to get more than chummy. All the time Wigram (Jeremy Northam),
an intelligence operative, is keeping an eye on Tom and Hester, because he
thinks they may know more than they admit about Claire--and because Claire
may have been passing secrets to the Germans.

Whether any of these speculations are fruitful, I will allow you to
discover. What I like about the movie is its combination of suspense and
intelligence. If it does not quite explain exactly how decryption works (how
could it?), it at least gives us a good idea of how decrypters work, and we
understand how crucial Bletchley was--so crucial its existence was kept a
secret for 30 years. When the fact that the British had broken Enigma
finally became known, histories of the war had to be rewritten; a recent
biography of Churchill suggests, for example, that when he strode boldly on
the rooftop of the Admiralty in London, it was because secret Enigma
messages assured him there would be no air raids that night.

The British have a way of not wanting to seem to care very much. It seasons
their thrillers. American heroes are stalwart, forthright and focused; Brits
like understatement and sly digs. The tension between Tom Jericho and Wigram
is all the more interesting because both characters seem to be acting in
their own little play some of the time, and are as interested in the verbal
fencing as in the underlying disagreement. It is a battle of style. You can
see similar fencing personalities in the world of Graham Greene, and of
course it is the key to James Bond.

Kate Winslet is very good here, plucky, wearing sensible shoes, with the
wrong haircut--and then, seen in the right light, as a little proletarian
sex bomb. She moves between dowdy and sexy so easily, it must mystify even
her. Claire, when she is seen, is portrayed by Saffron Burrows as the kind
of woman any sensible man knows cannot be kept in his net--which is why she
attracts a masochistic romantic like Tom Jericho, who sets himself up for
his own betrayal. If it is true (and it is) that "Pearl Harbor" is the story
of how the Japanese staged a sneak attack on an American love triangle, at
least "Enigma" is not about how the Nazis devised their code to undermine a
British love triangle. That is true not least because the British place
puzzle-solving at least on a par with sex, and like to conduct their affairs
while on (not as a substitute for) duty.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:06 GMT

MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R)

April 19, 2002

Cassie Mayweather: Sandra     Bullock
Richard Haywood: Ryan Gosling
Justin Pendleton: Michael Pitt
Sam Kennedy: Ben Chaplin
Lisa: Agnes Bruckner
Ray: Chris Penn
Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Barbet Schroeder. Written by Tony
Gayton. Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (for violence, language, a sex
scene and brief drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

Richard and Justin, the high school killers in "Murder by Numbers," may not
have heard of Leopold and Loeb, or seen Hitchcock's "Rope," or studied any
of the other fictional versions ("Compulsion," "Swoon") of the infamous
murder pact between two brainy and amoral young men. But they're channeling
it. "Murder by Numbers" crosses Leopold/Loeb with a police procedural and
adds an interesting touch: Instead of toying with the audience, it toys with
the characters. We have information they desperately desire, and we watch
them dueling in misdirection.

The movie stars Sandra Bullock as Cassie Mayweather, a veteran detective,
experienced enough to trust her hunches and resist the obvious answers. Ben
Chaplin is Sam Kennedy, her by-the-book partner, the kind of cop who gets an
A for every step of his investigation but ends up with the wrong conclusion.
Paired against them are Richard Haywood and Justin Pendleton (Ryan Gosling,
from "The Believer," and Michael Pitt, from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch").
These are two brainy high school kids, fascinated as Leopold and Loeb were
by the possibility of proving their superiority by committing the perfect
murder.

Their plan: Pick a victim completely at random, so that there is no link
between corpse and killers, and leave behind no clues. The film opens with
the suggestion of a suicide pact between the two teenagers, who face each
other, holding revolvers to their heads, in a crumbling gothic building so
improbably close to the edge of a seaside cliff that we intuit someone is
going to be dangling over it by the end of the film.

Bullock's Cassie is the central character, a good cop but a damaged human
being, whose past holds some kind of fearsome grip on her present.

Cassie and Sam are assigned to a creepy case; the body of a middle-aged
female has been found in a wooded area, and close analysis of clues (hair,
strands from a rug) seems to lead back to a suspect. Sam is happy to follow
the clues to their logical conclusion. Cassie isn't so sure, and a chance
meeting with one of the young sociopaths leads to a suspicion: "Something's
not right with that kid."

We learn a lot about police work in "Murder by Numbers," and there's a kind
of fascination in seeing the jigsaw puzzle fall into place, especially since
the audience holds some (but not all) of the key pieces. Many of the best
scenes involve an intellectual and emotional duel between the two young men,
who seem to have paused on the brink of becoming lovers and decided to
sublimate that passion into an arrogant crime. Richard and Justin are
smart--Justin smarter in an intellectual way, Richard better at manipulating
others. The movie wisely reserves details of who did what in the killing,
and why.

These are affluent kids with absent parents, who are their own worst enemies
because their arrogance leads them to play games with the cops to show how
smart they are. They'd be better off posing as vacant-headed slackers. It is
Cassie's intuition that the boys are inviting her attention, are turned on
by the nearness of capture. Meanwhile, of course, her partner and the brass
at the station are eager for a quick solution. A janitor is the obvious
suspect? Arrest the janitor.

The movie has been directed by the versatile Barbet Schroeder, who
alternates between powerful personal films ("Our Lady of the Assassins") and
skillful thrillers ("Single White Female"). When the two strands cross you
get one-of-a-kind films like "Reversal of Fortune" and "Barfly." After the
semi-documentary freedom and scary Colombian locations of "Our Lady of the
Assassins," here's a movie which he directs as an exercise in craft--only
occasionally letting his mordant humor peer through, as in an inexplicable
scene where Cassie is bitten by a monkey.

Bullock does a good job here of working against her natural likability,
creating a character you'd like to like, and could like, if she weren't so
sad, strange and turned in upon herself. She throws herself into police work
not so much because she's dedicated as because she needs the distraction,
needs to keep busy and be good to assure herself of her worth. As she draws
the net closer, and runs into more danger and more official opposition, the
movie more or less helplessly starts thinking to itself about that cliff
above the sea, but at least the climax shows us that Bullock can stay in
character no matter what.

@photo.caption:Ben Chaplin and Sandra Bullock play detectives investigating
the seemingly

inexplicable death of a

middle-age woman in Barbet Schroeder's "Murder by

Numbers.'' --

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Subject: [MV] LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:03 GMT

LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

Jimmy: James Nesbitt
Annabel: Olivia Williams
Cliff: Timothy Spall
Roger: Bill Nighy
Rudy: Lennie James
Graham Mortimer: Christopher     Plummer
Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Peter Cattaneo. Written by
Ronan Bennett. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for brief strong
language and some sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Lucky Break" is the new film by Peter Cattaneo, whose "The Full Monty" is
the little British comedy that added a useful expression to the language.
This movie is set in prison but uses much the same formula: A group of guys
without much hope decide to band together and put on a show. This time they
stage a musical comedy written by the prison warden, which means that
instead of stripping, they perform in costume. I am not sure if this is the
half monty, or no monty at all.

British prisons are no doubt depressing and violent places in real life, but
in "Lucky Break," the recent "Borstal Boy" and the summer 2001 movie
"Greenfingers," they are not only benign places with benevolent governors,
but provide remarkable access to attractive young women. Jimmy, the hero of
"Lucky Break," finds abundant time to fall in love with Annabel (Olivia
Williams), the prison anger-management counselor. Brendan Behan, the hero of
the biopic "Borstal Boy," has a youthful romance with Liz, the warden's
daughter. And in "Greenfingers," which is about a prize-winning team of
prison gardeners, one of the green-thumbsmen falls in love with the daughter
of a famous TV garden lady. Only in these movies is prison a great place for
a wayward lad to go in order to meet the right girl.

"Lucky Break" stars James Nesbitt and Lennie James as Jimmy and Rudy,
partners in an ill-conceived bank robbery that lands them both in prison.
The prison governor (Christopher Plummer) is an amateur playwright who has
written a musical based on the life of Admiral Nelson, whose statue provides
a congenial resting place for pigeons in Trafalgar Square. The lads agree to
join in a prison production of the musical after learning that the play will
be staged in the old prison chapel--which they consider the ideal place from
which to launch a prison break.

Much of the humor of the film comes from the production of "Nelson, the
Musical," with book and lyrics by the invaluable actor and comic writer
Stephen Fry; we hear a lot of the songs, see enough of scenes to get an idea
of the awfulness, and hardly notice as the prison break segues into a movie
about opening night and backstage romance.

I am not sure that the average prisoner has unlimited opportunities to spend
time alone with beautiful young anger-management counselors, warden's
daughters or assistant TV gardeners, but in "Lucky Break," so generous is
the private time that Jimmy and Annabel even share a candlelight dinner. To
be sure, a can of sardines is all that's served, but it's the thought that
counts.

The key supporting role is by Timothy Spall, sort of a plump, British Steve
Buscemi--a sad sack with a mournful face and the air of always trying to
cheer himself up. What keeps him going is his love for his young son; this
whole subplot is more serious and touching than the rest of the film,
although it leads to a scene perhaps more depressing than a comedy should be
asked to sustain.

The climax of the film, as in "The Full Monty," is the long-awaited stage
performance, which goes on as various subplots solve themselves, or not,
backstage. There is not much here that comes as a blinding plot revelation,
but the movie has a raffish charm and good-hearted characters, and like "The
Full Monty" it makes good use of the desperation beneath the comedy.

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Subject: [MV] MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:08 GMT

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG)

April 19, 2002

Toula Portokalos: Nia Vardalos
Ian Miller: John Corbett
Maria: Lainie Kazan
Gus: Michael Constantine
Nikki: Gia Carides
Nick: Louis Mandylor
Angelo: Joey Fatone
Rodney Miller: Bruce Gray
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Joel Zwick. Written by Nia
Vardalos. Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG.(for sensuality and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Everyone in this movie looks like they could be a real person. The romance
involves not impossibly attractive people, but a 30-year-old woman who looks
OK when she pulls herself out of her Frump Phase, and a vegetarian high
school teacher who urgently needs the services of Supercuts. Five minutes
into the film, I relaxed, knowing it was set in the real world, and not in
the Hollywood alternative universe where Julia Roberts can't get a date.

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is narrated by Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos),
who, like all Greek women, she says, was put upon this earth for three
purposes: to marry a Greek man, to have Greek children, and to feed everyone
until the day she dies. Toula is still single, and works in the family
restaurant (Dancing Zorbas), where, as she explains, she is not a waitress,
but a "seating hostess." One day a guy with the spectacularly non-Greek name
of Ian Miller (John Corbett) walks in, and she knows instinctively that
marriage is thinkable.

The movie is warm-hearted in the way a movie can be when it knows its people
inside out. Watching it, I was reminded of Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding,"
about an Indian wedding. Both cultures place great emphasis on enormous
extended families, enormous extended weddings, and enormous extended wedding
feasts. Nia Vardalos, who not only stars but based the screenplay on her own
one-woman play, obviously has great affection for her big Greek family, and
a little exasperation, too--and who wouldn't, with a father who walks around
with a spray jar of Windex because he is convinced it will cure anything? Or
a mother who explains, "When I was your age, we didn't have food."

Vardalos was an actress at Chicago's Second City when she wrote the play.
The way the story goes, it was seen by Rita Wilson, a Greek-American
herself, and she convinced her husband, Tom Hanks, that they had to produce
it. So they did, making a small treasure of human comedy. The movie is set
in Chicago but was filmed in Toronto--too bad, because the dating couple
therefore doesn't have a cheezeborger at the Billy Goat.

As the film opens, Toula the heroine is single at 30 and therefore a
failure. Ian Miller causes her heart to leap up in love and desire, and Ian
likes her, too. Really likes her. This isn't one of those formula pictures
where it looks like he's going to dump her. There's enough to worry about
when the families meet. "No one in our family has ever gone out with a
non-Greek," Toula warns him uneasily, and indeed her parents (Lainie Kazan
and Michael Constantine) regard Ian like a lesser life form.

The movie is pretty straightforward: Ian and Toula meet, they date, they
bashfully discover they like one another, the families uneasily coexist, the
wedding becomes inevitable, and it takes place (when Ian's mother brings a
Bundt cake to the wedding, no one has the slightest idea what it is). One
key shot shows the church, with the bride's side jammed, and the groom's
handful of WASP relatives making a pathetic show in their first four rows.
Toula explains to Ian that she has 27 first cousins, and at a pre-nuptial
party, she even introduces some of them: "Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick,
Nick, Nicky--and Gus."

The underlying story of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" has been played out
countless times as America's immigrants have intermarried. If the lovers
have understanding (or at least reluctantly flexible) parents, love wins the
day and the melting pot bubbles. This is nicely illustrated by Toula's
father, Gus. He specializes in finding the Greek root for any word (even
"kimono"), and delivers a toast in which he explains that "Miller" goes back
to the Greek word for apple, and "Portokalos" is based on the Greek word for
oranges, and so, he concludes triumphantly, "in the end, we're all fruits."

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Subject: [MV] THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:15 GMT

THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

Mathayus: The Rock
Memnon: Steven Brand
Balthazar: Michael Clarke Duncan
The Sorceress: Kelly Hu
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Chuck Russell. Written by
Stephen Sommers, William Osborne and David Hayter. Running time: 94 minutes.
Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of action violence and some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

Where do you think you are going with my horse?
To Gomorrah. Nothing we can say will stop him.
--Dialogue in "The Scorpion King"

A nd a wise move, too, because "The Scorpion King" is set "thousands of
years before the Pyramids," so property values in Gomorrah were a good value
for anyone willing to buy and hold. Here is a movie that embraces its
goofiness like a Get Out of Jail Free card. The plot is recycled out of
previous recycling jobs, the special effects are bad enough that you can
grin at them, and the dialogue sounds like the pre-Pyramidal desert warriors
are channeling a Fox sitcom (the hero refers to his camel as "my ride").

The film stars The Rock, famous as a WWF wrestling star (Vince McMahon takes
a producer's credit), and on the basis of this movie, he can definitely star
in movies like this. This story takes place so long ago in prehistory that
The Rock was a hero and had not yet turned into the villain of "The Mummy
Returns" (2001), and we can clearly see his face and muscular physique--an
improvement over the earlier film, in which his scenes mostly consisted of
his face being attached to a scorpion so large it looked like a giant
lobster. How gigantic was the lobster? It would take a buffalo to play the
Turf.

The story: An evil Scorpion King named Memnon (Steven Brand) uses the
talents of a sorceress (Kelly Hu) to map his battle plans, and has conquered
most of his enemies. Then we meet three Arkadians, professional assassins
who have been "trained for generations in the deadly art," which indicates
their training began even before they were born. The Arkadian leader
Mathayus, played by The Rock, is such a powerful man that early in the film
he shoots a guy with an arrow and the force of the arrow sends the guy
crashing through a wall and flying through the air. (No wonder he warns,
"Don't touch the bow.")

How The Rock morphs from this character into the "Mummy Returns" character
is a mystery to me, and, I am sure, to him. Along the trail Mathayus loses
some allies and gains others, including a Nubian giant (Michael Clarke
Duncan), a scientist who has invented gunpowder, a clever kid and a
wisecracking horse thief. The scene where they vow to kill the Scorpion King
is especially impressive, as Mathayus intones, "As long as one of us still
breathes, the sorcerer will die!" See if you can spot the logical loophole.

Mathayus and his team invade the desert stronghold of Memnon, where the
sorceress, who comes from or perhaps is the first in a long line of James
Bond heroines, sets eyes on him and wonders why she's bothering with the
scrawny king. Special effects send Mathayus and others catapulting into
harems, falling from castle walls and narrowly missing death by fire,
scorpion, poisonous cobra, swordplay, arrows, explosion and being buried up
to the neck in the sand near colonies of fire ants. And that's not even
counting the Valley of the Death, which inspires the neo-Mametian dialogue:
"No one goes to the Valley of the Death. That's why it's called the Valley
of the Death."

Of all the special effects in the movie, the most impressive are the ones
that keep the breasts of the many nubile maidens covered to within one
centimeter of the PG-13 guidelines. Hu, a beautiful woman who looks as if
she is trying to remember the good things her agent told her would happen if
she took this role, has especially clever long, flowing hair, which cascades
down over her breasts instead of up over her head, even when she is
descending a waterfall.

Did I enjoy this movie? Yeah, I did, although not quite enough to recommend
it. Because it tries too hard to be hyper and not hard enough to be clever.
It is what it is, though, and pretty good at it. Those who would dislike the
movie are unlikely to attend it (does anybody go to see The Rock in "The
Scorpion King" by accident?). For its target audience, looking for a few
laughs, martial arts and stuff that blows up real good, it will be exactly
what they expected. It has high energy, the action never stops, the dialogue
knows it's funny, and The Rock has the authority to play the role and the
fortitude to keep a straight face. I expect him to become a durable action
star. There's something about the way he eats those fire ants that lets you
know he's thinking, "If I ever escape from this predicament, I'm gonna come
back here and fix me up a real mess of fire ants, instead of just chewing on
a few at a time."

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Subject: [MV] THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:12 GMT

THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG)

April 19, 2002

FeaturingThe Band, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris,
Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Robbie Robertson, the Staples, Muddy Waters,
Ronnie Wood, Neil Young and Martin Scorsese.United Artists presents a
concert documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. Running time: 117 minutes.
Rated PG.

BY ROGER EBERT

I wonder if the sadness comes across on the CD. The music probably sounds
happy. But the performers, seen on screen, seem curiously morose, exhausted,
played out. Recently, I was at a memorial concert for the late tenor sax man
Spike Robinson, and the musicians--jazz and big band veterans--were
cheerful, filled with joy, happy to be there. Most of the musicians in "The
Last Waltz" are, on average, 25 years younger than Spike's friends, but they
drag themselves onstage like exhausted veterans of wrong wars.

The rock documentary was filmed by Martin Scorsese at a farewell concert
given on Thanksgiving Day 1976 by The Band, which had been performing since
1960, in recent years as the backup band for Bob Dylan. Now the film is back
in a 25th anniversary restoration. "Sixteen years on the road is long
enough," says Robbie Robertson, the group's leader. "Twenty years is
unthinkable." There is a weight and gravity in his words that suggests he
seriously doubts if he could survive four more years.

Drugs are possibly involved. Memoirs recalling the filming report that
cocaine was everywhere backstage. The overall tenor of the documentary
suggests survivors at the ends of their ropes. They dress in dark, cheerless
clothes, hide behind beards, hats and shades, pound out rote performances of
old hits, don't seem to smile much at their music or each other. There is
the whole pointless road warrior mystique, of hard-living men whose daily
duty it is to play music and get wasted. They look tired of it.

Not all of them. The women (Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris) seem immune,
although what Mitchell's song is about I have no clue, and Harris is filmed
in another time and place. Visitors like the Staple Singers are open-faced
and happy. Eric Clapton is in the right place and time. Muddy Waters is on
sublime autopilot. Lawrence Ferlinghetti reads a bad poem, badly, but seems
pleased to be reading it. Neil Diamond seems puzzled to find himself in this
company, grateful to be invited.

But then look at the faces of Neil Young or Van Morrison. Study Robertson,
whose face is kind and whose smile comes easily, but who does not project a
feeling of celebration for the past or anticipation of the future. These are
not musicians at the top of their art, but laborers on the last day of the
job. Look in their eyes. Read their body language.

"The Last Waltz" has inexplicably been called the greatest rock documentary
of all time. Certainly that would be "Woodstock," which heralds the
beginning of the era which The Band gathered to bury. Among 1970s
contemporaries of The Band, one senses joy in the various Rolling Stones
documentaries, in Chuck Berry's "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll" and in concert
films by the Temptations or Rod Stewart. Not here.

In "The Last Waltz," we have musicians who seem to have bad memories. Who
are hanging on. Scorsese's direction is mostly limited to closeups and
medium shots of performances; he ignores the audience. The movie was made at
the end of a difficult period in his own life, and at a particularly hard
time (the filming coincided with his work on "New York, New York"). This is
not a record of serene men, filled with nostalgia, happy to be among
friends.

At the end, Bob Dylan himself comes on. One senses little connection between
Dylan and The Band. One also wonders what he was thinking as he chose that
oversized white cowboy hat, a hat so absurd that during his entire
performance I could scarcely think of anything else. It is the haberdashery
equivalent of an uplifted middle finger.

The music probably sounds fine on a CD. Certainly it is well-rehearsed. But
the overall sense of the film is of good riddance to a bad time. Even
references to groupies inspire creases of pain on the faces of the
rememberers: The sex must have been as bad as anything else. Watching this
film, the viewer with mercy will be content to allow the musicians to
embrace closure, and will not demand an encore. Yet I give it three stars?
Yes, because the film is such a revealing document of a time.

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Subject: [MV] TIME OUT / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:20 GMT

TIME OUT / *** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

Vincent: Aurelien Recoing
Muriel: Karin Viard
Jean-Michel: Serge Livrozet
THINKFilm presents a film directed by Laurent Cantet. Written by Cantet and
Robin Campillo. Running time: 132 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sensuality). In
French with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

Vincent loses his job. He cannot bear to confess this to his wife and
children, so he invents another one, and the fictional job takes up more of
his time than his family does. It is hard work to spend all day producing
the illusion of accomplishment out of thin air. Ask anyone from Enron. The
new film "Time Out" is about modern forms of work that exist only because we
say they do. Those best-sellers about modern management techniques are
hilarious because the only things that many managers actually manage are
their techniques.

Free from his job, Vincent is seduced by the pleasure of getting in his car
and just driving around. He lives in France, near the Swiss border, and one
day he wanders into an office building in Switzerland, eavesdrops on some of
the employees, picks up a brochure, and tells his relatives he works in a
place like this. It's an agency associated with the United Nations, and as
nearly as I can tell, its purpose is to train managers who can go to Africa
and train managers. This is about right. The best way to get a job through a
program designed to find you a job is to get a job with the program.

Vincent, played by the sad-eyed, sincere Aurelien Recoing, is not a con man
so much as a pragmatist who realizes that since his job exists mostly in his
mind anyway, he might as well eliminate the middleman, his employer. He
begins taking long overnight trips, sleeping in his car, finding his
breakfast at cold, lonely roadside diners at daybreak. He calls his wife
frequently with progress reports: the meeting went well, the client needs
more time, the pro-ject team is assembling tomorrow, he has a new
assignment. Since he has not figured out how to live without money, he
persuades friends and relatives to invest in his fictional company, and uses
that money to live on.

You would think the movie would be about how this life of deception, these
lonely weeks on the road, wear him down. Actually, he seems more worn out by
the experience of interacting with his family during his visits at home. His
wife, Muriel (Karin Viard), a schoolteacher, suspects that something is not
quite convincing about this new job. What throws her off is that there was
something not quite convincing about his old job, too. Vincent's father is
the kind of man who, because he can never be pleased, does not distinguish
between one form of displeasure and another. Vincent's children are not much
interested in their dad's work.

In his travels Vincent encounters Jean-Michel (Serge Livrozet), who spots
him for a phony and might have a place in his organization for the right
kind of phony. Jean-Michel imports fake brand-name items. What he does is
not legal, but it does involve the sale and delivery of actual physical
goods. He is more honest than those who simply exchange theoretical goods;
Jean-Michel sells fake Guccis, Enron sells fake dollars.

"Time Out" is the second film by Laurent Cantet, whose first was "Human
Resources" (2000), about a young man from a working-class family who goes
off to college and returns as the human resources manager at the factory
where his father has worked all of his life as a punch-press operator. One
of the son's tasks is to lay off many employees, including his father. The
father heartbreakingly returns to his machine even after being fired,
because he cannot imagine his life without a job. Vincent in a way is worse
off. His job is irrelevant to his life. I admire the closing scenes of the
film, which seem to ask whether our civilization offers a cure for Vincent's
complaint.

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Subject: [MV] TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:22 GMT

TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

Princess/Phocion/Aspasie: Mira     Sorvino
Hermocrates: Ben Kingsley
Agis: Jay Rodan
Leontine: Fiona Shaw
Harlequin: Ignazio Oliva
Paramount Classics presents a film directed by Clare Peploe. Written by
Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci, based on Pierre Marivaux's 18th century
play. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some nudity and
sensuality). Opening today at Pipers Alley, Landmark Renaissance and
Evanston CineArts 6.

BY ROGER EBERT

Mira Sorvino has a little teasing smile that is invaluable in "Triumph of
Love," a movie where she plays a boy who does not look the slightest thing
like a boy, but looks exactly like Mira Sorvino playing a boy with a teasing
smile. The story, based on an 18th century French play by Pierre Marivaux,
is the sort of thing that inspired operas and Shakespeare comedies: It's all
premise, no plausibility, and so what?

Sorvino plays a princess who goes for a stroll in the woods one day and
happens upon the inspiring sight of a handsome young man named Agis (Jay
Rodan) emerging naked from a swim. She knows she must have him. She also
knows that he is the true possessor of her throne, that she is an usurper,
and that her chances of meeting him are slim. That's because he lives as the
virtual prisoner of a brother and sister, a philosopher named Hermocrates
(Ben Kingsley) and a scientist named Leontine (Fiona Shaw.)

Hermocrates is a scholar of the sort who, in tales of this sort, spends much
time in his study pondering over quaint and curious volumes of forgotten
lore. He wears one of those skullcaps with stars and moons on it, and a long
robe, and is obsessed, although not without method. His sister, past the
second bloom of her youth, is ferociously dedicated to him, and together
they raise the young Agis to think rationally of all things, and to avoid
the distractions of women, sex, romance, and worldly things.

The scheme of the princess: She and her maid Hermidas (Rachael Stirling)
will disguise themselves as young men, penetrate Hermocrates' enclave, and
insinuate themselves into the good graces of the brother and sister. Then
nature will take its course. This is the sort of plot, like that of "The
Scorpion King," that you either accept or do not accept; if it contained
martial arts, skewerings and explosions, no one would raise an eyebrow.
Because it is elegant, mannered and teasing, some audiences will not want to
go along with the joke. Your choice.

"Triumph of Love," as a title, is literally true. Love does conquer
Hermocrates, Leontine and finally Agis. Of course it is not true love in the
tiresome modern sense, but romantic love as a plot device. To win Agis, the
cross-dressing princess must inveigle herself into the good graces of his
guardians by seducing Leontine and Hermocrates. The scene between Sorvino
and Shaw is one of the most delightful in the movie, as the prim spinster
allows herself reluctantly to believe that she might be irresistible--that
this handsome youth might indeed have penetrated the compound hoping to
seduce her. The director, Clare Peploe, stages this scene among trees and
shrubbery, as the "boy" pursues the bashful sister from sun to shade to sun
again.

Now comes the challenge of Hermocrates. Although there are possibilities in
the notion that the philosopher might be attracted to a comely young lad,
the movie departs from tradition and allows Hermocrates to see through the
deception at once: He knows this visitor is a girl, accuses her of it, and
is told she disguised herself as a boy only to gain access to his
overwhelmingly attractive presence. Hermocrates insists she only wants
access to Agis. "He is not the one my heart beats for," she says shyly, and
watch Ben Kingsley's face as he understands the implications. Strange, how
universal is the human notion that others should find us attractive.

Kingsley is the most versatile of actors, able to suggest, with a slant of
the gaze, a cast of the mouth, emotional states that other actors could not
achieve with cartwheels. There is a twinkle in his eye. He is as easily
convinced as his sister that this visitor loves him. But is it not cruel
that the ripe young impostor deceives both the brother and sister, stealing
their hearts as stepping-stones for her own? Not at all, because the ending,
in admirable 18th century style, tidies all loose ends, restores order to
the kingdom, and allows everyone to live happily ever after, although it is
in the nature of things that some will live happier than others.

Clare Peploe, the wife of the great Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci,
was born in Tanzania, raised in Britain, educated at the Sorbonne and in
Italy, began with her brother Mark as a writer on Antonioni's "Zabriskie
Point," and in addition to co-writing many of Bertolucci's films, has
directed three of her own. The sleeper is "High Season" (1988), a comedy set
on a Greek island and involving romance, art, spies and a statue to the
Unknown Tourist. If you know the John Huston movie "Beat the Devil," you
will have seen its first cousin. With this film once again she shows a
light-hearted playfulness.

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Subject: [MV] CHANGING LANES / **** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:25 GMT

CHANGING LANES / **** (R)

April 12, 2002

Gavin Banek: Ben Affleck
Doyle Gipson: Samuel L. Jackson
Michelle: Toni Collette
Delano: Sydney Pollack
Cynthia Banek: Amanda Peet
Valerie Gipson: Kim Staunton
Gavin's sponsor: William Hurt
Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Roger Michell. Written by
Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for
language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"One wrong turn deserves another," say the ads for "Changing Lanes." Yes,
both of the movie's dueling hotheads are in the wrong--but they are also
both in the right. The story involves two flawed men, both prey to anger,
who get involved in a fender-bender that brings out all of their worst
qualities. And their best. This is not a dumb formula film about revenge. It
doesn't use rubber-stamp lines like "it's payback time." It is about adults
who have minds as well as emotions, and can express themselves with uncommon
clarity. And it's not just about the quarrel between these two men, but
about the ways they have been living their lives.

The story begins with two men who need to be in court on time. A lawyer,
Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck), needs to file a signed form proving that an
elderly millionaire turned over control of his foundation to Banek's law
firm. Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) needs to show that he has loan
approval to buy a house for his family; he hopes that will convince his
fed-up wife to stay in New York and not move with the kids to Oregon. Banek
and Gipson get into a fender bender. It's not really anybody's fault.

Of course they are polite when it happens: "You hurt?" Nobody is. Banek, who
is rich and has been taught that money is a solution to human needs, doesn't
want to take time to exchange insurance cards and file a report. He hands
Gipson a signed blank check. Gipson, who wants to handle this the right way,
doesn't want a check. Banek gets in his car and drives away, shouting,
"Better luck next time!" over his shoulder, and leaving Gipson stranded in
the middle of the expressway with a flat tire. Gipson gets to court 20
minutes late. The case has already been settled. In his absence, he has
lost. The judge isn't interested in his story. Banek gets to court in time,
but discovers that he is missing the crucial file folder with the old man's
signature. Who has it? Gipson.

At this point, in a film less intelligent and ambitious, the vile Banek
would pull strings to make life miserable for the blameless Gipson. But
"Changing Lanes" doesn't settle for the formula. Gipson responds to Banek's
rudeness by faxing a page from the crucial file to Banek with Better luck
next time! scrawled on it.

Banek turns to his sometime mistress (Toni Collette), who knows a guy who
"fixes" things. The guy (Dylan Baker) screws with Gipson's credit rating, so
his home mortgage falls through. Gipson finds an ingenious way to
counter-attack. And so begins a daylong struggle between two angry men.

Ah, but that's far from all. "Changing Lanes" is a thoughtful film that by
its very existence shames studio movies that have been dumbed down into
cat-and-mouse cartoons. The screenplay is by Chap Taylor, who has previously
worked as a production assistant for Woody Allen, and by Michael Tolkin, who
wrote the novel and screenplay "The Player" and wrote and directed two
extraordinary films, "The Rapture" and "The New Age."

The writers, rookie and veteran, want to know who these men are, how they
got to this day in their lives, what their values are, what kinds of worlds
they live in. A dumb film would be about settling scores after the fender
bender. This film, which breathes, which challenges, which is excitingly
alive, wants to see these men hit their emotional bottoms. Will they learn
anything?

Doyle Gipson is a recovering alcoholic. His AA meetings and his AA sponsor
(William Hurt) are depicted in realistic, not stereotyped, terms. Gipson is
sober, but still at the mercy of his emotions. As he stands in the wreckage
of his plans to save his marriage, his wife (Kim Staunton) tells him, "This
is the sort of thing that always happens to you--and never happens to me
unless I am in your field of gravity." And his sponsor tells him, "Booze
isn't really your drug of choice. You're addicted to chaos." At one point,
seething with rage, Gipson walks into a bar and orders a shot of bourbon.
Then he stares at it. Then he gets into a fight that he deliberately
provokes, and we realize that at some level he walked into the bar not for
the drink but for the fight.

Gavin Banek leads a rich and privileged life. His boss, Delano (Sydney
Pollack), has just made him a partner in their Wall Street law firm. It
doesn't hurt that Banek married the boss' daughter. It also doesn't hurt
that he was willing to obtain the signature of a confused old man who might
not have known what he was signing, and that the firm will make millions as
a result. His wife (Amanda Peet) sees her husband with blinding clarity.
After Banek has second thoughts about the tainted document, Pollack asks his
daughter to get him into line, and at lunch she has an extraordinary speech.

"Did you know my father has been cheating on my mother for 20 years?" she
asks Banek. He says no, and then sheepishly adds, "Well, I didn't know it
was for 20 years." Her mother knew all along, his wife says, "but she
thought it would be unethical to leave a man for cheating on his marriage,
after she has an enjoyed an expensive lifestyle that depends on a man who
makes his money by cheating at work." She looks across the table at her
husband. "I could have married an honest man," she tells him. She did not,
choosing instead a man who would go right to the edge to make money. You
don't work on Wall Street if you're not prepared to do that, she says.

And what, for that matter, about the poor old millionaire whose foundation
is being plundered? "How do you think he got his money?" Delano asks Banek.
"You think those factories in Malaysia have day-care centers?" He helpfully
points out that the foundation was set up in the first place as a tax dodge.

Such speeches are thunderbolts in "Changing Lanes." They show the movie
digging right down into the depths of the souls, of the values, of these two
men. The director, Roger Michell, has made good movies including
"Persuasion" and "Notting Hill," but this one seems more like Neil LaBute's
"In the Company of Men," or Tolkin's work. It lays these guys out and X-rays
them, and by the end of the day, each man's own anger scares him more than
the other guy's. This is one of the best movies of the year.

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Subject: [MV] CRUSH / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:29 GMT

CRUSH / *** (R)

April 12, 2002

Kate: Andie MacDowell
Janine: Imelda Staunton
Molly: Anna Chancellor
Jed: Kenny Doughty
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film written and directed by John McKay.
Running time: 115 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

If I were reviewing "Crush" in England, I would work the name of Joanna
Trollope into the first sentence, and my readers would immediately be able
to identify the terrain. Trollope, a best-seller who is often quite
perceptive and touching, writes at the upper range of the category just
below serious fiction. She is a good read for those, like myself, who
fantasize about living prosperously in the Cotswolds in an old but
comfortably remodeled cottage not far from the village green, the
churchyard, the tea shop, the bookstore and the rail line to London, while
meanwhile growing involved in a web of imprudent adulterous sex. (As a
happily married man, you understand, I do not want to perform adulterous
imprudent sex, only to be involved in a web with such entertaining
neighbors.)

This is not England. Few North Americans read Joanna Trollope, and fewer
still respond to key words in her vocabulary such as Aga. An Aga
cooker-stove is so expensive and versatile, it does everything but peel the
potatoes, and its presence in a kitchen tells you so much about the
occupants that in the Brit book review pages, the phrase "Aga romance"
perfectly categorizes a novel.

"Crush" is an Aga romance crossed with modern retro-feminist soft porn, in
which liberated women discuss lust as if it were a topic and not a fact. We
begin by meeting the three heroines, who are fortysomething professionals
and meet once a week to (1) drink gin, (2) smoke cigarettes, (3) eat
caramels, and (4) discuss their lousy love lives. My advice to these women:
Stop after (3).

The characters: Kate (Andie MacDowell) is the American headmistress of the
local upscale school, Janine (Imelda Staunton) is a physician, and Molly
(Anna Chancellor) is the police chief. That these three professional women
at their age would all still be smoking can be explained only by a movie
that does not give them enough to do with their hands. One day Kate goes to
a funeral, is immeasurably moved by the music, and meets the organist. His
name is Jed (Kenny Doughty), and he was once a student of hers. She is
between 15 and 18 years older, but their conversation drifts out of the
church and into the churchyard, and soon they are performing the old
rumpy-pumpy behind a tombstone while the mourners are still stifling their
sobs.

This is, you will agree, an example of lust. In a rabbit, it would be simple
lust. In a headmistress, it is reckless lust. (In a 25-year-old organist, it
is what comes from pumping the foot pedals for 30 minutes while observing
Andie MacDowell). The movie cannot leave it at lust, however, because then
it would be a different movie. So it elevates it into a Love That Was Meant
to Be, in which the two lovers overcome differences of age, class and
grooming, and determine to spend their lives together. Because they are
attractive people and we like them, of course we identify with their
foolishness and feel good when romance triumphs.

A sixth sense tells us, however, that romance has triumphed a little too
early in the movie. The only way for "Crush" to get from its romantic
triumph to the end of the film is to supply setbacks, and does it ever. I
will not reveal what episodes of bad judgment, bad karma and plain bad luck
lead to the ultimate bittersweet denouement, and will distract myself from
the temptation by telling you that the pastor of the local church is named
the Rev. Gerald Farquar-Marsden, a name to rival Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright.

The movie does its best to work us over, with second helpings of love,
romance, tragedy, false dawns, real dawns, comic relief, two separate crises
during marriage ceremonies, and the lush scenery of the Cotswolds (or, as
the Web site refers to the district, "Cotswold"). It's the kind of world
where romance begins in tombs among the headstones, or vice versa, and
almost immediately requires engraved invitations. Jed is described as being
25 years old and Kate is described as being 40 (cough), but Andie MacDowell
is the definition of a dish, and Jed, just by being a church organist, is
mature for his age. Besides, what is an age difference of 15 or even 18
years, when my old friend Betty Dodson, at 72, is in the third year of a
steamy romance with a 25-year-old? You can look it up at Salon.com, under
"sex."

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] FRAILTY / **** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:39 GMT

FRAILTY / **** (R)

April 12, 2002

Dad: Bill Paxton
Fenton Meiks: Matthew McConaughey
Agent Wesley Doyle: Powers Boothe
Young Fenton Meiks: Matthew O'Leary
Young Adam Meiks: Jeremy Sumpter
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Bill Paxton. Written by Brent
Hanley. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for violence and some language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Heaven protect us from people who believe they can impose their will on us
in this world because of what they think they know about the next. "Frailty"
is about such a man, a kind and gentle father who is visited by an angel who
assigns him to murder demons in human form. We are reminded that Andrea
Yates believed she was possessed by Satan and could save her children by
drowning them. "Frailty" is as chilling: The father enlists his two sons,
who are about 7 and 10, to join him in the murders of victims he brings
home.

This is not, you understand, an abusive father. He loves his children. He is
only following God's instructions: "This is our job now, son. We've got to
do this." When the older son, terrified and convinced his father has gone
mad, says he'll report him to the police, his father explains, "If you do
that, son, I'll die. The angel was clear on this." The pressure that the
children are under is unbearable, and tragic, and warps their entire lives.

"Frailty" is an extraordinary work, concealing in its depths not only
unexpected story turns but also implications, hidden at first, that make it
even deeper and more sad. It is the first film directed by the actor Bill
Paxton, who also plays the father and succeeds in making "Dad" not a villain
but a sincere man lost within his delusions. Matthew McConaughey plays one
of his sons as a grown man, and Powers Boothe is the FBI agent who is
investigating the "God's Hand" serial murders in Texas when the son comes to
him one night, with the body of his brother parked outside in a stolen
ambulance.

The movie works in so many different ways that it continues to surprise us
right until the end. It begins as a police procedural, seems for a time to
be a puzzle like "The Usual Suspects," reveals itself as a domestic terror
film, evokes pity as well as horror, and reminded me of "The Rapture,"
another film about a parent who is willing to sacrifice a child in order to
follow the literal instructions of her faith.

As the film opens, McConaughey appears in the office of FBI agent Wesley
Doyle (Boothe), introduces himself as Fenton Meiks, and says he knows who
committed the serial killings that have haunted the area for years. His
story becomes the narration of two long flashbacks in which we see Paxton as
the elder Meiks, and Matthew O'Leary and Jeremy Sumpter as young Fenton and
Adam. Their mother is dead; they live in a frame house near the community
rose garden, happy and serene, until the night their father wakes them with
the news that he has been visited by an angel.

The film neither shies away from its horrifying events, nor dwells on them.
There is a series of ax murders, but they occur offscreen; this is not a
movie about blood, but about obsession. The truly disturbing material
involves the two boys, who are played by O'Leary and Sumpter as ordinary,
happy kids whose lives turn into nightmares. Young Adam simply believes
everything his father tells him. Fenton is old enough to know it's wrong:
"Dad's brainwashed you," he tells Adam. "It's all a big lie. He murders
people and you help him."

The construction of the story circles around the angel's "instructions" in
several ways. The sons and father are trapped in a household seemingly ruled
by fanaticism. There is, however, the intriguing fact that when Dad touches
his victims, he has graphic visions of their sins--he can see vividly why
they need to be killed. Are these visions accurate? We see them, too, but
it's unclear whether through Dad's eyes or the movie's narrator--if that
makes a difference. Whether they are objectively true is something I, at
least, believe no man can know for sure about another. Not just by touching
them, anyway. But the movie contains one shot, sure to be debated, that
suggests God's hand really is directing Dad's murders.

Perhaps only a first-time director, an actor who does not depend on
directing for his next job, would have had the nerve to make this movie. It
is uncompromised. It follows its logic right down into hell. We love movies
that play and toy with the supernatural, but are we prepared for one that is
an unblinking look at where the logic of the true believer can lead? There
was just a glimpse of this mentality on the day after 9/11, when certain TV
preachers described it as God's punishment for our sins, before backpedaling
when they found such frankness eroded their popularity base.

On the basis of this film, Paxton is a gifted director; he and his
collaborators, writer Brent Hanley, cinematographer Bill Butler and editor
Arnold Glassman, have made a complex film that grips us with the intensity
of a simple one. We're with it every step of the way, and discover we hardly
suspect where it is going.

Note: Watching the film, I was reminded again of the "West Memphis Three"
(www.wm3.org), those three Arkansas teenagers convicted of the brutal murder
of three children. One faces death and the other two long sentences. The
documentaries "Paradise Lost" (1992) and "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations"
(2000) make it clear they are probably innocent (a prime suspect all but
confesses onscreen), but the three are still in jail because they wore
black, listened to heavy metal music, and were railroaded by courts and a
community convinced they were Satanists--which must have been evidence
enough, since there wasn't much else, and the boys could prove they were
elsewhere.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE SWEETEST THING / *1/2 (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:45 GMT

THE SWEETEST THING / *1/2 (R)

April 12, 2002

Christina: Cameron Diaz
Courtney: Christina Applegate
Peter: Thomas Jane
Jane: Selma Blair
Roger: Jason Bateman
Judy: Parker Posey
Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Roger Kumble. Written by Nancy
M. Pimental. Running time: 84 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexual content
and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

I like Cameron Diaz. I just plain like her. She's able to convey
bubble-brained zaniness about as well as anyone in the movies right now, and
then she can switch gears and give you a scary dramatic performance in
something like "Vanilla Sky." She's a beauty, but apparently without vanity;
how else to account for her appearance in "Being John Malkovich," or her
adventures in "There's Something About Mary"? I don't think she gets halfway
enough praise for her talent.

Consider her in "The Sweetest Thing." This is not a good movie. It's
deep-sixed by a compulsion to catalog every bodily fluids gag in "There's
Something About Mary" and devise a parallel clone-gag. It knows the words
but not the music; while the Farrelly brothers got away with murder, "The
Sweetest Thing" commits suicide.

And yet there were whole long stretches of it when I didn't much care how
bad it was--at least, I wasn't brooding in anger about the film--because
Cameron Diaz and her co-stars had thrown themselves into it with such
heedless abandon. They don't walk the plank, they tap dance.

The movie is about three girls who just wanna have fun. They hang out in
clubs, they troll for cute guys, they dress like Maxim cover girls, they
study paperback best-sellers on the rules of relationships, and frequently
(this comes as no surprise), they end up weeping in one other's arms. Diaz's
running-mates, played by Christina Applegate and Selma Blair, are pals and
confidantes, and a crisis for one is a crisis for all.

The movie's romance involves Diaz meeting Thomas Jane in a dance club; the
chemistry is right but he doesn't quite accurately convey that the wedding
he is attending on the weekend is his own. This leads to Diaz's ill-fated
expedition into the wedding chapel, many misunderstandings, and the kind of
Idiot Plot dialogue in which all problems could be instantly solved if the
characters were not studiously avoiding stating the obvious.

The plot is merely the excuse, however, for an astonishing array of sex and
body-plumbing jokes, nearly all of which dream of hitting a home run like
"There's Something About Mary," but do not. Consider "Mary's" scene where
Diaz has what she thinks is gel in her hair. Funny--because she doesn't know
what it really is, and we do. Now consider the scene in this movie where the
girls go into a men's room and do not understand that in a men's room a hole
in the wall is almost never merely an architectural detail. The pay-off is
sad, sticky, and depressing.

Or consider a scene where one of the roommates gets "stuck" while performing
oral sex. This is intended as a ripoff of the "franks and beans" scene in
"Mary," but gets it all wrong. You simply cannot (I am pretty sure about
this) get stuck in the way the movie suggests--no, not even if you've got
piercings. More to the point, in "Mary" the victim is unseen, and we picture
his dilemma. In "Sweetest Thing," the dilemma is seen, sort of (careful
framing preserves the R rating), and the image isn't funny. Then we get
several dozen neighbors, all singing to inspire the girl to extricate
herself; this might have looked good on the page, but it just plain doesn't
work, especially not when embellished with the sobbing cop on the doorstep,
the gay cop, and other flat notes.

More details. Sometimes it is funny when people do not know they may be
consuming semen (as in "American Pie") and sometimes it is not, as in the
scene at the dry cleaners in this movie. How can you laugh when what you
really want to do is hurl? And what about the scene in the ladies' room,
where the other girls are curious about Applegate's boobs and she tells them
she paid for them and invites them to have a feel, and they do, like
shoppers at Kmart? Again, a funny concept. Again, destroyed by bad timing,
bad framing and overkill. Because the director, Roger Kumble, doesn't know
how to set it up and pay it off with surgical precision, he simply has women
pawing Applegate while the scene dies. An unfunny scene only grows worse by
pounding in the concept as if we didn't get it.

So, as I say, I like Cameron Diaz. I like everyone in this movie (I must not
neglect the invaluable Parker Posey, as a terrified bride). I like their
energy. I like their willingness. I like the opening shot when Diaz comes
sashaying up a San Francisco hill like a dancer from "In Living Color" who
thinks she's still on the air. I like her mobile, comic face--she's smart in
the way she plays dumb. But the movie I cannot like, because the movie
doesn't know how to be liked. It doesn't even know how to be a movie.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MARYAM / ***1/2 (Not rated)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:43 GMT

MARYAM / ***1/2 (Not rated)

April 12, 2002

Maryk Armin: Mariam Parris
Ali Armin: David Ackert
Darius Armin: Shaun Toub
Homa Armin: Shohreh Aghdashloo
Reza: Maziyar Jobrani
Jamie: Victor Jory
Streetlight Films presents a film written and directed by Ramin Serry.
Running time: 90 minutes. No MPAA rating (suitable for teens). Opening today
at the Music Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

Girls just want to have fun, says Cyndi Lauper, and Maryam, a high school
senior, is one of them. Yes, she's an honor student and anchors the news on
the in-school TV program, but she also likes to hang out at the roller rink
with her slacker boyfriend, and pot and booze are not unknown to her. In New
Jersey in 1979, she is a typical teenage girl--until the Iran hostage crisis
slaps her with an ethnic label that makes her an outsider at school and a
rebel in her own home.

Maryam (Mariam Parris) is Iranian-American--or Persian, her father would
say. Her parents emigrated from Iran before the fall of the shah, and
settled comfortably into suburbia; her father is a doctor, her mother a
warm, chatty neighbor, and Maryam (or "Mary," as she calls herself at
school) doesn't think much about her Iranian or Muslim heritage. Then two
things happen to force her to confront her history. The hostage crisis
inspires knee-jerk hostility from her classmates (whose families also come
from somewhere else), and her radical cousin Ali arrives from Tehran.

Ramin Serry's "Maryam," a film that cares too deeply for its characters to
simplify them, doesn't indulge in tired cliches about the generation gap.
Maryam's home life is strict but not unreasonable. Her father doesn't want
her to date, places great emphasis on her grades, doesn't know about her
boyfriend. He is not a cruel or domineering man, and Maryam, to her credit,
knows her parents love her. She's caught between trying to be a good
daughter and a typical teenager, and has found a workable middle ground
before Ali arrives.

With Ali comes a history of family tension she knows nothing about. Ali is
an orphan, the son of Mary's uncle, and so he must be taken in. It is more
complicated than that. Her father, we learn, turned his brother in to the
shah's secret police; he felt he had no choice, but is consumed by guilt.
The blood-stained backgammon board Ali brings as a "gift" is an ominous
reminder of times past.

Ali is such an observant Muslim that he cannot touch his cousin Maryam, even
to shake her hand. Pressed into service as a chaperone, he finds himself
plunged into teenage culture that offends and attracts him. He calls Maryam
a "whore" to her mother, but subtly flirts with her. More disturbing is his
alliance with a campus radical, and his obsession with the deposed shah, who
has just entered a New York hospital for cancer treatment. (Maryam's take on
this: "He calls the U.S. the Great Satan. I mean, the guy could lighten up a
little.")

"Maryam" was made before 9/11, and indeed I first saw it at the 2000 Hawaii
Film Festival and invited it to my own Overlooked Film Festival in April
2001. It is, I learned, the somewhat autobiographical story of
writer-director Ramin Serry, who grew up in Chicago and was made sharply
aware of his Iranian heritage during the 1979 hostage crisis.

In the film, Maryam's neighbors put a yellow ribbon around the tree in their
front yard, and discontinue their friendly chats and visits. Maryam's
boyfriend drops her like a hot potato. She is deposed from her TV show (she
suggests her newly arrived cousin might make a good interview; the other
students prefer to cover a homecoming controversy). A brick comes through
the front window. A public demonstration turns into shouts of "Iranians, go
home." Through all of this, the gifted actress Mariam Parris (British, but
seamlessly playing American) finds the right notes: wounded, sad, angry, but
more balanced than distraught.

Whatever hostility Serry felt in 1979 is no doubt much worse today for
Arab-Americans, who have, like most immigrants since the Pilgrims, left a
native land to seek the American dream.

Strange how many Americans, themselves members of groups that were hated a
few generations ago, now turn against newcomers. (I could hear the pain in
my German-American father's voice as he recalled being yanked out of
Lutheran school during World War I and forbidden by his immigrant parents
ever to speak German again.) "Maryam" is more timely now than ever.

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Subject: [MV] BIG TROUBLE / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:49 GMT

BIG TROUBLE / **1/2 (PG-13)

April 5, 2002

Eliot Arnold: Tim Allen
Anna Herk: Rene Russo
Pat Greer: Omar Epps
Henry Algott: Dennis Farina
Matt Arnold: Ben Foster
Monica Ramiro: Janeane Garofalo
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Written by
Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone. Based on the novel by Dave Barry. Running
time: 84 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language, crude humor and sex-related
material).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Big Trouble" is based on a novel by Dave Barry, and I have no trouble
believing that. The genius of Dave Barry is that he applies a logical and
helpful analysis to a situation that can only be worsened by such
intervention. It is impossible, for example, to explain to a policeman why
he is wasting his time on your illegal left turn while real criminals go
free. Or to the IRS agent that Enron is robbing billions from widows and
orphans while he ponders your business-related need to buy lots of CDs. Or
to your wife why it is pointless to do the dishes on a daily basis when you
can save hot water by letting them accumulate for a week in the
dishwasher--which, being airtight, will not stink up the kitchen if you slam
it right after adding more dishes.

All of these positions, which make perfect sense, only infuriate the cop,
tax man, spouse, etc., by applying logic to a situation they have invested
with irrational passion. As a sane voice in a world gone mad, Barry alone
sees clearly. The Dave Barry figure in "Big Trouble," I think, is Puggy
(Jason Lee), a man who when he first addresses the camera seems to be Jesus,
until he starts munching Fritos between his words of wisdom, observing, "You
really can't beat these when they're fresh." Puggy is a homeless man who was
living in the rainy north inside a cardboard box, when an article in Martha
Stewart Living inspired him to move to sunny southern Florida.

He is the film's omniscient narrator, not because he knows everything in a
godlike way, but because he lives outdoors and happens to be ideally
positioned during an evening when most of the film's other characters meet
at the luxury home of Arthur Herk (Stanley Tucci), who is "one of the few
Floridians who actually did vote for Pat Buchanan." (Saddened by the
inability of many Republicans to express even token pity about the Jewish
senior citizens whose mistaken votes for the Great Foamer tilted the
election, I am always happy to have this event recalled.)

Arthur Herk is ... ah, but if I begin a plot synopsis, we will be here all
day, and I have already squandered three paragraphs with fancy writing.
There is a plot in "Big Trouble," quite a logical one actually, with all the
threads tied into neat knots at the end, but to explain it would leave you
banging your forehead against the newspaper and crying "Why must I know
this?" It might be simpler to describe the characters, and let you discover
their interactions for yourself.

Herk is a rich man who owes money to the wrong people and wants to buy a
bomb. Rene Russo is his wife Anna, who no longer remembers why she married
this jerk. Zooey Deschanel is their daughter Jenny, who is the target of
Matt Arnold (Ben Foster), a school classmate who needs to squirt her with a
one-gallon water gun. Tim Allen is Eliot Arnold, Matt's father, who was the
two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the Miami Herald until he
kicked in the computer screen of an editor who gave him idiotic assignments
while refusing to meet his eyes. (It would seem to the casual moviegoer that
Eliot Arnold is the Dave Barry figure in the movie, since he closely
resembles the author, but, no, it's Puggy.)

Then there are Dennis Farina and Jack Kehler as two bit men assigned to kill
Arthur Herk. And Janeane Garofalo and Patrick Warburton as two cops who
answer a call to the Herk home. And Lars Arenta-Hansen and Daniel London,
who have a nuclear bomb they can sell to Arthur Herk. And Omar Epps and
Heavy D as FBI agents on the trail of the bomb-sellers. And Sofia Vergara as
Nina, the Herks' maid, who Arthur wants to have sex with. She despises Herk
but instantly lusts for Puggy--another clue he is the Dave Barry character.
And Tom Sizemore and Johnny Knoxville as Snake and Eddie, who try to stick
up the bar where the bomb dealers meet Arthur Herk while the FBI stakes it
out. (Sample dialogue: "Snake, let's get the hell out of here. I think I
hear one of them silent alarms.") There is also a toad whose spit is
hallucinogenic.

The film has been directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who made "Get Shorty." It's
not in that class--indeed, it seems so crowded that it sometimes feels like
the casting call for an eventual picture not yet made--but it has its
charms. It's the kind of movie you can't quite recommend because it is all
windup and not much of a pitch, yet you can't bring yourself to dislike it.
A video or airplane or cable movie. Originally scheduled for an autumn
opening, it was pulled from the release schedule after 9/11 because it
involves terrorists and a nuclear bomb. But these are terrorists and bombs
from a simpler and more innocent time. The movie is a reminder of an age
when such plots were obviously not to be taken seriously. It's nice to be
reminded of that time.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HIGH CRIMES / *** (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:52 GMT

HIGH CRIMES / *** (PG-13)

April 5, 2002

Claire Kubik:     Ashley Judd
Charlie Grimes:    Morgan Freeman
Tom:     James Caviezel
Lt. Embry:    Adam Scott
Jackie:     Amanda Peet
Major Waldron:     Michael Gaston
Brig. Gen. Marks:         Bruce Davison
Agent Mullins:    Tom Bower

Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Carl Franklin. Written by
Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley. Based on the novel by Joseph Finder. Running
time: 115 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violence, sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Although I believe Ashley Judd could thrive in more challenging roles, and
offer "Normal Life" (1996) as an example, her career seems to tilt toward
thrillers, with the occasional comedy. She often plays a strong, smart woman
who is in more danger than she realizes. Although her characters are
eventually screaming as they flee brutal killers in the long tradition of
Women in Danger movies, the set-ups show her as competent, resourceful,
independent.

"High Crimes" is a movie like that. Judd plays Claire Kubik, a high-profile
defense attorney for a big firm. When her ex-Army husband (Jim Caviezel) is
arrested by the FBI, charged with murder and arraigned before a military
tribunal, she defiantly says she will defend him herself. And because she
doesn't know her way around military justice, she enlists a lawyer named
Grimes (Morgan Freeman) as co-counsel. Grimes is that dependable character,
a drunk who is on the wagon but may (i.e., will) fall off under stress.

This is the second movie Judd and Freeman have made together (after "Kiss
the Girls" in 1997). They're both good at projecting a kind of Southern
intelligence that knows its way around the frailties of human nature.
Although Freeman refers to himself as the "wild card" in the movie, actually
that role belongs to Caviezel, whose very identity is called into question
by the military charges. "Is your name Tom Chapman?" Claire asks her husband
at one point. She no longer knows the answer.

The plot involves a massacre in a Latin American village and a subsequent
cover-up. Did Claire's husband gun down innocent civilians, or was he framed
by a scary Army vet and his straight-arrow superior? Does the military want
justice or a cover-up? We are not given much reason to trust military
tribunals--evidence the screenplay was written before 9/11--and the Freeman
character intones the familiar refrain, "Military justice is to justice as
military music is to music."

And yet ... well, maybe there's more to the story. I wouldn't dream of
revealing crucial details. I do like the way director Carl Franklin and
writers Yuri Zeltser and Cary Bickley, working from Joseph Finder's novel,
play both ends against the middle, so that the audience has abundant
evidence to believe two completely conflicting theories of what actually
happened. In the very season of the DVD release of "Rashomon," which is the
template for stories with more than one convincing explanation, here's
another example of how Kurosawa's masterpiece continues to inspire movie
plots.

"High Crimes" works to keep us involved and make us care. Although Freeman's
character may indeed start drinking again, it won't be for reasons we can
anticipate (of course, like all heroic movie drunks, he retains the
exquisite timing to sober up on demand). The unfolding of various versions
of the long-ago massacre is handled by Franklin in flashbacks that show how
one camera angle can refute what another angle seems to prove. And if we
feel, toward the end, a little whiplashed by the plot manipulations, well,
that's what the movie promises and that's what the movie delivers.

As for Ms. Judd, from the first time I saw her, in "Ruby in Paradise"
(1993), I thought she had a unique sympathy with the camera, an ability that
cannot be learned but only exercised. In the years, she has often been
better than her material--or do her advisers choose mainstream commercial
roles for her as the safest course? When she strays out of genre, as she did
in "Smoke," "Heat," "Normal Life" and "Simon Birch," she shows how good she
is. Of course, she's good in "High Crimes," too, and involves us more than
the material really deserves. But this is the kind of movie any studio
executive would green-light without a moment's hesitation--always an ominous
sign.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HUMAN NATURE / *** (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:41 GMT

HUMAN NATURE / *** (R)

April 12, 2002

Nathan Bronfman: Tim Robbins
Lila Jute: Patricia Arquette
Puff: Rhys Ifans
Gabrielle: Miranda Otto
Nathan's Father: Robert Forster
Nathan's Mother: Mary Kay Place
Wendall the Therapist: Miguel Sandoval
Puff's Father: Toby Huss
Fine Line Features presents a film directed by Michel Gondry. Written by
Charlie Kaufman. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality/nudity and
language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Is human life entirely based on sex, or is that only what it seems like on
cable television? "Human Nature," a comedy written and produced by the
writer and director who made us the great gift of "Being John Malkovich," is
a study of three characters in war against their sexual natures.

Lila (Patricia Arquette) fled to the woods at the age of 20, after hair
entirely covered her body. She becomes a famous reclusive nature writer, a
very hairy Annie Dillard, but finally returns to civilization because she's
so horny. Puff (Rhys Ifans) is a man who was raised as an ape, thinks he's
an ape, and is cheerfully eager on all occasions to act out an ape's sexual
desires. And Nathan (Tim Robbins) was a boy raised by parents so strict that
his entire sexual drive was sublimated into the desire to train others as
mercilessly as he was trained.

With these three characters as subjects for investigation, "Human Nature"
asks if there is a happy medium between natural impulses and the inhibitions
of civilization--or if it is true, as Nathan instructs Puff, "When in doubt,
don't ever do what you really want to do." The movie involves these three in
a menage a trois that is (as you can imagine) very complicated, and just in
order to be comprehensive in its study of human sexual behavior, throws in a
cute French lab assistant (Miranda Otto).

None of which gives you the slightest idea of the movie's screwball charm.
The writer, Charlie Kaufman, must be one madcap kinda guy. I imagine him
seeming to wear a funny hat even when he's not. His inventions here lead us
down strange comic byways, including Disneyesque song-and-dance numbers in
which the hairy Arquette dances nude with the cute little animals of the
forest. (Her hair, like Salome's veil, prevents us from seeing quite what we
think we're seeing, but the MPAA's eyeballs must have been popping out under
the strain.)

Early scenes show poor Nathan as a boy, at the dinner table with his parents
(Robert Forster and Mary Kay Place), where every meal involves as much
cutlery as a diplomatic feast, and using the wrong fork gets the child sent
to his room without eating. As an adult, Nathan dedicates his life to
training white mice to eat with the right silver, after the male mouse
politely pulls out the female mouse's chair for her.

Then he gets a really big challenge, when the ape-man (Ifans) comes into his
clutches. Nicknaming him Puff, Nathan keeps him in a Plexiglas cage in his
lab, and fits Puff with an electrified collar that jolts him with enough
juice to send him leaping spasmodically into the air every time he engages
in sexual behavior, which is constantly. Lila the hairy girl, meanwhile, has
turned herself over to a sympathetic electrologist (Rosie Perez), who fixes
her up with Nathan--who does not know she is covered with hair and, if he
did, would be sure it was bad manners.

The movie has nowhere much to go and nothing much to prove, except that
Stephen King is correct and if you can devise the right characters and the
right situation, the plot will take care of itself--or not, as the case may
be. Ifans is so dogged in the determination of his sex drive, despite the
electrical shocks, that when the professor sets his final examination at a
Hooters-type place, we're grinning before he gets inside the door.

The movie is the feature debut of Michel Gondry, who directed a lot of
Bjork's videos and therefore in a sense has worked with characters like
these before. His movie is slight without being negligible. If it tried to
do anything more, it would fail and perhaps explode, but at this level of
manic whimsy, it is just about right. You had better go alone, because in
any crowd of four, there will be three who find it over their heads, or
under their radar. They would really be better off attending "National
Lampoon's Van Wilder," unless you want to go to the trouble of having them
fitted with electric collars.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER / * (R)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:52:03 GMT

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER / * (R)

April 5, 2002

Van Wilder:      Ryan Reynolds
Gwen:          Tara Reid
Taj:               Kal Penn
Vance Wilder Sr.:      Tim Matheson
Casey:              Kim Smith
Richard Bagg:      Daniel Cosgrove
Elliot Grebb:      Tom Everett Scott
Timmy (The Jumper): Chris Owen
Artisan Entertainment presents a film directed by Walt Becker. Written by
Brent Goldberg and David Wagner. Running time: 92 minutes. Rated R (for
strong sexual content, gross humor, language and some drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

Watching "National Lampoon's Van Wilder," I grew nostalgic for the lost
innocence of a movie like "American Pie," in which human semen found itself
in a pie. In "NatLampVW," dog semen is baked in a pastry. Is it only a
matter of time until the heroes of teenage grossout comedies are injecting
turtle semen directly through their stomach walls?

"National Lampoon's Van Wilder," a pale shadow of "National Lampoon's Animal
House," tells the story of Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds), who has been the
Biggest Man on Campus for seven glorious undergraduate years. He doesn't
want to graduate, and why should he, since he has clout, fame, babes and the
adulation of the entire campus (except, of course, for the professor whose
parking space he swipes, and the vile fraternity boy who is his sworn
enemy). Van Wilder is essentially a nice guy, which is a big risk for a
movie like this to take; he raises funds for the swimming team, tries to
restrain suicidal students and throws legendary keg parties.

Ryan Reynolds is, I suppose, the correct casting choice for Van Wilder,
since the character is not a devious slacker but merely a Permanent Student.
That makes him, alas, a little boring, and Reynolds (from ABC's "Two Guys
and a Girl") brings along no zing: He's a standard leading man when the
movie cries out for a manic character actor. Jack Black in this role would
have been a home run.

Is Van Wilder too good to be true? That's what Gwen (Tara Reid) wonders.
She's a journ student who wants to do an in-depth piece about Van for the
campus paper. Of course she's the girlfriend of the vile frat boy, and of
course her investigation inspires her to admire the real Van Wilder while
deploring his public image. Tara Reid is remarkably attractive, as you may
remember from "Josie and the Pussycats" and "American Pie 2," but much of
the time, she simply seems to be imitating still photos of Renee Zellweger
smiling.

That leaves, let's see, Kal Penn as Taj, the Indian-American student who
lands the job as Van Wilder's assistant, and spends much of his time using a
stereotyped accent while reciting lists of synonyms for oral sex. I cannot
complain, since the hero's buddy in every movie in this genre is always a
sex-crazed zealot, and at least this film uses non-traditional casting.
(Casting directors face a Catch-22: They cast a white guy, and everybody
wants to know why he had to be white. So they cast an ethnic guy, and
everybody complains about the negative stereotype. Maybe the way out is to
cast the ethnic guy as the hero and the white guy as the horny doofus.)

The movie is a barfathon that takes full advantage of the apparent MPAA
guidelines in which you can do pretty much anything with bodily functions
except involve them in healthy sex. The movie contains semen, bare breasts
and butts, epic flatulence, bizarre forms of masturbation, public nudity,
projectile vomiting and an extended scene of explosive defecation with sound
effects that resemble the daily duties of the Port-a-Loo serviceman, in
reverse. There are also graphic shots of enormous testicles, which are
allowed under the National Geographic loophole, since they belong to Van
Wilder's pet bulldog. Presumably the MPAA would not permit this if it had
reason to believe there were dogs in the audience.

"On a scale of 1-10 shots of bourbon needed to make a pledge ralph," writes
Bob Patterson of the Web site Delusions of Adequacy, "this film will get a
very strong five from most college age film fans who are not offended by
vulgar humor. Older filmgoers who might be offended by such offerings are
encouraged to do something that is physically impossible (i.e., lift
yourself up by your bootstraps)."

Although this is obviously the review the movie deserves, I confess the
rating scale baffles me. Is it better or worse if a film makes you ralph?
Patterson implies that older filmgoers might be offended by vulgar humor.
There is a flaw in this reasoning: It is not age but humor that is the
variable.

Laughter for me was such a physical impossibility during "National Lampoon's
Van Wilder" that had I not been pledged to sit through the film, I would
have lifted myself up by my bootstraps and fled.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN / **** (Not Rated)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:52:05 GMT

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN / **** (Not Rated)

April 5, 2002

Luisa:    Maribel Verdu
Julio:    Gael Garcia Bernal
Tenoch:
     Diego Luna

IFC Films presents a film directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Written by Alfonso
Cuaron and Carlos Cuaron. In Spanish with English subtitles. Running time:
105 minutes. No MPAA rating.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Y Tu Mama Tambien" is described on its Web site as a "teen drama," which is
like describing "Moulin Rouge" as a musical. The description is technically
true but sidesteps all of the reasons to see the movie. Yes, it's about two
teenage boys and an impulsive journey with an older woman that involves
sexual discoveries. But it is also about the two Mexicos. And it is about
the fragility of life and the finality of death. Beneath the carefree road
movie that the movie is happy to advertise is a more serious level--and
below that, a dead serious level.

The movie, whose title translates as "And Your Mama, Too," is another
trumpet blast that there may be a New Mexican Cinema a-bornin'. Like "Amores
Perros," which also stars Gael Garcia Bernal, it is an exuberant exercise in
interlocking stories. But these interlock not in space and time, but in what
is revealed, what is concealed, and in the parallel world of poverty through
which the rich characters move.

The surface is described in a flash: Two Mexican teenagers named Tenoch and
Julio, one from a rich family, one middle class, are free for the summer
when their girlfriends go to Europe. At a wedding they meet Luisa, 10 years
older, the wife of a distant cousin; she's sexy and playful. They suggest a
weekend trip to the legendary beach named Heaven's Mouth. When her husband
cheats on her, she unexpectedly agrees, and they set out together on a lark.

This level could have been conventional but is anything but, as directed by
Alfonso Cuaron, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Carlos. Luisa
kids them about their sex lives in a lighthearted but tenacious way, until
they have few secrets left, and at the same time she teases them with erotic
possibilities. The movie is realistic about sex, which is to say, franker
and healthier than the smutty evasions forced on American movies by the R
rating. We feel a shock of recognition: This is what real people do and how
they do it, sexually, and the MPAA has perverted a generation of American
movies into puerile masturbatory snickering.

Whether Luisa will have sex with one or both of her new friends is not for
me to reveal. More to the point is what she wants to teach them, which is
that men and women learn to share sex as a treasure they must carry together
without something spilling--that women are not prizes, conquests or targets,
but the other half of a precarious unity. This is news to the boys, who are
obsessed with orgasms (needless to say, their own).

The progress of that story provides the surface arc of the movie. Next to
it, in a kind of parallel world, is the Mexico they are driving through.
They pass police checkpoints, see drug busts and traffic accidents, drive
past shanty towns, and are stopped at a roadblock of flowers by villagers
demanding a donation for their queen--a girl in bridal white, representing
the Virgin. "You have a beautiful queen," Luisa tells them. Yes, but the
roadblock is genteel extortion. The queen has a sizable court that quietly
hints a donation is in order.

At times during this journey the soundtrack goes silent and we hear a
narrator who comments from outside the action, pointing out the village
where Tenoch's nanny was born and left at 13 to seek work. Or a stretch of
road where, two years earlier, there was a deadly accident. The narration
and the roadside images are a reminder that in Mexico and many other
countries a prosperous economy has left an uneducated and penniless
peasantry behind.

They arrive at the beach. They are greeted by a fisherman and his family,
who have lived here for four generations, sell them fried fish, rent them a
place to stay. This is an unspoiled paradise. (The narrator informs us the
beach will be purchased for a tourist hotel, and the fisherman will abandon
his way of life, go to the city in search of a job and finally come back
here to work as a janitor.) Here the sexual intrigues which have been
developing all along will find their conclusion.

Beneath these two levels (the coming-of-age journey, the two Mexicos) is
hidden a third. I will say nothing about it, except to observe there are
only two shots in the entire movie that reflect the inner reality of one of
the characters. At the end, finally knowing everything, you think back
through the film--or, as I was able to do, see it again.

Alfonso Cuaron is Mexican but his second and third features were big-budget
American films. I thought "Great Expectations" (1998), with Ethan Hawke,
Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Bancroft, brought a freshness and visual excitement
to the updated story. I liked "A Little Princess" (1995) even more. It is
clear Cuaron is a gifted director, and here he does his best work to date.
Why did he return to Mexico to make it? Because he has something to say
about Mexico, obviously, and also because Jack Valenti and the MPAA have
made it impossible for a movie like this to be produced in America. It is a
perfect illustration of the need for a workable adult rating: too mature,
thoughtful and frank for the R, but not in any sense pornographic. Why do
serious film people not rise up in rage and tear down the rating system that
infantilizes their work?

The key performance is by Maribel Verdu as Luisa. She is the engine that
drives every scene she's in, as she teases, quizzes, analyzes and lectures
the boys, as if impatient with the task of turning them into beings fit to
associate with an adult woman. In a sense she fills the standard role of the
sexy older woman, so familiar from countless Hollywood comedies, but her
character is so much more than that--wiser, sexier, more complex, happier,
sadder. It is true, as some critics have observed, that "Y Tu Mama" is one
of those movies where "after that summer, nothing would ever be the same
again." Yes, but it redefines "nothing."

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From: Gene Ehrich <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [MV] ABOUT A BOY / ***1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 13 Jun 2002 18:04:58 -0400

At 08:50 PM 6/13/02 +0000, you wrote:
>ABOUT A BOY / ***1/2 (PG-13)
>
>May 17, 2002
>
>Will: Hugh Grant

Does this mailing list do anything other than send copied reviews?

Is there not discussion any more. If I wanted reviews I would get them from
IMDB or other online facilities.


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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING / **** (R)
Date: 14 Jun 2002 17:03:53 GMT

13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING / **** (R)

June 14, 2002

Troy: Matthew McConaughey
Gene: Alan Arkin
Walker: John Turturro
Beatrice: Clea DuVall
Patricia: Amy Irving
Helen: Barbara Sukowa
Dorrie: Tia Texada
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Jill Sprecher. Written by
Jill Sprecher and Karen Sprecher. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated R (for
language and brief drug use). Opening today at Evanston CineArts, Landmark
Century and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Happiness is the subject of "13 Conversations About One Thing." For that
matter, happiness is the subject of every conversation we ever have: the
search for happiness, the envy of happiness, the loss of happiness, the
guilt about undeserved happiness. The engine that drives the human
personality is our desire to be happy instead of sad, entertained instead of
bored, inspired instead of disillusioned, informed rather than ignorant. It
is not an easy business.

Consider Troy (Matthew McConaughey), the prosecutor who has just won a big
conviction. In the movie's opening scene, he's loud and obnoxious in a
saloon, celebrating his victory. He spots a sad-sack at the bar: Gene (Alan
Arkin), who seems to be pessimistic about the possibility of happiness. Gene
is a mid-level manager at an insurance company, has to fire someone, and
decides to fire Wade, the happiest man in the department, since he can see
the sunny side of anything.

Troy buys drinks for Gene. He wants everybody to be happy. Then he drives
drunk, hits a pedestrian with his car and believes he has killed her. As an
assistant district attorney he knows how much trouble he's in and
instinctively leaves the scene. His problem becomes an all-consuming guilt,
which spoils his ability to enjoy anything in life; he was cut in the
accident, and keeps the wound open with a razor blade, to punish himself.

The movie finds connections between people who think they are strangers,
finding the answer to one person's problem in the question raised by
another. We meet Walker (John Turturro), a sardonic college professor, who
walks out on his wife (Amy Irving) and begins an affair with a woman
(Barbara Sukowa). She realizes that the affair is hardly the point: Walker
is going through the motions because he has been told, and believes, that
this is how you find happiness. We also meet a house cleaner (Clea DuVall)
who is good at her job but works for a client who can only criticize. She is
injured for no reason at all, suffers great pain, does not deserve to.

The truth hidden below the surface of the story is a hard one: Nothing makes
any sense. We do not get what we deserve. If we are lucky, we get more. If
we are unlucky, we get less. Bad things happen to good people and good
things happen to bad people. That's the system. All of our philosophies are
a futile attempt to explain it. Let me tell you a story. Not long ago, I was
in the middle of a cheerful conversation when I slipped on wet wax, landed
hard, and broke bones in my left shoulder. I was in a fool's paradise of
happiness, you see, not realizing that I was working without a net--that in
a second my happiness would be rudely interrupted.

I could have hit my head and been killed. Or landed better and not been
injured. At best, what we can hope for is a daily reprieve from all of the
things that can go wrong. "13 Conversations About One Thing" is relentless
in the way it demonstrates how little we control our lives. We can choose
actions but we cannot plan outcomes. Follow, for example, the consequences
of Arkin's decision to fire the happy man, and then see what happens to
Arkin, and then see what happens to the happy man. Or watch as the
McConaughey character grants reality to something he only thinks he knows.
Or see how the Turturro character, so obsessed with his personal timetable,
so devoted to his daily and weekly routines, is able to arrange everything
to his satisfaction--and then is not satisfied.

The movie is brilliant, really. It is philosophy, illustrated through
everyday events. Most movies operate as if their events are necessary--that
B must follow A. "13 Conversations" betrays B, A and all the other letters
as random possibilities.

The film was directed by Jill Sprecher and written with her sister, Karen.
It's their second, after "Clockwatchers" (1997), the lacerating, funny story
about temporary workers in an office and their strategies to prove they
exist in a world that is utterly indifferent to them. After these two
movies, there aren't many filmmakers whose next film I anticipate more
eagerly. They're onto something. They're using films to demonstrate
something to us. Movies tell narratives, and the purpose of narrative is to
arrange events in an order that seems to make sense and end correctly. The
Sprechers are telling us if we believe in these narratives, we're only
fooling ourselves.

And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious
about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice
connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out.
If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CHERISH / *** (R)
Date: 14 Jun 2002 17:04:17 GMT

CHERISH / *** (R)

June 14, 2002

Zoe: Robin Tunney
Daly: Tim Blake Nelson
D.J.: Brad Hunt
Brynn: Liz Phair
Andrew: Jason Priestley
Max: Ricardo Gil
Fine Line Features presents a film written and directed by Finn Taylor.
Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for language).

BY ROGER EBERT

In most locked-room mysteries, the death takes place inside the room and the
hero tries to figure out how it was done. "Cherish" is a variation on the
theme: The death takes place outside the room, and then the heroine is
locked into it and has to find the killer without leaving. Throw in a love
story, a touch of "Run Lola Run" and a lot of Top 40 songs, and you have
"Cherish," a lightweight charmer with a winning performance by Robin Tunney.

She plays Zoe, the kind of clueless office worker that her co-workers subtly
try to avoid (I was reminded of the Shelley Duvall character in Robert
Altman's "Three Women"). She has a hopeless crush on co-worker Andrew (Jason
Priestley), and that leads her one night to a nightclub and to a fateful
encounter with a masked man who enters her car, steps on the accelerator,
mows down a cop, and then flees on foot.

Zoe is arrested for drunken vehicular homicide and several other things, and
given little hope by her attorney, who gets the case continued in hopes that
the heat will die down. The court orders her confined to a walk-up San
Francisco apartment, with a bracelet on her ankle that will sound alarms if
she tries to leave. In charge of the bracelet program: a nerdy technician
named Daly (Tim Blake Nelson, from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"), who tries
his best to keep everything on a businesslike footing.

By limiting Zoe to her apartment, the movie creates the opportunity to show
her fighting boredom, testing the limits of the bracelet, making friends
with Max (Ricardo Gil), the gay dwarf who lives downstairs. It also allows
her, through quite a coincidence, to be sure, to get a lead on that masked
man who is the real cop-killer. But since absolutely no one believes her
story about the masked man in the first place (and since her Breathalyzer
test was alarming), it's up to her to gather evidence and nail the
perp--all, apparently, without straying from her apartment.

How the movie manages to exploit and sidestep her limitations is a lot of
the fun. It's good, too, to see Zoe growing and becoming more real, shedding
the persona of office loser. And although as a general rule I deplore moves
that depend on chase scenes for a cheap third act, I concede that in a
locked room plot a chase scene of any description is a tour de force.

Tunney has a plucky charm that works nicely here; it's quite a shift from
her best movie, the overlooked "Niagara, Niagara" (1997), where she played a
runaway with Tourette's, and she needed considerable pluck, to be sure, to
play the mother of the Antichrist in "End of Days" (1999). Here she brings a
quiet goofiness to the role that is a much better choice than grim heroism
or calm competence or some of the other speeds she could have chosen. Nelson
is a case study as the kind of man who looks at a woman as if desperately
hoping to be handed an instruction manual. And I liked the fire and
ingenuity of Gil, as the little man downstairs.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SCOOBY-DOO / * (PG)
Date: 14 Jun 2002 17:04:55 GMT

SCOOBY-DOO / * (PG)

June 14, 2002

Shaggy: Matthew Lillard
Fred: Freddie Prinze Jr.
Daphne: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Velma: Linda Cardellini
Mondavarious: Rowan Atkinson
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Raja Gosnell. Written by
Craig Titley and James Gunn, based on characters created by Hanna-Barbera
Productions. Running time: 87 minutes. Rated PG.(for some rude humor,
language and some scary action).

BY ROGER EBERT

I am not the person to review this movie. I have never seen the "Scooby-Doo"
television program, and on the basis of the film I have no desire to start
now. I feel no sympathy with any of the characters, I am unable to judge
whether the live action movie is a better idea than the all-cartoon TV
approach, I am unable to generate the slightest interest in the plot, and I
laughed not a single time, although I smiled more than once at the animated
Scooby-Doo himself, an island of amusement in a wasteland of fecklessness.

What I can say, I think, is that a movie like this should in some sense be
accessible to a non-fan like myself. I realize every TV cartoon show has a
cadre of fans who grew up with it, have seen every episode many times and
are alert to the nuances of the movie adaptation. But those people, however
numerous they are, might perhaps find themselves going to a movie with
people like myself--people who found, even at a very young age, that the
world was filled with entertainment choices more stimulating than
"Scooby-Doo." If these people can't walk into the movie cold and understand
it and get something out of it, then the movie has failed except as an
in-joke.

As for myself, scrutinizing the screen helplessly for an angle of approach,
one thing above all caught my attention: the director, Raja Gosnell, has a
thing about big breasts. I say this not only because of the revealing
low-cut costumes of such principals as Sarah Michelle Gellar, but also
because of the number of busty extras and background players, who drift by
in crowd scenes with what Russ Meyer used to call "cleavage cantilevered on
the same principle that made the Sydney Opera House possible." Just as Woody
Allen's "Hollywood Ending" is a comedy about a movie director who forges
ahead even though he is blind, "Scooby-Doo" could have been a comedy about
how a Russ Meyer clone copes with being assigned a live-action adaptation of
a kiddie cartoon show.

I did like the dog. Scooby-Doo so thoroughly upstages the live actors that I
cannot understand why Warner Bros. didn't just go ahead and make the whole
movie animated. While Matthew Lillard, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Linda
Cardellini show pluck in trying to outlast the material, Freddie Prinze Jr.
seems completely at a loss to account for his presence in the movie, and the
squinchy-faced Rowan ("Mr. Bean") Atkinson plays the villain as a private
joke.

I pray, dear readers, that you not send me mail explaining the genius of
"Scooby-Doo" and attacking me for being ill-prepared to write this review. I
have already turned myself in. Not only am I ill-prepared to review the
movie, but I venture to guess that anyone who is not literally a member of a
"Scooby-Doo" fan club would be equally incapable. This movie exists in a
closed universe, and the rest of us are aliens. The Internet was invented so
that you can find someone else's review of "Scooby-Doo."

Start surfing.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE BELIEVER / *** (R)
Date: 14 Jun 2002 17:05:58 GMT

THE BELIEVER / *** (R)

June 14, 2002

Danny: Ryan Gosling
Carla: Summer Phoenix
Lina: Theresa Russell
Curtis: Billy Zane
Guy Danielsen: A.D. Miles
Fireworks Pictures presents a film directed by Henry Bean. Written by Bean
and Mark Jacobson. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence,
language and some sexual content).

BY ROGER EBERT

Censors feel they are safe with objectionable material but must protect
others who are not as smart or moral. The same impulse tempts the reviewer
of "The Believer." Here is a fiercely controversial film about a Jew who
becomes an anti-Semite. When I saw it at Sundance 2001, where it won the
Grand Jury Prize, I wrote "some feared the film could do more harm than
good." I shared those fears. The film's hero is so articulate in his
retailing of anti-Semitic beliefs that his words, I thought, might find the
wrong ears. I understand the film, I was saying--but are you to be trusted
with it?

Certainly the movie has been a hot potato. After a screening at the Simon
Wiesenthal Center inspired audience members to protest it, no major
distributor would pick it up. Showtime scheduled it for a cable showing,
which was canceled in the aftermath of 9/11. Then it was finally shown in
the spring and now has theatrical distribution from small Fireworks
Pictures. In the meantime, to its Sundance awards it has added Independent
Spirit Awards for best screenplay and best first feature (both to director
Henry Bean), best actor (Ryan Gosling) and best supporting actress (Summer
Phoenix). Few doubt it is a good film. But do we really need a movie, right
now, about a Jewish neo-Nazi?

I am not the person to answer that question for you. You have to answer it
for yourself. The film's anti-Semitism is articulate but wrong, and the
conflict between what the hero says and what he believes (or does not want
to believe) is at the very center of the story.

Gosling's character, named Danny Balint, is based on a real person. The
Jerusalem Report writes: "The film has its roots in a true story. Daniel
Burros was a nice Jewish boy from Queens who somehow went from being his
rabbi's star pupil to a hotheaded proponent of the long-defunct Third Reich.
After a stint in the Army, he became involved with the American Nazi Party
and the Ku Klux Klan. In 1965, following Burros' arrest at a KKK event in
New York City, the New York Times disclosed that he was Jewish. Hours after
the paper hit the stands, Burros took his own life."

In the film, Danny is seen as a bright young yeshiva student who gets into
impassioned arguments with his teachers. Why must Abraham sacrifice his son
Isaac? What kind of a God would require such an act? "A conceited bully,"
Danny decides. As a young man, Danny rejects his Orthodox upbringing,
confronts Jews on the street and in subway cars, beats and kicks one, and
expresses contempt for a race which, as he sees it, did not fight back
during the Holocaust. Eventually, he falls into the orbit of a neo-Nazi
organization run by Theresa Russell and Billy Zane, who are impressed by his
rhetoric but want him to dial down on the subject of Judaism: "It doesn't
play anymore."

For Danny, anti-Semitism and the self-hate it implies is the whole point; he
is uninterested in the politics of fascism. For Danny, the weakness of Jews
is what he sees as their willingness to be victims, and after a court
assigns him to an encounter group with Holocaust survivors, he bluntly asks
one why he didn't fight back. Israelis, he believes, are not Jews because
they own their own land and defend it, and therefore have transcended their
Jewishness. You can see this reasoning twisting back into his own unhappy
soul; he objects to Abraham taking instructions from God, and he objects to
taking instructions from his church. His values involve his muscles, his
fighting ability (both physical and rhetorical), his willingness to
confront. In some kind of sick way, he attacks Jews hoping to inspire one to
beat him up.

Ryan Gosling (who, incredibly, was a Mouseketeer contemporary of Brittney
Spears), is at 22 a powerful young actor. He recently starred in "Murder by
Numbers" as one of two young killers resembling Leopold and Loeb in their
desire to demonstrate their superiority by committing a perfect crime. In
"The Believer," he reminds us of Edward Norton in "American History X,"
another movie about a bright, twisted kid who is attracted to the
transgressive sickness of racism. The movie is not very convincing in its
portrayal of the fascist group (Zane and Russell seem less like zealots than
hobbyists), but his personal quest is real enough.

When he involves himself in a raid on a temple, there is a revealing
paradox: He resents the skinheads who come along with him because they don't
understand the traditions they are attacking. What good is it to desecrate
the Torah if you don't know what it is? He knows, and we begin to understand
that he cares. That he accepts Judaism in the very core of his soul, and
that his fight is against himself.

The ending of "The Believer," if not exactly open, is inconclusive, and this
is the kind of movie where you need to go budget in time afterwards for a
cup of coffee and some conversation. The movie is better at portraying
Danny's daily reality than at making sense of his rebellion (if sense can be
made), but perhaps the movie plus the discussion can add up to a useful
experience. Although his film needs more clarity and focus, Henry Bean has
obviously taken a big chance because of his own sincere concerns. And if the
wrong people get the wrong message--well, there has never been any shortage
of wrong messages. Or wrong people.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE BOURNE IDENTITY / *** (PG-13)
Date: 14 Jun 2002 17:06:45 GMT

THE BOURNE IDENTITY / *** (PG-13)

June 14, 2002

Jason Bourne: Matt Damon
Marie: Franka Potente
Ted Conklin: Chris Cooper
The Professor: Clive Owen
Ward Abbott: Brian Cox
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Doug Liman. Written by Tony
Gilroy and William Blake Herron. Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum.
Running time: 118 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for violence and some language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Bourne Identity" is a skillful action movie about a plot that exists
only to support a skillful action movie. The entire story is a set-up for
the martial arts and chases. Because they are done well, because the movie
is well-crafted and acted, we give it a pass. Too bad it's not about
something.

Well, perhaps it is. Perhaps it is about the amoral climate in spy agencies
like the CIA. There are no good guys in the movie--certainly not the hero,
played by Matt Damon, who is a trained assassin--and no bad guys, either.
Even the people who want to kill Damon are only doing their jobs. Just as
the guardians of the Navajo "Windtalkers" in another new movie are told to
kill their charges rather than let them fall into enemy hands, so is Bourne,
or whatever his name is, targeted for death after he fails to assassinate an
African leader. (There's a good possibility he would also be targeted if he
had succeeded.)

As the movie opens, a fisherman on a boat out of Marseilles spots a body
floating in what is obviously a studio back-lot tank. Hauled aboard, the
body turns out to be alive, to have two bullet wounds and to have a capsule
embedded under the skin, which contains the code to a Swiss bank account.
The friendly fisherman gives the rescued man (who doesn't remember who he
is) money to take the train to Switzerland, and he is welcomed in that
nation and withdraws a fortune from a bank despite lacking a name or any
form of personal identification.

Indeed, he finds out who he may be by looking inside the red bag from the
bank, where he finds several passports, one saying his name is Bourne.
Determined to find out his real name, and why he was floating in the
Mediterranean, Bourne pays $10,000 to a gypsy named Marie (Franka Potente
from "Run Lola Run") to drive him to Paris. Meanwhile, the movie cuts to CIA
headquarters in Virginia, where we meet Bourne's handler Conklin (Chris
Cooper), and his boss Abbott (Brian Cox). Bourne was thought to be dead. Now
that he is alive, he must be killed, and the assignment goes to a group of
CIA killers, especially the Professor (Clive Owen), who is as highly trained
as Bourne.

I forgot to say that Bourne is trained. Is he ever. He speaks several
languages, is a formidable martial artist, has highly trained powers of
observation and memory, knows all the spy tricks and is a formidable driver.
We see that during a sensational chase scene through the streets of Paris,
much of it through narrow alleys, down flights of steps, and against
traffic.

There comes a point at which we realize there will be no higher level to the
screenplay, no greater purpose than to expend this kinetic energy. The
movie's brutally cynical happy ending reveals that it doesn't take itself
seriously. And we catch on (sooner than Marie) that the girl stays in the
picture only because--well, there has to be a girl, to provide false
suspense and give the loner hero someone to talk to.

I kind of enjoyed "The Bourne Identity." I had to put my mind on hold, but I
was able to. I am less disturbed by action movies like this, which are
frankly about nothing, than by action movies like "Windtalkers," which
pretend to be about something and then cop out. Doug Liman, the director of
"Bourne," directs the traffic well, gets a nice wintry look from his
locations, absorbs us with the movie's spycraft and uses Damon's ability to
be focused and sincere. The movie is unnecessary, but not unskilled.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WINDTALKERS / ** (R)
Date: 14 Jun 2002 17:07:21 GMT

WINDTALKERS / ** (R)

June 14, 2002

Sgt. Joe Enders: Nicolas Cage
Pvt. Ben Yahzee: Adam Beach
Pvt. Charles Whitehorse: Roger Willie
Sgt. "Ox" Henderson: Christian Slater
Sgt. Eric "Gunny" Hjelmstad: Peter Stormare
Cprl. Charles "Chick" Rogers: Noah Emmerich
Pappas: Mark Ruffalo
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures presents a film directed by John Woo. Written
by John Rice and Joe Batteer. Running time: 134 minutes. Rated R (for
pervasive graphic war violence, and for language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Windtalkers" comes advertised as the saga of how Navajo Indians used their
language to create an unbreakable code that helped win World War II in the
Pacific. That's a fascinating, little-known story and might have made a good
movie. Alas, the filmmakers have buried it beneath battlefield cliches,
while centering the story on a white character played by Nicolas Cage. I was
reminded of "Glory," the story of heroic African-American troops in the
Civil War, which was seen through the eyes of their white commanding
officer. Why does Hollywood find it impossible to trust minority groups with
their own stories?

The film stars Cage as an Italian-American sergeant who is so gung-ho his
men look at him as if he's crazy. Maybe he is. After defending a position
past the point of all reason, he survives bloody carnage, is patched up in
Hawaii and returns to action in a battle to take Saipan, a key steppingstone
in the Pacific war. In this battle he is assigned as the personal watchdog
of Pvt. Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), an almost saintly Navajo. Sgt. Ox Henderson
(Christian Slater) is paired with Pvt. Charles Whitehorse (Roger Willie),
another Indian. What the Navajos don't know is that the bodyguards have been
ordered to kill them, if necessary, to keep them from falling into enemy
hands. The code must be protected at all costs.

This is a chapter of history not widely known, and for that reason alone the
film is useful. But the director, Hong Kong action expert John Woo, has less
interest in the story than in the pyrotechnics, and we get way, way, way too
much footage of bloody battle scenes, intercut with thin dialogue scenes
that rely on exhausted formulas. We know almost without asking, for example,
that one of the white soldiers will be a racist, that another will be a
by-the-books commanding officer, that there will be a plucky nurse who
believes in the Cage character, and a scene in which a Navajo saves the life
of the man who hates him. Henderson and Whitehorse perform duets for the
harmonica and Navajo flute, a nice idea, but their characters are so sketchy
it doesn't mean much.

The battle sequences are where Woo's heart lies, and he is apparently trying
to one-up "Saving Private Ryan," "We Were Soldiers" and the other new
entries in the ultraviolent, unapologetically realistic battle film
sweepstakes. Alas, the battles in "Windtalkers" play more like a video game.
Although Woo is Asian, he treats the enemy Japanese troops as pop-up
targets, a faceless horde of screaming maniacs who run headlong into
withering fire. Although Americans take heavy casualties (there is a point
at which we assume everyone in the movie will be killed), the death ratio is
about 30 to 1 against the Japanese. Since they are defending dug-in
positions and the Americans are often exposed, this seems unlikely.

The point of the movie is that the Navajos are able to use their code in
order to radio information, call in strikes and allow secret communication.
In the real war, I imagine, this skill was most useful in long-range
strategic radio communication. "Windtalkers" devotes minimal time to the
code talkers, however, and when they do talk, it's to phone in coordinates
for an air strike against big Japanese guns. Since these guns cannot be
moved before airplanes arrive, a call in English would have had about the
same effect. That Woo shows the Windtalkers in the heat of battle is
explained, I think, because he wants to show everything in the heat of
battle. The wisdom of assigning two precious code talkers to a small group
of front-line soldiers in a deadly hand-to-hand fight situation seems
questionable, considering there are only 400 Navajos in the Pacific theater.

The Indians are seen one-dimensionally as really nice guys. The only
character of any depth is Cage's Sgt. Enders, who seems to hover between
shell-shock and hallucinatory flashbacks. There is a final scene between
Enders and Yahzee, the Navajo, that reminded me of the male bonding in other
Woo movies, in which you may have to shoot the other guy to prove how much
you love him. But since the movie has labored to kill off all the supporting
characters and spare only the stars, we are in the wrong kind of suspense:
Instead of wondering which of these people will survive, we wonder which way
the picture will jump in retailing war-movie formulas.

There is a way to make a good movie like "Windtalkers," and that's to go the
indie route. A low-budget Sundance-style picture would focus on the Navajo
characters, their personalities and issues. The moment you decide to make
"Windtalkers" a big-budget action movie with a major star and lots of
explosions, flying bodies and stunt men, you give up any possibility that it
can succeed on a human scale. The Navajo code talkers have waited a long
time to have their story told. Too bad it appears here merely as a gimmick
in an action picture.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LILO & STITCH / ***1/2 (PG)
Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:17 GMT

LILO & STITCH / ***1/2 (PG)

June 21, 2002

Featuring the voices of:Lilo: Daveigh Chase
Stitch: Chris Sanders
David Kawena: Jason Scott Lee
Nani: Tia Carrere
Pleakley: Kevin McDonald
Mrs. Hasagawa Amy HillCobra Bubbles: Ving Rhames
Jumba: David Ogden Stiers
Walt Disney Pictures presents a film directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris
Sanders. Written by Sanders. Running time: 85 minutes. Rated PG.(for mild
sci-fi action).

BY ROGER EBERT

Only a week ago I deplored the wretched "Scooby-Doo" as a blight on the
nation's theaters. My fellow critics agreed. Checking the Web sites that
monitor reviews, I find that at RottenTomatoes.com the movie scored a 26, at
Metacritic.com a 27. Passing grade is 60. The American public effortlessly
shrugged off this warning cry and raced to the box office to throw away $54
million.

Now here comes a truly inspired animated feature named "Lilo & Stitch."
How will it do? It's one of the most charming feature-length cartoons of
recent years--funny, sassy, startling, original and with six songs by Elvis.
It doesn't get sickeningly sweet at the end, it has as much stuff in it for
grown-ups as for kids, and it has a bright offbeat look to it.

If "Scooby-Doo" grossed $54 million in its first weekend, then if there is
justice in the world, "Lilo & Stitch" will gross $200 million. But there
is not justice. There is a herd instinct. On Monday a man on an elevator
asked me what I thought about "Scooby-Doo." I said it was a very bad movie.
"My kids want to see it," he said. Yes, I said, because they've heard of
nothing else all week. But, I said, there is a much better animated family
film opening this weekend, named "Lilo & Stitch," that your kids are
sure to like much more than "Scooby-Doo," and you will enjoy it, too. Take
my word, I said; I do this for a living. Take the kids to "Lilo &
Stitch."

I could see from the man's eyes that he was rejecting my advice. How could I
possibly be right when $54 million said I was wrong? How could human taste
be a better barometer of movie quality than the success of a marketing
campaign? Prediction: This weekend, more parents and their children will
dutifully file into the idiotic wasteland of "Scooby-Doo" than will see the
inspired delights of "Lilo & Stitch."

That will be a shame. "Lilo & Stitch," produced by the same Disney team
that made "Mulan," is a toothy fantasy about an alien monster that
accidentally finds itself adopted as the pet of a little girl in Hawaii. The
creature, named Stitch (voice by Chris Sanders), was produced by an illegal
genetic mutation, and is so horrifyingly hostile that it's been locked up by
its inventors. It escapes to Earth, is mistaken for a very strange dog, and
adopted by Lilo (voice by Daveigh Chase), who essentially uses her innocence
and the aloha spirit to confuse and even civilize the creature.

This all takes place against a cheerful background of pop-culture
references, including scenes spoofing "Men in Black," "Jaws" and "Godzilla"
(with Stitch first building a model of San Francisco, then destroying it).
And the film firmly positions itself in Hawaii--both the Hawaii of tourist
kitsch, and the Hawaii of the aloha spirit. The plot revolves around
concepts of ohana, or family, since Lilo is being raised by her big sister,
Nani (voice by Tia Carrere), who is disorganized and not always a perfect
substitute mom, and is up against a disapproving social worker named Cobra
Bubbles (voice by Ving Rhames).

Nani works as a waitress in one of those "traditional" Hawaiian musical
revues, where her boyfriend David Kawena (Jason Scott Lee) is a fire dancer.
Lilo takes Stitch to the show, and Stitch is much confused, especially after
David sets the stage on fire, but even more confusing episodes are ahead, as
the little girl teaches her alien pal how to be an Elvis imitator.

Lilo and Stitch of course have trouble communicating, since Lilo is very
young and Stitch speaks no English, but the alien, who is a quick study,
picks up some words and, more important, some concepts that challenge its
existence as a destructive being. Lilo and Nani are learning, too, how to be
a family and take care of each other, but the movie doesn't get all soppy at
the end and is surprisingly unsentimental for a Disney animated feature. It
keeps its edge and its comic zest all the way through, and although it
arrives relatively unheralded, it's a jewel.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS / **1/2 (R)
Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:08 GMT

DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS / **1/2 (R)

June 21, 2002

Tim Sullivan: Kieran Culkin
Margie Flynn: Jena Malone
Francis Doyle: Emile Hirsch
Father Casey: Vincent D'Onofrio
Sister Assumpta: Jodie Foster
ThinkFilm presents a film directed by Peter Care. Written by Jeff Stockwell.
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated R (for language, sexual content and youth
substance abuse).

BY ROGER EBERT

There were times when "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" evoked memories of
my own Catholic school days--not to confirm the film, but to question it.
There is a way in which the movie accurately paints its young heroes,
obsessed with sex, rebellion and adolescence, and too many other times when
it pushes too far, making us aware of a screenplay reaching for effect. The
climax is so reckless and absurd that we can't feel any of the emotions that
are intended.

Yet this is an honorable film with good intentions. Set in a town in the
1970s, it tells the story of good friends at St. Agatha's School, who squirm
under the thumb of the strict Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster) and devise
elaborate plots as a rebellion against her. At the same time, the kids are
growing up, experimenting with smoking and drinking, and learning more about
sex than they really want to know.

The heroes are Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin) and Francis Doyle (Emile
Hirsch). We look mostly through Francis' eyes, as the boys and two friends
weave a fantasy world out of a comic book they collaborate on, called The
Atomic Trinity, with characters like Captain Asskicker and easily recognized
caricatures of Sister Assumpta and Father Casey (Vincent D'Onofrio), the
distracted, chain-smoking pastor and soccer coach who seems too moony to be
a priest.

The movie has a daring strategy for representing the adventures of the
Trinity: It cuts to animated sequences (directed by Todd McFarlane) that
cross the everyday complaints and resentments of the authors with the sort
of glorified myth-making and super-hero manufacture typical of Marvel comics
of the period. (These sequences are so well animated, with such visual flair
and energy, that the jerk back to the reality sequences can be a little
disconcerting.) The villainess in the book is Sister Nunzilla, based on
Sister Assumpta right down to her artificial leg.

Does the poor sister deserve this treatment? The film argues that she does
not, but is unconvincing. Sister Assumpta is very strict, but we are meant
to understand that she really likes and cares for her students. This is
conveyed in some of Jodie Foster's acting choices, but has no payoff,
because the kids apparently don't see the same benevolent expressions we
sometimes glimpse. If they are not going to learn anything about Sister
Assumpta's gentler side, then why must we?

The kids are supposed to be typical young adolescents, but they're so
rebellious, reckless and creative that we sense the screenplay nudging them.
Francis feels the stirrings of lust and (more dangerous) idealistic love,
inspired by his classmate Margie Flynn (Jena Malone), and they have one of
those first kisses that makes you smile. Then she shares a family secret
that is, I think, a little too heavy for this film to support, and creates a
dark cloud over all that follows.

If the secret is too weighty, so is the ending. The boys have been engaged
in an escalating series of pranks, and their final one, involving plans to
kidnap a cougar from the zoo and transport it to Sister Assumpta's living
quarters, is too dumb and dangerous for anyone, including these kids, to
contemplate. Their previous stunt was to steal a huge statue of St. Agatha
from a niche high on the facade of the school building, and this seems about
as far as they should go. The cougar is trying too hard, and leads to an
ending that doesn't earn its emotional payoff.

Another hint of the overachieving screenplay is the running theme of the
boys' fascination with William Blake's books Songs of Innocence and Songs of
Experience. I can believe that boys of this age could admire Blake, but not
these boys. And I cannot believe that Sister Assumpta would consider Blake a
danger. What we sense here is the writer, Jeff Stockwell, sneaking in
material he likes even though it doesn't pay its way. (There's one other
cultural reference in the movie, unless I'm seeing it where none was
intended: Early in the film, the boys blow up a telephone pole in order to
calculate when it will fall, and they stand just inches into the safe zone.
I was reminded of Buster Keaton, standing so that when a wall fell on him,
he was in the exact outline of an open window.)

The movie has qualities that cannot be denied. Jena Malone ("Donnie Darko,"
"Life as a House") has a solemnity and self-knowledge that seems almost to
stand outside the film. She represents the gathering weather of adulthood.
The boys are fresh and enthusiastic, and we remember how kids can share
passionate enthusiasms; the animated sequences perfectly capture the energy
of their imaginary comic book. Vincent D'Onofrio muses through the film on
his own wavelength, making of Father Casey a man who means well but has
little idea what meaning well would consist of. If the film had been less
extreme in the adventures of its heroes, more willing to settle for
plausible forms of rebellion, that might have worked. It tries too hard, and
overreaches the logic of its own world.

Note: The movie is rated R, consistent with the policy of the flywheels at
the MPAA that any movie involving the intelligent treatment of teenagers
must be declared off-limits for them.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] JUWANNA MANN / ** (PG-13)
Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:13 GMT

JUWANNA MANN / ** (PG-13)

June 21, 2002

Jamal/Juwanna Mann: Miguel A.     Nunez Jr.
Michelle Langford: Vivica A. Fox
Puff Smokey Smoke: Tommy     Davidson
Lorne Daniels: Kevin Pollak
Romeo: Ginuwine
Latisha Jansen: Kim Wayans
Tina Parker: Kimberly
: 'Lil Kim' Jones
Ricky: Omar J. Dorsey
Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Jesse Vaughan. Written by Bradley
Allenstein. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language and
sex-related material).

BY ROGER EBERT

Let us now consider predictability. Most of the time, I consider it an
insult to the audience. We can sense when a movie is on autopilot, and we
wonder, not unreasonably, why the filmmakers couldn't be bothered to try a
little harder. Then a movie like "Juwanna Mann" comes along and is
predictable to its very core, and in a funny way the predictability is part
of the fun. The movie is in on the joke of its own recycling.

How predictable is it? It begins with a pro basketball star who is thrown
out of the league (he gets so angry at a referee's call that he takes off
all of his clothes and flashes the audience). He's faced with foreclosure,
bankruptcy and the loss of all his commercial endorsements, is fired by his
manager, and has no skills except the ability to play basketball. In
desperation, he dresses in drag and passes himself off as "Juwanna Mann," a
female player, and is soon a star of the women's pro basketball league.

With that information in mind, there are scenes we can all predict: (1) A
date with an obnoxious man who doesn't know Juwanna is female. (2) Weird
times in the shower. (3) A crush on a beautiful teammate who likes Juwanna
as a friend but of course doesn't realize she's a man. (4) Unruly erections.
(5) Ill-disciplined falsies. We can also predict that Juwanna will lead her
team into the finals, become a big star, learn useful lessons about human
nature, be faced with a crisis and exposure, and emerge as a better person,
all of her problems solved, while the team wins the big game.

These predictable scenes are, I submit, inevitable. There is no way to make
this movie without them--not as a comedy, anyway. So the pleasure, if any,
must come from the performances, not the material. Up to a point, it does.
Although "Juwanna Mann" is not a good movie, it isn't a painful experience,
and Miguel A. Nunez Jr. is plausible as Juwanna, not because he is able to
look like a woman, but because he is able to play a character who thinks he
can look like a woman.

Vivica A. Fox plays Michelle, the teammate who Juwanna falls in love with,
and it is a challenging assignment, because almost all her dialogue needs to
be taken two ways. Screenplay gimmicks like this are hard for actors,
because if they are too sincere they look like chumps, and if they seem to
be grinning sideways at the audience, they spoil the illusion. Fox finds the
right tone and sticks to it; there is skilled professionalism at work, even
in a rent-a-plot like this.

Since the entire movie is of course completely implausible, it seems unkind
to single out specific examples of implausibility. But there's a difference
between the implausibility of the basic gimmick (man passing as a woman) and
the implausibility of plot details within the gimmick. The most obvious
comes at the end, when Juwanna is exposed as a man. The movie deals with
that exposure but ignores another fact that almost every audience member
will pick up on: If Juwanna's team played the season with an ineligible
player, doesn't it have to forfeit all of its games?

We aren't supposed to ask questions like that, I suppose, but there's
another glitch that stands out because the movie insists on it. Early in the
film, Juwanna is informed that dunking is illegal in the women's league.
Late in the film, she wins a game with a last-second dunk. Say what? Has
everyone in the league forgotten the rules?

Such glitches would matter more, I suppose, if the movie were serious. In a
comedy, they're distractions, suggesting the filmmakers either weren't
playing attention or didn't care. I can't recommend "Juwanna Mann" and yet I
admire the pluck of the actors, especially Nunez, Fox and Tommy Davidson, as
a spectacularly ineligible lothario, and I liked the way Kevin Pollack
soldiers away as the manager who must be perpetually offended, astonished or
frustrated. "Juwanna Mann" is unnecessary, but not painful.

Hollywood never flags in its lack of invention; on July 3, we'll get Lil'
Bow Wow in "Like Mike," as a small kid who stars in the NBA, with many of
the same jokes appropriately adapted. What's next? A dog that plays
basketball? Only joking. We've already had that one.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MINORITY REPORT / **** (PG-13)
Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:22 GMT

MINORITY REPORT / **** (PG-13)

June 21, 2002

John Anderton: Tom Cruise
Agatha: Samantha Morton
Director Burgess: Max von Sydow
Danny Witwer: Colin Farrell
Gideon: Tim Blake Nelson
Twentieth Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures present a film directed by
Steven Spielberg. Written by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen. Based on a short
story by Philip K. Dick. Running time: 145 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content).

BY ROGER EBERT

At a time when movies think they have to choose between action and ideas,
Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" is a triumph--a film that works on our
minds and our emotions. It is a thriller and a human story, a movie of ideas
that's also a whodunit. Here is a master filmmaker at the top of his form,
working with a star, Tom Cruise, who generates complex human feelings even
while playing an action hero.

I complained earlier this summer of awkward joins between live action and
CGI; I felt the action sequences in "Spider-Man" looked too cartoonish, and
that "Star Wars Episode II," by using computer effects to separate the human
actors from the sets and CGI characters, felt disconnected and sterile. Now
here is Spielberg using every trick in the book and matching them without
seams, so that no matter how he's achieving his effects, the focus is always
on the story and the characters.

The movie turns out to be eerily prescient, using the term "pre-crime" to
describe stopping crimes before they happen; how could Spielberg have known
the government would be using the same term this summer? In his film,
inspired by but much expanded from a short story by Philip K. Dick, Tom
Cruise is John Anderton, chief of the Department of Pre-Crime in the
District of Columbia, where there has not been a murder in six years. Soon,
it appears, there will be a murder--committed by Anderton himself.

The year is 2054. Futuristic skyscrapers coexist with the famous Washington
monuments and houses from the 19th century. Anderton presides over an
operation controlling three "Pre-Cogs," precognitive humans who drift in a
flotation tank, their brain waves tapped by computers. They're able to pick
up thoughts of premeditated murders and warn the cops, who swoop down and
arrest the would-be perpetrators before the killings can take place.

Because this is Washington, any government operation that is high-profile
and successful inspires jealousy. Anderton's superior, bureau director
Burgess (Max von Sydow) takes pride in him, and shields him from bureaucrats
like Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell), from the Justice Department. As the
pre-crime strategy prepares to go national, Witwer seems to have doubts
about its wisdom--or he is only jealous of its success?

Spielberg establishes these characters in a dazzling future world, created
by art director Alex McDowell, that is so filled with details large and
small that we stop trying to figure out everything and surrender with a
sigh. Some of the details: a computer interface that floats in mid-air,
manipulated by Cruise with the gestures of a symphony conductor;
advertisements that crawl up the sides of walls and address you personally;
cars that whisk around town on magnetic cushions; robotic "spiders" that can
search a building in minutes by performing a retinal scan on everyone in it.
"Blade Runner," also inspired by a Dick story, shows a future world in
decay; "Minority Report" offers a more optimistic preview.

The plot centers on a rare glitch in the visions of the Pre-Cogs. Although
"the Pre-Cogs are never wrong," we're told, "sometimes ... they disagree."
The dissenting Pre-Cog is said to have filed a minority report, and in the
case of Anderton the report is crucial, because otherwise he seems a certain
candidate for arrest as a pre-criminal. Of course, if you could outsmart the
Pre-Cog system, you would have committed the perfect crime ...

Finding himself the hunted instead of the hunter, Anderton teams up with
Agatha (Samantha Morton), one of the Pre-Cogs, who seemed to be trying to
warn him of his danger. Because she floats in a fluid tank, Agatha's muscles
are weakened (have Pre-Cogs any rights of their own?) and Anderton has to
half-drag her as they flee from the pre-crime police. One virtuoso sequence
shows her foreseeing the immediate future and advising Anderton about what
to do to elude what the cops are going to do next. The choreography, timing
and wit of this sequence make it, all by itself, worth the price of
admission.

But there are other stunning sequences. Consider a scene where the "spiders"
search a rooming house, and Anderton tries to elude capture by immersing
himself in a tub of ice water. This sequence begins with an overhead
cross-section of the apartment building and several of its inhabitants, and
you would swear it has to be done with a computer, but no: This is an actual
physical set, and the elegant camera moves were elaborately choreographed.
It's typical of Spielberg that, having devised this astonishing sequence, he
propels it for dramatic purposes and doesn't simply exploit it to show off
his cleverness. And watch the exquisite timing as one of the spiders, on its
way out, senses something and pauses in mid-step.

Tom Cruise's Anderton is an example of how a star's power can be used to add
more dimension to a character than the screenplay might supply. He compels
us to worry about him, and even in implausible action sequences (like falls
from dizzying heights) he distracts us by making us care about the logic of
the chase, not the possibility of the stunt.

Samantha Morton's character (is "Agatha" a nod to Miss Christie?) has few
words and seems exhausted and frightened most of the time, providing an
eerie counterpoint for Anderton's man of action. There is poignancy in her
helplessness, and Spielberg shows it in a virtuoso two-shot, as she hangs
over Anderton's shoulder while their eyes search desperately in opposite
directions. This shot has genuine mystery. It has to do with the composition
and lighting and timing and breathing, and like the entire movie it furthers
the cold, frightening hostility of the world Anderton finds himself in. The
cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, who has worked with Spielberg before (not
least on "Schindler's List"), is able to get an effect that's powerful and
yet bafflingly simple.

The plot I will avoid discussing in detail. It is as ingenious as any film
noir screenplay, and plays fair better than some. It's told with such
clarity that we're always sure what Spielberg wants us to think, suspect and
know. And although there is a surprise at the end, there is no cheating: The
crime story holds water.

American movies are in the midst of a transition period. Some directors
place their trust in technology. Spielberg, who is a master of technology,
trusts only story and character, and then uses everything else as a workman
uses his tools. He makes "Minority Report" with the new technology; other
directors seem to be trying to make their movies from it. This film is such
a virtuoso high-wire act, daring so much, achieving it with such grace and
skill. "Minority Report" reminds us why we go to the movies in the first
place.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE FAST RUNNER / (ATANARJUAT) / **** (Not rated)
Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:12 GMT

THE FAST RUNNER / (ATANARJUAT) / **** (Not rated)

June 28, 2002

Atanarjuat: Natar Ungalaaq
Amaqjuaq: Pakkak Innukshuk
Atuat: Sylvia Ivalu
Oki: Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq
Lot 47 Films presents a film directed by Zacharias Kunuk. Written by Paul
Apak Angilirq. In Inuktitut with English subtitles. Running time: 172
minutes. No MPAA rating. Opening today at Landmark Century and Landmark
Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

We could begin with the facts about "The Fast Runner." It is the first film
shot in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit peoples who live within the
Arctic Circle. It was made with an Inuit cast, and a 90-percent Inuit crew.
It is based on a story that is at least 1,000 years old. It records a way of
life that still existed within living memory.

Or we could begin with the feelings. The film is about romantic tensions
that lead to tragedy within a small, closely knit community of people who
depend on one another for survival, surrounded by a landscape of ice and
snow. It shows how people either learn to get along under those
circumstances, or pay a terrible price.

Or we could begin with the lore. Here you will see humans making a living in
a world that looks, to us, like a barren wasteland. We see them fishing,
hunting, preparing their kill, scraping skins to make them into clothing,
tending the lamps of oil that illuminate their igloos, harvesting the wild
crops that grow in the brief summertime, living with the dogs that pull
their sleds.

Or we could begin with the story of the film's production. It was shot with
a high-definition digital video camera, sidestepping the problems that
cinematographers have long experienced while using film in temperatures well
below zero. Its script was compiled from versions of an Inuit legend told by
eight elders. The film won the Camera d'Or, for best first film, at Cannes,
and was introduced at Telluride by the British stage director Peter Sellars;
telling the story of its origin, he observed, "In most cultures, a human
being is a library."

We could begin in all of those ways, or we could plunge into the film
itself, an experience so engrossing it is like being buried in a new
environment. Some find the opening scene claustrophobic. It takes place
entirely inside an igloo, the low lighting provided only by oil lamps, most
of the shots in closeup, and we do not yet know who all the characters are.
I thought it was an interesting way to begin: To plunge us into this
community and share its warmth as it shelters against the cold, and then to
open up and tell its story.

We meet two brothers, Amaqjuaq (Pakkak Innukshuk), known as the Strong One,
and Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq), known as the Fast Runner. They are part of
a small group of Inuit including the unpleasant Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq),
whose father is the leader of the group. There is a romantic problem. Oki
has been promised Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), but she and Atanarjuat are in love.
Just like in Shakespeare. In the most astonishing fight scene I can recall,
Atanarjuat challenges Oki, and they fight in the way of their people: They
stand face to face, while one solemnly hits the other, there is a pause, and
the hit is returned, one blow after another, until one or the other falls.

Atanarjuat wins, but it is not so simple. He is happy with Atuat, but
eventually takes another wife, Puja (Lucy Tulugarjuk), who is pouty and
spoiled and put on earth to cause trouble. During one long night of the
midnight sun, she is caught secretly making love to Amaqjuaq, and banished
from the family. It is, we gather, difficult to get away with adultery when
everybody lives in the same tent.

Later there is a shocking murder. Fleeing for his life, Atanarjuat breaks
free, and runs across the tundra--runs and runs, naked. It is one of those
movie sequences you know you will never forget.

At the end of the film, over the closing titles, there are credit cookies
showing the production of the film, and we realize with a little shock that
the film was made now, by living people, with new technology. There is a way
in which the intimacy of the production and the 172-minute running time lull
us into accepting the film as a documentary of real life. The actors, many
of them professional Inuit performers, are without affect or guile: They
seem sincere, honest, revealing, as real people might, and although the
story involves elements of melodrama and even soap opera, the production
seems as real as a frozen fish.

I am not surprised that "The Fast Runner" has been a box office hit in its
opening engagements. It is unlike anything most audiences will ever have
seen, and yet it tells a universal story. What's unique is the patience it
has with its characters: The willingness to watch and listen as they reveal
themselves, instead of pushing them to the front like little puppets and
having them dance through the story. "The Fast Runner" is passion, filtered
through ritual and memory.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES / *** (PG)
Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:11 GMT

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES / *** (PG)

June 28, 2002

Napoleon/Eugene: Ian Holm
Pumpkin: Iben Hjejle
Dr. Lambert: Tim McInnerny
Gerard: Tom Watson
Paramount Classics presents a film directed by Alan Taylor. Written by
Taylor, Kevin Molony and Herbie Wave. Based on the novel The Death of
Napoleon by Simon Leys. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG.(for brief
language). Opening today at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark
Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Napoleon did not die on the island of St. Helena in 1821. That was Eugene
Lenormand, who looked a lot like him. "The Emperor's New Clothes," a
surprisingly sweet and gentle comedy, tells how it happened. Lenormand is
smuggled onto St. Helena to act as a double for the Emperor, who is smuggled
off as a cargo hand on a commercial ship ("A position above decks would have
been more appropriate"). The theory is, he will arrive in Paris, the
impostor will reveal his true identity, and France will rise up to embrace
the emperor.

"So many have betrayed me," Napoleon announces grandly at the outset of this
adventure. "I place my trust in only two things now: My will, and the love
of the people of France." He forgets that he has also placed his trust in
Eugene Lenormand--a poor man who grows to enjoy the role of Napoleon, is
treated well by his British captors, dines regularly, and refuses to reveal
his real identity: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Both Napoleon and Lenormand are played by Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins from "Lord
of the Rings"), that invaluable British actor who actually looks so much
like Napoleon he has played him twice before, in "Time Bandits" (1981) and
on a 1974 TV mini-series. Another actor might have strutted and postured,
but Holm finds something melancholy in Bonaparte's fall from grace.

To begin with, the escape ship goes astray, lands at Antwerp instead of a
French port, and Napoleon has to use his limited funds for a coach journey
with an unscheduled stop at the battlefield of Waterloo--where he can, if he
wants, buy souvenirs of himself. Finally in Paris, he goes to see a loyalist
named Truchaut, who will engineer the unveiling. Truchaut, alas, has died,
and so confidentially had he treated his secret that not even his widow,
Pumpkin (Iben Hjejle from "High Fidelity"), knows the story.

She has no sympathy with this madman who claims to be Napoleon. There is no
shortage of those in Paris. But after he injures himself she calls a doctor,
and grows tender toward this little man, and insightful: "I think you've
been in prison." During his convalescence, Napoleon comes to treasure the
pleasant young widow, and learns of a guild of melon-sellers who are barely
making a living. Planning their retail sales like a military campaign, he
dispatches melon carts to the key retail battlefields of Paris, greatly
increasing sales.

The story, inspired by Simon Leys' 1992 novel The Death of Napoleon, could
have gone in several directions; it's not hard to imagine the Monty Python
version. But Holm, an immensely likable actor, seems intrigued by the idea
of an old autocrat finally discovering the joys of simple life. The
director, Alan Taylor, avoids obvious gag lines and nudges Bonaparte
gradually into the realization that the best of all worlds may involve
selling melons and embracing Pumpkin.

Of course there must have been countless people in Paris at that time who
could have identified Napoleon--but how could he have gotten close enough to
them? The government was hostile to him. The British insisted they had the
emperor locked up on St. Helena. And at home, Pumpkin wants no more of his
foolish talk: "You're not Napoleon! I hate Napoleon! He has filled France
with widows and orphans! He took my husband. I won't let him take you."

For Napoleon, this last adventure is a puzzling one: "I have become a
stranger to myself." But who knows who we are, anyway? We affix names and
identities to ourselves to provide labels for the outside world. When the
labels slip, how can we prove they belong to us?

Like a modern victim of identity theft, Napoleon has had his name taken
away, and is left as nothing. Well, not nothing. Pumpkin loves him. And the
melon merchants are grateful.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CINEMA PARADISO: / THE NEW VERSION / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:00 GMT

CINEMA PARADISO: / THE NEW VERSION / ***1/2 (R)

June 28, 2002

Alfredo: Philippe Noiret
Salvatore (young): Salvatore     Cascio
Salvatore (teenager): Marco     Leonardi
Elena (teenager): Agnese Nano
Salvatore (adult): Jacques Perrin
Elena (adult): Brigitte Fossey
Miramax Films presents a longer version of the original film, written and
directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. Running time: 170 minutes. Rated R (for some
sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

When "Cinema Paradiso" won the Academy Award as best foreign film in 1990,
it was an open secret that the movie the voters loved was not quite the same
as the one director Giuseppe Tornatore made. Reports had it that Harvey
Weinstein, the boss at Miramax, had trimmed not just a shot here or there,
but a full 51 minutes from the film. Audiences loved the result, however,
and the movie is consistently voted among the 100 best movies of all time at
the Internet Movie Database.

Now comes a theatrical release of "Cinema Paradiso: The New Version," with
an ad campaign that promises, "Discover what really happened to the love of
a lifetime." Considering that it was Miramax that made it impossible for us
to discover this in the 1988 version, the ad is sublime chutzpah. And the
movie is now so much longer, and covers so much more detail, that it almost
plays as its own sequel.

Most of the first two hours will be familiar to lovers of the film. Little
Salvatore (Salvatore Cascio), known to one and all as Toto, is fascinated by
the movies and befriended by the projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret).
After a fire blinds Alfredo, Toto becomes the projectionist, and the Cinema
Paradiso continues as the center of village life, despite the depredations
of Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste), who censors all of the films, ringing
a bell at every kissing scene.

The new material of the longer version includes much more about the teenage
romance between Salvatore (Marco Leonardi) and Elena (Agnese Nano)--a
forbidden love, since her bourgeoisie parents have a better match in mind.
And then there is a long passage involving the return of the middle-aged
Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) to the village for the first time since he left
to go to Rome and make his name as a movie director. He contacts the adult
Elena (Brigitte Fossey), and finds out for the first time what really
happened to a crucial rendezvous, and how easily his life might have turned
out differently. (His discoveries promote the film to an MPAA rating of R,
from its original PG.)

Seeing the longer version is a curious experience. It is an item of faith
that the director of a film is always right, and that studios who cut films
are butchers. Yet I must confess that the shorter version of "Cinema
Paradiso" is a better film than the longer. Harvey was right. The 170-minute
cut overstays its welcome, and continues after its natural climax.

Still, I'm happy to have seen it--not as an alternate version, but as the
ultimate exercise in viewing deleted scenes. Anyone who loves the film will
indeed be curious about "what really happened to the love of a lifetime,"
and it is good to know. I hope, however, that this new version doesn't
replace the old one on the video shelves; the ideal solution would be a DVD
with the 1988 version on one side and the 2002 version on the other.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HOME MOVIE / *** (R)
Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:02 GMT

HOME MOVIE / *** (R)

June 28, 2002

Featuring: Linda Beech, Francis Mooney, Diana Peden, Ed Peden, Darlene
Satrinano, Ben Skora, Bill Tregle, Bob Walker. Cowboy Releasing presents a
documentary directed by Chris Smith. Running time: 65 minutes. Rated R (for
language). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

The five homes in Chris Smith's "Home Movie" are no doubt strange and
eccentric. Not everyone would choose to live on a houseboat in alligator
country, or in a missile silo, or in a tree house, or in a house modified
for the comfort of dozens of cats, or in a house that looks like Rube
Goldberg running berserk.

But what is a normal house, anyway? In "The Fast Runner," we see a
civilization that lives in igloos. In "Taiga," we visit the yurt dwellers of
Outer Mongolia. Their homes are at least functional, economical and organic
to the surrounding landscape. It's possible that the most bizarre homestyles
on Earth are those proposed by Martha Stewart, which cater to the neuroses
of women with paralyzing insecurity. What woman with a secure self-image
could possibly dream of making those table decorations?

The five subjects of "Home Movie" at least know exactly why they live where
they do and as they do, and they do not require our permission or approval.
There is Bill Tregle, whose Louisiana houseboat is handy for his occupation
of trapping, selling and exhibiting alligators. He catches his dinner from a
line tossed from the deck, has electric lights, a microwave and a TV powered
by generator, pays no taxes, moves on when he feels like it, and has
decorated his interior with the treasures of a lifetime.

Or consider the Pedans, Ed and Diana, who live in a converted missile silo.
The concrete walls are so thick that they can have "tornado parties," and
there's an easy commute down a buried tunnel from the living space to the
work space. True, they had to build a greenhouse on the surface to get some
sun or watch the rain, because otherwise, Diana observes, it's too easy to
stay underground for days or weeks at a time. Their living room is the
silo's former launch center--interesting karma.

Linda Beech speaks little Japanese, yet once starred on a Japanese soap
opera. Now she lives in the Hawaiian rain forest, in a tree house equipped
with all the comforts of home. To be sure, family photos tend toward mildew,
but think of the compensations, such as her own waterfall, which provides
hydroelectric power for electricity, and also provides her favorite
meditation spot, on a carefully positioned "water-watching rock." She can't
imagine anyone trying to live without their own waterfall.

Bob Walker and Francis Mooney have dozens of cats. They've renovated the
inside of their house with perches, walkways and tunnels, some of them
linking rooms, others ending in hidey-holes. They speculate about how much
less their house is worth today than when they purchased it, but they're
serene: They seem to live in a mutual daze of cat-loving. The cats seem
happy, too.

Ben Skora lives in a suburb of Chicago. His house is an inventor's
hallucination. Everything is automatic: The doors, which open like
pinwheels, the toilets, the lights, the furniture. The hardest task, living
in his house, must be to remember where all the switches are, and what they
govern. He also has a remote-controlled robot that is a hit at shopping
malls. The robot will bring him a can of pop, which is nice, although the
viewer may reflect that it is easier to get a can out of the refrigerator
than build a robot to do it for you. Skora's great masterwork is a ski jump
that swoops down from his roof.

Are these people nuts? Who are we to say? I know people whose lives are
lived in basement rec rooms. Upstairs they have a living room with the lamps
and sofas still protected with the plastic covers from the furniture store.
What is the purpose of this room? To be a Living Room Museum? What event
will be earth-shaking enough to require the removal of the covers? Do they
hope their furniture will appreciate in value?

There is no philosophy, so far as I can tell, behind Chris Smith's film. He
simply celebrates the universal desire to fashion our homes for our needs
and desires. Smith's previous doc was the great "American Movie," about the
Wisconsin man who wanted to make horror movies, and did, despite all
obstacles. Perhaps the message is the same: If it makes you happy and allows
you to express your yearnings and dreams, who are we to enforce the rules of
middle-class conformity?

Note: "Home Movie," 65 minutes long, had been linked with "Heavy Metal
Parking Lot," a time capsule doc shot in the parking lot outside a Judas
Priest concert in 1986. The band's fans, zonked on strange substances, seem
to have no homes at all, and to live entirely in the now, as stoned
worshippers at the shrine of their own bewilderment.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] IVANS XTC. / **** (Not rated)
Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:04 GMT

IVANS XTC. / **** (Not rated)

June 28, 2002

Ivan Beckman: Danny Huston
Danny McTeague: James Merendino
Marie Stein: Tiffani-Amber Thiessen
Francesca Knight: Heidi Jo Markel
Don West: Peter Weller
Charlotte White: Lisa Enos
Marcia Beckman: Joanne Duckman
Rhino Films presents a film directed by Bernard Rose. Written by Rose and
Lisa Enos. Based on The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy. Running time:
94 minutes. No MPAA rating (intended for adults).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is much sadness but little mourning at the funeral of Ivan Beckman.
All agree he brought about his own death. He had few close friends. It is
said he died from cancer. Insiders whisper, "The cancer is a cover story."
You know you have lived your life carelessly when cancer is your cover
story.

"ivans xtc.," a remarkable film by Bernard Rose, stars Danny Huston, the
rich-voiced, genial, tall son of John Huston, as a powerful Hollywood agent
whose untidy personal life becomes a legend. Cocaine was the solution to his
problems, which were caused by cocaine. He is headed for a shipwreck anyway,
when the diagnosis of lung cancer comes, but instead of looking for medical
help, he bulldozes ahead with cocaine, denial and call girls.

The film opens with his funeral. There is a fight between a writer fired
from a new movie, and the star (Peter Weller) who fired him. Their
disagreement cannot wait upon death. In a voiceover, we hear the voice of
the dead agent, who says that at the end, "the pain was so bad I took every
pill in the house." And he tried, he says, "to find one simple image to get
me through it."

The story of the making of "ivans xtc." is the story of how a lot of movies
can now be made, according to Bernard Rose, its director.

Because of its controversial subject matter and because the Hollywood
establishment has no wish to fund the thinly veiled story of the death of
one of its own, the movie could not find conventional financing.

"So we went ahead and filmed it anyway," Rose told me after the film's
screening at Cannes 2001. "We got a 24-fps digital video camera, and we shot
it in our own homes, and the crew was the cast and the cast was the crew and
we took care of catering by calling for carry-out."

Rose, 42, is the British-born director of a number of commercial hits,
notably "Candyman" (1992) and "Immortal Beloved" (1995), and he is known for
the power of his visual imagery. In "Paperhouse" (1988), he created a real
landscape based on a child's imaginary drawings. In "Immortal Beloved," a
boy runs through the woods at night and plunges into a lake, floating on his
back as the camera pulls back to show him surrounded by the reflections of
countless stars.

"ivans xtc.," made on a $500,000 budget, did not support or require such
images. Produced by Lisa Enos, who also stars in it, it was directed by Rose
on high-def video, which looks--appropriate, I think is the word. Some shots
are beautiful, others are functional, and there are no shots that do not
work.

"We finished the movie, we took it to Artisan Entertainment, and we made a
deal," he said. "A fifty-fifty split of all the proceeds from dollar one. It
was made so cheaply that we'll make out and so will they."

Does he wish he'd had film? "It's no use saying you'd rather have film,
because this project on film could not have existed."

Roger Ebert

Then we flash back through his life, as Ivan appears onscreen, one of those
charming but unknowable men who have perfect courtesy, who lean forward with
the appearance of great attention, and whose minds seem to be otherwise
involved. As it happens, that is precisely the impression I had of John
Huston on the three or four occasions when I met him: He was a shade too
courteous, too agreeable, too accommodating, leaning forward too attentively
from his great height, and I felt that he was playing a nice man while
thinking about other things.

Danny Huston plays Ivan Beckman as the sort of man who believes he cannot be
touched. Who has been given a pass. To whom all things come because they
must, and for whom addictions like cocaine do not bring the usual ravages. I
am told that if you have enough money for enough cocaine you can hold out
like that for quite a while, which is not good, because you are building up
a deficit in your mind and body that eventually cannot be repaid.

When Ivan doesn't return phone calls, when he doesn't appear at the office,
when clients can't find him, he doesn't get in the same kind of trouble that
a less legendary agent might experience, because--well, that's Ivan. When
his girlfriend Charlotte (Lisa Enos) can't find him, and then discovers he
was partying with hookers--well, who did she think he was when she started
going out with him. Surely she heard the stories? Surely this doesn't come
as news? When his bosses grow restless at his irresponsibility--hey, he has
the big client list. If the clients like him, then the agency must.

The diagnosis of cancer comes like a telegram that should have been
delivered next door. It is the final, irrefutable reply to his feeling of
immunity. There are two painful scenes where he tries, in one way or
another, to deal with this news. One comes in a meeting with his father,
whose ideas have made him a stranger. One comes during a party with two call
girls, who are happy with the money, happy with the cocaine, happy to be
with Ivan Beckman, and then increasingly unhappy and confused as their
services are needed, not to pretend, but to be real. You cannot hire someone
to really care about you.

The movie is allegedly inspired by The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy.
I say "allegedly," because Bernard Rose has charged that the powerful
Creative Artists Agency tried to prevent the film, seeing it as a
transparent version of the life of Jay Moloney, an agent who at one time (I
learn from a news story) represented Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg,
Bill Murray, Uma Thurman, Tim Burton--and Rose himself. Fired from CAA in
1996 because of cocaine, the story says, he moved to the Caribbean and
killed himself in 1999.

Well, the story could be based on a lot of lives. The parabola of serious
addiction often looks a lot the same. If the victim has more money, the
settings are prettier. The tragedy of Ivan Beckman is that he doesn't know
how to call for help, and has no one to call if he did. It is important to
recognize that he is not a bad man. He can be charming, does not wish to
cause harm, is grateful for company, and, as such people like to say, "If
I'm hurting anybody, I'm only hurting himself." It is not until too late
that he discovers how much it hurts.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MR. DEEDS / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:08 GMT

MR. DEEDS / *1/2 (PG-13)

June 28, 2002

Longfellow Deeds: Adam Sandler
Babe Bennett: Winona Ryder
Emilio Lopez: John Turturro
Crazy Eyes: Steve Buscemi
Chuck Cedar: Peter Gallagher
Mac McGrath: Jared Harris
Columbia Pictures and New Line Cinema present a film directed by Steven
Brill. Written by Tim Herlihy. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
language incluidng sexual references, and some rear nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

At one point during the long ordeal of "Mr. Deeds," it is said of the Adam
Sandler character, "He doesn't share our sense of ironic detachment." Is
this a private joke by the writer? If there's is one thing Sandler's Mr.
Deeds has, it's ironic detachment.

Like so many Sandler characters, he seems fundamentally insincere, to be
aiming for the laugh even at serious moments. Since the 1936 Frank Capra
film "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" was above all sincere, we wonder how this
project was chosen; did Adam Sandler look at Gary Cooper and see a role for
himself?

He plays Longfellow Deeds, pizzeria owner in the hamlet of Mandrake Falls,
N.H. The pizzeria is one of those establishments required in all comedies
about small towns, where every single character in town gathers every single
day to provide an audience for the hero, crossed with a Greek chorus. Nobody
does anything in Mandrake Falls, except sit in the pizzeria and talk about
Deeds. When he leaves town, they watch him on the TV.

Turns out Deeds is the distant relative of an elderly zillionaire who
freezes to death in the very act of conquering Everest. Control of his media
empire and a $40 billion fortune goes to Deeds, who is obviously too
good-hearted and simple-minded to deserve it, so a corporate executive named
Cedar (Peter Gallagher) conspires to push him aside. Meanwhile, when Deeds
hits New York, a trash TV show makes him its favorite target, and producer
Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) goes undercover, convinces Deeds she loves him,
and sets him up for humiliation. Then she discovers she loves him, too late.

Frank Capra played this story straight. But the 2002 film doesn't really
believe in it, and breaks the mood with absurdly inappropriate "comedy"
scenes. Consider a scene where Deeds meets his new butler Emilio (John
Turturro). Emilio has a foot fetish. Deeds doubts Emilio will like his right
foot, which is pitch black after a childhood bout of frostbite. The foot has
no feeling, Deeds says, inviting Emilio to pound it with a fireplace poker.
When Deeds doesn't flinch, Turturro actually punctures the foot with the
point of the poker, at which point I listed attentively for sounds of
laughter in the theater, and heard none.

There's no chemistry between Deeds and Babe, but then how could there be,
considering that their characters have no existence, except as the puppets
in scenes of plot manipulation. After Deeds grows disillusioned with her,
there is a reconciliation inspired after she falls through the ice on a pond
and he breaks through to save her using the Black Foot. In story
conferences, do they discuss scenes like this and nod approvingly? Tell me,
for I want to know.

The moral center of the story is curious. The media empire, we learn,
controls enormous resources and employs 50,000 people. The evil Cedar wants
to break it up. The good-hearted Deeds fights to keep it together so those
50,000 people won't be out of work. This is essentially a movie that wants
to win our hearts with a populist hero who risks his entire fortune in order
to ensure the survival of Time-AOL-Warner-Disney-Murdoch. What would Frank
Capra have thought about the little guy bravely standing up for the
monolith?

Of the many notes I took during the film, one deserves to be shared with
you. There is a scene in the movie where Deeds, the fire chief in Mandrake
Falls, becomes a hero during a Manhattan fire. He scales the side of a
building and rescues a woman's cats, since she refuses to be rescued before
them. One after another, the cats are thrown onto a fireman's net. Finally
there is a car that is on fire. The blazing feline is tossed from the window
and bounces into a bucket of water, emerging wet but intact, ho, ho, and
then Deeds and the heavyset cat lady jump together and crash through the
net, but Deeds' fall is cushioned by the fat lady, who is also not harmed,
ho ho, giving us a heart-rending happy ending.

That is not what I wrote in my notes. It is only the set-up. What I noted
was that in the woman's kitchen, nothing is seen to be on fire except for a
box of Special-K cereal. This is a species of product placement previously
unthinkable. In product placement conferences, do they discuss scenes like
this and nod approvingly? Tell me, for oh, how I want to know.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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