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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:41 GMT

THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Jimmy Tong: Jackie Chan
Del Blaine: Jennifer Love     Hewitt
Clark Devlin: Jason Isaacs
Banning: Ritchie Coster
Steena: Debi Mazar
DreamWorks Pictures presents a film directed by Kevin Donovan. Written by
Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13
(for action violence, sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is an ancient tradition in action movies that the first scene is a
self-contained shocker with no relevance to the rest of the plot. James Bond
parachutes from a mountainside, Clint Eastwood disarms a robber, etc. Jackie
Chan's "The Tuxedo" opens with a deer urinating in a mountain stream. The
deer, the urine and the stream have nothing to do with the rest of the film.

The movie's plot does involve water. The bad guy wants to add an ingredient
to the world's water supply that will cause victims to dehydrate and die. To
save themselves, they will have to buy the villain's pure water. Since his
opening gambit is to sabotage, I repeat, the world's water supply, he will
dehydrate everyone except those already drinking only bottled water, and so
will inherit a planet of health nuts, which is just as well, since all the
fish and animals and birds will dehydrate, too, and everyone will have to
live on PowerBars.

I have been waiting for a dehydrating villain for some time. My wife is of
the opinion that I do not drink enough water. She believes the proper amount
is a minimum of eight glasses a day. She often regards me balefully and
says, "You're not getting enough water." In hot climates her concern
escalates. In Hawaii last summer she had the grandchildren so worked up they
ran into the bedroom every morning to see if Grandpa Roger had turned to
dust.

The movie's villain, whose name is Banning (Ritchie Coster), has a novel
scheme for distributing the formula, or virus, or secret ingredient, or
whatever it is, that will make water into a dehydrating agent. He plans to
use water striders, those insects that can skate across the surface of a
pond. In his secret laboratory he keeps his ultimate weapon, a powerful
water strider queen.

Do water striders have queens, like bees and ants do? For an authoritative
answer I turned to Dr. May Berenbaum, head of the Department of Entomology
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and founder of the Insect
Fear Film Festival, held every year at the Great University.

She writes: "Water striders are true bugs (i.e., insects with
piercing/sucking mouthparts) that run or skate on the surface of bodies of
water, feeding on the insects that fall onto the water surface. There are
about 500 species of gerrids in the world and, as far as I know, not a
single one of those 500 species is eusocial (i.e., has a complex social
structure with reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care). I
don't even know of an example of maternal care in the whole group. In short,
the answer to your question is an emphatic 'no!' I can't wait to see this
film. It definitely sounds like a candidate for a future Insect Fear Film
Festival!"

More crushing evidence: Dr. Bruce P. Smith, expert entomologist at Ithaca
College, writes me, "There is no known species of water striders that has
queens. The most closely related insects that do are some colonial aphid
speciies, and the most familiar (and much more distant rleatives) are the
ants, bees, wasps and termites." He adds helpfully, "One mammal does have
queens: the naked mole rats of Africa." Revealing himself as a student of
insect films, he continues, "If my memory is correct, 'Arachnophobia' has a
king spider, but no queen--totally absurd!"

So there you have it. Professors Smith and Berenbaum have spoken. The evil
Banning has spent untold millions on his secret plans for world domination,
and thinks he possesses a water strider queen when he only has a lucky
regular water strider living the life of Riley.

But back to "The Tuxedo." Jackie Chan plays a taxi driver named Jimmy Tong,
who is hired by Debi Mazar to be the chauffeur for Clark Devlin (Jason
Isaacs), a multimillionaire secret agent whose $2 million tuxedo turns him
into a fighting machine (also a dancer, kung-fu expert, etc). After Devlin
is injured by a skateboard bomb, Jackie puts on the suit and soon partners
with agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who realizes he has a strange
accent for a man named Clark Devlin, but nevertheless joins him in battle
against Banning.

The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it
would still be beyond comprehension. It does have its moments, as when the
tuxedo inadvertently cold-cocks James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, and
Jackie Chan has to go onstage in place of the Hardest Working Man in Show
Business. He's very funny as James Brown, although not as funny as James
Brown is.

There's something engaging about Jackie Chan. Even in a bad movie, I like
him, because what you see is so obviously what you get. This time he goes
light on the stunts, at least the stunts he obviously does himself, so that
during the closing credits, there are lots of flubbed lines and times when
the actors break out laughing, but none of those spellbinding shots in which
he misses the bridge, falls off the scaffold, etc. And some of the shots are
computer-generated, which is kind of cheating isn't it, with Jackie Chan?
Luckily, special effects are not frowned upon at the Insect Fear Film
Festival.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:40 GMT

SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Melanie: Reese Witherspoon
Jake: Josh Lucas
Andrew: Patrick Dempsey
Earl: Fred Ward
Pearl: Mary Kay Place
Stella Kay: Jean Smart
Kate: Candice Bergen
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Andy Tennant. Written by C.
Jay Cox. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language and
sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion
that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses
this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy,
while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach
pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all
know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming,
recycling of this ancient myth.

The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again
since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the
mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie
where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just
doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.

Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars
as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and
while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with
Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen)
is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he
has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of
unfinished business.

Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already
married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped
plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys
and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the
decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart,
but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser,
she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her
back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.

When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her
high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her
parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging
around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and
sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is
right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to
"go back to your double-wide and fry something."

The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the
screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he
divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so
that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later
he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and
his coon dog still likes her.

The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total
jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding,
as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York,
a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.

So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C.
Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's
theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We
know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights,
big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds
are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the
mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be
unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.")

But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and
her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to
become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I
ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of
a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower?

The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why
"Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy
tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day
would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in
"Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local
color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for
the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to
New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:33 GMT

8 WOMEN / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Beart
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Francois Ozon.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R
(for some sexual content). In French with English subtitles. Opening today
at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Here it is at last, the first Agatha Christie musical. Eight women are
isolated in a snowbound cottage, there is a corpse with a knife in his back,
all of the women are potential suspects, plus eight song and dance numbers.
The cast is a roll call of French legends. In alphabetical order: Fanny
Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle
Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard and Ludivine Sagnier.

From the opening shot, the film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of
overproduced Hollywood musicals. We pan past tree branches impossibly laden
with picturesque snow and find a charming cottage where guests are just
arriving. Eight women have gathered to celebrate Christmas with Marcel, who
is the husband of Gaby (Deneuve), the son-in-law of Mamy (Darrieux), the
brother-in-law of Aunt Augustine (Huppert), the father of Catherine
(Sagnier) and Suzon (Ledoyen), the employer of the domestic servants Madame
Chanel (Richard) and Louise (Beart), and the brother of the late-arriving
Pierrette (Ardant).

"Monsieur died in his bed with a knife in his back," the assembled company
is informed. And (significant detail required in all isolated rural murders)
"the dogs didn't bark all night." The women absorb this news while dressed
in stunning designer fashions (even the maids look chic) and deployed around
a large, sunny room that looks like nothing so much as a stage set--even to
the detail that all the furniture is behind the actresses most of the time.
Only a couple of brief excursions upstairs prevent the movie from taking
place entirely on this one bright set, where nothing looks used or lived
with.

The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song
begins, because "8 Women" is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or
anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast, and we
realize we've been waiting a long time for Catherine Deneuve to come right
out and say of Isabelle Huppert: "I'm beautiful and rich. She's ugly and
poor." I had also just about given up hope of ever seeing Deneuve and Fanny
Ardant rolling around on the floor pulling each other's hair.

In a cast where everybody has fun, Huppert has the most, as Augustine. She
and her mother (Darrieux) have been living rent-free in Marcel's cottage
with her sister (Deneuve), but that has not inspired Augustine to compromise
in her fierce resentment and spinsterish isolation. She stalks around the
set like Whistler's mother, frowning from behind her horn-rims and making
disapproval into a lifestyle.

The other characters quickly fall into approved Agatha Christie patterns.
Young Suzon appoints herself Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps in this case
Hercule Poirot, and begins sniffing out the clues. The sexy Louise is
established as the late Marcel's mistress. Madame Chanel, from French
Africa, has been with the family for years and lives out back in the guest
cottage, where, as it develops, she often plays cards with Pierrette. And
Pierrette herself, who arrives late with the kind of entrance that only the
tall, dark and forcible Ardant could pull off, has secrets which are as
amazing as they are inevitable.

I dare not reveal a shred of the plot. And the movie is all plot--that, and
stylish behavior, and barbed wit, and those musical numbers. Watching "8
Women," you have a silly grin half of the time. Astonishing, that Francois
Ozon, who directed this, also made "Under the Sand" (2001), that melancholy
record of a wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears, apparently
drowned, and who refuses to deal with the fact that he is dead.

Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to
have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux
and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It
also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now in the
50th year of its London run, with its cast still trapped with the corpse in
the isolated cottage. "Do not give away the secret!" the program notes
exhort. And here, too. Not that the secret is anything more than one more
twist of the plot's pepper mill.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:35 GMT

MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Joe Nast Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Floss: Dustin Hoffman
JoJo Floss: Susan Sarandon
Mona Camp: Holly Hunter
Bertie Knox: Ellen Pompeo
Mike Mulcahey: Dabney Coleman
Stan Michaels: Allan Corduner
Ty: Richard T. Jones
Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present a film written and
directed by Brad Silberling. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
some sensuality and brief strong language). Opening today at Pipers Alley,
Northbrook Court and Yorktown.

BY ROGER EBERT

After the funeral is over and the mourners have come back to the house for
coffee and cake and have all gone home, the parents and the boyfriend of
Diana, the dead girl, sit by themselves. Her mother criticizes how one
friend expressed her sympathy. And the father asks, what could she say? "Put
yourself in their shoes."

That little scene provides a key to Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile." What
do you say when someone dies--someone you cared for? What are the right
words? And what's the right thing to do? Death is the ultimate rebuke to
good manners. The movie, which makes an unusually intense effort to deal
with the process of grief and renewal, is inspired by a loss in Silberling's
own life. The TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, his girlfriend at the time, was
killed in 1989 by a fan. Silberling has grown very close to her parents in
the years since then, he told me, and more than a decade later he has tried
to use the experience as the starting point for a film.

"Moonlight Mile," which takes place in 1973, opens in an elliptical way. At
first only quiet clues in the dialogue allow us to understand that someone
has died. We meet Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), the fiance of the dead girl,
and her parents Ben and JoJo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). They
talk not in a sentimental way, but in that strange, detached tone we use
when grief is too painful to express and yet something must be said.

After the funeral and the home visitation, the film follows what in a lesser
film would be called the "healing process." "Moonlight Mile" is too quirky
and observant to be described in psychobabble. Joe stays stuck in the Floss
house, living in an upstairs bedroom, his plans on hold. Ben, who has lost a
daughter, now in a confused way hopes to gain a son, and encourages Joe to
join him in his business as a real estate developer. JoJo, protected by
intelligence and wit, looks closely and suspects a secret Joe is keeping,
which leaves him stranded between the past and future.

Gyllenhaal, who in person is a jokester, in the movies almost always plays
characters who are withdrawn and morose. Remember him in "Donnie Darko,"
"The Good Girl" and "Lovely & Amazing." Here, too, he is a young man
with troubled thoughts. At the post office, and again at a bar where she has
a night job, he meets Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo), who sees inside when
others only look at the surface. They begin to talk. She has a loss, too:
Her boyfriend has been missing in action in Vietnam for three years. While
it is possible that they will mend each other's hearts by falling in love,
the movie doesn't simple-mindedly pursue that plot path, but meanders among
the thoughts of the living.

Silberling's screenplay pays full attention to all of the characters. Ben
and JoJo are not simply a backdrop to a romance involving Joe and Bertie.
The movie provides key scenes for all of the characters, in conversation and
in monologue, so that it is not only about Joe's grieving process but about
all four, who have lost different things in different ways.

Anyone regarding the Hoffman character will note that his name is Benjamin
and remember Hoffman's most famous character, in "The Graduate." But Joe is
the Benjamin of this film, and Hoffman's older man has more in common with
another of his famous roles: Willy Loman, the hero of "Death of a Salesman."
Ben occupies a low-rent storefront office on Main Street in Cape Anne,
Mass., but dreams of putting together a group of properties and bringing in
a superstore like Kmart. This will be his big killing, the deal that caps
his career, even though we can see in the eyes of the local rich man (Dabney
Coleman) that Ben is too small to land this fish. Ben's desire to share his
dream with his surrogate son, Joe, also has echoes from the Arthur Miller
tragedy.

Sarandon's JoJo is tart, with a verbal wit to protect her and a jaundiced
view of her husband's prospects. The deepest conversation JoJo has with Joe
("Isn't it funny, that we have the same name?") is about as well done as
such a scene can be. She intuits that Joe is dealing not only with the loss
of Diana's life but with the loss of something else.

Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot
be written, only felt. She knows she is attractive to Joe. She knows she
likes him. She knows she is faithful to her old boyfriend. She is frightened
by her own power to attract, especially since she wants to attract even
while she tells herself she doesn't. She is so vulnerable in this movie, so
sweet as she senses Joe's pain and wants to help him.

Holly Hunter is the fifth major player, as the lawyer who is handling the
case against Diana's killer. She embodies the wisdom of the law, which
knows, as laymen do not, that it moves with its own logic regardless of the
feelings of those in the courtroom. She offers practical advice, and then
you can see in her eyes that she wishes she could offer emotional advice
instead.

"Moonlight Mile" gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things. It
is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders
to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
Everyone who has grieved for a loved one will recognize the moment, some
days after the death, when an irreverent remark will release the surprise of
laughter. Sometimes we laugh, that we may not cry. Not many movies know that
truth. "Moonlight Mile" is based on it.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:32 GMT

RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

October 4, 2002

Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Will Graham: Edward Norton
Francis Dolarhyde: Ralph Fiennes
Jack Crawford: Harvey Keitel
Reba McClane: Emily Watson
Molly Graham: Mary-Louise Parker
Freddy Lounds: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Ted
Tally. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
R (for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Red Dragon" opens with the pleasure of seeing Hannibal Lecter as he was
before leaving civilian life. The camera floats above a symphony orchestra
and down into the audience, and we spot Lecter almost at once, regarding
with displeasure an inferior musician. Interesting, how the director forces
our attention just as a magician forces a card: We notice Lecter because he
is located in a strong point of the screen, because his face is lighted to
make him pop out from the drabness on either side, and because he is looking
directly at the camera.

I felt, a confess, a certain pleasure to find him in the audience. Hannibal
Lecter is one of the most wicked villains in movie history, and one of the
most beloved. We forgive him his trespasses because (1) they are forced upon
him by his nature; (2) most of the time he is helplessly imprisoned, and
providing aid to the FBI, or seeming to, after his peculiar fashion, and (3)
he is droll and literate, dryly humorous, elegantly mannered. In these days
of movie characters who obediently recite the words the plot requires of
them, it's a pleasure to meet a man who can hold up his end of the
conversation.

The opening, with Hannibal still in civilian life, allows a tense early
scene in which the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) receives a late-night visitor,
FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham has been assisted by Lecter in
examining a series of crimes which, he has just realized, involved
cannibalism--and now, as he regards the doctor in the gloom of the shadowed
study, it occurs to him, just as it simultaneously occurs to Lecter, that it
is clear to both of them who this cannibal might be.

Flash forward several years. Lecter is in prison, Graham has taken early
retirement, but now his old FBI boss (Harvey Keitel) wants to recruit him to
solve a pair of serial killings, this time by a man dubbed the Tooth Fairy
because he leaves an unmistakable dental imprint at the scenes of his
crimes. Graham resists, but photos of the dead families and a poignant look
at his own living family do the trick, and he joins the case as a free-lance
adviser. This requires him to examine crime scenes by creeping through them
in pitch darkness in the middle of the night, although there is no reason he
could not visit at noon (except, of course, that he wants to share the
killer's point of view, and also because the film seeds the darkness with
potential danger).

The director is Brett Ratner, who has not achieved the distinction of the
three previous directors of Hannibal Lecter movies (Jonathan Demme on "The
Silence of the Lambs," Ridley Scott on "Hannibal," and Michael Mann on
"Manhunter," the first version of "Red Dragon," made in 1986). Ratner's
credits have included the "Rush Hour" pictures, "Family Man" and "Money
Talks," some with their merits, none suggesting he was qualified to be
Lecter's next director.

To my surprise, he does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of
Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy
(Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a
character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of
the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy
scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The screenplay by Ted
Tally, who wrote "Lambs," also supplies a blind girl in peril (Emily
Watson), and blind girls have worked dependably since the days of silent
pictures.

A movie like "Red Dragon" is all atmosphere and apprehension. Ratner doesn't
give us as much violence or as many sensational shocks as Scott did in
"Hannibal," but that's a plus: Lecter is a character who commands
contemplation and unease, and too much action just releases the tension. To
be sure, Scott was working with a Thomas Harris novel that itself went so
high over the top (remember the quadriplegic murdered with an electric eel?)
that much of it could not be filmed. But this movie, based on Harris' first
novel, has studied "Silence of the Lambs" and knows that the action comes
second to general creepiness. There are stabbings, shootings, fires,
explosions, tortures, mutilations, and a flaming corpse in a wheelchair, but
within reason.

As the "Tooth Fairy" figure, named Francis Dolarhyde, Ralph Fiennes comes as
close as possible to creating a sympathetic monster. What he does is
unspeakable. What has been done to him is unspeakable. Dolarhyde himself is
horrified by his potential, and the character of the blind girl is not
merely a cheap gimmick (although it is that, too), but a device that allows
him to ask just how far he is prepared to go. We are reminded of another
monster and another blind person, in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1932), and in
both cases the monster feels relief because the blind cannot see that he is
a monster. (In photos of a crime scene, ex-agent Graham notices that mirrors
have been broken and shards of the glass put in the eye sockets of
victims--perhaps because the Tooth Fairy cannot stand to look at himself,
but is driven to a frenzy when others can look at him.)

The movie has been photographed by Dante Spinotti, who also filmed Michael
Mann's more cool, stylized version, and here he provides darkness and
saturated colors. The Lecter world is one of dampness, lowering clouds,
early sunsets, chill in the bones. Lecter himself, when he appears, is like
a little fire we can warm before; he smiles benevolently, knows all, accepts
his nature, offers to help, and more often than not has another macabre
scheme under way. The early passages of this movie benefit from our
knowledge that Lecter will sooner or later appear; it's as if the plot is
tiptoeing toward a ledge.

The Lecter character, and the agents who deal with him, and the monsters who
take him as a role model, create an atmosphere that encourages style in the
filmmaking. It is much the same with the best upper-class crime novels.
There is violence, yes, but also a lot of carefully described atmosphere, as
we enter the attractive lives of the rich and vicious: Consider Rex Stout,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:30 GMT

INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)

October 4, 2002

Hanussen: Tim Roth
Zishe: Jouko Ahola
Marta Farra: Anna Gourari
Master of Ceremonies: Max     Raabe
Benjamin: Jacob Wein
Landwehr: Gustav Peter     Wohler
Fine Line Features presents a film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content and thematic
elements). Opening today at Water Tower.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

Werner Herzog's "Invincible" tells the astonishing story of a Jewish
strongman in Nazi Germany, a man who in his simple goodness believes he can
be the "new Samson" and protect his people. He is a blacksmith in Poland in
1932 when discovered by a talent scout, and soon becomes the headliner in
the Palace of the Occult, in Berlin, which is run by the sinister Hanussen
(Tim Roth), a man who dreams of becoming Minister of the Occult in a Nazi
government.

The strongman, named Zishe Breitbart, is played by a Finnish athlete named
Jouko Ahola, twice winner of the title World's Strongest Man. Much of the
movie's uncanny appeal comes from the contrast between Ahola's performance,
which is entirely without guile, and Roth's performance, which drips with
mannered malevolence. Standing between them is the young woman Marta (Anna
Gourari), who is under Hanussen's psychological power, and who the strongman
loves.

"Invincible" is based, Herzog says, on the true story of Breitbart, whose
great strength contradicted the Nazi myth of Aryan superiority. I can
imagine a dozen ways in which this story could be told badly, but Herzog has
fashioned it into a film of uncommon fascination, in which we often have no
idea at all what could possibly happen next. There are countless movies
about preludes to the Holocaust, but I can't think of one this innocent,
direct and unblinking. In the face of gathering evil, Zishe trusts in human
nature, is proud of his heritage, and believes strength and goodness (which
he confuses) will triumph.

The movie has the power of a great silent film, unafraid of grand gestures
and moral absolutes. Its casting of the major characters is crucial, and
instinctively correct. Tim Roth is a sinister charlatan, posing as a man
with real psychic powers, using trickery and showmanship as he jockeys for
position within the emerging Nazi majority. There is a scene where he
hypnotizes Marta, and as he stares boldly into the camera I wondered, for a
moment, if it was possible to hypnotize a movie audience that way. Late in
the film there is a scene where his secrets are revealed, and he makes a
speech of chilling, absolute cynicism. Another actor in another movie might
have simply gnashed his teeth, but Roth and Herzog take the revelations as
an opportunity to show us the self-hatred beneath the deception.

As for Jouko Ahola, this untrained actor, who seems by nature to be
good-hearted and uncomplicated, may never act again, but he has found the
one perfect role, as Maria Falconetti did in "The Passion of Joan of Arc."
He embodies the simple strongman. The camera can look as closely as it wants
and never find anything false. A naive man from a backward town, not
especially devout, he gets into a fight when Polish customers in a
restaurant insult him and his little brother as Jews. A little later,
entering a circus contest, he watches as the strongman lifts a boulder--and
then puts an end to the contest by, lifting the strongman and the boulder.

The talent scout takes him to see his first movie. Soon he is in Berlin,
where Hanussen sizes him up and says, "We will Aryanize you. A Jew should
never be as strong as you." Zishe is outfitted with a blond wig and Nordic
helmet, and presented as "Siegfried." He becomes a great favor of Nazi
brownshirts in the audience, as Hanussen prattles about "the strength of the
body against the dark powers of the occult." But Zishe's mind works away at
the situation until finally he has his solution, tears off the helmet and
wig, and identities himself as a Jew.

Here as throughout the film Herzog avoids the obvious next scene. Is
Hanussen outraged? To a degree. But then he reports: "There's a line three
blocks long outside! It's the Jews. They all want to see the new Samson."
And then, at a time when Hitler was on the rise but the full measure of
Jewish persecution was not yet in view, the Palace of the Occult turns into
a dangerous pit where audience members are potentially at one another's
throats.

This is the first feature in 10 years from Herzog, one of the great
visionaries among directors. He strains to break the bonds of film structure
in order to surprise us in unexpected ways. His best films unashamedly yearn
to lift us into the mythical and the mystical. "Our civilization is starving
for new images," he once told me, and in "Invincible" there is an image of a
bleak, rocky seashore where the sharp stones are littered with thousands or
millions of bright red crabs, all mindlessly scrabbling away on their crabby
missions. I think this scene may represent the emerging Nazi hordes, but of
course there can be no literal translation. Perhaps Herzog wants to
illustrate the implacable Darwinian struggle from which man can rise with
good heart and purpose.

The strongman in "Invincible" is lovable, and so deeply moving, precisely
because he is not a cog in a plot, has no plan, is involved in no
machinations, but is simply proud of his parents, proud to be a Jew, in love
with the girl, and convinced that God has made him strong for a reason. He
may be wrong in his optimism, but his greatest strength is that he will
never understand that. The Roth character is equally single-minded, but
without hope or purpose--a conniver and manipulator.

Watching "Invincible" was a singular experience for me, because it reminded
me of the fundamental power that the cinema had for us when we were
children. The film exercises the power that fable has for the believing.
Herzog has gotten outside the constraints and conventions of ordinary
narrative, and addresses us where our credulity keeps its secrets.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:38 GMT

SECRETARY / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mr. Grey: James Spader
Lee Holloway: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Peter: Jeremy Davies
Joan Holloway: Lesley Ann Warren
Burt Holloway: Stephen McHattie
Dr. Twardon: Patrick Bauchau
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Steven Shainberg. Written by
Erin Cressida Wilson. Based on the story by Mary Gaitskill. Running time:
104 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of
behavioral disorders and language). Opening today at Evanston CineArts 6,
Esquire, Pipers Alley and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Secretary" approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy
tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.
Because S/M involves postures that are absorbing for the participants but
absurd to the onlooker, we tend to giggle at the wrong times. Here is a film
where we giggle at the right times. The director, Steven Shainberg, has
succeeded by focusing intently on his characters, making them quirky
individuals rather than figures of fun.

The movie, to begin with, is well cast. There may be better actors than
James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but for this material, I cannot think
who they are. About Spader there always seems to be some unarticulated
secret hovering, and Gyllenhaal avoids numerous opportunities to make her
character seem pathetic, and makes her seem plucky instead--intent on
establishing herself and making herself necessary.

Spader plays Mr. Grey, a lawyer whose office looks like the result of
intense conversations with an interior designer who has seen too many
Michael Douglas movies. Mr. Grey has such bad luck with secretaries that he
has an illuminated help-wanted sign out front he can light up, like the
"Vacancy" sign at a motel. Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, who has the
illness of self-mutilation and comes from a neurotic family. Released from
treatment, Lee takes typing classes, goes looking for work and has an
interview with Mr. Grey. Something unspoken passes between them and they
know they are thinking about the same thing.

Lee is submissive. Spader is dominant and obsessive (he has a fetish for
lining up red markers in his desk drawer). He demands perfection, she falls
short of the mark, he punishes her, and this becomes a workable
relationship. When he loses interest for a time and stops correcting her
mistakes, she grows disconsolate; when he sharply calls her back into her
office, she is delighted.

The movie does not argue that S/M is good for you, but has a more complex
dynamic. By absorbing so much of Mr. Grey's time and attention, Lee, who has
abysmal self-esteem, feels that attention is being paid to her. Mr. Grey
notices her. He thinks about her. He devises new games for them. He never
threatens serious hurt or harm, but instead tends toward role-playing and
ritual. What they discover is that, in the long run, S/M is more fun (and
less trouble) for the "M" than for the "S." "We can't go on like this 24
hours a day," Mr. Grey complains at one point. Lee doesn't see why not.

Jeremy Davies plays Peter, the other key role, sincere to the point of being
inarticulate, who for a time dates Lee. Mr. Grey looks on jealously as they
do their laundry together, and is faced with the possibility that he might
lose his agreeable secretary. That would be the final straw, since we sense
that Mr. Grey is in much worse shape than Lee was ever in. His
obsessive-compulsive behavior is driving him nuts, not to mention his
clients. Stories about S/M often have an ironic happy ending, but this one,
based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, seems sincere enough: They've
found a relationships that works. For them.

The movie's humor comes through the close observation of behavior. It allows
us to understand what has happened without specifying it. The lawyer and
secretary have subtle little signals by which they step out of their roles
and sort of wink, so they both know that they both know what they're doing.
Their behavior, which is intended to signify hostility, eventually grows
into a deeper recognition of each other's natures and needs. That of course
leads to affection, which can be tricky, but not for them, because both
suspect there is no one else they're ever likely to meet who will understand
them quite so completely.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:58:49 GMT

INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)

October 4, 2002

Hanussen: Tim Roth
Zishe: Jouko Ahola
Marta Farra: Anna Gourari
Master of Ceremonies: Max     Raabe
Benjamin: Jacob Wein
Landwehr: Gustav Peter     Wohler
Fine Line Features presents a film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content and thematic
elements). Opening today at Water Tower.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

Werner Herzog's "Invincible" tells the astonishing story of a Jewish
strongman in Nazi Germany, a man who in his simple goodness believes he can
be the "new Samson" and protect his people. He is a blacksmith in Poland in
1932 when discovered by a talent scout, and soon becomes the headliner in
the Palace of the Occult, in Berlin, which is run by the sinister Hanussen
(Tim Roth), a man who dreams of becoming Minister of the Occult in a Nazi
government.

The strongman, named Zishe Breitbart, is played by a Finnish athlete named
Jouko Ahola, twice winner of the title World's Strongest Man. Much of the
movie's uncanny appeal comes from the contrast between Ahola's performance,
which is entirely without guile, and Roth's performance, which drips with
mannered malevolence. Standing between them is the young woman Marta (Anna
Gourari), who is under Hanussen's psychological power, and who the strongman
loves.

"Invincible" is based, Herzog says, on the true story of Breitbart, whose
great strength contradicted the Nazi myth of Aryan superiority. I can
imagine a dozen ways in which this story could be told badly, but Herzog has
fashioned it into a film of uncommon fascination, in which we often have no
idea at all what could possibly happen next. There are countless movies
about preludes to the Holocaust, but I can't think of one this innocent,
direct and unblinking. In the face of gathering evil, Zishe trusts in human
nature, is proud of his heritage, and believes strength and goodness (which
he confuses) will triumph.

The movie has the power of a great silent film, unafraid of grand gestures
and moral absolutes. Its casting of the major characters is crucial, and
instinctively correct. Tim Roth is a sinister charlatan, posing as a man
with real psychic powers, using trickery and showmanship as he jockeys for
position within the emerging Nazi majority. There is a scene where he
hypnotizes Marta, and as he stares boldly into the camera I wondered, for a
moment, if it was possible to hypnotize a movie audience that way. Late in
the film there is a scene where his secrets are revealed, and he makes a
speech of chilling, absolute cynicism. Another actor in another movie might
have simply gnashed his teeth, but Roth and Herzog take the revelations as
an opportunity to show us the self-hatred beneath the deception.

As for Jouko Ahola, this untrained actor, who seems by nature to be
good-hearted and uncomplicated, may never act again, but he has found the
one perfect role, as Maria Falconetti did in "The Passion of Joan of Arc."
He embodies the simple strongman. The camera can look as closely as it wants
and never find anything false. A naive man from a backward town, not
especially devout, he gets into a fight when Polish customers in a
restaurant insult him and his little brother as Jews. A little later,
entering a circus contest, he watches as the strongman lifts a boulder--and
then puts an end to the contest by, lifting the strongman and the boulder.

The talent scout takes him to see his first movie. Soon he is in Berlin,
where Hanussen sizes him up and says, "We will Aryanize you. A Jew should
never be as strong as you." Zishe is outfitted with a blond wig and Nordic
helmet, and presented as "Siegfried." He becomes a great favor of Nazi
brownshirts in the audience, as Hanussen prattles about "the strength of the
body against the dark powers of the occult." But Zishe's mind works away at
the situation until finally he has his solution, tears off the helmet and
wig, and identities himself as a Jew.

Here as throughout the film Herzog avoids the obvious next scene. Is
Hanussen outraged? To a degree. But then he reports: "There's a line three
blocks long outside! It's the Jews. They all want to see the new Samson."
And then, at a time when Hitler was on the rise but the full measure of
Jewish persecution was not yet in view, the Palace of the Occult turns into
a dangerous pit where audience members are potentially at one another's
throats.

This is the first feature in 10 years from Herzog, one of the great
visionaries among directors. He strains to break the bonds of film structure
in order to surprise us in unexpected ways. His best films unashamedly yearn
to lift us into the mythical and the mystical. "Our civilization is starving
for new images," he once told me, and in "Invincible" there is an image of a
bleak, rocky seashore where the sharp stones are littered with thousands or
millions of bright red crabs, all mindlessly scrabbling away on their crabby
missions. I think this scene may represent the emerging Nazi hordes, but of
course there can be no literal translation. Perhaps Herzog wants to
illustrate the implacable Darwinian struggle from which man can rise with
good heart and purpose.

The strongman in "Invincible" is lovable, and so deeply moving, precisely
because he is not a cog in a plot, has no plan, is involved in no
machinations, but is simply proud of his parents, proud to be a Jew, in love
with the girl, and convinced that God has made him strong for a reason. He
may be wrong in his optimism, but his greatest strength is that he will
never understand that. The Roth character is equally single-minded, but
without hope or purpose--a conniver and manipulator.

Watching "Invincible" was a singular experience for me, because it reminded
me of the fundamental power that the cinema had for us when we were
children. The film exercises the power that fable has for the believing.
Herzog has gotten outside the constraints and conventions of ordinary
narrative, and addresses us where our credulity keeps its secrets.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:58:54 GMT

RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

October 4, 2002

Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Will Graham: Edward Norton
Francis Dolarhyde: Ralph Fiennes
Jack Crawford: Harvey Keitel
Reba McClane: Emily Watson
Molly Graham: Mary-Louise Parker
Freddy Lounds: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Ted
Tally. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
R (for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Red Dragon" opens with the pleasure of seeing Hannibal Lecter as he was
before leaving civilian life. The camera floats above a symphony orchestra
and down into the audience, and we spot Lecter almost at once, regarding
with displeasure an inferior musician. Interesting, how the director forces
our attention just as a magician forces a card: We notice Lecter because he
is located in a strong point of the screen, because his face is lighted to
make him pop out from the drabness on either side, and because he is looking
directly at the camera.

I felt, a confess, a certain pleasure to find him in the audience. Hannibal
Lecter is one of the most wicked villains in movie history, and one of the
most beloved. We forgive him his trespasses because (1) they are forced upon
him by his nature; (2) most of the time he is helplessly imprisoned, and
providing aid to the FBI, or seeming to, after his peculiar fashion, and (3)
he is droll and literate, dryly humorous, elegantly mannered. In these days
of movie characters who obediently recite the words the plot requires of
them, it's a pleasure to meet a man who can hold up his end of the
conversation.

The opening, with Hannibal still in civilian life, allows a tense early
scene in which the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) receives a late-night visitor,
FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham has been assisted by Lecter in
examining a series of crimes which, he has just realized, involved
cannibalism--and now, as he regards the doctor in the gloom of the shadowed
study, it occurs to him, just as it simultaneously occurs to Lecter, that it
is clear to both of them who this cannibal might be.

Flash forward several years. Lecter is in prison, Graham has taken early
retirement, but now his old FBI boss (Harvey Keitel) wants to recruit him to
solve a pair of serial killings, this time by a man dubbed the Tooth Fairy
because he leaves an unmistakable dental imprint at the scenes of his
crimes. Graham resists, but photos of the dead families and a poignant look
at his own living family do the trick, and he joins the case as a free-lance
adviser. This requires him to examine crime scenes by creeping through them
in pitch darkness in the middle of the night, although there is no reason he
could not visit at noon (except, of course, that he wants to share the
killer's point of view, and also because the film seeds the darkness with
potential danger).

The director is Brett Ratner, who has not achieved the distinction of the
three previous directors of Hannibal Lecter movies (Jonathan Demme on "The
Silence of the Lambs," Ridley Scott on "Hannibal," and Michael Mann on
"Manhunter," the first version of "Red Dragon," made in 1986). Ratner's
credits have included the "Rush Hour" pictures, "Family Man" and "Money
Talks," some with their merits, none suggesting he was qualified to be
Lecter's next director.

To my surprise, he does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of
Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy
(Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a
character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of
the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy
scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The screenplay by Ted
Tally, who wrote "Lambs," also supplies a blind girl in peril (Emily
Watson), and blind girls have worked dependably since the days of silent
pictures.

A movie like "Red Dragon" is all atmosphere and apprehension. Ratner doesn't
give us as much violence or as many sensational shocks as Scott did in
"Hannibal," but that's a plus: Lecter is a character who commands
contemplation and unease, and too much action just releases the tension. To
be sure, Scott was working with a Thomas Harris novel that itself went so
high over the top (remember the quadriplegic murdered with an electric eel?)
that much of it could not be filmed. But this movie, based on Harris' first
novel, has studied "Silence of the Lambs" and knows that the action comes
second to general creepiness. There are stabbings, shootings, fires,
explosions, tortures, mutilations, and a flaming corpse in a wheelchair, but
within reason.

As the "Tooth Fairy" figure, named Francis Dolarhyde, Ralph Fiennes comes as
close as possible to creating a sympathetic monster. What he does is
unspeakable. What has been done to him is unspeakable. Dolarhyde himself is
horrified by his potential, and the character of the blind girl is not
merely a cheap gimmick (although it is that, too), but a device that allows
him to ask just how far he is prepared to go. We are reminded of another
monster and another blind person, in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1932), and in
both cases the monster feels relief because the blind cannot see that he is
a monster. (In photos of a crime scene, ex-agent Graham notices that mirrors
have been broken and shards of the glass put in the eye sockets of
victims--perhaps because the Tooth Fairy cannot stand to look at himself,
but is driven to a frenzy when others can look at him.)

The movie has been photographed by Dante Spinotti, who also filmed Michael
Mann's more cool, stylized version, and here he provides darkness and
saturated colors. The Lecter world is one of dampness, lowering clouds,
early sunsets, chill in the bones. Lecter himself, when he appears, is like
a little fire we can warm before; he smiles benevolently, knows all, accepts
his nature, offers to help, and more often than not has another macabre
scheme under way. The early passages of this movie benefit from our
knowledge that Lecter will sooner or later appear; it's as if the plot is
tiptoeing toward a ledge.

The Lecter character, and the agents who deal with him, and the monsters who
take him as a role model, create an atmosphere that encourages style in the
filmmaking. It is much the same with the best upper-class crime novels.
There is violence, yes, but also a lot of carefully described atmosphere, as
we enter the attractive lives of the rich and vicious: Consider Rex Stout,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:58:56 GMT

8 WOMEN / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Beart
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Francois Ozon.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R
(for some sexual content). In French with English subtitles. Opening today
at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Here it is at last, the first Agatha Christie musical. Eight women are
isolated in a snowbound cottage, there is a corpse with a knife in his back,
all of the women are potential suspects, plus eight song and dance numbers.
The cast is a roll call of French legends. In alphabetical order: Fanny
Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle
Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard and Ludivine Sagnier.

From the opening shot, the film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of
overproduced Hollywood musicals. We pan past tree branches impossibly laden
with picturesque snow and find a charming cottage where guests are just
arriving. Eight women have gathered to celebrate Christmas with Marcel, who
is the husband of Gaby (Deneuve), the son-in-law of Mamy (Darrieux), the
brother-in-law of Aunt Augustine (Huppert), the father of Catherine
(Sagnier) and Suzon (Ledoyen), the employer of the domestic servants Madame
Chanel (Richard) and Louise (Beart), and the brother of the late-arriving
Pierrette (Ardant).

"Monsieur died in his bed with a knife in his back," the assembled company
is informed. And (significant detail required in all isolated rural murders)
"the dogs didn't bark all night." The women absorb this news while dressed
in stunning designer fashions (even the maids look chic) and deployed around
a large, sunny room that looks like nothing so much as a stage set--even to
the detail that all the furniture is behind the actresses most of the time.
Only a couple of brief excursions upstairs prevent the movie from taking
place entirely on this one bright set, where nothing looks used or lived
with.

The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song
begins, because "8 Women" is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or
anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast, and we
realize we've been waiting a long time for Catherine Deneuve to come right
out and say of Isabelle Huppert: "I'm beautiful and rich. She's ugly and
poor." I had also just about given up hope of ever seeing Deneuve and Fanny
Ardant rolling around on the floor pulling each other's hair.

In a cast where everybody has fun, Huppert has the most, as Augustine. She
and her mother (Darrieux) have been living rent-free in Marcel's cottage
with her sister (Deneuve), but that has not inspired Augustine to compromise
in her fierce resentment and spinsterish isolation. She stalks around the
set like Whistler's mother, frowning from behind her horn-rims and making
disapproval into a lifestyle.

The other characters quickly fall into approved Agatha Christie patterns.
Young Suzon appoints herself Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps in this case
Hercule Poirot, and begins sniffing out the clues. The sexy Louise is
established as the late Marcel's mistress. Madame Chanel, from French
Africa, has been with the family for years and lives out back in the guest
cottage, where, as it develops, she often plays cards with Pierrette. And
Pierrette herself, who arrives late with the kind of entrance that only the
tall, dark and forcible Ardant could pull off, has secrets which are as
amazing as they are inevitable.

I dare not reveal a shred of the plot. And the movie is all plot--that, and
stylish behavior, and barbed wit, and those musical numbers. Watching "8
Women," you have a silly grin half of the time. Astonishing, that Francois
Ozon, who directed this, also made "Under the Sand" (2001), that melancholy
record of a wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears, apparently
drowned, and who refuses to deal with the fact that he is dead.

Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to
have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux
and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It
also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now in the
50th year of its London run, with its cast still trapped with the corpse in
the isolated cottage. "Do not give away the secret!" the program notes
exhort. And here, too. Not that the secret is anything more than one more
twist of the plot's pepper mill.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:00 GMT

MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Joe Nast Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Floss: Dustin Hoffman
JoJo Floss: Susan Sarandon
Mona Camp: Holly Hunter
Bertie Knox: Ellen Pompeo
Mike Mulcahey: Dabney Coleman
Stan Michaels: Allan Corduner
Ty: Richard T. Jones
Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present a film written and
directed by Brad Silberling. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
some sensuality and brief strong language). Opening today at Pipers Alley,
Northbrook Court and Yorktown.

BY ROGER EBERT

After the funeral is over and the mourners have come back to the house for
coffee and cake and have all gone home, the parents and the boyfriend of
Diana, the dead girl, sit by themselves. Her mother criticizes how one
friend expressed her sympathy. And the father asks, what could she say? "Put
yourself in their shoes."

That little scene provides a key to Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile." What
do you say when someone dies--someone you cared for? What are the right
words? And what's the right thing to do? Death is the ultimate rebuke to
good manners. The movie, which makes an unusually intense effort to deal
with the process of grief and renewal, is inspired by a loss in Silberling's
own life. The TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, his girlfriend at the time, was
killed in 1989 by a fan. Silberling has grown very close to her parents in
the years since then, he told me, and more than a decade later he has tried
to use the experience as the starting point for a film.

"Moonlight Mile," which takes place in 1973, opens in an elliptical way. At
first only quiet clues in the dialogue allow us to understand that someone
has died. We meet Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), the fiance of the dead girl,
and her parents Ben and JoJo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). They
talk not in a sentimental way, but in that strange, detached tone we use
when grief is too painful to express and yet something must be said.

After the funeral and the home visitation, the film follows what in a lesser
film would be called the "healing process." "Moonlight Mile" is too quirky
and observant to be described in psychobabble. Joe stays stuck in the Floss
house, living in an upstairs bedroom, his plans on hold. Ben, who has lost a
daughter, now in a confused way hopes to gain a son, and encourages Joe to
join him in his business as a real estate developer. JoJo, protected by
intelligence and wit, looks closely and suspects a secret Joe is keeping,
which leaves him stranded between the past and future.

Gyllenhaal, who in person is a jokester, in the movies almost always plays
characters who are withdrawn and morose. Remember him in "Donnie Darko,"
"The Good Girl" and "Lovely & Amazing." Here, too, he is a young man
with troubled thoughts. At the post office, and again at a bar where she has
a night job, he meets Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo), who sees inside when
others only look at the surface. They begin to talk. She has a loss, too:
Her boyfriend has been missing in action in Vietnam for three years. While
it is possible that they will mend each other's hearts by falling in love,
the movie doesn't simple-mindedly pursue that plot path, but meanders among
the thoughts of the living.

Silberling's screenplay pays full attention to all of the characters. Ben
and JoJo are not simply a backdrop to a romance involving Joe and Bertie.
The movie provides key scenes for all of the characters, in conversation and
in monologue, so that it is not only about Joe's grieving process but about
all four, who have lost different things in different ways.

Anyone regarding the Hoffman character will note that his name is Benjamin
and remember Hoffman's most famous character, in "The Graduate." But Joe is
the Benjamin of this film, and Hoffman's older man has more in common with
another of his famous roles: Willy Loman, the hero of "Death of a Salesman."
Ben occupies a low-rent storefront office on Main Street in Cape Anne,
Mass., but dreams of putting together a group of properties and bringing in
a superstore like Kmart. This will be his big killing, the deal that caps
his career, even though we can see in the eyes of the local rich man (Dabney
Coleman) that Ben is too small to land this fish. Ben's desire to share his
dream with his surrogate son, Joe, also has echoes from the Arthur Miller
tragedy.

Sarandon's JoJo is tart, with a verbal wit to protect her and a jaundiced
view of her husband's prospects. The deepest conversation JoJo has with Joe
("Isn't it funny, that we have the same name?") is about as well done as
such a scene can be. She intuits that Joe is dealing not only with the loss
of Diana's life but with the loss of something else.

Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot
be written, only felt. She knows she is attractive to Joe. She knows she
likes him. She knows she is faithful to her old boyfriend. She is frightened
by her own power to attract, especially since she wants to attract even
while she tells herself she doesn't. She is so vulnerable in this movie, so
sweet as she senses Joe's pain and wants to help him.

Holly Hunter is the fifth major player, as the lawyer who is handling the
case against Diana's killer. She embodies the wisdom of the law, which
knows, as laymen do not, that it moves with its own logic regardless of the
feelings of those in the courtroom. She offers practical advice, and then
you can see in her eyes that she wishes she could offer emotional advice
instead.

"Moonlight Mile" gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things. It
is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders
to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
Everyone who has grieved for a loved one will recognize the moment, some
days after the death, when an irreverent remark will release the surprise of
laughter. Sometimes we laugh, that we may not cry. Not many movies know that
truth. "Moonlight Mile" is based on it.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:02 GMT

INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)

October 4, 2002

Hanussen: Tim Roth
Zishe: Jouko Ahola
Marta Farra: Anna Gourari
Master of Ceremonies: Max     Raabe
Benjamin: Jacob Wein
Landwehr: Gustav Peter     Wohler
Fine Line Features presents a film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content and thematic
elements). Opening today at Water Tower.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

Werner Herzog's "Invincible" tells the astonishing story of a Jewish
strongman in Nazi Germany, a man who in his simple goodness believes he can
be the "new Samson" and protect his people. He is a blacksmith in Poland in
1932 when discovered by a talent scout, and soon becomes the headliner in
the Palace of the Occult, in Berlin, which is run by the sinister Hanussen
(Tim Roth), a man who dreams of becoming Minister of the Occult in a Nazi
government.

The strongman, named Zishe Breitbart, is played by a Finnish athlete named
Jouko Ahola, twice winner of the title World's Strongest Man. Much of the
movie's uncanny appeal comes from the contrast between Ahola's performance,
which is entirely without guile, and Roth's performance, which drips with
mannered malevolence. Standing between them is the young woman Marta (Anna
Gourari), who is under Hanussen's psychological power, and who the strongman
loves.

"Invincible" is based, Herzog says, on the true story of Breitbart, whose
great strength contradicted the Nazi myth of Aryan superiority. I can
imagine a dozen ways in which this story could be told badly, but Herzog has
fashioned it into a film of uncommon fascination, in which we often have no
idea at all what could possibly happen next. There are countless movies
about preludes to the Holocaust, but I can't think of one this innocent,
direct and unblinking. In the face of gathering evil, Zishe trusts in human
nature, is proud of his heritage, and believes strength and goodness (which
he confuses) will triumph.

The movie has the power of a great silent film, unafraid of grand gestures
and moral absolutes. Its casting of the major characters is crucial, and
instinctively correct. Tim Roth is a sinister charlatan, posing as a man
with real psychic powers, using trickery and showmanship as he jockeys for
position within the emerging Nazi majority. There is a scene where he
hypnotizes Marta, and as he stares boldly into the camera I wondered, for a
moment, if it was possible to hypnotize a movie audience that way. Late in
the film there is a scene where his secrets are revealed, and he makes a
speech of chilling, absolute cynicism. Another actor in another movie might
have simply gnashed his teeth, but Roth and Herzog take the revelations as
an opportunity to show us the self-hatred beneath the deception.

As for Jouko Ahola, this untrained actor, who seems by nature to be
good-hearted and uncomplicated, may never act again, but he has found the
one perfect role, as Maria Falconetti did in "The Passion of Joan of Arc."
He embodies the simple strongman. The camera can look as closely as it wants
and never find anything false. A naive man from a backward town, not
especially devout, he gets into a fight when Polish customers in a
restaurant insult him and his little brother as Jews. A little later,
entering a circus contest, he watches as the strongman lifts a boulder--and
then puts an end to the contest by, lifting the strongman and the boulder.

The talent scout takes him to see his first movie. Soon he is in Berlin,
where Hanussen sizes him up and says, "We will Aryanize you. A Jew should
never be as strong as you." Zishe is outfitted with a blond wig and Nordic
helmet, and presented as "Siegfried." He becomes a great favor of Nazi
brownshirts in the audience, as Hanussen prattles about "the strength of the
body against the dark powers of the occult." But Zishe's mind works away at
the situation until finally he has his solution, tears off the helmet and
wig, and identities himself as a Jew.

Here as throughout the film Herzog avoids the obvious next scene. Is
Hanussen outraged? To a degree. But then he reports: "There's a line three
blocks long outside! It's the Jews. They all want to see the new Samson."
And then, at a time when Hitler was on the rise but the full measure of
Jewish persecution was not yet in view, the Palace of the Occult turns into
a dangerous pit where audience members are potentially at one another's
throats.

This is the first feature in 10 years from Herzog, one of the great
visionaries among directors. He strains to break the bonds of film structure
in order to surprise us in unexpected ways. His best films unashamedly yearn
to lift us into the mythical and the mystical. "Our civilization is starving
for new images," he once told me, and in "Invincible" there is an image of a
bleak, rocky seashore where the sharp stones are littered with thousands or
millions of bright red crabs, all mindlessly scrabbling away on their crabby
missions. I think this scene may represent the emerging Nazi hordes, but of
course there can be no literal translation. Perhaps Herzog wants to
illustrate the implacable Darwinian struggle from which man can rise with
good heart and purpose.

The strongman in "Invincible" is lovable, and so deeply moving, precisely
because he is not a cog in a plot, has no plan, is involved in no
machinations, but is simply proud of his parents, proud to be a Jew, in love
with the girl, and convinced that God has made him strong for a reason. He
may be wrong in his optimism, but his greatest strength is that he will
never understand that. The Roth character is equally single-minded, but
without hope or purpose--a conniver and manipulator.

Watching "Invincible" was a singular experience for me, because it reminded
me of the fundamental power that the cinema had for us when we were
children. The film exercises the power that fable has for the believing.
Herzog has gotten outside the constraints and conventions of ordinary
narrative, and addresses us where our credulity keeps its secrets.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:02 GMT

SECRETARY / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mr. Grey: James Spader
Lee Holloway: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Peter: Jeremy Davies
Joan Holloway: Lesley Ann Warren
Burt Holloway: Stephen McHattie
Dr. Twardon: Patrick Bauchau
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Steven Shainberg. Written by
Erin Cressida Wilson. Based on the story by Mary Gaitskill. Running time:
104 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of
behavioral disorders and language). Opening today at Evanston CineArts 6,
Esquire, Pipers Alley and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Secretary" approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy
tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.
Because S/M involves postures that are absorbing for the participants but
absurd to the onlooker, we tend to giggle at the wrong times. Here is a film
where we giggle at the right times. The director, Steven Shainberg, has
succeeded by focusing intently on his characters, making them quirky
individuals rather than figures of fun.

The movie, to begin with, is well cast. There may be better actors than
James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but for this material, I cannot think
who they are. About Spader there always seems to be some unarticulated
secret hovering, and Gyllenhaal avoids numerous opportunities to make her
character seem pathetic, and makes her seem plucky instead--intent on
establishing herself and making herself necessary.

Spader plays Mr. Grey, a lawyer whose office looks like the result of
intense conversations with an interior designer who has seen too many
Michael Douglas movies. Mr. Grey has such bad luck with secretaries that he
has an illuminated help-wanted sign out front he can light up, like the
"Vacancy" sign at a motel. Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, who has the
illness of self-mutilation and comes from a neurotic family. Released from
treatment, Lee takes typing classes, goes looking for work and has an
interview with Mr. Grey. Something unspoken passes between them and they
know they are thinking about the same thing.

Lee is submissive. Spader is dominant and obsessive (he has a fetish for
lining up red markers in his desk drawer). He demands perfection, she falls
short of the mark, he punishes her, and this becomes a workable
relationship. When he loses interest for a time and stops correcting her
mistakes, she grows disconsolate; when he sharply calls her back into her
office, she is delighted.

The movie does not argue that S/M is good for you, but has a more complex
dynamic. By absorbing so much of Mr. Grey's time and attention, Lee, who has
abysmal self-esteem, feels that attention is being paid to her. Mr. Grey
notices her. He thinks about her. He devises new games for them. He never
threatens serious hurt or harm, but instead tends toward role-playing and
ritual. What they discover is that, in the long run, S/M is more fun (and
less trouble) for the "M" than for the "S." "We can't go on like this 24
hours a day," Mr. Grey complains at one point. Lee doesn't see why not.

Jeremy Davies plays Peter, the other key role, sincere to the point of being
inarticulate, who for a time dates Lee. Mr. Grey looks on jealously as they
do their laundry together, and is faced with the possibility that he might
lose his agreeable secretary. That would be the final straw, since we sense
that Mr. Grey is in much worse shape than Lee was ever in. His
obsessive-compulsive behavior is driving him nuts, not to mention his
clients. Stories about S/M often have an ironic happy ending, but this one,
based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, seems sincere enough: They've
found a relationships that works. For them.

The movie's humor comes through the close observation of behavior. It allows
us to understand what has happened without specifying it. The lawyer and
secretary have subtle little signals by which they step out of their roles
and sort of wink, so they both know that they both know what they're doing.
Their behavior, which is intended to signify hostility, eventually grows
into a deeper recognition of each other's natures and needs. That of course
leads to affection, which can be tricky, but not for them, because both
suspect there is no one else they're ever likely to meet who will understand
them quite so completely.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:04 GMT

RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

October 4, 2002

Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Will Graham: Edward Norton
Francis Dolarhyde: Ralph Fiennes
Jack Crawford: Harvey Keitel
Reba McClane: Emily Watson
Molly Graham: Mary-Louise Parker
Freddy Lounds: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Ted
Tally. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
R (for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Red Dragon" opens with the pleasure of seeing Hannibal Lecter as he was
before leaving civilian life. The camera floats above a symphony orchestra
and down into the audience, and we spot Lecter almost at once, regarding
with displeasure an inferior musician. Interesting, how the director forces
our attention just as a magician forces a card: We notice Lecter because he
is located in a strong point of the screen, because his face is lighted to
make him pop out from the drabness on either side, and because he is looking
directly at the camera.

I felt, a confess, a certain pleasure to find him in the audience. Hannibal
Lecter is one of the most wicked villains in movie history, and one of the
most beloved. We forgive him his trespasses because (1) they are forced upon
him by his nature; (2) most of the time he is helplessly imprisoned, and
providing aid to the FBI, or seeming to, after his peculiar fashion, and (3)
he is droll and literate, dryly humorous, elegantly mannered. In these days
of movie characters who obediently recite the words the plot requires of
them, it's a pleasure to meet a man who can hold up his end of the
conversation.

The opening, with Hannibal still in civilian life, allows a tense early
scene in which the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) receives a late-night visitor,
FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham has been assisted by Lecter in
examining a series of crimes which, he has just realized, involved
cannibalism--and now, as he regards the doctor in the gloom of the shadowed
study, it occurs to him, just as it simultaneously occurs to Lecter, that it
is clear to both of them who this cannibal might be.

Flash forward several years. Lecter is in prison, Graham has taken early
retirement, but now his old FBI boss (Harvey Keitel) wants to recruit him to
solve a pair of serial killings, this time by a man dubbed the Tooth Fairy
because he leaves an unmistakable dental imprint at the scenes of his
crimes. Graham resists, but photos of the dead families and a poignant look
at his own living family do the trick, and he joins the case as a free-lance
adviser. This requires him to examine crime scenes by creeping through them
in pitch darkness in the middle of the night, although there is no reason he
could not visit at noon (except, of course, that he wants to share the
killer's point of view, and also because the film seeds the darkness with
potential danger).

The director is Brett Ratner, who has not achieved the distinction of the
three previous directors of Hannibal Lecter movies (Jonathan Demme on "The
Silence of the Lambs," Ridley Scott on "Hannibal," and Michael Mann on
"Manhunter," the first version of "Red Dragon," made in 1986). Ratner's
credits have included the "Rush Hour" pictures, "Family Man" and "Money
Talks," some with their merits, none suggesting he was qualified to be
Lecter's next director.

To my surprise, he does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of
Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy
(Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a
character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of
the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy
scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The screenplay by Ted
Tally, who wrote "Lambs," also supplies a blind girl in peril (Emily
Watson), and blind girls have worked dependably since the days of silent
pictures.

A movie like "Red Dragon" is all atmosphere and apprehension. Ratner doesn't
give us as much violence or as many sensational shocks as Scott did in
"Hannibal," but that's a plus: Lecter is a character who commands
contemplation and unease, and too much action just releases the tension. To
be sure, Scott was working with a Thomas Harris novel that itself went so
high over the top (remember the quadriplegic murdered with an electric eel?)
that much of it could not be filmed. But this movie, based on Harris' first
novel, has studied "Silence of the Lambs" and knows that the action comes
second to general creepiness. There are stabbings, shootings, fires,
explosions, tortures, mutilations, and a flaming corpse in a wheelchair, but
within reason.

As the "Tooth Fairy" figure, named Francis Dolarhyde, Ralph Fiennes comes as
close as possible to creating a sympathetic monster. What he does is
unspeakable. What has been done to him is unspeakable. Dolarhyde himself is
horrified by his potential, and the character of the blind girl is not
merely a cheap gimmick (although it is that, too), but a device that allows
him to ask just how far he is prepared to go. We are reminded of another
monster and another blind person, in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1932), and in
both cases the monster feels relief because the blind cannot see that he is
a monster. (In photos of a crime scene, ex-agent Graham notices that mirrors
have been broken and shards of the glass put in the eye sockets of
victims--perhaps because the Tooth Fairy cannot stand to look at himself,
but is driven to a frenzy when others can look at him.)

The movie has been photographed by Dante Spinotti, who also filmed Michael
Mann's more cool, stylized version, and here he provides darkness and
saturated colors. The Lecter world is one of dampness, lowering clouds,
early sunsets, chill in the bones. Lecter himself, when he appears, is like
a little fire we can warm before; he smiles benevolently, knows all, accepts
his nature, offers to help, and more often than not has another macabre
scheme under way. The early passages of this movie benefit from our
knowledge that Lecter will sooner or later appear; it's as if the plot is
tiptoeing toward a ledge.

The Lecter character, and the agents who deal with him, and the monsters who
take him as a role model, create an atmosphere that encourages style in the
filmmaking. It is much the same with the best upper-class crime novels.
There is violence, yes, but also a lot of carefully described atmosphere, as
we enter the attractive lives of the rich and vicious: Consider Rex Stout,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:04 GMT

SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Melanie: Reese Witherspoon
Jake: Josh Lucas
Andrew: Patrick Dempsey
Earl: Fred Ward
Pearl: Mary Kay Place
Stella Kay: Jean Smart
Kate: Candice Bergen
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Andy Tennant. Written by C.
Jay Cox. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language and
sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion
that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses
this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy,
while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach
pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all
know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming,
recycling of this ancient myth.

The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again
since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the
mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie
where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just
doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.

Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars
as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and
while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with
Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen)
is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he
has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of
unfinished business.

Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already
married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped
plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys
and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the
decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart,
but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser,
she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her
back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.

When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her
high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her
parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging
around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and
sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is
right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to
"go back to your double-wide and fry something."

The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the
screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he
divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so
that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later
he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and
his coon dog still likes her.

The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total
jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding,
as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York,
a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.

So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C.
Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's
theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We
know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights,
big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds
are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the
mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be
unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.")

But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and
her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to
become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I
ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of
a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower?

The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why
"Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy
tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day
would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in
"Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local
color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for
the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to
New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:06 GMT

THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Jimmy Tong: Jackie Chan
Del Blaine: Jennifer Love     Hewitt
Clark Devlin: Jason Isaacs
Banning: Ritchie Coster
Steena: Debi Mazar
DreamWorks Pictures presents a film directed by Kevin Donovan. Written by
Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13
(for action violence, sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is an ancient tradition in action movies that the first scene is a
self-contained shocker with no relevance to the rest of the plot. James Bond
parachutes from a mountainside, Clint Eastwood disarms a robber, etc. Jackie
Chan's "The Tuxedo" opens with a deer urinating in a mountain stream. The
deer, the urine and the stream have nothing to do with the rest of the film.

The movie's plot does involve water. The bad guy wants to add an ingredient
to the world's water supply that will cause victims to dehydrate and die. To
save themselves, they will have to buy the villain's pure water. Since his
opening gambit is to sabotage, I repeat, the world's water supply, he will
dehydrate everyone except those already drinking only bottled water, and so
will inherit a planet of health nuts, which is just as well, since all the
fish and animals and birds will dehydrate, too, and everyone will have to
live on PowerBars.

I have been waiting for a dehydrating villain for some time. My wife is of
the opinion that I do not drink enough water. She believes the proper amount
is a minimum of eight glasses a day. She often regards me balefully and
says, "You're not getting enough water." In hot climates her concern
escalates. In Hawaii last summer she had the grandchildren so worked up they
ran into the bedroom every morning to see if Grandpa Roger had turned to
dust.

The movie's villain, whose name is Banning (Ritchie Coster), has a novel
scheme for distributing the formula, or virus, or secret ingredient, or
whatever it is, that will make water into a dehydrating agent. He plans to
use water striders, those insects that can skate across the surface of a
pond. In his secret laboratory he keeps his ultimate weapon, a powerful
water strider queen.

Do water striders have queens, like bees and ants do? For an authoritative
answer I turned to Dr. May Berenbaum, head of the Department of Entomology
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and founder of the Insect
Fear Film Festival, held every year at the Great University.

She writes: "Water striders are true bugs (i.e., insects with
piercing/sucking mouthparts) that run or skate on the surface of bodies of
water, feeding on the insects that fall onto the water surface. There are
about 500 species of gerrids in the world and, as far as I know, not a
single one of those 500 species is eusocial (i.e., has a complex social
structure with reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care). I
don't even know of an example of maternal care in the whole group. In short,
the answer to your question is an emphatic 'no!' I can't wait to see this
film. It definitely sounds like a candidate for a future Insect Fear Film
Festival!"

More crushing evidence: Dr. Bruce P. Smith, expert entomologist at Ithaca
College, writes me, "There is no known species of water striders that has
queens. The most closely related insects that do are some colonial aphid
speciies, and the most familiar (and much more distant rleatives) are the
ants, bees, wasps and termites." He adds helpfully, "One mammal does have
queens: the naked mole rats of Africa." Revealing himself as a student of
insect films, he continues, "If my memory is correct, 'Arachnophobia' has a
king spider, but no queen--totally absurd!"

So there you have it. Professors Smith and Berenbaum have spoken. The evil
Banning has spent untold millions on his secret plans for world domination,
and thinks he possesses a water strider queen when he only has a lucky
regular water strider living the life of Riley.

But back to "The Tuxedo." Jackie Chan plays a taxi driver named Jimmy Tong,
who is hired by Debi Mazar to be the chauffeur for Clark Devlin (Jason
Isaacs), a multimillionaire secret agent whose $2 million tuxedo turns him
into a fighting machine (also a dancer, kung-fu expert, etc). After Devlin
is injured by a skateboard bomb, Jackie puts on the suit and soon partners
with agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who realizes he has a strange
accent for a man named Clark Devlin, but nevertheless joins him in battle
against Banning.

The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it
would still be beyond comprehension. It does have its moments, as when the
tuxedo inadvertently cold-cocks James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, and
Jackie Chan has to go onstage in place of the Hardest Working Man in Show
Business. He's very funny as James Brown, although not as funny as James
Brown is.

There's something engaging about Jackie Chan. Even in a bad movie, I like
him, because what you see is so obviously what you get. This time he goes
light on the stunts, at least the stunts he obviously does himself, so that
during the closing credits, there are lots of flubbed lines and times when
the actors break out laughing, but none of those spellbinding shots in which
he misses the bridge, falls off the scaffold, etc. And some of the shots are
computer-generated, which is kind of cheating isn't it, with Jackie Chan?
Luckily, special effects are not frowned upon at the Insect Fear Film
Festival.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:08 GMT

MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Joe Nast Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Floss: Dustin Hoffman
JoJo Floss: Susan Sarandon
Mona Camp: Holly Hunter
Bertie Knox: Ellen Pompeo
Mike Mulcahey: Dabney Coleman
Stan Michaels: Allan Corduner
Ty: Richard T. Jones
Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present a film written and
directed by Brad Silberling. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
some sensuality and brief strong language). Opening today at Pipers Alley,
Northbrook Court and Yorktown.

BY ROGER EBERT

After the funeral is over and the mourners have come back to the house for
coffee and cake and have all gone home, the parents and the boyfriend of
Diana, the dead girl, sit by themselves. Her mother criticizes how one
friend expressed her sympathy. And the father asks, what could she say? "Put
yourself in their shoes."

That little scene provides a key to Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile." What
do you say when someone dies--someone you cared for? What are the right
words? And what's the right thing to do? Death is the ultimate rebuke to
good manners. The movie, which makes an unusually intense effort to deal
with the process of grief and renewal, is inspired by a loss in Silberling's
own life. The TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, his girlfriend at the time, was
killed in 1989 by a fan. Silberling has grown very close to her parents in
the years since then, he told me, and more than a decade later he has tried
to use the experience as the starting point for a film.

"Moonlight Mile," which takes place in 1973, opens in an elliptical way. At
first only quiet clues in the dialogue allow us to understand that someone
has died. We meet Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), the fiance of the dead girl,
and her parents Ben and JoJo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). They
talk not in a sentimental way, but in that strange, detached tone we use
when grief is too painful to express and yet something must be said.

After the funeral and the home visitation, the film follows what in a lesser
film would be called the "healing process." "Moonlight Mile" is too quirky
and observant to be described in psychobabble. Joe stays stuck in the Floss
house, living in an upstairs bedroom, his plans on hold. Ben, who has lost a
daughter, now in a confused way hopes to gain a son, and encourages Joe to
join him in his business as a real estate developer. JoJo, protected by
intelligence and wit, looks closely and suspects a secret Joe is keeping,
which leaves him stranded between the past and future.

Gyllenhaal, who in person is a jokester, in the movies almost always plays
characters who are withdrawn and morose. Remember him in "Donnie Darko,"
"The Good Girl" and "Lovely & Amazing." Here, too, he is a young man
with troubled thoughts. At the post office, and again at a bar where she has
a night job, he meets Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo), who sees inside when
others only look at the surface. They begin to talk. She has a loss, too:
Her boyfriend has been missing in action in Vietnam for three years. While
it is possible that they will mend each other's hearts by falling in love,
the movie doesn't simple-mindedly pursue that plot path, but meanders among
the thoughts of the living.

Silberling's screenplay pays full attention to all of the characters. Ben
and JoJo are not simply a backdrop to a romance involving Joe and Bertie.
The movie provides key scenes for all of the characters, in conversation and
in monologue, so that it is not only about Joe's grieving process but about
all four, who have lost different things in different ways.

Anyone regarding the Hoffman character will note that his name is Benjamin
and remember Hoffman's most famous character, in "The Graduate." But Joe is
the Benjamin of this film, and Hoffman's older man has more in common with
another of his famous roles: Willy Loman, the hero of "Death of a Salesman."
Ben occupies a low-rent storefront office on Main Street in Cape Anne,
Mass., but dreams of putting together a group of properties and bringing in
a superstore like Kmart. This will be his big killing, the deal that caps
his career, even though we can see in the eyes of the local rich man (Dabney
Coleman) that Ben is too small to land this fish. Ben's desire to share his
dream with his surrogate son, Joe, also has echoes from the Arthur Miller
tragedy.

Sarandon's JoJo is tart, with a verbal wit to protect her and a jaundiced
view of her husband's prospects. The deepest conversation JoJo has with Joe
("Isn't it funny, that we have the same name?") is about as well done as
such a scene can be. She intuits that Joe is dealing not only with the loss
of Diana's life but with the loss of something else.

Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot
be written, only felt. She knows she is attractive to Joe. She knows she
likes him. She knows she is faithful to her old boyfriend. She is frightened
by her own power to attract, especially since she wants to attract even
while she tells herself she doesn't. She is so vulnerable in this movie, so
sweet as she senses Joe's pain and wants to help him.

Holly Hunter is the fifth major player, as the lawyer who is handling the
case against Diana's killer. She embodies the wisdom of the law, which
knows, as laymen do not, that it moves with its own logic regardless of the
feelings of those in the courtroom. She offers practical advice, and then
you can see in her eyes that she wishes she could offer emotional advice
instead.

"Moonlight Mile" gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things. It
is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders
to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
Everyone who has grieved for a loved one will recognize the moment, some
days after the death, when an irreverent remark will release the surprise of
laughter. Sometimes we laugh, that we may not cry. Not many movies know that
truth. "Moonlight Mile" is based on it.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:09 GMT

SECRETARY / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mr. Grey: James Spader
Lee Holloway: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Peter: Jeremy Davies
Joan Holloway: Lesley Ann Warren
Burt Holloway: Stephen McHattie
Dr. Twardon: Patrick Bauchau
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Steven Shainberg. Written by
Erin Cressida Wilson. Based on the story by Mary Gaitskill. Running time:
104 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of
behavioral disorders and language). Opening today at Evanston CineArts 6,
Esquire, Pipers Alley and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Secretary" approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy
tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.
Because S/M involves postures that are absorbing for the participants but
absurd to the onlooker, we tend to giggle at the wrong times. Here is a film
where we giggle at the right times. The director, Steven Shainberg, has
succeeded by focusing intently on his characters, making them quirky
individuals rather than figures of fun.

The movie, to begin with, is well cast. There may be better actors than
James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but for this material, I cannot think
who they are. About Spader there always seems to be some unarticulated
secret hovering, and Gyllenhaal avoids numerous opportunities to make her
character seem pathetic, and makes her seem plucky instead--intent on
establishing herself and making herself necessary.

Spader plays Mr. Grey, a lawyer whose office looks like the result of
intense conversations with an interior designer who has seen too many
Michael Douglas movies. Mr. Grey has such bad luck with secretaries that he
has an illuminated help-wanted sign out front he can light up, like the
"Vacancy" sign at a motel. Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, who has the
illness of self-mutilation and comes from a neurotic family. Released from
treatment, Lee takes typing classes, goes looking for work and has an
interview with Mr. Grey. Something unspoken passes between them and they
know they are thinking about the same thing.

Lee is submissive. Spader is dominant and obsessive (he has a fetish for
lining up red markers in his desk drawer). He demands perfection, she falls
short of the mark, he punishes her, and this becomes a workable
relationship. When he loses interest for a time and stops correcting her
mistakes, she grows disconsolate; when he sharply calls her back into her
office, she is delighted.

The movie does not argue that S/M is good for you, but has a more complex
dynamic. By absorbing so much of Mr. Grey's time and attention, Lee, who has
abysmal self-esteem, feels that attention is being paid to her. Mr. Grey
notices her. He thinks about her. He devises new games for them. He never
threatens serious hurt or harm, but instead tends toward role-playing and
ritual. What they discover is that, in the long run, S/M is more fun (and
less trouble) for the "M" than for the "S." "We can't go on like this 24
hours a day," Mr. Grey complains at one point. Lee doesn't see why not.

Jeremy Davies plays Peter, the other key role, sincere to the point of being
inarticulate, who for a time dates Lee. Mr. Grey looks on jealously as they
do their laundry together, and is faced with the possibility that he might
lose his agreeable secretary. That would be the final straw, since we sense
that Mr. Grey is in much worse shape than Lee was ever in. His
obsessive-compulsive behavior is driving him nuts, not to mention his
clients. Stories about S/M often have an ironic happy ending, but this one,
based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, seems sincere enough: They've
found a relationships that works. For them.

The movie's humor comes through the close observation of behavior. It allows
us to understand what has happened without specifying it. The lawyer and
secretary have subtle little signals by which they step out of their roles
and sort of wink, so they both know that they both know what they're doing.
Their behavior, which is intended to signify hostility, eventually grows
into a deeper recognition of each other's natures and needs. That of course
leads to affection, which can be tricky, but not for them, because both
suspect there is no one else they're ever likely to meet who will understand
them quite so completely.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:11 GMT

SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Melanie: Reese Witherspoon
Jake: Josh Lucas
Andrew: Patrick Dempsey
Earl: Fred Ward
Pearl: Mary Kay Place
Stella Kay: Jean Smart
Kate: Candice Bergen
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Andy Tennant. Written by C.
Jay Cox. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language and
sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion
that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses
this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy,
while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach
pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all
know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming,
recycling of this ancient myth.

The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again
since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the
mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie
where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just
doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.

Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars
as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and
while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with
Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen)
is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he
has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of
unfinished business.

Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already
married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped
plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys
and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the
decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart,
but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser,
she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her
back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.

When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her
high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her
parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging
around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and
sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is
right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to
"go back to your double-wide and fry something."

The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the
screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he
divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so
that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later
he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and
his coon dog still likes her.

The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total
jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding,
as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York,
a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.

So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C.
Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's
theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We
know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights,
big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds
are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the
mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be
unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.")

But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and
her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to
become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I
ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of
a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower?

The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why
"Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy
tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day
would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in
"Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local
color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for
the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to
New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:13 GMT

THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Jimmy Tong: Jackie Chan
Del Blaine: Jennifer Love     Hewitt
Clark Devlin: Jason Isaacs
Banning: Ritchie Coster
Steena: Debi Mazar
DreamWorks Pictures presents a film directed by Kevin Donovan. Written by
Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13
(for action violence, sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is an ancient tradition in action movies that the first scene is a
self-contained shocker with no relevance to the rest of the plot. James Bond
parachutes from a mountainside, Clint Eastwood disarms a robber, etc. Jackie
Chan's "The Tuxedo" opens with a deer urinating in a mountain stream. The
deer, the urine and the stream have nothing to do with the rest of the film.

The movie's plot does involve water. The bad guy wants to add an ingredient
to the world's water supply that will cause victims to dehydrate and die. To
save themselves, they will have to buy the villain's pure water. Since his
opening gambit is to sabotage, I repeat, the world's water supply, he will
dehydrate everyone except those already drinking only bottled water, and so
will inherit a planet of health nuts, which is just as well, since all the
fish and animals and birds will dehydrate, too, and everyone will have to
live on PowerBars.

I have been waiting for a dehydrating villain for some time. My wife is of
the opinion that I do not drink enough water. She believes the proper amount
is a minimum of eight glasses a day. She often regards me balefully and
says, "You're not getting enough water." In hot climates her concern
escalates. In Hawaii last summer she had the grandchildren so worked up they
ran into the bedroom every morning to see if Grandpa Roger had turned to
dust.

The movie's villain, whose name is Banning (Ritchie Coster), has a novel
scheme for distributing the formula, or virus, or secret ingredient, or
whatever it is, that will make water into a dehydrating agent. He plans to
use water striders, those insects that can skate across the surface of a
pond. In his secret laboratory he keeps his ultimate weapon, a powerful
water strider queen.

Do water striders have queens, like bees and ants do? For an authoritative
answer I turned to Dr. May Berenbaum, head of the Department of Entomology
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and founder of the Insect
Fear Film Festival, held every year at the Great University.

She writes: "Water striders are true bugs (i.e., insects with
piercing/sucking mouthparts) that run or skate on the surface of bodies of
water, feeding on the insects that fall onto the water surface. There are
about 500 species of gerrids in the world and, as far as I know, not a
single one of those 500 species is eusocial (i.e., has a complex social
structure with reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care). I
don't even know of an example of maternal care in the whole group. In short,
the answer to your question is an emphatic 'no!' I can't wait to see this
film. It definitely sounds like a candidate for a future Insect Fear Film
Festival!"

More crushing evidence: Dr. Bruce P. Smith, expert entomologist at Ithaca
College, writes me, "There is no known species of water striders that has
queens. The most closely related insects that do are some colonial aphid
speciies, and the most familiar (and much more distant rleatives) are the
ants, bees, wasps and termites." He adds helpfully, "One mammal does have
queens: the naked mole rats of Africa." Revealing himself as a student of
insect films, he continues, "If my memory is correct, 'Arachnophobia' has a
king spider, but no queen--totally absurd!"

So there you have it. Professors Smith and Berenbaum have spoken. The evil
Banning has spent untold millions on his secret plans for world domination,
and thinks he possesses a water strider queen when he only has a lucky
regular water strider living the life of Riley.

But back to "The Tuxedo." Jackie Chan plays a taxi driver named Jimmy Tong,
who is hired by Debi Mazar to be the chauffeur for Clark Devlin (Jason
Isaacs), a multimillionaire secret agent whose $2 million tuxedo turns him
into a fighting machine (also a dancer, kung-fu expert, etc). After Devlin
is injured by a skateboard bomb, Jackie puts on the suit and soon partners
with agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who realizes he has a strange
accent for a man named Clark Devlin, but nevertheless joins him in battle
against Banning.

The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it
would still be beyond comprehension. It does have its moments, as when the
tuxedo inadvertently cold-cocks James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, and
Jackie Chan has to go onstage in place of the Hardest Working Man in Show
Business. He's very funny as James Brown, although not as funny as James
Brown is.

There's something engaging about Jackie Chan. Even in a bad movie, I like
him, because what you see is so obviously what you get. This time he goes
light on the stunts, at least the stunts he obviously does himself, so that
during the closing credits, there are lots of flubbed lines and times when
the actors break out laughing, but none of those spellbinding shots in which
he misses the bridge, falls off the scaffold, etc. And some of the shots are
computer-generated, which is kind of cheating isn't it, with Jackie Chan?
Luckily, special effects are not frowned upon at the Insect Fear Film
Festival.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:06 GMT

8 WOMEN / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Beart
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Francois Ozon.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R
(for some sexual content). In French with English subtitles. Opening today
at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Here it is at last, the first Agatha Christie musical. Eight women are
isolated in a snowbound cottage, there is a corpse with a knife in his back,
all of the women are potential suspects, plus eight song and dance numbers.
The cast is a roll call of French legends. In alphabetical order: Fanny
Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle
Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard and Ludivine Sagnier.

From the opening shot, the film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of
overproduced Hollywood musicals. We pan past tree branches impossibly laden
with picturesque snow and find a charming cottage where guests are just
arriving. Eight women have gathered to celebrate Christmas with Marcel, who
is the husband of Gaby (Deneuve), the son-in-law of Mamy (Darrieux), the
brother-in-law of Aunt Augustine (Huppert), the father of Catherine
(Sagnier) and Suzon (Ledoyen), the employer of the domestic servants Madame
Chanel (Richard) and Louise (Beart), and the brother of the late-arriving
Pierrette (Ardant).

"Monsieur died in his bed with a knife in his back," the assembled company
is informed. And (significant detail required in all isolated rural murders)
"the dogs didn't bark all night." The women absorb this news while dressed
in stunning designer fashions (even the maids look chic) and deployed around
a large, sunny room that looks like nothing so much as a stage set--even to
the detail that all the furniture is behind the actresses most of the time.
Only a couple of brief excursions upstairs prevent the movie from taking
place entirely on this one bright set, where nothing looks used or lived
with.

The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song
begins, because "8 Women" is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or
anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast, and we
realize we've been waiting a long time for Catherine Deneuve to come right
out and say of Isabelle Huppert: "I'm beautiful and rich. She's ugly and
poor." I had also just about given up hope of ever seeing Deneuve and Fanny
Ardant rolling around on the floor pulling each other's hair.

In a cast where everybody has fun, Huppert has the most, as Augustine. She
and her mother (Darrieux) have been living rent-free in Marcel's cottage
with her sister (Deneuve), but that has not inspired Augustine to compromise
in her fierce resentment and spinsterish isolation. She stalks around the
set like Whistler's mother, frowning from behind her horn-rims and making
disapproval into a lifestyle.

The other characters quickly fall into approved Agatha Christie patterns.
Young Suzon appoints herself Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps in this case
Hercule Poirot, and begins sniffing out the clues. The sexy Louise is
established as the late Marcel's mistress. Madame Chanel, from French
Africa, has been with the family for years and lives out back in the guest
cottage, where, as it develops, she often plays cards with Pierrette. And
Pierrette herself, who arrives late with the kind of entrance that only the
tall, dark and forcible Ardant could pull off, has secrets which are as
amazing as they are inevitable.

I dare not reveal a shred of the plot. And the movie is all plot--that, and
stylish behavior, and barbed wit, and those musical numbers. Watching "8
Women," you have a silly grin half of the time. Astonishing, that Francois
Ozon, who directed this, also made "Under the Sand" (2001), that melancholy
record of a wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears, apparently
drowned, and who refuses to deal with the fact that he is dead.

Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to
have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux
and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It
also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now in the
50th year of its London run, with its cast still trapped with the corpse in
the isolated cottage. "Do not give away the secret!" the program notes
exhort. And here, too. Not that the secret is anything more than one more
twist of the plot's pepper mill.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BROWN SUGAR / ***
Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:19 GMT

BROWN SUGAR / ***

October 11, 2002

Dre: Taye Diggs
Sidney: Sanaa Lathan
Reese: Nicole Ari Parker
Kelby Dawson: Boris Kodjoe
Chris V: Mos Def
Francine: Queen Latifah
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Written
by Michael Elliot and Famuyiwa. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

She is the editor of an important music magazine. He produces hip-hop for a
major label. They've been best friends since childhood, but never more than
that, although they came close a few times. Now, as both approach 30, Dre
(Taye Diggs) feels his career has lost its way. And Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) is
working so hard she doesn't have time for romance: "You're turning into a
Terry McMillan character," her girlfriend Fran-cine warns her.

"Brown Sugar," which charts romantic passages in these lives, is a romantic
comedy, yes, but one with characters who think and talk about their goals,
and are working on hard decisions. For both Sidney and Dre, hip-hop music
symbolizes a kind of perfect adolescent innocence, a purity they're trying
to return to as more cynical adults.

The first question Sidney asks an interview subject is always, "How did you
fall in love with hip-hop?" For her, it was July 18, 1984, when she
discovered for the first time a form that combined music, rhythm,
performance and poetry. Dre, her best buddy even then, grew up to become an
important hip-hop producer, working for a label that compromised its
standards as it became more successful. Now he's faced with the prospect of
producing "Rin and Tin," one white, one black, who bill themselves as "The
Hip-Hop Dalmatians."

Dre gets engaged to the beautiful Reese (Nicole Ari Parker). Sidney can't
believe he'll marry her, but can't admit she loves him--although she comes
close on the night before their wedding. Francine (Queen Latifah) lectures
her to declare her love: "You'll get the buddy and the booty!" When Dre
quits his job rather than work with the Dalmatians, he turns instinctively
to Sidney for advice, and Reese begins to understand that she's sharing his
heart.

Sidney, meanwhile, interviews the hunky athlete Kelby Dawson (Boris Kodjoe),
and soon they're engaged. Is this the real thing, or a rebound? Dre still
needs her for encouragement, as he pursues a hip-hop taxi driver named Chris
V (Mos Def), who he believes has potential to return the form to its roots.
And Chris, articulate in his music but lacking confidence in his life,
doesn't have the nerve to ask out Francine.

"Brown Sugar," advertised as a hip-hop comedy, is more like a slice of black
professional life (there's not even an entire hip-hop song in the whole
movie). Directed and co-written by Rick Famuyiwa, the movie returns to a
world similar to his "The Wood" (1999), but the characters are deeper and
more complex.

Consider Reese, the Nicole Ari Parker character. In a less thoughtful movie,
she'd be the shallow, bitchy life-wrecker. Here, she is blameless and
basically reasonable: mad at Dre for quitting his job without talking it
over with her, jealous of Sidney because she (correctly) suspects Sidney and
Dre have always been in love but lied to themselves about it. That feeling
comes to a head at a gym where both women work out, in a sparring match that
gets a little too sincere.

There's a scene in "Brown Sugar" I never thought I'd see in a movie, where
after Reese and Dre have a "final" fight, and in a more conventional film
she would disappear forever from the screenplay, but here she returns to
suggest counseling and says they need to work harder at their marriage. How
many movie romances are that thoughtful about their characters?

"Brown Sugar" may be pitching itself to the wrong audience. The ads promise:
"The Rhythm ... the Beat ... the Love ... and You Don't Stop!" But it's not
a musical and although it's sometimes a comedy, it's observant about its
people. Francine is onto something. They're all Terry McMillan characters.

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Subject: [MV] SWEPT AWAY / * (R)
Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:27 GMT

SWEPT AWAY / * (R)

October 11, 2002

Amber: Madonna
Giuseppe: Adriano Giannini
Debi: Elizabeth Banks
Burly Captain: Patrizio Rispo
Marina: Jeanne Tripplehorn
Screen Gems presents a film written and directed by Guy Ritchie. Running
time: XXX minutes. Rated R (for language and some sexuality/nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Swept Away" is a deserted island movie during which I desperately wished
the characters had chosen one movie to take along if they were stranded on a
deserted island, and were showing it to us instead of this one.

The movie is a relatively faithful remake of an incomparably superior 1974
movie with the lovely title, "Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue
Sea of August." The new "Swept Away" knows the words but not the music. It
strands two unattractive characters, one bitchy, one moronic, on an island
where neither they, nor we, have anyone else to look at or listen to. It's
harder for them than it is for us, because they have to go through the
motions of an erotic attraction that seems to have become an impossibility
the moment the roles were cast.

Madonna stars as Amber, the spoiled rich wife of a patient and
long-suffering millionaire. They join two other couples in a cruise on a
private yacht from Greece to Italy. The other five passengers recede into
unwritten, even unthought-about roles, while Amber picks on Giuseppe
(Adriano Giannini), the bearded deckhand. She has decided he is stupid and
rude, and insults him mercilessly. So it was in the earlier film, but in
this version Amber carries her behavior beyond all reason, until even the
rudest and bitchiest rich woman imaginable would have called it a day.

Amber orders Giuseppe to take her out in the dinghy. He demurs: It looks
like a storm. She insists. They run out of gas and begin to drift. She
insults him some more, and when he succeeds after great effort in catching a
fish for them to eat, she throws it overboard. Later she succeeds in putting
a hole in the dinghy during a struggle for the flare gun. They drift at sea
until they wash up on a deserted island, where the tables are turned and now
it is Giuseppe who has the upper hand. Her husband's wealth is now no longer
a factor, but his survival skills are priceless.

All of this is similar to the 1974 movie, even the business of the fish
thrown overboard. What is utterly missing is any juice or life in the
characters. Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato became stars on the
basis of the original "Swept Away," which was written and directed by Lina
Wertmuller, one of the most successful Italian directors of the 1970s. She
was a leftist but not a feminist, and aroused some controversy with a story
where it turned out the rich woman liked being ordered around and slapped a
little--liked it so much she encouraged the sailor to experiment with
practices he could not even pronounce.

This new "Swept Away" is more sentimental, I'm afraid, and the two castaways
fall into a more conventional form of love. I didn't believe it for a
moment. They have nothing in common, but worse still, neither one has any
conversation. They don't say a single interesting thing. That they have sex
because they are stranded on the island I can believe. That they are not
sleeping in separate caves by the time they are rescued I do not.

The problem with the Madonna character is that she starts out so hateful
that she can never really turn it around. We dislike her intensely and
thoroughly, and when she gets to the island we don't believe she had learned
a lesson, or turned nice--we believe she is behaving with this man as she
does with all men, in the way best designed to get her what she wants. As
for the sailor, does he really love her, as he says in that demeaning and
pitiful speech toward the end of the film? What is there to love? They
shared some interesting times together, but their minds never met.

The ending is particularly unsatisfactory, depending as it does on contrived
irony that avoids all of the emotional issues on the table. If I have come
this far with these two drips, and sailed with them, and been shipwrecked
with them, and listened to their tiresome conversations, I demand that they
arrive at some conclusion more rewarding than a misunderstanding based upon
a misdelivered letter. This story was about something when Wertmuller
directed it, but now it's not about anything at all. It's lost the politics
and the social observation and become just another situation romance about a
couple of saps stuck in an inarticulate screenplay.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)
Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:20 GMT

KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)

October 11, 2002

Matty Demaret: Barry Pepper
Taylor Reese: Vin Diesel
Johnny Marbles: Seth Green
Chris Scarpa: Andrew Davoli
Benny Chains: Dennis Hopper
Teddy Deserve: John Malkovich
New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Brian Koppelman and
David Levien. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for violence, language and
some drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

When Matty Demaret is 12, he fails a test. His uncle gives him a gun and
asks him to shoot a squealer. Matty just can't do it. "That's all right,"
his uncle says. "You're just not cut out for it." Matty grows into a young
man determined to make a place for himself in the mob, and hangs around with
other young heirs to a shrinking empire. Their fathers sat around counting
money, but they're expected to work the noon and evening shifts at the
family restaurant.

Matty (Barry Pepper) wants a chance to prove himself. He begs his dad, Benny
Chains (Dennis Hopper), for a job and finally gets one--picking up some
money in Spokane. His friend Johnny Marbles (Seth Green) owns a private
plane, and Matty asks him to fly the money back east. In the small town of
Wibaux, Mont., Johnny Marbles gets rattled by cops in the airport, drops the
bag in a luggage zone and loses it. This is not good.

"Knockaround Guys" is inspired by the same impulse as "The Sopranos." It
considers gangsters in the modern age, beset by progress, unsure of their
roles, undermined by psychobabble. "Used to be there was a way to do things
and things got done," Matty's Uncle Teddy (John Malkovich) complains. "Now
everybody's feelings are involved."

The heart of the movie takes place in Wibaux, a town ruled by a tall,
taciturn, ominous sheriff, played by that unmistakable actor Tom Noonan.
Matty flies out to Montana with backup: his friends Taylor (Vin Diesel) and
Scarpa (Andrew Davoli). They stick out like sore thumbs in the little town.
"Looks like they're multiplying," the sheriff observes to his deputy. He
assumes they're involved with drugs, doesn't much care "as long as they move
on through," but is very interested in the possibility of money.

The movie crosses two formulas--Fish Out of Water and Coming of Age--fairly
effectively. Because it isn't wall-to-wall action but actually bothers to
develop its characters and take an interest in them, it was not at first
considered commercial by its distributor, New Line, and languished on the
shelf for two years until the growing stardom of Diesel ("XXX") and Pepper
("We Were Soldiers") made it marketable. It's more than that--it's
interesting in the way it shows these guys stuck between generations. And it
makes good use of Diesel, who as he develops into an action superstar may
not get roles this juicy for a while. He's a tough guy, yes, a street
fighter, but conflicted and with a kind of wise sadness about human nature.

The movie's basic question, I suppose, is whether the rising generation of
mobsters is so self-conscious it will never gain the confidence of its
ancestors. If it's true that the mob in the 1930s learned how to talk by
studying Warner Bros. crime pictures, it's equally true that "The Sopranos"
and all the other post-Scorsese "GoodFellas" stories bring in an element of
psychological complexity that only confuses an occupation that used to have
a brutal simplicity. "Knockaround Guys" opens with Matty being turned down
for a job because of his infamous last name. It ends with him not living up
to it. "To the regular people, we're nothing but goombas," Matty complains.
"But to our fathers, we're nothing but hound boys."

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)
Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:25 GMT

KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)

October 11, 2002

Mike: Michael Gilio
Didi: Lara Phillips
Emil: Rich Komenich
Ruthie: Karin Anglin
Clerk: Kris Wolff
Dr. Milk: Eric Curtis Johnson
Sunny: Sunny Seigel
A film written and directed by Michael Gilio. Running time: 110 minutes. No
MPAA rating (intended for mature audiences). Opening today at Facets
Cinematheque.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Kwik Stop" starts out with a shoplifter and a teenager who sees him
stealing. She threatens to turn him over to the cops, but actually all she
wants is to escape from her life in a Chicago suburb. He explains he's going
to Los Angeles to become a movie actor. "Take me with you," she says. "Can I
kiss you?" he says.

At this point, maybe 10 minutes into the story, we think we know more or
less where the movie is going: It'll be a road picture. We are dead wrong.
"Kwik Stop," which never quite gets out of town, blindsides us with
unexpected humor and sadness, and is one of the unsung treasures of recent
independent filmmaking. It's playing at Facets, 1517 W. Fullerton.

The movie is the work of Michael Gilio, who wrote it, directed it and stars
in it as Mike, the guy who thinks he could be a movie star. Gilio in fact is
already an established actor; he played opposite Sidney Poitier in the TV
movie "To Sir with Love 2," and has appeared in four other films, but this
movie proves he's not only an actor but has a genuine filmmaking talent. In
the way it is developed, and seen, and especially in the way it ends, "Kwik
Stop" shows an imagination that flies far beyond the conventions it seems to
begin with.

Mike is a complicated guy. He dreams of going to Los Angeles and breaking
into the movies, yes--but perhaps the dream is more important than actually
doing it. He's like a lot of people who are stuck in the planning stage and
like it there. Didi (Lara Phillips) has no plans, but she has urgent desires
and is prepared to act on them. We learn all we need to know about her home
life in a shot taken from the curb, that watches her go inside to get some
stuff and come back out again, unconcerned that she is leaving town, she
thinks, forever.

Neither one is dumb. They talk about Henry Miller and Harvey Keitel, two
names that suggest you have advanced beyond life's training wheels. Gilio
finds a motel for them with its own disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and
as its twinkle disguises the shabbiness they make and pledge love, and then
the next morning Mike is gone. If this couple is going to make it through
the entire film, we realize, they are going to have to do it without using
the usual cliches.

They meet again. Never mind how. Mike takes Didi to a diner for a meal,
where a waitress named Ruthie (Karin Anglin) greets them with a strangely
skewed attitude. Watch the way Gilio introduces mystery into the scene and
then resolves it, getting humor out of both the mystery and the solution.
The diner scene suggests strangeness deep in Mike's character: He doesn't
need to go to Los Angeles since he stars in his own drama, and doubles back
to be sure he hasn't lost his audience.

Mike and Didi try to burgle a house. Didi is whammed by a homeowner's
baseball bat and ends up imprisoned in the Midwest School for Girls. Mike
has a plan to spring her, which involves Ruthie making what is, under the
circumstances, a truly selfless gesture (she explains she doesn't want to
"waste the time I put into you").

Just as Mike never gets out of town, just as the plot doubles back to pick
up first Didi and then Ruthie, so Emil (Rich Komenich), the homeowner with
the baseball bat, also is not abandoned. "Kwik Stop" is the opposite of the
picaresque journey in which colorful characters are encountered and then
left behind. It gathers them all up and takes them along.

The movie contains genuine surprises, some delightful (like the plan to
spring Didi from the home) and others involving loneliness, loss and
desperation. I cannot say much more without revealing developments that are
unexpected and yet deeply satisfying. Poignancy comes into the movie from an
unexpected source. Depths are revealed where we did not think to find them.
The ending is like the last paragraph of a short story, redefining
everything that went before.

"Kwik Stop," made on a low budget, has all the money it needs to accomplish
everything it wants to do. It has the freedom of serious fiction, which is
not chained to a story arc but follows its characters where they insist on
going. Gilio, Phillips, Komenich and Anglin create that kind of bemused
realism we discover in films that are not about plot but about what these
dreamy people are going to do next. On a weekend when $400 million in slick
mainstream productions are opening, this is the movie to seek out.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:30 GMT

THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)

October 11, 2002

Frank Martin: Jason Statham
Lai: Qi Shu
Tarconi: Francois Berleand
Wall Street: Matt Schulze
Mr. Kwai: Ric Young
Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Corey Yuen. Written by Luc
Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Running time: 92 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
violent sequences and some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

The marriage of James Bond and Hong Kong continues in "The Transporter," a
movie that combines Bond's luxurious European locations and love of deadly
toys with all the tricks of martial arts movies. The movie stars Jason
Statham (who has pumped a lot of iron since "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels") as Frank Martin, a k a the Transporter, who will transport
anything at a price. His three unbreakable rules: never change the deal, no
names, and never look in the package.

Unlike Bond, Martin is amoral and works only for the money. We gather he
lost any shreds of patriotism while serving in the British Special Forces,
and now hires out his skills to support a lifestyle that includes an
oceanside villa on the French Riviera that would retail at $30 million,
minimum.

In an opening sequence that promises more than the movie is able to deliver,
Martin pilots his BMW for the getaway of a gang of bank robbers. Four of
them pile into the car. The deal said there would be three. "The deal never
changes," Martin says, as alarms ring and police sirens grow nearer. The
robbers scream for him to drive away. He shoots the fourth man. Now the deal
can proceed.

And it does, in a chase sequence that is sensationally good, but then aren't
all movie chase scenes sensationally good these days? There have been so
many virtuoso chase sequences lately that we grow jaded, but this one, with
the car bouncing down steps, squeezing through narrow lanes and speeding
backward on expressways, is up there with recent French chases like "Ronin"
and "The Bourne Identity."

The movie combines the skills and trademarks of its director, Corey Yuen,
and its writer-producer, Luc Besson. The Hong Kong-based specialist in
martial arts movies has 43 titles to his credit, many of them starring Jet
Li and Qi Shu. This is his English-language debut. Besson, now one of the
world's top action producers (he has announced nine films for 2003 and also
has "Wasabi" in current release), likes partnerships between action heroes
and younger, apparently more vulnerable women. Those elements were central
in his direction of "La Femme Nikita," "The Professional" and "The Fifth
Element." Now he provides Frank Martin with a young woman through the
violation of Rule No. 3: Martin looks in the bag.

He has been given a large duffel bag to transport. It squirms. It contains a
beautiful young Chinese woman named Lai (Qi Shu, who at age 26 has appeared
in 41 movies, mostly erotic or martial arts). He cuts a little hole in the
bag so she can sip an orange juice, and before he remembers to consult his
rules again he has brought her home to his villa and is embroiled in a plot
involving gangsters from Nice and human slave cargoes from China.

The movie is by this point, alas, on autopilot. Statham's character, who had
a grim fascination when he was enforcing the rules, turns into just another
action hero when he starts breaking them. I actually thought, during the
opening scenes, that "The Transporter" was going to rise above the genre,
was going to be a study of violent psychology, like "La Femme Nikita." No
luck.

Too much action brings the movie to a dead standstill. Why don't directors
understand that? Why don't they know that wall-to-wall action makes a movie
less interesting--less like drama, more like a repetitive video game? Stunt
action sequences are difficult, but apparently not as difficult as good
dialogue. Unless you're an early teens special effects zombie, movies get
more interesting when the characters are given humanity and dimension.

Frank Martin is an intriguing man in the opening scenes, and we think maybe
we'll learn something about his harsh code and lonely profession. But no: We
get car leaps from bridges onto auto transporters. Parachute drops onto the
tops of moving trucks. Grenades, rocket launchers, machine guns (at one
point a friendly inspector asks Martin to explain 50,000 spent rounds of
ammo). There is of course an underwater adventure, tribute to Besson's early
life as the child of scuba-diving instructors. At one point, Martin tells
Lai, "It's quiet. Too quiet." It wasn't nearly quiet enough.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)
Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:28 GMT

THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)

October 11, 2002

Sean: James Van Der Beek
Lauren: Shannyn Sossamon
Paul: Ian Somerhalder
Lara: Jessica Biel
Victor: Kip Pardue
Kelly: Kate Bosworth
Lions Gate Films presents a film written and directed by Roger Avary. Based
on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated R (for
strong sexual content, drug use, language and violent images). Opening today
at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

I did not like any of the characters in "The Rules of Attraction." I cringe
to write those words, because they imply a superficial approach to the film.
Surely there are films where I hated the characters and admired the work?
"In the Company of Men"? No, that gave me a victim to sympathize with. There
is no entry portal in "The Rules of Attraction," and I spent most of the
movie feeling depressed by the shallow, selfish, greedy characters. I wanted
to be at another party.

Leaving the movie, I reflected that my reaction was probably unfair. "The
Rules of Attraction" was based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and while
life is too short to read one of his books while a single work of Conrad,
Faulkner or Bellow eludes me, I am familiar enough with his world (through
the movies) to know that he agrees his characters are shallow, selfish and
greedy, although perhaps he bears them a certain affection, not least
because they populate his books. So I went to see the movie a second time,
and emerged with a more evolved opinion: "The Rules of Attraction" is a
skillfully made movie about reprehensible people.

The writer-director is Roger Avary, who directed "Killing Zoe" and
co-authored Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." (Whether he cast James Van
Der Beek as his lead because he looks more like Tarantino than any other
working actor, I cannot guess.) In all of his work, Avary is fond of free
movement up and down the timeline, and here he uses an ingenious approach to
tell the stories of three main characters who are involved in, I dunno, five
or six pairings. He begins with an "End of the World" party at Camden
College, the ultimate party school, follows a story thread, then rewinds and
follows another. He also uses fast-forward brilliantly to summarize a
European vacation in a few hilarious minutes.

The yo-yo timeline works because we know, or quickly learn, who the
characters are, but sometimes it's annoying, as when we follow one sex romp
up to a certain point and then return to it later for the denouement. This
style may at times reflect the confused state of mind of the characters, who
attend a college where no studying of any kind is ever glimpsed, where the
only faculty member in the movie is having an affair with an undergraduate,
and where the improbable weekend parties would put the orgies at Hef's pad
to shame.

The parties are a lapse of credibility. I cannot believe, for example, that
large numbers of co-eds would engage in topless lesbian breastplay at a
campus event, except in the inflamed imaginations of horny undergraduates.
But assuming that they would: Is it plausible that the horny undergraduates
wouldn't even look at them? Are today's undergraduate men so (choose one)
blase, Politically Correct or emasculated that, surrounded by the
enthusiastic foreplay of countless half-naked women, they would blandly
carry on their conversations?

This is not to imply that "The Rules of Attraction" is in any sense a campus
sex-romp comedy. There is comedy in it, but so burdened are the students by
their heavy loads of alcoholism, depression, drug addiction and bisexual
promiscuity that one yearns for them to be given respite by that cliche of
the 1960s, the gratuitous run through meadows and woods. These kids need
fresh air.

In the movie, James Van Der Beek plays drug dealer Sean Bateman, who
desperately wants to sleep with with chic, elusive Lauren (Shannyn
Sossamon). She once dated Paul (Ian Somerhalder), who is bisexual and who
wants to sleep with Sean, who is straight, but right now if Lauren had her
druthers she would bed Victor (Kip Pardue), who stars in the speed-up
European trip and once dated Paul. (The sexual orientations of most of the
major characters come down to: When they're not with the sex they love, they
love the sex they're with.) Many but not not all of these desired couplings
take place, there are distractions from still other willing characters, and
a sad suicide involving a character I will not divulge, except to say that
when we see how miserable she was in flashbacks to various earlier events,
we wonder why, on a campus where promiscuity is epidemic, she had the
misfortune to be a one-guy woman.

Avary weaves his stories with zest and wicked energy, and finds a visual
style that matches the emotional fragmentation. I have no complaints about
the acting, and especially liked the way Sossamon kept a kind of impertinent
distance from some of the excesses. But by the end, I felt a sad
indifference. These characters are not from life and do not form into a
useful fiction. Their excesses of sex and substance abuse are physically
unwise, financially unlikely and emotionally impossible. I do not censor
their behavior but lament the movie's fascination with it. They do not say
and perhaps do not think anything interesting. The two other Bret Easton
Ellis movies ("Less than Zero" and "American Psycho") offered characters who
were considerably more intriguing. We had questions about them; they aroused
our curiosity. The inhabitants of "The Rules of Attraction" are superficial
and transparent. We know people like that, and hope they will get better.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BELOW / **1/2 (R)
Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:19 GMT

BELOW / **1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Odell: Matt Davis
Brice: Bruce Greenwood
Claire: Olivia Williams
Loomis: Holt McCallany
Coors: Scott Foley
Weird Wally: Zach Galifianakis
Stumbo: Jason Flemyng
Dimension Films presents a film directed by David Twohy. Written by Twohy,
Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky. Running time: 103 minutes. Rated R (for
language and some violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

Even before the woman is taken on board, the USS Tiger Shark is a submarine
in trouble. The captain has been lost overboard, or at least that's the
story, and tempers run high in the confined space. Then the sub rescues
three drifters in a life raft, one of them a woman, whose presence on board
is agreed by everyone to be bad luck on a sub, although her arrival does
result in the crew wearing cleaner underwear.

Now dangers increase. The sub is tracked by Germans, who drop depth bombs
and later come back to troll for it with giant grappling hooks. There is
fearful damage to the periscope and the control tower. An oil leak threatens
to betray the sub's position. Oxygen is running low, and hydrogen in the air
is a danger to the crew's safety and sanity. And perhaps there is a ghost on
board. The creepy sounds from outside the hull--of seaweed, whale songs and
bouncing depth bombs--increase apprehension.

Yes, a ghost. How else to explain why a record of Benny Goodman's "Sing,
Sing, Sing" seems to play itself at inopportune times--as when the Germans
are listening for the slightest sound from below? And when the late skipper
was a Goodman fan? Of course, there could be a saboteur on board, in
addition to, or perhaps instead of, the ghost.

"Below" is a movie where the story, like the sub, sometimes seems to be
running blind. In its best moments it can evoke fear, and it does a good job
of evoking the claustrophobic terror of a little World War II boat, but the
story line is so eager to supply frightening possibilities that sometimes we
feel jerked around. Isn't it possible for a submarine to be haunted without
turning it into a museum of horror film devices?

Of those devices, the most tiresome is the convention that surprises make
sounds. In most horror movies, including many less clever than "Below,"
there is a visual strategy in which a character is shown in relative closeup
(limiting our ability to see around him) and then startled by the unexpected
appearance of another character or other visual surprise. This moment is
invariably signaled on the soundtrack with a loud, alarming musical chord,
or perhaps by the sound of a knife being sharpened. But surprises don't make
sounds, and the cliche has become so tiresome that I submit a director might
be able to create a more frightening sequence by playing the unexpected
appearance in total silence.

There are a lot of surprise apparitions in "Below," and many times when we
expect them even when they don't arrive. Consider the effective sequence in
which four divers have to penetrate the ballast space between the inner and
outer hulls to search for the oil leak. Will they find a ghostly body, or
what?

The acting skipper of the ship is Brice (Bruce Greenwood). The absence of
the former skipper is a secret at first, and the explanations for his
disappearance are contradictory; even by the end of the movie, we are not
sure we have the correct story. Has he returned to haunt the boat? Oxygen
deprivation can encourage hallucinations.

The bad-luck woman on board, Claire (Olivia Williams), turns out to be a
nurse from a sunken hospital ship. Who sunk that ship with its big red
cross, and why? And what about the two survivors in the boat with her? What
are their stories? Although the arrival of a woman on board inspires some
heavy-handed scenes in which some men seem to be warming up for an assault,
that plot thread is quickly abandoned, and Claire begins to take a
surprisingly active role in the onboard discussions. Siding with her is
Odell (Matt Davis), maybe because he agrees, maybe because he likes her.
Brice's command of the ship may include decisions made with a hidden agenda.

The movie is skillfully made by David Twohy, whose "The Arrival" (1996) was
an uncommonly intelligent science fiction thriller about a hidden alien plot
against Earth. But his overpraised "Pitch Black" (2000), which launched Vin
Diesel, was weakened by the same faults as "Below." It had too many
obligatory startles, too many unclear possibilities and not enough
definition of the crucial players. But Twohy showed with "The Arrival" that
he is a gifted director. "Below" has ambitions to be better than average,
but doesn't pull itself together and insist on realizing them.

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Subject: [MV] BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:22 GMT

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Featuring Michael Moore, George W. Bush, Dick Clark, Charlton Heston,
Marilyn Manson, John Nichols, Chris Rock and Matt Stone.
United Artists presents a film written and directed by Michael Moore.
Running time: 120 minutes. Rated R (for some violent images and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

McHugh and I were sitting in O'Rourke's one day when a guy we knew came in
for a drink. The guy pulled back his coat and we could see he had a handgun
in his belt. "Why are you carrying a gun?" McHugh asked. "Because I live in
a dangerous neighborhood," the guy said. "It would be safer if you moved,"
said McHugh.

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Colum-bine," a documentary that is both
hilarious and sorrowful, is like a two-hour version of that anecdote. We
live in a nation of millions of handguns, but that isn't really what bothers
Moore. What bothers him is that we so frequently shoot them at one another.
Canada has a similar ratio of guns to citizens, but a 10th of the shooting
deaths. What makes us kill so many times more fellow citizens than is the
case in other developed nations?

Moore, the jolly populist rabble-rouser, explains that he's a former
sharpshooting instructor and a lifelong member of the National Rifle
Association. No doubt this is true, but Moore has moved on from his early
fondness for guns. In "Bowling for Columbine," however, he is not so sure of
the answers as in the popular "Roger & Me," a film in which he knew who
the bad guys were, and why. Here he asks questions he can't answer, such as
why we as a nation seem so afraid, so in need of the reassurance of guns.
Noting that we treasure urban legends designed to make us fearful of
strangers, Moore notices how TV news focuses on local violence ("If it
bleeds, it leads") and says that while the murder rate is down 20 percent in
America, TV coverage of violent crime is up 600 percent. Despite paranoia
that has all but sidetracked the childhood custom of trick or treat, Moore
points out that in fact no razor blades have ever been found in Halloween
apples.

Moore's thoughtfulness doesn't inhibit the sensational set-pieces he devises
to illustrate his concern. He returns several times to Columbine High
School, at one point showing horrifying security-camera footage of the
massacre. And Columbine inspires one of the great confrontations in a career
devoted to radical grandstanding. Moore introduces us to two of the students
wounded at Colum-bine, both still with bullets in their bodies. He explains
that all of the Columbine bullets were freely sold to the teenage killers by
Kmart, at 17 cents apiece. And then he takes the two victims to Kmart
headquarters to return the bullets for a refund.

This is brilliant theater and would seem to be unanswerable for the hapless
Kmart public relations spokespeople, who fidget and evade in front of
Moore's merciless camera. But then, on Moore's third visit to headquarters,
he is told that Kmart will agree to completely phase out the sale of
ammunition. "We've won," says Moore, not believing it. "This has never
happened before." For once, he's at a loss for words.

The movie is a mosaic of Moore confrontations and supplementary footage. One
moment that cuts to the core is from a standup routine by Chris Rock, who
suggests that our problem could be solved by simply increasing the price of
bullets--taxing them like cigarettes. Instead of 17 cents apiece, why not
$5,000? "At that price," he speculates, "you'd have a lot fewer innocent
bystanders being shot."

Moore buys a Map to the Stars' Homes to find where Charlton Heston lives,
rings the bell on his gate, and is invited back for an interview. But Heston
clearly knows nothing of Moore's track record, and his answers to Moore's
questions are borderline pathetic. Heston recently announced he has symptoms
associated with Alzheimer's disease, but there is no indication in this
footage that he is senile; it's simply that he cannot explain why he, as a
man living behind a gate in a protected neighborhood, with security patrols,
who has never felt himself threatened, needs a loaded gun in the house.
Heston is equally unhelpful when asked if he thinks it was a good idea for
him to speak at an NRA rally in Denver 10 days after Columbine. He seems to
think it was all a matter of scheduling.

"Bowling for Columbine" thinks we have way too many guns, don't need them,
and are shooting each other at an unreasonable rate. Moore cannot single out
a villain to blame for this fact, because it seems to emerge from a national
desire to be armed. ("If you're not armed, you're not responsible," a member
of the Michigan militia tells him.) At one point, he visits a bank that is
giving away guns to people who open new accounts. He asks a banker if it
isn't a little dangerous to have all these guns in a bank. Not at all. The
bank, Moore learns, is a licensed gun dealership.

Note: The movie is rated R, so that the Columbine killers would have been
protected from the "violent images," mostly of themselves. The MPAA
continues its policy of banning teenagers from those films they most need to
see. What utopian world do the flywheels of the ratings board think they are
protecting?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ABANDON / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:13 GMT

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

October 17, 2002

Catherine Burke: Katie Holmes
Det. Wade Handler: Benjamin     Bratt
Embry Langan: Charlie Hunnam
Mousy Julie: Melanie Lynskey
Samantha: Zooey Deschanel
Paramount Pictures presents a film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan.
Running time: 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for drug and alcohol content,
sexuality, some violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Abandon" is a moody, effective thriller for about 80 percent of the way,
and then our hands close on air. If you walk out before the ending, you'll
think it's better than it is. Or maybe I'm being unfair: Maybe a rational
ending with a reasonable explanation would have seemed boring. Maybe this is
the ending the movie needed, but it seems so arbitrary as it materializes
out of thin air.

Or maybe I'm still being unfair. Maybe it doesn't come from thin air.
Students of Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary will be familiar with the
Law of Economy of Characters, which states that no movie introduces a
character unnecessarily, so that the apparently superfluous character is the
one to keep an eye on. That rule doesn't precisely apply here, but it's
relevant in a reverse sort of way. Think of the Purloined Letter.

Enough of this. The movie finally did not satisfy me, and so I cannot
recommend it, but there is a lot to praise, beginning with Katie Holmes'
performance as Catherine Burke, a smart and articulate student who is on the
fast track to a corporate boardroom. She's a student at an unnamed
university (McGill in Montreal provided the locations), has just aced an
interview with a big firm, studies hard, doesn't date. Her ex-boyfriend
Embry Langan (Charlie Hunnam) vanished mysteriously two years ago, but then
he was the kind of weirdo genius who was always pulling stunts like that.

The key question: Did Embry disappear himself, or was he disappeared? Det.
Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is on the case, and although Catherine at
first cuts him off, she starts to like the guy. Meanwhile, in what is not as
much of a spoiler as it might appear, Embry reappears on campus, and starts
stalking Catherine. That's all of the plot you'll get from me. I want to
talk about casting, dialogue and the film's general intelligence. This is a
movie that convincingly portrays the way students talk, think, get wasted,
philosophize and hang around on a college campus. I emphasize that because
when "The Rules of Attraction" opened a week ago, I questioned its scenes in
which topless lesbians were ignored by male students at campus parties. I
have here a letter from Joseph Gallo of Auburn, Ala., who says such a sight
is not uncommon on his campus. Uh, huh.

The students in "Abandon" talk smart. Especially Catherine. Watch the way
Katie Holmes handles that interview with the high-powered corporate
recruiters. It could be used as a training film. Watch her body language and
word choices when she rejects an advance from her counselor. Notice the
scene where a friend invites her to attend an "anti-globalization rally." In
an ordinary movie, a line like that would be boilerplate, designed to move
the plot to its next event. In this movie, Catherine responds. She has an
opinion about anti-globalization. Astonishing.

The movie was written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for
the "Traffic" screenplay and is making his directorial debut. Gaghan has
written such convincing characters, including the snotty know-it-all played
by Melanie Lynskey and the best friends played by Zooey Deschanel and
Gabrielle Union, that it's kind of a shame this is a thriller. A real campus
movie, about fears and ambitions, could have been made from this material.
Deschanel's drunk scene with the cop is an example of material that is
spot-on.

But the movie is a thriller, and so we must watch as the human elements and
the intelligence, which have absorbed and entertained us, are ground up in
the requirements of the Shocking Climax. Too bad. Here is a movie that never
steps wrong until the final scenes, and then, having answered all of our
questions up until then, closes with questions even it, I suspect, cannot
answer.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] FORMULA 51 / * (R)
Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:28 GMT

FORMULA 51 / * (R)

October 18, 2002

Elmo McElroy: Samuel L. Jackson
Felix DeSouza: Robert Carlyle
Dakota Phillips: Emily Mortimer
The Lizard: Meat Loaf
Det. Virgil Kane: Sean Pertwee
Leopold Durant: Ricky Tomlinson
Iki: Rhys Ifans
Screen Gems presents a film directed by Ronny Yu. Written by Stel Pavlou.
Running time: 92 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence, language, drug
content and some sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Pulp Fiction" and "Trainspotting" were two of the most influential movies
of the last 10 years, but unfortunately their greatest influence has been on
ripoffs of each other--movies like "Formula 51," which is like a fourth-rate
"Pulp Fiction" with accents you can't understand. Here instead of the
descent into the filthiest toilet in Scotland we get a trip through the most
bilious intestinal tract in Liverpool; instead of a debate about Cheese
Royales we get a debate about the semantics of the word "bollocks"; the
F-word occupies 50 percent of all sentences, and in the opening scenes
Samuel L. Jackson wears another one of those Afro wigs.

Jackson plays Elmo McElroy, a reminder that only eight of the 74 movies with
characters named Elmo have been any good. In the prologue, he graduates from
college with a pharmaceutical degree, is busted for pot, loses his license,
and 30 years later is the world's most brilliant inventor of illegal drugs.

Now he has a product named "P.O.S. Formula 51," which he says is 51 times
stronger than crack, heroin, you name it. Instead of selling it to a
druglord named The Lizard (Meat Loaf), he stages a spectacular surprise for
Mr. Lizard and his friends, and flies to Liverpool, trailed by Dakota
Phillips (Emily Mortimer), a skilled hit woman hired by The Lizard to kill
him, or maybe keep him alive, depending on The Lizard's latest information.

In Liverpool we meet Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle), a reminder that only
six of the 200 movies with a character named Felix have been any good. (The
stats for "Dakota" are also discouraging, but this is a line of inquiry with
limited dividends.) Felix has been dispatched by the Liverpudlian drug king
Leopold Durant (Ricky Tomlinson), whose hemorrhoids require that a flunky
follow him around with an inner tube that makes whoopee-type whistles
whenever the screenplay requires.

The movie is not a comedy so much as a farce, grabbing desperately for funny
details wherever possible. The Jackson character, for example, wears a kilt
for most of the movie. My online correspondent Ian Waldron-Mantgani, a
critic who lives in Liverpool but doesn't give the home team a break, points
out that the movie closes with the words "No one ever found out why he wore
a kilt," and then explains why he wore the kilt. "You get the idea how much
thought went into this movie," Waldron-Mantgani writes, with admirable
restraint.

Many of the jokes involve Felix's fanatic support of the Liverpool football
club, and a final confrontation takes place in an executive box of the
stadium. Devices like this almost always play as a desperate attempt to
inject local color, especially when the movie shows almost nothing of the
game, so that Americans will not be baffled by what they call football.
There are lots of violent shoot-outs and explosions, a kinduva love affair
between Felix and Dakota, and an ending that crosses a red herring, a
McGuffin and a shaggy dog.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HEAVEN / *** (R)
Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:48 GMT

HEAVEN / *** (R)

October 18, 2002

Philippa: Cate Blanchett
Filippo: Giovanni Ribisi
Filippo's father: Remo Girone
Regina: Stefania Rocca
Miramax Films presents a film directed by Tom Tykwer. Written by Krzysztof
Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (for
a scene of sexuality). In English and Italian with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

There is a moment early in "Heaven" when the character played by Cate
Blanchett is told something she did not expect to hear. This news piles
grief upon unbearable grief, and she cries out in pain. She is a good woman
who is prepared to sacrifice her life against evil, but through a great
misfortune she has done evil herself.

Blanchett plays Philippa, a teacher of English in Turin, Italy. She has seen
drugs kill her husband and some of her students. Her complaints to the
police have been ignored. She knows the man behind the Turin drug traffic,
and one day she plants a bomb in his office. A cleaning lady removes it with
the trash and it explodes in an elevator, killing the cleaner plus a man and
his two children. Four innocent dead.

Philippa has lost her husband and her students, and stands ready to lose her
freedom. But the death of these four crushes her. We are reminded of
"Running on Empty," the 1988 Sidney Lumet film about anti-war radicals in
America who did not know there would be someone in the building they chose
to blow up. As she sits in police headquarters, undergoing a
cross-examination, unaware that one of the men in the room is himself
connected to the drug trade, she makes a conquest.

His name is Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi). He is a rookie cop, the son of a
veteran officer. When Philippa insists on testifying in her native tongue,
Filippo offers to act as her translator. This is after she heard the
horrifying news, and passed out, and grasped his hand as she came to, and he
fell in love with her.

After the 10 films of "The Decalogue" and the great trilogy "Blue," "White"
and "Red," the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and his writing partner,
Krzysztof Piesiewicz, began writing a new trilogy: "Heaven," "Purgatory" and
"Hell." Kieslowski died in 1996 before the project could be filmed. Many
good screenplays have died with their authors, but occasionally a director
will step forward to rescue a colleague's work, as Steven Spielberg did with
Stanley Kubrick's "A.I." and now as Tom Tykwer has done with "Heaven."

This is, and isn't, the sort of project Tykwer is identified with. It is
more thoughtful, proceeds more deliberately, than the mercurial haste of
"Run Lola Run" and "The Princess and the Warrior." At the same time, it has
a belief in fateful meetings that occur as a side effect of violence or
chance, as both of those films do. And it contains the same sort of defiant
romanticism, in which a courageous woman tries to alter her fate by sheer
will power.

Philippa and Filippo have almost identical names for a reason, and later
when they shave their heads and dress alike, it is because they share a
common lifeline. It is not a case of merger so much as of Filippo being
assumed into Philippa. She is older, stronger, braver, and he invests the
capital of his life in her account. He betrays his uniform to do whatever he
can to help her escape.

After she agrees to his brilliant plan, she tells him: "Do you know why I
said I agree? I don't want to escape punishment. I want to kill him."
Him--the man behind the drugs. Whether she gets her wish is not the point.
What she focuses on is her original plan; if she can finally carry it out,
she will have made amends, however inadequately, for the innocents who died.

Kieslowski was fascinated by moral paradoxes, by good leading to evil and
back again. In "The Decalogue," a child's brilliance at the computer leads
to a drowning. A woman wants to know if her husband will die, because if he
will not, she will have her lover's baby aborted. A wife breaks it off with
her lover--but her husband tarnishes her decision by spying on it. To do
good is sometimes to cause evil. We can make plans, but we can't count on
the consequences.

The ending of "Heaven" is disappointing. It becomes just what it should not
be, the story of an escape. I wonder if Kieslowski and Piesiewicz ended
their version this way, in a fable of innocence regained. The tough ending
would have had Philippa and Filippo paying for their crimes. It would not
have been an unhappy ending for them; they are fully prepared to take the
consequences, and that is what's most admirable about them.

Still, many lesser films--almost all commercial films these days, in
fact--contrive happy endings. This one is poetic in its sadness, and
Blanchett's performance confirms her power once again. She never goes for an
effect here, never protects herself, just plays the character straight ahead
as a woman forced by grief and rage into a rash action, and then living with
the consequences. We require theology to get to the bottom of the story: It
is wrong to commit an immoral act in order to bring about a good outcome. No
matter how beneficial the result, it is still a sin. This is a good movie
that could have been great if it had ended in a form of penance.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] IN PRAISE OF LOVE / * (Not rated)
Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:55:01 GMT

IN PRAISE OF LOVE / * (Not rated)

October 18, 2002

Edgar: Bruno Putzulu
Elle: Cecile Camp
Grandfather: Jean Davy
Grandmother: Francoise Verny
Servant: Philippe Loyrette
Eglantine: Audrey Klebaner
Perceval: Jeremy Lippman
Manhattan Pictures Interna-tional presents a film written and directed by
Jean-Luc Godard. Running time: 98 minutes. No MPAA rating. In French with
English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

What strange confusion besets Jean-Luc Godard? He stumbles through the
wreckage of this film like a baffled Lear, seeking to exercise power that is
no longer his. "In Praise of Love" plays like an attempt to reconstruct an
ideal film that might once have existed in his mind, but is there no more.

Yes, I praised the film in an article from the 2001 Cannes Film Festival,
but have now seen it again, and no longer agree with those words. Seeing
Godard's usual trademarks and preoccupations, I called it "a bittersweet
summation of one of the key careers in modern cinema," and so it is, but I
no longer think it is a successful one.

Godard was the colossus of the French New Wave. His films helped invent
modern cinema. They were bold, unconventional, convincing. To see
"Breathless," "My Life to Live" or "Weekend" is to be struck by a powerful
and original mind. In the late 1960s he entered his Maoist period, making a
group of films ("Wind from the East," "Vladimir and Rosa," "Pravda") that
were ideologically silly but still stylistically intriguing; those films (I
learn from Milos Stehlik of Facets Cinematheque, who has tried to find them)
have apparently been suppressed by their maker.

Then, after a near-fatal traffic accident, came the Godard who turned away
from the theatrical cinema and made impenetrable videos. In recent years
have come films both successful ("Hail, Mary") and not, and now a film like
"In Praise of Love," which in style and tone looks like he is trying to
return to his early films but has lost the way.

Perhaps at Cannes I was responding to memories of Godard's greatness. He has
always been fascinated with typography, with naming the sections of his
films and treating words like objects (he once had his Maoist heroes
barricade themselves behind a wall of Little Red Books). Here he repeatedly
uses intertitles, and while as a device it is good to see again, the actual
words, reflected on, have little connection to the scenes they separate.

He wants to remind us "In Praise of Love" is self-consciously a movie: He
uses not only the section titles, but offscreen interrogators, polemical
statements, narrative confusion, a split between the black and white of the
first half and the saturated video color of the second. What he lacks is a
port of entry for the viewer. Defenses of the film are tortured rhetorical
exercises in which critics assemble Godard's materials and try to paraphrase
them to make sense. Few ordinary audience members, however experienced, can
hope to emerge from this film with a coherent view of what Godard was
attempting.

If you agree with Noam Chomsky, you will have the feeling that you would
agree with this film if only you could understand it. Godard's
anti-Americanism is familiar by now, but has spun off into flywheel
territory. What are we to make of the long dialogue attempting to prove that
the United States of America is a country without a name? Yes, he is right
that there are both North and South Americas. Yes, Brazil has united states.
Yes, Mexico has states and is in North America. Therefore, we have no name.
This is the kind of tiresome language game schoolchildren play.

It is also painful to see him attack Hollywood as worthless and without
history, when (as Charles Taylor points out on Salon.com), Godard was one of
those who taught us about our film history; with his fellow New Wavers, he
resurrected film noir, named it, celebrated it, even gave its directors bit
parts in his films. Now that history (his as well as ours) has disappeared
from his mind.

His attacks on Steven Spielberg are painful and unfair. Some of the
fragments of his film involve a Spielberg company trying to buy the memories
of Holocaust survivors for a Hollywood film (it will star, we learn,
Juliette Binoche, who appeared in "Hail Mary" but has now apparently gone
over to the dark side). Elsewhere in the film he accuses Spielberg of having
made millions from "Schindler's List" while Mrs. Schindler lives in
Argentina in poverty. One muses: (1) Has Godard, having also used her, sent
her any money? (2) Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more
than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the
memories of the survivors? (3) Has Godard so lost the ability to go to the
movies that, having once loved the works of Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray,
he cannot view a Spielberg film except through a prism of anger?

Critics are often asked if they ever change their minds about a movie. I
hope we can grow and learn. I do not "review" films seen at festivals, but
"report" on them--because in the hothouse atmosphere of seeing three to five
films a day, most of them important, one cannot always step back and catch a
breath. At Cannes I saw the surface of "In Praise of Love," remembered
Godard's early work, and was cheered by the film. After a second viewing,
looking beneath the surface, I see so little there: It is all remembered
rote work, used to conceal old tricks, facile name-calling, the loss of
hope, and emptiness.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] AUTO FOCUS / **** (R)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:16:56 GMT

AUTO FOCUS / **** (R)

October 25, 2002

Bob Crane: Greg Kinnear
John Carpenter: Willem Dafoe
Patricia Crane: Maria Bello
Anne Crane: Rita Wilson
Lenny: Ron Leibman
Feldman: Bruce Solomon
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Paul Schrader. Written by
Michael Gerbosi. Based on the book The Murder of Bob Crane by Robert
Graysmith. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, nudity,
language, some drug use and violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

Eddie Cantor once told Bob Crane, "likability is 90 percent of the battle."
It seems to be 100 percent of Bob Crane's battle; there is nothing there
except likability--no values, no self-awareness, no judgment, no
perspective, not even an instinct for survival. Just likability, and the
need to be liked in a sexual way every single day. Paul Schrader's "Auto
Focus," based on Crane's life, is a deep portrait of a shallow man, lonely
and empty, going through the motions of having a good time.

The broad outlines of Crane's rise and fall are well known. How he was a Los
Angeles DJ who became a TV star after being cast in the lead of "Hogan's
Heroes," a comedy set in a Nazi prison camp. How his career tanked after the
show left the air. How he toured on the dinner theater circuit, destroyed
two marriages, and was so addicted to sex that his life was scandalous even
by Hollywood standards. How he was found bludgeoned to death in 1978 in a
Scottsdale, Ariz., motel room.

Crane is survived by four children, including sons from his first and second
marriages who differ in an almost biblical way, the older appearing in this
movie, the younger threatening a lawsuit against it, yet running a Web site
retailing his father's sex life. So strange was Crane's view of his
behavior, so disconnected from reality, that I almost imagine he would have
seen nothing wrong with his second son's sales of photos and videotapes of
his father having sex. "It's healthy," Crane argues in defense of his
promiscuity, although we're not sure if he really thinks that, or really
thinks anything.

The movie is a hypnotic portrait of this sad, compulsive life. The director,
Paul Schrader, is no stranger to stories about men trapped in sexual
miscalculation; he wrote "Taxi Driver" and wrote and directed "American
Gigolo." He sees Crane as an empty vessel, filled first with fame and then
with desire. Because he was on TV, he finds that women want to sleep with
him, and seems to oblige them almost out of good manners. There is no lust
or passion in this film, only mechanical courtship followed by desultory
sex. You can catch the women looking at him and asking themselves if there
is anybody at home. Even his wives are puzzled.

Greg Kinnear gives a creepy, brilliant performance as a man lacking in all
insight. He has the likability part down pat. There is a scene in a
nightclub where Crane asks the bartender to turn the TV to a rerun of
"Hogan's Heroes." When a woman realizes that Hogan himself is in the room,
notice how impeccable Kinnear's timing and manner are, as he fakes false
modesty and pretends to be flattered by her attention. Crane was not a
complex man, but that should not blind us to the subtlety and complexity of
Kinnear's performance.

Willem Dafoe is the co-star, as John Carpenter, a tech-head in the days when
Hollywood was just learning that television could be taped and replayed by
devices in the consumer price range. Carpenter hangs around sets flattering
the stars, lending them the newest Sony gadgets, wiring their cars for
stereo and their dressing rooms for instant replays. He is the very
embodiment of Mephistopheles, offering Crane exactly what he wants to be
offered.

The turning point in Crane's life comes on a night when Carpenter invites
him to a strip club. Crane is proud of his drumming, and Carpenter suggests
that the star could "sit in" with the house band. Soon Crane is sitting in
at strip clubs every night of the week, returning late or not at all to his
first wife Anne (Rita Wilson). Sensing something is wrong, he meets a priest
one morning for breakfast, but is somehow not interested when the priest
suggests he could "sit in" with a parish musical group.

Dafoe plays Carpenter as ingratiating, complimentary, sly, seductive and
enigmatically needy. Despite their denials, is there something homosexual in
their relationship? The two men become constant companions, apart from a
little tiff when Crane examines a video and notices Carpenter's hand in the
wrong place. "It's an orgy!" Carpenter explains, and soon the men are on the
prowl again. The video equipment has a curious relevance to their sexual
activities; do they have sex for its own sake, or to record it for later
editing and viewing? From its earliest days, home video has had an intimate
buried relationship with sex. If Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson ever think to
ask themselves why they taped their wedding night, this movie might suggest
some answers.

The film is wall-to-wall with sex, but contains no eroticism. The women are
never really in focus. They drift in and out of range, as the two men hunt
through swinger's magazines, attend swapping parties, haunt strip clubs and
troll themselves like bait through bars. If there is a shadow on their
idyll, it is that Crane condescends to Carpenter, and does not understand
the other man's desperate need for recognition.

The film is pitch-perfect in its decor, music, clothes, cars, language and
values. It takes place during those heady years between the introduction of
the Pill and the specter of AIDS, when men shaped as adolescents by Playboy
in the 1950s now found some of their fantasies within reach. The movie
understands how celebrity can make women available--and how, for some men,
it is impossible to say no to an available woman. They are hard-wired, and
judgment has nothing to do with it. We can feel sorry for Bob Crane but in a
strange way, because he is so clueless, it is hard to blame him; we are
reminded of the old joke in which God tells Adam he has a brain and a penis,
but only enough blood to operate one of them at a time.

The movie's moral counterpoint is provided by Ron Leibman, as Lenny, Crane's
manager. He gets him the job on "Hogan's Heroes" and even, improbably, the
lead in a Disney film named "Superdad." But Crane is reckless in the way he
allows photographs and tapes of his sexual performances to float out of his
control. On the Disney set one day, Lenny visits to warn Crane about his
notorious behavior, but Crane can't hear him, can't listen. He drifts toward
his doom, unconscious, lost in a sexual fog.

Crane families in legal dispute over biopic

Bob Crane's two sons are on opposite sides in a legal dispute about the
biopic "Auto Focus." Robert David Crane, the son by the first marriage,
supports the movie, appears in it and is listed in the credits as "Bob Crane
Jr." Robert Scott Crane, from the second marriage, says it is filled with
inaccuracies, and has started a Web site to oppose it. The site somewhat
undermines its own position by offering for sale photographs and videos
taken by Crane of his sexual indiscretions.

"There is no such person as Bob Crane Jr.," says Lee Blackman, the Los
Angeles attorney representing the second wife, Patricia, and her son. "Both
sons had Robert as a first name, and different middle names. Bob Crane's own
middle name was Edward." In life, he told me, the older son is called Bobby,
and the younger, his client, is Scotty.

By taking money for his participation in the movie and billing himself Bob
Crane Jr., he said, Bobby has compromised himself. (In the movie, the older
son has a small role as a Christian TV interviewer.)

But what about his client Scotty's Web site, with the Crane sex tapes for
sale?

"He is trying to set the record straight. The Web site only came into
existence because of the film. For example, on Scotty's site you will find
the Scottsdale coroner's autopsy on Bob Crane, clearly indicating he never
had a penile implant, although the movie claims he did. You will see that
his movies were really just homemade comedies: He would edit the sex stuff
with cutaways to Jack Benny or Johnny Carson, and a musical soundtrack."

Other complaints by Blackman and his clients:

* "He was reconciled with Patricia, his second wife, at the time of his
death. The movie shows her drinking in the middle of the day, but she has an
allergic reaction to hard liquor."

* "DNA tests have proven Scotty is Bob Crane's son, despite implications in
the movie that he is not."

* "Bob Crane was not a dark monster. The night he was killed, he was editing
'Star Wars' for Scotty, to take out the violence."

* "He didn't meet John Carpenter [the Willem Dafoe character] until 1975.
The movie has him meeting him in 1965. It implies Bob needed Carpenter to
teach him all that technical stuff, but in fact Bob Crane was very
knowledgeable about home electronics, and was making home movies even in the
1950s."

"Legally," said Blackman, "you can defame the dead. This movie has massive
quantities of defamation. We're trying to work with the distributor, Sony,
to tweak the film in a couple of little places to make it more accurate.
When it's released, if it still contains actionable material, we'll
determine what to do."

Roger Ebert

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] NAQOYQATSI / *** (PG)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:17:03 GMT

NAQOYQATSI / *** (PG)

October 25, 2002

Miramax Films presents a documentary written and directed by Godfrey Reggio.
Running time: 89 minutes. Rated PG.(for violent and disturbing images, and
for brief nudity). Opening today at the Biograph Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

'N aqoyqatsi" is the final film in Godfrey Reggio's "qatsi" trilogy, a
series of impressionistic documentaries contrasting the nobility of nature
with the despoliation of mankind. The titles come from the Hopi Indian
language. "Koyaanisqatsi" (1983) translated as "life out of balance."
"Powaqqatsi" (1988) means "life in transition." And now comes "Naqoyqatsi,"
or "war as a way of life."

Like the others, "Naqoyqatsi" consists of images (450 of them, Reggio said
at the Telluride premiere). We see quick streams of briefly glimpsed
symbols, abstractions, digital code, trademarks, newsreels, found images,
abandoned buildings and cityscapes, and snippets of TV and photography. An
early image shows the Tower of Babel; the implication is that the confusion
of spoken tongues has been made worse by the addition of visual and digital
languages.

"Koyaanisqatsi," with its dramatic fast-forward style of hurtling images,
made a considerable impact at the time. Clouds raced up mountainsides,
traffic flowed like streams of light through city streets. The technique was
immediately ripped off by TV commercials, so that the film's novelty is no
longer obvious. Now that he has arrived at the third part of his trilogy,
indeed, Reggio's method looks familiar, and that is partly the fault of his
own success. Here, he uses speedup less and relies more on quickly cut
montages. It's a version of the technique used in Chuck Workman's films on
the Oscarcast, the ones that marry countless shots from the movies; Reggio
doctors his images with distortion, overlays, tints and other kinds of
digital alteration.

The thinking behind these films is deep but not profound. They're
ritualistic grief at what man has done to the planet. "The logical flaw," as
I pointed out in my review of "Powaqqatsi," is that "Reggio's images of
beauty are always found in a world entirely without man--without even the
Hopi Indians. Reggio seems to think that man himself is some kind of virus
infecting the planet--that we would enjoy the earth more, in other words, if
we weren't here."

Although "Naqoyqatsi" has been some 10 years in the making, it takes on an
especially somber coloration after 9/11. Images of marching troops,
missiles, bomb explosions and human misery are intercut with trademarks (the
Enron trademark flashes past), politicians and huddled masses, and we
understand that war is now our way of life. But hasn't war always been a
fact of life for mankind? We are led to the uncomfortable conclusion that to
bring peace to the planet, we should leave it.

This line of reasoning may, however, be missing the point. In reviewing all
three Reggio films, I have assumed he was telling us something with his
images, and that I could understand it and analyze it. That overlooks what
may be the key element of the films, the sound tracks by composer Philip
Glass (this time joined by Yo-Yo Ma, who also contributes a solo). Can it be
that these films are, in the very best sense of the word, music videos? The
movie is not simply "scored" by Glass; his music is a vital component of
every frame, fully equal with the visuals, and you can watch these films
again and again, just as you can listen to a favorite album.

Perhaps the solution is to stop analyzing the images altogether and set
ourselves free from them. Just as it is a heresy to paraphrase classical
music by discovering "stories" or "messages," perhaps "Naqoyqatsi" and its
brothers need to be experienced as background to our own streams of
consciousness--nudges to set us thinking about the same concerns that Reggio
has. I have problems with "Naqoyqatsi" as a film, but as a music video it's
rather remarkable.

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Subject: [MV] DAS EXPERIMENT / *** (Not rated)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:17:01 GMT

DAS EXPERIMENT / *** (Not rated)

October 25, 2002

Tarek Fahd, Number 77: Mortiz Bleibtreu
Berus: Justus von Dohnanyi
Steinhoff, Number 38: Christian Berkel
Schutte, Number 82: Oliver Stokowski
Joe, Number 69: Wotan Wilke Mohring
Number 53: Stephan Szasz
Number 40: Polat Dal
Number 21: Danny Richter
Number 15: Ralf Muller
Dora: Maren Eggert
Samuel Goldwyn Films presents a film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Written by Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstadt and Mario Giordano. Based on
the novel Black Box by Giordano. Running time: 114 minutes. No MPAA rating.
In German with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

Human behavior is determined to some degree by the uniforms we wear. An army
might march more easily in sweat pants, but it wouldn't have the same sense
of purpose. School uniforms enlist kids in the "student body." Catholic nuns
saw recruitment fall off when they modernized their habits. If you want to
figure out what someone thinks of himself, examine the uniform he is
wearing. Gene Siskel amused himself by looking at people on the street and
thinking: When they left home this morning, they thought they looked good in
that.

"Das Experiment," a new film from Germany, suggests that uniforms and the
roles they assign amplify underlying psychological tendencies. In the
experiment, 20 men are recruited to spend two weeks in a prison environment.
Eight are made into guards and given quasi-military uniforms. Twelve become
prisoners and wear nightshirts with numbers sewn on them. All 20 know they
are merely volunteers working for a $1,700 paycheck.

The movie is based on a novel, Black Box, by Mario Giordano. The novel was
probably inspired by the famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, a
classic of role-playing. On that experiment's Web site, its director, Philip
G. Zimbardo, writes:

"How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound
you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life
had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the
situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few
days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and
showed signs of extreme stress."

So there, I've given away the plot. Some critics of "Das Experiment"
question the fact that the guards become cruel so quickly, but the real-life
experiment bears that out. What is fascinating is how most of the members of
both groups tend to follow charismatic leaders. None of the other guards is
as sadistic as Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi) and none of the other prisoners
is as rebellious as Tarek Fahd (Mortiz Bleibtreu), who remembers, "My father
would say, 'Don't do this,' and I'd do it."

Perhaps uniforms turn us into packs, led by the top dog. There are a few
strays. One prisoner seems custom-made to be a victim, but another, a man
with military experience, holds back and tries to analyze the situation and
provide cool guidance. But he's more or less powerless because--well, the
guards are in charge. One of the guards has misgivings about what is
happening, but it takes a lot of nerve to defy the pack.

It would make perfect sense for the guards to say, "Look, we're all in this
together and we all want the $1,700 at the end of the two weeks. So let's
make it easy on ourselves." But at Stanford as in this movie (and in life),
that is not human nature. The outcome of the experiment is clear from the
setup. We would be astonished if the guards became humane.

What impressed me is how effective the movie was, even though the outcome is
a foregone conclusion. That's a tribute to the director, Oliver
Hirschbiegel, and the actors, who have been chosen with the same kind of
typecasting that perhaps occurs in life. The sadist looks mean. The rebel
looks like a trouble-maker. The military guy looks competent. The victim
looks submissive. We see them and read them. Is it the same in life?

By halfway through, I was surprised how involved I was, and I see that I
stopped taking notes at about that point--stopped thinking objectively and
began to identify. Of course I identified with the trouble-maker. But give
me a uniform and who knows what I would have done. The fact that the movie
is German inspires thoughts about the Holocaust: The Nazi command structure
needed only strong leaders at the top for Hitler to find, as one book called
them, willing executioners in the ranks. But is the syndrome limited to Nazi
Germany? This movie argues not.

Thinking of World War II, we're reminded not only of the Nazi uniforms,
which were fetishistic, but of the genial sloppiness of the average American
G.I., as unforgettably portrayed by the great Bill Mauldin. His Willie and
Joe, unshaven, their helmets askew, cigarettes dangling from their lips,
resented authority, but they won the war.

The Stanford Prison Experiment can be found on the Web at www.prisonexp.org.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] GHOST SHIP / ** (R)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:17:02 GMT

GHOST SHIP / ** (R)

October 25, 2002

Murphy: Gabriel Byrne
Epps: Julianna Margulies
Dodge: Ron Eldard
Ferriman: Desmond Harrington
Greer: Isaiah Washington
Santos: Alex Dimitriades
Munder: Karl Urban
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Steve Beck. Written by
Mark Hanlon and John Pogue. Based on a story by Hanlon. Running time: 88
minutes. Rated R (for strong violence/gore, language and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Ghost Ship" recycles all the usual haunted house material, but because it's
about a haunted ocean liner, it very nearly redeems itself. Yes, doors open
by themselves to reveal hanging corpses. Yes, there's a glimpse of a
character who shouldn't be there. Yes, there's a cigarette burning in an
ashtray that hasn't been used in 40 years. And yes, there's a struggle
between greed and prudence as the dangers pile up.

These are all usual elements in haunted house movies, but here they take
place aboard the deserted--or seemingly deserted--hulk of the Antonia Graza,
an Italian luxury liner that disappeared without a trace during a 1962
cruise to America and has now been discovered 40 years later, floating in
the Bering Strait. A salvage crew led by Gabriel Byrne and Julianna
Margulies sets out to capture this trophy, which could be worth a fortune.

Echoes from long-ago geography classes haunted me as I watched the film,
because the Bering Sea, of course, is in the North Pacific, and if the
Antonia Graza disappeared from the North Atlantic, it must have succeeded in
sailing unattended and unnoticed through the Panama Canal. Or perhaps it
rounded Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope. Maybe its unlikely position is
like a warning that this ship no longer plays by the rules of the physical
universe.

The salvage crew is told about the ship by Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), a
weather spotter for the Royal Canadian Air Force. He got some photos of it,
and tips them off in return for a finder's fee. On board the salvage tug are
Murphy the skipper (Byrne), Epps the co-owner (Margulies), and crew members
Greer (Isaiah Washington), Dodge (Ron Eldard), Munder (Karl Urban) and
Santos (Alex Dimitriades). Under the time-honored code of horror movies,
they will disappear in horrible ways in inverse proportion to their
billing--although of course there's also the possibility they'll turn up
again.

The most absorbing passages in the film involve their exploration of the
deserted liner. The quality of the art direction and photography actually
evoke some of the same creepy, haunting majesty of those documentaries about
descents to the grave of the Titanic. There's more scariness because we know
how the original passengers and crew members died (that opening scene has a
grisly humor), and because the ship still seems haunted--not only by that
sad-eyed little girl, but perhaps by others.

The mystery eventually yields an explanation, if not a solution, and there
is the obligatory twist in the last shot, which encourages us to reinterpret
everything in diabolical terms and to think hard about the meanings of
certain names. But the appeal of "Ghost Ship" is all in the process, not in
the climax. I liked the vast old empty ballroom, the deserted corridors and
the sense of a party that ended long ago (the effect is of a nautical
version of Miss Havisham's sealed room). I knew that there would be
unexpected shocks, sudden noises and cadaverous materializations, but I have
long grown immune to such mechanical thrills (unless they are done well, of
course). I just dug the atmosphere.

Is the film worth seeing? Depends. It breaks no new ground as horror movies
go, but it does introduce an intriguing location, and it's well made
technically. It's better than you expect but not as good as you hope.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN / * (Not rated)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:16:54 GMT

ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN / * (Not rated)

October 25, 2002

Steven O'Rourke: Matt LeBlanc
Tony Parker: Eddie Izzard
Archie: James Cosmo
Romy: Nicolette Krebitz
Gen. Lansdorf: Udo Kier
Johnno: David Birkin
Col. Aitken: Edward Fox
Strand Releasing presents a film directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. Written by
Digby Wolfe, Joseph Manduke and June Roberts. Running time: 105 minutes. In
German and English with English subtitles. No MPAA rating.

BY ROGER EBERT

"All the Queen's Men" is a perfectly good idea for a comedy, but it just
plain doesn't work. It's dead in the water. I can imagine it working well in
a different time, with a different cast, in black and white instead of
color--but I can't imagine it working like this.

The movie tells the story of the "Poof Platoon," a group of four Allied
soldiers parachuted into Berlin in drag to infiltrate the all-woman factory
where the Enigma machine is being manufactured. This story is said to be
based on fact. If it is, I am amazed that such promising material would
yield such pitiful results. To impersonate a woman and a German at the same
time would have been so difficult and dangerous that it's amazing how the
movie turns it into a goofy lark.

The film stars Matt LeBlanc from "Friends," who is criminally miscast as
Steven O'Rourke, a U.S. officer famous for never quite completing heroic
missions. He is teamed with a drag artist named Tony (Eddie Izzard), an
ancient major named Archie (James Cosmo) and a scholar named Johnno (David
Birkin). After brief lessons in hair, makeup, undergarments and espionage,
they're dropped into Berlin during an air raid and try to make contact with
a resistance leader.

This underground hero turns out to be the lovely and fragrant Romy
(Nicolette Krebitz), a librarian who for the convenience of the plot lives
in a loft under the roof of the library, so that (during one of many
unbelievable scenes) the spies are able to lift a skylight window in order
to eavesdrop on an interrogation.

The plot requires them to infiltrate the factory, steal an Enigma machine
and return to England with it. Anyone who has seen "Enigma," "U-571" or the
various TV documentaries about the Enigma machine will be aware that by the
time of this movie, the British already had possession of an Enigma machine,
but to follow that line of inquiry too far in this movie is not wise. The
movie has an answer to it, but it comes so late in the film that although it
makes sense technically, the damage has already been done.

The four misfit transvestites totter about Berlin looking like (very bad)
Andrews Sisters imitators, and O'Rourke falls in love with the librarian
Romy. How it becomes clear that he is not a woman is not nearly as
interesting as how anyone could possibly have thought he was a woman in the
first place. He plays a woman as if determined, in every scene, to signal to
the audience that he's absolutely straight and only kidding. His voice, with
its uncanny similarity to Sylvester Stallone's, doesn't help.

The action in the movie would be ludicrous anyway, but is even more peculiar
in a cross-dressing comedy. There's a long sequence in which Tony, the
Izzard character, does a marked-down Marlene Dietrich before a wildly
enthusiastic audience of Nazis. Surely they know he is, if not a spy, at
least a drag queen? I'm not so sure. I fear the movie makes it appear the
Nazis think he is a sexy woman, something that will come as surprise to
anyone who is familiar with Eddie Izzard, including Eddie Izzard.

Watching the movie, it occurred to me that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were
not any more convincing as women in "Some Like It Hot." And yet we bought
them in that comedy, and it remains a classic. Why did they work, while the
Queen's Men manifestly do not? Apart from the inescapable difference in
actual talent, could it have anything to do with the use of color?

Black and white is better suited to many kinds of comedy, because it
underlines the dialogue and movement while diminishing the importance of
fashions and eliminating the emotional content of various colors. Billy
Wilder fought for b&w on "Some Like It Hot" because he thought his drag
queens would never be accepted by the audience in color, and he was right.

The casting is also a problem. Matt LeBlanc does not belong in this movie in
any role other than, possibly, that of a Nazi who believes Eddie Izzard is a
woman. He is all wrong for the lead, with no lightness, no humor, no
sympathy for his fellow spies and no comic timing. I can imagine this movie
as a b&w British comedy, circa 1960, with Peter Sellers, Kenneth
Williams, et al., but at this time, with this cast, this movie is hopeless.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] COMEDIAN / ** (R)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:16:59 GMT

COMEDIAN / ** (R)

October 25, 2002

Featuring: Jerry Seinfeld, Orny Adams, Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Chris Rock and
Garry Shandling
Miramax Films presents a documentary directed by Christian Charles. Running
time: 81 minutes. Rated R (for language).

BY ROGER EBERT

If it takes this much agony to be a stand-up comic, I don't think I could
survive a movie about a brain surgeon. "Comedian" follows Jerry Seinfeld and
other stand-ups as they appear onstage and then endlessly analyze, discuss,
rerun, regret, denounce, forgive and rewrite their material. To say they
sweat blood is to trivialize their suffering.

It looks to the audience as if stand-up comics walk out on a stage, are
funny, walk off, and spend the rest of the time hanging around the bar being
envied by wannabes. In fact, we discover, they agonize over "a minute,"
"five minutes," "10 minutes," on their way to nirvana: "I have an hour."
When Chris Rock tells Seinfeld that Bill Cosby does two hours and 20 minutes
without an intermission, and he does it twice in the same day, he becomes
very sad and thoughtful, like a karaoke star when Tony Bennett walks in.

Seinfeld can't believe his good fortune. He reached the top, with one of the
biggest hit TV shows of all time. And yet: "Here I am in Cleveland." After
retiring his old nightclub act with an HBO special, he starts from scratch
to devise a new act and take it on the road to comedy clubs, half of which
are called the Improv. He stands in front of the same brick walls, drinks
the same bottled water, handles the same microphones as kids on the way up.
Of course, he flies into town on a private jet that costs more than the
comedy club, but the movie doesn't rub this in.

Seinfeld is a great star, yet cannot coast. One night he gets stuck in the
middle of his act--he loses his train of thought--and stares baffled into
space. Blowing a single word can depress him. If it's still a battle for
Seinfeld, consider the case of Orny Adams, a rising comedian whom the film
uses as counterpoint. Adams shows Seinfeld a room full of boxes, drawers,
cabinets, file folders, stuffed with jokes. There are piles of material, and
yet he confides, "I feel like I sacrificed so much of my life. I'm 29 and I
have no job, no wife, no children." Seinfeld regards him as if wife,
children, home will all come in good time, but stand-up, now--stand-up is
life.

Orny Adams gets a gig on the David Letterman program, and we see him
backstage, vibrating with nervousness. The network guys have been over his
material and suggested some changes. Now he practices saying the word
"psoriasis." After the show, he makes a phone call to a friend to explain,
"I opened my first great network show with a joke I had never used before."
Well, not a completely new joke. He had to substitute the word "psoriasis"
for the word "lupus." But to a comedian who fine-tunes every syllable, that
made it a new joke and a fearsome challenge.

Seinfeld pays tribute to Robert Klein ("he was the guy we all looked up
to"). We listen to Klein remember when, after several appearances on "The
Tonight Show," he received the ultimate recognition: He was "called over by
Johnny." Seinfeld recalls that when he was 10 he memorized the comedy albums
of Bill Cosby. Now he visits Cosby backstage and expresses wonderment that
"a human life could last so long that I would be included in your life." Big
hug. Cosby is 65 and Seinfeld is 48, a 17-year-difference that is therefore
less amazing than that Shoshanna Lonstein's life could last so long that she
could meet Jerry when she was 18 and he was 39, but there you go.

"Comedian" was filmed over the course of a year by director Christian
Charles and producer Gary Streiner, who used two "store-bought" video
cameras and followed Seinfeld around. If that is all they did for a year,
then this was a waste of their time, since the footage, however interesting,
is the backstage variety that could easily be obtained in a week. There are
no deep revelations, no shocking moments of truth, and many, many
conversations in which Seinfeld and other comics discuss their acts with
discouragement and despair. The movie was produced by Seinfeld, and protects
him. The visuals tend toward the dim, the gray and the washed-out, and you
wish instead of spending a year with their store-boughts, they'd spent a
month and used the leftover to hire a cinematographer.

Why, you might wonder, would a man with untold millions in the bank go on a
tour of comedy clubs? What's in it for him if the people in Cleveland laugh?
Why, for that matter, does Jay Leno go to comedy clubs every single week,
even after having been called over by Johnny for the ultimate reward? Is it
because to walk out on the stage, to risk all, to depend on your nerve and
skill, and to possibly "die," is an addiction? Gamblers, they say, don't
want to win so much as they want to play. They like the action. They tend to
keep gambling until they have lost all their money. There may be a
connection between the two obsessions, although gamblers at least say they
are having fun, and stand-up comics, judging by this film, are miserable,
self-tortured beings, to whom success represents only a higher place to fall
from.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BLOODY SUNDAY / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 25 Oct 2002 16:16:58 GMT

BLOODY SUNDAY / ***1/2 (R)

October 25, 2002

Ivan Cooper: James Nesbitt
Maj. Gen. Ford: Tim Pigott-Smith
Brigadier MacLellan: Nicholas Farrell
Chief Supt. Lagan: Gerard McSorley
Frances: Kathy Kiera Clarke
Kevin McCorry: Allan Gildea
Eamonn McCann: Gerard Crossan
Paramount Classics presents a film written and directed by Paul Greengrass.
Based on the book by Don Mullan. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R (for
violence and language). Opening today at Webster Place and Evanston CineArts
6.

BY ROGER EBERT

Both sides agree that on Jan. 30, 1972, a civil rights march in Derry,
Northern Ireland, ended with a confrontation between some of the marchers
and British army paratroopers. At the end of the day, 13 marchers were dead
and 14 in the hospital, one of whom later died. No British soldiers were
killed. An official inquiry declared that the soldiers had returned the fire
of armed marchers. Some of the soldiers involved were later decorated by the
crown.

Beyond this agreement, there is a disagreement so deep and bitter that 30
years later "Bloody Sunday" is still an open wound in the long, contested
history of the British in Northern Ireland. A new inquiry into the events of
the day was opened in 1998 and still continues today. Paul Greengrass' film
"Bloody Sunday," which shared the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival
this year, is made in the form of a documentary. It covers about 24 hours,
starting on Saturday evening, and its central character is Ivan Cooper
(James Nesbitt), a civil rights leader in Derry. He was a Protestant MP from
the nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party. Most of the 10,000 marchers
on that Sunday would be Catholic; that a Protestant led them, and stood
beside such firebrands as Bernadette Devlin, indicates the division in the
north between those who stood in solidarity with their co-religionists, and
those of all faiths who simply wanted the British out of Northern Ireland.

Cooper is played by Nesbitt as a thoroughly admirable man, optimistic,
tireless, who walks fearlessly through dangerous streets and has a good word
for everyone. He knows the day's march has been banned by the British
government but expects no trouble because it will be peaceful and
non-violent. As Cooper hands out leaflets in the streets, Greengrass
intercuts preparations by the British army, which from the top down is
determined to make a strong stand against "hooliganism." More than two dozen
British soldiers have been killed by the Provisional IRA in recent months,
and this is a chance to crack down.

Greengrass also establishes a few other characters, including a young man
who kisses his girlfriend goodbye and promises his mother no harm will come
to him--always ominous signs in a movie. And we meet the Derry police chief
(Gerard McSorley), who is alarmed by the fierce resolve of the soldiers and
asks, not unreasonably, if it wouldn't be wiser to simply permit the march,
since it is obviously going to proceed anyway. Greengrass re-creates events
with stunning reality. (When he shows a movie marquee advertising "Sunday
Bloody Sunday," it's a small glitch because it seems like a calculated shot
in a movie that feels like cinema verite.) He is aided by the presence of
thousands of extras, who volunteered to be in the movie (some of them
marched on Bloody Sunday and are in a way playing themselves). Northern
Ireland is still a tinderbox where this film could not possibly be made;
streets in a poor area of Dublin were used.

Cooper and the other leaders are on the bed of a truck which leads the
column of marchers, and from their vantage point we can see that when the
march turns right, away from the army's position, some hot-headed marchers
turn left and begin to throw rocks at the soldiers. In the army's HQ, where
Maj. Gen. Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith) is in charge, an order is given to respond
firmly. Communications are confused, orders are distorted as they pass down
the chain of command, and soon rubber bullets and gas grenades are replaced
by the snap of real bullets.

Greengrass shows marchers trying to restrain a few of their fellows who are
armed. His film is clear, however, in its belief that the British fired
first and in cold blood, and he shows one wounded marcher being executed
with a bullet in the back. One of the marchers is apparently inspired by
Gerald Donaghey, whose case became famous. After being wounded, he was
searched twice, once by doctors, and then taken to an army area where he
died. Soldiers then found nail bombs in his pockets that had been
"overlooked" in two previous searches. For Greengrass, this is part of a
desperate attempt by the army to plant evidence and justify a massacre. Of
course, there are two sides to the story of Bloody Sunday, although the
score (Army 14, Marchers 0) is significant. The Greengrass view reflects
both the theories and the anger of the anti-British factions, and the army's
smugness after being cleared in the original investigation was only
inflammatory. "Bloody Sunday" is one view of what happened that day, a very
effective one. And as an act of filmmaking, it is superb: A sense of
immediate and present reality permeates every scene.

The official Web site of the current inquiry into Bloody Sunday may be found
at www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk. To read Thomas Kinsella's famous poem
about the 1972 event, "Butcher's Dozen," go to
www.usm.maine.edu/~mcgrath/poems/butchrs.htm.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BLOODY SUNDAY / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:34 GMT

BLOODY SUNDAY / ***1/2 (R)

October 25, 2002

Ivan Cooper: James Nesbitt
Maj. Gen. Ford: Tim Pigott-Smith
Brigadier MacLellan: Nicholas Farrell
Chief Supt. Lagan: Gerard McSorley
Frances: Kathy Kiera Clarke
Kevin McCorry: Allan Gildea
Eamonn McCann: Gerard Crossan
Paramount Classics presents a film written and directed by Paul Greengrass.
Based on the book by Don Mullan. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R (for
violence and language). Opening today at Webster Place and Evanston CineArts
6.

BY ROGER EBERT

Both sides agree that on Jan. 30, 1972, a civil rights march in Derry,
Northern Ireland, ended with a confrontation between some of the marchers
and British army paratroopers. At the end of the day, 13 marchers were dead
and 14 in the hospital, one of whom later died. No British soldiers were
killed. An official inquiry declared that the soldiers had returned the fire
of armed marchers. Some of the soldiers involved were later decorated by the
crown.

Beyond this agreement, there is a disagreement so deep and bitter that 30
years later "Bloody Sunday" is still an open wound in the long, contested
history of the British in Northern Ireland. A new inquiry into the events of
the day was opened in 1998 and still continues today. Paul Greengrass' film
"Bloody Sunday," which shared the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival
this year, is made in the form of a documentary. It covers about 24 hours,
starting on Saturday evening, and its central character is Ivan Cooper
(James Nesbitt), a civil rights leader in Derry. He was a Protestant MP from
the nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party. Most of the 10,000 marchers
on that Sunday would be Catholic; that a Protestant led them, and stood
beside such firebrands as Bernadette Devlin, indicates the division in the
north between those who stood in solidarity with their co-religionists, and
those of all faiths who simply wanted the British out of Northern Ireland.

Cooper is played by Nesbitt as a thoroughly admirable man, optimistic,
tireless, who walks fearlessly through dangerous streets and has a good word
for everyone. He knows the day's march has been banned by the British
government but expects no trouble because it will be peaceful and
non-violent. As Cooper hands out leaflets in the streets, Greengrass
intercuts preparations by the British army, which from the top down is
determined to make a strong stand against "hooliganism." More than two dozen
British soldiers have been killed by the Provisional IRA in recent months,
and this is a chance to crack down.

Greengrass also establishes a few other characters, including a young man
who kisses his girlfriend goodbye and promises his mother no harm will come
to him--always ominous signs in a movie. And we meet the Derry police chief
(Gerard McSorley), who is alarmed by the fierce resolve of the soldiers and
asks, not unreasonably, if it wouldn't be wiser to simply permit the march,
since it is obviously going to proceed anyway. Greengrass re-creates events
with stunning reality. (When he shows a movie marquee advertising "Sunday
Bloody Sunday," it's a small glitch because it seems like a calculated shot
in a movie that feels like cinema verite.) He is aided by the presence of
thousands of extras, who volunteered to be in the movie (some of them
marched on Bloody Sunday and are in a way playing themselves). Northern
Ireland is still a tinderbox where this film could not possibly be made;
streets in a poor area of Dublin were used.

Cooper and the other leaders are on the bed of a truck which leads the
column of marchers, and from their vantage point we can see that when the
march turns right, away from the army's position, some hot-headed marchers
turn left and begin to throw rocks at the soldiers. In the army's HQ, where
Maj. Gen. Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith) is in charge, an order is given to respond
firmly. Communications are confused, orders are distorted as they pass down
the chain of command, and soon rubber bullets and gas grenades are replaced
by the snap of real bullets.

Greengrass shows marchers trying to restrain a few of their fellows who are
armed. His film is clear, however, in its belief that the British fired
first and in cold blood, and he shows one wounded marcher being executed
with a bullet in the back. One of the marchers is apparently inspired by
Gerald Donaghey, whose case became famous. After being wounded, he was
searched twice, once by doctors, and then taken to an army area where he
died. Soldiers then found nail bombs in his pockets that had been
"overlooked" in two previous searches. For Greengrass, this is part of a
desperate attempt by the army to plant evidence and justify a massacre. Of
course, there are two sides to the story of Bloody Sunday, although the
score (Army 14, Marchers 0) is significant. The Greengrass view reflects
both the theories and the anger of the anti-British factions, and the army's
smugness after being cleared in the original investigation was only
inflammatory. "Bloody Sunday" is one view of what happened that day, a very
effective one. And as an act of filmmaking, it is superb: A sense of
immediate and present reality permeates every scene.

The official Web site of the current inquiry into Bloody Sunday may be found
at www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk. To read Thomas Kinsella's famous poem
about the 1972 event, "Butcher's Dozen," go to
www.usm.maine.edu/~mcgrath/poems/butchrs.htm.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WAKING UP IN RENO / *1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:48 GMT

WAKING UP IN RENO / *1/2 (R)

October 25, 2002

Lonnie Earl: Billy Bob Thornton
Candy: Charlize Theron
Roy: Patrick Swayze
Darlene: Natasha Richardson
Russell Whitehead: Brent Briscoe
Boyd: Mark Fauser
Ronnie: Wayne Federman
Fred Bush: Chelcie Ross
Miramax Films presents a film directed by Jordan Brady. Written by Brent
Briscoe and Mark Fauser. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for language
and some sexual content).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Waking Up in Reno" is another one of those road comedies where Southern
roots are supposed to make boring people seem colorful. If these characters
were from Minneapolis or Denver, no way anyone would make a film about them.
But because they're from Little Rock, Ark., and wear stuff made out of
snakeskin and carry their own cases of Pabst into the hotel room, they're
movie-worthy.

Well, they could be, if they had anything really at risk. But the movie is
way too gentle to back them into a corner. They're nice people whose
problems are all solved with sitcom dialogue, and the profoundly traditional
screenplay makes sure that love and family triumph in the end. Surprising,
that Billy Bob Thornton, Charlize Theron, Natasha Richardson and Patrick
Swayze would fall for this, but Swayze did make "Road House," so maybe it's
not so surprising in his case.

Thornton stars as Lonnie Earl, a Little Rock car dealer who appears in his
own commercials and cheats on his wife, Darlene (Richardson). He cheats with
Candy (Theron), the wife of his best friend, Roy (Swayze). Actually, they
only cheat twice, but if that's like only being a little bit pregnant, maybe
she is.

The two couples decide to pull a brand new SUV off of Lonnie Earl's lot and
take a trip to Reno, Nev., with stops along the way in Texas (where Lonnie
Earl wants to win a 72-ounce-steak-eating contest) and maybe at the Grand
Canyon. Others have their dreams, too; Darlene has always had a special
place in her heart for Tony Orlando, ever since she saw him on the Jerry
Lewis telethon. And that's the sort of dialogue detail that's supposed to
tip us off how down-home and lovable these people are: They like Tony
Orlando, they watch Jerry Lewis. We sense that director Jordan Brady and
writers Brent Briscoe and Mark Fauser don't like Tony Orlando and Jerry
Lewis as much as the characters do, but the movie's not mean enough to say
so, and so any comic point is lost.

That kind of disconnect happens all through the movie: The filmmakers create
satirical characters and then play them straight. We're actually expected to
sympathize with these caricatures, as Lonnie Earl barely survives the
72-ounce steak and they arrive in Reno for run-ins with the hotel bell boys
and the hooker in the bar.

Consider the scene where the helpful bellboy hauls their luggage into their
suite and then loiters suggestively for a tip. "Oh, I get it," says Lonnie
Earl. "You want your dollar." And he gives him one. The problem here is that
no real-life Little Rock car dealer would conceivably believe that the
correct tip for luggage for four people would be one dollar. Lonnie Earl
must be moderately wealthy, has traveled, has tipped before, is not entirely
clueless. But the movie short-changes his character to get an easy (and very
cheap) laugh.

The action in Reno mostly centers around Candy's attempts to get pregnant,
her monitoring of her ovular temperature, Roy's obligation to leap into
action at every prompt, and the revelation that ... well, without going into
details, let's say secrets are revealed that would more wisely have been
left concealed, and that Lonnie Earl, Roy, Candy and Darlene find themselves
in a situation that in the real world could lead to violence but here is
settled in about the same way that the Mertzes worked things out with Lucy
and Ricky.

Yes, the characters are pleasant. Yes, in some grudging way we are happy
that they're happy. No, we do not get teary-eyed with sentiment when the
movie evokes the Grand Canyon in an attempt to demonstrate that the problems
of four little people don't amount to a hill of beans. At the end of the
movie titled "Grand Canyon" (1991), I actually was emotionally touched as
the characters looked out over the awesome immensity. But then they were
real characters, and nothing in "Waking Up in Reno" ever inspired me to
think of its inhabitants as anything more than markers in a screenplay.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE GREY ZONE / **** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:45 GMT

THE GREY ZONE / **** (R)

October 25, 2002

Hoffman: David Arquette
Schlermer: Daniel Benzali
Abramowics: Steve Buscemi
Rosenthal: David Chandler
Dr. Nyiszli: Allan Corduner
Muhsfeldt: Harvey Keitel
Rosa: Natasha Lyonne
Dina: Mira Sorvino
Lions Gate Films presents a film written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson.
Running time: 108 minutes. Rated R (for strong Holocaust violence, nudity
and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"How can you know what you'd really do to stay alive, until you're asked? I
know now that the answer for most of us is--anything."

So says a member of the Sonderkommandos, a group of Jews at the Auschwitz
II-Birkenau death camp, who sent their fellow Jews to die in the gas
chambers, and then disposed of the ashes afterward. For this duty they were
given clean sheets, extra food, cigarettes and an extra four months of life.
With the end of the war obviously drawing closer, four months might mean
survival. Would you refuse this opportunity? Would I?

Tim Blake Nelson's "The Grey Zone" considers moral choices within a closed
system that is wholly evil. If everyone in the death camp is destined to
die, is it the good man's duty to die on schedule, or is it his duty to
himself to grasp any straw? Since both choices seem certain to end in death,
is it more noble to refuse, or cooperate? Is hope itself a form of
resistance?

These are questions no truthful person can answer without having been there.
The film is inspired by the uprising of Oct. 7, 1944, when members of the
12th Sonder-kommando succeeded in blowing up two of the four crematoria at
the death camp; because the ovens were never replaced, lives were saved. But
other lives were lost as the Nazis used physical and mental torture to try
to find out how the prisoners got their hands on gunpowder and weapons.

I have seen a lot of films about the Holocaust, but I have never seen one so
immediate, unblinking and painful in its materials. "The Grey Zone" deals
with the daily details of the work gangs--who lied to prisoners, led them
into gas chambers, killed them, incinerated their bodies, and disposed of
the remains. All of the steps in this process are made perfectly clear in a
sequence, which begins with one victim accusing his Jewish guard of lying to
them all, and ends with the desperate sound of hands banging against the
inside of the steel doors. "Cargo," the workers called the bodies they dealt
with. "We have a lot of cargo today."

The film has been adapted by Nelson from his play, and is based on part on
the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, by Miklos Nyiszli, a
Jewish doctor who cooperated on experiments with the notorious Dr. Josef
Mengele, and is portrayed in the film by Allan Corduner. Is it a fact of
human nature, that we are hard-wired to act for our own survival? That those
able to sacrifice themselves for an ethical ideal are extraordinary
exceptions to the rule? Consider a scene late in the film when Rosa and Dina
(Natasha Lyonne and Mira Sorvino), two women prisoners who worked in a
nearby munitions factory, are tortured to reveal the secret of the
gunpowder. When ordinary methods fail, they are lined up in front of their
fellow prisoners. The interrogator repeats his questions, and every time
they do not answer, his arm comes down and another prisoner is shot through
the head.

What is the right thing to do? Betray the secrets and those who
collaborated? Or allow still more prisoners to be murdered? And if all will
die eventually anyway, how does that affect the choice? Is it better to die
now, with a bullet to the brain, than after more weeks of dread? Or is any
life at all worth having?

The film stars David Arquette, Daniel Benzali, Steve Buscemi and David
Chandler as the leaders of the Sonderkommandos, and Harvey Keitel as
Muhsfeldt, an alcoholic Nazi officer in command of their unit. Although
these faces are familiar, the actors disappear into their roles. The Jewish
work force continues its grim task of exterminating fellow Jews, while
working on its secret plans for a revolt.

Then an extraordinary thing happens. In a gas chamber, a young girl (Kamelia
Grigorova) is found still alive. Arquette rescues her from a truck before
she can be taken to be burned, and now the Jews are faced with a subset of
their larger dilemma: Is this one life worth saving if the girl jeopardizes
the entire revolt? Perhaps not, but in a world where there seem to be no
choices, she presents one, and even Dr. Nyiszli, so beloved by Mengele,
helps to save the girl's life. It is as if this single life symbolizes all
the others.

In a sense, the murders committed by the Nazis were not as evil as the
twisted thought that went into them, and the mental anguish they caused for
the victims. Death occurs thoughtlessly in nature every day. But death with
sadistic forethought, death with a scenario forcing the victims into
impossible choices, and into the knowledge that those choices are
inescapable, is mercilessly evil. The Arquette character talks of one
victim: "I knew him. We were neighbors. In 20 minutes his whole family and
all of its future was gone from this earth." That victim's knowledge of his
loss was worse than death.

"The Grey Zone" is pitiless, bleak and despairing. There cannot be a happy
ending, except that the war eventually ended. That is no consolation for its
victims. It is a film about making choices that seem to make no difference,
about attempting to act with honor in a closed system where honor lies dead.
One can think: If nobody else knows, at least I will know. Yes, but then you
will be dead, and then who will know? And what did it get you? On the other
hand, to live with the knowledge that you behaved shamefully is another kind
of death--the death of the human need to regard ourselves with favor. "The
Grey Zone" refers to a world where everyone is covered with the gray ash of
the dead, and it has been like that for so long they do not even notice
anymore.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN / * (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:31 GMT

ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN / * (Not rated)

October 25, 2002

Steven O'Rourke: Matt LeBlanc
Tony Parker: Eddie Izzard
Archie: James Cosmo
Romy: Nicolette Krebitz
Gen. Lansdorf: Udo Kier
Johnno: David Birkin
Col. Aitken: Edward Fox
Strand Releasing presents a film directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. Written by
Digby Wolfe, Joseph Manduke and June Roberts. Running time: 105 minutes. In
German and English with English subtitles. No MPAA rating.

BY ROGER EBERT

"All the Queen's Men" is a perfectly good idea for a comedy, but it just
plain doesn't work. It's dead in the water. I can imagine it working well in
a different time, with a different cast, in black and white instead of
color--but I can't imagine it working like this.

The movie tells the story of the "Poof Platoon," a group of four Allied
soldiers parachuted into Berlin in drag to infiltrate the all-woman factory
where the Enigma machine is being manufactured. This story is said to be
based on fact. If it is, I am amazed that such promising material would
yield such pitiful results. To impersonate a woman and a German at the same
time would have been so difficult and dangerous that it's amazing how the
movie turns it into a goofy lark.

The film stars Matt LeBlanc from "Friends," who is criminally miscast as
Steven O'Rourke, a U.S. officer famous for never quite completing heroic
missions. He is teamed with a drag artist named Tony (Eddie Izzard), an
ancient major named Archie (James Cosmo) and a scholar named Johnno (David
Birkin). After brief lessons in hair, makeup, undergarments and espionage,
they're dropped into Berlin during an air raid and try to make contact with
a resistance leader.

This underground hero turns out to be the lovely and fragrant Romy
(Nicolette Krebitz), a librarian who for the convenience of the plot lives
in a loft under the roof of the library, so that (during one of many
unbelievable scenes) the spies are able to lift a skylight window in order
to eavesdrop on an interrogation.

The plot requires them to infiltrate the factory, steal an Enigma machine
and return to England with it. Anyone who has seen "Enigma," "U-571" or the
various TV documentaries about the Enigma machine will be aware that by the
time of this movie, the British already had possession of an Enigma machine,
but to follow that line of inquiry too far in this movie is not wise. The
movie has an answer to it, but it comes so late in the film that although it
makes sense technically, the damage has already been done.

The four misfit transvestites totter about Berlin looking like (very bad)
Andrews Sisters imitators, and O'Rourke falls in love with the librarian
Romy. How it becomes clear that he is not a woman is not nearly as
interesting as how anyone could possibly have thought he was a woman in the
first place. He plays a woman as if determined, in every scene, to signal to
the audience that he's absolutely straight and only kidding. His voice, with
its uncanny similarity to Sylvester Stallone's, doesn't help.

The action in the movie would be ludicrous anyway, but is even more peculiar
in a cross-dressing comedy. There's a long sequence in which Tony, the
Izzard character, does a marked-down Marlene Dietrich before a wildly
enthusiastic audience of Nazis. Surely they know he is, if not a spy, at
least a drag queen? I'm not so sure. I fear the movie makes it appear the
Nazis think he is a sexy woman, something that will come as surprise to
anyone who is familiar with Eddie Izzard, including Eddie Izzard.

Watching the movie, it occurred to me that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were
not any more convincing as women in "Some Like It Hot." And yet we bought
them in that comedy, and it remains a classic. Why did they work, while the
Queen's Men manifestly do not? Apart from the inescapable difference in
actual talent, could it have anything to do with the use of color?

Black and white is better suited to many kinds of comedy, because it
underlines the dialogue and movement while diminishing the importance of
fashions and eliminating the emotional content of various colors. Billy
Wilder fought for b&w on "Some Like It Hot" because he thought his drag
queens would never be accepted by the audience in color, and he was right.

The casting is also a problem. Matt LeBlanc does not belong in this movie in
any role other than, possibly, that of a Nazi who believes Eddie Izzard is a
woman. He is all wrong for the lead, with no lightness, no humor, no
sympathy for his fellow spies and no comic timing. I can imagine this movie
as a b&w British comedy, circa 1960, with Peter Sellers, Kenneth
Williams, et al., but at this time, with this cast, this movie is hopeless.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE / *** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:46 GMT

THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE / *** (PG-13)

October 25, 2002

Regina Lambert: Thandie Newton
Joshua Peters: Mark Wahlberg
Mr. Bartholomew: Tim Robbins
Il-Sang Lee: Joong-Hoon Park
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Jonathan Demme. Written by
Demme, Steve Schmidt, Peter Joshua and Jessica Bendinger. Running time: 104
minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some violence and sexual content/nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

Regina Lambert has been married for three months. She returns to Paris to
find her apartment vandalized and her husband missing. A police official
produces her husband's passport--and another, and another. He had many looks
and many identities, and is missing in all of them. And now she seems
surrounded by unsavory people with a dangerous interest in finding his $6
million. They say she knows where it is. Thank goodness for good, kind
Joshua Peters, who turns up protectively whenever he's needed.

This story, right down to the names, will be familiar to lovers of
"Charade," Stanley Donen's 1963 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Now Jonathan Demme recycles it in "The Truth About Charlie," with Thandie
Newton and Mark Wahlberg in the starring roles. Wahlberg will never be
confused with Cary Grant but Newton, now ... Newton, with her fragile
beauty, her flawless complexion, her beautiful head perched atop that
extraordinary neck ... well, you can see how Demme thought of Hepburn when
he cast her.

"Charade" is considered in many quarters to be a masterpiece (no less than
the 168th best film of all time, according to the Internet Movie Database).
I saw it recently on the sparkling Criterion DVD, enjoyed it, remember it
fondly, but do not find it a desecration that Demme wanted to remake it.
There are some films that are ineffably themselves, like "The Third Man,"
and cannot possibly be remade. Others depend on plots so silly and
effervescent that they can be used over and over, as vehicles for new
generations of actors. "Charade" is in the latter category. If it is true
that there will never be another Audrey Hepburn, and it is, I submit it is
also true that there will never be another Thandie Newton.

I saw her first in "Flirting" (1991), made when she was 18. It was a glowing
masterpiece about adolescent love. She has been in 15 films since then, but
you may not remember her. She was the lost child in Demme's "Beloved"
(1998), looking like a ghost and not herself, and she played Sally Hemings,
Thomas Jefferson's slave and lover, in the unsuccessful "Jefferson in Paris"
(1995). I liked her in Bertolucci's "Besieged" (1998), although the film
didn't work and he photographed her with almost unseemly interest. She was
in the overlooked but very good "Gridlock'd" (1997), Tupac Shakur's last
film. If you have seen her at all, it may have been in "Mission: Impossible
II," opposite Tom Cruise.

She carries "The Truth About Charlie," as she must, because all of the other
characters revolve around her, sometimes literally. Wahlberg has top billing
but that must be a contractual thing; she is the center of the picture, and
the news is, she is a star. She has that presence and glow. The plot is
essentially a backdrop, as it was in "Charade," for Paris, suspense, romance
and star power,

I am not sure the plot matters enough to be kept a secret, but I will try
not to give away too much. Essentially, Charlie was a deceptive, two-timing
louse who made some unfortunate friends. Now that he has gone several
strange people emerge from the woodwork, some to threaten Regina, some, like
Mr. Bartholomew (Tim Robbins) to help and advise her. There is an Asian
named Il-Sang Lee (Joong-Hoon Park) and a femme fatale named Lola (Lisa Gay
Hamilton), and a police commandant (Christine Boisson) who appears to seek
only the truth. And there is the omnipresent, always helpful Joshua Peters
(Wahlberg), who was Peter Joshua in "Charade," but there you go.

These people all serve one function: To propel Regina past locations in
Paris, from the Champs Elysses to the flea market at Cligancourt, and to
accompany her through several costume changes and assorted dangers and
escapes. "The history of the cinema," said Jean-Luc Godard, "is of boys
photographing girls." There is more to it than that, but both "The Truth
About Charlie" and "Charade" prove that is enough.

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Subject: [MV] DAS EXPERIMENT / *** (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:38 GMT

DAS EXPERIMENT / *** (Not rated)

October 25, 2002

Tarek Fahd, Number 77: Mortiz Bleibtreu
Berus: Justus von Dohnanyi
Steinhoff, Number 38: Christian Berkel
Schutte, Number 82: Oliver Stokowski
Joe, Number 69: Wotan Wilke Mohring
Number 53: Stephan Szasz
Number 40: Polat Dal
Number 21: Danny Richter
Number 15: Ralf Muller
Dora: Maren Eggert
Samuel Goldwyn Films presents a film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Written by Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstadt and Mario Giordano. Based on
the novel Black Box by Giordano. Running time: 114 minutes. No MPAA rating.
In German with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

Human behavior is determined to some degree by the uniforms we wear. An army
might march more easily in sweat pants, but it wouldn't have the same sense
of purpose. School uniforms enlist kids in the "student body." Catholic nuns
saw recruitment fall off when they modernized their habits. If you want to
figure out what someone thinks of himself, examine the uniform he is
wearing. Gene Siskel amused himself by looking at people on the street and
thinking: When they left home this morning, they thought they looked good in
that.

"Das Experiment," a new film from Germany, suggests that uniforms and the
roles they assign amplify underlying psychological tendencies. In the
experiment, 20 men are recruited to spend two weeks in a prison environment.
Eight are made into guards and given quasi-military uniforms. Twelve become
prisoners and wear nightshirts with numbers sewn on them. All 20 know they
are merely volunteers working for a $1,700 paycheck.

The movie is based on a novel, Black Box, by Mario Giordano. The novel was
probably inspired by the famous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, a
classic of role-playing. On that experiment's Web site, its director, Philip
G. Zimbardo, writes:

"How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound
you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life
had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the
situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few
days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and
showed signs of extreme stress."

So there, I've given away the plot. Some critics of "Das Experiment"
question the fact that the guards become cruel so quickly, but the real-life
experiment bears that out. What is fascinating is how most of the members of
both groups tend to follow charismatic leaders. None of the other guards is
as sadistic as Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi) and none of the other prisoners
is as rebellious as Tarek Fahd (Mortiz Bleibtreu), who remembers, "My father
would say, 'Don't do this,' and I'd do it."

Perhaps uniforms turn us into packs, led by the top dog. There are a few
strays. One prisoner seems custom-made to be a victim, but another, a man
with military experience, holds back and tries to analyze the situation and
provide cool guidance. But he's more or less powerless because--well, the
guards are in charge. One of the guards has misgivings about what is
happening, but it takes a lot of nerve to defy the pack.

It would make perfect sense for the guards to say, "Look, we're all in this
together and we all want the $1,700 at the end of the two weeks. So let's
make it easy on ourselves." But at Stanford as in this movie (and in life),
that is not human nature. The outcome of the experiment is clear from the
setup. We would be astonished if the guards became humane.

What impressed me is how effective the movie was, even though the outcome is
a foregone conclusion. That's a tribute to the director, Oliver
Hirschbiegel, and the actors, who have been chosen with the same kind of
typecasting that perhaps occurs in life. The sadist looks mean. The rebel
looks like a trouble-maker. The military guy looks competent. The victim
looks submissive. We see them and read them. Is it the same in life?

By halfway through, I was surprised how involved I was, and I see that I
stopped taking notes at about that point--stopped thinking objectively and
began to identify. Of course I identified with the trouble-maker. But give
me a uniform and who knows what I would have done. The fact that the movie
is German inspires thoughts about the Holocaust: The Nazi command structure
needed only strong leaders at the top for Hitler to find, as one book called
them, willing executioners in the ranks. But is the syndrome limited to Nazi
Germany? This movie argues not.

Thinking of World War II, we're reminded not only of the Nazi uniforms,
which were fetishistic, but of the genial sloppiness of the average American
G.I., as unforgettably portrayed by the great Bill Mauldin. His Willie and
Joe, unshaven, their helmets askew, cigarettes dangling from their lips,
resented authority, but they won the war.

The Stanford Prison Experiment can be found on the Web at www.prisonexp.org.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] COMEDIAN / ** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:36 GMT

COMEDIAN / ** (R)

October 25, 2002

Featuring: Jerry Seinfeld, Orny Adams, Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Chris Rock and
Garry Shandling
Miramax Films presents a documentary directed by Christian Charles. Running
time: 81 minutes. Rated R (for language).

BY ROGER EBERT

If it takes this much agony to be a stand-up comic, I don't think I could
survive a movie about a brain surgeon. "Comedian" follows Jerry Seinfeld and
other stand-ups as they appear onstage and then endlessly analyze, discuss,
rerun, regret, denounce, forgive and rewrite their material. To say they
sweat blood is to trivialize their suffering.

It looks to the audience as if stand-up comics walk out on a stage, are
funny, walk off, and spend the rest of the time hanging around the bar being
envied by wannabes. In fact, we discover, they agonize over "a minute,"
"five minutes," "10 minutes," on their way to nirvana: "I have an hour."
When Chris Rock tells Seinfeld that Bill Cosby does two hours and 20 minutes
without an intermission, and he does it twice in the same day, he becomes
very sad and thoughtful, like a karaoke star when Tony Bennett walks in.

Seinfeld can't believe his good fortune. He reached the top, with one of the
biggest hit TV shows of all time. And yet: "Here I am in Cleveland." After
retiring his old nightclub act with an HBO special, he starts from scratch
to devise a new act and take it on the road to comedy clubs, half of which
are called the Improv. He stands in front of the same brick walls, drinks
the same bottled water, handles the same microphones as kids on the way up.
Of course, he flies into town on a private jet that costs more than the
comedy club, but the movie doesn't rub this in.

Seinfeld is a great star, yet cannot coast. One night he gets stuck in the
middle of his act--he loses his train of thought--and stares baffled into
space. Blowing a single word can depress him. If it's still a battle for
Seinfeld, consider the case of Orny Adams, a rising comedian whom the film
uses as counterpoint. Adams shows Seinfeld a room full of boxes, drawers,
cabinets, file folders, stuffed with jokes. There are piles of material, and
yet he confides, "I feel like I sacrificed so much of my life. I'm 29 and I
have no job, no wife, no children." Seinfeld regards him as if wife,
children, home will all come in good time, but stand-up, now--stand-up is
life.

Orny Adams gets a gig on the David Letterman program, and we see him
backstage, vibrating with nervousness. The network guys have been over his
material and suggested some changes. Now he practices saying the word
"psoriasis." After the show, he makes a phone call to a friend to explain,
"I opened my first great network show with a joke I had never used before."
Well, not a completely new joke. He had to substitute the word "psoriasis"
for the word "lupus." But to a comedian who fine-tunes every syllable, that
made it a new joke and a fearsome challenge.

Seinfeld pays tribute to Robert Klein ("he was the guy we all looked up
to"). We listen to Klein remember when, after several appearances on "The
Tonight Show," he received the ultimate recognition: He was "called over by
Johnny." Seinfeld recalls that when he was 10 he memorized the comedy albums
of Bill Cosby. Now he visits Cosby backstage and expresses wonderment that
"a human life could last so long that I would be included in your life." Big
hug. Cosby is 65 and Seinfeld is 48, a 17-year-difference that is therefore
less amazing than that Shoshanna Lonstein's life could last so long that she
could meet Jerry when she was 18 and he was 39, but there you go.

"Comedian" was filmed over the course of a year by director Christian
Charles and producer Gary Streiner, who used two "store-bought" video
cameras and followed Seinfeld around. If that is all they did for a year,
then this was a waste of their time, since the footage, however interesting,
is the backstage variety that could easily be obtained in a week. There are
no deep revelations, no shocking moments of truth, and many, many
conversations in which Seinfeld and other comics discuss their acts with
discouragement and despair. The movie was produced by Seinfeld, and protects
him. The visuals tend toward the dim, the gray and the washed-out, and you
wish instead of spending a year with their store-boughts, they'd spent a
month and used the leftover to hire a cinematographer.

Why, you might wonder, would a man with untold millions in the bank go on a
tour of comedy clubs? What's in it for him if the people in Cleveland laugh?
Why, for that matter, does Jay Leno go to comedy clubs every single week,
even after having been called over by Johnny for the ultimate reward? Is it
because to walk out on the stage, to risk all, to depend on your nerve and
skill, and to possibly "die," is an addiction? Gamblers, they say, don't
want to win so much as they want to play. They like the action. They tend to
keep gambling until they have lost all their money. There may be a
connection between the two obsessions, although gamblers at least say they
are having fun, and stand-up comics, judging by this film, are miserable,
self-tortured beings, to whom success represents only a higher place to fall
from.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] GHOST SHIP / ** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:39 GMT

GHOST SHIP / ** (R)

October 25, 2002

Murphy: Gabriel Byrne
Epps: Julianna Margulies
Dodge: Ron Eldard
Ferriman: Desmond Harrington
Greer: Isaiah Washington
Santos: Alex Dimitriades
Munder: Karl Urban
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Steve Beck. Written by
Mark Hanlon and John Pogue. Based on a story by Hanlon. Running time: 88
minutes. Rated R (for strong violence/gore, language and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Ghost Ship" recycles all the usual haunted house material, but because it's
about a haunted ocean liner, it very nearly redeems itself. Yes, doors open
by themselves to reveal hanging corpses. Yes, there's a glimpse of a
character who shouldn't be there. Yes, there's a cigarette burning in an
ashtray that hasn't been used in 40 years. And yes, there's a struggle
between greed and prudence as the dangers pile up.

These are all usual elements in haunted house movies, but here they take
place aboard the deserted--or seemingly deserted--hulk of the Antonia Graza,
an Italian luxury liner that disappeared without a trace during a 1962
cruise to America and has now been discovered 40 years later, floating in
the Bering Strait. A salvage crew led by Gabriel Byrne and Julianna
Margulies sets out to capture this trophy, which could be worth a fortune.

Echoes from long-ago geography classes haunted me as I watched the film,
because the Bering Sea, of course, is in the North Pacific, and if the
Antonia Graza disappeared from the North Atlantic, it must have succeeded in
sailing unattended and unnoticed through the Panama Canal. Or perhaps it
rounded Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope. Maybe its unlikely position is
like a warning that this ship no longer plays by the rules of the physical
universe.

The salvage crew is told about the ship by Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), a
weather spotter for the Royal Canadian Air Force. He got some photos of it,
and tips them off in return for a finder's fee. On board the salvage tug are
Murphy the skipper (Byrne), Epps the co-owner (Margulies), and crew members
Greer (Isaiah Washington), Dodge (Ron Eldard), Munder (Karl Urban) and
Santos (Alex Dimitriades). Under the time-honored code of horror movies,
they will disappear in horrible ways in inverse proportion to their
billing--although of course there's also the possibility they'll turn up
again.

The most absorbing passages in the film involve their exploration of the
deserted liner. The quality of the art direction and photography actually
evoke some of the same creepy, haunting majesty of those documentaries about
descents to the grave of the Titanic. There's more scariness because we know
how the original passengers and crew members died (that opening scene has a
grisly humor), and because the ship still seems haunted--not only by that
sad-eyed little girl, but perhaps by others.

The mystery eventually yields an explanation, if not a solution, and there
is the obligatory twist in the last shot, which encourages us to reinterpret
everything in diabolical terms and to think hard about the meanings of
certain names. But the appeal of "Ghost Ship" is all in the process, not in
the climax. I liked the vast old empty ballroom, the deserted corridors and
the sense of a party that ended long ago (the effect is of a nautical
version of Miss Havisham's sealed room). I knew that there would be
unexpected shocks, sudden noises and cadaverous materializations, but I have
long grown immune to such mechanical thrills (unless they are done well, of
course). I just dug the atmosphere.

Is the film worth seeing? Depends. It breaks no new ground as horror movies
go, but it does introduce an intriguing location, and it's well made
technically. It's better than you expect but not as good as you hope.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] PAID IN FULL / **1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:42 GMT

PAID IN FULL / **1/2 (R)

October 25, 2002

Ace: Wood Harris
Mitch: Mekhi Phifer
Rico: Cam'ron
Pip: Chi McBride
Lulu: Esai Morales
Dimension Films presents a film directed by Charles Stone III. Written by
Matthew Cirulnick and Thulani Davis, based on a screenplay by Azie Faison
Jr. and Austin Phillips. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for violence,
pervasive language, some strong sexuality and drug content).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Paid in Full" tells the story of the rise and fall of a gifted young
businessman. His career might have taken place at Enron, as a talented
manager, staging a fake energy crisis to steal from California consumers.
But opportunity finds us where we live, and Ace lives in Harlem and lacks an
MBA, so he becomes a drug dealer. The skills involved are much the same as
at Enron: Lie to the customers, hide or fake the income, shuffle the books
and pay off powerful friends. It is useful, in viewing a movie like "Paid in
Full," to understand that it is about business, not drugs. Breaking the law
is simply an unfortunate side effect of wanting to make more money than can
be done legally.

Because many drug dealers and consumers are poor and powerless, laws come
down on them more ferociously than on the white-collar criminals whose
misdeeds are on a larger scale. Three strikes and you're out, while three
lucrative bankruptcies and you're barely up and running. "Paid in Full"
might have been fascinating if it had intercut between Ace's career and the
adventures of an Enron executive of about the same age. I guess in a way
that's what "Traffic" did.

"Paid in Full" takes place in the 1980s and is based on the true stories of
famous drug lords (Alpo, A.Z. and Rich Porter) during that era of expanding
crack addiction. Names are changed. Ace, based on A.Z. is played by Wood
Harris, is a deliveryman man for a dry cleaner named Pip (Chi McBride).
Moving on the streets all day, it is impossible for him to miss seeing the
good fortune of drug dealers, and he learns of the fortunes to be made by
delivering something other than pressed pants.

He tells his story himself, in a narration like the ones in "GoodFellas" or
"Casino," and in an early scene we see money that has become so meaningless
that small fortunes are bet on tossing crumpled paper at wastebaskets. When
another dealer (Kevin Carroll) goes off to the pen, Ace moves quickly to
grab his territory, and soon has so much money that his life demonstrates
one of the drawbacks of growing up in poverty: You lack the skills to spend
it fast enough. he prospers, learning from the more experienced Lulu (Esai
Morales). Then another young hotshot (Cam'ron) comes along, and Ace becomes
the veteran who's a target.

The movie is ambitious, has good energy and is well-acted, but tells a
familiar story in a familiar way. The parallels to Brian De Palma's
"Scarface" are underlined by scenes from that movie which are watched by the
characters in this one. The trajectory is well-known: poverty, success,
riches, and then death or jail. This plot describes countless lives, and is
so common because the laws against drugs do such a good job of supporting
the price and making the business so lucrative. The difference between drugs
and corporate swindles, obviously, is that with drugs the profits are real.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] FORMULA 51 / * (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:54 GMT

FORMULA 51 / * (R)

October 18, 2002

Elmo McElroy: Samuel L. Jackson
Felix DeSouza: Robert Carlyle
Dakota Phillips: Emily Mortimer
The Lizard: Meat Loaf
Det. Virgil Kane: Sean Pertwee
Leopold Durant: Ricky Tomlinson
Iki: Rhys Ifans
Screen Gems presents a film directed by Ronny Yu. Written by Stel Pavlou.
Running time: 92 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence, language, drug
content and some sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Pulp Fiction" and "Trainspotting" were two of the most influential movies
of the last 10 years, but unfortunately their greatest influence has been on
ripoffs of each other--movies like "Formula 51," which is like a fourth-rate
"Pulp Fiction" with accents you can't understand. Here instead of the
descent into the filthiest toilet in Scotland we get a trip through the most
bilious intestinal tract in Liverpool; instead of a debate about Cheese
Royales we get a debate about the semantics of the word "bollocks"; the
F-word occupies 50 percent of all sentences, and in the opening scenes
Samuel L. Jackson wears another one of those Afro wigs.

Jackson plays Elmo McElroy, a reminder that only eight of the 74 movies with
characters named Elmo have been any good. In the prologue, he graduates from
college with a pharmaceutical degree, is busted for pot, loses his license,
and 30 years later is the world's most brilliant inventor of illegal drugs.

Now he has a product named "P.O.S. Formula 51," which he says is 51 times
stronger than crack, heroin, you name it. Instead of selling it to a
druglord named The Lizard (Meat Loaf), he stages a spectacular surprise for
Mr. Lizard and his friends, and flies to Liverpool, trailed by Dakota
Phillips (Emily Mortimer), a skilled hit woman hired by The Lizard to kill
him, or maybe keep him alive, depending on The Lizard's latest information.

In Liverpool we meet Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle), a reminder that only
six of the 200 movies with a character named Felix have been any good. (The
stats for "Dakota" are also discouraging, but this is a line of inquiry with
limited dividends.) Felix has been dispatched by the Liverpudlian drug king
Leopold Durant (Ricky Tomlinson), whose hemorrhoids require that a flunky
follow him around with an inner tube that makes whoopee-type whistles
whenever the screenplay requires.

The movie is not a comedy so much as a farce, grabbing desperately for funny
details wherever possible. The Jackson character, for example, wears a kilt
for most of the movie. My online correspondent Ian Waldron-Mantgani, a
critic who lives in Liverpool but doesn't give the home team a break, points
out that the movie closes with the words "No one ever found out why he wore
a kilt," and then explains why he wore the kilt. "You get the idea how much
thought went into this movie," Waldron-Mantgani writes, with admirable
restraint.

Many of the jokes involve Felix's fanatic support of the Liverpool football
club, and a final confrontation takes place in an executive box of the
stadium. Devices like this almost always play as a desperate attempt to
inject local color, especially when the movie shows almost nothing of the
game, so that Americans will not be baffled by what they call football.
There are lots of violent shoot-outs and explosions, a kinduva love affair
between Felix and Dakota, and an ending that crosses a red herring, a
McGuffin and a shaggy dog.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BELOW / **1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:51 GMT

BELOW / **1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Odell: Matt Davis
Brice: Bruce Greenwood
Claire: Olivia Williams
Loomis: Holt McCallany
Coors: Scott Foley
Weird Wally: Zach Galifianakis
Stumbo: Jason Flemyng
Dimension Films presents a film directed by David Twohy. Written by Twohy,
Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky. Running time: 103 minutes. Rated R (for
language and some violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

Even before the woman is taken on board, the USS Tiger Shark is a submarine
in trouble. The captain has been lost overboard, or at least that's the
story, and tempers run high in the confined space. Then the sub rescues
three drifters in a life raft, one of them a woman, whose presence on board
is agreed by everyone to be bad luck on a sub, although her arrival does
result in the crew wearing cleaner underwear.

Now dangers increase. The sub is tracked by Germans, who drop depth bombs
and later come back to troll for it with giant grappling hooks. There is
fearful damage to the periscope and the control tower. An oil leak threatens
to betray the sub's position. Oxygen is running low, and hydrogen in the air
is a danger to the crew's safety and sanity. And perhaps there is a ghost on
board. The creepy sounds from outside the hull--of seaweed, whale songs and
bouncing depth bombs--increase apprehension.

Yes, a ghost. How else to explain why a record of Benny Goodman's "Sing,
Sing, Sing" seems to play itself at inopportune times--as when the Germans
are listening for the slightest sound from below? And when the late skipper
was a Goodman fan? Of course, there could be a saboteur on board, in
addition to, or perhaps instead of, the ghost.

"Below" is a movie where the story, like the sub, sometimes seems to be
running blind. In its best moments it can evoke fear, and it does a good job
of evoking the claustrophobic terror of a little World War II boat, but the
story line is so eager to supply frightening possibilities that sometimes we
feel jerked around. Isn't it possible for a submarine to be haunted without
turning it into a museum of horror film devices?

Of those devices, the most tiresome is the convention that surprises make
sounds. In most horror movies, including many less clever than "Below,"
there is a visual strategy in which a character is shown in relative closeup
(limiting our ability to see around him) and then startled by the unexpected
appearance of another character or other visual surprise. This moment is
invariably signaled on the soundtrack with a loud, alarming musical chord,
or perhaps by the sound of a knife being sharpened. But surprises don't make
sounds, and the cliche has become so tiresome that I submit a director might
be able to create a more frightening sequence by playing the unexpected
appearance in total silence.

There are a lot of surprise apparitions in "Below," and many times when we
expect them even when they don't arrive. Consider the effective sequence in
which four divers have to penetrate the ballast space between the inner and
outer hulls to search for the oil leak. Will they find a ghostly body, or
what?

The acting skipper of the ship is Brice (Bruce Greenwood). The absence of
the former skipper is a secret at first, and the explanations for his
disappearance are contradictory; even by the end of the movie, we are not
sure we have the correct story. Has he returned to haunt the boat? Oxygen
deprivation can encourage hallucinations.

The bad-luck woman on board, Claire (Olivia Williams), turns out to be a
nurse from a sunken hospital ship. Who sunk that ship with its big red
cross, and why? And what about the two survivors in the boat with her? What
are their stories? Although the arrival of a woman on board inspires some
heavy-handed scenes in which some men seem to be warming up for an assault,
that plot thread is quickly abandoned, and Claire begins to take a
surprisingly active role in the onboard discussions. Siding with her is
Odell (Matt Davis), maybe because he agrees, maybe because he likes her.
Brice's command of the ship may include decisions made with a hidden agenda.

The movie is skillfully made by David Twohy, whose "The Arrival" (1996) was
an uncommonly intelligent science fiction thriller about a hidden alien plot
against Earth. But his overpraised "Pitch Black" (2000), which launched Vin
Diesel, was weakened by the same faults as "Below." It had too many
obligatory startles, too many unclear possibilities and not enough
definition of the crucial players. But Twohy showed with "The Arrival" that
he is a gifted director. "Below" has ambitions to be better than average,
but doesn't pull itself together and insist on realizing them.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES / ***1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:43 GMT

REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES / ***1/2 (PG-13)

October 25, 2002

Ana: America Ferrera
Carmen: Lupe Ontiveros
Estela: Ingrid Oliu
Mr. Guzman: George Lopez
Jimmy: Brian Sites
Pancha: Soledad St. Hilaire
HBO Films and Newmarket Films present a film directed by Patricia Cardoso.
Written by Josefina Lopez and George LaVoo. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated
PG-13 (for sexual content and some language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Ana's boyfriend, Jimmy, tells her, "You're not fat. You're beautiful." She
is both. "Real Women Have Curves" doesn't argue that Ana is beautiful on the
"inside," like the Gwyneth Paltrow character in "Shallow Hal," but that she
is beautiful inside and out--love handles, big boobs, round cheeks and all.
"Turn the lights on," she shyly tells Jimmy. "I want you to see me. See,
this is what I look like."

Ana has learned to accept herself. It is more than her mother can do. Carmen
(Lupe Ontiveros) is fat, too, and hates herself for it, and wants her
daughter to share her feelings. Ana is smart and could get a college
scholarship, but Carmen insists she go to work in a dress factory run by a
family member: It's her duty to the family, apparently, to sacrifice her
future. The fact that the dress factory is pleasant and friendly doesn't
change the reality that it's a dead end; you are at the wrong end of the
economy when you make dresses for $18 so that they can be sold for $600.

Ana is a Mexican American, played by America Ferrera, an 18-year-old in her
first movie role. Ferrera is a wonder: natural, unforced, sweet, passionate
and always real. Her battle with her mother is convincing in the movie
because the director, Patricia Cardoso, doesn't force it into shrill
melodrama but keeps it within the boundaries of a plausible family fight. It
is a tribute to the great Lupe Ontiveros that Carmen is able to suggest her
love for her daughter even when it is very hard to see.

There have been several movies recently about the second generation of
children of immigrants--Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese--and
they follow broad outlines borrowed from life. The parents try to enforce
conditions of their homeland on the kids, who are becoming Americanized at
blinding speed. While Carmen is insisting on her daughter's virginity, Ana
is buying condoms. She insists in a view of her life that is not her
parents'. That includes college.

If this movie had been made 10 years ago, it might have been shrill,
insistent and dramatic--overplaying its hand. Cardoso and her writers,
Josefina Lopez and George LaVoo, are more relaxed, more able to feel
affection for all of the characters. Yes, her parents want Ana to work in
the dress shop of their older daughter, and yes, they fear losing
her--because they sense if she goes away to college she will return as a
different person. But the parents are not monsters, and we sense that their
love will prevail over their fears.

The film focuses on Ana at a crucial moment, right after high school, when
she has decided with a level head and clear eyes to come of age on her own
terms. Her parents would not approve of Jimmy, an Anglo, but Ana knows he is
a good boy and she feels tender toward him. She also knows he will not be
the last boy she dates; she is mature enough to understand herself and the
stormy weathers of teenage love. When they have sex, there is a sense in
which they are giving each other the gift of a sweet initiation, with
respect and tenderness, instead of losing their innocence roughly to
strangers in a way without love.

The film's portrait of the dressmaking factory is done with great good
humor. Yes, it is very hot there. Yes, the hours are long and the pay is
poor. But the women are happy to have jobs and paychecks, and because they
like one another there is a lot of laughter. That leads to one of the
sunniest, funniest, happiest scenes in a long time. On a hot day, Ana takes
off her blouse, and then so do the other women, giggling at their daring,
and the music swells up as their exuberance flows over. They are all plump,
but Ana, who has a healthy self-image, leads them in celebrating their
bodies.

I am so relieved that the MPAA rated this movie PG-13. So often they bar
those under 17 from the very movies they could benefit from the most. "Real
Women Have Curves" is enormously entertaining for moviegoers of any age (it
won the Audience Award at Sundance 2002). But for young women depressed
because they don't look like skinny models, this film is a breath of common
sense and fresh air. "Real Women Have Curves" is a reminder of how rarely
the women in the movies are real. After the almost excruciating attention
paid to the world-class beauties in a movie like "White Oleander" (a film in
which the more the women suffered the better they looked), how refreshing to
see America Ferrera light up the room with a smile from the heart.

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Subject: [MV] AUTO FOCUS / **** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:33 GMT

AUTO FOCUS / **** (R)

October 25, 2002

Bob Crane: Greg Kinnear
John Carpenter: Willem Dafoe
Patricia Crane: Maria Bello
Anne Crane: Rita Wilson
Lenny: Ron Leibman
Feldman: Bruce Solomon
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Paul Schrader. Written by
Michael Gerbosi. Based on the book The Murder of Bob Crane by Robert
Graysmith. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, nudity,
language, some drug use and violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

Eddie Cantor once told Bob Crane, "likability is 90 percent of the battle."
It seems to be 100 percent of Bob Crane's battle; there is nothing there
except likability--no values, no self-awareness, no judgment, no
perspective, not even an instinct for survival. Just likability, and the
need to be liked in a sexual way every single day. Paul Schrader's "Auto
Focus," based on Crane's life, is a deep portrait of a shallow man, lonely
and empty, going through the motions of having a good time.

The broad outlines of Crane's rise and fall are well known. How he was a Los
Angeles DJ who became a TV star after being cast in the lead of "Hogan's
Heroes," a comedy set in a Nazi prison camp. How his career tanked after the
show left the air. How he toured on the dinner theater circuit, destroyed
two marriages, and was so addicted to sex that his life was scandalous even
by Hollywood standards. How he was found bludgeoned to death in 1978 in a
Scottsdale, Ariz., motel room.

Crane is survived by four children, including sons from his first and second
marriages who differ in an almost biblical way, the older appearing in this
movie, the younger threatening a lawsuit against it, yet running a Web site
retailing his father's sex life. So strange was Crane's view of his
behavior, so disconnected from reality, that I almost imagine he would have
seen nothing wrong with his second son's sales of photos and videotapes of
his father having sex. "It's healthy," Crane argues in defense of his
promiscuity, although we're not sure if he really thinks that, or really
thinks anything.

The movie is a hypnotic portrait of this sad, compulsive life. The director,
Paul Schrader, is no stranger to stories about men trapped in sexual
miscalculation; he wrote "Taxi Driver" and wrote and directed "American
Gigolo." He sees Crane as an empty vessel, filled first with fame and then
with desire. Because he was on TV, he finds that women want to sleep with
him, and seems to oblige them almost out of good manners. There is no lust
or passion in this film, only mechanical courtship followed by desultory
sex. You can catch the women looking at him and asking themselves if there
is anybody at home. Even his wives are puzzled.

Greg Kinnear gives a creepy, brilliant performance as a man lacking in all
insight. He has the likability part down pat. There is a scene in a
nightclub where Crane asks the bartender to turn the TV to a rerun of
"Hogan's Heroes." When a woman realizes that Hogan himself is in the room,
notice how impeccable Kinnear's timing and manner are, as he fakes false
modesty and pretends to be flattered by her attention. Crane was not a
complex man, but that should not blind us to the subtlety and complexity of
Kinnear's performance.

Willem Dafoe is the co-star, as John Carpenter, a tech-head in the days when
Hollywood was just learning that television could be taped and replayed by
devices in the consumer price range. Carpenter hangs around sets flattering
the stars, lending them the newest Sony gadgets, wiring their cars for
stereo and their dressing rooms for instant replays. He is the very
embodiment of Mephistopheles, offering Crane exactly what he wants to be
offered.

The turning point in Crane's life comes on a night when Carpenter invites
him to a strip club. Crane is proud of his drumming, and Carpenter suggests
that the star could "sit in" with the house band. Soon Crane is sitting in
at strip clubs every night of the week, returning late or not at all to his
first wife Anne (Rita Wilson). Sensing something is wrong, he meets a priest
one morning for breakfast, but is somehow not interested when the priest
suggests he could "sit in" with a parish musical group.

Dafoe plays Carpenter as ingratiating, complimentary, sly, seductive and
enigmatically needy. Despite their denials, is there something homosexual in
their relationship? The two men become constant companions, apart from a
little tiff when Crane examines a video and notices Carpenter's hand in the
wrong place. "It's an orgy!" Carpenter explains, and soon the men are on the
prowl again. The video equipment has a curious relevance to their sexual
activities; do they have sex for its own sake, or to record it for later
editing and viewing? From its earliest days, home video has had an intimate
buried relationship with sex. If Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson ever think to
ask themselves why they taped their wedding night, this movie might suggest
some answers.

The film is wall-to-wall with sex, but contains no eroticism. The women are
never really in focus. They drift in and out of range, as the two men hunt
through swinger's magazines, attend swapping parties, haunt strip clubs and
troll themselves like bait through bars. If there is a shadow on their
idyll, it is that Crane condescends to Carpenter, and does not understand
the other man's desperate need for recognition.

The film is pitch-perfect in its decor, music, clothes, cars, language and
values. It takes place during those heady years between the introduction of
the Pill and the specter of AIDS, when men shaped as adolescents by Playboy
in the 1950s now found some of their fantasies within reach. The movie
understands how celebrity can make women available--and how, for some men,
it is impossible to say no to an available woman. They are hard-wired, and
judgment has nothing to do with it. We can feel sorry for Bob Crane but in a
strange way, because he is so clueless, it is hard to blame him; we are
reminded of the old joke in which God tells Adam he has a brain and a penis,
but only enough blood to operate one of them at a time.

The movie's moral counterpoint is provided by Ron Leibman, as Lenny, Crane's
manager. He gets him the job on "Hogan's Heroes" and even, improbably, the
lead in a Disney film named "Superdad." But Crane is reckless in the way he
allows photographs and tapes of his sexual performances to float out of his
control. On the Disney set one day, Lenny visits to warn Crane about his
notorious behavior, but Crane can't hear him, can't listen. He drifts toward
his doom, unconscious, lost in a sexual fog.

Crane families in legal dispute over biopic

Bob Crane's two sons are on opposite sides in a legal dispute about the
biopic "Auto Focus." Robert David Crane, the son by the first marriage,
supports the movie, appears in it and is listed in the credits as "Bob Crane
Jr." Robert Scott Crane, from the second marriage, says it is filled with
inaccuracies, and has started a Web site to oppose it. The site somewhat
undermines its own position by offering for sale photographs and videos
taken by Crane of his sexual indiscretions.

"There is no such person as Bob Crane Jr.," says Lee Blackman, the Los
Angeles attorney representing the second wife, Patricia, and her son. "Both
sons had Robert as a first name, and different middle names. Bob Crane's own
middle name was Edward." In life, he told me, the older son is called Bobby,
and the younger, his client, is Scotty.

By taking money for his participation in the movie and billing himself Bob
Crane Jr., he said, Bobby has compromised himself. (In the movie, the older
son has a small role as a Christian TV interviewer.)

But what about his client Scotty's Web site, with the Crane sex tapes for
sale?

"He is trying to set the record straight. The Web site only came into
existence because of the film. For example, on Scotty's site you will find
the Scottsdale coroner's autopsy on Bob Crane, clearly indicating he never
had a penile implant, although the movie claims he did. You will see that
his movies were really just homemade comedies: He would edit the sex stuff
with cutaways to Jack Benny or Johnny Carson, and a musical soundtrack."

Other complaints by Blackman and his clients:

* "He was reconciled with Patricia, his second wife, at the time of his
death. The movie shows her drinking in the middle of the day, but she has an
allergic reaction to hard liquor."

* "DNA tests have proven Scotty is Bob Crane's son, despite implications in
the movie that he is not."

* "Bob Crane was not a dark monster. The night he was killed, he was editing
'Star Wars' for Scotty, to take out the violence."

* "He didn't meet John Carpenter [the Willem Dafoe character] until 1975.
The movie has him meeting him in 1965. It implies Bob needed Carpenter to
teach him all that technical stuff, but in fact Bob Crane was very
knowledgeable about home electronics, and was making home movies even in the
1950s."

"Legally," said Blackman, "you can defame the dead. This movie has massive
quantities of defamation. We're trying to work with the distributor, Sony,
to tweak the film in a couple of little places to make it more accurate.
When it's released, if it still contains actionable material, we'll
determine what to do."

Roger Ebert

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HEAVEN / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:55 GMT

HEAVEN / *** (R)

October 18, 2002

Philippa: Cate Blanchett
Filippo: Giovanni Ribisi
Filippo's father: Remo Girone
Regina: Stefania Rocca
Miramax Films presents a film directed by Tom Tykwer. Written by Krzysztof
Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (for
a scene of sexuality). In English and Italian with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

There is a moment early in "Heaven" when the character played by Cate
Blanchett is told something she did not expect to hear. This news piles
grief upon unbearable grief, and she cries out in pain. She is a good woman
who is prepared to sacrifice her life against evil, but through a great
misfortune she has done evil herself.

Blanchett plays Philippa, a teacher of English in Turin, Italy. She has seen
drugs kill her husband and some of her students. Her complaints to the
police have been ignored. She knows the man behind the Turin drug traffic,
and one day she plants a bomb in his office. A cleaning lady removes it with
the trash and it explodes in an elevator, killing the cleaner plus a man and
his two children. Four innocent dead.

Philippa has lost her husband and her students, and stands ready to lose her
freedom. But the death of these four crushes her. We are reminded of
"Running on Empty," the 1988 Sidney Lumet film about anti-war radicals in
America who did not know there would be someone in the building they chose
to blow up. As she sits in police headquarters, undergoing a
cross-examination, unaware that one of the men in the room is himself
connected to the drug trade, she makes a conquest.

His name is Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi). He is a rookie cop, the son of a
veteran officer. When Philippa insists on testifying in her native tongue,
Filippo offers to act as her translator. This is after she heard the
horrifying news, and passed out, and grasped his hand as she came to, and he
fell in love with her.

After the 10 films of "The Decalogue" and the great trilogy "Blue," "White"
and "Red," the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and his writing partner,
Krzysztof Piesiewicz, began writing a new trilogy: "Heaven," "Purgatory" and
"Hell." Kieslowski died in 1996 before the project could be filmed. Many
good screenplays have died with their authors, but occasionally a director
will step forward to rescue a colleague's work, as Steven Spielberg did with
Stanley Kubrick's "A.I." and now as Tom Tykwer has done with "Heaven."

This is, and isn't, the sort of project Tykwer is identified with. It is
more thoughtful, proceeds more deliberately, than the mercurial haste of
"Run Lola Run" and "The Princess and the Warrior." At the same time, it has
a belief in fateful meetings that occur as a side effect of violence or
chance, as both of those films do. And it contains the same sort of defiant
romanticism, in which a courageous woman tries to alter her fate by sheer
will power.

Philippa and Filippo have almost identical names for a reason, and later
when they shave their heads and dress alike, it is because they share a
common lifeline. It is not a case of merger so much as of Filippo being
assumed into Philippa. She is older, stronger, braver, and he invests the
capital of his life in her account. He betrays his uniform to do whatever he
can to help her escape.

After she agrees to his brilliant plan, she tells him: "Do you know why I
said I agree? I don't want to escape punishment. I want to kill him."
Him--the man behind the drugs. Whether she gets her wish is not the point.
What she focuses on is her original plan; if she can finally carry it out,
she will have made amends, however inadequately, for the innocents who died.

Kieslowski was fascinated by moral paradoxes, by good leading to evil and
back again. In "The Decalogue," a child's brilliance at the computer leads
to a drowning. A woman wants to know if her husband will die, because if he
will not, she will have her lover's baby aborted. A wife breaks it off with
her lover--but her husband tarnishes her decision by spying on it. To do
good is sometimes to cause evil. We can make plans, but we can't count on
the consequences.

The ending of "Heaven" is disappointing. It becomes just what it should not
be, the story of an escape. I wonder if Kieslowski and Piesiewicz ended
their version this way, in a fable of innocence regained. The tough ending
would have had Philippa and Filippo paying for their crimes. It would not
have been an unhappy ending for them; they are fully prepared to take the
consequences, and that is what's most admirable about them.

Still, many lesser films--almost all commercial films these days, in
fact--contrive happy endings. This one is poetic in its sadness, and
Blanchett's performance confirms her power once again. She never goes for an
effect here, never protects herself, just plays the character straight ahead
as a woman forced by grief and rage into a rash action, and then living with
the consequences. We require theology to get to the bottom of the story: It
is wrong to commit an immoral act in order to bring about a good outcome. No
matter how beneficial the result, it is still a sin. This is a good movie
that could have been great if it had ended in a form of penance.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] NAQOYQATSI / *** (PG)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:41 GMT

NAQOYQATSI / *** (PG)

October 25, 2002

Miramax Films presents a documentary written and directed by Godfrey Reggio.
Running time: 89 minutes. Rated PG.(for violent and disturbing images, and
for brief nudity). Opening today at the Biograph Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

'N aqoyqatsi" is the final film in Godfrey Reggio's "qatsi" trilogy, a
series of impressionistic documentaries contrasting the nobility of nature
with the despoliation of mankind. The titles come from the Hopi Indian
language. "Koyaanisqatsi" (1983) translated as "life out of balance."
"Powaqqatsi" (1988) means "life in transition." And now comes "Naqoyqatsi,"
or "war as a way of life."

Like the others, "Naqoyqatsi" consists of images (450 of them, Reggio said
at the Telluride premiere). We see quick streams of briefly glimpsed
symbols, abstractions, digital code, trademarks, newsreels, found images,
abandoned buildings and cityscapes, and snippets of TV and photography. An
early image shows the Tower of Babel; the implication is that the confusion
of spoken tongues has been made worse by the addition of visual and digital
languages.

"Koyaanisqatsi," with its dramatic fast-forward style of hurtling images,
made a considerable impact at the time. Clouds raced up mountainsides,
traffic flowed like streams of light through city streets. The technique was
immediately ripped off by TV commercials, so that the film's novelty is no
longer obvious. Now that he has arrived at the third part of his trilogy,
indeed, Reggio's method looks familiar, and that is partly the fault of his
own success. Here, he uses speedup less and relies more on quickly cut
montages. It's a version of the technique used in Chuck Workman's films on
the Oscarcast, the ones that marry countless shots from the movies; Reggio
doctors his images with distortion, overlays, tints and other kinds of
digital alteration.

The thinking behind these films is deep but not profound. They're
ritualistic grief at what man has done to the planet. "The logical flaw," as
I pointed out in my review of "Powaqqatsi," is that "Reggio's images of
beauty are always found in a world entirely without man--without even the
Hopi Indians. Reggio seems to think that man himself is some kind of virus
infecting the planet--that we would enjoy the earth more, in other words, if
we weren't here."

Although "Naqoyqatsi" has been some 10 years in the making, it takes on an
especially somber coloration after 9/11. Images of marching troops,
missiles, bomb explosions and human misery are intercut with trademarks (the
Enron trademark flashes past), politicians and huddled masses, and we
understand that war is now our way of life. But hasn't war always been a
fact of life for mankind? We are led to the uncomfortable conclusion that to
bring peace to the planet, we should leave it.

This line of reasoning may, however, be missing the point. In reviewing all
three Reggio films, I have assumed he was telling us something with his
images, and that I could understand it and analyze it. That overlooks what
may be the key element of the films, the sound tracks by composer Philip
Glass (this time joined by Yo-Yo Ma, who also contributes a solo). Can it be
that these films are, in the very best sense of the word, music videos? The
movie is not simply "scored" by Glass; his music is a vital component of
every frame, fully equal with the visuals, and you can watch these films
again and again, just as you can listen to a favorite album.

Perhaps the solution is to stop analyzing the images altogether and set
ourselves free from them. Just as it is a heresy to paraphrase classical
music by discovering "stories" or "messages," perhaps "Naqoyqatsi" and its
brothers need to be experienced as background to our own streams of
consciousness--nudges to set us thinking about the same concerns that Reggio
has. I have problems with "Naqoyqatsi" as a film, but as a music video it's
rather remarkable.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:52 GMT

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Featuring Michael Moore, George W. Bush, Dick Clark, Charlton Heston,
Marilyn Manson, John Nichols, Chris Rock and Matt Stone.
United Artists presents a film written and directed by Michael Moore.
Running time: 120 minutes. Rated R (for some violent images and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

McHugh and I were sitting in O'Rourke's one day when a guy we knew came in
for a drink. The guy pulled back his coat and we could see he had a handgun
in his belt. "Why are you carrying a gun?" McHugh asked. "Because I live in
a dangerous neighborhood," the guy said. "It would be safer if you moved,"
said McHugh.

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Colum-bine," a documentary that is both
hilarious and sorrowful, is like a two-hour version of that anecdote. We
live in a nation of millions of handguns, but that isn't really what bothers
Moore. What bothers him is that we so frequently shoot them at one another.
Canada has a similar ratio of guns to citizens, but a 10th of the shooting
deaths. What makes us kill so many times more fellow citizens than is the
case in other developed nations?

Moore, the jolly populist rabble-rouser, explains that he's a former
sharpshooting instructor and a lifelong member of the National Rifle
Association. No doubt this is true, but Moore has moved on from his early
fondness for guns. In "Bowling for Columbine," however, he is not so sure of
the answers as in the popular "Roger & Me," a film in which he knew who
the bad guys were, and why. Here he asks questions he can't answer, such as
why we as a nation seem so afraid, so in need of the reassurance of guns.
Noting that we treasure urban legends designed to make us fearful of
strangers, Moore notices how TV news focuses on local violence ("If it
bleeds, it leads") and says that while the murder rate is down 20 percent in
America, TV coverage of violent crime is up 600 percent. Despite paranoia
that has all but sidetracked the childhood custom of trick or treat, Moore
points out that in fact no razor blades have ever been found in Halloween
apples.

Moore's thoughtfulness doesn't inhibit the sensational set-pieces he devises
to illustrate his concern. He returns several times to Columbine High
School, at one point showing horrifying security-camera footage of the
massacre. And Columbine inspires one of the great confrontations in a career
devoted to radical grandstanding. Moore introduces us to two of the students
wounded at Colum-bine, both still with bullets in their bodies. He explains
that all of the Columbine bullets were freely sold to the teenage killers by
Kmart, at 17 cents apiece. And then he takes the two victims to Kmart
headquarters to return the bullets for a refund.

This is brilliant theater and would seem to be unanswerable for the hapless
Kmart public relations spokespeople, who fidget and evade in front of
Moore's merciless camera. But then, on Moore's third visit to headquarters,
he is told that Kmart will agree to completely phase out the sale of
ammunition. "We've won," says Moore, not believing it. "This has never
happened before." For once, he's at a loss for words.

The movie is a mosaic of Moore confrontations and supplementary footage. One
moment that cuts to the core is from a standup routine by Chris Rock, who
suggests that our problem could be solved by simply increasing the price of
bullets--taxing them like cigarettes. Instead of 17 cents apiece, why not
$5,000? "At that price," he speculates, "you'd have a lot fewer innocent
bystanders being shot."

Moore buys a Map to the Stars' Homes to find where Charlton Heston lives,
rings the bell on his gate, and is invited back for an interview. But Heston
clearly knows nothing of Moore's track record, and his answers to Moore's
questions are borderline pathetic. Heston recently announced he has symptoms
associated with Alzheimer's disease, but there is no indication in this
footage that he is senile; it's simply that he cannot explain why he, as a
man living behind a gate in a protected neighborhood, with security patrols,
who has never felt himself threatened, needs a loaded gun in the house.
Heston is equally unhelpful when asked if he thinks it was a good idea for
him to speak at an NRA rally in Denver 10 days after Columbine. He seems to
think it was all a matter of scheduling.

"Bowling for Columbine" thinks we have way too many guns, don't need them,
and are shooting each other at an unreasonable rate. Moore cannot single out
a villain to blame for this fact, because it seems to emerge from a national
desire to be armed. ("If you're not armed, you're not responsible," a member
of the Michigan militia tells him.) At one point, he visits a bank that is
giving away guns to people who open new accounts. He asks a banker if it
isn't a little dangerous to have all these guns in a bank. Not at all. The
bank, Moore learns, is a licensed gun dealership.

Note: The movie is rated R, so that the Columbine killers would have been
protected from the "violent images," mostly of themselves. The MPAA
continues its policy of banning teenagers from those films they most need to
see. What utopian world do the flywheels of the ratings board think they are
protecting?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ABANDON / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:49 GMT

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

October 18, 2002

Catherine Burke: Katie Holmes
Det. Wade Handler: Benjamin     Bratt
Embry Langan: Charlie Hunnam
Mousy Julie: Melanie Lynskey
Samantha: Zooey Deschanel
Paramount Pictures presents a film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan.
Running time: 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for drug and alcohol content,
sexuality, some violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Abandon" is a moody, effective thriller for about 80 percent of the way,
and then our hands close on air. If you walk out before the ending, you'll
think it's better than it is. Or maybe I'm being unfair: Maybe a rational
ending with a reasonable explanation would have seemed boring. Maybe this is
the ending the movie needed, but it seems so arbitrary as it materializes
out of thin air.

Or maybe I'm still being unfair. Maybe it doesn't come from thin air.
Students of Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary will be familiar with the
Law of Economy of Characters, which states that no movie introduces a
character unnecessarily, so that the apparently superfluous character is the
one to keep an eye on. That rule doesn't precisely apply here, but it's
relevant in a reverse sort of way. Think of the Purloined Letter.

Enough of this. The movie finally did not satisfy me, and so I cannot
recommend it, but there is a lot to praise, beginning with Katie Holmes'
performance as Catherine Burke, a smart and articulate student who is on the
fast track to a corporate boardroom. She's a student at an unnamed
university (McGill in Montreal provided the locations), has just aced an
interview with a big firm, studies hard, doesn't date. Her ex-boyfriend
Embry Langan (Charlie Hunnam) vanished mysteriously two years ago, but then
he was the kind of weirdo genius who was always pulling stunts like that.

The key question: Did Embry disappear himself, or was he disappeared? Det.
Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is on the case, and although Catherine at
first cuts him off, she starts to like the guy. Meanwhile, in what is not as
much of a spoiler as it might appear, Embry reappears on campus, and starts
stalking Catherine. That's all of the plot you'll get from me. I want to
talk about casting, dialogue and the film's general intelligence. This is a
movie that convincingly portrays the way students talk, think, get wasted,
philosophize and hang around on a college campus. I emphasize that because
when "The Rules of Attraction" opened a week ago, I questioned its scenes in
which topless lesbians were ignored by male students at campus parties. I
have here a letter from Joseph Gallo of Auburn, Ala., who says such a sight
is not uncommon on his campus. Uh, huh.

The students in "Abandon" talk smart. Especially Catherine. Watch the way
Katie Holmes handles that interview with the high-powered corporate
recruiters. It could be used as a training film. Watch her body language and
word choices when she rejects an advance from her counselor. Notice the
scene where a friend invites her to attend an "anti-globalization rally." In
an ordinary movie, a line like that would be boilerplate, designed to move
the plot to its next event. In this movie, Catherine responds. She has an
opinion about anti-globalization. Astonishing.

The movie was written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for
the "Traffic" screenplay and is making his directorial debut. Gaghan has
written such convincing characters, including the snotty know-it-all played
by Melanie Lynskey and the best friends played by Zooey Deschanel and
Gabrielle Union, that it's kind of a shame this is a thriller. A real campus
movie, about fears and ambitions, could have been made from this material.
Deschanel's drunk scene with the cop is an example of material that is
spot-on.

But the movie is a thriller, and so we must watch as the human elements and
the intelligence, which have absorbed and entertained us, are ground up in
the requirements of the Shocking Climax. Too bad. Here is a movie that never
steps wrong until the final scenes, and then, having answered all of our
questions up until then, closes with questions even it, I suspect, cannot
answer.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] IN PRAISE OF LOVE / * (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:57 GMT

IN PRAISE OF LOVE / * (Not rated)

October 18, 2002

Edgar: Bruno Putzulu
Elle: Cecile Camp
Grandfather: Jean Davy
Grandmother: Francoise Verny
Servant: Philippe Loyrette
Eglantine: Audrey Klebaner
Perceval: Jeremy Lippman
Manhattan Pictures Interna-tional presents a film written and directed by
Jean-Luc Godard. Running time: 98 minutes. No MPAA rating. In French with
English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

What strange confusion besets Jean-Luc Godard? He stumbles through the
wreckage of this film like a baffled Lear, seeking to exercise power that is
no longer his. "In Praise of Love" plays like an attempt to reconstruct an
ideal film that might once have existed in his mind, but is there no more.

Yes, I praised the film in an article from the 2001 Cannes Film Festival,
but have now seen it again, and no longer agree with those words. Seeing
Godard's usual trademarks and preoccupations, I called it "a bittersweet
summation of one of the key careers in modern cinema," and so it is, but I
no longer think it is a successful one.

Godard was the colossus of the French New Wave. His films helped invent
modern cinema. They were bold, unconventional, convincing. To see
"Breathless," "My Life to Live" or "Weekend" is to be struck by a powerful
and original mind. In the late 1960s he entered his Maoist period, making a
group of films ("Wind from the East," "Vladimir and Rosa," "Pravda") that
were ideologically silly but still stylistically intriguing; those films (I
learn from Milos Stehlik of Facets Cinematheque, who has tried to find them)
have apparently been suppressed by their maker.

Then, after a near-fatal traffic accident, came the Godard who turned away
from the theatrical cinema and made impenetrable videos. In recent years
have come films both successful ("Hail, Mary") and not, and now a film like
"In Praise of Love," which in style and tone looks like he is trying to
return to his early films but has lost the way.

Perhaps at Cannes I was responding to memories of Godard's greatness. He has
always been fascinated with typography, with naming the sections of his
films and treating words like objects (he once had his Maoist heroes
barricade themselves behind a wall of Little Red Books). Here he repeatedly
uses intertitles, and while as a device it is good to see again, the actual
words, reflected on, have little connection to the scenes they separate.

He wants to remind us "In Praise of Love" is self-consciously a movie: He
uses not only the section titles, but offscreen interrogators, polemical
statements, narrative confusion, a split between the black and white of the
first half and the saturated video color of the second. What he lacks is a
port of entry for the viewer. Defenses of the film are tortured rhetorical
exercises in which critics assemble Godard's materials and try to paraphrase
them to make sense. Few ordinary audience members, however experienced, can
hope to emerge from this film with a coherent view of what Godard was
attempting.

If you agree with Noam Chomsky, you will have the feeling that you would
agree with this film if only you could understand it. Godard's
anti-Americanism is familiar by now, but has spun off into flywheel
territory. What are we to make of the long dialogue attempting to prove that
the United States of America is a country without a name? Yes, he is right
that there are both North and South Americas. Yes, Brazil has united states.
Yes, Mexico has states and is in North America. Therefore, we have no name.
This is the kind of tiresome language game schoolchildren play.

It is also painful to see him attack Hollywood as worthless and without
history, when (as Charles Taylor points out on Salon.com), Godard was one of
those who taught us about our film history; with his fellow New Wavers, he
resurrected film noir, named it, celebrated it, even gave its directors bit
parts in his films. Now that history (his as well as ours) has disappeared
from his mind.

His attacks on Steven Spielberg are painful and unfair. Some of the
fragments of his film involve a Spielberg company trying to buy the memories
of Holocaust survivors for a Hollywood film (it will star, we learn,
Juliette Binoche, who appeared in "Hail Mary" but has now apparently gone
over to the dark side). Elsewhere in the film he accuses Spielberg of having
made millions from "Schindler's List" while Mrs. Schindler lives in
Argentina in poverty. One muses: (1) Has Godard, having also used her, sent
her any money? (2) Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more
than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the
memories of the survivors? (3) Has Godard so lost the ability to go to the
movies that, having once loved the works of Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray,
he cannot view a Spielberg film except through a prism of anger?

Critics are often asked if they ever change their minds about a movie. I
hope we can grow and learn. I do not "review" films seen at festivals, but
"report" on them--because in the hothouse atmosphere of seeing three to five
films a day, most of them important, one cannot always step back and catch a
breath. At Cannes I saw the surface of "In Praise of Love," remembered
Godard's early work, and was cheered by the film. After a second viewing,
looking beneath the surface, I see so little there: It is all remembered
rote work, used to conceal old tricks, facile name-calling, the loss of
hope, and emptiness.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] JUST A KISS / * (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:58 GMT

JUST A KISS / * (R)

October 18, 2002

Dag: Ron Eldard
Halley: Kyra Sedgwick
Peter: Patrick Breen
Paula: Marisa Tomei
Rebecca: Marley Shelton
Andre: Taye Diggs
Paramount Classics presents a film directed by Fisher Stevens. Written by
Patrick Breen. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexual images
and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

If only it were clever, "Just a Kiss" would be too clever by half.

Here is a movie that was apparently made by working its way through a list
of styles, so that we have poignancy jostling against farce, thoughtful
dialogue elbowed aside by one-liners, and a visual style that incorporates
rotoscope animation for no apparent reason except, maybe, that it looks
neat.

"Just a Kiss," directed by the actor Fisher Stevens, begins with a kiss
between two people who should not be kissing and ends after those people,
and their significant others, and assorted insignificant others, undergo
sexual and emotional misunderstandings, survive plane crashes, end up in the
hospital or comatose, etc., while occasionally appearing to be animated like
the characters in "Waking Life."

Now "Waking Life" was an accomplished movie, in which Richard Linklater took
live-action footage of his characters and passed it through a software
program that kept their basic appearances and movements while allowing
artists to overlay an animated layer. It worked. It does not work in "Just a
Kiss," and I'm about to explain why.

In "Waking Life," all of the characters are animated. That is what they are,
and how we accept them, and whatever reality they have is conveyed visually
through the animation. But in "Just a Kiss," the characters are photographed
realistically, so that when they suddenly undergo "rotomation," their
reality is violently displaced and our attention is jerked up to the surface
of the movie. They exist now, not as characters but as animated displays who
used to be characters and may be characters again.

I can imagine a way in which this could work, in a "Roger Rabbit"-type movie
that moves in and out of the cartoon dimension. But it doesn't work here
because it is manifestly and distractingly only a stunt. And the whole
movie, in various ways, has the same problem: It's all surface, without an
entry point into whatever lurks beneath. The characters, dialogue, personal
styles and adventures are all mannerisms. The actors are merely carriers of
the director's contrivances.

Consider, for example, a sequence in which one character on an airplane uses
his cell phone to tell another that he loves her. His phone emits lethal
transmissions which cause the plane to crash. Everyone in first class lives;
everyone in tourist class dies. I smile as I write the words. This would be
a good scene in "Airplane!" What is it doing here, in a movie where we are
possibly expected to care about the characters' romances and infidelities?
To admit farce into a drama is to admit that the drama is farce.

But is it a drama? I haven't a clue. The movie seems to reinvent itself from
moment to moment, darting between styles like a squirrel with too many nuts.
There is one performance that works, sort of, and it is by Marisa Tomei, as
a bartender whose psychic gifts allow her to find meaning in the rings left
by cold beers. She is a crazy homicidal maniac, but, hey, at least that
means that nothing she does is out of character.

As for the other actors, they know Stevens from the indie films they've made
together, and were good sports to volunteer for this project. Ron Eldard,
Kyra Sedgwick, Patrick Breen (who wrote the screenplay), Marley Shelton,
Taye Diggs, Sarita Choudhury and Bruno Amato do what they can with
characters who are reinvented from minute to minute. And Zoe Caldwell, as a
choreographer who is the mother of the Shelton character, has moments of
stunningly effective acting that are so isolated from the rest of the movie
that they appear like the result of channel-surfing.

Note: Eldard's character is named "Dag." On the Internet Movie Database, he
is listed as "Dag Hammerskjold," but on the movie's official site he is only
"named after Dag Hammerskjold." Maybe it's supposed to be ironic that this
Dag survives a plane crash. Whatever. Of course, the movie misspells
Hammarskjold's name, so maybe this character is descended from a person who
was constantly having to explain how he was the Dag Hammerskjold who spelled
his name with an "e."

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:00 GMT

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE / ***1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Barry Egan: Adam Sandler
Lena Leonard: Emily Watson
Dean Trumbell: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lance: Luis Guzman
Elizabeth: Mary Lynn Rajskub
Revolution Studios and New Line Cinema present a film written and directed
by Paul Thomas Anderson. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated R (for strong
language including a scene of sexual dialogue).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is a new Adam Sandler on view in "Punch-Drunk Love"--angry, sad,
desperate. In voice and mannerisms he is the same childlike, love-starved
Adam Sandler we've seen in a series of dim comedies, but this film, by
seeing him in a new light, encourages us to look again at those films. Given
a director and a screenplay that sees through the Sandler persona, that
understands it as the disguise of a suffering outsider, Sandler reveals
depths and tones we may have suspected but couldn't bring into focus.

The way to criticize a movie, Godard famously said, is to make another
movie. In that sense "Punch-Drunk Love" is film criticism. Paul Thomas
Anderson says he loves Sandler's comedies--they cheer him up on lonely
Saturday nights--but as the director of "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" he
must have been able to sense something missing in them, some unexpressed
need. The Sandler characters are almost oppressively nice, like needy
puppies, and yet they conceal a masked hostility to society, a
passive-aggressive need to go against the flow, a gift for offending others
while in the very process of being ingratiating.

In "Punch-Drunk Love," Sandler plays Barry Egan, an executive in a company
with a product line of novelty toiletries. Barry has seven sisters, who are
all on his case at every moment, and he desperately wishes they would stop
invading his privacy, ordering him around and putting him down. He tries at
a family gathering to be congenial and friendly, but we can see the tension
in his smiling lips and darting eyes, and suddenly he explodes, kicking out
the glass patio doors.

This is a pattern. He presents to the world a face of cheerful blandness,
and then erupts in terrifying displays of frustrated violence. He does not
even begin to understand himself. He seems always on guard, unsure,
obscurely threatened. His outbursts here help to explain the curiously
violent passages in his previous film, "Mr. Deeds," which was a remake of a
benign Frank Capra comedy. It's as if Sandler is Hannibal Lecter in a Jerry
Lewis body.

Most of Sandler's plots are based on predictable, production-line formulas,
and after "Punch-Drunk Love" I may begin seeing them as traps containing a
resentful captive. The quirky behavior may be a way of calling out for help.
In "Big Daddy," for example, the broad outlines are familiar, but not the
creepy way his character trains his adopted 5-year-old to be hostile. At one
point, ho, ho, they toss tree branches into the path of middle-aged in-line
skaters, causing some nasty falls. The hostility veiled as humor in the
typical Sandler comedy is revealed in "Punch-Drunk Love" as--hostility.

The film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the
constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor. Watching this
film, you can imagine him in Dennis Hopper roles. He has darkness, obsession
and power. His world is hedged around with mystery and challenge. Consider
an opening scene, when he is at work hours before the others have arrived,
and sees a harmonium dumped in the street in front of his office. It is at
once the most innocent and ominous of objects; he runs from it and then
peeks around a corner to see if it is still there.

In the Paul Thomas Anderson universe, people meet through serendipity and
need, not because they are fulfilling their plot assignments. Barry meets
Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), a sweet executive with intently focused eyes,
who asks him to look after her broken-down car and later goes out on a
dinner date with him. They like each other right away. During the dinner he
gets up from his table, goes to the men's room and in a blind rage breaks
everything he can. "Your hand is bleeding," she gently observes, and after
they are thrown out of the restaurant, she carries on as if the evening is
still normal.

Barry is meanwhile enraged by an ongoing battle he is having with a Utah
phone-sex company. He called the number and was billed for the call, but he
was unable to talk easily with the woman at the other end, or even quite
conceive of what she wanted him to do. Then she pulled a scam using his
credit card number, and this leads to mutual threats and obscenities over
the phone, and to a visit from the porn company's "four blond brothers," who
want to intimidate him and extract cash.

Barry is frightened. He knows Lena is going on a business trip to Hawaii.
They definitely have chemistry. This would be an ideal time to get off the
mainland. He has discovered a loophole in a Healthy Choice promotion that
will allow him to earn countless American Airlines frequent flier miles at
very little cost. (This part of the story is based on fact.) It is typical
of an Anderson film that Barry, having hit on his mileage scheme, cannot use
his miles so quickly, and so simply buys a ticket to Honolulu and meets Lena
for a picture-postcard rendezvous on Waikiki Beach. Here and elsewhere,
Anderson bathes the screen in romantic colors and fills the soundtrack with
lush orchestrations.

I feel liberated in films where I have absolutely no idea what will happen
next. Lena and Barry are odd enough that anything could happen in their
relationship. A face-to-face meeting with the Utah porn king (Anderson
regular Philip Seymour Hoffman) and another meeting with the four blond
brothers are equally unpredictable. And always there is Barry's quick,
terrifying anger, a time bomb ticking away beneath every scene.

"Punch-Drunk Love" is above all a portrait of a personality type. Barry Egan
has been damaged, perhaps beyond repair, by what he sees as the depredations
of his domineering sisters. It drives him crazy when people nose into his
business. He cannot stand to be trifled with. His world is entered by
alarming omens and situations that baffle him. The character is vividly seen
and the film sympathizes with him in his extremity.

Paul Thomas Anderson has referred to "Punch-Drunk Love" as "an art house
Adam Sandler film." It may be the key to all of the Adam Sandler films, and
may liberate Sandler for a new direction in his work. He can't go on making
those moronic comedies forever, can he? Who would have guessed he had such
uncharted depths?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SKINS / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:01 GMT

SKINS / *** (R)

October 18, 2002

Mogie Yellow Lodge: Graham Greene
Rudy Yellow Lodge: Eric Schweig
Verdell Weasel Tail: Gary Farmer
Teen Mogie: Nathaniel Arcand
First Look Pictures presents a film directed by Chris Eyre. Written by
Jennifer D. Lyne. Based on the novel by Adrian C. Louis. Running time: 87
minutes. Rated R (for language and violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Skins" tells the story of two brothers, both Sioux, one a cop, one an
alcoholic "whose mind got short-circuited in Vietnam." They live on the Pine
Ridge reservation, in the shadow of Mount Rushmore and not far from the site
of the massacre at Wounded Knee. America's founding fathers were carved, the
film informs us, into a mountain that was sacred to the Sioux, and that
knowledge sets up a final scene of uncommon power.

The movie is almost brutal in its depiction of life at Pine Ridge, where
alcoholism is nine times the national average and life expectancy 50
percent. Director Chris Eyre, whose previous film was the much-loved "Smoke
Signals" (1998), has turned from comedy to tragedy and is unblinking in his
portrait of a community where poverty and despair are daily realities.

Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig), the policeman, is well-liked in a job that
combines law enforcement with social work. His brother Mogie (Graham Greene)
is the town drunk, but his tirades against society reveal the eloquence of a
mind that still knows how to see injustice. Mogie and his buddy Verdell
Weasel Tail (Gary Farmer) sit in the sun on the town's main street, drinking
and providing a running commentary that sometimes cuts too close to the
truth.

Flashbacks show that both brothers were abused as children, by an alcoholic
father. Mogie probably began life with more going for him, but Vietnam and
drinking have flattened him, and it's his kid brother who wears the uniform
and draws the paycheck. Those facts are established fairly early, and we
think we can foresee the movie's general direction, when Eyre surprises us
with a revelation about Rudy: He is a vigilante.

A man is beaten to death in an abandoned house. Rudy discovers the two
shiftless kids who did it, disguises himself, and breaks their legs with a
baseball bat. Angered by white-owned businesses across the reservation
border that make big profits selling booze to the Indians on the day the
welfare checks arrive, he torches one of the businesses--only to find he has
endangered his brother's life in the process. His protest, direct and angry,
is as impotent as every other form of expression seems to be.

When "Skins" premiered at Sundance last January, Eyre was criticized by some
for painting a negative portrait of his community. Justin Lin, whose "Better
Luck Tomorrow" showed affluent Asian-American teenagers succeeding at a life
of crime, was also attacked for not taking a more positive point of view.
Recently the wonderful comedy "Barbershop" has been criticized because one
character does a comic riff aimed at African-American icons.

In all three cases, the critics are dead wrong, because they would limit the
artists in their community to impotent feel-good messages instead of
applauding their freedom of expression. In all three cases, the critics are
also tone-deaf, because they cannot distinguish what the movies depict from
how they depict it. That is particularly true with some of the critics of
"Barbershop," who say they have not seen the film. If they did, the
audience's joyous laughter might help them understand the context of the
controversial dialogue, and the way in which it is answered.

"Skins" is a portrait of a community almost without resources to save
itself. We know from "Smoke Signals" that Eyre also sees another side to his
people, but the anger and stark reality he uses here are potent weapons. The
movie is not about a crime plot, not about whether Rudy gets caught, not
about how things work out. It is about regret. Graham Greene achieves the
difficult task of giving a touching performance even though his character is
usually drunk, and it is the regret he expresses, to his son and to his
brother, that carries the movie's burden of sadness. To see this movie is to
understand why the faces on Mount Rushmore are so painful and galling to the
first Americans. The movie's final image is haunting.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD / **1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:06 GMT

WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD / **1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Riley: William H. Macy
Leon: Isaiah Washington
Pero: Sam Rockwell
Toto: Michael Jeter
Cosimo: Luis Guzman
Old Man in Prison: John Buck Jr.
Rosalind: Patricia Clarkson
Basil: Andrew Davoli
Carmela: Jennifer Esposito
Jerzy: George Clooney
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film written and directed by Anthony and
Joe Russo. Running time: 86 minutes. Rated R (for language).

BY ROGER EBERT

I wonder if the real problem is that I've seen the original. "Welcome to
Collinwood" is a wacky and eccentric heist comedy with many virtues, but it
is also a remake of "Big Deal on Madonna Street" (1958), a movie much
beloved by me. Some scenes are so close to the original it's kind of
uncanny.

Consider the comic climax of the movie, which comes as the gang is trying to
break through the wall and get the safe. If you've seen "Big Deal," you'll
remember that great scene. If you haven't, I won't spoil it for you. The
surprise element, on top of the humor, makes it something like genius. But
when the scene came along in "Welcome to Collinwood," I knew exactly what
would happen, and so the new movie didn't have a chance. All I could do was
compare and contrast.

Would the scene work for a fresh audience? I don't see why not. I heard good
buzz about "Welcome to Collinwood" at the Toronto Film Festival, and assume
that for those who had not seen "Big Deal on Madonna Street," the scene
worked and the movie was a pleasure. The problem is, so many people have
seen it, one way or another. Made as a satire of "Rififi" (1955), which is
the mother of all heist movies, it is itself the mother of all heist
comedies. "Big Deal" is a regular on cable, is in the Criterion Collection
on DVD, and has been remade many times before, notably by Louis Malle
("Crackers"), Alan Taylor ("Palookaville") and Woody Allen (the middle
section of "Small Time Crooks").

Directed and written by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, the movie is set in
the seedy Cleveland suburb of Collinwood, which looks unchanged since the
Depression. We meet members of the hamlet's criminal fraternity, who are
incredibly colorful, as if they read Damon Runyon and stay up late taking
notes on old crime movies. They have their own lingo. A malinski is a guy
who will take the rap for you. A bellini is a lucrative job. As the film
opens, a crook named Cosimo (Luis Guzman) hears about a bellini and needs a
malinski.

He shares his knowledge with his girlfriend (Patricia Clarkson) and unwisely
confides in his partner Toto (Michael Jeter, whose character is named after
the Italian comedian who played this role in the original). Word spreads
through the underworld, and while Cosimo fails to find his malinski, the
others sign up for the bellini, which involves a foolproof method to break
into a pawnshop where the safe is said to contain $300,000.

The heist spoof genre is durable. Steven Soderbergh, who produced this film,
directed "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), which was a remake of "Ocean's 11" (1960),
which was a remake of the French film "Bob le Flambeur" (1955). In the Russo
version, I like the sequence where the gang attempts to film the pawnbroker
opening his safe. An arm keeps getting in the way at the crucial moment.
After the screening, one crook observes, "As a film it's a disaster," and
another replies, "It's a documentary. It's supposed to look that way."

The break-in gang consists of Toto (Jeter), single dad Riley (William H.
Macy), Pero (Sam Rockwell), Leon (Isaiah Washington) and Basil (Andrew
Davoli). Romantic distraction comes from Carmela (Jennifer Esposito) and
Leon's sister Michelle (Gabrielle Union), who pair with Pero and Basil.
Their trainer is the retired safecracker Jerzy (George Clooney), who is in a
wheelchair and explains, "I don't go out in the field no more." He charges
them $500 to learn the "circular saw method."

The movie is in love with its dialogue, which is in a more mannered and
colorful style than real crooks probably have the time to master, and spends
too much time lining them all up for conversations. The actual heist is the
high point, just as in the Italian film, and so raffish and disorganized was
the gang that I can see how someone might enjoy this movie, coming to it for
the first time.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WASABI / *1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:04 GMT

WASABI / *1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Hubert Fiorentini: Jean Reno
Yumi Yoshimido: Ryoko Hirosue
Momo: Michel Muller
Sofia: Carole Bouquet
Jean-Baptiste 1: Ludovic Berthillot
Jean-Baptiste 2: Yan Epstein
Van Eyck: Michel Scourneau
The Squale: Christian Sinniger
TriStar Pictures presents a film directed by Gerard Krawczyk. Written by Luc
Besson. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (for some violence). In French and
Japanese with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

Jean Reno has the weary eyes and unshaven mug of a French Peter Falk, and
some of the same sardonic humor, too. He sighs and smokes and slouches his
way through thrillers where he sadly kills those who would kill him, and
balefully regards women who want to make intimate demands on his time. In
good movies ("The Crimson Rivers") and bad ("Rollerball"), in the ambitious
(Antonioni's "Beyond the Clouds") and the avaricious ("Godzilla"), in
comedies ("Just Visiting") and thrillers ("Ronin"), he shares with Robert
Mitchum the unmistakable quality of having seen it all.

"Wasabi" is not his worst movie, and is far from his best. It is a thriller
trapped inside a pop comedy set in Japan, and gives Reno a chirpy young
co-star who bounces around him like a puppy on visiting day at the drunk
tank. She plays his daughter, and he's supposed to like her, but sometimes
he looks like he hopes she will turn into an aspirin.

The movie begins in Paris, where Reno plays Hubert Fiorentini, a Dirty Harry
type who doesn't merely beat up suspects, but beats up people on the chance
that he may suspect them later. During a raid on a nightclub, he makes the
mistake of socking the police chief's son so hard the lad flies down a
flight of stairs and ends up in a full-body cast. Hubert is ordered to take
a vacation.

He shrugs, and thinks to look up an old girlfriend (Carole Bouquet), but
then his life takes a dramatic turn. He learns of the death in Japan of a
woman he loved years earlier. Arriving for her funeral, he finds that she
has left him a mysterious key, a daughter he knew nothing about, and $200
million stashed in the bank.

The daughter is named Yumi (Ryoko Hirosue). She is 19, has red hair, chooses
her wardrobe colors from the Pokemon palate, and bounces crazily through
scenes as if life is a music video and they're filming her right now.

The plot involves Yumi's plan to hire the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) to get
revenge for her mother's death. If there is piece of fatherly advice that
Hubert the veteran cop could have shared with her, it is that no one related
to $200 million should do the least thing to attract the attention of the
Yakuza. The plot then unfolds in bewildering alternation between pop comedy
and action violence, with Hubert dancing in a video arcade one moment and
blasting the bad guys the next.

There is no artistic purpose for this movie. It is product. Luc Besson, who
wrote and produced it, has another movie out right now ("The Transporter")
and indeed has written, produced or announced 16 other movies since this one
was made in far-ago 2001. Reno does what he can in a thankless situation,
the film ricochets from humor to violence and back again, and Ryoko Hirosue
makes us wonder if she is always like that. If she is, I owe an apology to
the Powerpuff Girls. I didn't know they were based on real life.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE RING / ** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:02 GMT

THE RING / ** (PG-13)

October 18, 2002

Rachel Keller:    Naomi Watts
Noah:    Martin Henderson
Richard Morgan:     Brian Cox
Aidan:    David Dorfman
Ruth:     Lindsay Frost
Katie:      Amber Tamblyn
DreamWorks presents a film directed by Gore Verbinski. Written by Ehren
Kruger. Based on the novel by Koji Suzuki. Running time: 115 minutes. Rated
PG-13 (for thematic elements, disturbing images, language and some drug
references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Rarely has a more serious effort produced a less serious result than in "The
Ring," the kind of dread dark horror film where you better hope nobody in
the audience snickers, because the film teeters right on the edge of the
ridiculous.

Enormous craft has been put into the movie, which looks just great, but the
story goes beyond contrivance into the dizzy realms of the absurd. And
although there is no way for everything to be explained (and many events
lack any possible explanation), the movie's ending explains and explains and
explains, until finally you'd rather just give it a pass than sit through
one more tedious flashback.

The story involves a video that brings certain death. You look at it, the
phone rings, and you find out you have seven days to live. A prologue shows
some teenage victims of the dread curse, and then newspaper reporter Rachel
Keller (Naomi Watts) gets on the case, helped by eerie drawings by her young
son, Aidan (David Dorfman).

The story has been recycled from a popular Japanese thriller by Hideo
Nakata, which was held off the market in this country to clear the field for
this remake. Alas, the same idea was ripped off in August by "feardotcom,"
also a bad movie, but more plain fun than "The Ring," and with a climax that
used brilliant visual effects while this one drags on endlessly.

I dare not reveal too much of the story but will say that the video does
indeed bring death in a week, something we are reminded of as Rachel tries
to solve the case while titles tick off the days. A single mom, she enlists
Aidan's father, a video geek named Noah (Martin Henderson) to analyze the
deadly tape. He tags along for the adventure, which inevitably leads to
their learning to care for one another, I guess, although the movie is not
big on relationships. Her investigation leads her to a remote cottage on an
island and to the weird, hostile man (Brian Cox) who lives there. And then
the explanations start to pile up.

This is Naomi Watts' first move since "Mulholland Drive" and I was going to
complain that we essentially learn nothing about her character except that
she's a newspaper reporter--but then I remembered that in "Mulholland Drive"
we essentially learned nothing except that she was a small-town girl in
Hollywood, and by the end of the movie we weren't even sure we had learned
that. "Mulholland Drive," however, evoked juicy emotions and dimensions that
"The Ring" is lacking, and involved us in a puzzle that was intriguing
instead of simply tedious.

There are a couple of moments when we think "The Ring" is going to end, and
it doesn't. One is that old reliable where the heroine, soaking wet and
saved from death, says "I want to go home," and the hero cushions her head
on his shoulder. But no, there's more. Another is when Aidan says, "You
didn't let her out, did you?" That would have been a nice ironic closer, but
the movie spells out the entire backstory in merciless detail, until when
we're finally walking out of the theater, we're almost ashamed to find
ourselves wondering, hey, who was that on the phone?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BROWN SUGAR / ***
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:07 GMT

BROWN SUGAR / ***

October 11, 2002

Dre: Taye Diggs
Sidney: Sanaa Lathan
Reese: Nicole Ari Parker
Kelby Dawson: Boris Kodjoe
Chris V: Mos Def
Francine: Queen Latifah
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Written
by Michael Elliot and Famuyiwa. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

She is the editor of an important music magazine. He produces hip-hop for a
major label. They've been best friends since childhood, but never more than
that, although they came close a few times. Now, as both approach 30, Dre
(Taye Diggs) feels his career has lost its way. And Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) is
working so hard she doesn't have time for romance: "You're turning into a
Terry McMillan character," her girlfriend Fran-cine warns her.

"Brown Sugar," which charts romantic passages in these lives, is a romantic
comedy, yes, but one with characters who think and talk about their goals,
and are working on hard decisions. For both Sidney and Dre, hip-hop music
symbolizes a kind of perfect adolescent innocence, a purity they're trying
to return to as more cynical adults.

The first question Sidney asks an interview subject is always, "How did you
fall in love with hip-hop?" For her, it was July 18, 1984, when she
discovered for the first time a form that combined music, rhythm,
performance and poetry. Dre, her best buddy even then, grew up to become an
important hip-hop producer, working for a label that compromised its
standards as it became more successful. Now he's faced with the prospect of
producing "Rin and Tin," one white, one black, who bill themselves as "The
Hip-Hop Dalmatians."

Dre gets engaged to the beautiful Reese (Nicole Ari Parker). Sidney can't
believe he'll marry her, but can't admit she loves him--although she comes
close on the night before their wedding. Francine (Queen Latifah) lectures
her to declare her love: "You'll get the buddy and the booty!" When Dre
quits his job rather than work with the Dalmatians, he turns instinctively
to Sidney for advice, and Reese begins to understand that she's sharing his
heart.

Sidney, meanwhile, interviews the hunky athlete Kelby Dawson (Boris Kodjoe),
and soon they're engaged. Is this the real thing, or a rebound? Dre still
needs her for encouragement, as he pursues a hip-hop taxi driver named Chris
V (Mos Def), who he believes has potential to return the form to its roots.
And Chris, articulate in his music but lacking confidence in his life,
doesn't have the nerve to ask out Francine.

"Brown Sugar," advertised as a hip-hop comedy, is more like a slice of black
professional life (there's not even an entire hip-hop song in the whole
movie). Directed and co-written by Rick Famuyiwa, the movie returns to a
world similar to his "The Wood" (1999), but the characters are deeper and
more complex.

Consider Reese, the Nicole Ari Parker character. In a less thoughtful movie,
she'd be the shallow, bitchy life-wrecker. Here, she is blameless and
basically reasonable: mad at Dre for quitting his job without talking it
over with her, jealous of Sidney because she (correctly) suspects Sidney and
Dre have always been in love but lied to themselves about it. That feeling
comes to a head at a gym where both women work out, in a sparring match that
gets a little too sincere.

There's a scene in "Brown Sugar" I never thought I'd see in a movie, where
after Reese and Dre have a "final" fight, and in a more conventional film
she would disappear forever from the screenplay, but here she returns to
suggest counseling and says they need to work harder at their marriage. How
many movie romances are that thoughtful about their characters?

"Brown Sugar" may be pitching itself to the wrong audience. The ads promise:
"The Rhythm ... the Beat ... the Love ... and You Don't Stop!" But it's not
a musical and although it's sometimes a comedy, it's observant about its
people. Francine is onto something. They're all Terry McMillan characters.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:10 GMT

KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)

October 11, 2002

Mike: Michael Gilio
Didi: Lara Phillips
Emil: Rich Komenich
Ruthie: Karin Anglin
Clerk: Kris Wolff
Dr. Milk: Eric Curtis Johnson
Sunny: Sunny Seigel
A film written and directed by Michael Gilio. Running time: 110 minutes. No
MPAA rating (intended for mature audiences). Opening today at Facets
Cinematheque.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Kwik Stop" starts out with a shoplifter and a teenager who sees him
stealing. She threatens to turn him over to the cops, but actually all she
wants is to escape from her life in a Chicago suburb. He explains he's going
to Los Angeles to become a movie actor. "Take me with you," she says. "Can I
kiss you?" he says.

At this point, maybe 10 minutes into the story, we think we know more or
less where the movie is going: It'll be a road picture. We are dead wrong.
"Kwik Stop," which never quite gets out of town, blindsides us with
unexpected humor and sadness, and is one of the unsung treasures of recent
independent filmmaking. It's playing at Facets, 1517 W. Fullerton.

The movie is the work of Michael Gilio, who wrote it, directed it and stars
in it as Mike, the guy who thinks he could be a movie star. Gilio in fact is
already an established actor; he played opposite Sidney Poitier in the TV
movie "To Sir with Love 2," and has appeared in four other films, but this
movie proves he's not only an actor but has a genuine filmmaking talent. In
the way it is developed, and seen, and especially in the way it ends, "Kwik
Stop" shows an imagination that flies far beyond the conventions it seems to
begin with.

Mike is a complicated guy. He dreams of going to Los Angeles and breaking
into the movies, yes--but perhaps the dream is more important than actually
doing it. He's like a lot of people who are stuck in the planning stage and
like it there. Didi (Lara Phillips) has no plans, but she has urgent desires
and is prepared to act on them. We learn all we need to know about her home
life in a shot taken from the curb, that watches her go inside to get some
stuff and come back out again, unconcerned that she is leaving town, she
thinks, forever.

Neither one is dumb. They talk about Henry Miller and Harvey Keitel, two
names that suggest you have advanced beyond life's training wheels. Gilio
finds a motel for them with its own disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and
as its twinkle disguises the shabbiness they make and pledge love, and then
the next morning Mike is gone. If this couple is going to make it through
the entire film, we realize, they are going to have to do it without using
the usual cliches.

They meet again. Never mind how. Mike takes Didi to a diner for a meal,
where a waitress named Ruthie (Karin Anglin) greets them with a strangely
skewed attitude. Watch the way Gilio introduces mystery into the scene and
then resolves it, getting humor out of both the mystery and the solution.
The diner scene suggests strangeness deep in Mike's character: He doesn't
need to go to Los Angeles since he stars in his own drama, and doubles back
to be sure he hasn't lost his audience.

Mike and Didi try to burgle a house. Didi is whammed by a homeowner's
baseball bat and ends up imprisoned in the Midwest School for Girls. Mike
has a plan to spring her, which involves Ruthie making what is, under the
circumstances, a truly selfless gesture (she explains she doesn't want to
"waste the time I put into you").

Just as Mike never gets out of town, just as the plot doubles back to pick
up first Didi and then Ruthie, so Emil (Rich Komenich), the homeowner with
the baseball bat, also is not abandoned. "Kwik Stop" is the opposite of the
picaresque journey in which colorful characters are encountered and then
left behind. It gathers them all up and takes them along.

The movie contains genuine surprises, some delightful (like the plan to
spring Didi from the home) and others involving loneliness, loss and
desperation. I cannot say much more without revealing developments that are
unexpected and yet deeply satisfying. Poignancy comes into the movie from an
unexpected source. Depths are revealed where we did not think to find them.
The ending is like the last paragraph of a short story, redefining
everything that went before.

"Kwik Stop," made on a low budget, has all the money it needs to accomplish
everything it wants to do. It has the freedom of serious fiction, which is
not chained to a story arc but follows its characters where they insist on
going. Gilio, Phillips, Komenich and Anglin create that kind of bemused
realism we discover in films that are not about plot but about what these
dreamy people are going to do next. On a weekend when $400 million in slick
mainstream productions are opening, this is the movie to seek out.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:09 GMT

KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)

October 11, 2002

Matty Demaret: Barry Pepper
Taylor Reese: Vin Diesel
Johnny Marbles: Seth Green
Chris Scarpa: Andrew Davoli
Benny Chains: Dennis Hopper
Teddy Deserve: John Malkovich
New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Brian Koppelman and
David Levien. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for violence, language and
some drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

When Matty Demaret is 12, he fails a test. His uncle gives him a gun and
asks him to shoot a squealer. Matty just can't do it. "That's all right,"
his uncle says. "You're just not cut out for it." Matty grows into a young
man determined to make a place for himself in the mob, and hangs around with
other young heirs to a shrinking empire. Their fathers sat around counting
money, but they're expected to work the noon and evening shifts at the
family restaurant.

Matty (Barry Pepper) wants a chance to prove himself. He begs his dad, Benny
Chains (Dennis Hopper), for a job and finally gets one--picking up some
money in Spokane. His friend Johnny Marbles (Seth Green) owns a private
plane, and Matty asks him to fly the money back east. In the small town of
Wibaux, Mont., Johnny Marbles gets rattled by cops in the airport, drops the
bag in a luggage zone and loses it. This is not good.

"Knockaround Guys" is inspired by the same impulse as "The Sopranos." It
considers gangsters in the modern age, beset by progress, unsure of their
roles, undermined by psychobabble. "Used to be there was a way to do things
and things got done," Matty's Uncle Teddy (John Malkovich) complains. "Now
everybody's feelings are involved."

The heart of the movie takes place in Wibaux, a town ruled by a tall,
taciturn, ominous sheriff, played by that unmistakable actor Tom Noonan.
Matty flies out to Montana with backup: his friends Taylor (Vin Diesel) and
Scarpa (Andrew Davoli). They stick out like sore thumbs in the little town.
"Looks like they're multiplying," the sheriff observes to his deputy. He
assumes they're involved with drugs, doesn't much care "as long as they move
on through," but is very interested in the possibility of money.

The movie crosses two formulas--Fish Out of Water and Coming of Age--fairly
effectively. Because it isn't wall-to-wall action but actually bothers to
develop its characters and take an interest in them, it was not at first
considered commercial by its distributor, New Line, and languished on the
shelf for two years until the growing stardom of Diesel ("XXX") and Pepper
("We Were Soldiers") made it marketable. It's more than that--it's
interesting in the way it shows these guys stuck between generations. And it
makes good use of Diesel, who as he develops into an action superstar may
not get roles this juicy for a while. He's a tough guy, yes, a street
fighter, but conflicted and with a kind of wise sadness about human nature.

The movie's basic question, I suppose, is whether the rising generation of
mobsters is so self-conscious it will never gain the confidence of its
ancestors. If it's true that the mob in the 1930s learned how to talk by
studying Warner Bros. crime pictures, it's equally true that "The Sopranos"
and all the other post-Scorsese "GoodFellas" stories bring in an element of
psychological complexity that only confuses an occupation that used to have
a brutal simplicity. "Knockaround Guys" opens with Matty being turned down
for a job because of his infamous last name. It ends with him not living up
to it. "To the regular people, we're nothing but goombas," Matty complains.
"But to our fathers, we're nothing but hound boys."

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:13 GMT

THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)

October 11, 2002

Sean: James Van Der Beek
Lauren: Shannyn Sossamon
Paul: Ian Somerhalder
Lara: Jessica Biel
Victor: Kip Pardue
Kelly: Kate Bosworth
Lions Gate Films presents a film written and directed by Roger Avary. Based
on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated R (for
strong sexual content, drug use, language and violent images). Opening today
at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

I did not like any of the characters in "The Rules of Attraction." I cringe
to write those words, because they imply a superficial approach to the film.
Surely there are films where I hated the characters and admired the work?
"In the Company of Men"? No, that gave me a victim to sympathize with. There
is no entry portal in "The Rules of Attraction," and I spent most of the
movie feeling depressed by the shallow, selfish, greedy characters. I wanted
to be at another party.

Leaving the movie, I reflected that my reaction was probably unfair. "The
Rules of Attraction" was based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and while
life is too short to read one of his books while a single work of Conrad,
Faulkner or Bellow eludes me, I am familiar enough with his world (through
the movies) to know that he agrees his characters are shallow, selfish and
greedy, although perhaps he bears them a certain affection, not least
because they populate his books. So I went to see the movie a second time,
and emerged with a more evolved opinion: "The Rules of Attraction" is a
skillfully made movie about reprehensible people.

The writer-director is Roger Avary, who directed "Killing Zoe" and
co-authored Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." (Whether he cast James Van
Der Beek as his lead because he looks more like Tarantino than any other
working actor, I cannot guess.) In all of his work, Avary is fond of free
movement up and down the timeline, and here he uses an ingenious approach to
tell the stories of three main characters who are involved in, I dunno, five
or six pairings. He begins with an "End of the World" party at Camden
College, the ultimate party school, follows a story thread, then rewinds and
follows another. He also uses fast-forward brilliantly to summarize a
European vacation in a few hilarious minutes.

The yo-yo timeline works because we know, or quickly learn, who the
characters are, but sometimes it's annoying, as when we follow one sex romp
up to a certain point and then return to it later for the denouement. This
style may at times reflect the confused state of mind of the characters, who
attend a college where no studying of any kind is ever glimpsed, where the
only faculty member in the movie is having an affair with an undergraduate,
and where the improbable weekend parties would put the orgies at Hef's pad
to shame.

The parties are a lapse of credibility. I cannot believe, for example, that
large numbers of co-eds would engage in topless lesbian breastplay at a
campus event, except in the inflamed imaginations of horny undergraduates.
But assuming that they would: Is it plausible that the horny undergraduates
wouldn't even look at them? Are today's undergraduate men so (choose one)
blase, Politically Correct or emasculated that, surrounded by the
enthusiastic foreplay of countless half-naked women, they would blandly
carry on their conversations?

This is not to imply that "The Rules of Attraction" is in any sense a campus
sex-romp comedy. There is comedy in it, but so burdened are the students by
their heavy loads of alcoholism, depression, drug addiction and bisexual
promiscuity that one yearns for them to be given respite by that cliche of
the 1960s, the gratuitous run through meadows and woods. These kids need
fresh air.

In the movie, James Van Der Beek plays drug dealer Sean Bateman, who
desperately wants to sleep with with chic, elusive Lauren (Shannyn
Sossamon). She once dated Paul (Ian Somerhalder), who is bisexual and who
wants to sleep with Sean, who is straight, but right now if Lauren had her
druthers she would bed Victor (Kip Pardue), who stars in the speed-up
European trip and once dated Paul. (The sexual orientations of most of the
major characters come down to: When they're not with the sex they love, they
love the sex they're with.) Many but not not all of these desired couplings
take place, there are distractions from still other willing characters, and
a sad suicide involving a character I will not divulge, except to say that
when we see how miserable she was in flashbacks to various earlier events,
we wonder why, on a campus where promiscuity is epidemic, she had the
misfortune to be a one-guy woman.

Avary weaves his stories with zest and wicked energy, and finds a visual
style that matches the emotional fragmentation. I have no complaints about
the acting, and especially liked the way Sossamon kept a kind of impertinent
distance from some of the excesses. But by the end, I felt a sad
indifference. These characters are not from life and do not form into a
useful fiction. Their excesses of sex and substance abuse are physically
unwise, financially unlikely and emotionally impossible. I do not censor
their behavior but lament the movie's fascination with it. They do not say
and perhaps do not think anything interesting. The two other Bret Easton
Ellis movies ("Less than Zero" and "American Psycho") offered characters who
were considerably more intriguing. We had questions about them; they aroused
our curiosity. The inhabitants of "The Rules of Attraction" are superficial
and transparent. We know people like that, and hope they will get better.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEPT AWAY / * (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:11 GMT

SWEPT AWAY / * (R)

October 11, 2002

Amber: Madonna
Giuseppe: Adriano Giannini
Debi: Elizabeth Banks
Burly Captain: Patrizio Rispo
Marina: Jeanne Tripplehorn
Screen Gems presents a film written and directed by Guy Ritchie. Running
time: 98 minutes. Rated R (for language and some sexuality/nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Swept Away" is a deserted island movie during which I desperately wished
the characters had chosen one movie to take along if they were stranded on a
deserted island, and were showing it to us instead of this one.

The movie is a relatively faithful remake of an incomparably superior 1974
movie with the lovely title, "Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue
Sea of August." The new "Swept Away" knows the words but not the music. It
strands two unattractive characters, one bitchy, one moronic, on an island
where neither they, nor we, have anyone else to look at or listen to. It's
harder for them than it is for us, because they have to go through the
motions of an erotic attraction that seems to have become an impossibility
the moment the roles were cast.

Madonna stars as Amber, the spoiled rich wife of a patient and
long-suffering millionaire. They join two other couples in a cruise on a
private yacht from Greece to Italy. The other five passengers recede into
unwritten, even unthought-about roles, while Amber picks on Giuseppe
(Adriano Giannini), the bearded deckhand. She has decided he is stupid and
rude, and insults him mercilessly. So it was in the earlier film, but in
this version Amber carries her behavior beyond all reason, until even the
rudest and bitchiest rich woman imaginable would have called it a day.

Amber orders Giuseppe to take her out in the dinghy. He demurs: It looks
like a storm. She insists. They run out of gas and begin to drift. She
insults him some more, and when he succeeds after great effort in catching a
fish for them to eat, she throws it overboard. Later she succeeds in putting
a hole in the dinghy during a struggle for the flare gun. They drift at sea
until they wash up on a deserted island, where the tables are turned and now
it is Giuseppe who has the upper hand. Her husband's wealth is now no longer
a factor, but his survival skills are priceless.

All of this is similar to the 1974 movie, even the business of the fish
thrown overboard. What is utterly missing is any juice or life in the
characters. Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato became stars on the
basis of the original "Swept Away," which was written and directed by Lina
Wertmuller, one of the most successful Italian directors of the 1970s. She
was a leftist but not a feminist, and aroused some controversy with a story
where it turned out the rich woman liked being ordered around and slapped a
little--liked it so much she encouraged the sailor to experiment with
practices he could not even pronounce.

This new "Swept Away" is more sentimental, I'm afraid, and the two castaways
fall into a more conventional form of love. I didn't believe it for a
moment. They have nothing in common, but worse still, neither one has any
conversation. They don't say a single interesting thing. That they have sex
because they are stranded on the island I can believe. That they are not
sleeping in separate caves by the time they are rescued I do not.

The problem with the Madonna character is that she starts out so hateful
that she can never really turn it around. We dislike her intensely and
thoroughly, and when she gets to the island we don't believe she had learned
a lesson, or turned nice--we believe she is behaving with this man as she
does with all men, in the way best designed to get her what she wants. As
for the sailor, does he really love her, as he says in that demeaning and
pitiful speech toward the end of the film? What is there to love? They
shared some interesting times together, but their minds never met.

The ending is particularly unsatisfactory, depending as it does on contrived
irony that avoids all of the emotional issues on the table. If I have come
this far with these two drips, and sailed with them, and been shipwrecked
with them, and listened to their tiresome conversations, I demand that they
arrive at some conclusion more rewarding than a misunderstanding based upon
a misdelivered letter. This story was about something when Wertmuller
directed it, but now it's not about anything at all. It's lost the politics
and the social observation and become just another situation romance about a
couple of saps stuck in an inarticulate screenplay.

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Subject: [MV] TUCK EVERLASTING / ** (PG)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:16 GMT

TUCK EVERLASTING / ** (PG)

October 11, 2002

Winnie Foster: Alexis Bledel
Angus Tuck: William Hurt
Mae Tuck: Sissy Spacek
Jesse Tuck: Jonathan Jackson
Miles Tuck: Scott Bairstow
Man in the Yellow Suit: Ben Kingsley
Mother Foster: Amy Irving
Robert Foster: Victor Garber
Walt Disney Pictures presents a film directed by Jay Russell. Written by
Jeffrey Lieber and James V. Hart. Based on the book by Natalie Babbitt.
Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG.(for some violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Tuck Everlasting" is based on a novel well known to middle school students
but not to me, about a romance between two teenagers, one of whom is 104. It
contains a lesson: "Do not fear death--but rather the unlived life." Wise
indeed. But wiser still was Socrates, who said, "The unexamined life is not
worth living." The immortals in "Tuck Everlasting" have not examined their
endless lives, and the teenage mortal scarcely has a thought in her pretty
little head.

The movie, shot in rural Maryland (Blair Witch country), tells of a young
woman named Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel) who feels stifled by strict family
rules. Her mother (Amy Irving) frowns disapprovingly on just about anything,
but is especially certain that Winnie should never talk to strangers or walk
alone in the woods. One day, Winnie up and walks in the woods, and meets a
young man named Jesse (Jonathan Jackson). He warns her against drinking from
a spring at the foot of a big old tree, and then his older brother Miles
(Scott Bairstow) grabs her and brings her back to their forest cottage on
horseback.

These are the Tucks. Mae and Angus, Mom and Dad, are played by Sissy Spacek
and William Hurt. Years ago, they drank from the spring and have become
immortal. "The spring stops you right where you are," Winnie is told, and
that's why Jesse has been 17 for all these years. Although this is not
explained, it must stop your mental as well as your physical aging, because
at 104, Jesse is not yet desperately bored by being 17. Earlier, Angus Tuck
had spied a stranger in a yellow coat skulking about, and warned the family:
"Any strangers in the woods--getting too close--you know what to do. No
exceptions." So it appears Winnie must die to protect the secret of the
Tucks and their spring. But first Mae Tuck wants to give the poor girl a
square meal, and as it becomes clear that Winnie and Jesse are soft on one
another, the mean Miles teases: "Don't you wish he'd told you before he
kissed you?" (His own mother says Miles is "warm as barbed wire.")

The movie has been handsomely mounted by Jay Russell, whose previous film
was "My Dog Skip" (2000), a classic about childhood that was entirely
lacking the feather-brained sentimentality of "Tuck Everlasting." The new
movie is slow, quiet, sweet and maddening in the way it avoids obvious
questions: Such as, if one sip from the spring grants immortality, why do
the Tucks remain for a century in their cottage in the woods? I know what
I'd do: Spend 10 years apiece in the world's most interesting places. And
don't tell me they're afraid city folk will notice how old they are, since
the boys live in town and Mae visits them every 10 years.

The movie oozes with that kind of self-conscious piety that sometimes comes
with the territory when award-winning young people's books are filmed
("Harry Potter" is an exception). The characters seem to lack ordinary human
instincts and behave according to their archetypal requirements. How else to
consider the Man in the Yellow Suit (Ben Kingsley), who, if he had given the
matter a moment's thought, would know he could stalk the Tucks more
successfully with a brown suit? Winnie's father (Victor Garber) is a rather
distant man, as befits the form for this genre, in which the women are
plucky and the men are either sinister or inessential, unless they are cute
teenage boys, of course.

The movie is too impressed with its own solemn insights to work up much
entertainment value; is too much fable to be convincing as life; is awkward
in the way it tries to convince us Winnie's in danger when we're pretty sure
she's not. Even its lesson is questionable. Is it better to live fully for a
finite time than to be stuck in eternity? The injunction to live life fully
need not come with a time limit. That's why the outcome of the romance is so
unsatisfactory. I dare not reveal what happens, except to say that it need
not happen, that the explanation for it is logically porous, and that many a
young girl has sacrificed more for her love. Besides, just because you're 17
forever doesn't mean life loses all delight. You can get rid of that horse
and carriage and buy a motorcycle.

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Subject: [MV] THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:14 GMT

THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)

October 11, 2002

Frank Martin: Jason Statham
Lai: Qi Shu
Tarconi: Francois Berleand
Wall Street: Matt Schulze
Mr. Kwai: Ric Young
Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Corey Yuen. Written by Luc
Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Running time: 92 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
violent sequences and some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

The marriage of James Bond and Hong Kong continues in "The Transporter," a
movie that combines Bond's luxurious European locations and love of deadly
toys with all the tricks of martial arts movies. The movie stars Jason
Statham (who has pumped a lot of iron since "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels") as Frank Martin, a k a the Transporter, who will transport
anything at a price. His three unbreakable rules: never change the deal, no
names, and never look in the package.

Unlike Bond, Martin is amoral and works only for the money. We gather he
lost any shreds of patriotism while serving in the British Special Forces,
and now hires out his skills to support a lifestyle that includes an
oceanside villa on the French Riviera that would retail at $30 million,
minimum.

In an opening sequence that promises more than the movie is able to deliver,
Martin pilots his BMW for the getaway of a gang of bank robbers. Four of
them pile into the car. The deal said there would be three. "The deal never
changes," Martin says, as alarms ring and police sirens grow nearer. The
robbers scream for him to drive away. He shoots the fourth man. Now the deal
can proceed.

And it does, in a chase sequence that is sensationally good, but then aren't
all movie chase scenes sensationally good these days? There have been so
many virtuoso chase sequences lately that we grow jaded, but this one, with
the car bouncing down steps, squeezing through narrow lanes and speeding
backward on expressways, is up there with recent French chases like "Ronin"
and "The Bourne Identity."

The movie combines the skills and trademarks of its director, Corey Yuen,
and its writer-producer, Luc Besson. The Hong Kong-based specialist in
martial arts movies has 43 titles to his credit, many of them starring Jet
Li and Qi Shu. This is his English-language debut. Besson, now one of the
world's top action producers (he has announced nine films for 2003 and also
has "Wasabi" in current release), likes partnerships between action heroes
and younger, apparently more vulnerable women. Those elements were central
in his direction of "La Femme Nikita," "The Professional" and "The Fifth
Element." Now he provides Frank Martin with a young woman through the
violation of Rule No. 3: Martin looks in the bag.

He has been given a large duffel bag to transport. It squirms. It contains a
beautiful young Chinese woman named Lai (Qi Shu, who at age 26 has appeared
in 41 movies, mostly erotic or martial arts). He cuts a little hole in the
bag so she can sip an orange juice, and before he remembers to consult his
rules again he has brought her home to his villa and is embroiled in a plot
involving gangsters from Nice and human slave cargoes from China.

The movie is by this point, alas, on autopilot. Statham's character, who had
a grim fascination when he was enforcing the rules, turns into just another
action hero when he starts breaking them. I actually thought, during the
opening scenes, that "The Transporter" was going to rise above the genre,
was going to be a study of violent psychology, like "La Femme Nikita." No
luck.

Too much action brings the movie to a dead standstill. Why don't directors
understand that? Why don't they know that wall-to-wall action makes a movie
less interesting--less like drama, more like a repetitive video game? Stunt
action sequences are difficult, but apparently not as difficult as good
dialogue. Unless you're an early teens special effects zombie, movies get
more interesting when the characters are given humanity and dimension.

Frank Martin is an intriguing man in the opening scenes, and we think maybe
we'll learn something about his harsh code and lonely profession. But no: We
get car leaps from bridges onto auto transporters. Parachute drops onto the
tops of moving trucks. Grenades, rocket launchers, machine guns (at one
point a friendly inspector asks Martin to explain 50,000 spent rounds of
ammo). There is of course an underwater adventure, tribute to Besson's early
life as the child of scuba-diving instructors. At one point, Martin tells
Lai, "It's quiet. Too quiet." It wasn't nearly quiet enough.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WHITE OLEANDER / **1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:17 GMT

WHITE OLEANDER / **1/2 (PG-13)

October 11, 2002

Astrid Magnussen: Alison Lohman
Starr: Robin Wright Penn
Ingrid Magnussen: Michelle Pfeiffer
Claire Richards: Renee Zellweger
Rena Grushenka: Svetlana Efremova
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Peter Kosminsky. Written
by Mary Agnes Donoghue. Based on the novel by Janet Fitch. Running time: 110
minutes. Rated PG-13 (for mature thematic elements concerning dysfunctional
relationships, drug content, language, sexuality and violence). Opening
today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

"White Oleander" tells a sad story of crime and foster homes, and makes it
look like the movie version. The film takes the materials of human tragedy
and dresses them in lovely costumes, Southern California locations and star
power. Almost makes it look like fun. The movie's poster shows four women's
faces side by side, all blindingly blond: Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer,
Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger. We suspect there could be another,
parallel story of the same events, in which the characters look unhinged and
desperate and brunet.

The story is determined to be colorful and melodramatic, like a soap opera
where the characters suffer in ways that look intriguing. When you are a
teenage girl and your mother is jailed for murder and you are shipped to a
series of foster homes, isn't it a little unlikely that each home would play
like an entertaining episode of a miniseries? First you get a sexy foster
mom who was "an alcoholic, a cokehead and dancing topless--and then I was
saved by Jesus," although she still dresses like an off-duty stripper. Then
you get an actress who lives in a sun-drenched beach house in Malibu and
becomes her best friend. Then you get a Russian capitalist who dresses like
a gypsy, uses her foster kids as dumpster-divers, and runs a stall at the
Venice Beach flea market. Aren't there any foster mothers who are old,
tired, a little mean and doing it for the money?

The performances are often touching and deserve a better screenplay. I don't
hold the beauty of the actresses against them, but I wish the movie had not
been so pleased with the way the sunlight comes streaming through their long
blond hair and falls on their flawless skin and little white summer dresses.

The movie is narrated by Astrid Magnussen, played by Lohman in several
different years and weathers of her life. It's an awesome performance but
would benefit from depth and darkness that the movie shies away from. (The
movie is all too appropriately rated PG-13; I suspect full justice cannot be
done to this material short of an R.) Astrid is the daughter of Ingrid
(Pfeiffer), an artist and free spirit who sits on the roof so the desert
winds can find her. "No one had ever seen anyone more beautiful than my
mother," Astrid tells us, but there are ominous hints that Ingrid is not an
ideal mother, as when she skips Parents Night because "what can they tell me
about you that I don't already know?"

Ingrid doesn't date. Doesn't need men. Then makes the mistake of letting
Barry (Billy Connolly) into her life (although so fleeting is his role he is
barely allowed into the movie). She kills him, observing to her daughter,
"He made love to me and then said I had to leave because he had a date."
When you hardly know someone and that's how he treats you, he's not worth
serving 35 years to life.

Astrid then moves on to the series of foster homes, each one so colorful it
could be like the adventure of a Dickens character; the Russian is
unmistakably a descendent of Fagin, and surely only in a Hollywood fantasy
could any of these women qualify as foster mothers. Starr, the former
stripper, seems less like a person than a caricature, although the director,
Peter Kosminsky, has a good eye for detail and shows how her family takes a
jaundiced view of her born-again grandstanding. What happens to bring this
foster experience to an end I will not reveal, except to say that I didn't
for a moment believe it; it involves behavior of a sort the movie seems
obligated to supply but never refers to again.

Astrid's best foster experience is with Claire (Zellweger), whose
performance is the most convincing in the movie. She plays a onetime horror
star, married to a director who is usually absent, and we believe the scenes
she has with Astrid because they come from need and honesty.

They also inspire the best scenes between Astrid and her mother; Pfeiffer
finds just the right note between jealousy and perception when, on visiting
day at the prison, she observes, "You dress like her now." Later she tells
her daughter, "I'd like to meet her." "Why?" "Because you don't want me to."
And later: "How can you stand to live with poor Claire? I would rather see
you in the worst kind of foster home than to live with that woman." The
scenes involving Claire most clearly inspire Astrid's developing ideas about
her mother.

The third foster experience, with Svetlana Efremova playing the Russian
jumble-sale woman, offers a glimpse of the economy's underbelly but is too
choppy and perfunctory to engage us: It feels like it was filmed to add
color and then chopped to reduce the running time. Its only influence on
Astrid is to change her wardrobe and hair color, in what feels more like a
stunt than a character development.

Pfeiffer's role is the most difficult in the movie because she has to
compress her revelations and emotions into the brief visits of her
increasingly dubious daughter. Astrid, who once idealized her mother, now
blames her for the loss of happiness with Claire. But even the movie's big
emotional payoff at the end loses something because, after all, Ingrid did
murder Barry, and so what is presented as a sacrifice on behalf of her
daughter could also be described as simply doing the right thing.

"White Oleander" is based on a novel by Janet Fitch, recommended by Oprah's
Book Club, unread by me. I gather it includes still more colorful foster
home episodes. Amy Aquino plays Miss Martinez, the social worker who drives
Astrid from one foster adventure to the next. She feels like this movie's
version of Michael Anthony, the man who introduced each episode of "The
Millionaire." You can imagine her on the TV series, shipping the heroine to
a different foster home every week.

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Subject: [MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:20 GMT

RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

October 4, 2002

Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Will Graham: Edward Norton
Francis Dolarhyde: Ralph Fiennes
Jack Crawford: Harvey Keitel
Reba McClane: Emily Watson
Molly Graham: Mary-Louise Parker
Freddy Lounds: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Ted
Tally. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
R (for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Red Dragon" opens with the pleasure of seeing Hannibal Lecter as he was
before leaving civilian life. The camera floats above a symphony orchestra
and down into the audience, and we spot Lecter almost at once, regarding
with displeasure an inferior musician. Interesting, how the director forces
our attention just as a magician forces a card: We notice Lecter because he
is located in a strong point of the screen, because his face is lighted to
make him pop out from the drabness on either side, and because he is looking
directly at the camera.

I felt, a confess, a certain pleasure to find him in the audience. Hannibal
Lecter is one of the most wicked villains in movie history, and one of the
most beloved. We forgive him his trespasses because (1) they are forced upon
him by his nature; (2) most of the time he is helplessly imprisoned, and
providing aid to the FBI, or seeming to, after his peculiar fashion, and (3)
he is droll and literate, dryly humorous, elegantly mannered. In these days
of movie characters who obediently recite the words the plot requires of
them, it's a pleasure to meet a man who can hold up his end of the
conversation.

The opening, with Hannibal still in civilian life, allows a tense early
scene in which the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) receives a late-night visitor,
FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham has been assisted by Lecter in
examining a series of crimes which, he has just realized, involved
cannibalism--and now, as he regards the doctor in the gloom of the shadowed
study, it occurs to him, just as it simultaneously occurs to Lecter, that it
is clear to both of them who this cannibal might be.

Flash forward several years. Lecter is in prison, Graham has taken early
retirement, but now his old FBI boss (Harvey Keitel) wants to recruit him to
solve a pair of serial killings, this time by a man dubbed the Tooth Fairy
because he leaves an unmistakable dental imprint at the scenes of his
crimes. Graham resists, but photos of the dead families and a poignant look
at his own living family do the trick, and he joins the case as a free-lance
adviser. This requires him to examine crime scenes by creeping through them
in pitch darkness in the middle of the night, although there is no reason he
could not visit at noon (except, of course, that he wants to share the
killer's point of view, and also because the film seeds the darkness with
potential danger).

The director is Brett Ratner, who has not achieved the distinction of the
three previous directors of Hannibal Lecter movies (Jonathan Demme on "The
Silence of the Lambs," Ridley Scott on "Hannibal," and Michael Mann on
"Manhunter," the first version of "Red Dragon," made in 1986). Ratner's
credits have included the "Rush Hour" pictures, "Family Man" and "Money
Talks," some with their merits, none suggesting he was qualified to be
Lecter's next director.

To my surprise, he does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of
Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy
(Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a
character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of
the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy
scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The screenplay by Ted
Tally, who wrote "Lambs," also supplies a blind girl in peril (Emily
Watson), and blind girls have worked dependably since the days of silent
pictures.

A movie like "Red Dragon" is all atmosphere and apprehension. Ratner doesn't
give us as much violence or as many sensational shocks as Scott did in
"Hannibal," but that's a plus: Lecter is a character who commands
contemplation and unease, and too much action just releases the tension. To
be sure, Scott was working with a Thomas Harris novel that itself went so
high over the top (remember the quadriplegic murdered with an electric eel?)
that much of it could not be filmed. But this movie, based on Harris' first
novel, has studied "Silence of the Lambs" and knows that the action comes
second to general creepiness. There are stabbings, shootings, fires,
explosions, tortures, mutilations, and a flaming corpse in a wheelchair, but
within reason.

As the "Tooth Fairy" figure, named Francis Dolarhyde, Ralph Fiennes comes as
close as possible to creating a sympathetic monster. What he does is
unspeakable. What has been done to him is unspeakable. Dolarhyde himself is
horrified by his potential, and the character of the blind girl is not
merely a cheap gimmick (although it is that, too), but a device that allows
him to ask just how far he is prepared to go. We are reminded of another
monster and another blind person, in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1932), and in
both cases the monster feels relief because the blind cannot see that he is
a monster. (In photos of a crime scene, ex-agent Graham notices that mirrors
have been broken and shards of the glass put in the eye sockets of
victims--perhaps because the Tooth Fairy cannot stand to look at himself,
but is driven to a frenzy when others can look at him.)

The movie has been photographed by Dante Spinotti, who also filmed Michael
Mann's more cool, stylized version, and here he provides darkness and
saturated colors. The Lecter world is one of dampness, lowering clouds,
early sunsets, chill in the bones. Lecter himself, when he appears, is like
a little fire we can warm before; he smiles benevolently, knows all, accepts
his nature, offers to help, and more often than not has another macabre
scheme under way. The early passages of this movie benefit from our
knowledge that Lecter will sooner or later appear; it's as if the plot is
tiptoeing toward a ledge.

The Lecter character, and the agents who deal with him, and the monsters who
take him as a role model, create an atmosphere that encourages style in the
filmmaking. It is much the same with the best upper-class crime novels.
There is violence, yes, but also a lot of carefully described atmosphere, as
we enter the attractive lives of the rich and vicious: Consider Nero Wolfe,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:22 GMT

8 WOMEN / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Beart
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Francois Ozon.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R
(for some sexual content). In French with English subtitles. Opening today
at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Here it is at last, the first Agatha Christie musical. Eight women are
isolated in a snowbound cottage, there is a corpse with a knife in his back,
all of the women are potential suspects, plus eight song and dance numbers.
The cast is a roll call of French legends. In alphabetical order: Fanny
Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle
Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard and Ludivine Sagnier.

From the opening shot, the film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of
overproduced Hollywood musicals. We pan past tree branches impossibly laden
with picturesque snow and find a charming cottage where guests are just
arriving. Eight women have gathered to celebrate Christmas with Marcel, who
is the husband of Gaby (Deneuve), the son-in-law of Mamy (Darrieux), the
brother-in-law of Aunt Augustine (Huppert), the father of Catherine
(Sagnier) and Suzon (Ledoyen), the employer of the domestic servants Madame
Chanel (Richard) and Louise (Beart), and the brother of the late-arriving
Pierrette (Ardant).

"Monsieur died in his bed with a knife in his back," the assembled company
is informed. And (significant detail required in all isolated rural murders)
"the dogs didn't bark all night." The women absorb this news while dressed
in stunning designer fashions (even the maids look chic) and deployed around
a large, sunny room that looks like nothing so much as a stage set--even to
the detail that all the furniture is behind the actresses most of the time.
Only a couple of brief excursions upstairs prevent the movie from taking
place entirely on this one bright set, where nothing looks used or lived
with.

The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song
begins, because "8 Women" is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or
anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast, and we
realize we've been waiting a long time for Catherine Deneuve to come right
out and say of Isabelle Huppert: "I'm beautiful and rich. She's ugly and
poor." I had also just about given up hope of ever seeing Deneuve and Fanny
Ardant rolling around on the floor pulling each other's hair.

In a cast where everybody has fun, Huppert has the most, as Augustine. She
and her mother (Darrieux) have been living rent-free in Marcel's cottage
with her sister (Deneuve), but that has not inspired Augustine to compromise
in her fierce resentment and spinsterish isolation. She stalks around the
set like Whistler's mother, frowning from behind her horn-rims and making
disapproval into a lifestyle.

The other characters quickly fall into approved Agatha Christie patterns.
Young Suzon appoints herself Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps in this case
Hercule Poirot, and begins sniffing out the clues. The sexy Louise is
established as the late Marcel's mistress. Madame Chanel, from French
Africa, has been with the family for years and lives out back in the guest
cottage, where, as it develops, she often plays cards with Pierrette. And
Pierrette herself, who arrives late with the kind of entrance that only the
tall, dark and forcible Ardant could pull off, has secrets which are as
amazing as they are inevitable.

I dare not reveal a shred of the plot. And the movie is all plot--that, and
stylish behavior, and barbed wit, and those musical numbers. Watching "8
Women," you have a silly grin half of the time. Astonishing, that Francois
Ozon, who directed this, also made "Under the Sand" (2001), that melancholy
record of a wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears, apparently
drowned, and who refuses to deal with the fact that he is dead.

Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to
have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux
and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It
also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now in the
50th year of its London run, with its cast still trapped with the corpse in
the isolated cottage. "Do not give away the secret!" the program notes
exhort. And here, too. Not that the secret is anything more than one more
twist of the plot's pepper mill.

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Subject: [MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:25 GMT

SECRETARY / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mr. Grey: James Spader
Lee Holloway: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Peter: Jeremy Davies
Joan Holloway: Lesley Ann Warren
Burt Holloway: Stephen McHattie
Dr. Twardon: Patrick Bauchau
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Steven Shainberg. Written by
Erin Cressida Wilson. Based on the story by Mary Gaitskill. Running time:
104 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of
behavioral disorders and language). Opening today at Evanston CineArts 6,
Esquire, Pipers Alley and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Secretary" approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy
tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.
Because S/M involves postures that are absorbing for the participants but
absurd to the onlooker, we tend to giggle at the wrong times. Here is a film
where we giggle at the right times. The director, Steven Shainberg, has
succeeded by focusing intently on his characters, making them quirky
individuals rather than figures of fun.

The movie, to begin with, is well cast. There may be better actors than
James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but for this material, I cannot think
who they are. About Spader there always seems to be some unarticulated
secret hovering, and Gyllenhaal avoids numerous opportunities to make her
character seem pathetic, and makes her seem plucky instead--intent on
establishing herself and making herself necessary.

Spader plays Mr. Grey, a lawyer whose office looks like the result of
intense conversations with an interior designer who has seen too many
Michael Douglas movies. Mr. Grey has such bad luck with secretaries that he
has an illuminated help-wanted sign out front he can light up, like the
"Vacancy" sign at a motel. Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, who has the
illness of self-mutilation and comes from a neurotic family. Released from
treatment, Lee takes typing classes, goes looking for work and has an
interview with Mr. Grey. Something unspoken passes between them and they
know they are thinking about the same thing.

Lee is submissive. Spader is dominant and obsessive (he has a fetish for
lining up red markers in his desk drawer). He demands perfection, she falls
short of the mark, he punishes her, and this becomes a workable
relationship. When he loses interest for a time and stops correcting her
mistakes, she grows disconsolate; when he sharply calls her back into her
office, she is delighted.

The movie does not argue that S/M is good for you, but has a more complex
dynamic. By absorbing so much of Mr. Grey's time and attention, Lee, who has
abysmal self-esteem, feels that attention is being paid to her. Mr. Grey
notices her. He thinks about her. He devises new games for them. He never
threatens serious hurt or harm, but instead tends toward role-playing and
ritual. What they discover is that, in the long run, S/M is more fun (and
less trouble) for the "M" than for the "S." "We can't go on like this 24
hours a day," Mr. Grey complains at one point. Lee doesn't see why not.

Jeremy Davies plays Peter, the other key role, sincere to the point of being
inarticulate, who for a time dates Lee. Mr. Grey looks on jealously as they
do their laundry together, and is faced with the possibility that he might
lose his agreeable secretary. That would be the final straw, since we sense
that Mr. Grey is in much worse shape than Lee was ever in. His
obsessive-compulsive behavior is driving him nuts, not to mention his
clients. Stories about S/M often have an ironic happy ending, but this one,
based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, seems sincere enough: They've
found a relationships that works. For them.

The movie's humor comes through the close observation of behavior. It allows
us to understand what has happened without specifying it. The lawyer and
secretary have subtle little signals by which they step out of their roles
and sort of wink, so they both know that they both know what they're doing.
Their behavior, which is intended to signify hostility, eventually grows
into a deeper recognition of each other's natures and needs. That of course
leads to affection, which can be tricky, but not for them, because both
suspect there is no one else they're ever likely to meet who will understand
them quite so completely.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] APOLLO 13: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE / **** (PG)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:30 GMT

APOLLO 13: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE / **** (PG)

September 20, 2002

Jim Lovell: Tom Hanks
Fred Haise: Bill Paxton
Jack Swigert: Kevin Bacon
Ken Mattingly: Gary Sinise
Gene Kranz: Ed Harris
Marilyn Lovell: Kathleen Quinlin
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Ron Howard. Written by
William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert. Based on the book Lost Moon by Jim
Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG.(intense
situations). Opening today at Navy Pier IMAX.

BY ROGER EBERT

At a time when screens and theaters grow smaller and movie palaces are a
thing of the past, the new practice of re-releasing films in the IMAX format
is a thrilling step in the opposite direction. Ron Howard's "Apollo 13,"
which opens today at the IMAX theater at Navy Pier, looks bold and crisp on
the big screen, and the sound has never sounded better--perhaps couldn't
have ever sounded better, because IMAX uses some 70 speakers.

Although it takes place largely in outer space, "Apollo 13" isn't the kind
of adventure saga that needs the bigger screen so its effects play better.
"Star Wars," which is headed for IMAX theaters, fits that definition.
"Apollo 13" is a thrilling drama that plays mostly within enclosed spaces:
The space capsule, mission control and the homes of those waiting in
suspense on Earth.

The film re-creates the saga of the Apollo 13 mission, which was aborted
after an onboard explosion crippled the craft on its way to the moon. In a
desperate exercise of improvisation, crew members and the ground support
staff figure out how to return the craft safely to Earth, cannibalize
life-support from both the mother capsule and the lunar landing module, and
navigate into a terrifyingly narrow angle between too steep (the craft would
burn up in the atmosphere) and too shallow (it would skip off and fly
forever into space).

Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon play astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred
Haise and Jack Swigert, respectively. On Earth, the key roles are by Gary
Sinise, as the left-behind astronaut Ken Mattingly, who uses a flight
simulator to help improvise a solution; Ed Harris, who is cool-headed flight
director Gene Kranz, and Kathleen Quinlan, as Lovell's wife, Marilyn, who
tries to explain to their children that "something broke on Daddy's
spaceship."

The movie has been trimmed by about 20 minutes for the IMAX release. Filmed
in widescreen, it has been cropped from the sides to fit the IMAX format.
Neither change bothered me. Although I am an opponent of pan-and-scan in
general, I understand when it is used to maximize a different projection
format. The detail and impact of the IMAX screen essentially creates a new
way of looking at the film.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:19 GMT

INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)

October 4, 2002

Hanussen: Tim Roth
Zishe: Jouko Ahola
Marta Farra: Anna Gourari
Master of Ceremonies: Max     Raabe
Benjamin: Jacob Wein
Landwehr: Gustav Peter     Wohler
Fine Line Features presents a film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content and thematic
elements). Opening today at Water Tower.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

Werner Herzog's "Invincible" tells the astonishing story of a Jewish
strongman in Nazi Germany, a man who in his simple goodness believes he can
be the "new Samson" and protect his people. He is a blacksmith in Poland in
1932 when discovered by a talent scout, and soon becomes the headliner in
the Palace of the Occult, in Berlin, which is run by the sinister Hanussen
(Tim Roth), a man who dreams of becoming Minister of the Occult in a Nazi
government.

The strongman, named Zishe Breitbart, is played by a Finnish athlete named
Jouko Ahola, twice winner of the title World's Strongest Man. Much of the
movie's uncanny appeal comes from the contrast between Ahola's performance,
which is entirely without guile, and Roth's performance, which drips with
mannered malevolence. Standing between them is the young woman Marta (Anna
Gourari), who is under Hanussen's psychological power, and who the strongman
loves.

"Invincible" is based, Herzog says, on the true story of Breitbart, whose
great strength contradicted the Nazi myth of Aryan superiority. I can
imagine a dozen ways in which this story could be told badly, but Herzog has
fashioned it into a film of uncommon fascination, in which we often have no
idea at all what could possibly happen next. There are countless movies
about preludes to the Holocaust, but I can't think of one this innocent,
direct and unblinking. In the face of gathering evil, Zishe trusts in human
nature, is proud of his heritage, and believes strength and goodness (which
he confuses) will triumph.

The movie has the power of a great silent film, unafraid of grand gestures
and moral absolutes. Its casting of the major characters is crucial, and
instinctively correct. Tim Roth is a sinister charlatan, posing as a man
with real psychic powers, using trickery and showmanship as he jockeys for
position within the emerging Nazi majority. There is a scene where he
hypnotizes Marta, and as he stares boldly into the camera I wondered, for a
moment, if it was possible to hypnotize a movie audience that way. Late in
the film there is a scene where his secrets are revealed, and he makes a
speech of chilling, absolute cynicism. Another actor in another movie might
have simply gnashed his teeth, but Roth and Herzog take the revelations as
an opportunity to show us the self-hatred beneath the deception.

As for Jouko Ahola, this untrained actor, who seems by nature to be
good-hearted and uncomplicated, may never act again, but he has found the
one perfect role, as Maria Falconetti did in "The Passion of Joan of Arc."
He embodies the simple strongman. The camera can look as closely as it wants
and never find anything false. A naive man from a backward town, not
especially devout, he gets into a fight when Polish customers in a
restaurant insult him and his little brother as Jews. A little later,
entering a circus contest, he watches as the strongman lifts a boulder--and
then puts an end to the contest by, lifting the strongman and the boulder.

The talent scout takes him to see his first movie. Soon he is in Berlin,
where Hanussen sizes him up and says, "We will Aryanize you. A Jew should
never be as strong as you." Zishe is outfitted with a blond wig and Nordic
helmet, and presented as "Siegfried." He becomes a great favor of Nazi
brownshirts in the audience, as Hanussen prattles about "the strength of the
body against the dark powers of the occult." But Zishe's mind works away at
the situation until finally he has his solution, tears off the helmet and
wig, and identities himself as a Jew.

Here as throughout the film Herzog avoids the obvious next scene. Is
Hanussen outraged? To a degree. But then he reports: "There's a line three
blocks long outside! It's the Jews. They all want to see the new Samson."
And then, at a time when Hitler was on the rise but the full measure of
Jewish persecution was not yet in view, the Palace of the Occult turns into
a dangerous pit where audience members are potentially at one another's
throats.

This is the first feature in 10 years from Herzog, one of the great
visionaries among directors. He strains to break the bonds of film structure
in order to surprise us in unexpected ways. His best films unashamedly yearn
to lift us into the mythical and the mystical. "Our civilization is starving
for new images," he once told me, and in "Invincible" there is an image of a
bleak, rocky seashore where the sharp stones are littered with thousands or
millions of bright red crabs, all mindlessly scrabbling away on their crabby
missions. I think this scene may represent the emerging Nazi hordes, but of
course there can be no literal translation. Perhaps Herzog wants to
illustrate the implacable Darwinian struggle from which man can rise with
good heart and purpose.

The strongman in "Invincible" is lovable, and so deeply moving, precisely
because he is not a cog in a plot, has no plan, is involved in no
machinations, but is simply proud of his parents, proud to be a Jew, in love
with the girl, and convinced that God has made him strong for a reason. He
may be wrong in his optimism, but his greatest strength is that he will
never understand that. The Roth character is equally single-minded, but
without hope or purpose--a conniver and manipulator.

Watching "Invincible" was a singular experience for me, because it reminded
me of the fundamental power that the cinema had for us when we were
children. The film exercises the power that fable has for the believing.
Herzog has gotten outside the constraints and conventions of ordinary
narrative, and addresses us where our credulity keeps its secrets.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:26 GMT

SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Melanie: Reese Witherspoon
Jake: Josh Lucas
Andrew: Patrick Dempsey
Earl: Fred Ward
Pearl: Mary Kay Place
Stella Kay: Jean Smart
Kate: Candice Bergen
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Andy Tennant. Written by C.
Jay Cox. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language and
sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion
that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses
this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy,
while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach
pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all
know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming,
recycling of this ancient myth.

The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again
since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the
mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie
where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just
doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.

Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars
as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and
while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with
Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen)
is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he
has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of
unfinished business.

Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already
married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped
plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys
and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the
decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart,
but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser,
she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her
back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.

When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her
high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her
parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging
around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and
sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is
right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to
"go back to your double-wide and fry something."

The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the
screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he
divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so
that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later
he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and
his coon dog still likes her.

The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total
jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding,
as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York,
a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.

So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C.
Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's
theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We
know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights,
big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds
are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the
mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be
unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.")

But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and
her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to
become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I
ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of
a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower?

The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why
"Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy
tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day
would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in
"Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local
color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for
the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to
New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:29 GMT

WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)

September 27, 2002

Yosuke Sasano: Koji Yakusho
Saeko Aizawa: Misa Shimizu
Mitsu Aizawa: Mitsuko Baisho
Gen: Manasaku Fuwa
Taro: Kazuo Kitamura
Cowboy Pictures presents a film directed by Shohei Imamura. Written by
Motofumi Tomikawa, Daisuke Tengan and Imamura. Based on a book by Yo Henmi.
Running time: 119 minutes. No MPAA rating (intended for mature audiences).
In Japanese with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" has modern automobiles and supermarkets,
telephones and pepper cheese imported from Europe, but it resonates like an
ancient Japanese myth. Imagine a traveler in search of treasure, who finds a
woman with special needs that only he can fulfill, and who repays him by
ending his misery.

Shohei Imamura, one of the greatest Japanese directors, tells this story
with the energy and delight of a fairy tale, but we in the West are not
likely to see it so naively, because unlike the Japanese, we are touchy on
the subject of bodily fluids. In Japan, natural functions are accepted
calmly as a part of life, and there is a celebrated children's book about
farts. No doubt a Japanese audience would view "Warm Water" entirely
differently than a North American one--because, you see, the heroine has a
condition that causes water to build up in her body, and it can be released
only by sexual intercourse.

Water arrives in puddles and rivulets, in sprays and splashes. "Don't
worry," Saeko (Misa Shimizu) cheerfully tells Yosuke, the hero. "It's not
urine." It is instead--well, what? The water of life? Of growth and renewal?
Is she a water goddess? When it runs down the steps of her house and into
the river, fish grow large and numerous. And it seems to have a similar
effect on Yosuke (Koji Yakusho, from "Shall We Dance?" and "The Eel"). From
a pallid, hopeless wanderer in the early scenes, he grows into a bold lover
and a brave ocean fisherman.

As the film opens, Yosuke is broke and jobless, fielding incessant cell
phone calls from his nagging wife, who wants an update on his job searches.
In despair, he hunkers down next to the river with an old philosopher named
Taro (Kazuo Kitamura), who tells him a story. Long ago, he says, right after
the war, he was stealing to get the money to eat, and he took a gold Buddha
from a temple. He left it in an upstairs room of a house next to a red
bridge, where he assumes it remains to this day.

Yosuke takes a train to the town named by the old man, finds the bridge,
finds the house, and follows Saeko from it into a supermarket where he sees
her shoplift some cheese while standing in a puddle. From the puddle he
retrieves her earring (a dolphin, of course) and returns it to her, and she
asks if he'd like some cheese and then forthrightly tells him, "You saw me
steal the cheese. Then you saw the puddle of water."

All true. She explains her problem. The water builds up and must be
"vented," often by doing "something wicked" like shoplifting. It is, she
adds, building up right now--and soon they are having intercourse to the
delight of the fish in the river below.

This story is unthinkable in a Hollywood movie, but there is something about
the matter-of-fact way Saeko explains her problem, and the surprised but not
stunned way that Yosuke hears her, that takes the edge off. If women are a
source of life, and if water is where life began, then--well, whatever. It
is important to note that the sex in the movie is not erotic or titillating
in any way--it's more like a therapeutic process--and that the movie is not
sex-minded but more delighted with the novelty of Saeko's problem. Only in a
nation where bodily functions are discussed in a matter-of-fact way, where
nude public bathing is no big deal, where shame about human plumbing has not
been ritualized, could this movie play in the way Imamura intended. But
seeing it as a Westerner is an enlightening, even liberating, experience.

Imamura, now 76, is also the director of the masterpieces "The Insect Woman"
(1963), about a woman whose only priority is her own comfort and survival;
"Ballad of Narayama" (1982), the heartbreaking story of a village where the
old are left on the side of a mountain to die, and "Black Rain" (1989), not
the Michael Douglas thriller, but a harrowing human story about the days and
months after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

At his age, he seems freed from convention, and in "Warm Water," for
example, he cuts loose from this world to include a dream in which Saeko
floats like a embryo in a cosmic cloud. There is also an effortless fusion
of old and new. The notion of a man leaving his nagging wife and home and
finding succor from a goddess is from ancient myth, and the fact that he
would then turn to wrest his living from the sea is not unheard of. But
throwing his cell phone overboard, now that's a modern touch.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:28 GMT

THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Jimmy Tong: Jackie Chan
Del Blaine: Jennifer Love     Hewitt
Clark Devlin: Jason Isaacs
Banning: Ritchie Coster
Steena: Debi Mazar
DreamWorks Pictures presents a film directed by Kevin Donovan. Written by
Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13
(for action violence, sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is an ancient tradition in action movies that the first scene is a
self-contained shocker with no relevance to the rest of the plot. James Bond
parachutes from a mountainside, Clint Eastwood disarms a robber, etc. Jackie
Chan's "The Tuxedo" opens with a deer urinating in a mountain stream. The
deer, the urine and the stream have nothing to do with the rest of the film.

The movie's plot does involve water. The bad guy wants to add an ingredient
to the world's water supply that will cause victims to dehydrate and die. To
save themselves, they will have to buy the villain's pure water. Since his
opening gambit is to sabotage, I repeat, the world's water supply, he will
dehydrate everyone except those already drinking only bottled water, and so
will inherit a planet of health nuts, which is just as well, since all the
fish and animals and birds will dehydrate, too, and everyone will have to
live on PowerBars.

I have been waiting for a dehydrating villain for some time. My wife is of
the opinion that I do not drink enough water. She believes the proper amount
is a minimum of eight glasses a day. She often regards me balefully and
says, "You're not getting enough water." In hot climates her concern
escalates. In Hawaii last summer she had the grandchildren so worked up they
ran into the bedroom every morning to see if Grandpa Roger had turned to
dust.

The movie's villain, whose name is Banning (Ritchie Coster), has a novel
scheme for distributing the formula, or virus, or secret ingredient, or
whatever it is, that will make water into a dehydrating agent. He plans to
use water striders, those insects that can skate across the surface of a
pond. In his secret laboratory he keeps his ultimate weapon, a powerful
water strider queen.

Do water striders have queens, like bees and ants do? For an authoritative
answer I turned to Dr. May Berenbaum, head of the Department of Entomology
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and founder of the Insect
Fear Film Festival, held every year at the Great University.

She writes: "Water striders are true bugs (i.e., insects with
piercing/sucking mouthparts) that run or skate on the surface of bodies of
water, feeding on the insects that fall onto the water surface. There are
about 500 species of gerrids in the world and, as far as I know, not a
single one of those 500 species is eusocial (i.e., has a complex social
structure with reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care). I
don't even know of an example of maternal care in the whole group. In short,
the answer to your question is an emphatic 'no!' I can't wait to see this
film. It definitely sounds like a candidate for a future Insect Fear Film
Festival!"

More crushing evidence: Dr. Bruce P. Smith, expert entomologist at Ithaca
College, writes me, "There is no known species of water striders that has
queens. The most closely related insects that do are some colonial aphid
speciies, and the most familiar (and much more distant rleatives) are the
ants, bees, wasps and termites." He adds helpfully, "One mammal does have
queens: the naked mole rats of Africa." Revealing himself as a student of
insect films, he continues, "If my memory is correct, 'Arachnophobia' has a
king spider, but no queen--totally absurd!"

So there you have it. Professors Smith and Berenbaum have spoken. The evil
Banning has spent untold millions on his secret plans for world domination,
and thinks he possesses a water strider queen when he only has a lucky
regular water strider living the life of Riley.

But back to "The Tuxedo." Jackie Chan plays a taxi driver named Jimmy Tong,
who is hired by Debi Mazar to be the chauffeur for Clark Devlin (Jason
Isaacs), a multimillionaire secret agent whose $2 million tuxedo turns him
into a fighting machine (also a dancer, kung-fu expert, etc). After Devlin
is injured by a skateboard bomb, Jackie puts on the suit and soon partners
with agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who realizes he has a strange
accent for a man named Clark Devlin, but nevertheless joins him in battle
against Banning.

The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it
would still be beyond comprehension. It does have its moments, as when the
tuxedo inadvertently cold-cocks James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, and
Jackie Chan has to go onstage in place of the Hardest Working Man in Show
Business. He's very funny as James Brown, although not as funny as James
Brown is.

There's something engaging about Jackie Chan. Even in a bad movie, I like
him, because what you see is so obviously what you get. This time he goes
light on the stunts, at least the stunts he obviously does himself, so that
during the closing credits, there are lots of flubbed lines and times when
the actors break out laughing, but none of those spellbinding shots in which
he misses the bridge, falls off the scaffold, etc. And some of the shots are
computer-generated, which is kind of cheating isn't it, with Jackie Chan?
Luckily, special effects are not frowned upon at the Insect Fear Film
Festival.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] IGBY GOES DOWN / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:33 GMT

IGBY GOES DOWN / ***1/2 (R)

September 20, 2002

Jason 'Igby' Slocumb Jr.: Kieran Culkin
Mimi Slocumb: Susan Sarandon
Oliver Slocumb: Ryan Phillippe
Jason Slocumb: Bill Pullman
D.H. Baines: Jeff Goldblum
Sookie Sapperstein: Claire Danes
Rachel: Amanda Peet
MGM presents a film written and directed by Burr Steers. Running time: 97
minutes. Rated R (for language, sexuality and drug content). Opening today
at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

Holden Caulfield formed the mold and Jason "Igby" Slocumb Jr. fits it
perfectly, in "Igby Goes Down," an inspired example of the story in which
the adolescent hero discovers that the world sucks, people are phonies, and
sex is a consolation. Because the genre is well established, what makes the
movie fresh is smart writing, skewed characters, and the title performance
by Kieran Culkin, who captures just the right note as an advantaged rich boy
who has been raised in discontent.

Igby is the child of a malevolently malfunctioning family. His mother, Mimi
(Susan Sarandon), is a tart, critical, perfectionist mandarin ("I call her
Mimi because Heinous One is a bit cumbersome"). His father, Jason (Bill
Pullman), went through meltdown and is in a mental hospital, staring into
space. His stepfather, D. H. Baines (Jeff Goldblum), is a slick operator who
converts both lofts and the young girls he installs in them. His brother,
Oliver (Ryan Phillippe), is a supercilious Columbia student who regards Igby
as a species of bug. Igby, like Citizen Kane before him, has been thrown out
of all the best schools, and early in the movie he escapes from a military
school and hides out in New York City.

Of course, a boy with his advantages is fortunate even in hideouts. He has
an understanding meeting with his stepfather, finds shelter in one of his
lofts, and soon is on very good terms with Rachel (Amanda Peet), his
father's mistress, who is an artist in every respect, except producing
anything that can be considered art. Through Rachel he meets Sookie
Sapperstein (Claire Danes), a Bennington student who likes him because he
makes her laugh. Among the lessons every young man should learn is this one:
All women who like you because you make them laugh sooner or later stop
laughing, and then why do they like you?

The movie has a fairly convoluted plot, involving who is sleeping with whom,
and why, and who finds out about it, and what happens then. There is also
the problem of the older brother, who does not make women laugh, which may
be his strong point. The Goldblum character is especially intriguing, as a
charmer with unlimited personal style and a hidden vicious streak.

Movies like this depend above all on the texture of the performances, and it
is easy to imagine "Igby Goes Down" as a sitcom in which the characters
don't quite seem to understand the witty things they're saying. All of the
actors here have flair and presence, and get the joke, and because they all
affect a kind of neo-Wildean irony toward everything, they belong in the
same world. It is refreshing to hear Igby refer to his "Razor's Edge
experience" without the movie feeling it is necessary to have him explain
what he is talking about.

The Culkins are approaching brand-name status, but the thing is, the kids
can act. Kieran emerges here as an accomplished, secure comic actor with
poise and timing, and there is still another younger brother, Rory, who
appears as a younger Igby. Kieran's role is not an easy one. He is not
simply a rebellious, misfit teenager with a con man's verbal skills, but
also a wounded survivor of a family that has left him emotionally scarred.
One of the movie's touching scenes has him visiting his father in the mental
hospital, where his father's total incomprehension suggests a scary message:
I don't understand my family or anything else, and I've given up thinking
about it.

Sarandon, as Mimi the Heinous One, treats her boys as if they're straight
men in the ongoing sitcom of her life. That there are tragic secrets
involved, which I will not reveal, makes her all the more frightening: Is
nothing entirely sincere with this woman? Goldblum's sense of possession is
the scariest thing about him, since Igby finds out it's bad to be considered
his property and worse not to be. And Phillippe is pitch-perfect as the
affected college student, whose elevated style and mannered speech seem
designed to hide the same wounds that Igby bears.

There is a lot of sex in the movie, but it is sane sex, which is to say sex
performed by people who seem to have heard of sex and even experienced it
before the present moment. Sex is seen here as part of the process of life,
rather than as the subject of a heightened scene of cinematic
mountain-climbing. Everyone except Igby is fairly casual about it, which is
kind of sad, and among the things Igby has been deprived of in life, one is
an early romance with a sincere girl of about the same age who takes him
seriously. Perhaps the sad inherited family trait among the Slocumbs is
premature sophistication.

The movie was written and directed by Burr Steers (who acted in "Pulp
Fiction" and "The Last Days of Disco," among others). It is an astonishing
filmmaking debut, balancing so many different notes and story elements. What
Steers has not lost sight of, in all the emotional chaos, is heart. The film
opens and closes on different kinds of pain, and by the end Igby has
discovered truths that Holden Caulfield, we feel, could not have handled.

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Subject: [MV] BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER / 1/2* (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:31 GMT

BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER / 1/2* (R)

September 20, 2002

Jeremiah Ecks: Antonio     Banderas
Sever: Lucy Liu
Gant/Clark: Gregg Henry
Vinn/Rayne: Talisa Soto
Zane: Roger R. Cross
Ross: Ray Park
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Kaos. Written by Alan
McElroy. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is nothing wrong with the title "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" that
renaming it "Ballistic" would not have solved. Strange that they would
choose such an ungainly title when, in fact, the movie is not about Ecks
versus Sever but about Ecks and Sever working together against a common
enemy--although Ecks, Sever and the audience take a long time to figure that
out.

The movie is a chaotic mess, overloaded with special effects and explosions,
light on continuity, sanity and coherence. So short is its memory span that
although Sever kills, I dunno, maybe 40 Vancouver police officers in an
opening battle, by the end, when someone says, "She's a killer," Ecks
replies, "She's a mother."

The movie stars Lucy Liu as Sever, a former agent for the Defense
Intelligence Agency, which according to www.dia.mil/ is a branch of the
United States Government. Antonio Banderas is Ecks, a former ace FBI agent
who is coaxed back into service. Sever has lost her child in an attack and
Ecks believes he has lost his wife, so they have something in common, you
see, even though ...

But I'll not reveal that plot secret, and will discuss the curious fact that
both of these U.S. agencies wage what amounts to warfare in Vancouver, which
is actually in a nation named Canada, which has agencies and bureaus of its
own and takes a dim view of machineguns, rocket launchers, plastic
explosives and the other weapons the American agents and their enemies use
to litter the streets of the city with the dead.

Both Sever and Ecks, once they discover this, have the same enemy in common:
Gant (Gregg Henry), a DIA agent who is married to Talisa Sota and raising
her child, although Sever kidnaps the child, who is in fact ... but never
mind, I want to discuss Gant's secret weapon. He has obtained a miniaturized
robot so small it can float in the bloodstream and cause strokes and heart
attacks.

At one point in the movie, a man who will remain nameless is injected with
one of these devices by a dart gun, and it kills him. All very well, but
consider for a moment the problem of cost overruns in these times of
economic uncertainty. A miniaturized assassination robot small enough to
slip through the bloodstream would cost how much? Millions? And it is
delivered by dart? How's this for an idea: use a poison dart, and spend the
surplus on school lunches.

"Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" is an ungainly mess, submerged in mayhem,
occasionally surfacing for cliches. When the FBI goes looking for Ecks, for
example, they find him sitting morosely on a bar stool, drinking and
smoking. That is of course always where sad former agents are found, but the
strange thing is, after years of drinking, he is still in great shape, has
all his karate moves, and goes directly into violent action without even a
tiny tremor of the DTs.

The movie ends in a stock movie location I thought had been retired: A Steam
and Flame Factory, where the combatants stalk each other on catwalks and
from behind steel pillars, while the otherwise deserted factory supplies
vast quantities of flame and steam.

Vancouver itself, for that matter, is mostly deserted, and no wonder, if
word has gotten around that two U.S. agencies and a freelance killer are
holding war games. "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever" was directed by Wych
Kaosayananda of Thailand, whose pseudonym, you may not be surprised to
learn, is Kaos.

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Subject: [MV] THE FOUR FEATHERS / ** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:38 GMT

THE FOUR FEATHERS / ** (PG-13)

September 20, 2002

Harry Faversham: Heath Ledger
Lt. Jack Durrance: Wes Bentley
Ethne Eustace: Kate Hudson
Abou Fatma: Djimon Hounsou
Trench: Michael Sheen
Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Shekhar Kapur. Written by
Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini. Based on the novel by A.E.W. Mason.
Running time: 127 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense battle sequences,
disturbing images, violence and some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

Looking ahead to the Toronto Film Festival, I foolishly wrote that I was
looking forward to Shekhar Kapur's "The Four Feathers" because I was
"intrigued by the notion that a story of British colonialism has now been
retold by an Indian director. We await the revisionist 'Gunga Din.' "
Foolish, because the film is not revisionist at all, but a skilled update of
the same imperialist swashbuckler that's been made into six earlier films
and a TV movie (the classic is the 1939 version, with Ralph Richardson and
C. Aubrey Smith). I do not require Kapur to be a revisionist
anti-imperialist; it's just that I don't expect a director born in India to
be quite so fond of the British Empire. To be sure, his previous film was
the wonderful "Elizabeth" (1998), about Elizabeth I, so perhaps he's an
Anglophile. So am I. It's permitted.

"The Four Feathers" tells the story of Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger), a
young British soldier, circa 1875, whose father is a general and who finds
himself in the army without having much say in the matter. He is engaged to
the comely Ethne Eustace (Kate Hudson), and when his regiment is ordered to
the Sudan he cannot bear to part from her and resigns his commission. He
acts primarily out of love, but of course his comrades consider the timing,
conclude he is a coward and send him three white feathers--the sign of
cowardice. A fourth is added by the patriotic Ethne.

Disowned by his father, renounced by his fiancee, disgraced in society,
Harry must regain his good name. He ships out to the Sudan on his own,
disguises himself as an Arab, and lives anyhow in the desert, shadowing his
former regiment and doing undercover work on their behalf. He is much helped
by the noble Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou, from "Amistad"), a desert prince
who selflessly devotes himself to helping and protecting the Englishman, for
reasons I could never quite understand.

The picture is handsomely mounted (the cinematographer is the Oscar winner
Robert Richardson). Red British uniforms contrast with the sand of the
desert, and Oriental details make many frames look like a painting by David
Roberts. Epic battle scenes, including one where the British form a square
and gun down waves of horsemen, are well-staged and thrilling. And Harry is
a dashing hero, if we can distract ourselves from the complete impossibility
of his actions; any man naive enough to think he could resign his commission
on the eve of battle and not be considered a coward is certainly foolish
enough to become a free-lance desert commando--a dry run for T.E. Lawrence.

A newly restored print of "Lawrence of Arabia," as it happens, is opening on
the same day as "The Four Feathers" in many cities, and this is bad luck for
the new picture. If you want to see drama in the desert, you're best off
with the real thing. The problem with "The Four Feathers" is that the
characters are so feckless, the coincidences so blatant and the movie so
innocent of any doubts about the White Man's Burden that Kipling could have
written it--although if he had, there would have been deeper psychology and
better roles for the locals.

Wes Bentley, from "American Beauty," co-stars as Harry's best friend, Lt.
Jack Durrance. He and Hudson are Americans; Ledger is Australian; obviously,
no British actors existed who could fill these roles. Non-British actors are
often skilled at British accents, but the younger ones usually don't have
the right moves or body language. There is an American/Australian manner of
informality, casual demeanor, even slouching, that a certain kind of British
actor can never be caught committing; British society, it is said, is a
stage on which everyone is always playing a role, but Ledger, Hudson and
Bentley seem to be playing dress-up.

I also have problems with the faithful Abou Fatma. Why do the dark-skinned
natives always get to be the best buddy, never the hero? Why would a callow,
badly trained, unequipped English boy be able to walk into the desert and
command the services of a skilled desert warrior as his sidekick? What's in
it for Abou? Movies like this are big on those solemn exchanges of
significant looks during which deep truths remain unspoken, primarily
because there is no way on earth they can be spoken without the cast and
audience joining in uncontrolled laughter.

But I must not dismiss the qualities of the movie. It looks good, it moves
quickly and it is often a jolly good time. As mindless swashbuckling in a
well-designed production, it can't be faulted. The less you know about the
British Empire and human nature, the more you will like it, but then that
can be said of so many movies.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:23 GMT

MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Joe Nast Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Floss: Dustin Hoffman
JoJo Floss: Susan Sarandon
Mona Camp: Holly Hunter
Bertie Knox: Ellen Pompeo
Mike Mulcahey: Dabney Coleman
Stan Michaels: Allan Corduner
Ty: Richard T. Jones
Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present a film written and
directed by Brad Silberling. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
some sensuality and brief strong language). Opening today at Pipers Alley,
Northbrook Court and Yorktown.

BY ROGER EBERT

After the funeral is over and the mourners have come back to the house for
coffee and cake and have all gone home, the parents and the boyfriend of
Diana, the dead girl, sit by themselves. Her mother criticizes how one
friend expressed her sympathy. And the father asks, what could she say? "Put
yourself in their shoes."

That little scene provides a key to Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile." What
do you say when someone dies--someone you cared for? What are the right
words? And what's the right thing to do? Death is the ultimate rebuke to
good manners. The movie, which makes an unusually intense effort to deal
with the process of grief and renewal, is inspired by a loss in Silberling's
own life. The TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, his girlfriend at the time, was
killed in 1989 by a fan. Silberling has grown very close to her parents in
the years since then, he told me, and more than a decade later he has tried
to use the experience as the starting point for a film.

"Moonlight Mile," which takes place in 1973, opens in an elliptical way. At
first only quiet clues in the dialogue allow us to understand that someone
has died. We meet Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), the fiance of the dead girl,
and her parents Ben and JoJo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). They
talk not in a sentimental way, but in that strange, detached tone we use
when grief is too painful to express and yet something must be said.

After the funeral and the home visitation, the film follows what in a lesser
film would be called the "healing process." "Moonlight Mile" is too quirky
and observant to be described in psychobabble. Joe stays stuck in the Floss
house, living in an upstairs bedroom, his plans on hold. Ben, who has lost a
daughter, now in a confused way hopes to gain a son, and encourages Joe to
join him in his business as a real estate developer. JoJo, protected by
intelligence and wit, looks closely and suspects a secret Joe is keeping,
which leaves him stranded between the past and future.

Gyllenhaal, who in person is a jokester, in the movies almost always plays
characters who are withdrawn and morose. Remember him in "Donnie Darko,"
"The Good Girl" and "Lovely & Amazing." Here, too, he is a young man
with troubled thoughts. At the post office, and again at a bar where she has
a night job, he meets Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo), who sees inside when
others only look at the surface. They begin to talk. She has a loss, too:
Her boyfriend has been missing in action in Vietnam for three years. While
it is possible that they will mend each other's hearts by falling in love,
the movie doesn't simple-mindedly pursue that plot path, but meanders among
the thoughts of the living.

Silberling's screenplay pays full attention to all of the characters. Ben
and JoJo are not simply a backdrop to a romance involving Joe and Bertie.
The movie provides key scenes for all of the characters, in conversation and
in monologue, so that it is not only about Joe's grieving process but about
all four, who have lost different things in different ways.

Anyone regarding the Hoffman character will note that his name is Benjamin
and remember Hoffman's most famous character, in "The Graduate." But Joe is
the Benjamin of this film, and Hoffman's older man has more in common with
another of his famous roles: Willy Loman, the hero of "Death of a Salesman."
Ben occupies a low-rent storefront office on Main Street in Cape Anne,
Mass., but dreams of putting together a group of properties and bringing in
a superstore like Kmart. This will be his big killing, the deal that caps
his career, even though we can see in the eyes of the local rich man (Dabney
Coleman) that Ben is too small to land this fish. Ben's desire to share his
dream with his surrogate son, Joe, also has echoes from the Arthur Miller
tragedy.

Sarandon's JoJo is tart, with a verbal wit to protect her and a jaundiced
view of her husband's prospects. The deepest conversation JoJo has with Joe
("Isn't it funny, that we have the same name?") is about as well done as
such a scene can be. She intuits that Joe is dealing not only with the loss
of Diana's life but with the loss of something else.

Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot
be written, only felt. She knows she is attractive to Joe. She knows she
likes him. She knows she is faithful to her old boyfriend. She is frightened
by her own power to attract, especially since she wants to attract even
while she tells herself she doesn't. She is so vulnerable in this movie, so
sweet as she senses Joe's pain and wants to help him.

Holly Hunter is the fifth major player, as the lawyer who is handling the
case against Diana's killer. She embodies the wisdom of the law, which
knows, as laymen do not, that it moves with its own logic regardless of the
feelings of those in the courtroom. She offers practical advice, and then
you can see in her eyes that she wishes she could offer emotional advice
instead.

"Moonlight Mile" gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things. It
is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders
to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
Everyone who has grieved for a loved one will recognize the moment, some
days after the death, when an irreverent remark will release the surprise of
laughter. Sometimes we laugh, that we may not cry. Not many movies know that
truth. "Moonlight Mile" is based on it.

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Subject: [MV] BARBERSHOP / *** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:40 GMT

BARBERSHOP / *** (PG-13)

September 13, 2002

Calvin: Ice Cube
Eddie: Cedric the Entertainer
Dinka: Leonard Earl Howze
Isaac: Troy Garity
Terri: Eve
Jimmy: Sean Patrick Thomas
MGM Pictures presents a film directed by Tim Story. Written by Mark Brown,
Don D. Scott and Marshall Todd. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
language, sexual content and brief drug references).

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

I've become embroiled in a controversy recently about whether women engage
in audible and detailed discussions of their sexual activities while sitting
in beauty salons. Doesn't happen, say some of my correspondents, while a
woman from Texas says it happens there all the time--although being from
Michigan, she naturally doesn't join in. I got started on this subject while
reviewing a movie named "Never Again," where there's a scene of sex talk in
a salon that's enough to make your hair curl.

My hunch is that most women don't talk that way in most salons. Do I know?
No, because I've never been in a beauty salon. But now comes "Barbershop" to
argue the question from the male side. The movie takes place during one long
day in a barbershop on Chicago's South Side, where seven barbers (six men,
one woman; six blacks, one white) man the chairs. Judging by this film, the
conversation ranges far beyond sex, but is not above spirited discussions of
booty: who has it, who needs it, who wants it. But sex as a general topic
would be far too limiting for this crowd, and the movie plays like a talk
show where everyone is the host.

The barbershop is owned by Calvin (Ice Cube), who inherited it from his
father. It scrapes by but doesn't feed his hunger for bigger things--like a
recording studio, for example (he dreams of platinum records issuing from
his basement). One day, heedlessly, he sells the shop for $20,000 to Lester
the Loan Shark (Keith David), who promises the word "barbershop" will be
permanently on the store, but privately has in mind a gentleman's club by
the same name.

The barbers and regular customers are devastated by this news. The shop
provides more than employment or service for them; it is community, forum,
friendship, camaraderie, continuity. Realizing his error, Calvin tries to
buy back the shop, but finds the price is now $40,000. So it appears this
will be the last day that the little shop acts as a stage for all the
regulars.

The barbers are perhaps too many to be supported by such a shop, but they
provide a nice cross section: In addition to Calvin, there's old Eddie
(Cedric the Entertainer), who never seems to have a customer but is
installed as chief pontificator; Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas), a college
student who tries to impress everyone with his knowledge (are scallops a
mollusk?); Terri (Eve), who knows somebody has been drinking her apple juice
from the refrigerator in the back room; Ricky (Michael Ealy), who has two
strikes against him and will get life for a third; Dinka (Leonard Earl
Howze), from Nigeria, who likes Terri but is too rotund for her tastes, and
Isaac (Troy Garity), the token white barber, who explains that, inside, he's
blacker than some of the others.

A parallel plot involves JD (Anthony Anderson) and Billy (Lahmard Tate), who
stage a spectacularly incompetent theft of an ATM machine that has been
recently installed in the Indian grocery on the corner. Since they
"borrowed" Ricky's van for this job, if they get caught he goes up for life.
The unending conversation in the shop is intercut with JD and Billy
wrestling with the ATM machine, which at one point they even attempt to
check in with at a motel.

If nothing significant gets settled in the rambling barbershop
conversations, at least many issues are aired, and by the end, in classic
sitcom fashion, all problems have been solved. The talk is lively but goes
into overdrive when Eddie is onstage; Cedric the Entertainer has the
confidence, the style and the volume to turn any group into an audience, and
he has a rap about Rosa Parks, Rodney King and O.J. Simpson that brought
down the house at the screening I attended.

The film is ungainly in construction but graceful in delivery. I could have
done without both of the subplots--the loan shark and the ATM thieves--and
simply sat there in Calvin's Barbershop for the entire running time,
listening to these guys talk. There is a kind of music to their
conversations, now a lullaby, now a march, now a requiem, now hip-hop, and
they play with one another like members of an orchestra. The movie's so good
to listen to, it would even work as an audio book.

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Subject: [MV] LAWRENCE OF ARABIA / **** (PG)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:34 GMT

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA / **** (PG)

September 20, 2002

Lawrence: Peter O'Toole
Prince Feisal: Alec Guinness
Auda Abu Tayi: Anthony Quinn
Gen. Allenby: Jack Hawkins
Turkish Bey: Jose Ferrer
Sherif Ali: Omar Sharif
Col. Brighton: Anthony Quayle
Mr. Dryden: Claude Rains
Jackson Bentley: Arthur Kennedy
Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by David Lean Screenplay by
Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, inspired by the writings of T.E. Lawrence.
Running time: 216 minutes. Rated PG. Opening today at the Music Box Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

W hat a bold, mad act of genius it was, to make "Lawrence of Arabia," or
even think that it could be made.

In the words years later of one of its stars, Omar Sharif: "If you are the
man with the money and somebody comes to you and says he wants to make a
film that's four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story,
and not much action, either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to
go film it in the desert--what would you say?"

But producers took big chances in the early 1960s, and Sam Spiegel went
ahead with David Lean's masterpiece, even though Lean was able to cast Peter
O'Toole in the lead only over Spiegel's fierce protests. O'Toole went on to
win the first of his seven Oscar nominations; the film totaled 10
nominations and won seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

After being treated with shocking neglect for years, the movie has gone
through several restorations and opens Friday at the Music Box looking as
bright and clear as the day it was released. I remember how Robert Harris,
one of the ranking experts on film preservation, who restored the film in
1989, mailed me a rusty, crumpled film can with a note that said, "This is
how we found the print had been treated when we went into the vault."

"Lawrence of Arabia" was shot in 70mm, a format that offers four times as
much detail as 35mm. That makes possible the famous shot where a speck in
the desert eventually draws close enough to be recognized. To see it in this
way, as it was shown recently at the Telluride Film Festival, is to
understand it entirely differently than any impression you could get from
television or video.

For Roger Ebert's full-length review of "Lawrence of Arabia" in the Great
Movies series, go to www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies.

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Subject: [MV] I'M GOING HOME (JE RENTRE A LA MAISON) / *** (Not Rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:43 GMT

I'M GOING HOME (JE RENTRE A LA MAISON) / *** (Not Rated)

September 13, 2002

Gilbert Valence: Michel Piccoli
Marguerite: Catherine Deneuve
The Director: John Malkovich
Serge: Jean Koeltgen
Milestone Films presents a film written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.
Running time: 90 minutes. In French and English with English subtitles. No
MPAA rating (contains no offensive material). Opening today at the Music Box
Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

There are a few movies where you can palpably sense the presence of the
director behind the camera, and "I'm Going Home" is one of them. The movie
is about an old actor who has lost many of those he loves but continues to
work. The actor is played by France's great Michel Piccoli, who at 77 has
appeared in 200 movies since 1945. And the director, whose breathing we can
almost hear in our ear, is Manoel de Oliveira of Portugal, who is 94 and
directed his first film in 1931.

When we first see the actor, named Gilbert Valence, he is onstage in a
production of Ionesco's "Exit the King," and the film lingers on speeches in
which the old man rails against his mortality and defines the unending
memorials which he fancies will keep his name alive. After the play, he
learns of a tragic accident that has robbed him of wife, daughter and
son-in-law. "Some time later," we see him living with his young grandson and
the nanny.

Gilbert's offstage life is one of routine, and it is here, in a touch both
subtle and glancing, that de Oliveira makes his most poignant observation
about how we die but life heedlessly goes on without us. Gilbert takes his
coffee every morning in the same Paris cafe, sitting in the same chair at
the same table and always reading the same morning paper, Liberation. As he
gets up to go, another man enters, sits at the same table, and unfolds his
copy of Le Figaro. This happens day after day.

One morning, the other man arrives early and takes another table. But when
Gilbert frees his regular table, he gets up with alacrity to claim it--only
to be headed off by a stranger who sits down first. These little scenes had
a surprising impact on me. I often think of myself as a ghost at places I
have visited: There is "my" cafe and "my" table, and when I return to a city
there is a satisfaction in occupying them again, because it proves my own
continuity. Of course those cafes also "belong" to others I will never know,
and someday I will never return to them, and someday neither will the
others, and someday the cafe will not be there. Yet daily ritual encourages
us to believe that because things have been the same for a long time, they
will always be the same.

The old actor sees a handsome pair of shoes in a store window and buys them.
For a man past a certain age, to buy new shoes is an act of faith. (One is
reminded of the Irish story about the shoe clerk who assured an old man,
"These will see you out.") We see the shoes in closeup as Gilbert talks with
his agent, a venal man who hints that a young actress might like to meet
him. After all, the agent says, when Pablo Casals was in his 80s, he married
a teenage student. "But I am nowhere near my 80s," Gilbert snaps. "And I am
not Casals."

What eventually happens to these shoes is a reminder that we can make plans
but we cannot count on them. There are tender little scenes in which the old
man and his grandson play with battery-powered trucks and enjoy each other's
company, and fraught scenes in which the agent tries to get the actor to
take a tawdry TV show. And a scene from a production of "The Tempest," in
which Gilbert gives Prospero's speech beginning "Our revels now are ended
.."

How the film plays out you will have to see for yourself. Few films seem so
wise and knowing about the fact of age and the approach of the end. And at
his great age, de Oliveira dispenses with the silliness of plot mechanics
and tells his story in a simple, unadorned fashion, as episodes and
observations, trusting us to understand.

In the final scene, as Gilbert leaves a cafe without drinking the wine he
has ordered, the camera lingers to watch another man walk in and order a
beer. Life goes on. You might think that "I'm Going Home," about an artist
at the end of his career, is de Oliveira's own farewell, but no: He made a
new film in 2002, named "The Uncertainty Principle," and it played at Cannes
in May. Some directors burn out early, others flower late. Luis Bunuel began
a remarkable series of 12 great films beginning when he was 61. De Oliveira
has made 13 films since 1990. There is a time when going to the cafe is a
habit, but if you go long enough it becomes a triumph.

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Subject: [MV] SWIMMING / *** (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:46 GMT

SWIMMING / *** (Not rated)

September 13, 2002

Frankie Wheeler: Lauren Ambrose
Josee: Joelle Carter
Nicola Jenrette: Jennifer Dundas
Heath: Jamie Harrold
Lance: Joshua Harto
Oceanside Pictures presents a film directed by Robert J. Siegel. Written by
Siegel, Liza Bazadona and Grace Woodard. Running time: 98 minutes. No MPAA
rating. Opening today at Landmark Century.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

"Swimming" is above all about a young woman's face, and by casting an
actress whose face projects that woman's doubts and yearnings, it succeeds.
The face belongs to Lauren Ambrose, whom you may know as the young redhead
on "Six Feet Under." She plays Frankie, a teenage girl whose parents took
early retirement, leaving the family burger stand on the boardwalk in Myrtle
Beach, S.C., to Frankie and her older married brother Neil (Josh Pais).

The movie's plot, I fear, is an old reliable: After this summer, nothing
will ever be the same again. What saves it is that this summer is unlike
other summers we've seen in coming-of-age movies. It's different because
Frankie holds her own counsel, doesn't easily reveal her feelings, and is
faced with choices that she's not even sure she has to make.

Frankie is a tomboy, invariably dressed in bib overalls and T-shirts, her
hair tousled, her face freckled, with apple cheeks. Sexuality for her is an
unexplored country. Her best friend is Nicola (Jennifer Dundas), who runs a
piercing stand next to the burger joint. (So sincere is Nicola's dedication
to piercing that when she gets a cut on her forehead she decides a scar
would be cool.) Nicola dresses in an attempt to come across as a sexy blond,
but is loyal: When two cute guys in a car want her to come along but tell
her, "Lose your friend," she won't play.

One day Josee (Joelle Carter) appears in town. Ostensibly the girlfriend of
the hunky lifeguard, she gets a job at the burger joint, even though Neil
decides she is "the worst waitress I have ever seen." Josee is a sexual
creature, who one day out of the blue tells Frankie: "Frankie? I think I
want you. I want your body." Frankie's reaction to this news is not to react
at all. Life continues as before, but with confusing desire simmering
beneath the surface. It is possible that Josee is the first person ever to
have expressed a desire for Frankie, and by doing so she has activated
Frankie's ability to feel desirable.

The summer brings other possibilities. Nicola meets Kalani (Anthony
Ruivivar), a Marine from Hawaii with an imaginary friend, Ted. Frankie meets
Heath (Jamie Harrold), a gawky loner who lives in a van with his dogs and
sells tie-dyed T-shirts, which he dyes himself at a local coin laundry.
Nicola begins to resent all the time Frankie spends with Josee, and tells
her something she doesn't want to know: Josee is cheating with Neil, who has
a young family.

"Swimming" could unfold as a sitcom, or as a desperately sincere drama, but
director Robert J. Siegel and his co-writers, Liza Bazadona and Grace
Woodard, go for something more delicate and subtle. They use Ambrose's
ability to watch and think and not commit, and they allow the summer's
choices and possibilities to unfold within her as if her sexuality is
awakening and stretching for the first time. What happens, and why, is sweet
and innocent, and not pumped up for effect.

Ambrose's effect in the film reminded me of another early performance many
years ago: the work by Cathy Burns in Frank Perry's "Last Summer" (1969).
She, too, played a tomboy whose sexuality is unawakened; a member of a group
with another young woman (Barbara Hershey) who was sexier and bolder, whose
first romance was based more on admiration than lust ("You're so masterful,"
she tells the boy she admires). Often the movies are no more than
opportunities for us to empathize with people we find ourselves in sympathy
with. Ambrose has an extraordinary ability to make us like her and care for
her, and that is the real subject of the movie--in which, by the way, she
never does go swimming.

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Subject: [MV] ELLING / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:42 GMT

ELLING / *** (R)

September 13, 2002

Elling     Per Christian Ellefsen

Kjell Bjarne     Sven Nordin
Reidun Nordsletten     Marit Pia Jacobsen
Frank Asli     Jorgen Langhelle
Alfons Jorgensen     Per Christensen

First Look Pictures presents a film directed by Petter Naess. Written by
Ingvar Axel Hellstenius and Ingvar Ambjornsen, based on Ambjornsen's novel.
Running time: 89 minutes. In Norwegian with English subtitles. Rated R (for
language and some sexual content).

BY ROGER EBERT

Here are two men, both around 40, with no desire to cope with the world:
Elling, who lived all of his life as a mama's boy and had to be hauled by
the police out of a cupboard, where he was crouched and trembling after his
mother's death, and Kjell Bjarne, who has been institutionalized so long, it
is the only world he knows--although he fantasizes endlessly about nubile
women in other worlds. Elling is assigned as Kjell's roommate in a care
home, and two years later, they are moved into an apartment in Oslo and
given a shot at independent living.

"Elling," the deadpan Norwegian comedy that tells their stories, was
nominated for an Oscar this year in the best foreign film category. It's the
kind of story that in the wrong hands would be cloying and cornball, but
director Petter Naess has the right hands. He gives the movie edge and
darkness, is unsentimental about mental illness, makes his heroes into men
instead of pets, and still manages to find a happy ending.

Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen) is slight, fastidious, fussy and extremely
reluctant to go outdoors. Kjell Bjarne (Sven Nordin) is burly, unkempt, goes
for days without a bath and knows a certain amount about the world, mostly
by hearsay. When their social worker Frank (Jorgen Langhelle) tells them
they must leave the apartment to buy food and eat in restaurants, Elling is
incredulous: What's the use of putting the Norwegian welfare state to all
the expense of renting them a nice flat if they are expected to leave it?

The movie is narrated by Elling, who depends on Kjell Bjarne (always
referred to by both names) and is threatened when Reidun, an upstairs
neighbor, pregnant and drunk, gets Kjell's attention. Yet Elling is a
fiercely honest man who tells both Kjell and Reidun (Marit Pia Jacobsen)
that the other is in love. Then he ventures out into the night to poetry
readings, having written down some words about Reidun's fall on the stairs
and realized, as he puts it, "My God, Elling, all your life you have walked
the earth not knowing you were a poet!"

At a reading, he befriends an old man who turns out to be a famous poet and
to own a wonderful car, a 1958 Buick Century hardtop.

Kjell can fix the car, and soon the four of them are heading for the poet's
country cottage for a weekend at which matters of love and identity will be
settled, not without difficulties, not least when Kjell discovers that
Reidun is prepared to sleep with him but does not suspect he has been
wearing the same underwear for more than a week.

In a subtle, half-visible way, "Elling" follows the movie formula of other
movies about mentally impaired characters (the picnic outing is an
obligatory scene). But "Elling" has no lessons to teach, no insights into
mental illness, no labels, no morals. It is refreshingly undogmatic about
its characters, and indeed Elling and Kjell may not be mentally ill at
all--simply unused to living in the real world. The humor comes from the
contrast between Elling's prim value system, obviously reflecting his
mother's, and Kjell's shambling, disorganized, good-natured assault on life.
If Felix and Oscar had been Norwegian, they might have looked something like
this.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY / **** (PG)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:36 GMT

MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY / **** (PG)

September 20, 2002

With the voices of:Chihiro: Daveigh Chase
Yubaba, Zeniba: Suzanne : Pleshette
Haku: Jason Marsden
Kamaji: David Ogden Stiers
Chirhiro's mother: Lauren Holly
Assistant Manager: John     Ratzenberger
Walt Disney Studios presents a film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
U.S. production directed by Kirk Wise. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
PG.(for some scary moments). Opening today at Landmark Century, McClurg
Court and Evanston CineArts 6.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Miyazaki's Spirited Away" has been compared to "Alice in Wonderland," and
indeed it tells of a 10-year-old girl who wanders into a world of strange
creatures and illogical rules. But it's enchanting and delightful in its own
way, and has a good heart. It is the best animated film of recent years, the
latest work by Hayao Miyazaki, the Japanese master who is a god to the
Disney animators.

Because many adults have an irrational reluctance to see an animated film
from Japan (or anywhere else), I begin with reassurances: It has been
flawlessly dubbed into English by John Lasseter ("Toy Story"), it was
co-winner of this year's Berlin Film Festival against "regular" movies, it
passed "Titanic" to become the top-grossing film in Japanese history, and it
is the first film ever to make more than $200 million before opening in
America.

I feel like I'm giving a pitch on an infomercial, but I make these points
because I come bearing news: This is a wonderful film. Don't avoid it
because of what you think you know about animation from Japan. And if you
only go to Disney animation--well, this is being released by Disney.

Miyazaki's works ("My Neighbor Totoro," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "Princess
Mononoke") have a depth and complexity often missing in American animation.
Not fond of computers, he draws thousand of frames himself, and there is a
painterly richness in his work. He's famous for throwaway details at the
edges of the screen (animation is so painstaking that few animators draw
more than is necessary). And he permits himself silences and contemplation,
providing punctuation for the exuberant action and the lovable or sometimes
grotesque characters.

"Spirited Away" is told through the eyes of Chihiro (voice by Daveigh
Chase), a 10-year-old girl, and is more personal, less epic, than "Princess
Mononoke." As the story opens, she's on a trip with her parents, and her
father unwisely takes the family to explore a mysterious tunnel in the
woods. On the other side is what he speculates is an old theme park; but the
food stalls still seem to be functioning, and as Chihiro's parents settle
down for a free meal, she wanders away and comes upon the film's version of
wonderland, which is a towering bathhouse.

A boy named Haku appears as her guide, and warns her that the sorceress who
runs the bathhouse, named Yubaba, will try to steal her name and thus her
identity. Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette) is an old crone with a huge face; she
looks a little like a Toby mug, and dotes on a grotesquely huge baby named
Boh. Ominously, she renames Chihiro, who wanders through the structure,
which is populated, like "Totoro," with little balls of dust that scurry and
scamper underfoot.

In the innards of the structure, Chihiro comes upon the boiler room,
operated by a man named Kamaji (David Ogden Stiers), who is dressed in a
formal coat and has eight limbs, which he employs in a bewildering variety
of ways. At first he seems as fearsome as the world he occupies, but he has
a good side, is no friend of Yubaba, and perceives Chihiro's goodness.

If Yubaba is the scariest of the characters and Kamaji the most intriguing,
Okutaresama is the one with the most urgent message. He is the spirit of the
river, and his body has absorbed the junk, waste and sludge that has been
thrown into it over the years. At one point, he actually yields up a
discarded bicycle. I was reminded of a throwaway detail in "My Neighbor
Totoro," where a child looks into a bubbling brook, and there is a discarded
bottle at the bottom. No point is made; none needs to be made.

Japanese myths often use shape-shifting, in which bodies reveal themselves
as facades concealing a deeper reality. It's as if animation was invented
for shape-shifting, and Miyazaki does wondrous things with the characters
here. Most alarming for Chihiro, she finds that her parents have turned into
pigs after gobbling up the free lunch. Okutaresama reveals its true nature
after being freed of decades of sludge and discarded household items. Haku
is much more than he seems. Indeed the entire bathhouse seems to be under
spells affected the appearance and nature of its inhabitants.

Miyazaki's drawing style, which descends from the classical Japanese graphic
artists, is a pleasure to regard, with its subtle use of colors, clear
lines, rich detail and its realistic depiction of fantastical elements. He
suggests not just the appearances of his characters, but their natures.
Apart from the stories and dialogue, "Spirited Away" is a pleasure to regard
just for itself. This is one of the year's best films.

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Subject: [MV] SECRET BALLOT / *** (G)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:52 GMT

SECRET BALLOT / *** (G)

August 30, 2002

Woman: Nassim Abdi
Soldier: Cyrus Ab
Local people: Youssef Habashi, Farrokh Shojaii , Gholbahar Janghali
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film written and directed by Babak Payami.
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated G. In Farsi with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

'Secret Ballot" is a quixotic new Iranian comedy about a female election
agent who is sent to a remote island to collect ballots in a national
election. Because we never find out who or what is being elected, there has
been much puzzlement among critics about what the election symbolizes. I
believe the message is in the messenger: The agent is a woman.

"It's election day, don't you know?" the woman tells a bored soldier
assigned to drive her around. "There's a letter. You have to guard the
ballots."

The soldier studies the letter. "It says an agent will come, not a woman."

"I'm in charge here, mister. I have orders. You must obey or I'll see to it
you remain a soldier forever."

Strong words in a culture where the rights of women are limited. I was
reminded of "In the Heat of the Night," in which the whole point is that the
Sidney Poitier character insists on being treated with respect. This movie
could be titled "They Call Me MISS Election Agent." The plot is secondary to
the fact of the character's gender, and in Iran this movie must play with a
subtext we can only guess.

But what else is going on? Is the movie intended to show us (a) that
democracy exists in Iran, (b) that it is struggling to be born, or (c) that
most people find it irrelevant to their daily lives? There's a little of all
three during the long day the soldier and the woman (both unnamed) spend
together. Some citizens, asked to choose two of 10 names on the ballot,
complain they've never heard of any of them. A fierce old lady shuts her
door to the team, but later sends them food, and her courier observes,
"Granny Baghoo has her own government here." A man in charge of a solar
energy station expresses his opinion with admirable clarity: "I know no one
but God almighty, who makes the sun come up. If I vote for anyone, it must
be God."

If the woman is the Poitier character, the soldier is like the sheriff
played by Rod Steiger. He starts out strongly disapproving of a female
agent, but during the course of the day begins to find her persuasive,
intriguing and sympathetic. By the end of the day, when he casts his ballot,
it is for her, and we're reminded of the sheriff's little smile as Mister
Tibbs gets back on the train.

The director, Babak Payami, has a visual style that is sometimes
astonishing, sometimes frustrating, sometimes both. The first shot is of a
plane dropping a box by parachute over a dry, empty plain. The camera pans
with exquisite subtlety to reveal ... a bed? Can it be a bed, in the middle
of this wilderness? We see that it is. In this hot climate, they sleep
outdoors.

As the soldier drives the agent around the island, events do not build so
much as accumulate. Mourners in a cemetery tell her women are not allowed
inside. Symbol quandary: (a) The fading patriarchy is buried there, or (b)
women cannot even die as equals? In the middle of a deserted, unpopulated
plain, the soldier brings the Jeep to a halt before a red traffic light.
Symbol quandary: (1) Outmoded laws must be ignored, or (b) in a democracy
the law must be respected everywhere?

As the woman continues her discouraging attempt to involve indifferent
islanders in the vote, we are reminded of Dr. Johnson's famous observation
in the 18th century, when women were as much without rights in England as
they are today in the Middle East. After hearing a woman deliver a sermon,
he told Mr. Boswell: "It is not done well, but one is surprised to find it
done at all."

Watching the movie, I reflected on a persistent subgenre of Iranian cinema,
in which characters drive or walk endlessly through enigmatic landscapes,
holding conversations of debatable meaning. Abbas Kiarostami's "The Taste of
Cherry" (1997), a Cannes winner much prized by many critics, not by me,
follows that pattern. "Secret Ballot" brings to it much more interest and
life. Perhaps the lack of cities, names, relationships and plots provides a
certain immunity: A film cannot be criticized for being about what it does
not contain.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:58 GMT

LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)

August 23, 2002

Emily: Evan Rachel Wood
Philip: Michael Angarano
David: David Gallagher
Pauline: Vivica A. Fox
Caroline: Jan Gardner
IDP Pictures presents a film directed by Blair Treu. Written by Jessica
Bardones. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG.(for thematic elements).

BY ROGER EBERT

The biggest surprise in "Little Secrets" is that Ozzie and Harriet don't
live next door. The movie takes place in an improbably perfect suburban
neighborhood where all the kids wear cute sportswear and have the kinds of
harmless problems that seem to exist only so that they can be harmless
problems. Then of course there are some Big Problems which are rendered
harmless, too. This is a very reassuring film.

The heroine of the movie, Emily (Evan Rachel Wood) is a budding young
violinist who as a sideline runs a Little Secrets stand in her back yard,
where kids can tell her their secrets at 50 cents apiece. The secrets are
then written on scraps of paper and locked in a chest.

The theological and psychological origins of her practice would be
fascinating to research. The neighborhood kids sure take it seriously. When
she's a few minutes late in opening her stand, there's a line of impatient
kids clamoring to unburden themselves. The 50-cent price tag doesn't
discourage them; these are not kids who remember the days when a quarter
used to buy something.

But what kinds of kids are they, exactly? Consider Philip and David. Philip
tells David, "Her name is Emily. Like Emily ..." "... Dickinson?" says
David. "And Emily Bronte," says Philip. Heartened as I am to know that the
grade school kids in this movie are on first-name terms with these authors,
I am nevertheless doubtful that Dickinson and Bronte will ring many bells in
the audience.

Vivica A. Fox is the only widely known star in the film, playing a violin
teacher who is wise and philosophical. Much suspense centers around Emily's
audition for the local symphony orchestra (every suburb should have one).
The problems of the kids range from a girl who hides kittens in her room to
a boy who is digging a hole to China. Larger issues, including adoption, are
eventually introduced.

I am rating this movie at three stars because it contains absolutely nothing
to object to. That in itself may be objectionable, but you will have to
decide for yourself. The film is upbeat, wholesome, chirpy, positive, sunny,
cheerful, optimistic and squeaky-clean. It bears so little resemblance to
the more complicated worlds of many members of its target audience (girls 4
to 11) that it may work as pure escapism. That it has been rated not G but
PG (for "thematic elements") is another of the arcane mysteries created by
the flywheels of the MPAA. There is not a parent on earth who would believe
this film requires "parental guidance."

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:49 GMT

CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)

September 6, 2002

Det. Vincent LaMarca: Robert De Niro
Michelle: Frances McDormand
Joey: James Franco
Reg: George Dzundza
Maggie: Patti LuPone
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Caton-Jones.
Written by Ken Hixon. Based on a magazine article by Michael McAlary.
Running time: 108 minutes. Rated R (for language, drug use and some
violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

"City by the Sea" tells the sad, fatalistic story of a cop whose father was
a baby-killer, and whose son now seems to be a murderer, too. Robert De Niro
stars as Detective Vincent LaMarca, a pro whose years of hard experience
have made him into a cop who dismisses sociology and psychology and believes
simply that if you did it, you have to pay for it. This code extends to his
father and he will apply it if necessary to his son.

LaMarca works homicide in a shabby beachfront area; Asbury Park, N.J.,
supplied the locations. He knows so much about police work his autopilot is
better than most cops' bright ideas. His partner, Reg (George Dzundza), who
has eaten too many doughnuts over the years, soldiers along with him.
LaMarca walked out on his wife (Patti LuPone) and son 14 years ago, and now
tentatively dates his upstairs neighbor, Michelle (Frances McDormand).

The cop's story is intercut with the life of his son, Joey (James Franco), a
strung-out addict who has worked himself into a fearful situation involving
debt and need. In a confusing struggle, he knifes a drug dealer, and
eventually, inevitably, LaMarca is working the case and discovers that the
killer may have been Joey.

If this story sounds a little too symmetrical and neat, and in a way it
does, real life supplies a rebuttal: "City by the Sea" is based on a true
story, as described by the writer Mike McAlary in a 1997 Esquire article. I
learn from Variety, however, that in fact the murder the son committed was
vicious and premeditated, and not, as it is here, more or less an accident.

The plot takes us places we have been before, right down to the scene where
LaMarca resigns from the force and places his gun and badge on the captain's
desk. There is also the possibility in LaMarca's mind that his son is
innocent--he claims he is--and there is the enormous psychic burden caused
by the fact that LaMarca's own father was convicted of a heartless murder.
The last act of the movie is the sort of cat-and-mouse chase we have seen
before, staged with expertise by director Michael Caton-Jones, but the
movie's heart isn't in the action but in the character of Vince LaMarca.

De Niro has worked so long and so frequently that there is sometimes the
tendency to take him for granted. He is familiar. He has a range dictated by
his face, voice and inescapable mannerisms, but he rarely goes on autopilot
and he makes an effort to newly invent his characters. Here he is a man with
a wounded boy inside. Most of the time the cop routine provides him with a
template for behavior: He keeps his head low, he does his job well. But
inside is the kid who found out his dad was a killer. That provides the
twist when he finds himself on his own son's case. There is hurt here, and
De Niro is too good an actor to reduce it to a plot gimmick. He feels it.

Details of the plot I will not reveal, except to observe that the context of
the murder and the condition of the son leave enough room for the LaMarca
character to believe, or want to believe, that his son may be innocent. That
leads to the scene where he turns in his badge and gun, accusing his boss of
having already made up his mind. And it leaves LaMarca free-floating,
because without the protection of the job he is now nakedly facing a
situation that churns up his own past.

Frances McDormand takes a routine, even obligatory, character and makes her
into an important part of the movie. The female confidant is usually
dispensable in cop movies, except for a few scenes where she provides an ear
for necessary exposition. Not here. McDormand's Michelle likes LaMarca, but
more importantly she worries about him, sees the inner wounds, provides a
balm, and knows about tough love.

"City by the Sea" is not an extraordinary movie. In its workmanship it
aspires not to be remarkable but to be well made, dependable, moving us
because of the hurt in the hero's eyes. A better movie might have abandoned
the crime paraphernalia and focused on the pain between the generations, but
then this director, Caton-Jones, has already made that movie with De Niro.
"This Boy's Life" (1993) had De Niro as a harsh adoptive father and Leonardo
DiCaprio as his resentful son. A better movie, but "City by the Sea" is a
good one.

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Subject: [MV] BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:48 GMT

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)

September 6, 2002

The Beast/Prince: Jean Marais
Beauty: Josette Day
Felicie: Mila Parely
Adelaide: Nan Germon
Ludovic: Michel Auclair
The Merchant: Marcel Andre
Cowboy Pictures presents a film directed by Jean Cocteau. Written by
Cocteau, based on a story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. In French,
with English subtitles. No MPAA rating. Running time 93 minutes. Opening
today at the Music Box Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

Long before Disney's 1991 film, Jean Cocteau filmed "Beauty and the Beast"
in 1946, in France. It is one of the most magical of all films.

Alive with trick shots and astonishing effects, it gives us a Beast who is
lonely like a man and misunderstood like an animal. Cocteau, a poet and
surrealist, was not making a "children's film" but was adapting a classic
French tale that he felt had a special message after the suffering of World
War II: Anyone who has an unhappy childhood may grow up to be a Beast.

The movie has long been considered one of the best ever made, but has been
rarely seen in America--more rarely still since the Disney animated feature
cornered the market in beauties and beasts. The Disney film is inspired, but
so is Cocteau's, in an entirely different way. And now a newly restored 35mm
print, with missing scenes restored, is opening at the Music Box for one
week. There is probably no better film in town.

Filming at a time when Freudian imagery was cutting edge, Cocteau uses
haunting images to suggest emotions at a boil in the subconscious of his
characters. Consider Beauty's reaction to the first entrance of the Beast,
which is theoretically frightened yet, it you look more closely, orgasmic.

The Beast's dwelling is treated in the Disney film like a vast Gothic
extravaganza. Cocteau sees it more like the setting for a nightmare. And
dream logic prevails in the action. The entrance hall is lined with
candelabra held by living human arms that extend from the walls. The statues
are alive, and their eyes follow the progress of the characters. Gates and
doors open themselves. As Belle first enters the Beast's domain, she seems
to run dreamily a few feet above the floor. Later, her feet do not move at
all, but she glides, as if drawn by a magnetic force. She sees smoke rising
from the Beast's fingertips--a sign that he has killed. When he carries her
into her bed chamber, she wears common clothes on one side of the door, and
a queen's costume on the other.

Jean Marais plays both the Beast and the prince who was turned into the
Beast and is restored again. Odd, how appealing he is as the Beast, and how
shallow as the pompadoured prince. Even Belle notices, and instead of
leaping into the arms of the prince confesses she misses her Beast. (So did
Marlene Dietrich, who held Cocteau's hand during the first screening of the
film. As the prince shimmered into sight and presented himself as Belle's
new lover, she called to the screen, "Where is my beautiful Beast?")

The film's devices penetrate the usual conventions of narrative, and appeal
at a deeper psychic level. Cocteau wanted to appeal through images rather
than words, and although the story seems to be masking deeper and more
disturbing currents. It is not a "children's film," but older children may
find it involves them more deeply than the Disney version, because it is not
just a jolly comic musical but deals, like all fairy tales, with what we
dread and desire.

Adapted from Ebert's essay on "Beauty and the Beast" in his book The Great
Movies, and online at www.suntimes.com/ebert.

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Subject: [MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:59 GMT

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)

August 23, 2002

Mika Muller-Polonski: Isabelle Huppert
Andre Polonski: Jacques Dutronc
Jeanne Pollet: Anna Mouglalis
Guillaume Polonski: Rodolphe Pauly
First Run Features presents a film directed by Claude Chabrol. Written by
Caroline Eliacheff and Chabrol, based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by
Charlotte Armstrong. Running time: 99 minutes. No MPAA rating. In French
with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

Isabelle Huppert has the best poker face since Buster Keaton. She faces the
camera with detached regard, inviting us to imagine what she is thinking.
Since so often the thoughts of her characters run toward crime, revenge,
betrayal, lust and sadism, it is just as well she can seem so passive; an
actress who tried to portray these inner emotions would inevitably go
hurtling over the top and into the next movie.

Consider "Merci Pour le Chocolat," her new film, directed by her longtime
admirer Claude Chabrol. There is hardly any suspense about what she's up to.
The title, and the fact that it is a thriller, inspire us to regard the
movie's frequent cups of hot chocolate with as much suspicion as the
arsenic-laced coffee in Hitchcock's "Notorious." Even if an early scene
hadn't warned us that the chocolate contains a date-rape drug, we'd be wary
just because of the dispassionate way Huppert serves it. She doesn't seem
like a hostess so much as a clinician.

Huppert plays Mika Muller-Polonski, the first and third wife of the famous
pianist Andre Polonski (tired-eyed Jacques Dutronc). They were married "for
a few minutes" many years ago. After their divorce, he remarried, had a son
named Guillaume, and then lost his wife in a car crash. She apparently dozed
off while they were all visiting ... Mika.

The movie opens with the remarriage of Mika and Jacques, 18 years after
their first ceremony. The spectators look less than ecstatic. The new family
moves into Mika's vast, gloomy gothic mansion in Lausanne, paid for with the
profits from her family's chocolate company. One of the rituals is hot
chocolate at bedtime, personally prepared by Mika ("In this house, I serve
the chocolate").

An unexpected development: An attractive young piano student, Jeanne Pollet
(Anna Mouglalis), finds a clipping in her mother's papers reporting that on
the day of her birth, she was briefly switched with Guillaume. Using this as
a pretext, she calls on the Polonski family, not because she thinks she is
Andre's daughter but because she wants, she says, piano lessons. Her arrival
causes Guillaume to recede into more of a funk than usual, Mika to greet her
with the outward show of friendliness, and Andre to devote himself with
unseemly enthusiasm to her piano lessons.

Curious, isn't it, that Jeanne is a piano virtuoso, and Guillaume has a tin
ear? Thought-provoking, too, that Guillaume is not Mika's son, but the son
of her husband's second wife, who died so tragically during that visit to
.. Mika's. And interesting that Andre has taken such an interest in Jeanne.
And Mika keeps serving the hot chocolate.

There is no mystery about what Mika is doing with the hot chocolate. The
mysteries are: to whom, and why. The motives may differ. She may, indeed,
simply be amusing herself. Huppert's bland expression masks her motives to
such a degree that even when she does smile or frown, we suspect the honesty
of the expression: What is she really thinking?

Claude Chabrol is a master of domestic suspense, and he has used Huppert
before as a cold-blooded killer, notably in "Violette Noziere" (1978). What
is fascinating is how little Huppert has seemed to change in the intervening
years. She has worked ceaselessly, usually in good pictures, often with good
directors. Filmmakers seem drawn to her because of her mysterious
detachment; while many actors seek out the secrets of their characters,
Huppert keeps such secrets as she may have discovered, and invites us to
figure them out for ourselves.

The appeal of "Merci Pour le Chocolat" is not in the somewhat creaky old
poisoning plot, not in the hints of suppressed family secrets, not in the
suspense about what will happen next--but in the enigma within which Huppert
conceals her characters While all those around her plot, scheme, hope and
fear, she simply looks on, and pours the chocolate. What is she thinking?
What does she want? Who is she? Her appeal in film after film is maddening,
perverse and seductive.

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Subject: [MV] THE BANGER SISTERS / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:37 GMT

THE BANGER SISTERS / *** (R)

September 20, 2002

Lavinia: Susan Sarandon
Suzette: Goldie Hawn
Harry: Geoffrey Rush
Raymond: Robin Thomas
Hannah: Erika Christensen
Ginger: Eva Amurri
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film written and directed by Bob Dolman.
Running time: 97 minutes. Rated R (for language, sexual content and some
drug use.) Opening today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

When you get right down to it, "The Banger Sisters" is pretty thin, but you
grin while you're watching it. Later you reflect that it has an obvious
story arc, sketchy minor characters, and awkwardly tries to get down and
provide uplift at the same time. The screenplay could have used an overhaul
before production, but I'm glad I saw it.

I'm glad primarily because of Goldie Hawn. She's infectious and likable in
this movie, but not in that ditzy way we remember. Although she plays a
legendary groupie who, in her day, "rattled" most of the rock stars ("and
roadies") in the business, she plays a woman who has taken her youthful
sense of freedom and combined it with a certain amount of common sense.

Hawn is Suzette. Her co-star, Susan Sarandon, is Lavinia. Together, some
(cough) years ago, they were such legendary groupies that Frank Zappa named
them the Banger Sisters. Hawn has stayed true to her school, and as we meet
her she's bartending in a West Hollywood club where she is more beloved by
the customers than by the owner, who fires her. (She thinks that's not fair:
"See that toilet? Jim Morrison passed out in there one night with me
underneath him.") Broke and without plans, she points her pickup toward
Phoenix for a reunion with Lavinia, whom she hasn't seen in years.

Along the way, in need of gas money, she picks up a lost soul named Harry
(Geoffrey Rush), a screenwriter whose dreams have not come true, and who is
traveling to Phoenix with one bullet in his gun, to shoot his father. Harry
is one of those finicky weirdos who doesn't want anyone upsetting his
routine. The very sight of Suzette, with her silicone treasures, is
disturbing in more ways than he can bear to think of.

In Phoenix, Lavinia lives with her lawyer husband Raymond, (Robin Thomas),
and her two spoiled teenagers, Hannah (Erika Christensen) and Ginger (Eva
Amurri). She is so respectable she doesn't even want to think about her
former life, which her husband knows nothing about. Are you counting the
formulas? And so here we have not one but two Fish Out of Water (Harry and
Suzette), plus two examples (Lavinia and Harry) of that other reliable
element, the repressed sad sack who needs a taste of freedom.

Give the movie a moment's thought, and you see the screenplay's gears
turning. This is a movie that could have been a term paper. But Hawn and
Sarandon hit the ground running, and are so funny and goofy that they
distract and delight us. Lavinia at first resists Suzette's appeal, but then
she realizes, "I'm the same color as the Department of Motor Vehicles--and
you're like a flower." The girls go out for a wild night on the town, and
Suzette brings much-needed reality into the cocooned existence of the two
daughters.

The most underwritten character is Lavinia's husband, Raymond. The movie
doesn't know what to do with him. They let him be a little surprised, a
little shocked, a little too straight, but mostly he just stands there
waiting for dialogue that is never supplied. Comic opportunities were lost
here. And the Geoffrey Rush character, while more filled in, also seems
oddly unnecessary. I can easily imagine the movie without him, and with more
about the family in Phoenix. He is not and never will be a workable life
partner for Suzette, no matter how the movie tries to sentimentalize him.

What Goldie Hawn does is to play Suzette sincerely--as if she really were a
groupie who still holds true to her partying past. Her daughter, Kate
Hudson, of course, played the groupie Penny Lane in "Almost Famous," and
Suzette could be the same character, or her friend, in 2002. The movie's
buried joke is that Suzette, the wild girl from West Hollywood, has more
common sense knowledge about life than the movie's conventional types.
Listen to how she talks to Harry on the phone. I guess you learn something
about human nature after (cough) years as a bartender.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Subject: [MV] SIMONE / ** (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:13:03 GMT

SIMONE / ** (PG-13)

August 23, 2002

Viktor Taransky: Al Pacino
Elaine: Catherine Keener
Lainey Taransky: Evan Rachel     Wood
Simone: Rachel Roberts
Hank Aleno: Elias Koteas
New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Andrew Niccol.
Running time: 117 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Simone" tells the story of a director at the end of his rope, who inherits
a mad inventor's computer program that allows him to create an actress out
of thin air. She becomes a big star and the center of a media firestorm, and
he's trapped: The more audiences admire her, the less he can reveal she is
entirely his work. The movie sets this dilemma within a cynical comedy about
modern Hollywood; it's fitfully funny but never really takes off. Out of the
corners of our eyes we glimpse the missed opportunities for some real
satirical digging.

Al Pacino plays the director, Viktor Taransky, once brilliant, recently the
author of a string of flops. Only his young daughter Lainey (Evan Rachel
Wood) still believes in him--a little. His ex-wife, Elaine (Catherine
Keener), the head of the studio, has lost all hope for his career and pulls
the plug on his latest project when the temperamental star (Winona Ryder)
blows up.

Into the life of this desperate man comes another one, Hank Aleno (Elias
Koteas), who has devised a computer program that creates "synthespians."
Viktor isn't interested--but then, when the wizard leaves him the program in
his will, he starts noodling around with the software and the beautiful,
talented and (above all) cooperative Simone is the result. She needs, Viktor
exults, no hairdresser, makeup, driver, car, trailer, stand-in or stunt
woman--no, not even for the fall from the plane. She is always on time,
never complains, says the words just as they're written and has no problem
with nudity.

Viktor creates Simone's performance on a computer that stands all alone in
the middle of an otherwise empty sound stage. The other actors in the movie
are told Simone will be added to their scenes electronically. The premiere
of the first movie is a huge success, and of course paparazzi from the
supermarket tabloids stalk Viktor in hopes of photographing Simone. No luck.

The movie was written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol, who wrote
"The Truman Show" and wrote and directed "Gattaca," both films about the
interface between science and personality. "Simone" is not in that league.
He wants to edge it in the direction of a Hollywood comedy, but the satire
is not sharp enough and the characters, including the ex-wife, are too
routine.

And there's a bigger problem: Simone always remains ... just Simone. The
computer image always looks as if it's about to come to life and never does.
One can imagine software bugs that recklessly import other online
personalities into Simone: Matt Drudge, for example, or Harry Knowles, or
Danni Ashe. One can imagine Simone suddenly being possessed by Lara Croft,
Tomb Raider, and breaking up a serious dramatic scene with video-game
violence. One can imagine ... well, almost anything except that she remains
a well-behaved program. When Simone "appears" on a chat show, for example,
it's kind of funny that she sticks to well-worn subjects like dolphins and
smoking, but why not go the extra mile and put her on the Howard Stern show?

Pacino, that splendid actor, does what he can to bring Viktor to life. But
the screenplay's too narrow and prevents him from taking the character
beyond a certain point. Most of the big events are handled with sitcom
simplicity, and the hungry gossip reporters are presented as they always
are, a howling pack with no wit or originality. Even Keener, as the studio
head, simply plays an ex-wife who is a studio head: There's no twist,
nothing unexpected.

The problem, I think, is that in aiming for too wide an audience, Niccol has
made too shallow a picture. "The Truman Show" and "Gattaca" pushed their
premises; "Simone" settles for the predictable. The story elements echo the
sad experience of the team assembled to make "Final Fantasy," the summer of
2001 sci-fi movie that failed at the box office. That movie was made up
entirely of "real" characters generated by computers, including Aki Ross,
the heroine, who, all things considered, is a more intriguing woman than
Simone (whose appearance is provided by the actress Rachel Roberts). The
"Final Fantasy" team labored four years and achieved everything they dreamed
of, and were rejected by the public. Much more interesting than a director
who has unimaginable success fall into his lap.

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Subject: [MV] STEALING HARVARD / * (PG-13)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:45 GMT

STEALING HARVARD / * (PG-13)

September 13, 2002

John: Jason Lee
Duff: Tom Green
Elaine: Leslie Mann
Mr. Warner: Dennis Farina
Patty: Megan Mullally
Cook: Richard Jenkins
Det. Charles: John C. McGinley
Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Bruce McCulloch. Written by
Peter Tolan. Running time: 83 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for crude and sexual
humor, language and drug references).

BY ROGER EBERT

The laugh in "Stealing Harvard" comes early, when we see the name of the
company where the hero works. It's a home health-care corporation named
Homespital. That made me laugh. It made me smile again when the name turned
up later. And on the laugh-meter, that's about it. This is as lax and limp a
comedy as I've seen in a while, a meander through worn-out material.

Jason Lee, who can be engaging in the right material (like "Chasing Amy" and
"Almost Famous") is bland and disposable here, as John Plummer, a young
Homespital executive. The firm is owned by his fiancee's father (Dennis
Farina), who subjects John to savage cross-examinations on whether he has
slept with his daughter. He lies and says he hasn't. He might be telling the
truth if he said he wishes he hadn't, since the fiancee, Elaine (Leslie
Mann), inexplicably weeps during sex.

Despite his foray into the middle classes, John has not forgotten his
super-slut sister Patty (Megan Mullally), who despite a life of untiring
promiscuity has a daughter, Noreen (Tammy Blanchard), who has been accepted
by Harvard. Carefully preserved home videos show John promising to help with
her tuition, and as it happens Noreen needs $29,000--almost exactly the
amount Elaine has insisted John have in the bank before she will marry him.

Crime is obviously the way to raise the money, according to John's best pal,
Duff (Tom Green), who suggests a break-in at a house where the safe seems to
stand open. The owner is, alas, at home, and there is a painfully unfunny
sequence in which he forces John to dress in drag and "spoon" to remind him
of his late wife. There's another botched robbery in which John and Duff,
wearing ski masks, argue over which one gets to call himself Kyle, and so
on.

Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie "Freddy Got
Fingered" (2001), which was so poorly received by the film critics that it
received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. I
gave it--let's see--zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green
was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord.

But the thing is, I remember "Freddy Got Fingered" more than a year later. I
refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at
least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It
failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good
work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or
later going to make a movie worth seeing.

"Stealing Harvard," on the other hand, is a singularly unambitious product,
content to paddle lazily in the shallows of sitcom formula. It has no edge,
no hunger to be better than it is. It ambles pleasantly through its inanity,
like a guest happy to be at a boring party. When you think of some of the
weird stuff Jason Lee and Tom Green have been in over the years, you wonder
what they did to amuse themselves during the filming.

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Subject: [MV] THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:56 GMT

THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **

August 30, 2002

Carlo: Stefano Accorsi
Giulia: Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Anna: Stefania Sandrelli
Francesca: Martina Stella
Alberto: Marco Cocci
Marco: Pierfrancesco Favino
Paolo: Claudio Santamaria
Think Films presents a film written and directed by Gabriele Muccino.
Running time: 114 minutes. In Italian with English subtitles. Rated R (for
language, sexuality and some drug use). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Last Kiss" is a comedy, I guess, about male panic at the spectre of
adult responsibility. If you're a guy and want to figure out what side of
the question you're on, take this test. You're a young single man. Your
girlfriend announces at a family dinner that she is pregnant. You (a) accept
the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood; (b) climb up into a treehouse
at a wedding to begin a passionate affair with an 18-year-old; (c) join
three buddies in discussing their plan to buy a van and trek across Africa.

Carlo (Stefano Accorsi), the hero of the film, is torn between (b) and (c).
Marriage looms like a trap to him, and he complains to Francesca (Martina
Stella), the 18-year-old, that he fears "the passion is going" from his
life. When his girlfriend Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) takes him along to
look at a house they could buy, he complains that buying a house seems so
"final." Not encouraging words for a pregnant fiancee to hear. "If I catch
him cheating, I'll kill him," she says, in the ancient tradition of Italian
movie comedy.

But the movie isn't all comedy, and has fugitive ambitions, I fear, to say
something significant about romance and even life. Consider some of Carlo's
friends. Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) is expected to take over his father's
clothing store, has no interest in retail, but is wracked with guilt because
his father is dying and this is his last wish. Marco (Pierfrancesco Favino)
is a serial lover. Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) is depressed because his
girlfriend has lost all interest in sex after giving birth. Their 30s and
indeed their 40s are breathing hot on the necks of these friends, who cling
to golden memories of adolescence.

There is also the case of Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), Carlo's mother, who is
married to a detached and indifferent psychiatrist, and seeks out a former
lover with hopes of, who knows, maybe now taking the path not chosen. The
lover is delighted to see her for a chat over lunch, but reveals that he has
recently married and is the proud father of a one-year-old. How cruelly age
discriminates against women (at least those prepared to consider it
discrimination and not freedom).

"The Last Kiss" specializes in dramatic exits and entrances. Anna bursts
into her husband's office when he is deep in consultation with a patient,
who seems alarmed that his own house is so clearly not in order. Carlo
awakens with dread after a night spent imprudently, and flees. Giulia makes
a dramatic appearance at a death bed after discovering Carlo lied to her.
And so on.

The problem is that the movie has no idea of it is serious or not. It
combines heartfelt self-analysis with scenes like the one where Carlo is
taken by his teenage squeeze to her friend's birthday, and tries to party
with the kids. This is either funny or sad, not both, but the movie doesn't
know which.

The message behind all of this is difficult to nail down. Mars and Venus?
Adults who haven't grown up? The last fling syndrome? Doing what you want
instead of doing what you must? I have just finished Without Stopping, the
autobiography of the novelist and composer Paul Bowles, who as nearly as I
can tell always did exactly what he wanted, and was married to Jane Bowles,
who did the same. The answer, obviously, is not to choose between marriage
and the van trip through Africa, but to dump the buddies and find a wife who
wants to come along.

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Subject: [MV] ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:13:01 GMT

ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)

August 23, 2002

Sy Parrish: Robin Williams
Nina Yorkin: Connie Nielsen
Will Yorkin: Michael Vartan
Bill Owens: Gary Cole
Jake Yorkin: Dylan Smith
Det. Van Der Zee: Eriq LaSalle
Maya Burson: Erin Daniels
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film written and directed by Mark
Romanek. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (for sexual content and
language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"One Hour Photo" tells the story of Seymour "Sy" Parrish, who works behind
the photo counter of one of those vast suburban retail barns. He has a
bland, anonymous face, and a cheerful voice that almost conceals his
desperation and loneliness. He takes your film, develops it, and has your
photos ready in an hour. Sometimes he even gives you 5-by-7s when all you
ordered were 4-by-6s. His favorite customers are the Yorkins--Nina, Will and
cute young Jake. They've been steady customers for years. When they bring in
their film, he makes an extra set of prints--for himself.

Sy follows an unvarying routine. There is a diner where he eats, alone,
methodically. He is an "ideal employee." He has no friends, a co-worker
observes. But the Yorkins serve him as a surrogate family, and he is their
self-appointed Uncle Sy. Only occasionally does the world get a glimpse of
the volcanic side of his personality, as when he gets into an argument with
Larry, the photo machine repairman.

The Yorkins know him by name, and are a little amused by his devotion. There
is an edge of need to his moments with them. If they were to decide to
abandon film and get one of those new digital cameras, a prudent instinct
might lead them to keep this news from Sy.

Robin Williams plays Sy, another of his open-faced, smiling madmen, like the
killer in "Insomnia." He does this so well you don't have the slightest
difficulty accepting him in the role. The first time we see Sy behind his
counter, neat, smiling, with a few extra pounds from the diner routine, we
buy him. He belongs there. He's native to retail.

The Yorkin family is at first depicted as ideal: models for an ad for their
suburban lifestyle. Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen), pretty and fresh-scrubbed,
has a cheery public persona. Will (Michael Vartan) is your regular clean-cut
guy. Young Jake (Dylan Smith) is cute as a picture. Mark Romanek, who wrote
and directed the film, is sneaky in the way he so subtly introduces
discordant elements into his perfect picture. A tone of voice, a
half-glimpsed book cover, a mistaken order, a casual aside ... they don't
mean much by themselves, but they add up to an ominous cloud, gathering over
the photo counter.

Much of the film's atmosphere forms through the cinematography, by Jeff
Cronenweth. His interiors at "Savmart" are white and bright, almost
aggressive. You can hear the fluorescent lights humming. Through choices
involving set design and lens choices, the One Hour Photo counter somehow
seems an unnatural distance from the other areas of the store, as if the
store shuns it, or it has withdrawn into itself. Customers approach it
across an exposed expanse of emptiness, with Sy smiling at the end of the
trail.

A man who works in a one-hour photo operation might seem to be relatively
powerless. Certainly Sy's boss thinks so. But in an era when naked baby
pictures can be interpreted as child abuse, the man with access to your
photos can cause you a lot of trouble. What would happen, for example, if
Will Yorkin is having an affair, and his mistress brings in photos to be
developed, and Uncle Sy "mistakenly" hands them to Nina Yorkin?

The movie at first seems soundly grounded in everyday reality, in the
routine of a predictable job. When Romanek departs from reality, he does it
subtly, sneakily, so that we believe what we see until he pulls the plug.
There is one moment I will not describe (in order not to ruin it) when Sy
commits a kind of social trespass that has the audience stirring with quiet
surprise: Surprise, because until they see the scene they don't realize that
his innocent, everyday act can be a shocking transgression in the wrong
context.

Watching the film, I thought of Michael Powell's great 1960 British thriller
"Peeping Tom," which was about a photographer who killed his victims with a
stiletto concealed in his camera. Sy uses a psychological stiletto, but he's
the same kind of character, the sort of man you don't much notice, who
blends in, accepted, overlooked, left alone so that his rich secret life can
flower. There is a moment in "Peeping Tom" when a shot suddenly reveals the
full depth of the character's depravity. In "One Hour Photo," a shot with a
similar purpose requires only a lot of innocent family snapshots, displayed
in a way that is profoundly creepy.

The movie has also been compared to "American Beauty," another film where
resentment, loneliness and lust fester beneath the surface of suburban
affluence. The difference, I think, is that the needs of the Kevin Spacey
character in "American Beauty," while frowned upon and even illegal, fall
generally within the range of emotions we understand. Sy Parrish is outside
that range. He was born with parts missing, and has assembled the remainder
into a person who has borrowed from the inside to make the outside look OK.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] feardotcom / ** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:51 GMT

feardotcom / ** (R)

August 30, 2002

Mike Reilly: Stephen Dorff
Jerry Houston:      Natascha McElhone
Alistair Pratt:    Stephen Rea

Warner Bros. presents a film directed by William Malone. Written by
Josephine Coyle. Based on a story by Moshe Diamant. Running time: 98
minutes. Rated R (for violence including grisly images of torture, nudity
and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Strange, how good "feardotcom" is, and how bad. The screenplay is a mess,
and yet the visuals are so creative this is one of the rare bad films you
might actually want to see. The plot is a bewildering jumble of half-baked
ideas, from which we gather just enough of a glimmer about the story to
understand how it is shot through with contradictions and paradoxes. And yet
I watched in admiration as a self-contained nightmareformed with the
visuals. Not many movies know how to do that.

I'll get to the plot later, or maybe never. Let me talk about what I liked.
The film takes place in a city where it always rains and is nearly always
night, where even people with good jobs live in apartments that look
hammered together after an air raid. Computers and the Internet exist here,
and indeed telephones, televisions and all the other props of the present
day, but windows are broken, walls are punctured, lights flicker, streets
are deserted, and from time to time a dramatic thunderstorm threatens to
sweep everything away. This is like "Dark City" after a hurricane. It is the
kind of city where a man can walk down into a subway and be the only person
there, except for a little girl bouncing her ball against the third rail. Or
.. is the man really alone? Is that his fantasy? Whether it is or not, he
gets slammed by the next train, and the cops are startled by the expression
on his face. It looks, they agree, as if he has just seen something
terrifying. Apparently something even worse than the train. And he is
bleeding from the eyes.

The film's premise is that a Web site exists that channels negative energy
into the mind of the beholder, who self-destructs within 48 hours, a victim
of his or her deepest fear. Our first glimpse of this Web site suggests
nothing more than a reasonably well-designed horror site, with shock-wave
images of dark doorways, screaming lips, rows of knives and so forth. The
movie wisely doesn't attempt to develop the site much more than that,
relying on the reactions of the victims to imply what other terrors it
contains. And it does something else, fairly subtly: It expands the site to
encompass the entire movie, so that by the end all of the characters are
essentially inside the fatal Web experience, and we are, too.

The last 20 minutes are, I might as well say it, brilliant. Not in terms of
what happens, but in terms of how it happens, and how it looks as it
happens. The movie has tended toward the monochromatic all along, but now it
abandons all pretense of admitting the color spectrum, and slides into the
kind of tinting used in silent films: Browns alternate with blues, mostly.

The images play like homage to the best Grand Guignol traditions, to
"Nosferatu" and some of the James Whale and Jacques Tourneur pictures, and
the best moments of the Hammer horror films. Squirming victims are displayed
on the Internet by the sadistic killer, who prepares to autopsy them while
still alive; subscribers to the site, whose crime is that they want to
watch, are addressed by name and are soon paying dearly for their voyeurism.

The movie is extremely violent; it avoided the NC-17 rating and earned an R,
I understand, after multiple trims and appeals, and even now it is one of
the most graphic horror films I've seen. (The classification is "for
violence including grisly images of torture, nudity and language," the
ratings board explains, but you'll be disappointed if you hope to see grisly
images of language).

Stephen Dorff and Natascha McElhone star, as a cop and a public health
inspector, and Stephen Rea, who was so unexpectedly deceived in "The Crying
Game," plays the host of the Web site and the torturer. The movie keeps
trying to make some kind of connection between Rea and the ghostly little
girl, who was his first victim, but if the site is her revenge, why is he
running it? And how can what happens to him in the end not have happened
before? Never mind. Disregard the logic of the plot. Don't even go there.
Don't think to ask how the Internet can channel thoughts and commands into
the minds of its users. Disregard the dialogue (sample: "We will provide a
lesson that reducing relationships to an anonymous electronic impulse is a
perversion").

This is a movie that cannot be taken seriously on the narrative level. But
look at it. Just look at it. Wear some of those Bose sound-defeating
earphones into the theater, or turn off the sound when you watch the DVD. If
the final 20 minutes had been produced by a German impressionist in the
1920s, we'd be calling it a masterpiece. All credit to director William
Malone, cinematographer Christian Sebaldt, production designer Jerome Latour
and art directors Regime Freise and Markus Wollersheim.

Now. Do I recommend the film? Not for the majority of filmgoers, who will
listen to the dialogue, and will expect a plot, and will be angered by the
film's sins against logic (I do not even mention credibility). But if you
have read this far because you are intrigued, because you can understand the
kind of paradox I am describing, then you might very well enjoy
"feardotcom." I give the total movie two stars, but there are some four-star
elements that deserve a better movie. You have to know how to look for them,
but they're there.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] UNDISPUTED / *** (R)
Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:13:04 GMT

UNDISPUTED / *** (R)

August 23, 2002

Monroe Hutchen: Wesley Snipes
James "Iceman" Chambers: Ving Rhames
Emmanuel "Mendy" Ripstein: Peter Falk
James Kroycek: Fisher Stevens
Prison Guard: Michael Rooker
Dick Lipscomb: Denis Arndt
Miramax Films presents a film directed by Walter Hill. Written by Hill and
David Giler. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (for strong language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Walter Hill's "Undisputed" is like a 1940s Warner Bros. B picture, and I
mean that as a compliment. With efficiency and laconic skill, it sets up the
situation, peoples it with clearly drawn characters, and heads for a
showdown. There is a kind of pleasure to be had from its directness, from
its lack of gimmicks, from its classical form. And just like in the Warners
pictures, there is also the pleasure of supporting performances from
character actors who come onstage, sing an aria, and leave.

The movie stars Ving Rhames as "Iceman" Chambers, heavyweight champion of
the world, recently convicted of rape in a plot obviously inspired by Mike
Tyson's misadventures. He's sentenced to the maximum-security Sweetwater
Prison in the Mohave Desert, which has an active boxing program. The
Sweetwater champion is Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes), and a showdown
between the two men is inevitable.

First, though, Iceman has to challenge the leader of the most powerful gang
behind bars, and spend some times in solitary as punishment. If he hadn't
done that, he explains, he'd be dead. And Monroe has to hear stories about
how he's not the undisputed champion any longer.

Also resident in this prison is Emmanuel (Mendy) Ripstein (Peter Falk), an
aging Mafioso who still wields enormous clout inside and beyond the prison
walls. He even has his own personal assistant. Ripstein is a fight fan. He
agrees with the prevailing opinion that there must be a bout to settle the
prison championship, and arranged odds with his Vegas contacts. There will
even be a payoff for the two fighters, and Snipes is adamant in negotiating
a bigger percentage for himself. The Iceman seems more concerned with
survival, and Rhames has a direct, unaffected way with his dialogue that is
quietly convincing.

The Falk character is a piece of work. He's like a distillation of Falkness.
He squints, he talks out of the side of his mouth, he has a tough-guy
accent, he has a way of implying authority. And then he has his aria. This
is an unbroken monologue that goes for a minute or two (maybe longer--I was
laughing too hard to count), and it is variations on the two themes of the
F-word and his wife's bad advice. It touches on the competing charms of
California and Florida, comments on state and federal legal details, and
rises to a kind of musical grandeur. The screenplay is by Hill, the
director, and David Giler, who worked together on the "Alien" pictures, but
whether they or Falk wrote this monologue is hard to say; it seems to rise
from another dimension.

Michael Rooker ("Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer") has an important role
as the prison guard who coordinates the boxing matches, protected by the
benign detachment of the warden. He sets a date for the match, and then the
two boxers go into more or less routine training sessions, leading up to the
big fight, which is held inside a steel cage. The fight scenes are
well-choreographed and convincing, and Snipes and Rhames are completely
plausible as boxers.

Walter Hill has devoted his career to men's action pictures. He pitted
Charles Bronson and James Coburn against each other in his first picture,
"Hard Times" (1985), and reinvented the cop buddy movie with Nick Nolte and
Eddie Murphy in "48 HRS." One day I met the soundmen on "Hard Times" and
watched them pounding a leather sofa with Ping-Pong paddles to create the
sounds of blows landing; "Undisputed" evokes the same cheerful spirit.

Some critics of the movie complain that there is no hero, since the Iceman
has been convicted of rape and Monroe of murder. That is more of a strength
than a weakness, depriving us of an obvious favorite and creating a fight
which it is plausible to expect either boxer could win. Of course Monroe is
the underdog, which counts for something, but when you think how obviously
the deck is stacked in most boxing movies, this one has a right to call
itself suspenseful. On the other hand, with mob involvement, the fight could
be fixed. Falk, as Ripstein, has a lovely scene where he expresses himself
on that possibility.

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