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movies-digest           Monday, May 20 2002           Volume 02 : Number 354



[MV] BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13)
[MV] ENIGMA / *** (R)
[MV] LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13)
[MV] MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R)
[MV] MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG)
[MV] THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG)
[MV] THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] TIME OUT / *** (PG-13)
[MV] TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13)
[MV] CHANGING LANES / **** (R)

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

Date: 20 May 2002 23:21:58 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13)

BEHIND THE SUN / ** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:06 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ENIGMA / *** (R)

ENIGMA / *** (R)

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:18 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13)

LUCKY BREAK / *** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:31 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R)

MURDER BY NUMBERS / *** (R)

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

inexplicable death of a

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

Numbers.'' --

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:43 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING / *** (PG)

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

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:22:52 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG)

THE LAST WALTZ / *** (PG)

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:06 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE SCORPION KING / **1/2 (PG-13)

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

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:15 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] TIME OUT / *** (PG-13)

TIME OUT / *** (PG-13)

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:24 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13)

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

April 19, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:23:32 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CHANGING LANES / **** (R)

CHANGING LANES / **** (R)

April 12, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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