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movies-digest           Friday, May 24 2002           Volume 02 : Number 357



[MV] BIG BAD LOVE / ** (R)
[MV] HARRISON'S FLOWERS / **1/2 (R)
[MV] ICE AGE / *** (PG)
[MV] RESIDENT EVIL / * (R)
[MV] SHOWTIME / ** (PG-13)
[MV] KISSING JESSICA STEIN / *** (R)
[MV] BARTLEBY / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] ENOUGH / *1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] INSOMNIA / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON / *** (G)

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

Date: 20 May 2002 23:27:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BIG BAD LOVE / ** (R)

BIG BAD LOVE / ** (R)

March 15, 2002

Barlow: Arliss Howard
Marilyn: Debra Winger
Monroe: Paul Le Mat
Velma: Rosanna Arquette
Mrs. Barlow: Angie Dickinson
Mr. Aaron: Michael Parks
Deputy: Alex Van
Alan: Zach Moody
IFC Films presents a film directed by Arliss Howard. Written by James Howard
and Arliss Howard. Based on stories by Larry Brown. Running time: 111
minutes. Rated R (for language and some sexuality)

BY ROGER EBERT

It all comes down to whether you can tolerate Leon Barlow. I can't. "Big Bad
Love" can, and is filled with characters who love and accept him, even
though he is a full-time, gold-plated pain in the can. Leon is a college
graduate (no doubt of creative writing classes) who has adopted a Good Old
Drunk persona that wavers between the tiresome and the obnoxious. The movie
has patience with his narcissistic self-pity. My diagnosis: Send Barlow to
rehab, haul him to some AA meetings, and find out in a year if he has
anything worth saying.

I know there are people in real life who smoke as much as Barlow (Arliss
Howard) does, but at today's cigarette prices, he is spending $400 a month
on cigarettes and almost as much on the manuscripts he ships out to literary
magazines. His bar bill is beyond all imagining. The first thing you learn
as a poor writer is to cut back on the overhead. We could pare $25,000 a
year from his costs just by cutting out his bad habits, here at H&R
Ebert ("Budget Control for Unpublished Drunks").

Barlow smokes more or less all the time. He becomes a character whose task
every morning is to get through 60 to 80 cigarettes that day. Everything
else is a parallel activity. He lives in a colorfully rundown house in rural
Mississippi--the sort that passes for genteel poverty in the movies and is
priced at $300,000 and up, with land, in the real estate ads. He pounds away
on his Royal typewriter as if engaged in a mano-a-mano with Robert E.
("Conan the Barbarian") Howard in "The Whole Wide World." Since he is a man
without a glimmer of awareness of his own boorishness, one wonders what he
writes. Epic fantasy, perhaps?

Like many drunks, he is enabled by his loved ones (or, as is often the case,
his former loved ones). His ex-wife Marilyn, well-played by Debra Winger
(Howard's real-life wife) has divorced him but still has a soft spot for the
crazy lug. His buddy Monroe (Paul Le Mat) loves him, maybe because you
protect your drinking buddy just like you protect your drinking money.
Monroe's old lady Velma (Rosanna Arquette) has a fate that was preordained
when she was christened Velma, a name that summons up Raymond Chandler
novels and long-suffering girlfriends. Velma sees more than she lets on, but
is stuck in her sexpot act.

The movie's basic problem is that it has no distance on Barlow--no way to
criticize him. The screenplay, written by Howard and Jim Brown, based on
stories by the Mississippi writer Larry Brown, lets Barlow get away with
murder. We all have a tendency to go easy on ourselves, and "Big Bad Love"
is unaware that its hero is a tiresome jerk. Larry Brown writes about
"hard-bitten, hard-drinking, hard-living male characters," according to a
Web site about his work, and is a "bad boy novelist." One suspects that the
movie lacks perspective on Barlow because Brown is, in some respects,
Barlow.

Because a movie must be about something more than smoking, drinking, and
talking as if you are the best-read drunk in town, "Big Bad Love" delivers
two tragedies, both foreshadowed, right on time. It also involves some
visual touches, such as an indoor rain storm, that may perplex audiences not
familiar with the work of Tarkovsky.

Arliss Howard is not a bad actor or a bad director, but in this film he
shows himself an unreliable judge of character. Leon Barlow could be saved
by an emergency transfusion of irony, or even a film that is cheerfully
jaundiced about him. But the martyr act doesn't work. Here is a man who
wants us to like him because of his marriage that did not work, his stories
that do not sell, and his children that he is not doing a very good job of
parenting. Then we are asked to pity him because of all the cigarettes he
must smoke and all the booze he has to drink, and because they make him feel
so awful in the morning. He's a familiar type, imprisoned by
self-monitoring: How am I doing? How do I feel? How long can I continue to
abuse myself and those around me? In the movie, he's blessed by people who
can see through the facade to the really great guy inside. All I could see
was a cry for help.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 May 2002 23:28:03 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HARRISON'S FLOWERS / **1/2 (R)

HARRISON'S FLOWERS / **1/2 (R)

March 15, 2002

Sarah Lloyd: Andie MacDowell
Harrison Lloyd: David Strathairn
Yeager: Elias Koteas
Kyle Morris: Adrien Brody
Stevenson: Brendan Gleeson
Samuel Brubeck: Alun Armstrong
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Elie Chouraqui. Written by
Chouraqui, Didier Le Pecheur and Isabel Ellsen. Running time: 122 minutes.
Rated R (for strong war violence and gruesome images, pervasive language and
brief drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

I am pleased we have women in our fighting forces, since they are so much
better at war than men. "Harrison's Flowers" is about an American wife who
journeys to the Balkans to rescue her husband from a hotbed of genocide.
Only two months ago, in "Charlotte Gray," a British woman parachuted behind
German lines in France to rescue her boyfriend. I can just about believe
that Charlotte Gray could deceive the Germans with her perfect French, but
that Sarah Lloyd could emerge alive from the Balkans hell is unlikely; much
of the movie's fascination is with the way Croatians allow this woman and
her new friends to wander through the killing zones intact.

I doubt, for that matter, that a Los Angeles fireman could fly to Colombia
in "Collateral Damage" and singlehandedly outfight guerrillas and drug
empires, but that is an Arnold Schwarzenegger picture and not supposed to be
realistic. "Harrison's Flowers" is not based on fact but plays like one of
those movies that is, and the scenes of carnage are so well-staged and
convincing that they make the movie's story even harder to believe. Strong
performances also work to win us over, wear us down and persuade us to
accept this movie as plausible. Who we gonna believe, the screenplay or our
lyin' eyes?

Andie MacDowell stars, in another reminder of her range and skill, in what
is essentially an action role. She plays Sarah Lloyd, mother of two, wife of
the celebrated war photographer Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn). In an
obligatory scene that triggers an uh-oh reflex among experienced filmgoers,
he tells his boss he wants to retire and is persuaded to take One Last Job.
Off he flies to the early days of the war in the Balkans, to investigate
"ethnic cleansing," which was I think a term not then quite yet in use. He
is reported dead, but Sarah knows he's still alive: "Something would have
happened inside if he were dead."

She watches TV obsessively, hoping for a glimpse of Harrison among POWs, and
takes up chain-smoking, which is the movie symbol for grief-stricken
obsession, and is dropped as soon as it's no longer needed. Because of a
hang-up call in the middle of the night and other signs, she decides to fly
to the Balkans to find Harrison. A more reasonable spouse might reason that
since (a) her husband is reliably reported dead, and (b) she has no combat
zone skills, that (c) she should stay home with her kids so they will not
become orphans, but no.

The war scenes have undeniable power. Violence springs from nowhere during
routine moments and kills supporting characters without warning. Ordinary
streets are transformed instantly into warscapes. Sarah joins up with three
of Harrison's photographer friends who accompany her quest: pill-popping,
wise-cracking Morris (Adrien Brody), shambling, likable Stevenson (Brendan
Gleeson), and bitter, existentialist Yeager Pollack (Elias Koteas) (if any
of them are killed, can you predict from the character descriptions which
order it will happen in?). They commandeer cars and Jeeps and essentially
make a tour of the war zone, while bullets whiz past their ears and
unspeakable horrors take place on every side.

They are protected, allegedly, by white flags and large letters proclaiming
"TV" on the sides of their cars. But there is a scene where troops are
methodically carrying out an ethnic massacre, and they wander in full view
at the other end of the street: Does their status as journalists render them
invisible? At one point, Sarah wears fatigues, which (I learn from an
article by a war correspondent) is the last thing she should do. Civilian
clothes mark her as a non-combatant; camouflage marks her as a target even
before her gender is determined.

Whether Sarah finds her husband I will leave you to discover. Whether, when
she is in a burning building, the flames shoot up everywhere except
precisely where she needs to be, you already know. There is a way in which a
movie like this works no matter what. Andie MacDowell is a sympathetic
actress who finds plausible ways to occupy this implausible role. Brendan
Gleeson is a comforting force of nature, and Adrien Brody's work is a tour
de force, reminding me of James Woods in "Salvador" in the way he depends on
attitude and cockiness to talk his way through touchy situations. Watch the
way he walks them all through a roadblock. I don't believe it can be done,
but I believe he did it.

As for the war itself, the movie exhibits the usual indifference to the
issues involved. Although it was written and directed by Elie Chouraqui, a
Frenchman, it is comfortably xenophobic. Most Americans have never
understood the differences among Croats, Serbs and Bosnians, and this film
is no help. (I am among the guilty, actually mislabeling the bad guys in my
review of "Behind Enemy Lines," another film set in the region). All we need
to know is: The Americans are tourists in a foreign war involving ruthless
partisans with fierce mustaches. Why are those people killing one another?
Why is the war being fought? With those crazy foreigners, who knows?

The New Jersey housewife wants to return her man to the arms of his family
and the peace of his greenhouse. The movie's buried message is that domestic
order must be restored. Just like in Shakespeare.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 May 2002 23:28:14 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ICE AGE / *** (PG)

ICE AGE / *** (PG)

March 15, 2002

With the voices of: Manny: Ray Romano
Sid: John Leguizamo
Diego: Denis Leary
Soto: Goran Visnjic
Zeke: Jack Black
20th Century Fox presents a film directed by Chris Wedge. Written by Peter
Ackerman, Michael Berg and Michael J. Wilson. Running time: 85 minutes.
Rated PG.(for mild peril).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Ice Age" is a pleasure to look at and scarcely less fun as a story. I came
to scoff and stayed to smile. I confess the premise did not inspire me: A
woolly mammoth, a sabertooth tiger and a sloth team up to rescue a human
baby and return it to its parents. Uh, huh. But Peter Ackerman's screenplay
is sly and literate, and director Chris Wedge's visual style so distinctive
and appealing that the movie seduced me.

The film takes place during a southward migration of species during a great
ice age. Such migrations took place over millennia and were not the
pre-Cambrian equivalent of going to Florida for the winter months, but no
matter: As the ice packs advance, the animals retreat. There is no time to
lose. Baby mammoths, playing in a tar pit, are told by their parents to
hurry up: "You can play Extinction later."

We meet Manfred the Mammoth (voiced by Ray Romano) and Sid the Sloth (voiced
by John Leguizamo). Of course they can speak. (It is the humans, they
believe, who have not yet mastered language.) When Sid and Manny come upon a
small, helpless human child, they decide to protect it and return it to its
parents--even though those same parents, they know, have developed weapons
for killing them. Along the trail they are joined by Diego the Sabertooth
(voiced by Denis Leary), who has a hidden agenda. They are potentially one
another's dinners, and yet through Sid's insouciance and Manny's bravery in
saving Diego from certain death, they bond and become friends.

It is true that altruism is a positive evolutionary trait; a species with
individuals willing to die for the survival of the race is a species that
will get somewhere in the Darwinian sweepstakes. But listen closely. When
Diego the Sabertooth asks Manfred the Mammoth why he saved him, Manny
replies, "That's what you do as a herd." Yes, absolutely. But herds are by
definition made up of members of the same species (and tigers are not herd
animals, anyway). If Manny's philosophy were to get around in the animal
kingdom, evolution would break down, overpopulation would result, there
would be starvation among the non-vegetarians, and it would be an ugly
picture. Much of the serenity and order of nature depends on eating the
neighbors.

"Ice Age" does not preach Darwinian orthodoxy, however, but a kinder,
gentler world view: Ice Age meets New Age. And the philosophy scarcely
matters, anyway, since this is an animated comedy. Enormous advances have
been made in animation technology in recent years, as computers have taken
over the detail work and freed artists to realize their visions. But few
movies have been as painterly as "Ice Age," which begins with good choices
of faces for the characters (note the sabertooth's underslung jaw and the
sloth's outrigger eyes). The landscape is convincing without being
realistic, the color palette is harmonious, the character movements include
little twists, jiggles, hesitations and hops that create personality. And
the animals blossom as personalities.

That's because of the artwork, the dialogue and the voice-over work by the
actors; the filmmakers have all worked together to really see and love these
characters, who are not "cartoon animals" but as quirky and individual as
human actors, and more engaging than most.

I would suggest the story sneaks up and eventually wins us over, except it
starts the winning process in its very first shots, showing a twitchy
squirrel desperately trying to bury an acorn in an icy wilderness. We follow
the progress of this squirrel all through the picture, as a counterpoint to
the main action, and he is such a distinctive, amusing personality I predict
he'll emerge as the hero of a film of his own.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 May 2002 23:28:24 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RESIDENT EVIL / * (R)

RESIDENT EVIL / * (R)

March 15, 2002

Alice/Janus Prospero/ Marsha Thompson: Milla Jovovich
Rain Ocampo: Michelle Rodriguez
Matt: Eric Mabius
Spence: James Purefoy
Kaplan: Martin Crewes
Screen Gems presents a film written and directed by Paul Anderson. Running
time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for strong sci-fi/horror violence, language and
sexuality/nudity.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Resident Evil" is a zombie movie set in the 21st century and therefore
reflects several advances over 20th century films. For example, in 20th
century slasher movies, knife blades make a sharpening noise when being
whisked through thin air. In the 21st century, large metallic objects make
crashing noises just by being looked at.

The vast Umbrella Corporation, whose secret laboratory is the scene of the
action, specializes in high-tech weapons and genetic cloning. It can turn a
little DNA into a monster with a 9-foot tongue. Reminds me of the young man
from Kent. You would think Umbrella could make a door that doesn't make a
slamming noise when it closes, but its doors make slamming noises even when
they're open. The narration tells us that Umbrella products are in "90
percent of American homes," so it finishes behind Morton Salt.

The movie is "Dawn of the Dead" crossed with "John Carpenter's "Ghosts of
Mars," with zombies not as ghoulish as the first and trains not as big as
the second. The movie does however have Milla Jovovich and Michelle
Rodriguez. According to the Internet Movie Database, Jovovich plays
"Alice/Janus Prospero/Marsha Thompson," although I don't believe anybody
ever calls her anything. I think some of those names came from the original
video game. Rodriguez plays "Rain Ocampo," no relation to the Phoenix
family. In pairing classical and literary references, the match of Alice and
Janus Prospero is certainly the best name combo since Huckleberry P.
Jones/Pa Hercules was portrayed by Ugh-Fudge Bwana in "Forbidden Zone"
(1980).

The plot: Vials of something that looks like toy coils of plastic DNA models
are being delicately manipulated behind thick shields in an airtight chamber
by remote-controlled robot hands. When one of the coils is dropped, the
factory automatically seals its exits and gasses and drowns everyone inside.
Umbrella practices Zero Tolerance. We learn that the factory, code-named The
Hive, is buried half a mile below the surface. Seven investigators go down
to see what happened. Three are killed, but Alice/Janus Prospero/Marsha
Thompson, Rain Ocampo, Matt and Spence survive in order to be attacked for
60 minutes by the dead Hive employees, who have turned into zombies.
Meanwhile, the monster with the 9-foot tongue is mutating. (Eventually its
tongue is nailed to the floor of a train car and it is dragged behind it on
the third rail. I hate it when that happens.)

These zombies, like the "Dawn of the Dead" zombies, can be killed by
shooting them, so there is a lot of zombie shooting, although not with the
squishy green-goo effect of George Romero's 1978 film. The zombies are like
vampires, since when one bites you, it makes you a zombie. What I don't
understand is why zombies are so graceless. They walk with the lurching
shuffle of a drunk trying to skate through urped Slurpees to the men's room.

There is one neat effect when characters unwisely venture into a corridor
and the door slams shut on them. Then a laser beam passes at head level,
decapitating one. Another beam whizzes past at waist level, cutting the
second in two while the others duck. A third laser pretends to be high but
then switches to low, but the third character outsmarts it by jumping at the
last minute. Then the fourth laser turns into a grid that dices its victim
into pieces the size of a Big Mac. Since the grid is inescapable, what were
the earlier lasers about? Does the corridor have a sense of humor?

Alice/Janus Prospero/Marsha Thompson and her colleagues are highly trained
scientists, which leads to the following exchange when they stare at a pool
of zombie blood on the floor.

Alice/J.P./M.T. or Rain (I forget which): "It's coagulating!"

Matt or Spence (I forget which): "That's not possible!"

"Why not?!?"

"Because blood doesn't do that until you're dead!"

How does the blood on the floor know if you're dead? The answer to this
question is so obvious I am surprised you would ask. Because it is zombie
blood.

The characters have no small talk. Their dialogue consists of commands,
explanations, exclamations and ejaculations. Yes, an ejaculation can be
dialogue. If you live long enough you may find that happening frequently.

Oh, and the film has a Digital Readout. The Hive is set to lock itself
forever after 60 minutes have passed, so the characters are racing against
time. In other words, after it shuts all of its doors, and gasses and drowns
everybody, it waits 60 minutes and really shuts its doors--big time. No
wonder the steel doors make those slamming noises. In their imagination,
they're practicing. Creative visualization, it's called. I became inspired,
and visualized the theater doors slamming behind me.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:28:32 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SHOWTIME / ** (PG-13)

SHOWTIME / ** (PG-13)

March 15, 2002

Mitch: Robert De Niro
Trey: Eddie Murphy
Chase Renzi: Rene Russo
Himself: William Shatner
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Tom Dey. Written by Keith
Sharon, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Based on a story by Jorge Saralegui.
Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for action violence, language and
some drug content).

BY ROGER EBERT

The cop buddy comedy is such a familiar genre that a movie can parody it and
occupy it at the same time. The characters in "Showtime" do it as a kind of
straddle, starting out making fun of cop buddy cliches and ending up trapped
in them. The movie's funny in the opening scenes and then forgets why it
came to play.

We meet two cops: Mitch (Robert De Niro), who never had to choose between a
red wire and a green wire, and Trey (Eddie Murphy), who is a cop but would
rather play one on TV. You can guess from the casting that the movie will
have energy and chemistry, and indeed while I watched it my strongest
feeling was affection for the actors. They've been around so long, given so
much, are so good at what they do. And Rene Russo, as the TV producer who
teams them on a reality show, is great at stalking in high heels as if this
is the first time she's ever done it without grinding a body part beneath
them.

Mitch wants only to do his job. Trey is a hot dog who has learned more from
TV than at the police academy. Making a drug bust, he knowledgeably tastes
the white power and finds it's cocaine. "What if it's cyanide?" Mitch asks
(or anthrax, we're thinking). "There's a reason real cops don't taste
drugs."

We meet Chase Renzi (Russo), TV producer with a problem: Her report on
exploding flammable baby pajamas didn't pan out. She's electrified when she
sees TV footage of Mitch get angry with a TV cameraman and shoot his camera.
The network sues. Mitch is threatened with suspension, just like in all the
Dirty Harry movies, but offered an ultimatum: Star in a new reality show
with Trey ("You do the show, they drop the suit").

Mitch grudgingly agrees, and some of the best scenes involve the callow Trey
instructing the hard-edged Mitch in the art of acting (this is a flip of
Robert Mitchum tutoring James Caan in "El Dorado"). During these scenes
we're seeing pure De Niro and Murphy, freed from effects and action, simply
acting. They're good at it.

Enter a bad guy with a big gun. A gun so big we are surprised not by its
power but by the fact that anyone can lift it. An expert testifies: "This
gun is like the 50-foot shark. We know it's there, but nobody has ever seen
it." Most of the second half of the movie involves Mitch and Trey chasing
down the gun and its owners, who use it in a series of daring robberies.
This we have seen before. Oh, yes.

The movie was directed by Tom Dey, whose only previous film was "Shanghai
Noon" (2000), a buddy movie pairing a Chinese martial arts fighter and a
train robber. I learn from the Internet Movie Database that he studied film
at Brown University, the Centre des Etudes Critiques in Paris, and the
American Film Institute. He probably knows what's wrong with this movie more
than I do.

But making movies is an exercise in compromise no less appalling than the
making of the "reality" TV show in "Showtime." My guess: The screenplay ("by
Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, based on a story by Jorge
Saralegui") was funnier and more satirical until the studio began to doubt
the intelligence of the potential audience, and decided to shovel in more
action as insurance. As we all know, the first rule of action drama is that
when a gun as legendary as a 50-foot shark comes onscreen in the first act,
somebody eventually finds a spent shell casing the size of a shot glass.

Note: Most of the computers in movies for several years have been
Macintoshes, maybe because the Mac is the only computer that doesn't look
like every other computer and therefore benefits from product placement. But
this is the first movie in which an entire iMac commercial runs on TV in the
background of a shot.

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Date: 20 May 2002 23:28:43 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KISSING JESSICA STEIN / *** (R)

KISSING JESSICA STEIN / *** (R)

March 13, 2002

Jessica Stein Jennifer Westfeldt
Helen Cooper    Heather Juergensen
Josh Meyers    Scott Cohen
Judy Stein    Tovah Feldshuh

Fox Searchlight presents a film directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. Written
by Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt. Running time: 94 minutes.
Rated R (for sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Same-sex romance, a controversial topic in movies millions now alive can
still remember, is a lifestyle choice in "Kissing Jessica Stein." Yes, a
"choice"--although that word is non-PC in gay circles--because one of the
two women in the movie is nominally straight, and the other so bisexual, she
pops into her art gallery office during an opening for a quickie with her
boy toy.

Helen (Heather Juergensen), the gallery manager, is a lesbian in about the
same way she would be a vegetarian who has steak once in a while. Jessica
(Jennifer Westfeldt), disillusioned after a series of blind dates with
hopeless men, answers Helen's personals ad not because she is a woman but
because she quotes the poet Rilke.

Jessica is above all a hopeless perfectionist. This places her in contrast
with a mother (Tovah Feldshuh) whose idea of an eligible mate for her
daughter is any single Jewish male ages 20 to 45 in good enough shape to
accept a dinner invitation. Like many perfectionists, Jessica works as a
copy editor and fact-checker, finding writers' mistakes with the same zeal
she applies to the imperfections of would-be husbands.

In a funny montage, she goes through a series of disastrous dates, including
one with a man whose word choices would make him a copy editor's nightmare
(he uses the phrase "self-defecating").

Helen is more flexible, knowing and wise. She seeks not perfection in a
partner, but the mysteries of an intriguing personality. She finds it
challenging that Jessica has never had a lesbian experience, and indeed
approaches sex with the enthusiasm of a homeowner considering the
intricacies of a grease trap. Jessica arrives at their first real date with
an armload of how-to manuals, and makes such slow progress that Helen is
driven all but mad by weeks of interrupted foreplay.

The movie makes of this situation not a sex comedy but more of an upscale
sitcom in which both romantic partners happen to be women. Jessica is
fluttery and flighty, breathy and skittish; Helen is cool, grounded and
amused. Adding spice is Jessica's panic that anyone will find out about her
new dating partner. Anyone like Josh (Scott Cohen), her boss and former
boyfriend. Or Joan (Jackie Hoffman), her pregnant co-worker. Or especially
her mother, who brings single IBM executives to dinner as if they are the
Missing Link.

There are a couple of serious episodes to give the story weight. One
involves Jessica's reluctance to invite Helen to her brother's wedding, thus
revealing to the family the sex of the mysterious "person" she has been
dating. The other is a heart-to-heart talk between Jessica and her mother,
during which Feldshuh takes an ordinary scene and makes it extraordinary by
the way she delivers the simple, heartfelt dialogue.

What makes the movie a comedy is the way it avoids the more serious emotions
involved. A week ago, I reviewed a movie about a man who gives up sex for
Lent, and received a reader's letter asking, hey, aren't Catholics supposed
to give up extramarital sex all of the time? A theologically excellent
question; I am reminded of the priest in "You Can Count on Me," asked about
adultery and reluctantly intoning, "that ... would ... be ... wrong."

The would-be lovers in "Kissing Jessica Stein" are not having sex, exactly,
because of Jessica's skittish approach to the subject, but if they did, it
would be a leisure activity like going to the movies. If it really meant
anything to either one of them--if it meant as much as it does to the
mother--the comedy would be more difficult, or in a different key. We can
laugh because nothing really counts for anything. That's all right. But if
Jessica Stein ever really gets kissed, it'll be another story. Right now,
she's like the grade-school girl at the spin-the-bottle party who changes
the rules when the bottle points at her.

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Date: 24 May 2002 09:54:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BARTLEBY / **1/2 (PG-13)

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

May 24, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Date: 24 May 2002 09:54:17 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ENOUGH / *1/2 (PG-13)

ENOUGH / *1/2 (PG-13)

May 24, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Date: 24 May 2002 09:54:28 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] INSOMNIA / ***1/2 (R)

INSOMNIA / ***1/2 (R)

May 24, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Date: 24 May 2002 09:54:36 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON / *** (G)

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

May 24, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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