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movies-digest         Thursday, June 13 2002         Volume 02 : Number 363



[MV] TIME OUT / *** (PG-13)
[MV] ENIGMA / *** (R)
[MV] CHANGING LANES / **** (R)
[MV] CRUSH / *** (R)
[MV] BIG TROUBLE / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] HIGH CRIMES / *** (PG-13)
[MV] THE SWEETEST THING / *1/2 (R)
[MV] HUMAN NATURE / *** (R)
[MV] NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER / * (R)
[MV] TRIUMPH OF LOVE / *** (PG-13)

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

Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:20 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: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:01 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: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:25 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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------------------------------

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

CRUSH / *** (R)

April 12, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

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

April 5, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

HIGH CRIMES / *** (PG-13)

April 5, 2002

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

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE SWEETEST THING / *1/2 (R)

April 12, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HUMAN NATURE / *** (R)

April 12, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VAN WILDER / * (R)

April 5, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Date: 13 Jun 2002 20:51:22 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.

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