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movies-digest          Sunday, June 23 2002          Volume 02 : Number 364



[MV] MARYAM / ***1/2 (Not rated)
[MV] Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN / **** (Not Rated)
[MV] FRAILTY / **** (R)
Re: [MV] ABOUT A BOY / ***1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] 13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING / **** (R)
[MV] CHERISH / *** (R)
[MV] SCOOBY-DOO / * (PG)
[MV] THE BELIEVER / *** (R)
[MV] THE BOURNE IDENTITY / *** (PG-13)
[MV] WINDTALKERS / ** (R)
[MV] LILO & STITCH / ***1/2 (PG)

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

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

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

April 12, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

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

April 5, 2002

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

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

FRAILTY / **** (R)

April 12, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

June 14, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

CHERISH / *** (R)

June 14, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

SCOOBY-DOO / * (PG)

June 14, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

Start surfing.

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

THE BELIEVER / *** (R)

June 14, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

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

June 14, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

WINDTALKERS / ** (R)

June 14, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 21, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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