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movies-digest         Wednesday, July 17 2002         Volume 02 : Number 365



[MV] JUWANNA MANN / ** (PG-13)
[MV] DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS / **1/2 (R)
[MV] MINORITY REPORT / **** (PG-13)
[MV] THE FAST RUNNER / (ATANARJUAT) / **** (Not rated)
[MV] THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES / *** (PG)
[MV] CINEMA PARADISO: / THE NEW VERSION / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] IVANS XTC. / **** (Not rated)
[MV] MR. DEEDS / *1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] HOME MOVIE / *** (R)
[MV] Moulin Rouge

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

Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:13 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] JUWANNA MANN / ** (PG-13)

JUWANNA MANN / ** (PG-13)

June 21, 2002

Jamal/Juwanna Mann: Miguel A.     Nunez Jr.
Michelle Langford: Vivica A. Fox
Puff Smokey Smoke: Tommy     Davidson
Lorne Daniels: Kevin Pollak
Romeo: Ginuwine
Latisha Jansen: Kim Wayans
Tina Parker: Kimberly
: 'Lil Kim' Jones
Ricky: Omar J. Dorsey
Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Jesse Vaughan. Written by Bradley
Allenstein. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for language and
sex-related material).

BY ROGER EBERT

Let us now consider predictability. Most of the time, I consider it an
insult to the audience. We can sense when a movie is on autopilot, and we
wonder, not unreasonably, why the filmmakers couldn't be bothered to try a
little harder. Then a movie like "Juwanna Mann" comes along and is
predictable to its very core, and in a funny way the predictability is part
of the fun. The movie is in on the joke of its own recycling.

How predictable is it? It begins with a pro basketball star who is thrown
out of the league (he gets so angry at a referee's call that he takes off
all of his clothes and flashes the audience). He's faced with foreclosure,
bankruptcy and the loss of all his commercial endorsements, is fired by his
manager, and has no skills except the ability to play basketball. In
desperation, he dresses in drag and passes himself off as "Juwanna Mann," a
female player, and is soon a star of the women's pro basketball league.

With that information in mind, there are scenes we can all predict: (1) A
date with an obnoxious man who doesn't know Juwanna is female. (2) Weird
times in the shower. (3) A crush on a beautiful teammate who likes Juwanna
as a friend but of course doesn't realize she's a man. (4) Unruly erections.
(5) Ill-disciplined falsies. We can also predict that Juwanna will lead her
team into the finals, become a big star, learn useful lessons about human
nature, be faced with a crisis and exposure, and emerge as a better person,
all of her problems solved, while the team wins the big game.

These predictable scenes are, I submit, inevitable. There is no way to make
this movie without them--not as a comedy, anyway. So the pleasure, if any,
must come from the performances, not the material. Up to a point, it does.
Although "Juwanna Mann" is not a good movie, it isn't a painful experience,
and Miguel A. Nunez Jr. is plausible as Juwanna, not because he is able to
look like a woman, but because he is able to play a character who thinks he
can look like a woman.

Vivica A. Fox plays Michelle, the teammate who Juwanna falls in love with,
and it is a challenging assignment, because almost all her dialogue needs to
be taken two ways. Screenplay gimmicks like this are hard for actors,
because if they are too sincere they look like chumps, and if they seem to
be grinning sideways at the audience, they spoil the illusion. Fox finds the
right tone and sticks to it; there is skilled professionalism at work, even
in a rent-a-plot like this.

Since the entire movie is of course completely implausible, it seems unkind
to single out specific examples of implausibility. But there's a difference
between the implausibility of the basic gimmick (man passing as a woman) and
the implausibility of plot details within the gimmick. The most obvious
comes at the end, when Juwanna is exposed as a man. The movie deals with
that exposure but ignores another fact that almost every audience member
will pick up on: If Juwanna's team played the season with an ineligible
player, doesn't it have to forfeit all of its games?

We aren't supposed to ask questions like that, I suppose, but there's
another glitch that stands out because the movie insists on it. Early in the
film, Juwanna is informed that dunking is illegal in the women's league.
Late in the film, she wins a game with a last-second dunk. Say what? Has
everyone in the league forgotten the rules?

Such glitches would matter more, I suppose, if the movie were serious. In a
comedy, they're distractions, suggesting the filmmakers either weren't
playing attention or didn't care. I can't recommend "Juwanna Mann" and yet I
admire the pluck of the actors, especially Nunez, Fox and Tommy Davidson, as
a spectacularly ineligible lothario, and I liked the way Kevin Pollack
soldiers away as the manager who must be perpetually offended, astonished or
frustrated. "Juwanna Mann" is unnecessary, but not painful.

Hollywood never flags in its lack of invention; on July 3, we'll get Lil'
Bow Wow in "Like Mike," as a small kid who stars in the NBA, with many of
the same jokes appropriately adapted. What's next? A dog that plays
basketball? Only joking. We've already had that one.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS / **1/2 (R)

DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS / **1/2 (R)

June 21, 2002

Tim Sullivan: Kieran Culkin
Margie Flynn: Jena Malone
Francis Doyle: Emile Hirsch
Father Casey: Vincent D'Onofrio
Sister Assumpta: Jodie Foster
ThinkFilm presents a film directed by Peter Care. Written by Jeff Stockwell.
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated R (for language, sexual content and youth
substance abuse).

BY ROGER EBERT

There were times when "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" evoked memories of
my own Catholic school days--not to confirm the film, but to question it.
There is a way in which the movie accurately paints its young heroes,
obsessed with sex, rebellion and adolescence, and too many other times when
it pushes too far, making us aware of a screenplay reaching for effect. The
climax is so reckless and absurd that we can't feel any of the emotions that
are intended.

Yet this is an honorable film with good intentions. Set in a town in the
1970s, it tells the story of good friends at St. Agatha's School, who squirm
under the thumb of the strict Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster) and devise
elaborate plots as a rebellion against her. At the same time, the kids are
growing up, experimenting with smoking and drinking, and learning more about
sex than they really want to know.

The heroes are Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin) and Francis Doyle (Emile
Hirsch). We look mostly through Francis' eyes, as the boys and two friends
weave a fantasy world out of a comic book they collaborate on, called The
Atomic Trinity, with characters like Captain Asskicker and easily recognized
caricatures of Sister Assumpta and Father Casey (Vincent D'Onofrio), the
distracted, chain-smoking pastor and soccer coach who seems too moony to be
a priest.

The movie has a daring strategy for representing the adventures of the
Trinity: It cuts to animated sequences (directed by Todd McFarlane) that
cross the everyday complaints and resentments of the authors with the sort
of glorified myth-making and super-hero manufacture typical of Marvel comics
of the period. (These sequences are so well animated, with such visual flair
and energy, that the jerk back to the reality sequences can be a little
disconcerting.) The villainess in the book is Sister Nunzilla, based on
Sister Assumpta right down to her artificial leg.

Does the poor sister deserve this treatment? The film argues that she does
not, but is unconvincing. Sister Assumpta is very strict, but we are meant
to understand that she really likes and cares for her students. This is
conveyed in some of Jodie Foster's acting choices, but has no payoff,
because the kids apparently don't see the same benevolent expressions we
sometimes glimpse. If they are not going to learn anything about Sister
Assumpta's gentler side, then why must we?

The kids are supposed to be typical young adolescents, but they're so
rebellious, reckless and creative that we sense the screenplay nudging them.
Francis feels the stirrings of lust and (more dangerous) idealistic love,
inspired by his classmate Margie Flynn (Jena Malone), and they have one of
those first kisses that makes you smile. Then she shares a family secret
that is, I think, a little too heavy for this film to support, and creates a
dark cloud over all that follows.

If the secret is too weighty, so is the ending. The boys have been engaged
in an escalating series of pranks, and their final one, involving plans to
kidnap a cougar from the zoo and transport it to Sister Assumpta's living
quarters, is too dumb and dangerous for anyone, including these kids, to
contemplate. Their previous stunt was to steal a huge statue of St. Agatha
from a niche high on the facade of the school building, and this seems about
as far as they should go. The cougar is trying too hard, and leads to an
ending that doesn't earn its emotional payoff.

Another hint of the overachieving screenplay is the running theme of the
boys' fascination with William Blake's books Songs of Innocence and Songs of
Experience. I can believe that boys of this age could admire Blake, but not
these boys. And I cannot believe that Sister Assumpta would consider Blake a
danger. What we sense here is the writer, Jeff Stockwell, sneaking in
material he likes even though it doesn't pay its way. (There's one other
cultural reference in the movie, unless I'm seeing it where none was
intended: Early in the film, the boys blow up a telephone pole in order to
calculate when it will fall, and they stand just inches into the safe zone.
I was reminded of Buster Keaton, standing so that when a wall fell on him,
he was in the exact outline of an open window.)

The movie has qualities that cannot be denied. Jena Malone ("Donnie Darko,"
"Life as a House") has a solemnity and self-knowledge that seems almost to
stand outside the film. She represents the gathering weather of adulthood.
The boys are fresh and enthusiastic, and we remember how kids can share
passionate enthusiasms; the animated sequences perfectly capture the energy
of their imaginary comic book. Vincent D'Onofrio muses through the film on
his own wavelength, making of Father Casey a man who means well but has
little idea what meaning well would consist of. If the film had been less
extreme in the adventures of its heroes, more willing to settle for
plausible forms of rebellion, that might have worked. It tries too hard, and
overreaches the logic of its own world.

Note: The movie is rated R, consistent with the policy of the flywheels at
the MPAA that any movie involving the intelligent treatment of teenagers
must be declared off-limits for them.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 23 Jun 2002 08:13:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MINORITY REPORT / **** (PG-13)

MINORITY REPORT / **** (PG-13)

June 21, 2002

John Anderton: Tom Cruise
Agatha: Samantha Morton
Director Burgess: Max von Sydow
Danny Witwer: Colin Farrell
Gideon: Tim Blake Nelson
Twentieth Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures present a film directed by
Steven Spielberg. Written by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen. Based on a short
story by Philip K. Dick. Running time: 145 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content).

BY ROGER EBERT

At a time when movies think they have to choose between action and ideas,
Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" is a triumph--a film that works on our
minds and our emotions. It is a thriller and a human story, a movie of ideas
that's also a whodunit. Here is a master filmmaker at the top of his form,
working with a star, Tom Cruise, who generates complex human feelings even
while playing an action hero.

I complained earlier this summer of awkward joins between live action and
CGI; I felt the action sequences in "Spider-Man" looked too cartoonish, and
that "Star Wars Episode II," by using computer effects to separate the human
actors from the sets and CGI characters, felt disconnected and sterile. Now
here is Spielberg using every trick in the book and matching them without
seams, so that no matter how he's achieving his effects, the focus is always
on the story and the characters.

The movie turns out to be eerily prescient, using the term "pre-crime" to
describe stopping crimes before they happen; how could Spielberg have known
the government would be using the same term this summer? In his film,
inspired by but much expanded from a short story by Philip K. Dick, Tom
Cruise is John Anderton, chief of the Department of Pre-Crime in the
District of Columbia, where there has not been a murder in six years. Soon,
it appears, there will be a murder--committed by Anderton himself.

The year is 2054. Futuristic skyscrapers coexist with the famous Washington
monuments and houses from the 19th century. Anderton presides over an
operation controlling three "Pre-Cogs," precognitive humans who drift in a
flotation tank, their brain waves tapped by computers. They're able to pick
up thoughts of premeditated murders and warn the cops, who swoop down and
arrest the would-be perpetrators before the killings can take place.

Because this is Washington, any government operation that is high-profile
and successful inspires jealousy. Anderton's superior, bureau director
Burgess (Max von Sydow) takes pride in him, and shields him from bureaucrats
like Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell), from the Justice Department. As the
pre-crime strategy prepares to go national, Witwer seems to have doubts
about its wisdom--or he is only jealous of its success?

Spielberg establishes these characters in a dazzling future world, created
by art director Alex McDowell, that is so filled with details large and
small that we stop trying to figure out everything and surrender with a
sigh. Some of the details: a computer interface that floats in mid-air,
manipulated by Cruise with the gestures of a symphony conductor;
advertisements that crawl up the sides of walls and address you personally;
cars that whisk around town on magnetic cushions; robotic "spiders" that can
search a building in minutes by performing a retinal scan on everyone in it.
"Blade Runner," also inspired by a Dick story, shows a future world in
decay; "Minority Report" offers a more optimistic preview.

The plot centers on a rare glitch in the visions of the Pre-Cogs. Although
"the Pre-Cogs are never wrong," we're told, "sometimes ... they disagree."
The dissenting Pre-Cog is said to have filed a minority report, and in the
case of Anderton the report is crucial, because otherwise he seems a certain
candidate for arrest as a pre-criminal. Of course, if you could outsmart the
Pre-Cog system, you would have committed the perfect crime ...

Finding himself the hunted instead of the hunter, Anderton teams up with
Agatha (Samantha Morton), one of the Pre-Cogs, who seemed to be trying to
warn him of his danger. Because she floats in a fluid tank, Agatha's muscles
are weakened (have Pre-Cogs any rights of their own?) and Anderton has to
half-drag her as they flee from the pre-crime police. One virtuoso sequence
shows her foreseeing the immediate future and advising Anderton about what
to do to elude what the cops are going to do next. The choreography, timing
and wit of this sequence make it, all by itself, worth the price of
admission.

But there are other stunning sequences. Consider a scene where the "spiders"
search a rooming house, and Anderton tries to elude capture by immersing
himself in a tub of ice water. This sequence begins with an overhead
cross-section of the apartment building and several of its inhabitants, and
you would swear it has to be done with a computer, but no: This is an actual
physical set, and the elegant camera moves were elaborately choreographed.
It's typical of Spielberg that, having devised this astonishing sequence, he
propels it for dramatic purposes and doesn't simply exploit it to show off
his cleverness. And watch the exquisite timing as one of the spiders, on its
way out, senses something and pauses in mid-step.

Tom Cruise's Anderton is an example of how a star's power can be used to add
more dimension to a character than the screenplay might supply. He compels
us to worry about him, and even in implausible action sequences (like falls
from dizzying heights) he distracts us by making us care about the logic of
the chase, not the possibility of the stunt.

Samantha Morton's character (is "Agatha" a nod to Miss Christie?) has few
words and seems exhausted and frightened most of the time, providing an
eerie counterpoint for Anderton's man of action. There is poignancy in her
helplessness, and Spielberg shows it in a virtuoso two-shot, as she hangs
over Anderton's shoulder while their eyes search desperately in opposite
directions. This shot has genuine mystery. It has to do with the composition
and lighting and timing and breathing, and like the entire movie it furthers
the cold, frightening hostility of the world Anderton finds himself in. The
cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, who has worked with Spielberg before (not
least on "Schindler's List"), is able to get an effect that's powerful and
yet bafflingly simple.

The plot I will avoid discussing in detail. It is as ingenious as any film
noir screenplay, and plays fair better than some. It's told with such
clarity that we're always sure what Spielberg wants us to think, suspect and
know. And although there is a surprise at the end, there is no cheating: The
crime story holds water.

American movies are in the midst of a transition period. Some directors
place their trust in technology. Spielberg, who is a master of technology,
trusts only story and character, and then uses everything else as a workman
uses his tools. He makes "Minority Report" with the new technology; other
directors seem to be trying to make their movies from it. This film is such
a virtuoso high-wire act, daring so much, achieving it with such grace and
skill. "Minority Report" reminds us why we go to the movies in the first
place.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:12 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE FAST RUNNER / (ATANARJUAT) / **** (Not rated)

THE FAST RUNNER / (ATANARJUAT) / **** (Not rated)

June 28, 2002

Atanarjuat: Natar Ungalaaq
Amaqjuaq: Pakkak Innukshuk
Atuat: Sylvia Ivalu
Oki: Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq
Lot 47 Films presents a film directed by Zacharias Kunuk. Written by Paul
Apak Angilirq. In Inuktitut with English subtitles. Running time: 172
minutes. No MPAA rating. Opening today at Landmark Century and Landmark
Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

We could begin with the facts about "The Fast Runner." It is the first film
shot in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit peoples who live within the
Arctic Circle. It was made with an Inuit cast, and a 90-percent Inuit crew.
It is based on a story that is at least 1,000 years old. It records a way of
life that still existed within living memory.

Or we could begin with the feelings. The film is about romantic tensions
that lead to tragedy within a small, closely knit community of people who
depend on one another for survival, surrounded by a landscape of ice and
snow. It shows how people either learn to get along under those
circumstances, or pay a terrible price.

Or we could begin with the lore. Here you will see humans making a living in
a world that looks, to us, like a barren wasteland. We see them fishing,
hunting, preparing their kill, scraping skins to make them into clothing,
tending the lamps of oil that illuminate their igloos, harvesting the wild
crops that grow in the brief summertime, living with the dogs that pull
their sleds.

Or we could begin with the story of the film's production. It was shot with
a high-definition digital video camera, sidestepping the problems that
cinematographers have long experienced while using film in temperatures well
below zero. Its script was compiled from versions of an Inuit legend told by
eight elders. The film won the Camera d'Or, for best first film, at Cannes,
and was introduced at Telluride by the British stage director Peter Sellars;
telling the story of its origin, he observed, "In most cultures, a human
being is a library."

We could begin in all of those ways, or we could plunge into the film
itself, an experience so engrossing it is like being buried in a new
environment. Some find the opening scene claustrophobic. It takes place
entirely inside an igloo, the low lighting provided only by oil lamps, most
of the shots in closeup, and we do not yet know who all the characters are.
I thought it was an interesting way to begin: To plunge us into this
community and share its warmth as it shelters against the cold, and then to
open up and tell its story.

We meet two brothers, Amaqjuaq (Pakkak Innukshuk), known as the Strong One,
and Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq), known as the Fast Runner. They are part of
a small group of Inuit including the unpleasant Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq),
whose father is the leader of the group. There is a romantic problem. Oki
has been promised Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), but she and Atanarjuat are in love.
Just like in Shakespeare. In the most astonishing fight scene I can recall,
Atanarjuat challenges Oki, and they fight in the way of their people: They
stand face to face, while one solemnly hits the other, there is a pause, and
the hit is returned, one blow after another, until one or the other falls.

Atanarjuat wins, but it is not so simple. He is happy with Atuat, but
eventually takes another wife, Puja (Lucy Tulugarjuk), who is pouty and
spoiled and put on earth to cause trouble. During one long night of the
midnight sun, she is caught secretly making love to Amaqjuaq, and banished
from the family. It is, we gather, difficult to get away with adultery when
everybody lives in the same tent.

Later there is a shocking murder. Fleeing for his life, Atanarjuat breaks
free, and runs across the tundra--runs and runs, naked. It is one of those
movie sequences you know you will never forget.

At the end of the film, over the closing titles, there are credit cookies
showing the production of the film, and we realize with a little shock that
the film was made now, by living people, with new technology. There is a way
in which the intimacy of the production and the 172-minute running time lull
us into accepting the film as a documentary of real life. The actors, many
of them professional Inuit performers, are without affect or guile: They
seem sincere, honest, revealing, as real people might, and although the
story involves elements of melodrama and even soap opera, the production
seems as real as a frozen fish.

I am not surprised that "The Fast Runner" has been a box office hit in its
opening engagements. It is unlike anything most audiences will ever have
seen, and yet it tells a universal story. What's unique is the patience it
has with its characters: The willingness to watch and listen as they reveal
themselves, instead of pushing them to the front like little puppets and
having them dance through the story. "The Fast Runner" is passion, filtered
through ritual and memory.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:11 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES / *** (PG)

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES / *** (PG)

June 28, 2002

Napoleon/Eugene: Ian Holm
Pumpkin: Iben Hjejle
Dr. Lambert: Tim McInnerny
Gerard: Tom Watson
Paramount Classics presents a film directed by Alan Taylor. Written by
Taylor, Kevin Molony and Herbie Wave. Based on the novel The Death of
Napoleon by Simon Leys. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG.(for brief
language). Opening today at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark
Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Napoleon did not die on the island of St. Helena in 1821. That was Eugene
Lenormand, who looked a lot like him. "The Emperor's New Clothes," a
surprisingly sweet and gentle comedy, tells how it happened. Lenormand is
smuggled onto St. Helena to act as a double for the Emperor, who is smuggled
off as a cargo hand on a commercial ship ("A position above decks would have
been more appropriate"). The theory is, he will arrive in Paris, the
impostor will reveal his true identity, and France will rise up to embrace
the emperor.

"So many have betrayed me," Napoleon announces grandly at the outset of this
adventure. "I place my trust in only two things now: My will, and the love
of the people of France." He forgets that he has also placed his trust in
Eugene Lenormand--a poor man who grows to enjoy the role of Napoleon, is
treated well by his British captors, dines regularly, and refuses to reveal
his real identity: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Both Napoleon and Lenormand are played by Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins from "Lord
of the Rings"), that invaluable British actor who actually looks so much
like Napoleon he has played him twice before, in "Time Bandits" (1981) and
on a 1974 TV mini-series. Another actor might have strutted and postured,
but Holm finds something melancholy in Bonaparte's fall from grace.

To begin with, the escape ship goes astray, lands at Antwerp instead of a
French port, and Napoleon has to use his limited funds for a coach journey
with an unscheduled stop at the battlefield of Waterloo--where he can, if he
wants, buy souvenirs of himself. Finally in Paris, he goes to see a loyalist
named Truchaut, who will engineer the unveiling. Truchaut, alas, has died,
and so confidentially had he treated his secret that not even his widow,
Pumpkin (Iben Hjejle from "High Fidelity"), knows the story.

She has no sympathy with this madman who claims to be Napoleon. There is no
shortage of those in Paris. But after he injures himself she calls a doctor,
and grows tender toward this little man, and insightful: "I think you've
been in prison." During his convalescence, Napoleon comes to treasure the
pleasant young widow, and learns of a guild of melon-sellers who are barely
making a living. Planning their retail sales like a military campaign, he
dispatches melon carts to the key retail battlefields of Paris, greatly
increasing sales.

The story, inspired by Simon Leys' 1992 novel The Death of Napoleon, could
have gone in several directions; it's not hard to imagine the Monty Python
version. But Holm, an immensely likable actor, seems intrigued by the idea
of an old autocrat finally discovering the joys of simple life. The
director, Alan Taylor, avoids obvious gag lines and nudges Bonaparte
gradually into the realization that the best of all worlds may involve
selling melons and embracing Pumpkin.

Of course there must have been countless people in Paris at that time who
could have identified Napoleon--but how could he have gotten close enough to
them? The government was hostile to him. The British insisted they had the
emperor locked up on St. Helena. And at home, Pumpkin wants no more of his
foolish talk: "You're not Napoleon! I hate Napoleon! He has filled France
with widows and orphans! He took my husband. I won't let him take you."

For Napoleon, this last adventure is a puzzling one: "I have become a
stranger to myself." But who knows who we are, anyway? We affix names and
identities to ourselves to provide labels for the outside world. When the
labels slip, how can we prove they belong to us?

Like a modern victim of identity theft, Napoleon has had his name taken
away, and is left as nothing. Well, not nothing. Pumpkin loves him. And the
melon merchants are grateful.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CINEMA PARADISO: / THE NEW VERSION / ***1/2 (R)

CINEMA PARADISO: / THE NEW VERSION / ***1/2 (R)

June 28, 2002

Alfredo: Philippe Noiret
Salvatore (young): Salvatore     Cascio
Salvatore (teenager): Marco     Leonardi
Elena (teenager): Agnese Nano
Salvatore (adult): Jacques Perrin
Elena (adult): Brigitte Fossey
Miramax Films presents a longer version of the original film, written and
directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. Running time: 170 minutes. Rated R (for some
sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

When "Cinema Paradiso" won the Academy Award as best foreign film in 1990,
it was an open secret that the movie the voters loved was not quite the same
as the one director Giuseppe Tornatore made. Reports had it that Harvey
Weinstein, the boss at Miramax, had trimmed not just a shot here or there,
but a full 51 minutes from the film. Audiences loved the result, however,
and the movie is consistently voted among the 100 best movies of all time at
the Internet Movie Database.

Now comes a theatrical release of "Cinema Paradiso: The New Version," with
an ad campaign that promises, "Discover what really happened to the love of
a lifetime." Considering that it was Miramax that made it impossible for us
to discover this in the 1988 version, the ad is sublime chutzpah. And the
movie is now so much longer, and covers so much more detail, that it almost
plays as its own sequel.

Most of the first two hours will be familiar to lovers of the film. Little
Salvatore (Salvatore Cascio), known to one and all as Toto, is fascinated by
the movies and befriended by the projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret).
After a fire blinds Alfredo, Toto becomes the projectionist, and the Cinema
Paradiso continues as the center of village life, despite the depredations
of Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste), who censors all of the films, ringing
a bell at every kissing scene.

The new material of the longer version includes much more about the teenage
romance between Salvatore (Marco Leonardi) and Elena (Agnese Nano)--a
forbidden love, since her bourgeoisie parents have a better match in mind.
And then there is a long passage involving the return of the middle-aged
Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) to the village for the first time since he left
to go to Rome and make his name as a movie director. He contacts the adult
Elena (Brigitte Fossey), and finds out for the first time what really
happened to a crucial rendezvous, and how easily his life might have turned
out differently. (His discoveries promote the film to an MPAA rating of R,
from its original PG.)

Seeing the longer version is a curious experience. It is an item of faith
that the director of a film is always right, and that studios who cut films
are butchers. Yet I must confess that the shorter version of "Cinema
Paradiso" is a better film than the longer. Harvey was right. The 170-minute
cut overstays its welcome, and continues after its natural climax.

Still, I'm happy to have seen it--not as an alternate version, but as the
ultimate exercise in viewing deleted scenes. Anyone who loves the film will
indeed be curious about "what really happened to the love of a lifetime,"
and it is good to know. I hope, however, that this new version doesn't
replace the old one on the video shelves; the ideal solution would be a DVD
with the 1988 version on one side and the 2002 version on the other.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:04 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] IVANS XTC. / **** (Not rated)

IVANS XTC. / **** (Not rated)

June 28, 2002

Ivan Beckman: Danny Huston
Danny McTeague: James Merendino
Marie Stein: Tiffani-Amber Thiessen
Francesca Knight: Heidi Jo Markel
Don West: Peter Weller
Charlotte White: Lisa Enos
Marcia Beckman: Joanne Duckman
Rhino Films presents a film directed by Bernard Rose. Written by Rose and
Lisa Enos. Based on The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy. Running time:
94 minutes. No MPAA rating (intended for adults).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is much sadness but little mourning at the funeral of Ivan Beckman.
All agree he brought about his own death. He had few close friends. It is
said he died from cancer. Insiders whisper, "The cancer is a cover story."
You know you have lived your life carelessly when cancer is your cover
story.

"ivans xtc.," a remarkable film by Bernard Rose, stars Danny Huston, the
rich-voiced, genial, tall son of John Huston, as a powerful Hollywood agent
whose untidy personal life becomes a legend. Cocaine was the solution to his
problems, which were caused by cocaine. He is headed for a shipwreck anyway,
when the diagnosis of lung cancer comes, but instead of looking for medical
help, he bulldozes ahead with cocaine, denial and call girls.

The film opens with his funeral. There is a fight between a writer fired
from a new movie, and the star (Peter Weller) who fired him. Their
disagreement cannot wait upon death. In a voiceover, we hear the voice of
the dead agent, who says that at the end, "the pain was so bad I took every
pill in the house." And he tried, he says, "to find one simple image to get
me through it."

The story of the making of "ivans xtc." is the story of how a lot of movies
can now be made, according to Bernard Rose, its director.

Because of its controversial subject matter and because the Hollywood
establishment has no wish to fund the thinly veiled story of the death of
one of its own, the movie could not find conventional financing.

"So we went ahead and filmed it anyway," Rose told me after the film's
screening at Cannes 2001. "We got a 24-fps digital video camera, and we shot
it in our own homes, and the crew was the cast and the cast was the crew and
we took care of catering by calling for carry-out."

Rose, 42, is the British-born director of a number of commercial hits,
notably "Candyman" (1992) and "Immortal Beloved" (1995), and he is known for
the power of his visual imagery. In "Paperhouse" (1988), he created a real
landscape based on a child's imaginary drawings. In "Immortal Beloved," a
boy runs through the woods at night and plunges into a lake, floating on his
back as the camera pulls back to show him surrounded by the reflections of
countless stars.

"ivans xtc.," made on a $500,000 budget, did not support or require such
images. Produced by Lisa Enos, who also stars in it, it was directed by Rose
on high-def video, which looks--appropriate, I think is the word. Some shots
are beautiful, others are functional, and there are no shots that do not
work.

"We finished the movie, we took it to Artisan Entertainment, and we made a
deal," he said. "A fifty-fifty split of all the proceeds from dollar one. It
was made so cheaply that we'll make out and so will they."

Does he wish he'd had film? "It's no use saying you'd rather have film,
because this project on film could not have existed."

Roger Ebert

Then we flash back through his life, as Ivan appears onscreen, one of those
charming but unknowable men who have perfect courtesy, who lean forward with
the appearance of great attention, and whose minds seem to be otherwise
involved. As it happens, that is precisely the impression I had of John
Huston on the three or four occasions when I met him: He was a shade too
courteous, too agreeable, too accommodating, leaning forward too attentively
from his great height, and I felt that he was playing a nice man while
thinking about other things.

Danny Huston plays Ivan Beckman as the sort of man who believes he cannot be
touched. Who has been given a pass. To whom all things come because they
must, and for whom addictions like cocaine do not bring the usual ravages. I
am told that if you have enough money for enough cocaine you can hold out
like that for quite a while, which is not good, because you are building up
a deficit in your mind and body that eventually cannot be repaid.

When Ivan doesn't return phone calls, when he doesn't appear at the office,
when clients can't find him, he doesn't get in the same kind of trouble that
a less legendary agent might experience, because--well, that's Ivan. When
his girlfriend Charlotte (Lisa Enos) can't find him, and then discovers he
was partying with hookers--well, who did she think he was when she started
going out with him. Surely she heard the stories? Surely this doesn't come
as news? When his bosses grow restless at his irresponsibility--hey, he has
the big client list. If the clients like him, then the agency must.

The diagnosis of cancer comes like a telegram that should have been
delivered next door. It is the final, irrefutable reply to his feeling of
immunity. There are two painful scenes where he tries, in one way or
another, to deal with this news. One comes in a meeting with his father,
whose ideas have made him a stranger. One comes during a party with two call
girls, who are happy with the money, happy with the cocaine, happy to be
with Ivan Beckman, and then increasingly unhappy and confused as their
services are needed, not to pretend, but to be real. You cannot hire someone
to really care about you.

The movie is allegedly inspired by The Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy.
I say "allegedly," because Bernard Rose has charged that the powerful
Creative Artists Agency tried to prevent the film, seeing it as a
transparent version of the life of Jay Moloney, an agent who at one time (I
learn from a news story) represented Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg,
Bill Murray, Uma Thurman, Tim Burton--and Rose himself. Fired from CAA in
1996 because of cocaine, the story says, he moved to the Caribbean and
killed himself in 1999.

Well, the story could be based on a lot of lives. The parabola of serious
addiction often looks a lot the same. If the victim has more money, the
settings are prettier. The tragedy of Ivan Beckman is that he doesn't know
how to call for help, and has no one to call if he did. It is important to
recognize that he is not a bad man. He can be charming, does not wish to
cause harm, is grateful for company, and, as such people like to say, "If
I'm hurting anybody, I'm only hurting himself." It is not until too late
that he discovers how much it hurts.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:08 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MR. DEEDS / *1/2 (PG-13)

MR. DEEDS / *1/2 (PG-13)

June 28, 2002

Longfellow Deeds: Adam Sandler
Babe Bennett: Winona Ryder
Emilio Lopez: John Turturro
Crazy Eyes: Steve Buscemi
Chuck Cedar: Peter Gallagher
Mac McGrath: Jared Harris
Columbia Pictures and New Line Cinema present a film directed by Steven
Brill. Written by Tim Herlihy. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
language incluidng sexual references, and some rear nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

At one point during the long ordeal of "Mr. Deeds," it is said of the Adam
Sandler character, "He doesn't share our sense of ironic detachment." Is
this a private joke by the writer? If there's is one thing Sandler's Mr.
Deeds has, it's ironic detachment.

Like so many Sandler characters, he seems fundamentally insincere, to be
aiming for the laugh even at serious moments. Since the 1936 Frank Capra
film "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" was above all sincere, we wonder how this
project was chosen; did Adam Sandler look at Gary Cooper and see a role for
himself?

He plays Longfellow Deeds, pizzeria owner in the hamlet of Mandrake Falls,
N.H. The pizzeria is one of those establishments required in all comedies
about small towns, where every single character in town gathers every single
day to provide an audience for the hero, crossed with a Greek chorus. Nobody
does anything in Mandrake Falls, except sit in the pizzeria and talk about
Deeds. When he leaves town, they watch him on the TV.

Turns out Deeds is the distant relative of an elderly zillionaire who
freezes to death in the very act of conquering Everest. Control of his media
empire and a $40 billion fortune goes to Deeds, who is obviously too
good-hearted and simple-minded to deserve it, so a corporate executive named
Cedar (Peter Gallagher) conspires to push him aside. Meanwhile, when Deeds
hits New York, a trash TV show makes him its favorite target, and producer
Babe Bennett (Winona Ryder) goes undercover, convinces Deeds she loves him,
and sets him up for humiliation. Then she discovers she loves him, too late.

Frank Capra played this story straight. But the 2002 film doesn't really
believe in it, and breaks the mood with absurdly inappropriate "comedy"
scenes. Consider a scene where Deeds meets his new butler Emilio (John
Turturro). Emilio has a foot fetish. Deeds doubts Emilio will like his right
foot, which is pitch black after a childhood bout of frostbite. The foot has
no feeling, Deeds says, inviting Emilio to pound it with a fireplace poker.
When Deeds doesn't flinch, Turturro actually punctures the foot with the
point of the poker, at which point I listed attentively for sounds of
laughter in the theater, and heard none.

There's no chemistry between Deeds and Babe, but then how could there be,
considering that their characters have no existence, except as the puppets
in scenes of plot manipulation. After Deeds grows disillusioned with her,
there is a reconciliation inspired after she falls through the ice on a pond
and he breaks through to save her using the Black Foot. In story
conferences, do they discuss scenes like this and nod approvingly? Tell me,
for I want to know.

The moral center of the story is curious. The media empire, we learn,
controls enormous resources and employs 50,000 people. The evil Cedar wants
to break it up. The good-hearted Deeds fights to keep it together so those
50,000 people won't be out of work. This is essentially a movie that wants
to win our hearts with a populist hero who risks his entire fortune in order
to ensure the survival of Time-AOL-Warner-Disney-Murdoch. What would Frank
Capra have thought about the little guy bravely standing up for the
monolith?

Of the many notes I took during the film, one deserves to be shared with
you. There is a scene in the movie where Deeds, the fire chief in Mandrake
Falls, becomes a hero during a Manhattan fire. He scales the side of a
building and rescues a woman's cats, since she refuses to be rescued before
them. One after another, the cats are thrown onto a fireman's net. Finally
there is a car that is on fire. The blazing feline is tossed from the window
and bounces into a bucket of water, emerging wet but intact, ho, ho, and
then Deeds and the heavyset cat lady jump together and crash through the
net, but Deeds' fall is cushioned by the fat lady, who is also not harmed,
ho ho, giving us a heart-rending happy ending.

That is not what I wrote in my notes. It is only the set-up. What I noted
was that in the woman's kitchen, nothing is seen to be on fire except for a
box of Special-K cereal. This is a species of product placement previously
unthinkable. In product placement conferences, do they discuss scenes like
this and nod approvingly? Tell me, for oh, how I want to know.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 28 Jun 2002 17:16:02 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HOME MOVIE / *** (R)

HOME MOVIE / *** (R)

June 28, 2002

Featuring: Linda Beech, Francis Mooney, Diana Peden, Ed Peden, Darlene
Satrinano, Ben Skora, Bill Tregle, Bob Walker. Cowboy Releasing presents a
documentary directed by Chris Smith. Running time: 65 minutes. Rated R (for
language). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

The five homes in Chris Smith's "Home Movie" are no doubt strange and
eccentric. Not everyone would choose to live on a houseboat in alligator
country, or in a missile silo, or in a tree house, or in a house modified
for the comfort of dozens of cats, or in a house that looks like Rube
Goldberg running berserk.

But what is a normal house, anyway? In "The Fast Runner," we see a
civilization that lives in igloos. In "Taiga," we visit the yurt dwellers of
Outer Mongolia. Their homes are at least functional, economical and organic
to the surrounding landscape. It's possible that the most bizarre homestyles
on Earth are those proposed by Martha Stewart, which cater to the neuroses
of women with paralyzing insecurity. What woman with a secure self-image
could possibly dream of making those table decorations?

The five subjects of "Home Movie" at least know exactly why they live where
they do and as they do, and they do not require our permission or approval.
There is Bill Tregle, whose Louisiana houseboat is handy for his occupation
of trapping, selling and exhibiting alligators. He catches his dinner from a
line tossed from the deck, has electric lights, a microwave and a TV powered
by generator, pays no taxes, moves on when he feels like it, and has
decorated his interior with the treasures of a lifetime.

Or consider the Pedans, Ed and Diana, who live in a converted missile silo.
The concrete walls are so thick that they can have "tornado parties," and
there's an easy commute down a buried tunnel from the living space to the
work space. True, they had to build a greenhouse on the surface to get some
sun or watch the rain, because otherwise, Diana observes, it's too easy to
stay underground for days or weeks at a time. Their living room is the
silo's former launch center--interesting karma.

Linda Beech speaks little Japanese, yet once starred on a Japanese soap
opera. Now she lives in the Hawaiian rain forest, in a tree house equipped
with all the comforts of home. To be sure, family photos tend toward mildew,
but think of the compensations, such as her own waterfall, which provides
hydroelectric power for electricity, and also provides her favorite
meditation spot, on a carefully positioned "water-watching rock." She can't
imagine anyone trying to live without their own waterfall.

Bob Walker and Francis Mooney have dozens of cats. They've renovated the
inside of their house with perches, walkways and tunnels, some of them
linking rooms, others ending in hidey-holes. They speculate about how much
less their house is worth today than when they purchased it, but they're
serene: They seem to live in a mutual daze of cat-loving. The cats seem
happy, too.

Ben Skora lives in a suburb of Chicago. His house is an inventor's
hallucination. Everything is automatic: The doors, which open like
pinwheels, the toilets, the lights, the furniture. The hardest task, living
in his house, must be to remember where all the switches are, and what they
govern. He also has a remote-controlled robot that is a hit at shopping
malls. The robot will bring him a can of pop, which is nice, although the
viewer may reflect that it is easier to get a can out of the refrigerator
than build a robot to do it for you. Skora's great masterwork is a ski jump
that swoops down from his roof.

Are these people nuts? Who are we to say? I know people whose lives are
lived in basement rec rooms. Upstairs they have a living room with the lamps
and sofas still protected with the plastic covers from the furniture store.
What is the purpose of this room? To be a Living Room Museum? What event
will be earth-shaking enough to require the removal of the covers? Do they
hope their furniture will appreciate in value?

There is no philosophy, so far as I can tell, behind Chris Smith's film. He
simply celebrates the universal desire to fashion our homes for our needs
and desires. Smith's previous doc was the great "American Movie," about the
Wisconsin man who wanted to make horror movies, and did, despite all
obstacles. Perhaps the message is the same: If it makes you happy and allows
you to express your yearnings and dreams, who are we to enforce the rules of
middle-class conformity?

Note: "Home Movie," 65 minutes long, had been linked with "Heavy Metal
Parking Lot," a time capsule doc shot in the parking lot outside a Judas
Priest concert in 1986. The band's fans, zonked on strange substances, seem
to have no homes at all, and to live entirely in the now, as stoned
worshippers at the shrine of their own bewilderment.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:59:07 -0400
From: Gene Ehrich <[e-mail]>
Subject: [MV] Moulin Rouge

Did Nicole Kiddman & Ewan McGreggor do their own singing in Moulin Rouge


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