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movies-digest         Friday, August 23 2002         Volume 02 : Number 368



[MV] ME WITHOUT YOU / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] THE GOOD GIRL / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] POSSESSION / ***1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE / **** (R)
[MV] BLUE CRUSH / *** (PG-13)
[MV] SEX WITH STRANGERS / ** (Not rated)
[MV] LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)
[MV] 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE / **** (R)
[MV] UNDISPUTED / *** (R)
[MV] ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)

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

Date: 20 Aug 2002 16:19:46 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ME WITHOUT YOU / ***1/2 (R)

ME WITHOUT YOU / ***1/2 (R)

August 16, 2002

Marina: Anna Friel
Holly: Michelle Williams
Nat: Oliver Milburn
Daniel: Kyle MacLachlan
Linda: Trudie Styler
Isabel: Marianne Denicourt
IDP Films presents a film directed by Sandra Goldbacher. Written by
Goldbacher and Laurence Coriat. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated R (for
language, sexual content and drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

Marina and Holly's childhood friendship evolves into a toxic relationship
when they grow up, but they still remain close because even when they're
hurting each other, there's no one else they'd rather hurt. Ever had a
friend like that? Although Marina is more neurotic and Holly is more the
victim, maybe it's because they like it that way. If Holly knew the whole
story of how Marina betrays her, she'd be devastated--but then, of course,
she doesn't.

"Me Without You" has a bracing truth that's refreshing after the phoniness
of female-bonding pictures like "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." It
doesn't mindlessly celebrate female friendship, but looks at it with a level
gaze. If Holly and Marina remain friends despite everything--well, maybe it
would be a shame to throw away all that history.

Sandra Goldbacher's film begins in London in 1974 and continues for another
20 years, paying close attention to changing fashions in clothing, music and
makeup, while not making too big a point of it. We meet Holly (Michelle
Williams of "Dawson's Creek") and Marina (Anna Friel) as adolescents who
seal their friendship by placing treasures in a box and hiding it (there is
a law requiring all female friends to perform this ritual in the movies). We
meet their parents. Marina has a mother who fancies herself a sexpot and is
a little drunk all day long, and a father who is, understandably, distant.
Holly comes from a Jewish family that is warm but not especially supportive;
she learns from her mother that she is more clever than pretty, and is not
clever enough to figure out that she's pretty, too.

Marina has a brother named Nat (Oliver Milburn) who Holly has always been in
love with. He is a decent sort and likes Holly, too, and one night during
their hippie party phase he makes love to her, but this is not on Marina's
agenda and she destroys a crucial letter that could have changed everything.

Another rivalry over a male takes place at college, when both women fall for
a handsome dweeb American lecturer named Daniel (Kyle MacLachlan). And here
the movie does something that few female-bonding pictures have the nerve to
do, and introduces a fully formed, fascinating male. In a superbly modulated
performance by MacLachlan, Daniel comes across as a man who can easily be
tempted but not easily secured. He's willing to be seduced but is frightened
of commitment; his posture is always that of the male prepared to back away
and apologize at the slightest offense. He has a highly developed line in
chit-chat, quoting all the best poets, and Holly is deceived by him while
the more cynical Marina strip-mines him and moves on.

What's fascinating about the Daniel character is that he illustrates how men
are not always the villains in unfaithful relationships, but sometimes
simply the pawns of female agendas. Daniel gives both women what they want,
and they want it more than he wants to give it. So although he appears to be
a two-timer, he's more of a two-time loser. Rare, to see a character
portrayed in this depth instead of simply being used as a plot ploy.

Michelle Williams is the surprise. I am not a student of "Dawson's Creek,"
but I know she uses an American accent on it, and here, like Renee Zellweger
in "Bridget Jones's Diary," she crosses the Atlantic, produces a perfectly
convincing British accent, and is cuddly and smart both at once. Anna Friel,
as Marina, has a tricky role because she is only ostensibly the sexy,
world-wise woman, and in fact is closer to her insecure mother. What eats at
her is that in the long run Holly is more appealing to men, and it has
nothing to do with hair or necklines.

The movie isn't entirely free of cliches (the secret treasure box, dredged
up from a pond after decades, of course is still intact). But the
screenplay, by Goldbacher and Laurence Coriat, plays as if the authors have
based it on their observations of life, not of movies. There is ultimately a
species of happy ending, although you realize it represents maturity and
weariness more than victory. The struggles of the teens and 20s are so
fraught, so passionate, so seemingly desperate, that when you grow older and
learn balance and perspective, there's a bittersweet sense of loss. In years
to come, Marina and Holly may reflect that they were never happier than when
they were making each other miserable.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 Aug 2002 16:19:51 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE GOOD GIRL / ***1/2 (R)

THE GOOD GIRL / ***1/2 (R)

August 16, 2002

Justine: Jennifer Aniston
Holden: Jake Gyllenhaal
Phil: John C. Reilly
Bubba: Tim Blake Nelson
Cheryl: Zooey Deschanel
Corny: Mike White
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film directed by Miguel Arteta. Written
by Mike White. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality, some
language and drug content). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

After languishing in a series of overlooked movies that ranged from the
entertaining ("Office Space") to the disposable ("Picture Perfect"),
Jennifer Aniston has at last decisively broken with her "Friends" image in
an independent film of satiric fire and emotional turmoil. It will no longer
be possible to consider her in the same way. In "The Good Girl," she plays
Justine, a desperately bored clerk at Retail Rodeo, a sub-Kmart where the
customers are such sleepwalkers they don't even notice when the "Attention,
Shoppers!" announcements are larded with insults and nonsense.

Recent headlines tell of a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for forcing its
employees to work unpaid overtime. Retail Rodeo is by contrast relatively
benign. Management is particularly flexible with Justine's co-worker Cheryl
(Zooey Deschanel), who, after getting carried away once too often on the
P.A. system, is reassigned to Women's Makeovers, where she improvises
dubious advice. A new makeup style is called "Cirque du Face," she tells one
customer. "It's all the rage with the Frenchies."

Justine, who is 30ish, is married to a house painter named Phil (John C.
Reilly), who is attached vertically to the living room sofa and horizontally
to his best friend, Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson). Phil and Bubba paint houses
during the day and are couch potatoes at night, smoking weed and peering at
the television. After a day of drudgery, Justine comes home to stoned
indifference. No wonder she's intrigued by Holden (Jake Gyllenhaal), the new
check-out kid, who's reading The Catcher in the Rye and tells her its hero
is a victim of the world's hypocrisy.

Quite a coincidence, that a kid named Holden would be reading a book about a
character named Holden. When they become better friends, Holden invites
Justine to his house, where his mother calls him "Tom." In the safety of his
room, he explains: "Tom is my slave name." Soon Justine and Tom, who is a
college dropout with a drinking problem, are having sex everywhere they can:
in the car, in his room, in the stockroom at Retail Rodeo, and in a fleabag
motel, where, unluckily, Bubba sees them.

For Bubba, this is an ideal opening for emotional blackmail. He has long
explained that he is single because he despairs of ever finding a wife as
"perfect" as Justine. Now he demands sex with her, so his life will be
complete. Otherwise, he will tell Phil about her affair. In a decision that
Jennifer Aniston would never make but Justine might (this is a crucial
distinction), she deals with this demand and with another crisis, when she
discovers she is pregnant. She also finds out what she should have
suspected, that Bubba would never tell Phil about her secrets, because he
adores Phil too much and, as Phil's wife, she is protected by his immunity.

"The Good Girl" has been directed by Miguel Arteta and written by Mike
White, who plays the Retail Rodeo's security guard. They also collaborated
on "Chuck and Buck," and on the basis of these two strange movies with their
skewed perspectives, they are talents with huge promise. They know how much
satire and exaggeration is enough but not too much, so that in a
subterranean way their movies work on serious levels while seeming to be
comedies.

Certainly the last big scene between Aniston and Reilly is an unexpected
payoff, delivering an emotional punch while at the same time we can only
admire Aniston's strategy involving the father of her child. She says it's
Phil's, and that claim cannot be disproved on the basis of Phil's
information; having confessed to cheating, she allows him to suspect someone
who could not have a black-haired child; therefore, the father is the
dark-haired Phil. Right? Right.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 Aug 2002 16:19:47 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] POSSESSION / ***1/2 (PG-13)

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

August 16, 2002

Maud Bailey: Gwyneth Paltrow
Roland Michell: Aaron Eckhart
Randolph Henry Ash: Jeremy Northam
Christabel LaMotte: Jennifer Ehle
Blanche Glover: Lena Headey
Focus Features and Warner Bros. Pictures present a film directed by Neil
LaBute. Written by David Henry Hwang, Laura Jones and LaBute. Based on the
novel by A.S. Byatt. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sexuality
and some thematic elements).

BY ROGER EBERT

A visiting American scholar is paging through an old volume at the British
Museum when he comes upon a letter stuffed between the pages--a love letter,
it would appear, from Queen Victoria's poet laureate, addressed to a woman
not his wife. The poet has been held up for more than a century as a model
of marital fidelity. The letter is dynamite. The scholar slips the letter
out of the book and into his portfolio, and is soon displaying it, with all
the pride and uncertainly of a new father, to a British woman who knows (or
thought she knew) everything about the poet.

The American, named Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), is professionally
ambitious but has a block against personal intimacy. The British expert,
named Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), is suspicious of love, suspicious of
men, suspicious of theories that overturn a century of knowledge about her
speciality. Together, warily, edgily, they begin to track down the
possibility that the happily married Randolph Henry Ash did indeed have an
affair with the 19th century feminist and lesbian Christabel LaMotte. Two
modern people with high walls of privacy are therefore investigating two
Victorians who in theory never even met.

This setup from A.S. Byatt's 1990 Booker Prize-winning novel would seem like
the last premise in the world to attract director Neil LaBute, whose "In the
Company of Men" and "Your Friends & Neighbors" were about hard-edged
modern sexual warfare. But look again at the romantic fantasies in his
overlooked "Nurse Betty" (2000), about a housewife in love with a soap opera
character and a killer in love with a photograph of the housewife, and you
will see the same premise: Love, fueled by imagination, tries to leap
impossible divides.

The film, written by David Henry Hwang, Laura Jones and LaBute, uses a
flashback structure to move between the current investigation and the
long-ago relationship. Jeremy Northam plays Ash, an upright public figure,
and Jennifer Ehle is Christabel, a pre-Raphaelite beauty who lives with the
darkly sensuous Blanche Glover (Lena Headey). The nature of their
relationship is one of the incidental fascinations of the movie: At a time
before lesbianism was widely acknowledged, female couples were commonly
accepted and the possibility of a sexual connection didn't necessarily
occur. Blanche is the dominant and possessive one, and Christabel is perhaps
not even essentially lesbian, but simply besotted with friendship. When she
and Ash make contact, it is Blanche, not Ash's unbending wife, who is the
angered spouse.

In the way it moves between two couples in two periods, "Possession" is like
Karel Reisz's "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981). That film, with a
screenplay by Harold Pinter, added a modern couple that didn't exist in the
John Fowles novel, and had both couples played by Meryl Streep and Jeremy
Irons. The notion of two romances on parallel trajectories is common to both
films, and intriguing because there seem to be insurmountable barriers in
both periods.

Ash and Christabel are separated by Victorian morality, his marriage and her
relationship. The moderns, Maud and Roland, seem opposed to any idea of
romance; she has her own agenda, and he is reticent to a fault. "You have
nothing to fear from me," he tells her early on, because he avoids
relationships. Later, when they find themselves tentatively in each other's
arms, he pulls back: "We shouldn't be doing this; it's dangerous."

This might be convincing if Roland and Maud looked like our conventional
idea of literary scholars: Mike White, perhaps, paired with Lili Taylor.
That they are both so exceptionally attractive is distracting; Paltrow is
able to project a certain ethereal bookishness, but a contemporary man with
Eckhart's pumped-up physique and adamant indifference to Paltrow would be
read by many observers as gay. That he is not--that his reticence is a quirk
rather than a choice--is a screenplay glitch we have to forgive.

We do, because the movie is not a serious examination of scholarship or
poetry, but a brainy romance. In a world where most movie romances consist
of hormonal triggers and plumbing procedures, it's sexy to observe two
couples who think and debate their connections, who quote poetry to each
other, who consciously try to enhance their relationships by seeking
metaphors and symbols they can attach to. Romance defined by the body will
decay with the flesh, but romance conceived as a grand idea--ah, now that
can still fascinate people a century later.

LaBute is a director who loves the spoken word. No surprise that between
movies he writes and directs plays. I suspect he would be incapable of
making a movie about people who had nothing interesting to say to one
another. What he finds sexy is not the simple physical fact of two people,
but the scenario they write around themselves; look at the way the deaf
woman in "In the Company of Men" so completely defeats both men by
discovering their ideas of themselves and turning those ideas against them.
By the end of the movie, with the egos of both men in shards at her feet,
the woman seems more desirable than we could have imagined possible.

What happens in "Possession" is not the same, but it is similar enough to
explain LaBute's interest in the story. He likes people who think themselves
into and out of love, and finds the truly passionate (like Blanche) to be
the most dangerous. He likes romances that exist out of sight, denied,
speculated about, suspected, fought against. Any two people can fall into
each other's arms and find that they enjoy the feeling. But to fall into
someone else's mind--now that can be dangerous.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 20 Aug 2002 16:19:43 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE / **** (R)

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE / **** (R)

August 16, 2002

Tony Wilson: Steve Coogan
Roger Ames: Keith Allen
Ryan Letts: Rob Brydon
Saville: Enzo Cilenti
Derek Ryde: Ron Cook
Bez: Chris Coghill
United Artists presents a film directed by Michael Winterbottom. Written by
Frank Cottrell Boyce. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R (for strong
language, drug use and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"24 Hour Party People," which tells the story of the Manchester music scene
from the first Sex Pistols concert until the last bankruptcy, shines with a
kind of inspired madness. It is based on fact, but Americans who don't know
the facts will have no trouble identifying with the sublime posturing of its
hero, a television personality named Tony Wilson, who takes himself
seriously in a way that is utterly impossible to take seriously.

Wilson, a real man, is played by Steve Coogan, who plays a Wilsonoid TV
personality on British TV. That sort of through-the-looking-glass mixing of
reality and fancy makes the movie somehow more true than a factual
documentary would have been. Wilson is a lanky man with the face of a
sincere beagle, a flop of hair over his right eyebrow, and an ability to
read banal TV copy as if it has earth-shaking profundity. He's usually the
only man in the room wearing a suit and tie, but he looks like he put them
on without reading the instructions. He is so heartfelt about his lunacies
that we understand, somehow, that his mind deals with contradictions by
embracing them.

As the film opens, Wilson is attending the first, legendary Sex Pistols
concert in Manchester, England. Here and elsewhere, director Michael
Winterbottom subtly blends real newsreel footage with fictional characters
so they all fit convincingly into the same shot. Wilson is transfixed by the
Pistols as they sing "Anarchy in the U.K." and sneer at British tradition.
He tells the camera that everyone in the audience will leave the room
transformed and inspired, and then the camera pans to show a total of 42
people, two or three of them half-heartedly dancing in the aisles.

Wilson features the Pistols and other bands on his Manchester TV show.
Because of a ban by London TV, his show becomes the only venue for punk
rock. Turns out he was right about the Pistols. They let loose something
that changed rock music. And they did it in the only way that Wilson could
respect, by thoroughly screwing up everything they did, and ending in
bankruptcy and failure, followed by Sid Vicious' spectacular murder-suicide
flameout. The Sex Pistols became successful because they failed; if they had
succeeded, they would have sold out, or become diluted or commercial. I saw
Johnny Rotten a few years ago at Sundance, still failing, and it made me
feel proud of him.

Tony Wilson, who preaches "anarchism" not as a political position but as an
emotional state, knows he has seen the future. He joins with two partners to
form a Factory Records, which would become one of the most important and
least financially successful recording companies in history, and joyously
signs the contract in his blood (while declaring "we will have no
contracts"). His bands include Joy Division (renamed New Order after the
suicide of its lead singer) and Happy Mondays. His company opens a rave
club, the Hacienda, which goes broke because the customers ignore the cash
bars and spend all their money on Ecstasy.

Wilson hardly cares. When the club closes, he addresses the final night's
crowd: "Before you leave, I ask you to invade the offices and loot them."
When he meets with investors who want to buy Factory Records, they are
startled to learn he has nothing to sell--no contracts, no back catalog,
nothing. "We are not really a company," he explains helpfully. "We are an
experiment in human nature. I protected myself from the dilemma of selling
out by having nothing to sell."

This is a lovable character, all the more so because his conversation uses
the offhand goofy non-sequiturs of real speech, instead of being channeled
into a narrow lane of movie dialogue. The writer, Frank Cottrell Boyce,
gives Wilson a distinctive voice we come to love. "I went to Cambridge
University!" he tells one of his broadcast bosses. "I'm a serious
journalist, living in one of the most important times in human history."
Yes, but the next day he's interviewing a midget elephant trainer. He
explains how the invention of broccoli funded the James Bond movies (there
is a shred of truth there, actually). He quotes Plutarch and William Blake,
he says one of his singers is a poet equal to Yeats, he looks at empty
concert halls and observes hopefully that there were only 12 people at the
Last Supper (13, actually, counting the talent). And he is courageous in the
face of daunting setbacks, pushing on optimistically into higher realms of
failure.

The movie works so well because it evokes genuine, not manufactured,
nostalgia. It records a time when the inmates ran the asylum, when music
lovers got away with murder. It loves its characters. It understands what
the Sex Pistols started, and what the 1990s destroyed. And it gets a certain
tone right. It kids itself. At one point, Wilson looks straight at the
camera and tells us that a scene is missing, "but it will probably be on the
DVD."

As the screenwriter of an ill-fated Sex Pistols movie, I met Rotten,
Vicious, Paul Cook, Steve Jones and their infamous manager, Malcolm McLaren,
and brushed the fringe of their world. I could see there was no plan, no
strategy, no philosophy, just an attitude. If a book on the Sex Pistols had
an upraised middle finger on the cover, it wouldn't need any words inside.
And yet Tony Wilson goes to see the Pistols and sees before him a delirious
opportunity to--to what? Well, obviously, to live in one of the most
important times in human history, and to make your mark on it by going down
in glorious flames.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 Aug 2002 16:19:44 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BLUE CRUSH / *** (PG-13)

BLUE CRUSH / *** (PG-13)

August 16, 2002

Anne Marie: Kate Bosworth
Eden: Michelle Rodriguez
Matt Tollman: Matthew Davis
Lena: Sanoe Lake
Penny: Mika Boorem
Kala: Kala Alexander
Drew: Chris Taloa
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by John Stockwell. Written by
Stockwell and Lizzy Weiss. Story by Weiss. Based on a magazine article by
Susan Orlean. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sexual content,
teen partying, language and a fight).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Blue Crush" knows something most surfing movies don't acknowledge--that
many non-pro surfers endure blue-collar jobs as a way to support their
surfing, which is the only time they feel really alive. Surfers in the
movies have traditionally been golden boys and girls who ride the waves to
Beach Boys songs--and live, apparently, on air. In "Blue Crush," we meet
three Hawaiian surfers who work as hotel maids, live in a grotty rental, and
are raising the kid sister of one of them. Despite this near-poverty, they
look great; there is nothing like a tan and a bikini to overcome class
distinctions.

The women are Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth), Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena
(Sanoe Lake). Anne Marie was a contender three years earlier in a major
surfing competition on Oahu but nearly drowned. Now she's edging back into
competition, encouraged by the others, who seem to take Anne Marie's career
more seriously than she does. Life for the women includes surfing at dawn,
working hard as a three-maid team at a local luxury resort, and surfing at
dusk. Since her mother bailed out, Anne Marie has been raising Penny (Mika
Booren), who attends a local school but is not always delivered quite on
time.

The movie, based on Susan Orlean's magazine article "Surf Girls of Maui,"
resembles the Nik Cohn journalism that inspired "Saturday Night Fever." Both
stories are about working-class kids escaping into the freedom and glamor of
their obsessions. We hear fascination in their voices when they stop at a
gas station and see, at another pump, famous professional women surfers who
are in Hawaii for a big tournament. While it is true that Anne Marie might
be able to make money as a member of a pro surfing team, it is also true, as
it was of Tony Manero in "Saturday Night Fever," that other things distract
her, especially romance. She is not single-mindedly focused on her career.

The movie's surfing scenes are well-photographed, and yet we've seen
versions of them in many other movies, going all the way back to the
lodestone, Bruce Brown's "The Endless Summer" (1966). What we haven't seen,
what has the delight of life, are the scenes in the hotel, where the three
maids deal with the aftermath of a messy party held by pro football players
and try on expensive bathing suits in the room of a rich woman.

Anne Marie has a fierce working woman's pride, and at one point gets herself
fired by daring to march out onto the beach and demonstrate to a huge
football lineman the correct procedure for wrapping a used condom in a
Kleenex. She also has a working woman's realism, as when she advises the
others not to resign in sympathy, because they have rent payments to meet.

The date for the big competition is approaching, and Anne Marie is focused
on it when the run-in with the football players (who are not bad guys)
changes everything. The quarterback Matt Tollman (Matthew Davis) asks her
out, and although she talks about non-fraternization policies, she accepts,
and finds herself falling for him. Here is the crucial question: Is this a
vacation romance or does it really mean something? Matt seems nice,
attentive and genuine, but is it an act? The movie is realistic here, too:
Anne Marie would not mind a vacation romance, but she wants to know that's
what it is--she doesn't want to risk her heart needlessly.

Eden is tougher and more cynical than her friend, and we remember Michelle
Rodriguez's performance as an amateur boxer in "Girlfight" (2000). She's
alarmed when her friend starts spending too much time with the quarterback
and not enough time preparing for the impending competition ("Some guy
thinks you look good in a bikini and you forget all about the contest.").
And then of course the movie ends with the big showdown, with waves of
awesome strength and feats of great surfing, with all the necessary dangers
and setbacks. Even here, it doesn't settle for what we thought was the
predictable outcome.

"Blue Crush" was directed by John Stockwell, who made "Crazy/Beautiful"
(2001), the movie where Kirsten Dunst plays the wild daughter of a
congressman and her boyfriend is a responsible young Mexican-American. Here
again we get the footloose Anglo and the Latino looking out for her, but in
an unexpected context. Looking at the posters for "Blue Crush," which show
Bosworth, Rodriguez and Lake posing with bikinis and surfboards, I expected
another mindless surfing movie. "Blue Crush" is anything but.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 20 Aug 2002 16:19:50 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SEX WITH STRANGERS / ** (Not rated)

SEX WITH STRANGERS / ** (Not rated)

August 16, 2002

View Films presents a documentary directed by Joe and Harry Gantz. Running
time: 105 minutes. No MPAA rating (intended for adults). Opening today at
the Esquire Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

The most intriguing element of "Sex with Strangers" involves not the sex,
but the strangers. Here are people who do not allow the use of their last
names, yet they cheerfully have sex in front of the camera--and even
willingly participate in scenes that make them look cruel, twisted, reckless
and perhaps deranged. We know from the Springer show that shame is no
barrier when it comes to collecting your 15 minutes of fame. But these
people act like this, we realize, even when the cameras aren't on. They live
this way.

The movie has been produced and directed by Joe and Harry Gantz, who do the
"Taxicab Confessions" program for HBO. They follow two couples and a sad
threesome through their adventures in the swinging lifestyle, in a
documentary that strongly suggests the screwing they're getting isn't worth
the screwing they're getting. Even assuming they have an insatiable appetite
for sex with strangers, how do they develop an appetite for trolling through
the roadside bars of the nation, picking up the kinds of people who can be
picked up there? Groucho Marx wouldn't belong to any club that would have
him as a member. The stars of this film might be wise not to sleep with
anyone who would sleep with them.

We meet James and Theresa, Shannon and Gerard, and Calvin and Sara and
Julie. James and Theresa have it all figured out. They even have their own
business cards. They cruise the back roads of the nation, pulling up to bars
in their motor home, meeting new friends inside and inviting them out to the
Winnebago for a swap meet. Shannon and Gerard are more complicated: She
seems deeply neurotic about the lifestyle, he wants to swing without her,
they have a child who they try to insulate from mommy and daddy's
ever-changing new friends, and there's even a scene where they chat about
their lifestyle with her mother, getting points for "openness" when they
should be penalized for inflicting their secrets upon the poor woman.

Now as for Calvin. He uses the rhetoric of the lifestyle primarily, we
suspect, as a way to justify sleeping with both Sara and Julie, neither one
of whom is particularly enthusiastic about his hobby. He wants it all but
isn't a good sport when Sara and Julie slip off without the middleman.
Although mate-swappers would have you believe that they are open and willing
participants in their lifestyle, the evidence on screen suggests that men
are a good deal more keen about the practice than women, perhaps because
there is an intrinsic imbalance in the pleasures to be had from quickie
anonymous sex.

When I first saw the movie, I had fundamental questions about how much of it
could be trusted. On "Ebert & Roeper," I said: "There's a scene where
James and Theresa are in a club and they meet another couple, and they ask
the other couple, 'Do you want to swing?' And the other couple says, 'Sure.'
And they say, 'Oh, we have our motor home right outside.' And so they go
outside, the two couples and the camera. And I'm wondering: Let's say I
wanted to be a swinger and I've just met two people who are going to take me
into their motor home. Am I going to wonder about the fact that this happens
to be videotaped while it's happening? When I saw scenes like that, I
thought, this has all been rehearsed. It's a setup."

After the show played, I got an e-mail from Joe Gantz, who assured me that
all of the scenes in the movie do indeed reflect reality. One key to their
footage is that they always have two cameras running all the time, to supply
cutaways and reaction shots. Another is that, by definition, they only show
couples who agreed to be photographed. If a hypothetical couple got to the
motor home and balked at the cameras, they wouldn't be in the movie.

That leads me back to where I began--to curiosity about the mind-set of the
people in the film. By openly swapping mates, they have already abandoned
conventional notions of privacy and modesty. Perhaps it is only a small
additional step to do it on camera. But I didn't find much fascination in
the swinging. What they're doing is a matter of plumbing arrangements and
mind games, of no erotic or sensuous charge. But that they are doing it is
thought-provoking. What damage had to be done to their self-esteem, and how,
to lead them to this point?

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Date: 23 Aug 2002 14:54:17 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)

LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)

August 23, 2002

Emily: Evan Rachel Wood
Philip: Michael Angarano
David: David Gallagher
Pauline: Vivica A. Fox
Caroline: Jan Gardner
IDP Pictures presents a film directed by Blair Treu. Written by Jessica
Bardones. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG.(for thematic elements).

BY ROGER EBERT

The biggest surprise in "Little Secrets" is that Ozzie and Harriet don't
live next door. The movie takes place in an improbably perfect suburban
neighborhood where all the kids wear cute sportswear and have the kinds of
harmless problems that seem to exist only so that they can be harmless
problems. Then of course there are some Big Problems which are rendered
harmless, too. This is a very reassuring film.

The heroine of the movie, Emily (Evan Rachel Wood) is a budding young
violinist who as a sideline runs a Little Secrets stand in her back yard,
where kids can tell her their secrets at 50 cents apiece. The secrets are
then written on scraps of paper and locked in a chest.

The theological and psychological origins of her practice would be
fascinating to research. The neighborhood kids sure take it seriously. When
she's a few minutes late in opening her stand, there's a line of impatient
kids clamoring to unburden themselves. The 50-cent price tag doesn't
discourage them; these are not kids who remember the days when a quarter
used to buy something.

But what kinds of kids are they, exactly? Consider Philip and David. Philip
tells David, "Her name is Emily. Like Emily ..." "... Dickinson?" says
David. "And Emily Bronte," says Philip. Heartened as I am to know that the
grade school kids in this movie are on first-name terms with these authors,
I am nevertheless doubtful that Dickinson and Bronte will ring many bells in
the audience.

Vivica A. Fox is the only widely known star in the film, playing a violin
teacher who is wise and philosophical. Much suspense centers around Emily's
audition for the local symphony orchestra (every suburb should have one).
The problems of the kids range from a girl who hides kittens in her room to
a boy who is digging a hole to China. Larger issues, including adoption, are
eventually introduced.

I am rating this movie at three stars because it contains absolutely nothing
to object to. That in itself may be objectionable, but you will have to
decide for yourself. The film is upbeat, wholesome, chirpy, positive, sunny,
cheerful, optimistic and squeaky-clean. It bears so little resemblance to
the more complicated worlds of many members of its target audience (girls 4
to 11) that it may work as pure escapism. That it has been rated not G but
PG (for "thematic elements") is another of the arcane mysteries created by
the flywheels of the MPAA. There is not a parent on earth who would believe
this film requires "parental guidance."

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Date: 23 Aug 2002 14:54:26 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE / **** (R)

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE / **** (R)

August 16, 2002

Tony Wilson: Steve Coogan
Roger Ames: Keith Allen
Ryan Letts: Rob Brydon
Saville: Enzo Cilenti
Derek Ryde: Ron Cook
Bez: Chris Coghill
United Artists presents a film directed by Michael Winterbottom. Written by
Frank Cottrell Boyce. Running time: 117 minutes. Rated R (for strong
language, drug use and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"24 Hour Party People," which tells the story of the Manchester music scene
from the first Sex Pistols concert until the last bankruptcy, shines with a
kind of inspired madness. It is based on fact, but Americans who don't know
the facts will have no trouble identifying with the sublime posturing of its
hero, a television personality named Tony Wilson, who takes himself
seriously in a way that is utterly impossible to take seriously.

Wilson, a real man, is played by Steve Coogan, who plays a Wilsonoid TV
personality on British TV. That sort of through-the-looking-glass mixing of
reality and fancy makes the movie somehow more true than a factual
documentary would have been. Wilson is a lanky man with the face of a
sincere beagle, a flop of hair over his right eyebrow, and an ability to
read banal TV copy as if it has earth-shaking profundity. He's usually the
only man in the room wearing a suit and tie, but he looks like he put them
on without reading the instructions. He is so heartfelt about his lunacies
that we understand, somehow, that his mind deals with contradictions by
embracing them.

As the film opens, Wilson is attending the first, legendary Sex Pistols
concert in Manchester, England. Here and elsewhere, director Michael
Winterbottom subtly blends real newsreel footage with fictional characters
so they all fit convincingly into the same shot. Wilson is transfixed by the
Pistols as they sing "Anarchy in the U.K." and sneer at British tradition.
He tells the camera that everyone in the audience will leave the room
transformed and inspired, and then the camera pans to show a total of 42
people, two or three of them half-heartedly dancing in the aisles.

Wilson features the Pistols and other bands on his Manchester TV show.
Because of a ban by London TV, his show becomes the only venue for punk
rock. Turns out he was right about the Pistols. They let loose something
that changed rock music. And they did it in the only way that Wilson could
respect, by thoroughly screwing up everything they did, and ending in
bankruptcy and failure, followed by Sid Vicious' spectacular murder-suicide
flameout. The Sex Pistols became successful because they failed; if they had
succeeded, they would have sold out, or become diluted or commercial. I saw
Johnny Rotten a few years ago at Sundance, still failing, and it made me
feel proud of him.

Tony Wilson, who preaches "anarchism" not as a political position but as an
emotional state, knows he has seen the future. He joins with two partners to
form a Factory Records, which would become one of the most important and
least financially successful recording companies in history, and joyously
signs the contract in his blood (while declaring "we will have no
contracts"). His bands include Joy Division (renamed New Order after the
suicide of its lead singer) and Happy Mondays. His company opens a rave
club, the Hacienda, which goes broke because the customers ignore the cash
bars and spend all their money on Ecstasy.

Wilson hardly cares. When the club closes, he addresses the final night's
crowd: "Before you leave, I ask you to invade the offices and loot them."
When he meets with investors who want to buy Factory Records, they are
startled to learn he has nothing to sell--no contracts, no back catalog,
nothing. "We are not really a company," he explains helpfully. "We are an
experiment in human nature. I protected myself from the dilemma of selling
out by having nothing to sell."

This is a lovable character, all the more so because his conversation uses
the offhand goofy non-sequiturs of real speech, instead of being channeled
into a narrow lane of movie dialogue. The writer, Frank Cottrell Boyce,
gives Wilson a distinctive voice we come to love. "I went to Cambridge
University!" he tells one of his broadcast bosses. "I'm a serious
journalist, living in one of the most important times in human history."
Yes, but the next day he's interviewing a midget elephant trainer. He
explains how the invention of broccoli funded the James Bond movies (there
is a shred of truth there, actually). He quotes Plutarch and William Blake,
he says one of his singers is a poet equal to Yeats, he looks at empty
concert halls and observes hopefully that there were only 12 people at the
Last Supper (13, actually, counting the talent). And he is courageous in the
face of daunting setbacks, pushing on optimistically into higher realms of
failure.

The movie works so well because it evokes genuine, not manufactured,
nostalgia. It records a time when the inmates ran the asylum, when music
lovers got away with murder. It loves its characters. It understands what
the Sex Pistols started, and what the 1990s destroyed. And it gets a certain
tone right. It kids itself. At one point, Wilson looks straight at the
camera and tells us that a scene is missing, "but it will probably be on the
DVD."

As the screenwriter of an ill-fated Sex Pistols movie, I met Rotten,
Vicious, Paul Cook, Steve Jones and their infamous manager, Malcolm McLaren,
and brushed the fringe of their world. I could see there was no plan, no
strategy, no philosophy, just an attitude. If a book on the Sex Pistols had
an upraised middle finger on the cover, it wouldn't need any words inside.
And yet Tony Wilson goes to see the Pistols and sees before him a delirious
opportunity to--to what? Well, obviously, to live in one of the most
important times in human history, and to make your mark on it by going down
in glorious flames.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 23 Aug 2002 14:54:24 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] UNDISPUTED / *** (R)

UNDISPUTED / *** (R)

August 23, 2002

Monroe Hutchen: Wesley Snipes
James "Iceman" Chambers: Ving Rhames
Emmanuel "Mendy" Ripstein: Peter Falk
James Kroycek: Fisher Stevens
Prison Guard: Michael Rooker
Dick Lipscomb: Denis Arndt
Miramax Films presents a film directed by Walter Hill. Written by Hill and
David Giler. Running time: 96 minutes. Rated R (for strong language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Walter Hill's "Undisputed" is like a 1940s Warner Bros. B picture, and I
mean that as a compliment. With efficiency and laconic skill, it sets up the
situation, peoples it with clearly drawn characters, and heads for a
showdown. There is a kind of pleasure to be had from its directness, from
its lack of gimmicks, from its classical form. And just like in the Warners
pictures, there is also the pleasure of supporting performances from
character actors who come onstage, sing an aria, and leave.

The movie stars Ving Rhames as "Iceman" Chambers, heavyweight champion of
the world, recently convicted of rape in a plot obviously inspired by Mike
Tyson's misadventures. He's sentenced to the maximum-security Sweetwater
Prison in the Mohave Desert, which has an active boxing program. The
Sweetwater champion is Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes), and a showdown
between the two men is inevitable.

First, though, Iceman has to challenge the leader of the most powerful gang
behind bars, and spend some times in solitary as punishment. If he hadn't
done that, he explains, he'd be dead. And Monroe has to hear stories about
how he's not the undisputed champion any longer.

Also resident in this prison is Emmanuel (Mendy) Ripstein (Peter Falk), an
aging Mafioso who still wields enormous clout inside and beyond the prison
walls. He even has his own personal assistant. Ripstein is a fight fan. He
agrees with the prevailing opinion that there must be a bout to settle the
prison championship, and arranged odds with his Vegas contacts. There will
even be a payoff for the two fighters, and Snipes is adamant in negotiating
a bigger percentage for himself. The Iceman seems more concerned with
survival, and Rhames has a direct, unaffected way with his dialogue that is
quietly convincing.

The Falk character is a piece of work. He's like a distillation of Falkness.
He squints, he talks out of the side of his mouth, he has a tough-guy
accent, he has a way of implying authority. And then he has his aria. This
is an unbroken monologue that goes for a minute or two (maybe longer--I was
laughing too hard to count), and it is variations on the two themes of the
F-word and his wife's bad advice. It touches on the competing charms of
California and Florida, comments on state and federal legal details, and
rises to a kind of musical grandeur. The screenplay is by Hill, the
director, and David Giler, who worked together on the "Alien" pictures, but
whether they or Falk wrote this monologue is hard to say; it seems to rise
from another dimension.

Michael Rooker ("Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer") has an important role
as the prison guard who coordinates the boxing matches, protected by the
benign detachment of the warden. He sets a date for the match, and then the
two boxers go into more or less routine training sessions, leading up to the
big fight, which is held inside a steel cage. The fight scenes are
well-choreographed and convincing, and Snipes and Rhames are completely
plausible as boxers.

Walter Hill has devoted his career to men's action pictures. He pitted
Charles Bronson and James Coburn against each other in his first picture,
"Hard Times" (1985), and reinvented the cop buddy movie with Nick Nolte and
Eddie Murphy in "48 HRS." One day I met the soundmen on "Hard Times" and
watched them pounding a leather sofa with Ping-Pong paddles to create the
sounds of blows landing; "Undisputed" evokes the same cheerful spirit.

Some critics of the movie complain that there is no hero, since the Iceman
has been convicted of rape and Monroe of murder. That is more of a strength
than a weakness, depriving us of an obvious favorite and creating a fight
which it is plausible to expect either boxer could win. Of course Monroe is
the underdog, which counts for something, but when you think how obviously
the deck is stacked in most boxing movies, this one has a right to call
itself suspenseful. On the other hand, with mob involvement, the fight could
be fixed. Falk, as Ripstein, has a lovely scene where he expresses himself
on that possibility.

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Date: 23 Aug 2002 14:54:20 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)

ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)

August 23, 2002

Sy Parrish: Robin Williams
Nina Yorkin: Connie Nielsen
Will Yorkin: Michael Vartan
Bill Owens: Gary Cole
Jake Yorkin: Dylan Smith
Det. Van Der Zee: Eriq LaSalle
Maya Burson: Erin Daniels
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film written and directed by Mark
Romanek. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (for sexual content and
language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"One Hour Photo" tells the story of Seymour "Sy" Parrish, who works behind
the photo counter of one of those vast suburban retail barns. He has a
bland, anonymous face, and a cheerful voice that almost conceals his
desperation and loneliness. He takes your film, develops it, and has your
photos ready in an hour. Sometimes he even gives you 5-by-7s when all you
ordered were 4-by-6s. His favorite customers are the Yorkins--Nina, Will and
cute young Jake. They've been steady customers for six years. When they
bring in their film, he makes an extra set of prints--for himself.

Sy follows an unvarying routine. There is a diner where he eats, alone,
methodically. He is an "ideal employee." He has no friends, a co-worker
observes. But the Yorkins serve him as a surrogate family, and he is their
self-appointed Uncle Sy. Only occasionally does the world get a glimpse of
the volcanic side of his personality, as when he gets into an argument with
Larry, the photo machine repairman.

The Yorkins know him by name, and are a little amused by his devotion. There
is an edge of need to his moments with them. If they were to decide to
abandon film and get one of those new digital cameras, a prudent instinct
might lead them to keep this news from Sy.

Robin Williams plays Sy, another of his open-faced, smiling madmen, like the
killer in "Insomnia." He does this so well you don't have the slightest
difficulty accepting him in the role. The first time we see Sy behind his
counter, neat, smiling, with a few extra pounds from the diner routine, we
buy him. He belongs there. He's native to retail.

The Yorkin family is at first depicted as ideal: models for an ad for their
suburban lifestyle. Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen), pretty and fresh-scrubbed,
has a cheery public persona. Will (Michael Vartan) is your regular clean-cut
guy. Young Jake (Dylan Smith) is cute as a picture. Mark Romanek, who wrote
and directed the film, is sneaky in the way he so subtly introduces
discordant elements into his perfect picture. A tone of voice, a
half-glimpsed book cover, a mistaken order, a casual aside ... they don't
mean much by themselves, but they add up to an ominous cloud, gathering over
the photo counter.

Much of the film's atmosphere forms through the cinematography, by Jeff
Cronenweth. His interiors at "Savmart" are white and bright, almost
aggressive. You can hear the fluorescent lights humming. Through choices
involving set design and lens choices, the One Hour Photo counter somehow
seems an unnatural distance from the other areas of the store, as if the
store shuns it, or it has withdrawn into itself. Customers approach it
across an exposed expanse of emptiness, with Sy smiling at the end of the
trail.

A man who works in a one-hour photo operation might seem to be relatively
powerless. Certainly Sy's boss thinks so. But in an era when naked baby
pictures can be interpreted as child abuse, the man with access to your
photos can cause you a lot of trouble. What would happen, for example, if
Will Yorkin is having an affair, and his mistress brings in photos to be
developed, and Uncle Sy "mistakenly" hands them to Nina Yorkin?

The movie at first seems soundly grounded in everyday reality, in the
routine of a predictable job. When Romanek departs from reality, he does it
subtly, sneakily, so that we believe what we see until he pulls the plug.
There is one moment I will not describe (in order not to ruin it) when Sy
commits a kind of social trespass that has the audience stirring with quiet
surprise: Surprise, because until they see the scene they don't realize that
his innocent, everyday act can be a shocking transgression in the wrong
context.

Watching the film, I thought of Michael Powell's great 1960 British thriller
"Peeping Tom," which was about a photographer who killed his victims with a
stiletto concealed in his camera. Sy uses a psychological stiletto, but he's
the same kind of character, the sort of man you don't much notice, who
blends in, accepted, overlooked, left alone so that his rich secret life can
flower. There is a moment in "Peeping Tom" when a shot suddenly reveals the
full depth of the character's depravity. In "One Hour Photo," a shot with a
similar purpose requires only a lot of innocent family snapshots, displayed
in a way that is profoundly creepy.

The movie has also been compared to "American Beauty," another film where
resentment, loneliness and lust fester beneath the surface of suburban
affluence. The difference, I think, is that the needs of the Kevin Spacey
character in "American Beauty," while frowned upon and even illegal, fall
generally within the range of emotions we understand. Sy Parrish is outside
that range. He was born with parts missing, and has assembled the remainder
into a person who has borrowed from the inside to make the outside look OK.

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