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movies-digest        Friday, September 6 2002        Volume 02 : Number 369



[MV] SIMONE / ** (PG-13)
[MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)
[MV] SECRET BALLOT / *** (G)
[MV] LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)
[MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)
[MV] THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **
[MV] ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] feardotcom / ** (R)
[MV] CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)
[MV] THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **
[MV] BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)

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

Date: 23 Aug 2002 14:54:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SIMONE / ** (PG-13)

SIMONE / ** (PG-13)

August 23, 2002

Viktor Taransky: Al Pacino
Elaine: Catherine Keener
Lainey Taransky: Evan Rachel     Wood
Simone: Rachel Roberts
Hank Aleno: Elias Koteas
New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Andrew Niccol.
Running time: 117 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Simone" tells the story of a director at the end of his rope, who inherits
a mad inventor's computer program that allows him to create an actress out
of thin air. She becomes a big star and the center of a media firestorm, and
he's trapped: The more audiences admire her, the less he can reveal she is
entirely his work. The movie sets this dilemma within a cynical comedy about
modern Hollywood; it's fitfully funny but never really takes off. Out of the
corners of our eyes we glimpse the missed opportunities for some real
satirical digging.

Al Pacino plays the director, Viktor Taransky, once brilliant, recently the
author of a string of flops. Only his young daughter Lainey (Evan Rachel
Wood) still believes in him--a little. His ex-wife, Elaine (Catherine
Keener), the head of the studio, has lost all hope for his career and pulls
the plug on his latest project when the temperamental star (Winona Ryder)
blows up.

Into the life of this desperate man comes another one, Hank Aleno (Elias
Koteas), who has devised a computer program that creates "synthespians."
Viktor isn't interested--but then, when the wizard leaves him the program in
his will, he starts noodling around with the software and the beautiful,
talented and (above all) cooperative Simone is the result. She needs, Viktor
exults, no hairdresser, makeup, driver, car, trailer, stand-in or stunt
woman--no, not even for the fall from the plane. She is always on time,
never complains, says the words just as they're written and has no problem
with nudity.

Viktor creates Simone's performance on a computer that stands all alone in
the middle of an otherwise empty sound stage. The other actors in the movie
are told Simone will be added to their scenes electronically. The premiere
of the first movie is a huge success, and of course paparazzi from the
supermarket tabloids stalk Viktor in hopes of photographing Simone. No luck.

The movie was written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol, who wrote
"The Truman Show" and wrote and directed "Gattaca," both films about the
interface between science and personality. "Simone" is not in that league.
He wants to edge it in the direction of a Hollywood comedy, but the satire
is not sharp enough and the characters, including the ex-wife, are too
routine.

And there's a bigger problem: Simone always remains ... just Simone. The
computer image always looks as if it's about to come to life and never does.
One can imagine software bugs that recklessly import other online
personalities into Simone: Matt Drudge, for example, or Harry Knowles, or
Danni Ashe. One can imagine Simone suddenly being possessed by Lara Croft,
Tomb Raider, and breaking up a serious dramatic scene with video-game
violence. One can imagine ... well, almost anything except that she remains
a well-behaved program. When Simone "appears" on a chat show, for example,
it's kind of funny that she sticks to well-worn subjects like dolphins and
smoking, but why not go the extra mile and put her on the Howard Stern show?

Pacino, that splendid actor, does what he can to bring Viktor to life. But
the screenplay's too narrow and prevents him from taking the character
beyond a certain point. Most of the big events are handled with sitcom
simplicity, and the hungry gossip reporters are presented as they always
are, a howling pack with no wit or originality. Even Keener, as the studio
head, simply plays an ex-wife who is a studio head: There's no twist,
nothing unexpected.

The problem, I think, is that in aiming for too wide an audience, Niccol has
made too shallow a picture. "The Truman Show" and "Gattaca" pushed their
premises; "Simone" settles for the predictable. The story elements echo the
sad experience of the team assembled to make "Final Fantasy," the summer of
2001 sci-fi movie that failed at the box office. That movie was made up
entirely of "real" characters generated by computers, including Aki Ross,
the heroine, who, all things considered, is a more intriguing woman than
Simone (whose appearance is provided by the actress Rachel Roberts). The
"Final Fantasy" team labored four years and achieved everything they dreamed
of, and were rejected by the public. Much more interesting than a director
who has unimaginable success fall into his lap.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 23 Aug 2002 14:54:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)

August 23, 2002

Mika Muller-Polonski: Isabelle Huppert
Andre Polonski: Jacques Dutronc
Jeanne Pollet: Anna Mouglalis
Guillaume Polonski: Rodolphe Pauly
First Run Features presents a film directed by Claude Chabrol. Written by
Caroline Eliacheff and Chabrol, based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by
Charlotte Armstrong. Running time: 99 minutes. No MPAA rating. In French
with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

Isabelle Huppert has the best poker face since Buster Keaton. She faces the
camera with detached regard, inviting us to imagine what she is thinking.
Since so often the thoughts of her characters run toward crime, revenge,
betrayal, lust and sadism, it is just as well she can seem so passive; an
actress who tried to portray these inner emotions would inevitably go
hurtling over the top and into the next movie.

Consider "Merci Pour le Chocolat," her new film, directed by her longtime
admirer Claude Chabrol. There is hardly any suspense about what she's up to.
The title, and the fact that it is a thriller, inspire us to regard the
movie's frequent cups of hot chocolate with as much suspicion as the
arsenic-laced coffee in Hitchcock's "Notorious." Even if an early scene
hadn't warned us that the chocolate contains a date-rape drug, we'd be wary
just because of the dispassionate way Huppert serves it. She doesn't seem
like a hostess so much as a clinician.

Huppert plays Mika Muller-Polonski, the first and third wife of the famous
pianist Andre Polonski (tired-eyed Jacques Dutronc). They were married "for
a few minutes" many years ago. After their divorce, he remarried, had a son
named Guillaume, and then lost his wife in a car crash. She apparently dozed
off while they were all visiting ... Mika.

The movie opens with the remarriage of Mika and Jacques, 18 years after
their first ceremony. The spectators look less than ecstatic. The new family
moves into Mika's vast, gloomy gothic mansion in Lausanne, paid for with the
profits from her family's chocolate company. One of the rituals is hot
chocolate at bedtime, personally prepared by Mika ("In this house, I serve
the chocolate").

An unexpected development: An attractive young piano student, Jeanne Pollet
(Anna Mouglalis), finds a clipping in her mother's papers reporting that on
the day of her birth, she was briefly switched with Guillaume. Using this as
a pretext, she calls on the Polonski family, not because she thinks she is
Andre's daughter but because she wants, she says, piano lessons. Her arrival
causes Guillaume to recede into more of a funk than usual, Mika to greet her
with the outward show of friendliness, and Andre to devote himself with
unseemly enthusiasm to her piano lessons.

Curious, isn't it, that Jeanne is a piano virtuoso, and Guillaume has a tin
ear? Thought-provoking, too, that Guillaume is not Mika's son, but the son
of her husband's second wife, who died so tragically during that visit to
.. Mika's. And interesting that Andre has taken such an interest in Jeanne.
And Mika keeps serving the hot chocolate.

There is no mystery about what Mika is doing with the hot chocolate. The
mysteries are: to whom, and why. The motives may differ. She may, indeed,
simply be amusing herself. Huppert's bland expression masks her motives to
such a degree that even when she does smile or frown, we suspect the honesty
of the expression: What is she really thinking?

Claude Chabrol is a master of domestic suspense, and he has used Huppert
before as a cold-blooded killer, notably in "Violette Noziere" (1978). What
is fascinating is how little Huppert has seemed to change in the intervening
years. She has worked ceaselessly, usually in good pictures, often with good
directors. Filmmakers seem drawn to her because of her mysterious
detachment; while many actors seek out the secrets of their characters,
Huppert keeps such secrets as she may have discovered, and invites us to
figure them out for ourselves.

The appeal of "Merci Pour le Chocolat" is not in the somewhat creaky old
poisoning plot, not in the hints of suppressed family secrets, not in the
suspense about what will happen next--but in the enigma within which Huppert
conceals her characters While all those around her plot, scheme, hope and
fear, she simply looks on, and pours the chocolate. What is she thinking?
What does she want? Who is she? Her appeal in film after film is maddening,
perverse and seductive.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 30 Aug 2002 16:21:25 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SECRET BALLOT / *** (G)

SECRET BALLOT / *** (G)

August 30, 2002

Woman: Nassim Abdi
Soldier: Cyrus Ab
Local people: Youssef Habashi, Farrokh Shojaii , Gholbahar Janghali
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film written and directed by Babak Payami.
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated G. In Farsi with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

'Secret Ballot" is a quixotic new Iranian comedy about a female election
agent who is sent to a remote island to collect ballots in a national
election. Because we never find out who or what is being elected, there has
been much puzzlement among critics about what the election symbolizes. I
believe the message is in the messenger: The agent is a woman.

"It's election day, don't you know?" the woman tells a bored soldier
assigned to drive her around. "There's a letter. You have to guard the
ballots."

The soldier studies the letter. "It says an agent will come, not a woman."

"I'm in charge here, mister. I have orders. You must obey or I'll see to it
you remain a soldier forever."

Strong words in a culture where the rights of women are limited. I was
reminded of "In the Heat of the Night," in which the whole point is that the
Sidney Poitier character insists on being treated with respect. This movie
could be titled "They Call Me MISS Election Agent." The plot is secondary to
the fact of the character's gender, and in Iran this movie must play with a
subtext we can only guess.

But what else is going on? Is the movie intended to show us (a) that
democracy exists in Iran, (b) that it is struggling to be born, or (c) that
most people find it irrelevant to their daily lives? There's a little of all
three during the long day the soldier and the woman (both unnamed) spend
together. Some citizens, asked to choose two of 10 names on the ballot,
complain they've never heard of any of them. A fierce old lady shuts her
door to the team, but later sends them food, and her courier observes,
"Granny Baghoo has her own government here." A man in charge of a solar
energy station expresses his opinion with admirable clarity: "I know no one
but God almighty, who makes the sun come up. If I vote for anyone, it must
be God."

If the woman is the Poitier character, the soldier is like the sheriff
played by Rod Steiger. He starts out strongly disapproving of a female
agent, but during the course of the day begins to find her persuasive,
intriguing and sympathetic. By the end of the day, when he casts his ballot,
it is for her, and we're reminded of the sheriff's little smile as Mister
Tibbs gets back on the train.

The director, Babak Payami, has a visual style that is sometimes
astonishing, sometimes frustrating, sometimes both. The first shot is of a
plane dropping a box by parachute over a dry, empty plain. The camera pans
with exquisite subtlety to reveal ... a bed? Can it be a bed, in the middle
of this wilderness? We see that it is. In this hot climate, they sleep
outdoors.

As the soldier drives the agent around the island, events do not build so
much as accumulate. Mourners in a cemetery tell her women are not allowed
inside. Symbol quandary: (a) The fading patriarchy is buried there, or (b)
women cannot even die as equals? In the middle of a deserted, unpopulated
plain, the soldier brings the Jeep to a halt before a red traffic light.
Symbol quandary: (1) Outmoded laws must be ignored, or (b) in a democracy
the law must be respected everywhere?

As the woman continues her discouraging attempt to involve indifferent
islanders in the vote, we are reminded of Dr. Johnson's famous observation
in the 18th century, when women were as much without rights in England as
they are today in the Middle East. After hearing a woman deliver a sermon,
he told Mr. Boswell: "It is not done well, but one is surprised to find it
done at all."

Watching the movie, I reflected on a persistent subgenre of Iranian cinema,
in which characters drive or walk endlessly through enigmatic landscapes,
holding conversations of debatable meaning. Abbas Kiarostami's "The Taste of
Cherry" (1997), a Cannes winner much prized by many critics, not by me,
follows that pattern. "Secret Ballot" brings to it much more interest and
life. Perhaps the lack of cities, names, relationships and plots provides a
certain immunity: A film cannot be criticized for being about what it does
not contain.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 30 Aug 2002 16:21:28 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."

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 30 Aug 2002 16:21:29 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)

August 23, 2002

Mika Muller-Polonski: Isabelle Huppert
Andre Polonski: Jacques Dutronc
Jeanne Pollet: Anna Mouglalis
Guillaume Polonski: Rodolphe Pauly
First Run Features presents a film directed by Claude Chabrol. Written by
Caroline Eliacheff and Chabrol, based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by
Charlotte Armstrong. Running time: 99 minutes. No MPAA rating. In French
with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

Isabelle Huppert has the best poker face since Buster Keaton. She faces the
camera with detached regard, inviting us to imagine what she is thinking.
Since so often the thoughts of her characters run toward crime, revenge,
betrayal, lust and sadism, it is just as well she can seem so passive; an
actress who tried to portray these inner emotions would inevitably go
hurtling over the top and into the next movie.

Consider "Merci Pour le Chocolat," her new film, directed by her longtime
admirer Claude Chabrol. There is hardly any suspense about what she's up to.
The title, and the fact that it is a thriller, inspire us to regard the
movie's frequent cups of hot chocolate with as much suspicion as the
arsenic-laced coffee in Hitchcock's "Notorious." Even if an early scene
hadn't warned us that the chocolate contains a date-rape drug, we'd be wary
just because of the dispassionate way Huppert serves it. She doesn't seem
like a hostess so much as a clinician.

Huppert plays Mika Muller-Polonski, the first and third wife of the famous
pianist Andre Polonski (tired-eyed Jacques Dutronc). They were married "for
a few minutes" many years ago. After their divorce, he remarried, had a son
named Guillaume, and then lost his wife in a car crash. She apparently dozed
off while they were all visiting ... Mika.

The movie opens with the remarriage of Mika and Jacques, 18 years after
their first ceremony. The spectators look less than ecstatic. The new family
moves into Mika's vast, gloomy gothic mansion in Lausanne, paid for with the
profits from her family's chocolate company. One of the rituals is hot
chocolate at bedtime, personally prepared by Mika ("In this house, I serve
the chocolate").

An unexpected development: An attractive young piano student, Jeanne Pollet
(Anna Mouglalis), finds a clipping in her mother's papers reporting that on
the day of her birth, she was briefly switched with Guillaume. Using this as
a pretext, she calls on the Polonski family, not because she thinks she is
Andre's daughter but because she wants, she says, piano lessons. Her arrival
causes Guillaume to recede into more of a funk than usual, Mika to greet her
with the outward show of friendliness, and Andre to devote himself with
unseemly enthusiasm to her piano lessons.

Curious, isn't it, that Jeanne is a piano virtuoso, and Guillaume has a tin
ear? Thought-provoking, too, that Guillaume is not Mika's son, but the son
of her husband's second wife, who died so tragically during that visit to
.. Mika's. And interesting that Andre has taken such an interest in Jeanne.
And Mika keeps serving the hot chocolate.

There is no mystery about what Mika is doing with the hot chocolate. The
mysteries are: to whom, and why. The motives may differ. She may, indeed,
simply be amusing herself. Huppert's bland expression masks her motives to
such a degree that even when she does smile or frown, we suspect the honesty
of the expression: What is she really thinking?

Claude Chabrol is a master of domestic suspense, and he has used Huppert
before as a cold-blooded killer, notably in "Violette Noziere" (1978). What
is fascinating is how little Huppert has seemed to change in the intervening
years. She has worked ceaselessly, usually in good pictures, often with good
directors. Filmmakers seem drawn to her because of her mysterious
detachment; while many actors seek out the secrets of their characters,
Huppert keeps such secrets as she may have discovered, and invites us to
figure them out for ourselves.

The appeal of "Merci Pour le Chocolat" is not in the somewhat creaky old
poisoning plot, not in the hints of suppressed family secrets, not in the
suspense about what will happen next--but in the enigma within which Huppert
conceals her characters While all those around her plot, scheme, hope and
fear, she simply looks on, and pours the chocolate. What is she thinking?
What does she want? Who is she? Her appeal in film after film is maddening,
perverse and seductive.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 30 Aug 2002 16:21:26 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **

THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **

August 30, 2002

Carlo: Stefano Accorsi
Giulia: Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Anna: Stefania Sandrelli
Francesca: Martina Stella
Alberto: Marco Cocci
Marco: Pierfrancesco Favino
Paolo: Claudio Santamaria
Think Films presents a film written and directed by Gabriele Muccino.
Running time: 114 minutes. In Italian with English subtitles. Rated R (for
language, sexuality and some drug use). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Last Kiss" is a comedy, I guess, about male panic at the spectre of
adult responsibility. If you're a guy and want to figure out what side of
the question you're on, take this test. You're a young single man. Your
girlfriend announces at a family dinner that she is pregnant. You (a) accept
the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood; (b) climb up into a treehouse
at a wedding to begin a passionate affair with an 18-year-old; (c) join
three buddies in discussing their plan to buy a van and trek across Africa.

Carlo (Stefano Accorsi), the hero of the film, is torn between (b) and (c).
Marriage looms like a trap to him, and he complains to Francesca (Martina
Stella), the 18-year-old, that he fears "the passion is going" from his
life. When his girlfriend Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) takes him along to
look at a house they could buy, he complains that buying a house seems so
"final." Not encouraging words for a pregnant fiancee to hear. "If I catch
him cheating, I'll kill him," she says, in the ancient tradition of Italian
movie comedy.

But the movie isn't all comedy, and has fugitive ambitions, I fear, to say
something significant about romance and even life. Consider some of Carlo's
friends. Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) is expected to take over his father's
clothing store, has no interest in retail, but is wracked with guilt because
his father is dying and this is his last wish. Marco (Pierfrancesco Favino)
is a serial lover. Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) is depressed because his
girlfriend has lost all interest in sex after giving birth. Their 30s and
indeed their 40s are breathing hot on the necks of these friends, who cling
to golden memories of adolescence.

There is also the case of Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), Carlo's mother, who is
married to a detached and indifferent psychiatrist, and seeks out a former
lover with hopes of, who knows, maybe now taking the path not chosen. The
lover is delighted to see her for a chat over lunch, but reveals that he has
recently married and is the proud father of a one-year-old. How cruelly age
discriminates against women (at least those prepared to consider it
discrimination and not freedom).

"The Last Kiss" specializes in dramatic exits and entrances. Anna bursts
into her husband's office when he is deep in consultation with a patient,
who seems alarmed that his own house is so clearly not in order. Carlo
awakens with dread after a night spent imprudently, and flees. Giulia makes
a dramatic appearance at a death bed after discovering Carlo lied to her.
And so on.

The problem is that the movie has no idea of it is serious or not. It
combines heartfelt self-analysis with scenes like the one where Carlo is
taken by his teenage squeeze to her friend's birthday, and tries to party
with the kids. This is either funny or sad, not both, but the movie doesn't
know which.

The message behind all of this is difficult to nail down. Mars and Venus?
Adults who haven't grown up? The last fling syndrome? Doing what you want
instead of doing what you must? I have just finished Without Stopping, the
autobiography of the novelist and composer Paul Bowles, who as nearly as I
can tell always did exactly what he wanted, and was married to Jane Bowles,
who did the same. The answer, obviously, is not to choose between marriage
and the van trip through Africa, but to dump the buddies and find a wife who
wants to come along.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 30 Aug 2002 16:21:31 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.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 30 Aug 2002 16:21:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] feardotcom / ** (R)

feardotcom / ** (R)

August 30, 2002

Mike Reilly: Stephen Dorff
Jerry Houston:      Natascha McElhone
Alistair Pratt:    Stephen Rea

Warner Bros. presents a film directed by William Malone. Written by
Josephine Coyle. Based on a story by Moshe Diamant. Running time: 98
minutes. Rated R (for violence including grisly images of torture, nudity
and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Strange, how good "feardotcom" is, and how bad. The screenplay is a mess,
and yet the visuals are so creative this is one of the rare bad films you
might actually want to see. The plot is a bewildering jumble of half-baked
ideas, from which we gather just enough of a glimmer about the story to
understand how it is shot through with contradictions and paradoxes. And yet
I watched in admiration as a self-contained nightmareformed with the
visuals. Not many movies know how to do that.

I'll get to the plot later, or maybe never. Let me talk about what I liked.
The film takes place in a city where it always rains and is nearly always
night, where even people with good jobs live in apartments that look
hammered together after an air raid. Computers and the Internet exist here,
and indeed telephones, televisions and all the other props of the present
day, but windows are broken, walls are punctured, lights flicker, streets
are deserted, and from time to time a dramatic thunderstorm threatens to
sweep everything away. This is like "Dark City" after a hurricane. It is the
kind of city where a man can walk down into a subway and be the only person
there, except for a little girl bouncing her ball against the third rail. Or
.. is the man really alone? Is that his fantasy? Whether it is or not, he
gets slammed by the next train, and the cops are startled by the expression
on his face. It looks, they agree, as if he has just seen something
terrifying. Apparently something even worse than the train. And he is
bleeding from the eyes.

The film's premise is that a Web site exists that channels negative energy
into the mind of the beholder, who self-destructs within 48 hours, a victim
of his or her deepest fear. Our first glimpse of this Web site suggests
nothing more than a reasonably well-designed horror site, with shock-wave
images of dark doorways, screaming lips, rows of knives and so forth. The
movie wisely doesn't attempt to develop the site much more than that,
relying on the reactions of the victims to imply what other terrors it
contains. And it does something else, fairly subtly: It expands the site to
encompass the entire movie, so that by the end all of the characters are
essentially inside the fatal Web experience, and we are, too.

The last 20 minutes are, I might as well say it, brilliant. Not in terms of
what happens, but in terms of how it happens, and how it looks as it
happens. The movie has tended toward the monochromatic all along, but now it
abandons all pretense of admitting the color spectrum, and slides into the
kind of tinting used in silent films: Browns alternate with blues, mostly.

The images play like homage to the best Grand Guignol traditions, to
"Nosferatu" and some of the James Whale and Jacques Tourneur pictures, and
the best moments of the Hammer horror films. Squirming victims are displayed
on the Internet by the sadistic killer, who prepares to autopsy them while
still alive; subscribers to the site, whose crime is that they want to
watch, are addressed by name and are soon paying dearly for their voyeurism.

The movie is extremely violent; it avoided the NC-17 rating and earned an R,
I understand, after multiple trims and appeals, and even now it is one of
the most graphic horror films I've seen. (The classification is "for
violence including grisly images of torture, nudity and language," the
ratings board explains, but you'll be disappointed if you hope to see grisly
images of language).

Stephen Dorff and Natascha McElhone star, as a cop and a public health
inspector, and Stephen Rea, who was so unexpectedly deceived in "The Crying
Game," plays the host of the Web site and the torturer. The movie keeps
trying to make some kind of connection between Rea and the ghostly little
girl, who was his first victim, but if the site is her revenge, why is he
running it? And how can what happens to him in the end not have happened
before? Never mind. Disregard the logic of the plot. Don't even go there.
Don't think to ask how the Internet can channel thoughts and commands into
the minds of its users. Disregard the dialogue (sample: "We will provide a
lesson that reducing relationships to an anonymous electronic impulse is a
perversion").

This is a movie that cannot be taken seriously on the narrative level. But
look at it. Just look at it. Wear some of those Bose sound-defeating
earphones into the theater, or turn off the sound when you watch the DVD. If
the final 20 minutes had been produced by a German impressionist in the
1920s, we'd be calling it a masterpiece. All credit to director William
Malone, cinematographer Christian Sebaldt, production designer Jerome Latour
and art directors Regime Freise and Markus Wollersheim.

Now. Do I recommend the film? Not for the majority of filmgoers, who will
listen to the dialogue, and will expect a plot, and will be angered by the
film's sins against logic (I do not even mention credibility). But if you
have read this far because you are intrigued, because you can understand the
kind of paradox I am describing, then you might very well enjoy
"feardotcom." I give the total movie two stars, but there are some four-star
elements that deserve a better movie. You have to know how to look for them,
but they're there.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 06 Sep 2002 16:00:17 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)

CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)

September 6, 2002

Det. Vincent LaMarca: Robert De Niro
Michelle: Frances McDormand
Joey: James Franco
Reg: George Dzundza
Maggie: Patti LuPone
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Caton-Jones.
Written by Ken Hixon. Based on a magazine article by Michael McAlary.
Running time: 108 minutes. Rated R (for language, drug use and some
violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

"City by the Sea" tells the sad, fatalistic story of a cop whose father was
a baby-killer, and whose son now seems to be a murderer, too. Robert De Niro
stars as Detective Vincent LaMarca, a pro whose years of hard experience
have made him into a cop who dismisses sociology and psychology and believes
simply that if you did it, you have to pay for it. This code extends to his
father and he will apply it if necessary to his son.

LaMarca works homicide in a shabby beachfront area; Asbury Park, N.J.,
supplied the locations. He knows so much about police work his autopilot is
better than most cops' bright ideas. His partner, Reg (George Dzundza), who
has eaten too many doughnuts over the years, soldiers along with him.
LaMarca walked out on his wife (Patti LuPone) and son 14 years ago, and now
tentatively dates his upstairs neighbor, Michelle (Frances McDormand).

The cop's story is intercut with the life of his son, Joey (James Franco), a
strung-out addict who has worked himself into a fearful situation involving
debt and need. In a confusing struggle, he knifes a drug dealer, and
eventually, inevitably, LaMarca is working the case and discovers that the
killer may have been Joey.

If this story sounds a little too symmetrical and neat, and in a way it
does, real life supplies a rebuttal: "City by the Sea" is based on a true
story, as described by the writer Mike McAlary in a 1997 Esquire article. I
learn from Variety, however, that in fact the murder the son committed was
vicious and premeditated, and not, as it is here, more or less an accident.

The plot takes us places we have been before, right down to the scene where
LaMarca resigns from the force and places his gun and badge on the captain's
desk. There is also the possibility in LaMarca's mind that his son is
innocent--he claims he is--and there is the enormous psychic burden caused
by the fact that LaMarca's own father was convicted of a heartless murder.
The last act of the movie is the sort of cat-and-mouse chase we have seen
before, staged with expertise by director Michael Caton-Jones, but the
movie's heart isn't in the action but in the character of Vince LaMarca.

De Niro has worked so long and so frequently that there is sometimes the
tendency to take him for granted. He is familiar. He has a range dictated by
his face, voice and inescapable mannerisms, but he rarely goes on autopilot
and he makes an effort to newly invent his characters. Here he is a man with
a wounded boy inside. Most of the time the cop routine provides him with a
template for behavior: He keeps his head low, he does his job well. But
inside is the kid who found out his dad was a killer. That provides the
twist when he finds himself on his own son's case. There is hurt here, and
De Niro is too good an actor to reduce it to a plot gimmick. He feels it.

Details of the plot I will not reveal, except to observe that the context of
the murder and the condition of the son leave enough room for the LaMarca
character to believe, or want to believe, that his son may be innocent. That
leads to the scene where he turns in his badge and gun, accusing his boss of
having already made up his mind. And it leaves LaMarca free-floating,
because without the protection of the job he is now nakedly facing a
situation that churns up his own past.

Frances McDormand takes a routine, even obligatory, character and makes her
into an important part of the movie. The female confidant is usually
dispensable in cop movies, except for a few scenes where she provides an ear
for necessary exposition. Not here. McDormand's Michelle likes LaMarca, but
more importantly she worries about him, sees the inner wounds, provides a
balm, and knows about tough love.

"City by the Sea" is not an extraordinary movie. In its workmanship it
aspires not to be remarkable but to be well made, dependable, moving us
because of the hurt in the hero's eyes. A better movie might have abandoned
the crime paraphernalia and focused on the pain between the generations, but
then this director, Caton-Jones, has already made that movie with De Niro.
"This Boy's Life" (1993) had De Niro as a harsh adoptive father and Leonardo
DiCaprio as his resentful son. A better movie, but "City by the Sea" is a
good one.

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Date: 06 Sep 2002 16:00:23 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **

THE LAST KISS (L'ULTIMO BACIO)/ **

August 30, 2002

Carlo: Stefano Accorsi
Giulia: Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Anna: Stefania Sandrelli
Francesca: Martina Stella
Alberto: Marco Cocci
Marco: Pierfrancesco Favino
Paolo: Claudio Santamaria
Think Films presents a film written and directed by Gabriele Muccino.
Running time: 114 minutes. In Italian with English subtitles. Rated R (for
language, sexuality and some drug use). Opening today at Landmark Century.

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Last Kiss" is a comedy, I guess, about male panic at the spectre of
adult responsibility. If you're a guy and want to figure out what side of
the question you're on, take this test. You're a young single man. Your
girlfriend announces at a family dinner that she is pregnant. You (a) accept
the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood; (b) climb up into a treehouse
at a wedding to begin a passionate affair with an 18-year-old; (c) join
three buddies in discussing their plan to buy a van and trek across Africa.

Carlo (Stefano Accorsi), the hero of the film, is torn between (b) and (c).
Marriage looms like a trap to him, and he complains to Francesca (Martina
Stella), the 18-year-old, that he fears "the passion is going" from his
life. When his girlfriend Giulia (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) takes him along to
look at a house they could buy, he complains that buying a house seems so
"final." Not encouraging words for a pregnant fiancee to hear. "If I catch
him cheating, I'll kill him," she says, in the ancient tradition of Italian
movie comedy.

But the movie isn't all comedy, and has fugitive ambitions, I fear, to say
something significant about romance and even life. Consider some of Carlo's
friends. Paolo (Claudio Santamaria) is expected to take over his father's
clothing store, has no interest in retail, but is wracked with guilt because
his father is dying and this is his last wish. Marco (Pierfrancesco Favino)
is a serial lover. Adriano (Giorgio Pasotti) is depressed because his
girlfriend has lost all interest in sex after giving birth. Their 30s and
indeed their 40s are breathing hot on the necks of these friends, who cling
to golden memories of adolescence.

There is also the case of Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), Carlo's mother, who is
married to a detached and indifferent psychiatrist, and seeks out a former
lover with hopes of, who knows, maybe now taking the path not chosen. The
lover is delighted to see her for a chat over lunch, but reveals that he has
recently married and is the proud father of a one-year-old. How cruelly age
discriminates against women (at least those prepared to consider it
discrimination and not freedom).

"The Last Kiss" specializes in dramatic exits and entrances. Anna bursts
into her husband's office when he is deep in consultation with a patient,
who seems alarmed that his own house is so clearly not in order. Carlo
awakens with dread after a night spent imprudently, and flees. Giulia makes
a dramatic appearance at a death bed after discovering Carlo lied to her.
And so on.

The problem is that the movie has no idea of it is serious or not. It
combines heartfelt self-analysis with scenes like the one where Carlo is
taken by his teenage squeeze to her friend's birthday, and tries to party
with the kids. This is either funny or sad, not both, but the movie doesn't
know which.

The message behind all of this is difficult to nail down. Mars and Venus?
Adults who haven't grown up? The last fling syndrome? Doing what you want
instead of doing what you must? I have just finished Without Stopping, the
autobiography of the novelist and composer Paul Bowles, who as nearly as I
can tell always did exactly what he wanted, and was married to Jane Bowles,
who did the same. The answer, obviously, is not to choose between marriage
and the van trip through Africa, but to dump the buddies and find a wife who
wants to come along.

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Date: 06 Sep 2002 16:00:13 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)

September 6, 2002

The Beast/Prince: Jean Marais
Beauty: Josette Day
Felicie: Mila Parely
Adelaide: Nan Germon
Ludovic: Michel Auclair
The Merchant: Marcel Andre
Cowboy Pictures presents a film directed by Jean Cocteau. Written by
Cocteau, based on a story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. In French,
with English subtitles. No MPAA rating. Running time 93 minutes. Opening
today at the Music Box Theatre.

BY ROGER EBERT

Long before Disney's 1991 film, Jean Cocteau filmed "Beauty and the Beast"
in 1946, in France. It is one of the most magical of all films.

Alive with trick shots and astonishing effects, it gives us a Beast who is
lonely like a man and misunderstood like an animal. Cocteau, a poet and
surrealist, was not making a "children's film" but was adapting a classic
French tale that he felt had a special message after the suffering of World
War II: Anyone who has an unhappy childhood may grow up to be a Beast.

The movie has long been considered one of the best ever made, but has been
rarely seen in America--more rarely still since the Disney animated feature
cornered the market in beauties and beasts. The Disney film is inspired, but
so is Cocteau's, in an entirely different way. And now a newly restored 35mm
print, with missing scenes restored, is opening at the Music Box for one
week. There is probably no better film in town.

Filming at a time when Freudian imagery was cutting edge, Cocteau uses
haunting images to suggest emotions at a boil in the subconscious of his
characters. Consider Beauty's reaction to the first entrance of the Beast,
which is theoretically frightened yet, it you look more closely, orgasmic.

The Beast's dwelling is treated in the Disney film like a vast Gothic
extravaganza. Cocteau sees it more like the setting for a nightmare. And
dream logic prevails in the action. The entrance hall is lined with
candelabra held by living human arms that extend from the walls. The statues
are alive, and their eyes follow the progress of the characters. Gates and
doors open themselves. As Belle first enters the Beast's domain, she seems
to run dreamily a few feet above the floor. Later, her feet do not move at
all, but she glides, as if drawn by a magnetic force. She sees smoke rising
from the Beast's fingertips--a sign that he has killed. When he carries her
into her bed chamber, she wears common clothes on one side of the door, and
a queen's costume on the other.

Jean Marais plays both the Beast and the prince who was turned into the
Beast and is restored again. Odd, how appealing he is as the Beast, and how
shallow as the pompadoured prince. Even Belle notices, and instead of
leaping into the arms of the prince confesses she misses her Beast. (So did
Marlene Dietrich, who held Cocteau's hand during the first screening of the
film. As the prince shimmered into sight and presented himself as Belle's
new lover, she called to the screen, "Where is my beautiful Beast?")

The film's devices penetrate the usual conventions of narrative, and appeal
at a deeper psychic level. Cocteau wanted to appeal through images rather
than words, and although the story seems to be masking deeper and more
disturbing currents. It is not a "children's film," but older children may
find it involves them more deeply than the Disney version, because it is not
just a jolly comic musical but deals, like all fairy tales, with what we
dread and desire.

Adapted from Ebert's essay on "Beauty and the Beast" in his book The Great
Movies, and online at www.suntimes.com/ebert.

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