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movies-digest        Friday, September 27 2002        Volume 02 : Number 371



[MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)
[MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)
[MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
[MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
[MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
[MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
[MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
[MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
[MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

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

Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:35:12 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)

THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Jimmy Tong: Jackie Chan
Del Blaine: Jennifer Love     Hewitt
Clark Devlin: Jason Isaacs
Banning: Ritchie Coster
Steena: Debi Mazar
DreamWorks Pictures presents a film directed by Kevin Donovan. Written by
Michael J. Wilson and Michael Leeson. Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13
(for action violence, sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

There is an ancient tradition in action movies that the first scene is a
self-contained shocker with no relevance to the rest of the plot. James Bond
parachutes from a mountainside, Clint Eastwood disarms a robber, etc. Jackie
Chan's "The Tuxedo" opens with a deer urinating in a mountain stream. The
deer, the urine and the stream have nothing to do with the rest of the film.

The movie's plot does involve water. The bad guy wants to add an ingredient
to the world's water supply that will cause victims to dehydrate and die. To
save themselves, they will have to buy the villain's pure water. Since his
opening gambit is to sabotage, I repeat, the world's water supply, he will
dehydrate everyone except those already drinking only bottled water, and so
will inherit a planet of health nuts, which is just as well, since all the
fish and animals and birds will dehydrate, too, and everyone will have to
live on PowerBars.

I have been waiting for a dehydrating villain for some time. My wife is of
the opinion that I do not drink enough water. She believes the proper amount
is a minimum of eight glasses a day. She often regards me balefully and
says, "You're not getting enough water." In hot climates her concern
escalates. In Hawaii last summer she had the grandchildren so worked up they
ran into the bedroom every morning to see if Grandpa Roger had turned to
dust.

The movie's villain, whose name is Banning (Ritchie Coster), has a novel
scheme for distributing the formula, or virus, or secret ingredient, or
whatever it is, that will make water into a dehydrating agent. He plans to
use water striders, those insects that can skate across the surface of a
pond. In his secret laboratory he keeps his ultimate weapon, a powerful
water strider queen.

Do water striders have queens, like bees and ants do? For an authoritative
answer I turned to Dr. May Berenbaum, head of the Department of Entomology
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and founder of the Insect
Fear Film Festival, held every year at the Great University.

She writes: "Water striders are true bugs (i.e., insects with
piercing/sucking mouthparts) that run or skate on the surface of bodies of
water, feeding on the insects that fall onto the water surface. There are
about 500 species of gerrids in the world and, as far as I know, not a
single one of those 500 species is eusocial (i.e., has a complex social
structure with reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care). I
don't even know of an example of maternal care in the whole group. In short,
the answer to your question is an emphatic 'no!' I can't wait to see this
film. It definitely sounds like a candidate for a future Insect Fear Film
Festival!"

More crushing evidence: Dr. Bruce P. Smith, expert entomologist at Ithaca
College, writes me, "There is no known species of water striders that has
queens. The most closely related insects that do are some colonial aphid
speciies, and the most familiar (and much more distant rleatives) are the
ants, bees, wasps and termites." He adds helpfully, "One mammal does have
queens: the naked mole rats of Africa." Revealing himself as a student of
insect films, he continues, "If my memory is correct, 'Arachnophobia' has a
king spider, but no queen--totally absurd!"

So there you have it. Professors Smith and Berenbaum have spoken. The evil
Banning has spent untold millions on his secret plans for world domination,
and thinks he possesses a water strider queen when he only has a lucky
regular water strider living the life of Riley.

But back to "The Tuxedo." Jackie Chan plays a taxi driver named Jimmy Tong,
who is hired by Debi Mazar to be the chauffeur for Clark Devlin (Jason
Isaacs), a multimillionaire secret agent whose $2 million tuxedo turns him
into a fighting machine (also a dancer, kung-fu expert, etc). After Devlin
is injured by a skateboard bomb, Jackie puts on the suit and soon partners
with agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who realizes he has a strange
accent for a man named Clark Devlin, but nevertheless joins him in battle
against Banning.

The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it
would still be beyond comprehension. It does have its moments, as when the
tuxedo inadvertently cold-cocks James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, and
Jackie Chan has to go onstage in place of the Hardest Working Man in Show
Business. He's very funny as James Brown, although not as funny as James
Brown is.

There's something engaging about Jackie Chan. Even in a bad movie, I like
him, because what you see is so obviously what you get. This time he goes
light on the stunts, at least the stunts he obviously does himself, so that
during the closing credits, there are lots of flubbed lines and times when
the actors break out laughing, but none of those spellbinding shots in which
he misses the bridge, falls off the scaffold, etc. And some of the shots are
computer-generated, which is kind of cheating isn't it, with Jackie Chan?
Luckily, special effects are not frowned upon at the Insect Fear Film
Festival.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:35:14 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)

WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)

September 27, 2002

Yosuke Sasano: Koji Yakusho
Saeko Aizawa: Misa Shimizu
Mitsu Aizawa: Mitsuko Baisho
Gen: Manasaku Fuwa
Taro: Kazuo Kitamura
Cowboy Pictures presents a film directed by Shohei Imamura. Written by
Motofumi Tomikawa, Daisuke Tengan and Imamura. Based on a book by Yo Henmi.
Running time: 119 minutes. No MPAA rating (intended for mature audiences).
In Japanese with English subtitles. Opening today at the Music Box.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" has modern automobiles and supermarkets,
telephones and pepper cheese imported from Europe, but it resonates like an
ancient Japanese myth. Imagine a traveler in search of treasure, who finds a
woman with special needs that only he can fulfill, and who repays him by
ending his misery.

Shohei Imamura, one of the greatest Japanese directors, tells this story
with the energy and delight of a fairy tale, but we in the West are not
likely to see it so naively, because unlike the Japanese, we are touchy on
the subject of bodily fluids. In Japan, natural functions are accepted
calmly as a part of life, and there is a celebrated children's book about
farts. No doubt a Japanese audience would view "Warm Water" entirely
differently than a North American one--because, you see, the heroine has a
condition that causes water to build up in her body, and it can be released
only by sexual intercourse.

Water arrives in puddles and rivulets, in sprays and splashes. "Don't
worry," Saeko (Misa Shimizu) cheerfully tells Yosuke, the hero. "It's not
urine." It is instead--well, what? The water of life? Of growth and renewal?
Is she a water goddess? When it runs down the steps of her house and into
the river, fish grow large and numerous. And it seems to have a similar
effect on Yosuke (Koji Yakusho, from "Shall We Dance?" and "The Eel"). From
a pallid, hopeless wanderer in the early scenes, he grows into a bold lover
and a brave ocean fisherman.

As the film opens, Yosuke is broke and jobless, fielding incessant cell
phone calls from his nagging wife, who wants an update on his job searches.
In despair, he hunkers down next to the river with an old philosopher named
Taro (Kazuo Kitamura), who tells him a story. Long ago, he says, right after
the war, he was stealing to get the money to eat, and he took a gold Buddha
from a temple. He left it in an upstairs room of a house next to a red
bridge, where he assumes it remains to this day.

Yosuke takes a train to the town named by the old man, finds the bridge,
finds the house, and follows Saeko from it into a supermarket where he sees
her shoplift some cheese while standing in a puddle. From the puddle he
retrieves her earring (a dolphin, of course) and returns it to her, and she
asks if he'd like some cheese and then forthrightly tells him, "You saw me
steal the cheese. Then you saw the puddle of water."

All true. She explains her problem. The water builds up and must be
"vented," often by doing "something wicked" like shoplifting. It is, she
adds, building up right now--and soon they are having intercourse to the
delight of the fish in the river below.

This story is unthinkable in a Hollywood movie, but there is something about
the matter-of-fact way Saeko explains her problem, and the surprised but not
stunned way that Yosuke hears her, that takes the edge off. If women are a
source of life, and if water is where life began, then--well, whatever. It
is important to note that the sex in the movie is not erotic or titillating
in any way--it's more like a therapeutic process--and that the movie is not
sex-minded but more delighted with the novelty of Saeko's problem. Only in a
nation where bodily functions are discussed in a matter-of-fact way, where
nude public bathing is no big deal, where shame about human plumbing has not
been ritualized, could this movie play in the way Imamura intended. But
seeing it as a Westerner is an enlightening, even liberating, experience.

Imamura, now 76, is also the director of the masterpieces "The Insect Woman"
(1963), about a woman whose only priority is her own comfort and survival;
"Ballad of Narayama" (1982), the heartbreaking story of a village where the
old are left on the side of a mountain to die, and "Black Rain" (1989), not
the Michael Douglas thriller, but a harrowing human story about the days and
months after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

At his age, he seems freed from convention, and in "Warm Water," for
example, he cuts loose from this world to include a dream in which Saeko
floats like a embryo in a cosmic cloud. There is also an effortless fusion
of old and new. The notion of a man leaving his nagging wife and home and
finding succor from a goddess is from ancient myth, and the fact that he
would then turn to wrest his living from the sea is not unheard of. But
throwing his cell phone overboard, now that's a modern touch.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:35:11 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Melanie: Reese Witherspoon
Jake: Josh Lucas
Andrew: Patrick Dempsey
Earl: Fred Ward
Pearl: Mary Kay Place
Stella Kay: Jean Smart
Kate: Candice Bergen
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Andy Tennant. Written by C.
Jay Cox. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language and
sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion
that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses
this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy,
while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach
pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all
know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming,
recycling of this ancient myth.

The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again
since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the
mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie
where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just
doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.

Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars
as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and
while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with
Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen)
is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he
has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of
unfinished business.

Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already
married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped
plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys
and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the
decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart,
but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser,
she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her
back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.

When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her
high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her
parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging
around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and
sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is
right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to
"go back to your double-wide and fry something."

The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the
screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he
divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so
that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later
he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and
his coon dog still likes her.

The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total
jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding,
as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York,
a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.

So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C.
Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's
theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We
know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights,
big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds
are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the
mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be
unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.")

But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and
her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to
become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I
ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of
a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower?

The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why
"Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy
tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day
would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in
"Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local
color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for
the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to
New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:35:05 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)

SECRETARY / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mr. Grey: James Spader
Lee Holloway: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Peter: Jeremy Davies
Joan Holloway: Lesley Ann Warren
Burt Holloway: Stephen McHattie
Dr. Twardon: Patrick Bauchau
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Steven Shainberg. Written by
Erin Cressida Wilson. Based on the story by Mary Gaitskill. Running time:
104 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of
behavioral disorders and language). Opening today at Evanston CineArts 6,
Esquire, Pipers Alley and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Secretary" approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy
tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.
Because S/M involves postures that are absorbing for the participants but
absurd to the onlooker, we tend to giggle at the wrong times. Here is a film
where we giggle at the right times. The director, Steven Shainberg, has
succeeded by focusing intently on his characters, making them quirky
individuals rather than figures of fun.

The movie, to begin with, is well cast. There may be better actors than
James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but for this material, I cannot think
who they are. About Spader there always seems to be some unarticulated
secret hovering, and Gyllenhaal avoids numerous opportunities to make her
character seem pathetic, and makes her seem plucky instead--intent on
establishing herself and making herself necessary.

Spader plays Mr. Grey, a lawyer whose office looks like the result of
intense conversations with an interior designer who has seen too many
Michael Douglas movies. Mr. Grey has such bad luck with secretaries that he
has an illuminated help-wanted sign out front he can light up, like the
"Vacancy" sign at a motel. Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, who has the
illness of self-mutilation and comes from a neurotic family. Released from
treatment, Lee takes typing classes, goes looking for work and has an
interview with Mr. Grey. Something unspoken passes between them and they
know they are thinking about the same thing.

Lee is submissive. Spader is dominant and obsessive (he has a fetish for
lining up red markers in his desk drawer). He demands perfection, she falls
short of the mark, he punishes her, and this becomes a workable
relationship. When he loses interest for a time and stops correcting her
mistakes, she grows disconsolate; when he sharply calls her back into her
office, she is delighted.

The movie does not argue that S/M is good for you, but has a more complex
dynamic. By absorbing so much of Mr. Grey's time and attention, Lee, who has
abysmal self-esteem, feels that attention is being paid to her. Mr. Grey
notices her. He thinks about her. He devises new games for them. He never
threatens serious hurt or harm, but instead tends toward role-playing and
ritual. What they discover is that, in the long run, S/M is more fun (and
less trouble) for the "M" than for the "S." "We can't go on like this 24
hours a day," Mr. Grey complains at one point. Lee doesn't see why not.

Jeremy Davies plays Peter, the other key role, sincere to the point of being
inarticulate, who for a time dates Lee. Mr. Grey looks on jealously as they
do their laundry together, and is faced with the possibility that he might
lose his agreeable secretary. That would be the final straw, since we sense
that Mr. Grey is in much worse shape than Lee was ever in. His
obsessive-compulsive behavior is driving him nuts, not to mention his
clients. Stories about S/M often have an ironic happy ending, but this one,
based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, seems sincere enough: They've
found a relationships that works. For them.

The movie's humor comes through the close observation of behavior. It allows
us to understand what has happened without specifying it. The lawyer and
secretary have subtle little signals by which they step out of their roles
and sort of wink, so they both know that they both know what they're doing.
Their behavior, which is intended to signify hostility, eventually grows
into a deeper recognition of each other's natures and needs. That of course
leads to affection, which can be tricky, but not for them, because both
suspect there is no one else they're ever likely to meet who will understand
them quite so completely.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:35:02 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)

8 WOMEN / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Beart
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Francois Ozon.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R
(for some sexual content). In French with English subtitles. Opening today
at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Here it is at last, the first Agatha Christie musical. Eight women are
isolated in a snowbound cottage, there is a corpse with a knife in his back,
all of the women are potential suspects, plus six song and dance numbers.
The cast is a roll call of French legends. In alphabetical order: Fanny
Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle
Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard and Ludivine Sagnier.

From the opening shot, the film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of
overproduced Hollywood musicals. We pan past tree branches impossibly laden
with picturesque snow and find a charming cottage where guests are just
arriving. Eight women have gathered to celebrate Christmas with Marcel, who
is the husband of Gaby (Deneuve), the son-in-law of Mamy (Darrieux), the
brother-in-law of Aunt Augustine (Huppert), the father of Catherine
(Sagnier) and Suzon (Ledoyen), the employer of the domestic servants Madame
Chanel (Richard) and Louise (Beart), and the brother of the late-arriving
Pierrette (Ardant).

"Monsieur died in his bed with a knife in his back," the assembled company
is informed. And (significant detail required in all isolated rural murders)
"the dogs didn't bark all night." The women absorb this news while dressed
in stunning designer fashions (even the maids look chic) and deployed around
a large, sunny room that looks like nothing so much as a stage set--even to
the detail that all the furniture is behind the actresses most of the time.
Only a couple of brief excursions upstairs prevent the movie from taking
place entirely on this one bright set, where nothing looks used or lived
with.

The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song
begins, because "8 Women" is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or
anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast, and we
realize we've been waiting a long time for Catherine Deneuve to come right
out and say of Isabelle Huppert: "I'm beautiful and rich. She's ugly and
poor." I had also just about given up hope of ever seeing Deneuve and Fanny
Ardant rolling around on the floor pulling each other's hair.

In a cast where everybody has fun, Huppert has the most, as Augustine. She
and her mother (Darrieux) have been living rent-free in Marcel's cottage
with her sister (Deneuve), but that has not inspired Augustine to compromise
in her fierce resentment and spinsterish isolation. She stalks around the
set like Whistler's mother, frowning from behind her horn-rims and making
disapproval into a lifestyle.

The other characters quickly fall into approved Agatha Christie patterns.
Young Suzon appoints herself Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps in this case
Hercule Poirot, and begins sniffing out the clues. The sexy Louise is
established as the late Marcel's mistress. Madame Chanel, from French
Africa, has been with the family for years and lives out back in the guest
cottage, where, as it develops, she often plays cards with Pierrette. And
Pierrette herself, who arrives late with the kind of entrance that only the
tall, dark and forcible Ardant could pull off, has secrets which are as
amazing as they are inevitable.

I dare not reveal a shred of the plot. And the movie is all plot--that, and
stylish behavior, and barbed wit, and those musical numbers. Watching "8
Women," you have a silly grin half of the time. Astonishing, that Francois
Ozon, who directed this, also made "Under the Sand" (2001), that melancholy
record of a wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears, apparently
drowned, and who refuses to deal with the fact that he is dead.

Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to
have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux
and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It
also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now in the
50th year of its London run, with its cast still trapped with the corpse in
the isolated cottage. "Do not give away the secret!" the program notes
exhort. And here, too. Not that the secret is anything more than one more
twist of the plot's pepper mill.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:35:03 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Joe Nast Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Floss: Dustin Hoffman
JoJo Floss: Susan Sarandon
Mona Camp: Holly Hunter
Bertie Knox: Ellen Pompeo
Mike Mulcahey: Dabney Coleman
Stan Michaels: Allan Corduner
Ty: Richard T. Jones
Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present a film written and
directed by Brad Silberling. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
some sensuality and brief strong language). Opening today at Pipers Alley,
Northbrook Court and Yorktown.

BY ROGER EBERT

After the funeral is over and the mourners have come back to the house for
coffee and cake and have all gone home, the parents and the boyfriend of
Diana, the dead girl, sit by themselves. Her mother criticizes how one
friend expressed her sympathy. And the father asks, what could she say? "Put
yourself in their shoes."

That little scene provides a key to Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile." What
do you say when someone dies--someone you cared for? What are the right
words? And what's the right thing to do? Death is the ultimate rebuke to
good manners. The movie, which makes an unusually intense effort to deal
with the process of grief and renewal, is inspired by a loss in Silberling's
own life. The TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, his girlfriend at the time, was
killed in 1989 by a fan. Silberling has grown very close to her parents in
the years since then, he told me, and more than a decade later he has tried
to use the experience as the starting point for a film.

"Moonlight Mile," which takes place in 1973, opens in an elliptical way. At
first only quiet clues in the dialogue allow us to understand that someone
has died. We meet Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), the fiance of the dead girl,
and her parents Ben and JoJo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). They
talk not in a sentimental way, but in that strange, detached tone we use
when grief is too painful to express and yet something must be said.

After the funeral and the home visitation, the film follows what in a lesser
film would be called the "healing process." "Moonlight Mile" is too quirky
and observant to be described in psychobabble. Joe stays stuck in the Floss
house, living in an upstairs bedroom, his plans on hold. Ben, who has lost a
daughter, now in a confused way hopes to gain a son, and encourages Joe to
join him in his business as a real estate developer. JoJo, protected by
intelligence and wit, looks closely and suspects a secret Joe is keeping,
which leaves him stranded between the past and future.

Gyllenhaal, who in person is a jokester, in the movies almost always plays
characters who are withdrawn and morose. Remember him in "Donnie Darko,"
"The Good Girl" and "Lovely & Amazing." Here, too, he is a young man
with troubled thoughts. At the post office, and again at a bar where she has
a night job, he meets Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo), who sees inside when
others only look at the surface. They begin to talk. She has a loss, too:
Her boyfriend has been missing in action in Vietnam for three years. While
it is possible that they will mend each other's hearts by falling in love,
the movie doesn't simple-mindedly pursue that plot path, but meanders among
the thoughts of the living.

Silberling's screenplay pays full attention to all of the characters. Ben
and JoJo are not simply a backdrop to a romance involving Joe and Bertie.
The movie provides key scenes for all of the characters, in conversation and
in monologue, so that it is not only about Joe's grieving process but about
all four, who have lost different things in different ways.

Anyone regarding the Hoffman character will note that his name is Benjamin
and remember Hoffman's most famous character, in "The Graduate." But Joe is
the Benjamin of this film, and Hoffman's older man has more in common with
another of his famous roles: Willy Loman, the hero of "Death of a Salesman."
Ben occupies a low-rent storefront office on Main Street in Cape Anne,
Mass., but dreams of putting together a group of properties and bringing in
a superstore like Kmart. This will be his big killing, the deal that caps
his career, even though we can see in the eyes of the local rich man (Dabney
Coleman) that Ben is too small to land this fish. Ben's desire to share his
dream with his surrogate son, Joe, also has echoes from the Arthur Miller
tragedy.

Sarandon's JoJo is tart, with a verbal wit to protect her and a jaundiced
view of her husband's prospects. The deepest conversation JoJo has with Joe
("Isn't it funny, that we have the same name?") is about as well done as
such a scene can be. She intuits that Joe is dealing not only with the loss
of Diana's life but with the loss of something else.

Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot
be written, only felt. She knows she is attractive to Joe. She knows she
likes him. She knows she is faithful to her old boyfriend. She is frightened
by her own power to attract, especially since she wants to attract even
while she tells herself she doesn't. She is so vulnerable in this movie, so
sweet as she senses Joe's pain and wants to help him.

Holly Hunter is the fifth major player, as the lawyer who is handling the
case against Diana's killer. She embodies the wisdom of the law, which
knows, as laymen do not, that it moves with its own logic regardless of the
feelings of those in the courtroom. She offers practical advice, and then
you can see in her eyes that she wishes she could offer emotional advice
instead.

"Moonlight Mile" gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things. It
is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders
to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
Everyone who has grieved for a loved one will recognize the moment, some
days after the death, when an irreverent remark will release the surprise of
laughter. Sometimes we laugh, that we may not cry. Not many movies know that
truth. "Moonlight Mile" is based on it.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:38:45 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)

8 WOMEN / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mamy: Danielle Darrieux
Gaby: Catherine Deneuve
Augustine: Isabelle Huppert
Suzon: Virginie Ledoyen
Catherine: Ludivine Sagnier
Pierrette: Fanny Ardant
Louise: Emmanuelle Beart
Madame Chanel: Firmine Richard
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Francois Ozon.
Adapted from the play by Robert Thomas. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated R
(for some sexual content). In French with English subtitles. Opening today
at Pipers Alley, Evanston CineArts 6 and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

Here it is at last, the first Agatha Christie musical. Eight women are
isolated in a snowbound cottage, there is a corpse with a knife in his back,
all of the women are potential suspects, plus six song and dance numbers.
The cast is a roll call of French legends. In alphabetical order: Fanny
Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle
Huppert, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard and Ludivine Sagnier.

From the opening shot, the film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of
overproduced Hollywood musicals. We pan past tree branches impossibly laden
with picturesque snow and find a charming cottage where guests are just
arriving. Eight women have gathered to celebrate Christmas with Marcel, who
is the husband of Gaby (Deneuve), the son-in-law of Mamy (Darrieux), the
brother-in-law of Aunt Augustine (Huppert), the father of Catherine
(Sagnier) and Suzon (Ledoyen), the employer of the domestic servants Madame
Chanel (Richard) and Louise (Beart), and the brother of the late-arriving
Pierrette (Ardant).

"Monsieur died in his bed with a knife in his back," the assembled company
is informed. And (significant detail required in all isolated rural murders)
"the dogs didn't bark all night." The women absorb this news while dressed
in stunning designer fashions (even the maids look chic) and deployed around
a large, sunny room that looks like nothing so much as a stage set--even to
the detail that all the furniture is behind the actresses most of the time.
Only a couple of brief excursions upstairs prevent the movie from taking
place entirely on this one bright set, where nothing looks used or lived
with.

The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song
begins, because "8 Women" is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or
anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast, and we
realize we've been waiting a long time for Catherine Deneuve to come right
out and say of Isabelle Huppert: "I'm beautiful and rich. She's ugly and
poor." I had also just about given up hope of ever seeing Deneuve and Fanny
Ardant rolling around on the floor pulling each other's hair.

In a cast where everybody has fun, Huppert has the most, as Augustine. She
and her mother (Darrieux) have been living rent-free in Marcel's cottage
with her sister (Deneuve), but that has not inspired Augustine to compromise
in her fierce resentment and spinsterish isolation. She stalks around the
set like Whistler's mother, frowning from behind her horn-rims and making
disapproval into a lifestyle.

The other characters quickly fall into approved Agatha Christie patterns.
Young Suzon appoints herself Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps in this case
Hercule Poirot, and begins sniffing out the clues. The sexy Louise is
established as the late Marcel's mistress. Madame Chanel, from French
Africa, has been with the family for years and lives out back in the guest
cottage, where, as it develops, she often plays cards with Pierrette. And
Pierrette herself, who arrives late with the kind of entrance that only the
tall, dark and forcible Ardant could pull off, has secrets which are as
amazing as they are inevitable.

I dare not reveal a shred of the plot. And the movie is all plot--that, and
stylish behavior, and barbed wit, and those musical numbers. Watching "8
Women," you have a silly grin half of the time. Astonishing, that Francois
Ozon, who directed this, also made "Under the Sand" (2001), that melancholy
record of a wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband disappears, apparently
drowned, and who refuses to deal with the fact that he is dead.

Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to
have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux
and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor. It
also helps if you have seen Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," now in the
50th year of its London run, with its cast still trapped with the corpse in
the isolated cottage. "Do not give away the secret!" the program notes
exhort. And here, too. Not that the secret is anything more than one more
twist of the plot's pepper mill.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:38:47 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Joe Nast Jake Gyllenhaal
Ben Floss: Dustin Hoffman
JoJo Floss: Susan Sarandon
Mona Camp: Holly Hunter
Bertie Knox: Ellen Pompeo
Mike Mulcahey: Dabney Coleman
Stan Michaels: Allan Corduner
Ty: Richard T. Jones
Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment present a film written and
directed by Brad Silberling. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
some sensuality and brief strong language). Opening today at Pipers Alley,
Northbrook Court and Yorktown.

BY ROGER EBERT

After the funeral is over and the mourners have come back to the house for
coffee and cake and have all gone home, the parents and the boyfriend of
Diana, the dead girl, sit by themselves. Her mother criticizes how one
friend expressed her sympathy. And the father asks, what could she say? "Put
yourself in their shoes."

That little scene provides a key to Brad Silberling's "Moonlight Mile." What
do you say when someone dies--someone you cared for? What are the right
words? And what's the right thing to do? Death is the ultimate rebuke to
good manners. The movie, which makes an unusually intense effort to deal
with the process of grief and renewal, is inspired by a loss in Silberling's
own life. The TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer, his girlfriend at the time, was
killed in 1989 by a fan. Silberling has grown very close to her parents in
the years since then, he told me, and more than a decade later he has tried
to use the experience as the starting point for a film.

"Moonlight Mile," which takes place in 1973, opens in an elliptical way. At
first only quiet clues in the dialogue allow us to understand that someone
has died. We meet Joe Nast (Jake Gyllenhaal), the fiance of the dead girl,
and her parents Ben and JoJo Floss (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon). They
talk not in a sentimental way, but in that strange, detached tone we use
when grief is too painful to express and yet something must be said.

After the funeral and the home visitation, the film follows what in a lesser
film would be called the "healing process." "Moonlight Mile" is too quirky
and observant to be described in psychobabble. Joe stays stuck in the Floss
house, living in an upstairs bedroom, his plans on hold. Ben, who has lost a
daughter, now in a confused way hopes to gain a son, and encourages Joe to
join him in his business as a real estate developer. JoJo, protected by
intelligence and wit, looks closely and suspects a secret Joe is keeping,
which leaves him stranded between the past and future.

Gyllenhaal, who in person is a jokester, in the movies almost always plays
characters who are withdrawn and morose. Remember him in "Donnie Darko,"
"The Good Girl" and "Lovely & Amazing." Here, too, he is a young man
with troubled thoughts. At the post office, and again at a bar where she has
a night job, he meets Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo), who sees inside when
others only look at the surface. They begin to talk. She has a loss, too:
Her boyfriend has been missing in action in Vietnam for three years. While
it is possible that they will mend each other's hearts by falling in love,
the movie doesn't simple-mindedly pursue that plot path, but meanders among
the thoughts of the living.

Silberling's screenplay pays full attention to all of the characters. Ben
and JoJo are not simply a backdrop to a romance involving Joe and Bertie.
The movie provides key scenes for all of the characters, in conversation and
in monologue, so that it is not only about Joe's grieving process but about
all four, who have lost different things in different ways.

Anyone regarding the Hoffman character will note that his name is Benjamin
and remember Hoffman's most famous character, in "The Graduate." But Joe is
the Benjamin of this film, and Hoffman's older man has more in common with
another of his famous roles: Willy Loman, the hero of "Death of a Salesman."
Ben occupies a low-rent storefront office on Main Street in Cape Anne,
Mass., but dreams of putting together a group of properties and bringing in
a superstore like Kmart. This will be his big killing, the deal that caps
his career, even though we can see in the eyes of the local rich man (Dabney
Coleman) that Ben is too small to land this fish. Ben's desire to share his
dream with his surrogate son, Joe, also has echoes from the Arthur Miller
tragedy.

Sarandon's JoJo is tart, with a verbal wit to protect her and a jaundiced
view of her husband's prospects. The deepest conversation JoJo has with Joe
("Isn't it funny, that we have the same name?") is about as well done as
such a scene can be. She intuits that Joe is dealing not only with the loss
of Diana's life but with the loss of something else.

Pompeo, a newcomer, plays Bertie with a kind of scary charisma that cannot
be written, only felt. She knows she is attractive to Joe. She knows she
likes him. She knows she is faithful to her old boyfriend. She is frightened
by her own power to attract, especially since she wants to attract even
while she tells herself she doesn't. She is so vulnerable in this movie, so
sweet as she senses Joe's pain and wants to help him.

Holly Hunter is the fifth major player, as the lawyer who is handling the
case against Diana's killer. She embodies the wisdom of the law, which
knows, as laymen do not, that it moves with its own logic regardless of the
feelings of those in the courtroom. She offers practical advice, and then
you can see in her eyes that she wishes she could offer emotional advice
instead.

"Moonlight Mile" gives itself the freedom to feel contradictory things. It
is sentimental but feels free to offend, is analytical and then surrenders
to the illogic of its characters, is about grief and yet permits laughter.
Everyone who has grieved for a loved one will recognize the moment, some
days after the death, when an irreverent remark will release the surprise of
laughter. Sometimes we laugh, that we may not cry. Not many movies know that
truth. "Moonlight Mile" is based on it.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:38:48 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)

SECRETARY / *** (R)

September 27, 2002

Mr. Grey: James Spader
Lee Holloway: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Peter: Jeremy Davies
Joan Holloway: Lesley Ann Warren
Burt Holloway: Stephen McHattie
Dr. Twardon: Patrick Bauchau
Lions Gate Films presents a film directed by Steven Shainberg. Written by
Erin Cressida Wilson. Based on the story by Mary Gaitskill. Running time:
104 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of
behavioral disorders and language). Opening today at Evanston CineArts 6,
Esquire, Pipers Alley and Landmark Renaissance.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Secretary" approaches the tricky subject of sadomasochism with a stealthy
tread, avoiding the dangers of making it either too offensive, or too funny.
Because S/M involves postures that are absorbing for the participants but
absurd to the onlooker, we tend to giggle at the wrong times. Here is a film
where we giggle at the right times. The director, Steven Shainberg, has
succeeded by focusing intently on his characters, making them quirky
individuals rather than figures of fun.

The movie, to begin with, is well cast. There may be better actors than
James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but for this material, I cannot think
who they are. About Spader there always seems to be some unarticulated
secret hovering, and Gyllenhaal avoids numerous opportunities to make her
character seem pathetic, and makes her seem plucky instead--intent on
establishing herself and making herself necessary.

Spader plays Mr. Grey, a lawyer whose office looks like the result of
intense conversations with an interior designer who has seen too many
Michael Douglas movies. Mr. Grey has such bad luck with secretaries that he
has an illuminated help-wanted sign out front he can light up, like the
"Vacancy" sign at a motel. Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, who has the
illness of self-mutilation and comes from a neurotic family. Released from
treatment, Lee takes typing classes, goes looking for work and has an
interview with Mr. Grey. Something unspoken passes between them and they
know they are thinking about the same thing.

Lee is submissive. Spader is dominant and obsessive (he has a fetish for
lining up red markers in his desk drawer). He demands perfection, she falls
short of the mark, he punishes her, and this becomes a workable
relationship. When he loses interest for a time and stops correcting her
mistakes, she grows disconsolate; when he sharply calls her back into her
office, she is delighted.

The movie does not argue that S/M is good for you, but has a more complex
dynamic. By absorbing so much of Mr. Grey's time and attention, Lee, who has
abysmal self-esteem, feels that attention is being paid to her. Mr. Grey
notices her. He thinks about her. He devises new games for them. He never
threatens serious hurt or harm, but instead tends toward role-playing and
ritual. What they discover is that, in the long run, S/M is more fun (and
less trouble) for the "M" than for the "S." "We can't go on like this 24
hours a day," Mr. Grey complains at one point. Lee doesn't see why not.

Jeremy Davies plays Peter, the other key role, sincere to the point of being
inarticulate, who for a time dates Lee. Mr. Grey looks on jealously as they
do their laundry together, and is faced with the possibility that he might
lose his agreeable secretary. That would be the final straw, since we sense
that Mr. Grey is in much worse shape than Lee was ever in. His
obsessive-compulsive behavior is driving him nuts, not to mention his
clients. Stories about S/M often have an ironic happy ending, but this one,
based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill, seems sincere enough: They've
found a relationships that works. For them.

The movie's humor comes through the close observation of behavior. It allows
us to understand what has happened without specifying it. The lawyer and
secretary have subtle little signals by which they step out of their roles
and sort of wink, so they both know that they both know what they're doing.
Their behavior, which is intended to signify hostility, eventually grows
into a deeper recognition of each other's natures and needs. That of course
leads to affection, which can be tricky, but not for them, because both
suspect there is no one else they're ever likely to meet who will understand
them quite so completely.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 27 Sep 2002 16:38:50 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)

September 27, 2002

Melanie: Reese Witherspoon
Jake: Josh Lucas
Andrew: Patrick Dempsey
Earl: Fred Ward
Pearl: Mary Kay Place
Stella Kay: Jean Smart
Kate: Candice Bergen
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by Andy Tennant. Written by C.
Jay Cox. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language and
sexual references).

BY ROGER EBERT

Among the pieties that Hollywood preaches but does not believe is the notion
that small towns are preferable to big cities. Film after film rehearses
this belief: Big cities are repositories of greed, alienation and hypocrisy,
while in a small town you will find the front doors left unlocked, peach
pies cooling on the kitchen window sill, and folks down at the diner who all
know your name. "Sweet Home Alabama" is the latest, admittedly charming,
recycling of this ancient myth.

The fact is that few people in Hollywood have voluntarily gone home again
since William Faulkner fled to Mississippi. The screenwriters who retail the
mirage of small towns are relieved to have escaped them. I await a movie
where a New Yorker tries moving to a small town and finds that it just
doesn't reflect his warm-hearted big city values.

Reese Witherspoon, who is the best reason to see "Sweet Home Alabama," stars
as Melanie Carmichael, a small-town girl who moves to the Big Apple and
while still in her 20s becomes a famous fashion designer. She's in love with
Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), a JFK Jr. lookalike whose mother (Candice Bergen)
is mayor of New York. After he proposes to Melanie in Tiffany's, which he
has rented for the occasion, she flies back home to Alabama to take care of
unfinished business.

Specifically, she doesn't want Andrew to discover that she is already
married to a local boy, and that her family doesn't own a moss-dripped
plantation. Her folks live in a luxury mobile home with lots of La-Z-Boys
and knitted afghans (La-Z-Boy: the sign of a home where the man makes the
decisions). Her husband, Jake (Josh Lucas), was her high school sweetheart,
but, looking ahead at a lifetime of dirty diapers and dishes with a loser,
she fled north. His plan: prove himself, to earn her respect and get her
back again. That's why he's never given her the divorce.

When Melanie returns home, she's greeted by the locals, who remember her
high school hijinks (like tying dynamite to a stray cat, ho, ho). Her
parents (Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place), who wile away their days lounging
around the double-wide practicing sitcom dialogue, look on with love and
sympathy, because they know that sooner or later she'll realize that home is
right here. A clue comes when the mayor advises her prospective in-laws to
"go back to your double-wide and fry something."

The Jake character is more complex, as he needs to be, because the
screenplay requires him to keep a secret that common sense insists he
divulge immediately. He must meanwhile undergo a subtle transformation so
that when we first meet him, we think he's a redneck hayseed, and then later
he has transmogrified into a sensitive, intelligent, caring male. Oh, and
his coon dog still likes her.

The JFK Jr. guy, in the meantime, cannot be permitted to become a total
jerk, because the movie's poignancy factor demands that he be Understanding,
as indeed he would be, with a Jackie lookalike mom who is mayor of New York,
a city where in this movie nothing bad has happened in recent memory.

So, OK, we understand how the formula works, even without learning that C.
Jay Cox, the screenwriter, is a student of writing coach Syd Field's
theories (i.e., analyze successful movies and copy their structures). We
know that the movie absolutely requires that Melanie reject bright lights,
big city and return to the embrace of her home town. And we know the odds
are low that Melanie will get the divorce, return to New York and marry the
mayor's son. (Anyone who thinks I have just committed a spoiler will be
unaware of all movies in this genre since "Ma and Pa Kettle.")

But answer me this: What about Melanie as a person, with her own success and
her own ambition? Would a woman with the talent and ambition necessary to
become world-famous in the fashion industry before the age of 30 be able, I
ask you, be willing, be prepared, to renounce it all to become the spouse of
a man who has built a successful business as a (let's say) glass-blower?

The chances of that happening are, I submit, extremely thin, and that is why
"Sweet Home Alabama" works. It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy
tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. She is as lovable as Doris Day
would have been in this role (in fact, Doris Day was in this role, in
"Please Don't Eat the Daisies"). So I enjoyed Witherspoon and the local
color, but I am so very tired of the underlying premise. Isn't it time for
the movies to reflect reality and show the Melanies of the world fleeing to
New York as fast as they can? Even if Syd Field flunks you?

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