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movies-digest         Friday, October 4 2002         Volume 02 : Number 373



[MV] MOONLIGHT MILE / **** (PG-13)
[MV] SWEET HOME ALABAMA / *** (PG-13)
[MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
[MV] THE TUXEDO / *1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
[MV] INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)
[MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)

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

Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:35 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: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:40 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: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:33 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 eight 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: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:41 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: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:32 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

October 4, 2002

Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Will Graham: Edward Norton
Francis Dolarhyde: Ralph Fiennes
Jack Crawford: Harvey Keitel
Reba McClane: Emily Watson
Molly Graham: Mary-Louise Parker
Freddy Lounds: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Ted
Tally. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
R (for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Red Dragon" opens with the pleasure of seeing Hannibal Lecter as he was
before leaving civilian life. The camera floats above a symphony orchestra
and down into the audience, and we spot Lecter almost at once, regarding
with displeasure an inferior musician. Interesting, how the director forces
our attention just as a magician forces a card: We notice Lecter because he
is located in a strong point of the screen, because his face is lighted to
make him pop out from the drabness on either side, and because he is looking
directly at the camera.

I felt, a confess, a certain pleasure to find him in the audience. Hannibal
Lecter is one of the most wicked villains in movie history, and one of the
most beloved. We forgive him his trespasses because (1) they are forced upon
him by his nature; (2) most of the time he is helplessly imprisoned, and
providing aid to the FBI, or seeming to, after his peculiar fashion, and (3)
he is droll and literate, dryly humorous, elegantly mannered. In these days
of movie characters who obediently recite the words the plot requires of
them, it's a pleasure to meet a man who can hold up his end of the
conversation.

The opening, with Hannibal still in civilian life, allows a tense early
scene in which the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) receives a late-night visitor,
FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham has been assisted by Lecter in
examining a series of crimes which, he has just realized, involved
cannibalism--and now, as he regards the doctor in the gloom of the shadowed
study, it occurs to him, just as it simultaneously occurs to Lecter, that it
is clear to both of them who this cannibal might be.

Flash forward several years. Lecter is in prison, Graham has taken early
retirement, but now his old FBI boss (Harvey Keitel) wants to recruit him to
solve a pair of serial killings, this time by a man dubbed the Tooth Fairy
because he leaves an unmistakable dental imprint at the scenes of his
crimes. Graham resists, but photos of the dead families and a poignant look
at his own living family do the trick, and he joins the case as a free-lance
adviser. This requires him to examine crime scenes by creeping through them
in pitch darkness in the middle of the night, although there is no reason he
could not visit at noon (except, of course, that he wants to share the
killer's point of view, and also because the film seeds the darkness with
potential danger).

The director is Brett Ratner, who has not achieved the distinction of the
three previous directors of Hannibal Lecter movies (Jonathan Demme on "The
Silence of the Lambs," Ridley Scott on "Hannibal," and Michael Mann on
"Manhunter," the first version of "Red Dragon," made in 1986). Ratner's
credits have included the "Rush Hour" pictures, "Family Man" and "Money
Talks," some with their merits, none suggesting he was qualified to be
Lecter's next director.

To my surprise, he does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of
Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy
(Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a
character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of
the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy
scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The screenplay by Ted
Tally, who wrote "Lambs," also supplies a blind girl in peril (Emily
Watson), and blind girls have worked dependably since the days of silent
pictures.

A movie like "Red Dragon" is all atmosphere and apprehension. Ratner doesn't
give us as much violence or as many sensational shocks as Scott did in
"Hannibal," but that's a plus: Lecter is a character who commands
contemplation and unease, and too much action just releases the tension. To
be sure, Scott was working with a Thomas Harris novel that itself went so
high over the top (remember the quadriplegic murdered with an electric eel?)
that much of it could not be filmed. But this movie, based on Harris' first
novel, has studied "Silence of the Lambs" and knows that the action comes
second to general creepiness. There are stabbings, shootings, fires,
explosions, tortures, mutilations, and a flaming corpse in a wheelchair, but
within reason.

As the "Tooth Fairy" figure, named Francis Dolarhyde, Ralph Fiennes comes as
close as possible to creating a sympathetic monster. What he does is
unspeakable. What has been done to him is unspeakable. Dolarhyde himself is
horrified by his potential, and the character of the blind girl is not
merely a cheap gimmick (although it is that, too), but a device that allows
him to ask just how far he is prepared to go. We are reminded of another
monster and another blind person, in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1932), and in
both cases the monster feels relief because the blind cannot see that he is
a monster. (In photos of a crime scene, ex-agent Graham notices that mirrors
have been broken and shards of the glass put in the eye sockets of
victims--perhaps because the Tooth Fairy cannot stand to look at himself,
but is driven to a frenzy when others can look at him.)

The movie has been photographed by Dante Spinotti, who also filmed Michael
Mann's more cool, stylized version, and here he provides darkness and
saturated colors. The Lecter world is one of dampness, lowering clouds,
early sunsets, chill in the bones. Lecter himself, when he appears, is like
a little fire we can warm before; he smiles benevolently, knows all, accepts
his nature, offers to help, and more often than not has another macabre
scheme under way. The early passages of this movie benefit from our
knowledge that Lecter will sooner or later appear; it's as if the plot is
tiptoeing toward a ledge.

The Lecter character, and the agents who deal with him, and the monsters who
take him as a role model, create an atmosphere that encourages style in the
filmmaking. It is much the same with the best upper-class crime novels.
There is violence, yes, but also a lot of carefully described atmosphere, as
we enter the attractive lives of the rich and vicious: Consider Rex Stout,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:57:38 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: 04 Oct 2002 15:58:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)

INVINCIBLE / **** (PG-13)

October 4, 2002

Hanussen: Tim Roth
Zishe: Jouko Ahola
Marta Farra: Anna Gourari
Master of Ceremonies: Max     Raabe
Benjamin: Jacob Wein
Landwehr: Gustav Peter     Wohler
Fine Line Features presents a film written and directed by Werner Herzog.
Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual content and thematic
elements). Opening today at Water Tower.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

Werner Herzog's "Invincible" tells the astonishing story of a Jewish
strongman in Nazi Germany, a man who in his simple goodness believes he can
be the "new Samson" and protect his people. He is a blacksmith in Poland in
1932 when discovered by a talent scout, and soon becomes the headliner in
the Palace of the Occult, in Berlin, which is run by the sinister Hanussen
(Tim Roth), a man who dreams of becoming Minister of the Occult in a Nazi
government.

The strongman, named Zishe Breitbart, is played by a Finnish athlete named
Jouko Ahola, twice winner of the title World's Strongest Man. Much of the
movie's uncanny appeal comes from the contrast between Ahola's performance,
which is entirely without guile, and Roth's performance, which drips with
mannered malevolence. Standing between them is the young woman Marta (Anna
Gourari), who is under Hanussen's psychological power, and who the strongman
loves.

"Invincible" is based, Herzog says, on the true story of Breitbart, whose
great strength contradicted the Nazi myth of Aryan superiority. I can
imagine a dozen ways in which this story could be told badly, but Herzog has
fashioned it into a film of uncommon fascination, in which we often have no
idea at all what could possibly happen next. There are countless movies
about preludes to the Holocaust, but I can't think of one this innocent,
direct and unblinking. In the face of gathering evil, Zishe trusts in human
nature, is proud of his heritage, and believes strength and goodness (which
he confuses) will triumph.

The movie has the power of a great silent film, unafraid of grand gestures
and moral absolutes. Its casting of the major characters is crucial, and
instinctively correct. Tim Roth is a sinister charlatan, posing as a man
with real psychic powers, using trickery and showmanship as he jockeys for
position within the emerging Nazi majority. There is a scene where he
hypnotizes Marta, and as he stares boldly into the camera I wondered, for a
moment, if it was possible to hypnotize a movie audience that way. Late in
the film there is a scene where his secrets are revealed, and he makes a
speech of chilling, absolute cynicism. Another actor in another movie might
have simply gnashed his teeth, but Roth and Herzog take the revelations as
an opportunity to show us the self-hatred beneath the deception.

As for Jouko Ahola, this untrained actor, who seems by nature to be
good-hearted and uncomplicated, may never act again, but he has found the
one perfect role, as Maria Falconetti did in "The Passion of Joan of Arc."
He embodies the simple strongman. The camera can look as closely as it wants
and never find anything false. A naive man from a backward town, not
especially devout, he gets into a fight when Polish customers in a
restaurant insult him and his little brother as Jews. A little later,
entering a circus contest, he watches as the strongman lifts a boulder--and
then puts an end to the contest by, lifting the strongman and the boulder.

The talent scout takes him to see his first movie. Soon he is in Berlin,
where Hanussen sizes him up and says, "We will Aryanize you. A Jew should
never be as strong as you." Zishe is outfitted with a blond wig and Nordic
helmet, and presented as "Siegfried." He becomes a great favor of Nazi
brownshirts in the audience, as Hanussen prattles about "the strength of the
body against the dark powers of the occult." But Zishe's mind works away at
the situation until finally he has his solution, tears off the helmet and
wig, and identities himself as a Jew.

Here as throughout the film Herzog avoids the obvious next scene. Is
Hanussen outraged? To a degree. But then he reports: "There's a line three
blocks long outside! It's the Jews. They all want to see the new Samson."
And then, at a time when Hitler was on the rise but the full measure of
Jewish persecution was not yet in view, the Palace of the Occult turns into
a dangerous pit where audience members are potentially at one another's
throats.

This is the first feature in 10 years from Herzog, one of the great
visionaries among directors. He strains to break the bonds of film structure
in order to surprise us in unexpected ways. His best films unashamedly yearn
to lift us into the mythical and the mystical. "Our civilization is starving
for new images," he once told me, and in "Invincible" there is an image of a
bleak, rocky seashore where the sharp stones are littered with thousands or
millions of bright red crabs, all mindlessly scrabbling away on their crabby
missions. I think this scene may represent the emerging Nazi hordes, but of
course there can be no literal translation. Perhaps Herzog wants to
illustrate the implacable Darwinian struggle from which man can rise with
good heart and purpose.

The strongman in "Invincible" is lovable, and so deeply moving, precisely
because he is not a cog in a plot, has no plan, is involved in no
machinations, but is simply proud of his parents, proud to be a Jew, in love
with the girl, and convinced that God has made him strong for a reason. He
may be wrong in his optimism, but his greatest strength is that he will
never understand that. The Roth character is equally single-minded, but
without hope or purpose--a conniver and manipulator.

Watching "Invincible" was a singular experience for me, because it reminded
me of the fundamental power that the cinema had for us when we were
children. The film exercises the power that fable has for the believing.
Herzog has gotten outside the constraints and conventions of ordinary
narrative, and addresses us where our credulity keeps its secrets.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:58:54 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)

October 4, 2002

Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Will Graham: Edward Norton
Francis Dolarhyde: Ralph Fiennes
Jack Crawford: Harvey Keitel
Reba McClane: Emily Watson
Molly Graham: Mary-Louise Parker
Freddy Lounds: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Brett Ratner. Written by Ted
Tally. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
R (for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Red Dragon" opens with the pleasure of seeing Hannibal Lecter as he was
before leaving civilian life. The camera floats above a symphony orchestra
and down into the audience, and we spot Lecter almost at once, regarding
with displeasure an inferior musician. Interesting, how the director forces
our attention just as a magician forces a card: We notice Lecter because he
is located in a strong point of the screen, because his face is lighted to
make him pop out from the drabness on either side, and because he is looking
directly at the camera.

I felt, a confess, a certain pleasure to find him in the audience. Hannibal
Lecter is one of the most wicked villains in movie history, and one of the
most beloved. We forgive him his trespasses because (1) they are forced upon
him by his nature; (2) most of the time he is helplessly imprisoned, and
providing aid to the FBI, or seeming to, after his peculiar fashion, and (3)
he is droll and literate, dryly humorous, elegantly mannered. In these days
of movie characters who obediently recite the words the plot requires of
them, it's a pleasure to meet a man who can hold up his end of the
conversation.

The opening, with Hannibal still in civilian life, allows a tense early
scene in which the doctor (Anthony Hopkins) receives a late-night visitor,
FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton). Graham has been assisted by Lecter in
examining a series of crimes which, he has just realized, involved
cannibalism--and now, as he regards the doctor in the gloom of the shadowed
study, it occurs to him, just as it simultaneously occurs to Lecter, that it
is clear to both of them who this cannibal might be.

Flash forward several years. Lecter is in prison, Graham has taken early
retirement, but now his old FBI boss (Harvey Keitel) wants to recruit him to
solve a pair of serial killings, this time by a man dubbed the Tooth Fairy
because he leaves an unmistakable dental imprint at the scenes of his
crimes. Graham resists, but photos of the dead families and a poignant look
at his own living family do the trick, and he joins the case as a free-lance
adviser. This requires him to examine crime scenes by creeping through them
in pitch darkness in the middle of the night, although there is no reason he
could not visit at noon (except, of course, that he wants to share the
killer's point of view, and also because the film seeds the darkness with
potential danger).

The director is Brett Ratner, who has not achieved the distinction of the
three previous directors of Hannibal Lecter movies (Jonathan Demme on "The
Silence of the Lambs," Ridley Scott on "Hannibal," and Michael Mann on
"Manhunter," the first version of "Red Dragon," made in 1986). Ratner's
credits have included the "Rush Hour" pictures, "Family Man" and "Money
Talks," some with their merits, none suggesting he was qualified to be
Lecter's next director.

To my surprise, he does a sure, stylish job, appreciating the droll humor of
Lecter's predicament, creating a depraved new villain in the Tooth Fairy
(Ralph Fiennes), and using the quiet, intense skills of Norton to create a
character whose old fears feed into his new ones. There is also humor, of
the uneasy he-can't-get-away-with-this variety, in the character of a nosy
scandal-sheet reporter (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The screenplay by Ted
Tally, who wrote "Lambs," also supplies a blind girl in peril (Emily
Watson), and blind girls have worked dependably since the days of silent
pictures.

A movie like "Red Dragon" is all atmosphere and apprehension. Ratner doesn't
give us as much violence or as many sensational shocks as Scott did in
"Hannibal," but that's a plus: Lecter is a character who commands
contemplation and unease, and too much action just releases the tension. To
be sure, Scott was working with a Thomas Harris novel that itself went so
high over the top (remember the quadriplegic murdered with an electric eel?)
that much of it could not be filmed. But this movie, based on Harris' first
novel, has studied "Silence of the Lambs" and knows that the action comes
second to general creepiness. There are stabbings, shootings, fires,
explosions, tortures, mutilations, and a flaming corpse in a wheelchair, but
within reason.

As the "Tooth Fairy" figure, named Francis Dolarhyde, Ralph Fiennes comes as
close as possible to creating a sympathetic monster. What he does is
unspeakable. What has been done to him is unspeakable. Dolarhyde himself is
horrified by his potential, and the character of the blind girl is not
merely a cheap gimmick (although it is that, too), but a device that allows
him to ask just how far he is prepared to go. We are reminded of another
monster and another blind person, in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1932), and in
both cases the monster feels relief because the blind cannot see that he is
a monster. (In photos of a crime scene, ex-agent Graham notices that mirrors
have been broken and shards of the glass put in the eye sockets of
victims--perhaps because the Tooth Fairy cannot stand to look at himself,
but is driven to a frenzy when others can look at him.)

The movie has been photographed by Dante Spinotti, who also filmed Michael
Mann's more cool, stylized version, and here he provides darkness and
saturated colors. The Lecter world is one of dampness, lowering clouds,
early sunsets, chill in the bones. Lecter himself, when he appears, is like
a little fire we can warm before; he smiles benevolently, knows all, accepts
his nature, offers to help, and more often than not has another macabre
scheme under way. The early passages of this movie benefit from our
knowledge that Lecter will sooner or later appear; it's as if the plot is
tiptoeing toward a ledge.

The Lecter character, and the agents who deal with him, and the monsters who
take him as a role model, create an atmosphere that encourages style in the
filmmaking. It is much the same with the best upper-class crime novels.
There is violence, yes, but also a lot of carefully described atmosphere, as
we enter the attractive lives of the rich and vicious: Consider Rex Stout,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:58:56 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 eight 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.

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