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movies-digest         Friday, October 18 2002         Volume 02 : Number 375



[MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
[MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
[MV] THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)
[MV] BROWN SUGAR / ***
[MV] SWEPT AWAY / * (R)
[MV] THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)
[MV] KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)
[MV] BELOW / **1/2 (R)
[MV] ABANDON / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)

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

Date: 04 Oct 2002 15:59:09 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 15:59:06 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: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:28 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)

THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)

October 11, 2002

Sean: James Van Der Beek
Lauren: Shannyn Sossamon
Paul: Ian Somerhalder
Lara: Jessica Biel
Victor: Kip Pardue
Kelly: Kate Bosworth
Lions Gate Films presents a film written and directed by Roger Avary. Based
on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated R (for
strong sexual content, drug use, language and violent images). Opening today
at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

I did not like any of the characters in "The Rules of Attraction." I cringe
to write those words, because they imply a superficial approach to the film.
Surely there are films where I hated the characters and admired the work?
"In the Company of Men"? No, that gave me a victim to sympathize with. There
is no entry portal in "The Rules of Attraction," and I spent most of the
movie feeling depressed by the shallow, selfish, greedy characters. I wanted
to be at another party.

Leaving the movie, I reflected that my reaction was probably unfair. "The
Rules of Attraction" was based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and while
life is too short to read one of his books while a single work of Conrad,
Faulkner or Bellow eludes me, I am familiar enough with his world (through
the movies) to know that he agrees his characters are shallow, selfish and
greedy, although perhaps he bears them a certain affection, not least
because they populate his books. So I went to see the movie a second time,
and emerged with a more evolved opinion: "The Rules of Attraction" is a
skillfully made movie about reprehensible people.

The writer-director is Roger Avary, who directed "Killing Zoe" and
co-authored Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." (Whether he cast James Van
Der Beek as his lead because he looks more like Tarantino than any other
working actor, I cannot guess.) In all of his work, Avary is fond of free
movement up and down the timeline, and here he uses an ingenious approach to
tell the stories of three main characters who are involved in, I dunno, five
or six pairings. He begins with an "End of the World" party at Camden
College, the ultimate party school, follows a story thread, then rewinds and
follows another. He also uses fast-forward brilliantly to summarize a
European vacation in a few hilarious minutes.

The yo-yo timeline works because we know, or quickly learn, who the
characters are, but sometimes it's annoying, as when we follow one sex romp
up to a certain point and then return to it later for the denouement. This
style may at times reflect the confused state of mind of the characters, who
attend a college where no studying of any kind is ever glimpsed, where the
only faculty member in the movie is having an affair with an undergraduate,
and where the improbable weekend parties would put the orgies at Hef's pad
to shame.

The parties are a lapse of credibility. I cannot believe, for example, that
large numbers of co-eds would engage in topless lesbian breastplay at a
campus event, except in the inflamed imaginations of horny undergraduates.
But assuming that they would: Is it plausible that the horny undergraduates
wouldn't even look at them? Are today's undergraduate men so (choose one)
blase, Politically Correct or emasculated that, surrounded by the
enthusiastic foreplay of countless half-naked women, they would blandly
carry on their conversations?

This is not to imply that "The Rules of Attraction" is in any sense a campus
sex-romp comedy. There is comedy in it, but so burdened are the students by
their heavy loads of alcoholism, depression, drug addiction and bisexual
promiscuity that one yearns for them to be given respite by that cliche of
the 1960s, the gratuitous run through meadows and woods. These kids need
fresh air.

In the movie, James Van Der Beek plays drug dealer Sean Bateman, who
desperately wants to sleep with with chic, elusive Lauren (Shannyn
Sossamon). She once dated Paul (Ian Somerhalder), who is bisexual and who
wants to sleep with Sean, who is straight, but right now if Lauren had her
druthers she would bed Victor (Kip Pardue), who stars in the speed-up
European trip and once dated Paul. (The sexual orientations of most of the
major characters come down to: When they're not with the sex they love, they
love the sex they're with.) Many but not not all of these desired couplings
take place, there are distractions from still other willing characters, and
a sad suicide involving a character I will not divulge, except to say that
when we see how miserable she was in flashbacks to various earlier events,
we wonder why, on a campus where promiscuity is epidemic, she had the
misfortune to be a one-guy woman.

Avary weaves his stories with zest and wicked energy, and finds a visual
style that matches the emotional fragmentation. I have no complaints about
the acting, and especially liked the way Sossamon kept a kind of impertinent
distance from some of the excesses. But by the end, I felt a sad
indifference. These characters are not from life and do not form into a
useful fiction. Their excesses of sex and substance abuse are physically
unwise, financially unlikely and emotionally impossible. I do not censor
their behavior but lament the movie's fascination with it. They do not say
and perhaps do not think anything interesting. The two other Bret Easton
Ellis movies ("Less than Zero" and "American Psycho") offered characters who
were considerably more intriguing. We had questions about them; they aroused
our curiosity. The inhabitants of "The Rules of Attraction" are superficial
and transparent. We know people like that, and hope they will get better.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BROWN SUGAR / ***

BROWN SUGAR / ***

October 11, 2002

Dre: Taye Diggs
Sidney: Sanaa Lathan
Reese: Nicole Ari Parker
Kelby Dawson: Boris Kodjoe
Chris V: Mos Def
Francine: Queen Latifah
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Written
by Michael Elliot and Famuyiwa. Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
sexual content and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

She is the editor of an important music magazine. He produces hip-hop for a
major label. They've been best friends since childhood, but never more than
that, although they came close a few times. Now, as both approach 30, Dre
(Taye Diggs) feels his career has lost its way. And Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) is
working so hard she doesn't have time for romance: "You're turning into a
Terry McMillan character," her girlfriend Fran-cine warns her.

"Brown Sugar," which charts romantic passages in these lives, is a romantic
comedy, yes, but one with characters who think and talk about their goals,
and are working on hard decisions. For both Sidney and Dre, hip-hop music
symbolizes a kind of perfect adolescent innocence, a purity they're trying
to return to as more cynical adults.

The first question Sidney asks an interview subject is always, "How did you
fall in love with hip-hop?" For her, it was July 18, 1984, when she
discovered for the first time a form that combined music, rhythm,
performance and poetry. Dre, her best buddy even then, grew up to become an
important hip-hop producer, working for a label that compromised its
standards as it became more successful. Now he's faced with the prospect of
producing "Rin and Tin," one white, one black, who bill themselves as "The
Hip-Hop Dalmatians."

Dre gets engaged to the beautiful Reese (Nicole Ari Parker). Sidney can't
believe he'll marry her, but can't admit she loves him--although she comes
close on the night before their wedding. Francine (Queen Latifah) lectures
her to declare her love: "You'll get the buddy and the booty!" When Dre
quits his job rather than work with the Dalmatians, he turns instinctively
to Sidney for advice, and Reese begins to understand that she's sharing his
heart.

Sidney, meanwhile, interviews the hunky athlete Kelby Dawson (Boris Kodjoe),
and soon they're engaged. Is this the real thing, or a rebound? Dre still
needs her for encouragement, as he pursues a hip-hop taxi driver named Chris
V (Mos Def), who he believes has potential to return the form to its roots.
And Chris, articulate in his music but lacking confidence in his life,
doesn't have the nerve to ask out Francine.

"Brown Sugar," advertised as a hip-hop comedy, is more like a slice of black
professional life (there's not even an entire hip-hop song in the whole
movie). Directed and co-written by Rick Famuyiwa, the movie returns to a
world similar to his "The Wood" (1999), but the characters are deeper and
more complex.

Consider Reese, the Nicole Ari Parker character. In a less thoughtful movie,
she'd be the shallow, bitchy life-wrecker. Here, she is blameless and
basically reasonable: mad at Dre for quitting his job without talking it
over with her, jealous of Sidney because she (correctly) suspects Sidney and
Dre have always been in love but lied to themselves about it. That feeling
comes to a head at a gym where both women work out, in a sparring match that
gets a little too sincere.

There's a scene in "Brown Sugar" I never thought I'd see in a movie, where
after Reese and Dre have a "final" fight, and in a more conventional film
she would disappear forever from the screenplay, but here she returns to
suggest counseling and says they need to work harder at their marriage. How
many movie romances are that thoughtful about their characters?

"Brown Sugar" may be pitching itself to the wrong audience. The ads promise:
"The Rhythm ... the Beat ... the Love ... and You Don't Stop!" But it's not
a musical and although it's sometimes a comedy, it's observant about its
people. Francine is onto something. They're all Terry McMillan characters.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:27 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWEPT AWAY / * (R)

SWEPT AWAY / * (R)

October 11, 2002

Amber: Madonna
Giuseppe: Adriano Giannini
Debi: Elizabeth Banks
Burly Captain: Patrizio Rispo
Marina: Jeanne Tripplehorn
Screen Gems presents a film written and directed by Guy Ritchie. Running
time: XXX minutes. Rated R (for language and some sexuality/nudity).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Swept Away" is a deserted island movie during which I desperately wished
the characters had chosen one movie to take along if they were stranded on a
deserted island, and were showing it to us instead of this one.

The movie is a relatively faithful remake of an incomparably superior 1974
movie with the lovely title, "Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue
Sea of August." The new "Swept Away" knows the words but not the music. It
strands two unattractive characters, one bitchy, one moronic, on an island
where neither they, nor we, have anyone else to look at or listen to. It's
harder for them than it is for us, because they have to go through the
motions of an erotic attraction that seems to have become an impossibility
the moment the roles were cast.

Madonna stars as Amber, the spoiled rich wife of a patient and
long-suffering millionaire. They join two other couples in a cruise on a
private yacht from Greece to Italy. The other five passengers recede into
unwritten, even unthought-about roles, while Amber picks on Giuseppe
(Adriano Giannini), the bearded deckhand. She has decided he is stupid and
rude, and insults him mercilessly. So it was in the earlier film, but in
this version Amber carries her behavior beyond all reason, until even the
rudest and bitchiest rich woman imaginable would have called it a day.

Amber orders Giuseppe to take her out in the dinghy. He demurs: It looks
like a storm. She insists. They run out of gas and begin to drift. She
insults him some more, and when he succeeds after great effort in catching a
fish for them to eat, she throws it overboard. Later she succeeds in putting
a hole in the dinghy during a struggle for the flare gun. They drift at sea
until they wash up on a deserted island, where the tables are turned and now
it is Giuseppe who has the upper hand. Her husband's wealth is now no longer
a factor, but his survival skills are priceless.

All of this is similar to the 1974 movie, even the business of the fish
thrown overboard. What is utterly missing is any juice or life in the
characters. Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato became stars on the
basis of the original "Swept Away," which was written and directed by Lina
Wertmuller, one of the most successful Italian directors of the 1970s. She
was a leftist but not a feminist, and aroused some controversy with a story
where it turned out the rich woman liked being ordered around and slapped a
little--liked it so much she encouraged the sailor to experiment with
practices he could not even pronounce.

This new "Swept Away" is more sentimental, I'm afraid, and the two castaways
fall into a more conventional form of love. I didn't believe it for a
moment. They have nothing in common, but worse still, neither one has any
conversation. They don't say a single interesting thing. That they have sex
because they are stranded on the island I can believe. That they are not
sleeping in separate caves by the time they are rescued I do not.

The problem with the Madonna character is that she starts out so hateful
that she can never really turn it around. We dislike her intensely and
thoroughly, and when she gets to the island we don't believe she had learned
a lesson, or turned nice--we believe she is behaving with this man as she
does with all men, in the way best designed to get her what she wants. As
for the sailor, does he really love her, as he says in that demeaning and
pitiful speech toward the end of the film? What is there to love? They
shared some interesting times together, but their minds never met.

The ending is particularly unsatisfactory, depending as it does on contrived
irony that avoids all of the emotional issues on the table. If I have come
this far with these two drips, and sailed with them, and been shipwrecked
with them, and listened to their tiresome conversations, I demand that they
arrive at some conclusion more rewarding than a misunderstanding based upon
a misdelivered letter. This story was about something when Wertmuller
directed it, but now it's not about anything at all. It's lost the politics
and the social observation and become just another situation romance about a
couple of saps stuck in an inarticulate screenplay.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:30 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)

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

October 11, 2002

Frank Martin: Jason Statham
Lai: Qi Shu
Tarconi: Francois Berleand
Wall Street: Matt Schulze
Mr. Kwai: Ric Young
Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Corey Yuen. Written by Luc
Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Running time: 92 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for
violent sequences and some sensuality).

BY ROGER EBERT

The marriage of James Bond and Hong Kong continues in "The Transporter," a
movie that combines Bond's luxurious European locations and love of deadly
toys with all the tricks of martial arts movies. The movie stars Jason
Statham (who has pumped a lot of iron since "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels") as Frank Martin, a k a the Transporter, who will transport
anything at a price. His three unbreakable rules: never change the deal, no
names, and never look in the package.

Unlike Bond, Martin is amoral and works only for the money. We gather he
lost any shreds of patriotism while serving in the British Special Forces,
and now hires out his skills to support a lifestyle that includes an
oceanside villa on the French Riviera that would retail at $30 million,
minimum.

In an opening sequence that promises more than the movie is able to deliver,
Martin pilots his BMW for the getaway of a gang of bank robbers. Four of
them pile into the car. The deal said there would be three. "The deal never
changes," Martin says, as alarms ring and police sirens grow nearer. The
robbers scream for him to drive away. He shoots the fourth man. Now the deal
can proceed.

And it does, in a chase sequence that is sensationally good, but then aren't
all movie chase scenes sensationally good these days? There have been so
many virtuoso chase sequences lately that we grow jaded, but this one, with
the car bouncing down steps, squeezing through narrow lanes and speeding
backward on expressways, is up there with recent French chases like "Ronin"
and "The Bourne Identity."

The movie combines the skills and trademarks of its director, Corey Yuen,
and its writer-producer, Luc Besson. The Hong Kong-based specialist in
martial arts movies has 43 titles to his credit, many of them starring Jet
Li and Qi Shu. This is his English-language debut. Besson, now one of the
world's top action producers (he has announced nine films for 2003 and also
has "Wasabi" in current release), likes partnerships between action heroes
and younger, apparently more vulnerable women. Those elements were central
in his direction of "La Femme Nikita," "The Professional" and "The Fifth
Element." Now he provides Frank Martin with a young woman through the
violation of Rule No. 3: Martin looks in the bag.

He has been given a large duffel bag to transport. It squirms. It contains a
beautiful young Chinese woman named Lai (Qi Shu, who at age 26 has appeared
in 41 movies, mostly erotic or martial arts). He cuts a little hole in the
bag so she can sip an orange juice, and before he remembers to consult his
rules again he has brought her home to his villa and is embroiled in a plot
involving gangsters from Nice and human slave cargoes from China.

The movie is by this point, alas, on autopilot. Statham's character, who had
a grim fascination when he was enforcing the rules, turns into just another
action hero when he starts breaking them. I actually thought, during the
opening scenes, that "The Transporter" was going to rise above the genre,
was going to be a study of violent psychology, like "La Femme Nikita." No
luck.

Too much action brings the movie to a dead standstill. Why don't directors
understand that? Why don't they know that wall-to-wall action makes a movie
less interesting--less like drama, more like a repetitive video game? Stunt
action sequences are difficult, but apparently not as difficult as good
dialogue. Unless you're an early teens special effects zombie, movies get
more interesting when the characters are given humanity and dimension.

Frank Martin is an intriguing man in the opening scenes, and we think maybe
we'll learn something about his harsh code and lonely profession. But no: We
get car leaps from bridges onto auto transporters. Parachute drops onto the
tops of moving trucks. Grenades, rocket launchers, machine guns (at one
point a friendly inspector asks Martin to explain 50,000 spent rounds of
ammo). There is of course an underwater adventure, tribute to Besson's early
life as the child of scuba-diving instructors. At one point, Martin tells
Lai, "It's quiet. Too quiet." It wasn't nearly quiet enough.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:20 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)

KNOCKAROUND GUYS / *** (R)

October 11, 2002

Matty Demaret: Barry Pepper
Taylor Reese: Vin Diesel
Johnny Marbles: Seth Green
Chris Scarpa: Andrew Davoli
Benny Chains: Dennis Hopper
Teddy Deserve: John Malkovich
New Line Cinema presents a film written and directed by Brian Koppelman and
David Levien. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for violence, language and
some drug use).

BY ROGER EBERT

When Matty Demaret is 12, he fails a test. His uncle gives him a gun and
asks him to shoot a squealer. Matty just can't do it. "That's all right,"
his uncle says. "You're just not cut out for it." Matty grows into a young
man determined to make a place for himself in the mob, and hangs around with
other young heirs to a shrinking empire. Their fathers sat around counting
money, but they're expected to work the noon and evening shifts at the
family restaurant.

Matty (Barry Pepper) wants a chance to prove himself. He begs his dad, Benny
Chains (Dennis Hopper), for a job and finally gets one--picking up some
money in Spokane. His friend Johnny Marbles (Seth Green) owns a private
plane, and Matty asks him to fly the money back east. In the small town of
Wibaux, Mont., Johnny Marbles gets rattled by cops in the airport, drops the
bag in a luggage zone and loses it. This is not good.

"Knockaround Guys" is inspired by the same impulse as "The Sopranos." It
considers gangsters in the modern age, beset by progress, unsure of their
roles, undermined by psychobabble. "Used to be there was a way to do things
and things got done," Matty's Uncle Teddy (John Malkovich) complains. "Now
everybody's feelings are involved."

The heart of the movie takes place in Wibaux, a town ruled by a tall,
taciturn, ominous sheriff, played by that unmistakable actor Tom Noonan.
Matty flies out to Montana with backup: his friends Taylor (Vin Diesel) and
Scarpa (Andrew Davoli). They stick out like sore thumbs in the little town.
"Looks like they're multiplying," the sheriff observes to his deputy. He
assumes they're involved with drugs, doesn't much care "as long as they move
on through," but is very interested in the possibility of money.

The movie crosses two formulas--Fish Out of Water and Coming of Age--fairly
effectively. Because it isn't wall-to-wall action but actually bothers to
develop its characters and take an interest in them, it was not at first
considered commercial by its distributor, New Line, and languished on the
shelf for two years until the growing stardom of Diesel ("XXX") and Pepper
("We Were Soldiers") made it marketable. It's more than that--it's
interesting in the way it shows these guys stuck between generations. And it
makes good use of Diesel, who as he develops into an action superstar may
not get roles this juicy for a while. He's a tough guy, yes, a street
fighter, but conflicted and with a kind of wise sadness about human nature.

The movie's basic question, I suppose, is whether the rising generation of
mobsters is so self-conscious it will never gain the confidence of its
ancestors. If it's true that the mob in the 1930s learned how to talk by
studying Warner Bros. crime pictures, it's equally true that "The Sopranos"
and all the other post-Scorsese "GoodFellas" stories bring in an element of
psychological complexity that only confuses an occupation that used to have
a brutal simplicity. "Knockaround Guys" opens with Matty being turned down
for a job because of his infamous last name. It ends with him not living up
to it. "To the regular people, we're nothing but goombas," Matty complains.
"But to our fathers, we're nothing but hound boys."

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 11 Oct 2002 16:35:25 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)

KWIK STOP / ***1/2 (Not rated)

October 11, 2002

Mike: Michael Gilio
Didi: Lara Phillips
Emil: Rich Komenich
Ruthie: Karin Anglin
Clerk: Kris Wolff
Dr. Milk: Eric Curtis Johnson
Sunny: Sunny Seigel
A film written and directed by Michael Gilio. Running time: 110 minutes. No
MPAA rating (intended for mature audiences). Opening today at Facets
Cinematheque.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Kwik Stop" starts out with a shoplifter and a teenager who sees him
stealing. She threatens to turn him over to the cops, but actually all she
wants is to escape from her life in a Chicago suburb. He explains he's going
to Los Angeles to become a movie actor. "Take me with you," she says. "Can I
kiss you?" he says.

At this point, maybe 10 minutes into the story, we think we know more or
less where the movie is going: It'll be a road picture. We are dead wrong.
"Kwik Stop," which never quite gets out of town, blindsides us with
unexpected humor and sadness, and is one of the unsung treasures of recent
independent filmmaking. It's playing at Facets, 1517 W. Fullerton.

The movie is the work of Michael Gilio, who wrote it, directed it and stars
in it as Mike, the guy who thinks he could be a movie star. Gilio in fact is
already an established actor; he played opposite Sidney Poitier in the TV
movie "To Sir with Love 2," and has appeared in four other films, but this
movie proves he's not only an actor but has a genuine filmmaking talent. In
the way it is developed, and seen, and especially in the way it ends, "Kwik
Stop" shows an imagination that flies far beyond the conventions it seems to
begin with.

Mike is a complicated guy. He dreams of going to Los Angeles and breaking
into the movies, yes--but perhaps the dream is more important than actually
doing it. He's like a lot of people who are stuck in the planning stage and
like it there. Didi (Lara Phillips) has no plans, but she has urgent desires
and is prepared to act on them. We learn all we need to know about her home
life in a shot taken from the curb, that watches her go inside to get some
stuff and come back out again, unconcerned that she is leaving town, she
thinks, forever.

Neither one is dumb. They talk about Henry Miller and Harvey Keitel, two
names that suggest you have advanced beyond life's training wheels. Gilio
finds a motel for them with its own disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and
as its twinkle disguises the shabbiness they make and pledge love, and then
the next morning Mike is gone. If this couple is going to make it through
the entire film, we realize, they are going to have to do it without using
the usual cliches.

They meet again. Never mind how. Mike takes Didi to a diner for a meal,
where a waitress named Ruthie (Karin Anglin) greets them with a strangely
skewed attitude. Watch the way Gilio introduces mystery into the scene and
then resolves it, getting humor out of both the mystery and the solution.
The diner scene suggests strangeness deep in Mike's character: He doesn't
need to go to Los Angeles since he stars in his own drama, and doubles back
to be sure he hasn't lost his audience.

Mike and Didi try to burgle a house. Didi is whammed by a homeowner's
baseball bat and ends up imprisoned in the Midwest School for Girls. Mike
has a plan to spring her, which involves Ruthie making what is, under the
circumstances, a truly selfless gesture (she explains she doesn't want to
"waste the time I put into you").

Just as Mike never gets out of town, just as the plot doubles back to pick
up first Didi and then Ruthie, so Emil (Rich Komenich), the homeowner with
the baseball bat, also is not abandoned. "Kwik Stop" is the opposite of the
picaresque journey in which colorful characters are encountered and then
left behind. It gathers them all up and takes them along.

The movie contains genuine surprises, some delightful (like the plan to
spring Didi from the home) and others involving loneliness, loss and
desperation. I cannot say much more without revealing developments that are
unexpected and yet deeply satisfying. Poignancy comes into the movie from an
unexpected source. Depths are revealed where we did not think to find them.
The ending is like the last paragraph of a short story, redefining
everything that went before.

"Kwik Stop," made on a low budget, has all the money it needs to accomplish
everything it wants to do. It has the freedom of serious fiction, which is
not chained to a story arc but follows its characters where they insist on
going. Gilio, Phillips, Komenich and Anglin create that kind of bemused
realism we discover in films that are not about plot but about what these
dreamy people are going to do next. On a weekend when $400 million in slick
mainstream productions are opening, this is the movie to seek out.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:19 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BELOW / **1/2 (R)

BELOW / **1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Odell: Matt Davis
Brice: Bruce Greenwood
Claire: Olivia Williams
Loomis: Holt McCallany
Coors: Scott Foley
Weird Wally: Zach Galifianakis
Stumbo: Jason Flemyng
Dimension Films presents a film directed by David Twohy. Written by Twohy,
Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky. Running time: 103 minutes. Rated R (for
language and some violence).

BY ROGER EBERT

Even before the woman is taken on board, the USS Tiger Shark is a submarine
in trouble. The captain has been lost overboard, or at least that's the
story, and tempers run high in the confined space. Then the sub rescues
three drifters in a life raft, one of them a woman, whose presence on board
is agreed by everyone to be bad luck on a sub, although her arrival does
result in the crew wearing cleaner underwear.

Now dangers increase. The sub is tracked by Germans, who drop depth bombs
and later come back to troll for it with giant grappling hooks. There is
fearful damage to the periscope and the control tower. An oil leak threatens
to betray the sub's position. Oxygen is running low, and hydrogen in the air
is a danger to the crew's safety and sanity. And perhaps there is a ghost on
board. The creepy sounds from outside the hull--of seaweed, whale songs and
bouncing depth bombs--increase apprehension.

Yes, a ghost. How else to explain why a record of Benny Goodman's "Sing,
Sing, Sing" seems to play itself at inopportune times--as when the Germans
are listening for the slightest sound from below? And when the late skipper
was a Goodman fan? Of course, there could be a saboteur on board, in
addition to, or perhaps instead of, the ghost.

"Below" is a movie where the story, like the sub, sometimes seems to be
running blind. In its best moments it can evoke fear, and it does a good job
of evoking the claustrophobic terror of a little World War II boat, but the
story line is so eager to supply frightening possibilities that sometimes we
feel jerked around. Isn't it possible for a submarine to be haunted without
turning it into a museum of horror film devices?

Of those devices, the most tiresome is the convention that surprises make
sounds. In most horror movies, including many less clever than "Below,"
there is a visual strategy in which a character is shown in relative closeup
(limiting our ability to see around him) and then startled by the unexpected
appearance of another character or other visual surprise. This moment is
invariably signaled on the soundtrack with a loud, alarming musical chord,
or perhaps by the sound of a knife being sharpened. But surprises don't make
sounds, and the cliche has become so tiresome that I submit a director might
be able to create a more frightening sequence by playing the unexpected
appearance in total silence.

There are a lot of surprise apparitions in "Below," and many times when we
expect them even when they don't arrive. Consider the effective sequence in
which four divers have to penetrate the ballast space between the inner and
outer hulls to search for the oil leak. Will they find a ghostly body, or
what?

The acting skipper of the ship is Brice (Bruce Greenwood). The absence of
the former skipper is a secret at first, and the explanations for his
disappearance are contradictory; even by the end of the movie, we are not
sure we have the correct story. Has he returned to haunt the boat? Oxygen
deprivation can encourage hallucinations.

The bad-luck woman on board, Claire (Olivia Williams), turns out to be a
nurse from a sunken hospital ship. Who sunk that ship with its big red
cross, and why? And what about the two survivors in the boat with her? What
are their stories? Although the arrival of a woman on board inspires some
heavy-handed scenes in which some men seem to be warming up for an assault,
that plot thread is quickly abandoned, and Claire begins to take a
surprisingly active role in the onboard discussions. Siding with her is
Odell (Matt Davis), maybe because he agrees, maybe because he likes her.
Brice's command of the ship may include decisions made with a hidden agenda.

The movie is skillfully made by David Twohy, whose "The Arrival" (1996) was
an uncommonly intelligent science fiction thriller about a hidden alien plot
against Earth. But his overpraised "Pitch Black" (2000), which launched Vin
Diesel, was weakened by the same faults as "Below." It had too many
obligatory startles, too many unclear possibilities and not enough
definition of the crucial players. But Twohy showed with "The Arrival" that
he is a gifted director. "Below" has ambitions to be better than average,
but doesn't pull itself together and insist on realizing them.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:13 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ABANDON / **1/2 (PG-13)

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

October 17, 2002

Catherine Burke: Katie Holmes
Det. Wade Handler: Benjamin     Bratt
Embry Langan: Charlie Hunnam
Mousy Julie: Melanie Lynskey
Samantha: Zooey Deschanel
Paramount Pictures presents a film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan.
Running time: 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for drug and alcohol content,
sexuality, some violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Abandon" is a moody, effective thriller for about 80 percent of the way,
and then our hands close on air. If you walk out before the ending, you'll
think it's better than it is. Or maybe I'm being unfair: Maybe a rational
ending with a reasonable explanation would have seemed boring. Maybe this is
the ending the movie needed, but it seems so arbitrary as it materializes
out of thin air.

Or maybe I'm still being unfair. Maybe it doesn't come from thin air.
Students of Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary will be familiar with the
Law of Economy of Characters, which states that no movie introduces a
character unnecessarily, so that the apparently superfluous character is the
one to keep an eye on. That rule doesn't precisely apply here, but it's
relevant in a reverse sort of way. Think of the Purloined Letter.

Enough of this. The movie finally did not satisfy me, and so I cannot
recommend it, but there is a lot to praise, beginning with Katie Holmes'
performance as Catherine Burke, a smart and articulate student who is on the
fast track to a corporate boardroom. She's a student at an unnamed
university (McGill in Montreal provided the locations), has just aced an
interview with a big firm, studies hard, doesn't date. Her ex-boyfriend
Embry Langan (Charlie Hunnam) vanished mysteriously two years ago, but then
he was the kind of weirdo genius who was always pulling stunts like that.

The key question: Did Embry disappear himself, or was he disappeared? Det.
Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is on the case, and although Catherine at
first cuts him off, she starts to like the guy. Meanwhile, in what is not as
much of a spoiler as it might appear, Embry reappears on campus, and starts
stalking Catherine. That's all of the plot you'll get from me. I want to
talk about casting, dialogue and the film's general intelligence. This is a
movie that convincingly portrays the way students talk, think, get wasted,
philosophize and hang around on a college campus. I emphasize that because
when "The Rules of Attraction" opened a week ago, I questioned its scenes in
which topless lesbians were ignored by male students at campus parties. I
have here a letter from Joseph Gallo of Auburn, Ala., who says such a sight
is not uncommon on his campus. Uh, huh.

The students in "Abandon" talk smart. Especially Catherine. Watch the way
Katie Holmes handles that interview with the high-powered corporate
recruiters. It could be used as a training film. Watch her body language and
word choices when she rejects an advance from her counselor. Notice the
scene where a friend invites her to attend an "anti-globalization rally." In
an ordinary movie, a line like that would be boilerplate, designed to move
the plot to its next event. In this movie, Catherine responds. She has an
opinion about anti-globalization. Astonishing.

The movie was written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for
the "Traffic" screenplay and is making his directorial debut. Gaghan has
written such convincing characters, including the snotty know-it-all played
by Melanie Lynskey and the best friends played by Zooey Deschanel and
Gabrielle Union, that it's kind of a shame this is a thriller. A real campus
movie, about fears and ambitions, could have been made from this material.
Deschanel's drunk scene with the cop is an example of material that is
spot-on.

But the movie is a thriller, and so we must watch as the human elements and
the intelligence, which have absorbed and entertained us, are ground up in
the requirements of the Shocking Climax. Too bad. Here is a movie that never
steps wrong until the final scenes, and then, having answered all of our
questions up until then, closes with questions even it, I suspect, cannot
answer.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 18 Oct 2002 15:54:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Featuring Michael Moore, George W. Bush, Dick Clark, Charlton Heston,
Marilyn Manson, John Nichols, Chris Rock and Matt Stone.
United Artists presents a film written and directed by Michael Moore.
Running time: 120 minutes. Rated R (for some violent images and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

McHugh and I were sitting in O'Rourke's one day when a guy we knew came in
for a drink. The guy pulled back his coat and we could see he had a handgun
in his belt. "Why are you carrying a gun?" McHugh asked. "Because I live in
a dangerous neighborhood," the guy said. "It would be safer if you moved,"
said McHugh.

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Colum-bine," a documentary that is both
hilarious and sorrowful, is like a two-hour version of that anecdote. We
live in a nation of millions of handguns, but that isn't really what bothers
Moore. What bothers him is that we so frequently shoot them at one another.
Canada has a similar ratio of guns to citizens, but a 10th of the shooting
deaths. What makes us kill so many times more fellow citizens than is the
case in other developed nations?

Moore, the jolly populist rabble-rouser, explains that he's a former
sharpshooting instructor and a lifelong member of the National Rifle
Association. No doubt this is true, but Moore has moved on from his early
fondness for guns. In "Bowling for Columbine," however, he is not so sure of
the answers as in the popular "Roger & Me," a film in which he knew who
the bad guys were, and why. Here he asks questions he can't answer, such as
why we as a nation seem so afraid, so in need of the reassurance of guns.
Noting that we treasure urban legends designed to make us fearful of
strangers, Moore notices how TV news focuses on local violence ("If it
bleeds, it leads") and says that while the murder rate is down 20 percent in
America, TV coverage of violent crime is up 600 percent. Despite paranoia
that has all but sidetracked the childhood custom of trick or treat, Moore
points out that in fact no razor blades have ever been found in Halloween
apples.

Moore's thoughtfulness doesn't inhibit the sensational set-pieces he devises
to illustrate his concern. He returns several times to Columbine High
School, at one point showing horrifying security-camera footage of the
massacre. And Columbine inspires one of the great confrontations in a career
devoted to radical grandstanding. Moore introduces us to two of the students
wounded at Colum-bine, both still with bullets in their bodies. He explains
that all of the Columbine bullets were freely sold to the teenage killers by
Kmart, at 17 cents apiece. And then he takes the two victims to Kmart
headquarters to return the bullets for a refund.

This is brilliant theater and would seem to be unanswerable for the hapless
Kmart public relations spokespeople, who fidget and evade in front of
Moore's merciless camera. But then, on Moore's third visit to headquarters,
he is told that Kmart will agree to completely phase out the sale of
ammunition. "We've won," says Moore, not believing it. "This has never
happened before." For once, he's at a loss for words.

The movie is a mosaic of Moore confrontations and supplementary footage. One
moment that cuts to the core is from a standup routine by Chris Rock, who
suggests that our problem could be solved by simply increasing the price of
bullets--taxing them like cigarettes. Instead of 17 cents apiece, why not
$5,000? "At that price," he speculates, "you'd have a lot fewer innocent
bystanders being shot."

Moore buys a Map to the Stars' Homes to find where Charlton Heston lives,
rings the bell on his gate, and is invited back for an interview. But Heston
clearly knows nothing of Moore's track record, and his answers to Moore's
questions are borderline pathetic. Heston recently announced he has symptoms
associated with Alzheimer's disease, but there is no indication in this
footage that he is senile; it's simply that he cannot explain why he, as a
man living behind a gate in a protected neighborhood, with security patrols,
who has never felt himself threatened, needs a loaded gun in the house.
Heston is equally unhelpful when asked if he thinks it was a good idea for
him to speak at an NRA rally in Denver 10 days after Columbine. He seems to
think it was all a matter of scheduling.

"Bowling for Columbine" thinks we have way too many guns, don't need them,
and are shooting each other at an unreasonable rate. Moore cannot single out
a villain to blame for this fact, because it seems to emerge from a national
desire to be armed. ("If you're not armed, you're not responsible," a member
of the Michigan militia tells him.) At one point, he visits a bank that is
giving away guns to people who open new accounts. He asks a banker if it
isn't a little dangerous to have all these guns in a bank. Not at all. The
bank, Moore learns, is a licensed gun dealership.

Note: The movie is rated R, so that the Columbine killers would have been
protected from the "violent images," mostly of themselves. The MPAA
continues its policy of banning teenagers from those films they most need to
see. What utopian world do the flywheels of the ratings board think they are
protecting?

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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