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movies-digest        Thursday, October 31 2002        Volume 02 : Number 381



[MV] WASABI / *1/2 (R)
[MV] THE TRANSPORTER / **1/2 (PG-13)
[MV] ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)
[MV] STEALING HARVARD / * (PG-13)
[MV] RED DRAGON / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] APOLLO 13: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE / **** (PG)
[MV] BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE / ***1/2 (R)
[MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)
[MV] WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)
[MV] BROWN SUGAR / ***

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:04 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WASABI / *1/2 (R)

WASABI / *1/2 (R)

October 18, 2002

Hubert Fiorentini: Jean Reno
Yumi Yoshimido: Ryoko Hirosue
Momo: Michel Muller
Sofia: Carole Bouquet
Jean-Baptiste 1: Ludovic Berthillot
Jean-Baptiste 2: Yan Epstein
Van Eyck: Michel Scourneau
The Squale: Christian Sinniger
TriStar Pictures presents a film directed by Gerard Krawczyk. Written by Luc
Besson. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (for some violence). In French and
Japanese with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

Jean Reno has the weary eyes and unshaven mug of a French Peter Falk, and
some of the same sardonic humor, too. He sighs and smokes and slouches his
way through thrillers where he sadly kills those who would kill him, and
balefully regards women who want to make intimate demands on his time. In
good movies ("The Crimson Rivers") and bad ("Rollerball"), in the ambitious
(Antonioni's "Beyond the Clouds") and the avaricious ("Godzilla"), in
comedies ("Just Visiting") and thrillers ("Ronin"), he shares with Robert
Mitchum the unmistakable quality of having seen it all.

"Wasabi" is not his worst movie, and is far from his best. It is a thriller
trapped inside a pop comedy set in Japan, and gives Reno a chirpy young
co-star who bounces around him like a puppy on visiting day at the drunk
tank. She plays his daughter, and he's supposed to like her, but sometimes
he looks like he hopes she will turn into an aspirin.

The movie begins in Paris, where Reno plays Hubert Fiorentini, a Dirty Harry
type who doesn't merely beat up suspects, but beats up people on the chance
that he may suspect them later. During a raid on a nightclub, he makes the
mistake of socking the police chief's son so hard the lad flies down a
flight of stairs and ends up in a full-body cast. Hubert is ordered to take
a vacation.

He shrugs, and thinks to look up an old girlfriend (Carole Bouquet), but
then his life takes a dramatic turn. He learns of the death in Japan of a
woman he loved years earlier. Arriving for her funeral, he finds that she
has left him a mysterious key, a daughter he knew nothing about, and $200
million stashed in the bank.

The daughter is named Yumi (Ryoko Hirosue). She is 19, has red hair, chooses
her wardrobe colors from the Pokemon palate, and bounces crazily through
scenes as if life is a music video and they're filming her right now.

The plot involves Yumi's plan to hire the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) to get
revenge for her mother's death. If there is piece of fatherly advice that
Hubert the veteran cop could have shared with her, it is that no one related
to $200 million should do the least thing to attract the attention of the
Yakuza. The plot then unfolds in bewildering alternation between pop comedy
and action violence, with Hubert dancing in a video arcade one moment and
blasting the bad guys the next.

There is no artistic purpose for this movie. It is product. Luc Besson, who
wrote and produced it, has another movie out right now ("The Transporter")
and indeed has written, produced or announced 16 other movies since this one
was made in far-ago 2001. Reno does what he can in a thankless situation,
the film ricochets from humor to violence and back again, and Ryoko Hirosue
makes us wonder if she is always like that. If she is, I owe an apology to
the Powerpuff Girls. I didn't know they were based on real life.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:14 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: 31 Oct 2002 22:13:01 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] ONE HOUR PHOTO / ***1/2 (R)

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

August 23, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:48 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BETE) / **** (Not rated)

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

September 6, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:45 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] STEALING HARVARD / * (PG-13)

STEALING HARVARD / * (PG-13)

September 13, 2002

John: Jason Lee
Duff: Tom Green
Elaine: Leslie Mann
Mr. Warner: Dennis Farina
Patty: Megan Mullally
Cook: Richard Jenkins
Det. Charles: John C. McGinley
Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Bruce McCulloch. Written by
Peter Tolan. Running time: 83 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for crude and sexual
humor, language and drug references).

BY ROGER EBERT

The laugh in "Stealing Harvard" comes early, when we see the name of the
company where the hero works. It's a home health-care corporation named
Homespital. That made me laugh. It made me smile again when the name turned
up later. And on the laugh-meter, that's about it. This is as lax and limp a
comedy as I've seen in a while, a meander through worn-out material.

Jason Lee, who can be engaging in the right material (like "Chasing Amy" and
"Almost Famous") is bland and disposable here, as John Plummer, a young
Homespital executive. The firm is owned by his fiancee's father (Dennis
Farina), who subjects John to savage cross-examinations on whether he has
slept with his daughter. He lies and says he hasn't. He might be telling the
truth if he said he wishes he hadn't, since the fiancee, Elaine (Leslie
Mann), inexplicably weeps during sex.

Despite his foray into the middle classes, John has not forgotten his
super-slut sister Patty (Megan Mullally), who despite a life of untiring
promiscuity has a daughter, Noreen (Tammy Blanchard), who has been accepted
by Harvard. Carefully preserved home videos show John promising to help with
her tuition, and as it happens Noreen needs $29,000--almost exactly the
amount Elaine has insisted John have in the bank before she will marry him.

Crime is obviously the way to raise the money, according to John's best pal,
Duff (Tom Green), who suggests a break-in at a house where the safe seems to
stand open. The owner is, alas, at home, and there is a painfully unfunny
sequence in which he forces John to dress in drag and "spoon" to remind him
of his late wife. There's another botched robbery in which John and Duff,
wearing ski masks, argue over which one gets to call himself Kyle, and so
on.

Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie "Freddy Got
Fingered" (2001), which was so poorly received by the film critics that it
received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. I
gave it--let's see--zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green
was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord.

But the thing is, I remember "Freddy Got Fingered" more than a year later. I
refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at
least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It
failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good
work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or
later going to make a movie worth seeing.

"Stealing Harvard," on the other hand, is a singularly unambitious product,
content to paddle lazily in the shallows of sitcom formula. It has no edge,
no hunger to be better than it is. It ambles pleasantly through its inanity,
like a guest happy to be at a boring party. When you think of some of the
weird stuff Jason Lee and Tom Green have been in over the years, you wonder
what they did to amuse themselves during the filming.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:20 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 Nero Wolfe,
who, like Hannibal Lecter, hates to interrupt dinner with a murder.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:30 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] APOLLO 13: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE / **** (PG)

APOLLO 13: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE / **** (PG)

September 20, 2002

Jim Lovell: Tom Hanks
Fred Haise: Bill Paxton
Jack Swigert: Kevin Bacon
Ken Mattingly: Gary Sinise
Gene Kranz: Ed Harris
Marilyn Lovell: Kathleen Quinlin
Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Ron Howard. Written by
William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert. Based on the book Lost Moon by Jim
Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. Running time: 135 minutes. Rated PG.(intense
situations). Opening today at Navy Pier IMAX.

BY ROGER EBERT

At a time when screens and theaters grow smaller and movie palaces are a
thing of the past, the new practice of re-releasing films in the IMAX format
is a thrilling step in the opposite direction. Ron Howard's "Apollo 13,"
which opens today at the IMAX theater at Navy Pier, looks bold and crisp on
the big screen, and the sound has never sounded better--perhaps couldn't
have ever sounded better, because IMAX uses some 70 speakers.

Although it takes place largely in outer space, "Apollo 13" isn't the kind
of adventure saga that needs the bigger screen so its effects play better.
"Star Wars," which is headed for IMAX theaters, fits that definition.
"Apollo 13" is a thrilling drama that plays mostly within enclosed spaces:
The space capsule, mission control and the homes of those waiting in
suspense on Earth.

The film re-creates the saga of the Apollo 13 mission, which was aborted
after an onboard explosion crippled the craft on its way to the moon. In a
desperate exercise of improvisation, crew members and the ground support
staff figure out how to return the craft safely to Earth, cannibalize
life-support from both the mother capsule and the lunar landing module, and
navigate into a terrifyingly narrow angle between too steep (the craft would
burn up in the atmosphere) and too shallow (it would skip off and fly
forever into space).

Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon play astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred
Haise and Jack Swigert, respectively. On Earth, the key roles are by Gary
Sinise, as the left-behind astronaut Ken Mattingly, who uses a flight
simulator to help improvise a solution; Ed Harris, who is cool-headed flight
director Gene Kranz, and Kathleen Quinlan, as Lovell's wife, Marilyn, who
tries to explain to their children that "something broke on Daddy's
spaceship."

The movie has been trimmed by about 20 minutes for the IMAX release. Filmed
in widescreen, it has been cropped from the sides to fit the IMAX format.
Neither change bothered me. Although I am an opponent of pan-and-scan in
general, I understand when it is used to maximize a different projection
format. The detail and impact of the IMAX screen essentially creates a new
way of looking at the film.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:52 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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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:59 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT / *** (Not rated)

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

August 23, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:29 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE / *** (Not rated)

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

September 27, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:07 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.

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