ftp.xmission.com/2014.06.ftp.xmission.com.tar/ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/movies/archive/v02.n382

Internet Message Format | 2002-10-30 | 54KB

From: [e-mail] (movies-digest)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: movies-digest V2 #382
Reply-To: movies-digest
Sender: [e-mail]
Errors-To: [e-mail]
Precedence: bulk


movies-digest        Thursday, October 31 2002        Volume 02 : Number 382



[MV] SWEPT AWAY / * (R)
[MV] 8 WOMEN / *** (R)
[MV] SIMONE / ** (PG-13)
[MV] LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)
[MV] COMEDIAN / ** (R)
[MV] SECRETARY / *** (R)
[MV] THE BANGER SISTERS / *** (R)
[MV] SWIMMING / *** (Not rated)
[MV] THE RULES OF ATTRACTION / ** (R)
[MV] MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY / **** (PG)
[MV] CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:11 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: 98 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.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:22 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.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:13:03 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SIMONE / ** (PG-13)

SIMONE / ** (PG-13)

August 23, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:58 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)

LITTLE SECRETS / *** (PG)

August 23, 2002

Emily: Evan Rachel Wood
Philip: Michael Angarano
David: David Gallagher
Pauline: Vivica A. Fox
Caroline: Jan Gardner
IDP Pictures presents a film directed by Blair Treu. Written by Jessica
Bardones. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated PG.(for thematic elements).

BY ROGER EBERT

The biggest surprise in "Little Secrets" is that Ozzie and Harriet don't
live next door. The movie takes place in an improbably perfect suburban
neighborhood where all the kids wear cute sportswear and have the kinds of
harmless problems that seem to exist only so that they can be harmless
problems. Then of course there are some Big Problems which are rendered
harmless, too. This is a very reassuring film.

The heroine of the movie, Emily (Evan Rachel Wood) is a budding young
violinist who as a sideline runs a Little Secrets stand in her back yard,
where kids can tell her their secrets at 50 cents apiece. The secrets are
then written on scraps of paper and locked in a chest.

The theological and psychological origins of her practice would be
fascinating to research. The neighborhood kids sure take it seriously. When
she's a few minutes late in opening her stand, there's a line of impatient
kids clamoring to unburden themselves. The 50-cent price tag doesn't
discourage them; these are not kids who remember the days when a quarter
used to buy something.

But what kinds of kids are they, exactly? Consider Philip and David. Philip
tells David, "Her name is Emily. Like Emily ..." "... Dickinson?" says
David. "And Emily Bronte," says Philip. Heartened as I am to know that the
grade school kids in this movie are on first-name terms with these authors,
I am nevertheless doubtful that Dickinson and Bronte will ring many bells in
the audience.

Vivica A. Fox is the only widely known star in the film, playing a violin
teacher who is wise and philosophical. Much suspense centers around Emily's
audition for the local symphony orchestra (every suburb should have one).
The problems of the kids range from a girl who hides kittens in her room to
a boy who is digging a hole to China. Larger issues, including adoption, are
eventually introduced.

I am rating this movie at three stars because it contains absolutely nothing
to object to. That in itself may be objectionable, but you will have to
decide for yourself. The film is upbeat, wholesome, chirpy, positive, sunny,
cheerful, optimistic and squeaky-clean. It bears so little resemblance to
the more complicated worlds of many members of its target audience (girls 4
to 11) that it may work as pure escapism. That it has been rated not G but
PG (for "thematic elements") is another of the arcane mysteries created by
the flywheels of the MPAA. There is not a parent on earth who would believe
this film requires "parental guidance."

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:11:36 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] COMEDIAN / ** (R)

COMEDIAN / ** (R)

October 25, 2002

Featuring: Jerry Seinfeld, Orny Adams, Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Chris Rock and
Garry Shandling
Miramax Films presents a documentary directed by Christian Charles. Running
time: 81 minutes. Rated R (for language).

BY ROGER EBERT

If it takes this much agony to be a stand-up comic, I don't think I could
survive a movie about a brain surgeon. "Comedian" follows Jerry Seinfeld and
other stand-ups as they appear onstage and then endlessly analyze, discuss,
rerun, regret, denounce, forgive and rewrite their material. To say they
sweat blood is to trivialize their suffering.

It looks to the audience as if stand-up comics walk out on a stage, are
funny, walk off, and spend the rest of the time hanging around the bar being
envied by wannabes. In fact, we discover, they agonize over "a minute,"
"five minutes," "10 minutes," on their way to nirvana: "I have an hour."
When Chris Rock tells Seinfeld that Bill Cosby does two hours and 20 minutes
without an intermission, and he does it twice in the same day, he becomes
very sad and thoughtful, like a karaoke star when Tony Bennett walks in.

Seinfeld can't believe his good fortune. He reached the top, with one of the
biggest hit TV shows of all time. And yet: "Here I am in Cleveland." After
retiring his old nightclub act with an HBO special, he starts from scratch
to devise a new act and take it on the road to comedy clubs, half of which
are called the Improv. He stands in front of the same brick walls, drinks
the same bottled water, handles the same microphones as kids on the way up.
Of course, he flies into town on a private jet that costs more than the
comedy club, but the movie doesn't rub this in.

Seinfeld is a great star, yet cannot coast. One night he gets stuck in the
middle of his act--he loses his train of thought--and stares baffled into
space. Blowing a single word can depress him. If it's still a battle for
Seinfeld, consider the case of Orny Adams, a rising comedian whom the film
uses as counterpoint. Adams shows Seinfeld a room full of boxes, drawers,
cabinets, file folders, stuffed with jokes. There are piles of material, and
yet he confides, "I feel like I sacrificed so much of my life. I'm 29 and I
have no job, no wife, no children." Seinfeld regards him as if wife,
children, home will all come in good time, but stand-up, now--stand-up is
life.

Orny Adams gets a gig on the David Letterman program, and we see him
backstage, vibrating with nervousness. The network guys have been over his
material and suggested some changes. Now he practices saying the word
"psoriasis." After the show, he makes a phone call to a friend to explain,
"I opened my first great network show with a joke I had never used before."
Well, not a completely new joke. He had to substitute the word "psoriasis"
for the word "lupus." But to a comedian who fine-tunes every syllable, that
made it a new joke and a fearsome challenge.

Seinfeld pays tribute to Robert Klein ("he was the guy we all looked up
to"). We listen to Klein remember when, after several appearances on "The
Tonight Show," he received the ultimate recognition: He was "called over by
Johnny." Seinfeld recalls that when he was 10 he memorized the comedy albums
of Bill Cosby. Now he visits Cosby backstage and expresses wonderment that
"a human life could last so long that I would be included in your life." Big
hug. Cosby is 65 and Seinfeld is 48, a 17-year-difference that is therefore
less amazing than that Shoshanna Lonstein's life could last so long that she
could meet Jerry when she was 18 and he was 39, but there you go.

"Comedian" was filmed over the course of a year by director Christian
Charles and producer Gary Streiner, who used two "store-bought" video
cameras and followed Seinfeld around. If that is all they did for a year,
then this was a waste of their time, since the footage, however interesting,
is the backstage variety that could easily be obtained in a week. There are
no deep revelations, no shocking moments of truth, and many, many
conversations in which Seinfeld and other comics discuss their acts with
discouragement and despair. The movie was produced by Seinfeld, and protects
him. The visuals tend toward the dim, the gray and the washed-out, and you
wish instead of spending a year with their store-boughts, they'd spent a
month and used the leftover to hire a cinematographer.

Why, you might wonder, would a man with untold millions in the bank go on a
tour of comedy clubs? What's in it for him if the people in Cleveland laugh?
Why, for that matter, does Jay Leno go to comedy clubs every single week,
even after having been called over by Johnny for the ultimate reward? Is it
because to walk out on the stage, to risk all, to depend on your nerve and
skill, and to possibly "die," is an addiction? Gamblers, they say, don't
want to win so much as they want to play. They like the action. They tend to
keep gambling until they have lost all their money. There may be a
connection between the two obsessions, although gamblers at least say they
are having fun, and stand-up comics, judging by this film, are miserable,
self-tortured beings, to whom success represents only a higher place to fall
from.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:25 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.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:37 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE BANGER SISTERS / *** (R)

THE BANGER SISTERS / *** (R)

September 20, 2002

Lavinia: Susan Sarandon
Suzette: Goldie Hawn
Harry: Geoffrey Rush
Raymond: Robin Thomas
Hannah: Erika Christensen
Ginger: Eva Amurri
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film written and directed by Bob Dolman.
Running time: 97 minutes. Rated R (for language, sexual content and some
drug use.) Opening today at local theaters.

BY ROGER EBERT

When you get right down to it, "The Banger Sisters" is pretty thin, but you
grin while you're watching it. Later you reflect that it has an obvious
story arc, sketchy minor characters, and awkwardly tries to get down and
provide uplift at the same time. The screenplay could have used an overhaul
before production, but I'm glad I saw it.

I'm glad primarily because of Goldie Hawn. She's infectious and likable in
this movie, but not in that ditzy way we remember. Although she plays a
legendary groupie who, in her day, "rattled" most of the rock stars ("and
roadies") in the business, she plays a woman who has taken her youthful
sense of freedom and combined it with a certain amount of common sense.

Hawn is Suzette. Her co-star, Susan Sarandon, is Lavinia. Together, some
(cough) years ago, they were such legendary groupies that Frank Zappa named
them the Banger Sisters. Hawn has stayed true to her school, and as we meet
her she's bartending in a West Hollywood club where she is more beloved by
the customers than by the owner, who fires her. (She thinks that's not fair:
"See that toilet? Jim Morrison passed out in there one night with me
underneath him.") Broke and without plans, she points her pickup toward
Phoenix for a reunion with Lavinia, whom she hasn't seen in years.

Along the way, in need of gas money, she picks up a lost soul named Harry
(Geoffrey Rush), a screenwriter whose dreams have not come true, and who is
traveling to Phoenix with one bullet in his gun, to shoot his father. Harry
is one of those finicky weirdos who doesn't want anyone upsetting his
routine. The very sight of Suzette, with her silicone treasures, is
disturbing in more ways than he can bear to think of.

In Phoenix, Lavinia lives with her lawyer husband Raymond, (Robin Thomas),
and her two spoiled teenagers, Hannah (Erika Christensen) and Ginger (Eva
Amurri). She is so respectable she doesn't even want to think about her
former life, which her husband knows nothing about. Are you counting the
formulas? And so here we have not one but two Fish Out of Water (Harry and
Suzette), plus two examples (Lavinia and Harry) of that other reliable
element, the repressed sad sack who needs a taste of freedom.

Give the movie a moment's thought, and you see the screenplay's gears
turning. This is a movie that could have been a term paper. But Hawn and
Sarandon hit the ground running, and are so funny and goofy that they
distract and delight us. Lavinia at first resists Suzette's appeal, but then
she realizes, "I'm the same color as the Department of Motor Vehicles--and
you're like a flower." The girls go out for a wild night on the town, and
Suzette brings much-needed reality into the cocooned existence of the two
daughters.

The most underwritten character is Lavinia's husband, Raymond. The movie
doesn't know what to do with him. They let him be a little surprised, a
little shocked, a little too straight, but mostly he just stands there
waiting for dialogue that is never supplied. Comic opportunities were lost
here. And the Geoffrey Rush character, while more filled in, also seems
oddly unnecessary. I can easily imagine the movie without him, and with more
about the family in Phoenix. He is not and never will be a workable life
partner for Suzette, no matter how the movie tries to sentimentalize him.

What Goldie Hawn does is to play Suzette sincerely--as if she really were a
groupie who still holds true to her partying past. Her daughter, Kate
Hudson, of course, played the groupie Penny Lane in "Almost Famous," and
Suzette could be the same character, or her friend, in 2002. The movie's
buried joke is that Suzette, the wild girl from West Hollywood, has more
common sense knowledge about life than the movie's conventional types.
Listen to how she talks to Harry on the phone. I guess you learn something
about human nature after (cough) years as a bartender.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:46 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] SWIMMING / *** (Not rated)

SWIMMING / *** (Not rated)

September 13, 2002

Frankie Wheeler: Lauren Ambrose
Josee: Joelle Carter
Nicola Jenrette: Jennifer Dundas
Heath: Jamie Harrold
Lance: Joshua Harto
Oceanside Pictures presents a film directed by Robert J. Siegel. Written by
Siegel, Liza Bazadona and Grace Woodard. Running time: 98 minutes. No MPAA
rating. Opening today at Landmark Century.

MOVIES BY ROGER EBERT

"Swimming" is above all about a young woman's face, and by casting an
actress whose face projects that woman's doubts and yearnings, it succeeds.
The face belongs to Lauren Ambrose, whom you may know as the young redhead
on "Six Feet Under." She plays Frankie, a teenage girl whose parents took
early retirement, leaving the family burger stand on the boardwalk in Myrtle
Beach, S.C., to Frankie and her older married brother Neil (Josh Pais).

The movie's plot, I fear, is an old reliable: After this summer, nothing
will ever be the same again. What saves it is that this summer is unlike
other summers we've seen in coming-of-age movies. It's different because
Frankie holds her own counsel, doesn't easily reveal her feelings, and is
faced with choices that she's not even sure she has to make.

Frankie is a tomboy, invariably dressed in bib overalls and T-shirts, her
hair tousled, her face freckled, with apple cheeks. Sexuality for her is an
unexplored country. Her best friend is Nicola (Jennifer Dundas), who runs a
piercing stand next to the burger joint. (So sincere is Nicola's dedication
to piercing that when she gets a cut on her forehead she decides a scar
would be cool.) Nicola dresses in an attempt to come across as a sexy blond,
but is loyal: When two cute guys in a car want her to come along but tell
her, "Lose your friend," she won't play.

One day Josee (Joelle Carter) appears in town. Ostensibly the girlfriend of
the hunky lifeguard, she gets a job at the burger joint, even though Neil
decides she is "the worst waitress I have ever seen." Josee is a sexual
creature, who one day out of the blue tells Frankie: "Frankie? I think I
want you. I want your body." Frankie's reaction to this news is not to react
at all. Life continues as before, but with confusing desire simmering
beneath the surface. It is possible that Josee is the first person ever to
have expressed a desire for Frankie, and by doing so she has activated
Frankie's ability to feel desirable.

The summer brings other possibilities. Nicola meets Kalani (Anthony
Ruivivar), a Marine from Hawaii with an imaginary friend, Ted. Frankie meets
Heath (Jamie Harrold), a gawky loner who lives in a van with his dogs and
sells tie-dyed T-shirts, which he dyes himself at a local coin laundry.
Nicola begins to resent all the time Frankie spends with Josee, and tells
her something she doesn't want to know: Josee is cheating with Neil, who has
a young family.

"Swimming" could unfold as a sitcom, or as a desperately sincere drama, but
director Robert J. Siegel and his co-writers, Liza Bazadona and Grace
Woodard, go for something more delicate and subtle. They use Ambrose's
ability to watch and think and not commit, and they allow the summer's
choices and possibilities to unfold within her as if her sexuality is
awakening and stretching for the first time. What happens, and why, is sweet
and innocent, and not pumped up for effect.

Ambrose's effect in the film reminded me of another early performance many
years ago: the work by Cathy Burns in Frank Perry's "Last Summer" (1969).
She, too, played a tomboy whose sexuality is unawakened; a member of a group
with another young woman (Barbara Hershey) who was sexier and bolder, whose
first romance was based more on admiration than lust ("You're so masterful,"
she tells the boy she admires). Often the movies are no more than
opportunities for us to empathize with people we find ourselves in sympathy
with. Ambrose has an extraordinary ability to make us like her and care for
her, and that is the real subject of the movie--in which, by the way, she
never does go swimming.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:13 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.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:36 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY / **** (PG)

MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY / **** (PG)

September 20, 2002

With the voices of:Chihiro: Daveigh Chase
Yubaba, Zeniba: Suzanne : Pleshette
Haku: Jason Marsden
Kamaji: David Ogden Stiers
Chirhiro's mother: Lauren Holly
Assistant Manager: John     Ratzenberger
Walt Disney Studios presents a film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
U.S. production directed by Kirk Wise. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated
PG.(for some scary moments). Opening today at Landmark Century, McClurg
Court and Evanston CineArts 6.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Miyazaki's Spirited Away" has been compared to "Alice in Wonderland," and
indeed it tells of a 10-year-old girl who wanders into a world of strange
creatures and illogical rules. But it's enchanting and delightful in its own
way, and has a good heart. It is the best animated film of recent years, the
latest work by Hayao Miyazaki, the Japanese master who is a god to the
Disney animators.

Because many adults have an irrational reluctance to see an animated film
from Japan (or anywhere else), I begin with reassurances: It has been
flawlessly dubbed into English by John Lasseter ("Toy Story"), it was
co-winner of this year's Berlin Film Festival against "regular" movies, it
passed "Titanic" to become the top-grossing film in Japanese history, and it
is the first film ever to make more than $200 million before opening in
America.

I feel like I'm giving a pitch on an infomercial, but I make these points
because I come bearing news: This is a wonderful film. Don't avoid it
because of what you think you know about animation from Japan. And if you
only go to Disney animation--well, this is being released by Disney.

Miyazaki's works ("My Neighbor Totoro," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "Princess
Mononoke") have a depth and complexity often missing in American animation.
Not fond of computers, he draws thousand of frames himself, and there is a
painterly richness in his work. He's famous for throwaway details at the
edges of the screen (animation is so painstaking that few animators draw
more than is necessary). And he permits himself silences and contemplation,
providing punctuation for the exuberant action and the lovable or sometimes
grotesque characters.

"Spirited Away" is told through the eyes of Chihiro (voice by Daveigh
Chase), a 10-year-old girl, and is more personal, less epic, than "Princess
Mononoke." As the story opens, she's on a trip with her parents, and her
father unwisely takes the family to explore a mysterious tunnel in the
woods. On the other side is what he speculates is an old theme park; but the
food stalls still seem to be functioning, and as Chihiro's parents settle
down for a free meal, she wanders away and comes upon the film's version of
wonderland, which is a towering bathhouse.

A boy named Haku appears as her guide, and warns her that the sorceress who
runs the bathhouse, named Yubaba, will try to steal her name and thus her
identity. Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette) is an old crone with a huge face; she
looks a little like a Toby mug, and dotes on a grotesquely huge baby named
Boh. Ominously, she renames Chihiro, who wanders through the structure,
which is populated, like "Totoro," with little balls of dust that scurry and
scamper underfoot.

In the innards of the structure, Chihiro comes upon the boiler room,
operated by a man named Kamaji (David Ogden Stiers), who is dressed in a
formal coat and has eight limbs, which he employs in a bewildering variety
of ways. At first he seems as fearsome as the world he occupies, but he has
a good side, is no friend of Yubaba, and perceives Chihiro's goodness.

If Yubaba is the scariest of the characters and Kamaji the most intriguing,
Okutaresama is the one with the most urgent message. He is the spirit of the
river, and his body has absorbed the junk, waste and sludge that has been
thrown into it over the years. At one point, he actually yields up a
discarded bicycle. I was reminded of a throwaway detail in "My Neighbor
Totoro," where a child looks into a bubbling brook, and there is a discarded
bottle at the bottom. No point is made; none needs to be made.

Japanese myths often use shape-shifting, in which bodies reveal themselves
as facades concealing a deeper reality. It's as if animation was invented
for shape-shifting, and Miyazaki does wondrous things with the characters
here. Most alarming for Chihiro, she finds that her parents have turned into
pigs after gobbling up the free lunch. Okutaresama reveals its true nature
after being freed of decades of sludge and discarded household items. Haku
is much more than he seems. Indeed the entire bathhouse seems to be under
spells affected the appearance and nature of its inhabitants.

Miyazaki's drawing style, which descends from the classical Japanese graphic
artists, is a pleasure to regard, with its subtle use of colors, clear
lines, rich detail and its realistic depiction of fantastical elements. He
suggests not just the appearances of his characters, but their natures.
Apart from the stories and dialogue, "Spirited Away" is a pleasure to regard
just for itself. This is one of the year's best films.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

Date: 31 Oct 2002 22:12:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)

CITY BY THE SEA / *** (R)

September 6, 2002

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

BY ROGER EBERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

[ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ]
[ movies" (without the quotes) to [e-mail]          ]

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

End of movies-digest V2 #382
****************************

[ To quit the movies-digest mailing list (big mistake), send the message     ]
[ "unsubscribe movies-digest" (without the quotes) to [e-mail] ]