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movies-digest        Friday, November 15 2002        Volume 02 : Number 391



[MV] FEMME FATALE/ ****
[MV] THE BREAD, MY SWEET / *** (Not rated)
RE: [MV] TULLY / ***1/2 (Not rated)
[MV] QUITTING / **1/2 (R)
[MV] FAR FROM HEAVEN / **** (PG-13)
[MV] HALF PAST DEAD / 1/2* (PG-13)
[MV] STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN / *** (PG)
[MV] THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO (EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO) / *** (R)
[MV] HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS / **** (PG)

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

Date: 08 Nov 2002 16:47:20 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] FEMME FATALE/ ****

FEMME FATALE/ ****

November 6, 2002

Laure/Lily     Rebecca-Romijn-Stamos
Nicolas Bardo    Antonio Banderas
Watts    Peter Coyote

Warner Bros. Pictures/Quinta Communications presents a film written and
directed by Brian De Palma. Running time: 114 minutes. Rated R (for strong
sexuality, violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Sly as a snake, Brian De Palma's "Femme Fatale" is a sexy thriller that
coils back on itself in seductive deception. This is pure filmmaking,
elegant and slippery. I haven't had as much fun second-guessing a movie
since "Mulholland Drive." Consider such clues as the overflowing aquarium,
the shirt still stained with blood after many days, the subtitles for
dialogue that is not spoken, the story that begins in 2001 and then boldly
announces: "seven years later."

The movie opens with a $10 million diamond theft, with a difference: The
diamonds adorn the body of a supermodel attending a premiere at the Cannes
International Film Festival, and they are stolen with erotic audacity as the
model is seduced in a restroom of the Palais du Cinema by the tall, brazen
Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). Her team includes the usual crew of
heist-movie types, and we get the usual details, like the guy in the wet
suit, the laser-cutter and the TV spycam that attracts the attention of an
inquisitive cat. But the movie announces its originality when none of these
characters perform as they expect to, and Laure Ash steals the diamonds not
only from the model but also from her fellow criminals.

No, I have not given away too much. The fact is, I have given away less than
nothing, as you will fully appreciate after seeing the film. The long
opening sequences, about 40 minutes by my clock, are done almost entirely
without dialogue, and as De Palma's camera regards these characters in their
devious movements, we begin to get the idea: This is a movie about watching
and being watched, about seeing and not knowing what you see.

Romijn-Stamos plays Laure Ash as a supremely self-confident woman with a
well-developed sense of life's ironies. Chance plays a huge role in her
fate. Consider that not long after the theft, while trying to avoid being
spotted in Paris, she is mistaken for a grieving widow, taken home from a
funeral, and finds herself in possession of an airplane ticket to New York
and a passport with a photo that looks exactly like her. And then ...

But no. I cannot tell any more. I will, however, describe her relationship
with Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas), a papa-razzo who photographs her in
2001 on that day she is mistaken for the widow, and photographs her again
seven years later (!) when she returns to Paris as the wife of the American
ambassador (Peter Coyote). She wants that film: "I have a past here." And
then ...

Well, the movie's story, written by De Palma, is a series of incidents that
would not be out of place in an ordinary thriller, but here achieve a kind
of transcendence, since they are what they seem, and more than they seem,
and less than they seem. The movie tricks us, but not unfairly, and for the
attentive viewer there are markers along the way to suggest what De Palma is
up to.

Above all, he is up to an exercise in superb style and craftsmanship. The
movie is very light on dialogue, and many of the words that are spoken come
across as if the characters are imitating movie actors (the film opens with
Laure watching "Double Indemnity"--for pointers in how to be a vixen, no
doubt). I've seen the movie twice; it's one of those films like "Memento"
that plays differently the second time. Only on the second viewing did I
spot the sly moment when the subtitles supply standard thriller
dialogue--but the lips of the actors are not moving. This is a movie joke
worthy of Luis Bunuel.

Romijn-Stamos may or may not be a great actress, but in "Femme Fatale," she
is a great Hitchcock heroine--blond, icy, desirable, duplicitous--with a
knack for contemptuously manipulating the hero. She is also very sexy, and
let it be said that De Palma, at least, has not followed other directors
into a sheepish retreat from nudity, seduction, desire and erotic wordplay.
The man who made "Body Double" is still prepared to make a movie about a
desirable woman, even in these days of buddy movies for teenage boys. When
it comes to sex, the characters in "Femme Fatale" have all been around the
block a few times, but it takes this scenario to make them wonder what side
of the street they're on.

De Palma deserves more honor as a director. Consider also these titles:
"Sisters," "Blow Out," "The Fury," "Dressed to Kill," "Carrie," "Scarface,"
"Wise Guys," "Casualties of War," "Carlito's Way," "Mission: Impossible."
Yes, there are a few failures along the way ("Snake Eyes," "Mission to
Mars," "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), but look at the range here, and
reflect that these movies contain treasure for those who admire the craft as
well as the story, who sense the glee with which De Palma manipulates images
and characters for the simple joy of being good at it. It's not just that he
sometimes works in the style of Hitchcock, but that he has the nerve to.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 08 Nov 2002 16:47:17 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE BREAD, MY SWEET / *** (Not rated)

THE BREAD, MY SWEET / *** (Not rated)

November 8, 2002

Dominic: Scott Baio
Lucca: Kristin Minter
Bella: Rosemary Prinz
Massimo: John Seitz
Eddie: Billy Mott
Pino: Shuler Hensley
Panorama Entertainment presents a film written and directed by Melissa
Martin. Running time: 105 minutes. No MPAA rating.

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Bread, My Sweet" tells an improbable love story in such a heartfelt way
that it's impossible to be cynical in the face of its innocence. Filmed in
Pittsburgh, where it has been playing to full houses since January, it now
gets a national release, thanks to the success of "My Big Fat Greek
Wedding," another unlikely hit about ethnic romance. It's likely to appeal
to the same kinds of audiences.

The movie stars Scott Baio as Dominic, who has two careers. He works
downtown as a corporate raider whose job is to fire people at the companies
he acquires. And he also owns a little pastry shop in an old Italian
neighborhood, which provides jobs for his two brothers: Pino (Shuler
Hensley), who is retarded, and Eddie (Billy Mott), who floats through life
without direction.

Upstairs over the shop live their landlords, Bella (Rosemary Prinz) and
Massimo (John Seitz), who are salt-of-the-earth types, loud, demonstrative,
extravagant with affection, always fighting but forever in love. They have a
daughter named Lucca (Kristin Minter) who, instead of marrying and providing
them with grandchildren, has joined the Peace Corps and disappeared from
their lives. Now the boys downstairs are a surrogate family: "Three years
ago, I don't know your name," Bella tells Dominic. "Now, you are my son."

Like many stories that are too good to be true, this one has some truth in
it. I learn from a review by Ron Weiskind of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
that the movie, written and directed by Melissa Martin, "was inspired by a
beloved Italian couple who lived above the Strip District bakery Enrico
Biscotti, which is run by Martin's husband, Larry Lagatutta." The bakery in
the movie is his actual bakery.

The first act establishes these people, their personalities and needs, and
shows that Dominic is increasingly unhappy with his corporate job. Having
opened the bakery out of love for his brothers, he finds he loves it,
too--and the old couple who live upstairs. I must explain what happens next
to deal with the movie at all, so you might want to file this if you don't
want to know that ...

Bella falls ill. And now her heart is breaking. She doesn't mind dying, but
she is filled with grief that she will die with her only child still single
and wandering somewhere in the Peace Corps wilderness. Dominic tracks down
the daughter and advises her to come home quickly. Lucca materializes,
turning out to be a good and loving daughter (perhaps the Peace Corps was a
hint), and she and Dominic discuss what is to be done. It quickly becomes
obvious to Dominic that only one thing will make a difference: He and Lucca
must be married, so that the old woman can die in peace.

This development is straight out of romantic comedy, and "The Bread, My
Sweet" is rather daring to take it seriously. There is a crucial scene where
Dominic explains his thinking to Lucca, and this scene somehow, against all
odds, works. Scott Baio and Kristin Minter, who could so easily bog down in
soppy truisms, discuss his plan objectively. She is of course astonished by
his suggestion, but he keeps talking. "I do deals," he says, and this will
be his biggest deal. "We have a very small window of opportunity."

Of course they can get divorced after Bella dies, etc., and need not have
sex, etc., but all of these footnotes are brushed aside by the enormity of
the deception they are planning, and then--well, two nice young people like
that, don't they deserve each other?

The film misses scarcely a chance to tug at our heartstrings. As Bella grows
more ill and loses her appetite, Pino bakes smaller and smaller pies for her
to eat, until finally in tears, he admits that he cannot make a pie any
smaller. Martin even adds a touch of magic realism, with a mysterious gypsy
woman who dances with a tambourine on the street outside.

What makes the movie special is its utter sincerity. For all of the
contrivances in the plot, there is the feeling that the actors love their
characters and are trying to play them honestly. Yes, the movie is corny,
but no, it's not dumb. It's clever and insightful in the way it gets away
with this story, which is almost a fable. The turning point is the key
conversation between Dominic and Lucca. Once that works, we can believe
almost anything. Now if only Bella will.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 10:58:03 -0600
From: "Wade Snider" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: [MV] TULLY / ***1/2 (Not rated)

ASS!

Why do you persist in this b*******.


I'm going to quit this stupid list so I don't have to get this crap =
anymore.=20

- -----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 10:47 AM
To: Movies Mailing List
Subject: [MV] TULLY / ***1/2 (Not rated)


TULLY / ***1/2 (Not rated)=20

November 8, 2002

Tully Coates Jr.: Anson Mount=20
Ella Smalley: Julianne Nicholson=20
Earl Coates: Glenn Fitzgerald=20
April Reece: Catherine Kellner=20
Tully Coates Sr.: Bob Burrus=20
Telltale Films and Small Planet Pictures present a film directed by =
Hilary
Birmingham. Written by Birmingham and Matt Drake. Based on the short =
story
"What Happened to Tully," by Tom McNeal. Running time: 107 minutes. No =
MPAA
rating.

BY ROGER EBERT

"Tully" is set on a Nebraska dairy farm, one without a woman but where
thoughts about women are often in the minds of the men. Tully Coates Sr.
(Bob Burrus) still loves the wife who walked away from the family years =
ago.
Tully Jr. (Anson Mount) is a ladies' man, dating a local stripper named
April (Catherine Kellner). His younger brother, Earl (Glenn Fitzgerald), =
is
quieter and more open, with a soft spot for Ella Smalley (Julianne
Nicholson), who is home for the summer from studying to be a =
veterinarian.

In this rural community, everyone knows one another. They even think =
they
know each other's secrets, but there are dark secrets at the heart of =
the
Tully family which only the father knows. One, revealed fairly early, is
that his wife was not killed in a crash, as he told the boys, but simply
abandoned them. The other I will leave for you to discover. The mother =
is
not only alive but dying of cancer in a hospital, where $300,000 in =
medical
bills have caused a lien to be brought against the farm: The Coates =
might
lose it, after their decades of hard work.

Here in Nebraska, the exotic dancers are not very exotic. April is a
neighbor girl who strips in a nearby town because the money is good but
still has small-town notions about going steady. After she and Tully Jr.
spend an enjoyable afternoon on the hood of his Cadillac, she claims
territorial privilege: From now on, that hood is hers, and she doesn't =
want
to hear about Tully inviting any other girl up there.

Earl has a sort of crush on Ella, who is red-haired and freckled, =
open-faced
and clear about her own feelings. She would like to be dating Tully, but
only if he can outgrow his tomcatting and see her as worthy of his =
loyalty.
In her own way, during this summer, she will hook Tully and reel him in, =
and
it may be years before he figures out what really happened. Nicholson is
wonderful in the role, wise about men, aware of her own power.

The anchoring performance in the movie is by Burrus, as the father. Long
days alone in the fields have made him taciturn. The boys notice that =
the
lights burn late in the farm office, that he is worried about something, =
and
then they discover their line of credit is cut off at the bank.

During the course of the movie, old hurts will be remembered, old =
secrets
revealed, and new loves will form. "Tully," directed by Hilary =
Birmingham,
co-written by Birmingham and Matt Drake, and based on a short story by =
Tom
McNeal, doesn't turn those developments into a rural soap opera but pays
close and respectful attention to its characters, allowing them time to
develop and deepen--so that, for example, we understand exactly what's
happening when Earl warns his brother to be careful with Ella. In other
words, don't treat her like another one of his conquests.

Even Ella is bemused by Tully's reputation: "What's it like to drive =
women
crazy?" What Tully is far from understanding is that Ella knows how to =
drive
him crazy, and there is a lovely scene when she takes him to her =
favorite
swimming hole and allows him to feel desire for her, and pretends that
wasn't on her mind. Women know how to win the Coates men, and it's clear
that the old man forgives his faithless wife and still loves her.

The movie is a matter-of-fact journal of daily farm life during its =
opening
scenes, and its dramatic secrets are revealed only slowly. At the end, =
when
there is a tragedy, it has been hanging there, waiting to happen, for =
four
or five scenes. Birmingham has a writer's patience and attention to =
detail,
and doesn't hurry things along. She knows that audiences may think they =
like
speed, but they're more deeply moved by depth.

By the end of the film, both times I saw it, there were some tears in =
the
audience. They confirm something I've suspected: Audiences are more =
touched
by goodness than by sadness. Tears come not because something terrible =
has
happened, but because something good has happened, which reveals the
willingness of people to be brave and kind. We might quarrel with the
crucial decision at the end of "Tully," but we have to honor it because =
we
know it comes from a good place. So does the whole movie.

Copyright =A9 Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 15 Nov 2002 17:16:52 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] QUITTING / **1/2 (R)

QUITTING / **1/2 (R)

November 15, 2002

Jia Hongsheng: Himself
Hongsheng's father: Jia Fengsen
Hongsheng's mother: Chai Xiurong
Hongsheng's sister: Wang Tong
Jia's roommate: Shun Xing
Director: Zhang Yang
Sony Pictures Classics presents a film directed by Zhang Yang. Written by
Zhang Yang and Huo Xin. In Mandarin with English subtitles. Running time:
112 minutes. Rated R (for drug content).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Quitting" is not so much a movie about drug addiction as a movie about
sentimentalized Chinese ideas of drug addiction. It is a brave experiment,
based on life and using actors who play themselves, but it buys into the
whole false notion that artists are somehow too brilliant to be sober--that
drugs and booze are almost necessary to tame their creativity, dull their
pain, and allow them to tolerate life with the clods around them. Thus the
"cure" is not so much to stop using as to stop dreaming; one must become
boring to become clean and sober.

Astonishing how persistent this idea is, since there is nothing more boring
than a drunk or an addict repeating the same failed pattern every day. But
China does not embrace the useful disease model of addiction, and in a
hospital where the hero is sent, a fellow patient explains, "The Soviets
called it hysteria, but the Chinese called it dementia." Addiction is
neither. In most cases, it is simply a habitual inability to avoid getting
wasted.

If "Quitting" embraced Western ideas, its hero would no doubt quickly find
himself attending AA meetings, and while that might be better for his
health, it might not be better for this movie. "Quitting" stars Jia
Hongsheng, who starred in Chinese movies and on television circa 1990, and
then, while appearing in the title role of "Kiss of the Spider Woman"
onstage in 1992, quickly progressed from pot through heroin into
professional and personal dysfunction.

Eventually he had to move in with his sister. He became a recluse, and
rejected all work offers. His parents, who were provincial actors, moved to
Beijing to take care of him, and the four family members found themselves
trapped in an apartment with his disease. Although this is a show-biz
family, the parents come from a backwater; Hongsheng believes he receives
secret messages from John Lennon, while his father has not even heard of the
"Bittles."

Jia Hongsheng plays himself in this story. The parents and other characters
play themselves, and the director of the film, Zhang Yang, was the real-life
stage director of "Kiss of the Spider Woman." This gives the film an eerie
intrinsic interest: they act in scenes based on remembered pain. This is
however not a documentary, and a startling shot late in the film underlines
the fact that it is artistry, not fact.

The movie's pumped-up scenes of domestic anguish are the least convincing,
and when Hongsheng hangs up on TV producers or hides in his room, he is less
a suffering person than an addict acting out a tiresome script. When,
however, he sits on the grass under a highway overpass with his father and
they both drink beer, there is a kind of unforced communion; the father, who
has a drinking problem, has promised his wife not to drink, and so as they
play hooky together they have a moment of peace.

Zhang Yang's previous film was the popular "Shower" (1999), about a
successful son who returns from the provinces to Beijing, where his elderly
father and retarded brother run a bath house. That film was a warm human
comedy, but has connections with "Quitting"; the director cares about how
fathers and sons can seem so different and be so much the same.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 15 Nov 2002 17:16:47 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] FAR FROM HEAVEN / **** (PG-13)

FAR FROM HEAVEN / **** (PG-13)

November 15, 2002

Cathy Whitaker: Julianne Moore
Frank Whitaker: Dennis Quaid
Raymond Deagan: Dennis Haysbert
Eleanor Fine: Patricia Clarkson
Sybil: Viola Davis
Focus Features presents a film written and directed by Todd Haynes. Running
time: 107 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for mature thematic elements, sexual
content, brief violence and language).

BY ROGER EBERT

Todd Haynes' "Far from Heaven" is like the best and bravest movie of 1957.
Its themes, values and style faithfully reflect the social melodramas of the
1950s, but it's bolder, and says out loud what those films only hinted at.
It begins with an ideal suburban Connecticut family, a husband and wife
"team" so thoroughly absorbed into corporate culture they're known as "Mr.
and Mrs. Magnatech." Then it develops that Mr. Magnatech is gay, and Mrs.
Magnatech believes that the black gardener is the most beautiful man she has
ever seen.

They are the Whitakers, Cathy and Frank (Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid).
They live in a perfect split-level house on a perfect street, where the
autumn leaves are turning to gold. Their little son is reprimanded for rude
language like "Aw, shucks." Of course she drives a station wagon. Mona
Lauder (Celia Weston), the local society editor, is writing a profile about
their perfection.

One slight shadow clouds the sun. While being interviewed by Celia, Cathy
sees a strange black man in the yard, and walks outside to ask, ever so
politely, if she can "help" him. He introduces himself: Raymond Deagan
(Dennis Haysbert), son of their usual gardener, who has died. Cathy, who has
a good heart, instinctively reaches out to touch Raymond on the shoulder in
sympathy, and inside the house the gesture is noted by Celia, who adds to
her profile that Cathy is a "friend to Negroes."

Frank Whitaker is one of those big, good-looking guys who looks like a
college athlete gone slightly to seed, or drink. One night Cathy has to pick
him up at the police station after an incident involving "one lousy
cocktail." In another scene we see him enter a gay bar, where in these days
long before Stonewall, the men exchange furtive, embarrassed glances as if
surprised to find themselves there. One night Cathy makes the mistake of
taking Frank his dinner when he works late, and opens his office door to
find him kissing a man.

The movie accurately reflects the values of the 1950s, and you can see that
in a scene where Frank says his homosexuality makes him feel "despicable"
but he's "going to lick this problem." The key to the power of "Far from
Heaven" is that it's never ironic; there is never a wink or a hint that the
filmmakers have more enlightened ideas than their characters. This is not a
movie that knows more than was known in 1957, but a movie that knows exactly
what mainstream values were in 1957--and traps us in them, along with its
characters.

Frank and Cathy have no sex life. Cathy is not attracted to Raymond so much
sexually, however, as she's in awe of his kindness and beauty, which is so
adamantly outside her segregated world. She hardly knows how to talk with
him. At one point she says that "Mr. Whitaker and I support equal rights for
the Negro." Raymond looks at her level-eyed and says, "I'm happy to hear
that." He has a business degree, but has inherited the same gardening
business that supported his father; a widower, he dotes on his 11-year-old
daughter.

The plot advances on a public and a private front. Publicly, word starts to
get around that Cathy has been "seen" with the black gardener. Only
that--"seen." Once when they take a ride in his truck, they enter a black
diner, where their reception is as frosty as it would have been in a white
place. Neither race approves of mixed couples. Soon people start to "talk,"
and Frank, the hypocrite, screams at her about all he's done to build up the
reputation of the family, only to hear these stories. Frank's homosexuality
of course remains deeply buried. A psychiatrist (James Rebhorn) muses about
"aversion therapy" but warns that the "majority of cases cannot be cured."
Frank drinks heavily and turns ugly, and Cathy's feelings for Raymond grow,
but she has no idea how to act on them. Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech need a
repairman.

"Far from Heaven" uses superb craftsmanship to make this film look and feel
like a film from the 1950s. Todd Haynes says he had three specific
inspirations: Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" (1955), which starred
Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in the story of a middle-aged widow and her
handsome young gardener; Sirk's "Imitation of Life" (1959), with Lana Turner
as a rich woman whose maid's daughter (Susan Kohner) passed for white, and
Max Ophuls' "The Reckless Moment" (1949), about blackmail. In Sirk's films
you often have the feeling that part of the plot is in code; that one kind
of forbidden love stands for another.

The movie benefits enormously from its cinematography by Ed Lachman, who
faithfully reproduces the lush 1950s studio style; the opening downward
crane shot of autumn leaves is matched by the closing upward crane shot of
spring blossoms, and every shot has the studied artifice of 1950s "set
decoration," which was not so different, after all, from 1950s "interior
decoration." The musical score, by Elmer Bernstein, is true to the time,
with its underlining of points and its punching-up of emotions. Haynes said
in an interview that "every element" of his film has been "drawn from and
filtered through film grammar."

One detail is particularly true to the time: Interracial love and homosexual
love are treated as being on different moral planes. The civil rights
revolution predated gay liberation by about 10 years, and you can see that
here: The movie doesn't believe Raymond and Cathy have a plausible future
together, but there is bittersweet regret that they do not. When Frank meets
a young man and falls in love, however, the affair is not ennobled but
treated as a matter of motel rooms and furtive meetings. Haynes is
pitch-perfect here in noting that homosexuality, in the 1950s, still dared
not speak its name.

Because the film deliberately lacks irony, it has a genuine dramatic impact;
it plays like a powerful 1957 drama we've somehow never seen before. The
effect is oddly jolting: Contemporary movies take so many subjects for
granted that they never really look at them. Haynes, by moving back in time,
is able to bring his issues into focus. We care about the characters in the
way its period expected us to. (There is one time rupture; Frank uses the
f-word to his wife and the fabric of the film breaks, only to be repaired
when he apologizes.)

Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid and Dennis Haysbert are called on to play
characters whose instincts are wholly different from their own. By
succeeding, they make their characters real, instead of stereotypes. The
tenderness of Cathy and Raymond's unrealized love is filled with regret that
is all the more touching because they acknowledge that their society will
not accept them as a couple. When Raymond and his daughter leave town, Cathy
suggests may she could visit them sometimes, in Baltimore, but Raymond
gently replies, "I'm not sure that would be a good idea."

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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

Date: 15 Nov 2002 17:16:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HALF PAST DEAD / 1/2* (PG-13)

HALF PAST DEAD / 1/2* (PG-13)

November 15, 2002

Sascha Petrosevitch: Steven     Seagal
Donny/49er One: Morris     Chestnut
Nick Frazier: Ja Rule
49er Three: Matt Battaglia
Sonny Ekvall: Richard Bremmer
Screen Gems presents a film written and directed by Don Michael Paul.
Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for pervasive action violence,
language and some sexual content).

BY ROGER EBERT

"Half Past Dead" is like an alarm that goes off while nobody is in the room.
It does its job and stops, and nobody cares. It goes through the motions of
an action thriller, but there is a deadness at its center, a feeling that no
one connected with it loved what they were doing. There are moments, to be
sure, when Ja Rule and Morris Chestnut seem to hear the music, but they're
dancing by themselves.

The plot is preposterous, but that's acceptable with a thriller. The action
is preposterous, too: Various characters leap from high places while firing
guns, and the movie doesn't think to show us how, or if, they landed. A room
is filled with teargas, but what exactly happens then? The movie takes the
form of a buddy movie, but is stopped in its tracks because its hero, played
by Steven Seagal, doesn't have a buddy gene in his body. (I know, he takes
seven bullets for his partner Nick, but I don't think he planned it: "I'll
take seven bullets for Nick!")

Seagal's great contribution to the movie is to look very serious, even
menacing, in closeups carefully framed to hide his double chin. I do not
object to the fact that he's put on weight. Look who's talking. I object to
the fact that he thinks he can conceal it from us with knee-length coats and
tricky camera angles. I would rather see a movie about a pudgy karate
fighter than a movie about a guy you never get a good look at.

The film has little dialogue and much action. It places its trust so firmly
in action that it opens with a scene where the characters have one of those
urban chase scenes where the car barely misses trailer trucks, squeals
through 180-degree turns, etc., and they're not even being chased. It's kind
of a warm-up, like a musician practicing the scales.

Do not read further if you think the plot may have the slightest importance
to the movie. Seagal plays an undercover FBI guy who has teamed up with the
crook Nick Frazier (Ja Rule), who vouched for him with the master criminal
Sonny Ekvall (Richard Bremmer), who runs, if I have this correct, "the
biggest crime syndicate between Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim." He
doesn't say whether the syndicate extends easterly or westerly between those
demarcations, which would affect the rim he has in mind. Maybe easterly,
since Seagal's character is named Sascha Petrosevitch. "You're Russian,
right?" he asks Seagal, who agrees. Seagal's answer to this question is the
only time in the entire movie he has a Russian accent.

Nick gets thrown into New Alcatraz. Petrosevitch gets thrown in, too. Later,
after his cover is blown, he explains to Nick that the FBI thought if he did
time with Nick, it would help him get inside the criminal organization. The
sentence is five years. What a guy.

Then, let's see, the prison contains an old man who is about to go to the
chair with the secret of $200 million in gold bars. Bad guys want his
secret, and cooperate with an insider (Morris Chestnut) to break into the
prison, taking hostage a female U.S. Supreme Court Justice who is on a tour
of Death Row (she's one of those liberals). They want to escape with the old
guy and get the gold. Among their demands: a fully fueled jet plane to an
"undisclosed location." My advice: At least disclose the location to the
pilot.

Nick and Petrosevitch team up to risk their lives in a nonstop series of
shoot-outs, explosions, martial arts fights and shoulder-launched rocket
battles in order to save the Supreme Court justice. We know why Petrosevitch
is doing this. But why is Nick? Apparently he is another example of that
mysterious subset of the law of gravitation that attracts the black actor
with second billing in an action movie to the side of the hero.

At the end of "Half Past Dead" there is a scene where Nick looks
significantly at Petrosevitch and nods and smiles a little, as if to say,
you some kinda white guy. Of course, Petrosevitch has just promised to
spring him from New Alcatraz, which can easily inspire a nod and a little
smile.

Meanwhile, I started wondering about that $200 million in gold. At the end
of the movie, we see a chest being winched to the surface and some gold bars
spilling out. If gold sells at, say, $321 per troy ounce, then $20 million
in gold bars would represent 623,052 troy ounces, or 42,720 pounds, and
would not fit in that chest. You would expect the FBI guys would know this.
Maybe not these FBI guys.

Note: I imagine the flywheels at the MPAA congratulating each other on a
good day's work as they rated "Half Past Dead" PG-13, after giving the
anti-gun movie "Bowling for Columbine" an R.

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Date: 15 Nov 2002 17:16:53 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN / *** (PG)

STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN / *** (PG)

November 15, 2002

Featuring the Funk Brothers: Jack "Black Jack" Ashford, Bob Babbitt, Johnny
Griffith, Joe Hunter, Uriel Jones, Joe Messina, Eddie "Chank" Willis, Benny
"Papa Zita" Benjamin, James "Igor" Jamerson, Eddie "Bongo" Brown, Earl
"Chunk of Funk" Van Dyke, Robert White and Richard "Pistol" Allen. Also
appearing: Joan Osborne, Gerald Levert, Me'shell NdegeOcello, Bootsy
Collins, Ben Harper, Chaka Khan, Montell Jordan and Tom Scott.
Artisan Pictures Inc. presents a film directed by Paul Justman. Written by
Walter Dallas and Ntozake Shange. Based on the book by Allan Slutsky.
Running time: 108 minutes. Rated PG.(for language and thematic elements).

BY ROGER EBERT

Think of the Supremes, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Martha
Reeves, Stevie Wonder and the Temptations. You hold decades of pop musical
history in your mind: The Motown Sound. Now ask who the instrumentalists
were on their records. Or don't even bother, because the question is asked
and answered in the affectionate new documentary "Standing in the Shadows of
Motown." In the movie, fans are asked, who played on the recordings with
those artists? Who for example was behind Gladys Knight? "The Pips?" asks
one Motown fan.

No, it wasn't the Pips, the Miracles or the Vandellas. The musicians who
played behind all of the Motown stars on their studio recordings were the
Funk Brothers. The Funk Brothers? Paul Justman's documentary, based on a
book by Allan Slutsky, gives belated praise to Motown's house musicians, the
men who played under all the Motown hits recorded in Detroit.

The hero of the Funk Brothers themselves seems to have been the late James
Jamerson, the bass player who used only one finger but seemed able to keep
two times at once. Their stories about him are legion. The other original
Funks were drummer Benny Benjamin, pianist Joe Hunter and guitarists Eddie
Willis and Joe Messina. The movie always talks with or about perhaps a dozen
other musicians who played on many or most of the Motown records, but it's
difficult to keep them straight--because, of course, they were not famous.

And yet the Motown Sound was, quite simply, their sound. No disrespect to
the singers, but, as drummer Steve Gordon observes, "You could have had
Deputy Dawg singin' on some of this stuff." The documentary argues that they
played on hits that sold more records than the Beatles, Elvis, the Beach
Boys and the Rolling Stones combined--but were almost anonymous.

The first Motown sides were cut in "Studio A," which was simply the garage
of Berry Gordy, the label's founder. It was down four steps from his kitchen
and originally had a dirt floor. Along with Sun Studios in Memphis, it was
one of the birthplaces of the last half-century of American hit music. The
movie returns to that location ("Hitsville, USA") for sessions in which the
surviving Funk Brothers remember the good times and bad, and the very sound
of the studio itself.

Sessions would last all day and into the night. A producer would come in
with a song and a few chords and they'd play with it, adapting it to the
house style, adding a touch here, a riff there, until it emerged as the big,
bold and sometimes almost unreasonably happy Motown Sound. In one of the
movie's best sequences, we see them cobbling a song together almost from
scratch. Sometimes, they remember, they were so overworked they'd hide out
in a nearby funeral parlor, where Gordy wouldn't think to look for them.

The sound was born in and nurtured by a series of Detroit clubs, places like
the Chit Chat and 20 Grand, now closed, where the Funks and other musicians
got their start and returned to their roots. Separately they were great and
together they were beyond great; it's clear that working steadily behind
literally hundreds of hits fused them into a group that all but thought with
one mind. As they remember those days, they're like military veterans or the
members of a World Series team, and we realize nothing that came after ever
held the same joy for them.

The Motown Sound came to an end in 1972, when Gordy moved the label from
Detroit to Los Angeles, with "no warning and no acknowledgement." The Funks
found out from a notice tacked to the door. Some of them followed Motown to
the coast, but the magic was gone, and the movie doesn't ask the obvious
question: Why didn't some of the singers they worked with know how important
they were, and demand them, or return to Detroit to record with them?

"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" interlaces interviews with the surviving
Funk Brothers with new performances of many of the hit songs, and some
sequences in which events of the past are re-created. The flashback
sequences are not especially effective, but are probably better than more
talking heads. Or maybe not. The contemporary performers who sing in front
of the Funks include Joan Osborne, Ben Harper, Me'shell NdegeOcello, Montell
Jordan, Gerald Levert, Chaka Khan and the flamboyant Bootsy Collins, who
upstages the Funks, not to his own advantage.

What's interesting about these performances is that the singers make no
attempt to imitate the original artists, and yet the Funks turn the songs
into soundalikes anyway. Is it possible those great Motown stars were more
or less created by these unsung musicians? The Funks think that is a
distinct possibility. Of course, the backup singers had a lot to do with it,
too, and this movie never gets around to them. They're in the shadows of the
shadows.

Note:Sad news. Johnny Griffith, one of the Funk Brothers, died over the past
weekend. A reminder that this film comes just in time.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 15 Nov 2002 17:16:55 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO (EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO) / *** (R)

THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO (EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO) / *** (R)

November 15, 2002

Padre Amaro:    Gael Garcia Bernal
Amelia:    Ana Claudia Talancon
Padre Benito:    Sancho Gracia
Padre Natalio:    Damian Alcazar
Sanjuanera:    Angelica Aragon
Bishop Ernesto: Gomez Cruz

Columbia Tristar and Samuel Goldwyn Films present a film directed by Carlos
Carrera. Written by Vicente Lenero. Based on the novel by Eca de Queiroz.
Running time: 120 minutes. Rated R (for sexuality, language and some
disturbing images). In Spanish with English subtitles.

BY ROGER EBERT

"The Crime of Father Amaro" arrives surrounded by controversy. One of the
most successful Mexican films in history, it has been denounced by William
Donohue of the Catholic League for its "vicious" portrait of priests; on the
other hand, Father Rafael Gonzalez, speaking for the Council of Mexican
Bishops, calls it an "honest movie" and describes it as "a wake-up call for
the church to review its procedure for selecting and training priests and
being closer to the people."

Both sides treat the film as a statement about the church, when in fact it's
more of a melodrama, a film that doesn't say priests are bad but observes
that priests are human and some humans are bad. What may really offend its
critics is that young Father Amaro's crime is not having sex with a local
girl and helping her find an abortion. His crime is that he covers up this
episode and denies his responsibility because of his professional ambitions
within the church. Young Father Amaro thinks he has a rosy future ahead of
him.

The movie is based on an 1875 Portuguese novel by Eca de Queiroz,
transplanted to modern Mexico. It gives us Padre Amaro (Gael Garcia Bernal)
as a rising star in the church, a protege of the bishop (Ernesto Gomez
Cruz), who ships him to the provincial capital of Los Reyes to season a
little under an old clerical hand, Padre Benito (Sancho Gracia). Benito has
been having a long-running affair with the restaurant owner Sanjuanera
(Angelica Aragon), whose attractive daughter, Amelia (Ana Claudia Talancon),
may possibly be theirs. There is the implication that the bishop knows about
Benito's sex life but doesn't much care and sends Amaro to Los Reyes for
exposure to the church's realpolitik; that the bishop knows Benito's
ambitious program of hospital construction is financed through money he
launders for local drug lords. It is likely the bishop approves more of
priests like Benito, who raise money and get results, than of another local
priest, Padre Natalio (Damian Alcazar), who supports the guerrillas waging
war against the drug lords.

Once established in the local basilica, Amaro cannot help but notice the
fragrant Amelia. And she develops an instant infatuation with the handsome
young priest, whose unavailability makes him irresistible. Amelia has been
dating a local newspaperman named Ruben (Andreas Montiel) but drops him the
moment Amaro expresses veiled interest. Soon Amaro and Amelia are violating
the church's laws of priestly celibacy, and eventually she is pregnant, and
this fate leads them to an illegal abortion clinic on a back road in the
jungle.

The film has been attacked for the sacrilege of showing a priest paying for
an abortion, but since he related to Amelia as a man, not a priest, there is
a certain consistency in his behavior. It is also consistent that he would
attempt to hide his crime, because, like Benito, he finds it easy to make
himself a personal exception to general rules. There is still a little
seminary idealism in Amaro, enough to be shocked that Benito is taking drug
money to build the hospital, but part of Amaro is already wamning to
Benito's logic: "We are taking bad money and making it good." This theology
is not unique to that time or place, or even to that church; we are reminded
of the CIA using drug money to finance its friends.

The film is directed in a straightforward way by Carlos Carrera, who makes
it direct and heartfelt, like a soap opera. The presence of Bernal in the
cast is a reminder of his work as one of the two young men in "Y Tu Mama
Tambien" (2001), a film where the ethical issues were more complex and
deeply buried. There are no complexities here, unless they involve Amaro's
gradual corruption in the real world of church politics and money.

Is the film harmful to the church? I tend to agree with Gonzalez, who finds
that fresh air is a help, not a harm. Donohue and his league predictably
denounce every movie that is unfavorable to the church, undeterred by the
fact that their opposition helps publicize the films and sell tickets (no
movie has even been harmed by being called "controversial").

Predictably, the film's critics are most upset by Amaro's sexual behavior,
when in fact the film's real questions run deeper, and are political: Has
the church sometimes kept company with unsavory sources of financing? Is the
policy of celibacy more observed in the breach than in the observance? Are
laws against abortion made by men in the daylight and violated by them in
the darkness? Is the church more comfortable allied with an amoral
establishment than with a moral opposition? These questions are lost in the
excitement about sex, which is often the way it works: Carnal guilt clouds
our minds, distracting us from more important issues.

Copyright ⌐ Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

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Date: 15 Nov 2002 17:16:50 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: [MV] HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS / **** (PG)

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS / **** (PG)

November 15, 2002

Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Lucius Malfoy: Jason Isaacs
Prof. Snape: Alan Rickman
Prof. McGonagal: Maggie Smith
Hagrid the Giant: Robbie Coltrane
Prof. Albus Dumbledore: Richard Harris
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Chris Columbus. Written by
Steve Kloves. Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling. Running time: 161 minutes.
Rated PG.(for scary moments, some creature violence and mild language).

BY ROGER EBERT

The first movie was the setup, and this one is the payoff. "Harry Potter and
the Chamber of Secrets" leaves all of the explanations of wizardry behind
and plunges quickly into an adventure that's darker and scarier than
anything in the first Harry Potter movie. It's also richer: The second in a
planned series of seven Potter films is brimming with invention and new
ideas, and its Hogwarts School seems to expand and deepen before our very
eyes into a world large enough to conceal unguessable secrets.

What's developing here, it's clear, is one of the most important franchises
in movie history, a series of films that consolidate all of the advances in
computer-aided animation, linked to the extraordinary creative work of J.K.
Rowling, who has created a mythological world as grand as "Star Wars," but
filled with more wit and humanity. Although the young wizard Harry Potter is
nominally the hero, the film remembers the golden age of moviemaking, when
vivid supporting characters crowded the canvas. The story is about
personalities, personal histories and eccentricity, not about a superstar
superman crushing the narrative with his egotistical weight.

In the new movie, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe, a little taller and
deeper-voiced) returns with his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and
Hermione Granger (Emma Watson, in the early stages of babehood). They
sometimes seem to stand alone amid the alarming mysteries of Hogwarts, where
even the teachers, even the august headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Richard
Harris), even the learned professors Snape (Alan Rickman) and McGonagall
(Maggie Smith), even the stalwart Hagrid the Giant (Robbie Coltrane) seem
mystified and a little frightened by the school's dread secrets.

Is there indeed a Chamber of Secrets hidden somewhere in the vast pile of
Hogwarts? Can it only be opened by a descendent of Salazar Slytherin, the
more sinister of the school's co-founders? Does it contain a monster? Has
the monster already escaped, and is it responsible for paralyzing some of
the students, whose petrified bodies are found in the corridors, and whose
bodies are carried to the infirmary still frozen in a moment of time? Do the
answers to these questions originate in events many years ago, when even the
ancient Dumbledore was (marginally) younger? And does a diary by a former
student named Tom Marvolo Riddle--a book with nothing written in it, but
whose pages answer questions in a ghostly handwriting--provide the clues
that Harry and his friends need? (Answer to all of the above: Probably.)

This puzzle could be solved in a drab and routine movie with characters
wandering down old stone corridors, but one of the pleasures of Chris
Columbus' direction of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is how
visually alive it is. This is a movie that answers any objection to computer
animation with glorious or creepy sights that blend convincingly with the
action. Hogwarts itself seems to have grown since the first movie, from a
largish sort of country house into a thing of spires and turrets, vast rooms
and endlessly convoluted passageways, lecture halls and science labs, with
as much hidden below the ground as visible above it. Even the Quiddich game
is held in a larger stadium (maybe rich alumni were generous?). There are
times, indeed, when the scope of Hogwarts seems to approach that of
Gormenghast, the limitless edifice in the trilogy by Mervyn Peake that was
perhaps one of Rowling's inspirations.

The production designer is Stuart Craig, returning from "Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone." He has created (there is no other way to put it) a
world here, a fully realized world with all the details crowded in, so that
even the corners of the screen are intriguing. This is one of the rare
recent movies you could happily watch with the sound turned off, just for
the joy of his sets, the costumes by Judianna Makovsky and Lindy Hemming,
and the visual effects (the Quiddich match seems even more
three-dimensional, the characters swooping across the vast field, as Harry
finds himself seriously threatened by the odorous Malfoy).

There are three new characters this time, one delightful, one conceited, one
malevolent. Professor Sprout (Miriam Margolyes) is on the biology faculty,
and teaches a class on the peculiar properties of the mandrake plant, made
all the most amusing by students of John Donne who are familiar with the
additional symbolism of the mandrake only hinted at in class. The more you
know about mandrakes, the funnier Sprout's class is.

She is the delightful addition. The conceited new faculty member,
deliciously cast, is Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh), author of the
autobiography Magical Me, who thinks of himself as a consummate magician but
whose spell to heal Harry's broken arm has unfortunate results. And then
there is Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs), father of the supercilious Draco, who
skulks about as if he should be hated just on general principles.

These characters and plot elements draw together in late action sequences of
genuine power, which may be too intense for younger viewers. There is a most
alarming confrontation with spiders and a scary late duel with a dragon, and
these are handled not as jolly family movie episodes, but with the
excitement of a mainstream thriller. While I am usually in despair when a
movie abandons its plot for a third act given over entirely to action, I
have no problem with the way "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" ends,
because it has been pointing toward this ending, hinting about it, preparing
us for it, all the way through. What a glorious movie.

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